Monday, February 16

Valentine's Day dinner with some Chocolat' N Spice

Valentine's Day. Hmm, many thoughts, one conclusion - thou shall not get suckered into overpaying for the hype.

If you have been reading this blog since the beginning of time, you will know I am a Valentine's Day cynic. I don't blame the florists, merchants and restauratuers who capitalise on people's emotions, but those who allow themselves to make a big deal out of a day that supposedly commemorates the patron saint of beekeepers and epilepsy.

You have every opportunity to show how much you love someone, why choose to do it on a day that is overtly commercialised? Flowers sent to the office on a Friday when V Day is on a Saturday? You know someone is feeding off your insecurity issues right?

KW and I had dinner with my folks that evening. Of course, we didn't set out to have Valentine's Day dinner with my parents (that would be w-e-i-r-d). We usually have dinner with my parents on Saturdays and didn't see a need to change plans just because it was Valentine's Day. On the contrary, we thought it would be fun to channel the love with a homecooked meal.


A surf and turf meal was in order as we had some Wagyu steak and lobster hibernating in our fridge. 


Forget flowers and chocolate, this, dear readers, was a traffic and showstopper. 750g worth of Wagyu steak MB4 pan-seared to medium rare perfection. To. Die. For. If this doesn't get your heart - and arteries - racing, you have my condolences. 


Bitter rocket leaves and sweet cherry tomatoes tossed in a mustard vinaigrette accompanied the cow in afterlife. 


I made a squid ink tagieltalle with Boston lobster and truffle oil. The recipe I have reads something like this: Boil 250g pasta (6 mins tops), drain pasta, add a handful finely chopped parsley and grated parmesan reggiano, drizzle copious amounts of EVOO, set pasta aside, gently heat chunks of cooked lobster tail in EVOO and scatter them over pasta, and serve. Easy peasy. 


For dessert, my mum bought some pastries from Chocolat' N Spice, as we had breakfast at Shunfu Market earlier in the day.

The oreo cheesecake boasted a creamy cream cheese layer, packed with large crumbles of oreo cookies on top of a sponge base. Though I liked the considerable chunks of oreos within the oreo cheesecake, I really missed the digestive base.

The creme brûlée tart and lemon meringue tart were lovely but I made the near fatal error of not refrigerating the pastries when we got home, and the humidity results in soggy bottoms tart shells - in fact, the "brûlée" even melted, thanks to the nasty heat.

Celebrating Valentine's Day with a homecooked meal? Yeah, I could get on board with that.

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