Cheese cake

Yes the exams are finally over. Actually they've been over a while now but I haven't had the time to update my blog. Plus my internet has been down for the past few days. It's actually still down so I had to go to the school's learning hub to get internet. Anyway I haven't actually posted much recipes lately and I finally took a picture of my cheese cake before it got devoured by my friends so I figured I'd just blog about it. It's a really simple recipe that still tastes pretty good. The topping is optional and I'm actually still kind of working on that to make it taste better.



Cheesecake Recipe

2 blocks of 250g cream cheese, softened (I use philadelphia cream cheese)
2 eggs
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla essence
Biscuits, crushed (I usually sure short bread or digestive)
Butter, melted

1. Mix the crushed biscuits together with the melted butter. Line your baking pan with baking paper. Press the mixture to the bottom of the pan. This makes the base of your cheese cake. Preheat your oven to 160 degrees c. You can put it in the oven for a few minutes to let it bake if you like.

2. Mix softened cream cheese together with eggs, then add vanilla essence and lastly the sugar. Mix it until smooth.

3. Pour the cream cheese mixutre over the base and spread it out evenly.

4. Bake in oven for about 30-40 minutes. The cake will start to rise after a while and may start to brown and crack if left in the oven for too long. I guess it doesn't look so nice that's why I normally try to cover it up by putting a topping. I should actually work on it cause maybe it doesn't need to be baked for that long? After its done leave it to cool and then throw it in the fridge for a few hours till its nice and cold.

(Didn't have enough cherries to cover the whole cake =X )

Anyway the topping is pretty simple. I normally use canned cherries or blueberries with syrup. I just heat up the syrup in a pot over the stove and add in sugar and some thickening agent like cornstarch. Don't let it boil cause it tends to create bubbles. I normally throw in the cherries or blueberries at the end and mix them in before I take the pot of the stove. Leave it to cool and then put it in the fridge. Pour over your cheese cake and viola! Alternatively you can use something like cherry pie filling. Works the same I reckon.

This recipe can be used to make small cheese cake tarts too. Great for serving at parties. Just get some cup cake cups and fill them up with the biscuit and cheesecake mixture and bake. Don't fill the cup to the brim since you need some space for it to rise. Should be able to fill about 30 cup cake cups or so depending on the size of the cups.

Bento Japanese Restaurant

Ok yet another place I was supposed to blog about a long time ago yet never got around to doing it. Bento is a Japanese restaurant located in Launceston city just behind the food hall located next to the Village cinema along brisbane street. It's a small shop that serves relatively cheap Japanese cuisine. Went there for lunch quite a few times when I was in the city. If I remember correctly, they have three types of bento boxes which range from about AUD$7-13. They also serve different types of sushi and sashimi, as well as a variety of side dishes like chawanmushi and agedashi tofu. I've never been there for dinner but there is a dinner ala cart buffet which costs about AUD$18? Should be pretty good for poor and hungry students. Haha.

Above is the teriyaki beef and chicken bento. It is served with some seasoned seaweed and coleslaw. The beef is tender but do note that the sauce is quite salty. I think this applies to most of their beef dishes. Their chicken dishes tend to be pretty good though. Rice is soft, a bit sticky and fluffy, which is good compared to some other places over here.

The next bento was the tempura and tofu bento. The tempura was decent, two pieces of prawns and some vegetables. Guess you can't really go wrong with tempura in terms of taste unless you over-fry it, leave it out for too long or get something thats gone bad. The tofu was supposed to be agedashi tofu, but I think they served the wrong kind of tofu. Kind of looks like the kind of tofu they use in yong tau foo which they stuff fish paste in, which is more firm like tau gua (is there a english term for this?). Also served with rice and coleslaw.

For some reason most asian food is expensive in Tasmania and Japanese food is no exception. A sushi roll normally costs between AUD$1.60-$2.50 in Melbourne and Sydney, but it costs AUD$3.50 at Bento. You can also get sushi boxes which costs AUD$7. Well compared to other Japanese restaurants in Launceston, Bento is something students would definitely frequent more because of the price. It's not the most authentic kind of Japanese food but its still pretty decent. Good for the budget conscious that still want a decent meal.

Singapore Chom Chom Melbourne

G'day from down under! I realise it's been like 4 months since I last blogged, guess its just been me being really really busy + lazy + lousy internet connection that takes forever to load pictures that caused my long absence. Anyway, although I haven't been actively blogging, I have been actively cooking so I guess if I can keep this up I will be blogging quite a bit. I have been living in Tasmania for the past two semesters, and it's almost time for me to head back to Singapore. Can't believe how fast time has flown this past year, its quite amazing when you suddenly think about it and realised you're leaving for good. I kind of have mixed emotions about this place really as there have been good memories as well as some not so pleasant ones. But overall I think this Australian journey was a good experience for me.

Surprisingly this semester I have been rather adventurous in cooking, trying my hand at some local Singapore dishes such as chicken rice, hor fun and roti prata. I will blog more about those in my future posts so stay tuned. This time round I'm going to blog about something I ate last year in December before heading home to Singapore for the christmas holidays. Yes, it's a long time ago but since I have some backlog I reckon I should clear it up first.

This restaurant is called Singapore Chom Chom, and as it's name suggests, it serves Singaporean cuisine. It's pretty popular as it is always quite packed at lunch time. I never went there for dinner before though so I'm not sure about the dinner time crowd. I guess if you miss home and crave for some char kway teow or ba chor mee, this is a place to go to. Don't expect Singapore hawker quality food or prices, but at least some of the dishes are decent. My friend Cow brought me here on my first day in Melbourne and we had chye tao kueh (carrot cake), ba chor mee and claypot rice.

The chye tao kueh was apparently a new addition to the menu or so Cow said. Pretty small portion with not much ingredients except for some egg for about $5-6. Taste wise was ok though. Would have been better if it wasn't so sweet and a bit more spicy.

Next up is the ba chor mee. Again as I mentioned earlier, you can't expect the food to be the same as our hawkers back home. You get to choose the kind of noodles you want, like meepok, mee kia, kway teow, chor bee hoon etc. It was topped off with bean sprouts, minced pork, pork slices, fish cake slices and an egg. What I did like about this dish was the noodles as it had a nice texture and bite to it. It was also a large portion as compared to the chye tao kueh for $8.80 or something like that. Only thing was the chilli which was a bit lacking in its "oomph" factor. I asked for it to be extra spicy but it was quite disappointing as it wasn't spicy at all. The "chup"(sauce) was kind of sweet in fact.

Lastly, Cow ordered the claypot rice which was quite good. Had the burnt bits of rice stuck to the claypot that I know a lot of the older generation like my parents love. It was served with pieces of chicken and some vegetables. I think that there was some lup cheong (chinese wax sausage) as well. Claypot rice was tasty and pretty nolstagic. Careful when eating though, its pretty hot!

Subsequently when my family came to Melbourne we visited this place a few more times and I did get to try some other things like their laksa, char kway teow, fish ball noodles and prawn noodles. I think of the lot the the prawn noodles was probably one of the better dishes served. A rich stock with big prawns and pork ribs and some slices of fish cake. Can't compare to my favourite Wah Kee but still good nonetheless. Enough to satisfy me till I got back to Singapore. Sometimes like in summer you can also get desserts like ice kachang and chendol I think, though I didn't try any of those.

Singapore Chom Chom
188 Bourke Street
Melbourne VIC 3000