Mamak, Sugar hits @ Kings Cross Hotel

Foodie adventure!

My Good Food Month celebration this time, is Malaysian food. Well, Singaporean food too, since we share most of the culture. Off we trot to Mamak, the recipient of one hat (the Australian equivalent of the Michelin star) and top 10 restaurant in Sydney = Must-try.

24th Oct 2008, 7:15pm, Stella, Ja and I queued outside the small, little restaurant of Mamak in quiet anticipation. Stella is on a self-imposed regime to endeavor herself to spicy food, therefore is anxiously preparing herself for the spicy ordeal. Ja is excited because she gets to see the cute waiter whom she has a crush on. Me, I am just happy to eat home food.

We ordered: 2 teh ais limau, 1 ais limau, nasi lemak, murtabak and ayam goreng. Super home feel, except for the murtabak which I think has an western twist. But still good!

Cheers! I think I have too many of Stella's pictures in my computer, hence I am going to take a "Stella' break for the moment and focus other people. haha, paiseh ah...

Heehee, the cute waiter. He definitely looks cuter in person. Ja was elated when she got to pose with him, haha. See how wide her smile is? 1cm wide.

I can't resist too, haha! His girlfriend is just behind us... Oops.

Next up was Sugar Hitz at Kings Cross Hotel. We sat at the alfresco area, comfortably warmed by the heat lamps and entertained by the blinding Coca-cola advertisements.

Brown Brothers Orange Muscat. I do taste a distinct difference in sweetness from the one we tried at Four Seasons and the one here. This is sweeter which made me wonder if Four Seasons dilute theirs with water. Not that I mind, I do prefer less sweet.

White and Black Tasting plate: White chocolate panna cotta, Dark chocolate fondant with chocolate sorbet, champagne raspberry with rhubarb compote. hmmm, the chocolatey parts were wonderful for their intense chocolate flavour. But the panna cotta is so disappointing. Too sweet and too corn floury. bleh, we still wipe the whole lot off. Can't waste food right.

End.

Chocolate Box, Fruit jelly

This week's lessons are focused on chocolate. On Monday, we made nougat de montelimar and raspberry fruit jelly to be hand-dipped in chocolate on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we concentrated on making the chocolate boxes which will be part of our assessment on November.

Chef Herve was asked to create a berries and chocolate dessert for a magazine photo shoot. So he made this quick chocolate mousse with a berries compote with red wine. Pretty huh.

The round chocolate box by Chef Herve.

Hand-dipped chocolates, raspberry fruit jelly coated in sugar and the chocolate box by Chef Herve.

I didn't take any photos of my nougat and fruit jelly due to some unknown reason that just escapes me. But I did capture my beautifully made chocolate box. I was so pleased with it because Chef Herve pointed out that my box was the only one with the right dimensions. *crackles* Simplicity is the way to go.

End.

Cheese and WIne Fair, Le Renaissance

Cheese and Wine Fair on a Sunday Morning.

Stella, Ja and I stood outside the big doors of the function room, peering in with apprehensive eyes. Why apprehensive? Well, the smells (I can't bear to use the word aroma) permeating through the doors were not exactly pleasant. Hmmm, the word should be pungent. Yes, the cheese room was pungent. We paid the $40 entrance fee, and in we went to the smelly cheese room.

We started in a clockwise direction. First was the brie, then cheddar, goat cheese, blue cheese. To make our money worth, we were bent on bloating ourselves with cheese and lavosh, plus the five complimentary drinks to choose from. Stella and I were killed midway by the red leister cheese by Maffra. The cheese that looked like a pumpkin, smelled like a cheese and tasted like durian. It was by sheer determination and out of politeness that we swallowed that thing. After that durian cheese incident, Stella and I swore off cheese and started on our drinking binge.

So we got coffee, beer and dessert wine in the order. Ja, amazingly and single-handedly, tried all the cheeses and finished off her drinks coupon.

An hour later.

With the empty glass, that concludes our cheese eating (and wine, beer, coffee drinking) stint.

And you thought we will be damn full after that... No way. We are proud pastry chefs in the making and our never-dying love for all things sweet proves that we still have the stomach for desserts even though secretly, we all feel like puking. La Renaissance at The Rocks. Creme brulee, Aroma (which is a coffee mousse) and Raspberry mousse.

End.

Sugar hitz @ Four Season Hotel

What originally was an dessert overkill became a simple trip that ended in moderate sweetness.

Ja said: "Heidi! I send you the link. You read then tell me where you want to go?" Well, practically everywhere. As part of the Good Food Month as well, Sugar Hitz is a promotion aimed at the dessert-loving bunch. For 20 dollars, you can have a dessert and a wine or cognac at any of the participating hotels after 9pm. Hence the original plan was to skip dinner and go straight into dessert-tasting at as many hotels as possible in one night. Luckily, we came to our senses, and opted for healthier one dinner one dessert course.

Kimmy, Ja, Stella and I went to Makoto (my favourtie!), sushi train restaurant, for dinner. Then had 45 minutes to spend before the appointed time. So this is what we did, we take pictures of ourselves. The setting for our photo shoot was this empty, dimly lit area, which was quite romantic. haha.

I like this shot! The entire ensemble feels so classic!

If I had a magazine photo shoot for Midnight Seduction, I will definitely choose this place, haha.

Come on! Give me a sexier pout!

At last! 9pm arrived. We strolled back to Four Seasons hotel.

Deconstructed sachertorte by Four Seasons. The sacher itself is nothing great, light and dry, but with the addition of chocolate ganache and chocolate cream, the sacher taste so much better. The silky smoothness of the cream and ganache compliments the sacher very well. There is also ample chocolatey flavour in the cream, therefore there is no oversweetness. (at least, not for me.) Any extra sweetness that is not welcomed is swept away by the tartness of the apricot jelly. Nice!

End.

Beach Fun and Noodle Festival

Cynthia moved to Manly, so we tagged along to play at the beach. Well, more of eating then playing since the water is so freezing cold.

The sea is so amazingly beautiful. It has this deep, blue colour that contrast with the cloudless, pale sky. So we decided to paste our faces there. haha.

The electric grill that the Sydney government (so nice of them!) provides is fantastic. One flick on the switch, the plate heats up in minutes. It beats the charcoal grill in speed and convenience but it does lack that good old BBQ taste. Owell, you get some, you loose some.

We bought meat patties and bacon from woolies to make burgers. Kimmy is the real expert here. (She does BBQ whenever she doesn't feel like cooking. How strange. Isn't BBQ more of a hassle than cooking? Nevermind that.) She grilled all the patties and bacon to perfection and even taught us to clean the heating plates effectively with coke and sprite! haha, that was fun.

Our neighbouring BBQ station was occupied by these three old men, who were drunk when we got there. One pee-ed in the bushes though there is one very clean toilet within sight. Another went into the sea and scooped a huge pile of seaweed and draped it on his head, and pretended to be a lady. (hahaha! that was hilarious! though no one dared to laugh for fear that he would attack us with his seaweed.) The last one was too drunk to do anything except to take pictures of seaweed head.

After deciding that the water was too icy to play in, we played with Eduardo instead. We buried him knee-deep instead. haha! And we took turns to pose with him. The other male member of our group (Hong) went to hide in the rocks to escape the sun. -_-""

The same evening, joined by Ja, we went to the Noodle Festival (as part of the Good Food Month promotion) at Hyde Park.

For a Noodle Festival, I expect to see noodles from all over the world. But it was mostly an Asian affair. Singapore Guo Tiao King was one of the more popular stalls in the fair.

Believe me, the five of us had a buffet spread of food between us, but somehow I only took pictures for the fried calamari and dim sum platter from East Ocean. We also bought Char Kway Tiao (without chilli?!), Wanton noodle, Phat Thai, Coopers beer and desserts. Hias...still a Singaporean at heart. :)

Ja, Stella and I. (Plus Kimmy and Hong, still queueing for food.)

End.

Petit fours

I never thought that superior patisserie can be such a lonely affair. It makes you want to rendezvous with cuisine. sigh.

On to the second week, we started making edible items (finally!). Beginning with choux pastry, we have to produce mini eclairs, profiteroles and st. honore. Each is filled with pastry cream and glazed with fondant. Swan necks can be piped and added to the profiteroles to give a swan. So cute! These swan necks are pretty delicate things, I broke so many of them! On your left is by Chef Keith. Right is mine.

Mini fruit tartlettes. Short pastry is baked with frangipane, layered with very minute amount of pastry cream and topped with fruits. Chef Herve made a chocolate version with chocolate ganache but without the pastry cream. Looks pretty cool and should taste good too. I didn't eat any of the tarts he made so I didn't know how it taste like. D:

My tarties~

Petit four glacee, more commonly found in Swiss, German areas. It is a genoise sponge sandwiched with apricot jam with a top layer of marzipan, then coated with fondant and decorated. And we also made caramel coated dried fruits with marzipan which is as hard as stone that I believe another function of it is as a self-defence weapon. ._. Left is Chef Herve, right is mine.

End.

Cooking Adventure

My cooking journey so far, besides patisserie ofcourse.

Chef Micheal told me the other day: "Hey! I read your blog!" I said: "Really?" but my inside was thinking, "No way..." Immediately, I tried to recall if I said anything unpleasant about him in my blog (it does says alot about a person, doesn't it?), I couldn't think of any. So, relieved, I said: "I didn't write anything bad about you. :D" Chef laughed and answered: "You wrote Chef Micheal talks alot about theory in class." Oops.

Dinner on Saturday night - Ochazuke made with toasted hand-pressed rice.

Lunchbox on Monday: Spinach rice with mincemeat and carrots stir-fry, octopus shaped sausages (so cute! haha!) and pickled mustard with peanuts.

Lunchbox on Tuesday: Chilli spaghetti stir-fry style with roasted capsicum and tomatoes, on the side, we had carrot meatballs. Yum.

Wednesday lunchbox was urghhh though, so no pictures!

End.

Marzipan Modeling

New term! New teachers! hahaha, and new stuff to learn. The first week of superior patisserie we are doing marzipan modeling. Well, the skills are quite similar to playing with playdough except that this time we are making edible products. Marzipan, the playdough edible substitute, is made from mixing finely ground almonds and icing sugar together. It is usually used to make decorative show pieces for gateaux. I do find it quite repulsive though the europeans like it alot. To me it just taste like raw sweet dough, urghh. Herve says they even make petit fours out of marzipan, which is to eat small pieces of marzipan by itself.

So, with marzipan, your imagination is the limit. You can make whatever you think of with marzipan. Ofcourse, your sense of colour has to be reasonable too because you have to colour your marzipan since the original colour of it is dirt white.

My fruits!Chef Herve's farm of animals and santa.

This is his interpretation of French chefs. It does seems that the criteria to be a French chef is to have a long and curly moustache and be male. I don't see boobs in marzipan figurines.

You can also make a plaque with marzipan. Decorate with marzipan roses. By Chef Herve.

My cluster of professions. Santa is Malay and has blue eyes, looks possessed to me. haha, I was rushing for time so I anyhow picked a colour and paste it on. Same with the chef, he is Malay and has light brown eyes. Penguin looks the most normal out of the trio. I even made a dead fish for him. To the right is my roses and carnations on the left. :D

End.