Shopping Day Sunday

Unofficially, Sunday has become our shopping day as it's the only day we get to spend with each other, doing things together.

So today we decided to explore the local wholesale market, 荷花池 which is sort of similar to Chatuchak Market in Bangkok, except that this place has no map, whatsoever and it's much bigger. It actually reminded me more of the wholesale building that I went to in Hong Kong because this 荷花池 was not an open market that I expected, instead, it was a huge building of about 5 levels, even the surrounding streets are also part of the wholesale market. We barely finished exploring the lower levels of the building in the 2 hours that we were there. And we haven't even hit the streets yet.

 

Anyway, here's our 'loot' from 荷花池:

Things here are much cheaper than if you were to get it from shopping malls and such, usually when you buy 10 pcs and above, they will quote you their 批发价. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can spot some good buys without having to buy such big quantities, like this hair-clip that I spotted, going at 5RMB.

And I also spotted this hair accessory selling for 5RMB each:

But there are so many colors that I cannot make a decision which one to choose, I eventually bought 10 @ 3RMB each:

Hehe....

After that we headed to the Panda house @ 宽窄巷 to get some souvenirs which will be characteristic of Chengdu for our nieces:

The top 3 are for our nieces and the bottom one was actually a gift from Gary after he returned from his last trip in August.

Aren't they adorable?!?! I loved it so much that we both agreed to get them for the gals.

After Panda house, we headed down to Metro to get some grocery shopping done, and also to get some stuff back home like the local spices as well as chewing gum.. lol

We liked Metro because it was so hard to get in! Actually not really, but let me share the huge amount of trouble we went just to get in. This is the only hypermart we know of, that requires you to be a member in order to get in. And to be a member, you need:

WHAT kind of documents are necessary to get a card?
Copy of your business license / organization code certificate (original)
ID of legal representative (original)
ID of card holder (original) 

Introduction letter (original)

The 1st time that I went there alone, they refused entry because I did not have a card to swipe at the entrance, even though I explained that I'm a foreigner and I want to check out the place. Their attitudes are not entirely the most pleasant - they stare at me blankly and mumbled in their local dialect why I can't go in, which of course I couldn't catch half of what she's saying, and turned away. 

So the next time I went, I got Gary to go with me and we spoke in English that we will like to apply for the member card. Now, we realized that when things are in English, things get done differently. They immediately processed our applications after looking at the company letter which was also all in English (even though we didn't have the other documents required - we only have our passports and the letter). So we got our cards!

Anyway, we like Metro for its wide selection of imported goods as well as low prices. This is where I can get my regular supply of soymilk, not as healthy as Sanitarium So Good but I have to make do with what I have. Besides my Magic Bullet is not as powerful as Pik Yee's Vitamix to make fresh Soya milk everyday. And it's also where Gary is 'spoilt for choice' in his selection of his skimmed milk. 

 

So here's what we bought in Metro:

Wholesale markets,Supermarts, Hypermarts - I love them all!

Baking Frenzy

Maybe I had not been baking very much recently, so when my hands were starting to itch to bake from the start of the week, I knew I had to bake something this week. 

And so yesterday I baked a banana walnut cake using a recipe that I found online. Here is the finished product. The cake was moist and not too sweet, which was how I liked it. 

  

Here is the recipe taken from Delia Online:

Serves 8

Ingredients

4 medium bananas (approximately 12 oz/350 g)6 oz (175 g) walnut piecespinch of salt1 rounded teaspoon baking powder1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon4 oz (110 g) plain flour4 oz (110 g) wholewheat flourgrated zest 1 orangegrated zest 1 lemon4 oz (110 g) butter at room temperature6 oz (175 g) soft dark brown sugar2 large eggs at room temperature

For the topping:

1 level tablespoon demerara sugar

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).You will also need a 2 lb (900 g) loaf tin, lightly buttered. 

Begin, as soon as the oven has pre-heated, by spreading the nuts out on a baking sheet and toasting them lightly in the oven for 7-8 minutes – use a timer so that you don't forget them. After that, remove them from the oven to a chopping board, let them cool briefly, then chop them fairly roughly. 

Now, in a bowl, peel and mash 3 of the bananas to a purée with a fork, and peel and chop the other one into ½ inch (1 cm) chunks.

Next take a large mixing bowl and sift the salt, baking powder, cinnamon and both the flours into it, holding the sieve up high to give it a good airing, then adding the bran that's left in the sieve. 

Now add all the remaining ingredients (except the chopped banana and nuts) and, using an electric hand whisk, begin to beat the mixture, first on a slow speed for about half a minute, then increasing the speed to mix everything thoroughly and smoothly. 

Then lightly fold in the chopped banana and walnuts. You may need to add a drop of milk to give a mixture that drops easily off a spoon when you give it a sharp tap on the side of the bowl.

Next pile the mixture into the tin, level the top with the back of a spoon and sprinkle on the demerara sugar. 

Bake in the centre of the oven for 1¼-1½ hours, until the cake feels springy in the centre. 

After that, remove it from the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes before turning it out on to a wire tray. Then let it get completely cold before serving or transferring it to a cake tin.

I didn't have any brown sugar so I used caster sugar instead, which may explain why the taste of the banana walnut cake was not as intense as I had expected. And I halved the grated zest of both lemon and orange as I did not want my banana walnut cake to taste like a fruit cake. Luckily I did that, because even with the halved portion of zest, the taste of the bananas was somewhat masked by the aroma of the lemon and orange. However, all in all, it was good, and Gary liked it. (^^)

Then yesterday I baked Sweet corn muffins in preparation for church's potluck lunch on saturday. Usually, several ladies will cook after lesson has ended which is about 12.30pm, and everyone will contribute something, be it buying the vegetables or rice, etc. Since everything is already accounted for, and I can't cook local Sichuanese food yet, I will bring something that I can make easily at home, which is baked stuff. So far, I've brought oreos cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes and oatmeal and raisin cookies. And it has been pretty well accepted by the group, so I continue to bake for them. 

I had a craving for Kenny Rogers sweet corn muffins, so i decided to bake something like that to satisfy my craving. Here it is: 

    

I can't remember which website I got the recipe from, but the recipe is as follows:

Sweet Corn muffins (Makes 12 muffins)

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup white sugar

1/4 cup honey

2 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup All purpose flour

3/4 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup milk

3/4 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed

• Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin pan.
  
• Cream the softened butter and the sugar together in a bowl.
  
• Beat in the honey, eggs and salt into the creamed butter mixture until smooth.
  
• Mix in the flour , cornmeal and baking powder in the smooth mixture, until just mixed.
  
• Stir in milk into mixture, until batter is smooth.
  
• Fold in the corn kernels.
  
• Spoon into prepared muffin cups, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until tops of muffins are lightly browned.
  

I added a tsp of vanilla essence for the flavor even though the recipe didn't call for it.

The result? It was yummy-licous! The muffins were moist and full of flavor. It's definitely a keeper.

However, I didn't manage to bring the muffins to church coz Gary fell sick and he was heavily medicated on Friday night. So we stayed home so he could sleep off the medication. In the end, I gave the muffins to June's family (both Kai and Wen love muffins) and William, our next door neighbour.

And look what I cooked for Gary for lunch (the medication was so powerful that Gary slept till 1pm) using the slow cooker than Neil and Anna bought for us before they left for Melbourne - 

Porridge with mushrooms and vegetables

The cooking process

The finished product

I got the recipe from Kelly's Jook. It was my second try at cooking 'chok' and I loved it! It's easy and convenient. Just have to try different variations - Carrot porridge anyone? (It was my favourite.)

Cooking up a storm

I made another new friend recently and he's a Singaporean. He's none other than Gary's colleague, William who will be here for a 3 months training. He's my age and we attended the same JC (St. Andrews). It was such a coincidence. Anyway we hit it off quite well, maybe bcoz of our age or the fact that we attended the same JC.

Gary and I thought it will be nice to have him over for dinner, so we invited him over for dinner last night. 

I had to do some planning on what to cook, considering that I have to feed 2 men, one growing and one not so growing... Lol.. Vegetarian was out of the question. 

The menu for the night was:

1. Chicken curry with potatoes (Tean's Gourmet Curry Chicken paste)

2. Stir-fry vegetables with garlic

3. Braised eggs (my family's special recipe)

4. Tomato and Egg soup (a classic soup here)

It was a challenge that I accepted with much anticipation. I've never cooked curry chicken before,  but having the curry paste made things easier. 

So I did my marketing in the morning and prepared the chicken curry and braised eggs before my class at 2.30pm. 

Class ended at 5pm but I left early to pick Gary and William up from their office. I heated up the chicken curry and simmered the braised eggs, as well as cook the remaining dishes when we arrived home. 

It was a really good experience for me:

1. to cook curry chicken for the first time

2. to learn the different kinds of vegetables here (I confused spinach with sweet potato leaves coz they looked the same, silly me).

And they finished most of the food!

You can tell how filling and satisfying the food was, by their expressions!

Meeting new friends

Though the experience on National Day was disastrous, we had a wonderful time the weekend after. We attended a dinner organized by a Singaporean, who also stays in WaterFront like us @ a restaurant called 8trees set up by a Singaporean.

There were 8 of us in total, all Singaporeans. 9, if you count the manager of 8trees. It was a wonderful dinner - Gary enjoyed his beef steak. (^^) I had a specially prepared vegetarian set menu. But the food wasn't the focus. It was the company that we had. 

Though we are the youngest there, it didn't stop us from identifying with the whole Singaporean atmosphere. We talked about all things Singaporean especially food....being in a restaurant and all. The restaurant does offer some Singaporean food like Chicken Rice, Laksa, Nonya Curry chicken rice and Bak Ku teh. But there are limited portions each day. Unanimously, we all asked if there are any chicken rice left for the day as we ALL had a craving for the Singaporean dish.

Well, Ask and it shall be given! The chef prepared the chicken rice and the garlic chilli sauce and it was GOOD.... 95% authenticity - rated by Gary Tang. This will be our favourite dining place from now on. 

Good Singaporean food + good steak = Good for Gary Tang

All in all, this dinner more than made up for the national day episode.

Adapting

This is a picture of a local favourite food, especially for lunch. They have lots of shops around Chengdu that sells just this - 面线 which are also called noodles. They are absolutely yummy!!! See the chillies on top. Shiok ah!

And it costs just RMB7.  You can also order 1 extra portion of noodles at no extra charge. Talk about affordable!

Remember I mentioned about having special classes for some very special people? Here they are. These are students from the disaster areas, think they are from Mianyang. They are absolutely charming but there is a certain quality about them that sets them apart from the local kids that we meet. Maybe it's the near-death experience that they had gone through or the loss of loved ones. But all in all, I think they enjoyed themselves thoroughly during their 3 nights here.

Dancing to 'Yo, My name is Joe' song

Introduction

Puppet Show

Our National Day

August 9th, 2008 - that's Singapore's 43rd Birthday (*Cheer*)! And we celebrated it for the first time, outside of our home country, Singapore. The Sichuan Singapore Club (SSC) here in Chengdu has organized a Singapore National Day dinner! We were so excited when we first heard that. We thought we might get to meet some fellow Singaporeans and make some new friends, etc... It doesn't matter that we have to pay 280RMB (approx S$56)per person for the dinner, because it'll be at Sheraton Hotel, and we get to meet people.

So we dressed according to the invitation - Sportswear or jeans & T-shirt, and went happily to the hotel. The hotel was nice - it's Sheraton! But the dinner was not what we hoped it will be. It's like attending a wedding dinner of someone whom you don't really know, so your only companion is the person you came to the wedding dinner with..

Anyway, firstly, we noticed that the dress code was not that firmly adhered to. Who will consider dresses as sportswear?! Anyway,we arrived and saw that there are 2 tables for registration. One for walk-ins and the other for those who already had tickets. So we went to the table with a table stand that says 'Singaporean registration'. And the guy recognised Gary immediately from Caterpillar as he had called him to get the tickets. But what shocked me was that when we asked for our table number, he hesitated and erred, and arrhh.. and said that the tables are mostly bought by companies, which goes by the table so we can just find any empty seats and settle down.. blah blah blah... I mean come on! We paid for our seats and now had to settle for seats that are already paid for!?!?! That is ridiculous. (TIC) 

Anyhow, the lady-in-charge, whom is a Singaporean came and she said she will show us to a table. Halfway to the ballroom, she got waylaid and distracted by some guests (whom I believed are big shots as they looked older), until eventually she got carried away and left us standing at the entrance of the ballroom. I was irritated at the change of events, but I tried to calm myself down, finding excuses that she was busy and she need to entertain the big shots. After waiting about 5 to 10 mins for her to notice us again, which she didn't, I was downright pissed! 

So Gary suggested that we take a look at the layout plan outside to see if there're any tables in the ballroom that are not bought by any company. But all tables are taken! We decided to go back to the registration table where I (ahem, yours truly) assertively explained that we 'lost' the lady-in-charge and all tables are taken by companies so where are we supposed to sit? I think the guy was quite taken aback by my assertiveness and scrambled to find seats for us. Anyhow, we got our seats at a UOB table, hurray! (Right...)

Out of the 10 people seated at the UOB table, there're 2 Singaporeans (yours truly), 1 Singapore PR, and 1 Malaysian. The rest are local people. But I wondered how many Singaporeans are there exactly at this event. Everywhere I turned to, the people I see seems to be local. The lady-in-charge did say that as far as possible, they give priority to Singaporeans, but if Singaporean companies in Chengdu bought a table and there're local staff who attends the event, there's nothing they can do. 

The national anthem was played when they brought out a cake to celebrate the National Day, but nobody was singing it. (Probably because most of them are not Singaporeans.) Other than that, the items for the night was so-so - there were the usual speeches before we begin the buffet, some entertainment items during the dinner, some new companies' debuts, and finally the lucky draw.

So that explains our lack of enthusiasm to want to take any photos at the event to remind us of our disappointment. 

Anyway, Happy Birthday Singapore!