Random weekend post and EOTD.

Ever heard of a burger place called "Fat Burger"?

I hear they're really famous in America. Anyways, one opened close to our house and we decided to try it this weekend. Look at their menu! It's a cardiologist's worst nightmare.

This is what I got, the Ultimate Mushroom Swiss Burger. It was $7.99 quite expensive?

This is what Le Pookie got, I think it was called the Kingburger? 16 oz of meat! That's like 454 grams!! (Yes, I worked it out xD)

The girls on Seyoung's forum will know that I've been on the lookout for a bag lately, was just funny that I saw this inside a local pharmacy the other day. Sorry for blurry quality of photos, I took this with my Blackberry, but you can clearly see the Gucci print. No, I did not buy it haha!

We also went to a Japanese tapa restaurant the other night, I don't remember the name of any of the dishes except the Ebi Mayo. The one that's inside a shot glass tasted just like the dried squid you buy in packets from the supermarket!!

Looks scary no? That is soft shell crab I think.

Ebi Mayo! Pookie's favourite.

I love saba, but I hate when they cook it thoroughly. This one was too cooked for my taste. Isn't their tea set cute??!! I wanted to steal it, but Pookie said they'll notice it.

Some kind of spicy roll...I am really bad at names of food, especially Japanese food, I always make the Pookie order.

Lastly, my EOTD. Sorry about scary brows, and smudging. Question, how do you ladies get your photos to come out with colours looking so true?

Nunu's Kitchen - Steamed miso basa filet

Food I make!

In case you've been wondering, the answer is no, the Nunu does not make exotic meals every day. What you've seen so far in Nunu's Kitchen posts are "special" meals which I make during weekends when I have time to dally about in the kitchen. During the rest of the week, I make normal boring food. Sorry to shatter your illusion of me as the next Nigella Lawson, would love her boobage, but I am no domestic goddess.
So, what do I eat for the rest of the week? The Pookie is a 'rice bucket', as in he needs his rice at least once a day, every day. I, on the other hand, should not have been born Chinese because I have zero interest in rice. In fact, I once lived without eating any rice for 6 months.
Generally, anything that can be ready to eat in 30mins or less is good during the week, anything that leaves leftovers is even better as that equals tomorrow's lunch.
Here is a really simple dish that I make that requires next to no preparations and no additional seasonings.

Steamed Miso Basa Filet - Feeds 2

You will need:

1 Basa fillet. (According to Wikipedia, Basa is a type of Vietnamese cat fish, I'm using it cos it was on sale at our local supermarket, you can use any type of firm white fish such as cod or haddock)
2-3tbsps heaped of miso paste. (We only have 'Light Miso' at home, if you are using a stronger miso paste, you should most definitely use less)
Fresh ginger, julienned.

Le Methode:

• Wash and pat dry fillet.

• Scatter julienned ginger in center of plate where your fish is going to lie. This serves a dual purpose, it prevents the fish skin (if your fish has this) from sticking to the bottom of the plate and it kills that fishy smell that some people find offensive.

• Place fish on top of ginger.

• Mix your miso with a small amount of water, your consistency shouldn't be too thick but it should be too runny either. Think gravy like consistency.

• Pour miso sauce over fish.

• Pour enough water to cover approx. 1 1/2" - 2" of the bottom of the wok/pot you're going to be steaming the fish in.

• Place fish onto steaming rack/chopsticks, steam for approx 15mins or until you can poke all the way through the flesh.
• Eat.

Spotted...

Spotted...


At Shoppers Drug Mart

• Bourjois Paris line now available!!
• Lancome PWP - traincase containing products worth $313 for $65 when you spend $34 or more on Lancome products.
• Smashbox Style Icon kit - $68
• Physician's Formula - 20% off selected
• Annabelle - Custom quad shadow, kohl liner and lipliners $2.99 each.
• Maybelline - 15% off selected
• Rimmel - 40% off selected
• Select perfumes - $19.99 (Versace Crystal, Kate Moss, Baby Phat Seductive)
• Free $10 gift card with any $50 purchase of cosmetics, skin care or fragrance

At London Drugs

• 4 piece Elizabeth Arden lipgloss set - $25
• Elizabeth Arden PWP - $60 with purchase of $38
• Lise Watier 4 piece lipgloss set - $29
• Lise Watier 4 piece eye glitter set - $29
• Lise Watier 6 piece brush set -$49
• Calvin Klein make up sets now available!!
• Davidoff Cool Waters 3 piece set for men and women - $19.99
• Rimmel - from $5.99 to $11.99
• L'Oreal - free single eyeshadow with purchases of $15

Rexall Pharma Plus

• Rimmel - 25% off plus air miles
• Assorted Perfumes - $18.99 (Burberry Brit men and women, Opium)
• L.A. Colour Art Deco - $1.99
• Sally Hansen - 20% off
• Harajuku Snow Bunny - $30 
• NYC & Prestige - 30% off

Winners at Metrotown

• Clinique eye and lip palettes
• Borghese blush and bronzers - $12.99
• Loads of ELF sets including the Lips, eye and face palette
• Nicole by Opi - 2 for $9.99
• Urban Decay single eye shadows and lipglosses - $4.99
• Korres mini sets - $12.99
• Ardell little black dress sets - $4.99
• Tons of Too Faced glosses

MAC Devil May Dare LOTD

"Better late than never", that's what I told my best friend when I gave her her birthday present 4 months late. Please excuse the hair, and the amateur photos. Please be kind, this is my first EOTD >.<

You will need:

MAC Devil May Dare palette. (Colours used: Oh My Darling, a creamy frost; Dare Ya!, a peachy pink veluxe pearl; Gold Tease, a frosty gold; and Devilishly Dark, a dark brown with gold shimmer. Feel free to substitute with similar colours in your collection.)
MAC Sheertone blush in Peachykeen.
MAC lipglass in Silly Girl.
MAC glitter liner in Her Glitz. (I didn't take a photo of this, it's a bronze glitter liner from the Hello Kitty x MAC collection)
Your choice of foundation.
Your choice of brown eyeliner.
Your choice of mascara.

• Apply Gold Tease (bottom row, 1st left) all over lid.

• Apply Dare Ya! (top row, middle) to middle of lid.

• Apply Devilishly Dark (bottom row, far right) to outer V.

• Using a pencil brush, deepen your crease by extending the Devilishly Dark in your outer V into about 2/3 of your eye.

• Apply Oh My Darling (Top row, 1st left) under your brow bone as highlighter. You can't actually see it in the photo...actually you can't see it in real life either >.<

• Should look something like this now.

• Blend, blend, blend.

• Line upper and lower lash line with brown kohl liner.

• Layer Her Glitz over brown liner on upper lash line.

• Define brows as usual, curl lashes, apply mascara. I also darkened the outer 1/3 of my lower lash line with Devilishly Dark and highlighted the inner 2/3 of the lower lash line with Gold Tease.

OMG, how the heck do you blogger girls do this??!!I near had a permanent squint at the end of this session. The Pookie laughed. Please give me feed back on how I can improve future EOTD posts!!!

Nunu's Kitchen - Chinese Custard

Food I make!

There's some sort of obscure Chinese belief, perpetuated by parents who make you eat things that you hate by telling you that it'll make you prettier/taller/skinnier, that in order to get rid your body of the 'dust' that accumulates when you breath in dusty air, you need to eat "tong sui", literally "sweet water" or a sweet broth.
There's all sorts of sweet broths, green bean, red bean, sweet dumplings (my most hated!!!) and then there's my favourite, the custard.
I call it Chinese custard because it differs slightly to Western custards, it has a more delicate silken texture, and is steamed cooked instead of immersed in a bain marie like traditional custards.

Chinese Custard

You will need:

4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup skim milk (I use my mum's measurements; 1 rice bowl)
1 1/2 cup water
2 tbsps white sugar

La Methode:

• Crack eggs into a large bowl.
• Add milk.
• Add water.
• Add sugar.
• Mix with electric beater until sugar is dissolved.
• Allow the mixture to stand for a few minutes so that the air bubbles can escape.
• If you have a steamer, use a steamer, if you're Asian, use a wok and a steaming rack or a pair of chopsticks laid across the bottom of the wok to create a 'platform' for your bowl to sit on.
• Pour in enough water to cover about 1-1 1/2" of the bottom of the pot/wok. Remember, your bowl must NOT touch the water!
• Once the water boils, switch heat to medium and place your bowl onto  rack.
• Remember how you always wanted to open the oven door to peek at your goodies cooking inside? Well, now you can indulge this to the full, because in order to prevent your custard from getting 'old' meaning all wrinkly and pock marked, you'll have to open and close the pot lid a couple of times while it's inside steaming.
• When the custard starts to congeal (BEFORE it's fully set), you can switch off the heat, close the pot lid and let the residual heat cook it fully.
• Remove and eat.
• Omm nom nom nom nom!

Nunu's Kitchen - Irish Stew

Food I make!

Irish Stew with Guinness - Serves 1 Nunu and a Pookie for a week.

Irish Stew, is traditionally made with mutton (older sheep), which has a denser meat taste and a higher fat content than lamb. However, for this stew I substituted mutton with lamb because I wanted a leaner and healthier stew and also because I wasn't able to find mutton. Mostly the latter. This is a VERY hearty stew, and perfect comfort food for the winter. If you don't eat lamb (omg you're so missing out!), or cannot find it, you can substitute it with the same volume of beef. Stews, in general, taste better as it 'ages', therefore it's a good idea to make this one day in advance. Please remember to eat it before it turns green.

You will need:

1 1/2lb lamb shoulder, rind and bones removed and the meat cubed. (My boucherie only sells lamb shoulders with the bone in, hence I bought a slightly larger weight than necessary. If you are using the boneless variety, I think 1lb would suffice. If your lamb also comes bone in, please remember to ask your butcher to kindly cut it up into manageable chunks for you, just ask him/her for a 'stew cut' they'll know what to do!)
2 large carrots, diced.
3 sticks of celery, diced.
1/2 large onion, diced.
5/6 large button mushrooms, sliced.
1 large russet potato, diced.
2 cloves garlic, minced.
440ml Guinness stout beer + another to drink whilst cooking
1/4 cup of pearl barley, rinsed.
3 cups of beef/veggie/lamb broth
2 1/2 tbsp tomato paste.
1 stick butter.
2 bay leafs
4 sprigs of fresh thyme.
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary.
4 sprigs of fresh parsley.
3 tbsp flour.
Olive oil
Salt and pepper.

La Méthode:

• Into a large pot (the one you're gonna ultimately be cooking the stew in), toss in all your lamb bones, the fatty rind and approx 3 cups of water. Once it reaches a boil, turn the temperature to low and let simmer throughout the duration of your preparations. Congratulations, you've just made lamb broth. If you're using boneless lamb, you can skip this part.

• Season the flour lightly with salt and pepper, place this flour mixture into a ziploc bag, add cubed lamb, close bag (seriously, make sure it's closed), and shake with youthful abandon until the meat is completed coated in flour.

• Oil a frying pan (or if you're a fob like me, a wok), once the oil is hot, toss in your floured lamb, happily poke it around the pan with a spatula until the meat is lightly browned. Remove meat from pan and set it aside.

• DO NOT WASH YOUR PAN.
• In the same pan, use half your butter to saute your garlic, onions, celery, carrots and potatoes. Fancy pants people call this a mirepoix and it forms the base for many soups and stews.

• DO NOT WASH YOUR PAN.
• Remember your pot of lamb broth that's still simmering away? well now it's time to remove all the bones and scum so that you're left with a clear broth. If you're using shop bought broth, add about 3 cups into a large pot and bring to boil.

• Into the broth, add your barley, browned lamb, and mixed sauted veggies (I am not a fancy pants, in fact I wasn't wearing any pants when I was doing this.), let them hang out in the pot and make friends.

• Crack open the Guinness (I was amused by the fact that Guinness cans have a marble inside and might have possibly shaken the can to hear the marble roll around <-- Bad Idea + Epic Fail), empty it into your pan and use it to deglaze all the caramelised ("car-mel" Hee!) bits of meat and veggie, let it sit on low heat to reduce for a few minutes, and then into the pot it goes!

• Ok, you can wipe your pan with a paper towel now xD.
• Saute your mushrooms with the remaining butter. Add to pot.

• Tie the parsley, rosemary, bay leaf and thyme into a little bundle, you can either use a string or a sprig of thyme. Toss into pot. Remember to fish this out prior to serving as no one likes to get a mouthful of herbs.

• Add tomato paste to pot.
• Add water if needed.
• Bring stew to a boil, then turn heat down and allow to simmer for approx 2 1/2 - 3 hours.
• Season with salt and pepper and serve with some crusty bread.

BON APPETIT!

My Beauty Diary Masks 10 day challenge

The results are in for the Nunu's first beauty challenge!!

My Beauty Diary Black Pearl Masks.

Without further ado, and because a picture is worth a thousand words, I present to you the "After" photo.

This is what my skin looked like before the challenge.

The masks come folded up with a 'backing sheet'. I think it's to prevent the mask from sticking together. I kinda find this inconvenient, as after you unfold the mask, you still have to peel off this backing sheet. It's kinda wasteful too.

Each mask comes with more than enough serum, I use the excess on my hands xD. The serum itself is clear and is slightly viscous...and feels just like glycerine?

I've heard some beauty bloggers complain that the mask is too wide, I personally didn't have this problem, probably cos I have a wide face? Anyways, the mask itself has 'notches' which allow you to adjust the mask to fit your face.

The masks are of a decent thickness and had quite a pleasant texture. (<---is that an odd statement?)
I was so happy to find that even though I had the mask on, I was immobilised!I could actually walk around, watch tv, do work and it'll still stay stuck on my face!

Did it work?

YES! I changed nothing else in my daily routine during this challenge, my diet was the same, no special action creams or lotions, I washed my face as usual in the shower with Lush Coalface, then I'll apply the mask, leave it on for 30 mins, take it off and apply my usual Body Shop Vitamin E night creme.
In my "After" photo, you can clearly see that there's less inflammation and redness, my skin is more hydrated, when I wake up in the morning, my skin feels so plump n juicy xD. My face is smoother, those annoying bumps under my skin are mostly gone, my makeup goes on SO much easier! I can actually fake perfect skin without using any concealer! Oh, most importantly, no irritation or allergic reaction noted. I've heard some bloggers say that the Apple variety can cause mild to severe irritation due to the acidity, so I'm gonna stay away from those. I really really really recommend these!



...


I would also like to mention that during the span of the challenge, I was asked out 3 times by guys other than the Pookie. Hee! Make of that what ye will xD.

More photos.