How Far Would You Go For Good Food?

There is this small eatery close to where I stay. It is popular for its white beehoon. The beehoon is cooked in a tasty seafood broth, cooked together with seafood and veggies.


On our visit today, we waited for exactly 47 minutes until we managed to get seats, and the timing excluded the food waiting time. The queue also applies for food take away.

It prompted me to ask the question, how far would you go for food? Good food? There are some popular eateries nearby with lesser queue. But people did not budge. They still waited patiently in line.

There was one time, Y and I went to the popular chicken rice stall. It's a highly acclaimed one, rated highly by Anthony Bourdain. The queue was inescapably long. The chicken rice was good. But, to each of her own, I don't think it was that fantastic to warrant such high acclaim or long queue (if the queue is considered as the good food factor).

The funny thing about this, it was my girl who requested for the beehoon. And we did warn her about the long queue. It did not deter her, though. She said, "We'll just come earlier and waited a little bit!" I wonder if she is one foodie in the making, willing to sacrifice her time and money for good food when she is older?

How far would you go for good food?

I Join The Fad! Rainbow Cake It Is...

I have always been a late bloomer. The last time, when everyone was crazy about Duran-Duran, I was crazy about Candy-Candy soundtrack. I sang the Candy song everytime I had a chance and my family had a hard time with my singing. Later, came NKOTB, I hated them! I mean, look at them, physically, what was so cute about them? Probably Joe was acceptable, but the rest? Blahhh!!!! The songs? So-so! That was my teenage thought and it has not changed since then.

So, that makes me a boring person, I don't join the crowd. I pretty much live in my own world. I never go crazy over something, except for my previous boyfriend(s), husband, kids. And...FOOD!

When it comes to food, I join in the crowd. I go for crowded popular restaurant, I follow the trend of popular food and cakes. And when the cloud world is shaken with so-called Rainbow and Ombre Cake, I made it a point to make the cake into my to do list.

I mean, what's not to like about the cheerful happy color of each cake layer? Food coloring!! For the same reason I refuse to bake red velvet cake and just ate a piece shared with 2 other friends a couple of months ago.

But, how can I resist the notion of baking something so colourful, so cheerful, and make the kids go ,"Awesome!!!" over it?

So, one fine day, I decided to bake one..and I said to myself, since I bake one, let's go all out and make this the ultimate vibrant rainbow, with lots and lots of coloring.

But, no matter how I tried, my hands just refused to follow my brain direction. Or it's left brain vs right brain. My right brain said, "go for it, pour in more colors. The cake needs to be bright and vibrant, you don't bake this often, anyway!" My left brain shouted, "nooooo!!!! You can't do that to your body. Think about your kids, think of what future may hold without that much chemical entering your body! You may be slimmer with less toxic in your body!"

With all those thoughts running around in my mind, plus the facts that I've got two little elves mixing the color for me, I ended up with the rainbow right after the rain as captured in the picture!

The kids devoured the cake right away, while me and my husband looked at the cake for a long time. He said, "Are you sure it's safe to eat?" to which I replied,"Yes, I use Wilton coloring and they have not expired yet!"
He said, "It tastes weird, maybe because of the colors!"
That, despite the fact that I used the same exact recipe for my vanilla sponge cake. Funny how our psyche can alter our perception of taste.

Definitely it's not something that I would be baking often. But for now, I am glad that I've conquered it!

Note: This cake really has the Wow factor. But, I have this psychological nauseausness whenever I eat something that colorful. Definitely not something that I will eat for myself. Uughh!!

Old Fashioned Double Cheese Cake

Yes, our favourite!
It is one of those cakes that you'll never get tired of eating no matter how often you bake it. Not that I bake that often, I must say, considering how busy I am now. Yes, same old..same old. What has changed?

This time, Little N has slowly taken over the baking process. Starting from cracking the eggs, mixing, spreading the cream cheese, and grating the cheddar cheese. And so, the official training of the heiress has begun!

Chicken Pie

There was a time when I crave for Chicken Pie and the time was today.

Grilled Prawns

The kids did some prawning, and as expected, they are more interested in the prawning part, but not so much on eating them.

So I grilled them for our dinner and they tasted nice.

Lasagna, My Comfort Food

I love food. I also love cooking and I love reading cook books. The thing is, I am not a good cook. Despite reading and collecting so many cook books, I always end up cooking the same food over and over again. I think that also explains the lack of post in this blog. Why should I post many entries about the same food.

I am too much of an asian cook and food lover. I may be biased, but the so called western food that I know is mostly fried food. Meanwhile, i just love Chinese food, Japanese food, Korean, Vietnamnese, Indonesian, Thai. I find Asian food, despite all its intricacies, is the food from the heart. I know I should just come up with another post just to talk about my love for Asian food.

Back to the topic. The only appreciation that I have on western food is only for Italian food. Although, it's a bit boring. I mean, they are mostly...pasta and pasta and pasta. Although, yes, they are presented differently, one with cream sauce, the other one is with tomato sauce. Still, it's pasta. But, I still enjoy it. At least, Italian food has..well, personality.
And lasagna is my favourite of all pastas. Even the chef in office canteen knows my penchant for this food and will always announce it to me if he is about to cook lasagna.

Once in a while, when I am in the mood, I will make the lasagna. Granted, only me and hubby are savoring it. Our children are not in the stage where they can enjoy their mom's lasagna. I don't want to say that it's the best lasagna ever. I mean, come on, it's not even authentic Italian lasagna. But I don't claim to be a good cook in the first place. This is the homemade rendition at best. But, isn't it the beauty of homecooked food? It does not have to be perfect and the cook does not need to have solid cooking skills. But, it has to be comforting and enjoyed by the family.

Somehow, I always end up doing a large batch of lasagna, and I know it's going to last us for another 2 days of eating the same food.
At least, it's comforting to eat it, knowing that my bones are going to be well padded with ehm..fat, for the next couple of days!

Homecooked by me

Martabak Manis

Its a more decadent and awfully sinful version of pancake. And it is really oh so yummy (and high in calories).

This was the home-made version. Made using my happy call pan. It may not be as buttery as the one that we find sold in the stalls, but it was equally good.

And why did I put up the post as frivolous as this one? To remind myself that this blog was intended to be a food blog when I first created it

Now She Is 7

Can you believe that the bald little baby that i gave birth to years ago is now 7?

And she is one sassy girly little lady who knows exactly what she wants!
She is kind, she is funny, she always surprises us with her wit!

And, this year, she asked for japanese strawberry shortcake with the Winx image.

I wonder how many more years she still appreciates the cake from mama...