Sunday, October 08, 2006

Lunch: Epicurious + Canele, Dinner: House of Peranakan

Hello!

Food-ful day.=D [Over the Gackt-concert forlorn-ness for now.^_^"]

For lunch, we went to the Robertson Quay area.=) I love that area!!! We must try every restaurant! ^_^ Well. Maybe not everyone. But you know. Urm.. At least the good ones? =X Hehe. ANYWAY.


The lovely bridge and "clock tower" at Robertson Quay!! I love the area, it's very pleasant and quiet.^_^ Highly inaccessible if you don't have a car and have no cash for a taxi though.

We went to Epicurious for lunch! =) The service there is really quite good. The server was really nice when she told us that lunch wouldn't be served till 12.30 but allowed us to order early [like..12.15/12.20] anyway.^_^ Anyway. We had bruschetta to start.. I loved the bread! It was really crispy so it lended a nice contrast to the bright tomatoes.=) It was a bit burnt around the edges though so that was quite disappointing.. But apart from that, I felt that the bruschetta was not bad at all.^_^ My dad had the ratatouille omelette and my mom had.. the vegetarian sandwich.^_^" Disgustingly healthy the 2 of them.*shakes head*


I on the other hand, went the high fat route with the Epicurious Burger!!! ^_^ Yay. I thought it was really not bad. Hehe. It was served with minature burger buns, a topping of very very good sauteed mushrooms and onions, a side salad and Kettle chips. Yum. The beef was not fully cooked through so it retained this gorgeous juicyness and slightly charred exterior. It was difficult breaking the patty apart because the beef had sort of "stuck" together, not crumbling apart. I'm trying to assume that's a good sign.^_^" Hehe. It came with a liberal smudge of mustard that "glued" the patty to the bottom mini burger bun. Yum. I loved the mushrooms and the onions with the beef. They really cut through the oilyness of the meat with their rich savoury flavour. ^_^ [Or maybe I'm just biased because I love sauteed mushrooms and onions. Heh!]

After lunch, we made a quick detour to La Maison du Whisky for my dad to pick up a present for my Uncle. [It's his birthday! Not today. But urm.. Soon.^_^"] The place is simply filled with bottles and bottles of expensive amber liquid. O.o I was quite.. urm. Taken aback by the price.O.o Ahem. Anyway, I was peering at the bottles [no price tags I might add. Everything is by enquiry only. ;)] and urhhh. They all looked the same to me.^_^" My dad was trying to get one that's as old as my uncle but firstly, they didn't have one, secondly, it'd cost the sky and the earth. So ahem. That was placed aside quite quickly. The salesperson was a French girl, very animated and rather knowledgeable about her products.^_^ We need more people like her in this blasted country.. Heaven knows how many sullen and grumpy salespeople I've met.xP

Next stop: Canele!!! BEAMS! Finally. A chance to eat there, after peering into the window and reading about it.=D Examine our greed:


^_^" My dad also had a coffee.. My mom had this lemongrass tea and I had this green tea with jasmine. [I've discovered that while jasmine tea is really very fragrant and nice, it gets bitter towards the end. Although it does nicely in cleansing the palate, I'm not fond of bitterness.xP] =D Everything look fabulous does it not! ^_^

I'll start with this:


Tarte Citron. [Lemon tart] I didn't try this because I really do not like lemon curd/lemon cream/lemon custard. ^_^" My mom said it was quite nice though. And I was completely misled. I thought it was topped with meringue, but apparently it's cream. Not meringue. O well. [Speaking of meringue, they have these HUGE meringues at the counter!!! Sadly, I'm not a meringue fan but if my brother were here.. ATTACK!]


Up next, the Caraibe. This one was quite disappointing. The description made it sound fabulous, what with all the dark chocolate and everything but I ended up being quite disappointed instead. It was very heavy [my dad even thought it was brownie.-_-] and very very chocolatey. It was almost overpowering and required many sips of tea in between eating this. The nuts added to the heaviness so all in all, if you really adore chocolate, this would be a good thing I guess but I'm not into such heavy pastries so.. ^_^" I'll give this a miss the next time..


Strawberry Cake! ^_^ I love strawberry cake! =D This one was really good.. The sponge layers were very light and the cream was really good [good cream is really hard to find. Some places taste like those.. bottled whipped creams. Ew.] and the strawberries were really sweet and yummy! ^_^ Haha.=D beams! I loved this!!! Although I did leave the remaining cream behind - I was never much of a cream fan. Still, I think this is a very nice and light cake to eat for dessert or tea. It's a very happy colour too.^_^ I can definitely try making this as long as I don't screw up the cream again. Ahem.


This is Le Royale and is my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE.xD xD xD It's AMAZINGLY good.xD xD xD I was like, OMG I LOVE THIS. [My dad kept taking bites from it!!! *glares and pulls it protectively away*] When you bite into it, the contrast in texture really takes you by surprise and leads you to take a second bite.. and another.. and another.. and before you even realised it.. the whole slice is gone. So.. What makes it so magical? Well.. It's made up of a few layers with the secret lying in the second from bottom layer. Yum. From the bottom: Chocolate sponge, nougatine, some chocolate, marzipan, cream. Omg. It was so good. I was just drooling all over the table.^_^" The secret of this cake, elevating it to the next level would be the nougatine. It gives each bite a nice crunch of chocolate and hazelnut and makes you swoon with pleasure. The combination of chocolate and hazelnut never fails to send me into bouncey happiness.^_^ The chocolate sponge itself lends a nice base to the whole cake and the marzipan is ingeniously incorporated. [My cousin says its marzipan.] [And I don't like marzipan on its own. But here? Heaven.] So imagine the textures, everything else is soft and melt in your mouth and suddenly.. there's this crunchy bit that makes you sit up and go.. what is this? So you keep eating it to discover this gorgeous new discovery! ^_^

I highly recommend the Le Royale.=D And you can bring me along to share the experience with you! ;) ;) ;) Beams!

The ambience in Canele is very pleasant and airy. You also get to have a good look into their vast kitchen because of the windows.=) The server was very pretty and friendly and she was very cheerful as well.^_^ As I said, why can't more service people be like that? We noticed that the place was frequented by Japanese and Singaporeans.=) There was adorable little Japanese boy at the table next to ours. He was happily digging into a large pink concoction that looked very pretty! ^_^ What a lucky little boy.

We bought a 1/2 kg Le Royale as a birthday cake for my uncle's birthday [that's where I discovered all the nougatine and what not. My family is brilliant at such things.^_^" I aspire to be like and know even more one day!] and went for dinner at House of Peranakan at Negara.=D The food was great.^_^ [Although I couldn't eat half the things thanks to the amount of chilli in some of them.O.o]


The family! My aunt was brushing her hair aside when the photo was taken. Ahaha. It looks as if she's waving or something. Ahaha. Beams. She told me my cousin [standing next to me in white] can make ba zhang!!! Wee! So ahem! Jiamin if you're serious, I can go ask her how to make. Ahaha.=P

Beams. ^_^ Great foodie day.=) Unfortunately, Canele had a very poor selection of cookies today so I couldn't buy any to share with the friends at school. Heh.=X

And I'm relooking universities to expand my options. My dad is pushing Iowa because they have a world-class creative writing programme there [certainly sounds interesting] but omg. Iowa. How many ways can you say CORN?! -_- And I'm not trying to be stereotypical here but.. I'm from Singapore and Iowa sounds rural to me. So I mean.. come on. Isn't your first impression of Iowa RURAL? -_- And Idaho = Potato state. Haha. I think it's quite cute actually.=X So anyway. Researching again. *sighs deeply* This COLLEGE thing. Rawr!

And Kuidaore [another Singapore food blog].. omg. DID YOU SEE HER LATEST CREATIONS.*faints from happiness* You can get the link on Chubby Hubby [link on the right]. I can't believe she's an amateur chef!!! I want such dedication [and time..and talent..and skill]too! ^_^ I will get better at cooking and baking. *determined look* I will!

Hope my brother passes the driving test.=D Haha.

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : songs from November's Chopin by Jay Chou + Kimi ni Aitakute Gackt]
[mood : ^_____^]
[food : LE ROYALE.*bounce!*]

Labels: Canele, edibles, Epicurious, House of Peranakan

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visions of clarity...do as infinity
by witchstone

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