Jewel Cafe + Bar

So it's Friday. Hahah!
Exams just ended yesterday and I'm free from studying, well, just for the weekend only.
On Monday it's back to studying again. Felt kind of cheated that I don't have a week break in between. Damn.
But well, in the meanwhile I have every intention to spam watch movies on my computer, go out and have fun, and well, squeeze in a bit of exercising here and there, and of course food hunt!
Busy running around day for me today. Start from 6.30am with a cycle to ubi for driving before cycling down to serangoon to swim 20laps. And yes, sun tanning. Before it's another rush home to change and shower before going out to Singapore Expo for Food Fair 2013.
Insane eating within an hour. Left right centre, it's constant eating. One moment it's eating hot, next second, I'm drinking something cold, and oh there's coffee in front.
One thing to get is a stomach upset after this crazy eating session.
Next is another trip down to Ikea Tampines and I finally, finally bought my mirror pieces. Now I have a damn full length mirror in my room. And last stop is Giant.
I think I walked enough for a day. But still nope wasn't enough, mom send me out on an errand after we got home.
But hey, after making the errand, I finally saw my best buddy! Like after a year?!

Anyway, moving on to today's post. Yesterday night I met up with Skype for dinner for my post exam celebration and also before he goes for a weekend trip.

Reached there a little early and decided to do some random snapshot of the place.
After all, how often is it that I would walk by such a place right?
Some black and white pictures for nonsense effect. Yet to learn much about building portraits yet.

After he packed up from work, we headed down to the cafe just round the corner.
Wasn't sure what we are going to have, but for me, I'm up for dessert.
Kind of seemed like a trend that I go for dessert after exams.

Menu were presented to us in a clipboard style.
Cute layout I'll say.
The cafe is double floors, with about 10 tables to accommodate customers. Kind of had to choose the top floor instead, but didn't exactly had a window seat either.
But one thing I'm confidence of, it's a nice chill out place to relax after work with friends and simple good food to fill the stomach.

Skype ordered 'OMG' which is a burger served with salads and fries.
The burger consist of beef patty, bacon, luncheon meat, tomato, lettuce, cheese, egg and of course the bun.

For me, it's my dessert.
Of the dessert choices, it was between brownie and tiramisu.
And well, of course have to choose tiramisu right?
Unfortunately, I didn't find anything special about the tiramisu. Like I couldn't get much of a taste of rum inside and it wasn't a well layered dessert.
Still on a hunt for good dessert places and well, it's going to be an on-going hunt.

That's all for this post. Tomorrow I'm actually off to work, but just for three hours. Lol!
After that it's debating where to go and what to do in sg for the afternoon.
Maybe Labrador Park!


Jewel Cafe + Bar

129 Rangoon Road

Tel: 62989216

Tue - Thu: 09:00 - 22:00
Fri - Sat: 09:00 - 00:00
Sun: 09:00 - 22:00
 

Cookies?

Blah Blah Blah.
It's the start of the week and I'm having my Blacks.
No Monday blues for me, it's always black.
Just finished my first exam paper this morning and I wrote one section of the answer wrongly. Ultimate face-palm about it. It's like in the question there were part a, b and c. For for part b answer, I accidentally wrote it in part a. So at part b I kept wondering what else to write and I couldn't remember what to write for that part, so I kind of wrote only one sentence. T.T
And to think I wonder why my part a answer is kind of long. Major SIGH about it and well, just hope my lecturer who marks the paper see my horrible mistake and at least grant me some sort of pity marks for it. Hahah. I doubt so!

Moving on, I realize that places I want to go on Monday are always closed. My both dessert place and now my dim sum place. I am in agony.
Speaking of which, one of these days next week shall head down to Swee Choon to try their dim sum out. That's like on my food hunt list now.

Short post, then I'm back to studying again. Thursday my next paper, so that give me 2.5 days to study and practice the revision questions.

On Saturday morning, did a quite baking for brother.
He ordered from me 50 cookies for next week snacks. His logic? 10 cookie for everyday.
I have every intention to see him fatdie and grow fat.
Sacrifice my chocolate bears for this baking. Finally of some use for them, instead of looking at me each time I open the fridge and begging me to eat them.

It was a terrible terrible thing to do to them, but it had to be done.
Mass murder.
Off with their heads!

Though it kind of look like some bear funeral after that.
Damn. I'm sadistic.

So I mince them up into smaller pieces and use them instead of chocolate chips.
Was kind of hoping that they would look interesting on the cookies, I mean eating a cookie with a bear head staring back at you?
How often does that happen?

My gigantic ball of dough after I rolled it up.
And from the recipe that I was following, it is recommended to leave the dough overnight or at least in the fridge for an hour before baking to get the ingredients to be absorbed and good for baking later.
Silly me left it overnight instead, since by afternoon I wasn't in the mood to bake.

The next day...
My horror. My mistake.
The recipe said to take the dough out 10 minutes before baking!
And that's what I did... BUT, apparently even in Singapore humid ridiculous warm weather, my dough still refuse to be soft enough for me to roll them into balls.
Lesson learned, to take them out maybe an hour before baking instead.

Second thing the recipe advice me to do, roll them into tall towers.
I know I'm freaking short, and asking me to roll them into tall towers is like looking down on me. No link here but whatever.
So it is said that per roll needs about three tablespoon of dough to make it a nice big generous piece of cookie.
Unfortunately for me, I'm not generous, not to my brother at least, so my roll were only 1.5 tablespoon. Half of the supposed amount.
That way I can make more cookies and reach the quota of 50. Like DUHH!

And I got cheated.
Either that I really don't know how to bake cookies.
Those damn dough ball don't get flatten at all, like they were still freaking standing up tall even after 10 minutes inside the oven.
Annoyed, I use my spoon and flatten the instead. So that explains the cracks on each cookie.
I have no idea how hers flatten down so nicely in the picture, but then again, she doesn't show her baking process, only the end result.

Okay, they don't look any appetizing like at all.
Just passable only.
These cookies are with cream cheese frosting that I added inside, hence lighter in color and softer inside.

These flat cookies on the other hand, were from the second batch.
That's when I flatten the cookies first before putting them in, which I realize is also not a good idea 'cause they aren't as chewy and soft as the first batch. 
And these are the suppose chocolate chip cookies with the bear heads inside, but well, as you can see, no bear heads.
They got melted in the oven instead and blend in with the cookies.
So it's a trial and error experiment for me on Sunday morning, kind of my first time baking chewy soft cookies.

Anyway I followed the recipe from this blog but again with some modification of my own. I did try to follow every step except for putting chocolaete chunks and the butter part.
So well, it kind of didn't turn out as how her pictures are.
Disappointed in that area, hence the appearance part look horrible. 

So I managed to reach my quota of 50 and with a few leftover.
Maybe next week or something, I want to attempt to bake peanut butter cheesecake.
A dear boy introduced me to this awesome cheesecake place in East Coast and now I'm super tempted to attempt to bake that. And hey, when you got the motivation to bake for someone, the more you want to attempt to bake it right?

Wimbly Lu

Sometimes it rain on us when we least expect it.
And that's what happened this random evening when I'm about to head out.
Made an appointment with my awesome friend to finally, FINALLY, go to Wimbly Lu for dessert.
My gosh, I have been arching, wanting, 'desperating' to go to this dessert place for ages and till now I haven't step in.
To think it's that near to my place as well, but nope I just haven't made any effort to go there for afternoon dessert.
This week needed chocolate therapy from my studying so there it is, my perfect opportunity to head down, put myself on a guilt-free dessert eating and be happy.
After all, (dark) chocolate have anti-oxidant which is good. And in desperate times like this, you need chocolate.

So at 2.45pm, I message Shermin and told her I'm leaving home now, to see her outside our destination.
And literally I reached there within my scheduled time.
But moments later, it started to drizzle, rain, shower, thunder, lightning, tornado. Okay, exaggeration much, but you get the point.
And my freaking bike is suffering in the rain.

Moving on.
Their menu is already on the table so you're pretty much always staring at it. There's just no way you can not look at it the whole time you're inside the cafe.
Didn't really know what to order though, since it's my first virgin time inside the cafe.
Don't mind the cream cheese container in the picture, brought egg tarts for Shermin and I chose to put it inside this container.

 
I love the interior design of the place, and the effort put in to ensure that it takes your mind off things that bother you, but you're here to enjoy a good dessert, coffee and chocolate.
One lovely idea for me to decorate my room with. Black butterflies on the wall (yar right, my mom would scream at me first).

For the ceiling, it was decorating with mini kites and stuffed bird.
The more it makes you feel like you're in an outdoor cafe, but you're still indoor.
The glass ceiling further bring out the effort, and together with the sound of the rain, gosh, you kind of feel like you're away from Singapore for that moment.

But as the rain got heavier, they switched on more lights and the light just change the whole scenery of the place again.
Immediately you see people (like me) taking out their camera and taking pictures.

 
Oh come on. Admit it.
It's like every girl's dream to have a room decoration like that.
Freaking romantic moment please. A moment of silence to enjoy the romance.

We ordered three types of dessert to share; Root beer cake, molten lava cake and waffles with a scoop of rum & raisin ice cream.
And an add on order of fries.
 

Personally, I felt that the root beer cake is the same as lava cake, just that in terms of appearance, it's not as brown as the lava cake.
And I kind of couldn't taste much of the root beer, but that's just me.
Interesting presentation though, to be served in a wine glass.

Next up is the waffles.
I guess it's a must try think here at Wimbly Lu.
There are three choices of pancakes, waffles or crepes.
And topping choices include ice cream with a choice of chocolate or toffee sauce or the usual of maple syrup and butter.

 
What to say about this dish. It's waffles.
Crispy warm waffles with cold ice cream.
You can't go wrong with that.

 
Final dessert to arrive is the molten lava cake.
For me, I'm a hardcore chocolate lava cake person. And I'm still finding places which have the best lava cake.
Was a little shocked when it arrived without the vanilla ice cream, though Shermin did warn me beforehand that would happen.
And perhaps also why on the menu they state that lava cake cannot be takeaway, only dine in.
It's a lava cake alright, half melted chocolate inside.
It just wasn't enough, maybe its the ice cream part that is missing or that it was still inside the baking cup, maybe it just don't have the appearance.
I wouldn't say it's not nice, but it's a decent lava cake.
To me, I feel that it's disappointing. 

Personally, I still prefer the one I had at Wombat Cafe over this.

Last but not least, our fries order.
And they had to come in a dim sum style.
The table next to us ordered it, and at the beginning I didn't know fries came in such form, so I kept staring at the menu wondering where the hell do they serve dim sum in this cafe.
Ridiculous, yes.
And for that amount of fries, it cost us $4!
It's like maccas fries, just way better and more crisp in it.

Overall, it's a nice decent cafe. Definitely a nice place to spend a lovely afternoon enjoying dessert and taking a break from a fast pace lifestyle.
Service was a little slow, and upon payment, I was tempted to run out without paying. No one was at the counter anyway! HAHAHA.
But now that I tried it, it's a strike off my food hunt list.

What's your dessert place to recommend for me?

Egg tarts and Pineapple fried rice

Another boredom in the kitchen and I decided to whip up something.
So technically I was that bored (somewhat) and when I was suppose to be studying instead. Tsk. So easily distracted.
Had a bit of a morning run this morning around my neighborhood and realized that after half hour of running aimlessly around, I was damn freaking bored!
Moving on, back home, just random thought decided to make egg tarts. Kind of craving for it since yesterday.

Didn't really take much picture of the process since this time I'm working alone, no photographer to help me take.
Plus buttery fingers.
Simple steps to make easy egg tarts, but of course not with the expectation that it will look like those awesome Cantonese or Portuguese kind. But enough for me to satisfy my cravings.

Super afraid that they wouldn't turn out nice.
Like it's been more than a year since I baked egg tarts and baking them again without any proper recipe is kind of a trial and error.
But hey, they passed!
A little brownish on the crust, but but but, the custard part at least look the part!

Last picture before I brought them inside to be cooled down, and the final taste test.
And and and...
DADDY LOVES THEM.
Like OMG, WTF. The past three baking and he didn't like any, so for him to enjoy this is a super big achievement for me.
Daddy's thumbs up achievement unlocked!
Okay lah, mainly also because it's egg tarts, that's why he enjoyed them. The previous ones were too sweet for his liking.

Let's see what I shall bake next that he would enjoy.
*brain storming*

Leftover custard that I just baked in a tin bowl. Too sweet for anyone's liking, although I did add less sugar already.
Thank goodness the egg tarts weren't that sweet.

Recipe:
For the crust;
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence

For the custard;
1 cup milk
7 tsp sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

I mixed the butter and icing sugar together first, before I add the egg in and finally the vanilla essence. The flour was estimated to be about to be more than a cup. Slowly add the flour in until it forms a nice dough and divided into twelve portions.
That's when I make the crust using my muffin trays and put them in the oven for about 5 minutes at 175 degree.
In the meanwhile, I made the custard. Heat the milk over low heat and add the sugar. Once the sugar has melted, remove from heat and add the vanilla essence and egg. Do not whisk till frothy. I'm suppose to sieve the custard mixture before pouring them into the molds but I kind of couldn't be bothered.
Baked for another 20 minutes or until the toothpick is clean when you poke the tarts to death.

Took a half hour power nap before I had to cook another dish for lunch.
Mummy was curious to try my pineapple fried rice which I cooked a month back while she was off on holidays.
Wasn't sure how it would turn out the second time, but at least I had better practice with it.
Though then again, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the end result.
Here to high expectations.

Main thing I felt was the pineapple pieces were still too big despite me cutting it again into smaller pieces and I didn't have enough raisins.

Recipe:
Chopped, cubed onions
Chopped, cubed garlic
Dried prawns
2 eggs
Cooked, overnight rice
Pineapple, diced into super small pieces
Raisins
Cashew nuts
Chicken/pork floss
Random sauces for taste

I stir fried the garlic and onions first before I add the dried prawns in. Putting the ingredients at the side of the wok, I added my eggs and immediately scrambled them up. Stirring all the ingredients together, I then add my cashew nuts and my cooked rice. More stirring around in the wok, add random sauces for the taste (mainly light soy sauce, sesame oil, salt) before I threw in the pineapple and the raisins. More flipping around and finally they're done.
Chicken/pork floss are to be placed last on top.

P.S. These recipes that I'm sharing, I found some online, and modified them accordingly to how I think I want to cook them. So it's not exactly the recipe to follow exactly, but to adjust accordingly to your style as well. I'm just taking a lazy method to recipes.