Drinking hole with nice truffle fries

I stumbled upon this place which serves awesome truffle fries! The thickness of the fries was just right, with enough crunch on the outside and still a little bit of tenderness when you bite into it. Hmmm.. the other food that my friends tried were nice too.. so if you're looking for a place to have a drink with friends you can head to Chillax at Serangoon Garden. It's tucked away at one corner of Serangoon gardens. I didnt take much pic that day cuz my friend brought her polariod camera.. and I was simply enjoying the food. Price-wise pretty affordable too.

Review: Tony Moly Natural Pulp Essence Sheet Mask Hyaluronic acid

It's Tuesday night, and I finally have time to do something about my skin- which has been dry and full of pimples. I just had my facial on Friday and my face seems like it is in need of some more tender loving care. So I went to the fridge to pick a mask to put on while I watch Rachel Ray on TV.

I bought this mask months ago when I went to Seoul. The water design on the packaging indicated that this should be some hydrating mask so that's exactly what my face needs right now! Talking about design.. My friends and I are not really a fan of the packaging.. when I place this mask together with the face shop and skin food masks for my friends to pick as their souvenirs,  this mask was not touched at all! Plus the brand did'nt help either... We've not heard of Tony Moly. But since I decided not to judge a book by it's cover, I decided to try it!

Right after I slabbed on my mask, I remembered I had Volleyball tomorrow afternoon. Not a good idea to put a mask on the night before.. but anyhow since I already did it, I decided to check up on the properties of Hyaluronic acid. 

 Hyaluronic acid hydrates the skin and drives collagen synthesis. Awesome!! I quickly tapped some of the liquid leftover in the pack onto my neck. I'm only 23 but I have wrinkle lines on my neck. I'm not sure if it's normal.. but they're rather fine so, no cause for worry.

Final verdict: I'll buy it again!

Pros:

-Cheap

-Effective

Cons:

-liquid a little sticky

Fish roe surprise

I found a lovely surprise at the supermarket today- Fish Roe!! I've never seen it in the supermarket before and it was the only tray of fish roe on the shelf... it seemed to be calling out to me to cook something adventurous for lunch today! And so I did! Here begins my adventure with the Fish roe!

Yes, I stared at this for a few seconds too.. Not very appetizing yet I know!
...But with a handful of chopped ginger and garlic in hot oil, pan-fry the fish roes...

They're looking better already.. And here's the final result..

 Looks like a normal piece of fried fish ehh!
They taste just like a normal piece of pan-fried fish.. Perhaps just a little more tender since it's not the meat we're eating.. it's those delicate roes.
Since they were a little dry, my mother suggested using mango puree as a sauce. (Wonderful idea I must say! It really helped to tie up the different elements of my dish)

 Tada! The final result of my dish! Pan-fried fish roe with salad and mango puree! Not bad I must say! A perfect dish to perk up my Saturday!

And of course, my fave Thai Ice tea to accompany it... slurps!

The butter/margarine debate

Working with Planta

So, normally I bake with butter because like many other people, including my chef friend who graduated from le cordon bleu and claims that she's just a cook, thinks that butter is the main make-or-break ingredient of pastry. If you have good butter, you pastry will taste delicious!

To break tradition, and my currently unfounded bias that stems from me preferring butter than margarine on my toast, I decided to work with Planta (a kind of margarine).

I decided to bake something basic- vanilla cupcakes. Recipe from BBC- http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/cupcakes_93722

The very first difference was in the smell of my sugar and planta mixture. Normally i would get a rich buttery smell as I mix the sugar and butter together. My planta mixture smelt like oil- plant fats more than the buttery animal fats that I'm used to. As I swirled, a speck of it dropped out and I instinctively wiped it off the table with my finger and put the speck in my mouth. It taste like oil and sugar. Weird. Different. Healthier maybe? Since it's made if plant oil. Anyway I finished off the rest of the steps and tossed it into the oven to get the final verdict.

... and the verdict according to my brother was that it taste normal. It was only after I told him that I used Planta instead of butter that he remarked that the aftertaste was not one of buttery goodness but one that taste like Planta, and not as nice. Personally, I too felt that the cupcakes had a strong Planta taste and I would definitely prefer butter, for that rich buttery taste that makes the calories of eating the cupcake worthwhile.

In this taste test, both my brother and I are certainly biased because of our preference for butter. So in my biased opinion, butter is definitely better for pastry making as it gives the rich creamy and buttery goodness that only butter can. I guess a blind test, where I bake both kinds and ask people to tell me which they prefer, would be more fair. But I'm just baking cupcakes because I felt like eating them. So I'll spare the test. oh on a side note, I feel that using Planta did not affect the texture of my cupcakes in anyway. They came out light and fluffy.

And since I live in Singapore, my favourite brand of butter is SCS butter, although it is a little pricey and I normally use Buttercup butter (the cheapest) to make some pastries like brownies and chocolate cakes where I feel that I should save the extra money to get better quality chocolate (Hershey's chocolate), since the main make-or-break ingredient, as I call it, is chocolate. But if I'm making buttercream frosting though, quality butter is definitely a must, so I use SCS to give it a pure, creamy goodness (true to their packaging).

Anyway, since I decided to stick to using butter for pastries and I did not finish my Planta...I'll try making main dishes which require oil with it! I'm quite hopeful that it'll help to give the rich taste without the buttery effect in some recipes!  

Tu Tu Kueh (嘟嘟糕)

I was walking home past Bendemeer market sometime last week and I chanced upon a stall selling Tu Tu Kueh! I was quite excited because it's been some time since I've seen them.. they used to be more common when I was younger.. but somehow it's not as popular now..

so I decided to buy a box of 5 for SDG$2. I think it's super cheap!! Although my dad would say that it's expensive because they used to sell 5 for $1..

I choose all of them with coconut filling.. hmmm.. pop one in your mouth and you can taste an explosion of sweet coconut flavour. What's great about this coconut filling is that it's not very sweet as they did not use white sugar but Gula Melaka (Palm sugar), which adds an extra depth to this dish.


After finishing my last tu tu kueh, I decided that I'm not satisfied and went to google how to make them.. found a recipe online from http://ellenaguan.blogspot.sg/2012/06/kueh-tutu-aka.html that I'm going to try when I have time!

beauty product talk

So I've tried the remaining 2 products from Etude house- The Lip patch and Eye mask.. Overall I must say that I am quite disappointed with their products as I found that the lip patch did not have any effect on me.. The eye mask was quite pleasant-smelling and since I left it in the refrigerator before using it, the icy cold mask was really refreshing. However, a frozen slice of cucumber will provide the same effect.

While I still haven found the right mask so far... I have found my favourite BB cream.. it's Skin food's Aloe BB cream in shade 1.. yay!

So I'm going to compare Skin Food and Etude house BB creams in terms of my 3 main concerns when I buy a product

	Skin Food	Etude house
Texture	light	heavy
SPF	20 PA +	30 PA ++
Coverage	acceptable	acceptable

As you can see, Etude house provides better sun protection and that means overtime it's suppose to better prevent you from premature ageing from the harmful UV rays of the sun.

But for me, a bigger concern was the texture of the product and how it feels on my face so I'm sticking with Skin food because it feels really light and is totally wearable for the whole day! And I think 20 PA + is enough protection from the sun anyway..

 so I squeezed out a blob of cream from each product..

...and applied it on my hand like what we'll all do with testers at the shop.. my left hand is the one with the products(left most side has Etude house BB, and side closest to my right hand has Skin food BB) and right one is without. Visibly, my left hand looks much smoother. In terms of coverage, both of them provided reasonable amount of coverage.

Review: Etude House Black Head Removal Dual Sheet

I thought it was quite cool that they have a two-step procedure for removing black heads. Cosmetic shops are literally everywhere you go in Korea- I bought this inside Lotte World amusement Park.

Step 1: Apply the Black head removal sheet that contains Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs) extracted from citrus fruits, that help to peel the skin.

I left it on for 15 minutes and washed it off with water immediately after that, as products with AHAs tend to peel and exfoliate the top layer of our skin so I didn't want to leave it too long in case it peels off too much of my topmost layer of skin.

After removing the first sheet, I used a cotton bud to remove the black heads (or in my case, white heads) on my nose. About 50% of my white heads came out and surprisingly the colour that appears on my cotton bud was brownish. I'm not sure if it's skin that has been peeled off by the chemical AHA or is it Sebum from my oily skin.

(The brownish tips of the cotton bud...)

Step 2: Apply the tightening Gel Sheet to minimize pores
After 15 minutes there didn't seem to be a reduction in my pore size.

Overall: I think that if you really want to remove blackheads, visit a beautician for a more thorough job. This product, like many other home kits, is more useful to use in-between facials for a temporary reduction in blackheads. I try to visit mine once a month and as I have oily and sensitive skin, they usually squeeze the gross stuff out of my face and skip the lymphatic facial massage part. I think that facials produce the greatest visible change.