American Idol - I can't believe David Cook won!!!

It's a travesty!!!! What's up with the American public??? Is this like payback time from the American public, a sort of sympathy vote, for not making Chris Daughtry the American Idol in the past????

Don't get me wrong. I was a HUGE fan of David Cook. I loved his Billie Jean, and even that Mariah Carey one...he was fresh, and definitely talented and skilled. But c'mon....his last few performances weren't all that great!! It sounded like he was more into screaming and hiding his inability to hit the right pitch!! And even during the producer's choice, his rendition of Aerosmith's "I don't want to miss a thing" was just...empty...

In the earlier performances, I actually didn't quite like David Archuleta!! I thought he was a bit too wet behind the ears despite the great voice and was just sticking on cause of the teenybopper vote. But I must say I was wrong...David Archuleta did really really really well in the later performances and for the last two performances, I thought he did MUCH better than David Cook.

So what gives, people??!!!!! Is is just me??!!!! *sighz*

Hong Kong Fun!

My flight to Hong Kong was at 9.30 am. At an airport an hour away from my home. Take into consideration the need to check in approximately 2.5 hours before the flight, and my need to take loooooonggg showers in the morning to be reasonably presentable to civilisation, and I found myself up by 5.30 am in the morning. Not exactly the most perfect start, especially since I am of the nocturnal kind and not really a morning person :P As we were travelling business (courtesy of my company - yay!) our moods improved slightly once we were ensconsed in the new airport lounge to wait. And eat :D And drink coffee - VERY IMPORTANT for nocturnal bunnies :D

Got into Hong Kong and was greeted by absolutely perfect weather! Which held all throughout our weeklong stay! 22 deg to 29 deg celcius with no hint of humidity..hehehe... First day was May 12 which was a public holiday in Hong Kong (no work for me! double yay!) so we just took things easy and went exploring round our hotel. It looked like a chateau in the 17th century, and was filled with all things Disney-esque. And it had like a Mickey maze in the gardens!! Extremely cute :)

And then, after we had our fill of playing around in the gardens, we went off to Tsim Tsa Chui to meet Pat and Kelvin for dinner. They took us to this place called Chau Inn in One Peking (+852 2369 8819), and it was high high high up with lovely views of Hong Kong Island, perfect for watching the laser shows at 8 pm :D We had Teochew goose, and Teochew oysters in eggs and some noodle thingy and oohhh......soft fluffy mantaus....And Kelvin kept pouring beer down our throats hence the very red looking us :D A really nice place for a simple dinner with friends... I think this is going to be one of our new favourites in Hong Kong!

The next morning, before I went off for a looong day of work, woke up really early to eat brekkie with Mickey and Daisy Duck and Goofy and Pluto! OK, it was a really expensive brekkie at approximately HKD165 per person ( and that already discounted for Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel guests!), but hubs and I will do anything for Mickey Mouse shaped waffles :D

Well, the rest of the week, daytime rapidly became a blur of lots of power point, visio graphs, breakout sessions, and lotsa discussions with the rest of the bean counters from Asia Pac all gathered for power sessions rather incongrously in the "Sleeping Beauty Room" ...muaahhahahah..... On the other hand, without me, hubs perfected his self-camwhoring techniques :D

We did have time together at night to go:

1. Eat street food and dessert in Mong Kok. Dessert was especially good!!! Hubs ordered a mango pomelo thingy, and later, Pat told us it's like the most popular dessert place in Hong Kong! See what you can just stumble upon walking round :D Anywayz, go try for youselves - Hui Lau Shan - they have branches everywhere, including the arrival hall in the Hong Kong airport (where, of course, hubs had to go to before we departed Hong Kong!!)

2. Meet bro-in-law, who was coincidentally in Hong Kong for a meeting too! We had the roast duck at Yung Kee, Wellington Street. Yung Kee is one of those very hyped about restaurants in Hong Kong, famous for its roast goose. Granted, the roast goose is really good, but in my humble opinion, it's a bit overrated - the rest of the stuff there isn't very nice, and is quite pricy. Still, if you're intending to go there, make sure you get reservations cause the restaurant is always packed, and we waited like half an hour for a table there :P

3. Went back to Water Margin, Causeway Bay with hubs and Pat! Causeway Bay and Pacific Place, Admiralty hold a special place in my heart, cause I used to stay extensively in Hong Kong previously (like 1 - 2 months a time) and I used to stay either at Excelsior Hotel in Causeway Bay (for long attachements) and Mariott in Pacific Place (for short attachments up to a week or so). And everytime I was there, after work was over, I'd just happily go shopping in Causeway Bay or in Pacific Place...and those places, especially Causeway Bay, just didn't go to sleep!! I remember walking the streets at midnight, looking at some street vendor stuff, and I was a lone female traveller which gives you an idea of how safe those areas are!! And Water Margin, Causeway Bay was one of my favouritest restaurants!!! I used to go there to gorge at least once a week!!! My "must order dishes" are the deep fried chicken in chillli peppers, the salted egg tofu (although this round, when we ordered the same, it tasted a bit different - braised this time instead of fried, and a more subtle salted egg taste), and just a simple veggie dish. I'm not a fan of mutton/lamb, but my colleagues raved about the deboned crispy lamb the last few times we ate there, so I had to have hubs and Pat try. And yes, they raved about it too!!! Truly, I love this place!!!! It is a bit pricy, about the same price range as Yung Kee, but in my opinion, the food here is much better (barring the roast goose, of course!!). Anywayz, if you want to try it, it's easy to find - 12th floor of Times Square, Causeway Bay...

And....yes, we did manage to get into Disneyland :D Hubs went in first on his own (cause I had to work!) then at 4 pm, work was called off early so we could all go into the park and play and then watch the fireworks and eat dinner... This was my second time in Hong Kong Disneyland, the first being more of a baby-sitting exercise for my neices. The park IS small, tiny, if you compare it against other Disneylands, but this time around, I had scads of fun - the 4D show is really good, actually all the shows are really good :) Fast rides aren't my thing, and in HK Disneyland, you only have Space Mountain to satisfy your need for thrills - I didn't go (once in my lifetime was enough for me!) and hubs went like 25+ times :P Fireworks were really really magical, with everybody just going ooohhhhhh.....And dinner was at Park Inn, a Maxim's restaurant inside HK Disneyland itself. Maxim's is this food chain in Hong Kong that's like touted to be really good, but again, I've had some not so good experiences in some of its restaurants, so I didn't have high expectations. But when the dinner began, I was oh so pleasantly surprised! I had the BEST ever beef ribs in sweet sour sauce that just melted in my mouth!! Veggies covered in conpoy (dried scallops) which were SO flavourful! More veggies, this time with fresh scallops which were amazingly crunchy and sweet! Suckling pig which was crisp and not fatty!!! oh, I could go on and on and on...No pics cause I was too busy eating :)

I also managed to conquer my fear of heights and try the Ngong Ping 360 cable car ride. This ride spans several mountain tops and at times, you go over the sea which is a little alarming (for me anyway!) At the end of it, you walk to the Lantau Island Big Buddha who sits perched on top of the mountain. At the other end, at Tung Chung MTR station, there's this huge outlet mall called Citigate. This is retail therapy at its best, really :) There's like Esprit, Giordano, A/X, Nike, Adidas, Folli Follie, even Agatha!! And as it's so close to the airport, you can even schedule a trip there before your flight :D

A week sounds a long time, but in Hong Kong, time flies oh so fast! It's a really exciting, fast paced city, and I'm already getting HK withdrawal symptoms now....I can't wait for my next trip back!!

Hong Kong...

So much for plans. Last week, I was stuck frantically preparing for a workshop in Hong Kong - it was sheer powerpoint and visio hell - imagine digesting like 200+ workflows complete with detailed narratives in a few days. So not fun.

Anywayz, after all that, am now in Hong Kong for the conference all that work was for. I'm currently blogging from the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, and I'm due back tomorrow.

It's been a fun trip, and it's great to be working with a bunch of people who know how to work hard and play hard :)

Tell you guys more later!!!!

Bread and butter pudding recipe, anyone?

I've got a bad habit. An utterly, utterly terrible habit.

I love fresh bread, my favourite is the white Gardenia loaf. But it has to be absolutely fresh. So since I'm the only carbohydrate addict in the house, I will happily buy my one loaf of white Gardenia bread. And eat it. All on my lonesome. I eat and eat and eat slices of it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, BUT since its on my lonesome, after 3 days, I would still not have finished the entire loaf. But it's still good bread, just not very fresh and soft anymore. And this is where my bad habit kicks in - I stealthily try to feed hubs the remainder, but more often than not, he refuses to bite :P If he doesn't eat extremely fresh bread, then my chances of him eating not so fresh bread is pretty low :P So I go on to option 2 : hiding the remainder in the freezer.

Well, last weekend, my bad habit caught up with me. I was trying to stuff some frozen goods into my freezer, just to find that it was chock-a-block with gardenia bread wrappers containing 3 slices each :P *whistles innocently - hmMMmmm I wonder where THOSE came from....*

So in the spirit of waste not, want not, my project for the weekend is to get rid of my bread in the freezer. And I figured that the easiest thing is to make a bread and butter pudding. I have nice nostalgic memories of warm bread and butter pudding, with a vanilla custard sauce. Very old school, comfort food-ish memories :D What more could leftover bread aspire to be?

Anywayz, I found a Nigella Lawson recipe that sounds pretty good, but I would love to hear from you if you think your bread and butter pudding sounds a lot better. By this weekend, please, cause really, all that bread needs to go :D

Bread and Butter Pudding by Nigella Lawson

3/4 stick unsalted butter
Half cup sultanas or raisins
3 tablespoons dark rum
10 slices brown bread (I'm going to substitute with my leftover white bread)
approx. 10 tablespoons ginger conserve or marmalade (I'm planning to substitute with cherry jam - unfinished bottle in the fridge)
4 egg yolks
1 egg
3 tablespoons sugar
2 cups heavy cream
three quarters cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons Demerara or turbinado sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Grease a pudding dish with a capacity of about 6 cups with some of the butter.
3. Put the sultanas or raisins in a small bowl, pour the rum over, and microwave them for 1 minute, then leave them to stand. This is a good way to soak them quickly but juicily.
4. Make sandwiches with the brown bread, butter and jam (2 tablespoonfuls in each sandwich); you should have some butter left over to smear on the top later. Now cut the sandwiches in half into triangles and arrange them evenly along the middle of the pudding dish. I put one in the dish with the point of the sandwich upwards then one with flat-side uppermost, then with point-side uppermost and so on, then squeeze a sandwich-triangle down each side – but you do as you please. Sprinkle over the sultanas and unabsorbed rum that remains in the bowl.
5. Whisk the egg yolks and egg together with the sugar, and pour in the cream and milk. Pour this over the triangles of bread and leave them to soak up the liquid for about 10 minutes, by which time the pudding is ready to go into the oven.
6. Smear the bread crusts that are poking out of the custard with the soft butter, mix the ground ginger and Demerara or turbinado sugar together and sprinkle this mixture on your buttered crusts and then lightly over the rest of the pudding.
7. Sit the pudding dish on a baking sheet and put in the oven to cook for about 45 minutes or until the custard has set and puffed up slightly. Remove, let sit for 10 minutes – by which time the puffiness will have deflated somewhat – and spoon out into bowls, putting a jug of custard, should you so wish, on the table to be served alongside.

Basil Pork - Moo Pad Kra Pow

Another lazy day recipe from me (moo = pork pad = fried kra pow = basil - free thai lesson for you...). Perfect for when I'm too knackered out, or when there's the latest American Idol episode showing :) Used some minced pork which I had in the freezer, added lots of cloves of garlic, went to gather some basil and fresh chillies from the garden, took some leftover chilli flakes from the fridge for added spice, 1 green capsicum just because, a splash of fish sauce, a splash of soy sauce and voila! Dinner is ready...

You can substitute the pork with sliced or coarsely minced chicken. And most thai restaurants will plonk on a sunny-side egg on top of this.

Basil Pork - Moo Pad Kra Pow

1 lb pork mince

3 handfuls fresh basil, whole leaves only discard stems (Thai Holy Basil is the best but if you don't have it, use any basil)

2 tablespoons fish sauce

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

2 chillies, finely sliced

3 shallots, diced

6 cloves garlic, chopped

1 green capsicum, diced

2 tablespoons chilli flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

Vegetable oil to fry

1. Heat wok, add oil and heat til hot.

2. Fry garlic and shallots until fragrant.

3. Add the pork and stir fry til it's almost cooked.

4. Add the soy sauce, fish sauce, chopped chillies, chopped capsicum and fresh basil. Add the chilli flakes, salt and pepper to taste.

5. Serve with rice. And with a fried sunny side up egg on top to be completely authentic. Enjoy the rest of your night :)