Burdgert King

Disclaimer: All prices mentioned below are in US dollars.

The last day at Lake Tahoe, we took our lunch at Burger King. Fast food ain't cheap and one meal cost about $6.95. But on the whole menu, there was a section that wrote "BK Value Menu" and everything under there was super duper cheap! I got really excited when I saw the Whopper Jr. going for just $1! Many items were also going at $1 like Double Cheeseburger, Spicy CHICK'N CRISP Sandwich, small onion rings, small fries, small soft drink and Chicken Tenders (4 pieces).

What awesome deals! We wanted to fill our stomachs, so budget we did! Many many of this and that burgers, many many fries, rings and tenders, and was it 1 small soft drink? Hahaha. Every fast food outlet has free flow drinks.

I ordered a double cheese burger and the chick n crisp burger and stacked them up!

So it's equivalent to a Mega Mac? No la. Burger King's burger volume is smaller than Macs. That's how I managed to eat the 7 patty one last time. But it felt good having so much to chew. Satisfying you know. I went Ikea once and had Grilled Dory with cream sauce. With fish being soft and easy to swallow, it felt like the food portion was very little. :(

We spent about $24~ for 6 of us? Nice. Super budget. Wish they have these $1 deals in Singapore too! :)

From Holland?

At last, it has been made! For weeks I have been looking for the day when I can make this. I first saw it in the movie Julie and Julia. The main character Julie Powell made hollandaise sauce and used it as an artichoke dip. She briefly read out the recipe and I thought, "Wow, so little ingredients, not complex, and looks really good! Must try!"

I used this recipe. There were others that said to use a double boiler but I did not want to do it that way. It felt too troublesome. I'm sure it can be done if you have good heat control. It was because of this recipe that I bought my mixing bowl! That will be covered in another post. :)

The main ingredient is butter. Loads of butter! We melted 1 and 3/4 sticks of it! We're clarifying the butter here.

Oohh! Fattening natural butter!!

Joel and I were holding up the pots during the mixing of butter to the sabayon. So our forearms kinda ached a bit after that. Hahaha, we need more training.

The colour of hollandaise sauce is very nice. Light yellow cream. However, I felt it should be less yellow but Dora and Joel said it's okay! Maybe I try another time with less yolk. We added 4 yolks instead of 3 because apparently my eggs were not "large" enough. I'm going for 3 the next round. I'm also going to try more pepper and less lemon.

Well, that was dinner. Eggs Benedict without the bacon and English muffin. Substitute by Wagyu beef patty, wholemeal and white bread. Hehe. :D

After dinner, we still had leftover sauce to do this! Port wine courtesy of Joel and a Big Bag of Calbee Hot and Spicy Potato Chips!

What's this?

Pedxing!

At first, I couldn't understand it. Stared at it longer and I saw the light.

I'm sure you can too. Interesting sign.

Mini Frosty

On the last day at Lake Tahoe, we decided to go and visit the lake. The shore's sand was covered with snow. White Sands? Hur hur.

It was HUUUUGE!

The mountains in view were magnificent. So vast and big! The snow makes the mountains look more exciting. Imagine just green slopes. Will the snow melt at such altitudes?

We strolled around, attracted attention from others by "zhi lian"ing. We also saw some snowboarders making a low ramp for themselves. Afterwhich they filmed themselves tackling it. As we left the beach, we saw snowmen (2 only) standing in the open patch, and then we decided to make a snowman for ourselves too.

I could pretend I'm making a snowman but secretly preparing ammo for a fight.

Packing ice is simple. Just collect shavings and plaster it over. I tried combining 2 balls together but it doesn't grow.

Frosty needs to look good.

Frosty: "Voila! In view a humble vaudevillian veteren, cast vicariously as both victim and..."

If you focus your attention to the top left, you'll see big daddy snowman there. He is a whole lot bigger than what we made. And it took us 20-25 minutes making this puny fella. It would probably take an hour or more to fatten him up to big daddy's size. We couldn't spare the time.

After we made good use of him, we killed him off. Run before David Caruso shows up! (~You won't get fooled again!~ music plays)

Sliding on Ice Kachang

Let's kick start the US Tales with Lake Tahoe! It was chosen because it was where we could experience snow! There is North and South Lake Tahoe but South was taken because it's nearer. The lake is very big. Singapore's total area is 710 square kilometers while Lake Tahoe's area is already 496.21 square kilometers! That's more than half of our island!

We were there from 29-31 December 09. It was really cold. In San Fran and LA, I could walk around with just a t-shirt, a long sleeve piece and jeans on. The nights will get colder but it was still manageable. I got down from the bus at Lake Tahoe with exactly what I mentioned above. And then I started to shiver just standing there so I decided to put on the gloves and beanie. I just had to test the temperature! :P

That evening we took a walk around the shops. We entered this shop named 'Heavenly' to enroll ourselves for a day's lesson on snowboarding. The mountain was called Heavenly too so I conclude the shop is the official school for that mountain. It cost us each USD $160 + GST. Not to mention the rental of waterproof pants and my jacket. But it was all worth it!! I was totally excited and happy!

The next morning, we actually wanted to go earlier so that we can stop at the first stop of the ride up the mountain to look at scenery, but grabbing our boards and putting on the boots took some time so that didn't happen. The ride up on the gondola takes 25 minutes which means plenty of photo time! :)

The picture above shows very little bit of the mountain. I initially thought that was all the mountain that snowboarders and skiers had but I was wrong! There is a lot more mountain behind it! It snowed lightly and temperatures reached -7 degrees Celsius. Because of the low temperature, it was tough to take out your camera to snap pictures. The cold would start biting your hands. If you put your gloves on, you won't be able to use it properly with the fat fingers.

Up there, we met our instructor, Michael Gutman. He gave me a cool impression of himself. He wore a helmet, sunglasses and mitts! Always smiling as he explained how it works. He would remind us about going back to our proper stance by showing off an action. And everytime he did that, it made me smile. The action was just very funny!

Down the mountain we surfed. It certainly was tiring climbing up the mountain to go for another try. But why not use the ski lift? There was a long queue and i think I can climb faster. Just pant more! The ski lift ride was nice. The seat and structure was so simple, steel tubes around you like a roll cage and a cushioned seat. :)

Snowboarding is easy to learn. Just have to get used to it and keep reminding yourself on the good practices. I will definitely go for a second round if given the chance. If you get the chance, go for it! May he be an inspiration for you! :D

A Brand New 2010 Folks!

Coming back from overseas into 2010 is exciting. To wrap USA in word, it would have to be "Super"! Will definitely blog about the trip bit by bit once I get my pictures from Tourist Tan and David.

What was disappointing about the trip is that my 600+ photos were deleted. Do not know how it happened but it did. I certainly did not press 'OK' to 'ERASE ALL?'. Sigh. Must just remember the experience of what happened.

Just a quick update, started work again and it felt awesome! My army friends are a nice bunch. There is always something to laugh and joke about in our conversations. I feel really blessed to have formed this bond with them. :)

And guess what! The Army has given me my 2nd Kit Kat bar today! My rank looks like this now! Wheeee!!! Super.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Red & Fast

I was walking to Chris's van one afternoon and guess what I saw! Not one, but four Ferraris parked along a driveway! They were the older models but it still looks really good.

Can I have one since you have four, please?

I think Ferrari is getting common in Singapore nowadays. Lamborghini as well. A car that will catch people's attention now would probably be an Aston Martin. I used to dislike it because of the front grill. It looks like a fish. And when I see pictures of those used in races, the outline of the grill is painted which makes the car look like it has fat lips.

Talking about the front grill, I noticed quite some time ago that supercars have this common design trend of where they place their front grills. Take a look.

Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

Noble M600

Porsche Carrera GT

If you have observed well, the front grill is placed below the headlights and very near the ground. Looks good right? There is engineering explanation for this. Since cold air sinks while hot air rises, the cold air will flow through the front grill. Cold air is denser and produces more power when combustion takes place. To many, I think the change is not a great deal to them.

And you think only exotic continental cars are following this design trend? Japanese cars have them too! Smile! :D

Mazda MX-5

If I'm going to design and engineer my own cars in the future, this trend is definitely going into my cars. Hahaha!

And I Think to Myself

Sometimes, people don't appreciate the details. Be a General.

Mmmm!

One Friday afternoon, Kathryn, Joel and I went to this meat wholesale factory somewhere in Jurong. My mother will usually go to this place with Kathryn and every time she comes back, she will have loads of stuff to stock up in the freezer. You know, there was a very strong smell of sesame oil when we came out of the place.

Q.B!? Not related to your $10 snip snip shop.

Best! Definitely.

The spread was big. There were many types of meat from various countries. They would even state the country where it came from. There were like cheese sausages, bratwursts, otah, clams and many others. What made me excited was their label on the packaging. It wrote,

Meats, Marinates & Much More!

We bought 1 Ribeye steak, 1 Angus Ribeye steak and 1 Wagyu Ribeye steak. We wanted to taste the difference between them. So off to Kat's house! She has a cast iron pan with ridges so we can create Burger King's beef patties! Awesome.

Meet Snoa Band. That's his name according to the tag.

I'm Bosch.

Cooking the beef was fun. We only seasoned it with pepper and salt. And then came the taste test. Comparing the three, the normal beef steak had the strongest beef taste. Made you feel like a REAL macho man eating that. Angus beef had this "I don't know how to describe" taste which masked the beef taste, and Wagyu beef had the same "I don't know how to describe" taste which masked the beef taste at a greater level.

To me, the difference in taste is not a big deal, but the texture and softness of the steak has to be done nicely. Tough beef is not very nice. We also made potato wedges and fresh greens. All in all, it was a great day!

*Did you know that it is not advisable to use soap to wash Cast Iron pans?

Low Carbo Diet

I'm practicing on carbonara now. Again I searched the web to source out good recipes. I wanted a recipe with little ingredients so that it's simple.

And I did find it. Turns out that in the original Roman carbonara recipe had no cream, no mushrooms and made with spaghetti. Great! I did not have cream which makes this recipe ideal for me. All it needed was, spaghetti, Parmesan cheese, pancetta and eggs. The egg mix would become like cream sauce for the dish.

I also did not have pancetta so I replaced it with bacon. I bought linguine instead. Kinda preferred that to spaghetti.

I've tried this many times. First time, my egg mix became tiny curdles of egg, the linguine was a little hard and the taste was not really there. Was disappointed but I wanted to do better. My most recent try (probably 5th or 6th), I made sure the pan was not hot so as to not cook the egg so quickly and it did. Looks the nicest compared to the previous batches. But there are things still lacking. The egg mix does not have enough taste, the noodles can be a little softer. And maybe not burnt bacon.

I will try it again until it's good to be sold outside! Hehe.