Pizza Hut @ Causeway Point

Today we are having our dinner at Pizza Hut as Rey suggests that he would like to have pizza tonight. As usual, we arrived at the nearest Pizza Hut outlet near our area which is location at level 1 of Causeway Point Shopping Mall, just beside John Little Department Store.

While looking at the menu, we are caught up by this great promotion which cost S$11.90 for a 5 course delights which included starter, soup of the day, choice of your main course(pizza, pasta or bake rice), beverage of your choice and dessert of the day..... So without further delay we start off with our order......

The Soup of the Day is one of my favourite which is "Cream of Mushroom". At least this does not taste like those "Instant" soup or so, you still can see generous slices of Mushroom in it. Overall we are still satisfy with the taste of the soup, but if they comes with a slice or two of garlic bread for dipping it will be even better :)

We ordered two sets of the 5 course deal and one of the main course is this Chicken Pomodoro. I have heard and read a lot of good review of their new pasta range, so we decided to get something new from the menu. Chicken Pomodoro is made up with Olive, freshly made tomato sauce/diced tomato with Italian herb like Basil. Overall this is a very refreshing dish and we love their pasta sauce which taste just nice for us.

From the menu, they suppose to give us the CrissCross Fries but according to the staff who takes our order, she told us that it had being replace by the Starry Munchies which is the star-shaped hash browns fried to golden perfection. Rey loves this, as it comes with a crispy outer skin and he ate one portion of the two servings.

Other than the Chicken Pomodoro Pasta, we also ordered one of our all-time favourite which is the "Hawaiian Pizza" that spread with succulent chicken ham and juicy pineapple chunks. Although the flavour it still the same as before, but I think we didn't specify that we prefer a thin crust base so in the end the pizza that served to us was those soft and fluffy texture which we don't really fancy.

After an hour of so of waiting and eating, we finally finished our dinner and now it's time for our dessert. I guess that day was pretty crowded in the restaurant and we waited roughly about 20 minutes for our "Ice cream". In the end I still have to approach 3 different waitress before the dessert is finally being served to us.

Birthday Treat @ Sakae Sushi Part II

Today's lunch was a very special treat because Rey had being looking forward for it for a long long time. He has being talking about having SAKAE sushi with his best Facebook playmate.... "Ah Pooh" since the 1st day she return to Singapore. Joyce is a very good friend, sister and listener of mine thru MSN and facebook for the past two years while she was away in Australia :) And with similar tastebuds as us, she is also one of the Sakae sushi fan.....and she loves the raw Salmon slices ...just the way I do.....

But today's lunch treat, we have special mission.... Joyce was curious on how I take my photo shots before the meal and what are the angles that I will snap and etc... So this lunch was actually a very interesting and meaningful treat. Secondly it also meant for us to have an early celebration for my coming birthday in Mid January.... :p

Other than taking the usual items that we like, we also ordered 3 special items that we are going to try and share with the readers. First to arrive on the table is the"Beancurd Roll" shown on the first photo on top, but we are kind of shock with the dish. Because it seems rather different from what we saw from the menu which is something shown on the sakae photo above. As you can see from the Sakae photo, the white portion(seems like the doufu) is thicker and it clean and crispy on the outlook rather than the black sauce that drizzle on our serving....... Although the sauce taste quite nice, but it is sort of contradict to the photo shown on the menu which might be a bit misleading....

While flipping through the ordering menu, J & I decided to ordered this "Tempura With Yuzu Soba" which we find it worth the price of S$13.99 which consists generous amount of cold Yuzu Soba, a plate of assorted Tempura Moriawase. When we are busying taking photo shots of this dish, we are kind of caught off with what is the purpose of that little quail egg. Since we have not come across using this egg in any soba dish that we have tried before, we decided to approached the store manager for help. And she was very kind enough to explain to us that the egg is to be crack into the soba dipping sauce and eat together with the noodles. So at least in the end we knew that it is the same as what we thought it is used for :)

The Yuzu Soba taste great with it's QQ texture and a light "Yuzu" fragrant when you chew in your mouth. And this sure goes well with the deep-fry Tempura Moriawase.

Cabbage Roll is another dish that we ordered from the Veggie Delights section. Em... seems like today most of the items are from the Veggie section :p From what I remember, this used to be a similar Chinese dish where they wrapped the meat mixture (minced meat & prawn with some chopped carrot, water chestnuts and etc) with blanched Cabbage, steam it over medium heat till the meat is done, then drizzle some oyster sauce gravy on top of it.

The one that we have today is quite similar to the type I mention above, but the different is the one that served at Sakae is more of mixed vegetables filling such as Shittake Mushroom, Carrot and Enokitake Mushroom.

As for dessert, Joyce prefer something cold and sweet so she decided to go for the Peach Mochi Ice Cream. Em.... so far I have tried all flavour of Mochi Ice Cream except this peach flavour but personally I still prefer the Lychee flavour which is more fragrant.... em... wonder will Sakae bring in some DURIAN flavour... :p

A Glimpse @ Marina Bay Sands

Today we take our 2nd visit to the Marina Barrage from our way back from lunch in town. Since Grandma has not being to the Barrage before, we decided to make a trip over there so that she can take a look as the place as well as enjoying the beautiful scenery there. During our 1st visit last year, we didn't managed to get to this Water Park area where the kids and adults will be enjoying themselves with the cooling water......

Today's weather is much more better than the our revious trip. Although sun was shining bright and scotching, but thank God it is still a very windy day where you can see a lot of people flying all sort of kites at the roof top area. One that caught our attention is a "BIG BLUE SHARK"....but too big even though I zoom in to take the shot still can't take a close look of it....

From the roof top of the Barrage viewing deck area, you can take a better look at the almost completed "Marina Bay Sands - 滨海湾金沙综合娱乐城". This three cascading 55 storey hotel towers topped by an extraordinary sky park, ‘floating’ crystal pavilions, a lotus-inspired Museum, retail stores featuring cutting-edge labels and international luxury brands, trendy Celebrity Chef restaurants, endless of entertainment at the theaters and a Las Vegas-style casino is located along the Marina Bay waterfront. The expected completion date is roughly in the 2nd Quarter of 2010.

Steam Salmon Fillet With Herbs

Here is another Chinese New Year auspicious dish from Cuisine Paradise Kitchen. Despite of the Cod Fish that I always used, Salmon is another type of fish that is always on my shopping list. And since now is near to the Chinese New Year festive season, I think having something which is "BRIGHT" and "RED" will be a great presentation to impress our guests during Chinese New Year gathering...... So let me share with you my 2nd Chinese New Year "Fish" dish which I called it "鸿运当头" due to the colour of the salmon slices and herbs like red dates and wolfberries.

The idea of steaming salmon with Chinese Herbs came into my mind because I wanted to prepare something different using the salmon fillet that I bought. Instead of the usual pan-fry, bake with herbs or poaching.... I think maybe I can in-cooperate some Chinese Herbs to it and turn the Salmon into a Auspicious Chinese New Year dish.......... There are a few types of Salmon available in the supermarket or Japanese seafood stall, but usually those that we get from the local supermarket are the Norwegian Salmon which is sold in pre-packed of different parts of the salmon fillet from head to tail. No matter how you like to consume your salmon in a way from RAW to grill or poach, I am sure every different methods will brings up another level of taste in the salmon.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
1 Pieces of Boneless Salmon Fillet, abt 400g
10g Shredded Ginger
1 Stall of Spring Onion, cut into long section
4 Red Dates, soften and cut into halves
1/2 Teaspoon of Wolfberries
2 Slices of Dang Gui, break into smaller portion
Drizzle of Sesame Oil, optional

Method:
1. Rinse the Salmon fillet, pat dry and cut into slices and set aside.
2. Place some spring onion on a steaming plate, top with some Dang Gui slices and arrange the salmon slices on top of it.
3. Scatter the red dates and wolfberries evenly on the salmon slices then get ready a pot of boiling water for steaming.
4. While waiting for the water to boil, pre-heat a small frying pan with about 1 tablespoon of oil, sauté the shredded ginger till fragrant and golden brown, removed and set aside for garnish.
5. When the pot of water boils, place some saute ginger on top of the salmon slices, drizzle some ginger oil and scatter some extra chopped spring onion and steam it over medium heat for about 5 to 7 minutes depend on the thickness of the salmon slices.
6. Before severing, top with the remaining saute ginger and oil and try to scoop a few teaspoons of the fish gravy(after steaming the fish, there will be some water/sauce appears below the fish) over the fish in order to make it look more glossy and presentable.

Note:-
~ This dish is best to serve warm, just right after steaming or else the texture of the salmon slices will be tough and not smooth.

Finally, this is the end product of my "Steam Salmon Fillet with Herbs - 鸿运当头" which I hope those who consume this will have great Prosperity and luck in the coming year. If you are going to try out this dish, do let me know your feedback irregardless of good/bad :) Till then I will leave you with the two Chinese New Year Fish Dish that I have shared with you..... Will update more if I have any new ideas to share......