happy valentine's day, y'all!!!!
well, it's YZ and i's 4th Vday together, i'm not a very big advocate of Vday and all the roses/gifts, and the last time YZ and i really "celebrated" Valentine's Day was during our first Valentine's Day, and we did the whole roses and dinner thing.. hahahaha. i bought couple pillow cases and a quilt/bedsheet set for YZ! remember he used to have super old skool Doraemon bedsheets and i was like WTF this guy needs to change his bedsheets LOL so i bought him some :X
found these pictures on my old blog!
our first Valentine's Day, 2008! omg.. hehehe YZ damn fat! and i had short hair then! contemplating if i should cut my hair again, but thinking about how long it took to grow out to the current length, i think i better not ;__;
we took a bus to.. i forgot where. romantik much!
and YZ bought us PSPs for our first Vday together. guys and their notions of romanticism... =.=
back to the point, cos YZ's leaving for a 2 week reservist stint in the ulu grasslands of South Africa in 2 days time, i thought we ought to just spend some time together this Vday since we won't be seeing one another for 2 weeks soon! ):
we didn't do much nor really celebrate celebrate, no roses and fancy gifts this time round, but YZ really likes my home baked goodies, so i thought it was time to whip up something again! :D my old oven's spoilt already, so i could only do something non-bake, and i thought of a trusty old recipe that i found online a long time back and decided to revisit for this Vday: White Chocolate Oreo Truffles!!! :D :D :D they're like the easiest thing ever to make, and super tasty especially if you're a fan of Oreos and cream cheese!
don't know why, i had some trouble with melting the white chocolate this time round, and my truffles turned out really ugly =.= don't judge it by its appearance, cos it's super super super super yummylicious!
i'm sure y'all know where to get Oreo cookies from, just any supermarket or minimart will have them! three packs of the regular tube-packaging Oreos would be enough. some recipes remove the cream filling, but i've always kept them in and i don't think you need to bother removing the filling. also, even if you removed them, you won't be able to do anything else with the filling so it's pretty wasteful!
for the Cream Cheese, you can use really good quality (more expensive!) Philadelphia Cream Cheese (one block would be enough), or just go to Phoon Huat (baking supplies store) to buy the generic cream cheese which is cheaper. 250grams of cream cheese is just nice for this recipe :)
as for the White Chocolate, you can either buy the house brand chocolate chips that Phoon Huat sells, or just buy a block of Cadbury or any other brand of good quality white chocolate :) i had a lot of trouble with melting the Phoon Huat one that i bought this time round, and i'm wondering if a better quality block of white chocolate would have melted better.
the recipe is so simple that anyone can follow it, but it does require a bit of hard work and effort! i think the most time-consuming bit would be grinding the oreos into fine crumbs, but if you have a food processor, you can just throw in the cookies and let the food processor do the work for you! i had to do it by hand, so i used the really old fashioned stone pounder to do the job. phew, hard work!
so sorry, i didn't take any pictures of the last 2 steps, partially because i was having trouble with melting the white chocolate! white chocolate is supposed to be harder to melt than regular chocolate, and my white chocolate just didn't get liquidy enough for me to be able to use it to dip the oreo and cream cheese balls in properly. what you can do to thin out the melted chocolate is to add some vegetable shortening or vegetable oil and give it a thorough stir, it will make the chocolate smoother and easier to use as a dip!
the white chocolate chips can either be melted in a microwave (be sure to check constantly, 30 second intervals should be the safest!) or melted via boiling. click here for more information on how to melt chocolate.
i did the microwave method for batch 1 followed by the boiling method for batch 2, but i didn't get a watery enough consistency and had to add some oil to the chocolate so it was thin enough for me to dip in.. but even then, i ended up with really ugly truffles =.=
what the first batch looked like: damn ugly!! :( so sad.. like this i also don't dare to 送人! i tried harder for the 2nd batch, and ended up with slightly better looking ones.. so....
TADAAAH!
my 大功告成! anyway, the taste of these White Chocolate Oreo Truffles will totally make up for their ugliness, so don't worry, just ask your man to close his eyes and pop one into his mouth. hahaha. i've also tried it with dark chocolate and regular milk chocolate before, but somehow, white chocolate complements the oreo and cream cheese best! it's almost impossible to stop at one, trust me! :P
for our Vday itself, i decided we were better off going for a lunch date than a dinner date.. as i'm sure most restaurants would be packed full of happily-in-love couples holding hands and carrying roses... good thing for flexible working hours! i've been DYING for xiaolongbaos lately, and pestered YZ to go to Paradise Dynasty with me for the xiaolongbaos that come in 8 different flavors :D :D :D been craving for the Black Truffle ones like mad and YZ hasn't tried them before so off to Paradise Dynasty!
it's located at Ion, easy enough to find!
and their tag line is....
LEGEND OF XIAO LONG BAO.
lol.
didn't dress up much or do super heavy make-up, partially cos i left my makeup pouch at office =.= wearing my favorite Zara blazer and new floral romper from TVD :D
without further ado: introducing the 8 different flavors of XLB: Original, Garlic, Ginseng, Foie Gras, Black Truffle, Cheese, Crab Roe, and Szechuan! you can get a basket of all 8 flavors to try for variety.
my personal favorites are original, cheese and black truffle! the crab roe isn't very distinct in its flavor, while ginseng XLB just sounds weird to me. garlic is just plain garlicky and nothing special, and i had a really bad experience with the Szechuan one cos when the dumpling skin broke in my mouth and the spicy szechuan soup came out, it accidentally went into my windpipe and i nearly died from choking on the spiciness -___- beware!
i'm sucha bad girlfriend. ordered the (cold) drunken chicken while YZ went to the loo and i totally forgot he doesn't like cold chicken :( i thought it tasted fine, but YZ really doesn't like it, lol in the end i put it into our la main soup so it was warm :X
ordered one basket of the black truffle XLBs! :D love them muchly.
french beans with minced pork! tasty. a little heavy on the sodium so its best eaten with some fluffy white rice.
pork belly la mian in signature pork broth! YZ wasn't impressed with the soup at all, it was a little bland and didn't taste fantastic, so we added some of the chilli (there's a little pot of chilli on the table) and it was very much improved! the pork belly slices were tender and melt-in-your-mouth and i thought it tasted pretty ok to me! i guess the next time i come with YZ, i won't be ordering the la mian again though!
pricing wise, i think it's fairly affordable, but the special flavor XLBs are kinda pricey, for a basket of 6 it's about $12 something while the original flavor one is like $6.80. in total, we paid about $66 (there's an additional 4 dollar miscellaneous charge for tea/water) so i suppose it'd be about the same as any other casual dining chinese restaurants like Ding Tai Fung or Crystal Jade.
Paradise Dynasty
2 Orchard Turn,
#04-12A ION Orchard Singapore
Tel: +65 6509 9118
Operating Hours: Weekdays 11am to 10pm Weekends 10am to 10pm
decided to round up our feast with my favorite dessert: Sticky Date Pudding with Ice Cream at Marmalade Pantry, just one level under Paradise Dynasty! we were intending to just share one, but ended up ordering one each :X omg sinful to the max!
i love how the caramel sauce and salted caramel set off the sticky date pudding and vanilla ice cream so so so well :D eating this is like eating a little piece of heaven!
like i mentioned, Vday's a low key event this year, but i still thought it'd be nice to get YZ a little something, plus i just like dressing him up in clothes i like! :D bought him this pastel printed shirt from Topshop that i think looks really stylish and preppy if worn with the right pants/shoes! i know YZ would definitely not buy something like this for himself lol. luckily, the fit is perfect and he looks great in it! heehee.
new addition to the wardrobe!
he went to try it on immediately and gave it the thumbs up! :D yayness!
after all the immensely satisfying food, we strolled around in town for abit before YZ had to attend to some work matters. soooo many guys holding roses/carrying soft toys D: after being together with YZ for almost 5 years now, we're like super 老夫老妻 and unromantic, i always tell him not to buy me flowers or spend money on useless things. i'd rather enjoy a good meal and spend some quality time with him. and we ended off our day with ROTI PRATA for supper. OMG. #dietfail as usual!
but freaking shiok la. RK Eating House at Serangoon Gardens, best value in the neighborhood and the prata and curry is damn shiok!!!! we ordered 2 kosong, 1 egg, and one mee goreng pattaya and one lychee drink, total came up to $9.80 only. my sticky date puddings at Marmalade Pantry can eat x 3 of what we ordered at RK Eating House liao!
regardless, it's still nice to speak words of love and affirmation every day, and especially so on Vday when the entire world is commemorating their love for one another :P
Happy Valentine's Day to all my friends too!!!!!!!!! i heart you all veli much. love love. if you're single, may you find a mega rich and yandao 白马王子 today. if you're attached, may you stay in a blissful relationship 恩恩爱爱 白头偕老 一生一世 forever. MUACKS.
