Pandan Tiramisu; KL Convention Centre

Things One Should Know About Me In Order To Properly Understand My View on Pandan Tiramisu:

1. I freaking love tiramisu, but feel very strongly that because it is so classic, the urge to improvise to differentiate makes it all too easy to fuck it up completely (shout out to Dome of the horrifically crap tiramisu)

2. I am a big fan of fusion (theoretically, at least), as mixing one good thing with another good thing should in theory produce a good squared thing (shout out to algebra)

Cases in point: Malay-Arab-Persian weddings with traditions/costumes from both (shout out to my cousin and new cousin-in-law!!!); fusion food

3. I freaking hate Malay desserts, and most Malay dessert ingredients (pandan, coconuts, santan, gula melaka, durian-as-a-dessert-ingredient-not-as-a-fruit, rice-as-a-dessert-ingredient-not-a-savoury-food, yam?! corn?! red beans?! What would possess anyone to stick these into a dessert?!)

Given the illustrious and super enlightening list above, it makes sense that my view on the pandan cheesecake I ate several days ago is (still, several days later) very bemused. On the one hand I kept eating it because my mind was like score, tiramisu in a martini glass! On the other it was like dude that is PANDAN and it's GREEN.


So I only ate half. Too pandan to finish and too tiramisu not to eat. BEMUSING.

Bulgogi & Kimchi, Asia Cafe, Subang

In my extended family (maternal side), one's character is measured by the amount of spicy food one is able to consume without tearing up or or gasping for air or crying for water or milk or any liquid in the general vicinity that will be able to extinguish the raging fire in one's mouth.

Yes, we are unrelenting and unapologetic masochists who employ stringent and restrictive culinary litmus tests to judge people.

My late grandfather's invariable response to any of his grandchildren's "but that's too spicy!" wails would be to immediately dump more of the said spicy food on our plates and glare at us while we ate it. As a result of this, I grew up with a high spice tolerance and disdain for people who can't eat anything pedas.

And then one day 10 years later at university while poking around on the hunt for something to eat, I discovered this random smelly jar of spicy looking red goo in the apartment fridge, courtesy of my Korean roommate's mother... and thus began my love affair with the Amazing Kimchi, which, I found, was miraculously both spicy and salty. Aka pretty much both things that I look for separately, in food that I like: but that in kimchi, were combined into ONE!

I really only ordered the Bulgogi so that the Korean man at the food court wouldn't think I was completely insane for ordering two plates of kimchi.

And yes, I am aware that I just penned an ode to fermented spicy cabbage. I'm sorry, I'm hungry. And I used to steal my roommate's kimchi all the time. Sorry for that too. Actually no I'm not it was totally worth it. And my grandfather would have been so proud of me and my spicy food stealing ways.

Fresh Cream Fruit Cake; Bakerlyn, Brunei

Strawberries and grapes and kiwis and mangoes and cream, oh my!

This cake is perfection. All angelic creaminess and blooming airiness and melt-in-your-mouth innocuous milky whiteness, punctuated with rainbow bursts of fruit flavour. In my imaginary land where this cake is the world, everything is fresh and everything is beautiful and everything is pure, there are green meadows with blue skies with fluffy clouds in it, and little fleecy lambs are prancing around singing Blake's Songs of Innocence.

I shit you not, I have dreams about this cake.

Umi, please send? Pleasepleasepleaseplease? I have traversed high and low in KL and I haven't found anything close to this cakey gloriousness.

Lamb Kebab & Rice; Tarbush, Starhill Gallery

For no good reason other than the fact that I am starving and wanted to look at photos of delicious food while I'm sitting here waiting in the office for my dinner to be delivered (let us not focus on the fact that I am having dinner in the office on a Friday night; it is most definitely NOT by choice, I am an unfortunate victim of the central bank's disregard for the notion of TGIF) .. I present a photo of delicious food.


So what if it's only two sticks of succulent tender meat on equally tender rice and couldn't possibly be more boring if it tried? Sometimes (and I'm looking at you when I say this, Coffee Bean, Theobroma and Mandarin Oriental), you do NOT have to use fancy schmancy monikers or dump a load of spices, fruits, cake varieties or chocolate on a plate for your food to be a-mazing. Sometimes all it takes is rice and meat and an empty stomach on a Friday evening for me to drool shamelessly at my desk. Also it helps that I am starving. STARVING, I TELL YOU!!!!

I need to ravage the snack cupboard now before my stomach attempts to eat itself.

Cupcakes; Crumbs, New York

You know that stereotype that Americans are all about size, gluttony and greed? The soaring obesity rates, the super-size-me culture, the fascination with all things fast food, the ginormous meal portions compared to... oh, just about anywhere else in the world; and on a less literal scale, the over-inflated masculine egos and correspondingly hyper-sexualized expectations for females, the insatiable appetite for fuel (though Bush has the gall to suggest that emerging markets cut down on their fuel consumption to curb rising crude oil prices, it is in fact the US that eats up more than a quarter of the world's energy consumption each year. This isn't fast food... we're talking about a NON-RENEWABLE resource), the Darwinist capitalist mentality that drives Wall St. and arguably (obviously I'm arguing the case for, if you care to speak for the other side, please contact me and we will have words) caused the summer-07 subprime meltdown and subsequent and current worldwide economic recession through which we have the misfortune to live today?

I found the culinary embodiment of this stereotype, ironically enough, in mini-mini-cupcakes. Yes people, this delicious selection of cupcakes may look like regular cupcakes, but they are, in fact, not even mini-cupcakes, but MINI-MINI-CUPCAKES. Which means that the regular cupcakes were about half the size of my face, and the mini-cupcakes were the size of my cheek. And one of these "tiny" little guys filled up my whole mouth (wait, what, it's more polite not to stuff one's face and instead take small bites?!). And I have a BIG mouth.


Oh America, land of the free and of the giant cupcakes. Everything that is associated with you is apparently larger than life, right down to cupcakes, which, by definition, are supposed to be small. Yet although I may point out your flaws, the truth is I don't care about your negative stereotypes. Because although I cannot even finish one of your regular cupcakes in one sitting and thus had to opt for the selection of mini-mini-cakes, I love that that super-large size option is even available (choice = freedom and freedom = THE ideal). For America, I too am a secretly greedy fast-food-loving capitalist (okay I know I have a blog that is all about food but my point is that it is a secret to everyone who DOESN'T read this blog) who prizes choice and freedom in the give-me-liberty-and-giant-cupcakes-or-give-me-death political vein.

The point of this post was to highlight that there is such a thing as mini-mini-cupcakes. In retrospect, the more relevant point and moral of this post seems to be that I will forgive anyone almost any fault if I am fed cupcakes.

Dessert; Serendipity 3, Upper East Side, New York

I have wanted to eat at this restaurant ever since I saw it in the movie Serendipity, which was a truly shiteous product of filmmaking, but the dessert scene during which John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale share a chocolate ice cream volcano and fall in love was inspiring and simultaneously spoke to my heart and stomach (not an easy feat).

INGREDIENTS:

A pretty menu (extra points for the swirly illustrations and creative food names: they have a chicken dish called A La Garden of Allah. Piqued my interest, but I decided it was mildly blasphemous and also I was too full)


... Doled out in massive proportions (the aforementioned menu was approximately 75% of my formidable 5 foot height span... which means it was... umm... okay you can do the math)


One Ice Cream Crepe (Danny's), which was not only swimming in whipped cream and fruit sauce but somehow evoked the impression of doing so while enjoying a cold lemonade on a blistering and cloudless summer day


One Strawberry Fields Sundae (mine), a gargantuan concoction of strawberries, strawberry ice cream, cheesecake, and whipped cream, which, with the exception of the strawberry ice cream, is a combination of some of my most favourite things in the world; topped with a dash of lyrical Beatle-esque inspiration in the sundae name


Eat for an hour (cappucino optional), promptly pass out upon finding nearest available bed, and you too will dream of strawberries tap dancing on cheesecake the whole night.

Pastries; Venieros, East Village, New York

It was as though I died and went to pastry heaven. I'm not even exaggerating. I almost cried tears of happiness and sheer wonder at the beauty of all the little pastries and how cute the shop was. It took me half an hour to decide what I wanted to eat, and the waiter must have wondered if I suffered from some kind of disease that causes me to drool incessantly to the point of being unable to articulate which pastry I wanted.

Chocolate covered Cannoli and Strawberry Tart, starring in a vaguely explicit photograph

The glorious menu that I spent half an hour reading because: i) I like reading, ii) I like reading about food, and iii) the entire menu listed and described each pastry and cake.

I didn't want to leave, ever, but I was getting sleepy from all the food. Goodbye Veniero's... you will always have a special place in my heart.

Brunch; Primorivo Osterio, West Village, New York

After making the bold and completely unprovoked claim that New York houses the best food in the world, Danny fell under some pressure to prove he wasn't just talking out of his ass. And then we had brunch in the West Village and all of a sudden it DID turn out to be true because I finished (honest-to-God licked-the-plate-squeaky-clean finished) my first meal in New York.

(Danny's) Steak & Eggs

(My) Eggs Norwegian

(NO MORE/Note the lack of) Eggs Norwegian

And someone is addicted to cappucinos and won't admit it...

And someone else is addicted to desserts (Strawberry & Banana Sponge Cake) and will readily admit it because this was the most moist, succulent sponge cake I have ever had in my life.

Tiramisu; Angus House

Memo to Dome (yes, another one, bear with me): THIS is what a tiramisu should taste like. It should have the capacity to make me so excited about eating it that I forget to take a picture first (hence the chopped off tip of the slice of cake where I dug in to start eating only to realize that not only should I wait for other people to start their desserts too, but I should also discreetly try to take a picture). Sorry, lunch buddies. It was the tiramisu anticipation, I'm not usually devoid of manners and etiquette.

Pannatini; Dessert's Bar

RASPBERRY-STRAWBERRY PANNA COTTA!

Everytime I think about this dessert I feel the inexplicable urge to dump the contents of the glass onto the floor, magically multiply the amount (it's my fantasy, magic is allowed), creating a giant buoyant deliciously cool and creamy panna cotta bed flecked with mint leaves in which to roll around. While eating strawberries. I'd roll around this panna cotta bed all day and take naps in it, covered by an impossibly unsticky whipped cream blanket (still my fantasy, magic still allowed), and wake up and continue to eat, nap and roll, eat, nap and roll. GLORIOUS.

Portuguese Egg Tart; Macau

Macau in a nutshell: the casinos were a waste of time; the authentic Portuguese egg tarts were warm little pieces of flaky melt-in-your-mouth heaven

Hong Kong Dim Sum!!!; Some Chinese Restaurant, Hong Kong

Aka the result of much finger pointing and miming (I do a mean Coke guzzling act), because the entire menu was written in Cantonese and none of the patrons spoke English...


... and the tiniest Coke bottle ever