i saw this unbelievably simple mug cake recipe while browsing the net that i just had to try.

basically you just need a microwave oven to bake the cake, no need for a full scale baking oven.
and you don’t even need a mixer, just your good old fork will do the job.

below are the ingredients

4 tablespoons self rising flour
4 tablespoons white caster sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons nutella
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil

method

1. combine all ingredients in a large coffee mug. whisk well with a fork until smooth. microwave on high for 1.5 – 3 minutes. (time depends on microwave wattage. mine took 1.5 minutes.)

2. top with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. enjoy!

yep, that’s it! easy peasy! took less than 5 minutes if you have all the ingredients.
btw, you can try replacing the nutella with peanut butter if you want some variety.

4 people like this post.

Unlike

sorry for the late second installation of the food trip, i was momentarily distracted by a certain new shiny object, hehe….

anyway, after the asam pedas lunch at muar, we drove all the way straight to our destination.

the last time when i was here, was way back 4 years ago and boy, am i amazed by the recent developments, many new buildings seem to have sprung up overnight!

as we drove into the bustling melaka town, the familiar dryness of our throats signaled the need for some cool icy treat and so the first stop was jonker street for, chendol!

we were told that the jonker88 stall sells one of the meanest chendol in town. just a sip of the rich concoction explained why it’s one of the famous chendol in melaka. super thick gula melaka just oozing from the shaved ice, not like the syrupy diluted gula melaka normally found back home. it’s superbly rich and sweet indeed!

after our sweet delights, we explored around jonker street like tourists from err… singapore. well, most of the tourists here looked like they come from singapore anyway. :p

by now our tummy had started rumbling again and what else to do other than to find food! we wanted to try the famed asam pedas but since we had ‘em back in muar, decided to try something else. so we drove to their central shopping mall, the dataran pahlawan melaka megamall. this is a new addition to the usual mahkota parade that i used to visit 5 years back. looks like so much has changed since i last visited the area!

found a halal chicken rice shop at the basement of dataran pahlawan. we were attracted to the signage that they sold chicken rice balls here, a melaka delicacy but alas, were disappointed that the balls had sold out. so we bought the next best thing, chicken rice. quite authentic tasting chicken rice, nice! and to wash it all down with a nice bowl of chendol.

there’s a heritage gallery at the basement where you can get all types of local handcraft and foodstuff under one roof.

a trip to melaka is never complete without stopping over at umbai for the seafood. so after getting our local foodstuff like keropok at the heritage gallery, we traveled south for dinner. the place is really popular among the locals and singaporeans alike. with super fresh seafood and super reasonable price, this place is a must visit!

you just have to choose the raw seafood displayed at the many stalls there and informed the hawker on how you want it cooked. we had our fish cooked half bbq and half sambal. our squid was deep fried and it tasted soft and crunchy. here you can eat your seafood with nasi lemak, piping ones wrapped in a mini newspaper bundle, comes with either sambal or without and tasted so so good with your bbq seafood!

although it was time to go back, a road trip is not complete without a visit to a local night market. coincidentally, we past by a night market on the way back, so without any second invitation, we raided the place. since our stomach were still digesting our seafood dinner, we just took a tour around the area. not surprisingly, some of these food looked too good to miss, fortunately there’s still space in my stomach for some crispy pancake, heh!

so with that last piece of crispy pancake in my mouth, we sped back to woodlands, two super contented stuffed married men

it had been an enjoyable makan adventure for us and we look forward to the coming holidays to indulge again in our favourite pastime. well, this time we are thinking of going further, hmm…

click here to check out the complete food trip pictures!

Like

Unlike

what do grown up men do when they are hungry and have lots of free time on their hand?
they drive up all the way north for makan!

with just a trusty gps and an empty stomach, we began our journey…..

the plan was to travel all the way up to melaka and take the road less travel. forget about the northsouth expressway, just sticking to the road that passes the sleepy towns and kampungs.

it was revisiting the small towns like ayer hitam and muar that made the drive to melaka enjoyable where we got to experience local food fare first hand while enjoying the scenery.

our first stop was ayer hitam. the town was a huge hit way back in the 90s with singaporeans going to melaka or KL, stopping at the town as a rest stop before the opening of the northsouth expressway which took most of the travellers straight up, bypassing the town totally.

we noticed that there were many food stalls selling putu bambu by the roadside. we tried the delicacy and thoroughly enjoyed the sweet and rich taste with the generous amount of gula melaka in it. all of that for just RM$2 for 6 pieces!

we had our breakfast there and tried the soto since we saw many of the customers there eating it. and boy, were we really surprised at how good the soto was. the soup was not so thick and the taste didn’t have the overpowering spice taste, just nice.

next we checked out the market there, with shops selling an assortment of foodstuff, we bought a couple of kerepoks before proceeding to our next destination, muar.

along the way to muar, we stopped at a nice family-owned snack stall. with their piping hot pisang goreng and crispy kerepok lekor, we could not resist taking a bite before continuing our drive to muar.

lunch at muar was at a little foodstall selling asam pedas. with a side dish of rendang chicken plus the killer sambal belachan, the stingray version of the asam pedas with tehO ice just cost us a princely sum of RM$8 for 2.

we were supposed to check out the famous mee bandung muar stall but because it started to rain suddenly, didn’t really have the chance to venture further. we managed to do a bit of sightseeing around town before moving on.

from muar, we drove on the sultan ismail bridge, crossing over the muar river, from there we took the lebuh AMJ which stands for alor gajah-melaka tengah-jasin expressway and onward towards our destination – melaka!

check the flickr set for more pics

continue in part 2

1 person likes this post.

Unlike

in case you failed to notice, there’s a new wendy’s joint right here in tampines!

i guess many have tasted the burgers but what i was interested in today was their breakfast. in fact, it’s the first time i’m trying their breakfast and also the first time stepping in wendy’s here in tampines. i’ve already tried their burgers last month at their orchard branch.

upon stepping in, the place looks rather spacious with this modern look to it. (like most other fast food joint, heh) but what i noticed right away, is that there were only 2 counters! wow, i can’t imagine during its peak period, surely the queues will snake all the way back! anyway, back to the breakfast menu. they seem to be promoting their morning melt paninis which looks like toasted bread burger with egg, cheese and your choice of smoked turkey or chicken sausage. they have the usual hash brown to complement their meal. there are also pancakes, egg burritos and the wholesome breakfast which seriously looks like mac’s big breakfast.

anyway, for today, i tried the wholesome breakfast with chicken sausage. the hash brown was nothing to shout about, i think mac’s hashes are better. the chicken sausage doesn’t really look like the normal sausage, kinda like a chicken patty. taste-wise, its better than mac’s patty so at least that’s a saving grace for a rather mediocre breakfast meal. eggs were bland, the toast bread was just ok, so it was nothing to shout about. maybe i should try the sandwiches or burritos on my next visit.

so overall, i think the breakfast menu doesn’t really excite me, skip it for mac’s or kfc’s. best stick to their lunch menu if you are trying wendy’s for the first time.

4 people like this post.

Unlike

Nasi Ambeng, originally uploaded by izadd.

four more days to the end of Ramadhan.

blessed to be surrounded by loved ones.

… and blessed with an abundance of food.

thankful for everything good in our lives.

7 people like this post.

Unlike

… c’mon, don’t say “itch”. :p

barely recovered from The Worst Stomach Flu i’d ever encountered and being comatose and totally devoid of food for almost two days, i was prepared for a shock to my system… well, what’s a celebration without food, after all. it’s something the husband is especially, especially fond of. i think, even fonder of than me ha ha.

and that ice-cream, which i’d taken the liberty of requesting from the wonderful staff of TGIFridays @ JB, was almost regretful on the part of my stomach (no dairy, doc said!)… but i survived, phew.

to the guy who boils me homemade barley for my fever, makes hot tea for my stomach, scours shops for that particular isotonic drink to recover my salts…

to many more years of looking after me!

HEH HEH.

(that, and many more dishes of delish food to enjoy, and drive-home music to sing along to.)

(but enough babies, ok? thanks.)

18 people like this post.

Unlike

a creation that was inspired by none other than man vs food main man, adam richman.

i was bored with the usual ramly burger setup so i decided to add salsa sauce and cheese to go along with the patty. looked rather plain so i added a slice of turkey ham. the burger wouldn’t be complete without fries. so i cut a few russet potatoes to make it a complete meal

more pictures on my flickr

*that’s salsa burger with cheese in spanish, heh

1 person likes this post.

Unlike

it was the first time for the quasi-playgroup-teacher-wannabe mommies conducting the baking session last weekend, and all we had were basic baking ingredients and an online recipe we’d never tried before. we were each sorta assigned to take on one activity and thankfully, Is took the lead for this one.

we went for a ‘thematic approach’.

we spelled, counted, measured, talked about what the ingredients did, passed around the vanilla essence for everyone to smell….

we scooped, stirred, broke eggs, took turns, resolved conflicts…

we rolled dough, created shapes, sprinkled rainbow sprinkles and chocolate chips…

and with the smell of cookies baking in the oven, we did some storytelling… bilingually, too.

and of course, we tasted the fresh, warm, home-baked cookies, nevermind the dubious hygiene level of the cookie-makers, lol. they tasted pretty good, actually, despite the fact that we didn’t follow the ingredients too closely (seeing how things kept spilling).

we balanced tea time with fruits and nuts and then it was free play…

and we got hungry again at dinnertime, so we made some pizza. the little chefs were actually more interested in piling stuff on the dough than eating the final product, though they did collectively run to the oven every few seconds to peep through the oven door. so the ones who eventually ate were the adults, who also got creative and designed their own satay pizza (izad’s family are in the satay business, so it’s a staple at every function – the satay and peanut sauce are awesome.)

inspired by the success of this playgroup session, we’ve assigned the daddies to take over the next one. something less domestic and more outdoorsy… though it’d be interesting if they could conduct, oh i don’t know… origami or scrapbooking, maybe?? :p

7 people like this post.

Unlike

went for dinner at na/bins at bali lane the other day. was disappointed for a number of reasons:

1) was misled into believing from their FB site that there’d be bellydancing. ok, nevermind, maaaybe we read or processed the information wrongly. fine.
2) the music was blasting from the moment we sat down, and continued to blast despite our repeated requests to turn it down. fine.
3) the air-con was also blasting, and continued to blast despite our repeated requests to turn it up. by now, we’re like, helloooo, mr foreign-waiter-with-no-expression-and-didn’t-seem-to-understand-us!
4) the food looked good when served (plus we were starrrving by the time it reached us), but discovered that it lacked… oomph after a few spoonfuls. only this appetiser platter wasn’t too bad. we would’ve been sufficiently filled up by sharing this between us and forgetting about the main dishes.

even the birthday girl who treated us left with a “takde dua kali lah tempat ni”. BUT! it was a cosy enough place since we were practically sprawled out in a corner, it wasn’t crowded despite a friday night, and the neighbouring tables pretty much weren’t bothered by our mak-budak-tak-sedar-diri antics and the two children spotted scampering around the place making themselves at home. and yes, we even appointed these two children to be our unofficial photographers. (bagus jugak ada anak.)

(taken by aniq. i’m not kiddingggg.)

(evidence of child labour.)

aaand happy birthday to the eldest mak budaks among us. THIRTY FREAKIN’ THREE OMG.

<3 <3

(april babies galore!)

Like

Unlike

77clan, originally uploaded by izadd.

it’s been a while since the clan met.

Like

Unlike

received a tweet from putriberendam last sunday saying that domino’s pizza had finally arrived in singapore and is halal certified. being a big fan of food (duh!), i simply had to check out their pizzas. i vaguely remember eating at domino’s years back in JB, but the only thing that struck me then was their red and blue logo…

turns out that the nearest branch is in katong and they don’t do delivery to tampines as yet. but since i was keen on trying it out, i drove all the way there with the wife. ahh, the things we do for our stomach

yes, finally got ‘em!

beforehand, i did an online order for the pizza, a rather straightforward point and click procedure. we ordered the value meal set that consists of a large pizza, jumbo wings, garlic cheese onion rings and breadstix. since there was an online promotion going on, we got a free order of twisty bread. upon confirmation of the order, the staff called me back to verify it.

so how was the pizza? well, since we took a while to reach the place, the pizza was a bit on the cold side when we reached home. but one of the plus points was that they were rather generous with their ingredients: sausages, pepperoni, chicken meat and turkey ham. the bread was fresh and very soft, the mozzarella cheese melted nicely on the pizza, but we felt that there could be more sauce. taste-wise, it’s definitely better than canadian pizza but we agreed that sarpino’s pizza sauce is still our favourite, or maybe because it really suits our so-called “malay tastebuds”.

meat galore is our pizza of choice!

perhaps the great discovery food item on the menu had to be the tasty fluffy breadstix, sinfully sprinkled with garlic seasoning and piping hot, this is one side order that you cannot afford to miss out. soft and fluffy on the inside, with salsa sauce on the side, just writing about it makes me wanna grab some more!

hmm, soft and fluffy breadsticks, nice….

overall, great food at a reasonable price. browse the website and see if they deliver to your area. last i checked, tampines area’s not covered! anyway click on my flickr to sample more of the food

ps: i received a call from domino’s staff a day after purchasing the pizza, asking for my feedback. told them about the lack of sauce on the pizza and was informed that we could request for more sauce topping at NO EXTRA COST if we wanted to. they thanked me for my feedback and offered me a complimentary LARGE pizza on my next order. i must say, they really take their customer feedback seriously. so give them a try, not happy with the pizza, tell them! who knows you might also get a free pizza..

Like

Unlike

on a lazy sunday evening last week, i managed to get the gang to join me prawning. its my first time prawning and i guessed for them too. we tried the one at punggol, there are a few all over the island, from bishan to pasir ris but the punggol location seems central to the rest of them. its $15 an hour but its get cheaper if you book for 3 hours which is $30. and you could barbeque the prawns there too!

rendra waiting for the bite that never comes!

the prawns were nothing to shout about, they were of decent size but the pond’s water looked rather clear so we could really see the prawns swimming along, haha!! anyway, we just prawned for an hour each. we got to choose our rods and were also given powdered bait which i suspected were dried worms. we tried the baits for a few minutes but it seems that the prawns were not biting. finally we got the live worms that they sell at the counter. and these worked like a charm! among us we caught around 11 prawns in an hour, not bad for beginners like us!

happy with our catch of the day!

anyway, we decided not to barbeque the prawns there as lenny offered to make sambal prawns
we ended the day with dinner at jalan kayu instead. for more pictures check out my flickr!

Like

Unlike

ok, we finally held the highly anticipated burger party last week and what a party it turned out to be!
the ingredients for the burger had a minor tweak to it but basically it followed the recipe from here. in the beginning, i wasn’t really sure if 4kg of mince beef was enough for the hungry people coming later but i guessed 36 thick fat beef patties were more than they could chew, literally!

the first few guests came just after 730pm and in no time, the grilling was in full force. since it was a grill-ya-own burger party, the guests were pretty much left to their own devices on the type of burgers they prefer. rendra started the grilling by making his own burger with egg combo. as it was a potluck thing, there were also a variety of other food and desserts. special thanks went to heriati and hubby for bring us a burger cake, even though they didn’t really stay for the party! i think we should host a special private burger party just for you guys!

they came, they cooked and they ate! what more could a host ask for? the food were great and some of these food included potato salad, apple crumble, caramel popcorn plus the oh so sinful chocolate brownie by lydia! the kids entertained themselves with aniq’s and auni’s toys, the guys with fifa10 while the girls as usually had their pekpot session. we even managed to include a surprised birthday cake for our birthday girl, farah! (how old, eh?) anyway, i guessed they all had so much fun that they want the burger party to be a regular event! (let me think about it)

more pictures can be found on my flickr account.

Like

Unlike