Junior Chefs @ Work II - Sep Edition

Long weekend for me this week :) Been ages since I took a break from work and it certainly felt great to be home on a Monday. No Monday blues for me this week, haha! Since I'm home today, I decided to make my day useful instead of just spending the day watching drama. So, here I am loading/blogging about Junior Chefs Sep edition while Leecher is now in the kitchen preparing our meals for the day :)

 

We were feeling hungry & Leecher prepared this late night snack for us to munch, lol! Super sinful with lots of cheese but I love it :) I did helped to grate the cheese block and sprinkle the cheese over the mushrooms.

Since we had the oven out on the table, Leecher decided to try out this recipe that he found online. I made a "baking tray" from aluminum foil & guess what, I cut my finger. I was shocked when blood oozed out, but the plus side is - I get to rest simply by showing Leecher the plaster I put on my finger, haha!

 

Tofu dish that mummy dearest used to cook for us & Leecher recreated this for me, yeah! Lil bro showed this to mummy dearest and she told us that she'll buy tofu from the wet market as that is smoother & softer than the one we bought from supermarket. My mum is the best lah!

 
Steamed ngoh hiang from the wet market as well. Even though I'm not quite a fan of 酿豆腐, this tasted pretty decent to me.

I love steamed fishes so we'll have that once in a while, whenever mummy dearest give us fresh fishes bought from the wet market. Given that we don't cook every day of the week, there are times when the fish is no longer "fresh", so we'll fried it instead.

  

We even prepared our breakfast :) Since Leecher was on a "diet" for a couple of days, I decided to accompany him on his salad journey. Since I'm not really a fan of greens, I packed my salad box to be filled with fruits + croutons + sunflower seeds + thousand island sauce.

 
healthy start to the day! I must admit that I got pretty hungry by lunch time & ate more than usual, lol!  

 

Mummy dearest gave us some of her 卤肉 while Leecher whipped out some greens to balance the meal. 

 

Sometimes, we'll have pasta for dinner. I'm the in-charge for cooking both rice & pasta while Leecher takes care of the rest. On several days, I'll cook extra pasta so we can have that for breakfast the following day.  

 

OK - Leecher has finished cooking & I'm off for my meal :) 

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 May's Edition

June's Edition

July's Edition 

August's Edition

KL Work Trip, early Mar 2013: Shangri-La Hotel & Shang Palace

As I'm penning down this trip, I began to realize that some of you will feel a sense of Déjà vu, since it is almost similar to my last KL trip in Oct. I stayed at the same hotel, visited the same restaurant etc. Looked like I really need to start looking for a new place to stay and/or visit new places. Anyone with recommendations please email me or leave a comment, thanks in advance!

 

In the beginning of 2013, I was traveling quite frequently to KL as we were trying to close a major deal with one of the companies. Though I was traveling there on almost a monthly basis, I did 2 trips within the month of March: one which I stayed for 2D1N while the other was a day trip. As usual, breakfast at my cozy corner in the airport before heading to DFS to check out some items for Leecher. 

Even though it was a 2D1N trip, I'll always check in my luggage cuz I don't wanna drag my luggage all over the airport #lazybum. In this entry, you will see pic taken from 3 sources - my blackberry, iphone and camera.  

 

Rows of luggage waiting to be picked up. I suppose their owners must still be shopping at DFS, heh. 

 

Nope ~ even though I checked in my luggage, I don't need the trolley. 

  

Trusty 2 bags for my laptop and barang barang. Coincidentally, both were in different shades of pink :)
 

Checked into Shangri-La once again & was disappointed to know that they have only twin rooms available :( Well, I shall make do with what they have since I'm only staying for the night.
 

Street view from my room. No twin tower view though.   

 

The essentials in my bag :) I'm still waiting for the day where company will provide us with iphones instead of blackberry so I'll have one less item in my bag.  

Shangri La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur

11, Jalan Sultan Ismail

50250, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tel: +603 2032 2388

 

Dinner @ Shang Palace, together with Eric. No pics of food as both my camera + iphone batt decided to die on me at the same time, lol!    

Shang Palace

Level 1 (Shangri-La Hotel, KL)

Opening Hours: 12pm till 2.30pm (Lunch, Mon - Sat), 10.30am till 2.30pm (Lunch, Sun & Public Holidays), 6.30pm till 10.30pm (Dinner, daily) 

Tel: +603 2074 3904

 

Checking out early morning before heading down for breakfast. Both Eric and I had meetings with different clients planned in the morning, so we arranged to meet back at the hotel before heading to the airport later in the afternoon.

 

 I finished my meeting earlier, so I went to the lounge for a quick lunch while waiting for Eric to be back from meeting. These set of pics (in the lounge) were all taken using Blackberry, but the colours don't look vibrant as compared to the other cameras.

My lunch: chicken rice with a pot of jasmine tea :)

Lobby Lounge

Lobby level (Shangri-La Hotel, KL)

Opening Hours: 9am till 1am (daily)

Tel: +603 2074 3900

 

A long queue at the check-in counter which we weren't expecting. Thankfully, it moved rather fast & Eric had time to grab his lunch before we flew back to Singapore. I realised that I'm churning out more KL entries as compared to BKK, but it is not helping me much on my air miles, haha!

VW Golf Cabriolet

Leecher came home with a new toy one night (^^) Nah, we didn't get a new car - this was actually a replacement car for Jet since he was stuck in the VW workshop for routine servicing. We were all pretty excited at getting the cabriolet, so we decided to take it for a spin + take pics the following day :) 

 

Inside the car with the top still up. Hey, it's not that often that we get to drive a cabriolet ... so of cuz must drive with the top down to feel the wind in your face :)  

 

 Having fun with the top down was sure fun!

 Leecher clearly enjoyed this car, terming it as his fun car. Even though the specifications/horsepower for Golf Cabriolet is the same as Jet, Leecher somehow felt that drive on the carbriolet is smoother as compared to Jet.

I have not been driving for a very long time even though Leecher has been "forcing" me to take over the wheels again. While some people feel driving relaxes their mind, I'm one of the few that feel extremely stressful while on the roads. I would much prefer to be Leecher's GPS on the passenger seat, lol.

Leecher claimed that I'm biased towards the cabriolet for we didn't even took Jet out for a photoshoot when we first bought him, haha! After having the replacement car for 4 days, I was starting to miss Jet. For our practical usage, Jet was a more suitable candidate even though I don't deny that Golf Cabriolet has its strengths too (",)

Teppei Japanese Restaurant

 

With a min 4 months wait for a table @ Teppei, we were extremely lucky to nab seats when BFF's friend had seats to give up! I've heard raves about Teppei, especially their omakase sets, which they are popular for. Omakase (お任せ) is a Japanese phrase meaning "I'll leave it to you", so the chef will select what he wants to prepare/present to the audience. The cosy restaurant sits around 20 pax, with 2 seatings for dinner ~ the earlier seating starts at 6.30pm, while the later one starts at 8.30pm.

with BFF! We walked all the way from our offices to Teppei, working off those fats to gear up for a scrumptious meal.
 

A large pint of beer to go with food. Their omakase sets range from $50, $60, $80 and $100. Once we sat down at our seats, the servers will come around taking orders for your omakase. If you don't take raw food/beef/shell fish etc, do let the servers know so alternatives can be arranged. We ordered the $80 set which includes wagyu beef, haha! 

 

Introducing Chef Yamashita Teppei ~ engrossed in the food preparation. No wonder they say 认真的男人最有魅丽. Perhaps I should try to capture Leecher when he's making dinner next time, heh.

 

Counter seats where everyone gets to witness the live preparation of food. Honestly, I wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of dishes that Chef Teppei has prepared for us. I only remembered I ate non-stop from the time I sat down.

 

First up, we had salad with Japanese dressing served with fish cake. As regular readers would know that I'm not fond of my greens - however, the japanese dressing whet my appetite. Unlike my fave thousand island dressing, the dressing was light and flavourful. Radish and edamame were both delish, much to my surprise. Since Chef Teppei scored points (with me) on the items-that-I-usually-avoid, I was looking forward to see what tricks he got next :)  

 

Nv ending preparation. While he focused on his work, he still took time to chat & joke along with the patrons.

Sashimi plate, my fave :) Every slice was so fresh that it literally melt in my mouth. I wished there were seconds for this! How do you usually eat your sashimi? I'll normally head for any item, while saving salmon (my fave) for the last :) 

 

I remembered we had a tuna handroll, but most of my pics turned out blurry :( This is the only pic I have of Chef Teppei deep in concentration preparing for tuna handroll.

 Chawanmushi & fresh oyster with miso chilli. The trick is to slurp the oyster together with the small dab of miso chilli at the side, yums!
 
We are forever eating on every meet up, lol! 
 
 Looking very much like braised meat, I bit into it only to realise that it was actually saba fish! 
 
Once again, I was tricked into thinking that this was sweet potato only to realise that it was eggplant tempura.
 

Shellfish which Chef Teppei claimed it was "fresh from Sentosa", bringing laughter to us. Homemade beancurd skin and uni was so-so in my opinion. The colourful bits were purely for decoration much to our disappointment. 

 
Our stomach were only operating at 60% capacity thus far, lol! 

We were kept busy taking pics dish after dish #thewoesofbeingablogger, haha!

  Break time for pictures, lol! 
 
Another item ready to be served! 
 

 Tempura fish which I was hopping it will be prawn :( The fish was well-fried, but there were countless of tiny bones inside which made eating a hassle. On the other hand, cheese with salted egg yolk, pitan and sesame was good, haha! One of the mini surprises of the night. 

 Smoked radish served on satay stick ... one mouth and its gone!

  

Dumpling soup

 
The highlight ~ wagyu beef! Too small a portion but delicious nevertheless. Almost everyone on the table got excited when we saw the assistant chef taking out the beef, lol!
 
The main course is the last to appear & you get to pick from the selected range of fried rice with sunny side egg (spicy), sashimi rice, soba (hot/cold) and udon (hot/cold).  
I went with fried rice with sunny side egg & I was blown away by the portion. At  this point, my stomach was bursting and I had to remove my belt, lol!  
 
Both BFF & Leecher went for sashimi rice, which seemed more manageable. I shouldn't be so greedy next time. 
  
We each got a scope of ice cream for dessert. The range consisted of  calpis, durian, green tea, sesame and walnut. I still prefer green tea ice cream over everything else.

The end of the first seating at 8.15pm. The chef bid us farewell while he rewarded himself with a can of beer from the fridge.

The diners who have arrived for 2nd seating.
  

The beauty of omakase means I won't know exactly what I'm eating. It all boils down to the chef 's creativity, translating his thoughts into cuisines. We were extremely bloated from all the delicious food that we had to take a walk before heading home :) Wonderful experience & I hope to plan a trip back soon!

Teppei Japanese Restaurant

1 Tras Link, Orchid Hotel

Singapore 078867

Tel: 9229 4941