Night out

This is a pretty famous store here in Chengdu where huge numbers of people will flock here for dinner at about 7pm. It's called 玉林串串香。

 

Skewers of meat or vegetables are thrown into a hot pot of either spicy base (麻辣) or non-spicy base. Most people there chose the full spicy pot but we do not want to kill ourselves with their powerful spices so we opted for a mixed (鸳鸯)base.

Our pickings from the kitchen (The skewers were divided into 1RMB per big stick and 0.12RMB for a small one.)

Waiting for the base to boil, look how hungry Gary is.. Poor thing.

Usually for hotpot, they will give us each a dish of either bean paste mix or sesame oil mix for the hotpot items. Once your food is cooked, you take them out of the hotpot and dip the food into this special mix of oil/bean. For this particular hotpot, we were given sesame oil with mashed garlic inside. Talk about artery-clogging...

Anyway the total bill came up to about 70+RMB for 3 of us and we were stuffed. But apparently, according to our driver, each person (for the locals) can eat up to 100RMB at this place! We were totally amazed.

After such an artery-clogging meal, we decided to cleanse our stomachs with something less exciting, but yummy nonetheless. We walked a few stores down the road to a Hong-Kong cafe. (And these stores are just across Gary's office, how lucky is he!)

William ordered a Honeydew shake and it looked really good...

And I had my mango intake for the day with my mango sago without the coconut cream, but replaced with mango juice!!

But poor Gary has to wait donkey years for his. By the time his order arrived, we had already finished our desserts. And we tried to eat as slowly as we could, but....

Apparently they finished their yogurt and they had to make a fresh batch for Gary's strawberry milk shake or something. But it was worth waiting for it. The place was real cozy with nice sofas and ambience lighting. We will definitely visit again.

Swensens

Being in a foreign place,  I tend to be drawn towards familiar brand names like ESPRIT, Isetan, Parksons, IKEA, etc... But I am not sure why I wasn't interested in visiting Swensens here even though I had heard of it. Anyway, several of our Singaporean friends who had been here longer had sang high praises of it so we decided to give it a try.

Swensens is located in a very hidden but quaint street on Chunxi Road (which is like the Orchard road of Singapore). 

Interior of Swensens, right at the entrance.

Familiar settings.

The food was not too bad, we enjoyed it. Prices are considered a little above average for the population here, but overall, it's good. We will definitely return for the ice-cream next time. 

Ramblings...

It's been some 4 months since we arrived here and my hubby liked the spicy food/dishes here that he kept bugging me to learn and try cooking some of the dishes. And I finally did.. 

This is a dish that we tried at one of the luncheons at the house church that we attend. And I manage to obtain the recipe from the chef...

粉丝cooked with豆拌酱

Apparently this dish can be prepared hot or cold, but I've only tried preparing it hot and I kind of prefer it that way.

Next dish is just a normal stirfry vegetables with mushroom but I used their spicy chilli sauce to cook it, and it's so yummy!!! Spicy and temperature hot!

And what more to finish such a spice-laden meal than a nice bowl of cold mixed fresh fruits with yogurt..

And I finally tried the blueberry cheesecake recipe that I got from Auntie Jess. (Missed those times when Auntie Jess brought her DELICIOUS blueberry cheesecake to church and we got to enjoy the yummy dessert.)

Well, this is my first time trying to make a baked cheesecake, and it turned out pretty well, I think. 

Looks and tastes good too!!!

And here are some of the common sights on the roads now that the weather had turned cold. Carts selling all sorts of food from roasted sweet potatoes, baked bread (sorta like pita), grilled skewers like mini potatoes, toufu, meat, etc....

Look at the carts! I like the traditional huge urns as 'oven' to bake sweet potatoes. 

And further behind is a guy selling pineapples on a stick. Reminds me of Krabi where we enjoyed fresh pineapples (cut and cored) on the sunny beach.

The mouth-watering aroma drifting from this cart with a big variety of grilled food..

And this is a common sight any time of the year...Street peddlers selling their wares ranging from necklaces to handphone covers...

It has been raining non-stop since yesterday evening, and the cold dreary weather (as you can see in the picture below) has caused an almost insane desire to eat hot soupy stuff.

A few days after I arrived back here in Chengdu, I cooked chicken curry for my hubby who enthusiastically finished all the food I've prepared, which includes steamed egg and vegetables soup. 

Then, we had steaming fishhead hotpot at a renowned hotpot restaurant (潭鱼头) in town the next night (Saturday) with a Singaporean lady I met here, and her family. It felt good to eat that on such a cold day. The temperature that night was about 16 degrees celsius I think.

And today, my hubby has a craving for fish so off I went to the supermarket to get some fish. And you know how it goes, when you go to a supermarket, you will somehow end up with more stuff than you actually intended to get. So besides the fish (which comes neatly packaged with accompanying ingredients for a mere 5.90RMB), I got a claypot, which currently had a buy-1-get-1-free promotion, and that meant I get 2 claypots for the price of 1 (29.90RMB). 

So my hubby is very happy with his fish, which is quite simple to prepare. But not me....

Being the snack-a-roo that I am, I saw something familiar at the supermarket - Malay Kueh cake (马来糕) and thought I struck gold, that I found something familiar. Those at home taste really yummy with the gula melaka taste and the spongy cake, the combination is just heavenly. So I got that.

Boy was I disappointed when I opened it for my tea-time snack. It was dry and thicker. And it was tasteless. I threw it away after having a quarter of it. That ought to teach me to learn better next time.

Holiday in Spore

3 weeks came and went just like that, as did my holiday back home in Singapore. But it was great to be back in familiar territory, looking, smelling and feeling all things familiar.

So many things happened.....

The 1st sabbath we got back, I bumped into Lisa who just had a baby boy and it was so good to see her. She's staying in KL with her hubby and it's a rare treat to have them in Jurong. (^^)

And we got to witness their baby boy, Ethan's dedication to the Lord.

Pastor Simon Siew with his wife, and Cassidy, Lisa and Ethan

And it was so nice to see all the babies in church...

And the beautiful ladies in church...

And we were just in time to join in the birthday celebration for October babies....

in church...

and outside...

Hanging out with our families...

     

 

... and friends

Girls night out Shopping!!

Jimmy's birthday bbq @ The Seaview

More pics here.

And catching up on local food like durians @ Geylang... Yummy...

and social night in church..

More pictures are available here.

And my darling hubby was so sweet to prepare the house for my return, despite having to work. The house was spick and span and he bought flowers to await for my return:

and he prepared a really yummy dinner!!

Guests!!

Last Friday (12th Sept), we were invited to a church member's house for pizza but we ended up having Gary's dealers over for dinner. So guess what? I had to step up to the challenge of planning the menu and preparing food for 8 people. 

It's not a lot of people, but it's the first time I had to prepare everything by myself with no additional help - from marketing to prepping and cooking. Stress stress!!!

Here's the menu for the night:

1. Hainanese Chicken Rice (Primataste pack - courtesy of Renee)

2. Fried Bee Hoon

3. Braised eggs and tau kwa

4. Vegetables curry with french loaf

5. Bak ku teh soup (Vegetarian)

6. Dessert - Vanilla Pound Choco-chip Cupcake

I had a terrible start in the morning when I was preparing the braised eggs. My hard boiled eggs were not peeling prettily. Arrghh.. Out of 24 eggs, only 10 came out almost perfect. If the  eggs do not have a smooth surface, not only will they look ugly in the dark sauce, they won't absorb the sauce as readily. That's the beginning of my stressful day.

Once I reached back home after marketing, which is about 12.45pm, I had my lunch which I bought from the supermarket. It's something like 菜饭 - rice and 3 dishes, all for 6RMB. I could barely finish half of it - the portions are huge. 

Anyway, after that I started baking my dessert, which turned out great. In the midst of preparing the batter, I was boiling some more eggs and peeling them. This time it was better - 13 out of 15 eggs turned out ok. And I managed to find Tau pok and tau kwa in the supermarket, so I threw them into the braised eggs pot. 

Here's the completed dish: 

I got rave reviews for this dish! Thanks Mom for the recipe!

I was multi-tasking a lot - while I was preparing the braised eggs, I was also boiling the chicken for the chicken rice. While the 2 dishes were boiling or simmering, I was cutting vegetables for the curry. Busy as a bee...

I have to say though, that it was relatively easy to prepare the chicken rice as everything was provided in the pack, I just had to get the chicken and rice. The box asked for 1.5kg chicken, so I got about 1.2kg worth of chicken breast and some drumsticks because I don't know how to chop up a chicken. However, I neglected to minus off the weight of the bones, so we had a lot of excess chicken meat left. They finished the rice though, which was really yummy.

Next was cooking the vegetable curry. This was a first. I have not cooked vegetable curry before so I had to call home for help. Thank God, for my mom, who guided me through the steps on how to cook veggie curry.

After cooking it in a wok, I transferred to my slow cooker to simmer and soften for a while more.

Bee Hoon was next - lots of chopping also. Luckily I managed to fined shredded carrot so that saved me some time and effort.  Once again, I had to ask my mom for help. My arm nearly broke cooking this dish, as I had to constantly stir the bee hoon and veggies to make sure it doesn't burn at the bottom. But I forgot 1 important ingredient while I was cooking this dish. That explains why it was a little on the 'healthy' side - not very salty.

But it also got quite good response because it's very hard to find 米粉 here. You can find 粉丝 (which is 'Tang hoon') readily though.

At 6.30pm, I panicked because I was running late on my preparation. I should have finished then because that was the time set for the dinner but at that time, my bak ku teh wasn't cooked yet and I haven't prepared the frosting for the cupcake. And Gary wasn't home at 5.45pm like he said, to help clean up the house and set up the table and stuff. He arrived about 6.30pm coz of a meeting that ended late and also because of the heavy evening traffic. 

Thankfully in the end, the guests arrived at about 7.30pm, which bought us enough time to finish preparing and setting up. But I still didn't manage to prepare the frosting. *Sigh*

Anyway, once he got back, he started to tidy up and clear the living room, prepare the table, while William took evidence of my hard work and mess in the kitchen. 

               

Look at the whole dish of chicken meat next to the green Prima taste box. By the way, the hainanese chicken rice mix pack is selling for 65RMB here. Pricey I say.

We borrowed a portable table from a friend so that we could seat 8 people, and chairs from William's apartment. Luckily he stays next door, so it's easy to borrow chairs and utensils from his apartment.

All in all, the dinner is a success. Except, I got a bad back-ache standing  at the stove from 1.30pm till 7pm and I haven't had a drop of water during the entire time. I couldn't eat very much at the dinner but I'm glad it's over. And I get to sit down and drink some water to soothe my patched throat.

Needless to say, Gary volunteered to do the washing up, so I could rest. And William helped to clear up too. 

My man in action... He also vacuumed and mopped the floor. He's the man!

1st Pizza Delivery in Chengdu

After such a busy morning, I didn't feel like cooking dinner and anyway Gary's gonna be home tonight at about 8.30pm so we decided to order our 1st pizza delivery. 

It was such a funny experience that we agreed that we should blog it, so here it is.

I called and the person who picked up the phone spoke in English, and I thought to myself, 'Oh good, I can converse in English and not crack my head over how to say certain things in chinese'. 

So I said 'I will like a chicken pizza' and he said 'ok.' 

And when I said 'I will like another vegetable pizza', he paused and answered 'huh?' 

For a moment, I thought they don't do Veggie pizzas. Then I repeated again my order but he still can't get it. 

So I said ‘蔬菜’. And he went 'Oh 蔬菜 pizza, ok'. 

Then I said 'I want Fish and Chips.' He didn't get it though I repeated it twice. I was trying to translate it to chinese so I tried '鱼片和薯条.' And he went '薯条? Ok!' 

I nearly fainted. 

I said 'No, not fries, I want fish and chips.' I think he really couldn't get what I wanted so he asked me to wait while he asked his co-worker if they have that item. And when another person picks up the phone, I had to repeat my order all over again. But at least he got my order for fish & chips down. 

Phew, finally, with my order taken and address noted, I asked if there's any delivery charges, and he said 'No delivery charges, you just pay for our taxi fare to deliver your food.'

I paused for a while and confirmed what he said and also find out how much the taxi fare will cost. (If not, they ke-tok me, I also don't know.)

So he calculated the cost of the food and told me my order came up to 170RMB, so I can round up the figure to 200RMB to cover the taxi fare. Now, I think you can only find this in China, where prices are not really fixed and you never know when you are being fleeced. 

When the food arrived about 45 minutes later, the guy showed me the receipt for the food only and asked me for 200RMB. So I asked him for the taxi receipt and he said he forgot to ask from the taxi driver.

So I asked how much was your taxi and he said 13RMB. Firstly, how can I verify that he is speaking the truth? The taxi fare could be under 10RMB but he could quote a higher price without me knowing. Secondly 170 + 13 = 183RMB. I told him he should give me 17RMB change back. He looked so blank when I said that. 

I was so assertive that I even calculated for him and insisted to have my change of 17RMB back (not that I need the money, but I refused to be fleeced). I was so insistent that he took out whatever notes he had in his pocket (which was not enough to make 17RMB, by the way) and asked if I have small change, which i didn't. By that time, I was on a roll, and I couldn't back down and say forget it, keep the change. Until he said '170 + 13 + another 13 for return fare = 196RMB, I should give you only 4RMB change.'

'Oh.' I said. I forgot about the return trip. In my own little mind, I was thinking about the food and the taxi he took and that was it. I felt so bad at putting him at a spot and wasting his time, so I apologized and told him to keep the change. And he left.

Now, at this point, who's to verify if his taxi fare is really 13RMB in the first place and that he will be taking a taxi back? So I comforted myself by the thought that it's not a huge amount - just take the 30RMB as delivery charges. Now if they had set that as a standard, wouldn't that be much easier? *Sigh*

Anyways, here's our dinner:

Check out the really small portion of fish from the fish and chips order on the left side.