Category: Happy Tummy Edition

Yuhuuuu the trilogy of Chef Thorben’s and Pastry Marina continues :D. This time we had a full house! with guests: Leyfa, Dominic and wife + kid on the way (read: on her tummy), Stefan and another colleague from Italiano.

Thorben bought a different beef I guess… right? and he said “oh I should have grilled it more because some part of the beef was uneven” anyway something like that I can’t remember it clearly because I was just focusing on the beef. And Stefan said “this is a very typical German when they cooked a perfect beef and they always ‘humble’ by saying it can be improved in some way” haha. I guess it was Leyfa that brought the cheese and grapes so it’s a cute starter, idk what the other brings but for me I always bring my empty stomach. It’s such a waste if I don’t come with an empty stomach. They always have foods!

I was the last one that arrived because I just went from factory visit but that time they weren’t so German which is they also started the dinner late and when I arrived, I got my plate ready (minus the beef) but I saw Stefan’s plate has more carrots than I do! and those carrots are amazing! and I said “Why Stefan’s got more carrots than me?” and the voice from the kitchen which is Thorben said “Don’t worry I have a full pan of carrots here just for you” buihihihi I have a special carrot storage somewhere. Idk how he made it but the taste does sooooooo good and carrots is good for improving the eyesight haha I think I need to have unlimited supply of carrots from you Thorben so maybe I can shoot the target better in archery!

Marina made two types of cheesecakes with rashberry and oreo and also two types of avocado ice cream with something and something hahaha Stefan has allergic with milk…ya? is that correct? so he didn’t eat the cheesecake, but I ate his portions and also few other people portions because I ended up ate 2 rashberry cheesecakes and 2 oreo cheesecakes. RELAX people! It was a small cheesecake 😉 But then we lost our dinner crew, Stefan need to leave early because of a birthday party and Leyfa also need to leave for Markus’ farewell.

So here we are 6 people with baby on the way and what did we do???? We played the CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY!  But some cards are only understandable for US citizen because most of the jokes or everything that’s written there are related to USA and which btw none of us are from USA so we switch to play a magic cards! haha! Thorben got the very cool deck of cards from Las Vegas and I played out my dad’s old time card trick, but come on I’m not David Blaine of course it’s a trick, just enjoy the show 😉 And Thorben played the only 2 card tricks that I knew how to do it since eearrrllyyyyyy ageeee! ahahaha! and those 2 specific card tricks I only performed it to a kid haha :D. Dominic’s wife had quiet a few card tricks that I knew my father will be able to played it out, I need to learn from him again how to do those tricks so that I will have another back up card tricks and I will be like Helllooooo! BAM let me show you some magic 😉

And I guess one week after that Dominic’s wife delivered the baby! I think Happy Tummy dinner edition is really a happy tummy because I do believe they are excited that the baby is coming out from the mother’s tummy and me… I will always be happy to have dinner at Thorben’s home it’s kind of “improvement of nutrition” for me ahahaha 🙂

But here is another random funny fact! I never had dinner at Thorben’s with Aggy! Aggy had dinner with Leyfa and Stefan but somehow I was always not been there when it happened! haha but for sure both of us will be there when we do the Indonesian Feast *determined emoji* 😐

 

Thorben and Marinaaaa!! Time is running up!! tsk tsk tsk September is almost over and we are not going to Hangzhou…yet *wink wink* 😉 Seems like the German plan doesn’t really works this time, another *wink wink* 😉 We had unexpected things happened that caused us to do some detour, but I still have faith in our ex-“Hangzhou in September” group, current “hangzhou wohooo yeah” group 🙂

However! They are still very German in some way (please be assured not because they are 100% made in German and are Germans haha) like I guess around 2 weeks ago we had Restaurant Week where all famous, fancy and expensive restaurant had a deal for either RMB 188 or RMB 288 for some set meals of appetizer-main course-dessert.

Marina went everyday so she could try 14 different food from fancy restaurant wooooo so cool. We should asked her real opinion of which restaurant she will suggest if there is no restaurant week deal. I don’t know how many times Thorben went but I knew for sure he missed 2 times, one with me and Marina and the other because he need to put his foot on the whirpool 🙂

Marina booked a table for 6 of us at Azul Tapas @ Ferguson Lane 8th floor but the elevator only goes until 7th floor and I never been there before so I was like “hmmm Im sure it was on the 8th floor” and we need to walked up to get to this fancy Azul Tapas. Bam! here we are!

The Menu indeed so interesting! I was very curious about the Egg 65 degree, I mean what does that mean anyway, you have to see the egg on 65 degree or what? haha while the other girls are more consent with the chocolate world. And when the food came, the egg 65 degree was rather weird I guess haha and we couldn’t finish it because it wasn’t my favorite pfffff but the other we finished it clean!  

And then I also went with Thorben, Marina, Julia and ……. (i’m sorry I forgot his name haha but at least I know his name starts with F right? haha) to The Cut also for restaurant week, duhhh when will I go to a fancy place if they don’t have special deal haha! But the menu of the Cut was too many “OR” choose this or that, bla or bla, lalalala. And on dessert I wanted to eat both and I couldn’t choose but thanks to Thorben he didn’t eat dessert so I can eat both! wohooooo

I arrived late at The Cut, and Thorben said that my Carpaccio already arrived but since I am not there yet and they were hungry so they had to take a bite and I was already at iapm mall, I just haven’t reach the 6th floor yet and I came as fast as I could to only find out that there was no food yet on the table 🙁 huaaaaa I arrive the cut with sweat because of running fast (please be in mind that the cut located in iapm, in a fancy mall with AC so if I can sweat that means I really ran 😉 )

And we finished the dinner and went to Thorben’s home with a happy tummy to play the Idk what is it called but it was the game that Ben wanted to showed us before and it indeed such a fun game!

Random facts, I will have to go to Vietnam on November because my Vietnamese best friend-弟弟 will get married XD! Let’s see if Thorben and Aggy could join or any other people are also welcome 😉 I will play the cards of Germans by planning on where I would like to go and hope Thorben and Aggy will be German Germans by able to have their holiday somehow and got a perfect plane for us 😀 (yes its a plane not a plan, because we kind of checked already that the flight to Vietnam wasn’t really comfortable one in terms of timing).

I really wish this short Vietnam weekend trip will end up in the most German Germans way possible 🙂

 

….This is the sequel of Thorben’s signature steak dish…

And Thorben and Marina’s host another dinner day, which I am invited btw 🙂 but this time they both cooked the whole day, because we have another 3 people and yeah I count myself already “in” with them ahahaha, I was obviously the first one arrived, but not because I’m the hungry one (apparently I was but I made it to be not that obvious because I met Marina’s before and we went to her apartments so that’s why I was the first guest). The other guest was Tim, Yves and Ben. So in total they had to prepare a feast for 6 people (including them) but as both of them are Germans their timing was so perfect! It was all finished at the same time! BRAVOOOOO! (I know it’s Italian…but hahaha let it be). Thorben bought a 1.5kg beef! This time he made mushrooms and potatoes and they both are so good! I like the carrots that Thorben’s made I dont know how he made it but the carrots were amazingggg!!!

Look how Thorben sliced it in a professional master chef kind of way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While we were waiting all the guest to arrived, Marina became our tour guide of the home, but she needs to repeat it again and again as none of us came at the same time ahahaha.

And we did the best that we could to Thorben, which is we didn’t disturbed him hahaha!

And then dinners are ready! I forgot the time but I think it took us less than 1.5 hours to kill all Thorben’s dishes haha! and then we have to have rest for a while before Marina’s signature cheesecake appears to the dining table 🙂

Look how petite the cheesecakes are! But, Marina also did a back up desert which is cheesecakes with oreo on the bottom, oh yeah! and I ate that one too! I mean I need to decide which one is better so I need to eat both but even after I ate both, I still couldn’t decide, guess I need more cheesecake just to make a decision 🙂

Tim, me and Yves we were that kind of “guest” that didn’t bring anything for the host, Tim said he did offer and Thorben said no, while me…hmmm I was rejected on the first time so I didn’t even bother to ask again hahaha! But then our one and only Ben brought something with him! And of course our host gladly received what Ben brought for them 🙂

Ben was so funny, he has many idea and he wanted to introduce us the game I don’t know what it’s called, but this game needed a laptop to be connected to the TV, so Ben borrowed Thorben’s laptop butttt the keyboard is Germans! so that Ben kept typing the wrong words haha and the 麻烦 was not stop until there, turns out we need to pay for the game, and we were such a “guest” we asked Thorben’s credit card hahaha but then there was another options to pay using Amazon’s account, and we tried to use Marina’s account but still doesn’t works because she forgot her passwords haha well, in the end Tim asked them politely “if we need to get out from your home feel free to say” and Thorben just nodded haha he didn’t even say anything and we left their home.

Here we are before we finished the feast

P.S Marina…… I missed the ice cream 🙁

….To Be Continued…

 

As Indonesian, we usually eat rice 3 times a day, I remembered when I still lived with my parents we always had rice with something as a breakfast, lunch was always rice with something at the school canteen and dinner obviously another rice. Therefore I don’t have a big shock culture when I moved to Shanghai because in here we also have rice, but….. I always crave for STEAK! But in Shanghai I never really got a chance to have steak, because I was a student for 4 years and as you know student is always ON BUDGET! hahaha I don’t eat outside much maybe once a week, and the rest was on the school canteen which I can eat big portion but still affordable (read: cheap, read carefully: very cheap!)

And then now I’ve already work for 1 year, but my office located in Jingan and everything in Jingan area are expensive! for a normal food, so don’t even think for a steak. And I’m such an opportunist, when Thorben said that he will make steak for me I said YESSSSS! It’s been a loonngggggg time I didn’t have steak! And I did, as a matter of politeness and also sincerely asked “Do I need to bring you or Marina anything?” and he said “No” and I didn’t ask him again haha he said no and that’s the end of story, I came to his apartment with an empty belly that is super ready to be filled by the steak!

I think I came at his place exactly at 7PM, I met Marina downstaris, she said she didn’t lock the door so I can just sneak in and surprise Thorben’s directly, but then in my mind when she said the door was unlock it means she let the door open duhhhhh! haha so, surprised failed and I knocked the door and then…. TARAMMM! his apartment is sooooo fancy!

Thorben started to cook and I started to make myself seems like at home hahaha I looked at their photo album which is the most sophisticated photo album I have ever saw, Thorben’s took a very good pictures and put it on a very fancy style kind of photo album that looks like a magazine style.

After I saw all of their photo album, dinner was ready! what a perfect timing! I had a medium-rare steak, look at this (drooolingggg)

including the water, he needs to make it fancy water with lemon, ginger, cucumber etc.

After the dinner, Thorben gave me Leyfa’s mama’s cake, yes it is a cake that Leyfa’s mom made it, I don’t know the name and I bet Thorben didnt know either so we just called it that way, it was soooooo good! and then we had an avocado-raspberry popsicle that Marina made. And then last Thorben gave me yoghurt with berry, grapes and nuts. Oh wow, I never had such a feast before! I came with an empty belly and go back home with a family pack belly.

And what makes the after dinner much more cooler ( I know its grammatically incorrect, it’s just the way I describe of how fancy their apartment’s) is Thorben has a DISHWASHER!!!! “I’m sorry landlady, I am a Germans we don’t wash our dishes on the sink, we need to have a dishwasher” perhaps that what he said when he was looking for apartment ahahaha never ever I saw an apartment that has a dishwasher before! But it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes to wash it haha such a waste of water and energy but it was already their eco-friendly mode sooo……… I’m not sure if they are just using the sink to wash how long will it takes? hmmmm

Btw, this Thorben’s cooking series will not only stop here, it is a continuous cycle haha will have the second part, third part and so on… meanwhile this is my happy face to have Chef Thorben’s steak signature dish.

…To Be Continued…