Photo Spam: David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, Nairobi, Kenya

More Photo Spam! This will be the last in my Nairobi/Kenya series of posts. David Sheldrick's Elephant Orphanage takes in baby and young elephants who are orphaned from their parents (most probably because the parents died to poachers who were after their tusks for ivory). Left in the wild, these young elephants would have no chance to survive, so the Orphanage takes them in, feeds them and nurtures them, and then releases them to the wild once they're big enough to fend for themselves.

The elephants are fed once a day at 11am, and for a token sum of KES 500 (RM 19.45), visitors get to come in and watch. It's actually a pretty fun visit, being able to see these young, playful elephants drinking milk and splashing around in a mud pool. The keepers will also give a short talk on the history of each of the elephants.












The Orphanage is right next to the Nairobi National Park, so if you're going there for safari do try to include a visit to the elephant orphanage - it'll definitely be worth your time.

Sakura Restaurant - Japanese food in Grand Bay, Mauritius

If you haven't already read the darling's previous post on her cupcakes, make sure you take a read. And make sure you try them too, because I (and about 30 other people in the office) can vouch for the cupcakes being absolutely delicious! For me ... being significantly less talented in the kitchen, I'll stick to eating out and writing about it :P

So back to a good ol' fashioned food review! In all my travels to maybe a dozen countries over four continents, I've always been able to find (in addition to the 'home' cuisine) three countries' food in relative abundance: Chinese, Japanese and Indian. Surprisingly Mauritius has a distinct lack of Japanese joints - a quick search on restaurants.mu shows only five on the entire island. Probably because Mauritius isn't a particularly popular holiday destination for Japanese tourists?

Whatever the reason, took the darling to Grand Bay, to try out Sakura Restaurant.


While the decoration and the furniture is long overdue for a refresh, the service is pretty good. We're seated at the front 'relaxing' area for drinks and cold towels while ordering our food, and while waiting for the waiter to set our table.


We decide to just share a Yakitori Set Lunch (600 Rs), because neither of us are particularly hungry. It starts off with an appetizer dish of salad and some deep-fried fish, which was OK-tasting.


The set lunch comes with fried rice and miso soup. We're impressed that the restaurant served us one bowl each (even though we only ordered one set). Fairly certain most other restaurants would have just said 'since you're too cheap to order two sets for two people, then you can share one bowl of rice and soup.'


The yakitori turns out to be tender and delicious. You're free to choose from Chicken, Chicken Wings, and more exotic chicken bits (liver, gizzards, etc), but we settled for just regular meat :)


We finish the lunch back at the 'relaxing' area for fruits, hot green tea and more cold towels.


Overall, the food was pretty good, if a little pricey - the green tea was 80Rs each! Total cost for the lunch came up to 874 Rs (RM 90) after 15% VAT. There also wasn't that much choice on the menu in terms of sushi and sashimi, though that's probably mostly caused by the (lack of) patrons - the darling and I were the only ones there on a Saturday afternoon.


Sakura restaurant is located in Grand Bay, which is the main tourist area located on the North-West-ish tip of Mauritius.

Baking Exploration ::: Mini Cupcakes to Warm Hearts

Starting a journey of kitchen exploring and fun with the always mention "the darling" in this blog. Bringing wonders and smiles to everyone faces on my experience I would love to use this amazing look-see-eat blog to share recipes with all of you so you may be able to spread the joy to your friends & family too!Since I am here in Mauritius, lucky enough the service apartment dear is staying in have a wonderful average oven I am able to delightfully start my kitchen exploring journey.

List of recipe to share with all of you it is so hard for me to choose my first recipe to share in this blog post. Since dear just passed his 30th birthday, I would like to share this mini cupcakes fun baking recipe, which I believe would be the best first very special post.

Cupcakes
1/3 Cup Softened Butter
1/2 Cup Caster Sugar
1 Egg
1 cup sifted Self-Raising Flour
1/3 cup Milk
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degree C.
2. In a medium sized bowl, use an electric mixer on high speed to cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and mix well. 3. Next, add the flour, milk and vanilla extract and beat with the electric mixer on medium until well combined.
4. Line up mini cupcakes pan with mini-cupcakes papers.
5. Spoon 1 tablespoon of mixture followed by 1 teaspoon of cupcake fillings that you would like to have (eg. blueberry, nuts, chocolates, raisins, etc) then followed by more cake mixture.
6. Bake for 13-15mins until well risen and the top spring back when touch.
7. Allow to cool for a few minutes on a wire rack before putting the icing.

Icing
1/3 cup of Softened Butter
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 cup Powdered Icing Sugar
Decorative Sprinklers

1. Use an electric mixer on high speed to beat the butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.
2. Gradually beat in the sieve powdered icing until all combined. Continue beating for 1 minute.
3. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle and pipe onto the cupcakes.
4. Decorate your mini cupcakes with sprinklers.


You may design your own cupcakes according to the occasions... This time around on 25 Nov 2010, it's designed for dear's birthday cake. Part of the surprise for dear.
Try it. It's fun and lovely.

Click here for our blog page Baking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Black Steer Restaurant - Trianon, Mauritius

I'm most definitely a carnivore at heart - I love my meat. And of all the meaty dishes, my favorite, top two are probably (i) a good steak, and (ii) a juicy slab of pork ribs. While I've been able to satiate my hunger for steaks marvelously thanks to Prime and other steakhouses in Kay-El, ribs are quite a bit harder to find.

It's for that reason, then, that the darling and I find ourselves at Black Steer. It's a 'chain restaurant' of sorts that I think originated in South Africa, and has somehow found it's way here to Mauritius. We're in the Trianon outlet.


The interior is pretty nice, and closer to a bar/restaurant environment (something like the TGIF and Chili's chains) rather than a sit-down dinner place. There's big screens and TV's everywhere, and also a rather lonely singer/keyboardist in the corner. He was good!


We decide to share a Mixed Starters (270 Rs). This comes with garlic bread, chicken strips, fried calamari, fried cheese and fried mushrooms. Chicken strips were excellent. Cheese also tasted great, but also felt a tad bit too sinful.


Rather than take two half-slabs, we just go for the Mighty Slab of Pork Ribs (575 Rs). Surprisingly, the waiter split the meal to two plates without us having to ask, which was a nice touch. Photograph here only shows half the rack. Most of the rib meat was nice, if a tad bit tough, and the 'edges' were a bit dry. BBQ sauce was finger licking good!


Total bill after drinks, tax, and discount was 944 Rs - roughly RM 97, so that's pretty reasonable and on-par with what you'd pay for a similar meal in Kay-El, too.