Simple sandwich dinner for Sunday night! You can also make this at night to assemble for breakfast the next day. Yums! I love Delifrance’s chicken mayonnaise croissant, but from $3.90 a piece since my school days (yeah yeah way more than 10 years ago), it’s now double the price. How to eat? $7+ I can feed my family of four if I make it myself at home.

To make this, the basic ingredients are: chicken inner fillet (or you can use a whole piece of chicken breast), mayo, salt and pepper. To increase the flavour, I also like to add some concentrated chicken stock (I use Woh Hup) to the boiling water plus add some finely chopped yellow onions in the mix but it’s optional.

I recommend you eat this chilled for maximum taste! Have it in sandwiches, baguette or croissant, along with lettuce and sliced tomatoes. I hope you enjoy this!

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The husband is one who doesn’t really try new food if he had a choice. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times my creation has been met with, “很奇怪。。。” (“that looks really strange..”) before he’s even had a taste of it. But too bad for him, in my kitchen, he doesn’t really have a choice. Eat it or eat instant noodles, or starve. (but now he can cook a few yummy dishes like chicken chop and most recently, carrot corn pork rib soup which the whole family loved! He don’t need me liao la!)

Actually, before I present him with a ‘strange’ creation – which most of the time is really normal in other people’s kitchen – I already know if it is something he can accept. Like I wouldn’t expect him to eat and like avocado cookies sans butter (I used avocado in place of butter as the main fat), but this avocado egg mayo? TOTALLY LEGIT. He’ll love it.

The trick is to serve him something familiar in another form, or with one or two ‘strange’ ingredients added for him to try out.. then go full fledged. Of course, he’s never eaten avocado before. He gave me a face when I told him what was for breakfast.

Him: “很。。” (“It’s very..)
Me: “很奇怪对吗？” (“It’s very strange, right?”)

‘Try it,’ I told him. ‘You’ll love it.’

A while later, he posted this on Facebook:

你不知道的事可多了咯。That was in January. I made triangle sandwiches, and served them with a side salad, some fruits, two nitrate-free bacon slices and a begadil (hehe). I made this again today but without the frills. The ingredients are really simple. Just avocado, eggs, mayo, spring onions, yellow onions, sugar and optional salt.

I like to eat it reallyyy cold, on its own or simply wrapped in lettuce. Because avocado is already creamy, you don’t need as much mayo as you would without it. I don’t recommend using Japanese mayo with this. Japanese mayo uses egg yolks instead of whole eggs, and has a too-strong vinegar flavour to me PLUS it has MSG. My favourite mayo brand is actually Best Foods Real Mayonnaise but I read recently that they’ve changed their recipe. Seriously, the only reason I’m using Heinz now? It’s a squeezable bottle. I buy my ketchup, mayo and mustard only if they’re in a squeezable bottle packaging. What is your favourite mayo? I might be shopping around for a new brand!

If you’re out of breakfast or brunch ideas, here, use this one! It also makes an awesome picnic food!

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Instead of going out and spending money on cafes, I decided to stay home and make some cafe food today!

The fact is also that my fridge finally went ‘kapowwww’ yesterday and we have to quickly clear everything before they go bad. Luckily it decided to die on Saturday and not Sunday when I’d have been done with my marketing for the week!

But ok la, it die also good (它死了也好), that means we can finally get a newww fridge! We went out to get one with a bottom freezer so that it is easier for Ah-mm and 88 to get things, i.e., no need to bend to reach the vegetable compartment all the way at the bottom. I’m quite looking forward to our new fridge. it’s gonna be delivered on Tuesday!

So thinking of the ingredients I have in the fridge, which is now actually a cupboard.. I have bacon, eggs, the orange capsicum that I was soooo fascinated with on Friday that I had to bring two home, a yellow capsicum (this one just 客串 cos it looked bright and fresh next to its orange cousin), and some spring onions. Oh, I also stole 2 slices of bread from 88. I decided to make something pretty with these!

Bacon and egg cups baked in a muffin tray! You can also airfry these, but you only only AF 2-3 at a go and in those aluminum cups. I wanted to save time and money so I used my muffin tray. I realised that although these came out nice from the oven, it was lacking.. a sizzle. So what do I do? Like any Airfryer fan, I scooped each one out when done and airfried them for another 3-5 minutes so that the bacon got even further crisped up. If you like your eggs more runny, you can decrease the oven baking time.

These were really easy to make. You could also use blanched spinach or sliced mushrooms in place of capsicums, and add shredded cheese before cracking the egg! Step by step recipe with pictures right below!

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After checking in at Just Inn, I took a quick shower and walked across the road to Champagne Court for some cheese noodles. This was the start of my Cha Chan Teng (Hong Kong tea restaurant) hop. Sun Kee is famous for its pork cheek cheese noodles and it is hard to understand why. Yes, you read me correctly. The noodles are raved by locals and tourists because of its unique cheese sauce, but I don’t really get it.

For HK$42 (SG$7), you get instant noodles topped with four yummy slices of smokey grilled pork cheek, smothered in a cloying cheese sauce. Don’t get me wrong, the noodles look promising and the slices of grilled pork cheek are delicious, but the “special cheese sauce” didn’t wow me. I ate 1/3 of the noodles and gave up.

The thin pork slices are tender and perfectly grilled- using pork cheek is a great idea, but I wish there was more. I also ordered iced milk tea to go with it and the bill was HK$59 (SG$9.80).

When I visited Sun Kee that Sunday afternoon, it was crowded, the way I remembered it to be years ago. Yes I tried it before and felt the same way and decided to recheck my tastebuds this trip. Same verdict. If you want to try it for yourself, Sun Kee is located at Kimberly Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. Take the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui (use exit B1) or take a bus and get off at Cameron Road. Walk to Kimberly Road and locate Champagne Court, which is opposite Mira Hotel. When in doubt, Google Maps is your best friend.

The building looks a bit old and dodgy (there’s a sex toy shop opposite Sun Kee), but really, you’re safe. Champagne Court in Hong Kong is like Peninsula Plaza in Singapore. No one bothers you, or bothers about you.

They have another outlet in Wan Chai.

新記餐廳 Sun Kee Cheese Noodle
Address: 16-20 Kimberley Road, 13-14 Champagne Court, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
Opening Hours: 1230-0100

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Bacon and Peas. They have a special place in my heart.

Whenever I’m in Florence, I make it a point to go to Trattoria da Rocco in Santa Croce for a quick but homely lunch. This little gem of a trattoria is located inside San Ambrogio Market (Address: Piazza Ghiberti | Mercato di Sant’Ambrogio, 50122 Florence, Italy), just a few minutes away from Piazza dei Ciompi flea market (you know I have a thing for thrifting).

Trattoria da Rocca’s Primi Piatti (first courses) are €4.00, Secondi Piatti (seconds) €5.00, Contorni (sides) €3.50 and Frutta e Dolce (desserts) are just €2.50. Travellers to Italy would know you hardly come across these prices anywhere! There was a cover charge of €1.00 per person, very common in Italy. Some places charge €1.50 – €2.00, depending on how touristy or high-end they are. We ordered a lasagna, sausage and beans, and bacon and peas for our lunch that day on a November afternoon. We always gotta have them bacon and peas.

When we first approached the trattoria, we circled the eatery trying to look for an entrance. A door, perhaps? That was when we saw someone waving enthusiastically at us from inside the trattoria, signalling for us to pull open the cubicle doors. That’s how you enter. You sit right next to the doors.

The servers weren’t the least grumpy nor impatient despite me trying (very hard) to get by in my smattering Italian. They listened intently, answered my questions (“carne di maiale o manzo?” –> “pork or beef?”) slowly because it was quite obvious I needed time for thought-processing, and tried to include some English (“porrrk!”) to make my life easier. We were there on a weekday noon, and you can see how packed it was.

And so, after 3 weeks in Italy (which felt like 2 days), we came back to Singapore. Last month, the husband said he was craving the bacon and peas. Me? I was just craving Italy.

I made a minced meat lasagna with bacon and peas for his lunch the other day. Although I wasn’t in Italy (or Rome. Don’t get me started on Rome), my heart was still warm because I had an appreciative husband.

If you’ve never had bacon and peas before, or are just put off by frozen peas (they’re very misunderstood), try this dish. I use S&W’s canned Young Sweet Peas, and they’re the closest you can get to peas-heaven. That didn’t come across quite right. But they’re delicious! My plea to you today is, “Give PEAS a chance!”

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