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!

MAGIC Ice cream for a dollar! - The pasar malam

Oooohh, what's this I see?

      Ahhh... Singapore's very own traveling night market, a carnival that pops up out of nowhere in the middle of town. The pasar malam is a charming array of food, daily essentials and (slightly outdated) fashion, set up under rows and rows of tents that will, if you're lucky enough, stretch out for long distances, winding its way between HDB flats and streets.

    Of course, it disappears just as suddenly as it appears, so whenever one does come around, I will make sure I get my stock of stuff. Every pasar malam sells almost exactly the same things, from Ramly Burgers to taiwanese hot dog on a stick; deep fried mushrooms and mua chi (pieces of glutinous rice flour coated with crushed peanuts), but occasionally, something special makes its way into the menu.

   Now, this isn't the first time I've seen them selling *MAGIC* Ice cream, but it is a rare phenomenon. "So, what's so magical about this Ice cream anyway?" you ask. Well, I'll show you.

Do you dare take a closer look?

    As you take a step closer to that mysterious looking pot, you see rows and rows of equally mysterious looking potion bottles. hmmm...I wonder what's in them? Boiled unicorn hair perhaps?

   You see the wizard bent over his cauldron, muttering some strange words, "One for a dollar...one for a dollar..." It must be some powerful spell!

    He prods the sticks bobbing up and down in the cauldron and you feel a little more brave. You peer into the cauldron.

    The wizard takes a bottle and uncaps it with a twist. You hear a soft, sizzling sound from the opening of the potion bottle and you see tiny bubbles swarming out of the yellow liquid. That potion must be of unicorn origin! How else would it display such power?

    You dare yourself to touch the cauldron while the wizard's not looking. You immediately jerk back your finger as the surface is freezing cold. The power...oh the power!

  You can't stand it any longer, and you order one stick of that yellow liquid. The wizard gives you a yellow, crooked smile and grabs onto one of the sticks sticking out of the pot. He slides it out, and amazingly, the yellow liquid you saw earlier had somehow hardened onto the stick! 

    

Finally! you have your share of power

   The wizard hands the stick over to you as you give him a dollar coin in return. You lick it gently, and magically, it tastes exactly like Kickapoo! How odd! The wizard is a genius!

So... do you see now? I hope my little narrative was good enough in displaying its awesome magic. One can never truly express how magical MAGIC ice cream is. Well, I tried my best.

Hungry Bunny Over and out *with a magical poof!*~

Do You Dare? #2 Spicy Korean Rice Cake

A red that shade shouldn't even exist in food. It's a miracle!

    

     I'm not really a big fan of spicy food, but I am a HUGE fan of all things chewy. Unfortunately, some things just have to be together. It's like trying take out the cream out of ice cream. The same goes for spicy rice cake. You just can't have rice cake that's NOT spicy, you know?

I admit, the boiling pool of lava flooding the plate kinda scared me a little. See, I'm the kind of person that thinks a packet of McDonald's chilli's spicy. So you can tell I'm not exactly 'volcano' material. Yes call me weak, call me a pussy, I know.

BUT, I am willing to do anything for a nice chewy snack (except throwing myself off a building), and I'm willing to bear the searing pain of liquid lava shooting down my throat.

Honestly, I don't even know why I even like spicy rice cake. It's not exactly nutritious, it's just- plain old rice flour, a few slices of carrot, and a small handful of shredded lettuce. The rest of it's just inedible for the average human (I'm talking spicy gravy that's so hot it'll make a pro wrestling champion cry).

But the chilli sauce just goes so well together with the rice cakes! It's a nice, sweet sauce that hits you the minute you take a chow off a slice of rice cake, but of course, that pleasant feeling only lasted seconds before the spiciness kicked in. I was soon left gasping for breath and I even started stuffing down cubes of ice down my throat. It is life. Sacrifices have to be made, I guess. Oh well. I am extremely proud of myself for having managed to finish the entire thing, though I can't say it was plate-licking good (my tongue would have died all on its own if it was).

One stick of rice cake lasts about half a minute in your mouth, if you're a slow chewer like me. If you're a mochi/gummy fan, and if you have an uncanny knack for inflicting pain upon yourself, this is the dish for you. In fact, it's perfect.

Spicy Korean rice cake that's so hot it makes mount Kilimanjaro feel inferior? Yes I dare. Heck, I even finished a bowl of kimchi along with it!

Hungry bunny over and out~