I 5spliet waetetr on m,y ketyboard and ethaet'5s why iet i5s aceting up.

Dear all,

Thank you for your concern and well wishes. My keyboard has been fixed for a hefty sum of S$139.10.

ouch, I don't even spend that much on my medical bills

At least it's well. Yay, peace descends on earth once again.

Akashi, Orchard Parade Hotel

Something tells me my life isn't very exciting.

In the last couple of weeks or so, more than half of my posts revolved around sushi, raw fish and teatime treats. On the other hand, even if i were to document my unblogged posts, you would just see daily repetitions of Jolliebean peanut panckes, Pick & Bite curry puffs, fruits and coffee. I can't decide if it's because I'm faithful to my instincts or a creature of habit, simply unwilling to budge out of my comfort zone. I must admit though that like 98% of the population, I thrive tremendously on routine.

We headed back to Akashi for dinner at its new location at Orchard Parade Hotel. Back at Tanglin Shopping Centre, the restaurant resembled a dinghy rabbit's hole, packed so tight you could have smelt your neighbor's dinner. The new outlet (just about 50 meters from their original spot) is blessed with both space and better lighting so yay for taking pictures. The sushi bar is twice as large, which made me twice as envious of the people seated there. Now I'm usually not the needy type but when I see people sitting by the sushi counter, having a good laugh with the sushi chefs, sharing a tipple of two, I sort of feel -sob- left-out.



Dad opted for the Akashi Bento while hot-food-only mum went for the beef teriyaki. It was a little too pink for my liking though the texture was unsurpassed.



Favouring the other end of the thermometer scale, I ordered the tekka and futomaki set and requested to replace the tuna maki with salmon maki. I loved it. From the loose inari pouches, to the spring-onion-scented salmon niblets to the captured enjoyment of pickles and sakura denbu tucked within the futomaki.



It's amazing how much enjoyment I can get out of molded vinegar rice. I think I need a theme song to capture the 'Ding! I finally found you' moment.


Low on the thermometer reading, high on pleasure.

Akashi's charm remained intact thanks to the friendliness of the service staff and service was irrefutably spot-on. One thing that struck me was how almost everyone who came through their doors was a regular or rather, greeted like one. So the sashimi standards might be a little flaky but the hot food and sushi are sure bets on any given night. Now if only I could score a seat at the sushi counter and pull an omakase...

Chocolate Truffle Cake, Edmund at SMU

I used to think the banana crumble from Edmund's at SMU was the only thing going for me, as far as desserts-in-school were concerned. Banana moosh-chunks buried beneath crumbly buttery cobs. It was love in the first degree.



Now I fear I have allowed myself to join the Dark Side with Edmund's Chocolate Truffle Cake. It was budget luxury, rich and smooth, akin eating a huge chocolate praline. I might just start reciting love poems soon.

You know I think I'm a chocolate nut in denial. I keep telling people chocolate isn't my poison but cheesecakes, peanut butter or anything touched by caramel. However as of a month ago, chocolate possessed the healing touch and it became my Gotta Have cure for daily blues. I especially love when I get to cradle the chocolate in the loop of my tongue and wait for it to melt into semi-oblivion.

Ommm.

Brownie, Dino

Ever since Dino Cake House established a takeaway stand at Thomson Plaza, I've been making emergency stops for cakes while on my way home. It now takes a grand total of 4.37 minutes (walking time fro home) to gain audience with a bevy of sugar-butter-teemed pick-me-ups. In an ideal world, I would have burnt 200 calories for this 20 calories treat but we live in a world of contradictions and that's why chocolate was invented.



I had the fudge-topped brownie a couple of days back. It was ok but it was somewhat my fault for the ho-huminess. In my haste, I scarfed it down in mere minutes though what I should have done was to heat it up and serve it with a dollap of vanilla ice cream. To me, Dino easily has the best sugar roll, raisin scone, carrot cake and chicken pie. Very old-school, nothing avant-gardish, as if they are all governed by this cardinal rule K.I.S.S-

Keep It Simple, Sweetheart!

Salted Caramel Chocolates, Morinaga

Look at what I picked up from the supermarket: Salted Caramel Chocolates from Morinaga. Salted Caramel really got my attention after I had some salted caramel macarons from "Mad Baker" Karen over Chinese New Year. I can't believe I'm quoting Britney Queer-Spears but erm "Gimme More" please!


An inside look.

Something to get over Mun-dayyy blues Photoshop Disasters and the harhar-funny thereby-proving-Batman-isn't-cock-eyed post.

O for Ooops and Opera

These days, nothing but chocolate and butter have been calling out to me. I obliterated the Crabtree & Evelyn Apothecary Shortbread Tin of cookies, working my way through the 'fingers 'first, then 'rounds' and eventually 'petticoat tails', erasing them from pre-existence on Planet Earth. Of course I should have known better than to rely on butter and caster sugar to numb out the pain of studying for my Strategy paper but they were sooo good. You would think that like after ingesting 3000-plus calories I would feel guilty... well let's just say, I wouldn't say 'no' to more. I feel like the Bermuda Triangle of Shortbread Biscuits and no shortbread will ever feel safe within 1 metre radius.

Quite by coincidence I had cake too! Le Opera Gateaux. Actually it's my first Opera though I have no idea why I took so long to discover this coffee-chocolate pastiche. This pastry has a somewhat mysterious "whodunnit" history as 3 names usually pop up when one goes in search of its creator.

Gaston Lenôtre . Louis Clichy . Dalloyau

Doesn't it sound like the storyline to "Three Men and a Baby" or Broadway's Mama Mia?



This skinny slice is from the club- just enough to tease the buds but merciful to the waistline, especially one suffering from shortbread overdose.

Layers of chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream and almond sponge cake, topped with an Opéra-inscribed glaze. One thing I noticed is how incredibly-duh the name is pipped on- perhaps in anticipation of sudden delight-induced memory lapse?

How was it in a nutshell? Well I liked it. It was "hard". I don't know if it's meant to be hard in Apply-Pressure-Here sort of way but I like "hard cakes" (I do enjoy my cakes more after leaving it in the fridge) and coffee/ chocolate has always been a winning twosome in my opinion.

People say it ain't over till the fat lady sings, I say she better stop if she wants to have her cake and eat it.

"Chic" Lunch at Canelé Pâtisserie Chocolaterie

Back-from-NYC Phillipe asked me in jest to suggest "somewhere chic for lunch". As a disclaimer, I would never have offered to meet anywhere overrun by lunch crowd, had it not been for the sad fact that I had to head back to school thereafter. With little choice but to meet at Raffles City, Canele with its spiffy water feature and glossy cafe interior became a natural pick for "somewhere chic for lunch"

"So are we going to somewhere chic?" He asked after we had exchanged our 'hellos' and 'how are yous'.

"Yup", I replied. "Canele by Les Amis"

Pause.

A pause to allow for the self-explanatory 'Les Amis is chic as hell, so by association Canele is ...' understanding to fill the silence. It also helped that Canele was one of the few places that we could score some relief from the lunch crowd frenzy.



Philip's Brioche Burger arrived promptly, a sizable-but-fittable (as in fit into your mouth) burger that had roasted chicken breast, tomato, lettuce, figs compote tucked between mayonnaise-dubed brioche.



Somehow my Club Honey Baked Ham only arrived a good fifteen minutes later, during which Philip was almost done nibbling on the sunflower seeds from his brioche top. Cornering a pile of potato chips and side salad was a triple decker of honey baked ham, omelette, tomato and lettuce, sandwiched between chi-chi-sounding "toasted pain de mie".



It was a very decent sandwich- not mind-blowing material but very dependable if you aren't feeling adventurous. Pity about the pedestrian white toast though. Guess I belong to a group indoctrinated by "white bread is evil" school of thought. Refined carbohydrates !-teeth chatters- It's got a high glycaemic index! It messes with your body's insulin response -hyperventilates- Funny enough I haven't experienced the same amount of trepidation with shortbread biscuits or pastries. Guess I almost forgot to add I'm just selectively healthy.



For dessert, we had the traditional baked French chocolate cake, which featured a dense chocolate slice and airy-fairy cream chantilly. To our delight, the cake had warm fudgy insides, very much resembling a brownie called "cake". The French would be aghast by such a statement. Sor-rayy!

Zis cake is French, not Americano brownie!



Incidentally, I had Emergency Coffee with Girlfriend at Gloria Jean's the next day. My inner Bruce Bogtrotter was calling out to me as I had an overwhelming desire to devour a block of rich chocolate cake. It's fairly-instinctive to have chocolate cake with coffee, no? Believe me, I have verified it with epicure historians and a slice of Gloria Jean's Mud Cake, a towering chocolate slice blessed with lip-smacking chocolate fudge.

Sakuraya Sashimi House, Anchorpoint

I am so broke.

Just to give you a good idea of how broke I am- I feel even poorer than my days as an exchange student. I'm in a situation which I have unaffectionately termed as 'IPOD'- I on Parent Overdraft. More details to follow... (bad attempt at trying to sound mysterious) .. but let's just say I've been spending a lot of time with The Girl Who Ate Everything and Ed Levine at Serious Eats.

The week closes in on the end of my mid-term break though most SMU students would tell you there's no such thing as mid-term breaks, weekends or after-school hours. This is supposed to be the 'breather' before the onslaught tsunami wave of deadlines, project meetings, quizzes and presentations... so please excuse possible sporadic outbursts of frustration.

After Akashi's fall from grace, we needed to find another Japanese restaurant for our weekly raw fish fix. Under the recommendation of my dad's makan-maharishi (actually it's just the guy who seats opposite him in the office), we headed to Sakuraya Sashimi House at Anchorpoint.



This return visit alluded me to the importance of CONTEXT. I first visited Sakuraya Sashimi House after a trip to Japan, which was total 'UH-OH game plan for disappointment'. Pretty much like dating Vince Vaugh after Brad Pitt or worse, marrying KFed after JT, getting knocked up and divorced, sent to rehab... You get the picture right?

Well of course I didn't lose my bearings but I sure was harsh.

"There was nothing to suggest that the hot food was any more spectacular than say, conveyor belt branches. The dishes were pedestrian and the meal was a stroll down the well-trodden cobblestone path."



Ok ok I admit I was wr-wr wr-raw-ong... and I needed to take a chill pill. I was right though to a certain extent- yes, "well-trodden path" it was but it was also my decision to take that path. However now that I have seen the discomfort inflicted by certain conveyor belts, I retract that statement about Sakuraya's hot food.

The tempura wasn't great but I haven't had great tempura (not in Santaro, Akane etc) in ages. That being said, tempura (like most fried food) enjoys the Immunity Badge in my syndicate. I don't think it's easy to find sensational tempura unless you visit tempura specialists like Tenshin and I think it's because tempura is an all-rounder crowd favourite so it's pretty hard to up the ante. Do you know what I mean? Like it's your trusty blasted-and-blipped-in-hot-scalding-oil comfort grub so the benchmark has been set and it's difficult to wow diners on a daily basis.

Er if you don't get me, let's pretend it's because I sound terribly cheem and not because I don't make sense at all. I did, however, fall head over my Nine Wests for the mackerel, served with crisp skin still blistering from the grill.



Previously I made a disparaging comment on the "ambiance, service and mood" but I also acknowledged that the problem "lies with me" and this funny little thing called "nostalgia". So this place isn't banking on ambiance and service was a little slow (in fact this is probably one of the few Japanese restaurants that doesn't have have a house elf rushing to fill up peoples' tea cups), but who's counting the Michelin Stars?



Pinky-thick and uber-fresh, the sashimi at Sakuraya had value written all over it. I decided to order the otoro nigiris after that dismal episode at Sushit Tei. The otoro slivers bore stark resemblance to raw beef slices but overall they weren't too hot.



Following that we ordered a plate of otoro sashimi which were decently-marbled though shy of ohmygaw-!. Ack, I sound like an insufferable yak who can't stop talking about her ex on new dates.



And because I couldn't decide which picture was nicer so i posted both. You must be thinking, "what's the difference?" well that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise, it's not lapis, it's actually cerulean. ...

Unlike my dad who has bigger "old love" issues, I refuse to believe kickass ohmygaw-! otoro can't be found in Singapore. Yes my motherland, I still have faith in you. You have found a way to prepack Hainanese Chicken Rice Paste (which in my opinion is almost as cool as sending kimchi to space). You went from 3rd world to 1st world in less than 50 years. I'm sure ohmygaw-! otoro is just hiding somewhere...

It's official: I'm on the hunt for kickass ohmygaw-! otoro in Singapore.