Rich and Creamy Mango Mirror Cheesecake

Dad’s 52nd birthday cake was a success! I scoured the Internet for recipes and was rightly disappointed by the results so instead I came up with my own!
That on my next post!

Love,
The Starting Chef

Happy Moment

Piccolo Latte

I love turquoise. And I love good coffee equally or maybe even more. Had this cuppa at the International Financial Centre Mall in Hong Kong, a small shop called Fuel.

Loving it,
The Starting Chef

Alley markets in Hong Kong

Bustling markets just outside my hotel and ten minutes away from the business district is a common sight in Hong Kong.

The weather was perfect at about 15 degrees!

French Apple Tart

I actually had made French Apple Tart a few months ago as well! Very veeeerry laborious! Next time I’m buying my apple sauce not making it! Hmph!

Credits to Joy of Baking for the recipe

Love,
The Starting Chef

Brunch alone on my recent work-related trio to Hong Kong!

Missing: The Starting Chef

My last post was April 27 2011, and that’s almost nine months. It’s crazy how much life can change in such a short time.

To be honest I have baked probably only once since then. I think it was a mango cheesecake for Hari Raya which was quite a success but as I had just begun a new job fresh after graduating as a headhunter I had barely enough time to sleep let alone update my blog!

These nine months has been a rough roller coaster ride and I hope 2012 would bring me and my loved ones a lot of much-needed love and peace!

With that being said, I’m really wondering how I can add pictures to my blog from my iPhone which I’m using to type. (Did I mention? In this nine months my camera and laptop died on me.)

Once I have figured that out I would update my blog with my post on mango cheese cake which I will be baking again tomorrow for someone who misses my cheesecakes and has been asking for the longest time.

I also realized it’s my dad’s birthday on Wednesday so maybe I can turn it into a pretty little birthday cake!

Tomorrow I’ll be hitting Cold Storage as Singapore is currently a dead town as it is Chinese New Year!

Once I get all my ingredients I’ll get the cheesecake done and update after the birthday!

Love,
The Starting Chef

Tags: baked mango cheesecake, Mango cheese cake

Review: Gayathri Restaurant

I was in Little India a couple of days ago with KB and was starving and it was 7pm and I haven’t had anything to eat except for a sardine curry puff early that morning. So we decided to go all out and have a nice dinner at Gayathri’s. We went straight in and sat in the very simply but elegantly designed restaurant. I love places which have warm lights in them and this one did. If you know me, you would know that I hate white lights with a passion. Just ask my ex-house mates. We sit in darkness most of the time thanks to me. I just find them too harsh to for my eyes and come on, EVERYTHING looks better in dim, low lights. Mmmm very romantic too.

But that’s definitely not the reason why I like them. Really.

Anyway! Back to the story, if you’ve been there before you’d know they have those nifty little things which you press to get the waiter to get your order, refills etc. See the image below.

So of course we both nicely sat our bums there waiting for someone to take our order without realizing we had to press one of those buttons..in that..order-pressing button thingie. Sooner or later, a  waitress did come, and strangely pressed the ‘order’ button and stalked off.

So anyway, she left and another equally pissed-off looking waiter came to take our order promptly. We then ordered an appam set, thosai set and a side of mutton vindaloo as I was starving as always.

The masala thosai set came first, the thosai was nothing out of the ordinary, it was your typical South Indian meal. But what made it special was the chutney  with the slight greenish tint to it ( I think it was mint); it was creamy, rich and bursting with flavour! Mmmmmmm!

The appam set was next; good, no complaints, fluffy on the inside and crisp on the out side, and also,since I’m such a girl I give them extra points for giving it such a cutsey flower shape. Just look at it!

I like. They gave too little orange sugar though, and when I asked the waitress for more she gave me “the attitude” and plonked it down on the table with a grim face of death.

The last dish would be the mutton vindaloo. Well, that dish actually inspired this well meaning post. For starters, there was only maybe four  tablespoons of it on the miniature plate. That turned out to be a good thing eventually because we did not like it! I felt that the mutton was overcooked, it could have been fish for all I knew! I don’t know about you but I like my meat to have a little bite to it! They mutton pieces were so small that they were tearing away in strips. To add to this, it was really salty and that was about the only thing I could taste. Maybe the cook had a bad day or something ?

Anyway, I actually went there because of its ‘nice conversation over a quiet dinner’ type of ambience. However I always appreciate quality customer service which I think is lacking in this restaurant. I am not being fussy because I have worked in a restaurant thrice the size of this and it is really very exhausting; I go home everyday smattered and I still had to work on assignments. However, I save my pissy face for after work. Haha! But I liked working there because my managers were really funny and quite sweet and I guess that shows on the staff’s face. Hmmm… so that’s something to ponder about for the manager of Gayathri !

I will go there again but maybe this time only for their naans and that cute appam set

Love,

TSC

Tags: Gayatri's, Indian restaurant, review

Mini Makeover

I gave my blog some TLC yesterday since I have been ignoring it for ages!

And yes, I got Twitter so that I can keep up with technology! So puhlease ‘follow me’. Is that the equivalent of “Please add me”? I really hope so.

(Look at how pathetic the birdie looks)

What do you think? Like it? Let me know your comments!

Love,

TSC

To Buy or not to Buy: Food Processor

Should I or should I not get a food processor?

Pricey Beauty

My parents think that (and everything else I have ever spent on) is a waste of money. However, as much as crushing digestives like BamBam from Flintstones is therapeutic; I can’t help wanting to be more professional,besides it makes pureeing fruits like raspbs or strawbs that much easier. The fact that I considered pouring water while blending strawbs to makes the blades of the ancient blender at home to actually move, is sad. Not to mention I could whip up cake batters Nigella style, in a jiffy, with a food processor. But I don’t want to get all excited and get the first cheapest one I find. I want quality, and I am a firm believer of you only get what you pay for. So I shall go browse at a few stores before I decide!

Having thought about it, it also doesn’t help that my birthday is only in September. Otherwise I could have got my whole family to share and get me the Cuisinart 7 cup food processor. I think that costs like a frillion dollars. I wouldn’t even consider getting anything smaller than a 7 cup. What’s the point of having to do my cake batters in two batches and not being able to fit my biscuits inside the machine. I’d rather be BamBam.

Love,

TSC

Tags: Food Processor