Rich Chocolate Brownie With Pecans And Walnuts

Jun18
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

During the weekend, my wife and myself started baking brownies at home. Using the premix by Hale & Hearty, we added pecans and walnuts for a nutty crunch in our chocolate brownies. We ain’t professional bakers but we enjoy baking things together, using the easy way.

Spread a little Nutella on my Star brownie.

Ingredients
Hale & Hearty Rich Brownie Chocolate Mix
2 eggs
200g of salted butter or unsalted butter
100ml of fresh milk
A pack of pecans and walnuts.

Preparation time: A good 40 minutes from mixing until complete.

Directions
Preheat oven to 175 degree Celsius.
Mix the brownie premix with 200g of soften butter and 2 eggs.
Mix until the batter become paste. Pour the 100ml of milk into mixture and continue mixing till smooth.
Add the pecans and walnuts to your preference.
Bake for 25 minutes. Use a toothpick to make sure it come out clean.
Cool and is ready to be served.

The Hale & Hearty’s brownies are indeed rich in chocolate taste and the strong chocolaty aroma spread across my kitchen when I first opened the oven lid. When the brownies are refrigerated, it feels much fuller in taste when having them. This premix is also organic probably because of the use of raw cane sugar instead of fructose or other processed sugars. So far during my walk in most major supermarkets in Singapore, only Cold Storage sells it at $8.90.

Great choice for a good family baking session together! What a Father’s Day cake!

Website: Hale & Hearty Food

Posted in Quick Recipes - Tagged brownie, Hale and hearty, Nutella, pecans, RX1, walnuts

Blackball Signature Dessert For Hot Day

Jun14
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

Today, I managed to get my first taste of this unique black dessert, which the shop claims that it originate from Taiwan, in Katong 112 shopping mall. The name of this dessert is called Blackball Signature. Uniquely weird from it’s appearance, this dessert is packed with grass jelly, sweet potato balls, yam balls, red beans, black tapioca pearls and YamQ (a name for a chewy mouthfeel of yam balls). My first instinct of this black dessert was, “is this black herbal jelly loaded with bubble tea’s ingredients?”

My bowl of cold Black Ball dessert which cost $4.90.

Pour the capsule of milk given to add a little creaminess to this dessert.

You have the options to choose how you like your dessert to be served. Hot, warm, cold or icy?

The grass jelly, red beans and black pearls are typical. I feel that this cold dessert is “dry” as there are not much presence of liquid in it, except for the capsule of milk which is about 2 tablespoons. Probably an iced version of this dessert will be much better.

I loved the sweet potato and taro balls in this dessert. The texture and sweetness of these chewy balls reminds me of Grandma Lai’s sweet taro balls during my visit in Jiufen, Taiwan. You can read about my visit of Jiufen here. If you want me to make a comparison between Blackball’s taro and sweet potato balls and Grandma Lai’s, I would say the general mouthfeel and taste are almost identical. If I were to compare both desserts together, I will definitely prefer Grandma Lai’s recipe because the sweetness of the soup enhances the taste of the taro and sweet potato balls.

Recommended drink, the Sour Plum Tea. Trust me, this drink wakes you up. :) This ice cold drink cost $3.00.

I loved the Sour Plum Tea because it gave me a wide spectrum of taste: sweet, sour and saltish. For health conscious people, unfortunately you cannot change the sugar level for this drink but for myself, the level of sweetness is acceptable. When served ice cold, it helps freshens my day and pretty thirst quenching for the hot days in Singapore.

Address of my review:
Katong 112 Shopping Mall
112 East Coast Road, 112 Katong #02-27 Singapore 428802

Opening hours: 10AM – 10PM (Daily)
Tel: (65) 6538-3885

Website: http://www.blackball.com.sg

Posted in Food Guide - Tagged 112, Blackball, dessert, katong, RX1, sour plum

Invasion Of The Giant Octopus

Jun13
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

Kayden’s new toy: a spring wound octopus toy that is bringing destruction to his toys’ paradise. He sure loves the octopus’s colorful spinning tentacles because he chuckles non-stop when it spins.

Posted in My journal - Tagged car, octopus, RX1, signboard, Toy

Night Photography At Singapore River

Jun12
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

Last Friday, I brought my Sony RX1 out for some night photography at the Singapore River. The Sony RX1 has been with me for about 1 month and I really loved the build and overall feel of this full frame compact camera, equipped with a non-interchangeable F2.0 heavy weight Carl Zeiss lens. I really mean heavy weight!

The weight of the RX1 gives me a “prestige” feeling of owning it and the classic look of it does gives me a strong “wow” factor. Probably because I owned a Sony Alpha A350 DSLR, the user interface is easy for me to understand. It is like a “plug-and-play” thing to me.

Unfortunately, during my night photography trip with RX1 in my bagpack, it was drizzling that night with lightenings, so I did not managed to get the chance to enjoy the night scenery as well as capture more photographs.

Anyway, here are my photographs shot using the RX1 … without a tripod.

Taken at Fullerton Road, this photograph shows the Singapore River and Fullerton Hotel.

As the drizzle gets heavier, I quicken my footsteps and walked towards the Anderson Bridge. Here, I took a close up night photograph of the Fullerton Hotel.

“Missing U”, this is the Asian Civilisations Museum.

The night landscape view of Boat Quay, a place for people to enjoy food in restaurants and beer in the pub.

My night photography footsteps to Singapore River:

1) Take the MRT train to City Hall Station (NS25/EW13).
2) Take the Stamford Road exit and walk along.
3) Turn into Connaught Drive. You can see the Esplanade Building.
4) Continue walking on Connaught Drive and you will see the Singapore River, before reaching the Fullerton Hotel.
5) Take a moment to enjoy the night scenery of Boat Quay’s lightings.
6) You will see The Asian Civilisation Museum.
7) I took the Parliament Place, followed by North Bridge Road to take me back to City Hall MRT Station.

Posted in Exploring Singapore - Tagged City Hall, Fullerton, night, RX1, Singapore River

Hippo Boy!

Jun10
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

Here comes my little boy with his Hippo cartoon singlet from Fox Kids and Baby.

Posted in My journal - Tagged Fashion, Fox, Kayden, RX1

Swensen’s At Tampines One

Jun03
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

Swensen’s is a casual dining restaurant that sells western food, finger food and their popular trademark, the ice-cream. It is a great dining place for people who wants to have celebration meals after stressful exams or booked out from the army camp to enjoy a nice feast together with camp mates ( I missed those days! ). Hence, Swensen’s is a nice restaurant to “chat out loud” with your family and friends. No doubt Swensen’s is popular for their ice-creams, I am not having their ice-creams despite the terrible hot weather in Singapore for the last one month. Instead, I will be trying out their finger food and main course.

When all the meatballs say, “Pour some pepper on me.”

Yummy, well-seasoned and juicy meatballs, made up of minced beef and chicken all balled together. The meatballs are well coated with the black pepper sauce when served. In addition, there are presence of black pepper bits in the sauce. When I bite on those small pepper bits, it makes the pepper taste much richer. The first bite of the meatball gave me a complex feeling: taste of chicken meat and tough like beef. The whipped potato tasted like it was made up of boiled natural potatoes rather than processed instant quick mix. This dish cost $9.40.

Hello, are you fried dumpling?

The fried dumplings, or prawn dippers as named in the menu, are really deep fried until crispy finger food. Actually, I would expect a whole prawn inside each prawn dipper, but unfortunately, these prawn dippers are made in such a way whereby the prawns are chopped into tiny bits and mixed with other ingredients. Even though I cannot taste and enjoy how fresh the prawns are, still this finger food tasted pretty good. Try dipping those prawn dippers with tartar sauce and you will realize they are born to be together. This dish cost $8.40.

Ready? Say CHEESE!

The chicken cheese bake rice was awfully well coated with cheese and white sauce. The slices of chicken breast was tender. The part which I am quite disappointed was the rice used in this plate was plain white rice. I would expect something different such as fried rice or some other rice that is flavorful. This dish cost $13.50.

2 thick chicken thigh meat.

Grilled chicken burger that comes with potato fries and coleslaw. A typical western style cuisine. The burger comes with 2 thick, juicy and sweet slices of grilled chicken thighs. The thighs are evenly grilled, making no overly charred portion on meat. As for the bread, it is heavily spread with butter. I would prefer to have the bread plain and some butter placed on one side of my plate so I will spread the butter myself according to my taste. The potato fries are not too oily or saltish. It was done just right. Likewise, the coleslaw was also nicely done. This dish cost $14.80.

Among all the good food mentioned above, I would prefer my meatballs the best. It is a simple and delicious dish. As for the grilled chicken burger, I only had a few small bites on the bread but I really enjoyed the chicken thighs. The most disappointing was the cheese baked rice as it does not turn out the way of what I really expected. My exploration for Swensen’s doesn’t stopped here as I have yet to try their ice-cream yet. :)

Taking candid shots? Mummy’s bake rice is still at my mouth.

Address of my review;
Tampines Mall
4 Tampines Central 5, #03-30

Opening hours:
(Weekdays) 10.30am-10.30pm
(Weekends & PH) 8am-10.30pm
Tel: (65) 67815489

Website: http://www.swensens.com.sg

Posted in Food Guide - Tagged baked rice, chicken, meatballs, Prawn dippers, RX1, Swensen's, Tampines

Tub-Bily-Tub-Tub

Jun02
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

We bought plastic storage boxes for Kayden to teach him to keep all his sports cars, trucks, buses and airplanes after every playtime, and also to keep the room tidy. There are actually 2 storage boxes for him: one huge box for all his big bulky toys, while the other was for the smaller toys like Lego. It actually took us more than 2 months to teach him about responsibilities. Not just my wife and myself need to set good examples for him, Kayden’s grandparents also set examples and always ask him to clear his toys.

Initially, Kayden don’t understand what is “keep all your toys into the box.” We showed it to him, trained him and eventually, he learned to do it well. Of course, occasionally, he will be lazy in keeping them into the correct boxes.

While I was at home with Kayden, this mischievous small boy has a new stunt to show me – sitting into his toy box. He put his buttocks slowly, showing me his cheeky smile, and, boom, he sat into the tub of Lego bricks. He looked at me, chuckled loudly and showed me his face of success.

Kayden did that a few more times to catch my attention. For his age now, he will try anything to catch our attention. Finally, he got stucked and cried for “Papa! Papa!”

Posted in My journal - Tagged Kayden, RX1, tub

$10 Meals At Albert Street Food Centre

May28
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

The last time I visited Albert Street Food Centre was the month when I am going to get married because on the 3rd floor, there are many wholesale shops that are selling dried food products such as red dates, dried tangerines, cans of pig trotters which are used in the Chinese customary weddings. I will say the Albert Street Food Centre is a centralise mall that sells hawker food, fresh groceries and dry market.

This time round, I am looking for tasty food that would cost me a total of $10 or less for my lunch. I started by paying attention to food stores that are having long queues and what are the food most people are having in the food centre.

*Do note that searching for tables requires a lot of patience. I will recommend you to share tables with people, else the waiting time would be long. ;)

Ma Bo 孖宝 (#01-67)

Long queue for this store, but the service is quite fast. Their customers are queuing up for their featured dish from this store, Lor Mee (鹵麵). Lor Mee is a Chinese cuisine where the bowl of flat yellow noodles are served in a thick and dark gravy. This gravy normally consist of corn starch, eggs, dark soya sauce and spices. Of course, some stores have their own secret recipe for the gravy, which is the key item in this dish. Ingredients added are normally slices of fish cakes, hard boiled egg and slices of pork. To enhance our tastebuds, secondary ingredients such as garlic, chili and vinegar can be added based on our own preferences.

Ma Bo Fried Fish Lor Mee.

Like what I have mentioned earlier on Lor Mee, Ma Bo food store do sells traditional Lor Mee, but their customers favorite is the Fried Fish Lor Mee ($3 or $4). When talking about Fried Fish Lor Mee, my mum used to tell me when my dad was dating my mum, the first dish they had was Fried Fish Lor Mee. That’s sweet!

Back to Ma Bo’s Fried Fish Lor Mee, what really put my hands down were the flat yellow noodles, the thick gravy and the fried fish. That’s the whole bowl! On the noodles, surprisingly there is no presence of “alkaline” taste and the noodles are firm to chew on. The thick gravy tasted simple and traditional. There are many other stores that sells fried fish Lor Mee but, seems like they are selling flour rather than fish. The flour used for the fried fish is thin and you can really taste that you are eating fish meat. With a minimum of $3 for 4 slices of fried fish and generous serving, it is definitely worth the money. The fried fish can be purchase separately at $1/$2/3.

Fu Cheng 富城 Spring Roll (#01-08)

What can you buy with just $1.40? I managed to buy one roll of Popiah (薄饼), or spring roll from this food store. I waited for the queue to subside and place my order at the counter, which took me about 1 minute to get hold of my food.

“I am sliced open with my internal all exposed! Arggghhh!”

The skin of the Popiah, which is made up of wheat flour, is thin and chewy. The ingredients inside it, which includes the slices of turnips, carrots and bean sprouts, are moist and not soggy. What totally gave me the “wow” factor was the crispy stuffs which are added inside the Popiah. These are fried flour fritters that gives the additional crunchy mouthfeel. It feels like you are munching on Koko Crunch.

Yuan Ji Carrot Cake 源记正宗菜头粿 (#01-59)

Carrot cake, or chai tow kuey, is a Singapore cuisine that is pan fried radish cake with eggs and preserved radish. When ordering, they will ask if you want a black (with dark soya sauce) or white (original) carrot cake. I loved the black fried carrot cake because with the addition of the dark soya sauce, it will taste sweeter. You can also order your fried carrot cake with chili to spice up a little.

“Join me on the dark side.”

My plate of carrot cake cost $2.50. The approximate waiting time is 10 minutes. My first taste of the carrot cake was oily and sweet, but when I chewed it, I realised that this carrot cake from this food store has a trademark of it’s own. I know it is unhealthy to say this, but the burnt pieces of carrot cake were actually chewy!

I believe there are many more good food in this food centre. Unfortunately I cannot squeeze in all the goodies in my stomach, so I will definitely be back to explore more good food in the Albert Street Food Centre. Cheers!

Address of my review:
Albert Centre Market & Food Centre
270 Queen Street Singapore 180270
Stalls unit numbers are stated in my post.

Posted in Exploring Singapore, Food Guide - Tagged Albert street food centre, carrot cake, lor mee, RX1, spring roll

Potato & Carrot Soup

May27
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

I have to agree that home cook food is still the best for the young ones. Like what my mother always say, “It is important to let the children to have a healthy and balance diet.”

Today, my wife would like to share a simple recipe that is easy to prepare and cook. Here it goes:

Ingredients

1. 1 russet potato
2. 1 carrot
3. ½ white onion
4. 200 grams of lean pork or chicken breast
5. 1 liter of water
6. ¼ tablespoon of salt for taste
7. Some pepper and ½ tablespoon of soya sauce

Directions

1. Skin the russet potato and carrot. Chop them into dices, about 2 to 3 cm will be good for the young ones to chew.
2. Peel the onion and cut them.
3. Marinate the meat with pepper and soya sauce.
4. Put all ingredients into pot with boiling water and allow it to boil. Simmer for 1½ hours.
5. Add salt to taste.

The Potato & Carrot Soup

Posted in My journal, Quick Recipes - Tagged carrot, Potato, RX1, soup

Seafood Lunch At Fish & Co

May26
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Koon

I love long weekends. Who doesn’t, right? Thanks God that Vesak Day fell on Friday, so I have 3 full days of break off work. We had our lunch at Fish & Co at Tampines One. The last time I had Fish & Co was dated back in 2003, which was 10 years ago while my wife and myself are still dating together. Time passes really fast! Now, in 2013, we brought our little boy to try some seafood from Fish & Co, our mini seafood festival.

For so many years, the logo of Fish & Co remains the same.

“I am busy coloring now Papa, no smiling this time round.”

It was nice when the waitress approached us and gave us some coloring pencils and a piece of paper for coloring. That will keep Kayden busy while waiting for his lunch to be served.

Here comes our seafood platter and I loved that spread of seafood.

The seafood platter for 1 ($19.90), served on a pan, is my personal classic favorite. This platter consists of a fried white fish, grilled prawns, calamaris, fat potato fries and paella rice. The fried white fish was my wife’s favorite item. The white fish tasted juicy and really soft in my mouth. The grilled prawns have it’s shells nicely sliced open when served. With a fork and knife, I can peel the meat of the prawns easily. No fingers needed to peel the shells off. The paella rice was cooked with raisins and had a rich buttery taste. The fries tasted typical. The slices of squid, or calamaris, are grilled with a sauce, else it would be bland without it.

Among the above mentioned “seafood buddies”, the calamaris are my favorite because of it’s chewiness and the extra sauce gave some sweetness to it. By squeezing the lemon juice on top of them like raindrops, this will give a tantalizing and refreshing taste.

My 2 slices of seafood pizza.

The seafood pizza ($7.50 for 2 slices) was oven baked with prawns, calamari and cheese on top of the bread. Per slice, there were 2 prawns and 2 calamaris on it. As the pizza was served really hot, it will be quite messy because of the melted cheese keep flowing down onto the plate. The best method to eat this seafood pizza ….. was to use your hands.

Address of my review:
Tampines One
10 Tampines Central 1
#04-11 Tampines 1
Singapore 529510

Opening hours: 11:30am to 9:30pm daily
Tel: (65) 62600183

Website: http://www.fish-co.com

Posted in Food Guide - Tagged Fish and Co, RX1, seafood pizza, Seafood platter, Tampines One

Hi there, I am Koon, the man behind lemon-film.com. Thanks for dropping by my blog and I hope you will enjoy reading my posts. Born and living in Singapore, I love exploring new things, capture them with my camera and tell stories about them. I started sharing my photographs through Flickr network back in 2008 and now, I started blogging to share my photographs and stories with people. As time goes by, I realise that I enjoy writing short stories about things around me and my blog has now become the digital diary of my life.

I thank you again for coming and I hope I will continue to write and take more photographs.

Cheers, Koon. (*.*)v

Blackball Signature Dessert. Have you tried it?

Sunday means Duplo time!
December 23, 2012
Remember my previous post on Kayden’s first Duplo toy that came with a story book? He is now one year old and has officially took his Duplo out and play. He do not know

What Number Does It Look Like?
September 11, 2012
I did not realize this Conrad hotel located at Marina looks like a number.

Toys For Christmas
December 24, 2012
Where is a good place to buy Christmas presents for children for less than $20 and spoilt for choices? Buying nice toys you do not need to visit expensive toy shops to get them.

Night At NEX
October 2, 2012
My paranoma evening photography at NEX shopping mall using my iPhone 5.

Peanut Crackers (Rempeyek)
September 9, 2012
At last I managed to find my peanut crackers at Tampines interchange. It reminds me a lot of my childhood memories, where I would always go to the nearby mama shop, or convenient store,

My Saturday Breakfast
July 28, 2012
How I feel today affects what type of breakfast I want to have. Today I am feeling groovy and relax, probably because I woke up early today and is a sunny Saturday. My wife

Kayden’s Sunday Morning Photoshoot
July 15, 2012
My wife’s photography using her Canon DSLR, F1.8 lens.

My First Swim
June 17, 2012
Brought Kayden for a Saturday morning swim, with his new swimming gear. He really enjoyed the splashing water onto his face.

All the contents such as photographs posted in this blog and my other social networks are personal property. There will be no unauthorised copying, reproduction, republishing, modification, display, duplication or transmission of any photographs or materials without the consent from the blog owner.
The contents posted in lemon-film.com are intended for personal use and expression unless otherwise stated. All the photographs are the work of the blog owner, so if any individual who wishes to use the photographs, do give credit to original source. Should an individual or organisation have direct privacy concern over any photograph or material, please drop me an email at koon@lemon-film.com so that I can look into it. :)

Rich Chocolate Brownie With Pecans And Walnuts

Blackball Signature Dessert For Hot Day

Invasion Of The Giant Octopus

Night Photography At Singapore River

Hippo Boy!

Swensen’s At Tampines One

Tub-Bily-Tub-Tub

$10 Meals At Albert Street Food Centre

Potato & Carrot Soup

Seafood Lunch At Fish & Co

I am sharing my blog contents

Behind Every Stories & Photographs

My Photographs On Flickr

My Most Read Posts

Hippo Boy!

Rich Chocolate Brownie With Pecans And Walnuts

Invasion Of The Giant Octopus

Blackball Signature Dessert For Hot Day

Night Photography At Singapore River

Just Some Random Posts

This blog is scanned by:

Copyright & Disclaimer Notes

I am sharing my blog contents

Behind Every Stories & Photographs

My Photographs On Flickr

My Most Read Posts

Just Some Random Posts

Tags On My Posts

This blog is scanned by:

Copyright & Disclaimer Notes