Dinner @ pacific bistro and sushi bar

Address: 145 Hayarkon street, crowne plaza beach hotel, tel aviv

Here's recommending the best posh restaurant to chill in while enjoying the sunset with Asian food! How does that sound? :) 

1. The vietnamese salad which is a starter. Honestly the starters come in very big serving so don't over-order! It was flavourful and the vegetables used were fresh. Topped with some peanuts on top, it made me think of a local dish in Singapore called the Rojak! 

2. My favourite starter of the night was this tempura dish! Awesomely done! Crispy on the outside and warm on the inside, it made me cry out for more!  

3. This was a really weird dish which I don't recommend. It is cooked salmon wrapped in a green coloured dough which was honestly rather tasteless. 

4. Moving on to the main dish! I ordered the last peking duck in the restaurant, I guess this dish must be very popular. Duck meat on the side with sliced cucumbers, tortilla wraps and the sweet and sour sauce! It is a self help dish where you have to place some meat with the cucumber, drizzle some sauce on the tortilla wrap before sending it to your mouth! I give this a thumbs up :) 

5. The lamb chop! If you don't appreciate the smell of the lamb meat then never order this but if you do like the smell, this dish might be perfect for you. Topped with sautéed greens and mashed potatoes on the side, it will definitely fill your stomach up! 

6. This is the meat fillet! Although it's fillet where the meat is tender, never ever order medium well because it was too tough, I think medium rare would be good! What was note worthy about this dish is the bowl that contained the rice… actually the rice is made of seaweed so you can literally eat the bowl up! How cool is that! 

7. Now for desserts! 

Honestly, I have forgotten the name of this dish and because I didn't have such a strong impression about it, I think it explains how ordinary this dessert was. 

8. Cooked pears on a bed of very sweet noodle-like based. The first bite tasted very special but after a few mouthful, I got a little bit sick of it's sweetness

9. Chocolate fried balls, the best dessert in this restaurant in my opinion. It was well fried and I think it was served with chocolate ice cream so it was yummy!! 

My final verdict? Come try it if you want somewhere posh with really nice scenery (seeing the sunset while eating dinner!). The desserts were mediocre but the tempura starters is definitely a must try! 

Loving sunsets,

Kay 

Simple buttercream cupcakes

Whenever I want to try making new desserts, I will go to youtube and find good tutorials to learn from and one of my favourite is honeysuckle catering! I used to love watching joyofbaking.com but sometimes the recipe used are a little to complicated so I switch from time to time!

Today, I'm going to do one of my all time favourite desserts which I feel looks the prettiest and most presentable….. VANILLA CUPCAKES WITH BUTTERCREAM FROSTING!!!

Ingredients you need are as follows:

For the vanilla cupcakes:
3/4 cup of self raising flour (you can use all purpose flour + salt + baking powder instead)
5/8 cup of all purpose flour
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup of room temperature butter (about 113g)
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

* Preheat your oven at 170 degree Celsius

1. Sift the self raising flour and all purpose flour together plus a pinch of salt and leave it in a bowl

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter till creamy and then add in the sugar, just as shown in the picture below!

2. Crack one egg into your mixture, beat it well. Then, add another egg into your mixture and beat it well with the electric mixer till the mixture is smooth

3. Pour the vanilla extract into your milk and mix it together with a spoon

4. Pour 1/3 of the flour into the batter followed 1/ 3 of the milk. Repeat this step for another 2 times!

5. Beat the whole mixture for 30 sec till a minute to make sure everything is well incorporated and you will get something like this!

6. Spoon your batter into pretty cupcakes liners and put it in the oven for 20-25 minutes!

For the buttercream frosting:
1/2 cup of butter
75g of powdered sugar
some blue food colouring
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of milk

*disclaimer: I didn't have enough butter so I didn't make enough frosting to cover all my cupcakes! So if you want enough frosting for all cupcakes, use 1 cup of butter and double up all the other ingredients accordingly! 

1. Using the electric hand mixer, beat the butter with the powdered sugar

2. Add in the vanilla extract, salt and food colouring

3. Depending on the thickness of the cream, add in some milk to make it less thick. (Make sure not to add in too much of milk because we need a suitable consistency so you can create the swirls on your cupcake and not let it melt away with time)

4. I put this cream into the freezer for 5 minutes so that it is easier to make swirls

5. What is important is that you have to make sure your cupcakes are cooled till room temperature before putting the cream on if not the cream will melt away immediately

6. Pipe the cream into a transparent bag and push all the cream to one corner of the bag. Cut the edge of and start swirling!

7. This time round I had some blueberries so I decorated it with blueberries which makes it look so gorgeous! :)

Try it out yourself! Vanilla cupcakes are definitely simple yet a very suitable dessert to decorate on!

If you want me try making any desserts, feel free to drop me a comment and I will be the guinea pig for you!

Cupcake lover,
Kay

Tuk tuk restaurant, rehovot

Address: 10 offenhaimer street, Rehovot.

Tel: 08- 9318885 

Thinking of somewhere to eat out during shabbat? 

If you happen to be in rehovot, this is the place to be! 

An asian fusion restaurant that reminds me so much of soho restaurant in rishon lezion. 

This restaurant has really pretty plates! 

1. Ordered coconut sugarcane drink, I really love to try special drinks that are exclusive to the restaurant. It was refreshing but the disappointing part was that there was too much crushed ice so I ended up eating more ice than drinking the juice itself. 

2. Tom yum soup. I like how it is presented in a steamboat setting. This dish is very suitable for people that cannot handle spicy food but wants to drink tom yum soup because it was the least spicy tom yum soup i have ever tried. It was very coconut milk based so it wasn't spicy. I don't like it that much because I appreciate the spicy and sourness of the normal tom yum soup. 

3. This is called the tuk tuk noodles, if I did not remember wrongly. It comes with 3 different kind of meat, beef, chicken and goose and requested for it to be a little more spicy than usual! It tasted great! 

4. The highlight dish of the night, Soya shredded chicken rice. I love this dish because I'm a fan of anything with rice and a sunny side egg! The shredded chicken was perfectly flavoured. 

One tip to share and that is if you plan on giving this restaurant a visit, why not spend some time at the rehovot's outlet mall that is not situated far from this restaurant and what is even better is that most of the stores are open on shabbat! Say yay to shopping even on shabbat! This is a really big outlet compound with outlet stores of big brands like mango, american eagles and even factory 54. 

Sharing with all you readers my favourite Israeli shoe brand, Disco rosso which also has an outlet in Rehovot!  

Shabbat shalom,
Kay

Fusion between bird and zebra: Zepra review

Zepra, this Asian fusion restaurant has been one of the restaurant I've been wanting to visit for the longest time because my good-food-loving friend, Ori has always been raving about this place to me. So glad he finally brought me to visit this place! 

The posh interior gave me such good vibes and from the moment I walked into the restaurant, I had a good feeling about this place. Starting from a call to the restaurant to book for a table, I was already impressed because they even have a specific hotline for english speaking customers, very customer-friendly! 

I was sitting under the purple lights so it is a little hard to take pictures but it's purple, my favourite colour so i have no complaints! 

The juice selection in zepra was so awesome, I had a hard time selecting what I want! In the end, I ordered Lassie which is a mixed of mango, papaya, yoghurt, rose petal water and cardamon. It was one of the best juices I have ever tasted in Israel (best alternative to my favourite rebar)!

My friend 'Clara' ordered chinese egg rolls which are also known as spring rolls! It came in a really nice display :) 

The highlight and my favourite dish of the night! Introducing to you the popcorn black shrimps… it was seriously the best shrimp dish I've ever tasted! It was fried but with a chewy taste to it and coupled with a bit of spiciness… it was mind-blowing delicious! I'm definitely coming back for this!!! My friend Chiara suggested ordering this with just a bowl of rice and it will be a satisfactory enough dinner, I can't agree more :) 

The next dish is called the Bangladesh curry! The menu rates the degree of spiciness for each spicy dish and this is rated the least spicy or what they call as piquant. I did not taste it but from my friend's feedback, I think it is a nice curry dish especially for people who can't take spicy food.

Next up is General Tsao's chicken which was what I ordered! I felt it was a tad bit too salty to eat as a main dish and my lovely friends had to share some of their rice with me :) Other than that, I really like this dish a lot. The chicken was very flavourful and tender! The vegetables used was really special, called kangkong in Singapore and it is really rare that I am able to eat this type of vegetables in Israel! 

Lastly, the fried fish! The presentation of the fish looks really classy coupled with the spicy/sour sauce on the side. I tasted it and I am sure I would come back for more of this! The fish was fresh and really crispy on the outside!  

My final verdict? 5 thumbs up if that is possible! Honestly, the prices are comparitively steeper to other Asian restaurant in Israel but for its quality food, it's definitely worth it to give this place a visit, especially for any special occasion! 

There are cute descriptions on the menu that tells you about the history of the place! I for sure will also find a chance to visit another restaurant called tompolmpopo, which is just situated close to zepra. It's a little more fancy than zepra but owned by the same boss!  

Till my next review,

Kay xx

Pancake mornings

Want to make pancakes from scratch? 

Here's how I make mine :) 

Ingredients needed: 

- 2 cups of self raising flour (around 250g) 

- 2 cups of milk

- 2 eggs 

- pinch of salt 

- 60g butter

- maple syrup/ silan / chocolate sauce / honey 

- any fruits 

- ice cream 

Easy step by step instructions: 

1. sift the flour and salt in a large bowl

2. make a well in the middle of the flour 

3. whisk egg and milk together until it is mixed well

4. pour this egg milk mixture into the middle of the flour 

5. stir until smooth 

6. melt the butter 

7. pour in the melted butter to the batter and mix well

8. leave this mixture in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. 

9. Heat up your pan at medium heat. ( i used the same pan i used for melting the butter so that I do not have to add anymore oil to the pan) 

10. Flip the pancake only when you see bubbles appearing everywhere on the pancake and the sides are curling in. 

11. Pair it with some butter, maple syrup or silan: date syrup which I love and is very commonly used in Israel (see the picture below) 

12. I added a scoop of vanilla ice cream with some chocolate syrup on top and some cherries ( in season now) on the side! 

13. Enjoy :) 

This recipe makes really delicious pancakes, just like the ones I like from Macdonalds! Been missing Macdonalds breakfast for the longest time and I can satisfy my cravings using raw materials :) 

This is so easy to make, you don't need to buy ready made pancake mix anymore!!! 

Have a wonderful morning, 

Kay 

How to make yum woon sen!

Yum Woon Sen or bean thread noodles salad is a popular dish both inside and outside of Thailand. The bland noodles absorbs the hot spicy sour dressing and the peanuts and other ingredients give it just the right amount of saltiness and fragrant! Try this if you are a Thai food and salad lover!

Main ingredients needed!

• 1-2 bundles of Clear Noodles (depending on how much you want to eat)
• 1/2 cup dried shrimp
• some fresh shrimps
• 2 tablespoon fish sauce (you can find it in some Chinese supermarket in Israel) 
• 2 1/2 tablespoon limes/ lemon
• 1/2 cup of lightly salted peanuts
• 2 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 chopped chili 
• variety of vegetables (tomatoes, lettuce etc) 
• * If you don't eat shrimps, you can replace the fresh shrimps with minced meat! 
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The noodles I used is the bean thread noodle I bought from the Chinese supermarket in shuk Carmel! Start by soaking an appropriate amount into water before boiling it till it turns translucent. When it's translucent, take it out from the water and leave it to cool. 

Next up, you have to prepare any ingredients you would like to put into your Thai salad! Here I used tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and cucumbers. Chopped them up into small pieces just like how you will chop them for salad use! 

Next up, pound the lightly salted peanuts, dried shrimps and chilli until they are mini sized just like what is shown in the picture below! 

Heat up your frying pan, add some oil and garlic, pour in your pounded peanuts, shrimps and chilli and also add fresh shrimps and fry them all up! 

In a large bowl, place all the raw chopped vegetables into the bowl followed by the cooked glass noodles. 

After which, place all the stir-fried ingredients on top of the glass noodles and you are almost done! What is left is just the dressing for the salad. For the dressing, just mix the lemon/ lime juice, fish sauce and sugar together and stir well till the sugar is dissolved! 

Mix it all up and enjoy! Look how good this is!!! 

That night, I also made desserts. I cut out some watermelon as a base and added two scoops of ice cream with some chocolate sauce on top! Mmmmmm…. 

Thai food lover,

Kay