Baking Tokyo Bananas!

Okay the cover photo of this post shows us using the bananas for a totally wrong purpose.

Hi guys! It has been a while since I last blogged about my life and here I am doing it now. The official Chinese New Year visiting season is just over and I'm supposed to be back at work yesterday. However, the flu bug in the family FINALLY bit me in the butt and I caught a serious flu on Saturday onwards and it was so bad the doc gave me two days break. Felt really rested after an extra two days of break, thank God.

My cousin and I being huge fans of Tokyo Bananas decided to joint forces and bake it following this recipe uploaded on Youtube!

Sorry for the low quality pictures as we can't possibly be shooting on a dslr while we are really busy!

The most important ingredient!!!!!!!!

Laying baking paper on the tray

Stirring the banana custard filling on the stove. We did not follow the instructions on the video and heated the filling over a saucepan with hot water instead :X IT STILL WORKED THOUGH.

This is how the Banana Custard Filling turned out.

 My cousin and I taking turns to beat the sponge cake batter.

And our batter is ready!

Me posing very very veRY VERY happily with our pretty sponge cake.

The spongy texture of the insides is exactly the texture of the original Tokyo Banana!

Filling in the filling. Does this caption even make grammatical sense?

More relatives arrived at my place and coincidentally we had to bake more sponge cake. (Extra help mehehe)

My Godaunt aka the super baker trying to save our final sponge cake (It turned out horribly)

The last sponge cake turned out horribly as we added too much flour and the flour wasn't fully mixed into the batter and there were still remaining flour bits left when we cut the sponge cake into half! :( Thus we could only make 8-10 successful Tokyo Bananas that afternoon and they were all snapped up before I could take a picture of them. But they turned out as what the product in the video looked like!

Overall, I found this recipe possible as there were some really successful Tokyo Bananas we made and the banana custard filling tasted really good, even on plain white bread! However in every recipe lies a challenge and the challenge to make this lies within the sponge cake. It's super hard to separate the layer from the baking paper and you'll have to use the right baking pan to make the cake. Aaaaaarghhhhhhhhh I still can't get over how the final cake turned out but at least everyone present at my place that day had a homemade Tokyo Banana to take home!

Would definitely keep this baking activity up as a family or more like cousin bonding activity in the future and invite more of my cousins down hehehehehe.

Thanks for the help^^

ITS THE YEAR OF THE UNICORNNNNNN (in my own imaginary, magical world).

Resolutions

The usual habit at the end of every year would be to list down a long list of new year resolutions. However at the end of last year, the days leading up to the new year were extremely tiring and occupying as I was busy with either trip planning, rehearsals, performances, gatherings or church activities almost everyday. The time that I had to myself was also mainly spent on watching my new favourite korean drama: Heirs.

Anyway back to my resolutions. So my resolution for 2014 is to have no resolutions. 

No resolutions doesn't mean leading an aimless life, to me it means to be not bound by any goals or what not but to do whatever I want freely. But I guess my biggest hope is to get into uni finally, and do something I like for the rest of my life. 

Fine, I shall give myself a resolution then, it's to be happy and rejoice in the love that Christ blessed me with. Short and simple. Till next time guys! ^^

Food Guide/Reviews on Balmoral Plaza Eateries

Waffletown USA

If you have been around the Bukit Timah vicinity for a significant period of time, you would probably have heard of Waffletown! My boy was craving for waffles last week so we decided to visit Waffletown! I mean like seriously. the first place I thought of was Waffletown for waffles. as its name suggests.

Though nothing out of the extraordinary, the waffles served there are something that's worth missing back from your school days, especially so if you were schooling around the Balmoral Plaza area. 

We ordered the Double Scoop Ice Cream Waffles (Raspberry and Rocky Road Chocolate Ice Cream) and Sausage & Egg Waffles for $5.80 and $4.80 each respectively.

The raspberry and rocky road chocolate ice creams complemented each other and the cream very well. That goes without saying that it tasted perfectly with the waffle. This is actually my first time trying their sweet waffle version and I am indeed impressed!

Previously, I tried the turkey ham and egg waffle three years back and was not that pleased with the ham especially. However, this time I did not regret choosing the sausages as they went so well with the egg and waffle! You gotta try eating all three of them at the same time and then you will see....the... magic. The only minus point is that I wished the eggs were more runny hehehe.

271 Bukit Timah Road 
#01-08 Balmoral Plaza 
Singapore 259708Contact No.: +65 6836 6536

Smiths Authentic British Fish And Chips

I often pass Balmoral Plaza in my cab on the way home from town and would see the signboard of Smiths Fish & Chips! Finally I got a chance to try it today however it almost failed my expectations, sadly :/

We ordered the Small Cod & Chips ($14) to share, along with two side orders of curry sauce and baked beans ($2 each).

Well the cod fish was fine, I enjoyed it a lot with a brand new taste, thanks to a drizzle of vinegar, and tartar sauce which I had to pay an extra 20 cents for -.- The fries and the sides were the ones I had lots of issues with. I'm not sure if the fries were meant to be soggy but they were REALLY SOGGY. 

Pardon me, if the fries were meant to be soggy then I think british chippies aren't my kinda fries. But if they are not meant to be soggy then..................... hmm. The curry sauce was some pretty bland vegetable curry sauce and the baked beans tasted pretty stale. I was actually expecting baked beans made in the kitchen!

I'm still quite interested to try the other items on the menu, like the Haddock and Dory fish, however for the time being, that's enough chippies from Smiths.

271 Bukit Timah Road
#01-02 Balmoral Plaza
Singapore 259708Contact No.: 6737 9313

Hello amigoes! I seek to have your kind understanding as this guide is yet to be completed. Me and my boy were both full after eating two waffles and a packet of fish & chips (v cui stomach space I know), hence there are only two eateries/diners in this list, but we will build on more before the end of December! :)

We're going new directions

A LEVELS ARE OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Donut mind my language but 

this was my exact sentiments after the invigilator said ''you guys may leave now"

Bad language and feelings towards the A Levels aside, it is now time for me to focus on building up my whole 'career' on social media block by block and to show this world what I've got! I could not wait to start on my vlogs even way before my A's ended... So I took some chances and filmed two scenes in my first vlog EVER to be posted on Youtube! 

Just a heads up, it will not be the usual "Hi this is my first vlog let me do an introduction of myself" kinda thing.... I feel that that should come later or it may not be needed as I'm a person who can't really be described easily.

I just went to Balmoral Plaza today after my exams with the boy to have waffles at Waffletown to relieve our secondary school days as both of our schools are near Balmoral... And we also went to check out the new Smith's Britain Fish & Chips! A food review/guide to eateries at Balmoral Plaza coming up next so please do check it out!

Gosh, I really have a million and one things to do before I leave Singapore. Transfer all the recent episodes of Running Man/WGM into my ipad mini, source for background music for my vlogs and download it into my ipod for further selection, rehearse for my church's christmas production and scan in all the scores into pdf so I do not have to bring my file along with me, finish filming my first vlog on Friday and the second by the time I reach Munich, edit Japan and Taiwan photos from my June trip o god I'm way too behind BUT I WILL TRY MY BEST FOR YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a heads up on what's planned for you guys on my blog for the month of December!

- First vlog (Will be up by 17th Dec) 

- Inflight Beauty Routine and Essentials Video (Will be up by 18th Dec) + post

- Eastern Europe Trip Vlog Part 1 and the posts on the cities in that video

and maybe also a Christmas special video!!

I HAVE TO FLOOD MYSELF WITH ASSIGNMENTS SO THAT I WILL SPEND MY HOLIDAYS PRODUCTIVELY AND HAPPILY yes I have to do this. Ok time for me to start on my Balmoral Plaza eateries review nowwwww ciao guys see you on insta/twitter. Feel free to follow me! :)

Stay hipsterrrific,

Ming Rui L.