Queen of Kitchen Disasters

Being Cantonese, soups have always been a very important part of my meals. A meal without soups seems incomplete somehow, not easily replaced with some fizzy drinks or dessert, but something that’s delicious (well, ok sometimes the soups can be not to my taste), nutritious (they all serve some kind of purpose for health) and comfort of a home cooked meal.

I am somewhat notorious within my family for being the “food critic” - i usually taste some stuff that is missing from the soups (like I can tell if barley was not used in the ABC soup) but unfortunately I am not the greatest cook in the family. My second brother is - but my cooking is passable. At least I can bake! I must say though, I am very fortunate, to have such a great cook at home, my ma jie, who does the most delicious homecooked food, that outside restaurants are hardpressed to meet her standards. Sometimes I go out with my friends, and the food is not to my liking, I refuse to touch it and would buy something else to eat. Perhaps I am spoilt, but with my tastebuds honed by my ma jie, don’t blame me. Blame the sub-standard fare these places dare to serve and charge me.

The earliest soup I remember drinking - don’t gag, is the pig brains soup. Chinese always believe in replenishing nutrients from the animal parts, so drinking pig brains soup is suppose to make me smarter (I guess that’s how my youngest sis got into the newspaper for faring so well in her PSLE). But more than that, I actually love drinking the soup (it’s simply delicious) and eating the mushy brains. No one does it like my ma jie do, not even that so called famous stalls in Maxwell market (by the way they really just selling salted water plus pig brains). If I offer you her soup without telling you what it is, you would probably have downed the entire bowl of soup without realising what gives the soup its special yummy taste!

I am starting to expand my repertiore of soups - the ABC soup, winter melon soup, bak kut teh (using the exact same brand of spices my ma jie uses), chicken feet peanut soup, old cucumber soup, “jit kua” soup and perhaps I should try making the fish soup one day soon. I still suck at making herbal soups, so I just stick to the pre-packed stuff for now.

Soup, something comforting and something to warm your stomach and heart. Don’t ever look down on it.

Since now aya hasn’t baked her yummy and huge pineapple tarts for some time, I’ve gotten a “new apprentice”, my gf, P.

She’s the one who own that lovely sunflower cake pan - for her first attempt at the typo error-ed recipe i gave her, it looks REALLY GOOD!

Now I’m begging her to buy one for me when she comes by Singapore again!

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OK, Friday I did get to eat Tempura but not with the sweet sauce. They only serve tempura tendon during lunch time *roll eyes* I went to this small Japanese restaurant at Ginza Plaza, next to the Fish Mart (where i get my fresh salmon for sashimi and other niche jap stuff) and well, ok, the stuff were OK generally but kinda letdown? Somehow I expected better from them since they sell such good salmon sashimi!

I guess we just have to make a trip to Kyoto one day and find that same restaurant and EAT to my heart’s content. Or maybe next saturday I can bug hubby to bring me to Far East Plaza for a meal at Nanbetai …

Didi I mention that my fav Turkish restaurant at Rail Mall has gone missing? It’s been replaced with a fish & chip shop wehich i have no interest in and I have no idea where to get my lahmacun and hummus with pide now *cry*

I am still craving for my tempura tendon and I was sharing it with my gf over MSN.

Her response? Called up a Japanese restaurant and ordered:

california roll, tempura, and ika salad and some fried fish roll with seaweed

Her hubby asked for an extra side order of soft shelled crab.

Problem is, once we start on food, the craving just grows stronger, like a ever lingering hunger at the back of the mind.

And I hadn’t even gotten my confirmation that I will be eating my tempura tendon tonight *sigh* Some people are sooooooooooooo lucky ….