Optical illusion

I was recently suring the net when happen to find this site. http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/illusions.htm

It was an interesting site where there have a number of applications which try to show a few examples of optical illusion in different situations. I tried the majority of them and only for the first example (Motion Induced Blindness), I was able to notice the effect.

Do take a look as I thinking it is quite an interesting site.

Auntie Birthday celebration lunch at Ah Yat restaurant (Allson Hotel Branch)

For my fourth aunt birthday, my mum decided to treat her to the new branch of Ah Yat restaurant at Allson hotel for a dim sum lunch. I tag along of course. We decided to order a few dim sum items as well as their promotional Peking duck.

While waiting for the dishes to come, we ordered an appetizer first. As can be seen in the picture above, it is the typical appetizer at a Chinese restaurant (roast pork). The meat was very well done, the top layer was very crispy and the meat was tender. It was really the perfect roast pork. The only problem was the price. For this plate that we had, we could have gotten at least double the quantity in a hawker centre. However like they always say, the quality you get is usually proportional to the pricing. ( Although some say it is not true)

The next dish was the century egg porridge. My aunt wanted to try it out. Hence we ordered one bowl to share among all of us. The porridge was full of flavour and it was very smooth. It reminded me of the excellent porridge that I had in Hong Kong. It was very easy on the stomach as it was not oily.

After this dish, came our order of the dim sum items which are shown below:

The above is called as world number one bun( in Chinese it sounds better). It was actually a pao which is filled with char siew as filling and the top of the surface a layer of honey is coated over it which gives it's glossy appearance. It was remarkably soft on the outside and the filling inside was so juicy. It was a perfect combination although it is a bit sweet due to the honey coating and the char siew filling.

The above is the steamed seafood dumpling which base is prawn which is wrapped in a translucent skin and on the top is a scallop. It was really good. The dumpling is full of the prawn flavour as the prawn is juicy and the dumpling was not dry. The scallop help to enhance the seafood experience. Pity that there was only three in the bamboo steamer!

The above is one of their weekend creation. It was siew mai with shark fin. When I heard the name, I thought the shark fin will be part of the filling in the siew mai. It was instead a siew mai
with the shark fin placed on top with the orange colour filling on top is crab roe. It was good but I feel that is is just a siew mai, the shark fin did not really enhance the flavour.

The following picture is the fried shrimp dumpling. When it came, it also came with a bowl of soup as shown above. I was wondering how to use the soup. The dumpling skin was very thin unlike what you usually get at a lot of the eateries therefore the tasting experience was unique. It was done more like a pastry rather than a normal fried dim sum. quite interesting but still do not know what to do with the soup.

The last dim sum item is the prawn and mango roll. It is filled with prawn as the primary ingredient with the mango as the secondary filling. It was cripy on the exterior and the filling is full of the prawn flavour with the subtle taste of the mango is the background. It was good but personally I prefered the one that I had at Crystal Jade.

The next dish was the Peking Duck. As we requested them to slice it after first letting us have a visual inspection, therefore it was not possible to show the duck. The above is the wrapped up Peking duck. The skin was very crispy and it was not too oily. If too oily, after two pieces you will feel very uncomfortable.

The last main dish was the vegetable. It was Kau Kee cooked in superior soup. Actually I think in Chinese cuisine, superior soup usually refer to a chcken soup based. The vegetable was well prepared. It was not overcook and the soup enhance the flavour of the vegetable. It is said this vegetable is supposed to help your eye sight. I wonder eating this will it help me at my card games. Hmm

My aunt had the mango pudding as a substitute of a birthday cake. She said the mango pudding was very good. It was soft and full of the mango flavour.

It was a great culinary experience and a great way to celebrate my aunt birthday.

Dinner at Din Tai Fung ( Bishan branch)

After a tiring week of work, my friend and I decided that we need to take a break to relieve stress and what better way then to go for a good meal. Therefore, we decided to meet up for dinner. Due to work commitment as well as the reluctance to travel, we decided to meet at Bishan for dinner.

After spending sometime deciding on what to eat, we took a very practical approach which was to find the shop which queue was the shortest as after work the last thing you want to do is to wait for half an hour for a place to eat. That is how we ended up queuing at Din Tai Fung as the waitress said we had to wait for 5 to 10 mins. Eventually, it felt much longer than the expected duration( could be due to the fact that I was hungry and was standing around with a ticket like waiting to strike a jackpot)

While waiting, we were given a form to fill out what we wanted to order. We decided to go for a soup and a main dish per person instead of ordering their speciality which was their dumpling. ( They hire people whose only purpose is to make the dumplings which they are famous for). I had the hot and sour soup and the pork chop fried rice. My friend had the chicken soup and the beef noodle with beef. [I have to specify as in the menu there is a dish called beef noodle without the beef. Wonder if anyone ever ordered this dish : ) ]

When we finally got to our seat, to our surprise all the dishes were out within 5 mins after we had sat at the table allocated to us. Super efficient!

The first dish to arrive was the hot and sour soup. It was a soup filled with slice mushroom, beancurd thinly sliced, mince meat and egg white( I think).

With regard to the taste, there is the distinct taste of sourness which was due to the vinegar that is used in this dish. However it was not spicy enough, that could be due to the need to cater to the majority taste and anyway on the side they have this chilli paste which I think could have been added. This dish was passable, would have been better if it was more spicy.

The next dish to arrive was the chicken soup my friend ordered. My friend commented that the soup was tasty and it was quite good to drink. However looking at the picture, for the more health conscious people guess they will not want to take it as can see a layer of oil on the top surface of the soup.

After the soup, the main dish arrived. The above is my order of fried rice with pork chop. The fried rice was just rice fried with egg and spring onion. The rice was fried quite well as it was fragrant and the rice texture was just right. It was not too dry but neither it was too moist which will affect the taste of the fried rice. With regard to the pork chop, I did not find that there was anything special about it.

My friend had the beef noodle. He told me that the noodle texture as well as the beef texture was quite good. The noodle was not too soft as there are some places where the noodle is overcooked till it become too soft. In his opinion, what let this dish down was the soup base. He mentioned that the soup was not quite strong and it also had a bit of sour taste which I guess could be vinegar which for him spoiled his experience of the dish.

In general, the food is not that outstanding maybe next time I should try their speciality which are their dumplings instead as I practically saw every table ordering these dumplings. The service in general is good as the food is served fast and the tea and plain water is regularly refilled when near empty without the need for us to prompt them.

It was good to meet up with friend to chit chat about work, football and anything under the sun. It is a good way to relief stress.

Opinion on Sir Alex Ferguson's transfer dealing

Ferguson has been managing Manchester United since 1986. He will always be famous for the incredible treble in 1999 as well as the great amount of trophies that he won both at Aberdeen and Manchester United. In addition, another legacy he will leave behind when he finally leave will be the youth system that he established and the number of players who graduated the youth system and managed to establish a career in the upper echelon of football even contributing a whole group of players for the England national team.

However this article is going to look at his top transfer dealing over the years. Throughout his time at Manchester United, he has always been willing to pay the top dollars for players he feel are at the top of the game. For examples, he paid a British record fee of 3.75 million for Roy keane from Nottingham Forest, he paid 28.1 million for Veron from Inter and 31 million for Wayne Rooney just to name a few examples.

I will be accessing the effectiveness of his big money transfer signings and the way he let these players go.

The first one I will be looking at is Gary Pallister who was bought from Middlesbrough at a British transfer record fee of 2.3 million. He started off inauspiciously by having a terrible game on his debut. However he went on from strength to strength and eventually became a key figure in the defence and went on to win a number of premier league titles, FA cups, a league cup and the cup winner cup. He was allowed to leave in a dignified manner when he was no longer at the top of his game.

The next player is Roy Keane. He was bought from Nottingham Forest at 3.75 million which broke the British transfer fee. He fitted perfectly into the role of the defensive midfield and replaced the legendary Bryan Robson and formed the fulcrum of Manchester United midfield for nearly a decade. During his time with the red devil, he won many trophies and was even appointed the captain of the red devil for a number of years. He was widely recognised as the best defensive midfielder in the premier league for a number of years. Although eventually he left manu due to comments he made about the team but I felt that Ferguson was correct in letting him go at that time for two reasons. Physically Keane' physically was not able to maintain his high standard of play and secondly it was necessary to do that for the team spirit to remain.

After these two buys, Ferguson did not made a big money signing until the 1998-1999 season, when he made Jaap Stam the most expensive dutch player in history when he purchase him from PSV. He was instructional in Manu winning the treble as he was the rock in Manu defence. He was a key member in the team till Ferguson got rid of him partly due to the autobiography that he wrote. Up to this day, in my opinion I feel getting rid of Jaap Stam was a poor decision as he did not have a replacement for him. He tried to get Laurent Blanc but it was a failure. Other defenders have been used in that position to cover that gap but none have been near the standard. Only recently Vidic looks like someone who defends in the same style as him. A no nonsense defender who relishes defending.

The next two big buys that he made during the 2001-2002 season, to push Manu to win for the second time the Champion League, had contrasting degree of effect on Manu. In April 2001, Ferguson made the first of two big money signing who is Ruud Van Nisterooy for a then British record transfer fee of 19 million pounds. In the summer, he bought Veron from Lazio for 28.1 million pounds which surpassed the transfer of Ruud.

The arrival of Veron with his style of play in Ferguson opinion was the missing component to winning the Champion League which till today is his largest ambition. However it did not go as plan. The English game was too fast pace and physical for his style of football which was more suited for a slower tempo. He did alright in the Champion League but eventually Ferguson decided that he was not going to be really a key player in his team and decided to let him talk to Chelsea. He left Manu for half of the transfer fee that Manu had bought him. In my opinion, he was one of the rare big money signing which did not work out. I felt Ferguson overpaid for him and he also did not consider the implication that Veron style of play is not suited for the high octane premier league.

Ruud on the other hand can be considered to be a great buy even at 19 million pounds. He was a pure goal scoring machine. He broke a number of scoring record at both Manu and in the English Premier League. In the eyes of many Manu fans, he was considered Ferguson best buy. He had a good relationship with Ferguson until the 2005- 2006 season. Even though he was the top scorer at the club but a number of his goals at that time were via penalty. In addition, he also developed a tendancy to fall around the penalty box which fustrated his team mates at time. In my opinion, he was agreat signing but I felt Ferguson let him go mainly because he wanted Manu focal point to be Rooney instead of Ruud. In addition, he wanted Manu to play a more flowing style of football where the center forward will sometime fall back and allow the winger to push ahead of them before they come back into the penalty box. Whether the sales of Ruud will prove to be a poor choice or not will depend on how Manu does over the next few season.

The last big money signing to look at is Rooney. Ferguson paid another record amount of money for him. With regard to the purchase of Rooney, he is paying more for the potential that he will develop into rather than a finish article. In the last two to three years, Ferguson has been considering on building a new team with the two focal points as Rooney and Ronaldo. In my opinion, he could be a great signing but it depends whether he is able to fully develop his talent to the fullest.

In general, if we are looking at the big money signing that Ferguson has paid in his time, the majority are great success with only one noticeable disappointment in Veron. However his record with the lower profile signing has not been that great. That will be my next article.

Lunch at Crystal Jade Golden Palace

Firstly, I have to apologise if the pictures do not look clear as it was taken using a hand phone camera. In addition as this is my first food blog, I am not sure this style of presentation is good or not.

Recently, after going on a shopping trip at Paragon Metro ( Thanks to the voucher given by Sony), my family proceeded to Crystal Jade Golden Palace for some dim sum. It was 2 when we went there but there were no tables available so had to wait a while for seat. ( usually a good sign that the food is not bad else sure got place to seat)

The entrance look impressive. This photo above was taken near the entrance. I quite like the arrangement as well as the furniture used there. It gives the place a very cosy feel, as the place is not really brightly lit and they used some sort of column light as the main lighting source in the restaurant. Quite interesting in my viewpoint.

We ordered a few dim sum items and some side dishes to try out.

The first dish to arrive was the dou miao fried with garlic. It was quite well prepared as the vegetable maintain its texture and it was cook just right and it's fragrance was accentuated by the garlic used.

The next two dishes that arrived were the marinated intestines and the salad prawn dumpling.

The marinated intestines was prepared by braising it then serving it with vinegar which was the transparent sauce next to it. This type of preparation to my understanding is a Teochew style of cooking. To me personally, I personally prefer deep frying it.

The salad prawn dumpling were great. The wanton skin around it was fried perfectly. It was so crispy yet the filling which is prawns maintain its juiciness. In addition the filling were packed full of prawns. Great!

The next three items to arrive were the steamed scallop dumpling, steamed shrimp rice roll( prawn cheong fun) and deep fried prawn and mango roll.

The outstanding dish among the three was the prawn and mango roll. It was the best that I had. The exterior was very crispy yet the filling of the mango and prawns retain its moisture. It was the best. The initial taste was the crispness of the skin followed by the slightly sweet taste of the mango and the prawn filling. I saw a lot of the customers also ordered this dish. I guess it must be good.

The other two were good but not outstanding.

The next dish to arrive was the suckling pig and char siew combination. The char siew was very good. It was tender and the thickness of the cutting was just about right. The suckling pig skin was not bad, it was crispy enough.

I have the opinion that if you want to order suckling pig skin, it should be a solo order rather than a combination which was what was ordered. The reason is because I feel that when you order a combination, the sauce used for the other meat will mix with the suckling pig causing the skin to be last crispy.

What are your opinion on this topic solo or combination?

The last dish was something new. Instead of the normal E-fu Mee with crab roe or mushroom, the above is a mapo beancurd E-fu mee. It was quite unique as it as a bit of spicy taste ans personally I did not think you could apply Ma-po beancurd to cooking noodles. It was an eye-opener.

However my mum felt that is was a tad too salty. For me personally, it was ok.

Overall, it was quite a good experience. They had a mixture of cantonese and Teochew style of cooking.

Different style of football philosophies

In my first entry, looking at the different style of football philosophies by the so called big four teams in England ( Sorry if offend, Newcastle or Tottenham fans) Manu, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.

In my opinion, I feel that Manu and Arsenal can be considered under the same football philosophy and the other group will be Chelsea and Liverpool.

Manu and Arsenal have managers that decide that football should be about entertaining the fans and spectators so they will play a more open brand of football in the majority of the games. It is exciting to watch from a spectator perspective as it is more thrilling. They do not believe in seating back when they are 2 goals up. They will go for the juggler and try to score as many as possible.

In some people viewpoint, this is a waste of energy as you should slow the tempo down and do not tire the players out by playing at such a high tempo when you are leading. Howevere I feel that football is about atacking play and I personally favour such an approach. However in recent times, it seem that this style of play is getting less popular as it does not always result in the team winning matches.

On the other side of the equation, are teams like Chelsea and Liverpool which play a more pragmatic style of football. These are teams that will take a lead then will fall back and let the opponent attack them before hitting them on the break. This style of play would need a very strong defence to allow the team to fall back and are confident that they will not concede. In addition you require very fast players so as to make the counter attack effective.

Howver these style of football in theory is the most efficient mean to win matches as the team that have to do the attacking will usually leave gaps to be exploited. The team which is the best in this philosophy will be Chelsea. ( athough the loss of John Terry and Petr Cech is making this tactics not effective) However this style of football can be quite boring as it will be one team with everyone at the back hoping to capitalise on the offensive team making a mistake.

As a spectator, I would like to watch attacking football which are teams like Barcelona, Manu, Arsenal.

What is your opinion on which brand of football would you prefer to watch?