Dinner. NYE. 2013

Felt like having scallops. And for the longest time, felt like having a good steak. So went shopping in Isetan, and was hovering around the beef section.

Miyazaki wagyu @ $32 per 100gms? Faints. Bought USA prime ribeye beef instead. About $12 for 150gms. Hmm...not exactly cheap also. Hope it taste good!

mine...all mine!

Have never cooked steak before, and was too lazy to see any recipe so just decided to marinate it with salt, pepper, sesame oil and a dash of soy sauce. Unfortunately, splashed too much of soy sauce!

absorbing the marinade

Kept the meat in the freezer till an hour before cooking time. Then, left it to sit at room temperature.

cook all with butter

The scallops didn't sear enough, but didn't want to overcook it as it might turn too rubbery. *imagine Gordon Ramsay throwing all those rubber scallops back at ya*

pan seared scallop with some wilted vege in balsamic and butter

Scallops were alright. Was abit worried that it might be undercooked, so popped it into the toaster for another 5 minutes. Texture was similar to lightly boiled/cooked scallops. A darker sear on its outerside would be perfect.

ribeye steak - well done

As the steak was a little thin, should've just sear it for less than 10 seconds on each side. Thought it was cooked well done, prime ribeye beef is a piece of good meat. Tender, and plenty of fats. Yums. Just need to tone down on the marinade, next time.

Bon appetit~ Have a Happy New Year!

homemade roast pork 101

Meat. I like meat. Ever since I was a tiny tot (maybe not so tiny, but about four or five years old?), I remembered eating char siews and siu yuk (roast pork) for lunch, with plain porridge. Charred bits, fatty bits with soy sauce and crackling skin. Double yums.

So, made a tiny suggestion to my sister and here's her second attempt at making roast pork.

Ingredients:

A good slab of pork belly (400 to 500 gms)
Nam yu (preserved bean curd that's reddish in colour)
Five spice powder
Mashed garlic
Salt
Shao Xing Hua Tiao wine

shao xing wine, five spice powder, preserved bean curd

Prepare the rub mix:

just a dash of wine into the mixture of smashed garlic, bean curd, five spice powder and salt

mix well

Prepare the meat:
Pat dry the meat
Use knife and poke into its skin
Turn the meat over and make vertical slits on its meat

make tiny slits

rub into the slits, cover all areas of the meat only

Place the pork with meat side down.

make sure there is something to hold the meat so that its underside can be aired dry

rub salt onto its skin part

Shove the meat into the fridge and forget about it for a couple of hours to dry it as well as letting the rub sets in. Minimum four hours but longer better.

When it is ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to about 220 degrees celcius.

pre-heat the oven

ready to be roasted

When it's halfway done, take the meat out to dab away the oil from its skin.

aiyo, so oily

Then, use a satay stick and stab at the skin to make tiny holes. Or, use anything you like, as long as it can make tiny holes into the skin. Oil will ooze out after that, so make sure to dab away.

Brush rice vinegar onto the skin and put it back into the oven.

in case, like me, you don't know how rice vinegar looks like

Cook till meat looks done and skin is crackling.

roast pork, do-it-at-home style

Let the meat rest for a few minutes.

homemade siu yuk

lovely crunchy skin

My sis cooked it. We took care of the eating part. Yums.

濁り酒

Sayuri Hakutsuru Sake

Nigori 濁り酒 (cloudy) sake. Sweet. Similar to Korean rice wine makgeolli. But probably a tad higher in alcohol content. To think I could get almost drunk from this.. funny.

one with the chefs

dwarfed by the chefs

Taken at the "Best Brunch Ever - Delicious Morning Recipes to Savour" cookbook launch.

currently...

I'm an ISTJ, and am supposed to be in these careers:

Due to their natural strengths ISTJs often find themselves in occupations that involve effective control of production process, good understanding of details, clear-cut planning, require responsibility and being an efficient worker. They are found across a wide range of industries and verticals, in organizations of all sizes. ISTJs succeed as military and police workers, engineers, auditors, lawyers, surgeons. They are found in technology companies among those who deal with practical aspects of technology (e.g. implementation specialists). ISTJs make good project managers, mid-rank managers, department heads.


---------------
Ok, fair enough.

IBM Watson

Was an interesting week. Was assigned as IT facilitator to a workshop conducted by Harvard-Macy trainers. Week-long event, and learnt lots of IT tools.

Got to know about IBM-Watson, a supercomputer that's darn good in Jeopardy. Well, it actually won Jeopardy in 2011...and I guessed by now, it should be even better! Humans, are we ready to be replaced? Computers with 'reasoning' skill is already possible. Hmm, how about computers with common-sense next? Or, computers with empathy?

Read about Watson here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-opens-watson-2013-11

Watson is an artificially intelligent computer system that's able to answer question posed to it in natural language.


Here's a wiki diagram on the high level architecture of DeepQA used in Watson.


See Watson in action: Watson (represented by the LCD monitor with an avatar) pitted against Jeopardy winners (most recurring win and the one that won most money)


If there's a structure, if there's a pattern to it, then these can be 'taught' and 'retained' by a machine. Learning 'abilities' can also be programmed. 'Reasoning' for computer at this stage, sounds pretty much by basing decisions on precedence (knowledge from reputable documentations eg. journals, papers etc), coupled that with probability of confidence level and 'reasoning' can be quite good.

Fascinating. Watson receives a question and immediately sets out to ask more questions to test its hypothesis. The answer will carry with it a confidence percentage. It won't throw out all the answers, but will decide based on pre-programmed rules. For example, in Jeopardy game, it might answer only if confidence percentage of that answer is above say, 50%.


It still sounds pretty much like mimicking of human processing, right?

When we're faced with a question. What's the first thing that we do? When we process that particular question, do we ask more questions? For example, "What do you think about sushi?"
In our brain, do we ask ourselves, "Is sushi edible?", "Have I eaten it before?"->if yes, "Do I recall what was the taste?" etc etc. Intrinsicly, we sort of 'know' the answer. But perhaps, the process might be of the above but shortened considerably and when the synapses passes the electrical current to invoke that piece of memory, we got the answer. Instantaneously.

The beauty of tech nowadays is lower cost, speed, search algorithm and availability of data is fuelling rapid development of capabilities. Availability of data, predictive text, analytical capabilities, data association, merging of information and able to use these collection of data together...It's going to be fascinating.

Thank You

Memories are made of these

friends

Panasonic GX7

Categorized under the Mirrorless Interchangeable Lense Camera, Panasonic GX7 seemed to have the things that I've wanted in a camera. Its 20mm F1.7 lense was what captivated me to the world of Panasonic G series cameras.

cr: original src

Features that I like include an EVF (electronic view finder), but a tiltable one at that. In-body image stabliser, and if the lense has its own stabliser then can turn off the other. Cool.

Sample image gallery: http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/reviewsamples/albums/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gx7-samples

If not wrong, its retail price is around SGD$1600. Pricey.

Universal Studios Singapore (USS)

Finally visited USS with my colleagues.

the most photographed

how about this angle?

ticket to enter

Ok. USS didn't feel as happy as Disneyland Tokyo. Not sure why, but a generic atmosphere. The hot and humid weather in Singapore could be a contributing factor.

backlighting seems to overexpose the picture

not sure if they make freshly popped popcorns here or not, but there wasn't any popcorn smells wafting from it

The place felt a little small. But that's expected. Visited Madagascar as our first stop. The boat ride was really, really mild. For kids.

i like to move it move it!

The costumed character for King Julien was really hardworking. Totally worthed to take picture with!

to a far, far away land

parking needs

Watched Shrek 4D, but I think the seats on my section was spoilt. The announcement said the seats in the middle were stationary, so we moved to the sides. All the other sections had seats that moved, but ours didn't. But if ours was supposed to be stationary, then why did it moved once? *scratch head*

And the local guy (staff) who did the introduction before the movie, has a very very Singlish accent. Not sure if it's on purpose, but somehow, the magic seemed lost in translation. The far, far away land...just didn't seem far at all!

But, after the shop, everyone had to exit to the gift shop. Prince Charming and Fairy Godmother were there, so took pictures with them. And, whatdoyaknow... Prince Charming, was actually very very chatty. Hahaha! Was wearing a black polo tee with a row of hearts as a design. He asked, "I see you have many hearts, my dear." At first, I didn't realise that he was talking to me. I was looking at the photographer, but he wasn't. So, I answered. Then, he said, "Any for me, my dear?" Hahaa! This guy. Faints. I said, "Sure, one for you.... and another for fairy godmother." Fairy Godmother didn't seem too pleased as he was prolonging the photoshoot. =P

still chatting? Godmother, might zap you to obscurity with her wand!

haha, all look at the camera now, my dears~

Got a souvenir. Gingerbread man, err.. souvenir.

choose the design and crank hard

$2 gingerbread man metal

Didn't see any scantily abs of the guys on stilts at The Mummy place. But my other colleagues did though.

ancient world

are these like 2+ storeys high?

Actually went inside but too chicken to take the ride. The posters stated "High speed-roller coaster." I was out of there as soon as I saw that!

It was high noon and was very thirsty. Lunch was at Mel's Drive In (near the entrance) as it is halal-certified.

Mel's Drive In

all about cars

mascot for Mel's?

Burger sets (with fries only) starts at $11+. Drinks starts from $3.80+. Kiddie sets seemed good, with a Transformer box. Use Mastercard to enjoy 10% discount.

double beef burger, fries and apple juice

beef and more beef

After lunch, went for some kiddie ride, at.. Sesame Street!

elmo!

this was how the ride felt like~

Then, saw Oscar the Grouch on the streets.

kids loving it

The handler was shouting a warning at the man who just walked off after hitting/pushed the costumed staff

eery part of town

majestic

sculptured walls

Glad to report that the restrooms were clean.

looking for relief?

Sesame Street gang of Elmo, Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert, were there at New York City stage area for their performance.

vibrant colours

longer queue for Elmo and Cookie Monster

We were at Monster Rock, but the show was cancelled due to technical issues. We'd queued for 15-20 minutes only to be told that the show would be further delayed.

show cancelled, folks

seats for the weary feet

Caught a glimpse of b-boy performance.

make some noise~

yo~

My colleague loves Elmo, so she bought some stuffs.

rainbow~

bring me home

Went for the Transformers ride, and it was good! Pretty exciting but I was sad after that. Not because I missed the excitement, but previous person spilled some slushie onto the seat and it happened to be the one that I sat on. Bad luck, or what? Ended up with a patch of dark stain on my jeans at the butt area. Walked around looking as though I had just pooped in my pants. Gosh. Yup, it was sticky too. Glad it wasn't puke though. Was it? Well, it didn't smell like it...still...gross...

face painting, anyone?

hi Betty

Bumped into Frankenstein. And he scared one unsuspecting visitor.

before she shrieked

Overall, it was nice to visit. We took photos with the different costumed characters like 4 or 5 times.

byebye USS