NICI Beaver (2011 NICI Summer)

Summer pants!

Flat broad tail..

Cute front teeth!

NICI Beaver is here!

NICI Beaver, the 2011 NICI Summer series finally arrived at Singapore. NICI-Mania flock are overly thrilled by these 2 cute beavers!

The 2011 NICI Summer series was not planned for released in Singapore, but thanks to special import from CNS Plaza Singapura, we get to buy this cute NICI Beaver.

25cm NICI Beaver with 10cm NICI Beaver key ring

NICI Beaver immediately made friends with Hugo Wolf. These little beavers will certainly enjoy the all summer season here in Singapore.

-Do Re Me-

Sweet and Sour Pork (咕嚕肉)

NICI-Mania presents Sweet and Sour Pork recipe! Sweet and Sour Pork often known locally as 咕嚕肉 "goo-lok-yok" is one of the most classic Chinese dish ever.

Sweet and Sour Pork, the name says it all about this classic dish. It is fried pork in sweet and sour sauce together with vegetables like cucumber, pineapple, onion, green capsicum, etc..

The vegetables in the Sweet and Sour Pork dish can vary up to personal likes but it must always have cucumber in it. Our sweet and sour pork recipe today uses tomato, cucumber and onions.

Sweet and Sour Pork is always cooked with the ingredients in cube shape, cut the tomato, onions and cucumber into cube shape but cut the lean pork meat into 1 inch slice and half inch thick.

Marinate the lean pork meat with 4 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of sugar, some pepper, half a fully beaten egg, and a lot of corn starch that is enough to cover all the meat evenly.

Add copious amount of oil into a hot pan and deep fry the lean pork meat in about 150-160°C of hot oil. Even though the lean pork meat is quite thick, it will be cooked in 40 seconds flat.

The lean pork meat will be browned like this after deep frying it in hot oil. Restaurants do not serve such a big piece of meat for sweet and sour pork. But since we are cooking it ourselves, the cost is lower so its alright to be spoilt sometimes :)

The lean pork meat is going to be tender-licious because the egg and corn starch protects the juiciness of the meat and the high temperature of deep frying locks all the juice within.

The Sweet and Sour Sauce

The sauce is the most important factor that decides the success or failure of this dish.

Prepare the sweet and sour sauce for the Sweet and Sour Pork in advance. 

6 tablespoons  of plain water
6 tablespoons of tomato sauce
3 tablespoons of vinegar
3 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt. 

Mix the sauce well. You can up or lower the ratio accordingly to the size of your dish.

The perfect ratio is the key to make any tasty sauce.

Now we can start frying our Sweet and Sour Pork. Remove all the oil from the pan earlier and leave about 4 tablespoons of oil in the pan. Start frying the onions and tomatoes first until fragrant. Then add in the well mixed sweet and sour sauce.

Add the deep fried pork into the pan and stir it well. When it is almost ready, add in the cucumber last and serve. Because of the sugar in the sweet and sour sauce, it will turn sticky and wrap around the lean pork meat.

Home made Sweet and Sour Pork is done! It is a very simple recipe and it taste very good! You can use the same recipe to cook sweet and sour fish or sweet and sour chicken.

Sweet and Sour Pork is a very popular dish you can easily impress your friends or family with it.

NICI Just Married (Jolly Mah)

NICI Just Married Jolly Mah Bridegroom and Jolly Mah Bride just landed at NICI-Mania. Our flock eagerly joins them as they tie the knot at their nuptial.

I, Jolly Mah Bridegroom take you, Jolly Mah Bride for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.

 I, Jolly Mah Bride take you, Jolly Mah Bridegroom for my lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.

Jolly Mah Bridegroom gingerly lifts Jolly Mah Bride's veil

The beautiful face of Jolly Mah bride unveils...

We lawfully pronounce you, husband and wife and you may now kiss the bride!

NICI Jolly Mahs - Just Married ♥♥

NICI Just Married is the latest 2012 offering for the Jolly Mah series.

There are lots of lovely merchandise from the NICI Just Married series. NICI-Mania got quite a few of them.

NICI Just Married pink heart shape cushion plush 40x36cm

NICI Just Married "I Love You" cushion plush. It has "I Love You" written in many different languages.

NICI Just Married cushion pink heart shape with 10cm Jolly Mah couple

We absolutely love the new NICI Just Married series for Jolly Mah. They are all so cute!

NICI Just Married is gonna be very popular as non NICI collectors will also buy them as gifts for couples getting married or decorate them for the wedding.

Happy Valentine's Day 2012

Hugo Wolf and Jolly Rosa at NICI-Mania wishes everyone:  

Happy Valentine's Day! Full of love, amor, 爱 ♥♥♥

Is it time...to get married?

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Find out more at NICI-Mania..lots of fun and excitement to come in 2012!!!

Parklane Zha Yun Tun

Parklane Zha Yun Tun is a famous and popular wonton noodle shop in Singapore. You can check out our previous wonton noodle review here (Best Wonton Noodle in JB)

 Parklane Zha Yun Tun is a Chinese pronunciation of the word deep fried wonton. Parklane Zha Yun Tun is inside Sunshine Plaza shopping center, as you step in it feels like a deserted place.

 Once you walk further in you can see the crowd at Parklane Zha Yun Tun lighting up the place.

 TV stations have been here, newspapers, magazines have all  been here to showcase Parklane Zha Yun Tun.

Hugo Wolf sees some familiar local artist at Parklane Zha Yun Tun. Hugo Wolf is also considered a well known celebrity isn't he? ^^

Our Zha Yun Yun noodles aren't here yet, so Hugo is playing around.

Our parklane zha yun tun is here!

The first thing to check out is definitely the deep fried wonton, which in mandarin called zha yun tun. Parklane's zha yun tun is very crispy but the minced meat filling is too stingy.

Next thing we check out is the wonton noodles! We liked that Parklane zha yun tun noodle's texture is very springy, not much taste going on in the noodles other than dark soy sauce.

The char siew (roasted pork) at Parklane zha yun tun is a surprise! It is soft and tender unlike many other wonton noodle store that gives thin slices of dry and hard char siew.

Parklane zha yun yun also came with..non fried yun tun

As usual, we always check out the green pickled chilli at wonton noodle store. We love the green chilli at Parklane zha yun tun here, it is crunchy and not too sourish.

We weren't impressed with Parklane Zha Yun Tun at our first try, but we went there again the second time and felt it tasted much better than the first time. When the eatery is too hyped, its normal that we have higher expectations. It is $3.50 for a bowl of Parklane zha yun tun with soup. We recommend ordering the $4 noodles!

NICI Elephant Plush

Say hi to NICI Elephant! The newest plush to join our crazy NICI-Mania flock. NICI Elephant plush is one of the most intricate animal here, let us show you why..

NICI Elephant has a very detailed and life-like face.

NICI Elephant has a pair of male elephant tusk.

NICI Elephant even has a mouth!

NICI Elephant has big flappy ears!

 NICI Elephant has hair tipped tail just like the real elephant.

And even nails! The attention to detail on the NICI Elephant is amazing!

NICI Elephant belongs to the wild friends series called Chumba and Bubaka. In case you're wondering, Bubaka the monkey has yet to join our flock.

We spot a few cute stuff like the NICI Elephant "piggy bank" and the one on the far right that looks like a paper weight..anyone knows what's that?

See you next time!