Monthly Archives: November 2012

Les Charlottes en Ville – Lille, France

09 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by in France, Gastronomy, Oversea Restaurants, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

While strolling around the quaint town of Lille, hub and I stumble upon this little café / restaurant. It’s a bar / restaurant specialises in potato! Interesting.

I’m not a big fan of potato myself. To me, potato has always been like a supporting actor in a plate. Most of the time, I’ll leave them untouched (and hubby will finish it). Since it was close to lunch time, we decided to hop in and give this a try.

The waitress was a really sweet girl and she helped translate the menu for us.

As I was not very hungry, I went with the Entrecôte grillé, sauce poivre (pepper), crème ciboulette (abit like sour cream but, it’s made with Crème Fraiche drizzled with chives). As you can see, the portion of potato is more than the meat itself.

The steak was done to my liking (Medium Rare) but it was nothing spectacular. As for the star of the plate – the potato, it was sublime indeed. The potato is baked so well that each bite melts in my mouth. It’s almost like eating mash. The taste was so good even without the crème ciboulette. Yumz. This time, I finished up my potato…but, i was kind enough to share some with hub. hehehe…

Hubby had the Salade de Chevre (Goat’s Cheese Salad). The Goat’s Cheese was surprising light, and the citrus sauce went really well together. Aside from the slightly burned toast on the side, it is quite delicious.

For main, hub had the La Montagnarde which was basically, mountain ham with baked potato oozing with melted cheese (similar to raclette). Not a fan of the ham but again the potato was done really well… yum yum.

If you are a potato fan, give this little restaurant a try. It seriously open up my eyes about making potato the main star on the plate.

No Signboard – Esplanade, Singapore

08 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Gastronomy, Oversea Restaurants, Singapore, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

I had the craziest craving recently. (Hub thinks I have cravings almost every other day. So, he reckons I shouldn’t call it cravings but just greedy. Hahaha…) Anyway, I was really hankering for Chili Crab from Singapore!

After hearing about my cravings, Hub’s friend (Ed) invited and treated us to a crab feast. Yay, Thank you so much Ed!!!

He made reservation with the No Signboard Restaurant in Esplanade. This restaurant started off as a small hawker place with no name. Today, the restaurant has several branches and they are known as No SignBoard Restaurant… (You can read more about their history from their website). Luckily Ed made reservation for the 3 of us. The place was packed like mad. The manager had to keep turning guest away. But then again, it was Friday night and the view at Esplanade is amazing.

We were told that their signature crab dish is actually the white pepper crab. Oh no…decision decisions… I really want the Chili crab too. The waiter kindly told me that I can order ONE crab for each dish. CooL! I know most restaurants need you to order at least 2-3 crabs per dish. So, we ended up with both.

We had the fresh oyster, which was HUGE. It’s almost the size of my palm. The texture is very firm (reminds me of pacific oyster I had when in Tasmania, Australia). The different was this has less briny taste. I think I still prefer the ones I had in Tasmania. But, this comes really close. The white pepper crab is lovely. I love the ‘kick’ from the pepper combine with the sweetness of the crab. Their crabs are really fresh too. Yummz…

The Chili crab is slightly different from the ones I had previously. This was slightly less sweet and has a bit more curry powder taste. It’s quite a nice balance as the sauce is not too over powering that it hides the crab’s freshness. It is so good with the fried mantao (Chinese bread).

We also ordered the deep fried butter prawn. The prawn felt a little overcooked to me. But, the deep fried butter taste was really good. In fact, I got abit addicted to the bits of crispy fried batter more than the prawn. ;p

It was a great night feasting on those yummy crabs and catching up with Ed. Hub and I had a great time. Thanks again Ed. J

My rainy day memories…

05 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by in Everything else...

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

,

brr…(so cold and wet lately)

It’s the monsoon season…

It has been raining almost the WHOLE week everyday. When it rains in Malaysia… it pours like cats and dogs. It’s crazy with lighting and thunder. Just now the thunder was so powerful, I could almost felt the tremor inside my office building. yikes ! And it actually trigger our circuit breaker.

ALL the work which I was working on got cut off… and I didn’t save ! sob sob sob… sigh…

Staring out my window, watching the water trickle down brings back so much fond memories about rain.

When I was younger, I was fascinated by the rain. It was like the whole world stop moving to allow the rain to come and sooth all pain away. The pitter patter sound made on the roof is so hypnotic. I can spend hours just pressing my face on the window looking out at the puddles the rain made.

I remember once my brothers, cousins and I ran home from school during a heavy downpour. We had so much fun running in the rain and jumping on puddles (trying to get each other wet – it doesn’t really make sense now since we were all soaking wet anyway). When we reach home, we got the scolding of our life for trying to walk in the rain instead of waiting at school until it stopped. I remember mom marched us all to take a hot shower immediately, follow by a kneeling on the floor for a good 2 hours (with our hand pulling our own ears – suppose to mean that we are sorry for our action and we will listen next time).

Another time, I smuggled to a ‘special-guest invited’ school event, which my cousin was suppose to receive a special award. As her parents were caught overseas, she had to go alone. I (the ever kind and important cousin), agreed to accompany her. But, we were both minor (I think we were 10 years old then), I had to smuggle and hide somewhere in the school compound waiting for her (I was very timid then – and do anything she ask me to do – that big bully. ;p ). Anyway, it started raining and I had no where to hide and stay sheltered. In the end, I squeeze myself underneath a big table at the side of the building (which my cousin was in). I was cold and wet by the time she finish with her event to collect me. bleh… Yes – I still use this to blackmail her now whenever i need favors from her. MUAHAHAHAA… but, i love her very much. 🙂

This is one of my favourite memory. It was my university days. I was on the tram going to Uni when it started raining quite heavily (for Melbourne standard). I had no umbrealla with me, but, have to jump out that stop. Right after I jump out, I quickly ran to the nearest side walk shelter I can find. While I was trying to wipe myself clean, an umbrella stopped right in front of me. I look up and see this really cute guy (with glasses – I’m a sucker for man in glasses). He smile and ask If he can walk me to my lecture hall !!! I was stunned. (No – I am not hot looking or pretty. At most, some of my really close friends say i’m abit cute. lol…) He gallantly gave me more portion of the umbrella and we started chatting. When we almost reach my lecture hall, he told me he’s in his second year and I stupidly told him I’m older than him as I was in my 4th year. He was shocked. He told me that he thought I was in my first / second year. oh well, after that, he dropped me off and wave bye… LOL… it was still a damn romantic experience for me.