Zomato: Write For A Bite Contest – I won!

Writing and food have always been huge interests of mine, so this recent bout of food-writing has certainly gripped me, and is something I'd definitely consider doing after – or even alongside – my dance career.

So I decided to start posting up some of my restaurant/café reviews on Zomato.com and Yelp.co.uk for the fun of it, to stick my nose into the world of food-writing. I added 10 reviews on Monday, all taken from this blog and some slightly edited to make sure there's no missing context.

I knew that Zomato had a weekly contest of some sort, but I didn't know that I would win it 4 days after posting up my reviews! (Well I guess posting 10 lengthy reviews in a day did help with my chances...) In particular, the review about Assa (Zomato. Blog.) got me the reward. I got a congratulatory email from an admin from Zomato asking for information about postal address so that they can send me a voucher for a free meal at a top restaurant in London, as well as a goodie bag. (Which hasn't arrived yet)

I thought it wasn't a big deal, and that I'd just get some sort of ' £5 off your bill when you spend more than £20' thing, but the card entitled me a shocking £50 to spend at Bacco Restaurant & Wine Bar in Holborn! This made me so, so happy because a) free meals are heaven for students b) this free meal is in an actual, proper restaurant, so it's in a place higher than heaven c) It means that my review is good, and I officially have a definite 1% chance of becoming a food writer!

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Café TPT

Tau huey is a favourite dessert among many young people in Singapore, and consists of silky-smooth, gelatinous beancurd in a sugar syrup. It is often served warm, but I personally prefer it chilled because of Singapore's tropical climate. It tastes sweeter too!

Anyway, Café TPT is a Chinese restaurant located on Wardour Street in Chinatown. It serves a wide array of common Chinese dishes, but their meat (pork and duck) were popular choices as noticed from the tables which my friends and I passed to get to the second story of the restaurant.

It isn't the prettiest place – plain, tiled floors, cream walls, crammed with as many tables as they can fit into the space.

However, many customers are keen on their dessert menu, which sells regular tau huey (chilled) for £3.50, and everything else at either £4 or £4.50. All the desserts are liquid-based, and are served in aluminium-lined wooden tubs – deep ones!

Although there are many choices, some dishes differ from another just by the addition of a fruit, or sago jellies. For example, the regular tau huey can come in mango 'soup', with red bean, or with fruit, among several other additions and variations. It's like how salad is basically lettuce, cucumber and dressing, but the British have created Niçoise, Wardour, Caesar, which are basically additions or renditions of what is, essentially, giraffe chow.

I ordered a tempting 'Mango & Coconut with Black Glutinous Rice & Sago'. The mango & coconut refers to a thin, creamy 'soup' with both flavours. It was served cold as well, and very delicious and refreshing! However, due to the use of coconut milk and the seemingly endless depth of the dessert tub, it's a good idea to come here with an empty stomach.

Café TPT is definitely a recommended place to visit with friends for a taste of good quality Chinese dessert!

Café TPT
Chinatown
21 Wardour Street
Soho, UK
W1D 6PN
020 7734 7980

Kit Kat x4! | Chunky Coconut, Chunky Hazelnut, Green Tea (Japan) and Cookies & Cream

When it comes to chocolate, I choose Cadbury over Godiva. I choose Mars over Hotel Chocolat. I choose Nestlé over fancy-schmancy Chöcôlatéei de Poshé (est. 89 BC). For me, a fat chocolate bar under a pounder brings me way more happiness than a skimpy box of chocolates with strange or boring flavours.

When I have a sweet craving, I want a Kit Kat Chunky to munch on, and not little bite-sized, heart-shaped truffles with a ruddy lemongrass filling. (I still have that horrid gustatory memory etched in my head. "Unpleasant" doesn't even cover a quarter of it.)

A shelf of chocolate bars is bound to be available just round the corner if you are anywhere near ample civilisation here in London. You will always find the usual: Mars bars, Aero, slabs of Cadbury Dairy Milk, slabs of Galaxy, Wispa bars, Bounty, and of course, Kit Kat Chunky bars.

Kit Kat Chunky Coconut was one of the four flavours participating in the Kit Kat Chunky Champion Campaign 2013 (Might as well call it the Kit Kat Khunky Khampion Kampaign) which ran from mid-January to mid-March, during which four new Kit Kat flavours were available in supermarkets, and consumers could vote for their favourite flavour online. The most popular flavour would then continue to be sold while the rest would just disappear slowly from our lives.

The coconut flavour came simply from the addition of a taste and fragrance. However, the bar is still no Bounty equivalent yet – much of it is still like any old regular Kit Kat Chunky. Coconut fans would relish, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get one of these, nor would I choose it over a normal Kit Kat Chunky.

Hazelnut and I have a connection. When I was a kid eating Nutella on toast almost every morning, I assumed that Nutella was simply the best-tasting chocolate product ever for a magical, unexplainable reason. I don't know why it took me such a long time to find out that the addition of hazelnut is accountable for bringing a nutty extra to the taste of chocolate in a Nutella jar, but when I did, I worshipped this combination – Ferrero Rocher made so much sense at last, and Hanuta was expectedly divine when I first tried it.

Naturally, the Kit Kat Chunky Hazelnut is my favourite of the lot. There's a creamy layer of hazelnut cream above the wafer layers, and it is all coated in chocolate – nothing can go wrong here.

I didn't bother with the other two flavours, but mint won, while choc fudge retreated into the corner with a crestfallen face that said: 'chocolate within chocolate... I thought I was special...' Like everybody else who was strongly rooting for a flavour other than the mint contender, I started a riot in my bedroom when I found out about the results online. I never eat anything mint, because it reminds me too much of toothpaste. Choc fudge just didn't make any sense to me at all. ('But... I swear I'm special...')

It might be way too late for any of this, but a last word must be put out there for the sake of justice: Kit Kat Chunky Hazelnut is the true winner. And you all know it. Deep inside.

I got Green Tea Kit Kats as a gift from my housemate when returned from Japan, her homeland. The bars are considerably smaller than Kit Kats sold elsewhere.

The bar is completely green, with specks of green tea powder. Nothing chocolate-related in sight so far.

My first reaction when biting into it was thinking: 'this simply tastes like white chocolate...' However, a very mild green tea taste rests on your mouth after a while, which is good, as it can go very wrong when it comes to tea, which can tread into the bitter zone. The chocolate also has a slightly grainy texture due to the green tea powder.

I wouldn't hesitate buying this flavour regularly if it were sold in the UK. White chocolate can tend to be too sweet and sickly sometimes, but the thinness of green tea helps to counter that – a really good combination choice. Arigato, Japan.

I was so psyched after hearing that they sold a cookies & cream flavour of Kit Kat. Cookies & Cream remains my favourite, staple ice cream flavour to date.

I don't really care if each twin bar is 107 calories, I just want to eat chocolate, which is undeniably unhealthy and fattening anyway!

In retrospect, this is a very poor interpretation of the blessed cookies & cream flavour. Eating it was a pleasure, with a combination of white and milk chocolate used in the coating of the regular wafer biscuits – the best of both worlds. But they could have either put in a little bit more effort and actually include cookies or cream in it, or rename the product.

Kit Kat is the first that comes to mind when I think of a chocolate bar. The variety of flavours caters to a wide range of tastebuds too! (not mentioned here are orange, peanut butter and dark chocolate)

Double Choccy Mini Muffins by The Fabulous Bakin' Boys

Any chocolate muffin said to be less than 70 calories each is rather inviting.

Check out my fancy woollen leggings from Hounslow!

Then I gave myself a face-palm after opening the box – of course they are less than 70 calories each, they are weeny!

Yeah, apparently my Macbook is now a plate.

Much shouldn't be expected from baked goods which come sealed, and aren't from the baking section. Well... sometimes, you can't expect much from the baking section either – I once had a triple chocolate muffin from Tesco's bakery shelf which tasted like charcoal. Never again.

Packaged baked goods tend to be too dry and boring, with standard shapes and sizes, and none of that rustic, hand-made-with-love, cracked-on-the-top-but-who-cares stuff.

The dryness is nothing to worry about in The Fabulous Bakin' Boys' Double Choccy Mini Muffins (£1 at ASDA, U.P £1.48) as they are filled with moist chocolate and delightful chocolate chips.

The muffin is fluffy and sweet, quite enjoyable, and one can finish it in two bites, or one if you're pushing it. They are moist and fudgey on the inside, and so small that you don't feel satisfied unless you eat three of them to make up a regular-sized muffin.

A good buy if you've got a last-minute party or gathering to plan, and haven't got time to bake.

Otherwise, why not just get proper cupcakes from the bakery, (if not Tesco, then Sainsbury's or Waitrose or something) or make some on your own?

Fox's Chunkie Milk Chocolate Cookies

Fox's is a good biscuit/cookie brand, and I can usually count on them to provide me with a nice packet of cookies when I get a craving for something sweet. Um that is, like, everyday After all, they claim to have been around since 1853. Plus, their packaging is matte, and that always makes a difference for me. Matte packaging is always nicer, don't ask me why, I don't know.

When I bought this packet of cookies (offered at £1, U.P £1.79) from Tesco after school one day, I was ascertained that these would be unfailing and satisfactory.

The cookies are crunchy, and full of chocolate chips, and I'm happy for that.

However, what annoys me about the cookie (yes, apparently, cookies have the ability to annoy nowadays.) is the fact that there is a strong fragrance of coconut. I have no resentment towards coconut, but when I buy a packet of milk chocolate cookies, I want to eat a packet of milk chocolate cookies. Don't make me take a bite, raise my eyebrows, double-check the packaging, turn to the ingredients list, and find out that the dessicated coconut is not only giving the cookie its crunch, but also providing it with an evident coconut smell and taste.

I mean, they are nice cookies, but no thank you to the unexpected taste!

Masters Diner @ Covent Garden

Courtesy of Google

Masters Diner at Covent Garden is almost hidden, practically sharing a storefront with a newsagent and squeezing their doors side-by-side. My friend and I doubled back on the pavement and popped inside before noontime to take away a coffee (hot chocolate, in my case of a set of immature tastebuds) for our walk to Oxford Street before the ballet performance of La Bayadère at the Royal Opera House started.

Interested in the cosiness of the place and the buzzing, alluring kitchen behind the counter, we returned for a post-show lunch, if it can still be called 'lunch' at 4pm.

We were sat down by friendly staff, and picked up our menu from the side of the table, diner-style. The place serves burgers, club sandwiches, ciabatta, breakfast food, jacket potatoes, dessert cakes and pies, coffee, chocolate – the sort of food one would encounter fifty percent of the time in this country among eating places.

I ordered a Covent Garden Club sandwich, which was a toothpick-reinforced double-decker sandwich with regular white (rather flattened) toast, filled with lettuce, melted cheese, beef slices, mushrooms, mustard and mayonnaise. And not to forget the random topping of alfalfa sprouts on the top. I'm not particularly fond of mustard, so I quite regretted getting this sandwich.

The sandwich, which was warm and fresh, fell apart annoyingly easily like any other club sandwich. I rejoice when biting into burgers and sandwiches without accidentally pulling out all the filling with my teeth, so the tougher beef slices did not work well here. The amount of meat and veggies were pretty generous, which my hungry stomach was very grateful for.

I do love mayonnaise, but I had to use the toothpicks to scrape out as much as I could of the yellow, vile, stinging mustard. I remember spending ages staring at the menu and deciding what to get, by scrutinising the contents of each burger/sandwich to find a combination which I really like.

It's pretty phenomenal, what hunger can do to my common-sense.

The mushrooms were plump, juicy and a real treat, but were quite disconnected from the fillings and didn't go that well with the tough beef texture.

Master's Diner is obviously not somewhere you would travel halfway across the country for, but is definitely a life-saver if you're looking for a cheap, reliable eating place which serves a wide variety of hearty meals in the heart of Covent Garden.

Master's Diner
32 Henrietta St
London
WC2E 8NA
020 7240 9266

Graze #3

Click here for box #2.

As you can see, the sun is shining and spring is here! England had better not mess with me again and start snowing in the middle of June, or something.

So a new graze box arrived. And this was ages ago, I held out this post for a long time.

I took one look at this "Crunchini Basilico" punnet and thought: How annoying would it be if the oil spilled out onto my bed and clothes?

Guess what happened right after that.

I think the stain is still there on my shirt.

The crunchinis are, well, crunchy, and biscuit-like, with herby ingredients. The basil-infused oil was fragrant, and compliments the crunchini well.

There weren't a lot of these biscuits, though. But it is an alright savoury snack. Rated "Like".

I expected "Summer Pudding"to be really good, since it's just a representation of flavours and not the actual pudding.

 Fortunately, Graze has done well for this one. To get the full effect of the summer pudding flavour, I used a spoon to scoop up all the bits, getting the myriad of tastes in one mouthful.

You get sweet, yoghurt-coated sunflower seeds, flavourful sponge biscuit buttons, black currants and cranberries. Altogether, they are sweet, tangy and refreshing. Rated "Love".

Graze has done all they possibly can to this brownie to make it marginally healthier than a regular brownie. As a result, the brownie has the texture of a light cake, is less sweet, but still tasty with the generous amounts of chopped hazelnuts.

Fine, the three of you are 129 calories in total, but I could eat a basket of strawberries for that amount of calories, and still get my sweet craving satisfied. If I'm going to have a brownie, I'd much rather go all-out and get a large slab of dense, barely-baked, fudgy brownie. Rated "Like".

An interesting attempt by Graze. These are crispy noodle bits, peanuts and beans seasoned with something rather salty, and chilli powder.

Good flavours but requested not to send again, because it makes me thirsty – a little too much salt and seasoning to eat all in one go.