Mama's Kitchen: Triple Layer Cheesecake.

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.I love my mommy.
.For more reasons than one. ....But she sure is one hell of a baker.

Cultural Dinner 101: Teppanyaki

Mom and I decided to organise a little dinner at home to celebrate the Gameboy's birthday, but sadly it turned out that majority of the family members were out and about. Dad was still working, attempting damage control by floods, Ms DT was out with her friends and Kim had a badminton game. We had wanted to invite my grandmother to the house for dinner but unfortunately she too couldn't make it. So yeah... it turned out to be one quiet evening. Until we decided to organise a teppanyaki dinner. oh yeah, everyone came home!

.Teppanyaki at home.

For those of you unfamiliar with teppanyaki: it's a japanese form of cooking where food of various sorts are cooked, usually self-cooked, upon a hot iron plate. The word itself is japanese, derived from two concepts: teppan (鉄板), which means iron plate, and yaki (焼き), which means fried or broiled. Teppanyaki - definition according to wikipedia.

.Before: marinating whilst cooking.

.After the lid was lifted.

Normally you'd see teppanyaki restaurants, particularly in Japan and Asian corners in some western countries. There in these restaurants, people would seat themselves along a table facing a huge flat iron surface where a chef would cook customer's dinner to order and occasionally play some fancy tricks, such as juggling their knife-like scrappers or create a fire performance.


.Preparing my dipping sauce.

.Other food awaiting to be cooked.
Unfortunately at home, we don't have that huge iron surface to play with.. Good call mom and dad, wouldn't want your kids to play with fire and sharp objects, now do we? And besides, where on earth would you place a huge iron plate in your house, right? Instead, we have a large teppanyaki plate which mom and dad had bought from Japan way back.

.Mom lifting the lid: ready to eat?.

Occasionally at home as family we organise a little teppanyaki session for dinner, usually accompanied with steamboat, however in this occasion we opted for the first. You can pretty much cook anything and almost everything in teppanyaki. In our case, we have an assortment of vegetables, meat, seafood and whatnots... complimented by an array of condiments. I usually just have a dipping sauce: a mixture of soya sauce, lemon juice and a dash of chilli sauce or nando's peri-peri. To check out what other things you can cook on with a teppanyaki grill plate, click here.

.Some of the food for teppanyaki.
I always look forward to our family steamboats and teppanyaki nights: each person gets to call dibs on their own pieces of food, and cook it themselves. And besides, it's also an opportunity for me to show my family some of my mad chopstick skills... oh yeah baby!

the BruONz 2009 Finale

Last Sunday the BruONz student committee held their last get together in celebrating their successful launch of the BruONz Gala Night. Just a little heads up as to the happenings of that night: 280 people and it was a full house with more demands for the tickets to the event. Everyone was dressed to the nineties - men in full on suit blazers and neatly pressed shirts whilst the ladies flowed about in gowns and dresses. Dashes of smiles and flashes of camera - it was a scene one could never forget.

Also not forgetting the five full-on varying cultural performances, enjoyed by all who attended. It was the talk of the town, at least in the Brunei Australia-New Zealand turf. Back to Sunday....

The nice late morning brunch took place in the Emperor's Court within Manggis Mall. A packed day, as I could tell the minute we walked in... I was a bit worried that we may not be able to get any seats... as there were 20 of us... yes 20!! But we were patient and in the end were rewarded with two huge tables by the back.

It was a casual, low key get together with rounds of dim sum were enjoyed by many. Everyone seemed to be having a good time - jokes were passed around and food was plenty. Towers and towers of bamboo steamers were stacked onto the table. Now that I think of it, we should've organised a mini game: which table has the best tall tower? Mostly for bragging rights purposes, hehe. It would've been awesome, seeing that there a LOT of the bamboo steamers...

With this gathering, we took the opportunity to officially hand over some cash donation to each society, amounting to $200.00 each, and to pass around the sponsor's certificate of appreciation. We were quite a noisy bunch, with some of us table-hopping in attempts to socialise with other friends.

Oh and not forgetting to mention, MVision Theatre voucher tickets had been given to each and everyone one of us for free (to watch any more, any time at Empire) by a gentleman from a neighbouring table, which was very kind of him. I had to make sure that I personally thanked him. Everyone was soo happy... especially Sally who got extra tickets! lol.. if you're reading this: CHEATER! lol

We ended the brunch with several group shots in and out of the restaurant. It was fun and everyone was a good sport about it. I didn't realise how big of a crew we were until I saw the group photo! Wow! So comes the end to the 2009 BruONz committee: old friendships rekindled and new ones were forged. My dear private hopes is that if more than anything, we leave this year with newer
friends and happier memories of the BruONz gatherings, despite anything and everything.

Surprise, suprise!

Huge birthday wishes goes out to our beloved Gameboy who just at the stroke of midnight yesterday officially entered the age of adulthood (with the exception of some states within the USA, of course). Understandably turning eighteen to many is one of the biggest milestones in life, to some it's the opportunity to show the world their maturity, to others it's the one of the many stepping stones to fulfilling a lifelong dream.

Just a little introduction on Gameboy: a hardcore anime fan with the mysterious, quiet attitude who spends more time with video games and xbox than he does with any other plastic things... in fact, anything for that matter! Despite his age, he's as tall as a tree and can sustain himself thoroughly by just gobbling down on mee goreng noodles.

Happy Birthday Gameboy!

Attempting to be a good sister, I decided to head over to the kitchen to make him a home made chocolate birthday cake. Combining two good recipes in one, I came up with something that crossed a Sour Cream Crumble Cake and a Chocolate Truffle Cake. It was good.. although it wasn't as big as i wanted it to be. Ah well... at least everyone enjoyed it!.

.The stages of cake.

.Lights Out.

Family Dinner in the Dark

Talk about having a romantic dinner... haha... I call this the accidental family romance. We had a power outage the other night that lasted for nearly 5 hours!! Everyone in the house was going mental including the cats, which was a first!

.Playing with light before dinner.

Out came the candles, torch lights and any form of light-emitting machines for us to juggle about with throughout the house. I'm certain anyone standing outside would think of those alien scenes from the movie shows where the house is in full black out but streaks of light can be seen running back and forth inside the house. Yeah, that's what it looked like.

.Scenes from dinner.

With everyone grumpy and bugged out, mom decided to lighten up the mood by organising a steamboat dinner with candle lights despite the darkness... It was a nice dinner, i should say.

.Teasing the cat with the laser.

In the Kitchen Again...

Found myself in the kitchen again... this time, making desert (requested by others of course) because i don't usually bake for the sake of baking (unless I'm in Melbourne)... usually if someone asks me to, I don't mind. For several days straighI've been making the same cakes to order. Not that I'm complaining... I'm actually happy to know that there are those who think the cake is good. It took a while for me to adjust and play around with the ingredients. Spent some time experimenting with other substitutes and quality of the cocoa powder, flour and all... I have to admit it was a mess in the kitchen, attempting to make the cake spongy-er, moister, less sweet and decadently rich.

No idea what i'm talking about? Refer to the photo below.

Truffle cake: an ultra rich, decadent cake (not for the faint hearted, i should say!). Its texture is velvety and creamy to the bite with a hint of crunchiness from the roasted hazelnuts. The taste has a soft sweetness from the dark chocolate complimented by the heavenly light bitter taste of its cake base.

Dusting cocoa powder on top

It's more like a chocolate truffle in the form of a cheesecake, where the base is somewhat of a decadent, moist brownie whilst the top is an uber heavenly thick layer of divine, deep, seductive chocolate flavours.

From the moment it came in the room....
Personally I wouldn't serve this cake with any cream or sauce, as it is perfect by itself. Although I should add that small cuts should be made, when serving this cake because of it's ULTRA richness... so yeah, triple the gym time ladies.

Eyeballing the cake is not going to make it
come closer to you, Gameboy

After hearing so many people tell my dad all about it, he had actually requested me to bake one just for the family... which i did, much to the delight of my family members as you can see below. Hahaha... enjoy guys!

.Gameboy and Ms DT eye-ing the prize.