Cavalock Eats Like A Food Blogger

I think this is how it feels like to be a professional food blogger! Free food, fine dining, your own personal little table and waiter, I mean the table that's little, not the waiter.

That's how it was when I went cruising the high seas earlier this month. Was my first time onboard a Royal Caribbean ship and every meal there was free, enjoyed all of them. I only paid for the cruise and the food was free and I'm not talking bout some cheap ass buffet spread here. Strange how everyone I spoke to or know never seemed to enjoy their cruise experiences. I had a blast! And I'm not even gonna start on this except to say it works!

Some meaty main courses , for dinner you got some steak and pulled pork sandwiches for lunch below.

And as much dessert as you like! Really, you can just keep calling them out. Like they say, there's always room for dessert.

My favorite meal of the day is still breakfast and this is something I always fix myself whenever I'm faced with a cereal bar. I mean 'bar' as in a cereal selection, not one them bar-shaped snacks. Heh.

My own creation. Sugar frosted cereal with prunes and pears. Followed by yummy banana pancakes.

Lots more cool food shots like my usual dinner glass of port, fishies, chicken and other neat stuff. ;)

Cavalock and The Hunt in Malaysia

Oh wow! I'm finally in front of my MacBook well, that's not entirely true. I been in typing away for a few days now but I'm back blogging.

Long story short, the official version is I took a boat ride to Malaysia to 'hunt' for food and action figures. Had a blast, the food was good, well, some better than others. Did I find the action figures I wanted? Not exactly, the ones a friend spotted in KL weren't there when I got there. I mean, it's a long shot to expect it to still be there but you know, you never can tell. But I did find a couple others that were on my to-buy list. And yes, I am fully aware of how lucky and blessed I am to be able to do stuff like that, as in drop what I'm doing, go places and enjoy myself. I was actually gonna write a little Thanksgiving piece last month but I digress...

First stop was a rainy Penang. Where the food was almost as bad as the weather. Alright, to be fair, I'm not saying all Penang food is bad, just the ones I had at an amusement park-turned-food-court. Sorry, I forgot the name of the place. I never remember bad places. ;)

Their versions of oyster omelette and popiah, not that good. But their famous white coffee on the other hand, damn good.

The next day and I'm in sunny Kuala Lumpur. This is only my second time in the city. First time was with the guys on a LOTR (Lord of The Rings) game tournament years ago. Luv the street food there. This time, no street food but I did try some of their best-of-hawker food that's under one roof in a mall kinda thing, not unlike our own Food Republic.

The food court is at the basement of the Lot 10 shopping mall. There were so many stalls I wanna try but I was there for only one meal. Hah!

Other quick shots of KL goodies that you may or may not find in Singapore. Great sweeeet french toast with condensed milk and from KL Isetan supermarket, Hershey's Japanese ice-cream choc nut balls and Ginseng Tongkat Ali in a can.

Next post, ship food in all its glorious colors! Leave a tick or comment to let me know what you think! Thanks a gazillion for reading!

One Week in Sillypore 8

Late to bed and early to rise, that pretty much sums up how last week went for me. Been busy with a couple projects that had me hammering at the keyboard way into the nite and early morning. Well, alright I kinda prefer working at nite so I did 'internationally delayed' some stuff till almost midnite.

When your life is just too booorrrring to blog about, or when you are just too busy to try putting together anything new or trying out a new joint, it's time for that mixed-up, anything-goes, filler post I like to call A Week in Sillypore! :P

As busy as I was, I still managed to pick up an heirloom of sorts. A customized iron kueh bulu mold that's like over 50 years old. Notice how the molds are smaller than the ones you find in the shops these days and there are different shapes too. Plus you need a flaming charcoal fire burning, below and on top, to get this thing working, no on-switch here. Neat huh?

A bunch of stuff I'll be mailing to an American ex-boss in Hoboken, New Jersey. Wonder if she knows Cake Boss?

Something new at the supermarket again. This looks nice. Holiday Chocs from the US. First time seeing it at NTUC FairPrice. Anyone picked it up?

Call it obinmushi or dobin mushi, it's that familiar and hearty Japanese teapot soup. Besides the seasonal ingredients, you got your basic stuff like mushrooms, shrimp or chicken, and you squeeze a little slice of lime in it.

Another thing I like bout is that each teapot is an individual serving. It just seems so neat and tidy that the little cup and pot are all that. Here's a recipe, looks alright although I haven't tried making it myself. Saw a selection of them at Takashimaya, made me hungry just by looking at them.

What am I reading on the iPad this week? December's copy of Food Network magazine, too bad they didn't include the special Xmas Drinks booklet that came with the actual magazine. Yah, I know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

So what did I do once I'm done with four straight days of writing? Celebrate Friday with an entire day of gaming with the guys. Up there's my character for an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons campaign, below you got Dice Town, Power Grid (Central Europe map) and Chaos in The Old World, all fun games.

Oh, and here's another great way to end a week. My little tub of custard vanilla ice-cream from Hokkaido. It is pretty eggy but that's the way I like it. <^;^>

Cavalock and The Meidi-Ya Hokkaido Fair Temptation

Guess what, I was at the Hokkaido Fair but it's not the one you would expect. Instead of the usual fair at Isetan (like every four months?), the other Japanese supermarket on the island is having its own Hokkaido Fair too. Yup, Meidi-Ya is having its own two-week long Oishii Hokkaido Fair till the end of the month.

I don't think it's their first time having it but anyway there I was this afternoon after an Iron Man related event earlier that day. They got the usual Hokkaido ramen, milky confectionary and crabs, crabs and more crabs!

Lots of cool stuff like these eye-catching roll cakes, great packaging! They got white chocolate (my fav!!!) as well as the usual vanilla and I think strawberry.

I didn't buy any this trip maybe next time. So what did I get from the fair? Six little tubs of Naganuma Ice Cream. At S$5.30 per tub, it's like the most expensive ice cream I have had for awhile.

So here they are sitting nicely in my freezer. :) Flavors picked were Pumpkin, Hokkaido Pumpkin, Red Bean, Hokkaido Milk, Potato & Butter and Custard Vanilla. Don't fret now, I'll be back at the Fair for more stuff later this week. So look for more updates later!

Now here's something I thought might be interesting to do. I'll post cool gift idea stuff that folks out there might like to get as Christmas gifts starting with this. Spotted these upstairs at Kinokuniya Liang Court. Pac-Man moleskines! Aren't they cute? <^;^> But I have no idea how the inside looks like.

Let me know what you think, leave a comment or give me a tick in one of the little boxes! Thanks!

Cavalock and The Mediterranean Dessert Deception

Need an exotic yet easy and fast dessert to impress someone? Here's one I picked up from an episode of Chef At Home, with my own modifications of cos. Hah!

Alright, it's not really a Mediterranean dessert, I'm saying it is cos it sounds kinda exotic and the ingredients do give the dish a certain flavor from that part of the world. And come on, it also works if you wanna impress someone, tell them you can whip up a Mediterranean fruit dessert in seconds!

Real simple to make, all you need is bout half a watermelon, olive oil, basil, sea salt and pepper. Cut the watermelon into cubes or just small pieces would do. Mix the water melon with a 1/4 cup of olive oil, sea salt and pepper, all in a bowl. I say don't be afraid to go crazy with the salt and pepper. Now here's my switch, grape seed oil instead of olive oil cos that's what I usually use. And also, I don't have any basil with me so no basil. :(

Mix and stir everything up real good. Put it in the fridge and serve it cold. Tastes better than I expected, well to be honest, I didn't know what to expect. I mean, it looked real easy on TV so I figured why not? I must admit, it takes a while to get used to grape seed oil if you haven't had it before but by the third piece of watermelon, its gonna be a burst of cool flavors, you got juicy sweetness, savory and a bit spice all in there. It's good, it's easy, what's not to luv bout it?

Now here's something that I saw at Canele in their outlet at Paragon basement. It's their strawberry shortcake and how they displayed the strawberries.

Look at them, why have the pale, characterless inside of the strawberry facing out when you can have the red, luscious exterior instead? I don't get it. <^;^>

Cavalock and His Hot Italian Date

Oh, who am I kidding...I was home alone when I whipped up my version of an Italian pasta salad for lunch. It's been awhile but I figured instead of talking bout somebody else's joint, I'll do a post on something I did, that I'm happy with.

What you got here is a little pasta salad that I came up with. Having downlo...er...I mean, gotten a whole bunch of food magazines on my iPad, I decided to take bits and pieces from different pasta salad recipes, put them together, improvise here and there and see what comes outta it.

It's really, really easy and I did it in like 45 minutes, most of it were spent just waiting for the the pasta, prawns and broccoli to cook.

You decide how much macaroni, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and prawns you like. Next, prepare the other ingredients and here's where I start doing a little 'free-styling', like when the recipe calls for extra virgin oil, I use grape seed oil. Just two tablespoons of grape seed oil and a teaspoon of sugar when mixing everything up later, the only time I added salt was when boiling the macaroni.

The other major thing I subbed out was the parmesan cheese that most recipes asked for. I decided at the very last minute to use some raisins instead. Turned out to be a great move, I thought the taste of the raisins complemented the other vegetables nicely.

It was quite a huge bowl and I thought there was no way I was gonna finish it. Guess what, I wolfed it down while standing in the kitchen. If I do say so myself, I thought it was that good that I literally couldn't put the bowl down. <^;^>

And what better way to complete an Italian date than with my popular Affogato. You just can't go wrong with that. ;)