First was an entry into the Threadcakes competition. I’ve been wanting to make this baby Godzilla cake, based on a Threadless shirt design, for a while and finally found the motivation (and time) to do it.

Cute and delicious

I baked a couple of test cakes and found a delicious madeira recipe (which I tweaked to make it an orange madeira cake) that was perfect – delicious, moist and something I could carve into. It was a lot of work, but I think I did well for my first sculpted cake. More details and photos can be found on my Threadcakes entry.

The other cake was for a friend’s grandaughter’s third birthday party. The wee girl wanted a yellow castle cake and I decided to add Rapunzel into the mix.

Yellow castle cake

Waiting for her prince

The main cake was a dense banana cake (I think I’ll use another recipe next time), and the skinny tower was a chocolate roll. Both are filled with a delicious butter cream. The skinny tower gave me troubles as it started leaning and sagging a bit – oh dear. The top tower was also a challenge to cover.

Just a bit of practice to better my cake decorating skills. I have lots to learn still!

We’ve only been when I have an Entertainment Book voucher to use up. Good thing because their prices are pretty high – $8.20 for a cheese/ham/tomato croissant!? I guess you shouldn’t expect normal bakery prices because they also trade as a cafe, but still, I think that’s pretty pricey.

I went in to the one on Thorndon Quay on Saturday to grab some lunch for the hubby and me. I didn’t think it would take 10-15 minutes to heat up a panini. It’s because they put it in the queue along with everyone else’s sit-in lunch orders. It’s pretty silly that they have two microwaves on the cashier side to heat up your pies (they don’t have readily hot pies either, boo), but they don’t have a panini press! So I stood there with my other goodies, including a hot pie, and waited and waited for my panini.

The panini (finally) was nice but nothing special. It was a bit of bacon, some mashed kumara and pesto. Not a lot for the $7.50 I paid for it. The hubby commented that his beef pie was “meh”, later clarifying that “it wasn’t good”. We also got a lemon danish and a custard square. The lemon danish was good but could’ve done with more topping. The custard square is better than most of the floury goop you normally get elsewhere, but not as good as the ones you can get from Aro Bakery.

I haven’t tried their sit-in menu so can’t comment on that. Maybe we’ll give it a go with the next Entertainment Book voucher… we’ll see.

Unfortunately, my only experience at Zico last week was nothing to rave about.

We were a large group of ten, out for a birthday dinner on St Patrick’s Day, and the waiters were new or just clueless, so perhaps those factors have to be taken into account for the less than satisfactory service.

First off, getting the waiters to take our orders was more trouble than it should have been. We told one of them we were ready to order and he disappeared without saying if he’d be back to take them. Luckily there was another that we caught the attention of, but her order-taking skills could have done with some polishing.

Ms Constantine inquired about the salmon carbonara to ensure she could get it without bacon. Her carbonara didn’t just come without bacon, it came without carbonara sauce and was delivered as a pomodoro pasta – if you work in an Italian restaurant you’d know straight away that there was something wrong with that. The waitress however didn’t seem to know the difference and was confident that the dish was correct.

The three boys ordered the “real deal” lasagne which is “served with green beans and potatoes” as the menu stated. This turned out to be a vegetarian dish made with green beans and potatoes. Far from the meaty tomato-based lasagne that you would expect as the “real deal”. Until we realised that there was no meat in the lasagne, there was much confusion over where the green beans and potatoes were because the menu implied they would be on the side and not in place of the meat.

As for my meal, I ordered the duo of lamb and steak, medium please. It arrived mostly rare and some bits were barely sealed… at that point I just couldn’t be bothered with making more fuss so just ate what I could. The bits that were cooked to my liking did taste good though.

And at least I had a good glass of red wine.

'Medium' does not mean one half done and the other half raw

Iced coffee

Go to a Vietnamese restaurant, or my mum’s house, and you can get a refreshing iced coffee done the Vietnamese way.

Sweetened condensed milk is used in place of milk and sugar. I assume this is because Vietnam isn’t known for its dairy so fresh milk is hard to come by. The condensed milk also sweetens the drink and gives it a caramel taste, so it’s all good!

The way I make it is to dissolve 2 teaspoons of instant coffee in a couple spoonfuls of boiling water, stir in 2 tablespoons of condensed milk and fill the glass with ice and top with cold water.

You can stir the drink before you serve it, or do it the traditional way and serve with a straw so your guests can do it themselves.

Ooh I just read wikipedia’s entry on condensed milk, and recall mum giving us sweetened condensed milk on toast when we were kids. I never thought so before but it sounds weird now!

Being summer, I thought a cocktail-inspired cupcake was in order, so I came up with the Pina Colada Cupcake. It has chunks of pineapple baked into it and topped with buttercream laced with Malibu.

The recipe is once again based on the awesome Scout’s Cupcake, tweaked for this variation.

Like eating a cocktail!

Satay India, located on Allen Street in Wellington city, often does two for one deals during the week – as long as you purchase a naan bread with each curry, you get the cheaper curry free.

I have to say that they make the best butter chicken I’ve ever had. It’s creamy, tangy, and has a sweet caramel taste to it. And it’s not too sweet like most butter chickens can be. It’s just divine!

The naans are always fresh and delicious too. They make the stretchy bubbly type of naan unlike the floury bready stuff we got in the UK. In fact, our two experiences of UK Indian wasn’t that great. The butter chicken was a specialty at the restaurant we went to in Wales, but was not like any butter chicken we get here in New Zealand. It was certainly buttery, but not the right colour, texture or taste. It just wasn’t right. All I could think about was how much I missed the butter chicken at Satay India!

Aside from the butter chicken, their other curries are also very good – according to friends. I’ve had a few of the other curries but I like the butter chicken best. I’m not too sure about the vegie ones though – they always seem boring but maybe that’s because I like my meat!

If you are into your beers and curries, Satay India offers Kingfisher Strong in a 650ml bottle. For about $12 a bottle and with an alcohol content of not more than 8%, it’s not a bad deal at all.

They do takeaways which I’ve been told is great value for money too.

The only complaint I have is that you can’t take home any left-overs if you have the banquet. Something that isn’t obvious when ordering. Also, they forgot to give us our poppadoms that time too – boooo!

Durian custard and sticky rice

Serves 4-6

My husband would wrinkle his nose at this dish. He probably would hold it and stick out his tongue at the same time because he hates durian. He thinks it smells like farts and puts it in the same basket of foods that people shouldn’t eat, along with bitter melon.

But if you’re like me (and possibly also a ’strange Asian’), durian is delicious. I like it as it is, chilled a little and straight from the husk. But I also like it in custard form on top of fragrant sticky rice.

The main purpose of this post is to remind me how to make this for next ime. It’s one of those dishes that mum makes and I had to ask for instructions. She always does things by feel and I wanted to record some measurements as I was doing it myself.

Ingredients

• 1 durian segment (about 1 cup)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 1 T sugar
• 2 t corn flour
• 2 C glutinous (sticky) rice
• 2 C water

Bag of glutinous rice

Method

• Mash the durian and combine with the rest of the ingredients.
• Put the custard into a bowl.
• Fill a large pot with a few centimetres of water and bring to the boil. The water should come 1/2 of the way up the bowl.
• Lower the bowl into the water and cover the pot with its lid.
• Lower heat to medium-low and steam for 25-30 minutes until custard is set. You may need to top up with boiling water if you run low.
  

  Cooked durian custard

• Serve with sticky rice. To cook sticky rice I used a rice cooker. I put 2 cups of washed rice with just under 2 cups of water.

Durian custard served with sticky rice

We went to the Matterhorn a couple weeks ago with the hubby’s brother and his then-pregnant wife (who had her baby the day after me). The brother-in-law heard good things so we were keen to give it a go.

The meals were tasty, but boy they were the smallest dishes I’ve ever been served!

On top of that, the sister-in-law wanted to be cautious with her steak so asked for it to be well done. It took them three goes before they got it right. It came out medium first two times, and she had to wait an extra half hour or so after our meals were served before the poor lady could eat! How hard is it to cook a steak well-done!?

I got the ‘monk fish with spanner crab’. Ok, when you list something as spanner crab, I expect some pure spanner crab like a claw, or at least a hunk of meat. But no. Where was the crab? I could only assume it was mixed in among the processed sausagey thing that surrounded my two tiny pieces of monk fish. Disappointed with the description. I wish restaurants would describe their meals more accurately.

Matterhorn meal - feed a child for $36...

Definitely a place where you need an entrée, main and dessert, to feel satisfied – and poor. We opted for supermarket dessert on the way home instead.

What is it?

The words ‘yum char’ translates to ‘drink tea’. If you think about what we mean when we say ‘high tea’, or ‘afternoon tea’, it’s kind of the same thing. You have tea while you are eating little delicious things.

Yum char is a lunch time event that most Chinese restaurants offer. It involves both sweet and savoury dishes (usually small steamed or fried dumplings) brought around to each table, and you decide if you want to try it or skip it.

The best thing is you pay for what you select and you’re shown what it is before you have to choose. You usually end up spending about NZ$15 each for a satisfying lunch, possibly with something to take home for later.

Tea and custard buns at yum char

What happens?

First of all, if the restaurant is any good for its yum char, then it’ll be busy and you’ll likely have to wait in line for a table. For places that do bookings, it’s wise to make one especially if you’re visiting on the weekend.

When you are seated, you are normally asked if you’d like tea for the table. Some places charge for tea (around $1 a person), while others don’t. It’s worthwhile having tea because it’s designed to be a pallate cleanser in between dishes. And you can’t really experience yum char if you don’t yum char! By the way, it’s Chinese tea. I haven’t had English tea at a yum char but have heard that you can get it. Go for the Chinese tea.

The tea is brought out in a tea pot, and is periodically topped up. If your teapot runs dry, put the lid angled upwards on top of the pot to indicate it needs refilling.

As soon as you sit down, there will be people coming by and showing you dishes. Choose what you want and the waiter will mark it down on your ‘bill’, and it’s tallied up in the end.

Eating and drinking etiquette

A table setting will usually consist of a side plate, a bowl, a pair of chopsticks and a teacup. You will find that using either the plate or the bowl for rubbish (any bones, wrappers etc.) is useful while you use the other to eat from. Emptying rubbish into the steamers/dishes the food came in is OK when you need more space on your plate.

When you are presented with an array of dishes, just point to the ones you want and indicate how many (”One please” if you want one of those dishes).

Use a polite “No, thank you” if there’s nothing you want from the choices. I found in Hong Kong that the gesture for ‘No’ is a gentle side-to-side waving of the hand, as if you are waving good bye. You can do that too while saying “No thanks”,  if English isn’t well spoken.

It is assumed that the dishes selected are shared by all at the table. It’s good to ask the other guests if they agree with your choices before making them. Sometimes a few may want to try something while others will not want to touch it. Usually those who don’t want it are happy with you having the dish, and they can choose something for themselves later. Go with the flow.

Don’t be afraid to try everything though (unless you are allergic or can’t eat pork or something). You may be pleasantly surprised.

Put empty dishes (the ones the food came in) close to the edge of the table, and stack if you can. This makes it easier for them to clear and you’ll have more room for new dishes.

It is polite to top up everyone’s tea cups when you do your own. Apparently, the notion of tapping two fingers lightly on the table is a way of saying ‘thank you’ when your cup is being filled.

Paying

Once you’ve stuffed yourself silly and ready to leave, take the ‘bill’ with you to the counter. Bills are often easier if you split them equally.

If you are going with an Asian family, this is the time where the battle begins to see who will win the title of bill-payer. If you’re not on your toes, often someone will “go to the loo” and pay at the same time before you even realise it. Awesome, but be sure to pay back the favour next time :)

Tips

• Find out from friends and family what good yum char places there are to avoid disappointment. My favourite Wellington place is The Regal on Courtenay Place. Great range, decent service (like frequent teapot refilling) and it’s delicious. Reading web reviews is useful too.
• Book if possible if you know it’s a busy place (another sign of a good yum char restaurant).
• Go with a group, preferably of open-minded people. You can try more things that way before getting too full.
• Get Chinese tea. It really goes well with the food.
• If you’d like dessert, grab them when they come around. They might not be available at the time you want them.
• Watch out for the ‘Special’ dishes. Anything that’s not in a little steamer dish is going to cost more. (Usually there’s a price list on the ‘bill’ that the waiters mark each time you choose something.)
• If you are vegetarian, then you’re out of luck. You will have to at least eat seafood, and if that’s the case you should still ask what’s in the dish. A ‘vegetable’ dumpling may not necessarily mean ‘vegetarian’, and something that contains seafood may also contain pork.
• Unfortunately a lot of yum char places aren’t known for their cleanliness. A common practice is to wipe down your chopsticks with the napkin before you use them… and don’t be surprised if the crockery is chipped!
• Don’t be afraid to try new things!

I finally found one that required baking and had some useful weight measurements albeit imperial, and made a few guesses because it still asked for ‘large or extra large’ eggs. I only had size 6 eggs which is common in New Zealand recipes.

So because I really like how it turned out and don’t want to go through the hassle of working out what’s what next time, I’ve rewritten the recipe in normal metric measures and using size 6 eggs. I don’t think we get key limes here so I used whatever type they sell at the supermarket, plus a lemon because the hubby didn’t buy enough limes… and I wanted to use my tart tin, hence the Lemon Lime Tart :)

Lemon lime tart