The Hungry Bunny

I love hosting dinner parties. Feeding my friends with homecooked food makes me happy. Many a time, I'm asked by my dinner guests if they can bring along anything, and while I tell them to just bring an empty tummy and healthy appetite, I do, on occasion, get gifted with stuff. At a recent dinner party with my MG-girls, Yuwee brought macarons from Canele ! I love Canele macarons, so I truly appreciated the generous gesture. The macarons are just so perfectly balanced and nuanced that polishing 10 of them off in just 1 sitting doesn't feel quite as sinfully decadent as it should. Top from left to right: My ultimate fave, Rose (butter cream perfumed with rose extract); Cookies & Cream, my second favourite; Chocolate Noir (70% Valrhona with Guanaja chocolate cream) Bottom from left to right: Yuzu & Yoghurt, loved the fruity zesty undertones; Feuilletine (66% Valrhona with Caraibe chocolate cream and hazelnut praline); Fleur de Sel Caramel (artisanal salt with cara

This is yet another no-fuss appetizer that I actually whipped up in minutes when a couple of guests came over to hang out. They needed to kill time before heading to a wedding in town, and I thought I'd feed them a little; tide them over until the wedding dinner, seeing as local Chinese wedding dinners start real late. Ingredients: Zucchini, cut to 1cm-thick (plan for 1 zucchini to serve 2-3 persons as an amuse bouche) Half cup breadcrumbs Half cup freshly grated Parmesan (pair 1-part breadcrumbs to 1-part Parmesan) 4 tbsp olive oil (I mix this with some of my chicken fat to lend a subtle richness) Salt to taste Freshly ground black pepper to taste (can use white or pre-ground pepper as a viable alternative) Directions: 1) Heat oven to 230 degrees celsius. Mix the breadcrumbs, Parmesan, salt and pepper in a bowl. Put the olive oil in a separate bowl. 2) Dip the zucchini in olive oil. 3) Then coat them evenly in the breadcrumb-Parmesan mixture. 4) Spread th

I'm a creature of habit, and do, frequently, find myself going back to my regular haunts over and over again. So to expand my foodosphere, I constantly ask my friends, especially the picky foodies, where their favourite food places are. Like with the recent discovery of  Penang Seafood Restaurant at Geylang , credit must be given to my foodlover of a friend E who introduced us to the best cze char I've had in a while. Penang Seafood Restaurant  serves up just about the most extensive menu I've seen in quite some time. And inspite of its name, they don't just serve up Penang cuisine. They do a wide array of local cze char fare too. Everything we had was excellent, and the fact that we got seconds of almost every dish speaks for itself. Service here is brisk and efficient, despite the restaurant's full capacity on a Friday night, but what really sets apart  Penang Seafood Restaurant from the usual dour-faced service standards at most cze char eateries is how t

We made a pitstop here to refuel while doing groceries at Great World City. While their ready-to-eat fare isn't the best of the lot, they generally garner a better-than-passing grade. Their pizzas may not inspire a mouth-watering response, but once heated up and all toasty, make for a relatively decent snack. The Ham Pizza ($7.30), sliced into 4 easy-to-eat triangles, and choc-a-bloc with premium ham, reminded me of those homemade pizzas with those ultra-crunchy ready-made pizza crusts. Da Paolo Gastronomia 1 Kim Seng Promenade Great World City B1-03 Tel: 6333 6351 Open daily from 10am to 10pm Website: www.dapaolo.com.sg

It's been a while since I last ate at Pique Nique , the roughed-up, all-American diner to  Antoinette 's classed-up, dainty French cafe. Time has clearly had its ravages; the quality of the former's savouries, as well as the size of its dining crowd on a Thursday evening, seems to have gone down. Service has remained the same as before though; completely inattentive and unresponsive. We might as well have served ourselves the iced waters that only arrived at the very end of our meal. The Sausage and Egg Gratin ($14.80) from the all-day breakfast selection caught our eye, mostly because we're so in love with  Antoinette's awesome egg gratin . However, this turned out a lot more rustic than we'd expected. Grilled sausage bits and diced yellow peppers texturised the tomato sauce which was topped with 2 glaringly overdone fried eggs, and sided by a couple of plain white toasts and mesclun salad. The Swiss Shrooms Burger ($13.80), with a moist-and-thick-but

This is the first time we've been to Lei Garden since Chijmes underwent major renovations. While the carpark still smells like pee, especially the area closest to the lifts, it's definitely less noticeable. The outstanding Braised Beef with Homemade Sauce ($8) was chopstick-tender, highlighted by that mellow oyster sauce-based gravy. I particularly loved the daikon, braised till denture-soft. The Deepfried Mushroom with Beancurd Skin ($6) was one of those addictive dishes that you can't stop at just one. The moist strips shitake crisps were blanketed in crisp beancurd skin and enlivened with the delicate spice of fried curry leaves. A staple here, the Crisp Fried Silver Fish ($7) was toothsome and tasty. The roasted meats here are a must-try, and the Barbecued Honey Pork ($16), meltingly tender and moist, was brushed with a beautiful honeyed marinade that complemented its smoky accents. The Roasted Pork ($16.80), with its perfect ratio of cracking

The coffeeshop where Swee Guan Hokkien Mee is situated must have the best fengshui ever. Apparently, the duck rice, and bak chor mee stalls also play their roles in drawing in the crowds, AND, there's yet another notable hawker legend here: Kwong Satay , a Chinese-style satay grill-master with his very own die-hard fans. I've heard that some " dabao " their raw satays and otah for barbecue parties. A quick check online revealed that they've capitalized on their popularity and started a delivery service to cater for barbecue parties. I love Chinese-style satay, primarily because of pork satay! We ordered both the Chicken ($0.50 each) and Pork ($0.50 each), well-marinated, imbued with a smoky char and dripping with juices. The pork, leaner than the chicken, was balanced out with layers of artery-clogging fat slivers. These were all so good, I actually didn't quite realize I wasn't dipping them in the rather generic satay gravy. If I had to choose, and

Google Hokkien mee in Singapore, and Geylang's Swee Guan Hokkien Mee will inevitably pop up. The hawker legend, frying up a storm since the 60's, is one of those heritage hawkers that still cooks with a traditional charcoal fire. Todate, Swee Guan has spawned a few cousins but loyalists will swear by this Geylang outpost as the original. What hits you immediately about the haphazard mess of noodles is the distinct charcoal accents. This truly epitomizes "wok hei". Every mouthful guarantees a heady char. Tantalizing smoky fragrance aside, the noodles, an assortment of thin rice vermicelli, thick rice noodles and yellow egg noodles, have been allowed to thoroughly bathe in all of that potently rich prawn stock, making the infusion so flavourful the toasty sweetish sambal served alongside is rendered quite redundant. Three-for-three, the sparkling fresh squid and prawns are cooked perfectly. Soft with a slight chew. These are all what makes Swee Guan Hokkien Mee

We managed to snag L.A. Lunch reservations at Restaurant Ember before Chef de cuisine Sebastian hands the reins to this wildly successful modern European fusion restaurant over to new blood next month. It's truly the end of an era, but the end ( of Ember ) isn't nigh, so no need to wail and flail. The new chef boasts fairly impressive pedigree, he's helmed the kitchen of the lauded Iggy's and perfected his craft at Waku Ghin and L'entrepot Bistro, so while I'll miss Chef Sebastian's midas-touch at Ember , I'm pretty excited to see the new direction, if any, Ember will take. Because we were a group of 25, we placed our Set Lunch ($42++ per person for a satisfying-but-not-food-coma-inducing 3-course meal) orders a week in advance to facilitate the smooth and timely churning out of food. This resulted in service that was efficient and swift, such that we managed return to the office in very good time. My gratitude and thanks go out to the staff at Emb