Happy New Year - 2010

Time always went past so fast without us realising that it is time for another brand new year again. Today is the 1st day of 2010, a lot of thoughts in my mind and I am really thankful that God has preserves me and my family through out a wonderful and blessed year. While scrolling through my blog posts, I feel so satisfied that even being a full-time working mum, I am still able to catch up with my hobby in blogging and at the same time, prepared all these dishes and bakes for my love ones.

I am also thankful to all my blog readers and sincerely appreciate for your dropping by, comments and supports in my blogs. Without all your supports, Cuisine Paradise will not be able to accomplish such a great achievement in year 2009 to win the BEST FOOD BLOG award which is organised by OMY(omy.com.sg). And with the winning of this award, I am also given a chance to have my very first interview being broadcast on Air with Daniel Ang from FM100.3.

Another Major accomplishment for Cuisine Paradise in 2009 is to be able to have my very own recipes being published bi-monthly in a local parenting magazine called "Parents World". So far, my recipes had being published in 5 issues....... Thanks to Daniel, the editor who gave me such a opportunity to fulfil my dream.... I hope that I might be able to do better in contributing some interesting recipes for the readers......

Finally, before sharing with you some of my personal picks on what I have done in 2009....... Let me send my best and sincerely wishes to each and everyone of you out there that reads and supports Cuisine Paradise a HAPPY & WONDERFUL NEW YEAR ahead and may this 2010 be a great and prosper year for all of you.........

Soup!!! These are the main things that I will cook no matter how busy I am. Even without any proper dishes, we can just have a bowl of homecook soup together with steam rice. I personally believed nothing can compare to a bowl of homecook soup that is full of love and nutrition in it. So if you are interested to know more about the soup that I cook for my family, click HERE for more ideas.....

If I have the time, I love to try out different type of cuisine with different interesting ingredients. And most of all, I love to garnish my dishes with "COLOUR". As frequent readers of my blogs, you will notice that, I love to present my dish in a colourful layout. The reason for this might be partly because of the photo taking but most important factor is, I feel that proper presentation is very important. When you look at the food menu, you will definitely order something that looks good rather than something that looks simple. And with a kid at home, I find that by in-cooperating different colours in the dish, it actually catches their attention and this make it easier for the kid to eat all kind of food by their attractive colours. Interested in any dish? Click HERE for the recipe index :)

2009 is not a baking year for me, as I am working full time, I don't really have much spare time to do baking with my boy like what we used to have when he was a toddler. But on a off, during special occasion or when my boy is craving for his favourite Chocolate cake, muffins or cookies, I will still find time to bake something with him. Baking is always a great bonding time for both of us, as he will help me with the ingredients and preparation then finally he will wait by the oven side for the goodies to be bake while I do the washing up.

In 2009, I am also in the trend of making Kid's Bento. With some great inspiration from my bento pals like Amy(motheringcorner), Susan(Hawaii Bento), I started to collect all kinds of BENTO TOOLS and come up with some of my very own Bento for my kid. Above are some of my favourite Bento that I have made so far...... You can take a look HERE for more ideas too....... Some of my bento were also feature in the magazine together with Rey in May/June Issue.

In 2009, I also add in another new blog-site to Cuisine Paradise known as "Shop, Eat & Travel", where I post some of the food reviews on the stalls/places that we patronise and as well as some places of interest in Singapore such as Dairy Farm Park, Marina Barrage, Bottle Tree Park and etc where you can bring your kids along and have a great family outing. With so many different content of sub-blogs in Cuisine Paradise, I hope that I can have more time to update every blog-site regularly and share more interesting recipes/information with all the readers here.

Lastly, this is my favourite dish that I have done in 2009. Durian Fried Rice is always one of the dish that I wanted to try it out at home. I have heard about this dish serving in one of the Hong Kong Style Cafe in Singapore. From the food review that I have read from google search, this is actually a fried rice dish that consists of some prawns, egg and durian flesh. So I guess you can imagine the taste of a mixture of savoury and sweet combination. For me, since as a little kid, I love to eat durian with steam rice from the influence of my late father, so this an interesting venture for me to try out this dish during the durian season. So if you have tried this dish before and you are interesting to give it a try a home, or maybe you would like to take a look at some of the Durian recipes that I have post.

B.B.Q Chicken Wing @ Sembawang

Along Sembawang Road after the Chong Pang Camp, you will find an range of eateries opposite the newly renovated Sembawang Shopping Center. The formerly Yishun Seafood Village has now being take over by S11 Coffee Shop and within the coffee shop itself, you can find a lot of yummy local Singapore food like Satay, Fried Hokkian Mee, BBQ Stingray and etc.

In the S11 coffee shop, it will not be hard for you to notice the stall that is selling BBQ Chicken Wing and Spring Chicken. The stall is always crowded with people queuing up with orders and they also accept bulk orders for gathering or BBQ function.

Look at the colour of their BBQ Chicken Wings, isn't it look great. The wings are evenly cooked through and it taste great and fragrance with the seasoning. These wings are also serve with their special made chilli sauce which add extra flavour to the taste. Each wing is sold at S$1.30 each and the stall opens till 1am might night or while the food last.

Buckaroo BBQ & Grill

Time flies fast, today 31st December marks the last day of year 2009 and almost everyone is preparing for the countdown to welcome another brand new head start of the year 2010. In order to avoid the New Year crowds, we decided to have our celebration dinner one day ahead. Since we prefer to eat at somewhere nearer instead of going to the town, we decided to settle our dinner at Buckaroo BBQ and Grill.

Had about this place a few years back when my mum used to patronise their food with her boss and colleagues. Buckaroo is sort of a typical American restaurant that is located at Andrews Avenue near Sembawang Park. You can take Bus No. 882 from Sembawang Bus Interchange which you can drop at the bus-stop near Sembawang Park around 1st Car park Entrance. They opens from Wednesday to Monday from 4.30pm to 10.30pm.

Since they have a very good reviews from magazine and media on their special Buffalo Wings, we decide to get it a try too. Base on the recommendation of the waiter, we order half dozen of Grade 2 spiciness wings with 1 normal for the kid. According to the menu, they have 3 different level of spiciness for their Buffalo Wings. For your information, Buffalo wings are often fried chicken wings that are coated with special sauce. This sauce can be made with a variable amount of spiciness corresponding to the level of heat, such as mild, medium, or hot. The main ingredients in the sauce are a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and butter.

This is the Grade 1 Buffalo Wing which does not have any sauce coated onto it. The outer skin of the wing is very crispy and overall the chicken is very well marinated with the herbs and spices. From what we see, we guess that the different between each Grade of spiciness might be due to how much sauce the wings have being coated with. Which means, the more sauce, the more spiciness it is. The price of this Buffalo Wings might be slight higher at S$18.80 for half a dozen which mean around $3 per wing, but if this suits your tastebud, I am sure it will be worth for the cost.

Look at this, isn't it gorgeous! It has always being in our thoughts to try Escargot after our last taste many years back. And so happening, when we saw this appetizer appears on the menu list, we decided to order without much hesitate. To our delight, this appetizer is great with the combination of butter garlic sauce and addition herbs and mashed potato. This is indeed worth the price of S$16.80 for half a dozen.

After the appetizer and finger food, here comes our Main Course for tonight. We are having this Medium Well done Beef Tenderloin with Mushroom Sauce that served with Bake Potato and Mixed Vegetables. The Tenderloin is juicy and nicely done to our liking and it really taste great with the Mushroom Sauce which infuse with a little buttery taste when you eat it.

Afterall, we think the food served in this restuarant is of their standard depending on what you ordered and what is your preference of liking. If you want to find a new and cosy place for gathering, drinks and maybe have a try of those Buffalo Wings. Maybe you can give this place a try, but the price of the food and drinks might be a bit towards the higher side even though it is not a High class restuarant. So do take note when you place your order :)

Ichiban Sushi @ Plaza Singapura

Ichiban Sushi has a about 8 branches around different parts of Singapore. They provide fresh sashimi, sushi from Nigiri, Temaki handroll to the unusual Kaminabe paper steamboat, hot-pots and other palatable varieties that sure to capture the tastebubs of you and your family members/friends.

Since it is during lunch hour, I ordered one of their lunch special called "Nikotofu Gozen" at S$16.90 per set. This set consists of Beet & Tofu in Hotpot, Teriyaki (Honey Sesame) Chicken Don, Assorted Seafood Tempura, a bowl of Miso soup and slice fruits.

Their Teriyaki Chicken Don that comes with the above set taste great and the chicken is not overcooked and too dry when consumed. The teriyaki sauce is goes well with the rice and it's not too sweet/salty.

The Beef & Tofu hotpot is being cooking in flavourful broth with tender beef slices, tofu and egg. The mixture is being cooked over a small flame below the hotpot and the dish is kept hot to maintain it's flavour. Em... but personally, I find the broth a bit too salty if it is to eat alone without the rice.

Lastly we choose this for our dessert...... I remember clearly during my late teens to early twenties, Fiesta is one of the early pioneer Japanese restaurants established in 1991 that introducing sushi on conveyor belt. As most of my classmate and I are a big fan of their Fiesta cheesecake we will always get together to patronise their restaurant to eat their cheesecake. And today, Rey and I are so happy to see the new version of this "Mini Fiesta" Cheesecake which is fluffy and light to it's taste and it is available on Ichiban Sushi conveyor belt @ S$2.10 each.