Pasta Zanmai

We've been eating out at Japanese restaurants and Pasta Zanmai is one of our favs. Pasta Zanmai is located at 1 Utama, Old Wing and Mid Valley Megamall.

This was what we ordered for dinner at the 1U branch.

Ebi tempura 'temaki' but with a tortilla wrap instead of the usual seaweed. Dipping sauce : sesame. 

 Crabmeat & Avocado 'temaki' - again with tortilla wrap and sesame sauce. 

Miso Soup, Green Tea and Strawberry Milkshake for my boy who loves all things strawberry

Pasta in sesame sauce with crabmeat and avocado. Extremely delicious. I would recommend any pasta from the menu that has the sesame sauce.

Eel with garlic rice wrapped in egg ala pattaya style - also very delicious. Evan ate the eel and said it tastes like chicken fish! Marissa ate the egg cos Pasta Zanmai does not serve chawan mushi which is her favourite.

Green tea is on the expensive side RM3 each but it's free refills. order the iced green tea and you get a jugful of it. If you order the hot green tea, it comes in a teapot. The strawberry drink costs RM12 - again not cheap. However, the pasta and rice and miso soup came in a set for RM23 which was a decent price. Temakis cost RM5 each - pretty standard.

The Cooking House

This is The Cooking House - a cooking studio located in Desa Sri Hartamas. I went there recently to attend a complimentary cooking class from Panasonic. I bought an oven from Harvey Norman and got to know about this promotion which is still on-going.
There are a few classes to choose from and I decided upon 'All About Pies'. The cost of the class is actually RM120 per pax! Upon arrival, I registered myself by handing over the Panasonic Oven's warranty card and filling in my details.

Total 11 participants on that day. Chef Collin Edward Lim was on duty. We were divided into 4 groups. Each group had to tackle 1 recipe. 

My group's recipe was Seafood Pie. We had to prepare all the ingredients for our recipe and when we were ready to cook, everyone came to observe. Chef Collin gave pointers and answered questions.

The other recipes include : Shepherd's Pie, Mediterranean Vegetarian Pie and Chicken & Mushroom Pie.

My fellow group member cooking the creamy seafood filling for the pie.

Chef Collin demonstrated how to make the shortcrust pastry. He also showed us how to place the pastry in the pie cups. I really felt like  a frog under a coconut shell during the class but the majority of ladies there were also first-timers at a cooking class!

More pastry needed to cover the pie.

Chef Collin demonstrating how to seal the pie using a fork

Yummy seafood pie : filled with prawns, mushrooms and dory fish!

After baking in the oven!

Everyone had a break - drinking tea or coffee while waiting for the pies to bake. Indeed the pies were delicious! So happy with all the hard work! Chef Collin also gave lots of cooking tips to all of us there.  Very informative and hands-on class I must say. I would definitely go for another class next month and would recommend these classes to anyone who's interested.

In the mean time, I need to go buy a digital kitchen scale, a rolling pin and a kitchen brush and then, try out the recipes! Hopefully will be able to bake some pies for makan makan at the new condo!

 

And the Award goes to............

Best Improvement in 5 Aster class 2010!

We went to Evan's kindergarten on Saturday to meet up with his class teacher : Teacher Cindy and to collect his progress report and exam results. Teacher Cindy said he is much more focused now and is more disciplined, hence the award. Other awards given out to students on the Awards Day (on the 2nd last day of school) were Best Handwriting, Best Conduct, Best Helper and Student of the Year.

Academic results are OK - am surprised that he scored 98% for his Chinese language - with a careless mistake of counting the number of strokes in a Chinese character. His handwriting and coloring has improved a lot as well from C's last year to A recently. Am most certainly proud of his improvement!

The Last Day of School

The last day of school a.k.a. party day! The kids came dressed in their concert costumes. As with all parties, the children had a whole lot of food and snacks to eat! They also had Super Fun Time.

Photos above were taken by Buffafly cos I couldn't make it to the school. I am sure the school will take loads of photos too and include them in the DVD that I've ordered. The DVD contains pics of school life and the bienniel concert as well.