Home Made Palmier

I’ve made Palmier‘s twice now from my kitchen, and I had no idea my husband liked this treat until he ordered one at a cafe. To surprise him, I made some at home and he was really happy! It takes no effort at all to make them and no recipe either really!

I use the following ingredients and then just produce them:
Half a sheet of Puff Pastry (thawed)
2 or 3 teaspoons of Granulated Sugar

I then sprinkle some sugar on my work surface, and roll out my puff pastry on top of the sugar – so sugar gets into the the pastry.

Home Made Palmier - Rolling Puff Pastry

When I’ve made it to the dimensions I like, I sprinkle more sugar on top, and I fold in by quarters until they meet in the middle. I then slice them about 1cm thick as my palmiers are smaller than the usual (since I only use half a sheet).

Home Made Palmier - Cutting

I baked them until it’s golden brown on the back, and flip them. It normally takes around 5 to 7 minutes per side in a 400F oven. I let them sit a little bit out of the oven for it to set up and enjoy with tea! 🙂

Palmier

The next time I make this, I think I’m going to make Cinnamon Sugar Palmier as I read about that a few days ago and thought it was an excellent ideal! 🙂

Fiasco Gelato – Food Truck in Calgary

I love Gelato, and I love our street food – Food Trucks in Calgary! This is one of the few food trucks I’ve made an effort to visit numerous times! 🙂 I think Fiasco Gelato maybe my favourite food truck right now – if I’m allowed to say that. I love the owners behinds the scenes, and I always remember us asking him “how’s it going?” and they replied “living the dream!”

I love it when people are out doing what they love most – and they definitely love what they’re doing! The first time I tried them was actually when Alley Burger started up, and Fiasco Gelato was so clever they came out into the line with their gelato bike to serve hungry and patient customers gelato! Now, that’s smart! 🙂

Fiasco Gelato

During this outing, we enjoyed their Strawberry Gelato which really hit the spot! It was a hot day and a cold cup of refreshing and cold gelato – in my favourite flavour was served, I suddenly was 100 notches LESS grumpy from standing almost 3 hours in line for a burger!

Fiasco Gelato - Strawberry Gelato

We’ve also visited Fiasco Gelato on another occasion (numerous) where we got to order from their truck – which is just as fun actually!

Fiasco Gelato

One of my favourite flavours over summer that I got to experience would definitely be the Mango Creme Brulee. Fiasco Gelato has been easy to get my hands on as they’re as ambitious to sever Calgarians Gelato as much as I want to eat it! I’ve had them when they were at East Side Village to GlobalFest and all other places in between. I really like following them, and it just cheers me up when I see them serving so happily!

Fiasco Gelato - Mango Creme Brulee Gelato

For the colder months when a lot of their customers aren’t thinking about gelato, they’ve Souped Up their food truck – where they now serve hot home made gluten free soups with a fresh and delicious roll. Their soups are just as wonderful as their gelatos, so be sure to try Fiasco Souped Up Food Truck!

Fiasco Gelato (Icecream Truck) on Urbanspoon

Fiasco Gelato

Food truck in Calgary
Alley Burger
Perogy Boys
The Noodle Bus
Los Compadres
Mighty Skillet
Fiasco Gelato
Fiasco Souped Up
Chef Mario Street Burgers
Fries & Dolls
JoJo’s BBQ
Pimentos Mobile Pizzeria

U & Me Restaurant in Calgary for Dessert

We made it to U & Me for dessert this one evening after eating up and being dissapointed with their dessert. So, we made a quick stop for a re-do, and it was the best re-do I’ve had in quite some time.

We ordered Deep Fried Crispy Milk 脆皮炸鮮奶 which was really delicious. They deep fried these milk balls to perfection and it was seasoned wonderfully. Of course, it comes with the little plate of sugar for you to dip your little fried balls into. The inside was warm and smooth custard texture and it was really enjoyable. If you want to make Deep Fried Crispy Milk at home, here’s a simple recipe!

One of my favourite dim sum is the Steamed Sweet Cream Buns 香滑奶皇飽 and I’m really happy we ordered it. It was steamed really nice here, and it wasn’t over steamed such that the buns were soggy. The cream inside was really smooth and creamy, sweet and delicious.

Finally, the last dessert we enjoyed was Chilled Mango Pudding 香芒滑布甸 which isn’t too extraordinary, but they did do a good job here. It was quite full of mango flavour – even though it didn’t have chunks of mango it, it did have slices of mango on the side – then everything was drizzled with evaporated milk.

We’ve never had dim sum from U & Me and with food quality like this in the evening, I’m really wanting to come here for dim sum on a weekend morning one day soon! What a great place!! This place is opened daily until 4am, and that’s impressive. It must be the one and only place that has such extended hours!

Here’s a review on the Dim Sum from U & Me!

  • U & Me - Chilled Mango Pudding
  • U & Me - Deep Fried Crispy Milk
  • U & Me - Inside a Deep Fried Crispy Milk
  • U & Me - Steamed Sweet Cream Buns
  • U & Me - Inside a Steamed Sweet Cream Buns
  • U & Me - Outside
  • U & Me - Inside

U & Me Restaurant

223 Centre St S
Calgary, AB T2G
(403) 264-5988

Le Restaurant de Paul Covent Garden – London, England

While we were in London, we visited Paul twice! The first time, we went in for lunch, and tried delicious PAUL’s Hot Chocolate which was a delicious rich hot chocolate that coats the spoon and coats the mouth and stomach as we digest it! It’s really good, and I would call it “drinking chocolate” more than enjoying “hot chocolate”. What a wonderful treat it was!

For the lunch, I ate mixte crepes which was a perfectly cooked crepe filled with ham, emmental (cheese) and bechamel sauce. It was really creamy with the cheese and bechamel sauce, and once you cut into the crepe, the emmental oozed out. It was perfect! We also ordered the Champignon Crepe which was filled with mushrooms instead of ham.

We also had an order of Croque Madame which was ham, cheese, bechamel in toasted bread topped with emmental and a fried egg. There was a little salad on the side, and some toast! I didn’t try it, but it looked super delicious – and nothing was left on the plate at the end of this lunch (all plates), so you know it’s really good!

The second time, we went in more as a light snack midday! It was a nice treat after doing a lot of touristy events to sit down and relax over a cup of coffee. I had a delicious Mocha Light which was made from the chocolate that is thick and creamy! It was one of the best mocha’s I’ve ever had, and I think it has everything to do with the hot chocolate that Paul’s is famous for.

I enjoyed a piece of Coconut Flan which is ultimately a coconut tart that was really coconutty, light, soft piece of cake. We also had a Palmier A light, crisp sugared Puff Pastry Biscuit.

This palmier was really good, as most of the ones we’ve had was hard instead of crispy… so to my delight, this palmier was one of the best!

petit panier de pains was another treat that was actually shared within the table, and it’s a petit basket of assorted bread. It was good alone, with butter, with jam, and with both! 🙂 Pizza Provencale which was a slice of pizza topped with cheese, tomato and black olives was a vegetarian delight.

29 Bedford St
Covent Garden
(020) 7836 3304

Bugis Street Brasserie – London, England

This restaurant is located inside the Copthorne Tara Hotel in Kensington, London and this was the hotel we checked into. After a long walk to the hotel from Trafalgar Square, we quickly went downstairs after putting our belongings down and headed to Bugis Street Brasserie.

We got seated and the staff here are extremely friendly. The waitress spoke to us in Cantonese through the duration of our evening at Bugis Street, which was probably practice for her, as I don’t think too many Asians would eat Chinese food while on holidays to London.

The Hainanese Chicken Rice – 海南鸡饭 that we ordered was quite a large portion, with a big bowl of rice, probably more than a quarter of the chicken, and some sauces that came with this order (which is typical) was really pleasing to the eye and the stomach. This dish was the most pleasing for me, as I had a cold during this time – and a bowl of rice always satisfies an Asian’s belly. It wasn’t hot and warming though – like my next dish.

We ordered the Singapore laksa 辣沙 which is a spicy noodle soup that really originated more from Malaysia in my opinion, even though it`s called Singapore Laska… but it does have a Chinese name – which always always fun to think about the Asian dishes and their names (“laksa” meaning “spicy sand” in Chinese, and this is from the sandy or gritty texture in the sauce from the ground dried prawns). Anyway, enough with my tangent, this belly warming noodle soup was full of intense Asian flavours such as lemon grass and ginger. A hot and spicy bowl of soup right before bedtime makes for a restful sleep. This dish wasn’t so spicy that you’d need to use the washroom during the entire evening, which was wonderful! This bowl of Laksa wasn’t authentic to me, but it was a very tasty bowl of noodle soup!

Finally, we ordered something much more Chinese which was Fried noodles with shredded chicken 杂菜炒面 and the noodles in this dish was really thin and delicate… which meant a lot of short pieces, but the flavour was plentiful, and the chicken slices was generous in portion sizes and slices.

Overall, I really enjoyed this stop for dinner #2 of the evening at Bugis Street Brasserie, after a long hike from dinner #1. It was extremely satisfying to the tummy, the body and the mind! It was a wonderful way to wind down the evening as everything was so pleasing and satisfying.

Bugis Street Brasserie

Copthorne Tara Hotel London Kensington
Scarsdale Place
Kensington
London
W8 5SR
United Kingdom
44 (0) 20 7937 7211