Hello Kitty Themed Sweets!

$2 for each -.-

Hello Kitty Candy Chews! They come in a four flavours, Milk, Strawberry, Grape and Peach. But I, being someone who can hardly afford all four of them, only bought two of the flavours that I thought would be nice-ish. Really, they are quite expensive for candy, and that's coming from me.

Alright, first up, We've got this cute little pack of Milk candy. There's ten in a pack, and they're all individually wrapped in Hello Kitty print foils, kinda like Hi-Chew.

Plain Picture with no effects

 First Impression: Not very impressive. Looks like the average milk candy to me. You know, kind of like the White Rabbit sweets. I rate it about a 5 outta 10. It's way too chewy and irritatingly gets stuck in between the gaps of your teeth, and it's got a really strong, sweet, milky taste which is a tad bit too much. Eatable, yes, but I wouldn't buy it again. I'd stick with White Rabbits, especially since I paid a hefty sum for this, I'm not particularly happy at all. I guess it's fine for a one day thing.

Too much like a hi-chew. really.

I personally like the strawberry flavoured one a hell lot better. It's EXACTLY like a Hi-Chew, I mean come on, it even LOOKS exactly like it, blushing a nice strawberry pink right in the middle. It's a nice, fruity, artificial strawberry flavour, not as sticky, and quite pleasant to the taste. So if you like Hi-Chews ... I'd still stick with Hi-Chews because this is really, way too overpriced just for Hello Kitty's face on the wrapping (Which you are, eventually going to throw away in the end I might add). 7 outta 10.

 Next Up, This cute tin of Cupcake-flavoured Hello Kitty Mints. Okay, I gotta admit it - These are just darn cute. They have these in either Blue, or Yellow colours for the cover with Hello Kitty's face on it. But I think the mints in both are no different. I was really looking forward to eating these. As I pried opened the tin, it's like as if a poof of marshmallow gas had just exploded in my face. Really, the scent was amazing! Sad to say the taste of it wasn't as strong as I'd thought it'd be.

It's a hard, powdery thing that I would have probably mistaken for Vitamin tablets if I hadn't known any better. Besides it's cute cupcake shape and pretty pink colour, it's a really light, sweet sugar taste, but that's all, really. After a while of sucking it I can hardly even taste anything else. Cupcake flavoured mints? More like disappointment in a can. I guess the cute tin's a keeper either ways.

Overall, I have to say that this was a rather disappointing adventure. I learned my lesson, and I'll probably not expect too much out of sweets stuffed full of gimmicks.

If you're still up for buying it, you can find these in any Watsons store in Singapore, it has a shelf dedicated to all things Hello Kitty including Hello Kitty plasters, mosquito bracelets, and make up. I know. Random. But hey, it's cute, though I wouldn't pour out my wallet that readily for them.

And as always,

Hungry bunny over and out, Bunnies - way better than kitty cats. Seriously.

Bombe Alaska! At Ye Olde Smokehouse, Fraser's Hill

Taken from google Pics for illustration purposes only.

What's cooler than having blue fire being poured all over tonight's dessert? Nothing, that's what. 

The waiter comes in, another dims the lights. He brings in this huge, snowy mountain of a dessert, while balancing a jug of a mysterious-looking liquid. He places it silently on your table, and then whips out a lighter from the pocket of his waistcoat. Suddenly, the jug of liquid is set ablaze with a pretty, dancing film of blue flame hovering just slightly above the water. He then pours it slowly over the plate, the fire flowing in a steady thread. The mountain is quickly lit, and orange flames blossom. Now, the ghostly hue of blue and orange is so captivating that you fail to take your eyes off the thing, and to your disappointment, it dies off, leaving behind patches of burnt black.

Okay, now back to my informal writing style. 

See, this has got to be one of the coolest dining experiences anyone can ever witness. Taste wise? Well, I'm not a big fan of alcohol (Don't forget that I am still under-aged), so it wasn't really something that I enjoyed much after the whole fancy magical show thing. Remember, this is just one variation of the dessert (I ate this at Ye Olde Smokehouse, Fraser's Hill-Malaysia). This one had a thick, burnt, foam encasing some scone like cookie/cake thing filled with jam and ice cream. I wouldn't exactly say that the foam was particularly appetizing, but the cookie/cake thing was awesome. The foam tasted like egg whites and rum, a weird combo, and it was a thick, spongey kind of foam, not so much like soap. 

From my research, Bombe Alaska's a wild spin on the dish Baked Alaska, but I'm not going into that, I mean, Wikipedia it yourself Lazy! (A bit rich coming from me, I'm even lazier.) 

But I would really recommend this if you're on a trip with your family or friends. From what I heard directly from Grandma, this dish was really popular, "Back in my day...!". But is seems it's really hard to find places that do serve authenthic Bombe Alaska with the fire show and everything, so here's a link to where you can find such a treasure.

Ye Olde Smokehouse, Fraser's Hill

      Why this place, you ask? Well, just because it's one of the best getaways from busy city life and work, not forgetting the escape from humid weather too. It's a really nice, quiet town that's full of old Tudor-style houses and brick road streets. The weather is brilliant, not too hot, not too cold, and it's really peaceful. You could just take a seat on one of the random benches around and stare into the mountain ranges (On a clear day, that is) and rest like those meditation pros you see all the time. No running, screaming children (A lot of stray cats though), no loud, bustling crowds, just peace and quiet, a perfect weekend break. And why not spend it at this really cool travel-back-in-time british smokehouse? 

Tea time, doesn't this remind you of Alice in Wonderland??

If you're brave enough, there's a secret shrine at the top of the stairs.

Cool, moss covered back yard.

rust coloured roofs from the second storey window.

I should really get paid for all this free advertising, but anyway, I'm doing this because it's just that awesome. The rooms are all different, and yes, they do have honeymoon suites that come with a hefty price too. The Honeymoon suites have built in Jacuzzis though, but I didn't really see much of a difference between the normal rooms besides size. They all have four poster beds, and really old, creaky furniture that gives some antiquity to the place, so if you're into that sort of thing, You'll really enjoy it for it's authenticity as truly, an Olde Smokehouse. 

    The food's brilliant too. They have a common dining hall downstairs that's equally ancient looking, from a real stuffed deer head (It's real, I asked the waiter) propped up on the wall watching you eat, to a fireplace that's never lit due to fire hazards, unfortunately. The Menu can be a bit pricey, but hey, you gotta give it to them for dragging the freshest and the finest all the way up the windy, steep roads of Fraser's Hill.

    Alright, that's all for today's review, I'll try my very best coming up with something interesting next week.

And as Always,

Hungry Bunny over and smokin' out. 

Sakura Jelly Beans! by Jelly Belly

   Now this is quite the pleasant surprise. I've been a Jelly Belly fan since ... well, A VERY LONG TIME. "What makes a Jelly Belly bean gourmet?" you ask. Well, simply put, they not only have 50 official flavors to choose from, but their flavors are as close and exact as Jelly beans go. And it's also one of the things on my bucket list to complete trying every single flavor. Hey, you are looking at the company who did Harry Potter's Bertie Bott's every flavor beans after all, so there's no competition to it if you're facing the Jelly Belly company (Though I wouldn't recommend that as a football team name).

    Alright, back to topic. Sakura flavoured Jelly Beans. Honestly, I really didn't know what to expect. I mean, do Sakura flowers even have flavours? And since I did a little introduction on Jelly Belly Beans, it's only right to do another one for Sakura, or Cherry blossoms as some people call them. 

Taken from Google Images.

      If you're big on anime, You should already know a lot about these trees. No it's not only an extremely cliched anime girl name, it's a tree. A really beautiful tree that's also joining the bucket list as something I definitely have to see. I'm not exactly an expert on this, so go all wikipedia on it if you have to.

    

     SO anyway, here's the introduction on the back of the package:

    It's Sakura Season, and this means the beautiful and delicate cherry blosoms begin to bloom. In honor of this event, Jelly Belly has created a Sakura-flavoured jelly bean! With a mild cherry flavor and pretty pink white coloring, this jelly bean is sure to bring out the spirit of the season.

    And here's an introduction I did myself without all the marketing gimmicks and ploys:

    Cherry flavored jelly bean with neat coloring.

    Because that's exactly what it is. I'm not trying to be mean or negative or anything, but I'm just stating my honest opinion. I was disappointed. Truly disappointed. I mean, we're talking about the company that makes pencil shavings and rotten egg flavored beans! I mean, compared to pencil shavings, how hard is it to really have sakura flower extract at least in your ingredients list? Okay, I'm being a complete whiny baby here, but at least it didn't taste all that bad. 

     They really took cherry blossoms literally this time. And cherry blossoms taste absolutely nothing like cherries. But if you like cherry flavored sweets, then I guess you wouldn't really mind having them. But my mum told me it tasted like cough syrup. And as I'm eating a bean now, I can't help but think that it does taste like cough syrup, though I know some people who actually like the flavour. I think i got used to it already, so I'm poppin' them in like popcorn as I type.

But If you truly want the real deal, the mind blowingly awesome Jelly Belly experience, I suggest sticking to the original 50. They come in a box, pretty expensive, but worth it for a share with your family and friends. 

Here's some extras on the other incredible flavours that they have:

Beanbozzled - Great for a neat game of truth or dare/spin the bottle

     

The big Five-Oh

And as always...

Hungry Bunny over and out!

Food Quest #1 Korean Sweet Potato Noodles Jap Chae(Part 1)

Note: I didn't make this exact one, but my goal is to make it something
like this. Hopefully. taken from google pics.

Jap Chae! It's something that I've always loved eating in a Korean restaurant. Non spicy! my favourite. So here's to me trying out this awesome dish, and giving you some tips and notes that I've made, so hopefully it'll help you with the other recipes you can find online.

The first site that caught my eye when I googled it was this . I don't know, Perhaps I should check out other sites just in case there are simpler ones, but this one looks pretty good.

OKAY. Overall, most of the recipes have similar ingredients, only varying with vegetables and meat. So I guess you could use the Vegetables that YOU like, and the meat that YOU would want to eat. That way, it'll be your own dish, and it's a hell lot easier too. Alright?

Anyway, Here's a list of vegetables/meat/other stuff that I found in most Jap Chae dishes, besides the noodles. They would probably work in any combination and amount, so treat it like an ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT Buffet. You might want all of them or just one.

Vegetables You Could Use:
-Onions
-Spring onions/green onions
-Carrots
-Shitake mushrooms (does that count as vegetables?)
-Cucumber skins (Might as well throw in the rest of the cucumber)
-Peppers (Red, Green or Yellow)
-Seaweed
-Spinach
-Scallions
-Garlic
-Toasted sesame seeds (Makes it look a lot more professional)

If you want it to look like Jap Chae, I suggest slicing everything you have into long, thin, shredded sticks. I guess the reason behind it is that it'll be easier to eat them sliced like that with noodles and chopsticks. 

*Jap Chae's supposed to be a vegetarian dish but I've seen variations with meat, which I suppose works either way

Meat That's Most Common In Non-Veg Jap Chae:
-Beef, Sliced (Best choice in my opinion, since it goes really well with the sauce)
-Minced chicken (Soaks up the sauce pretty well)
-Shrimp/Prawns

Now, the sauce for Jap Chae's pretty easy. Almost all of the recipes online give these three main ingredients:

Sesame oil
Soy Sauce
Brown Sugar

It's like the super combo pack of Jap Chae. So long as you've got these on your plate, it'll have more or less a similar taste to that of Jap Chae. That sweet, salty, homey taste. If that helps. Add salt and pepper to your own liking, but keep in mind that soy sauce is salty enough without any extra help. 

So here's a shopping list summary of the things you'll need. Just cancel out the stuff you already have.

Things to buy
1) Your choice of Vegetables
2) Your choice of meat
3) Sesame Oil
4) Soy Sauce
5) Sugar
6) Korean sweet potato noodles
    (Or Vermicelli as it's sometimes packaged in, also another great alternative if you can't find Jap Chae noodles specifically.)
7)Pepper/salt
8)Sesame seeds

Cooking's pretty self explanatory, boil the noodles, fry the vegetables, mix the sauce, add the sauce, stir fry the whole thing together. But here's a collection of useful tips I found:

1) Boil the noodles in salted water to give it more flavour
2) Remember to cut the noodles so that they're easier to slurp up
3) After boiling the noodles, drain and rinse under cold water before tossing them with sesame oil for flavour. Kinda like meat marinating, just that's it's noodles. So start with the noodles first so that they've got more time to soak in all them goodies. Also, it prevents the noodles from sticking together.
4)Dissolve sugar in soy sauce before adding it to your noodles. This way, you won't get the sugar scattered unevenly and all over the place.
5) Prepare your meat in bite sized slurpable portions. Chunky stuff just gets in the way from enjoying the wonderful slurping of noodles.

Here's the best site, and the easiest to follow (with step by step pictures), that I found, and would probably be following myself. Hope that saves you some time from scavenging in the mess of sites online. But if you're all smart and hardworking, This one's pretty detailed too. After all, the best recipe's the one that you yourself would put together with your own little tweaks and adaptations, so, GOOD LUCK! I'll be back with my finished product, which I'm going to be cooking for dinner with my family. I do hope they'll like it.

FOOD QUESTS! (For the Lazy)

You know how recipes online are really hard to follow? Well, they seem kinda cold and unfriendly to me, it's like as if they don't care if what you produce will be nice and all. So...

Perhaps I should start a whole NEW project. Sort of like a food quest. 

First, find something I've never tried cooking. Something random. Fun. But easy since I'm no Masterchef. 

Then, I'll get a recipe online, and cook. Done. Hopefully it'll be a legitimate recipe, so I don't end up with some scam of a dish. I wonder if there are people out there whose life ambitions are to screw up people's dinners. They would probably write fake recipes online while rubbing their gritty old mustaches and OKAY THAT'S NOT THE POINT.

I'll split this into two parts, Part 1 would be the recipe finding, and you can (whoever you are) follow me if you decide you wanna try it as well. Of course, this will be all through the eyes of a complete amateur, so you'll learn from the mistakes I would probably make and if the recipe's all professional and stuff, I'll break it up in layman terms. Plus, I'll add in some stuff I found useful and ingredients that you could substitute with if you don't have them. (Because I'm lazy, and you most probably would be too.) Part 2 would be the actual cooking and taste test.

I'm hoping that this will serve as a sort of informal recipe thing, for anyone who wants a guide to cooking stuff, that is if you have the same problem that I do: Trouble with online recipes that are so short and bare, it's like they don't even care. 

I'm working on one now, but you'll probably have to bare with my random rants and opinions, but HOPEFULLY they'll serve as somewhat of a form of entertainment! Hopefully. 

Hungry Bunny over and out!

Weird Japanese sweet #5 Watapachi grape candy

Who doesn't love cotton candy? It's one of the most beloved of all children's fantasies.

Who doesn't love pop rocks? It's the other one of the most beloved of all children's fantasies.

And so... some Einstein managed to come out with the idea of having this mutated version of a fantasy, by combining these two, very strange creatures into one.
Introducing, the Watapachi grape candy! Of course, it had to be the japanese that would do it, since all the crazy cool stuff comes from the land of the rising sun.

Now, as I sit here typing with pop rocks blasting away on my tongue, I tell you this. This is one awesome candy. seriously. The minute I opened the bag, a poof of grapey air escaped from within, and it smelled wonderful. kinda like those sour-ish grape flavoured hard sweets. 

At first I wasn't quite sure if I had understood it correctly. Are you sure it's a candy? It kinda looks like diaper fillings. a whole wad of purple, nice smelling diaper fillings. But no matter, I tore it open and it was like a less-sticky version of cotton candy. Not quite as airy as I had expected it. Perhaps it was because I made the huge mistake of stuffing it into the fridge. (Lesson learned: don't stuff cotton candy into cold, damp places.)

It melts straight away, as it touches the tip of your tongue, and if you're lucky to get some on your first bite, you'll have soft, tingling mini explosions ricocheting off the walls of your mouth. The pop rocks are sweet, but the cotton candy balances everything with its sour-ish grapey goodness (Probably artificial, so not that all healthy to be frank. Whoever frank is).

I guess this could be the japanese version of popin' cotton candy by Vat19.com 

Or maybe the other way round. BUT it doesn't matter who started it first, all I care is that it exists in the first place. I guess you could try getting it by whatever means is easiest for you, though I'd say get more than one packet, because you'd sure be begging for more! At least I did.

Hungry bunny over and out.

Thought of the day: I wonder if it's possible to make a weapon out of a mega pop-rock?

Next up: Bombalaska! (The dessert! the dessert! I have no intention of anything to do with international warfare.)

DIY Panda Dango! Suppanda!!

Looks simple enough. Really isn't.

       So, I was at this year's AFA(anime festival asia; which was awesome, by the way) and while I was walking down the Japanese food section, I spotted this familiar looking thing. Yes! Panda Dango! Score!!!

     And I had no idea what had gotten into me. See, I'm not really that crazed up about pandas. Ever since Kai Kai and Jia Jia (Pandas in singapore originally from China) came over I've noticed a lot of panda merchandise sprouting up all over the country. Maybe, just maybe, I was subconsciously affected by the craze, because here I was, buying yet another panda related Japanese candy.

In Ume flavour! My favourite!

  I'll get into that later. For now, Panda dango!

So tearing open the package, this is what you'll get. A mixing bowl/container/whatever it is, a packet of black mochiko, a packet of white mochiko, a spoon and the powder for the sweet sauce.

I guess it's pretty much self explanatory. Well, except for the mixing-the-ingredients-part. Excuse me for my horrible Japanese, I got the spoon and the small little water measuring thingy mixed up. But I managed somehow.

The cute thing. All ready to get its head bitten off.

There came a point in time when I realised The yellow stick portrayed in the picture wasn't there. I was like, oh shucks, no stick, what now? To be honest I felt a little cheated. I mean, who doesn't include sticks with DIY dango kits? That's right, no one. Anyway, I made do with a chopstick and stuck the fella right through. 

     Making it was a pain in the butt though. I didn't really see the point of putting in much effort and making the dango look like a panda, since I'm going to eat it all up in the end no matter what it tastes like, right? The flour thingy? Not as malleable as I thought it would be. It sticks everywhere, and it's almost near impossible to get rid of the ugly crack lines and it was like trying to make stuff out of soaked play dough. Or maybe I added a little too much water. Well, the picture at the end of it all motivated me to make it presentable, so I spent a good half and hour assembling everything together (After much remodeling and sculpting)

     I feel like a Michelangelo. seriously. One of my best works yet, I must admit. 

   It tasted, alright, I guess. Nothing fancy, nothing surprising, in fact, if you've already tried the popin cookin sushi set, the dango has the sort of stickyness of the sushi rice. but tastes more like plain flour. But the sauce was crazy yummy. Just like the one you get in Japanese desert shops served with dango. You know, that syrup you thought was honey but ended up tasting more like someone dumped a hell load of sugar into a tub of soy sauce? Yeah, that's the one.

I'd give it a go, but if you used to be one of those kids who got so fed up trying to make play dough sculptures and squished them all together in one mush instead, Don't even think about it. Because that's all there really is to it, playin' with dough that's edible.

NOW, Suppanda!! I LOVED suppanda!! yes, The exclamation marks are there because it's part of Suppanda!!'s name. I was fortunate enough to find one of the rarer flavours, ume. (I think there was lemon and grape too.) Okay, so I wasn't able to get a picture of it because, 1) It was all melted together in the pack, 2) It was so good I finished it all before I felt like reviewing it. 

     It looks like a cute, pink, round ball of mochi, and from the package, it seems there's not one but TWO layers to it. So for scientific purposes, I tore the whole thing in half (which was really, literally, hard being stuck in the fridge and all) and yeah, it's true. The outside part's the chewy part, and it's kinda like those fruit plus sweets.  The inside part's made up of plum paste, I believe, a sour plum paste. It tastes exactly like the plum ball thingies I got quite a while ago. I thought it'd be as explosively sour as a warhead or sourbombs, judging from the poor panda's look of distress on the package, but it's really more of a hi-chew sour. a nice sour.

   This was truly and honestly one of my fave sweets of all time.

Hungry bunny over and out eating a homemade matcha pudding. OKAY it was a ready made supermarket packet, but I DID boil the water and I DID fill it into cute pudding cups myself. So it's homemade in it's own right.


P.S. I found the yellow stick for the dangos under the computer table. I wonder how it got there. Oh well.

Another Weird Ice cream! (Bamboo charcoal flavour)

Not the most appetizing looking thing there is

      Charcoal flavoured ice cream. How delectable. A soft black mush that sits melting into a muddy substance at the bottom of a glass bowl. Now, you might be wondering why I would order something like this in the first place, well, I don't know. I guess I was expecting something surprising.

     Honestly, this disappointed me a little, but I'm not saying that it didn't taste great. Its just like any other old ice cream, and I didn't find stray bits of charcoal in it like what I expected. It tastes really sweet and milky, and I hardly tasted anything different from your regular old vanilla ice cream, but after a few licks, I noticed some grainy substance collecting in between my teeth and on my tongue. Yes. That's the charcoal part of the ice cream. 

    Well, I suppose no one can really make something like charcoal taste good. I mean, it's burnt wood, so I guess I shouldn't expect too much. I wonder why anyone would want to create such a flavour though, I've heard of its detoxifying properties, but seriously, I wouldn't ever want to swallow down the stuff you put in barbecue pits.

      In case you're wondering and if you'd like to try this, you can find this in Malaysia at Warakuya Japanese restaurant in JB. And even if you're not a huge fan of Charcoal Ice cream, they have some pretty awesome food, and one of the thickest salmon slices i've ever been served in a japanese restaurant.

 

More pictures:

     

Hungry Bunny over and out~ (Well, in this case I was absolutely stuffed and I probably won't be hungry for... A VERY LONG TIME.

Weird Ice cream (Lavender, Mochi, and Fried!!)

Looks normal enough

    Lavender ice cream's not something you find in your average grocery aisle, and so when I came across it at a japanese restaurant, I just had to have it. 

   No, it doesn't taste like those pillows made for people who can't sleep at night, in fact, I find this pretty darn good. It has a really creamy, silky texture, and though I expected something along the lines of a sherbet, it was more on the milky side. Lavender goes really well with milk, and the scent of it filled up my nostrils when I was licking off the cream from my spoon. Now, I know some people who hate lavender, so if you do, I wouldn't recommend this because it tastes exactly as it smells - which is really weird. 

   Also, the lavender milk tea at IOI cafe (a bubble tea shop) is really good too, so pick that up if you feel adventurous! 

   You know what, they should get cows to run along in fields of lavender, just a thought. I wonder how they made this?

I bought four boxes of these at a discount from
an aunty at a zebra crossing

     Actually, these have been around for a very long time, and I remember smuggling these into the cinema when I was really young, so it's not something new for me, but I thought I'd just share it. Yes, as the name implies, it's mochi with an ice cream filling. I don't really see these in supermarkets anymore, so I suppose these must be really rare now. Count me lucky to find some random aunty off a street selling boxes of mochi ice cream at $3 a box!
    

   

Cute sweet wrapper thing

    So they have about a dozen of mochi balls wrapped neatly in tiny packages like the one in the photo. I guess it adds to its charm or something.

It kinda looks like a moon now that I think about it

   Also, you're supposed to keep these in the freezer, so they can be pretty hard if you don't defrost them. Then again, I wouldn't want to risk leaving them out too long in the open. You don't want to end up with a soggy mush. By the way, this one's lychee flavoured (my personal favourite even though I don't like lychee because it doesn't taste like lychee at all), and they come in four flavours: Lychee, Peach, Black sesame and Yam (I know, weird)

     

Hmm.. I wonder who took a chunk out of it?
    Okay, so i'm kinda trying out a new way of sharing this, step-by-step. So now, as you can see, I have indeed taken a bite of the ball of mochi. The skin is matted with powdered flour, and it tastes and feels exactly like the skin of snowskin mooncake. Very lightly sweetened and chewy-ish. Also, it gets really sticky when wet, so it can be pretty messy if you like to take small bites out of things like me. 

A clam!

     Wedged inside a sandwich of fried batter and topped with strawberry jam is this wonderful creation - FRIED ice cream. I know, the irony. Fried. Ice? I wonder how that can work.

    IT JUST WORKS, OKAY?! By some magical spell the buttery-ness of the fried part and the milky-ness of the ice cream part go SUPER well together. It must have been som sort of miracle/accident that anyone actually came up with the idea.

   Well that's all for my Ice cream Trilogy. Next up - Halloween treats! from an Asian's perspective!!

Hungry Bunny over and out~

The Michael Jackson - Soybean milk and chin chow

       Here's to our old singaporean aunties and uncles taking a hilarious spin on a popular drink - The Michael Jackson. I'll give you some time to figure out why they named it that way...

...Found the answer...?

Yes...No?

BLACK OR WHITE! That's a hint. I'm giving no more.

       No one knows who started it, well, whoever it was, he/she must have been one pretty funky aunty/uncle. SO, what is this drink anyway? It's really simple, just soybean milk and a scoop of chin chow (a.k.a. Grass Jelly). Doesn't sound like much though, does it? And it is kinda easy to believe that this drink was created by accident. 

      Once upon a time, in a very ulu (remote) coffee shop somewhere in Yio Chu Kang, there lived an old uncle. He was the owner of 'Lucky Prosperity coffee shop', but this coffee shop was hardly prosperous at all. See, beside the old coffee shop sat an old graveyard (Like all ulu places in Singapore), and everyone just assumed the place was haunted. And so the old uncle sat down on a stool one day and sighed, bored in the sweltering midday heat. He turned on the radio (The old fashioned kind, probably made out of wood), and listened, waiting...waiting for someone, anyone...

    "Er, Uncle! I want one glass soya bean milk," there came the voice of a teenager. The old man was delighted! Finally, a customer. He shuffled hastily towards the kitchen and poured out some soya milk into a glass. "Hurry leh, uncle!" came the call of the teenager, again, this time, much more irritated.

   "Coming, coming!" The uncle, in all his hastiness, knocked over a jar of chin chow (now, what was it doing there anyway?) while he was putting back another jar filled with sugar syrup. The chin chow pieces fell into the cup of soya bean, splash! splash! splash! There was no stopping it. The deed had been done. "Hurry leh! faster faster faster!" He had no time to make another drink.

    "Oh no!" cried the uncle, that's it. No one will ever come to his coffee shop ever again, not when this teenager spreads word about how horrible the drinks he served were. No one in their right mind would like chin chow in soya bean milk!

    The uncle, with tears in his eyes, walked over to the teenager and served him the drink, praying that he wouldn't notice the black bits floating amidst the white. A song came out blasting out of the radio, and as the teenager gulped it down, he cried out, "Wah, uncle! This drink very nice leh! You give me free one ah?"

    The uncle just stared at the boy in front of him. What...? 

   The boy hummed along to the tune on the radio as he drank. (Okay, I know, this part's real corny) it was Michael Jackson's latest hit song, 'Black or white'.
   After finishing the drink, the boy left, but returned a few hours later with a group of friends.
"Er, Uncle! Can give us that time I drink one? The black and white drink, oh, that one when the Michael Jackson song got play on the radio. Aiyah, uncle, got name or not?"

   The uncle was puzzled at first, but thought that was a rather long name for a drink. It struck him, "Eureka!" he cried, (I'll just assume old uncles at that time knew who Archimedes was), "I found a name! from this day forward, Soya bean milk with chin chow shall be called, 'Michael Jackson'."
    And from that day forth, his coffee shop truly lived up to its name, people flocked from all over the country just to get a taste of this...erm... wonderful drink, and they all lived happily ever after. The End.

I know, it's a stupid theory, but hey! give me some credit people, I made this up on the whim. Well anyway, if you haven't tried this yet (and I assume you live in the graveyard next to 'Lucky Prosperity Coffee Shop'), go on, try it! It's almost as good as bubble tea. You'll only be a true Singaporean after having the one and only Michael Jackson.

Hungry bunny over and out with a moonwalk!~

Next up! The weird Ice cream Trilogy!