Well done

I thought the mini flag on my burger was an apt sign to conclude the night, when earlier in the day I finished my last ever exam paper for my undergraduate degree.

The paper ended at 1.10pm, returned my library book, paid fines, returned locker keys, recieved deposit, went out for lunch with coursemates, returned to the jcr for pizza leavers party and got a lsop mug, went home, went to get solution to declog completely clogged sink, went for dinner at Byron's down the street, finally after passing by it umpteen times and remembering my friend's recommendation of it.

Its a hip, causal place with nice, friendly staff. No frills, just burger. I must confessed I had the many images of burgers from seto ayumi's instagram stuck in my head (that girl seriously eats it for every meal) when I walked into this place.

Now at 2.20am, I'm exhausted, from the day, the thought of all the things I have to do before I leave London in 2-3weeks, and from the gravity of what this day means for me, the end of 4 years studying abroad, whose impact is immense and no doubt changed part of me and the course of my life forever, from the moment I took the flight here, at 19 years old of age, to the person I am now, typing this at nearly 23.

P.s. the 3pounds sink deblocker solution when dumped down the sink, caused the previously stale stink water to go glug-a-glugging down the sinkhole in 2mins, as if it was never blocked in the first place, the only sign being the scent of chlorine in the air. Now if only I can dump a bottle of solution on every problem and it just melts magically away....

I need sleep. goodnight. My summer awaits.

Mitsukoshi restaurant

Just came back from dinner at Mitsukoshi restaurant near Piccadilly circus with A. We both had an interest in this mysterious and authentic looking japanese restaurant which is located in the basement of the same name departmental store which always has tons of japanese tourists in tour groups shopping there (its filled with branded goods). The prices for this establishment is expensive too. The meal for today would have cost us a total of 42pds but since we had a groupon voucher it was about 50% off.

 I like the shisamo smelt tempura. ししゃもの天婦羅山葵ディップ :) Also ordered the fried mochi お餅と野菜の揚げだし　柚子胡椒風味, and it was alright considering I'm not really a fan of savoury mochi, or even the korean rice cakes. :S

Kawaii~ ^u^ The chilli that came with the shishamo smelt tempura. The waitress warned us it was really hot and to be careful, but she ate it so nonchalantly! 

Dinner set with sashimi and tempura.

The food was nicely presented, and the taste is nothing to complain about, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary I think. But overall I'm happy (with the discount haha). I still think the sashimi from Atari-ya is better and maybe slightly more affordable.

Can't wait to eat japanese food in the origin country itself! Hopefully it will be cheaper and tastier than London's overpriced restaurants!

Today's coordinate:

New tights that I finally wore, and rings bought yesterday

OCSEs in less than a week! 

Spring (summer?) in the UK

Today and tomorrow heralds the beginning of temperature reaching above 20 degree Celsius in the day in London. Its above my preferred range of 10-20 but hey I'm not complaining about the sunshine and long daylight hours (all the more to study with...or to aid trying at least). 

花見ることのために公園に行きたい。でも時間がないから、家へ帰ったときに小さい公園を入った。

Ideally I would have made a trip to a park like hyde park or regents to see all the new blooms, but since I haven't got the time to do so, decided to enter a small green space along the way home in bloomsbury. My obvious fixation with the lone pink tree in the compound:

Its just too gloriously outstanding even alone. Blue, pink and green (powerpuff girls colours) is such a nice combination.

Even the shrubs outside the window are starting to show their colours.

Departed from the usual potato mash cooking method by making a potato and leek gratin the other day. Probably would have tasted better with butter/cream etc but hey this light version with just milk and cheddar is great too! Just layer thinly sliced potatoes with stir-fried leeks and cheese, topped with milk in a gratin dish and oven for an hour or so.

Even a light jacket is too warm when the sun hits directly！

My fringe is inching towards a decent length finally gradually. (Can't pull off the above the eyebrow look.)

Ends random update さよなら！

I love airplane food.

And Singapore Airlines has one of the best I've tried.

Singapore fried carrot cake with prawns, fruits, muffin, cereal, bread roll.

Fish masala with basmati rice, ladyfingers, crabmeat pasta salasd, panna cotta, biscuit and bread roll.

In London now and feeling very sleepy. Cleaned up room, unpacked and washed sheets so this deserves a nice sleep. Plus I popped back my retainers after not wearing it for almost half a year, so this is giving me a dull ache.　今ロンドンに居ます、超眠いです。へやを清潔にして、荷物をアンパックして、シーツを洗いましたから、いい寝ることを値します。寝ましょう。

Baked or non-baked cheesecake?

I'm a HUGE fan of cheesecake. Honestly really like it alot. Especially the fluffy, cotton-like japanese ones.  The problem is baking it is a little notoriously difficult and you often see people gripping about cracks on the surface, using water baths etc. But ok, well I maybe wrong about that but I've never really tried it before, so I decided to try two very easy recipes online that I've been meaning to.


The first is a no-bake tofu cheesecake and I followed the recipe by cooking with dog:

and this is the result:





Well its alot flatter than hers cos her tin was 15cm while mine was 23cm and I used the same amount of batter. but I actually think taste wise this height is a good amount. I also added cocoa powder to 1/4 of the batter and layered it over to try and create marbled patterns, but obviously my layering didn't go as well as I wanted and there was a slightly too little chocolate batter. But I actually think the chocolate taste adds alot to it. I seems a little bit more mousse-y than hers, perhaps i underestimated the gelatin and overadded the liquids cause I didn't have any weighing machine and kinda used whatever methods I can think of (cups, spoons, estimation based on packaging). But taste wise its like icecream without the extreme chill and I like the subtle sweetness. :) Its really nice! And when eating it you can console yourself that half of it is tofu and yoghurt and ignore the whipping cream and cream cheese half. I actually really wanted to make a matcha version but couldn't find any sold nearby so next time!

The second is a simple baked cheesecake, recipe by ochikeron:

The end result:

I think it looks pretty much like hers! I used strawberry wafers instead of her vanilla ones, but I might go with digestives next time. The artificial strawberry flavour is a little distracting. She wrapped it up like sweets so I think its a neat thing to make for gifts. :) Ran out of parchment paper but wasn't much of a problem. It tastes good for the amount of effort put in. ^^

Yeah it cracked cause the temperature she used was too high for my case.

Verdict:

I actually liked eating the creamer non-baked version. But initially I was apprehensive at how everything was really raw in it (did I keep everything sterile?). ^^; But got past it haha. You wouldn't think twice unless you made it. And with the baked one its like ~100% safe by heat sterilisation. haha. I think I prefer the non-baked one, but I think my bro likes the baked one.

Though the thing with cheesecakes is, cream cheese is relatively expensive at ~$5 per 250grams, so the cost of baking a tray is around $10. But well at least you know what goes in it compared to buying it outside, and as long as its cheesy I'm happy. :)

March beginnings - nail art & cooking roll!

Started my weekend with anything but work! Had the urge to do another nail art design (most probably from the need to escape my work that is piling up) and what better design than one relating to easter? So here's the assortment of bunnies, chicks and random pastel-ly swirls and dots which are supposed to resemble decorated eggs. Did it all with a toothpick as usual.

Easter nail art design!

Then decided to do thai sticky rice dessert with the reduced price ripe mangoes I picked up a few days ago. Wasn't sure if I could find sticky rice and coconut milk on short notice, but Waitrose didn't disappoint (I LOVE WAITROSE, fav supermarket in the UK). For some reason most recipes called for steaming rice in pots and pans or microwaving, but I just used the rice cooker and it was fine! The steps are easy but I guess a good tip is to skim the thicker layer of cream of the coconut milk to use as topping and the liquidy bottom to soak the rice in after its cooked. Also pre-soaking the rice is important before cooking!

Thai sweet sticky rice mango dessert

Had pancakes for Saturday morning breakfast with tons of cinnamon and a dash of cloves added in the batter. Strawberries were on sale and I wasn't sure then but they are really sweet. :) But I still prefer bananas to sweeten the buttermilk pancakes with. 

Banana, strawberry, maple and cinnamon pancakes

And....today's very normal lunch lol. The erm right photo was aubergines, tomatoes and red onion cheese bake. The veggies were all layered. It taste better than anticipated haha (and better than it looks). I think cheese makes everything better. These two photos are more representative of what food usually looks like pre-arranged X).

Spent the afternoon watching "The Help" (about the point of view of African-american maids in the 1960s during the civil rights movement) and cried 5 times? I don't know why the last few movies I watched all made me tear. It was a good movie which deserved its 8.0 rating on imdb. Silver linings playbook was the previous movie I watched.

Anyway half my weekend is gone and next week will be really busy too. I should really get down to working.

Till next time!

Still CNY

Finally went for some sort of CNY celebratory meal at the Bugis Street Brasserie at Gloucester Road, one of the few Singaporean/Malaysian restaurants in London. Was secretly hoping they had yu sheng on their CNY menu, but discovered then that all the dishes were chinese but not distinctively Singaporean. Oh wells, but it turns out that I enjoyed every dish! 22.50pds per person was on the high side, but you do get alot of food of sizable portions. Was definitely stuffed even before dessert.

 Seafood & hot and sour soup.

 Complimentary tiger beer. It wasn't as bad as I remembered it to be, perhaps my tolerance to the taste of alcohol has increased by now. It was the first alcoholic drink I've ever tasted and I thought it was really bad at that time.

 The claypot braised beef was really tender and yummy. :)

 I really really like the black moss/mushroom/pak choi dish!

Glutinous rice ball in red bean soup dessert.
Am going back again tomorrow! 0.0 This time its a free buffet. :) Please let there be yusheng!

Also, chinese new year themed nail art which will only last till tuesday cause of hospital attachment. :X toothpicked the drawings in case anyone is wondering. Relatively fast to do actually!

Cheers!