The Hakkasan Experience

Continuing with my conquest of the world's best restaurants, I followed up Nobu with Hakkasan. At number 19 on the 2007 roll of honour, it is the only Chinese restaurant on the list. And a one Michelin star restaurant as well....

So... how did Hakkasan fare compared to Nobu (which according to the 2007 list is just slightly above Hakkasan at number 17)?

Here are the dishes that I had:

Sesame prawn toast (it's an ang-moh Chinese dish! Somehow, you can only find this in Chinese restaurants in the West!) and Fried soft-shell crab with red chilli and curry leaf (now... this is yummy... I have always been a great fan of soft-shell crab... definitely thumbs up for this dish!)

Jasmine tea smoked organic pork ribs and Grilled Chilean sea bass in Chinese honey (both of these dishes are the chef's speciality... Chef Tong Chee Hwee from... Singapore! The fish was especially good and had a unique taste, in a very good way)

Stir-fry black pepper beef (although this is a simple dish, I actually thought it was pretty good... simply because my beef dishes are always not very good and I seem to have difficulties in getting the beef tenderness right!) and Pipa duck (the duck was good, although I must admit that I have tasted better ones)

King scallop in Yakiniku sauce (okay, although this dish was not bad... it certainly didn't taste like scallops to me... I think it's because rather than using whole scallops, it was scallop meat made into patties and then fried) and seasonal Chinese vegetables (nothing much to comment about for this one as it was just a stir fried pak choy)

Dessert was a different story... here is what I don't understand about all these posh restaurants... why can't they have desserts of the of the same type of cuisine... i.e. Chinese desserts? Just like Nobu, they served us Western desserts... Are you telling me that we do not have any good Asian desserts?? I beg to differ... e.g. a small bowl of bird's nest soup here would complement the meal perfectly!

Anyway... on a whole, I think that the food was enjoyable although I didn't think it was value for money... considering the price that we were paying, you could get much more from traditional Chinese restaurants... in fact, you could even get delicacies such as abalone, shark's fin or bird's nest!

And oh... I think they are really snobbish... my dining experience was marred by the fact that they impose 1001 rules on us e.g. we were only allowed to have the table for 2 hours, we were not allowed to take any pictures (hence the bad quality of the photos as I had to take them using my mobile phone sneakily!), we had to pre-order from the set menu rather than ordering a-la-carte, there is a dress code etc. Hey... I am paying exorbitant prices here... do I not at least deserve good service? For one thing... the service at Nobu was a lot better!

Kiasu

Kiasu means afraid to lose in Hokkien. This word is so widely used by Singaporeans and Malaysians that it is incorporated into their English vocabulary (in the form of Singlish or Manglish). Its widespread use is often because these attitudes are common—to not lose out in a highly competitive society.

Did you know that the word kiasu has been recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary and can be seen at their quarterly update site? Hahahaha... how kiasu can one get?

Anyway, this post is not about whether people around me are kiasu... but it's actually a completely unrelated topic... a (sort-of) new Malaysian-Singaporean restaurant in Bayswater!

For once, we managed to venture out of our comfort zone of Canada Water and Leicester Square...

And it was worth the trip as I think the food was a lot better than C&R or the likes, albeit at a higher price! Still we had a feast!

Prawn toast

"Yu sang"

And to make sure that we keep to the kiasu culture... everyone tried to outdo each other in tossing the "yu-sang" as high as possible! What a bunch of losers... hahaha :P

Fried oyster with eggs

Fried carrot cake

Char keoy teow

Hainanese chicken rice

Fried hokkien mee

I think this is probably the closest that you could get to the food back home... I mean they even have the thick noodle and deep fried crispy pork fat in the hokkien mee!!!

Thumbs up for this place and would recommend it to anyone who has a craving for Malaysian-Singaporean food!

Strangers

Some strangers will always remain as strangers in our lives...

But for some others, they started off as strangers... and through a twist of fate, they moved from being strangers to being acquaintances and then to being friends... they became a part of our lives... and we go on to share many moments of joy, laughter, tears and so much more together...

Sadly, there are also those strangers who were once part of our lives... but as time goes by, we started to drift apart and they end up where they started... complete strangers... what went wrong? Why is it that someone whom we thought we knew and shared our lives with could turn into someone that we knew nothing about and did not understand? How did our paths diverge so much that we lost each other and have no way of turning back? How did we lose our friendships on the way? Will our paths ever crossed again? And if they did, will things ever be the same again?

Chinese New Year Dinner

It has become an annual affair now to have our Chinese New Year dinner and since this year I have my own place, I hosted the dinner at my flat.

I used to decorate the house with Chinese New Year decorations back home in Malaysia together with my sisters and brother... looking back, I realised how much I took all those little moments for granted... I missed celebrating Chinese New Year at home!!

Deciding that I'll cheer myself up a bit, I went to Chinatown to get some Chinese New Year decorations for my flat to give it a little festive feel... but sad to say... due to the exorbitant prices... this is all I managed!

Er... that's the best I could do!

Anyway... back to the dinner... it was a really long day! I started out as early as 6am to go to Billingsgate market for fresh seafood... and then the usual preparations for the steamboat dishes...

And this is the results of labouring in the kitchen the whole day!

At about 7pm, my guests started arriving... and all of a sudden, my tiny flat became so lively and noisy! :) And some of them actually brought mandarin oranges and chocolates with them like what you usually do when you go and 拜年!

And hehehe... I made everyone wear red that night... my living room was brimming with blobs of red! :P

And due to popular demand, I made the mango sago dessert again...

After dinner, we all started our gambling session (how can a Chinese New Year pass by without gambling???). From in-between to poker, we gambled all the way to 5am in the morning!!!

Hopefully, everyone enjoyed themselves... after all, I don't even know whether everyone would still be around for the next Chinese New Year!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

I had a ride on Valentine's Day, albeit a different one! Hahaha...

The iron

The household chore that I hate the most is IRONING. I hate having to iron my work clothes, but at the same time I couldn't possibly wear a crumpled shirt to work... I'll procrastinate as much as I could to avoid having to iron them... this include not wearing them for a start, but sometimes, I also try to hide the crumpled shirt by wearing a sweater, suit or cardigan over it...

Ever since my mum left (which was early November!), I've managed to avoid this dreadful chore... but now that I've run out of ironed shirts to wear and it gets to a point whereby I'm also running out of sweaters or cardigans to wear over the shirts... I had to face THE IRON.

Since I've managed to get out of work early in the last two days, I thought I shall start tackling this challenge...

BUT......

NO......

THE IRON is out to play tricks on me....

It's no longer working!!!!

It heats up for a minute and then goes cold for at least 10 minutes... how am I supposed to iron anything with it?????

I tried changing to another electricity socket and even changing the fuse... but to no avail... it simply doesn't want to work... it's the IRONING CURSE!

So, there... I did try but the IRON wasn't co-operating...

Determined not to give up so easily, I went over to dear old Tesco to buy the most expensive iron that they have in stock (yes, I know... the most expensive doesn't always mean it's more reliable... but I'm getting desperate here...)

Behold... my brand new IRON...

And this time, nothing will stop me...

I achieved a record of my own.... for... I SPENT THE WHOLE EVENING IRONING... I think I've ironed at least 15 shirts and 8 skirts!

That should keep me going for another month or so before it gets too warm for me to wear any cardigan or sweater over my shirts!

It's 5 am...

And I've just only finished cleaning up my flat after everyone has left...

This is the 6th year in a row that I've not celebrated Chinese New Year at home with my family... I did initially plan to go home but had to make a change of plans...

I miss home all of a sudden and I miss having reunion dinner with my family...

But I guess at least I have a group of friends to celebrate here with... so, even though I'm extremely exhausted from all the preparations... I'm glad that I've decided to have this Chinese New Year dinner... Thank you everyone!

Time to hit the sack........................................................................... good night!

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Chinese New Year!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Goong Hei Fatt Choy!

Wishing you a prosperous and good year ahead... and may the rat year brings you joy, happiness and success in whatever you endevour in!

Just hope that rats don't turn up in my flat... especially since I haven't had the time to clean it!

Unless of course they are as cute as this and knows how to cook!

Pineapple Tarts

Don't ask me how I got myself into this... but somehow... I was persuaded to make pineapple tarts for Chinese New Year... I know... why would you make them when you can easily buy them off the shelves?

Well anyway... what goes into making pineapple tarts? First of all... prepare the pineapples of course!

After cutting the pineapples into cubes, we put the pineapples into the blender to shred them up... Then, it's cooking the pineapples with its juices and sugar... It sounds really simple, but it took us ages to cook the pineapples until it achieves the consistency and stickiness required!

While waiting for the pineapples to cook... we moved on to make the dough for the tarts. This is just a simple mixture of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. The only problem? We couldn't find a large enough mixing bowl! Whenever we used the hand mixer, the dough would fly everywhere around the kitchen! In the end... we had to use the soup pot as our mixing bowl as it was the only thing in the kitchen that was deep enough!

Once the pineapples and dough were ready... it's time to actually make the tarts... well, he wanted to make tarts with pineapple fillings inside... while I thought that placing the pineapple fillings on top was a much better idea...

Hence, we made two different batches of tarts... mine and his... what do you think? I reckon mine is a lot prettier and nicer! hahaha.... :P

I have to admit that initially, the whole making-your-own-pineapple-tarts-thing seemed to be a good idea and I was actually having fun....

BUT...

Once you start repeating the whole process and making batches after batches to feed about 15 people... it's no longer fun... at the end of the night, I was truly extremely exhausted... yes, we actually made pineapple tarts from daylight to night fall! It almost felt like a whole day's worth of work at the office!

This is my first time making the tarts... would it also turn out to be the last?????