Singaporean/Malaysian cuisine @ LimeTree

My friend picked out this restaurant from Yelp. Great cheap prices for a delicious meal. Be careful though when you decide what you're wearing, the smell from the food will seep through your clothes as if you just went to korean bbq. We got the roti for appetizer, it was delicious especially with the curry sauce dip. I swear, I want to just pour all my food with that sauce. We also got the Singapore curry noodles. SAME curry sauce!! Yum!! That dish was only $5.99 so definitely worth it. We also got tried the Malaysian fried rice and the chicken kabob, those were alright. My friends liked the fried rice, but I'm not a big fan of the dried garlic in it.

Benihana

First time at Benihana's! Had their $39 for two special with my boyfriend. Filet Mignon and Habachi Chicken. The filet mignon was sooo goood. It was pretty pricey, worth it for a first time dinner entertainment experience though. That was pretty awesome. The $39 deal came with a mushroom soup, shrimp and veggies appetizer, green tea, and rice.

Creations dessert house

My favorite dessert place. They serve Asian desserts but recently added a whole menu for snacks and light lunch/dinner items. I always have a craving for fries, so I decided to try their teatime deal of fries and mango jelly drink. They just opened when we arrived so the fries were fresh out of the fryer. Delicious. Tasted a hint of garlic, salt, and green onions? Not sure what it was, but Asian fries from Creations are yummilicious!

Green Tea Bread

What I intended to make was a moist soft green tea cake...but it turned out to be more of a bread. BUT it tastes great! I brought it in to a potluck and people said it tasted delicious :) 

Here is the recipe I used:

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

5 teaspoons powdered green tea

1 1/4 cups white sugar

3/4 cup veggie oil

3 eggs

1 cup plain yogurt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, baking soda, salt and green tea powder into a big bowl. In another bowl, mix sugar, oil, and eggs together. Add vanilla extract to the mixture. In the flour mixture, add in the yogurt. Mix well for both bowls and then combine them together and mix. I baked it 7 x 11 pan, originally for about 35 minutes. The color looked great, I turned off the oven and decided to leave it in there because the center didn't come out completely dry. Left it in there for about 10 minutes or so...the color turned brown, inside and out. I got a green tea bread instead of a cake. 

•  

Breaded Chicken

I had a bag of chicken leg meat in the freezer and a can of bread crumbs...what should I do with them? Make breaded chicken!! :D 

My first attempt and it was delicious!!

Have 1/2 cup of fluor, 2 beaten eggs, and 1 cup+ of bread crumbs in three separate bowls.

Cut the chicken leg meat into pieces, season with salt and pepper. 

Dip in bowl of fluor, shake of excess fluor back into the bowl.

Dip in bowl of eggs, let excess liquid drip back to the bowl.

Dip in bread crumbs and cover completely. 

Heat up pan. Add oil. Place the chicken on the pan one by one. Make sure it's in low-medium heat otherwise the bread crumbs will burn. Cook until it's golden brown, flip and cook the other side. Cook til it's done. Wa-lah! 

[picture not available] but it looks like chicken nuggets!! Mmmmm 

Homemade red bean popsicle

I remember my grandparents used to make these when I was a kid. These were the perfect treats for the summer, also pretty heathy and not too sweet. I wanted to eat them again so I decided to make them myself. 

Just freeze red bean soup. 

To make the soup:

Boil 8 cups of water with 1 cup of red beans. After they are boiled and soft, let it simmer for about 1.5 hours. Turn off the heat. Add 1/2 cup white sugar to mix. Let it cool a bit and there's your red bean soup. Now to make the popsicle, you can puree the red beans soup in a blender first or just pour them into an ice cube tray. I like having the whole red beans in the popsicle, so I just poured it in. Let it freeze for about 20 minutes, stick in toothpicks as the popsicle stick, and leave it in the freezer. There ya go!

Perfect birthday treats

Who wouldn't like cheesecake bars with strawberry on top or strawberry creme brulee for their birthday right?? ;] I made these for my friend for her birthday with the help of my roomie. These are white chocolate lemon cheesecake and creme brulee. The creme brulee tastes way better than it looks, trust me. It was me and my roomie's first time...so that's how it turned out :P. 

Surprisingly, creme brulee is extremely easy to make! 

2 cups heavy whipping cream

5 egg yolks

1/2 cups sugar

1 tbs vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 275. It would be better to have those creme brulee bowls...but since we don't have any, we used the aluminum pans. Put it in a water bath, it's best to use hot water. Stick it in the oven with the water bath pan for about an hour. Continue to check if it's done after that every 10 minutes. I had it in for about 2 hours...a little bit overdone. Next time, I'll try 1.5 hours. 

Let it cool, fridge it.

To make the glazed sugar top:

sprinkle a tin layer of light brown sugar on top of the creme brulee. Put it in the broiler for about 1-2 minutes. 

Urth Caffe in LA

My friend took me here on a Thursday night, a truly hidden gem in the middle of an industrial area. The ambiance is great, and pretty popular place for the location. I had the Green Tea Latte which was great. Notice the nicely done cream design on top. They gave out pumpkin pie samples...and they were delicious! I'm not usually a big fan of pumpkin but this was so good. Little pricey but worth the experience.

Authentic Italian in North Beach

This is my newest favorite Italian restaurant, Cafe Maria, located in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. The owners are extremely welcoming and friendly. The restaurant is famous for their seafood. They get it fresh every morning so make sure to get a dish with seafood! We were walking in North Beach, the Italian district, looking for a restaurant to have dinner...we came upon this one and was looking at their menu outside. A family just came out the door and said how great their food is. And the owner happens to be sitting right outside too! He said, come on in, if you don't like the food, you don't have to pay. My boyfriend and I looked at each other...why not! When we went there, it was pretty empty, probably because it was past 9 pm and it's a Sunday night. The Yelp reviews ( checked them out when we got home) say it gets pretty crowded but I'm glad it was empty...felt like my boyfriend set it up and reserved the whole restaurant just for us. Great prices and delicious food? Best and most romantic dinner :)

This is our dessert on the house. The owner is so generous! Absolutely delicious tiramisu, the best I've ever had. It's actually the owner's grandma's recipe. Seriously, it was like dessert orgasm.
I ordered the clam and mussels pasta with homemade tomato sauce. Great portions of clams and mussels with delicious pasta! My boyfriend had the spinach ravioli with tomato cream sauce. I didn't taste it but it looks amazing. 

Funnel Cake for the First Time!

Disneyland, Knott's Berry, Universal Studios, do all amusement parks have yummilicious funnel cakes?? Brought my boyfriend to Universal Studios Horror Nights and we had a funnel cake to end the night. My first time...and it was delicious! 

Best midterm/finals treats!

Double chocolate chip cookies (AKA white chocolate chip brownie cookies)

Just follow the instructions in the back of the CHEWY brownie mix box, add 1/4 cup flour and bake them like cookies! Quick and easy! Sweet, chewy, and chocolate-y!

A healthier alternative: banana oatmeal cookies. Taste like banana bread. Yum.

Importing from my previous blog

For some reason, my old blog wouldn't let me upload pictures anymore...so I decided to get a new one! Here's the link to my old food blog that I started during the summer of 2010. 

Enjoy!