Not sick of Korean food at all

Watching the Seoul episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern makes me hungry for some doenjang jjigae (soybean stew). The mee pok ta I had for lunch didn't quite do the trick.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

Back in Singapore, where the air is still, the sky is a surprisingly glorious blue and the cats are wondrously indolent. Other than dealing with an allergic reaction I picked up in Seoul, things are peachy keen. I'm all unpacked and about to start triaging snailmail.

What you missed of my trip home, as told via Facebook status updates:

9:09 a.m., Seoul
... is off to spend the day at Incheon Airport.

2:40 p.m., Incheon International Airport
... thinks every airport should have a place like the Naver-sponsored internet lounge at Incheon Airport --- super-fast wi-fi and power points built into every seat.

6:57 p.m., Shanghai Pudong International Airport
... is in Shanghai Pudong Airport on a 6-hour layover, where there is decent free wi-fi but no power points.

8:34 p.m.
Found the power points.

10:32 p.m.
... finally finished uploading all her Korea pictures to Flickr (thank you, free wi-fi at Incheon and Pudong).

12:12 a.m.
My connecting flight from Shanghai's been delayed ...

In the end the delay lasted two hours --- the plane was coming in from Beijing, which was enduring apocalyptic thunderstorms. I whittled away the extra time Skyping my cousin in Paris, whining on Facebook and reading Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road.

Since I touched down, I've had roti prata, teh tarik, Peranakan food at Big D's, and chicken rice and Hainanese food at Chin Chin Chicken Rice. I'm not sick of Korean food at all, but I don't think it'll taste the same if I eat any in Singapore this month.

Just call me an old-fashioned girl

I spent some of today working and watching Mad Men (my newest addiction), then after dinner I did something I hadn't done in a very, very long time: I curled up on the couch and read --- a book.

Sure, the TV was on for white noise, the laptop was on and my cell phone occasionally beeped with a text message that I answered. But for over three hours I sat and read that book, getting up only to refill my mug of tea (I'm trying to fight off an incipient sore throat) or go to the bathroom. I'd already read about one-third of the book and I finished the rest of it tonight.

This is not to say that I haven't been reading all year. I read online everyday, heaps and heaps of stuff. But when it comes to books, I usually read them to kill dead time while I'm on public transport, waiting for public transport, waiting in line at the post office or waiting for a friend at a cafe. In other words: as much as I love reading and books and words and ideas, I very rarely choose to read a book, when I could be doing something else.

Tonight I actually caught myself thinking something along the lines of, "Okay, so I've finished that episode of Mad Men and I don't have the next one. But I have the latest episode of Dollhouse. But after that I don't have anything else, so how will I fill up the evening ..."

And I think it was when "how will I fill up the evening" traipsed across my mind, that I knew there was something terribly, terribly amiss.

The book I finished was Jen Lin-Liu's Serve the People, which I stumbled across at the library last week while I was looking for books on Korean food. It's an account of Lin-Liu's journey to learn to cook Chinese food in China, from a cooking school for kitchen workers who need government-approved culinary qualifications to a hole-in-the-wall noodle shop to one of Shanghai's most chi-chi restaurants.

I have to admit that I picked up the book mostly because the friend who recently landed a book deal is going to write a memoir linked to Singapore food (see her spanking new blog, A Tiger in the Kitchen, which shares the title of the book), and there are other food-related ideas that are burbling at the back of my brain. At any rate, it was nice to take a walk through modern-day China through someone else's eyes, and the ease with which most of the Chinese terms and names made sense to me, made me wonder if I shouldn't indeed spend some time wandering around that vast and crazy land. If nothing else, as I told everyone when I got back from Shanghai last year, my spoken Mandarin would improve really quickly.

This book aside, everything else I've been reading has been related to the upcoming Korea trip. I'm still trying to find a good book on Korean food --- not a recipe book, not a glossary of definitions, but a proper look at the culture and the people. Recommendations welcome!

Entertaining

Three friends. Two bottles of wine. Many barbecued chicken wings and sticks of satay. Heaps of sushi and spinach salad. Two cups of coffee. Five slivers of dessert from Indulgence.

Now that the friends have left, the dishes are done and I'm sitting on the couch to unwind --- Sisu has decided to go to sleep on my outstretched ankle.

Tidbits

At 9:45 p.m., Deanna pinged me online: "Supper?" It turned out that neither of us had eaten dinner yet, so about half an hour later, we rendezvoused at the Tanjong Katong outlet of Ponggol Nasi Lemak, where a plethora of fried food and oily greens awaited us.

I was working late because I had taken the afternoon off to hang with the best friend. Her schedule had finally let up enough that she could come by to see my place. Like every other guest I've had, she was equal parts appreciative of the view and puzzled by my landlady's decision not to install any ceiling lights in the bedrooms (I have plenty of table and standing lamps to compensate).

Before I go to bed (even though it's only been two hours since I finished my meal of nasi lemak), I leave you with this: are you a Page Turner, a Slow Worm, a Serial Shelver or a Double Booker? I'm a Page Turner, for sure, as well as a reformed Serial Shelver, but I've never been a Double Booker and I can't imagine being a Slow Worm.

The wind begins to howl

Sometimes I reread old blog posts, and I wonder why I don't write like that anymore.

I'm rereading those posts because of a related article I'm working on --- or ought to be working on (don't panic, Pin), but all I've got are half-formed thoughts scrawled in ballpoint pen across recycled paper and two old-but-well-written blog posts staring me accusatorily in the face. It's one thing to have an inferiority complex, it's quite something else to have an inferiority complex about one's younger self.

To avoid thinking about the article and other melancholy subjects tonight, I went for my weekly Pilates class, followed by a late dinner at Peperoni Pizzeria. Parma ham, rocket salad and mozzarella on a pizza make a surprisingly good diversion. Good conversation always helps too (thank you, Darren and melch and friend).

There would be a picture of the pizza here, but I ate it all.

Homesick

After a mediocre-to-average brunch at 7atenine, I needed to redeem my palate, so I rounded up a few friends for dinner at Azhang.


I know I'm getting old and crotchety because so many new and trendy restaurants disappoint, and I keep crawling back to the ones that I know won't fail me. Fortunately, with friends, there are many old ones who haven't failed me, and also a number of new ones who haven't disappointed.

Via a friend's Facebook status update yesterday, I came across the best quote about Singaporeans and food yet, from Calvin Trillin in the New Yorker last year: "Culinarily, they are among the most homesick people I have ever met."

Saturday

You know the evening's off to a good start when the host half-bellows at his wife, "You leave Lana cake where there might be ants?"

Don't worry, there was plenty of ant-free Lana cake when we cracked the box open a few hours later.

The good thing about buying a 1.5 kg Lana cake for just eight people to share, is that there'll be leftovers to bring home afterwards.

Related posts: The Lana virgin, Lana cake for lunch, I am a Hobbit

A weekend of mooching

Good meals eaten: 3, at Picotin on Friday, La Petite Cuisine this afternoon and Canopy tonight.

Alcohol imbibed: 2 glasses of wine, 1 half-litre of German beer and 1 mediocre vodka 7-up (Night & Day really needs to get better bartenders).

New clothes acquired: 1 skirt --- finally, a denim skirt that I like.

Kilometres cycled: 4-5 today, although it would've helped if the cycling path at Bishan Park were not overrun by joggers and amblers.

Friends caught up with: 13. Whoopee!

Inundated by coffee chains

Hot on the heels of learning that Tully's Coffee from Seattle has opened two outlets in Singapore, I just learned tonight that there's a Trung Nguyen as well (via The Travelling Hungryboy). And only yesterday I was whining on Facebook to a friend that I miss my daily dose of ca phe sua da.

Having said that, I don't think Singapore really needs more coffee chains when it already has Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Coffee Club, Gloria Jean's and TCC (I'm sure I've forgotten someone). And the fact that Trung Nguyen doesn't serve ca phe phin (drip coffee) kinda negates the whole point of ordering Vietnamese coffee.

As I was lamenting to Yan Wei last week, what Singapore needs are more indie cafes like Saigon's La Fenetre Soleil.

"So what are you doing now?"

That's what a couple of people have asked me since I got back in circulation in Singapore. Some of them thought I'd finished my Lonely Planet writing while I was in Vietnam. To which I shake my head fervently and mention the 65,000 word count I've got to complete by January 9. Sure, some of it got written while I was there, but all the longer texts (i.e. anything longer than 50 words per block of text) still need to be done.

In between writing getting the writing started, I've also initiated the apartment-hunting process. I have until January 21 to relocate. Ideally, I'll be able to wrangle a new place with a move-in date in mid-January, thereby allowing me to complete the Lonely Planet work in peace.

Ideally.

The other thing I've been doing is sneezing regularly. The spates started in Saigon, where I had a slight itchy-eye/sneezy reaction, but it's become full-blown now that I'm home. I wonder if it's the cats or the general air quality. (It's definitely not a cold --- different type of sneezing.)

Tomorrow I'm going to my first Thanksgiving dinner in 11 years. There'll be a roast rack of lamb instead of roast turkey, Caesar salad instead of green beans, and potato au gratin instead of mashed potatoes --- but it's the spirit that counts. Besides, there will be pumpkin pie.

Getting things sorted

When friends at home saw me online this afternoon, all they wanted to know was a) how was everything in Hanoi, and b) what was I doing online instead of checking out the place I'm supposed to be writing about?

To the latter, the answer is: I'm not writing about Hanoi, I was chillaxing for the day and I was online only to finish up some prep work for tomorrow, which is the first real "working" day of my trip.

Today we wandered around Hanoi some to run errands --- buy train tickets and Vietnam SIM cards --- and I got to eat a lot more street food than I did the last time. No pho yet, but plenty of time for that (seven weeks, to be precise). Today we had bun cha, baby pineapples, some dumplings with, er, mystery meat, a salad-y thing with something that resembled beef jerky, and cha ca la vong. I was too busy eating to take pictures of anything.

Hanoi is still a fun place to get lost in, just don't let the motorbikes run you over, but I think the air quality has declined distinctly. The quality of light at night is just off, somehow.

Tomorrow we're off to Ninh Binh, and I don't know if the hotel we're checking into has wifi. So don't mind if there's silence around here for a few days ...

My fridge smells faintly of durian

I haven't had any durian this season, so I treated myself to the next best thing today: durian puffs from Puteri Mas. The treat was for finishing all my Singapore-based work ahead of time, thereby giving myself one entire week to do last-minute prep and research for my trip. This includes:

• Finalising my air ticket back to Singapore.
• Buying a poncho or three.
• Changing money.
• Getting my second hepatitis jab.
• Getting a haircut.
• Buying Apple Care.
  
• Seeing family and friends.
• Backing up the laptop.
• Packing and making sure I can heave the backpack around.
• Avoiding the downtown area where the first! ever! Formula One night race! is majorly fucking up traffic.
  

I'm sure there's other things I've forgotten.

In other news, my landlord is selling the place where I live, so I have to wait and see if the buyer wants to let me renew the lease. Failing which, it's back to the classifieds after I get back from Vietnam.

Random observations about food from the last few weeks

Having a flimsy memory is not remembering to drink the milk in the fridge unless I set a daily email reminder for it.

Sometimes I buy food from unlicensed street vendors, just because.

I have 40 39 pieces of vadai in my kitchen, fresh from Gordon's Katong Vadai, for tonight's party. Woot!

What have you eaten lately?

I was wondering what to blog about today, then I came across this new meme at olduvai's monomania.

The Omnivore's Hundred (which originates at Very Good Taste)

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you've eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (I want to say I've eaten this, but I'm not sure)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth US$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S'mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (I think kway chap counts)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe (I can't remember if I had this in Prague)
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef (I'm not sure if I've had this)
86. Hare (rabbit counts!)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I've had 55 of the items, excluding the three (crocodile, absinthe and Kobe beef) I'm not sure if I've eaten before. I guess my score isn't too surprising for someone who lives in a fairly international city.

I'd do better if I was more open to Mexican food or, you know, had more cash (see items #45 and #84 in particular). After all, the only thing I flatly won't eat is insects --- although now that I think about it, I must've inadvertently ingested a tiny black ant or two in my time.

Oddly enough, I haven't had a PB&J sandwich, despite the four years I spent in the US.

Nom nom nom

They were from Glory Catering and tasted just as good as they oughta.

However, I was stuffed after two, so I didn't eat them all in one sitting.

Pure heaven

I really like the "taste" of ice-cold water, but it tastes even better after a cup of rich black coffee.

Yan Yan teaches you English

When I first started eating Yan Yan in the '80s, they came in two flavours --- chocolate or strawberry (feel free to say that in a "Okay Pocky" voice) --- and the biscuit sticks were plain and unadorned.

Now the biscuit sticks try to teach you English.


More accurately, they try to teach word association in English. This is what the sticks say (the animal name is on the top end of the stick, the rest of the words on the lower half):

• Bat --- Only in the night
• Stag beetle --- Love it
• Rhinoceros --- Think big
• Elephant --- Jumbo
• Cow --- Muuuuu
• Frog --- Amphibian
• Rabbit --- Eat more carrots
• Owl --- Active at night
• Panda --- Go for more
• Sheep --- Wool sweaters

Now what I want to know is: who gets to be the copywriter for the Yan Yan sticks, and where can I sign up?

I have no tastebuds

I thought the Coke tasted a bit flat yesterday, but maybe the warm weather got to it. I thought the beef bourguignon didn't quite turn out right, but maybe I'm just a bad cook (plus the cousin had certain views on the recipe I followed).

But when today's green tea and sashimi left the same sensation of a missing taste over lunch, I knew my tastebuds were in revolt. So much for getting better. It's very frustrating to try and obtain a taste, any taste, when every successive attempt seems more futile. Besides the Japanese food, I tried mint tea, a mini Milky Way and a mini Mars bar, and some pizza. Only the pizza yielded some flavour because I sprinkled chilli flakes all over it. The only thing that tasted "right" today was water.

My mom says I should try to eat and drink stuff that is sourish, so maybe tomorrow will be all about tom yum soup and lime juice.

Instead of cooking

I had an inexplicable craving for delivery pizza tonight, so for the first time in over a year, I called Sarpino's and put in an order (with a friend standing by to help with the eating). The best part was that between us, we polished off the two 10" pizzas and side order of chicken wings, so there were no leftovers for the fridge, hurrah!

I would've cooked dinner but I've run into plumbing problems again: one of the pipes running from the kitchen sink has sprung a leak. A friend is gonna help seal it up this weekend, but meanwhile I'm avoiding any kitchen activities that would entail washing the dishes with soap. The hardest part is, predictably, not being able to make coffee in the morning.

Strike three, but we got lucky

Because I am a freelancer who is --- for all intents and purposes --- surgically attached to her internet connection, Cowboy Caleb calls me on occasion for last-minute restaurant advice and I spend about five minutes helping him pick a place where he can fête a client or boss on his company's tab. The other typical condition is that it has to be a place that he knows how to get to in Singapore, which can be harder than it sounds.

Today he calls at about noon from Hong Kong and needs a place for dinner tonight. He can't expense the meal, but still needs it to be nice enough. Oh, and no Asian food.

We settle on Valentino's, because we've been there before and it's pretty damn good food. He asks me to get a reservation (yes, I am officially his entertainment secretary, didn't you know?) and SMS him when the table's booked. I call. Valentino's, it turns out, is fully booked for the night.

A little SMSing, another phone call. "How about Marmalade Pantry at Palais Renaissance?," I suggest, "because the air-conditioning at the Holland Village one isn't working [as I found out to my dismay on Monday night]."

"Where's Palais Renaissance?"

"Next to Orchard Towers, between Orchard Towers and the Thai embassy."

For reasons that cannot be reported here, Cowboy Caleb declines to go anywhere near Orchard Towers. We settle on Ember at Hotel 1929, another reliable choice that he knows how to get to.

I call and: "We regret to inform you that we will be closed for renovations from 30 April to ..." Cheebye. I hang up without bothering with the rest of the automated message.

"Strike two," I SMS Cowboy.

He calls back. By this point, I'm trawling through The Travelling Hungryboy for ideas. We confer. "Okay, Wild Rocket," he decides.

I call and I cannot believe my ears: "I'm sorry, but we're closed tonight for a private function."

Clearly, the moral of the story at this point is that it is not possible to get a dinner reservation at a decent place on the eve of a public holiday (it's May Day tomorrow), unless you planned your evening a week before and had time to work your way through an entire restaurant directory.

Cowboy cannot believe it; neither can I. James comes to the rescue on MSN: "Cork", he says, "63279169." Does Cowboy know where Capital Towers is? Why yes, he does. After which he SMSes: "I boarding the plane. You decide."

Meanwhile, I'm calling --- and miracle of miracles, they are open, they have tables available and they are pleased as punch to take Cowboy's reservation. I manage to sneak in a last confirmation SMS to Cowboy and the URL for Chubby Hubby's review of the place before he switches off his phone on the plane.

As far as I know, dinner went all right.

It seems Secretaries' Day has just passed us by, so Cowboy owes me a huge bonus next year. He should buy me dinner at a nice place.

I have become a breakfast person

It used to be that I didn't eat breakfast at all, and it was a point of pride for me to declare as much. My mother was a little surprised by this, seeing as she'd faithfully fed me breakfast through most of my growing years, but I'd fallen out of the breakfast habit when I went away to university and didn't quite pick it back up when I moved back to Singapore.

Until now.

I blame it on all the good food easily available around me. Within a 5-10 minute walk from home are an excellent German bakery, a Cedele outlet and, if all that fails, two grocery stores. Within a 10-minute bus ride are a lovely Malay eatery with tip-top epok-epok and shops with various Peranakan kueh options. A 10-minute car ride away is Scruffy Murphy's at East Coast Park, home to the oily English breakfast (the photo above was taken last year; when G-man and I ate there yesterday, the grilled tomato and mash had been replaced by baked beans).

So eating breakfast has become quite a delightful way to start out the day, despite the fact that it's usually eaten while I'm doing work, and now I often find myself wondering, "Hm ... what else can I eat for breakfast tomorrow?"

Clearly, I need to start cooking my own breakfasts, especially on the weekends. I haven't made French toast in months, and after having a passable croque madame for lunch today (disguised on The Caffebar's menu as "ham and cheese sandwich with egg"), I'd like to try making that too. I also need to replicate the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon that James had earlier this week.

Breakfast today consisted of two epok-epok and two slightly overripe bananas. Breakfast tomorrow will be an orange cranberry muffin from Cedele. After that --- who knows?

The Lana virgin

Yesterday, the best friend and I went to visit Ondine and the twins, and my mom was there too to help with the kidlets, so it was clearly an occasion that called for a Lana cake. 1.5 kg of it, in fact, a good hunk of which is still sitting in my fridge (yes, the sacrilege, but I couldn't eat it all in one day).

But that's not what I'm here to tell you about. No, no --- this is the story of the Lana virgin.

It seems that Lana Cakes, along with any number of other good cake stores, were featured in a recent newspaper article about the best cakes in Singapore. That's the only explanation why a woman ahead of me in the queue (who looked about my age, standing there patiently with her mother and her child) asked the counter staff very matter-of-factly, "Excuse me, do you have a brochure?"

A brochure? In my head, I was thinking, "What kind of place do you think this is --- a normal bakery? This is Lana. They don't have brochures. You come in, you get your cake, you go, that's it."

The counter staff was nicer. "No, I'm sorry, we don't have any brochure. We just have a few kinds of cake, or when you call and order, we can tell you."

"Ohhh ..." The woman seemed mystified, but conferred politely with her mother. Meanwhile, the counter staff went to retrieve my dutifully pre-ordered cake. By the time she had shown it to me and done it up in the trademark white box with a purple ribbon and was sliding it into an equally purple plastic bag, the woman had decided she wanted a 1-kg cake and asked for a slip of paper to write down the birthday message she wanted icing'ed on it.

The best friend and I walked out of the shop, shaking our heads. A brochure from Lana? We didn't cluck our tongues like old biddies, but I know I wanted to.

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Related posts: Lana cake for lunch, I am a Hobbit

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Lana cake

A Saturday's adventures

For all that I rail about crowds on a regular day, I don't mind occasionally plunging myself into the thick of one when I don't have any particular objective in mind. Evidence, to wit: the Great Chinatown Walkabout of several years ago, which was followed by the Great Hari Raya Puasa Walkabout, Comex last September, and more recently the Singapore Air Show last month.

Yesterday's challenge: the Singapore IT Show.


Part of me wanted to buy a terrabyte hard drive just so that I can say I have one --- but my 200 GB backup drive isn't even half full at the moment, so who am I kidding here? Nonetheless, my brain is still sufficiently new to the concept of a terrabyte that I kept referring to it as a "one-tetrabyte" drive. To which my friend enquired, "Is that like ---" beat "--- tetra pak?"

After a couple of hours in the crowd, it was time to get out of Suntec altogether.


At Food for Thought, I really like the brownies (Aunty Rubiah's, according to their website), but I can never finish one on my own. So I only order it if there's someone to eat the rest.

Fortified with caffeine and sugar, I was off to a hen night at Oohtique!.


At which I think I drank more than anyone else except the bride-to-be. It was only four drinks, but enough to earn me the following Truth or Dare question: What was your worst drunk experience?

(Tangent (TM Stellou): On a sort of related note, I once remarked that I have a couple of drinks, three or four times a week --- to which a medical professional at the table said, "You realise that's about the healthy limit, right?" Surely his maths is wrong?)

The story of my worst drunk experience, like the full details of what transpired last night, will stay only with those who were there to share it. Suffice to say that last night's activities ended around 1 am at Geylang Lorong 12, where a totally illegal pushcart vendor sells kick-ass carrot cake (chai tow kway).

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore IT Show, Food for Thought, hen night

An unexpected taste

It's extremely disorienting when the pork chops from a Western food stall at a hawker centre taste like Twisties (chicken flavour).

Fortunately, it wasn't my dinner.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, pork chops, Twisties

The teh si that failed

Last night, Suzie and I were wandering Chinatown, looking for a breezy spot to enjoy a little night air and maybe some teh si (tea with evaporated milk). There were no availably breezy spots at Maxwell Hawker Centre, while there were no hot beverages to be had along Smith Street. So we deposited ourselves at the well-touristed corner of Trengganu and Pagoda Streets.

On hindsight, I should've known better. This is the yellow-chaired coffeeshop that is always full of tourists. But then, we just wanted a simple teh si --- we weren't asking them to whip up a mean char kway teow or anything.

First, the guy who makes the drinks wasn't available. When he got back, he brought us one drink instead of two. While he toddled off very good-naturedly to make us the second one, I had a sip of the first, which was suspiciously pale. Yuck --- far too much milk and water, hardly any tea. I went back to the counter to ask the guy to add more tea to the cup. Maybe he heard me wrongly, but he added a dollop of sugar instead. While I flailed my hands trying to explain my request, he said he would just make me a new one.

A couple of minutes later, we had two glasses of tea, as pale as the first had been, and were out two bucks for it. Sipping the tea gingerly confirmed that it was, again, mostly milk and water --- in fact, mostly water. I didn't bother to drink mine; Suzie persevered through most of hers.

Clearly, the worst teh si in all of Singapore, and given that every other drink stall here makes it, that's saying a lot. I had a merely mediocre one at lunch today, but after last night's experience, it didn't seem so bad.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, teh si

I survived Chinese New Year Eve shopping

Hitting Parkway Parade on the eve of Chinese New Year may not seem like a smart thing to do, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have a kati of bak kwa and a jar of prawn rolls to keep the love letters company in the kitchen. Also, I wouldn't have serendipitously run into first bee, then Olorin and had the chance to catch up with the latter over coffee --- during which we bumped into another ex-colleague. Olorin actually had three hits altogether, so clearly his Eastie karma is stronger than mine.

The queues weren't too bad, either. At Bee Cheng Hiang, I was about the fifth in line, but everyone was telling me how ridiculously long it was when they passed the shop. At Cold Storage, I managed to get through the checkout counter in about fifteen minutes.

So I count myself lucky, and now I'm gonna go eat some bak kwa before reunion dinner no. 2, where steak and salad awaits.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year

I did not know that yesterday

Blog post title taken from the eponymous blog, which I read from time to time.

Last night, I left the Discovery Travel & Living channel on for white noise, which threw up a World Café: Asia episode on Singapore. Presenter Bobby Chinn went through the usual hawker favourites, then ended up on Pulau Ubin where an Indian woman cooked him nasi kerabu --- described on the show as a dish once common in Singapore that's all but forgotten now.

To which I say: nasi what? Turns out it's a synonym for nasi ulam, which I think I've seen listed at Malay food stalls before, though I've not tried it. Google actually turns up more entries related to the Kelantan variety, where the rice is apparently tinted a bright blue colour. Don't think I've seen that in Singapore.

Then today, while IMing with Suzie, she expressed a craving for kuih rose. To which I pretty much responded again with: kuih what? Once more Google threw up images of food I didn't recognise, though Suzie's well-acquainted with the snack. How did I miss this while growing up here?

All of which points to the fact that while we rave about how much great food we have in Singapore, there is always something else lurking in the next stall or shop that we haven't tasted yet.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore food, nasi kerabu, kuih rose

Recent happy food discoveries

I haven't been invited to any Xmas parties (yes, I confess, I'm a little distressed about that), but there's been a great deal of dinners out with friends to make up for it. Which has led to some rather delightful discoveries on the local food scene.


Bella Pizza at Riverside View is so new that Googling it will come up with nothing except blogger Ermita's review (sounds like she was there the night before I was). The pizzas are fabulous, the fettucine carbonara was the best I've ever had in Singapore, and I'm glad Olorin and I went for the Nutella banana crepe for dessert, because man, did that hit the spot.


I don't usually eat fancypants breakfast during the workweek, but I was starving when I got to TCC for a meeting on Wednesday and all they had were elaborate repasts that must've taken at least 20 minutes to assemble on the plate. No such thing as a simple bagel or muffin on their menu.

Surprisingly (because TCC is a coffee chain not exactly known for its culinary finesse), the food looked as good as it had in the menu and then tasted as good too. For a start, the "on the vine tomatoes" were really served on the vine and were nice and corpulent. I'm going to remember the combination of scrambled eggs, sliced parmesan and smoked salmon when I want to make myself a good breakfast at home.


Tonight, Casey and I went to 25 Degree Celsius, which I've been meaning to check out since w wrote about it last month. Not only was it refreshingly uncrowded (though the packed MRT trains on the way to town damn near did me in), the service was delightful and the food was great: duck confit so tender one barely needs a knife, flavourful un-fishy barramundi fillet and a rice cake whose ingredients we couldn't identify but which we loved.

Plus they sell books! Cookbooks!Books about food! Plenty to browse and salivate over. I'm definitely coming back.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Bella Pizza, TCC, 25 Degree Celsius

It's not really Xmas till ...

I have fresh cupcakes from Baked Ideas in the house.


There were four boxes of them, but most are going away as gifts.

The cat, of course, immediately decided as I unwrapped this box for myself, that the pink ribbon was his new toy.

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Technorati Tags: Baked Ideas, cupcakes, Ink the cat, Xmas, Christmas

Now why didn't I think of that?

So there are these two female architects in New York who make it a point of a) having lunch out of the office, b) documenting it religiously. Hence: LUNCH with Front Studio, which even has a handy-dandy map of all the places in their neighbourhood where they eat. They also keep track of their daily 4 pm espresso break snacks.

Saith the ladies:

We believe leaving the office everyday for lunch is an invaluable ritual. In a time and city where people are constantly rushing around, trying to accomplish three tasks at once, taking a moment to have a civilized meal becomes even more vital. Eating at your desk while reading emails, surfing the world wide web, snarfing down a bland turkey sandwich from the deli down the street is NOT lunch.

Amen, sisters. If I had a dollar for every time I've said that to myself, or tried to entice an overworked associate out to lunch with that logic ...

As karma would have it, today might be a day when I skip lunch because I have meetings that run 11:30 am - 1:30 pm, followed by many urgent errands thereafter. Poo.

(Via Popgadget.)

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Technorati Tags: lunch, LUNCH with front studio, lunch who lunch

A sole comparison

The last piece of lemon sole I had before last night was as delightfully light as its name suggests, served on a white plate with some sparse vegetables. It was at Le Chien Qui Fume, a seafood restaurant off Les Halles in Paris that my cousin brought us to for dinner, after a day at Versailles. She had a splendid platter of fresh seafood that she happily plucked off its mountain of ice, and later we shared a sublime sabayon, the first I'd ever sampled and what she assured me was a very good specimen thereof.


Last night's lemon sole was a whole different matter. At Big Fish, the friend whose birthday it was wanted oysters and rainbow trout, then there was seafood chowder too, and I thought the lemon sole would be a nice light wrap-up to my meal. But how wrong I was because at Big Fish, they give you the whole lemon sole, slathered in a sauce that my tastebuds are too feeble to identify other than that it was tomato-based.

Needless to say, I couldn't eat dessert afterwards.

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Technorati Tags: lemon sole, seafood, Le Chien Qui Fume, Paris, Big Fish Seafood Grill, Singapore,

A slow Sunday

cour marly asked why there were no pictures on my previous cooking-related post, and I think this one proves why: I may be getting the hang of very basic cooking, but I am not getting the hang of making my meals look like anything anyone else might want to eat. Nevertheless: very tasty bacon and eggs, prefaced with a Cedele muffin.

Bacon is such a no-brainer to cook and not too expensive in the supermarket either, I fear I might be headed for more bacon in my diet than is healthy. For instance, I'm having bacon for dinner again tonight.

Today was one of those ridiculously sweltering afternoons where the stickiness of the air makes it impossible to concentrate on anything more cerebral than cutting-and-pasting or pressing "play" on the DVD player. Even the cat was cranky and whiny. Sitting in front of the fan helps (I was resisting the urge to switch on the air-conditioning), but I'm just glad my throat's recovered quickly enough from the last few days' wonkiness that I could go back to iced drinks again.

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Technorati Tags: bacon, hot weather

Occasionally, I can cook

Nigella's How To Eat taught me how to marinate and pan-fry chicken breast. bowb taught me how to saute mushrooms to perfection (a lot of butter and garlic is involved). I took a risk by tossing some cherry tomatoes into the mix. Less risk was involved with the final sprinkling of oregano and parsley and salt.

And then there was dinner.

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Technorati Tags: cooking

On the go

Since 3:30 pm, I have consumed two black coffees, one iced tea (unsweetened) and one ice Milo (very much sweetened and loaded with Milo powder). This is what happens when one is roving between meetings and killing time slash clearing email at any wireless-friendly cafe in town.

I'm also peckish and dinner's not for another hour, so I'm now adding several mouthfuls of kaya toast to the mix. I'm sure I'll start feeling ill any minute now ...

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Dreaming of pancakes

Leafing through Nigella Lawson's How To Eat before sleeping leaves one dreaming of fresh pancakes and robust syrup from Australia.

I don't know if Australia makes remarkable syrup. Maybe my brain got confused and meant to say New Hampshire. As in,

LEO: It's a breakfast, Toby, it's a pancake breakfast. There's nothing in that memo that's important.
BARTLET: We're having Vermont maple syrup?
TOBY: Mr President, if you read item 4 you'll see that time at this breakfast will be spent discussing calling the Patient's Bill of Rights the Comprehensive Access and Responsibility Act.
BARTLET: I don't give a damn if they call it the Monroe doctrine. What the hell are we doing serving Vermont maple syrup? [a few lines later ...] New Hampshire syrup is what we serve in this White House.

--- "The Leadership Breakfast", The West Wing

I'm nowhere near ready to start whipping up my own pancake batter yet, so it'll be cereal and bananas, with no syrup of any kind, later this morning.

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Technorati Tags: pancakes, Nigella Lawson

The appetite strikes back

The thing about having a stomach ailment is that it makes you want to eat everything in sight, especially everything you're not supposed to be eating.

Like all the cheese at Cold Storage: Brie, Emmenthal, Gouda, Gruyère and Havarti. I also have Gouda in my fridge that I probably shouldn't try to eat till next week, but that didn't stop me from stopping by a bakery to see if they had any good bread that might go with it (they didn't).

The other thing I probably won't touch till next week is the Honey Bunches of Oats cereal that I bought last week when I had a craving. It doesn't taste the same without milk.

At Cold Storage today, I settled for minced beef, mushrooms and a tomato-based pasta sauce; chicken, asparagus and a basil pesto sauce; bananas, TimTams and a pack of frozen char siew baos. I am not planning to eat the last three items in conjunction with each other.

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A hodge-podge of stories

I've been meaning to blog for the past four days at least, but whenever I've sat down with this blank Blogger screen in front of me, nothing's come to mind.


I mean, there was the story about the mango. My friend and I were walking along Upper East Coast Road when a) two bats dived out of the tree just in front of us, b) I spotted a huge mango on the road just beside the curb. "A mango!" I squeaked. My friend was nonplussed, although he stopped to look down at it. "Get it!" I squeaked." But then a taxi was coming down the road. "It'll squash the mango --- " "No, it won't. Get it!" And then we had a mango. It's in my friend's fridge, last I heard, so I can't report on how it tastes (you see why this makes a weak story?). I'm still amazed that it fell off the tree just as we were walking by --- thank you, fruit bats!

Then there's the story about wandering through a corner of Chinatown with Wahj on a too-hot Saturday afternoon, during which I introduced him to Global Sounds World Music Cafe, while interjecting every now and then about the Japanese prostitutes that used to inhabit Spring Street and the "death houses" (where the destitute went to die) that used to run down Sago Lane. That's what comes of spending a week reading about the seedy underbelly of 19th-century Singapore. Wahj said I should start running walking tours, but this being Singapore, one needs a pesky government licence for that, plus it's too hot to be walking around that much.

What other stories have I got for you? My uncle had quite a few when we all had dinner over the weekend. He'd just come in from Canada, but from the stories he told, you'd think he'd just returned from a round-the-world expedition. The best story was about taking a public bus between towns in Turkey --- only to have armed policemen muscle aboard with a handcuffed man that they were transporting to prison. Those were the days, I guess ...

Today's sad tale could be of how I had (as usual) too much work and had to (as usual) work after dinner. But instead, let's talk about coriander pesto and how it's totally different from basil pesto, which means that my pasta dinner didn't taste exactly as I'd expected (though it still tasted alright). Coriander always makes me expect a curry flavour. Guess I'll have to go look up a different recipe now ...

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Technorati Tags: random

On foot in Paris and London

"How are you going to blog about all this?" Stellou wondered towards the end of my vacation. Good question. She's done a better job of it so far than I have, with her accounts of my close(ish) encounter with the mouse, our visit to the Imperial War Museum (if not for working on the Army Museum of Singapore, I admit that I wouldn't know of the Imperial's existence), our practically nonstop chitter-chatter, and my last couple of days in London.

Across the Channel, my cousin records only the night of gay karaoke --- during which I did not sing, so you could rightly argue that I didn't earn even a mention in that blog entry.


How to blog this then, sixteen days spent six, then seven timezones away, listening to everyone whine about how they didn't get a real summer while I merrily danced between my choices of two jackets (one brown leather, one black cotton), four pairs of shoes (oh, alright, I only wore two most of the time) and countless combinations of sweater-over-long-sleeved-T-shirt. Some afternoons were warm enough to make me wish I'd snuck a tank-top along as well, and in London, Stellou was happy to loan me a pink-and-white striped one.

But I landed in Paris first, where I tried not to be the dork that describes everything as looking like a movie set, but sometimes it seemed that no matter down which little street I turned, there it was, a pretty movie set waiting for me to walk on. Must be nice, to live in a city where most buildings seem to be older than one's grandparents, if not their grandparents, and where so many neighbourhoods average at a comforting 4-5 storeys high. Plus there seemed to be a patisserie on every street corner (my daily walk to the Metro station took me past three, at least) and a balcony outside every window. How much more charming could it get?


It was my first time in Paris, so I dutifully hit all the tourist stops: the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Notre Dame, Versailles, Sacré Coeur, Moulin Rouge, Champs-Elysées, Arc de Triomphe --- plus the final jackpot of three museums on my last day: Musée d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou and Musée Carnavalet. Not that this means I spent any time queuing up to climb to the top of the Eiffel or the Arc de Triomphe. More like, I passed by and checked out the tourist spectacle as spectacle in itself, then maundered off to see some art or have a coffee.

So I also saw the Musée d'Art Modérne, which cousin Nardac says no one ever goes to --- and indeed there were not more than ten people there (excluding the security people) when I visited. Nardac's Dacnar took us on his personalised tour of the Père Lachaise cemetery, where we saw the greatest hits like Jim Morrison and Frédéric Chopin and Abelard and Heloise. But we had to give Oscar Wilde a miss because the cemetery was closing and an eagle-eyed security guard on a scooter was trailing us to make sure we really left the place.

Even in as tourist-infested a location as Versailles, Nardac and I blithely walked through a doorway that happened to be open and found ourselves this:


See what I mean about feeling like I was on a movie set?

Actually, the word that kept popping into my head as I flitted about Paris was "stupendous". My aunt, with whom I was travelling then, had used it to describe Notre Dame on our first day, and the word kept recurring whenever I saw something amazing. The Louvre --- stupendous. Musée d'Orsay --- stupendous. Versailles --- stupendous. The gardens of Versailles --- even more stupendous.

And the art ... You'd think I'd have been all art-ed out after the Louvre on the second day, but no, the secret, you see, is everything in moderation. A couple hours of one kind of art, then a break for tea or the toilet or to take photos of tourists, looking at art.


And then more of the art itself. Géricault, whom I'd forgotten I liked, and David, whom I'd never really looked at before, and old favourites Matisse and Picasso and new possibilities Robert Delaunay and countless others I've forgotten. Art I loved and art I didn't understand, and art I stumbled upon in the park at Le Jardin du Luxembourg.

And not just in Paris, but in London too: in Sir John Soane's and the Tate Modern and the British Museum and the V&A. We didn't make it to the Design Museum , although Stellou assured me --- as she did repeatedly with many museums, she's the museum cafe queen, that one --- that "it has a very nice cafe". I think I understood even less of the Tate than I did of the Pompidou, so we stepped out for a breather onto the little balcony on the third? fourth? level. Millennium Bridge looked great, but what was up with the clangingly modern piece of music being performed there?


At least in London the museums were mercifully free, although Naomi Klein wanted to charge me £12 to attend her book launch (pish-posh, is what I believe Mary Poppins would say to that). But what really got my goat is that Macbeth opened three days after I left with Patrick Stewart in the lead. Also, that by the time we discovered during London Open House what a great little theatre the Almeida is, there were no more tickets available for its shows (with Stockard Channing in the lead!) during the remaining days I was in town.

Patrick Stewart! As Macbeth!

I didn't see any Shakespeare this trip, because none of the plays at the Globe were particularly appealing to me. In fact, I didn't see any shows at all unless you count a BAFTA screening of Hula Girls or an Institute of Contemporary Art screening of Helvetica (both were priceless in their own ways). Instead, I burrowed my way through parks and markets: Hyde Park and the neverending Richmond Park in Kingston, Borough Market for cheese and pies and UpMarket for "bohemian/indie" wares.

Since I got back, people have been asking me which city I preferred and I don't know that one can make a choice. Paris was fresh and new (my first time there), the French (people and language) were not as fearsome as some anecdotes had led me to believe, and by the end of my week there, I was thinking that if I had a reason to hang out in the city long enough to get my French up to scratch, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

London was a grey and grimy second city, but I got to stay with Stellou and Olive, and Stellou and I got to hang out and giggle a lot like we haven't done since we were in university together. How does one weigh the relative appeal of a fresh pain au chocolat from the corner patisserie with that of a fresh pot of homebrewed coffee and all sorts of breakfasty marvels (Cantal cheese, fresh walnut bread from the corner bakery, fig jam or blackcurrant yoghurt) coming out of the kitchen where one can comfortably sit with one leg up on the chair?


I remember the first time I met Olive in Singapore, I asked him how he was enjoying hanging out with Stellou and her sister, to which he responded, "You never know where you'll end up, but there will always be something tasty there." Which is true, because with Stellou and Olive in charge, there was gastro-pubbing at The Charles Lamb, okonomiyaki in Covent Garden (we were keeping in the spirit after seeing Hula Girls), Pieministers from Borough Market, the brunch spread at Otto Lenghi, and finally French food in The Fox Reformed. Sure, Canteen did disappoint, but it was more than compensated for by the home-cooked paella and beef compote that Stellou and Olive respectively whipped up (despite their misbehaving oven).

With all this on the menu, it should come as no surprise that I did not once taste either shepherd's pie or fish'n'chips during my visit.

Yet London's offerings paled in comparison to Paris's, about which I'm certain countless cultural treatises and newspaper commentaries have been written. I will only add that under Nardac's confident tutelage, we had very lovely seafood at Le Chien Qui Fume (the one near Les Halles), Bistro Chantefable off Gambetta and her favourite restaurant somewhere in Belleville. Plus I OD'd on freshly made chocolate eclairs and pain du chocolat almost every day. Good thing I only discovered Nutella crepes towards the end of the trip.


On one of our first days in Paris, Nardac mentioned offhandedly that we should let ourselves get lost in Paris, since even the natives do. I didn't --- deliberately, because I didn't want to have to ask for directions in my mangled French --- but there were times between museums when I wasn't so much following street signs as loosely heading in the general direction that I oughta be.

London actually proved to be more of a challenge in this regard, maybe because I rarely had a map with me when I was on my own. Somewhere after heading south from Oxford Street for Piccadilly Circus, I ended up on the Strand, then near Trafalgar Square instead and it was only the providential appearance of a mounted tourist map that saved me from circling the streets endlessly (sure, I could've asked for directions, but where would've been the fun in that?). Then there was the time I came out of the British Museum and again needed to mosey south to Piccadilly Circus --- except that I wound up going north by mistake and had to get my bearings by navigating by the setting sun. Who needs a map when one has heavenly bodies on your side?

I guess I didn't quite get lost enough, because at the end of the day, I still had to make my way home.


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Technorati Tags: London, Paris, travel, travelogue

A birthday party, senior citizen-style

My grandfather rang in his 90th birthday last night with a chocolate cake from an HDB bakery, a short speech and toast by his eldest great-grandchild, and the flashbulbs of a dozen digital cameras of varying vintage. There was also the requisite nine-course Chinese dinner, and the presence of almost every family member who isn't living overseas, as well as his closest church mates.

This was the first Chinese dinner I attended that involved, technically, three servings of dessert. First, the Portuguese egg tarts (ho-hum). Then the ah bo ling (yum-yum). Then the birthday cake.

The most surreal moment: when Gong Gong's sitting behind his birthday cake with one great-grandchild perched on his lap and another ten or so huddled around him for the picture --- and in my mind's eye, I'm seeing a yellowed photograph from the late 1970s, when he was similarly surrounded by my cousins and me, with Packrat (now a daddy himself) in Gong Gong's arms. The quintessential composition of the picture hasn't changed, nor have the expressions of the children, nor has the aesthetic of the cake. It's just my grandfather who's somewhat older and more distinguished-looking.

Though I suppose the kids are also dressed a lot more hip than we used to be.

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Related post: A little birthday fuss

Technorati Tags: Singapore, birthday, grandfather

Eating away

So I actually am down to the one week before I leave again (no more miscounting!) and it's become a matter not so much of too many things to do, but too many appointments to keep. I'm scheduled up the wazoo and I have to keep reminding myself to eat more Asian food (also to save money).

Which explains, perhaps, why Saturday night's midnight snack was the extremely surprising combination of muruku and Men's Pocky. I assure you that the latter is a real brand that's been around for several years. I remember when kk and I first stumbled across it in some Singapore grocery store and proceeded to giggle for quite some time at the implications. (It's normal-sized Pocky biscuit sticks covered in dark chocolate.) It has now penetrated (ha ha) even my humble neighbourhood provision shop, so it's hardly an expat item anymore.

The muruku came from equally humble origins: a Mustafa shopping trip with the family last weekend. I've got a second pack that I ought to finish before I leave.

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Technorati Tags: Men's Pocky, muruku, snack

Friday night footnotes

Amoy Street hawker centre has the best wanton mee in Singapore, on account of a $3 portion being served with a heap of char siew, a nice portion of stewed mushrooms and green vegetables, and a bowl of six (six!) wantons. Plus the noodles are mildly oily, just enough to keep the dish smooth, without being annoying so.

Stomach sated, I headed over to BooksActually for the Shikisai: A T-shirt Exhibition launch. Once again, I managed to walk out of there without buying any books --- which is good for me, but nosso much for the bookstore. I will atone the next time (third time lucky!).

I'm enforcing a no-laptop weekend on myself, so I'll see ya all on Monday.

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Technorati Tags: wanton mee, Shikisai, BooksActually

Give the people beef, said the Communist paté

We had a lot of beef, but we didn't get around to any banh mi with paté, mostly because every time we walked past a banh mi stall, the sight of the hefty baguettes made me think I wouldn't make it beyond two bites before I declared myself full.

But we had pho everyday, from street stalls and airconditioned eateries (Pho 2000's broth and menu is superior to Pho 24's, which must be why Clinton dined at the former back when he was still POTUS) --- with beef slices, beef balls or other cow parts which aren't on the average foreign traveller's diet, and, one time, pho with a baguette on the side. After one mouthful of soup-soaked bread, the only thing either of us could say was: "Now why the hell didn't anyone think of that before?"


I swear the pho in Vietnam tastes better simply because all the ingredients are locally grown, which means they not only taste fresher but also taste of, well, Vietnam. No Australian beef, no imported leaves and the soup's probably been brewed in the same scraped-up pot they've been cooking in for the last ten years. Don't look too closely at the pot or the dishwashing area --- it might put you off your meal. Just concentrate on the bowl of hot soup in front of you, never mind that the same shop's separate translated menu gave pho tai chin and pho chin vien the same description in English, all the iffiness has been scalded away anyway.

In between overdosing on pho, we traipsed up and down the streets of Saigon (meaning District 1, not some fond pseudo-American affectation): pondering narrow buildings and indecipherable shop signs, waving off offers of motorcycle or cyclo rides, sidestepping the inevitable puddles in the streets or cracked sidewalks (it rained everyday we were there), gawking at expert capteh players or neighbourhood aerobics classes in the park.


Ho Chi Minh City was not as crowded, nor as grating, nor as smelly as I'd been led to imagine. People were generally friendly, and most people who tried to sell us something backed off quietly when we declined with a smile and a shake of the head. Shopkeepers tried to get the best price outta us, of course, but we never paid more than we wanted to for anything. It was generally the young guys who were easy to bargain down, not the cheerful but adamant aunties. Flinty they could be, and completed uninclined to coddle our rudimentary bargaining attempts.

When we wanted a break from the street scene, we hunted down some of Travelfish's top 10 Saigon cafes. Creperie & Cafe was the perfect antidote to a waterlogged afternoon in serious propaganda-filled museums. La Fenetre Soleil, though tucked away in a splendid second-floor space, offered plenty of people-watching opportunities.


Other times, it was back to our daily diet of cafe sua da (iced Vietnamese coffee with copious dollops of condensed milk); I probably consumed an entire month's worth of sugar in my four days.

Museums, sightseeing and urban rambles aside, we decided towards the end that what we really liked to do was to park ourselves streetside on the edge of backpacker district Pham Ngu Lao and watch the people stream by. Locals on bikes, of course, but also foreign tourists of both the amiable and the sketchy sort, or child street performers with fire-breathing or shoe-shining talents. Not to mention what seemed to be the nightly ten-minute blackout that would prompt the crowd's cheer (jeer?), as the only light left came from the individually-powered food stalls.

One last bowl of pho, one last T-shirt stuffed into an over-full backpack --- and then we flew home.


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Technorati Tags: Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon, Vietnam, travel

Friday night tea time

It's not a good sign when I'm standing in a 7-Eleven store complaining about their paltry yet baffling selection of Lipton teas, and the friend I'm with says, "You're going to blog about this later, right?"

Which I wasn't going to --- honest! --- but since it's apparently expected of me, here it is.

I wanted some good ol'-fashioned Lipton Yellow Label tea --- you know, what used to be the default tea option when I was growing up, before I knew what Earl Grey was, and well before Celestial Seasonings and its ilk of infusion confusions came along to clutter up our shelves.

7-Eleven was the only place still open that might have tea for sale. Except that the first 7-Eleven store I walked into had exactly three varieties of Lipton: Red Tea, White Tea and Gold Tea. No humble Yellow Label options in sight, and the descriptions of the Red/White/Gold Tea consisted of sufficiently purple prose that I immediately replaced the boxes on the shelves.

The next 7-Eleven store, mercifully, had many boxes of Yellow Label tea, but also the Red and White varieties. (Neither store had any non-Lipton teas for sale.) Now that the Yellow Label was safely within reach, I took a few moments to peruse the Red and White Tea descriptions a little more closely. Red Tea promised a spicy flavour (I almost fell for it), White Tea hailed from Kenya, which made me think of a rich coffee-like flavour because of the Rift Valley blend coffee I'd had at Starbucks this morning.

Then the friend helpfully pointed out that the Red and White Teas were $4.60 a pack, while the Yellow Label was $2.45.

Half an hour later, I had my Yellow Label tea in a Starbucks mug. It tasted just like it used to.

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Technorati Tags: Lipton, tea, 7-Eleven

Fast food frustration

Sometimes I eat at MOS Burger, and then I wish I'd taken a few steps more and eaten at Burger King instead.

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Zen, sun, moon

When feeling stressed about the amount of work accumulating due to laptop intransigence, immediately proceed for relaxing dinner and good conversation over satisfying Japanese food.


We sat up at the sushi counter because those were the only indoor seats that were available. Fortunately, this was not one of those restaurants that compels its staff to greet all entering guests with a rousing "Irasshaimase!" when they enter. The sushi chefs were busy but discreet, and my sushi was served, oddly enough, by a waitress rather than handed over the counter by one of the chefs.

Dinner and four cups of tea later, I was ready to face the world again. Or rather, my work. Poo.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Sun With Moon Cafe

Flavours

I had two kiwifruit after lunch and now I can't wash the tang out of my mouth.

Oh wait, a mouthful of fresh black coffee just did the trick.

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I am weak

Even though I had ice cream this afternoon, I capitulated to a further sugar craving and went back to The Garden Slug this evening for their delicately stewed pears in white wine sauce. They were as good as I remembered.

Given this week's track record, however (5 desserts in the past 7 days), I am hereby declaring a moratorium on sweets and desserts for a week. Either that, or I gotta start running again.

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Technorati Tags: dessert

Day of rest III

Okay, I did squeeze in a smidgen of work today, but mostly I took the day off.


Finally the east gets its own "we make our own ice cream" joint: Ice Cream Chefs, along East Coast Road at Ocean Park. Unpretentious is the word --- there are only about 10 ice cream flavours and seating at about 5 tables.

Still, that's good enough of a range. I had a Mrs Smith --- green apple with cinammon, very fresh and sorbet-tasting, just what the doctor ordered on a hot, humid afternoon like today's. The friend I was with had a Cuppucino that had real coffee kick (as opposed to the overly sweet taste of most coffee-flavoured desserts). I want to come back for the Nutella Delight (tempted, Dave?) and maybe even the Horlicks for nostalgia's sake.

Ice Cream Chefs' niche --- because whipping up one's own flavours isn't enough these days --- seems to be also that they "mix in", not just sprinkle on top, whatever sweet additions one might desire, from chocolate syrup to Tim Tams to granola. The mixing-in process necessitates a measure of folding the additional ingredients into the ice cream and sort of mashing everything together, while the ice cream retains a fairly solid consistency. For people who have a really sweet tooth, I guess.

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Related post: Day of rest II, Day of rest

Technorati Tags: Singapore, ice cream, ice cream chefs

Too much mediocre dessert

One of the projects I'm working on is rushing to print, and since all of us working on it are freelancers, the last two days have been spent living in various downtown cafes, madly checking proofreading changes and making sure that the final text is as clean as it can be without any of us (managing editor, copy editor or publication designer) losing our minds.

Yesterday, we were at Geek Terminal, where there was a dearth of attractive corporate types in swanky Hugo Boss suits, but abundant good service. On the other hand, several things on the menu were inexplicably unavailable, including the brownies I'd been hoping would satiate my sugar craving. I settled for a warmed apple cake instead and thank goodness for the heap of vanilla ice cream that came with it, because the cake was more like a muffin and not particularly tasty.

Today, we were at Dome Cafe at the Singapore Art Museum, which had the same Bjork CD (Homogenic) playing the entire afternoon. Either someone on the staff really loves Bjork or they're impervious to music. Anyways, while Dome's menu has really improved lately (it was quite ho-hum when the chain first launched in Singapore in the late '90s), the carrot cake that I was lusting after (because someone'd had it at a meeting earlier this week at a different Dome) turned out to be a tad dry and not quite as sweet as I like my carrot cake.

On the bright side, we're almost ready to put the publication to bed, so I should soon have the time to return to either The Secret Garden for their incredible apple crumble or The Garden Slug (hm --- there seems to be an unintentional horticultural theme going on here) for some of those stewed pears.

Oh dear. I just realised this means I've had four really sugar-laden desserts in six days.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Geek Terminal, Dome Cafe, dessert,

My kind of neighbourhood cafe

First domch told me about a party they catered. Then Ondine blogged about it. Then I was in the mood to try someplace new tonight, so I hauled BoKo off to dinner at The Garden Slug.


Bottled beer only $7 each! Take that, George's & Blooie's.

Attentive owner who knows the menu! Always a bonus.

Stewed pears in white wine and cinammon! I'll come back just for that.

Downsides? My "buttery garlic" pasta could've used more garlic, though the lime leaves added a subtle pizzazz to the mix. And there's no washroom in the cafe, so you have to put your faith in the rather dubious-sounding instructions to "go around the corner and then look under the stairs" (to be fair, it was a perfectly clean washroom).

Like Ondine, I will come back another day (when I'm not recovering from a bad throat) for the 2-brownie popsicle. The all-day breakfast looks tempting too, except that it's paired with yoghurt with muesli and honey, but when I crave a late breakfast, I usually want heaps of grease and bacon. Lots of tasty-looking vegetarian or vegan options on the menu, though.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, The Garden Slug

Things I wanted to Twitter yesterday

... but didn't have the time or internet connection to.

$83.94 for a new remote control for the airconditioner??

Despite all the construction and new traffic, pockets of Portsdown Road are still very pretty.

Nothing like almost choking to breathlessness on a miscplaced gulp of water to add a little perspective to one's day.

People who screw up one's dinner (namely Suzie's) should offer at least a free dessert to atone. (Sun With Moon Cafe, if anyone wants to know. Good food and service, except for the part where they screwed up).

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TGIF

At dinner at the Cedele restaurant at Wheelock Place tonight, Suzie's wine tasted like crap while mine tasted perfectly fine for a cheap sauvignon blanc --- even though the waitstaff claimed that both glasses were filled from the same wine bottle. Very mysterious.

To their credit, though, the waitstaff did the right thing by immediately offering us fresh glasses of wine, even though I told them that mine was fine and didn't need to be changed. And the food was impeccable. I have no idea what exactly goes into the oil dressing they drizzle over all their salads, but it was mighty tasty and not just your usual balsamic vinaigrette concoction. The only downside was that my chocolate hazelnut cake turned out to be more of a chocolate-with-no-hazelnut-flavour-and-with-white-chocolate-icing-and-ONE-hazelnut cake. I don't even like white chocolate.

Down in Borders later, I finally landed a paperback copy of John Scalzi's Old Man War. I don't ordinarily pick up novels in which the protagonists are seventy-five year old men unless the novels are written by Philip Roth, but Old Man's War gets an exemption since I've been reading (and loving) Scalzi's blog for so long.

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Technorati Tags: Cedele, John Scalzi

Prophetic much?

Who said this in 1970?

Life is not just eating, drinking, television and cinema. ... The human mind must be creative, must be self-generating: it cannot depend on just gadgets to amuse itself."

Well, obviously, I'm screwed.

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A Chindian lunch

I don't normally use the phrase "Chindian" (i.e. a mixture of Chinese and Indian) and indeed, I'd never heard of it till a few years ago. But it seems appropriate to describe today's made-at-home lunch (not to be confused with a homecooked lunch), which consists of:

• basmati rice
• mushroom achari out of an instant pack (thank you, Mustafa)
  
• a fried egg
  

If I wanted to be really Chinese about it, the fried egg would be sunny-side up (instead of over-easy, which is how I like it) and sprinkled with soya sauce.

Speaking of Chindian meals, has anyone tried the several-months-old Indian Wok at Siglap? It claims to be some blend of Chinese and Indian cuisine, though from the outside the decor looks more heavily Indian than anything. Part of me wants to give it a shot, another part of me shies away from what seems to be yet another variety of "fusion cusine" ...

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Technorati Tags: Chindian, lunch

Day of rest I

I took the day off.




Note to self: spend more time at East Coast Park.

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Thirsty

I know I drink more than my share of 2 litres of water a day, but sometimes I just want to be hooked up into an IV drip of iced green tea, stat.

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What does a cow's lung taste like?

Sorta spongy but, surprisingly, without any strong flavour like liver (which I'm not a fan of) or kidney (which I sometimes like).

I don't know if the Chinese --- alleged purveyors of all impossible-to-fathom gastronomical choices --- cook lung, but what I had was at a Malay food stall, where it's called paru-paru and the lung(s?) seems to have been salted and fried.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, cow lung

Call it a seafood surprise

So the original plan was to eat at Hua Yu Wee, a charming Chinese seafood restaurant located in an old bungalow (the kind that used to qualify as a seaside bungalow till land reclamation took the sea away from it). Then I couldn't get through on the phone to reserve a table and by the time I did at 4:45 pm today, they told me they were fully booked for tonight.

So I called Ponggol Seafood and booked a table there, thinking that they were still located at East Coast Parkway. Except that they were not, which I only found out when I directed the family to what I thought was the restaurant and found the space occupied by --- well, it all looked different.

So after I apologised for screwing up big-time, we ended up at the place we didn't want to eat at: the East Coast Seafood Centre. I hadn't really wanted to eat there because it's always obstreperously crowded on weekends and I didn't want to be shouting over the table all night. Plus I'm always a little doubtful of the quality of food at places that have become bona fide tourist destinations.

As it turned out, the rain seems to have thinned the crowd somewhat (the weather's been very monsoon redux lately), and we got a table at Chin Wah Heng Restaurant haste posthaste.


Besides the availability of bamboo clams, there are plenty of other reasons to eat at Chin Wah Heng:

• We all remarked that the chilli crab sauce and deep-fried baby squid dish were noticeably less sweet than they typically are at other restaurants --- which suggests that the kitchen doesn't season everything liberally with sugar to make it taste good.
• Our plates, heaped with prawn and crab shells and other discards, were cleared often enough to put some hotel wedding banquets to shame.
• The vegetables were not the first dish to arrive.
• The staff were all indefatigably polite, despite my feeble command of Chinese.
• Although one staff member dripped a spot of chilli crab sauce onto my arm, his apology was so overwrought as he speedily fetched wet towelettes for me, you'd've thought he'd thrown up all over me or something.
• They gave us fresh hot water for our teapot without us asking for it, even though we were obviously already done with our meal by then.
  
• I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the spillage incident, but we got a plate of complimentary fruit at the end of our meal.
  

Chin Wah Heng, people. They get the job done.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, East Coast Seafood Centre, seafood

Matcha madness

The thing about ordering pretty Japanese desserts with a group of friends who happen to blog (save one), is that when the pretty Japanese desserts arrive, everyone whips out their digital cameras to take pretty portraits while the precious ice cream is melting all over the dessert.

Meanwhile, the one who doesn't blog also takes out his digital camera (incidentally, the largest and most sophisticated one at the table) and starts taking pictures of us taking pictures of our desserts.

Well, now.

Eventually, we did eat the desserts and they were about as tasty as they had looked --- which is to say, very artfully put together, occasionally with mysterious ingredients (the dango tasted damn good but what the hell went into it, besides flour?), and satisfyingly sweet but not overly so, taking the cue from American-style sundaes without merely replicating them entirely.


Now if we'd added the "raw honey" provided in the little juglet, that would've been overkill.

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Technorati Tags: dessert, ice cream, Japanese dessert

Sweetness and light

I thought I was in the mood for a huge slice of cake, but then we four decided to split the dessert sampler at the Fullerton Courtyard instead, and that was so much better.

I am, however, declaring a moratorium on mediocre desserts for the Xmas season. Only good desserts will be eaten.

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About last night

There was the drive:

Cowboy Caleb (from the back seat): Are we there yet?

There was dinner:

Cowboy Caleb (at the start of dinner): I'm so hungry, man. Can we order a pizza to share? A risotto?
Cowboy Caleb (upon the arrival of his Fiorentine bisteccona): This is the sort of meal that makes you feel like a man.
Cowboy Caleb (halfway through the Fiorentine bisteccona): I'm so full. I can't finish this, man.

There was dessert:

Cowboy Caleb: (silence)

All happening at Ristorante da Valentino.


Taken by Cowboy Caleb

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Ristorante da Valentino, Valentino's, Cowboy Caleb

Saturdays are for ...

... brunch at Killiney Kopitiam ("Which Killiney Kopitiam are we going to?" "Er ... the one at Killiney Road ... ") with the gang of old friends. The boys egged me on to order mee siam mai hum ("We'll back you up with a loud chorus," Packrat promised) while the girls belatedly realised that we were all wearing pink (unintentional, we swear). wahj enlightened us that the Pollution Standards Index reading at 11 am today was 128 (anything above 100 is Bad For One's Health), which explains why the air smells execrable and the sunlight's all washed out. Kay was impressed that everyone knew about their new refrigerator. Ondine showed off her new bag to grand admiration all round. And G-man gave us a ride home in his new(ish) car, which made me wish I had a small car of my own to zip around in so that I wouldn't have to be at the mercy of our world-class transport system.

I am declaring a moratorium on kaya toast for at least a month.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, breakfast, brunch

Where not to eat in Singapore: überburger

Sarah says it all:

first off if you can make it through the menu that's a feat in itself - it's typed in this funny font and is trying to be all hip and happening by combining numbers and letters and adding their signature ü all over the place.

Read her full review of überburger.

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Related posts: Where not to eat in Singapore: Happy Pay Steamboat, Where not to eat in Singapore: Cafe Cartel

Technorati Tags: Singapore, makan, Singapore food, where not to eat in Singapore

An embarrassment of mooncakes

I'm not terribly traditional when it comes to observing Chinese customs, but a good one, besides handing out money for good luck, is handing out seasonal foods for goodwill.

My paternal grandmother used to give us tins of homemade love letters and pineapple tarts for Chinese New Year, when she was still spry enough to make them. Terz's parents give us bak kwa (pork jerky) all year round.

So for the Mid-Autumn Festival, I've decided to try and return the karma (not to mention assuage the occasional guilt that we don't see or feed our parents more often) by doling out the mooncakes. Specifically, all the parentals get the inimitable champagne truffle mooncakes from Raffles Hotel, and I picked up a couple of traditional ones while I was at it 'cause I remembered that my mom prefers those. Because Fifth Aunt is coming along to dinner tonight as well, whereat the mooncakes will be presented to said parentals, she gets a smaller but no less tempting box of champagne truffle and mocha truffle mooncakes too.

All the mooncakes are sitting in our fridge now, so it smells enticingly of champagne.

We're attending at least one, if not two, mooncake parties next week, so I'm going to be buying (and eating) mooncakes for a while yet ...

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Related post: Happy mooncake season!

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Mid-Autumn Festival, mid-autumn, mooncake, mooncake festival

TGIF!

There's no better to start a Friday evening than to have a delightful colleague come in at 6 pm bearing well-powdered doughnut holes from Four Leaves Bakery for everyone.

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What's for brekkie?

The problem with having an indulgent breakfast on a weekday, is that you really want another when the weekend rolls around proper.

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to settle for just black coffee and maybe later, some roti prata or 马马乎乎 (mediocre) nasi lemak from the neighbourhood coffeeshop ...

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Technorati Tags: breakfast

The Monday morning magic formula

I am having a banana walnut muffin from Cedele and a coffee from Delicatessen. Perfect!

Okay, so it added up to about four times than what a more "local" breakfast would cost --- but getting Monday morning off to the right start is well worth it.

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A different kind of vegging out

It's been a mostly working weekend after all, so I haven't had any exciting meals. But earlier this week, there was Annalakshmi at its new Amoy Street location --- yes, relocated from its decades-old space at Excelsior Hotel, but retaining the same "pay as much as you feel is appropriate" philosophy.

The thing about me and Indian food is that most of the time, I don't know what any of the dishes are called and may not even be entirely sure of what I'm eating, particularly when it comes to vegetarian dishes. Yes, yes, you could say shame on me and my one-quarter Indian heritage. But as a child, the Indian restaurant we ate most frequently at was the original Komala Vilas along Serangoon Road, where for a flat price, they would heap rice and all sorts of anonymous vegetarian dishes on a banana leaf.

Keyword: anonymous.

I soon learned what I liked, but I didn't know what anything was called, except, ironically, the things I didn't really care for: rasam, the soup-like concoction that my father would especially ask for at Komala Vilas, and dhal, which my mom would make at home too.

So a buffet, which is the staple at Annalakshmi, is really the best set-up for me. Mr Sanguine has a nice picture of the spread (he happened to be there too that day), and they also have a nice marsala tea to round off the meal.

The new restaurant isn't as ornately decorated as the old Excelsior place, but it's very cheery.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore food

Flogging (or not)

While this blog has not metamorphosed entirely into a food blog, I've noticed that people are starting to come up to me and say, "So what's a good place for _____ food/for _____ occasion?"

I don't even know why I blog about food so much these days. Am I just giving in to my inner Singaporean? Is it because Singapore culture has, over the years, become somewhat inimical to the discussion of anything real or thoughtful, so the only thing we can talk about is food? Or is it that now I have the income and autonomy and free time to hunt down more interesting places to eat (and then blog about it)?

It's true that there are more Nice Places to eat in Singapore. The funny thing is that the more you go to these Nice Places, the more they all start to look and feel like each other --- even while some nevertheless serve Extremely Nice Food.

And then I came across this Anthony Bourdain quote in The Tyee's report on the launch of Bourdain's new book:

Food is the new porn. People go to restaurants the way they used to go to movies. And they go to one restaurant and talk about the last one they were at. Restaurants are also about a nesting instinct. People associate food with home and want that feeling. Then there's the fact that watching people cook on TV is satisfying. And through all of that, people are getting more sophisticated about food.

Let's see how my experience checks out against that quote:

Food is the new porn.
Uhhh ... I guess for some people ...

People go to restaurants the way they used to go to movies. And they go to one restaurant and talk about the last one they were at.
I definitely go to fewer movies than restaurants and I'd have to say, choosing between having a Nice Meal in a Nice Place with friends and/or family, versus going to a Nice Cinema to watch a Nice Movie with them, I'd probably choose the meal.

And yes, the more restaurants one goes to, the more likely it is that one will be forking into one's pretty appetizer while saying, "Oh, but have you tried the absolutely delectable _____ over at ____?" Though I generally try not to do this because it's potentially bad form plus I'd rather enjoy the meal that I'm having rather than to reminisce (or complain) about meals long digested and expurgated from my alimentary system.

There is a really good reason to talk restaurants in Singapore, though: The turnover rate in the food & beverage business is, as I imagine it is in any other major city, extremely high, so it's helpful to trade tips about which places aren't open anymore or maybe have lost their sparkle, or which new restaurant really is worth trying out. This also applies to hawker food stalls, which may fall victim to not only the whims of its clientele (or lack thereof) but also arbitrary decisions from on high to move out because the space (rather than the food) has outlived its usefulness.

Restaurants are also about a nesting instinct. People associate food with home and want that feeling.
Certainly. As a bad cook whose mother is a good one, I'd be the first to admit that sometimes at the economy rice stall, all I'm trying to do is assemble a meal that reminds me, however faintly, of Mom's cooking.

The kind of TLC that goes into the preparation of Nice Meals in Nice Places, however, is a completely different flavour's than Mom's. It's more clinical, somehow, and certainly more deliberate.


Crab starter at Majestic Restaurant
Taken and uploaded by Ms. Marly
I ain't complaining about it. It's just not quite what I'd associate with "the nesting instinct" or the feeling of being at home.

Then there's the fact that watching people cook on TV is satisfying.
Well, up to the point when I feel really inept. For instance, I enjoyed Jamie Oliver more when he was trying to reform school lunches in the UK than when he's pottering around his kitchen at home.

And through all of that, people are getting more sophisticated about food.
Perhaps. I know that it makes me more fussy about food. I know that I refuse to eat conveyor belt sushi anymore (unless it's 100 yen a plate, like the neat place where Terz and I had a late-night meal in Kyoto) and I'm extremely particular about which Japanese restaurant I eat in Singapore. Ditto Middle Eastern food (just 'cause good Middle Eastern is so hard to find here). And Italian. And good salads. And ... er, it's a wonder I find anything worth paying more than $5 for anymore.

Anyway, all this is by way of working off my angst from thinking that I might have to attend a restaurant opening tonight all by myself. Restaurant openings can be fun --- hello, free food and wine --- but nosso much when one is flying solo. Fortunately, I remembered at the last minute that a colleague is friends with the restaurant owner, so I cajoled her into going with me, which meant that I got introduced to the owner, soaked up some mellifluous Italian being spoken all around me in between introductions (the colleague is Italian) and enjoyed some all too delectable food and wine.

So now the angst is well gone, and I am way looking forward to trying the restaurant's menu proper (tonight was an official launch, which means they served largely canapes and finger foods) --- not to mention that I had the opportunity to properly chat with the Italian colleague for the first time in the four months I've been on this job and she gave me the dirt on all the real Italian places to eat in town.

This blog is not becoming a food blog. Really.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore food

I am a Hobbit, redux

Breakfast, 8:30 am: 1 glass of soya milk.

Second breakfast, 10:45 am: 1 glass of barley and 2 slices of kaya toast.

Lunch, 1:30 pm: Rice with chicken, tofu and veggies in a delicious brown sauce.

Tea, 2 pm: Teh halia (ginger tea with condensed milk and ginger essence).

And it's only 2:30 pm...

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Related post: I am a Hobbit

I like my ice cream

In the process of clearing my email, I came across strangemessages's comment from a month ago that I meant to reply to:

While we're at, uhm, food,
Haagen Dazs, or Ben & Jerry's?
And which flavours do you love/hate?
Maybe that should be a reader request from me, haha.

Indeed it should, for my reply ran a little long. So I thought I might as well make it today's blog post, since I'm not sure that I'll have time to blog later.

Between the two ice cream brands, I'd have to say Ben & Jerry's. Not because of the Vermonster , but because they have nifty flavours arising from unusual but tasty concoctions. I'll pick Haagen Dazs if I want the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry staples, but executed with a little more finesse than local (or is it Malaysian?) brands like Kings or Magnolia.

Not that I'm saying I wouldn't eat Kings or Magnolia. Sometimes I'm in the mood for less milky ice cream, and those are the best (also, miles cheaper than Ben & Jerry's or Haagen Dazs). Also, there's the sentimental value of having grown up with these flavours, and sometimes wanting a Walls ice cream cone to crunch into, nuts and really chemical-flavoured chocolate and all.

Favourite flavour: chocolate, no contest. But sometimes I also find myself in the mood for vanilla (you know, it goes well with everything). Rarely the -berry flavours, although as a child I went through a raspberry ripple phase (but that's sorta a vanilla spinoff).

Where Ben & Jerry's proprietary flavours are concerned, I'm all about the Cherry Garcia. I find their chocolate mixes a little too sweet, most of the time.

Verboten ingredients in my ice cream: mint, and I'm not crazy about nuts, either, although pistachio or hazelnut ice cream is just fine.

Lately, I mostly eat gelato from the (local?) Bravissimo chain or one of its ilk, and usually a chocolate-related flavour with a fancypants Italian name like tartufo.

But I dream of La Casa in Vancouver. 200 flavours and counting, baby!

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, ice cream, Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Dazs

Mid-morning snack

It is a very strange thing to be eating Khong Guan biscuits, while researching the founders of the Khong Guan Company.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Khong Guan

Conquering the Vermonster

20 scoops of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Oodles of syrup and sprinkles and bananas to make it go down smoothly. One big tub.

Oh, and ten erstwhile children who'd always dreamed of spending their hard-earned money on stupid shit like this when they were growing up.


Some of us had dinner before our 9 pm ice cream date; others didn't. Some of us (okay, me) went running first to stave off the guilt from consuming that much sugar in one sitting. All of us garnered quite a bit of attention from other customers or passers-by, I assume due not only to the massive tub on the table but also the fact that there were no children at our table.

Indeed, we were such adults about the matter that we had to swear before eating that none of us had any contagious diseases that we knew of. And then of course, the truly adult thing to do was to lo hei the Vermonster before we dug into it.


Maybe that's why for the rest of the evening, we were eating brown and white gloop of indistinguishable flavours. Would your next scoop yield pure chocolate (highly unlikely), or a piece of chocolate-covered banana (I'd forgotten how much I enjoy those), or something that looked like the promising whiteness of Cherry Garcia but turned out to be a mouthful of mint (ugh!)? You have to ask yourself (insert the Clint Eastwood voice that I can't do): Do you feel lucky?

I never found that coveted scoop of Cherry Garcia ...

By the time the store closed at 10.30, we were well and truly done.

Taken by askgerard.com

And some of us were already starting to feel a little queasy. It's not so much the quantity of ice cream we ate (20 scoops among ten adults doesn't amount to much), but that it was all stirred up with artificial sweetness layered upon further artificial sweetness, I think.

Of course, some people went on to have bacon-wrapped king prawns at Tango afterwards ...

I'm not eating ice cream for at least a month.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Vermonster, Ben & Jerry's, ice cream

Touchstones

Some days, I start out thinking I'm not going to see anybody I know.

Then there's lunch with Ondine at the unbeatable Bunalun.


And an hour in the afternoon snuck away with the best friend and her bouncing baby boy (thought he wasn't actually in the Bumbo today).


Taken by _tris_.
And a pseudo-dinner with an old friend and new ones at Wine Company.


Nosso bad for a day when I thought I would be flying solo most of the day.

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Spoiling ourselves

This one's for kk.


I took Terz to Big Fish Seafood Grill tonight --- his first time, my second. The food did not fail us, nor did the wine. I'm not sure if I'm coming late to the party here, but I've been having very tasty New Zealand wines recently.

However, I'm not sure that hefting a 35-litre bag of kitty litter down four flights of stairs after half a bottle of wine is a good idea.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Big Fish Seafood Grill

Dinner and after

You know a Chinese restaurant's gone upmarket when the food's served on square plates, the restaurant tries to serve everyone's portions individually instead of allowing us to dig into a communal dish, and pork ribs come with silverware on the side.

Also, when the roast chicken skin served with prawn and a slice of mango is served on a potato chip. (It tasted like Pringle's to me, even though my uncle tried to laugh it off as a mini taco.)

But I'm not doing justice to the food, which was really quite good and not as much of a culinary experiment gone wrong as I'm making it sound like. And dessert was a somewhat psychedelic marvel.


I have no idea what the dish was called (the perils of ordering the set menu), but think flour rolls with pandan (green) and ang tau sar (red bean), served on a bed of ground peanuts. I wish I could've eaten more of them.

Since the dinner was ostensibly a Mother's Day dinner, it's only fit that I put on record the fact that the two mothers present (my mother and Fifth Aunt, her sister), are certified pet killers. The inadvertent death toll from their childhood:

• One terrapin (and one that "ran away")
• One bird
• Two guinea pigs
• One pigeon (cooked for dinner because my grandmother found it "troublesome" to have it flapping around, it seems)

For the full gory details, you'll have to ask me the next time you see me. All the deaths (except the pigeon) were accidental. Of course.

After dinner, because I am rapidly turning into Little Miss Winealot, I enticed Little Miss Drinkalot out to Barcelona for a nightcap. Even though soccer was playing on at least five screens in the courtyard area, we managed to have a chill girls' night out, quite different from the previous attempt. Maybe the magic ingredient needs to be white wine and not Lana cake.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore food, Mother's Day

Reader Request Week: Food, food and more (about) food

TaLieSin and Chandler want me to write something on good food places in Singapore, while limegreenspyda suggests I write about my favourite food. As if I didn't have enough trouble picking my favourite place in the world.

Actually, I do have a favourite Singapore food: char siew wanton mee. Easy-peasy! But rather than write about that alone, here's a list of my personal favourite places for all kinds of local (and some not-so-local) food.

Chicken rice --- Margaret Drive hawker centre, second floor.
I don't know the name of this stall, but the second floor of this once thriving hawker centre's now practically vacant, so just look for the only stall that looks busy. It's a white chicken rice place; you'lll have to look elsewhere for your roasted chicken variety. I prefer white, anyway, especially when it's unabashedly oily and just a touch bloody like they make it here. I've been eating at this place since I was a kid and I doubt the hawker centre building will be upgraded anytime soon, so there's a decent nostalgia factor too.

Char siew wanton mee --- Alex's along Beach Road, opposite Shaw Tower.
A recent discovery (last year), courtesy of Terz. The char siew (roast pork) is actually a little fattier than one should consume on a regular basis, but what I really like area the noodles. A lot of places serve mediocre noodles --- not the right thickness or consistency or elasticity or flavour. This place has good noodles and good chilli sauce and fatty meat and juicy wantons. It all comes together.

Popiah --- No favourite place, and I'll tell you why.
I enjoy popiah but I'm not very discriminating when it comes to popiah. As long as it's got the canonical ingredients and the stallholder doesn't try to stiff me for more than $1.50 per roll, I'm pretty much sold. Nevertheless, among the decent places that I've sampled are the stall at East Coast Park lagoon hawker centre (along the same row as the "famous" char siew mee that I don't find particularly satisfying) and a stall at Bedok North hawker centre.

Beef hor fun (wet style) --- the coffeeshop with white tiles along Keong Saik Road, opposite the nasi padang place.
Nice thick gravy that isn't too soupy, and tender beef slices. Most importantly, they serve it with the right kind of chilli slices (red, not green). The place also seems to do a roaring cze char business at night.

Beef kway teow soup --- #01-33 East Coast Park Lagoon hawker centre.
Rich, fragrant, flavourful. The only problem is the long queues generated by the fact that the old man who runs the stall makes each bowl of noodles not only individually but at a very leisurely pace.

Yong tau foo --- this place on Syed Alwi Road. Yeah, I'm not being very specific, but I know how to find the place if I have to.
This isn't the deep-fried Ampang variety, which I'm not crazy about, but the healthier and, in my opinion, tastier option. Besides the grand variety of items you can pick and choose from, what's really excellent here is the chilli sauce with bits of dried chilli in oil. I'd eat everything with this chilli sauce if it didn't so readily set my tongue on fire.

Claypot rice --- Chinatown Complex, at the stall run by an old couple to the left of the top of the escalator.
No one really makes claypot rice like my mom, but if I'm out and about and craving some, this is a good place. The price ($5) is slightly higher than average, but it comes with good sauce and a healthy portion of chicken and lap cheong (Chinese sausage).

Chicken or mutton murtabak --- Zam Zam restaurant along North Bridge Road, opposite Sultan Mosque.
Another preference inherited from my parents. The trick, really, is to get the flour layers chewy but not in that been-sitting-on-a-plate-all-day way, and not to overwhelm the meat's flavour with too much onion.

Claypot fish head (the Chinese kind) --- Le Wan Tian, at the corner of Telok Kurau and Changi Roads.
Details here.
Black pepper crab and sambal pomfret --- cze char place along Tyrwhitt Road, at the corner of Plumer Road, I think.
Magnificent, just magnificent. One bite and I was sold. We would bring our parents here all the time, except that such regular doses of the food probably wouldn't be too good for their cholesterol or gout levels.
Indonesian food --- Bumbu, without a doubt.
Details here and here.

Thai food --- Depending on budget: Tuk Tuk Thai Kitchen (low), A-Roy Thai (middle) or Sabai (high).
It's hard to cough up plenty money for Thai food here, knowing that Bangkok is just a short budget flight away, where good street food may be had for less than the cost of a fruit juice at Sabai. Which is why I mostly eat at a cheapish place like Tuk Tuk. All three places have really good food nonetheless, though as you'd expect, it's served up with the most finesse at Sabai.

Iced lemon tea --- Epicurious, no contest.
I've said it all. On further consideration, I'd give Toast a close second, but theirs is technically a different concoction where they blend the lemon with the tea. Also zealously refreshing, though.

60-cent black coffee --- the coffeeshop at the corner of Keong Saik and Teck Lim Roads.
You can't go wrong with a cup of thick black coffee at this price, whatever time of day it is. They also serve up kaya toast with heaps of butter and my ex-colleague swears by their sliced fish hor fun, but I'm not so crazy about it.

Chwee kueh --- the popular stall at Ghim Moh market (closer to the block 21 side).
Again, it's about the consistency of the rice cake --- sticky, but not too sticky, with the right level of savouriness for the radish topping. I prefer mine without chilli sauce (yet another holdover from childhood days) and I will always associate this with breakfasts at Whampoa hawker centre in the '80s when my brother and I stayed over at my grandparents'.

Tau huey (soya bean curd) --- the stall at Dover Road market.
The Ang Mo Kio version a friend introduced me to last year was pretty good, but I think Dover Road still has the smoothest bean curd around.

Char siew baos --- Crystal Jade, the winner, hands down.
Moist on the inside, light and fluffy on the outside --- it's not as easy as it sounds.

Salad --- There are many salads available in Singapore, but I'm currently in love with Brewerkz's concoction of fresh fruit, arugula and other greens. I'd go there to eat it just for a pick-me-up. I also enjoy their burgers, though I consider my great hunt for the Good American Burger as still ongoing.

Pies (chicken, steak and mushroom, lamb, whatever) --- Big Ben's, no contest.

Ramen --- Megumi, at Siglap.
The ramen with cod in milk broth is exquisite. The one place I'll actually order ramen and try to wolf it down without waiting for the soup to cool because you just can't, can't wait to get more of it in you. The last time we were there, they also recommended brinjal stuffed with prawn in the agedashi tofu sauce, which was rather incredible.

Sashimi --- Hanabi and I can only speak for the Kings' Arcade restaurant 'cause I haven't eaten at the Odeon one.
One of the first Japanese a la carte buffet places we tried, and still my favourite. Their sashimi's always fresh and tasty. I could just sit there all day eating sashimi.

Yakitori --- Damon, at Katong.
So many choices, so many large prawns, and so many glittering bottles of sake waiting for their owners to come finish them.

Teppanyaki --- Shima, at Goodwood Park Hotel.
Too bad we can't afford to eat there more often.

For the record, other food I enjoy that I haven't quite pinned down a favourite place for yet (in alphabetical order, 'cause I'm anal retentive that way):

• Bak kut teh
  
• Buffalo wings
• Carrot cake
• Dim sum
• Fishball noodles
  
• Fish head curry
• Mee siam
  
• Nasi padang
• Olua (oyster omelette)
  
• Lasagna
• Peranakan food --- we loved loved loved Yuen's along Upper East Coast Road, but a change of operators or cooks, not to mention what seemed like perpetual renovations, made me give up on it
• Pho
  
• Steak (obviously there's Gordon Grill, but with its prices, we can't afford to eat there all the time)
• Teochew moi (porridge), ever since our favourite place at Joo Chiat was inexplicably taken over by an inferior cook
  
• Xiao long bao (northern Chinese dumplings, with a squirt of oil and soup inside, different from the southern Cantonese varieties I'm more familiar with)
  

Suggestions welcome!

Okay, now I'm hungry.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore food, reader request

Lana cake for lunch

The thing about eating week-old Lana cake straight out of the fridge is that even though it doesn't taste as good as when it's fresh, it's still miles and away better than the chocolate cake you'd get at most cafes in town and there's still tantalizing hints of its buttery goodness in every bite, enough to make you happily recall the taste of fresh cake and all the past experiences of eating it.

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Technorati Tags: Lana cake, lunch

Not my cooking, obviously

On Monday after lunch, I walked into the office and was greeted by the scent of gently stewing mushrooms, Chinese herbs and chicken.


Whipped up by a lovely British colleague.

It's nice to work with people who enjoy cooking (and who cook well). Pity I'd already had lunch by then.

The office was filled with the aroma of stew all afternoon. I'm not sure what some of the other non-Singaporean colleagues made of it, particularly since a couple of them had just arrived from Canada the night before, but for me it brought back memories of my mother's cooking rightaway. Now that's another recipe I'll have to learn off her when I remember ...

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What do Freemasons eat for lunch?

On Friday, ampulets and I ventured on a not-so-undercover mission to find out what it is the Freemasons have for lunch. This comes after days of walking past the sign outside the Freemason Hall informing passersby that their restaurant a) is open to the public, b) offers set lunches for $9.80 and c) accepts telephone reservations.

I don't know what the Freemasons are about, but the restaurant's interior consists of lots of dark wood panelling, elegant chandeliers, portraits of a young Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, among other luminaries, and framed display pieces on the walls that showcase Freemason togs and weathered-looking pseudo-parchment pieces about Solomon's Temple.

When I entered, I told the waiter I was meeting a friend and he responded, "What's his good self's name?" At least, that's what I think he said; I was too busy being mildly perturbed that the other three or four occupied tables consisted of business-looking-types in business-type suits who could have passed for actual Freemasons.

But that's just first impressions for you. As it turned out, lunch was largely impeccable --- good service, good food, all in a nicely coiffed environment that couldn't more be at odds with the busy streets and humid weather outside. As ampulets remarked, it immediately feels like you're in the UK. ampulets had the roast chicken, I had the poached dory, and I'm sorry the photograph of my dory didn't turn out well because it was the prettiest dory I'd ever seen: three coils of soft white fish fillet crowned with fragrant garlic butter.

The only letdown was the dessert, which was a slice of butter fruitcake served fresh from the fridge.


We just had the melon balls. And the photo, to prove that we ate at the Freemasons'.

On our way out, as I was pointing out the antiquated sign directing the way to the "Ladies Powder Room", we must have loitered for half a second longer than permitted for non-members because an old Chinese man popped out of the door beside the restaurant to ask if he could help us.

Nevertheless, this is quite the cosy nook to pop in for a peaceful lunch in what I am coming to think of as the old city area of downtown. A wedding party even trooped in for a late déjeuner from the nearby Registry of Marriages, which made ampulets and I go, of course this would be the perfect place for that.

The set lunch changes everyday. ampulets and I are next coming back on a Thursday, for the prawns provence with pasta and the brownies.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Freemason, lunch

Saturday night

Nothing calms the unsettled soul like a little Serenity.

Well, that and a little late-night bak kut teh (herbal pork rib soup).


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Technorati Tags: Singapore, supper

Unexpectedly, a homecoming

I went "back" to Chinatown for lunch today, and it felt like coming home, even though I didn't eat in a coffeeshop or hawker centre or eat Asian food at all, for that matter. Just cutting across Hong Lim Square, smiling at the old men inching their way down the stairs, inhaling the aroma of freshly baked Chinese breads and poking around in a stationery store before buying some wedding ang pows --- it all felt familiar and right.

After lunch, I picked up a kopi-O kosong (black coffee, i.e. no sugar, no milk) for 60 cents, to bring back to the office. It wasn't as teeth-stainingly powerful as the kind they serve at my favourite coffeeshop on Keong Saik Road, but it'll do.

(Yes, you can still get excellent coffee in Chinatown for 60 cents. Eat your heart out, Starbucks.)

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinatown

On a completely different note

Epicurious has the best iced tea in Singapore.

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We interrupt our work to bring you this message

Busy. Much. Enjoy some pictures while I'm not here.


Lunch with Abigael --- twice! --- last week.


This is what photographers do when you aren't looking. You think they let just anyone set up exhibitions? Even if it's not their own work per se.

So I provided moral support slash white noise (and supplied cold drinks) while the boys finished setting up the InsideOut exhibition at Objectifs. Go see it if you haven't already (until March 21); if you're not in Singapore, check out the website.


Taken by thelanguishingcat.
My latest first cousin once removed showed up, a tad little earlier than her dad (who hasn't updated his blog in forever) and mom expected. I squeezed out time for a short visit over the weekend, but have yet to inspect her fingers and toes, as she seems to enjoy being cocooned in a blanket while she sleeps, which, you know, is all babies do at her age.

Other than that, it's been work, work, work. Good work, but work that keeps me plenty busy. As I mentioned over the weekend to all the lovely people who wanted to do something, I'm deferring all non-critical social engagements until mid-March.

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All by myself

Today is the first day since Monday that I haven't had kk for online company, and boy, is it weird.

kk is an old and dear friend from university who now lives in Tokyo. Ever since I graduated, we have not ever been in the same city, or even the same timezone, for more than two weeks at a stretch. So to keep in touch, we've had to rely on emails and phone calls and meetings-for-coffee whenever she was in town.

It was only last year that we got around to trading IM details. And then she had this pesky habit of being invisible even when she was online.

All of this week (except today), kk has been online and visible. And oh my god, it's just like being in college again.

I should remind you, if you haven't read one of my earlier entries, that kk is the friend with whom I nearly formed a procrastination club in college. We got as far as having a name for it, PSS, though I can't remember now what the middle 'S' stood for. But we never got round to forming the actual club --- of course.

Now that our work days practically overlap with each other, and we're almost always online, well, let's just say that work hasn't been this much fun in a while. Having a friend there, all day long, is like having an invisible friend or daemon (TM Philip Pullman) with you in the office: someone you can wail at when things aren't going your way, to bitch with when strange shenanigans are afoot in the office, someone who can share your excitement over some silly webpage you've just found, who appreciates your silly humour and is well able to counter it with silly humour of their own, and who has no qualms about typing everything in caps and hitting the 'return' key after each word so that you get an incessant stream of IM messages calculated to wake you up from your post-lunch stupor.

Speaking of lunch, I learned this week that lunch is, colloquially, 'ranchi', at least in Tokyo. So then I had to tell kk all about the new stall at Maxwell Hawker Centre that sells puffs and muffins: it's called Runchy.

As far as lunch-centred conversations go, I think kk's on the losing end of the conversation because I keep reciting all the Singapore food she misses (chicken rice Monday, Thai food Tuesday, nasi lemak Wednesday and bak kut teh Thursday) and all she can tell me in return is that she had a tuna and avocado sandwich. Line them up however you will, but I don't think tuna and avocado quite cuts it in the grand hierarchy of gastronomical epiphanies.

kk is taking a long weekend away from work, so no invisible friend for me today. I'll tell her about my dim sum lunch on Monday.

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What people living in Tokyo have for dinner

From today's IM conversations:

ME: I had Thai food [for lunch]
kk: i think I'm supposed to have thai tonight
kk: or we were talking about going to this Thai-Italian place.
kk: yes...i said Thai Italian...
kk: it's not mixed but rather, they have a thai menu and an italian menu. it's quite strange...
kk: [my boyfriend] thinks they are trying to save costs on bulk purchasing basil...

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Fine, fine traditions

At the family dinner tonight, talk naturally turned towards the origins of yu sheng, which seems to have exploded in popularity in Singapore these past few Chinese New Years. I honestly don't remember eating it at all when I was growing up, but it's everywhere these days, from fancy fine dining establishments to humble corner coffeeshops where you can pick up a veritable kaleidoscope of vegetable-and-fish goodness to toss at home.

Everyone says the dish originated in Singapore and is gaining popularity in Malaysia. This prompted my mom's recollection that my grandmother didn't allow her or her siblings to have any when they were kids, on the off chance that it would upset their stomachs (which I guess would be bad luck for the New Year, not to mention necessitating inconvenient and, back then, not necessarily affordable medical treatment).

The reminiscence and common wisdom notwithstanding, I thought it might be interesting to scrounge up a slightly more authoritative source for the claim. As it turns out, The Straits Times reported on it in 2003:

While yu sheng was created in Singapore in the 1960s, the origin of this Chinese New Year (CNY) delicacy can be traced back to a simple village practice held by Chinese fishermen in the past. It was traditional for fishermen along the coast of Guangzhou to celebrate the seventh day of CNY, or ren ri, by feasting on their catch as fish, or yu, is synonymous with abundance and prosperity. This cultural practice was then brought to Singapore by migrants where it evolved into fish porridge found at roadside stalls. It was only in the mid-1960s that master chefs Hooi Kok Wai, Lau Yoke Pui, Sin Leong and Than Mui Kai decided to create a unique CNY dish using the strips of raw fish from the porridge. Combining the raw slices of a local fish with a melange of ingredients including shredded carrots, turnips, ginger and jellyfish, yu sheng was intended to be colourful, tasty and, above all, symbolically auspicious for the allegorically-minded Chinese. (cited in A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English)

Happily enough, today happens to be the seventh day of the New Year, i.e. 人日 (ren ri), i.e. everyone's symbolic birthday, i.e. the day for eating yu sheng anyway. Apparently, on this day, some Singapore Chinese families have the tradition of having the whole family home for what seems to be a second reunion dinner. I was surprised by the number of friends and colleagues who were completely blasé when I mentioned that we had a family dinner tonight, as if it was the expected thing to do.

But it's just coincidence, really, because my parents just like having us do dinner and yu sheng with them (since we spend the reunion dinner with Terz's parents) and we just pick an evening that works for everyone. Which is my way of saying that we follow some traditions 'cause they're convenient and others 'cause they're fun, which altogether isn't a very consistent cultural doctrine, but hey look: more yu sheng from earlier this week.


Tonight's yu sheng (in the picture at the start of this entry) was my second of the New Year and Terz's first; my first was this one with colleagues on Wednesday. As a point of comparison, Wednesday's yu sheng was my boss's seventh for the New Year. Seventh. I don't think I've ever had seven in one year before.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, yu sheng, lo hei

Silly puppy, ang pows are for kids!

The first three days of the New Year haven't exactly been a whirl of visiting, eating and other New Year festivities. There's been a goodly amount of food, but not as much as Ondine's encountered, mostly because the social situations we've been in haven't come saddled with the obligation to eat ourselves silly.

Also, there's always the excuse of feeling ill, which was an honest enough reason after we experienced three near-death experiences during a 20-minute cab ride yesterday. Ironically (I think), the license plate of the cab was SHA9000. Maybe the driver thinks that the '9' ('九'), which in Mandarin sounds like the character for 'a long time', means that he'll be driving for a long time, no matter how many stupid risks he takes on the road and how hard he tries to wipe himself (and his passengers) out.

Anyway, for tscd's benefit, here's a list of everything I've been eating since New Year's Eve:

• pineapple tarts
• love letters
• kok zai (deep-fried peanut puffs)
• Mandarin oranges
• a few mouthfuls of spaghetti bolognaise
• leftover steamboat soup, chock-full of meat
  
• kueh lapis
• bak kwa
• chicken curry
• popiah
• kong bak (fatty stewed pork) in bao (buns)
• a mouthful of hamburger off the barbecue grill
• 2 stalks of celery
• a handful of potato chips
• 2 Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies
• some leftover roast duck and siow bak (fatty pork)
• Taiwanese pineapple tarts
• Sarpino's pizza
  

Of course, not all of it qualifies as traditional Chinese New Year food, although Sarpino's may be gaining ground as such, given its regular appearance at our New Year get-togethers.

On the first day of the New Year, I was sitting by at the various family gatherings, watching my grandparents among the rest of the extended family, and it occurred to me that even though all I had was my crappy cellphone camera, some pictures of the grandparents for my cousins living overseas would be better than none at all.

On the second day of the New Year, we were at Uncle's and I listened to Shea read her book and helped her with the words she had trouble with, and even though I swear to God I was paying close attention to her at the time, I cannot for the life of me now remember the title of the book. All I know is that it was a pop-up book about a ladybird trying to get home and how the other insects --- including a spider, some ants and maybe a grasshopper, or was it a stick insect? --- helped her to get across the various obstacles in the garden.

On the third day of the New Year (i.e. today), I played two hands of mahjong, that was it. And when I say two hands, what I mean is that we didn't even complete one round for one wind --- just one game, a second game, and we were done. Yeah, it doesn't feel right to me too.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, food

Family obligations

In the (late) morning, the annual visit to the family clan association. I was brought up Christian, so all this was alien to me after we got married and I began accompanying Terz on the annual pilgrimages. It still is, in many ways.


There's the lunch, which we'll eat afterwards, laid out in clear plastic containers in front of the ancestral tablets. Laying it out takes less than five minutes, but waiting for the ancestors to declare their satisfaction with the meal can take anything from twenty minutes to the better part of an hour, depending on how picky they are that year.

Then there's the burning of joss paper, which I don't know anything about because I spend most of my time each visit sitting in the clan hall as an unobtrusive observer. Then there's the divvying up of food among the relations who've shown up for the annual ritual. Then we go home to eat it, and to shower to get the smell of incense and ash out of our hair.

At night, there's the reunion dinner. As I've been gleefully telling anyone who'll listen to me this year, the mother-in-law declared in December that she was tired of eating the same old reunion dinner menus served at Chinese restaurants, so she thought we would go Western for ours. Hurray! Less one serving of yu sheng* (which we'll eat at least another five times over in the fifteen-day New Year period anyway)

It fell to us to make the reservations, so we made the extremely sensible choice of Gordon Grill at Goodwood Park Hotel.


Obviously, we elected to get something Off The Trolley for our main courses.

It's not easy to find good steak in Singapore and it's worth springing for the good stuff, which Gordon has in abundance. It begins with who I assumed was the restaurant manager, cheerfully greeting us at the entrance and showing us all the way in to our table. It's followed through with impeccable service, solicitous enough to make the mother-in-law nervous that we weren't giving them enough to do. It culminates in really good food, of course --- steaks done to perfection, smooth soups, crisp salads. Bonus points for dining there on Chinese New Year Eve: an appetizer on the house, and a costumed 財神 (Fortune God) handing out dining vouchers and discount cards.

Oh yes, and then there was dessert.


My crappy cameraphone pictures really don't do them justice.

Oh, and they gave me a little gnome-sized chair to put my handbag on. Deeeeelightful.

Tonight's dinner confirmed for me that I really, really like arugula. And somewhere during Terz's Irish coffee and my crepes suzette, something about the scents and feel of the place made me think for an instant that I was in Vancouver. Don't ask me why.

Gongxi facai, one and all!

* On a completely unrelated note, the Flickr tag for yu sheng throws up many, many pictures of a guy whom I assume is Yu Sheng, looking broody and shit. And since we're on this tangent, have you seen Fastr - a Flickr game (link via lifehacker)?

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, family, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, reunion dinner, Gordon Grill

A meme 4 you?

Doh! Tagged again.

4 jobs you've had in your life
Book publishing intern
Telemarketer (for a good cause but, yes, karma, I know)
Data entry clerk
Teacher

4 movies you could watch over and over
Serendipity
The Lord of the Rings (I'll just count all three as one movie)
Bend It Like Beckham
Before Sunrise/Before Sunset (again, sneakily counting them as one)

4 TV shows you love(d) to watch
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Firefly
Knight Rider (okay, I was really young then, but KITT was the bomb!)
The West Wing

4 places you've lived
Singapore
Some place in Virginia that I can't be bothered to call my mom to find out the specific town name
Chicago
New York

4 places you've been on vacation to
Koh Samui
Ha Long Bay
Honolulu
Kansas City

4 places you would rather be
Vancouver
Hanoi
The Australian outback
Bali

4 of your favourite foods
Chocolate
The fruit salad at Brewerkz
Char siew wan ton mee
Soya sauce chicken, the way my mom makes it

4 websites you visit daily
Gmail
Google
Dictionary.com
I'm hard pressed to include a fourth because I don't even blog everyday, but my Flickr Contacts page is something I check pretty often.

4 tagged
Chandler
tscd
trisha
limegreenspyda

As a reward for reading this list all the way through, here's a bonus link for you: Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure (link via rosmar) --- although if you didn't ever dabble in text-based online roleplaying games, you may not altogether get it.

Edited to add: Addendum

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Technorati Tags: meme

Indulging

Just because I wax lyrical about working in Chinatown doesn't mean I don't appreciate having a genteel lunch in airconditioned comfort once in a while.

My pal Casey took me to Chez Le Mamy, a charming French-inspired bistro on Ann Siang Hill where I got to lounge in a decadent armchair and savour a surprisingly light three-course meal. It was the kind of place where they don't have to post a "no cellphones allowed" sign; customers naturally switch their phones to silent mode and take their calls, if any, outside the restaurant. The owner and, it would seem, chef made sporadic appearances, emerging from the basement kitchen to swirl "Bonjour!" at random tables.

Lunch was the set lunch: the smoothest, clearest vegetable soup I've ever had, then some supple seabass fillet with fresh aglio olio pasta on the side, and finally a neat dollop of creme caramel. They also have some fancy tenderloins on the menu that I'll have to bring Terz to try some time.

Casey bought me lunch today, so I'll have to return the favour in the next couple of weeks. Any recommendations on a good place for lunch in the Chinatown/Tanjong Pagar area?

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore food, restaurant

Wednesday

The thing about spending the better part of a day with Stellou is that you never know where it'll take you.

There might be breakfast at Ang Mo Kio Street 61. Not pictured are the chwee kueh (as mr brown defines it: "steamed rice cake topped with chopped preserved radish"), fishball noodles, "black" carrot cake, iced chendol and thick, fragrant coffee that we leisurely put away over the course of one and a half hours.

Publish
There might be a car ride downtown to Shenton Way. Stellou approved of the multitude of pink shoes, of course.


There might be Santa Claus grinning down at you from the shiny aluminium wall of a Japanese restaurant, completely unperturbed that his traditional salutation has been thrown into reverse. This is also the restaurant that also seems to be the only place open at lunchtime at Katong Village, its neighbours being fine nocturnal establishments like Beer Belly Pub and Chevy 57.


There might be an MRT ride to town later, en route to which we discover that even our humble park names can be bought and paid for by international corporations. Americans and their Tostitos Fiesta Bowl or Busch Memorial Stadium might be used to this sort of usurpation, but I'm a little dismayed that it's snuck into our public spaces. Next thing you know, we'll have the Creative National Stadium or Osim Singapore League.


Eventually, there might be a great deal of rummaging at Kinokuniya, followed by a decorous farewell at the platform of Orchard MRT station. Most importantly, there has been the repeated uttering of the immortal lines, "There's this girl from Singapore I met in London, and she's so cool, you know, she's so cool that we keep forgetting that, yah lah, like you, we forget that she is not an IJ girl but she's so cool anyway."

Thank ... you ... ?

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After the turkey

At a popiah party, it would be judicious to have the guy who actually has a relative in the popiah business to come early and make neat, packed rolls for everyone to partake of. However, he arrived last tonight, after we'd all slopped our way through our amateur versions, so we could only watch in awe at the flair with which he put his together.

Earlier:

Guest: I thought this was a healthy dinner. Why is there satay and [fried] chicken wings?
Hostess: Oh, that's for the carnivores --- the ones that die die must have meat one.

Said guest went on to eat mostly satay and chicken wings.

Food aside, it is quite something to share a dinner table with someone who describes herself as a breastfeeder and another whose primary job description is to prevent all the hazardous materials at her workplace from blowing up.



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The season for feasting

There was cake. It was none too sweet, which is how I like my fruitcake, but it had an unfortunate predisposition to crumble to bits the instant a knife was applied to it. So Fourth Uncle (who cooks) christened it "fruit crumble", Fifth Aunt (who bakes) deduced that its disintegratory nature was due to it being too well-packed with fruit and nuts, and the family picked at it anyway and consumed at least half of it in one afternoon.

There were chairs and benches, all lined up for the pretty people to come take their places for the family portrait. We had two absentees, unfortunately AWOL for the afternoon due to an unfavourable encounter with an oyster, but all six children and the one babe-in-arms (I miscounted the last time) made it and were less trouble getting in line than all the adults.

There were many shoes, because that's what happens when forty-two people converge on the same location and immediately flee into the house to escape the maddening afternoon heat.

I wish I had pictures also of the excellent turkey (don't knock Cold Storage, people) and the sweet sweet ham and the heady homemade oxtail soup, the extended family engrossed by episode after episode of The Family Guy, my mom and Ondine orchestrating the last-minute gift exchange (where some people got ragged handwritten notes that said ,"Merry Christmas" or "Better luck next time"), my five-year-old cousin "feeding" keropok (fried crackers) to the stuffed tiger on the floor or Terz chilling out with a beer after the photo shoot.

Well, I tried to take pictures of some of that, but I have a shaky hand. In lieu of that, check out what we had for dinner at X-man's last night.



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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Christmas, Xmas

A tale of two burgers

Yesterday, due to the exigencies of errand-running, Terz and I were forced to partake of a meal at McDonald's. He asked me to get him a McChicken meal and went off to get a table. I stepped up to the counter, ordered his meal, blanked out when the woman asked me if that would be all, and hastily added, "And a Big Mac meal."

No, I wasn't thinking. Yes, this is the power of McDonald's relentless marketing through the decades --- that when confronted by the urgency of making a consumer decision, my brain lapses into some subliminally preprogrammed mode and utters the two words that are at the core of the McDonald's faith.

I mean, seriously, I don't like eating the Big Mac. I don't like eating much that's at McDonald's at all, but if I had the chance to think rationally about what would be the least undesirable of all its dietary options, the Big Mac would not be it.

Nevertheless, I had one: a soggy, squishy and truly unappetizing Big Mac. I couldn't finish it. I'd been starving before, but looking at the Big Mac long enough made those hunger pangs dematerialise instantly.

Even the fries were a disappointment. Time was when the point of going to McDonald's, really, was the fries. But after so long away, they tasted the wrong kind of salty and crispy. Yuck.

So much for that hopeless "meal".

On to happier events. Today, we wound up in the back of the back of beyond: Botak Jones.


I don't have the street address for it, but it's in Tuas, just around the corner from Tanjong Gul camp. (For non-Singaporeans, this means that it's about as far west as you can go on our tiny island before you cross the border to Malaysia.)

In a manner of speaking, it's not that hard to find because it does lie along an actual road that's in the street directory and you can take an expressway (the Ayer Rajah Expressway) almost all the way there. So Sunset Grill still wins the prize for being the most unlocatable restaurant in Singapore.

Also, Botak Jones occupies two hawker stalls in a large coffeeshop that serves the workers in this industrial area. It doesn't have its own restaurant space per se and so has little control over the ambience. To wit, the unprepossessing view from our table tonight:


And because the coffeeshop already has a drinks stall, Botak Jones doesn't sell its own beer or any other fancy drinks.

What Botak Jones does have, and this is nothing to sniff at, is burgers of this variety: three meat patties stacked atop each other, smothered in cheese because that's how askgerard.com (formerly known as G-man on this blog) asked them to make it.


I had my own burger, just one patty thankyouverymuch, and it was tasty and meaty, and it held together rather well.

One of the staff told us they're opening a branch in January at block 608, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 --- but as Terz remarked, what's the point if you don't have to drive all the way to the ends of Singapore to find it?

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, burger, McDonald's, Botak Jones

Smell the coffee?

For the first time in months, we have exercised our coffeemaker.

We used to make coffee every morning without fail. Back when Terz was also teaching, he would wake up before I did, so he got the coffee going first thing. In June 2003, I stopped drinking coffee everyday: we were on vacation in Kyoto then, and for some reason, I went off the coffee and, miraculously, did not suffer any withdrawal headaches. Since it seemed exactly that easy to break the caffeine habit, I did.

Lately, I've been having a lot of coffee. I blame this firmly on my colleague James, who has devious plans to make me drink as much coffee as he does. The difference between James and me is that he drinks it for its narcotic function, while I'm all about the aesthetics --- fragrance, flavour and fluidity. If anything, I'm more likely these days to drink it when I'm already feeling awake, not in order to stay awake.

Which is why it wasn't till 1 pm today that I cleaned out the coffeemaker and revved it up for a first brew.

By the way, if anyone has suggestions as to where I can purchase socially responsible coffee grounds, let me know. The giant mall that is Singapore isn't exactly a fertile environment for independent coffee sellers to set up shop.

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Maunderings

From an email I sent to Stellou today:

... there are two public holidays this week (Tue and Thu, one is Hari Raya Puasa or Eid ul-Fitr as the rest of the Muslim world calls it, the other is Deepavali, not sure which is which because the bloody local press is helpful in using shorthand to refer to it as "Deeparaya" *puke*) ...

I have been having lacklustre meals of late (including TWO Burger King meals, ordered and eaten entirely of my own volition, it wasn't like we were on a desert island that had nothing to eat except Burger King), so we'll need to fix that in the coming week.

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Let us eat cake

This morning, I had a craving --- not for coffee or cake, but for the company of my mother. So I called her first thing when I got to work, even before I started up ye olde laptoppe to check work email.

This is the happy equilibrium that my mother and I have arrived at since I got married and moved out on our own: There are no mandatory requirements for us to have dinner at home every Sunday or anything. Instead, we function on a much more fluid system that's managed to generate regular enough meals and drop-ins, as and when one party feels the need to see/dine with the other. Some months we see each other practically every week; other times we are equally happy to go for weeks without seeing or even talking on the phone, for various reasons (I assure you, none of them involving melodramatic mother-daughter entanglements).

Today, I felt most emphatically that I wanted to have afternoon tea with my mother. And lo, it came to pass that we met mid-afternoon, checked out Cream Bistro at Pacific Plaza, dismissed it as having far too narrow of a cake selection to meet our sugarmaniac needs (hello, we used to eat for the full three hours at the Goodwood Park Hotel's English high tea), and took ourselves over to Big O Cafe at Wheelock Place instead.

(Oddly enough, I can't find a website for Big O Cafe, even though its parent outfit NYDC is well-represented.)

And of course, what's afternoon tea without a few aunts stirred into the mix? Today's guest stars: just Third and Fourth Aunts, because my mode of precipitous planning didn't give First Aunt sufficient time to squeeze us into her day and Fifth Aunt's out of the country.

While the aunts settled into their seats, accompanied by many exclamations as to the sudden downpour (powerful enough to blacken the 3 pm sky to a 7 pm intensity), I stole Fourth Aunt's blue-framed sunglasses to try them on. The next thing I knew, she was giving them to me: "Oh, I bought them in Perth, because the last time we went there, I forgot my sunglasses. They look nice on you! Don't worry, don't worry, I have another pair from China, because when we went there, I forgot my sunglassses again! It's okay, I have the other pair, they're almost identical."

This was not unlike a certain scene from about twenty years ago, when the family gathered to visit our relatives' graves at the former Bidadari Cemetery. I stole (literally) one of her large gold earrings to wear on one side like a pirate; she gamely played along and kept the other one on. After the cemetery visit and dinner, she offered me the pair, but I declined --- which was just as well, because I don't think I would've ever worn them again.

These sunglasses, they're mine now --- I'll have to wear them again. But this time it won't be a problem, so long as the right weather presents itself (admittedly a tall order 'midst the current monsoon).

Actually, today's tea brought an unexpected embarrassment of riches: not only the sunglasses, but also a pretty jar of lavender body scrub from Bangkok, because Fourth Aunt felt that my spontaneous gesture to invite everyone to tea deserved a little reward in itself. I'm not sure how all this adds up in the great Chinese equation of giving gifts and paying for meals, but the general rule among the mater and the aunts is to accept the gift/treat graciously and return in kind at an appropriate juncture in the future.

Mutual generosity aside, afternoon tea consisted of the tasting of many cheesecakes and one chocolate hazelnut delight (improbably named Indecent Obsession, but really, it was all about decency and exultation, rather), the exchanging of household tips, the discussion of proper etiquette for delivering wedding invitations to one's grandfather, and some brow-furrowing over young people and tattoos these days. I didn't mention Terz's Project Tattoo (link accessible by Flickr friends and family only), but I did try to explain about self-expression and so on. Then my mother mentioned people who get piercings in their foreskin, and I don't remember anything after that. When my brain clicked back to reality, the conversation had moved on to mundanities like what everyone was doing after tea --- and thank goodness for that. I love the mater and the aunts, but there are some words I'm not ready to bandy about with them in conversation.

After tea, Mom and I went window shopping. We didn't need to buy anything; it was enough to listen to Mom's latest on the cousins, or the skimpy things girls are wearing nowadays, or ...

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Related posts: Time at home, Home again, home again, jiggety jig, Snippets from the week that was, Teachers' Day, redux

Technorati Tags: afternoon tea, aunts

Afternoon coffee, redux

It's the week for drinking coffee, I guess.

Olorin and I were looking for a place to sit down and grab a drink in the middle of the afternoon. Since we were in the middle of Katong, the logical choice was Chin Mee Chin Confectionery.





Located: Next to Holy Family Church.
Established: At least 25 years ago, if not earlier (Google didn't turn up any info on this).
Serves: Kopi and teh in old-fashioned porcelain cups, kaya on buns, and assorted tasty Chinese tarts and pastries. Modern canned drinks like Coke also make sporadic appearances.

Although Olorin has lived in the east all his life and I've been living around here for more than six years, this was sadly the first time that either of us have stepped into the place. Perhaps it's the demise --- albeit spiritual, rather than physical --- of The Red House that makes us appreciate this nook all the more.

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Related posts: I have coffee!, Afternoon coffee

Technorati Tags: Singapore, Katong, kopi, coffee, coffee break, coffeeshop, confectionery, bakery