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Updated on 13 July:

Well.. firstly these photos are all taken by me and no.. I wasn't in a production for Harry Potter.. The third photo is the problematic one because firstly the trolley says it belongs to Times Square and secondly the Hogwarts Express is in the middle of Times Square in HK.

There was actually a display of Harry Potter related props at Times Square - from a small section of Diagon Ally to the Hogwarts Express.

And then of course, there was Dobby.

I'm so looking forward to Sunday, when I'd finally be able to catch the finale of the movie series.

Genki Sushi in HK

There are 2 things I think they do in better in Hong Kong. (Not that we do everything else better here but these are the 2 things I think there is little debate required)

The first being the bus system. Singapore buses are infrequent and makes far too many stops. Quite a pain to travel on and most of us would take the subway anytime.
It takes an hour and a half for me to travel from my place to my grandma's place on a weekend and really, Singapore is far too small to warrant such travel time.

Hong Kong bus network is excellent - short waiting times during peak hours and most have very well designed routes.

The second is Genki Sushi. Genki Sushi HK serves fresh sushi and offers a vast menu, with seasonal specials.

The one in Singapore, if Genki sushi is still here in Singapore at all really isn't that good.

Each time I go Hong Kong, I'd frequent the Genki sushi near where we stay. Unfortunately, it is wildly popular with the residents in the estate and sometimes the queues are just too ridiculous.

I managed to have a meal there last trip and after a few photos, I kind of forgot about photo taking! So as you can see, the food is really quite delicious.

Ugly Flourless Cake

This cake is called the Ugly Cake.

It also has no flour so it is not only ugly, but flourless.

The Brother-in-law loves this cake though and after eating one at our place, he politely asked if he could pack home a slice.

My mother says it's like eating a piece of soft chocolate, which is I think by far the closest description to what eating this cake feels like.

This is of course another bake by The Husband and I think it's by far his personal favourite. I have no favourites. So far, I've enjoyed every single cake and dessert.

Souffle Au Fromage

We bought a delicious souffle-like cheesecake from a Japanese fair sometime back and it was super light and delicious but also rather pricey.

The Husband made a similar cake yesterday.

He got his recipe from this cookbook by a famous Japanese pastry chef. This cake is made very much the way you would make a souffle - by beating egg whites to a soft peak and then adding in cheese. Unlike a souffle, it is baked in a water-bath for a rather long time (about 70 mins), so the cake doesn't raise very much but yet has a souffle-like texture.

A similar recipe I'd like to try would be this. The cake in this recipe looks very much like those you'd find in Japanese cake shops.

The cake didn't look very impressive but oh it was really very good - it was airy light with a hint of cheese, eggs and lemon. This is a truly melt in your mouth type of cake.

I had 2 big slices and briefly considered going for a third.

With such frequent bakes happening in our kitchen, I'm getting lots of opportunities to practice my photo taking skills of food!

The Singapore Botanic Gardens

During my block leave last week, I went to the Botanical Gardens to have lunch with some friends at the Halia Restaurant (Halia is Malay word for Ginger).

I haven't been to the botanical gardens for many years, so I decided to visit it again one evening for a stroll with The Husband.

The Singapore Botanical Gardens is a really nice garden to visit... but it is really too hot to take a stroll in the gardens at any time other than early morning or evening.

Come along for a stroll with me here, in the comfort of your home.. or wherever it is you are reading this from.

The garden is really rather big - we only covered a part of it that day

Swan Lake - a couple of swans and lots of turtles. Should have been called Turtle Lake

The famous 5 dollar tree. This tree appears on the Singapore 5 dollar note. 

I really like the long branch of this tree

The Singapore flower - Vanda Ms Joaqium

These flowers are grown in an area built like a little maze. 

It's really quite pretty!

The sky was beautiful that day

I like the fiery shade of this flower

Last picture I took before heading off to dinner. I'd be back soon again!

Dragons, Weapons and....

A few colleagues and I went over to a fellow colleague's apartment about 2 Sundays back.

I was MOST impressed with this bachelor's apartment.

Not because he lived in a really lovely condo with a balcony right when you walk into his apartment.

And not because of the dragons he kept at his place.

Figurine dragons, that is.. He had really impressive looking ones with 3 heads and multiple wings. I really liked them but they weren't the most impressive creatures around.

The number of weapons and uniforms he had in his apartment was probably one of the largest private collection I've come across.

And I dare say even some museums (ahem, I won't say which ones) probably do not have as many in their collection. He really had A LOT of weapons.. and A LOT A LOT of uniforms. All kinds of military uniforms really - from second world war ones to Singapore's own SAF ones to Japanese samurai ones. The collection he has was really quite jaw dropping.

But even those wasn't what impressed me the most.

What impressed me the most were the number of pots this guy had.

And the number of baking trays.

These were top quality cast iron pots.. and a really interesting and wide collection of baking trays..


(Did I even think I had a lot of baking trays? I'd never feel guilty over my collection again.. even if I haven't used half of the trays I have.)

Happily, all the pots and trays were not just for decoration but very much used by their owner. This colleague of mine loves cooking and he can really cook very well too, if I may add.

He made a beautiful roasted beef with herbs and red wine, vegetables in a delicious white sauce and a special sort of dumpling made of fresh baguette crumbs.

For starters, we had a simple but yummy prawns in spicy sesame oil. And for dessert, we had a very nice sour cream cake with peach slices.

He has generously shared his recipes with me, so I'd be making some of these soon and will share those on my blog.

For now, enjoy the pictures from this very impressive apartment.

A colourful dragon with 3 heads

Another one with many heads.. I liked the colour of this dragon..

Just a few of the weapons on display - all with the 

appropriate licenses when he shipped them to Singapore

This reminds me of the Last Samurai. 

I'm intrigued by the different coloured feet.. :P

The amazing collection of baking trays.. Some I really like too! 

I had a great big urge to rush off to do some shopping after seeing these

The most impressive collection of cast iron pots. 

This photo doesn't show all the pots he had!

Delicious roast beef swimming in red wine

Very interesting and filling dumplings

I hate cauliflower but this white sauce made even cauliflower nice! Pretty amazing

The roast beef sliced - see how he pushed in bits of garlic into the meat?

These garlic tasted good!

My lovely dinner at N's place.

End of a Nearly Perfect Week

I had a nearly perfect week.

One week off work.

6 working days to be very precise.

6 days of not thinking about work (well, I did a little.. but just very little... not more than 10 minutes, I hope..).

I feel really refreshed now... like I've got my "gumption" back.

It was almost perfect.

I went to HK for a few days and did all the things I wanted to do there.. Then I came back and  met a few blogger friends for lunch.. went swimming a couple of times.. read a lot of magazines.. had my facial.. went shopping on a weekday.. had lots of great desserts at home.. watched lots of TV.. went for a stroll at the botanical gardens.. took naps.. had some beers.. played some computer games..

Basically, I didn't achieve very much this week, which was exactly what I wanted.

But I also fell sick mid-week and have been coughing since then. So that affected my week a little.

Still, it had been a good break and now, I feel I'm ready to charge!

Of course, I know I'd be swamped at work over the next week and I'd feel like I never had this break.. but at least I feel good for now.. :)

Molten Chocolate Cake

The Husband baked this today.

This has been on my to-bake list since forever.. and I've not done it.. The Husband spoke about this yesterday and I got to eat it for tea this afternoon.

I'm such a procrastinator!

This cake really yummy - it has a really rich chocolate taste. The centre is not as molten in that it didn't flow right out.. but it was lava-like enough... somewhat like very soft egg yolk.

I should challenge The Husband to make souffle next!

He used his own recipe for this cake. The one I wanted to bake was the Big Melt-down recipe from Kitchen Tigress.

More Homemade Desserts

The Husband is on a roll.

He made quite a number of desserts yesterday.

The strawberry dessert is a variation of the mango one he made earlier in the week. The egg pudding is nice - I love the bottle that it was made in.

The coconut cookies are really nice too. These are made by shaping each cookie by hand.

At this rate, I can forget about my diet.

 Layered strawberry dessert. This is not as sweet as
the mango one but that's why I like it!

 

Strawberry mousse

 Egg Pudding

Coconut cookies

These are shaped by hand

Patisserie Tony Wong

Kowloon City is an old part of Hong Kong where the old Kai Tak airport used to be. It is home to lots of old shops in Hong Kong, including lots of places I like - like really good Thai restaurants, Big Wife Beef Noodles (best beef noodles), really good fruit stalls, a very traditional and nice dim sum restaurant, a good tea shop.. and now this...

Patisserie Tony Wong.

This place has given me another reason to like Kowloon City.

Tony Wong is a famous pastry chef in Hong Kong. I've seen him in action on some cooking show before - he may be boring but he can sure bake and create all kinds of wonderful looking pastries.

I liked everything I saw in his shop but I only had the stomach for 1, so I chose a very pretty looking raspberry choux pastry.

The shop doesn't have any seats but if you want to eat your pastry right there, they'd give you a nice little tray and you can stand at a little bar by the counter to polish up when you ordered.

A little awkward, really.. but I couldn't care less that day. I took my camera out and snapped away at the pastry, before eating it reluctantly. It looked so pretty I couldn't bear to take my first bite!

The raspberry part was fantastic - the raspberry went very well with the sweet jelly-like thing that was piped into the middle of each fruit. The pastry was a little tough for my liking but it was filled with a really nice vanilla creme.

Doesn't this look pretty?

I liked the jelly-like thing in the middle of the raspberry 

and the vanilla jam in the middle of the choux pastry

I will be going back again to try more cakes, that's for sure.

The house specialty is the rose-like cake - It is beautiful and would make a lovely gift, I think.

Patisserie Tony Wong

Add: 74 Fok Lo Tsun Road, Kowloon City
Tel: (852) 2382 6639

Yung Kee Restaurant in Hong Kong

I'm not quite sure why I haven't blogged about Yung Kee Restaurant before. This is such a famous restaurant that almost everyone I know who've been to Hong Kong has visited this store.

Yung Kee is famous for its roasted goose. Roasted goose is not a dish you can find in Singapore - roasted chicken and duck are extremely common in Singapore. But roasted goose.. I don't believe it is available in Singapore at all.

I am not a great fan of roasted goose, although I must say the one at Yung Kee taste pretty good. The fat content of goose is higher than poultry and most other game birds, hence it taste crispy, juicy but yet chewy after roasting.

Apart from the roasted goose, all other dishes we ordered that day were good.

The char siew (or barbequed pork) was excellent even to me - someone who doesn't fancy pork. This was The Husband's favourite dish that night.

The wanton (dumpling) soup was also good - their wantons are made very delicately, into small bitesize pieces. They resemble tiny goldfish and are called "goldfish wantons". We also had sweet and sour pork, vegetables with 3 kinds of eggs and fried squid. Every dish had a fan and my whole family enjoyed our dinner a lot.

My favourite dish of the night had to be the starter - century eggs with pickled ginger. The century eggs at Yung Kee is especially good and it is a must-eat item. The owner of the restaurant deliberately picks century eggs that have been preserved for a certain number of days to ensure that every century egg you eat at Yung Kee has a soft-centre (think soft boiled eggs).

So if you ever visit Yung Kee - remember to order the century eggs and the roasted goose, if nothing else. I would also highly recommend the char siew and wanton soup.

P/S: Do also drop me a note to tell me if you can find a place in Singapore selling char siew of similar quality. The Husband has been searching for a place with good char siew for a while now..

The top 4 dishes at Yung Kee

Yung Kee Restaurant

Add: 32-40 Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2522 1624