Post by Irmond Hoo.

The Controversy Creme Brulee Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 quart heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
• 1 cup vanilla sugar, divided
• 6 large egg yolks
• 2 quarts hot water
• Directions
• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Directions
Place the cream, vanilla bean and its pulp into a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and reserve for another use.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup sugar and the egg yolks until well blended and it just starts to lighten in color. Add the cream a little at a time, stirring continually. Pour the liquid into 6 (7 to 8-ounce) ramekins. Place the ramekins into a large cake pan or roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake just until the creme brulee is set, but still trembling in the center, approximately 40 to 45 minutes. Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.

Remove the creme brulee from the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes prior to browning the sugar on top. Divide the remaining 1/2 cup vanilla sugar equally among the 6 dishes and spread evenly on top. Using a torch, melt the sugar and form a crispy top. Allow the creme brulee to sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Comments
Creme brulee to me is one of the most talk-about dessert in the cooking industry. This is simply because it is simple to be made and yet simply so delicious but be careful about torching the sugar on the top of the creme brulee. Doing it too overwhelming might burn the surface of the creme brulee, this burn will eventually spoil the entire dessert. The creme brulee is well serve after the main course and torch the surface with sugar 5 minutes before serving this dessert. Best is to use icing sugar instead of granulated sugar as icing sugar gives an essence of vanilla pod flavour. Enjoy this excellent one of a kind creme brulee.  

Hippopotamus, so called France restaurant!

Hippopotamus,

Paris 14E Montparnasse,

68, Bd. Du Montparnasse.

            Created in Paris in 1968, the Hippopotamus restaurant Grill has gained a strong reputation, especially in the Paris region, with the widest selections of cut from well-known Sirloin, Tenderloin and Rib Steak, to the rare Hanger and Skirt Steaks., at affordable prices. Hippopotamus welcomes diners in a contemporary setting and friendly ambience, conducive to a relaxing meal, making it a favourite meeting place for lunch and dinner, and meals with family, colleagues or friends. Hippopotamus is owned by Group Flo SA, a France-based holding company that owns 300 restaurants, of which 135 are hippopotamus.

            The moment I stepped in to this restaurant, I knew something wasn’t right as we are on the hostess stand waiting for someone to bring us to our table for 6 pax. To our acknowledgment no one came and me myself have to go straight front, confronting the manager to get us the seat. Furthermore, the place wasn’t pack with customer, which wasn’t excusable. The seat given look as if they made from aluminum but it is conceal as it is aluminum but it’s actually made from plastic for someone my size, that weights approximately 80kg to sit on a plastic chair and to know that this restaurant is well-known internationally providing plastic chair, stroke my disappointment to another degree. However, the menu was well presented but there was no description for the food. Despite that, we have some common knowledge before we came to France, knowing how to pronounce the name of the food and knowing what the food consist is one the task we needed to do, for an example; crème brulee is a popular dessert also known as cream catalane and is made of custard. Moreover, the waiter is what made the whole experience a disaster.  Nonetheless, the side station we saw few rats crawling underneath the cupboards which definitely disgust our appetite. On the other hand, The food took a very long period of time to prepare and she didn’t inform us as a customer who waited 1 hour for the main dish to come.  Also, the waiter wasn’t attentive at all as we called for service by raising our hand and no one came to our aid even though we raised our hand for around 5 minutes. When the food came, the waiter looked depressed, as if she wants show how moody was she and then slightly tossed the plates to our table as if the plates were metal plates.  After finish eating our appetizer, main dish and dessert, we wanted to go off as soon as possible because of the dissatisfaction on the service, ambience and food. As we requested our bills, it took another 15 minutes for them to just bring the bill.

            Overall, this restaurant is one the worst restaurant I’ve ever been to. Nevertheless, I’ll not recommend this particular restaurant to my friends and family due to these circumstances. Lack of attention, bullies minority (Asian customer), and destructive environment that is now is one of my blacklisted restaurants to go to.

Source : http://www.hippopotamus.fr/ 

Beats the hell out of Michelin Guide restaurants

           

            The Michelin Guide is a series of annual guidebooks published by the French company Michelin for more than a dozen countries. The term normally refers to the Michelin Red Guide, the oldest and best-known European hotel and restaurant reference guide, which awards Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments. The acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant. Michelin also publishes a series of general guides to countries.

            Started on the 9^th of June, we took a simple school trip to France for educational purpose.  It was nonetheless the best adventure for me as I heard so many stories about France and their food making. I was much more delighted to listen to the history of every single manufactured buildings in France especially Eiffel tower and Louvre pyramid. They were the most heard and talk-about buildings around the globe but nevertheless me as a mastery profession in culinary arts definitely need a feel of the renowned food in France. That is when I stumble upon a restaurant with my full of acknowledgment of testing out their food.  How the name of the restaurant can even amaze me, La Taverne Bavaroise was the name. It got me thinking what’s the meaning of the name and I googled it up. La Taverne Bavaroise, supposed to be the house for the Bavarian to leave in. That got my curiosity intensity even higher, could it be the restaurant serving Bavarian food.  At last, I went in and tried out their most ordered sausages and the waiter told me the name of the dish was Toulouse’s sausage, which is the name of the town. It was at least 15-inch long sausage and it came with handful of fries, it was common at first sight but once it reaches to your tongue. The meat was unbearable juicy and this Toulouse’s sausage made Frankfurt sausages felt like peasant sausages. Lastly, I ordered a dessert to mouthwash my salty Toulouse sausage that was still rumbling in my throat. The dessert came; it was the well-known crème brulee that even the god can’t resist the temptation of crème brulee. This crème brulee was not your ordinary crème brulee you can get at the supermarket. It was the best I’ve ever tasted and my mind kept asking how the hell did the chef do that awesome fluffy and creamy crème brulee. The time had came to get the bill, this got me thinking as the price might finally be the death sentence upon me and it got me off guard. The price was merely just 15 Euro dollars.

            This restaurant was definitely worth mentioning, I was darn surprised when I knew the restaurant wasn’t even in the Michelin Guide restaurant list. The food and service was well served to me, as I was very satisfied. Rating this restaurant from my point of view as 4.5 out of 5. I wouldn’t mind going through 13 hours of flight just to dine in the restaurant again.

Shiny Egg Tart like the Sun

Custard tarts were introduced in Hong Kong in the 1940s by cha chaan tengs. Which was derived from the original "pastel de nata" (Portuguese egg tarts) Egg tarts evolved from the very similar Portuguese egg tart pastries, known as pastel de nata, traveling to Hong Kong via the Portuguese colony of Macau. Hong Kong egg tarts are an adaptation of English custard tarts. Canton (modern Guangdong) had more frequent contact with the West, in particular Britain, than the rest of China. Also, as a former British colony, Hong Kong adopted some British cuisine.

            The moment we talk about egg tarts, we know that it all started from renowned country that is in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, egg tarts are the favorite of many and mine as well. Today, egg tarts come in many variations within Hong Kong cuisine, including egg white, milk, honey-egg, ginger-flavoured egg, which are variations of a traditional milk custard and egg custard, and also chocolate tarts, green-tea-flavoured tarts, and even bird's nest tarts. Overall, egg tarts have two main types of crusts: shortcrust pastry or puff pastry, traditionally made with lard rather than butter or shortening. They are both filled with rich custard that is much eggier and less creamy than English custard tarts. Unlike English custard tarts, milk is normally not added to the egg custard, and the tart is not sprinkled with ground nutmeg or cinnamon before serving. It is also served piping hot rather than at room temperature like English custard tarts.

            In today generation of baking an egg tart, many chefs from Chinese cuisine tried to improvise egg tart from pandan, chocolate, and many more flavors. Some even tried to enhance the pastry to even a thinner version crust to give mouth bite of flavorful custard.  This can be all done by folding the pastry crust to few layer with butter and then bake the pastry with the custard in a shorter period of time. This method of baking can be seen in croissant, as croissant texture is flaky in the inside and crispy on the outside.

            There are many methods of eating egg tarts; some ate it for dessert, some for appetizer, and some for main course. As for the Asian part of the continent, they love to eat it as their main course, for an example; dim sum. The western part of the globe, mostly eaten as snacks or tea breaks and accompany with a soothing fragrant tea that melts the egg tart smoothly.

My Perception of McDonald

        I grew up in a moderate financial family and an average living family you'd see in Malaysia. Being the youngest among my brothers and sisters could be a pain in my shoulder. 2 of my brothers and 2 of my sisters were in overseas finishing their bachelor in studies and searching for a new life over there. However, there is still my elder brother who is 2 year older than me lived with me and my parents in Kuantan. Our parents who are exceptionally ambitious, most of the people based their theories on “live to work or work for a living”, but my parents statement was “work for their own children”. My parents’ wishes were to feed us and at the same time present us with what we want as you know children has a lot of needs and wants. Everyday you’d see my parents worked 10 hours or more daily. My mom who is in charge of preparing us our daily meal couldn’t even spend 30 minutes to get us a decent meal at that time because of my mom’s business. Given that, my brother and I were nevertheless the most independent children you can find on the street as we knew heap of knowledge about the revolution of the world. Ever since we were young, we started using computer at the age of 6 and that’s how we gathered the wisdom of being street-wise. Nonetheless, my parents didn’t buy us food during the weekdays. Despite that, my brother and I came out with an idea of contacting fast food restaurant such as Pizza hut, Burger king, Dominos for their delivery services but although we do ate tons of fast food; the most frequent would be McDonald as their set meals were the most affordable and convenient. This is where it all began; our favorite would be the McChicken Deluxe, Big Mac and Double Cheeseburger. It started as our dinner meal and later on without knowing it became a habit then soon became a venomous drug to us. We took McDonald meal as if there is no tomorrow, lunch and dinner and as frequent as 3 to 5 times in a week. In 2004, a movie ‘Supersize Me’ hits it on online, it became a Youtube sensation instantly without knowing. I watched the movie and hence it touches me at the moment I finish the movie. The intake of calories, the amount I’ve eaten for my meal is outrageous which is unacceptable. Nevermore, I’m not going to continue to eat this insane rubbish as what I’ve told myself but that what it seems to be. After entering college, I’m still consuming this food that I once called it rubbish. Thus, I felt very meaningless to be a chef that takes fast food as a meal.  

BANANA-PHOBIA

               The moment I was born in 1990 till today, 2013. I have never fully eaten or finished a banana in my entire life. This is simply because from an incident I got traumatize since I was 12 years old. My dad who was an ambitious and honourable person by friends and family, he taught me a lot to what I have become. As always, he wanted me to be in good health and take my daily dosage of fruits, vitamins and ensuring that I have a proper nutrients intake. Me being me as always, didn't like the idea of having fruits because of the idea of how fruits can taste mysteriously different from what you’d expect like somehow a durian can be intrigue because of the yellowish, slimy, yucky feelings you’ll have for it but the taste can be vastly different as once you take a mouthful of it, you’d feel the texture and taste of thick, succulent, scrumptious, enticing piece of juicy inner core meat of the durian as if you are eating  melting, mouthful of Kobe beef.

             However, my dad wished I could start accepting fruits since I'm 12 as Asian dads always hoping their children mature faster than others because of how Asian parents are always competitive. He came up with an idea of daring me up by eating a banana as banana contains lots of vitamins and fibre which is good for health and also good for cleansing my body as fibre contains some type of chemical which react to cleanse all the toxic in your body, he offered me RM5 if I do so. At that time, RM5 was a humongous amount of money. I reluctant to take the cash for a while as I didn't like fruits and I also didn't like the idea of me puking up from eating the disgusting, redolent, saporous banana. When I was a child, I was very brave and yet mischievous so I took challenge as I thought to myself that RM5 could really buy me some valuable toys that I always wanted since I was 8 years old. For a moment, I thought I really could've done it as I quickly took a squishy, skunky, stiff piece of banana and un-wrapped it and without hesitation, I quickly gulped it a mouthful of it. Never in my mind, would I vomit it out because of the sweet scent, spongy, smooth texture but once it hits back of my throat had me recalled why I hated banana so much. The slimy, soggy, stinging banana sting my throat as if the fruit trying to hint me “don’t eat me, I'm a disgusting fruit”.  The few millisecond, I couldn't take it and I vomited it out as if there’s no tomorrow for me.

          Until today, I never touched or eaten a banana which is sad and hopeless for me as  banana gives a lot of benefits for a grown up teenager but I do take other fruits like watermelon, oranges and many more. Moreover, I do take banana juice if I have to but not an actual banana. Nevertheless, I will never deplete my dream of eating bananas as I know me as a chef must try have eaten or taste all types of fruits and foods so that I could mix-well with others as if I'm doing chemistry.