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!

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~

Coris Whistle Candy

A charming pack of deadly weapons

Whistle candy-Terrorising parents of little kids all over the world. Why you ask?

I got this while wondering around the super market like I always do, and I chanced upon this interesting pack of sweets. I've heard of these before, but I just never got around to trying them

Yet. I wasn't very keen on these though, with all the marketing gimmicks that came along with this candy, I was convinced it didn't taste all that good.

These sweets were probably made to drive adults insane. To whistle, all you really need to do is to wet the candy a bit with saliva before placing it between your lips and then blowing. If you don't wet it, You'd end up with a coarse, high pitched wine. It's really, really ear piercing and LOUD. Glass shatteringly loud. I wouldn't recommend eating this at the library. You'd probably get a lifetime ban.

Taste wise- it wasn't all that great. Just plain old artificial strawberry flavour I guess. Texture? Really chalky and crumbly when you bite into it.

Oh yes, see that box at the bottom? It came with a free gift! A cheap plastic toy crane about the size of half my thumb.

Whistle candy. Why not? Annoy your friends. Annoy your mum while she's doing the chores. Annoy your neighbours. I'm sure they won't mind having squeals even higher pitched than dolphins in distress.

How To Make Caramel Apples (Easy)

These apples make me feel as if I'm that witch from snow white, cackling away in front of a pot of bubbling death goo. Fortunately, these apples don't boil with evil at all. In fact, I could eat these every day as long as diabetes doesn't catch up with me.

What you need:
1) apples, small ones. You don't
Want to choke yourself.
2) caramel cubes. Mine were vanilla flavoured but anythings fine.
3) cookies, for making the crumb coating
4) ice cream sticks
5) two pots, big and small

Boil some water in your big pot. While waiting for your water to boil, gather the caramel cubes into the small pot, and add a little water so that it's easier for the caramels to melt.
Also, stick the ice cream sticks into the apples, it's easier than you think!
Next, crush the cookies into chunky crumbles and store in a wide bowl.
When the water starts to boil, place the small pot into the boiling water and let the caramels melt. When it starts to get all gooey and sticky, stir it with a 'twist' like motion, it helps in breaking up the caramel.
When the caramel melts into a smooth, silky texture, dip the apples into the Caramel and evenly coat them by spinning them round slowly until the caramel starts to harden. Dip the apples into the crumbs and you're done!

Now you must be wondering about what you should do with the caramel left overs, well, there's a whole lot of things you can do, don't waste! Make caramel tea! Stuff them into ice cream! Fruits, biscuits! Anything really.

I bet the person who made this was totally feeling guilty about eating so many caramels. I mean, anyone would feel better just eating these. "oh, look! Here's an apple! I'm not being overly indulgent, I'm being...HEALTHY. Yes, that's right."

Enjoy!

Hungry bunny over and out~

Do You Dare? #1 Lassi - the indian spice drink

Looks reasonably normal? Think again. That green thing's
CORIANDER. In a drink.

   There's Lassi you find in your average Indian coffee shop, and then there's this.

What's better than washing down the heat from your plate of chicken masala with a tall glass of explosive spices? Nothing, that's what. The more heat the better, eh? Now, for all you non-cultural people out there, Lassi is an Indian drink based from yogurt, blended with water and a ton of spices.  

   I'm used to drinking the usual salty Lassi you find in any Malaysian coffee shop. It's kind of bland, but really salty, like cream cheese mixed with sour cream. Amazingly, i kinda like it like that. So, that was what I was expecting when I ordered this at an Indian restaurant back home here in Singapore. WRONG! So, so wrong.

   The Lassi I ordered looked normal, but when I took a large gulp of it, I immediately choked. Spices. Spices everywhere! The spices soon extended its reign over my taste buds, even going on to filling up my nostrils, a sharp sting of smoke and heat. My throat dried out as soon as the liquid touched my tongue. I could see them, bits of thingys floating around amidst the white. I had a fun time guessing how many spices there were.

   Most cocktails get garnished with a fresh sprig of mint, well, that's not good enough for Mrs. Lassi, apparently. She just had to choose CORIANDER. In a yogurt drink. How weird is that?

   Okay, after awhile, I got used to it. I finished the whole thing. Don't believe me? Here's proof.

Okay, forgive me for not finishing the coriander.
I tried my best.

Yogurt, water and spices. Yes I dare.

Hungry bunny over and out~

How to Fry the Perfect Bacon

Bacon Bacon Bacon Bacon Bacon YUMM

   Yes, everyone adores fat, thick slices of bacon just oozing with rich yummy oil. Oh, and also not forgetting the crispy edges, teeming with salty goodness. Now, the question is... How do we get that?

  Sure sure, I may like my Bacon sweet and chewy, but you might like it salty and crunchy. Heck, someone out there probably likes it boiled in vinegar. The point is, there are NO RULES when it comes to bacon, anything goes! Yeah, I mean it. If there's Bacon lip balm and Bacon ice cream, I doubt anything can stand in the way of the unrelentless quickly advancing Bacon kingdom. 

   Well, Here's MY approach to frying up the perfect Bacon slice. If you're up for sweet, chewy Bacon, then this is for you. It's really really simple.

  

What you Need:

1)Bacon (yeah duh.)

3)Oil (Whatever oil's fine. But if you're feelin' classy, EXTRA virgin's good)

2)Garlic (Chopped)

2)Honey

3)Rosemary (fresh if possible)

4)Basil (finely chopped

5)Some freshly squeezed lemon juice

6)Pepper(optional)

   

     So, Once you've got everything sorted out on a table, (You don't want to end up burning your babies just because you left the pepper in the fridge) Preheat your frying pan. Then, Add a little oil (Very very little. Your bacon's got enough oil in it to cook itself, so don't worry) to coat the pan so that it doesn't stick. 

     Now, throw in your garlic and let sizzle until you can smell the heavenly aroma.

  Place your Bacon strips onto the pan, and then drizzle honey over the slices. Make sure everything's evenly coated before you flip them over.

   Drizzle more honey onto the other side. When the oil from the bacon slices starts oozing out, toss in your rosemary leaves and take care not to shove them into one corner of a pan (They'll get lonely) Rub them into the bacon, and make sure the flavours mingle. 

  Add a squeeze of lemon, and pinch of pepper, and once your Bacon's ready, turn the fire off and let cool. Sprinkle some basil (Well, anything looks great with basil) and you're done!

 It should look something like the picture above, unless you're a horrible cook or if you've left the pepper in the fridge even though I warned you. TIPS! Don't add too much honey. You will be tempted to, trust me. But JUST don't. really. 

Have fun! Hungry Bunny over and out~