Alice’s Tea Cup October 25, 2008
My friend Ying Ying and I went to Alice’s Tea Cup today. I really like tea houses because they always have yummy food and yummy tea. We went to the East 64th St. location. While it was quite small with not much to look at, the food was great. The service was decent and there were a lot of waitstaff though our waitress kept forgetting what peopled ordered because she didn’t write things down – I saw this happen twice. Since there was a party upstairs and only a couple of tables downstairs, go early or be prepared to wait. I put my name down at 11am and got seated pretty quickly, they’ll even call your cell phone when a table becomes available.
Pumpkin scone, banana chocolate chip scone, and cream with raspberry preserves.
Tea with a kitty drip catcher. Isn’t it so cute?! That little thing by itself is $10!!
We shared a scones with tea ($10) and had the pumpkin scone and banana chocolate chip. I ordered the Symphony tea which was a strawberry and chocolate flavored Indian black tea. Wasn’t too impressive. The pumpkin scone was to die for! More cakey than scone like but full of pumpkin flavor and lightly spiced. I didn’t care for the banana chocolate chip flavor but the texture was great. Ying Ying ordered a peach and flower Bellini ($12) but it didn’t taste so good to either of us.
Half finished french toast.
For our main dishes, I ordered the Alice’s Special French Toast ($9) and Ying Ying had a Ham and Gruyere Crepe ($12) with mixed greens salad (no pic because she wanted to eat haha). Both our dishes were delicious and cooked perfectly! My french toast was SO good but I was actually full from the scones so I took half of it home. Crispy, soft, warm, sweet, flavorful, and covered in fresh berries. The savory crepe was a nice change from all the sweets and tasted wonderful.
Isn’t Ying Ying so cute? =D
Next time I go, I’m going to have to try their cupcakes and maybe a burger and of course, more tea! Who wants to go with me? 
Oh and then we went and bought a car!! Ying Ying’s newest car is a Honda Civic in sexy black. Very nice.
Apple Popovers and Chicken and Dumplings! October 23, 2008
Yum Yum Yum. Both these dishes were quite yummy.
I found another recipe I wanted to try using the ramekins. The recipe can be found here and was called Apple Souffle but these are not souffles, the texture is more like popovers. I was dubious if the recipe would actually work because there was no rising agent except for eggs but as they were cooking they popped up like popovers and then I realized what they really were! The only change I made was to add ~2 tsp granulated sugar to the batter to ensure it came out sweet. I made one of these without cinnamon because my dad dislikes cinnamon. And we didn’t eat them with extra sugar or maple syrup because I forgot about that step. They were good anyway.
The one in the back actually tipped over because it had the least batter. 
The recipe is very easy. I highly recommend it but cook it right before you want to eat it because they deflated A LOT. These pretty popped up pictures are all right out of the oven.
Close up of the cinnamon-less one.
The chicken and dumplings were made based on this recipe from allrecipes.com. I used about a pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Instead of cream of chicken, I used cream of mushroom. And I used 1 can of milk and half a can of chicken stock just because I didn’t have enough stock (I used the can as a measure). In addition to the onion and celery, I added some frozen mixed veggies (carrot, peas, and corn) and left out the celery seed because I don’t own any.
Very filling! Makes five very big bowls.
Creme Brulee October 22, 2008
I’ve been avoiding baking because I really should cut back on my calorie intake.. but I couldn’t resist. Cindy bought four cuisineart ramekins from a yard sale for a dollar (we love yard sales) so of course I had to do something with them. We went to costco today so I was able to buy cream for cheap.. it’s a little pricey in the small grocery stores near me. I decided to use half and half instead of heavy cream to lower the fat content. Might have affected the overall recipe, I’m not sure.
I used the Creme Brulee II recipe from allrecipes.com. Alteration as suggested in the reviews was to use four egg yolks instead of three.
They turned out a bit liquid-y but it wasn’t too bad. The flavor was great and the sugar crust cracked perfectly (except for the burnt parts which tasted baaad).
I have more cream so may try again for when Cindy comes home. Next project with the ramekins will probably be mini pot pies.. or maybe souffle but not chocolate souffle. Yeah, I’m not a huge chocolate desserts fan.. don’t kill me! I do like chocolate! =P
Fish Tank update October 20, 2008
I finally added fish. I bought three neon tetras because they’re so bright looking. I was thinking that I would get some cherry barbs at the time but now that is no longer an option. I realized that my poor Twitchy (the betta fish I had in a small tank) was freezing in his heaterless tank. I decided to save him by putting him in the big heated tank but bettas don’t do well with neon tetras – the betta’s fins will get bitten. Discovered that my local fish store, petland discounts, sells tank dividers for $12! So I did some research and found a really cheap DIY divider using plastic mesh sheets that I already had and some report cover binding things from the 99cents store (you can also find them at office stores like staples). Here are some pictures.
Supplies: plastic mesh sheet, report cover binding pieces, ruler, sissors
After measuring and cutting.
In the tank. The tetras are on the left and Twitchy is on the right. He’s hard to see.. kinda dark blue color in the back corner.
One of my neon tetras in her shot glass cave.
Edit:
My dad found an old rectangular lamp in the basement. It happens to fit my tank! SCORE! He tried to remove the base but it wasn’t possible because it had a transformer embedded inside so he extended the wires. The base rests on the stand below now. Perfect.
