The Cup Restaurant & Tea Room

The Cup Restaurant & Tea Room

3/F, Lake Rajada Office Complex

Ratchadaphisek Rd. (opposite Asoke Sukumvit)

Tel : 02-264-0247, 02-264-0249-50
Fax: 02-264-0248

Open Mon-Sat (11am-6pm)

I heard about this place many times but i don't know why i haven't had a chance to come here.

The Cup is known as British restaurant and tearoom. They opened their shop many years ago at Oriental Plaza (near Oriental Hotel) and then moved to the current location.

At the board, you can see the menu in hand-writing. They have special menu everyday, which means they have to write some part of menu on this board everyday. (You can notice the Christmas Tree near the board. I went there around Christmas.)

Let's look around first. The atmosphere here is so warm and cozy...

Cake cabinet...it took me a while to decide on dessert. will show you below.

They also have salad bar.

First order! Pita Garlic (Baht 65)

I know that it looks pricy. But believe me, it worth!!! So crispy and full-aroma than you can imagine!

Next, Grilled Italian Sausage with mashed garlic potato and mashed spinach potato (Baht 360). It served with wholegrain mustard and dijon mustard. (They use Mille, the french brand.)

The sausage is good...but what i love on this dish is the mashed potato! both garlic one and spinach one, so tender. And even i am not the mustard person, i have to admit that mustard goes so well with this sausage...must try

Next, Fillet of pork wrapped in bacon with brandied mushroom cream sauce (Baht 410).

It is served with string beans, slices of apple, and whole carrot! (I personally love the way they served this carrot. Look cute and carrot is unbelievable soft!)

Look at the pork and sauce...They are sooooo good. Don't forget to also have piece of apple with the pork, sauce, and mushroom. Apple is always the good combination with pork and it's good that they provide slices of apple here!

I love the way they put potato chips underneath the pork fillet. The chips observe sauce and when you chewed on crispy chips full with sauce...which words i can use to explain my feeling...since the sauce is full of flavor, and the chips is fully dipped in that sauce...yum..yum!

Ready for dessert!

Before dessert, go for coffee first. House Blend (Baht 80)

We ordered Praline with peach crepe (Baht 150).

Zoom in! Praline......

Peach.........

The sauce is so buttery and full of caramel-like smell. They also provide so many pieces of peach (as you can see above). My favorite of the meal!

Another one is Cherry crumble with warm custard sauce (Baht 125)

With the sauce!

I just know when i compose this blog that i described many dishes here as full flavor and full aroma. They cooked their food like cooking-at-home dishes, put as much ingredient, spices, and seasoning you want, and create one of the best meal ever!

I still have lots and lots of dishes i wanna try, especially the roast pork and roast beef. Must come here again for sure :)

Hui Lau Shan, Hong Kong

Hui Lau Shan

Various branches in Hong Kong.

http://www.hkhls.com/

For me, when i think of Hong Kong, one thing in my mind is Mango juice/dessert. Normally, i love the shop on the corner of Lock Road, Kowloon but now i have another favorite shop :)

Hui Lau Shan opened its first shop more than 60 years ago as the herbal tea shop. Nowadays, they developed themselves and end up having 40 branches of 'popular Hong Kong style dessert brand' around Hong Kong.

I went to the branch near Harbour City, Kowloon, opposite to the pier.

Look at the menu! I spent several minutes to decide what to order as everything looked sooooo good!

End up ordering Mango Platter (HKD 35).

Mango Platter consisted of 3 small portions of mango desserts; Crystal jelly with extra mango, Glutinous rice balls in mango juice with extra mango, and Fresh mango mochi.

First one, Crystal jelly with extra mango, they served the crystal jelly with mango pieces and mango icecream. The crystal jelly (which i cannot recall of what it made of) gave you clean and cool feeling while mango cube and mango icecream gave you the clean sweetness and freshness of fruit!

Glutinous rice balls in mango juice with extra mango. The chewy sticky rice ball with mango juice and mango pieces. Another version of the mango dish with the chewy ball!

Fresh mango mochi. They served the mochi with mango flesh.

Not only the mango flesh as the side, they also put big chunk of mango inside mochi with the coconut flakes outside. Good combination of chewy dough outside and the fresh sweet mango inside!

They also provided the take-away (they charge a bit more for eat-in). You will see lots of people waiting in front of the shop with the queue number in their hands. The mango drinks are great, with the full texture and full flavour of mango (the price is around HKD20 per serve). If you have time and love mango, this is another 'a must' to try!

Pepper Lunch

Pepper Lunch
Central World 6/F, Atrium Zone
Chamchuri Square 2/F
SF Cinema City 7/F MBK Center
Central Plaza Bangna G/F

http://www.pepperlunch.com.sg

Before my brother took me to this place, I have no idea what Pepper Lunch is. But he kept mention about this place on and on, so one day, we went there together.

On what they said on their website, "Pepper Lunch is an affordable DIY fast food steakhouse with more than 200 outlets in Japan. Pepper Lunch promises a dynamic and fresh culinary experience for everyone by presenting the novel concept of a sizzling steak. You can enjoy juicy steak with a sizzle at affordable prices." They also have many branches in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, and of course, Thailand.

This is how to order. Similar to every fast food shop, you have to order and pay first at the counter. They have a screen to show you what you order while another part of the screen showing how to cook your meal. After ordering, they will give you a number and you have to find the table which have matching number so that they can serve you the right order.

The kitchen, looking from the order counter.

At the table, they have a seasoning set.

As you may guess, of course one of the seasoning here is pepper. (as they are Pepper Lunch)

Salt

Karakuchi (Garlic Soy Sauce)

Amakuchi (Honey Brown Sauce)

According to their guide, they recommend to use these sauce with the steak menu. However, I find out that Karakuchi also goes along well with the rice.

My brother's Cut Steak&Hamburger served with bean sprouts, chives, and corns (Baht 190 or Baht 229 if you order it together with rice and soft drink).

To enjoy your steak&hamburger, this is what they told you to do:
- Cook your steak both sides on the hot plate.
- Add 'Amakuchi' or 'Karakuchi' for great taste when it is ready.

My Beef Pepper Rice (Baht 120 or Baht 139 if you order it together with soft drink).

To enjoy pepper rice, follow this instruction:
- The secret of great taste comes from butter and sauce in the middle of the plate.
- The more you mix them up, the better taste you get.

After mixing.

Another tip from me, but I am not sure if you will find it good or not. Adding Karakuchi (Garlic Soy Sauce) in this plate make it more tasty, similar to garlic fried rice.

Overall, I find it surprisingly good. Will come back to try other menu :)

Starbucks-Toffee Nut Latte (Christmas Drink 2009)

Toffee Nut Latte
Available at Starbucks as Christmas Seasonal Drink

Before going to work on one morning (4 November 2009), I found this in front of Starbucks.

It said '2 Days until Christmas Arrives in Stores' and the below details is 'welcome back the drink of the celebrated season' with the picture of Toffee Nut Latte and Dark Cherry Mocha.

Then, I went in the shop and found out that even they announced at the door that we had to wait for 2 more days, they already pre-sold the Christmas drink! Lucky me!

Here it is! My first Tall Toffee Nut Latte of 2009!

Front of the cup.

Back of the cup.

I did not love it as coffee, but it is kind of seasonal drink for me, warm..sweet..creamy, and it also brings back good memories and reminds me that winter is coming (although winter in Bangkok is not cold, lol).The first official day of Christmas in the store!

and I got this! Snowflake Tumbler!

Who is hiding here? Mumble? There is a little penguin at the bottom of tumbler! wish they made the snow globe tumbler, but this is already oh-so-cute! (There is another similar tumbler but with white rabbit.)

Show you the cover. It is the twist-to-open style. To get the drink, you have to twist to open it.

Already twist.

Guess what i ordered today? Of course it was Toffee Nut Latte! This tumbler can use for only the short size of hot drink, as it is the 10 oz size tumbler.

In addition, I found this poster. The Live Jazz at Starbucks during December 2009 plus the Christmas Carol Singing.

Live Jazz at Starbucks will be on every Saturday starting from 5 December 2009 at only 5 branches; Baan Silom, Camp Davis, Charmchuree Square, SF Nawamin, and SF Phaholyothin.

For Christmas Carol (with the seasonal drink testing), it will be on 24 and 25 December 2009 at 2.00 p.m.-6.00 p.m. For Christmas Eve, it will be at 1st Floor of Siam Center, Street Level of Siam Paragon, and Siam Pomodoro. For Christmas, it will be at SF Esplanade, Emporium Tower, and 3rd Floor of Central World.

Enjoy!

Tawaraya

Tawaraya

74 Sukumvit Soi 26 (near 4Wings Hotel),
Bangkok

Tel : 02-261-0561
Open daily : 11.30 - 14.00 / 17.30 - 23.00

It's quite hard to find the first photo for this blog, as i did not take one that completely express the atmosphere of this place. It is kind of feel-like-being-at-home place. The first floor is the sofa seats while the second floor is the private section. We choose second floor. (You can notice if you choose the second floor that most of other customers are Japanese, and they use this place as the drinking place.

Sneak peak!

Tawaraya is the Nagoya shop. According to wikipedia, some famous Nagoya food are misokatsu (pork cutlet with miso sauce), tebasaki (chicken wings marinated in a sweet sauce with sesame seeds - a type of yakitori), kishimen (flat udon noodles), and misonikomi udon (noodles in thick miso soup).You will find stack of bowls and a box of chopsticks on your table, so you are able to use as many bowl as you want for your meal! (i do around 2 as you will find below.)

Give you the appetizer first, Kusikatsu miso - deep fried pork with miso sauce (Baht 90).

Let you see after the first few bites.

Miso was soooo great and that's the important part of this dish (as you can see above, Nagoya is the specialist for miso). the pork part is just normal.

Another interesting dish to order (as recommend by the staff that it's their famous dish) is tebasaki - chicken wings marinated in a sweet sauce with sesame seeds (Baht 90). From the menu, it also looked interesting. gonna order at the next visit for sure!

A stove coming!

We ordered Shioton - slices of pork marinated with salt mixed with vegetable - cabbage & beansproute (Baht 190)

We also ordered another addition Udon (Baht 50) to add to this dish. Show you how to make it: first, fry the pork and vegetable. Then, put udon and continue stir-frying until everything is cooked.

We can eat now!

Even it looked tasteless, from its pale color, the real taste is much different.

After finishing the dish. think it can show you how good it is, lol.

More thing to order from Yakiniku part (as i went there once before this blog but did not take photos as i was too excite!) are misoton - pork with miso sauce and chicken with garlic (sorry that i can't give you the japanese name for this one). Highly recommend the chicken with garlic one, really..really good! (but you will smell like chicken and garlic after that, said from my own experience, lol)

Another stove coming! can you guess what it is.

Show you the ingredient. Tako - octopus, ginger, spring onion, and fried tempura batter, with seaweed and Katsuo bushi - dry fish, to.

Give you another hint, the batter.

Yes, it is do-it-yourself Takoyaki (Baht 150). you can ask the back kitchen to do it for you (so you can sure that you will get perfect takoyaki) or make it yourself (or ask their staff to do for you) at the table.

Show you how to make takoyaki, start from the bottom left photo: pour in batter first. Then, add tako. After that, mix other ingredients

The complete takoyaki!

While waiting for the next dish, i did this :)

And also this!

With seaweed and dryfish, can't see the hearts right now, lol

Another dish coming! Unagino Isiyakihitumabusi - Grilled Eel on Rice (Baht 330).

They served this with spring onion, seaweed, wasabi, and o-chazuke soup.

You can choose to have it dry or with soup. To have it in the dry version, you can choose to top it with spring onion, seaweed, and wasabi. but to my choice (you can notice that this is not my plate for sure), i choose to have it with no topping.

Or, you can have it with the soup. Start pouring!

More..more..

Stir it a bit

Done.

For me, I preferred the soup one, the crispy with a bit burned rice (as they served this rice in the hot stone bowl) meets with the soup made the good combination and the soup supported the flavor, taste, and smell of the rice. Quite a comfort food for me.

For dessert, I tried Kurogoma Purin - Black Sesame Pudding (Baht 100) (sorry for no picture). Creamy and tender pudding with black sesame paste at the bottom. I rarely felt black sesame on my first few bite. But the taste increased more and more...and complete the meal!