Been pretty busy last week with the booking of our flights to the US and confirming our hotel choices. Liew I realise that airfares can really go up and down very suddenly. Just 2 weeks ago, the airfare from SIN to LA on Cathay Pacific cost $5691 and it suddenly dropped to $1334. We thought we would wait a day or two but who knows it rose again to $5691! Then last week, I was just randomly checking out airfares and found that it dropped again to $1334! I immediately booked. Better not wait manz! After that, we had to book 3 domestic flights. The airfare on United Airlines for the flight from LV to SFO increased as I wanted to book! I refreshed the page and it displayed the higher fare! I checked again the next day and interestingly, it went back to the cheaper fare! Faster booked that too.
Good hotels in the US are not cheap. Plus, the tax is so high! Whatever savings we made in airfares (cos I budgeted much higher), half went into extra hotel cost. Why? Cos when I was doing the budgeting in my spreadsheet, I did not take into account the hotel tax and tourist tax and possible resort fee, lol. We ended up exceeding the budget for all 3 hotels after taking into account the taxes. Read a lot of reviews on Tripadvisor, but then I don't place 100% trust in the reviews cos of our bad hotel experience in London. We thought since we are going there to "MIA" (or "BMT", haha), better stay in better hotels lest the hotel spoils our mood, lol. I got quite peeved and irritated with the London hotel. Thankfully we were only in London for 2 nights, so it was still ok. Plus, we were not there to "MIL", so its OK lah. To play safe, we booked 4 star hotels. Hilton for our stay in LA, The Mirage Hotel for LV (cos it is located in the middle of The Strip, no need to walk until legs break) and Club Donatello for SFO. We got a very good deal for the hotel in SFO. Had been searching online for 2 days but couldn't find any hotels with reasonable prices. In fact, the hotels that I have shortlisted a few months back all increased their prices by a few hundred dollars!!!! Daylight robbery!!! Thankfully, I chanced upon some very good last minute deals at Booking.com and found Club Donatello's King Suite going for only US$637 (including taxes) for 4 nights!!! 
Yay, all bookings confirmed, so happy! Now gotta start hunting for a good camera tripod cos the old cat damaged our new Nikon tripod in Pisa (Italy)!
Dinner on Sat night (6 Jan)
Steamed Dou miao
Stir-fried Chicken with Salted Fish and Tofu
Mdm Yik gave me this recipe. She was kind enough to give me enough salted fish for this dish. I am surprised at how much it helped to enhance the taste and flavour of the dish! This is delicious! Mdm Yik was saying she bought salted fish cos she thought it is cheap, but ended up it was NOT cheap, lol. The auntie at the market said salted fish is expensive, haha. Good salted fish, I mean.
Steamed Silver Pomfret
After my previous attempt at steaming a black pomfret, I told myself I will never buy one again unless I use it for deep frying, which I hardly do so. On Sat, I bought the usual silver pomfret and manz its so delicious. I mean, black and silver pomfrets, they are both pomfrets, so why such a big difference in taste and texture??? The silver pomfret seems fresher and sweeter, the meat more tender. Its so nice manz! I used to steam this using the wok before I bought my steamer, which is more tedious cos my WMF wok is freaking heavy. Now I use the steamer. Don't know why, but somehow the fish tastes better. And No, its not psychological. Even the old cat said it was very, very nice! This is the Teochew style (cos I was lazy to prepare the sauce separately) without the chai po (I hate that) and tomatoes (I forgot to buy). Decided to make the fish look nicer by arranging the ginger like a star, haha.
Complete meal
Dinner on Sunday night (7 Jan)
Chicken Stew (one-pot dish)
I used the slow cooker to make this. This recipe includes 1 Tsp of Worcestershire sauce. I think this Worcestershire sauce really makes a difference to the dish. Don't know how to explain, you can just taste the difference. I put in chicken, potatoes, carrots and shitake mushrooms. Yummilicious! The old cat couldn't stop eating, haha! I shall cook this more often.
I cooked extra portions so that we can have it for lunch the next day at the office.
The one on the left is mine. See the difference in size?? He has 3 big scoops of brown rice while I had only one small scoop. For the chicken stew, he has 4-5 times more too, with a lot more chicken and potatoes, wahahhahahahhaa!
I realise that it is not easy to cook perfect brown rice cos it is hard to gauge the water level. For white rice, I usually put 1 cup of water to 1 cup of rice, but for brown rice it is different. First time, I put 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rice. It was a lil drier than we liked but still nice. 2nd time, I put 4 cups of water to 2 cups of rice and it turned out to be slightly sticky and soggy. 3rd time (yesterday), I put 4.5 cups of water to 3 cups of rice and it turned out good! See? I think the "pattern" and trick is to add approximately 1.5 cups more water. E.g. 3-3.5 cups of water for 2 cups of rice.
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