Hot fudge cake, Dim sum and SNOW! - Cal's willy-wonka dream world

It's snowing in Bristol!!!

I heard it's a really rare occurence so this is really cool! Apparently, it hasn't snowed in YEARS! Look at this!!!

The look from the path leading to my residence (block on the right... The red brick wall at the periphery of the picture)

While it's a beautiful sight, it's also ridiculously cold and freezing. Having a high fever amidst all this ain't doing me any good either! But still, there's no denying that it is absolutely gorgeous.

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside just looking at this shot.

I've seen snow before but I've never walked while it was snowing. I must say, everything that movies/cartoons/TV shows you about the magic of snow is all true! There is something so serenely beautiful and poetic about snowfall. Sure, it's a pain to walk through coz it's freezing, but just standing amidst the whirl of snowflakes and feeling each light speck melt on your cheek is something more fairytale-like than I could have ever imagined.

I love snow.

Okay! Snow aside, another thing that never fails to lift my spirits is food!

I was looking through my camera and discovered shots of my favourite dim sum which I took a while back in December when I was in Hong Kong for the new year; just realised that I haven't gotten round to sharing them!

View of the Hong Kong harbourfront from Noel's friend's apartment in Kowloon on New Year's eve. Gorgeous huh?

Friends in Hong Kong.

I've been dying to have a dim sum meal with Noel at Maxim's in Hong Kong's City Hall @ Central. But for some reason or another, we never seem to be able to get a table until one fine Sunday morning.... (you guys are going to think I'm such a loser) When we went to the restaurant at 9am - it's opening hour.

Disclaimer: I admit that the dim sum's not mindblowingly delicious but I just love the concept. The novelty hasn't died yet. You see, the dim sum is servedthe traditional way - i.e. off trolleys that nice old ladies wheel round the large restaurant floor while yelling the names of the food on their trolley. It's like a rowdy, entetaining, posh (it's not too cheap but not expensive either) market.... Sorta.

Anyway, it's GOOD. and Fun. Which makes it good fun! (Wow Cal... The fever's frying your brains up like scramble eggs huh?)

I love it when I'm ill! I see everything through fuzzy bacteria-feverish eyes!

Wheeeeee~~~~~~~~~~~~

The food.

Cantonese chicken rice.

This was sooo rich and flavourful Noel and I adored every bite we took. the rice was fragrant and fluffy, infused with a sesame oil + soy sauce dressing and the chicken was just tender and juicy. Not over cooked nor bland in taste. This was amazingly good.

Char siew bao! Need I say more! I miss you bao! I look forward to the next time I get to sink me teeth into you~. Muahahaha

Egg tarts! Sadly, not very good. In fact, it was downright horrible. Ugh....

Oh oh! Discovered another lurking food picture! Okay, this is going to look a lil' grotesque, but it's a Hong Kong waffle (at least that's the closest description I can give). To translate it literally, it's called "Chicken Egg Boy".... Weird name but it's really like a standard waffle. And the best part about it is that you buy it off one of the roadside stalls that you see. It's a bit disconcerting for those of you who are particular about hygiene, but I guarantee you that this is not only SAFE but scrumptiously good!

Try it. You MUST!

So, the one I'm showcasing was a special for that week/day. I think they were trying out a new recipe and seeing if it'd be popular. This one has black sesame seeds (which I LOVE to bits) and coconut shavings mixed in the batter.

I tore some of it open in the bag to get this shot! Look gross doesn't it? Haha!

One thing I love about my house in Hong Kong is that we're smack in the middle of Causeway Bay, the shopping/food district. So it's great knowing that all I have to do is take the elevator down from my home and walk out to the store across the road, buy it and gobble it up.

Not to mention, Haagen Daz is also round the corner from my house. (Omg. Am I not the luckiest girl in the world?!?!)

Noel and I used to have a monthly tradition of having a chocolate fondue on one of our nights out.... And we didn't miss up on the opportunity to try their x'mas special!!!!

White/Dark chocolate fondue delight!

Look at this baby!

This was the perfect dessert for Noel and I 'coz Noel hates dark chocolate but loves white chocolate (which I can never understand why. Lol), whilst I lovedark but hate white! So it's perfect! And the spread of dippables was good too! I mean fresh fruits, baby scoops of ice cream and biscotti.

A girl couldn't ask for more. I should marry the Haagen Daz stall located near my home in HK. I should, but I think I'd become a fat tub of wobbly blubber if I ever married an establishment like that.

Just see how happy we looked after eating.

P.S. See the scarf round Noel's neck? I knitted that for him for x'mas! And yes, I taught myself by watching Youtube videos. No, I'm not lying. Try it! It can be done! I did it! =D

Ah, I miss Noel + Hong Kong.

And we also had this delicious pizza at Daddyo's.

It was a gorgeous piece of art. I think we ordered meat lovers + additional topping of mushrooms. Finished it all in 15 mins flat, we did.

I love Daddyo's.

But I must say that the pizza there ain't half as good as the ones I've been having in UK/Europe. Especially the italian place round the corner from Woon's place in London (I will get round to furnishing pics of the amazing food we have there one day)

Speaking of London, I was there for the weekend and Woon took me out to lunch on Friday, where I had a crazy hot fudge cake.

And I don't mean crazy in the good sense.

The first bite sends shivers down your spine, not from sheer ecstacy but from repulsion of how sweet it is. It was like stuffing your cheeks full of caster sugar and having it melt slowly in your mouth, while imagining a large fraction of your life melting away and your heart going into cardiac arrest from the sheer magnitude of the chocolate.

There are good chocolate cakes and then there are good chocolate cakes.

Sadly, this made it into neither - I couldn't bring myself to finish it and I'm a chocolate lover.

Yup, it was that bad.

I mean for all it's worth, it was well made but just too much for me. (Plus it came with whip cream.... 10 points penalty for that!) Oh and on top of the fudge cake was more toffee fudge.... Did I say eating this was going to kill you? Well, it will... Eventually.

Was walking around Leicester Square hoping to get tickets for Wicked but I got there late and there weren't any tickets left. Ah well. So I didn't get to watch Wicked (or Chicago, or Hairspray or Mamma Mia or Les Miserables or Twelfth Night) but I did by pass a frozen yogurt store! Just check out the window display!

Such gorgeousness.

No, they weren't real, but I wish they were!

As I also wished with this cup of Starbucks I hugged in Hong Kong.

No no no! You are coming home with me! Okay Noel, 1, 2, 3.... Heave!

....


Damn.

Can you tell I love my coffee?


I love my coffee.


This is Cal, signing off till the next post! Love ya peeps.

Cappuccino muffin - Come to mama!

Oooo yummy.

What better way than to lift one's dreary spirit than to take a HUGE clump off this gloriously FAT and sinful cappucinno muffin?

yum.yum.yum.yum.yum.

I mean seriously. Coffee-infused soft fluffy dough, with chocolate chips and a white chocolate coating dusted with cocoa?! Everyone's dream. (Even if it ain't everyone's dream, it ought to be!)

The funny thing is that I got this served in a cafe called Flamingo which was right next to a massive hospital... Specifically the A&E ward.

Now I wonder why that's the case....

Nevertheless, this was a heavenly treat, albeit a paradoxically immensely sinful one as well. I gobbled this baby up in 5mins flat! And I was exercising self-restraint too!

Anyway, haven't slept in more than 24hrs and going to crash real soon.

Later!

Dark times

It's not that I don't try.

It's not that I want to.

But I just can't help it. I can't help feeling this way, I can't help doing what I do and I can't help myself in general.

I'm tired. Tired of fighting constantly for each breath. Tired of waking up every morning. Tired. Just tired.

Want to rest so desperately.

The one person who has been my constant pillar of strength has decided to withdraw from me. I feel like my world is collapsing. There is no one to hold me up, no one to console the terrified child in me... No one to care for me.

Then again, I wonder, if anyone does care.

Perhaps, my existence is so insignificant and so easily forgettable that it shouldn't and wouldn't matter in the long term.

The million apologies and "I'm sorry"s will probably never set things right again.

In many ways, I wish you'd never met me... You'd never feel pain or anguish. I'd never irritate or annoy you.... And I'd never have caused you grief.

Better still, I would never have known such pain as the withdrawal of love, once again, from the people I care about.

Perhaps I am not made to be loved. Perhaps my very existence is a plague upon human kindness. I'm nothing more than a parasite.

Perhaps, even nothing more than nothing.

These are dark times and I do not see the light at the end of the tunnel anymore.

Good Food over the Weekend.

Wow. Wow. WOW. 

Friday was Nick's graduation lunch. Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have the privilege of knowing a future chef-to-be. Nick's an awesome cook and he's currently enrolled in Le Cordeon Bleu - a famous culinary school in London. Friday marked the 1st of 3 graduation lunches. 

The menu of the day.

Which is pretty cool. I mean, seriously, how many people get to graduate 3 times?! Haha! Well, chefs-to-be apparently do. They have graduation lunches for each course - beginner, intermediate and advance. So Nick's graduated from beginner.

Anyway, before you continue with your train of thought, thinking "Oh wow... Cal is such a lucky girl...", think again.

I was jinxed.

Bad karma.

Chewed on by Cyclops and randomly spitted out onto an innocent sheep (because I don't taste like sheep).

I had a picture perfect day in my mind as I got up at 7am in my tiny room in Bristol, thinking that I was going to look all gorgeous and dandy and have sufficient time to grab a good cuppa coffee and a long desired blueberry muffin from AMT Coffee at the train station when it all started to crumble the minute my cab was LATE.

By 10mins.

My train was scheduled to leave at 9am and I arranged for the cab to come at 815am. He arrived at 825am and informed me that there were road problems. 2 MAJOR road problems that has led to insane traffic jams at the city centre where the train station was.

Problem 1: Some asshole ran his car straight into a window display

Problem 2: Burst pipelines

To make matters worse, problems 1 and 2 were directly opposite each other around a one-way  roundabout. 

I had a gut feeling Murphy's Law was going to kick in anytime.

And so it did.

I missed my train by 1 minute and the next train scheduled to arrive was at 930am. I went and got my blueberry muffin which elevated my spirits only marginally and waited for the 930am train that was eventually...

20mins LATE.

Good gawd. Nick's luncheon's at 1230pm but prior to that I had to make my way to Woon's plce to drop my stuff off before going to the Landmark Hotel at Marylebone Street. Woon however, has a guest, Leigh from Chicago, and they had planned a day trip to Cambridge with a train that's scheduled to leave at 1215pm. I got off the train at London

 Paddington's at 1145am. I was not going to make it in time even if there were not traffic congestions.

But as Murphy would have it, he gave me massive traffic JAMS. Right. So by the time I got to Woon's place, it was 1pm. My make up was all smudged and my hair was a complete disarray. I fixed myself as best as I could and jumped into the first available cab.

We made 50 yards' progress and came to a standing halt. HUGE TRAFFIC JAM AGAIN.

I was ready to kill Murphy and eradicate his stupid law.

Anyway, to cut the long story short, I eventually found my way there by foot and train, just in time for the starters.

The Music Room in the Landmark Hotel

My own table card! How cool!

The lunch was OKAY (hence the absence of any pictures... The lamb was pretty yummy though), but the dessert, aptly titled "Chocolate in 3 kinds" was divine.

Absolutely divine. 

Lava cake....

Each was so rich in flavour and so smooth on the tongue that all my troubles seemed to have melted away as each morsel of chocolate did in my mouth. MmmmMmmm.

Then came coffee with a plate of stollen and minced pies.

The stollen tasted like a rubber duck. You know the ones that float in bath tubs? Yeah. Like THAT.

So that was Friday.

Things got better on Saturday when I decided to head to Borough Market to pick up some x'mas presents and grab a sinful plate of raclette for lunch.

This time, I took a shot of it. Here's the raclette store (just a mini refresher):

Here is the roasting cheese...

(this is a new picture)

And here is the raclette (prepare yourselves!).

Oh heaven on a plate.

I dare you to tell me that doesn't look like sin you;d just wanna put your hands on.

Anyway, I grabbed lunch started shopping around... As usual, Borough Market's full of delightfully interesting sights. Like these HUGE pans of stewing sweet onions and fresh mussels in Thai curry cooking randomly in the fish market...

This smelt wonderful but I'm not a fan of onions and am allergic to shellfish. So....

Saturday's market is really different from Friday. Firstly, it's 10 times more crowded with people, with twice as many shops as Friday. Like this shop wasn't around the last time I was there... But I'm guessing it's an expected sight since x'mas is just round the corner.

Such gorgeous works of art.

I ended up buying the following items to bring home to HK on the 26th:

Tea for family friends, jam for Noel and there is a bag of dried fruits too... For Noel; but that's sealed up for now.

On the same day at night, Woon had made reservations at Gold Mine (remember the duck place I was telling you about a few posts back?) so that he may introduce Leigh, his friend from Chicago, to the wonders of the London roast duck.

Don't you ever wonder why roast duck is such a BIG thing here when we can get it back in Asia so easily? *shrugs* I've no idea either. But I do know that the roast duck here does taste better. Now why is that? 

Probably the same reason why the best Italian food is not found in Italy (or so I am told).

Anyway, this time around, I ordered the crispy duck 'coz the last time we were there, I saw a family order an entire crispy roast duck and since then, I've been dying to try some.

Got myself the quarter of a roast duck.

This comes with the thin doughy skin, a pot of sweet sauce, and strips of cucumber and spring onions.

I passed on the spring onions but this is what it looked like on my plate before I rolled it up and chomped the daylights of it (rather gleefully too if I might add).

The duck was sooo tender and, unlike the normal roast duck, this crispy duck was devoid of icky fat and the breast meat was a lil' on the dry side - just the way I like it. The other added bonus was that I was in perfect control of how salty the meat was. The original roast duck just swims in saltiness.

My vote goes to the crispy duck. But as this would make me the outlier, I'd suggest getting both and having your taste buds decide.

Last night however, after being cooped up indoors for the entire day, I headed out to meet Woon, Leigh and Christophe for dinner at GALVIN.

It was fantablous! I ordered the grilled red mullet and this would be the first time, I've ever tasted grilled fish that was still juicy, fresh and delightfully done. The fillet was bursting with freshness with roasted sweet onions and sundried tomatoes to complement the exquisiteness of the sharp, natural sweetness of the fish. 

This would actually be the first time, I'm raving about the main course more than the desserts.... Which, by the way, were a masterpiece in their own right.

Since the blackcurrant souffle was the must-have dessert of the night (the change menus every now and then), everyone save for me, ordered the souffle on top of their own desserts:-

Woon: Glazed Lemon Tart (fantastic but a bit too sweet for my liking)

Christophe: Cheese platter (never tasted a better cheese platter in my life)

So the souffle...

You probably can't tell from the picture itself, but the souffle was the best I've tasted. The crust was firm and foamy but not styrofoam-like and the souffle beneath was just light and creamy. It was the perfect combination. It wasn't too sweet nor was it too rich. It was a delicate balance of sourness from the blackcurrant and sweetness.

Perfect.

I got myself the chocolate mousse with ice cream and since I was sharing the souffle with Woon, we decided it'd be a brilliant idea to scoop the fruity cream onto the chocolate mousse.

Please excuse me while I hyperventilate at the memory of how good it was.

Friends, it's time to come to London.

A break in the midst of mayhem

I'm in the process of editting my last 2 assignments of the term and once I'm done with these, I need to briefly construct some answers for my tort tutorial tomorrow, then get started on my note cards.

I'll be away for the entire duration of the holidays and as it will be humanly impossible to carry my texts with me, I need note cards. In any case, this is just short note to say that I'm moving from livejournal to this blog. So not only will this blog consist of my foodie entries, it will chronicle the various states of mind that I find myself in from time to time.

Yaay!

So come HERE! Hahaha! I would love to have your company.

Like today. I freaked out. I freaked out over the collection of assignments - 2 essays to be precise. Why did I freak out you wonder? Especially since they do not count towards my grade? Well, simply put, I fear the possible knowledge that I'm just not good enough for law school. I worry. I panic. I fear.

A great deal.

Law school means so much to me and to all those who know me, it's a dream. But will it be a dream come true? I've no courage to face up to it. Tomorrow, unfortunately, I will have to face my demons and go pick up the essays.... Much to my dismay. I just don't want to know that I am a failure. Things have been tough in my life and I just hope that law school will give me my much deserved break.

On a lighter note, I trudged down to a lil' pub/restaurant called "The Hill" located along Cotham Hill Road for Auguste's and Aik's 'farewell' lunch. It's 'farewell' coz they're on exchange from Singapore and they are only here for this term. They'll be heading back after Christmas.

In the spirit of Bristolian food, what else could we possibly have ordered in a pub/restaurant except pizza?

The Americana. A baby pizza - 6-inches in diameter.

The weirdest thing is how the pizza cost less compared to a sandwich or a salad (the priciest of the lot).

This was not very good, but hey, for 4 quid? I'm willing to let it drop.

And so the same can be said of the asian cuisine I had with Jesse a week back before she left for the US. She's always wanted to try this particular noodle shop (noodles being her fav) and so we popped in for...

My vegetable ramen. Not very delicious I'm afraid. I hate starchy soup bases so this was probably why.

Jesse's spicy vegetable ramen, on the other hand, was much better.

But this mushroom satay was just gawd awful.

The dessert we had the night before the average asian lunch was however, pretty darn good. Or maybe it was pretty darn good simply coz we were both high on alcohol.

I wasn't exaggerating, was I? ;)

Seeing as how there're not late night cafes in UK, we popped into a Lebanese restaurant and ordered....

Kanafe - Lebanese dessert comprising of fried sugared vermicilli atop a goo-y cheese base. Too sweet but interesting nonetheless.

Chocolate ice cream - for me. Just coz UK is stupid in not having Mac's hot fudge sundae ANYWHERE. So this was the next best thing.

Winter's fast approaching and my finger have been freezing. So while I was in Oxford, I bought the khaki coloured pair of mittens... The same as the blue ones Jesse had previously gotten from the Covered Market.

Thank goodness for these. The sub-zero temperatures are not kind to exposed skin!!!

Dinners out in Bristol

Last week was a hectic week. But it was also a week of good food. Mmmm....

The first official dinner I got to enjoy in Bristol took place in some restaurant, name of which I've forgotten, and though I didn't really enjoy the mediocre food, I thought the presentation was pretty nice. So anyway, let's begin with the starters.

I opted for the artichokes.


Though they were pretty tasty, I wish I had gotten the goat's cheese instead.

Don't you think it looks sooo much better? I'm sure it tasted better too.

Since sea bass was on the menu for main course, it was inevitable that I would pick that dish. I simply adore sea bass. It reminds me of home... I used to have one full sea bass to myself a day... Haha. With my mom's home-made belachan. Yum yum.

But this dish, sadly, did not come with belachan and the fish was not fresh AT ALL.

It was an utter let down.

And then came dessert. It's supposedly a brownie... Though it did not and still does not resemble a brownie at all!

Reminds me of fruit cake rather than brownie... It tasted like fruit cake too.

So anyway, after that rather boring and dismal dinner, the next one I had was at Zizzi's...

What an improvement!

Just check these gorgeous darlings out!

The Sophia

The Sophia. What a gorgeous name for the pizza! Spicy chicken breast, with chilli, spicy sausages and cheese on a tomato sauce base!!! How yummy is this? The pizza slices were really thin too. Heaven. Just heaven. I can't wait to try the other pizzas available. Though I will need a partner for that. Pizzas are HUGE! But I finished this one (minus the crust).... Was too hungry.

And then came.... APPLE CRUMBLE.



So good.

But too much crumble. Would've liked it better if it had more fruit. I ended up eating the apples instead of the crumbs.

See? Apple. Yummy...

Hahahhaah.

Zizzi's... Anyone care for another round?