微熱山丘 (Sunny Hills), Min Sheng E. Rd. Sec. 5, Taipei

I often share with the others about how one shop dares to bet on getting a return is the key to its success.  For example, the $1 chicken by Tao Heung HK and the free noodle by Kam Moon Ting...etc.  This time it's Sunny Hills offering a complimentary tea and a pineapple pastry, regardless if you would buy their products after the trying.  This aroused much noises from the media and the word-of-mouth.  The place isn't some places with no deco. but a nice garden with a patio and some cozy furniture.  So all these gave 5-plus to the complimentary tea and pineapple pastry.

Personally I couldn't take more than half piece as it would give me back my pimples. 

Goodies from France

Haven't visited Southern France and Paris this year. I feel I missed something. So thoughtful of my friends who filled up this emptiness with all these goodies from France lately. The chocolate with a drop pinch of ear grey tea leaves is awesome. Even after an hour, the fond aroma of earl grey is still there in my tongue. On the photo 3, it's some very nice cookies from Normandie. My French friend told me, apart from the history thing, Normandie is famous for its butter products. See that picture on the tin can. It tells it all.

Candy candy

I am surprised with how my sister made a cupa tree and the international variety of candy available in her Chinese New Year candy box.

My cooking - green bean sweet with fragrant grass 臭草綠荳沙

Passed by the market and there came a very nice fragrance of this green green grass. Time for a green bean sweet and it's good to clear up those accumulated hot wet from eating too much in the winter time.

1. At a portion of 3-4 litre of green bean sweet, use only 2 branches of it, leaving the rest as a room fragrance if you like it. Too much of this would be a bit too bitter. 2. Cooking this one is not like cooking red bean sweet. Use only 1/2 portion or not more than 3/5 of the red bean portion for the same amount of water. Green bean can be quite swelling; so it had better not be too much. Put one soup spoon of rice to make it in more texture. I would put the fragrant grass together with the beans when the water is boiling, but leave a small amount of younger leaves (maybe 1/10th). Boil for 1.5 hour something to 2 hours. Then put the younger leaves and boil for 10 minutes and put cane bar sugar to sweet. This way the fragrance would be at more levels - a bit subtly burnt and a bit fresh.

Sweet sweet Mid-Autumn Festival

For those who have been to my apt., they often wonder why I have 2 fridges (and my apt. is not that big). My answer to them - one is for storage for meat/egg/veggie and some "smell" stuff. The other fridge is to store soft drinks and fresh fruits and sweets. No matter how good the big fridge is said to be with this or that function, I still prefer to separate "smell" stuff from the others, not even mention about the so-called "inter-infectious" gems from raw food to cooked food...etc.

So this Fall, my fridge has been stuffed with various sweets in addition to my mini-7/11 drink variety. Thanks so much for my friends who have been so thoughtful. The stock can last for a year at least... :)

1/2. Moon cake by my most favourite hotel Mandarin Oriental Bangkok (China House). After I took this photo, I took one immediately. I am a bit surprised that they did it with some "smooth" texture (油水). Most moon cakes I found outside of HK are generally quite dry due to the process of stir and mix. Why moon cake is that expensive is on how the Chef stir and mix the lotus seed paste. The chef needs to add the oil in it little by little and stir and mix it for a long time to make it silky smooth.

3/4. My friend in Taipei sent over this nice gift to me for the Mid-Autumn Festival. I can say she is very warm-hearted (In Mandarin, we call it 窩心). She even mix it half and half with the Green bean pastry and pineapple pie - so thoughtful. It's very nice. :)

5/6. these choco. travelled more than 10,000 miles. Carrying them is not easy and I was so surprised to see these "small" giftssss.... The photos shown above is just only 1/10th of the "small" giftsss.
7. the Leonidas chocolate is awesome!