9 course vegetarian menu at DOMVS

It was the last day of DOMVS' (Sheraton Towers Hotel) special vegetarian menu so I had to pop by today to eat it for lunch even though it was 9 courses. My two lunch companions patiently sat through it all while I ate 9 to their 3 courses. As I get older, I prefer vegetarian food to meat based menus and this degustation menu was really delicious. I didn't feel too full or bloated after the meal.

The Menu
$108 +++ per person

Tomato and salt

Salad of bulgur cracked wheat, arugula with feta cheese, vanilla flavoured

Carrot veloute with scent of mint, vegetarian caviar

Home made spaghetti with fried eggplant, tomato sauce and smoked cheese

Fresh fava beans "Maccu" with grilled smoked cheese, Vincotto

Thick soup of barley and wild asparagus with Ragusano cheese, extra virgin olive oil from Iblei Mountains
(this was my favourite - hearty and delicious!)

Porcini mushroom flan and chilled summer black truffle cappucino
(I gave this to Lynn since I am not too keen on truffle)

Roasted and spicy Seitan with green pepper, Dijon mustard
(I got to say that the only dish I didn't enjoy was this one. I don't like gluten and the vegetables were too salty so this dish was left almost untouched)

Duo of sorbet with sesame biscuit, bittersweet chocolate mousse and crunchy pearls

Coffee, tea and petit fours

I don't know why people shun away from vegetarian food because if they tried these dishes, they would have been blown away by it all. The food was overall very good and I could eat more of it for sure. It had all my favourite ingredients such as fresh tomatoes, feta cheese, barley, eggplant and mushrooms. A huge piece of steak or chicken just totally turns me off.

Now I have to go on a search for good vegetarian cuisine. Any ideas?

Lynette

Cooking Show with Brandt on 23rd August

On August 23rd, Chef Bertrand and I are putting on a cooking show with our major sponsor Brandt. Join us and sign up today by clicking here. You will receive lots of goodies and also a terrific healthy meal.

Click on this poster for more details!

See you soon!

Lynette

A few restaurants I tried lately for lunch

I tried a couple of restaurants for lunch lately but I haven't had time to write any of them down.

The three that I remember quite well were:

Novus Restaurant at The National Museum

We went there with a couple of girlfriends for a set lunch. I've never been to The National Museum and it's a beautifully restored old building. The restaurant is also amazing. It feels like you are in a fine dining retaurant in Europe. The service was superb which is what impressed me straight away. It's been open for a while now so I guess they ironed out all their kinks. We had a set 4 course lunch for $38 +++. I ordered:

Beef carpaccio

Herb creme soup

Green asparagus gratinee

Black cherry frangipane tart

I liked all of them and I think it's a really cool place to go to. It's classy for both lunch and dinner and it's centrally located off Orchard Road. I will definately go back.

The White Rabbit at Harding Road

This place is all style and no substance. It opened very recently with a few good reviews by the media but the public has almost unanimously torn it apart. I decided to try it out myself because I don't always believe reviews and I think any place is worth a try. The restaurant is in a restored church and it's really beautifully done. Singapore seems to have lots of beautiful locations but unfortunately the food doesn't always go with it. It's definately the place to meet your friends because we never met so many friends in a restaurant before. We bumped into 3 sets of friends on a Saturday lunch a few weeks back. As the ceilings are high, the place echos like nothing you can imagine. I would hate to be there on a busy night and apparently it's usually packed out! Luckily it was half full on the day we went and we sat in a quiet corner.

The service was not too bad. The waiters were attentive but I think it's because they were on red alert. Two tables beside me had already given them negative feedback. We were sitting very close to the kitchen and we heard some shouting in there which caused us some alarm and the waiter was so tense she apologised to us. I guess they still have some kinks to iron out!

The food was not altogether very good. It was generally bland. I ordered the famous macaroni & cheese as a side dish to go with my crab meat salad. The macaroni and cheese was completely without salt and the crab meat salad was fine but the portions were generally quite small. Andrea ordered the pork which was quite tough to eat. For this meal of 1 appetizer, 1 main and 1 side dish, we paid close to $100. I never quibble over prices but I think this one was a tad expensive.

I guess they have to work on this restaurant pronto as it will not be sustainable in the long run when the next best thing hits the market which, knowing Singapore, means it's pretty soon!

PS Cafe at Palais Renaissance on Orchard Road

This is a beautiful restaurant overlooking The Thai Embassy. We sat outside and it was breezy and quiet. The service was generally good and the food was pretty much up to the PS Cafe standard. The place is so beautiful and peaceful it's easy to forget you are on Orchard Road. I ordered the Crab tart served with wrapped greens drizzled in a lime and green peppercorn sauce and home made chili tomato chutney. The tart was very nice except I felt the tart pastry shell was quite thick so I ate more pastry than the actual filling. Otherwise it was lovely but the location and the restaurant is so beautiful you can overlook just about anything. We ordered a couple of cakes which were also lovely. Overall, this makes a nice lunch spot and also a great brunch spot if they serve it. Definately a secret that will not be a secret for long!

This week is pretty quiet for me as there are few classes at the school but I am frantically checking and ironing out all the kinks in the new website because we can't wait any longer to launch it. I need to make sure everything works. In other words, I'm glued to my desk and working like a crazy person and burning the midnight oil. I'm deliberately working from home so that I can get stuff done without the distractions of people coming to ask me questions. My whole body hurts from exercising with my trainer. I think he's being nice to me when he says I am getting stronger but when I look in the mirror, I don't see any changes and my clothes don't feel any looser either. In fact, I checked my weight and realised I'm even heavier than before. Could it be the fat is turning into muscle. I guess not! I'm just getting fat regardless of how much I am training. Oh well, persevere I guess. I read in the paper today about signs of aging and how to combat aging or slow it down. One of the things it lists is exercise. I do believe that execise is good for you in the long run hence I am making it part of my routine. I just found a tennis instructor so I will start private lessons next week. I find tennis makes me work harder than at the gym. I like cardio sports as yoga and pilates makes me fall asleep and I'm way too impatient. All I think about in those classes are "when is it going to end" and "what shall I eat today" and "I wonder how my To Do List is looking". I guess you can say I'm much too hyper for these slow things. I need to run about and hit something (a ball is good for now although sometimes I want to hit more than a ball!)

Lynette

Hawker center visit

So, most of you know that I don't eat at hawker centers. It's because I often find them smelly, dirty and just plain nauseating. Angeline and Jenny convinced me that I should go to Zion Road as we would be going to watch "I want to believe" afterwards. Well, I seriously wanted to believe them when they tell me the food is good.

The verdict: not for me lah!

This hawker center was quite airy so the smell wasn't so bad.

We ordered:

Fresh sugarcane juice with lemon (this was refreshing)
Fried carrot cake (bland bland bland)
Prawn noodle soup with tomato sauce (the soup was fine but the noodle was odd with tomato sauce in it)
Fried char kyaw tiao (greasy greasy greasy and quite tasteless)
Rojak (I only ate the you tiao)
A huge plate of mango, papaya and pineapple (this one I ordered and it was nice too!)

Since I only ate like a bite of the food and almost all the fruits, I had to order a bucket of pop corn at the movies. The movie was great - but then I am an X- Files fan so I already believe.

I don't think I want to go back to a hawker center anytime soon. Sorry, but I really tried. Really really.

Lynette

The Long Italian Lunch

Last Sunday, we had a long Italian lunch at Chef Fabio's! We are still keeping him company waiting for Daniela to return to Singapore. We hope it's soon otherwise we will run out of Italian recipes to replicate! It was really fun as we made fresh pasta while we were at Fabio's. It's easy and once you know how to make it, it only takes about half an hour.

We had:

Slices of cured meat with lots of ciabatta
Fresh home made fettucine with tomato & caper sauce
Veal roasted in milk & fresh salad
Chocolate cake & fresh rambutans

Jenny breaking the eggs into the well of flour

The kneading

Fabio helping me roll out the ultra long pasta

Passing it through to make the fettucine

Chris adding the flour so it won't stick

All done and ready to eat!

The Long Italian Lunch Starts

So tonight, we are doing Vietnamese at the studio.

Lynette

Chinese Dumplings and Scallion Pancake Class

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon and I'm staying at the studio all day today. This morning, we held our chinese dumpling and scallion pancake class with Chef Lynn Chen. I love eating dumplings so I hung around and made sure I ate a few at the end of the class.

It's always nice when participants enjoy themselves and tell you so. They like the hands on bit of the class most and of course our lovely cozy kitchen. When I hear these things, I'm glad I started the school.

The participants rolling their dumplings

A closer look at their handy work

Their dumplings before being cooked

The pancakes which needs to be flattened and then pan fried

The masterpiece (boiled dumplings, fried dumplings and pancake)

This afternoon, Jenny, Angeline and I are testing some Vietnamese recipes based on our recent trip to Hanoi. We are doing the following menu:

Beef Pho
Vietnamese springrolls
Bun cha
Eggplant casserole
Tofu with tomato
Tang Yuen

I will keep you updated on how it turns out. There will be 9 of us in the studio this evening testing the food!

Lynette

Home Italian Cooking coming to you in September

We have teamed up with Sicilia Mia for home italian cooking classes. Our first class with focus on the Fundamentals of Pasta & Sauce Making. We are very excited to work with them!

Click on this poster to get more details!

See you soon!

Lynette

Thai cooking class at SHATEC

Today, Angie and I attended a cooking class at SHATEC. It was by The Thai Trade Center and the purpose was to promote Thai cuisine among professional chefs. The chefs they sent were not very engaging, preferring to just cook silently while we watched. It was a demo followed by a lunch break and then the practical session. After the dismal demo, we decided to skip the practical session. I think the chefs could have done a better job to promote their cuisine. They spoke perfect English but preferred not to do any teaching which was kinda weird. The food however, was quite good. Angie will work at intergrating these recipes into our Thai Intermediate classes starting in the next few months.

Angie trying her hand out at making the Thai Golden Cups

The Thai golden cups (like Kueh Pie Tee) with minced chicken filling

Thai red curry with prawns. The great thing about this dish is that you heat the coconut milk first until it splits before adding the red curry. We had been taught the other way round and the curry sometimes burn if you heat the curry with the oil first before adding the coconut milk

The grilled eggplant served with fresh shrimps

So today proved why I do not like demonstration classes because if the chef is not engaging, it's really boring. If they are engaging, you can't get any closer to the food anyway so you might as well watch it on TV. The difference is the smell and the ability to ask questions.

All our Thai classes are hands on and we just started our 5 Week Basic Thai Module tonight. I am now waiting patiently for my green papaya salad and my hot and sour soup. Yummy!

Lynette

Sundays for me..

I haven't written anything for quite a while but it doesn't mean I've been idle. It's because I've been keeping a low profile, catching up on work and taking care of things at home. I was in HK last week but it was not a very enjoyable trip for me this time. We spent the majority of the time looking at apartments and most of them were not quite suitable for some reason or other.

I also had a disaster of a time with restaurants. We decided to go to Zuma as it was voted one of the Top 100 restaurants in the world recently. It's a contemporary Japanese cuisine restaurant, bar and hang out place. It's a place that's really to be seen and to observe others. Located at The Landmark, it is a beautiful double storey place with an internal spiral stair case. I guess these places always get such great reviews it's hard not to believe it. We couldn't be more disappointed as the service was generally poor. We decided to spend big by ordering the tasting menu which cost almost $300 each. I didn't even have the heart to write down the menu and it's not on the website so I don't have anything to publish here. As every dish was served, the waiter could not explain any of the dishes to us and I had to ask for the menu to be kept by my side so that I could read the name of each dish as it was being served. I never quibble about prices but by the time the dessert came, I was still hungry which was not a good sign! The dishes were mainly seafood based and the portions were horrendously small. I could have eaten two of each. Perhaps it's their way of telling me they are helping me lose weight. So anyway, although the food was generally good, I won't be returning anytime soon unless I am a skinny model and food is not a big part of my life and the service improves dramatically. Since I don't see the former ever happening and the latter I am not so sure, you won't be seeing me there again!

I will return to HK during the National Day weekend in early August and hopefully, I will have a better time trying restaurants recommended by some of you. I will let you know. And hopefully, we will have a proper apartment to live in.

While I was there, I met up with HK Celebrity Chef Jacky Yu. He is the founder of Xi Yan. Xi Yan has a private dining place here in Singapore but they have 4 or more outlets in HK. Jacky is very well established in HK and I am glad he is coming to Singapore to do a cooking class for us on the 18th July. On my next trip back to HK, I will be accompanying Jacky's party to Shenzhen to visit Martin Yan's culinary school. I will let you know how that visit goes.

I've been madly exercising three times a week but it seems none of the fat has moved! I definately notice a difference now that I am getting older - it is so much harder to lose weight, whether you starve yourself or exercise! I guess I will just have to keep at it and not give up.

Sundays are my working days as it's everyone else's day off. I don't mind as it's usually a baking class and it's very therapeutic to bake on a Sunday morning. It also smells so good and they generally make less of a mess than they do in a cuisine class. The good news is that it's only half a day and then I get to go home and spend the rest of the time with the boys and one little girl.

Starting Monday, we have corporate classes and public cooking classes every night so if you come through Portsdown Road, you will see our lights burning in the studio and I'll be there working my butt off! Well, I guess I should be grateful that it's not the other way round - drive by and the kitchen is deserted and locked up!

Lynette

Paisley & Cream Baking Class - The cafe series

I managed to be there for one of Chef Puja's cafe series classes. It was rather fun and if you love baking, do join us for her next baking class which is all about ... wait for it.. cup cakes as this seems to be everyone's favourite!

These peanut cookies were delicious! I ate thousands of them (ok not thousands but alot!). They taste like the chinese peanut cookies you get during Chinese New Year except without the oil and you can eat these year round!

Yummy scones on their way to the oven

Lovely fruit tarts

Some of our participants hard at work

The beautifully wrapped boxes with all the goodies to take home

The details are below for the next class:

Cup Cake Techniques & Decorations

Type: Hands On

Price: 100 per person

Date: 20-7-2008

Time: 11am to 2pm

Chef: Puja Pawa, Executive Pastry Chef, Paisley Cream

Discover the secrets to making the perfect cup cake and dress them up pretty with icing using different techniques and decoration tips. Impress your friends and loved ones with the cup cakes you made after the class, as everyone will be bringing home at least half a dozen cup cakes in a beautifully wrapped box. - make simple cup cakes - make a variety of different flavor icing - learn to pipe a variety of designs onto cup cakes The cup cake flavours we are covering include: Rum & raisin cupcakes Kahlua & coffee

See you there!

Lynette

Growing herbs in my back yard

I don't have green fingers but I am determined to make it happen. Over the last few years, I have tried to grow many herbs, from seeds and from cuttings and not all of them have worked. These have somehow survived and I am hoping it will grow and grow.

Hopefully we will have tomatoes one day!

Curry leaves

Our lemongrass doesn't seem to be doing so well

Kaffir lime leaves which we now use in our Thai classes

Pandan which I use to boil with my barley water

Since these photos were taken, we have also tried to grow chilis from their seeds (all sorts from the small bird eye ones to the large green chilis). I am keeping my fingers crossed that something will sprout!

I also acquired a growing and healthy rosemary plant which smells so good. Now I just hope I nurture it enough so that it continues to thrive.

If you have any ideas on how to grow and nurture herbs, do send me some tips!

I am hoping that if they are successful, I can move them to our balcony at the studio and we can use them in our cooking classes and you can take some cuttings home too!

Lynette

HK Celebrity Chef Jacky Yu from Xi Yan to visit Singapore and Palate Sensations Cooking School

HK Celebrity Chef Jacky Yu from Xi Yan will be here in Singapore. He has a special menu out from 16th July to 19th July. Click on the picture below to see the details. I've had most of the items on the menu and they are excellent. I have booked a table for 6 on 19th July so see you there if you are going!


On another note, we will also be hosting Jacky Yu at our studio on 18th July as he will be conducting a cooking class demonstration.

Do come and join us if you are interested to find out how he does some of these dishes!

Time: Friday 18th July 10am to 12.30pm

Fees: $120 nett per person (includes a signed copy of one of his cook books and tasting portions served)

Menu:

Fried Sichuan Prime Ribeye

Fresh Peppercorn Prawns

Xi Yan Signature Tang Yuan in old ginger soup

To register, call us on 6479 9025 or e-mail us at info@palatesensations.com

Lynette