Soto Betawi (Recipe)

This is a great traditional Indonesian beef soup that my Mum loves to make. It's always daunted me because with Indonesian food there's always a ton of spices to put in and honestly I'm just too lazy. But when I was in Brisbane, my sister in law made it and she said it was so easy and you don't need a lot of ingredients. So I searched the net for recipes and compared a few to see the similarities. I settled on this one and found it to be delicous! Now I can have Soto anytime I want :) No need to wait for Mama!

Tips: Find meat with a lot of sinew in it as it will make the tastiest meat in the soup. If you like in Singapore, you can find cheaper cuts of beef in the frozen meat section. You can also find tendon in the same section. If you choose to cook tendon, don't fret if you can't cut it with a knife...or anything else in your kitchen for that matter, because you're actually supposed to cut it after it's cooked, ie. after it become gelatinous. I also used a slow cooker for my soup, turned it on overnight and was ready for lunch the next day. Just remember not to cut your meat too small if you're using the slow cooker as it breaks down a lot and put the heat on low, not high. I cooked all the meat with the spices in the slow cooker, then when it was ready the next day I added the coconut milk and evaporated milk (instead of fresh milk so it was richer).

Nastar or Pineapple Tarts

This is a recipe that's been handed down from my Mum and when I make it, it makes me think about her :) If you've never made Pineapple Tarts before, don't be afraid, it's actually easier than you think!

Ingredients:
400g butter, unsalted
120g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tspn Vanilla Extract
500g flour
100g cornflour
1 tspn salt (omit if you used salted butter)
75g Milk Powder

Eggwash, Egg yolk + milk

1. Preheat oven at 150C and line a baking tray with baking paper. 
2. Mix the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until white. 
3. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.
4. Sift the flour, corn flour, powder milk and salt. 
5. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix by hand until it forms a nice soft dough. Do not mix too long.
6. Get a bit of dough, flatten it and place a piece of pineapple jam in the middle and form into round balls.
7. Cook the tarts for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, take it out and glaze with egg wash using a pastry brush. Return to the oven and cook until golden. 

To make the Pineapple filling or Jam you can either use freshly grated pineapple or canned pineapple drained of its juices. Cook in a pan until it's dry and add the desired amount of sugar. Then leave aside to cool and form into little balls and put aside until it's ready. You can make this a day before and keep it in the fridge. 

Sometimes you may have left over dough but have no filling left. In Indonesia it's common to make a cheese tart, whereby you mix grated cheese into the dough, then cook for 15minutes and then glaze with egg wash and sprinkle with some more grated cheese. 

Nail Stickers Obsession

I have been in love with these nail stickers ever since the seller put one on my finger to try out. Finally I could get beautiful designs without having to go to a mani and at only $2 a set it's a real bargain.

When I first used it myself, it didn't last long, basically they started peeling or ripping on the tips after just a day and I had found it difficult to put on the right hand, me being right handed and all. But I got better with more practice and now they even last longer, about half a week to a week. I experimented with putting on a top coat over the whole nail sticker after putting it on my nails, but that didn't make it last any longer. In fact I feel as though it's made the nail sticker come off faster, I had instances where the sticker slid right off after a couple of days! No idea why. But this latest one I just applied the top coat on the tips of the nails and that seems to do the trick quite well.

If a sticker slides off, don't fret and don't peel off all the other good ones, just paint that nail with a matching colour. The seller also gave me some tips on how to make the stickers last longer, don't stick the stickers on your skin or on the cuticles which allows air bubbles to form and causes liquids and soaps etc to get in underneath and probably peel off the sticker. So to make the stickers fit exactly to the shape of my nails, I put some sticky tape on my clean nails and used a marker pen to outline the shape of my nail, then pressed it onto some paper and cut out the outline. Then I superimposed it with the nail sticker and just cut the right shape and voila it did the trick well and perhaps this is also why the stickers have stayed on longer this time.

The first test sticker.

I peeled off the sticker and put it on another finger and used it to practice filing it down. 

There are 6 stickers for each side. 1 for your big toe.

Here's the Big Toe one. On your toes these stickers last very long.

Since the stickers were longer than my nails, I cut the top off and used it for my toes. Genius!

Second finger and pinky finger peeled off so I painted with a plain nude colour which kind of matches the other stickers.

New York New York Restaurant at Kovan Heartland Mall

Most of the time on my blog I try not to un-recommend a restaurant, because food is subjective, my taste may be different to yours. But this time I really have to voice out my opinion because I felt so unsatisfied.

We were initially going to eat at Double Spout Cafe on the ground floor in front of Cold Storage, but it was closed, so we ventured to New York New York Restaurant on the second floor. This is what I had. I think it was called Jiggy Piggy (or something like that), price was $15.90++. So it was 3 small pieces of pork chops with salsa, some salad leaves which went limp after a while because the hot pork chops were sitting on top of them (why couldn't they have just put it on the side), a smear of pretty tasty mashed potatoes...and in the second picture we have 5 pieces of tortilla chips, which they forgot to give me till I pointed out to them that it was stated in the menu. Actually the menu said Spinach tortilla chips...but I got just the normal ones. And only 5 pieces can you believe it? Really it's not that it wasn't tasty, the pork had flavour, but was a little tough, the mashed potatoes were very nice and creamy and salad leaves were salad leaves, but I really felt that the amount of food didn't justify the price. It was just a smear of mashed potatoes......

The corn chips on the side looked so sad.

What bothered me also was the Lunch special menu. See below:

You'll notice that apart from the burger and the spaghetti, none of the other mains has any sides to it except for bits of chopped up vegetables. For $8.90++ my friend had the Pork Cutlet with BBQ Sauce and Sauteed Vegetables which was what the waiter recommended I ordered since what I was ordering was pretty much the same. I pointed out to him that it didn't have any starch, like potatoes or rice or even bread, so it would be unlikely I would feel satisfied. This Lunch Special in my opinion is not special at all, nor is it value for money! For $8.90 you get 2 pieces of pork chops and a few slivers of sauteed capsicum,....after tax and service charge that's like over $10! So I basically almost paid double the price just for my smear of mash and salad leaves and 5 pieces of corn chips....hmmmm......Really it's such a surprise that they don't offer a complete meal for that price, with a starchy side or even a more substantial amounts of vegetables. The Roasted chicken leg you can see is probably only a quarter of a chicken and the Golden Fish Fritters....2 pieces of fried fish....If you're gonna go for the Lunch Special, go for the spaghetti or burger, they look the most substantial. Unless you're on a low carb diet of course, then hey this menu is perfect for you. 

The restaurant at lunch time was pretty empty, maybe I'm late to discover what other patrons have already known for a long time, there are other better places to eat at Heartland Mall. It looks like they have difficulty drawing a crowd. Mind you this isn't the first time I ate there, long ago I ate there with my family and I thought it wasn't so bad, but the menu has been revamped I think and everything has increased in price. 

Long Phung Vietnamese Restaurant

This restaurant nestled at 159 Joo Chiat Rd is a cosy little restaurant. It's been challenging finding a good Vietnamese food in Singapore, one that is just as good as the ones in Australia (not comparing to Vietnam because I haven't been there). Long Phung is definitely a great find, the food was affordable and tasty. If I had any complaints it would be that I wished the servings were slightly bigger, but that's because it was so delicious and we wanted more :)

The restaurant gets packed during lunch and dinner, so if you want to avoid waiting in line outside then come a little bit earlier.

The wait staff were all Vietnamese and seemed like they could speak Chinese more than English. Thankfully the menu has pictures. There is also an open air carpark conveniently situated right beside the restaurant.

Grilled Pork Chop with Rice. The Pork Chop is super fragrant and tasty! The plate if you compare to one that's served in Australia is a bit bare, most places in Oz would serve shredded pork skin and a steamed egg cake on the side instead of a sunny side up and often it would be broken rice. I wonder why no Vietnamese restaurants here serve broken rice.

This is Quail, 3 whole birds for $12. Not sure if it was grilled or fried, I think it was fried. But you can tell that it's been marinated and was pretty good. This is something I don't often have in Singapore. The dipping sauce was the best, it was peppery, salty and sour all at the same time and was really appetising. 

Beef Pho. This I give two thumbs up. Some people might not like the sweetness of the soup but for us we loved it. We loved the depth of flavour. My 7yo had this and she finished up all the noodles and was wishing there was more. This is one of the best phos I've had in singapore.

Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Pork and Springroll and Raw Vegetables for $$6.50. This was quite good and is one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes. But this presentation is kinda new to me because usually the noodles would be on the bottom and the vegetables and meat would be on top. The sweet, spicy, sour sauce/dressing that went with it was perfect. Makes me salivate as I type this :)

On the Wall. Many more items I want to try. 

Condiments, I like how the lime is served as a condiment, so you can add as many as you want.