Sushi

All the ingredients are bought from NTUC, Fairprice @ Jurong point.

Shokaku premium rice - $9.40

Tamagoyaki (Sweet egg roll)

Cucumbers, carrots and pickled radish.

Avocado. (Really creamy!)
Tip: Choose softer and darker skin avocados.

Salmon - $8.40 The best part about making sushi is that you can cut your sashimi really thick! Remember to buy raw ingredients on the same day you are making the sushi (For freshness)

Chuka Kurage (Seasoned Jellyfish) - $5.42

Chuka Hotate - $6.59

Chuka Wakame (Seasoned seaweed) - $5.82

I forgot the take a picture but the Tobikko (Flying fish roe) cost $5.90 Noticed the strange prices of the ingredients? That is because they are measured by weight so each pack will differ.

Mizkan sushi mix - $4 per pack. The sushi mix is actually vinegar powder.

Instructions (while the rice is hot):

1) In a large bowl, evenly sprinkle 1 pouch of Mizkan powdered sushi mix on 700g of cooked rice(290g of raw rice)
2) Mix thoroughly, then cool the rice mixture.
3)Spread rice on seaweed top with temaki sushi ingredients (salmon, avocado, cucumber, etc) and roll.

I think the key to making a good sushi is the rice!
Tip: If the rice is too wet, leave it on the table for a few hours and the moisture will be gone.

Generous spread of whatever stuff I like.

Tip: Remember to moisten the knife before you cut (Prevent the pearl rice from sticking on to the knife) and do not add too much ingredients or you will end up getting the ugly sushi like me. Haha.



























Cut the seaweed into strips to make these! Pretty messy! The sushi are surprisingly awesome! (Big portion of salmon)


Making sushi can be very expensive as the ingredients come in quite a big portion but if you make it with like 5-6 people, you can split the cost. This is definitely cheaper than buying sushi from shops! You gotta try making sushi if you can!

Togi Korean Restaurant

Location: Togi Korean Restaurant, 11 Mosque Street

The nearest MRT station is Chinatown station. The shop is actually located along the row of shop houses, opposite of Chinatown point.

This is my second visit to Togi (with a friend of mine). It is sort of like the 'authentic' Korean restaurant in Singapore. I went there a couple years back and my family and I were served by only native Koreans. This time round, they hired other helpers from different country like China and Philippine.

Anyway, back to the food.

Rice juice - $4.50

Interesting drink in the menu. I was really curious how they managed to squeeze the juice out of rice grains. (Do rice even have juice???)

Case closed: It just taste like barley drink with rice grains at the bottom that have the texture like oat brans, so it is not really juice after all.

6 side dishes (Banchan) is being served to our table. The side dishes are refillable but we didn't refill them. (Too full!)

I ordered beef Bibimbap (비빔밥) -$11 This is piping hot! See the steam there! Some of the ingredients in there: mushrooms, korean beansprouts, seaweed, lettuce, black fungus, carrots and egg yolk.

After mixing it with chilli paste (Gochujang) in the sizzling bowl. I love the different texture of soft fungus, crunchy carrots and beansprouts. I can't really explain the taste but Gochujang is made of red chili, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans and salt.

My friend said the paste tasted different from the one she had in korean and the rice grains are thinner. (korean rice have bigger and thicker grain size) Nonetheless, it is very delicious!



























Seafood kimchi pancake, small - $12


At the first glance, it kinda looks like Otah. Haha. Anyway, the kimchi pancake is soft and taste just like pancakes but with slight hint of kimchi! There aren't much seafood. Just very small pieces here and there.


Rating 3.9/5

Togi is a nice and cosy place to hang out with friends. The service is great but at the end of the meal, the waitress seems to rush us a little bit so we can't really sit around to chat. (as there is a queue) I find it a little pricey though, considering the simple and cheap ingredients used.

It is a pretty good dining experience though. Togi is quite a famous Korean restaurant in Singapore so if you like to try Korean cuisine, you can check it out.

Mango Sago Pomelo 杨枝甘露

So the Mid Autumn Festival is over and I got some pomelo left in the house so I decided to make some mango sago pomelo.  I love this dessert. Definitely a must try if you haven't.

For this dessert, you will need a blender or you need to come up with ways to blend the mango into juice.

Here's the list of ingredients (Noob cook's version)

- 400ml mango juice (Marigold PeelFresh)
 - 150ml evaporated milk
- 2 large ripe honey mangoes, cubed
- sugar syrup by mixing 2 tbsp caster sugar with just enough hot water to dissolve
- 80g sago pearls
- Pomelo (Ipoh Tambun variety), peeled and sacs separated, about 50g or more


Directions
1) Boil a pot of water to boil. Add sago and simmer for about 10 minutes. Turn off the stove, cover the pot with lid and let the sago continue to cook on its own for about 10 minutes, until all the sago turns translucent. Run the cooked sago through a fine sieve and running water to remove excess starch. Set aside. Check out this step-by-step photo tutorial for preparing sago.

2) Reserve one quarter of the cubed mangoes for garnishing (step 4). In a blender, blend the rest of the mangoes and the evaporated milk for a short while till well mixed.

3) Mix mango smoothie prepared in step 2 with mango juice. Add sugar syrup to taste. Add cooked pearl sago prepared in step 1 to the mixture. Chill in fridge.

4) To serve, portion out to individual serving bowls and garnish with pomelo sacs and cubed mangoes.



As usual I have my own freestyle version with ingredients I find my kitchen/ substitute I can't find.

- 600ml mango juice (Marigold PeelFresh)
 - 150ml evaporated milk
- 4 small mangoes, cubed
- 2 rock sugar dissolved in some water
- ~ 800g sago pearls (eye measure)
- Pomelo (random sweet and sour pomelo), peeled and sacs separated, 3/4 small bowl
I'm short of mango so I used more mango juice.

Step 1: Cook the sago.

Soak the sago in tap water for a while. Boil the water. When bubbling, then it off and pour in the sago (drained) and cover it with a lid. Stir occasionally to prevent sago from sticking to the bottom of the pot.(You can do this while cutting mangoes in step 2)

*If your sago is still white in the middle, turn on the low heat to cooked it more. Sago is done if it turns translucent.

Drained the excess water and starch.

Step 2: Cut the mango.
Basically, slice the top and bottom so you get three sections, top, seed and bottom. I tried the cheater method to cut the mango (as shown above) but it turned out pretty messy so I decided I'll just peel the skin of the mango and diced the fruit.

Step 3: Separate the mangoes. The bad looking ones go into the blender and the nice ones are used are mango bits in the dessert for texture.

Step 4: Add in the ugly mangoes, evaporated milk, dissolved rock sugar water and mango juice in the blender. Blend i

Step 5: Peel some pomelo!

Step 6: Dump everything into a bowl and chill it with a lid on in the fridge for several hours.

This is so rich and creamy. Sipping on the mango sago, munching on the pulpy pomelo and soft mango. Pretty sinful with all the sugar.

It is surprisingly as good as those I eat in the dessert shops so I guess this is really a simple dish and nothing can go wrong. Just make sure you choose the good mangoes and pomelo and you are good to go.


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Autumn Kyushu Fair 2012 @ Isetan

This pretty old. Last week my friend and I visited the Autumn Kyushu fair (21 Sep to 4 Oct 2012) in Isetan, Shaw House. (Nearest MRT Orchard)

The event is over by now but they hold japanese food fair from time to time.

Wagyu beef bowl - 2 for $15 This beef bowl is sold at 15 bucks but the japanese man said that he will sell half price to my friend and I only. Kinda like a special promotion. Of course we were eager because wagyu beef is considered premium and I have never tried it before. Not sure if it was a marketing bait to draw people like us.

Anyway, I really love the beef. It is very tender and the layers of fats enhances the taste. I don't like dry and tough beef so this one is pretty good, sweet with rich soy sauce taste. The corn and peas are the usual. If you like beef, do certainly try out the wagyu beef. Expensive but delicious.

Crab meat croquette - $3.50 each

Very creamy croquettes. The size approximately a soap bar. It tasted like corn cream with sweetness of crab. I can really spot any crab meat though. It is not that bad but not really worth the price.

There are more food like dried food, desserts, beverages, ramen and stuff. Samples are available so you can walk round and try out everything and not buy any. Haha.

Pretty awesome fair.

Aglio Olio

Chef John's recipe on Foodwishes:

Ingredients:
1 pound dry spaghetti
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
6 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1/2 cup olive oil (note: I prefer a regular olive oil for this recipe, as opposed to a strongly flavored extra virgin olive oil)
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese (highly recommend Parmigiano-Reggiano)
*It's not traditional, but for extra richness add 1 tablespoon of butter when you toss with the cheese.


My version. I forgot to buy Parmigiano-Reggiano and I forgot to put butter into the spaghetti.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound~ (Around half a pack of spaghetti, around 2-3 servings)
Grated Parmesan
150g~ parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6-7 tablespoon of olive oil
Chicken cheese sausage (Fairprice)

The only brand of sausage selling in Fairprice that is near my house. I oven toasted these.

Instead of thinly slicing the garlic, I chopped them up.

Chopped parsley

They were quicker to brown, around 2-3 minutes on low-medium heat. I think I added two much olive oil. The dish is slightly oily. Maybe you should add only 4-5 tablespoon of olive oil.

Tip: Add in Parmesan cheese and parsley quicky and mix very well for it to fuse into the spaghetti while it is hot!

This pretty delicious but different from the best I'd tasted. I think it is the cheese being used. I shall make it next time with Parmigiano-Reggiano. This is good, frangrance of olive oil garlic and parmesan cheese. I think the step in slowly bathing the garlic in the olive oil is very important, to infuse more garlic taste into the oil.

The sausages splitted due to the heat and wrinkled when it cooled. I love it though. It has the texture of  chipolata sausages (which I like a lot!)  but it taste like cheese sausages.

Tip: Try not to add too much salt because the parmesan cheese and the cheese sausages are quite salty.


Give it a try guys!

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