Ban Heng

It was the SA 6^th anniversary dinner. This event is held annually and this year it was held Ban Heng Restaurant located at Harbourfront centre. If you’re not sure where is it, you could browse through any newspapers and could find them commercializing Dim Sum Buffet at $12.90++..

T. sir, the founder of this club. Wouldn’t further mention out his name to prevent *erhem*.  This is the man who I respect the most, the one that never give up on us even though skipped trainings lots, the one that always scold us but actually is for our own good, the one who shield and help us when we had troubles.Remembering those days when we trained until we can’t even stand still, the blood and sweat that we put into, the extra hours of pt before actual training starts. All these memories I would never forget especially him.

Alright straight to the food.

Ban Heng Five of Cold Dish Combination
Supposedly it stated a 5 combination. But came out to have 4 selections and one duplicate. Nothing much to mention about these as they taste like average snack shop ones.

Braised Shark's Fin with crab meat
The soup taste normal like some restaurant would serve..
Steam Seabass in HongKong Style
Didn’t took pic of the fish but I would its definitely a failure. Well according to their banquet menu, the fish was to be served as the 5^th dish but it came out earlier. OMG the fish was like old and had a little of stinky smell. What the shit?!

Steamed Emperor Herbal Chicken
The waitress helped us to cut the chicken as it was served as a whole. The chicken was quite soft and the herbs taste wasn’t quite strong for me. Hmm could give a try on it if you guys ever visit this restaurant.

Steamed Teochew Eight Treasures VegetablesNo pictures were taken for this dish again but not because it’s not nice, but I was so indulge in it that I forgotten about it. Although its just lettuce with mushrooms and some vegetarian mock meat but they were perfectly cooked to the right taste and soft. It’s the only dish that I went for 2^nd serving.

Poached Live Prawns

Braised Ee Fu Noodles with Chives & Mushrooms
Normal steamed prawns. Not gonna waste my stomach space for that. Every Chinese banquet there will be one carbo dish which it was noodles. It was bland, kind of oily. Had to eat it with green chillis.

Cream of Sago with Honeydew
Lastly the dessert. The coconut milk was tad strong. I only ate the honeydews and sagos as the cream was totally hell lots of calories.

So now then I know why they kept having promotions. Would never give a try on their Dim Sum buffet even though they are really cheap as who knows, since their banquet food were like this, their Dim Sum would be no further good too.

The F-outing IV - Watami

The 4th outing of the "Fs" happened like weeks ago and now im finally posting it out. HAHA. just realise that I had too many posts to blog. Sorry too lazy to do so. Ok so that day it was our outing day which supposedly we were to visit theFoundry, meeting time 6.30pm at clarke quay mrt BUT F2 went to repair her camera which made us waited for an hour. 7.30pm!! HUNGRY to the max, no energy to travel all the way to mohammed sultan road so therefore we settled down at Watami since F4 said its not bad too.

Crispy Potato - $5.80

For starters, we ordered this. It was totally a letdown. It was just potatoes coated with some flour and fried. Worse of all, the sauces given. They were so bland & tasteless that we didn't even know what they were!!

Mochi Cheese Gratin - $6.80

We thought that it would very cheesy n soft. But my god they are like rubber. Tasteless..went on playing it on the hotplate for the chicken katsu. Haix.

Chicken Katsu Tamago Toji - $9.80

F4 came watami for this only. She simply love it. It consists of chicken cutlet, caramelized onions and egg. The egg was provided seperately for customers to preference how they would wan to cook it. Quite nice, not bad but something I do not like was that half of the chicken were fats. yes ewwwww.

Sapporo miso ramen - $12.80

Was craving for some ramen so decided to try this. Just not my type. The noodles were thick n hard, the soup was totally salty that i had to ask for hot water to add on to it. Asked for chilli paste thinking it would be better n spicy but it just make it more salty n not spicy at all. In the end i just cleared up the vegetables leaving lots of noodles behind. 

Conclusion, for better ramen we should eat at the ramen shops at the Central.

2nd Hands On II

Next up the bread. Ciabatta bread with sundried tomato and olive. I could say this lesson is hell-killing time. Lots of ingredients and steps needed for the cake while this bread needs darn lots of time for it to rise. We're like almost doozing off while waiting..zzzzzzzz...

Ingredients:
(SPONGE DOUGH)
- 240gm of water
- 8gm of yeast
- 225gm bread flour
- 90gm of virgin olive oil
- Herbs

1. Mix well the water, yeast, herbs and flour together
2. Then add in the olive oil. Mix it well
3. Cover the dough and rest for 40 minutes

For this bread, we used oregano and basil instead. Low or medium speed is recommended while mixing the dough. No high speed as it would make the dough super watery in the end. It can be put in the fridge overnight too. After resting it, some other ingredients and steps were add on.

Ingredients:

- 1 tbsp of fine sugar

- 1 tbsp of salt

- 120gm of bread flour

- 60gm of sundried tomato

• Stir down the sponge dough 
• add in the balance ingredients
• Mix it well to a smooth dough texture
• Put the dough on a lightly oil tray and let it rest for another 30 minutes.

• Put the sundried tomato on it and dust flour/cheese on it
• Let it proof to double the thickness

• Lastly bake it at 200degrees celsius for 30 minutes

TADAH final product! sorry about the pic being blurish. Its best to eat it freshly out from the oven, with the cheese melting in your mouth. But do one thing to take note, try to get healthier version of sundried tomatoes as some do taste salty. If you had the bread overnight, just put in the oven for about 30 seconds before enjoying it!

2nd Hands On I

Managed to find some time to post this thingy.. busy these few days plus the weather went haywired. Kept on raining then sun popping out followed by rain & sun again. Can't even trust the weather forecast to plan my morning exercise routine at Macritchie Reservoir. Ok last friday went to Phoon Huat again for class. Skipped the previous one as there was like no much difference for the cake we gonna bake with the cake i learnt from my 1st Hands On. Its squared chocolate special cake with just hazelnut fillings. Same ingredients and method. The bread was black seasame wholemeal bread with diced cheese fillings. Not interested in that too...

Well this lesson, the menu was White Forest Gateau & Ciabatta bread with sundried tomato & olive. Ah Ha!! finally some western bread instead of the chinese bread from those previous class. First up the cake.

And as usual the vanilla sponge cake was already prepared for us by the chef. Even the cutting the cake into 1/2 has been done too. Haix... when can i be able to really bake one of my own??. Well the steps are quite basic & easy actually. With that we were left with the white chocolate cream and cherries fillings to be done. This time round i didn't even dare to lick at the melted white couverture as my partners were quite sensitive to hygiene. (*&^%$#$@#$^%^&. Added some liqour called Kirsh into the cream mixture to make it more tasty too but i prefer adding more passion fruits!! Fruits are healthier than liqour. LOL

Ingredients:
(VANILLA SPONGE)
- 250gm super sponge cake mix
- 5 eggs
- 50gm of water
- 50gm unsalted butter

1. Put all the ingredients into the mixing bowl except the butter
2. Whip up the misture to 2.5 times volume
3. Add in the melted butter and mix well
4. Pour on the tray and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes

Ingredients:
(WHITE CHOCOLATE)
- 3 Egg yolk
- 40gm fine sugar
- 1/2 pcs of vanilla pod
- 80gm of UHT milk
- 1 tbsp of Gelatine powder
- 3 tbsp of Hot water
- 50gm of Frozen passion fruit
- 100gm of melted white couverture
- 250gm of whipping cream (dairy)

1. Cream the egg yolk and sugar to creamy. Speed at 3 if possible
2. Boil the milk and vanilla. Add into the egg yolk & sugar mixture and mix until is cool
3. Whip up the cream to soft peak and add into it
4. Add in the passion fruit , white couverture into it and mix well
5. Lastly dissolve the gelatine with hot water, add in and mix well

Ingredients:

(CHERRIES FILLINGS)

- 200gm of dark sweet cherries and sour cherries ( optional usage of which as long as its 200gm)

- 200gm of water

- 1pc of cinnamon stick

- 10gm of unsalted butter

- 10gm of corn flour

- 25gm of fine sugar

1. Boil the butter, water, sugar and cinnamon together
2. Dissolve the corn flour with water and add into it
3. Lastly turn off the flame, adding in the cherries

This cake needed darn lots of items. Luckily we used the time for our bread dough to rise to make these stuffs or else we wouldn't be able to go home at 10pm. Well with those necessary things done, left the finishing.

• Cut the sponge cake into 2pcs
•  Put 1 pc into the cake ring and put the cherries fillings into it

• Pour in 1/2 the chocolate filling into it and put the 2nd layer sponge
• Repeat the steps of putting in cherries and chocolate filling . Level it after that
• Keep in the fridge to let it set
• Take out and unmould the ring, coating the whole cake with whip topping cream
• Last decorate it with white chocolate curl and cherries on it

And TADAH!!! hehe better looking than my first chocolate cake. YAY!

The F-outing III - Icekimo

After all those yummy stuffs, we still reserved a place for ice-cream which we headed down to Icekimo.

8 Sin Ming Road #01-03, Sin Ming Centre
6455 7585

It was around 9plus when we arrived which there were no customers at all. So we helped ourselves to the lovely, cosy sofas at the side of the shop. It was a wednesday which they were having promotions for their dessert combo at $8. The Combo consists of 3 scoops of different ice-cream choice together with one belgian waffle, 1 waffle biscuits and 1 chocolate fudge.

Left to right - sour apple, horlicks, lychee sorbet

We chose the sour apple , horlicks flavours and the lychee sorbet as we wanted to try something special instead of those common ones again. The sour apple taste sour at first taste but slowly it became more and more sweet. There were traces of apple in it but they taste powdery. The horlicks was ok nothing special much together with the chocolate brownie below it. The lychee sorbet was also average. I think the only thing that up to my liking is their belgian waffle. Its freshly from the oven, not soggy and kinda of have the crunch.

We did not notice that there D24 ice-cream available until we're about to leave. GOD DAMN IT. D24!!! AHHHHHH a must try for us next time. Overall I could say this ice-cream cafe would be a good chill-out place on hot sunny days.