Month: January 2014

Meiji Meltykiss Chocolates – Winter Limited Edition

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Happy Chinese New Year!! 新年快樂！恭喜發財！龍馬精神！(Canto: san nin fai lok, gong hei fat choi, long ma jing san; Mando: xin nian kuai le, gong xi fa cai, long ma jing shen) It’s the year of the horse this year. Plus it looks like it’s going to rain again in London this weekend (you can never rely on the weather reports). So wrap up warm, wear wellies (in case) and enjoy yourself… Might be skipping China Town this weekend as it’s always hectic. But we will see.
Happy Chinese New Year!!
Today also marks my second anniversary of blogging!! Yay!! Two years of blogging, and I’m thankful to other bloggers, friends and passerby’s (even if it is for a brief second) PLUS the spammers who read, skim or click on my blog. ^_^ A click still counts! I still get enthusiastic at the numbers of pageviews per month. ^_^
So carrying on for the chocolate lovers, Meiji have released a Winter Limited Edition of Meltykiss Chocolates (I think it’s the box not the chocolates that are the limited edition…). I bought these really cheaply in Hong Kong (so proud of myself), as they are quite expensive in the UK. These small boxes of chocolate are really light and don’t feel like they have chocolate in them. But they do, they really do. There’s about 15 small square pieces in each box carefully wrapped into individual chocolate pieces. A bit different to the ones I have had so far. It filled my suitcase too! Should’ve reviewed them in Hong Kong so that I could’ve bought other stuff. Oh well. XD
Stack of Meiji Meltykiss Chocolate boxes

Meltykiss Winter Limited Edition
I started off with the Green Tea flavoured one. It’s a tiny cube of chocolate with green tea flavoured chocolate in the middle. It nicely melted into my mouth and also onto my fingers as I was taking pictures. The green tea flavour lingers into your mouth for a good few seconds, and if you’re a green tea addict you will definitely become addicted to these.
Green Tea flavour

Back of the box

Opened it from the side of the box

Small piece of chocolate

Green tea filling
Next was the Royal Milk Tea flavour. It has the same design as the green tea flavour. It tastes like original bubble tea melting into your mouth. Ooooh. I like this one. But I’m sure tea lovers will like this chocolate too. Scrumptious!
Royal Milk Flavour

Back of the box
Opened it from this time… the right way round!

Nice chocolatey centre
Do you like strawberries? I do. And I definitely LOVE this Fruity Strawberry flavour. It tastes like there’s a really sweet strawberry inside with real juices or a jelly-like strawberry liquidy substance. Do you get my drift? Ah, buy it if you don’t believe me!
Fruity Strawberry flavour

Back of the box

Strawberry pink centre
This next one is the Creamy White Chocolate. No surprises with this one. Just ordinary chocolate that melts into your mouth… Yummy.
Creamy Milk flavour

Back of the box

Chocolate!!
Dark Rum is the last one I tasted. Dark Rum? Alcoholic chocolate? Woah. For rum lovers this is the perfect chocolate for you!! It smells and tastes of rum. It might not get you drunk but they taste so good!! I love rum (especially rum cake and rum ‘n’ coke). It has a lingering rum taste. I love this one too. 😀
Dark Rum flavour

Back of the box

Ordinary chocolate with a strong hint of rum 😀
All the chocolates have no bad aftertaste, very light chocolate and just something to die for. If you’re struggling for a Valentine’s chocolate gift, I think these are the perfect gifts (especially the strawberry, royal milk tea and rum flavours). 
I don’t think I like sharing out Japanese chocolates… Sorry Miss Pinky and Mr Bear. You two are not getting any. ¬,¬””
Cost in Hong Kong: HK$21.90 per box (~£1.83)
Cost in London: approx. £4.50!!! Expensive… you might be able to find it cheaper online…

Fujiya LOOK Chocolat

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Ah the antibiotics are working! And it’s making me hungry all the time.
Tonight, instead of doing an eeny-meeny-miny-mo, I just had a look at the boxes, and decided I wanted to try out Fujiya’s LOOK Chocolat as there’s three flavours in this box.
Fujiya LOOK Choclat

Back of the box
When I opened it, the inside box explains the different designs for each chocolate. The two designs on the left hand side is bitter chocolate. The two designs in the middle is for the mild flavour and the two designs on the right are for the white chocolate centred flavour. Coooool!
Opening the box

Wrapper is even cool!
There’s 18 pieces of chocolate. So one by one I tried them… From Bitter-Mild-White then in reverse order.
18 pieces of individual chocolates
The bitter chocolate is not as bitter as the Dars chocolate I tasted yesterday evening. It has a very light bitter taste, and this would be enjoyed by those who like less bittery dark chocolate. There’s no lingering bitter taste to these ones.
Bitter LOOK Chocolat
The mild one tastes like ordinary milk chocolate. Not too sweet. But enough chocolate in one bite.
Mild LOOK Chocolat
The white chocolate centred one has a very light taste as most white chocolate does. This has a very smooth texture to it. This one’s my favourite out of the three.
White LOOK Chocolat
The only downside to all three of these is the aftertaste. It kind of dries out my mouth and tongue – like milk does. It’s not like Hershy’s though, but it makes you want to drink some water.
These are very good to share amongst friends who have different chocolate tastes, however I wouldn’t be buying them for the sake of a chocolate craving… Nevertheless, I finished them in less than half an hour!
Cost: HK$10 (~£0.83)

Morinaga Dars Bitter Chocolate

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Didn’t know what to eat next (my throat is still sore as I believe I have tonsillitis, and have now been given some antibiotics to clear it up a bit ~~~ I don’t want surgery!! ) so I did an eeny-meeny-miny-mo, but ended choosing something else from the pile of goodies. ¬_¬” The Geek doesn’t make any sense.
In the end I chose this Dars Bitter Chocolate from Morinaga.
Dars Bitter Chocolate

Back of the box
It’s a small packet of 12 pieces of dark chocolate. It’s not actually in a bar, it’s all in pieces so you don’t have to break it.
Daaaars… ummmmmm

12 luxurious pieces
For dark chocolate it is bitter. But if you compare it to the UK market dark chocolate then this is less bitter – like taking a weak shot of beer.
Individual pieces of dark chocolate

The pieces are very small
It has a lingering bitter taste to it, which is ok for me… Just reminds me of a mild Marmite aftertaste.
If I could find it in the UK I would buy it again. It looks like these chockies are going in my belly tonight. 😀
Cost: HK$11 (~£0.92)

チロルきなこもちTirol Kinako Mochi Choco

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Finally I have opened the packet of chocolate mochi which is featured in this video by Choc It Out. Check out his videos!
I bought this packet of chocolates in Snack Castle in Tai Po, Hong Kong (the ghostly character attracted me to it). My Japanese is very limited (so I had to look up the alphabet, which I’m re-learning) to look up what this is. But I already had a feeling it had something to do with mochi because of the picture on the front of the packet.
Kinako Mochi Choco

Back of the packet
This is called Kinako Mochi Choco from the company Tirol チロル. Kinako (きなこ) means roasted soy beans. And mochi (もち) is the jelly like dessert made out of pounded glutinous rice. Looking at some kinako mochi pictures, the mochi is usually dusted with kinako…
… In this case, these individually wrapped chocolates are meant to resemble the much loved dessert. The mochi is surrounded by caramel looking white chocolate, which is flavoured with kinako. I don’t actually know what kinako tastes like, but there is a nutty taste to it that makes you go wow, nutty chocolate! It even smells of nuts (but they are really soy beans)… It’s a bit like tasting a sweet peanut butter chocolate with jelly in the middle.
Individually wrapped chocolates

Looks like a block of caramel

There’s the mochi!
I’m afraid these won’t be shared out to friends or family… ¬,¬” They’re all mine!
Now where I can buy more of these in the UK?!! Nowhere unfortunately, but you can find them on eBay if you are willing to pay the price although I got it cheaply in Hong Kong!
Cost: HK$11 (~£0.92)

Aji Ichiban Fish Sausage and Cheese Sausage

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The weird and wonderful snacks from Hong Kong which are mainly from Japan start today! (I may have a sore throat right now, but I can still blog :D)
Today I’m starting off with these sausages. Not just any sausages. It’s Fish Sausages and Cheese Sausages. ¬,¬” What the heck did I buy?
Fish and Cheese Sausages
I bought these in Aji Ichiban (a Hong Kong found company) which is a Japanese food snack store that is popular in Hong Kong and North America. I think these sausages are currently popular in the Asian world as I’ve seen them in Korean dramas and films recently. They just keep popping up, so I thought if I see them I will buy them and give it a go.
Well… I’m quite disappointed… It’s all fishy. Bleugh.
Tasted the cheese one first. This one is salty. Fishy as ever. Smelt fishy too. It’s not the best thing I have tasted this year… It was like tasting soft cheese with fish.
13 Cheese Sausages

Back of the package

Close up of a Cheese Sausage
The fish one was a bit different. It was hard to open, so I had to cut it from the top. I was feeling a bit resistant about this one, but this one tasted sweet, tasted almost like a frankfurter but definitely had the fishiness in it.
Fish Sausage

Back of the package

Close up of a fish sausage
Would I buy these again? Definitely a no-no from me! (-_-)p
Cheese Sausage cost HK$45 (~£3.75)
Fish Sausage cost HK$20 (~£1.67)
p.s. No naughty comments please… 😛

3D Origami Continued – A Mixture of Characters

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And so I carry on making more 3D origami!! I feel like I’ve started a club of people making 3D origami all of a sudden. It’s become a new hobby for some… And it’s become my part-time job earning a few British pounds making these. 
Before I started a big challenge, I made Domo-Kun. I love this Japanese character! This was easy to make, and didn’t take me long to do.
Domo-Kun from the front

Side

Back

Side


The big challenge was making Winnie The Pooh which took me a week to make with some breaks in between. I looked this one up on a YouTube video, but made some amendments as I think the person was using a different type of paper to the one I was using. It now sits in my colleagues office. Whenever I pass her room, I’m always looking a it. So proud of myself. ^_^

Winnie The Pooh… This is so cute!!

Kawaii!!

From the back

I wanted to make Pikachu as well – he’s one of my favourite Pokémon characters! This one’s for me! I actually forgot to make the two black stripes and the tail, so I had to take him apart and redo his back, head, and tail, and then re-add his facial features on. 

Pikachu

From the back

Side… you can still see some glue drying…

Side

Since Miss Pinky didn’t win the set of Family Guy characters, I asked her who her favourite character was (I thought she liked Meg Griffin but it wasn’t) and I will make it for her birthday… she said it was Glenn Quagmire… Really?!! His head was the difficult part to make, as he has a frog face.

Glenn Quagmire

From the back

Side

Side

Next I wanted to make a tiny Hello Kitty again. It’s so cute, and I gave it away to one of my colleagues. Changed a few details to the first one I made.

Hello Kitty

Back 

Side

Side… fuzzy picture

At this point I had a big break, but whilst on holiday, I started cutting up a free Chinese newspaper at the hotel, and made this Newspaper Hello Kitty… I completed the body on the plane coming home, and then finished the head back at home in London.

Hello Kitty made in newspaper

Back

Side

Side

Next was a Christmas challenge from Hannah from The Review Addict!! I made Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer!! It’s similar to Brian from Family Guy, but it has antlers which are super-glued onto the head… Oh difficult.

Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer

Side

Back

Side

One of my colleagues pestered me to make a Me-To-You Bear, so I made a small one which took me two days to make! So cute!! She wants a big one now… Maybe later in the year… Might make one small version for myself too…

Me-To-You Bear ^_^ KAWAIIIIIIII!!!

Back

Side

Side

A friend had challenged me to make Sandro the Footballer. My friend is a Tottenham Hotspurs fan, so I made him… It was hard finding the right paper for his face and legs. But I bought this caramel brown on eBay… Is my friend going to buy it? Unfortunately there was no mention of it… Oh well.

Sandro… doesn’t look like him

Back

Side… there’s a bald patch bit I know

Side… and another bald patch

Another friend challenged me to make John Herbert from Family Guy! Herbert?! Who the heck is Herbert?!! :-S … Uh, when my friend explained, oh geez, you really want this character… so be it!! This was fun to make, the head was easy to make, there’s three parts to it, and then the zimmerframe was probably the hardest thing to make as there was a lot of super-gluing going on there. And then Miss Pinky and Mr B (the friend from work) explained to me that Herbert has a dog called Jesse too… Hmmm… He will take me forever to make, so I traced the outline from an Internet picture and stuck him on front of the zimmerframe. 😛 This is probably my best 3D origami creation!

John Herbert

Side

Front

Side

Back

Then the person who wanted Winnie The Pooh also wanted a plane for her son… Oh boy! This wasn’t too hard to make. I used a couple of videos to help me out with the design and the wings. Just sticking those wings took a lot of extra effort and attention. It was supposed to look like a fighter plane, but I think I will try the nose part another time. Creating missiles was kind of difficult too. How do you make missiles with paper? Heheheh. 

Fighter Plane?

From the side

Bottom

Back

Then person who I made my very first 3D origami character (my first Hello Kitty) wanted a chicken for her daughter as she’s nicknamed ‘chicken’. I ended up making four small ones, as they didn’t take that long to make. A family of four different characters. I named them in Chinese on Instagram, and have put their English names here. ^_^

Family of Four Chickens

Sweetcorn Chicken

Normal Chicken

Black Chicken

Poached / White Cut Chicken

Now I have started charging my friends and colleagues £5 for one character. Small ones I think I will charge £2.50 as they don’t take long to make.

All the unwanted characters I will sell at the end of 2014 and will donate some or all of the money to a charity.
Right, I must start the South Park characters… Mr Picky wants them, so he gets them!! (And Miss Pinky will probably not hear the end of it until I’ve made them all. Hahahahah).

Brunchies Deli Bar – London Camberwell

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Lunch time (on a Friday afternoon)!! Where do you go to lunch in Camberwell?! 
Well, this place called Brunchies which is located opposite to Nando’s and almost hiding itself from Coldharbour Lane and Denmark Hill, is somewhere where I have wanted to dine for a while. I’m quite surprised not many food bloggers who live in South London have not blogged about this place. Maybe they want to keep this place a secret for non-locals. 
Brunchies is a cross between a deli, café sandwich bar and restaurant. It’s been opened for a few years, and a lot of locals seem to love this place. It was very popular at lunch time, and it seemed the waitresses were about to collapse with tiredness! The place is styled like an American diner which is what probably appeals to the customers. I believe the breakfasts are served all day hence the name Brunchies.

I went with a few colleagues Mr Bear, Ms Pâtissier and a different colleague who I will call Mr Fanatic as he becomes enthusiastic for many reasons or for no reason at all. 
I had already looked at the menu before we got there, so I already knew what I wanted. The others had to have a long glance (I think the waitress wanted us to order quickly – but she was really fun!). Mr Fanatic was laughing at the menu for a little bit as he spotted a mistake on the menu (which you can find on the website menu too). Oh well. Only Mr Fanatic would have spotted that… However on Brunchies’ website, there is another spelling mistake…
Nevermind about the menu, lets see the food!
I ordered a Cool Melon Smoothie. My impression was that it was going to be a green-whitish one (I forgot to read the ingredients), but no it was a watermelon type colour with blueberries and grape. I actually liked it.
Cool Melon Smoothie

At first I had trouble deciding what to eat as there’s a lot of choice, but in the end I chose the Brunch Tower, which consists of a chicken burger, a hash brown and salad. I couldn’t taste the mayonnaise in my burger, so it was a bit dry unfortunately. The chips were nice and hot too. 🙂

Brunch Tower

Close up of my Brunch Tower
Bun, hash brown, chicken burger, salad with minimal mayo then bun
All three of my colleagues ordered the Texan Burger. Woah! ¬,¬”” What appealed them to order the same thing? Is it because of the amount that was in the burger? Anyway, it looked massive, and I was thinking I chose the wrong item. Theirs look so big… ¬,¬”” I had a taste of Ms Pâtissier’s as she couldn’t finish it. The beef was so meaty, and the halloumi cheese tasted so good. But there were too many bacon bits. Mr Bear didn’t enjoy it as much, maybe because of the beef burger or the bun, (he likes McDonald’s more). Mr Fanatic finished his plate… he knows how to eat!!
Ms Pâtissier’s plate of her Texan Burger

Mr Fanatic’s plate… getting a close up of the Texan Burger… Look at that halloumi cheese!
I think the total price came to about £27 (it wasn’t written on the receipt, as you have to take it to the till area to pay), but Mr Fanatic said he would pay for us, so I don’t know the total of it all. Thanks Mr Fanatic!!
My geeky rating: 4/5
Good points:
– A very busy local deli bar (definitely one of the most popular places to eat in Camberwell)
– Cheap food for breakfast and lunch (there are different prices for eating in and out)
– Burgers are big (although quality wise, it is not the greatest I’ve ever tasted)
– Friendly service
Bad points:
– Just the spelling mistakes on the website and menu

Address: 1 Valmar Rd, London SE5 9NG
Telephone: 020 7738 5962
Opening Times: Monday – Friday 7 am – 4 pm; Saturday 8 am – 4 pm

Misato Japanese Restaurant – London Whitcomb Street

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The story of a lazy blogger… Heheheh.
This time Mr Games and Miss Money invited me to eat out. I don’t think we knew where to eat. I suggested Yo! Sushi and then Miss Money suggested Misato. She said we would be spending less there and it would be more filling, and had said we have been there before… You know what?! I couldn’t remember until I had to look it up on the Internet… Oh Misato. Now I remember this place… Super cheap Japanese food. Super busy too! The first time I went to this restaurant was with Miss Money many years ago, I actually remembered what I had which was the Chicken Katsu Curry and mixed tempura vegetables. I was so full that I couldn’t move…
Misato – The sign has gone missing on top of the restaurant…

Flash forward a few years later, the name is no longer on the door (I think they’ll add it later), it’s again super busy, and this time we queued, ordered our food and drinks whilst in the queue, and then a few minutes later a table was available for us.

Miss Money ordered the Chicken Teriyaki Hamburger and Rice dish. She said her chicken was dry, but it was good. She almost finished her plate as she was that hungry. Wow.

Chicken Teriyaki Hamburger and Rice

Mr Games, as usual, likes to stick with what he is comfortable with. He was going to go for some cucumber sushi with something else, but ended up with a Chicken Katsu Curry! He said his was nice as the chicken tasted like chicken, not like an ordinary frozen chicken that has no chicken taste to it. I tasted a bit too, just to remind myself. Yep. It’s real tasty chicken there!

Chicken Katsu Curry and Rice

For some reason, I really wanted to have some hot udon noodles, I wanted tempura AND I wanted sushi. So I ordered the mixed sushi bento and the tempura udon. My sushi came out first, but I finished the udon and tempura before I started on it. Udon was nice. Soup was good. Tempura needed some flavouring, but otherwise it was ok, but for £5.50 they could’ve added more to it.

Udon

Tempura

The sushi on the otherhand which was at £9 was good. It had filled the rest of my stomach…

Mixed Sushi Bento

Subtotal price came to £31 including the drinks, but as usual there was a 10% service charge, so in the end it came to £34.10, which averages out to £11.37. That’s not bad!

My geeky rating: 4.5/5

Good points:
– Quality of food as well as quantity is always good
– Cheap Japanese food
– Service was ok

Bad points:
– Needs more seating

Address: 11 Whitcomb St, London W1D 6PG
Telephone: 020 7734 0808

p.s. Miss Pinky was quite upset that she wasn’t invited (although she wouldn’t have made it anyway, ¬,¬”)… Miss Pinky is always busy… Next time!

p.p.s. After walking around from China Town to Regent Street, then into Carnaby Street and then into Oxford Street I was feeling a bit peckish for dessert… Wow, I must’ve been hungry that evening!

Milka ChocoJaffa – Toffee Mouse Flavour and Milka Milkinis

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One evening straight after work (that was yesterday) I went to look for some mayonnaise at a local store on the Walworth Road. I wanted to try out a different mayonnaise but before I got to the counter I was looking at the snacks section, and I came across these Milka ChocoJaffa packets. One was an orange flavour and the other in toffee mousse. Toffee mousse? Why not!
Milka ChocoJaffa – Toffee Mousse Flavour

Milka products are getting very popular in a lot of food / snack blogs! And I just couldn’t help myself but buy these and also blog about them.

Jaffa Cakes!

They look like jaffa cakes that’s for sure. But I’m not sure about the taste. It is sweet. You would think that the mousse tasted like orange if you didn’t read the packaging. The mousse at first has a texture of mousse jelly, it tastes like toffee after eating a few, and then the chocolate and biscuit take over. They are pretty much addictive, and I think there’s about 10 in the packet (I’ve almost finished the whole packet before finishing this blogpost!).

Close up

Split into two… ummm toffee…

This was less than £2 in the shop. Buy it, eat it and tell me your opinion about it. ^_^

In the same shop I found the Milka Milkinis which I have never tried before. 
Milka Milkinis

There are four bars in this tiny box

They look great for snacking on. Good for a lunch box. And has a darker milky chocolate taste to them. I like them. Could eat loads of these ones.

4 mini chocolate bits

White creme / chocolate inside

Don’t know the price of these ones. But it is cheap!

Two jaffa cakes are left at the end of this post. 😉

p.s. I will be reviewing the snacks I got from Hong Kong soon… Hadn’t realised I bought a lot of different ones (mostly Japanese). ^_^

METRO poster adverts

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Hah! METRO. London’s free newspaper which you can find at nearly every tube and rail station have released these two poster ads at bus stops (there’s probably more, but I haven’t seen any). It’s probably not the best place to post them since you don’t see a METRO newspaper at a bus stop or in the bus (unless some passenger who went on the Tube / train left a copy on the bus).
This first one just captured my absolute attention (as I like cats too… Hello Kitty obsession ¬,¬””). Yes, Cats are not the only thing you can find on the Internet! There are a millions and billions and trillions of topics discussed on the Internet. =^.^= Meow.
“CATS aren’t the only thing on the internet”
If I stood at the bus stop just waiting for the bus, I wouldn’t be reading a METRO newspaper unfortunately., I would need to download the app for that… I’ll most likely be on Instagram. And unfortunately the METRO website does not offer bus departure times. ¬,¬
“TIME on your hands? Next bus departures available here”
Love these poster ads… I think I can see who they are trying to attact… the people who can’t find a newspaper but can read it on their phones if they have a smart phone. ^_^