Tiramisu Vs Kue Lapis, Fight!

Yesterday baking class was definitely not one of my best classes to date. It went so horrible that I ended up with coffee addicts' Tiramisu and Kue Lapis that can make people unconscious if I throw the cake at them. There's nothing to say to express my disappointment. And what I can do now? Besides sighing, I've been more vigilant in deciphering my mom's recipe heirloom (Yeah, other people have lockets, brooches, etc for their heirloom, I get 4 books full of recipes from my late mom, it's her beloved bible and I greatly respect it though I still can't make it out of how she could end up with fabulous Kue Lapis that filled my childhood stomach). Anyhoo, here's the pics.

Choco Black Cherries Cake

Initially I planned to make a black forest cake because I have 1 can of black cherries. But alas, the white butter cream may refrain my colleagues from eating them because of 1 simple reason, butter = fat. So, I tried to make it lighter, with filling of chocolate custard smoldered with rum and 1 layer of black cherries sandwiched between the custard. The cover is just a simple chocolate whipped cream with nothing but whipped cream. And the result, look pretty, right? Haha...

Rec

Just finished watching this wonderful short anime. Each episode lasts about 12 minutes which I find it very nice.

The story is about an average salary man, Matsumaru. His lived his mundane average life, until he met Aka, an aspiring seiyuu. At the night Matsumaru met Aka, Aka's house was burnt down, living her with nothing, and Matsumaru decided to take her in. Then the drama started.

There are several things that I like about this anime:
1. The story. It's cute and the plot is fast, considering the 12 min run per episode. There are tons of touching moments and the chemistry between Matsumaru and Aka is there. Their relationship is building up and getting stronger through each episode. Matsumaru cheering for Aka when she's down and vice versa, is making the anime looks real as it touched the harsh reality of life.
2. Nekoki. The funny character that connected Matsumaru and Aka, other than them living together. Though it looks weird in the beginning, I mean, who would have thought a cat head attached to a tree is cute (?), but you get to grow in it and by the rd episode, you'll get hook into it.
3. The anime main focus doesn't waiver from Matsumaru and Aka. Again, I think this is one of the advantage of having a short episodes runs which doesn't give you allowance to put junks as filler (sounds like Bleach? Yeah, it's Bleach).
4. This anime is more into dorama rather than anime. I'd like to see it turn into a live action Lol...

From Cheesecake to Meringue

In today's class I made 2 completely different things.

First off is the baked cheesecake. Bake cheesecake turned out to be not that easy, lots of tricks involved in producing that fluffy golden yellow cake.

Next is play time! Colorful meringue for the eye candy indulgence. And they taste sweet too. Surely they'll satisfy your sweet tooth craving to the verge of diabetic fufufufu...

Another thing not done in class is the improptu ginger pudding with Green tea base. The base is actually crushed green tea sponge cake layered on the bottom of the glass. Next time I'll damp them with rum so that the crumbs didn't floating up to the surface.

Atashinchi No Danshi ~ アタシんちの男子

Mysoju link to the Ep4 of Atashinchi no Danshi is hanging on me, so there goes my dorama dose for today. If one can't get to watch, one can always write about it, right? As of now, Atashinchi no Danshi is airing in Japan till Ep 4. For dorama fansub, to be producing the fansub within 1 week from air time, the dorama must be pretty good. Well, it is.

This year is another productive year for Horikita Maki. This time she plays as Chisato, a homeless girl who owed the loan shark 100M Yen because of her dad made her guarantee without her consent. Then she met Shinzo, a dying millionaire whose simple request is for Chisato to company him in his last month of living as his wife to pay off her debt. End of story? Come on, this is just the 1/3 of the first episode. By the end of the first episode, Chisato end up as a 'mom' to Shinzo's 6 (not 1, but 6!) adopted sons.

The story itself is enough to make you curious. How Chisato deals with 6 opposing sons, each with different attitudes and personalities, let alone different dark pasts, will tickle your finger to click on the streaming link. Definitely there're tons of comedy factors with Chisato running around to fix the problem and re-unite the family. The dose of dorama come from the dark pasts hidden and recover from all the 6 sons, and let alone Chisato growing affection as their mother.

Good dorama (according to me), will always have the ikemen factor. In here there're 3 Kamen Rider (Seto Koji, Yamamoto Yusuke, and Kaname Jun). 3 Kamen Rider is not enough for eye candy, there're also Musai Osamu from Mei chan no Shitsuji and Takahashi Mitsuomi from Bokenger. Lol.. it's like seeing the compilation crossover between Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

Well, most definitely it's on my weekly wait list among Tenchijin and 07-Ghost

Wobbly Cooling Snack

Who could resist the wobbly cute Jell-O snack? It's cooling, swimming through your throat and most definitely it satisfies your sweet tooth, in non overwhelming mode. So care to join me?

Star Trek

Did watch the Star Trek last Friday. Jolly ordered the ticket on the Internet, got my favorite spot but alas, there's 1 freaking tall guy in front of me and he kept sitting straight. Doh! But anyway how was the movie?

Well, it's Star Trek. There's tons of one liner, but I've been waiting for the 'Space the final frontier...' monologue, which is marked of the beginning of every Star Trek series. It was not in the opening, but fret not, you'll hear it in the end, complete with the background music, so Trekkies couldn't whine as much.

Although, I'd whine still, why was Spock snogging Uhura? Since when they're an item? Definitely bizarre, let alone surreal, even Kirk rolled his eyes when he saw them kissing. Lol on that...

Another thing to whine. There's not enough scenes of 'Harold in Space.' Part of the reason of me sitting between the geeks watching Star Trek is because John Cho from 'Harold and Kumar' was there. Definitely Sulu is only supporting and should be grateful enough that he has more than 2 scenes focusing on him. But still, never have enough of Harold in space phenomenon Lol... again...

Ooo almost forget! Another thing to whine. Why Star fleet uniforms are all loose? One of the iconic items from Startrek is their spandex uniform. There, we can kiss goodbye to Seven of Nine uniform. Though Uhura is showing enough skin with her super mini skirts.

Well, other than my geeky whines, overall, it's a good movie because it's not too geeky though there's enough 1 liner to keep Trekkies' mouths shut. There's enough touch of drama with Spock dilemma whether he should be act as a full fledged Vulcan, discarding his human side. Not to mention, Kirk struggling to having his life purpose straightened up. The humor parts come from McCoy and Scotty which are all hilariously entertaining. McCoy mercilessly jabbing Kirk and Scotty swimming in the water tank after accidentally beamed to the inside of it, are the main highlights of the comedy.

So, with the line up of movies premiering last weekend, it's no wonder that Star Trek definitely hit the box office.

Happy Mother's Day

For those mothers out there, Happy Mother's day! I just happened to be able to assemble this green tea cake today. The cake divider made from simple whip cream and azuki beans.



And from the side:

Sacher Torte

I only take the pics for 1 cake this week. This Sacher Torte is an Austrian cake with the very long history and it has its own website! Click here for viewing. It's a very nice website too, and they do it in traditional way, which is, no marzipan. A for me, if this cake makes its way to my exam list, I'll demand marzipan to cheat. There's no way I'll be that lucky to get the very glossy finish the second time. And, the more important thing, I must start practicing my pipping.

ヒミツの花園 ~ Himitsu No Hanazono

I came across this 2007 dorama when browsing the cast who are in Atashinchi No Danshi. The new dorama is still at 2nd episode so I need some filler until the next episode is subbed. And since then, I can't stop watching it. I almost finish the series by today.

Himitsu No Hanazono starts with Tsukiyama Kayo, a fashion magazine editor who decided that she had enough of being enslaved to her work. But just when she wanted to tender, her magazine got terminated and she's transferred to the shoujo manga division and was put in charged on Hanazono Yukari sensei. And since then her life changed completely.

The best thing about Himitsu No Hanazono is it's a very light dorama with lots of comedy and not so much of sad stories. The touching part only come in episode 9 and I did cry. The story line is not too slow as each episode presents a different topic while progressing to answer hidden question posed in the first episode.

Besides the unique story imposed, the eye candy characters are also entertaining. This dorama makes me a fan of Jun Kaname (I just can't resist on ikemen, sigh). Here, he plays the role of Kataoka Satoshi, the 3rd brother. Though outside he looks like a player, but he really cares about his brothers and also even look after Tsukiyama. I do hope Satoshi and Tsukiyama get together in the end, but the thought though intriguing but very slim in chance.

The OST is by Namie Amuro with titled 'Baby Don't Cry.' Below is the Imeem playlist. The song is so light that it really suits to open the drama.

Anyway, I'll start to continue watch the final 2 episodes of this cute dorama. Cheers!

Baby Dont Cry - Namie Amuro

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Yeah! Finally I'm free from CPA! It won't last long as new semester will be coming soon, but I'll get to enjoy it while it lasts! So to celebrate my freedom, I'm heading to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which tickets are booked in advance, as always! Let me tell you, it's so hard to find the good seats and I did the booking last night. Most of the studios in town were packed before the day even come. I just got lucky that I got to get a good one in Bugis, but the seats are too low so you can automatically see a little mountain (the head) blocking your full view. Gee I wonder why the seats were available yesterday and now I know why. Too bad Cathay doesn't air Wolverine.

So how about the movie? We all know what it's all about. You don't need to be a regular movie goer to know this because the promotion, trailer is all over the place. Newspapers showered the movie with bad reviews yesterday. So I'm curious, is it that bad? Let's see how it fares.

It's a no brainer that the story is one of the X-Men franchises except that this is the prequel from all the previous X-Men movie and the main focus is Wolverine and Wolverine only. Well, X-Men without Wolverine is no X-Men but at least Wolverine here doesn't wear any spandex. Here we see the beginning of Wolverine. How he become Wolverine and where the name Wolverine comes from. We all cringed as we saw they injected the metal into Wolverine's body. The scene lasted for couple minutes so we all braced ourselves narrowing our eyes as we saw Wolverine twinged in agony under the water.

There're lots of surprises for me in Wolverine. But the biggest surprise is Daniel Henney! Me and my movie kaki almost squealed together when we saw his name on the opening. Both of us really acted like fangirls at that precise moment. Then it hit us, is it really him? Yes, it's really Daniel Henney from our beloved K-drama! Well, he's there as one of the villain, Zero, but we don't really care, don't we? So, there we were catching our squeals and breathes every time we saw him at the scene. For those moments, we just forget about the reason why we're sitting there in the first place, sorry Hugh, though you're really buff, macho and all that, but Daniel is our priority now. And we went back to focus on Hugh after Zero died, Lol... Off course before that, we're fixed in the butt-naked Hugh too Lol...

The next surprise is Gambit! Yey! Finally I get to see Gambit in action. Always love this character from the comic books in the old days. But this is where the major disappointment in the movie comes. Why they have to make Gambit look more like Kung Fu master? The first action scene with the cards was totally cool, but after that, no more card, but he ends up using stick? Why would Gambit want to use stick and act like a Shao Lin on the loose if he can use the cards? It's totally illogical and irrelevant!

Other than Gambit, the other X-Men characters are not fascinating and they just pass by as the movie goes. Quite a disappointment for me because I want to see the more familiar characters that were straight out from the comic books. Will love to see Mystic again, or may be the make up is too tedious that they decided to take it out? With this pool of not so exciting characters, the fighting looks more like the regular action movie scenes, and with those Kung Fu movement, I kept feeling the strong de javu of those Hong Kong movie moves reinvented.

The CG? Fabulous and current. I feel that it's not overdone as what the newspapers keep repeating because it's X-Men movie, not some Oscar nominated drama. Do you want to see X-Men movie with Wolverine keep thinking and phasing with his own mind and not clashing his iron (I will say iron because the metal name is just too... complicated) claws? Not me... To me, X-Men movie is about CG CG and CG. The more the better! I want to get entertained, not to think during the movie. By the way, the mountain scenes are fantastic too, the scenes look just straight out from the postcards.

So is the movie good and worth the money? I'd say yes. CG won't be that nice if you watch it with your 22" home TV, off course unless you have the home theater, but the effect won't be the same. I had my own disappointment with the movie, but with what's currently out there now, I'd pick X-Men without a second thought.