Raspberry Cheese Cake

Since I’ve got my smart phone and installed Instagram, I think I found a better way to share my photos, better is in the sense of efficiency and convenience. Yet, there are some post need to elaborate and share in details, e.g. my vacation photos and diary, but will cut down those posts of food or restaurants that I’ve visited.

When technology gets more convenient and sophisticated, human tends to be lazier, e.g. in the era without phone, we wrote letter with perfume paper and beautiful sticker and stamps; in the era without mobile phone, we will walk miles to public phone to call regardless of good or bad weather; in the era with smart phone, we whatapps, fb to wish happy birthday… Technology shortened the distance and at the same time, seems lengthened the distance as the same time. But of course I still appreciate technology that has improved our lives…

I’ve no idea why am I writing such an emotional intro, sounds like a goodbye or something… Come back to the topic, this is the cake that I bake for one of my betties, Kitman, for her birthday. I’m so sorry for her because she always see me posting cake I baked for others but I’ve never bake one for her, even we know each other for about 15 years, almost half of my life.

This cake took me 2 days to finished, baking layer by layer, took time and definitely need patience to let each layer to set, because she deserved the best. Bottom is the digestive biscuit, 2nd lower is the cheese layer, 2nd upper is raspberry mousse and top is raspberry jelly. And of course I’m glad the birthday girl like it. I hope, I really hope I can bake you cake for birthday till I can’t bake anymore.

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

Haven’t bake for a period of time, and last 2 months, the strawberry which imported from Korea was so fresh and sweet, coincidently I also found a recipe of making Japanese strawberry short cake, so, I thought I should give it a try. At first I was following the method written to prepare the short cake, however, I failed, yet I need to figure out how to settle 2 boxes of strawberry that I bought, so, I follow the usual way of making sponge cake (refer http://unprofessionalphotography.blogspot.com/2011/03/lemon-peach-mousse-cake_29.html), cut and layered the cake with whipped cream and strawberry cubes, then cover the cake with whipped cream and decorated with strawberry slices… muak, lovely! (self-praise again ) I think, baking is still quite therapeutic for me, instead of shopping.

Later on when I was surfing the net, I came to this page http://www.lafujimama.com/2010/07/japanese-strawberry-shortcake/, she is also using sponge and I think, one day I would love to this her recipe.

Handcrafted Coffee - Full of Beans

It’s hard to relate me to coffee, because I can’t tolerate with caffeine, of course I love the coffee scent, like to go cafe with friends, and I support art, anything related to art, I admire artists’ passion, their unlimited inspiration… and these are what I don’t have. When I was traveling to Penang last Dec, my bestie brought me to the new mall – Strait Quay, it has variety of unique restaurants, nice scenery because it’s by the sea, but still a bit quiet due to new opening I guess, then we discover this cafe – Full of Beans, handcrafted specialty coffee.

The young and pretty barista was syphoning our coffee… this is what we called art (coffee and pretty girl) and science (syphon the method)!!!

Lemon cake to go with our syphon coffees, I forgot what’s my bestie’s husband order, but he likes it black, and we girls want coffee but at the same time afraid of the after effect, so we had latte. Cake was too sour to eat alone, but to go with coffee, wow, it’s another experience, lemon and bitter coffee can be besties too!

                                                               The happy girls…

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FULL OF BEANS

(Handcrafted Specialty Cofee)

Unit 3A-1-6, Block A, First Floor, Straits Quay, Jalan Seri Tanjung Pinang, 10470

Malacca Day Trip (25.09.11)

I couldn’t remember how many Malacca day trips have I made throughout my life, it’s uncountable already, but I really love this place, and each time it gives me a whole new experience. This trip was made as a farewell trip to Anna, Malacca is also her hometown, so, she brought us around, visited Malacca in a “local” way.

We departed after breakfast @ Kota Damansara and reached our first destination – Huang Chang Chicken Rice Restaurant for lunch about 11.45am, look at the queue, we were so lucky because Anna’s sister was there earlier than us and she helped us to reserve a table, so, we didn’t waited very long.

Usually we, tourists only go to (know) the chicken rice ball in town, this is not in town, it’s hidden in housing area. This is the local people favourite restaurant for Hainan chicken. The chicken is very juicy, tender and smooth, the rice ball is very solid and taste nicer. We kept reminded ourselves not to over eat, in fact we should only taste it, as we will not be only taking 3 meals a day, but we couldn’t help, we just want to stuff all the chickens in.

Huang Chang Chicken Rice Restaurant:

BB 376, Taman Melaka Baru, Batu Berendam, Melaka, 75350, Tel: 06-317 0299

Right after this heavy lunch, at 1pm, we continued our journey to Tong Lok Kopitiam (near Sam Poh Well/ Sultan Well @ Bukit Cina) for our 2nd lunch - Char Kuey Teow, of course this time we are smart, we controlled by only order 1 plate for sharing… the uniqueness of this Char Kuey Teow is to eat with sweet sauce, for me, erm… I still prefer the Penang style.

We girls always say we want to go on diet, diet, diet but we fail each time when we were seduce by food… After 2 lunches, it’s exercise time! Girl best exercise – SHOPPING!!

We didn’t shop long, we shopped until 2.30pm and we reached this restaurant – Jonker 88 for their famous cendol with gula melaka syrup. You should know lady always has 2nd stomach for dessert.

When we were walking out from the restaurant @ 2.30pm, we saw a lot of people eating Pai Tee, Pai Tee is just a starter, it didn’t consider a real meal, so, we packed one and “picnic” @ Jonker Walk World Heritage Park.

We are not the only group “picnicking” @ the park!

While walking along Jonker Street, we also had a stick of fried potato twister too… (no picture because we were all busy eating).

Yeah, yeah, yeah!!! Finally we were here @ Nadeje Cafe!! It was so crowded when we were there, we waited until almost 5pm to get a table. What so special about this cafe? It serves Mille Crepe Cakes!!! Variety of them!!!

We picked 2 – Mille Crepe Malacca & Mille Crepe Berry-Berry Strawberry… yummy

Nadeje, G-23 & 25, Jln PM4, Plaza Mahkota, 75000 Melaka, Tel: 06 2838750

When we finished the cake, it’s actually almost time for dinner… but we were very very very full… so, we decided to pay a visit to our Malacca colleague, Sherry @ her husband wedding planner office. She strongly and highly recommend the red wine and the Choya that she found. I must say, she really has a very good taste, I usually can’t take a lot of wine and liquor, but I love these 2. So, girl 2nd best exercise to burn calorie – GOSSIP!!!

We were too happy gossiping and drinking until we forgot about our dinner! Since we didn’t stay a night in Malacca, we must made a move to dinner and shall depart home before too late.

For dinner, we opted for Nyonya food. So, Sherry brought us to Amy Heritage Nyonya Cuisine. Probably because we were late, 9.30pm, there were actually not a lot of people in the restaurant, we let Sherry and Anna took charge of ordering because they knew the best for us.

I didn’t actually take down the name of each dishes, but they are fish ball soup with fried fish stomach, fried fish with sambal, steamed lady finger with special chilli sauce and stewed chicken with potato and mushroom. Very simple yet very authentic.

Amy Heritage Nyonya Cuisine: 75, Jalan Melaka Raya 24, Taman Melaka Raya. Tel: 06-286 8819.

We should have stay there actually, because it’s a bit tiring for us to travel back to KL after the late dinner and reach quite late at night, when I was driving home, I was stopped by a police @ a speed trap road block too, but he was kind enough to let me go because he knows actually I was driving home, single lady driving home alone at that hour is a bit dangerous.

 

Rosemary Bites Restaurant

(This post seated in my draft folder for months… suppose to be up in July… opps)

1st birthday celebration with colleagues in this company which I’ve joined 1 year ago (dated back to July, and when the birthday girl was still in the company, lol)… The birthday girl picked this restaurant and I think it is a good choice! Very obvious, this restaurant served American food, the interior can tell.

All four different dishes that we chose – Salmon fish & chips, steak, chicken chop & chips and chicken thigh with mashed potato. The portion is just fine for us, I mean we are smaller eater compare to those big sized Americans, and the price is very reasonable too. I like the environment which is not too noisy (or probably that’s a weekday so, they didn’t have a lot of customers), we were able to talk and laugh as much as we like. We were able to hang out in the restaurant for almost 4 hours, we were drinking their beer until they have run out of stock!! (or I think probably they didn’t keep a lot).

How could a birthday celebration without a cake?! I bake this mango cake for Anna and I’m happy the she love that! Most of them thought that the upper layer was chicken floss, no no no… it was crushed digestive biscuit!!  

Right: Mango cake from Secret Recipe

Left: My home-made mango cake (I think I should be more generous with the filling)

Rosemary Bites Restaurant

A-G-28, PJU 1/43, Aman Suria Damansara, 47301 PJ Selangor, Malaysia.

For Reservation : 03-7805-2088

Website: http://www.bites.com.my