Predict your life!!! Hmm

This is a link one of my fren send to me. It is a fortune- telling website. The only downside is that it is in Chinese and my chinese really cannot make it.

However still out of curiously, I tried it out . Interesting reading . Do take a look.

http://www.nongli.com/item5/augury/qi1-10.htm

Lunching at Lei Garden

This is another backdated review as can be seen in the picture below, my family went there during the New Year but I only got to review in late March. Been very busy.

Anyway, this was a treat that my father decided to give for the whole family. He decided to bring us to the Lei Garden Branch at CHIJMES. He heard that people said that the dim sum was excellent so thought of bringing us there to try. This branch has been there for at least two years but we have never been there before. As can be seen from the photo below, the tables are neatly laid out and the setting was quite spacious.

For the dishes that were ordered, it was a mixture of dim sum items and some main dishes to try a variety of their dishes.

The above was an appetiser. It was pork which was deep fried on the outside and then stirred fried with a sweet sauce. I found it a bit too sweet for my liking but people who like sweet should enjoy this dish. With regard to the texture of the meat, it was not too bad.

The next dish is a staple dim sum item which is the chee cheong fun. We had the prawn version. For this item, the taste as well as the fillings were excellent. Nothing to complaint this dish.

The above is another staple item which is the har kow. The filling was full of prawns and it maintains the moisture in the translucent rice flour skin. From appearance, it was very well done. For the taste portion, it was excellent.

The next dish name I forgot as too long ago!! Anyway if remembered roughly, it was some prawn wrapped and deep fried. ( Must remember not to drag too long before writing hehe)

The last of the dim sum item is shown above. The design look cute right. The design is actually made out of deep fried rice flour ( My guess? as it does not taste like wanton skin). The center was minced prawns that was mould into the shape then deep fried.

It looks interesting but the taste was so so in my opinion.

The dish above is the braised duck with special sauce. This was very very good which was a bit unexpected. The flavour of the special sauce complimented very well with the tender duck meat. It was so well received that this dish was cleared very quickly. I wonder what was the sauce used.

The above is the shark fin soup in superior soup. Again another excellent dish. The soup came separately from the shark fin. The shark fin was on a separate plate. Only before the soup is served then the shark fin is placed into the soup. The soup was clear as can be seen above.
The soup based was chicken and my guess is chinese ham and dried scallop may be used as well.

Next, is the fish cooked in two style. Part of the fish was used to stir fried and the other part was used for deep frying and a sweet sauce was applied over it. The stirred fired fish was incredible. The texture was solid and it was just right. It really has a firm texture and when you bite into it, you can taste the freshness of the fish and the flavouring did not overpower the flavour of the fish. The deep fried fish was also good as well. My personal preference is for the stirred fired style.

The last dish was salad prawns. It was quite good but nothing outstanding.

Overall the dishes were very good.

Chinese New Year Day

This posting is about my annual house celebration on the first day of the new year.

On the first day of the Lunar New year, we visit my grandmother in the morning and after that we will go home to prepare for the gathering later on in the evening. Usually for the first day of the Chinese New Year, we will invite our relatives as well as frens to celebrate the New year with us in the evening.

The below pictures are the dishes that were prepared for the evening. Actually the preparation took place from morning till the evening else how to prepare so many dishes in the small kitchen.

The above is a mixed vegetable dish which is a stir fired of lettuce, cabbage, tao pow, 'wood ear', mushroom and carrots.

The above dish in the centre consists of 5 dishes ( like cold dish) . The black egg is the centuary egg and it is usually eaten with young ginger. The red colour meat next to it is bak kua, which is actually BBQ pork. There are many verisons of it so we purchased the mince meat one as it is softer and they do come in a circular shape. It looks like a coin. The dish in the centre is the eggs fried with shark fin. The other two dishes are the jelly fish in spicy sauce and the fruit salad.

The next dish is the braised sea cucumber with scallop, clams and fish maw. This dish always goes well with rice provided you like seafood as the stock base is also using dried scallop.

The dish above is prawns stirred fired in sweet and sour sauce.

The dishes at the top of the picture starting from the left is mushroom cooked in chicken soup base. The next dish which are all the fired stuffs include fishballs, fried spring roll and Lok Bak which was home made. Unlike the Lok Bak found selling outside where the filling is minced pork, this version uses the whole strip of pork marinated in five spices powder and roll in a beancurd skin. In this style, the flavour is trapped in and you can enjoy the riches of the pork and five spices flavour.

The last dish above is the minced prawn with fried bread. The external is crispy and the filling maintain its mositure. However this is really a fattening dish as quite a lot of oil is required to be used during the frying so that the colour will appear golden brown.

It was really a great day, full of fun and was a great opportunity to talk to old friends who had started work and hence usually not much of chance to converse during working days.

Tea break at Sushi Tei

This is a belated entry due to the Chinese New Year festive season so postponed writing it till now.

My friends invited me to join their last min shopping for new year clothes on the Friday just before the lunar new year. We spend quite a lot of time at the malls in the area.

Therefore we decided there is a need to take a break from all the standing so decided to have something to snack on. As Ngee Ann city is so big, there are a lot of variety of eateries in the building itself. We took a while before deciding to have tea at Sushi Tei which has been located there for quite some time and my frens have quite a high opinion on the food served there.

For myself, it was the first time to visit Sushi Tei for a meal as usually if taking about Jap food, I usually eat at Sakae Sushi or Genki Sushi. ( cheaper and more accessible) I heard from my frens that the standard of Sushi is of very high standard when compared to the other two places I been before.

We decided that each of us will order based on what we prefer to have. For myself, I decided to try their grilled squid as well as the salmon sushi and salmon belly sushi.

The above is the grilled squid. The texture of the squid was well maintained and the squid maintain its moisture so that it does not felt like you are eating rubber. Overall it was quite well prepared.

The above pictures is showing the salmon and salmon belly sushi. If you look at the above pictures it is observable that the salmon that was used for the two different type of sushi is noticeably different. The one on the right of the picture has a layer of fat and that is the salmon belly.

With regard to the sushi, the first impression was quite good as when I picked up the sushi, the rice ball did not break up which is a good sign that the sushi is well made. This is what one of my fren told me previously.

For the taste aspect, both were quite good as the salmon was very smooth and the rice was not too dry.

My fren had the above which is the salmon sashimi and a beef dish where the slice of beef is used to wrap around the Japanese mushroom. He mentioned that the sashimi was excellent and the beef was also quite good. He commented that the sauce complemented well with the tender beef and the Japanese mushroom helped to enhance the texture of the dish.

My other fren had the maki. He commented that there were normal nothing outstanding.

He also had the eel and egg sushi. With regard to this dish, he said that it was better than the maki and the eel meat that was used was substantial unlike some places where the quantity of eel meat is much less.

The above is the soft shell crab handroll and the seafood handroll. He had a better opinion on the soft shell handroll.

My fren commented that the level of services has dropped a little since the last time he went there. He said the service staff previously was more attentive. I am not able to make any comment on this as this is the first time I been to here. My only observation is that there seem to be quite a large proportion of teenagers as the service staffs which is a bit unusual when in general for more high end establishment, the service staffs in general are a bit older. This point may be just a coincidence or it so happen that day the services dropped below its usual high standard.