Fish & Co. – xoxo Platter

The XOXO Platter for 2 ($39.95)

Now I’ll just stick true to my principles and not launch into an entirely unneeded spiel of an occasion that needs no further publicity and marketing than already given. Because we all know that.

I will, however, have to admit that the special menu offerings, exclusive set meals, mind-blowing degustation selections, and promotions that restaurants push when it comes to riding the wave of commercialism during times like these really do tempt the passive consumer. You don’t have to believe in such festivities to enjoy an extended menu. Well more’s always good! Just ignore the neon pink kissy kissy stuff. Simple!

About a couple of weeks ago, the folks at Fish & Co. must have gotten wind that I haven’t been there in a while (and also perhaps they heard that I’m like Grinch of Valentine’s Day and they wanted a chance at enlarging my heart and – maybe, just maybe – turning me from green to blinding pink) and so invited me down to sample their new xoxo Valentine’s Day Platter for 2.

Dino Cakehouse & Cafe – Strawberry Delight

Strawberry Delight ($8.50)

Mommy bought home my favourite strawberry cake!

Well she bought home a whole load of stuff, as is the norm when she goes off to NTUC and sprees away, claiming that when I do grocery shopping, I ‘never buy all [her] things!’. But that’s not the point. The point is that the occasional cake, tutu kueh, tau huay (beancurd), min jiang kueh (peanut pancake), sometimes find themselves into one of the 3 large recyclable shopping bags mommy always brings out. And after an entire week of consuming food purely for sustenance because there’s no time to venture out for better things, my favourite Dino’s Strawberry Cake is like a beaming ray of light in my fridge.

Half a beaming ray of light, that is.

The other half’s shimmering away gleefully in my tummy. 

Earl Grey and Lemon Cake

Earl Grey and Lemon Cake

It’s been raining, and as you’re reading this, you probably rolled your eyes because chances are, it’s still raining.

It rained continuously for 16 odd hours on Sunday, and I’m not counting in Saturday because it was a start-and-stop thing as if the sky thought it would be funny to sprinkle a little of this and that every now and then like Tinkerbell on crack. I spent the entire day frolicking around in the now severely eroded and muddied wreck that is Fort Canning Green at the Laneway Music Festival. I can’t imagine what it looks like now.

And since the sky didn’t look like it was going to let up (and it didn’t. Surprise!) I had to busy myself with other activities that didn’t involve my snuggly microfleece Uniqlo jacket, the blanket and the bed.

So I made a pot of tea, a delicately floral French Earl Grey, and I thought something was missing.

And so I made cake.

Not just cake to have with tea, but cake with tea, like tea in cake, because just cake and tea is boring.

Orange Chiffon Cake

Orange Chiffon Cake

I bake alone. I cook alone.

When I’m in the kitchen, I don’t want anyone else hovering around me, getting in the way of my shuttling between the stove and the chopping board, the fridge and the counter, the pantry and the dustbin, the oven and the counter… God forbid that you get in the way of my knife.

I get in the zone when I’m in the kitchen. I may have a frown on my face as I grate orange zests, sigh more than a couple of times when I spill stuff, but I’m fine.

I’m more than fine actually.

I’m around food. What could be better?

Now mommy used to make mind-blowingly springy, moist, fragrantfragrantfragrant orange chiffon cake back when I wouldn’t even venture a step near the stove and when we only had a tiny convention-microwave oven. Since then, she’s started working full-time again, and I’ve all but declared utter Kitchen Domination (during the scant hours when I’m not bleeding my eyes out writing reports – which is never, now) with the arrival of the oven and sharp knives. Mommy’s been staying away from me when I’m banging pots and pans.

That was until my incessant mewling for her chiffon cake eventually tore her away from her Cantonese dramas long enough to whip together my favourite recipe of hers.

She went back to her dramas immediately after. I remained in the kitchen.

My brother wasn’t very happy that there was just half a cake left by the time he wandered into the kitchen – which then mysteriously disappeared after he left. That was a cake 10-inch in diameter, 5 inch in height mind you.

This is one of those cakes that literally beckons to you and have you plaster your face to the glass window of the oven for the entire 35-40 minutes that it is baking.