db Bistro Moderne

Today we celebrated our 4th traditional wedding anniversary! Four year ago, we had our traditional wedding ceremony and had celebrated our union with our wedding dinner. :)

This year, we had decided to try out one of the many celebrity restaurants at Marina Bay Sands. I've been itching to try them as I watched the chefs on TV all the time, but they aren't exactly cheap, so we had to wait for a special occasion first! After some consideration, we chose Daniel Boulud's bistro,(pronounce:dan-YELL boo-LOO) db Bistro Moderne

They have a set lunch menu, but we wanted to choose our own dishes, so we ordered ala carte instead. For starters, we ordered FOIE GRAS POELE and ASSIETTE LYONNAISE.

FOIE GRAS POELE
2 slices of pan fried foie gras with figs S$38.00


OMG have I told you how much I adored pan fried foie gras? I know it's cruel to the goose, but, have you tasted anything so divine? I thank the poor goose for this sex on a plate. :) The crust is nicely pan fried, so there's a thin layer of caramelised crust. Inside, it was nutty and melts in your mouth like the finest butter ever. Each bite would render us speechless, so we could only give each other the "Oooo...it's so gooood!" look on our face.

ASSIETTE LYONNAISE
Selection of House Made Terrines & Cured Meat with Pain de Campagne Toast S$26.00


My starter wasn't as exciting, but it was really good anyway! I love the various types of cured meat and sausages. Even though some were a little salty, it was great with the grainy mustard and the toast.

For the main, I ordered the lamb while hubby ordered Daniel Boulud's famous burgers.

LAMB DUO
2 pieces of grilled lamb served with mint sauce, couscous and grilled kebab S$44.00


This was one of the best lamb chop that I have ever had. The meat was juuuuust cooked, but not raw, so it was super tender. But the little meat stick at the side was a little too salty. Also, I discovered that I don't know how to appreciate couscous. I always see it on tv, and it looks delicious, but, I don't know how to describe it, I just don't like it.

You know, the annoying thing about fancy restaurants is their nosy captains. I know they needed feedback on their food, but I really felt kind of pressured when they asked me how was the food. Well, when it's good, like the foie gras, I would be gushing my praises, but when I didn't finish my couscous, he would asked me (in a very polite way) if there was anything wrong with it. It kind of made me feel embarrassed and guilty, like a child having to explain why didn't she eat her greens. :P

I JUST DON'T LIKE IT, IT'S ME, NOT YOU...

Anyway, moving on...

THE FRENCHIE BURGER
Beef Patty Topped with Confit Pork Belly, Caramelized Onions, Morbier Cheese, Arugula, Cornichons served on a Black Pepper Bun S$26.00

The burger was delicious! The patty was meaty, nice char-grilled flavour on the outside, moist and tender on the inside. And the buns was so nice! But it was huge, felt kind of embarrassed to open my mouth SO BIG in order to give it a try. But it was yummilicious!

After the foie gras and the huge burger, hubby had to throw in the white towel and skipped dessert. But I don't have to! Yeah! Everything on the menu sounded so good! So in the end I ordered the profiteroles, which is a very frenchy term for cream puffs.

PROFITEROLES
Profiteroles with vanilla ice cream, pecan nuts, white chocolate with warm caramel sauce S$15.00



The waiter placed the dish on my table and poured warm caramel sauce on the white chocolate disc on top of the profiteroles. I didn't expect much, but when I took a bite, I wanted to cry!

IT WAS MUTHERF**KING GOOD!!!!!

I don't understand, it was such a simple dish, with such simple ingredients. Why is it so good? I pondered as I scooped, spoon after spoon of goodness. Then I realised. It's the proportions and the compatibility of all the ingredients! The puff was firm enough not to get soggy in the ice cream and they tasted great together. The ice cream was rich, creamy and delicious, and it tasted great with the pecan nuts. The melted white chocolate and the caramel was not too sweet but rich enough to compliment the ice cream and the puff. It was simply, a perfect dessert. So happy!!!

So that ends another very delightful meal. Of course, the bill was not so delightful, after adding taxes and stuff, it was about S$200 plus. And we didn't even order wine!(Hubby under medication) But it was worth EVERY cent as it was such an enjoyable experience. The bistro was beautiful but casual, so it was nice and comfortable, the service was great and most importantly, the food was excellent.

Thank you db Bistro Moderne, and happy anniversary my dear!

CoCo's Butter Cake

My baking mood was on, so I dug out an old cookbook and made a butter cake!

Baby was napping, so I didn't even use the electric mixer! Arms ended up all sore and tired, but biting into the warm buttery cake during teatime was worth all the effort!

The stupid recipe book indicated only 25 minutes of baking, but it ended up with raw batter in the middle! Argh! So here I indicated a longer baking time.

300g butter
300g icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
5 eggs (I only had 4 - still ok :D)
280g flour

1. Glaze oil and line baking tin with baking paper. Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius.

2. Sieve flour and baking powder.

3. Beat half of the icing sugar and butter till light and fluffy.

4. Separate egg yolk and white. Beat egg white and other half of icing sugar till fluffy then add in egg yolks. Continue beating until creamy.

5. Using hand, blend butter mixture and egg mixture evenly, add in flour and mix well. Pour mixture into baking tin and bake for about 45 minutes.

6. Cool cake in pan for 5 mins before inverting it onto a wire mesh to be further cooled.

Serve with a cup of hot tea or coffee! YUMZ~!

Fruit Paradise - Fruit Tart Shop

Located at Orchard Central, this shop sells, well, Fruit Tarts! We accidentally came across the shop while shopping and we were captivated by how pretty the tarts look in the fridge! It looked SO pretty, we wondered if they were even real! After staring at them for awhile, we were amazed that they are REAL... So we went in and tried them out!



I tell you, it was almost impossible to choose which one to order! Even after ordering, I was tempted to pull the waitress back to change my mind. But I stuck to my decision and got the Banana Caramel Tart.



It's a custard cream base tart with bananas and almond flakes, drizzled with caramel sauce.

My Hubby got the Blueberry Tart, which is the fresh cream base tart with blueberries and blueberry jelly cubes.



They look very rich, creamy and deadly. But surprisingly, they taste quite light. Personally, I would prefer it to be sweeter, but I guess many people are health conscious. Overall, it was a nice tea break. The tart was nice, the tea was a perfect complement to the tarts, the service was excellent and the prices was reasonable. My only complaint was that my tea was not hot enough. What a kill joy... -_-

Check them out

Dad’s Pineapple Tarts

There’s 2 ways to make pineapple tarts. One way was to blend everything up using the mixer, and the other is the rubbing in method. Dad gave me this rubbing in method recipe for a more fluffy tart; basically you rub flour and chilled butter with your fingers to get a breadcrumb-like texture.

But if you have warm hands like me, you would probably end up with a overly wet dough due to the butter melting from the warmth of your hands. If that’s the case, you can use a pastry blender to cut the chilled butter into the flour. Works for me!



Warning! This dough is much more difficult to work with as it is SO SOFT!
Key points to remember:
1. Minimum hand contact – work quickly! The more you handle the dough, the softer it gets!
2. Dust! – Make sure your table, rolling pin and cookie cutter is well dusted with flour.
3. Plastic sheet – Cut out a clean plastic bag into a sheet and put it over your dough when you roll it, this would prevent the dough from sticking onto your rolling pin.

Tart pastry:
300g cake flour (sifted)
220g butter (cubed and chilled)
100g sugar
15g custard powder
1 egg yolk
Ice water

Method:
1. Roll pineapple jams into little balls and set aside.

2. Preheat oven at 180°C.

3. Mix the flour, sugar and custard powder together.

4. Using a pastry cutter, cut the chilled butter into the flour till it resembles breadcrumbs.

5. Mix in the egg yolk and gradually add in the iced water till the mixture forms a soft dough.

6. Cover up the dough and chill in the fridge for about 2 hours.

7. Dust the work area with flour before rolling out the dough till it's about 0.7 cm thick.

8. Dust the pineapple tart mould with flour and cut flour into shapes.

9. Brush sides of tarts with egg wash.

10. Bake in a greased, lined baking tin for 10 minutes.

11. Remove tarts from the oven. Fill centre of tarts with the pineapple jam balls.

12. Return tarts to oven to bake for a further 5 minutes, or until golden brown.

13. Cool the tarts on wire rack.

Loong Fatt Tau Sar Piah

We were around the area this afternoon, so we stopped by the store at Balestier and bought some yummy tau sar piah, or bean pastries.

Balestier road is well known for the several tau sar piah stores. The story that I heard was that it started with just one store, opened by the master yoda of tau sar piahs. Then, the apprentices learnt how to make the beautiful pastries from the master and left the nest to open their own stores all over Balestier! Ingrates...

Anyway, it's super easy to spot the original master store. Located right at the end of Balestier Road, the very first store, is the store that looked like time stood still. The store looks quiet and sleepy from the outside, but walk into the store and you'll find a whole army of aunties, rolling trays and trays of dough and wrapping bean paste into them.



You can even enjoy the pastries, fresh out of the oven, with a nice cup of coffee at the store, which is super vintage with the marble table tops and wooden chairs.

The tau sar piahs come in either sweet or salty versions. 60 cents each... Super fluffy! I also like it that they do not wrap too much dough around the bean paste. Very light and great for tea break! :D



Loong Fatt Eating House & Confectionary
639 Balestier Road
Tel: 6253 4584

Opens:
Mon-Sat & PH: 8am - 4.30pm(Closed on Sundays)

Poh Guan Cake House's Chinese Bean Pastries (豆沙饼)

Poh Guan Cake House, (opposite Hong Lim Food Centre) is the old fashion type of old shop that specialise in making traditional chinese pastries and kuehs and makes everything fresh. My Hubby & I love those chinese bean pastries (豆沙饼）and it's so hard to find shops that make really good ones anymore!! So naturally we bought a whole box when we found this rare gem.

Just as expected, it was great. Flaky but not dry, the bean paste is just nice, not too sweet. Sigh, really good leh. Really, believe me. I'm very picky with my pastry. It's good.