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Not such a fan of chopped nuts on tiramisu, so I don't know about this, Alexis. I may be partial because I'm not really a fan of nuts in general. They make my teeth nervous.
Also they make me feel like I'm a starving child in a developing (third world is not p.c. anymore) country and the white humanitarian missionaries are like 'we come bearing food!' and then they give you nuts which are supposed to be healthy and organic and full of fiber and my impoverished developing country mother, who possesses an abundance of common sense if not worldly goods, is like 'dude we could have picked these off the plants ourselves'. But we eat the nuts anyway because neo-cultural (and religious) imperialism has permeated even the realm of food. They also make me feel (at the same time) that I'm a vegan lesbian with blond dreadlocks who sews her own clothes and underwear, and only bathes once a week in an attempt to save water, and survives on a diet of nuts and seeds and organic toothpaste. Once in a while, and thankfully not often, eating nuts also makes me feel like I'm a squirrel. And squirrels just FREAK me out cause they're all twitchy and conniving and glassy-eyed, which is how I would imagine animals on crack would behave, since that's how all the humans (okay, there's only been one) on crack that I've seen have behaved.
I mean, I don't know if that's a sign of a hyperactive imagination or whether I just really dislike nuts. I still eat them, and I ate this cake, which, other than the nuts, was decent. I especially liked the random bloody pool of raspberry sauce on the plate. I have this theory, that I've put a lot of thought into, that if you put whipped cream on any kind of dessert, your food will taste 70-85% more delicious, and in comparison your waistline will only expand by 2-5%. I won't go into the details but there is of course a dense and convoluted mathematical formula for this theory that I painstakingly constructed on an excel spreadsheet (aka the canvas of my working life), involving a regression of the happiness levels of a sample population (me) against how much my waistline has expanded after I ingest whipped cream. Anyway, the common sense that my imaginary developing country mama has, as well as economics, dictates that we should therefore put whipped cream on everything dessert-related because the trade off/payment is negligible (what is 2% really? If you round down like all politicians and analysts and fund managers do with statistics then it becomes zero). Anyway my point is raspberry sauce makes a similarly compelling argument for Things to Always Put on Desserts. I need to construct a mathematical formula for this theory too, of course (you didn't really think I pulled all this out of my ass, did you?) but hmmm food for thought.
I have no idea why I just wrote such lengthy drivel about nothing in particular. I'm hungry.
There were like fifteen billion different types of steak at this house of carnivorousness! By fifteen billion I really mean... five or six different types, but since you can pick the sizes (12 oz. of meat too much for you? No? Then how about 16 oz?), doneness (which apparently really IS a word, but is used only in reference to cooking meat) and how many days the steaks are aged (between 80 to 200 days), I bet if you did the math and multiplied that all together it'd come up to fifteen billion.
Also they had three different kinds of butter, two different varieties of bread and five different types of sauces! Factor THAT into the how-many-options-does-this-steak-restaurant-have equation. In fact, if Prime were affiliated with a US political party and stance, it'd be a vehemently feminist Democrat! (Cause it's so pro-choice! Get it? See what I did? No? It was lame? I should leave political references out of restaurant descriptions? I'm sorry, it's the lack of food in my system)
It was all so classily cooked that I feel bad reducing it to such vulgar terms as "that yummy quarter-kilogram slab of medium-done meat". But that is what it was, and it was delicious. MMM slab of meat covered in truffle sauce! Thank you goosey! My stomach appreciated it. Observant and grammatically-anal readers will notice that that sentence was rendered in the past tense. Because my stomach does not appreciate remembering what steak tastes like at this very moment because it is fasting and starving. Sigh. And no I will not stop complaining about this... another 20 days to go of blog posts that will detail how hungry I am when I post. Lucky you.
Buka Puasa meal that I (surprise, surprise) couldn't finish, and had the waiter pack to go so I could finish it for sahur. This would have been an economical and unwasteful plan had my amazingly reliable, dependable, and not at all holey memory not forgotten all about it and walked off without it. I'm still mourning the loss of the shrimp scampi sahur that never happened.
I haven't been able to update because it's Ramadan, I'm fasting, hungry all the time, and my stomach growls ferociously at the sight or smell of any sort of food. Which means that I am not even able to look at this blog for fear of inciting the growls (that my coworkers so graciously pretend they do not hear). I think I've come up with a solution though... if I update in the morning when I'm not as hungry then my stomach might not make as much noise... wait, never mind, it just growled. I kid you not. My stomach likes proving me wrong.
As I was saying... it is Ramadan, in which the epic, annual, monthly battle between willpowers and stomachs the world over takes place. I do NOT like losing. If this is all a power struggle to determine whether food controls me or I control food, then dammit (I know I know, don't curse while you're fasting, but it doesn't count as cursing if it's typed), I will prevail and fast and be happy about it. For this one month. And during the rest of the year I will quite happily let food control me.
What I ate before Ramadan (not the last supper, but the last lunch):
Chipotle shrimp! I am just a sucker for shrimp and cheesy things. And garlic bread. And nachos (on the rice). The fact that chipotle was actually an ingredient in the meal as well was moot, because I liked everything else anyway.
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.
I know, I know, I've already posted pictures of Cantonese Hor Fun on this blog but I felt the need to give due credit to the meal that singlehandedly rejuvenated my formerly-MIA appetite! That reignited my flames of hunger! That resurrected, ala Jesus, my will to eat! Oh fat noodles drowning in egg sauce while hanging out with chicken pieces and vegetables, you brought me back to life!
AND I didn't even feel sick after scarfing the entire plate of noodles. Nor did I have to run to the bathroom straight after eating, to do the number that comes after 1, like the person with whom I was eating (don't worry goosey I won't tell anyone it was you). Now THAT is a sign of a good meal. Or a hardy large intestine, I'm not sure which. The point is, now that I have hit bottom, lost my appetite, and regressed to talking about my intestinal fortitude, there is nowhere to go but up (up being more dessert eating). And all thanks to you my little hor fun. Also to you, banana fritters with vanilla ice cream.
My appetite has disappeared. I have no idea where it went or when it will return, but hopefully it will be soon or I will be in danger of wasting away. This is extremely bizarre. I am also aware that it is logically impossible for one to subsist on coffee and water and continue with one's life when one has not eaten for a few days but I have long since given up trying to decipher the workings of my all too complicated self. The most likely conclusion is that my heart really is in my stomach and if that is the correct conclusion, you better hope to God that you didn't break it because if I have forever lost the joy that comes with eating cake then I really will step down from my state of infinite magnanimousness and make you pay for what you've done to me.
Anyway! In memory of better, yummier, less dark and gloomy times... banoffee pies! Right now I love whipped cream more than men.
Damn you, Red Box karaoke and your buffet lunch special! I was coerced into attending because I: a) did not want to be a spoilsport partypooper, and b) did not really want to admit to my colleagues that I can't sing. Also reason c) (buffet for lunch! buffet for lunch!) factored into my decision making.
Sadly, neither the savoury courses nor the desserts were particularly remarkable (I don't even remember what I took a picture of but if I were to hazard a guess I'd say... coffee something, strawberry something, chocolate something, and mango something) but at least I had something to stuff into my mouth whenever the microphone was passed to me.
Even more sadly, I was eventually forced to sing. To Mariah Carey and Leona Lewis and Beyonce and Celine Dion songs. Yes, cruel coworkers, its not like those singers have ridiculously flexible voices and can hit ridiculous notes that I of the bullfrog singing voice cannot reach or anything. Luckily, most people I work with sound like bullfrogs (okay so I am mainly referring to the men, which just makes the fact that I sing like a bullfrog all the more stranger because I apparently have a high speaking voice... the point is I was not alone in my dissonant state) so the room sounded like a cacophonous tone deaf choir for about two hours last Thursday. A tone deaf choir with an affinity for the Carpenters and long deceased Chinese singers (my colleagues are old... and mostly Chinese) and the Spice Girls (I may have been the sole 80's baby in the room but I was the also the one holding the remote control).
A vocabulary lesson for the edification of Theobroma Chocolate Lounge
(If I sound vitriolic and thus pedantic and patronizing, I apologize. It's because I AM.)
What Theobroma is guilty of committing:
(the fallacy of) misnomer \mis-NO-muhr\, noun
Any misnaming of a person or thing; also, a wrong or inapplicable name or designation.
Words that Theobroma is evidently ignorant/sadly mistaken about, which is somewhat disturbing seeing as it is not only supposed to be a highly specialized dessert place, but is also an restaurant chain originating from an English-speaking country:
souffle (dessert) \SOO-fley, soo-FLEY\, noun
A light, airy baked dish made fluffy with beaten egg whites combined with egg yolks and other ingredients, typically lemon or chocolate. Will "fall" after 20-30 minutes so should be served and eaten quickly.
Derived from the French verb souffle which means "to blow up" or puff up--which is what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.
profiterole \pro-fit-er-OLE\, noun
A small hollow choux pastry that is typically filled with cream and covered with chocolate.
Desserts that Theobroma misnamed:
i) Chocolate Souffle with strawberries
ii) English Cream Puffs with chocolate and strawberries
What The Desserts Really Were, To Anyone With Half a Brain Or Access to Google, Which Clearly Excludes the Theobroma Management:
i) A rock hard, carved slab of chocolate, which is fine if you really feel like satisfying your craving for a chocolate brick but NOT FINE when you order a souffle! Come on, Theobroma! What is this? You can't tag fancy French names onto desserts that are pretty much the complete antithesis of what you're describing just because they sound pretentious and chocolate lounge-y! What are you, the Restaurant of Opposites and Irony?!
ii) Profiteroles. This one was just redundant. Profiteroles = tiny cream puffs with melted chocolate drizzled over them. Therefore in the interests of efficiency, economy and accuracy in general, I'm proposing a novel idea: call a spade a spade and english cream puffs with melted chocolate on them profiteroles. Revolutionary and ingenious, I know. Please try not to fall off your chair in shock.
I was too huffy to enjoy the chocolate "souffle" but in spite of that I LOVED the "cream puffs with chocolate". Even though they were tiny and you only get four and it was sort of like eating a mistaken identity. I really, really didn't want to share, but goosey kept repeating that he'd only help me eat dessert if I insisted (obviously, in hopes that I would insist). Luckily I am a generous and kind person and insisted, albeit reluctantly (also he once gave me a lot of shit after I said I wasn't going to share my Cheezels and then couldn't finish them and had to ask him to help finish them; I wasn't about to risk a repeat of that). Also X Files sucks balls, please don't watch it.
