Tag: Hungover Boys

HA! The cooking days finally arrived! After so soo sooo many days of planning and 3 of us keep changing the date, finally 27th October is the day where me and Aggy will cook Indonesian dish for Thorben. I mean, after 4 times steak, it’s time to pay back ahaha but since it will be my first time to cook this dishes then it will only be a “trial” dishes therefore I won’t invite anyone else. And if we failed well….. this is the halloween dish haha 😀

Thorben has been very German since Tuesday,

T: Ok, what’s the plan for Saturday?

M: Aggy and I will come to your home and we will cook.

T: What about the ingredients?

M: Aggy and I will go to the market in the morning and then bring it all to your home.

A: Thorben, Marlyn kept saying “Aggy and I” but in reality she didn’t consult it with me.

M: Aggy, we need to stick it together all the time! haha and relax Thorben, this is Indonesian style we will do it only few hours before.

T: I can’t, I’m German I need to have some plan.

Meanwhile between me and Aggy we were like “OK lets go to carrefour to buy the veggies in the morning blablabla” and in the end we met at 2:30 and just go to wet market near Thorben’s haha

I came to Thorben’s home carrying a bag and many plastic with all the ingredients and also halloween costumes insides because after this dinner we will go for halloween party and so does Aggy and we unstoppable knocked the door and Thorben bumped the door from inside haha and I was “tarammm we are here” and we went to his kitchen and put all the stuff on his fancy kitchen set.

The menu for today is bistik, tempe (from fast season food-not from scratch), perkedel, gado-gado (also not from scratch). I was actually more nervous because Thorben made such a good steak, and my dish will be sweet and he can’t really eat sweet stuff and when he took out the tenderloin beef and I smashed it he said “did you just smashed the best meat from the whole cow?” 😀 hahaha Thorben, it has to be like this!

Aggy was sleepy at that time, she was trying to fall asleep on the sofa but she felt bad so she helped us to cut the onions blablabla

because actually Aggy’s part was making the gado2 which is the lasssttt part as it is such a fast salad haha but she helped me to cook the meat because it’s easier for me to explain how to do so and so in my own language although Thorben said “hey, English” 😉

I need to put the sweet ketchup all over the meat and Aggy said “Thorben, I’m sorry there is no medium well option, it will be only well done and Marlyn just ruined the whole good meat, don’t see it or you will get hurt” and I just laughed hearing that but honestly nervously laughed because I don’t think Thorben ever saw somebody pour out sweet sauce over a tenderloin meat haha 😀

There was a slight issue with this meat which is the cutting way it wasn’t as thin and as wide as what my mom said but Thorben said that I should have told him earlier if the meat should be so thin and he can’t cut it thinner especially after I smashed the whole meat for 20 minutes haha

I tried the meat and for me it wasn’t sweet, for Aggy it’s sweet and for Thorben it was too sweet haha so we put salt on it to make it less sweet for him. We need the vegetables for this dish which is carrot and potato, and Thorben cut it, I’ve told him how to cut it, but it still slightly different than my mom’s and he said “did I cut it wrong again?” haha

Thorben kept saying “OK, what else will we make? There are a lot of things on the table”

I said “Well Thorben, we will crash your kitchen, I’ve told you before” he was slightly nodded haha did we really made your kitchen dirty? *puppy eyes*….. but we also cleaned it!

Next is the “tempe” which is directly from the package but Thorben fried it idk too long or less oil or sth like that so the surface is seems like a burnt tempe but still the taste was good! 🙂 , this one wasn’t really impressive to him because we don’t need to do anything else hahaha we just directly open it from the package. Next we made “perkedel” we made a team, at first me and Thorben made the perkedel for the size of small pancakes (that’s how he said it) but then we improved, we became more systematic, I made the perkedel size and Thorben fried it. Ha! efficient German 😉

Then… Aggy and Thorben had a little bit of back and forth conversation of how to make the rice, we said in Asia this is how we make it but Thorben kept changing the way to how he made it in Germany anddd in result we got burnt rice 😉 hahaha! Well, I can’t say anything about the rice because we are suppose to make coconut rice but I forgot to bring the coconut ahahaha

Then Aggy made the very fast gado-gado which also too watery because Thorben apparently pour out more than 150cc of water hahaha but the peanut sauce still taste great! according to my opinion haha everything is great!

While I opened the chili sauce from the packages, I accidentally touched Aggy’s shirt hahaha and Thorben spray some cleaning things so it feels like Im washing Aggy’s shirt, she kept saying “it’s OK, it’s a work out shirt” but when she looked at the chili sauce stain she said “oh, this is quite a lot” hahaha sorry!

I guess, deep fried the shrimp crackers aka kerupuk was Thorben’s favorite haha. Me and Aggy kept saying the oil wasn’t enough but Thorben kept saying he already put many oil and in order to fry this kerupuk, Thorben need to keep back and flip it otherwise it will wrinkle and he said “Jesus Christ!” haha in the end he was using two tools to make this kerupuk, and we need to do it one by one because the kerupuk will get larger and larger.

Aggy kept saying “that’s enough kerupuk” but we insisted to fry more because we like it (and I need to put random facts that Aggy hasn’t showered since morning! because her hot water miraculously stopped working) so Aggy said “Can I take shower now?” Thorben said “Yes, please!” hahaha and while Aggy was in shower, we kept frying the kerupuk knowing that nobody will complaint 😉 hahaha

Finally, the whole cooking episode was finished! tadadaadammmm tarammmm,

But Aggy was still in showered, Thorben cleaned the kitchen and I started eating the crackers and Thorben said “stop eating it, I can hear you” haha and we shouted “Aggy, dinner is ready, hurry up” and then we start to eat and there was a moment when Thorben said “I like the beef” and both Aggy and I was “Thanks God” hahaha

I need to have a pride moment of picture of this day haha, Thorben said “one of you are happier than the other” 😉

Thorben said “so now, we can invite more people to make this” and I said “well, Marina, it’s already more than 3 people” hahahaha *wink wink* 😉

 

 

 

 

And here it goes the quadrilogy of Thorben and Marina’s dinner!

This time we almost had the full house except we miss the handsome Fredoy 🙁 so we were 7 people with Julia and Frank haha my guess about your name was right 😉 , and then Tim and Ben. Ben is always bring something for the host but he was the last one that arrived. Me, I was the first haha I don’t think you don’t need to ask about that but I wasn’t so German, I came 5mins late from the German dinner time.

Marina made the appetizer of salmon and ham rolled by spinach? or something I don’t know but it’s just soooo good! at first I thought it was kind of sushi but nope it ain’t sushi, and we also had bread! and some special things for the bread which I don’t even give attention to the name because I just busy eating it, but I remembered this things came from Marina’s garden or sth like that mwahaha 😀

Thorben made a different style of steak, mashed potato, different cutting of carrot style, still the same mushroom and salad. But spoiler! none of us touch the salad! huaaa poor salad 🙁 my very honest reason was….. I’m not a rabbit hahaha I need meat! 😉  He texted me and Aggy while he still prepares for the feast, he took picture of the ingredients and it was so tempting already. Cooking for 7 people indeed needs to start waayyyyy earlier.

Ben brought wine with him, and since it’s white wine so I had it as well. He bought it somewhere close by Thorben and Marina’s apartments and he ran into Italian people that asked him to have a drink but then he said “I was actually 15 mins late for a German dinner” and Ben said those Italian were like “Then go, go, hurry up” haha and we were just laughing there.

Frank actually ate quiets a lot. And it was so funny when Tim said “Actually we still have salad that we haven’t touch and I’m not even planning to touch it, there are so many good food here, I’m sorry Thorben” and I was totally agree with him haha! So I think it was Thorben that ate most of the salads hihihi!

Then, the desert always the jackpot! Marina made 30 cheesecakes! She said “Relax everyone there is enough cheesecake for everyone” and she made the new one was the one with nutella and oreo gezzzz! that cheesecake was seriously EPIC! * 4 thumbs up*

This house has EVERYTHING! Once second Ben said he needed tissue and then BAM! Tissue was there, I mean what you don’t have there Thorben? hahaha

We definitely need to play the Ben’s game, up until now I don’t even know what is the name of the game haha. I was using my name, obviously Marlyn and I guess it was Frank and Ben the first one that used the name of Also Marlyn and Not Marlyn and then somebody used the name of Marina, and Marina was “Who’s Marina?” haha. Ben didn’t stay up for long, he left after a while.

I was not the winner of this game that night! huhuhu the winner was Thorben all the time! besides, we all were so sucks at drawing so in the end we decided to play another game.

The second game was faster because we don’t need to draw, we just need to answer the questions. Two people will get the same question and we need to choose which answer we like, and the username of Frank and Tim was: Not Marlyn, Super Marlyn and then Very Marlyn haha!

I don’t know how there was a question like this:

If MARLYN had an underground club, the secret password would probably be……. hahaha I was confused and also wanted to laugh when I read the question 😉 I wanted to choose “Yes, I will cook steak for you” but then it’s too long for a password, so I choose STEAK and all of us chose it and Thorben was like “WHATTT?” hahaha turns out Thorben wrote the second answer and all of us commented because it was too loooonngggg 😉

And it was the best answer so far during the game 😉 If I’m not mistaken, Never Marlyn was Tim? ya? Just like the previous trilogy of the dinner, we always left their home about midnight because it was soooo cozy over there so I personally don’t want to leave 😉

I know there will be a time where I need to cook Indonesian dishes……well, let me put it this way, it won’t be Indonesian dishes but it will me my mom’s signature dish 🙂 So you will have to try the food that I grew up with 😉

Of course I am having a bit of pressure because Thorben’s dinner was and always epic! Therefore we agreed that on the first trial, I will cook for a small group of people to try and to calculate the time that we need to cook. And yes it’s a “we” instead of an “I” because first, Aggy will help and second, Thorben will also help haha! I cannot do this on my own but I will bring all the ingredients from Indonesia because me and Aggy never really cooks so we don’t know if we can buy the ingredients here which I do believe we could… but yeah I just want it to be like more dramatic that I’m bringing all the ingredients from back home hahaha!

Maybe the pentalogy edition will be my dishes..who knows! Meanwhile…… to be continued 😉

 

 

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…