Joop Thai Experience (October 1)

We have long been wanting to try this much-talked about restaurant in town. Quite a few of our friends have tried it and they strongly recommend that we check it out as well.

I was once asked by a co-worker (at Dome) if I wanted to do some extra hours with her on weekends; she works over there and the owner happens to be a good friend of hers. I thought about the offer but eventually refused because I wasn't sure if my legs could still bear prolonged standing on top of my regular hours at the Dome.

Last Saturday, after going to the mass, we went straight to the restaurant. Still parked outside, I could see Lisa, another co-worker, sitting down on a bench, probably waiting for some take-aways. She greeted us on our way in, then Sabrina came to guide us to our table. The restaurant was quite full with a few big groups on long tables. A moment later, she came back to get our orders.

It didn't take long 'til drinks and entree were served. We super loved the fish crackers. I was expecting it would be like "chicharap" but the appearance and taste was way better than that. We got so occupied facebooking through our mobiles that we didn't realize we have been waiting for over an hour already for our meals. It was understandable because apparently, the big tables had ordered before us.

The meals were finally served. Overwhelming serving, good enough for two-three persons. Hubby got the Pad Thai with seafood while mine was Pad Nam Man Hoi with prawns. We had a taste of each others meals and both tasted really good. The one I got had heaps of veggies in it, which are really my favorite. And hubby's stir-fried noodles was quite hot and flavorful with bits of nuts. Superb quality and quantity at a fairly good price. 

 

My 2nd fondant cake

This is my second attempt in fondant making. It’s another birthday cake as a present for a bubby girl by the name of Charish. 

I decided to make some trendy modifications with the cake arrangement. I wanted to have a two-layered cake but in two different colors. So, I made butter flavored on the bottom then topped it off with chocolate flavored. Voila! It looked just as appetizing as those you probably buy at Goldilocks. 

However, I am quite discontented with the outcome of my finished product due to some reasons. First, the coloring was inefficient. I nearly stained my hands but still I wasn’t able to achieve the right hue I wanted to have. Second, I only got barely two hours to complete my cake since the party will start at 7 o’clock. You see it’s pretty difficult to concentrate on your craft when under time constraint more so for a starter like me. And managing the fondant takes a lot of patience and passion.

Apparently, I run out of ideas in my design plus the fact that I still haven’t got those cutter-with-shapes thing so I once again used my scrapbook cut outs. 

The birthday girl loved the cake same with everyone at the party. It’s probably the most rewarding remark I had ever received.

My first fondant cake

I am really ecstatic about this cake because this is actually my very first fondant cake, which I made for a friend's birthday.  And to top it off, this is my first blog entry here in blogspot.


I’ve always been fascinated with the art of fondant making and I definitely have a high regard for people who are blessed with ingenuity to explore such skill.

And this almost certainly, was what inspired me to give it a try. So the first thing I did is search for instructional videos of "fondant-how to" on YouTube, attentively acquiring the method itself and techniques. Next, I tried to look around the web for designs which will essentially serve as patterns/guides for my future projects.
The next day, I found myself making it with so much enthusiasm that it will turn out not perfect, but at least fair enough.

And so that was it... The cake was Very Moist Chocolate with Butter Cream Frosting and covered with Marshmallow Fondant Icing. I actually got the idea of the cake’s design from cakecentral.com but I failed to replicate every single detail. For some reason the food coloring I used was not very efficient. I had to add more drops to achieve the intensity of the color that I was expecting to have. Also, I made a mess with the bow of the ribbon. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place, for someone who is a novice in this field, making a bow is not really a very good idea. I used readymade writing icing for the inscription and I guess that was the only thing I didn’t mess around . The hearts design are meant to be cut out from the fondant icing sheet using something like a cookie cutter which I don’t actually have at the moment so I just used a heart-shaped guide from a scrapbook magazine (hmm thanks to my resourceful ideas). 

Over all it was a totally exciting, new learning experience. It was really enjoyable playing around with the fondant icing. I guess the key to making good outcome here is passion, knowing that this is what I wanted to do. It may not be the best but certainly it made me feel overjoyed.