A BANQUET AT IMPERIAL TREASURE

6 February 2012 2 comments

Imperial Treasure at ONE°15
11 Cove Drive Sentosa Cove
ONE°15 Marina Club
Singapore
PRICE: $$$$
RATING: ★★★★★

I’ve been to Imperial Treasure once before, for a yumcha lunch. Normally, I try to steer clear from traditional Chinese restaurants because I find regular Chinese food kinda boring (ie. pretty sick of it). I much prefer local Singaporean food, Japanese food, Thai food etc etc.. if I had to choose an Asian restaurant to go to. But, I really loved their yumcha dishes and so was really excited when my aunt brought us there for a dinner.

The food was excellent – beautiful ingredients and artfully cooked. They aren’t exactly a very cheap restaurant, but at least the fresh ingredients and delicious dishes don’t make me feel like they’re overpriced.  Service was also prompt and very lovely.

And……. yep, this was my first proper taste of Yu Sheng. And it was this Yu Sheng served here that made me completely fall in LOVE the dish :) Something about the myriad of colours, the 34028402 ingredients mixed in there, and then fun ‘tossing’ of the ingredients that appeals to me. Not to mention, it tastes FREAKIN’ AWESOME.

I’ve had Yu Sheng about 5 times now, during Chinese New Year. Will have it another 2 more times. Heh!!!

Yu Sheng

 

Mixing it all up!

 

I thought the Crispy salmon skin sounded a bit weird (I much prefer the salmon meat itself!) so I was a bit hesitant with this dish.. but ended up munching away happily on a whole bunch :P It really was skin, deep fried in a light crispy batter. So simple, but it was tasty and so crisp!! Like chips. And no, not with a weird fishy flavour or anything.. but just very good :) I reckon even fish-haters would like this dish.

Crispy salmon skin

 

The Roast pork belly with crackling nearly had me hysterical with glee. IT WAS FANTASTIC!! This dish is so so so common in Chinese restaurants, but this one by Imperial Treasure was superbly done, better than the rest. The pork was luscious, meaty and juicy, and there wasn’t too much fat layered in (I don’t like the squishiness of the fat, eek). And the crackling… oooo…. the skin was utterly crisp, like a potato chip. It’s a must-order dish there IMHO.

Roast pork belly with crackling

 

Another dish I’m generally not big on is soups. Specifically this one called Double-boiled sea whelk soup with sharks fin edge and herbs, because, let’s face it, it doesn’t sound very appetizing does it :P But it actually became my #1 dish of the evening when I had a taste. The ingredients didn’t really fascinate me so I only drank the broth, but it was UNBELIEVABLY GOOD. I can’t explain the taste in words.. but it was rich yet not too strong, with all these layers of flavours. Apparently it’s what you get when you double-boil soup. MAN it was really good :)~

Double boiled sea whelk soup with sharks fin edge and herbs

 

We also had the Peking Duck,  which came out looking almost fake, cos it was roasted so evenly! They expertly sliced off the crispy skin, and wrapped it in the soft crepes. Delicious :) I only wish that they would slice the skin off with more meat, ‘cos it’s actually the duck meat that I like. Most places only do minimal meat though.. since the whole point of Peking Duck is to eat just the crispy skin.

Peking duck

 

All wrapped up in the mini crepe pancakes, sitting on prawn crackers

 

This was some special deep fried & steamed fish dish, that was pretty interesting. The meaty parts were all steamed tender and juicy, and the parts with bones were deep fried to munch on. I had the steamed fish and it was good, but I still think I prefer whole steamed fish (the one that comes in soy sauce and shallots – yum!)

Steamed fish and deep-fried fish

 

This was my first time eating Steamed live bamboo clams with minced garlic.  Actually it’s been ordered and served at the table at previous dinners, but I never ate it ‘cos I thought the clam was too big and scary :P This time, I decided to try it out because it looked rather pretty. Was really surprised the clam was soft and easy to bite/chew – I’d expected it to be a bit rubbery and chewy.. sort of like calamari. It had a nice texture though not much taste, so the copious amounts of minced garlic and tasty gravy was very well received.

Steamed live bamboo clams with minced garlic

 

The Pan fried wagyu rib eye was a lovely sight to see. Glistening, juicy steak that was chargrilled perfectly. It was really tender, thanks to the fact that it was wagyu :)

Pan fried wagyu rib eye

 

The Chrysanthemum and Apple Jelly was for dessert and was a lovely and refreshing way to end our meal. Chilled chunks of jelly that weren’t too sweet :) I actually found it better than the Mango Pudding, which I found to be good, but similar to many other restaurants’.

Chrysanthemum and Apple Jelly, Mango Pudding

 

 

Write a comment?

 

 




CHINESE NEW YEAR EATING

3 February 2012 15 comments

So we didn’t have a mad banquet of never-ending food during Chinese New Year. It’s supposed to be really good (guess it shows you’re prosperous and fat?? Heh) to have helluva lot of food such that people can’t finish it.. but we were totally unprepared for it, since we were supposed to be on holiday for Chinese New Year! But it was cancelled at the very last minute since Mum was in hospital (and only discharged the day before), so we had to make do with pretty simple food.

Anyway, no regrets and I liked it that way.. because it meant that 1) Mum was safe and out of the hospital, 2) we were still celebrating as a family, 3) it was kinda nice having a relaxed and chill CNY.

Breakfast on CNY day itself was waffles with bananas, maple syrup and ice cream. It was because I had all the stuff already in my kitchen and so could whip it up for all of us. Plus, Dad LOVES waffles.. and I thought it would be nice to do breakfast and coffee together for CNY :)

The waffles were those pre-made ones that you simply pop into the toaster. Verdict? Crappy. They become pretty stiff and crispy, and SO not like the waffles that I like – all moist and soft on the inside, and light and crisp on the outside. In retrospect it was silly of me, since it’s super easy to make waffles from scratch since I’ve done it many times before. Duh..

Waffles with bananas, maple syrup and ice cream

 

Lunch was a very last-minute decision.. as we had to figure out which places were actually open, that weren’t fully booked. We ended up having Japanese at the Raffles Town Club, which was an awesome decision because the food there is fantastic!

Outside the Japanese restaurant. We're wearing RED cos it's meant to be good to for CNY!

 

And we had this dish called Yu Sheng. OMG IT IS SO GOOD YOU WILL DIE OF HAPPINESS EATING IT………  Seriously. WHERE HAS THIS DISH BEEN ALL MY LIFE??????

I had Yu Sheng for the 1st time 2 nights prior (will blog about that later) and now I LOVE SALAD. Can’t believe just veggies and salmon sashimi can taste so good?!?!?!? It’s tasty, sweet, and utterly addictive. So this one at the Japanese restaurant was my 2nd time having Yu Sheng, and it was ‘Japanese style’… which basically meant it had a lot of sashimi of various types of fish. It was freakin’ awesome :)

Yu Sheng. Utter perfection.

 

So, the point of Yu Sheng is that you mix all these ingredients together (and there are a TON in the dish!). Each ingredient signifies something good…. I’m not sure specifically what they each signify, but it’s just meant to be all ‘nice sounding’!

AND, I remember hearing that it’s also supposed to be good to mix the ingredients hiiiiiigggghhhhh up in the air. I don’t know the exact reason why, but I think it’s something like the person that manages to reach the highest, is the person that has the best year ahead. Whatever. I’ll do whatever it takes just to get my hands on more Yu Sheng – yum yum yum!!

Quite annoyed that it took me 30 years (?!?!?!??!!!!) to discover this dish, because it actually ranks up there as one of my favourite dishes ever. Plus, I’m even more pleased that I like it, due to the fact that HELLO it is a salad! When ever in my life have I ever liked, let alone eaten, a salad dish?? My only regret is that this dish isn’t available year-round, which I reckon is quite unfair :(

Forced smile from me cos all I wanted to do was to eat it!

 

A few more photo ops with Hunter ensued.. mainly cos I think he looks spiffy in his CNY blue outfit :P

Fascinated with the bronze horse

 

Outside the cafe at Raffles Town Club

 

Our CNY Eve dinner was the really random one, because Mum had just come out of the hospital and we didn’t have any dinner planned. Obviously couldn’t go out to eat ‘cos it’d be madness in the City, plus Mum wasn’t really in the position to go out for a dinner.

So we ended up with….. steamboat!

Funny thing is, I was realllllyyyyyy EXCITED about the thought of having steamboat, because we hardly/never have it, and I thought we were all rather cool to be doing a steamboat when everyone else was probably having CNY tradition food or something.

But later, I saw all over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc etc… everyone was freakin’ having steamboat too!!!! So either everyone else stole our fabulous idea, or steamboat is actually quite common to have on CNY Eve. Pfffttt.

Anyway, Mum has a steamboat machine thingy.. and all it requires is just raw meat and veg to chuck in. It thus makes a very simple, little-preparation-required, meal. Plus, it’s fun cooking the bits of food in the bubbling broth :)

My fave part? Throwing in the instant noodles and an egg into the broth. SO YUMMY!

Our (not so unique) steamboat dinner for CNY Eve

 

I reckon CNY is equivalent to Thanksgiving in the USA.. where family get together and feast. There isn’t something similar in Australia though, oddly. I guess Christmas in Australia might be the closest, but it’s still quite different, because Christmas in Australia is also spent with friends and has a lot of partying involved, whereas CNY in Singapore is family-centric, in the home, and completely focused on food.

Anyway, hope you had a fabulous time celebrating (if you celebrate CNY)! And hope you didn’t gain too much weight :P I’ve put on around 2KG. Not too bad since I remember when we lasted celebrated CNY when we were 18 or 19 yrs old, Chris and I put on almost 5KG….. Each. Any improvement is an improvement, right? :P

 

 

Jennifer Koo liked this post

 

Write a comment?

 

 




HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

2 February 2012 14 comments

Hey guess what, it’s Chinese New Year!

OK, Chinese New Year actually started more than a week ago.. but I’ve been busy on playdates and looking after Hunter, so haven’t had a chance to blog about it yet. And anyway, was preoccupied writing up his 1st Birthday entries :P

But yep, Chinese New Year is really exciting for us this year because it’s the first time we’ve celebrated in …. believe it or not….. over a decade. I think the last time we celebrated was when I was 18 yrs old or something like that! It’s not exactly big in Australia, and in China the whole country practically shuts down whilst everyone visits their own relatives, so we could only bum around at home.

But THIS year, we’re in Singapore and can celebrate! And, even better, we have Hunter now. It was his 1st CNY so of course we had to dress him up in a traditional Chinese outfit. I figure since Hunter is a mixed kid, he would look pretty funky in it :P

"Oh maaaaan.... what have Mum and Dad DONE TO ME?!?!"

 

Getting into the CNY spirit :P

 

It was still a pretty low-key CNY celebration for us, because my Dad’s side of the family don’t even celebrate it, and my Mum’s side just barely. So all we really got was to go over to my Aunt’s place where she had an ‘open house’. But it was fun! Sooooo much yummy food (which is kinda my benchmark on whether a party is good or not, heh!!) and lotsa family friends there too. Hunter was a bit shocked with the people, but had fun :)

Cute decor!

 

All comfy on my parents

 

Chris finding out what it's like to be Dad to a lil girl :P

 

Mr and Miss Chinese New Year

 

"May I have a snack too, Mum?"

 

My aunt dug out this photo.. of my 2 cousins and I! I'm on the right of the pic, if it isn't obvious :P

 

 

Write a comment?

 

 




HUNTER’S 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY: THE NEXT DAY…

1 February 2012 8 comments

We stayed in the ONE°15 Marina Club hotel on the day of Hunter’s 1st birthday party. It made things a LOT easier, as it meant he could have his nap in a nice hotel room, we could put all our stuff there, and not have to pack everything into the car and speed home after the party.

The room was spacious and really lovely. Oddly, the bathroom was as big as the main bedroom?! But no complaints, because we thoroughly enjoyed the sunken bathtub and had a nice soak in there at night. When was the last time we actually ran a bath? I think it was on our honeymoon in the Maldives – yes, THAT long ago!

The hotel room

 

Running a bath with L'occitane green tea bath soaks

 

Breakfast was buffet-style and seated overlooking the harbour and yachts. Such a pretty view and I guess a bit of a novelty since you don’t get this often in Singapore. They had all the standard Western breakfast stuff, which was good, but I thought the Asian fried noodles was the best part – they were SO tasty :D

Hunter had a blast with his own plate of freshly-cooked scrambled eggs, toast, and baked beans. A bit of a treat for him because he rarely gets to eat the food served in restaurants (I fear that I don’t know how it’s cooked, how good/fresh the ingredients are, and all the salt/additives in there). He ate up every single bit ;)

My 1st plate of the buffet breakfast

 

Afterwards, we had a quick dip in the pool again, because Hunter really enjoyed the swim during his birthday party. It was pretty quiet in the morning, so a lovely time for a splash around and chill out. He thoroughly enjoyed it, and so did we :)

In his other spaceship outfit :P

 

Blowing bubbles to amuse my boys

 

Hunter, very pleased to have so much attention

 

"HELL YEAH, I'M ONE YEAR OLD!"

 

Enjoying frolicking around on the pool's chairs

 

Family shot :)

 

Since the club gave us a complimentary birthday cake (banana!), we decided to let Hunter dig in. You know those cute pics of kids with cake smeared all over their faces? Yeah… we never quite got that! Hunter, of course, is definitely not one of those kids that quickly snatches at stuff.

Rather, he eyed the cake veeerrrryyy carefully for a good few mins, and only gingerly reached over for a gentle poke after much encouragement from us. And even then, he only very slowly put it into his mouth for a careful nibble. He did like it though, because he reached over for more! But no matter what, still no mad grab for the cake, let alone stuffing it into his mouth :P

A gentle poke

 

Nom nom nom...

 

We helped Hunter open his birthday presents the next day.. And we were pretty surprised at how awesome they all were – SUPER cute clothes for him, or toys or useful stuff that was right up his alley! I think my friends all have really good taste or something. Or, they know him well :P

He is one very lucky and blessed lil boy!

Delighted with his stack of presents

 

...though I will admit, he was pretty fascinated with the wrapping paper too ;)

 

 

Write a comment?

 

 




HUNTER’S 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY: BEHIND THE SCENES

30 January 2012 14 comments

So here’s how things panned out behind-the-scenes for Hunter’s 1st Birthday Party..

The invitations were the straightforward part.. since it was just a matter of printing out the digital copy and then sticking it onto red cardboard paper. But, boy, was it laborious! So it was done whilst Chris’ parents and brother was here.. because multiple hands really do make it easier than just one set. It was kinda like our family project :P

My main issue was the invitee list. When I added it all up.. I ended up with a little over 30 kids (!!). That was WAY to massive a number because I’d actually thought a party with 10 kids would be the most manageable and appropriate.. so in the end I had to cut down on a ton and invited only kids that Hunter has regular playdates with.. especially favouring those about his age. I still ended up with 15 kids invited, but figured that was a good compromise :)

Hard at work doing our invitations!

 

The digital version of the invite (before it was pasted on to the red backings etc)

 

The thing that required the MOST EFFORT was the birthday banner. We wanted a backdrop to take photos against, and I specifically wanted it navy blue painted with silver. So we bought the material at Spotlight and I painted the words on. It took TEN COATS of paint!!! Just so the silver glitter would stand out easily against the background. It was painted over about 4 days, because each coat had to dry before I could paint the next… zzzz…..

Then afterwards came the process of gluing on the wall decals and little stickers that I bought – all spaceship themed of course. At least that part was easy and quick :P

Waiting for yet another coat of paint to dry, with a nekkid-bum baby getting in on the action

 

The food trays at the party were all labelled with food cards, using spaceship-themed cardboard cutouts. Simple and easy to do, but I thought it brought out the spaceships theme a lil more :)

Spaceship-themed food cards

 

And….. the favour bags. Boy these were fiddly!!!! I guess it’s because I wanted cute ones instead of just standard chuck-stuff-in-and-you’re-done ones. Which, in retrospect, was a bit of a waste of effort as almost all the kids were really young.. so they didn’t appreciate the packaging and the parents opened the bags for them instead :P

I found silver bags with stars on them (perfectly on-theme!) and blue ribbon. I simply folded the top of the bag over, punched holes at the top, and threaded the ribbon through. Attached to the ribbon was a small little silver spaceship charm - which I’d found on eBay and couldn’t resist :P

Then, the folded over flap of the bag was sealed down with a spaceship-themed sticker.. with a little “thank you” message from Hunter.

But OMG.. the wrapping of the bags, threading the ribbon, writing and sticking the stickers etc etc too ages!! I would do it all over again when he’s a few years older and all the kids can appreciate it.. but until then, I will probably do simpler ones ;) Because frankly, only the adults were exclaiming over them and the kids were rather oblivious!

Favour bags

 

You can see the contents above – which was a little noisy-whacker thing (that had “Hunter’s 1st Birthday!” written on it), some snacks, 2 rocket balloons (blow em up and release and they whizz around making a sound), and a little bottle of bubbles.

The bottle of bubbles also took quite a while.. because they came totally plain white. Uhh.. BORING much?! So I got shiny-prism spaceship/stars stickers and stuck them on. I was pretty hell-bent on finding a small bottle of bubbles to pop into the favour bags, cos I know kids LOVE bubbles and it’s perfect for a pool party, no? And happily, the kids enjoyed them. Made the effort worth while!

Spaceship-themed bottles of bubbles

 

Close-up of the ribbon, silver spaceship charm, and sticker

 

The other stuff that was ‘customised’ for the party was the spaceship-themed plates and napkins, and the cupcake stand. All also purchased on eBay :) My original idea was to bake a whole ton of star-shaped cookies, but I couldn’t find star-shaped cookie moulds in time so my cookies were round instead.

Then, the birthday cake. You can see in my previous post that we went with a Pine Garden cake, in triple-chocolate, that I heavily regretted afterwards. But, at least it looked pretty cute! I had it covered in plain chocolate icing.. so that I could put my own birthday candles on it.

The big “1st birthday” candle was purchased from Spotlight, and was placed on the top tier.

The little spaceship-themed candles were placed along the rim of the bottom tier, and are oh soooo cute! They were from eBay too and I nearly died of cuteness when I saw ‘em. Wee lil spaceships, space men, planets, monsters, etc!!! Aieeeee!!!

Originally, I was going to have an edible sign on the top, but I’d ordered it online 2 weeks in advance and it didn’t reach in time :( :( So I ended up with “Happy 1st Birthday Hunter” piped on with white cream instead.

I thought the candles were adorable and I think I like this ‘look’ better than a full spaceship-shaped cake.. because those tend to have pretty dry/boring cake on the inside. Would probably do it again for subsequent birthday parties.. but with a different theme, obviously.

The edible image that was meant to go on top of the cake

 

Birthday cake

 

Singing “Happy Birthday”

Cake cutting!

So there you have it! I guess it doesn’t really seem like that much effort.. but for me it was because I’m not v creative nor am I good with crafting with my own two hands. I’d normally just prefer to pay for it instead :P So I’m proud I decided to make the effort to, since you only get to celebrate your first-born child’s 1st birthday once!

Stephanie Moy liked this post

 

Write a comment?