the hinata diaries

Picks of the week

2007-05-07T16:52:00.000+08:00

After what seems like an age and a half of sticking to comfort zone restaurants, finally ventured out last week to catch up on much belated eating. Here's what I discovered:

I'm surprised Brasserie Wolf isn't a more popular Sunday lunch destination. The neighbourhood is quiet and breezy, the big Dedan sofas look made for lounging, broad tables are perfect for spreading out the weekend paper. Oh and the food is pretty good. I had a ridiculously crispy confit de canard that was mostly moist on the inside, and Philippe the Frenchman gave a satisfied thumbs up to the coq au vin. The crepes suzette had a nice touch - a liberal sprinkling of orange zest in the crepe mix itself created a citrus flavour that was fresh instead of cloying. Service was hit and miss, but on a lazy Sunday I'm not complaining.

Artz Pizza, now known as Baraounda, serves in my opinion the best pizza in the East Coast, easily knocking the socks off Al Forno. Like Brasserie Wolf, I thought this was a lovely weekend lunch location with the non-stop sea breeze and view of the beach. Biting into their incredibly gooey pizzas feels all the more sinful when you're watching people painfully jog or cycle by :) We tried the Mike Pizza (i-heart-anchovies-and-garlic-in-pizza) and a standard prosciutto e funghi, both of which were excellent. Service was faultless thanks to a particularly friendly and obliging young server.

Finally made the pilgrimage to Eng Seng. Their black pepper crabs were worth my year long wait (I had always feared the queues) - the tarlike sauce burst with (of course) black pepper but also hints of coffee and burnt caramel. But it was the meat that surprised me more, firm and thick and so sweet you can't help but be reminded the crab had been alive barely minutes ago. Am plotting my return already. Wonder if you can tapao the leftover sauce? Black pepper ribs, black pepper beef, black pepper fried rice...

So there you go, my eating highlights for the week! What were yours?

Brasserie Wolf
80 Mohammed Sultan
#01-13 The Pier at Robertson
(Robertson Walk, between Brussel Sprouts and River Cafe)
Tel: 6835-7818

Baraounda
920 East Coast Parkway
(Inside Parkland Golf Driving Range, and next to Singa Inn Restaurant)
Tel: 6344-0900

Eng Seng Restaurant
247 Joo Chiat Place

Sign of life

2007-04-23T10:15:00.000+08:00

Hallo to whoever is still visiting and thanks for all the comments!

As you might've guessed from the silence over the last few months, my blog's been going through a bit of an existential crisis, primarily centered around the question "To eat or to blog?" given that work travel hasn't accommodated both in recent times. An upcoming job change (hooray!) isn't going to help either - blogging at work doesn't seem such a good idea when I'll be seated right next to my new boss.

So a faint pulse, slow, steady breathing... but hey, onto the food and let's see how things go.

Food blogging lite - what's been good in the last couple of months:

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival featured a Bill Granger designed dinner executed by Broth. This was definitely one of the best meals I've had in a long time - typically Australian freshness, crisp flavours, excellent service, and all for a fairly reasonable price (c. $100 including 5 different glasses of wine). I've not dined at bills so I'll give the credit to the team at Broth - I'm sure we all know how easy it is to stuff up a menu that sounds good on paper.

Good in another way, the Thierry Marx dinner organized as part of the Raffles Hotel Wine, Food and Arts Experience served up rather traditional French fare heavy on sauces and flavours. Surprisingly, the food took a distant backseat to the wine - while the representative from Chateau Lynch-Bages was given the mic between each serving, all we got to see from the kitchen were backstage scenes played on television screens scattered across the Raffles Grill. Not a peep or hello from the chef. The wine was often exceptional but equally often mediocre, with the real highlight of the night being seeing well-heeled men and elegantly coiffured women, straight from the Tatler pages, drunkenly staggering to the restroom.

The last Paris trip helped me rediscover modern French cuisine. I highly recommend L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon - although I found his famed mashed potatoes quite disappointing (my mashed potatoes would be silky too if I'd used 90% butter), Philippe's starter of macaroni topped with cepes and foie gras, accompanied by white asparagus were fabulous. The wines were also exceptionally good with spot-on recommendations by the sommelier. The dramatic red and black interior and modern counter seating is more fun than intimidating, and the restaurant takes on the atmosphere of a chic neighbourhood hangout, where servers ply regulars with free tasting samples of new dishes and wines.

Helene Darroz was also loads of fun, serving up modern French food in tapas-sized portions. Sit in the lower priced salon, a chic yet cozy drawing room with a view of the open kitchen. I had an amazing first course of toast topped with beef marrow and slices of the season's last black truffles, which came accompanied by an asparagus veloute. This is now my ideal breakfast, all I need is a crateload of truffles. Anyone?

Also have some great food recommendations for Fukuoka. If anyone is heading there anytime soon, email me!

Closer to home, Dian Xiao Er at Vivocity was great food, great view, fun retro teahouse decor. I've been dreaming about their Mongolian spare ribs since I ate there last Friday. Their roast duck also proved worthy of its reputation - we had the ginseng based gravy which was wonderful slathered over rice. Next door at Red, White and Pure's boutique, their chocolate truffles filled with wolfberry, ginseng, red dates etc. were surprisingly subtle - no joke candies here - but my favourite discovery was the Japanese tomato and lime dessert vinegar recommended by the staff. Promptly brought a bottle back to the office where it was universally (if a universe can consist of 7 people) declared "hao he" (i.e. yummy).

A visit to San Marco post the arrival of its new chef was also extremely enjoyable save for the snotty service from the maitre d' and female hostess. Our group of six, three of which were funky media people in sneakers and ripped tees, clearly stuck out from their ideal customer type as evidenced by the suits and couples that dominated the room. That said, we enjoyed the food thoroughly and the local waitstaff were incredibly friendly and efficient. The kurobuta pork, in particular, was outstanding.

And old favourites revisited - I still love Min Jiang for its Peking duck and Sichuan food, Sin Huat for everything they put on the table.

So thanks for listening. This was pretty fun after all (especially without the stress of fiddling with photos and all), so hopefully that means we'll see each other again here soon. Ciao till then!

hungrygowhere.com

2007-02-12T17:57:00.000+08:00

Picture shamelessly lifted from hungrygowhere.com without permission. Don't scold, hor?

Every Singaporean has them.

No, not the Esso tiger tail.

No, nor the pile of individually paper-wrapped toothpicks lifted from your favourite restaurant.

By them, I mean those distant and not-so-different relatives who you only meet once a year at Chinese New Year, at the odd wedding or granny's birthday bash. You greet each other with the usual questions - "how's the spouse", "how're the kids", "how is school" - all designed to enable the questioned to respond politely yet generically, and for the questioner to nod equally politely and generically in return, a timeless and well-rehearsed ritual that generates no pain, but often affords little pleasure as well.

What most Singaporeans would readily admit is rarer though, is finding the family member that you enjoy catching up with at such occasions, each conversation rekindling memories of shared friends and experiences, or resulting in the discovery of new interests in common.

It was thus that my cousin (or specifically, our parents are cousins) and I both discovered the other was a closet foodie. Hoong An spotted my grinning mug on Chubby Hubby's site, in the photos from the food bloggers' dinner at Sage, and in turn revealed that he was embarking on a great foodie project in a professional capacity.

Fast forward to today, the offical launch date of hungrygowhere.com.

At first glance, hungrygowhere.com is one of those "why didn't I think of that before???" sites. It offers a respository of member-contributed food reviews, a search function to help you find your grub of choice in your neighbourhood of choice, and an online list of all the credit card promotions offered by restaurants. Plus cool interviews (currently with local theatre personality Jonathan Lim) and a really cute Ask Auntie section. Sign up as a member and you'll be alerted of dining promotions over email, and can also contribute reviews for a chance to win a weekly cash prize. You'll also be able to login to your account, create a profile, list your credit cards (and so have an instant overview of all promotions applicable to you), access your list of favourite places, and read bookmarked reviews from your friends, favourite reviewers or even (ahem, ego bloating now) your own personal admirers.

In our little island, where people are either always calling up their friends for dining recommendations, or being called by their friends for the same, hungrygowhere.com may just reduce everyone's phone bill (Singtel, M1 and StarHub beware!) and make discovering a new eating place that much easier.

Functionality (and there's plenty of it) aside, I love hungrygowhere.com for its honest approach to commercialism. It aims to help food establishments get their promotions across to a hungry and often cost-conscious public while refraining from endorsement disguised as objectivity. (We all know sites like these, yah? When you only realize that upon the third reading that the product being reviewed as God's gift to foodies is mysteriously stocked only by the site's advertising sponsor.)

Reviews are instead contributed by members and are both fun and interactive. As a member, if you were impressed by the review and want to try the restaurant, you can add it to your list of favourite places for future reference. You can give the reviewer props, or even add him or her as a food buddy.

So hope you guys will check the site out! It's not every day that three young professionals quit their jobs to serve the greater purpose of food and feeding, so support support yah? :) I'm personally really excited about the prospect of a new online food community and am looking forward to reading the various user reviews.

To Hoong An and your team, congrats and all the best!

Christmas flog exchange meet-up

2007-01-14T20:25:00.000+08:00

Once again, a very belated post. Excuses this time: business trips (the usual, except for a first trip to freezing cold and miserable Wuhan) and also my beloved Casio Exilim has suicided *moment of silence*.

Tried taking photos with my new and not so beloved Nokia N73, have to say the macro is fairly impressive, but uploading photos is a super bitch. All the supplied software only works with Windows PC, so I literally spent an entire night attempting all these fancy technology tricks that up till then I'd only heard of and never imagined as being practically relevant. Eventually managed to Bluetooth the pics to Philippe's laptop, then spent another 2 hours trying to upload photos to Flickr. Even then, my pics came out different sizes, of funny orientation and with these weird blue borders around them, please bear with me while I figure all this stuff out!

This is why I am a mere food blogger and not a Google billionaire.

Anyway, here are pics from our Christmas flog exchange get-together! In attendance: Jasmine, Leroy, Callen, Ivan, Joone, SuperFineFeline and Mia. Venue was Tea Bone Zen Mind Cafe on Seah Street, a charming and homely place recommended by Umami for its tea eggs.

My wishee, Brenda, had wished for "Jewish or Mexican delights", but couldn't make it at the last moment, so she kindly gave us permission to share her gift - a store bought bag of tortilla chips with homemade salsa, guacamole and Mexican wedding cakes. I'd gotten the recipes from Epicurious, which I strongly recommend as a repository for great recipes of various cuisines. I especially like their feature whereby cooks who have tried the recipe can post comments - often, following their recommendations leads to quite a few surprising discoveries.

The salsa was a fairly standard mix of fresh chopped tomatoes, white onions, garlic, red chilli and cilantro, flavoured with sugar, lime juice, salt and pepper. Nothing terribly original but definitely much more enjoyable freshly made.

The guacamole, on the other hand, was far from any guacamole I've ever tried, and, as proclaimed by many of the Epicurious reviewers, possibly the best (and prettiest looking) guacamole ever. This was cos, in addition to the usual hand mashed avocado and chopped onions and chillies, this guacamole also contains halved green seedless grapes, finely diced pear and loads of scarlet red and delightfully crunchy pomegranate seeds. Some coarse salt and lime juice is all you need for flavouring.

As for the Mexican wedding cakes, these were also quite simple, and fun to make on account of being able to play with all the icing sugar. The shortbread-like cookies, studded with chopped nuts, have a very basic, "didn't I make that in Home Econs" sort of taste, but the icing sugar lends some elegance and keeps them incredibly addictive. Brenda - sorry couldn't share them with you this time, will definitely start on a Jewish cooking project for you soon!

As for my wish of Japanese mochi desserts, Leroy brought a box from Minamoto Kitchoan in the Takashimaya basement that had all the girls cooing over the gorgeous packaging:

The wrapped box

The unwrapped box

The desserts!

The assortment was hand selected by Leroy, and contained several special items for the new year (in particular, the two wrapped ones in the top right hand corner of the photo).

Each piece was a beautifully shaped and coloured combination of two or more of the following ingredients: mochi, red bean, green tea, white chocolate, chestnut paste and sakura, and felt like such an absolute treat. We managed to finish about half the box as a group, surreptitiously dividing each piece into 6 and devouring when the proprietress wasn't around (no outside food lah). The rest of the box was quickly finished the next day at home in front of the computer in true pig-out form.

Thanks Leroy for the wonderful gift!!!!!!!

As for Tea Bone Zen Mind cafe itself, we each had ordered a pot of tea and a tea egg to earn our squatting rights.

The cafe's tea variety is quite impressive, as is the delicate presentation on a fern-lined wooden tray with a dish of dried dates on the side. The extra tea leaves were even wrapped in an elegant brown sleeve for taking home. That said, it was rather on the pricey side at $10 upwards for a pot of tea - ok if you plan on spending a long lazy afternoon at the cafe, but a bit much if you only have time for a quick pop-in.

The tea egg that Umami had recommended likewise came beautifully presented, and surprised in being soft-boiled. The advantage is that the runny egg then mixes effortlessly with the herbal tea steeping mixture, which gives you much more flavour than just a dry egg. Again the pricing was on the high side though at $3.50 an egg, which is gone in a couple of spoonfuls.

All in, it was a fun afternoon seeing regular food blogger friends again and meeting new ones. Giving and receiving presents in mid-January also extended the Christmas joy a bit longer. It was, presumably, high on guacamole and visions of strawberry shortcake, that Jasmine volunteered to organize the next get-together. Jasmine, here's a little reminder *nudge nudge* :)

Hope everyone else who was there that day had a great time as well. And thanks to Joone for helping organize the exchange, sort out pairings and send e-mails, it was fun being your buddy-in-crime :) 11 more months till the next flog exchange!

Professor Ivan

Kaisan 3

2007-01-14T19:29:00.000+08:00

Why Kaisan 3? Cos that's the number of times I had to upload my mobile phone photos onto Flickr to in turn get them on to Blogger (tech retard). It's also probably the number of weeks I'm late posting this restaurant note. Bah. So in case you're wondering why all these dishes sound familiar, it's probably cos you read them on Mia, Karen or Ivan's blogs weeks ago.

The upside to my blogging this late (i.e. my big excuse) is that by this time I've forgotten many of the minor details and technicalities that I'd stored in my head with the intention of dedicating a full paragraph of long unpunctuated sentences to. What's left for me to report is that warm fuzzy feeling that stays in your tummy long after a great meal, indistinct but pleasurable memories that make you just... want more.

So that was Kaisan. The ambience on a weekday evening was clean, crisp, refined and relaxed, without the hustle and booming voices of the business suited lunchtime crowd. The chefs looked laid back and welcoming, sharing about the day's specialties with quiet pride and a cold beer on hand.

The sashimi was faultless; still, in my biased mind, one step short of Akane's orgasm on a plate, but perfectly fresh and beautifully presented. Even the smallest, trickiest river fish was deftly sliced to almost physically impossible levels of thinness with notable precision and uniformity. The variety, including many seasonal specials and several off-menu secrets, is sufficient to melt even the most jaded sashimi lover's heart.

As tempting as it was to stick with just sashimi, we ventured to try some hot foods and sushi at the chef's behest. All were enjoyable and provided an extra dimension (i.e. hot and rice) to the meal.

My only gripe was that, although the sushi is perfectly formed (large strip of fish, small mound of rice, proportions and texture primed to show off the quality of the fish), the sushi rice vinegar was sometimes a bit strong and competed for attention with a couple of the more delicate fishes. A minor gripe compared to everything that went so well that night. Honestly, who cares when you have this monstrous otoro sitting in front of you?

We were also fortunate to have been received with such hospitality. Upon the realization that we were a group of food bloggers (one person angles the dish, four people take photos, pass down and repeat. Chef says must eat this one quick and everyone screams "nooooo, must take photo first!!!" We're a pretty obvious bunch), the chef pulled out all the stops, accompanying each dish with a description of its origins, how to appreciate it, and so on. And far from getting the sense that this was being done for a good review, it seemed more that he was keen to share his passion for his craft and show off his treasure chest of secrets.

So yes, admittedly, we did benefit from a lot of chef love that night. But my suspicions that this is just a pretty damn good Japanese restaurant was independently verified by Philippe yesterday. He'd brought some colleagues for a weekday lunch and was very impressed with the quality of the food, especially the sashimi. His only gripe was that he'd asked the waitress to organize a mini-omakase with an emphasis on crab. Everything that came was very good, but no crab ever appeared, which the waitress explained at the end of the meal was because it didn't fit into his budget. Clearly a communication problem that is quite inexcusable, but, five minutes after telling me this, Philippe was back to musing "but that beef was amazing... that sashimi was so fresh... I do want to give it one more try..."

And that's my Kaisan story. For sashimi it's now #3 on my list after Akane and Nogawa, but its convenient location at Raffles Hotel and slightly lower price tag means I'll probably be back more often. Great place to suggest for a business lunch, or for a quiet catch-up night with a couple of good girlfriends.

Just to end off, here's my little tribute to Umami and her husband. They were the ones who recommended Kaisan to us in the first place, and chef Thomas immediately recalled their personal favourites. So here are their initials, painstakingly sculpted out of onion slices, next to their faves. Guys, we're thinking of you!

******************************************************
Kaisan
#01-21 Raffles Hotel Arcade
T: 6339 4929

P.S. Chef Thomas mentioned that his daughter is an avid food blog reader and a passionate baker. Didn't catch her name but, if by any chance, his daugher is reading this... you're one lucky girl if you get to eat like this at home :) Hope to read about your baking exploits on a blog some day!

The Great Pork Knuckle Quest

2007-01-08T15:29:00.000+08:00

Gonna try and keep this short(ish) to get back to regular blogging...

Spent 3 days of our Christmas holiday in Hamburg, a 10-hour drive from the in-laws' in France. I hadn't been terribly keen on visiting Germany, picturing only humourless crewcut blondes (male and female), rows of cold industrial warehouses and drug-filled rave parties, but the chance to visit old friends and sample some pork knuckle won over in the end.

Turned out to be a great suggestion on Philippe's part. Hamburg is a charming, cosmopolitan city with well-preserved storybook architecture (it managed to avoid most of the wartime bombs), a bustling port, elegant, tree-lined shopping streets, picturesque canals ("the Venice of the North" said the guidebook) and best of all, heaps of good food. Because of the port, many of the city's specialties are seafood dishes, a far cry from the stereotypical sausages and sauerkraut.

A trip to Hamburg also has the added benefit of snickers (the laugh, not the candy bar) every time you see the descriptive Hamburger, meaning "from Hamburg". Example:

Hamburger Hof is the name of a shopping mall.

A local football team is called Hamburger SV.

There's even a dessert that begins with Hamburger (Hamburger Rote Grutze), which had us confused on menus to no end.

This works in Frankfurt too but Hamburger still sounds funnier than Frankfurter.

Anyway, the flip side of Hamburg being such an international city is that German food is decidedly untypical daily fare. A quick call to our friend Lam to ask for recommendations yielded a puzzling "German food? I've only eaten that once in my life."

This from a guy who was born and raised in Germany.

Surely enough, a wander around several of the more popular eating neighbourhoods in Munich, such as Grosse Neumarkt, uncovered only Irish pubs, Italian pizzerias, sushi joints, even Mexican hole-in-the-walls. The first lunch that Gloria and Lam took us to too, while supposedly very German and packed to the brim with locals, turned out to be a bonafide fish and chips restaurant in the English tradition, down to the Pakistani guy manning the newspaper wrapped takeaway service.

But eventually Lam came through on our pleas for a REAL German place, and off we went for dinner at the still-not-so-German-sounding Old Commercial Room.

And here you go, genuine Hamburg specialties!

Aalsuppe

A sweet-and-sour version of minestrone filled with assorted veggies, stewed fruits and slices of eel. According to the good folks at Wikipedia, the eel was never an original ingredient in the soup. Rather, the name aalsuppe is literally soup with all in it, i.e. a toss-everything-in-and-clear-the-fridge kinda soup, but after many confused people ordered it expecting to see aallool or eel in it, the eel came to be a staple.

This was really fun. I'm a big fan of all things vinegary, so enjoyed this very much as a 'kai wei' opening to what I (rightly) anticipated was a heavy meal. The stewed fruits also seemed appropriately festive with the snow falling outside.

This was also the closest thing I'd be getting to Asian food for a while (giam chye soup?!) and so was deserving of a fair amount of lingering and licking of spoons.

Labskaus
My queries to Gloria and Lam on true Hamburg food earlier in the day engendered a fit of childish giggles from Gloria. "The Vomit!" she cried to Lam, "they must eat The Vomit!" She then admitted there was a very traditional dish from Hamburg called labskaus, which neither of them had yet dared to try (Lam in his almost 40 years of being a German, and Gloria in her 10 years of being married to one), on account of its uncanny resemblance to, you guessed it, vomit.

So, at dinner, we ordered The Vomit. Here it is, oozing out, swamp-creature like, the colour of exposed flesh, from under the fried egg.

The Vomit turned out to be a fairly tasty but aesthetically unappealing ladle of mushy corned beef (imagine creamed corned beef without cream, if that makes sense. Or regurgitated corned beef without Grandma's false teeth in them). Served with beetroot and mashed potatoes, it seemed like something you'd make for yourself in college when the funds run out - thrown together from tinned cans, nothing fancy or delicate, but still digestible and pretty filling.

This was fun from a tourist perspective ("Look Ma, Germans eat puke!"), but not sure if I'd voluntarily order it again or attempt to make it at home.

Mains

Our mains turned out to be more generically pan-European than German. I had duck breast with braised red cabbage and potato hash balls; Lam had a highly recommended fish and Philippe pork medallions with tagliatelle. All were very well prepared and had us eagerly swopping samples across the table. Still, it was hard to get past the mental block of "I'm in Germany and I want pork knuckle dammit!", despite Lam and our server's gentle protests that these dishes are truly Hamburgian.

Hamburger Rote Grutze

At least there was no denying that dessert was authentically local - after all, it did bear the Hamburger appellation. This turned out to be an innocuous plate of mixed berries in cream, oddly summery in the midst of bleak winter, but deliciously tart and cheerily coloured.

Our meal was accompanied (for me at least) with glass after glass of Spezi, a popular localsoft drink which is really a mix of Fanta Orange and Coke. Caramel brown and tepid, it brought back guilty childhood memories of the Kickapoo-Sarsi-Cherryade combinations my primary school drink stall aunty would allow us to concoct for 20 cents a pop.

I'd highly recommend the Old Commercial Room if you're in Hamburg looking for a good meal. The restaurant is very much a local institution, and a first encounter with one of the formally dressed, silver-haired servers is enough to impart that "hallowed hall" feeling. It's also a great place to gain insight on Hamburg's people and its development as a city, with newpaper clippings and photos covering every available inch of wall space. Oh, plus they have some kick-ass looking booze hanging around.

P.S. I finally got my pork knuckle on the way back to France during a one night stopover in Frankfurt. Nice looking city with impressive office towers and cool sculptures dotting the streets, but completely dead during the holidays. We ended up finding my precious schweinhaxe at a restaurant in the middle of the Markt with more tourist than gastronomic value. Nothing worth recommending but it looked impressive and I'm just glad I finally got it. Here's the baby!

Back to local blogging next!

Christmas in France

2007-01-03T15:32:00.000+08:00

Just got back from a short but good Christmas trip to France, my first Christmas back in three years.

Quite a bit's changed since the last time I was back in my in-laws' hometown, a 3 hour train ride to the east of Paris. The nieces are, I suppose understandably, much bigger - Jade at 6 has lost most of her baby fat, and now has the vocabulary befitting her cheeky precociousness (a more recent gem being her indignant reply, when asked if she had good girlfriends in her new primary school, that "I'm not a lesbian you know!"); Camille and Manon are towering fashion plates traipsing around mid-winter in patent pumps; and Justine, who I'd hoped would be impressed by my young funky aunt wannabe pink highlights, turned out to have a head of blonde-streaked hair herself, and sniffed that my own colour was closer to orange than pink (despite my protest that it was simply the poor lighting).

I'd also forgotten how indifferent my French family is to my earnest attempts to display good Confucian filial piety. Shooed out of the kitchen, banned from food preparation or cleaning up, I felt useless... betrayed. Didn't my in-laws know that I'm supposed to willingly chop off my own arm to boil them medicinal soup in times of ill health? Bah. A perfectly nutritious arm (slim and nicely tanned at that!), wasted.

Having reluctantly hunkered down to the realization that my dusty skills of friendship-bracelet weaving (for the nieces) and table setting (for the in-laws) just wouldn't cut it any more, I decided to stick to what I do best in France - eating.

This started with a 6am chocolat chaud and pain au chocolat, my usual arrival foods, while killing time at the Gare de L'Est station waiting for the train. Unfortunately, in the freezing cold, I was done with both in about 30 seconds, and eventually yielded my much sought after counter space after many purposeful glares in my direction. This led to 45 minutes of sitting perched on my suitcase in the middle of the station, a magnet for crazy old ladies who seemed to enjoy nothing more than (1) pushing their suitcase trolleys at me full speed, and getting a good laugh as I started up off my seat, (2) admonishing me with repeated utterances of "c'est grave, c'est grave" and finally (3) I suspect, tapping me on the top of my head with an umbrella. I say I suspect because I had a stiff hoodie on, and turning my neck to look behind me only resulted in my seeing the interior of my hoodie back. By the time I'd exerted the considerable effort needed to turn my entire person around, said crazy old lady was nowhere to be seen. But I'm sure it happened. That or the insanity is contagious.

Anyway, on to Christmas foods. Being a tech dummy, I still haven't figured out how to make those fancy collages that seem to come from Flickr, so here they are, old skool.

Christmas Eve dinner at Philippe's sister's started with fresh oysters, followed by foie gras, fresh figs and onion confit.

Then an entree of coquilles Saint Jacques with caramelized endives in cream. The endives were fascinating - crisp yet soft, bitterly sweet. The cream is added later but quickly takes on the flavours, making it a rich and fitting complement to the coquilles.

The main dish was Philippe's mom's traditional capon, a castrated rooster. Little did baby Jesus know that his birth would be celebrated centuries later by Frenchmen enthusiastically lopping the balls of hapless male chicks, albeit that said balls are innocently "the size and colour of a kernel of corn". Nonetheless, the capon was delicious, served with sides of stewed apples and chestnuts (Patrick from Azhang notes that French chestnuts are a completely different breed from Chinese chestnuts and therefore more appropriate for cooking, no innuendo intended.)

The kids got to eat the severed rooster testicles, breaded and baked, a popular TV time snack apparently.

Nah, ok, so they're just pommes noisettes. I've been reading Ivan's blog too much methinks, the mind's getting fouled up. I took the pic cos growing up pommes noisettes were my favourite dinner side (peel the skin then eat the centers), and I was surprised to find out that kids in France eat them too. (Another surprising note, did anyone know that Bata, trusty manufacturer of cardboard white school shoes, is also French? As is the Ayam Tuna brand?)

Cheese plate for dessert, then homemade log cake! Philippe's dad is quite the baker, and proudly insisted that I spend a good 5 minutes snapping photos of his cakes before he carved them up (this is the chocolate version, there was a similar vanilla one as well).

Lastly, a pic of the lemonade bottle that now serves as water pitcher, cos I thought it was cute and also because it served as my beacon of salvation through the endless bottles of wine we went through (more on that later).

Christmas day lunch with my brother-in-law's family at the surprisingly nautical themed (we're hours from the nearest ocean) L'Hippocampe (aka The Seahorse). The meal turned out non-traditional in the Christmas sense, but good.

Turns out that the owner/chef is a certified disciple of Monsieur August Escoffier himself, which puffed me up no end with a false sense of pride. I married the man who is brother to the woman who married the man who organized lunch at an Escoffier restaurant! It's as if The Man cooked a special meal for me himself! My hands got quite sore from patting myself on the back.

The Man and his disciple

The cute handpainted lamps. Note that at any French family celebration, it is de rigeur to scatter little bits of sparkly paper across the length of the table.

Folding boat-shaped serviettes. Ahoy!

Starter: Foie gras (again), with toasted baguette, a smattering of loose spices, and an apricot chutney

Main: trio of fish with pasta

Dessert: a Bomb Alaska (which failed to spectacularly ignite, but tasted good anyway)

Fast forward to New Year's Eve as this post is getting way too long.

End of the day, festive holidays in France are not more exotic than anywhere else in the world. There's the countdown TV specials featuring the best of "Candid Camera" type gag shows and champion ice skating, kids still run off between courses to ping friends on MSN, and when mom finally gets tired of cooking, you order home delivery.

Fortunately, French home delivery from the local traiteur, albeit ordered in advance, is still way snazzier than anywhere else in the world. Take a look:

Foie gras (yes again) with spiced bread and onion and ginger confit (or to be atas, confiture des oignons et du/de la gingembre - is gingembre masculine or feminine?)

A kind of bouillabaisse of coquilles and ecrivisses (shrimp, the little-ish ones), served in individual copper pots (provided by the traiteur. To use the phrase my nieces just taught me, "c'est classe!")

Poulet bresse with a morels and cream sauce, with a slice of potato hash

Unfortunately, that was as far as I lasted on New Year's Eve. Having held my own in finishing, between 4 adults, a bottle of champagne, two bottles of white and a bottle of red in the span of just over an hour, I excused myself during the cheese course, ostensibly to visit the bathroom, but in reality passed out on the bed with a dustbin by my side for good measure, visions of cream, foie gras and wine spinning in my head and churning in my stomach.

I can only imagine that I missed some pretty good cheese, two cakes (I saw them on the table earlier - one pistachio, one mandarin) and about 2 hours of hilarious footage of people falling down at weddings (the gag special continued in the background).

Here are some of the culprits by the way:

As an aside, the two nieces who joined us for dinner at the last minute decided to bring their own. Their food of choice? Cantonese from the local supermarket freezer section! To be specific, frighteningy large and soggy spring rolls and a mystery box of microwavable riz du cantonais, or white rice with carrots, peas and corn. I was sitting on my hands trying not to grab the rice, fling it into a wok and at least top it up with egg, scraps of meat, anything, ANYTHING! that would at least add some flavour, colour to that flagrant insult to fried rice.

Last meal of the trip, promise! Lunch on New Year's day was raclette, a kind of upside down fondue where you melt little pans of cheese over an electric hotplate till it gets bubbly and runny, then pour the cheese on your plate over potatoes and various hams. Fun for the winter, and it seems to arouse the same nostalgic, communal, comfort food feelings as a good steamboat does here at home.

Tipple of choice this time was a 1982 bottle of Bordeaux that came from the same Chateau that supplied our wedding wine. We'd had a 150 bottles of reds and whites (albeit not from 1982) from this Chateau shipped to Singapore for our wedding here, and since the dinner was a fairly intimate affair by local standards, ended up with about 50 bottles leftover which we spent the better part of a year finishing. Was fun to see the bottle again, especially the day after our 5th wedding anniversary (child bride, me).

And then a little something something to keep us intoxicated through the train ride back to Paris - home made alcohol! Eau de vie if you want to be snooty about it. Note the handwritten labels/post-it pads - the one on the left is mirabelle, the one on the right prune. Plus some nasty chartreuse unpictured - 55% alcohol made from a secret blend of vegetables. v8 left unattended. But I was told it was good for me, so no choice (just like the night before, when I warned my in-laws that I would soon be drunk if they didn't stop pouring all that wine, their only reply was "so what else do you have to do anyway?"). Gan bei!

Thanks for putting up with (yet another) marathon post. In case you're observant/really bored, you might've noticed a few days missing in between Christmas and New Year's. We spent those driving up to Germany to visit some friends and hunt down some pork knuckle. Will post on how that went shortly!

In the meantime, happy new year all! May 2007 be full of good eats!

Christmas Flog Exchange: Pairings!

2006-12-22T15:24:00.000+08:00

Sorry for the delay as some peopl needed a bit more time to get back to us... but here we go, the moment you've all been waiting for!

Below are the pairings for the Christmas Flog Exchange. You'll each be getting an e-mail from Joone and I providing you with the contact e-mail and address of the person who's wish you'll be fulfilling - do get in touch directly to arrange how to exchange gifts! Sorry if some of us couldn't get first choice wishes, it was difficult to match everyone up exactly :) For detailed wish descriptions, please refer to previous post.

1. Brenda's wish for Mexican/Jewish delights will be fulfilled by Hinata!

2. Cheryl's wish for dark chocolate will be fulfilled by Nadnut!

3. Nadnut's wish for personalized cupcakes will be fulfilled by Mia!

4. Umami's wish for a surprise will be fulfilled by Jasmine!

5. Viviene's wish for Christmas goodies will be fulfilled by Umami!

6. Samuel's wish for chocolates will be fulfilled by Viviene!

7. Jasmine's wish for strawberry shortcake will be fulfilled by SuperFineFeline!

8. Callen's wish for German chocolate cake will be fulfilled by Vivien Teng!

9. LeRoy's wish for macarons will be fulfilled by Joone or Brenda!

10. Mia's wish for risotto with truffles will be fulfilled by Callen!

11. Ivan's wish for a t-shirt will be fulfilled by Samuel!

12. Joone's wish for a serving plate will be fulfilled by Ivan!

13. Hinata's wish for Japanese confectionery will be fulfilled by LeRoy!

14. Viviene Teng's wish for chawanmushi cups will be fulfilled by Brenda or Joone!

Do post up on your gift and giver, or even your meeting session! It would be fun to see what ideas everyone came up with and how they turned out :)

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Christmas Flog Exchange Part 2: Fulfil a Wish!

2006-12-15T10:42:00.000+08:00

Thanks everyone who's participating in the Christmas Flog Exchange!

This is the fun part now, seeing everyone's wishes and choosing a wish to fulfil. We've got 14 wishes, listed below. Please reply to the same email as before - christmasflogexchange.yahoo.com.sg - by next Thursday, December 21, stating your 1st choice, 2nd choice and 3rd choice of wishes to fulfil (need 3 choices in case everyone wants to fulfil the same wish lah). Joone and I will post up the pairings next Friday, and then off to gift-swopping land we go!

Don't forget to reply soon - if you're not fulfilling someone's wish then obviously it's not fair that you get your wish fulfilled, and you don't want to get scratched off our Santa's helper list :)

Wishers and wishes:

1. Brenda of Monstrous Appetites would like some Mexican/Jewish delights, e.g. chili, falafels and tortillas.

2. Cheryl of She Bakes and She Cooks would like your favourite dark chocolate.

3. Nadnut of nadnut.liquidblade.com would like 6 pretty decorated cupcakes spelling out her nick (i.e. one with the letter N, one with the letter A, etc.)

4. Umami of Umami would like to be surprised :)

5. Viviene of Sweets For My Sweet Tooth would like any Christmas-related food items that can be conveniently posted to her in KL.

6. Samuel of Yummy Dummy would like "nice, yummilicious chocolates" (preferably dark), or anything chocolatey.

7. Jasmine of Love At First Bite would like to eat the best strawberry shortcake ever.

8. Callen of Whiskey Lullaby would like the German chocolate cake (dark chocolate) featured on http://bakingsheet.blogspot.com/2006/09/german-chocolate-cake

9. Superfinefeline of Superfinefeline would like (1) a chocolate cake baked by Cheryl :) or (2) organic tea or walnuts from Bunalun

10. LeRoy of The Hungry Cow would like macarons and their recipe.

11. Mia the Skinny Epicurean would like a creamy dish of risotte with white alba truffle shavings.

12. Ivan of Recent Runes, in a non-food related request, would like the T-shirt featured on http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/gaming/84ce in black, size XL.

Lastly,

13. Joone of Nibble & Scribble would like a serving bowl/plate, or something Japanese for her kitchen.

14. And I would like Japanese confectionery (like those pretty mochi cakes), preferably winter themed.

So what are you waiting for? Harness your inner Santa/Santarina and let us know which wishes you'd like to fulfil!

Christmas Flog Exchange!

2006-12-11T15:46:00.000+08:00

Attention all food bloggers! Since 'tis the season and all that, Joone and I are organizing a Christmas Flog Exchange!

All you have to do to take part is send an e-mail to christmasflogexchange@yahoo.com.sg with your name, blog, snail mail address and wish by this Thursday, December 14. Joone and I will publish the completed wish list the next day (Friday, December 15), after which you have one week to sign up to fulfil someone else's wish. Needless to say, you only get to make a wish if you're gonna fulfil someone else's in return :)

To keep things fun and friendly, you can wish for anything food-related that's under S$20. It can be something specific (e.g. a box of organic cherries) or something that requires a bit of creativity on your wish fulfiller's part (e.g. "the best cupcakes you've ever eaten").

Of course, feel free to spread the word on your own blogs and get more people involved! Depending on the response, we can either organize a gift exchange dinner or a simpler blogging-by-mail exchange (hence the request for your snail mail address).

So get wishing!

P.S. While thinking up your wish this Christmas, please also spare a thought for the less fortunate. Here are just a few of the fundraisers I'm aware of this Christmas. If you're involved with a charity that you'd like to tell others about, do feel free to include a short description and link with your wish, and we'll publish it together with the full wishlist on Friday. Happy holidays!

Chez Pim's A Menu for Hope III is raising funds for UNICEF;
The Boys' Brigade Sharity Gift Box is looking people to fulfil wishes for various needy homes and hospices in Singapore;
World Vision likewise needs sponsors for gifts to underprivileged children and families around the world.

Tian Jin Fong Kee

2006-12-08T10:08:00.000+08:00

When you're hungry and need filling up in a hurry, you can't go wrong with a big plate of Chinese dumplings, or jiaozi.

My love affair with jiaozis started as a kid. We have a Sam Ee Por (or Third Grandaunt, for the non-Cantonese out there) who lives in London and used to spend a month or so each year in Singapore visiting my grandma. Their catch-up sessions would inevitably take place over the backyard kitchen table, their hands busy kneading, stuffing and sealing wotip after wotip (again, for the non-Cantonese, wotip is Cantonese for guotie, the fried version of jiaozi that I grew up eating) while they chatted.

All tears over Sam Ee Por's eventual return to London's muggy shores would thus be softened with the knowledge that my grandma's freezer was packed with sufficient wotip to ensure the entire extended family would be kept well stocked till her next visit.

And whenever one of the family happened to be in London, a call to Sam Ee Por informing her of our visit would hear her voice perking up over the phone to make the declaration we were all hoping to hear: "Sam Ee Por will make you some wotip!"

And trust me, there is nothing better during a cold London winter than Sam Ee Por's wotip. Except maybe her yau mei fan (a recipe for another day).

So while wotip remains for me, a warm and fuzzy flagbearer of all things good and Cantonese, to Philippe, it's one of the ultimate Beijing dishes.

Jiaozi, the steamed Northern Chinese equivalent, was likewise a godsend during equally harsh Beijing winters. Cheap, warm and filling, it also offered the advantage of being one of the rare dishes in a Chinese university canteen that did not come blanketed in a layer of oil and MSG.

Later, when we both began working in Beijing, jiaozi was the convenient meal-in-a-bag that you could stock up for months at a go at your nearest supermarket, and have ready to eat in under 5 minutes after a late night of work.

So you can imagine we were pretty thrilled when my dad introduced us to Tian Jin Fong Kee when we moved back to Singapore. Formerly (and they're back now) occupying a couple of stalls at the People's Park Complex Hawker Centre, Fong Kee moved into a ground floor unit in the main building when the hawker centre underwent renovation. The new unit got jazzed up with mod Chinese lanterns, airconditioning, and an expanded menu featuring Northern Chinese dishes and coffeeshop favourites such as yangzhou fried rice and beef hor fun.

Their signature jiaozi, however, remain as good as before. Compared to other jiaozi stores, I'd say what distinguishes Fong Kee's jiaozi are the generous amount of chopped chives, which are awful for one's breath but gives the meat a sharp, onion-like edge. The meat contains a fair bit of fat, fast approaching the border of xiaolongbao soupy. The guotie version also carries the charred, smoky imprint of hot frying oil which is especially addictive when contrasted with the vinegar and ginger dipping sauce, while the boiled jiaozi benefit from a skin that is firm but not thick and overly starchy.

It's hard to even consider ordering other dishes when the jiaozi are so addictive, but we usually make an exception for the zhajiang mian. As you can see from the picture, it's not a pretty dish, nor are the ingredients terribly refined. But the zhajiang boasts a strong splash of vinegar that's very kai wei ("appetite opening") and the noodles are smooth.

One thing I never understood about Fong Kee was the high number of burly, tattoo-hewn Caucasians who, together with their rows of beer bottles, usually occupy the outdoor seats alongside Chinatown regulars. I discovered recently, courtesy of Fong Kee's website, that when grandfather Fong Chee Yen arrived from Tianjin in 1948 and set up the dumpling business, most of his customers were sailors who had developed a taste for jiaozi through their round-the-world travels, as opposed to Singaporeans who were initially unfamiliar with the dish. Perhaps there's a big book of sailor lore that lists Fong Kee as a must-visit destination for sailors even today.

Today, Fong Kee has two outlets, both at People's Park (they've moved back to the hawker centre as well now that renovations have finished), a restaurant at Murray Street and a home delivery and catering service. Let me know if you've tried them and what you think!

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Tian Jin Fong Kee

#01-100 People's Park Complex

Tel: 6532-3319; and

#01-1448 People's Park Centre

Tel: 6532-3318

Fong Kee Restaurant

6 Murray Street (next to Maxwell House)

Tel: 6220-3318

www.fongkee.com

Warong M. Nasir

2006-12-05T17:04:00.000+08:00

Thought, for a cheap thrill, that I'd try to be the first one to post about today's lunch at Warong M. Nasir - beating out the ever efficient Ivan as well as the vacationing Cheryl, Superfinefeline and Umami (ok, so Umami would argue she's not on vacation, and hearing her stressful moving stories, I'm inclined to agree, Paris or no Paris).

The lunch was part of a month-long drive to ensure that Umami gets to eat all the necessary before departing for colder and decidedly less spicy shores. Happily for me, lunch also gave me an opportunity to try a new eating place, and the combination of good food and good company made it very pleasant indeed.

Will let the pictures do the talking, save these few observations:

- Warung M. Nasir has to be one of the most comfortable nasi padang places in town. Air-conditioning, artwork on cherry red walls, Antonio Carlos Jobim playing over the speakers... sure beats dripping sweat and choping tables with tissue paper packets. They even have a modest wine fridge.

- The beef rendang, highly recommended by a conspicuously absent Joone, was excellent, moist and tender and dense with kecap manis-like caramelized sweetness. Didn't get a close pic but here's its cousin (not literally, that would be messed up) the chicken rendang instead - this was dry fiery in contrast and a bit too spicy for my weak taste buds.

- The beef tongue, despite looking very attractive, received fairly negative feedback (that's it in the bottom left corner). Being a coward when it comes to eating odd bits, I sheepishly passed, but felt somewhat vindicated when words such as "spongy" were later tossed around to describe it.

- Umami's Spider-sense detected a fresh batch of fried potato wedges creeping up from behind her. These turned out fabulous, covered in crispy sweet white bait and bits of chili. If you strain your eyes, you can just make it out as the plate stacked on top of the stir fried spinach :)

For a parting pic, see what happens when you lunch with food bloggers? A group paparazzi moment...

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Warong M. Nasir Indonesian Food

69 Killiney Road

T: 6734 6228

Min Jiang at one-north

2006-12-04T12:20:00.000+08:00

I guess now that the birthday's more than a month past, I should wrap up on the birthday blogging. Lunch at Charlie's Corner and dinner at Akane on Thursday were followed by drinks at Coffee Bar K on Friday night, a great place if (a) you like your cocktails and whiskeys and (b) if you want to actually be able to converse without straining your voice/hearing. The bar, which doesn't seem to serve coffee whatsoever (actually I didn't ask - who would even think of coffee when the drinks list comes in a folder the thickness of karaoke song folders in days of yore), surprisingly serves very mean pizzas - thin, crispy, with bits of deliciously sweet chaodar-ness. No pics but use your imagination :)

Wrapped up the various celebrations with Sunday lunch with the family at Min Jiang. In addition to its regular menu, Min Jiang also offers dim sum on Sundays, which turned out to be very passable for a supposedly Sichuan restaurant, and satisfied even the most Cantonese among us.

The highlight of any meal at Min Jiang, of course, is its Peking duck, served three ways. First the thinnest and crispiest skin bits are carved and placed on the table, to be simply dipped in sugar. This is followed by two lots of pancake with duck meat and skin - the traditional spring onions, cucumber and hoisin sauce combination, as well as a garlic and pickled radish strips (kimchi?) combination. Aside from incredibly delicious, the spectacle of having the chef carve the duck tableside and the luxury of having your pancakes wrapped for you added an element of luxury that was welcome on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Some of the other dishes that really stood out for us were:

- As a starter, the drunken chicken is a refreshing wake-up call, cold and gently sweet while the wine gets the tastebuds going.

- The wo tip or fried guo tie. These looked like normal guo tie on steroids, honestly massive and stuffed to the brim with meat.

- The ma po dou fu came in a brilliant scarlet and was numbingly addictive...

- ... likewise the gong bao ji ding was crowned in a heaping of fiery dry chillies. The chicken dice were incredibly tender, free of any distracting bits of skin or gristle.

Min Jiang is now my favourite Chinese restaurant. The Sichuan dishes are, to my knowledge, as authentic as it gets in Singapore - the "ma" and "la" distinct and captivating without overwhelming the otherwise delicate and fresh ingredients. The Cantonese dim sum was a pleasant surprise as well. Add to that a lovely tree-flanked setting and decent service, and you really could do much worse for a weekend family lunch.

As a parting thought, you know how, as a customer, it's sometimes the little touches that make a difference? Thought this was a perfect example of how the restaurant goes the extra mile to think of the comfort of its customers... a mini bag chair! And it's even chained to my grown-up chair, how cute is that?

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Min Jiang at one-north

5 Rochester Park

Tel: 6774 0122

Note: Peking duck needs to be ordered at least one day in advance

Akane

2006-11-28T15:34:00.000+08:00

More belated birthday blogging...

My determination to mark my birthday with uncharacteristic financial prudence was swiftly eliminated by a simple counter-argument - that special occasions are meant for splurging, and if we don't go to Akane now, it'd be another year before we could justify going again.

The only problem is that, now that we've been, I want to go every day.

Akane, by way of quick introduction/refresher, is located at the Japanese Association of Singapore, and is the flagship restaurant of Nogawa-san, Singapore's godfather of Japanese cuisine. The Nogawa group includes two other restaurants under the Nogawa name - at Sentosa Golf Club (read about our dinner for Philippe's birthday here) and Le Meridien - but it's at the Japanese Association Akane that Nogawa-san actively presides.

And indeed it's hard to miss him. A collage of photos featuring Nogawa-san alongside various local and foreign luminaries (including our own MM and President Nathan) marks the end of the entry corridor. Behind the sushi counter, his deep tan, even deeper wrinkles and bustling energy is unmistakable. The boss is here!

Our initial intimidation, however, proved unfounded. Nogawa-san was unreservedly friendly, even grandfatherly, as he educated us on a variety of topics ranging from the mating habits of sea bream to the genealogy of burdock roots. The charisma seemed infectious, with sushi chef Anson taking equally good care of us throughout the night.

As for the food, the sashimi and sushi were definitely the stars. Philippe's initial reaction upon sampling the sashimi platter was that we had never tried these fish before; the sad truth was that we had many times - this was just so superior a version that you could not mentally link what Akane was serving with the limp and rubbery pieces that pass for sashimi elsewhere.

Sashimi, including otoro, sea bream, mackerel, octopus, akagai

The sashimi was really sparklingly fresh, incredibly sweet and varied in flavour, and, in the case of the otoro, so chockful of fatty goodness that honestly. the marbling had marbling. Since the word "sublime" has now been outlawed from food blogging, I shall simply say that this is the stuff that happiness is made of :)

Likewise, the sushi that rounded off our meal was meaty yet delicate, often accompanied by a light searing, a crisp pat of grated ginger or a splash of tart sauce. I loved the way the fish carelessly blankets the rice so that the flavours and texture of the fish can really shine through. I took pictures only of the two below, but in addition we had eggplant sushi, botan ebi sushi, mackerel sushi, baigai shell and a couple more.

Seared otoro sushi

Unagi sushi

The rest of the dishes we were served, omakase style, were well-executed and enjoyable, but, unlike the sashimi and sushi, none really stood out as dishes I would obsess about and come back specifically for. In particular, although the otoro soup was luxurious with its large otoro chunks that literally dissolved in your mouth, at $65 for two bowls I would've preferred a simple seafood soup and otoro sashimi instead. Likewise the grilled saba and braised red snapper with burdock root were delicious, but the repetition of fish in every dish began to wear somewhat thin.

Starter of anglefish liver

Otoro soup

Grilled saba

Braised red snapper with burdock root

Can't remember too much about our last pre-sushi savoury dish, except it (finally!) did not contain fish, and seemed to be the chef's take on takoyaki - a tempura-ed mashed yam ball with some secret filling (ok I've forgotten) inside. Fun but forgettable.

Dessert was a simple plate of fresh persimmon and pear slices with a cup of strong oolong tea. Nice but we enviously noted that the group of young Japanese next to us had marinated mixed fruit in persimmon cups instead, which was featured in Yoshihiro Murata's Kaiseki as a classic autumn dessert. Missed my chance :(

Conclusion: If I won a million-dollar lottery tomorrow, I would superglue my butt to Akane's counter seats and omakase myself to a bloated yet joyful death. Till then, I'm saving my money for the sashimi and sushi (definitely worth their premium price) and filling any leftover space in my stomach with the restaurant's reasonably priced udon.

Charlie's Corner

2006-11-15T17:44:00.000+08:00

Every girl has their princess moments. Some imagine their dream wedding down to the minutiae from the day they were born, others fill their closets with swishy dresses and sparkly jewelry. My weakness is birthdays.

Starting about a month from the big day, my inner birthday demon start obsessively reviewing restaurant choices, picking party dates and entertaining visions of presents swathed in silk ribbons, annoying everyone within a 10-mile radius of me. By the time my birthday actually arrives, my expectations are sky high, but birthday goodwill near zero, which pretty much makes for misery all around.

Maybe that's why I never get the pony I want.

This year, I decided to mark growing a year older by actually trying to act more grown-up (an odd concept that I'm still trying to come to terms with). No fussing, no inconvenience, no wasteful extravagance, just quiet time with friends and family. Still with decent food though of course. I'm not Mother Teresa... yet.

Feeling quite chuffed with my newfound maturity, I suggested birthday lunch at Charlie's Corner in Changi Village. The far flung location was to accommodate my sis who works in that neighbourhood, but deliberately picking the no frills Charlie's Corner instead of the nearby Ryan's Washoku or La Cantina (no comments on their food, but at least they have aircon!)... I'm a big girl now! (As Philippe would say: shall we call the Straits Times?)

Charlie's Corner was surprisingly busy for a Thursday afternoon. Potbellied guailos with their lady companions, young executives eagerly stripping off their ties, sleepy Changi Village regulars, all seemed to congregate under the Corner's placard and poster covered awning. Set aside from the main hawker centre, however, a sense of space and peace prevails despites the tables being full.

Everyone seemed to be having the fish and chips, which also headlined the menu with the proud moniker "Charlie's Special", so we obediently settled down to 4 orders of this, plus a side of chicken wings and root beer all around.

There's something strangely guilt-inducing about having an ice-cold root beer on a hot weekday afternoon. Maybe it's the cheap thrill of quaffing something that sounds like alcohol but really isn't (wink wink), maybe it's the simple pleasure of beating the heat, or maybe it's root beer's ability to transform even the lowliest office grunt into an authentic cowboy-and-western gun-toting sheriff with attitude. Maybe not. What it probably is is that root beer, being one of the most artificial tasting concoctions on the planet, is just so bad that it's good.

I enjoyed the fish and chips. The fish was decidedly old school, looking very much like it had been pounded flat with one of those meat marinating mallets, but fresh and flavourful. The batter ("crust" might be a better term) was a deep brown and crumbly, much thinner and closer to the fish that the thick, sheet like, pockets-full-of-air version found in fancier establishments. The trick is in playing vinegar virtuoso - a splash too much vinegar and you're left with soggy batter (no fun for anyone), but balance it just right and the rich, golden, heart-clogging taste of lightly burnt oil shines right through.

Not that you have much time to ponder this - the fish makes for quick eating, and even the slowest eater (read: me) would be hard pressed to spend much longer than 5 mins devouring it. Which leaves you with plenty of time to mull over the thick, stumpy fries and sticky wings over (hopefully) good conversation. A side note: the wings, while on sight able to pass off for buffalo wings, seem to be coated with a form of char siew sauce rather than BBQ sauce. Not bad, but takes a bit of getting used to. Separately, I later heard from a regular customer that, in her opinion, the real stars at Charlie's are the steaks, I'll have to head back to try them (although this may take a while as I've just discovered my neighbourhood Aston's.)

Bottom line: Charlie's Corner is a great place if, like me, you're hankering for the old days of the school canteen's western food stall (fish on fridays! everything gets flambed!), but you will be disappointed if you go expecting Harry Ramsden's style monsters on a plate. Prices are extremely reasonable at $12.90 for fish and chips and steaks in the sub-$20 range. As for ambience, it's a good place if you're looking for good food, but want it to take a back seat to laidback conversation and the joys of dining in flip flops.

More birthday blogging to come shortly: How my attempt at birthday frugality got cut (tragically?) short at Akane. No coffee at Coffee Bar K. How Min Jiang's guo tie's could qualify as weapons of mass destruction. And a final whine about how I still don't have a pony.

Saigon blues

2006-11-15T11:19:00.000+08:00

Sometimes you think it's not so bad being on a business trip. A quiet evening alone with a good book (Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness), a good dessert (green tea creme brulee with gingko nuts at the Park Hyatt Saigon's Square One) and a good glass of wine (a New Zealand sauvignon blanc).

Then the familiar melancholy refrain of a Lizz Wright song comes playing over the sound system.

"... as soon as I get home..."

"I wish I was home..."

Sigh. Friday's a long way away.

Quynh Giao Quan An Viet Nam

2006-11-07T15:45:00.000+08:00

Truth be told, my knowledge of Vietnamese food is extremely limited, having seldom strayed from the safe path of the Indochine group of restaurants. A recent trip to Vietnam, my first, was an eye opener. Not only did I finally get to eat authentic pho (and bunh and cha gio and other staples), but I had my first glimpse into Vietnam's different regional cuisines and experienced a bit of local restaurant culture.

So when Philippe and I were in desperate search of a cheap, quick and tasty dinner on a late Monday night, we decided to try one of Joo Chiat's Vietnamese cafes, just slightly up from Koon Seng Road and smack in the middle of the neighbourhood's notorious red light district. We opted for Quynh Giao Quan An Viet Nam at 149 Joo Chiat Road, which seemed slightly busier than its similar looking neighbour establishment - which dubiously called itself a "family restaurant". Given that we were after good food, not family values, we settled down at 149 with only a flicker of acknowledgement from what I'm assuming are the restaurant's regulars - mainly young Vietnamese ladies dining together or with a male companion.

Decor was sparse, limited to the odd Tiger Beer lucky draw ad, while seating was plastic chairs, foldable tables, melamine bowls and toilet roll in a plastic dispenser for serviettes. No frills kopi tiam chic.

A simple photo album displays the restaurant's menu. Pictures of dishes are accompanied only by Vietnamese dish names, but the young Singaporean proprietor was friendly and patient in helping us figure out what was what. We both opted for something familiar - bunh with cha gio, aka rice noodles with deep fried spring rolls.

When it arrived, we found hidden under the noodles generous piles of roughly chopped fresh mint, Thai basil and beansprouts, crisp and refreshing. The spring rolls were beautifully browned and crisp on the outside, creamy and hearty on the inside, their yam filling in turn encasing what I'm guessing to be a combination of finely chopped fish or pork, mushrooms and onions. The nuoc cham dipping sauce also turned out to be a pleasant deviation from the Indochine variety, with heapings of fresh chilli padi, liberal proportions of fish sauce and minimal sugar. The savoury bent of the sauce meant that individual ingredients were really allowed to shine through and not drowned in cloying syrup.

The noodles hit the spot perfectly while leaving our wallets blissfully intact at $4.50 a bowl. The casual environment and bustling neighbourhood (perfect for colourful people watching) makes this a great spot for a quick late night supper.

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Quynh Giao Quan An Viet Nam Vietnamese Delights

149 Joo Chiat Road

Buka Puasa - Cafe Samar and Z'en

2006-10-26T23:42:00.000+08:00

A few years ago, I found myself posted to Kuala Lumpur on a project for a government-linked company. The highlight of my day was lunch at the company's staff canteen, a whopping buffet spread piled sky high with pungent curries, crispy fried meats and spicy vegetables. Depending on the day, roti canai or roti jala would be made fresh on the spot, and you know you'll always have a glass of ice cold kopi to wash it all down.

Then Ramadan began, and my haven was no more. Bogged down by tight deadlines and fuzzy from lack of both sleep and nutrition, I quickly started to rue the day I signed up for the project.

Until the buka puasa meals began.

It kicked off with a dinner hosted by the company for its employees, all 2,000 of them, to which we were invited, a sumptuous banquet provided by the same in-house team that caters for staff weddings and the like.
This was quickly followed by dinners organized in turn by the various advisors on the project - in our case, at Top Hat, a beautifully restored colonial bungalow that served Peranakan-European fusion cuisine (top hat is apparently what angmors call pie tees).

Even when lavish, formal dinners weren't in order, it was nice to see everyone set aside time from work to sit down to an evening meal together, Muslims and non-Muslims alike grateful for the day's nourishment.

Since then, while I don't observe the fasting month, I've always had a special nostalgia for buka puasa meals, remembering them as a time to come together with friends, family and loved ones.

And so off Philippe and I set last week to explore the buka puasa festivities on Arab Street. Most restaurants offered buka puasa buffets for $10 a person or even less, and the neighbourhood was buzzing with large families dining together.

We eventually settled on Samar's a la carte menu, where extensive listings of mezze, salads, grills and desserts appear between Free Palestine posters and quotes from the Koran. Our first comment on the menu was that it actually sounded more impressive than any place we ate at in Egypt - could it be we travelled all that way to sample food that was already in our backyard? With high expectations, we ordered a stuffed eggplant, grilled chicken and a cucumber and yoghurt salad to share.

Before the food arrived, we kept our tastebuds amused with drinks - mine an apricot based smoothie and Philippe's a rose milk. Both were delightfully fresh and natural tasting, great for a hot afternoon or, in our case, a stuffy, hazy Monday night.

Our food was less impressive. The kitchen seemed to be very lighthanded when it came to spicing the veggie dishes - our cucumber and yoghurt salad had disproportionately more yoghurt than cucumber, which overwhelmed the scant pieces of mint we would only occasionally come across. Likewise the stuffed eggplant, with its filling of rice, tomatoes and onions, seemed to be more a last minute tossing together of the various ingredients, without a unifying flavour to marry them together. Not awful, but it does leave you with the nagging feeling that anyone could've made this at home.

The grilled chicken, on the other hand, was flavourful and deliciously blackened at first bite. The flip side of that, though, was that the meat was overcooked and dry, making it hard to finish even a mouthful without washing your mouth with water.

The average food didn't seem to deter many diners though - the verandah was packed with students, expats and couples alike even when we left at close to 10pm (this on a Monday night, mind you), and the cafe was easily the busiest on the street. Late night shisha here seems to be a popular option, and the community feel (their loyalty cardholders are called citizens!) is also a draw.

Later on in the week, an evening drinks session led to us stumbling upon Z'en, a Japanese restaurant by UE Square that is probably related to the more established En Bar and Dining around the corner. The tables of red-faced Japanese businessmen was a strong selling point, and the food did not disappoint.

The menu is a good mix of hearty Japanese classics and more delicate appetizers and salads. The three of us shared as starters:

Dried swordfish fin
Kurobuta pork yakitori
Ankimo fish liver
Shabu shabu salad (shabu shabu beef in a sesame dressing)
Pumpkin grilled with butter
Simmered lotus root
Grilled eihire
Crab cream croquettes

And topped this with a huge seafood hotpot, laden with snow crab legs, salmon, prawns and oysters, to which we added extra udon. The leftover soup was turned into a porridge with the addition of a couple of bowls of rice, which comes with the hotpot.

The food was definitely satisfying - all the ingredients were clearly fresh, delicately prepared and thoughtfully presented, everything one would expect from a proper Japanese dinner.

The total bill came up to $170, or just a shade over$60 a person, which seemed reasonable for the quality of the food and for the setting - perhaps appropriately for its name, Z'en is designed in a polished, magazine-worthy combination of black tile, glass and metal, complete with dramatic overhead lighting, so you do feel like you're in a more upmarket setting. A glass cellar on the second floor displays hundreds of sake bottles of all shape and form, pity we'd already drunk our fill for the night before coming. Service was also excellent, with exceptionally friendly staff - maybe even too friendly, as their gentle cajoling to add more rice to the leftover hotpot soup resulted in us overeating and feeling painfully stuffed after :)

Now that the pain has subsided though, I'm looking forward to the December monsoons coming around, to gather back here for more of that giant hotpot, and to slowly start making my way through the sake collection.

*****************************************

Samar

60 Kandahar Street

T: 6398-0530

Z'en

205 River Valley Road

#01-75, UE Square

T: 6732-3110

Eating Paris - one patisserie at a time!

2006-10-14T14:45:00.000+08:00

Understatement of the century - Paris is full of designer stuff.

Designer handbags, priced at the equivalent of a month's rent. (I'll get mine in Shenzhen, thank you!)

Designer shoes, scarlet heels stacked to kill. (Ok, these I like, bunions be damned.)

Designer miniature poodles, extravagantly sheared and sized to fit perfectly into said designer handbag. (Ok, so in all my trips to Paris I've never actually seen one of these, but surely they must exist.)

Designer sights, the Eiffel Tower robed in millions of glittering fairy lights. (Infinitely cooler than the Merlion's Evil Laser Beams of Doom.)

Even a designer language - what doesn't sound fabulously snooty when said in French? (Mais oui, ma cherie, tu le sais!)

But, best of all, are its designer boulangerie/patisseries. Pierre Herme, Laduree, Fauchon, Jean-Paul Hevin, Lenotre... loin stirring names that could roll off your tongue and onto the floor, if only your mouth didn't have to be determinedly clamped tight to keep the drool in.

It was thus, with visions of macarons dancing in my head, that I dragged the in-laws on a whirlwind dash across Paris for our second day in town, beginning at Le Bon Marche's Grand Epicerie for a gawk at its supersized pastries, pit-stopping at Poilane to pay homage to shelves of sourdough miches, continuing to Pierre Herme to discover (and tabao) the true meaning of life, and eventually concluding under a leafy tree in the Jardin du Luxembourg to devour said meaning of life, thereby reaching a state of enlightenment (which could only be sustained by a visit to Laduree the next day).

Poilane

Poilane is probably Paris' best known boulangerie or bakery, founded in 1932 and famed for its solid rounds of sourdough bread called la miche. The tiny store at Rue de Cherche Midi evidently takes great pride in its role in the history of bread making - paper bags are printed with sketches of famous bakers of yore; even its website contains a lengthy discourse on the relationship between bread and culture, a list of global bread museums and celebrity quotes involving bread.

Intimidated by the size of la miche (above, 1.9kg each!), we settled for the more manageable looking brioche, which was nowhere as lauded but very enjoyable. Sweet, moist and crumbly, it was incredibly addictive, and Philippe and I guiltily finished the entire loaf between us as a bedtime snack that night.

Later on, I was told by several friends separately that the real Poilane "to-die-for" special is its apple tart (a French friend adamantly declared it was the best tart she'd ever tasted), which I'd seen on a tray (the bottom on in the picture above in fact) and naively dismissed. Something for me to look forward to next time, but do check it out if you're in the neighbourhood.

Pierre Herme

If you've been lingering around the food blog world for even a short period of time, you will probably have heard of Pierre Herme's lavish chocolate desserts and classic Ispahan. And indeed, at first glance, the Paris store does seem like a mecca for upper crust sugar cravings - well-heeled Parisians and bejeweled Japanese tourists throng the dark metal-and-glass boutique, and the oversized Louis Vuitton shopping bags scattered across the aisle pose serious tripping hazards.

Likewise, Pierre Herme's dessert counter is a runway showcasing miniature works of art, with seasonal specialties organized around themes (we were in time for Automne/Hiver 2006). And, like all luxury, they don't come cheap either, with a single palm-sized pastry typically priced upwards of 8 Euros.

Philippe and I settled for a combination of 3 pastries, amongst them the lauded Ispahan, while his folks purchased a 30-macaroon gift tub for our nieces back in Vesoule.

All 3 pastries were delicate, complex, subtle, rich. The macaron shell of the Ispahan was crisp almost to a fault, the rose petal cream flavourful, yet subtle and light, a quiet, understated backdrop to the tart berries and refreshing lychee.

Conclusion: If a trip to Paris gets you down because of unaffordable yet irresistible haute couture, forget that $5,000 bag or those $2,000 shoes, just head over to Pierre Herme for true luxury at a fraction of the price. Your tummy will thank you for it.

Laduree
My final stop on our brief patisserie tour of Paris was Laduree, where Philippe and I had tea with the aptly named Macaloon. Pop round her blog and you'll see, vivid writing and witty turns-of-phrase aside, that this girl is seriously obsessed with her macarons, having eaten her way through practically every designer patisserie in Paris. We met her at the entrance to Printemps, where she stood clutching what I assumed to be innocuous shopping bags, but which were revealed in a fierce whisper to be boxes of rival macarons from Pierre Herme and Sadaharu Aoki. The girl wanted us to do a secret taste test in Laduree itself, with the sole objective of proving to us that, for all their quality, Laduree's macarons do not measure up to Pierre Herme's, the latter's being in her view the best macarons in all Paree. (A digression: this brought back extremely fond memories of the same Macaloon dragging me around New York in the summer of 2000 to sample her obsession at the time: cannoli. Life with Macaloon is a permanent sugar rush.)

One step into the tiny 12-table Laduree salon though was enough to convince us that this was an exercise that would certainly get us thrown out of the store. So we settled down and went about ordering our macarons. From top to bottom: caramel and fleur de sel, mixed berries, orange flower, ginger and lime and raspberry.

And, yes, they were excellent. The golf ball sized macarons were perfectly crisp with the right amount of chew and crumble, the individual flavours vibrant and teasing without being overwhelming. Little explosions of happiness really. If it doesn't get any better than this, I really don't mind (I'm bracing myself for Macaloon's flame mail now).

Macarons aside, Laduree does a wonderful assortment of pastries, drinks and even salads and sandwiches. The quaint salon with its carved wooden chairs looks like something out of a period theatrical piece, but would no doubt thrill anyone who enjoyed playing tea time as a child, and is convenient for resting tired feet and shopped out shoulders. Just try to get there early as much gets sold out by late afternoon.

Poilane

8, rue du Cherche-Midi

75006 Paris

Pierre Herme

72, rue Bonaparte

75006 Paris

Also at: 185, rue de Vaugirard, 75015 Paris

Laduree

Various locations - see website www.laduree.fr

Eating Paris - bistro round-up

2006-10-14T14:33:00.000+08:00

(Philippe on the left, power walking through Paris' Palais de Justice. Off to a 3 hour lunch maybe?)

Many people, myself included, often forget that Philippe is French. He's lived in Asia for the last seven years, speaks perfect English, Mandarin and the odd smattering of Singlish, loves Stephen Chow movies and gamely eats at home with one leg propped up, knee bent, on his seat. In many ways, he's more Chinaman than anyone I could've married in Singapore.

I, on the other hand, am far from passing off as a good French wife. My French, while passable, could never make an Alliance Francaise professor weep with joy; neither am I a big fan of the existentialist debates/80s gameshows/corny cop dramas that seem to dominate the programming on TV5, the French TV station. My single display of loyalty to date has been to faithfully wear my Les Bleus jersey to every World Cup match involving the French team. Which, I must declare, took some b*lls when they were up against Brazil and I was severely outnumbered (not to mention mercilessly mocked) by the legions of yellow and green fans.

But on top of my lengthy list of transgressions sits one shameful truth that draws gasps of horrors from every starry-eyed romantic I've ever admitted it to:

I don't like Paris.

For most people, Paris is the soaring spires of Notre Dame or the sweeping view of the Seine, inspiring imaginations of romance and history.

Paris is the laidback urban chic of people-watching sidewalk cafes and weekend markets pregnant with artisanal produce.

Paris is the glitzy, haute couture world of Galeries Lafayette and Louis Vuitton, all sequins and stilettos.

Paris is the dizzy purr of the French language, the meloncholy whisperings of Gainsbourg seducing your ears and making love to your soul.

But for me, Paris is sweltering summers and freezing winters, surly service staff, overpriced menus, depressing subways, neverending strikes and extremely high risk of stepping in dog shit while promenading in new heels.

Such griping has allowed me to avoid visiting France for the last couple of years. But recently, I noticed with horror my smug and long-defended determination beginning to erode, as some old friends gradually chose to call Paris their home, while others jetted back from vacations bubbling with stories and shopping.

So when wifely duties necessitated that I join Philippe on a trip to Paris, I was apprehensive, concerned that I too might fall in love with the very same city that I had feverishly decried to all and sundry.

A week later, and while I can safely say I am still not enamoured with the city, I do have to grudgingly admit that it's got some good things going for it.

In particular, chocolate foie gras.

Chocolate foie gras with fleur de sel and crushed cocoa beans, served with toast and salad. Who could say no?

The dish is one of many toast and salad combinations available at Delicabar, on the second floor of Le Bon Marche.

Le Bon Marche is typically considered the queen of Paris' grands magasins for its endless designer boutiques and "did I die and go to heaven" basement food emporium, and Delicabar is a worthy extension of the store's laidback, effortless chic.

The cafe is liberally splashed with fun swaths of fuchsia and lime green, waitstaff are surprisingly friendly despite their Prada bitch uniforms, and the lunchtime crowd is a cheery mix of haute couture tourists peeking out from behind skyhigh shopping bags and execs frantically loosening silk ties. The food is light and a riot of colours - flaky pastry, crisp salad leaves, scarlet tomatoes, hunks of cheese. Ooh, and a range of Mariage Freres teas, their woody, intoxicating aromas adding the final touch on the "I could seriously get used to this" musings that invariably arise.

While I was pleasantly surprised to find out that light lunches can exist in the land of 3 course, 2 hour weekday lunches, dinner turned out to be an entirely different matter.

To celebrate our first family get together (family being Philippe, me and his parents) in 9 months, we decided to dine at Chez Leon, a Bib Gourmand recipient not far from our Montmartre hotel. Bib Gourmand, I learnt, is a title issued by the Michelin Guide, the same guide that endows the famous (or infamous) 1-, 2-, 3-star rating. The Bib Gourmand award is for more downmarket establishments - bistros and brasseries mainly - where you can have a good meal without having to (a) waitlist for 6 months, (b) get dolled up with mommy's jewels or (c) sell a kidney to finance said meal.

Dinner at Chez Leon was a hearty affair. My starter of crab and celery was a whopping mound of Hard Rock Cafe-sized proportions, and the moat of mayonnaise that encircled it did little to help me get past more than half the serving. Jelat!

Likewise, my main dish of lentils and ecrevisses with truffle vinaigrette stood as living (ok, not quite living) testament to the law of diminishing marginal utility, beginning at amazing and rapidly declining to "please take that away from me before I throw up".

The two dishes would have been wonderful as standalone main courses, but the unfortunately combination of two creamy, seafood-based, slightly tart and incredibly heavy plates was a bad choice on my part. That said, the ingredients were undoubtedly fresh, the preparation meticulous and the flavours complex, so I could definitely understand how Chez Leon came to earn its Bib Gourmand title.

Dessert, on the other hand, proved a wonderful fit with the meal - the incredibly sour, cold and crunchy combination of pears in red wine and cassis jolted me back to life and had me in a gobbling frenzy. Heck, if just the thought of the dish causes your salivary glands to immediately fire on all engines even a month after eating it, it must be good, right? :)

Last bistro of the trip was something we stumbled on while waiting for a friend at Place de Clichy. It being a late Saturday morning, the neighbourhood was filled with scenes of weekend langour - babies in strollers, dogs on leashes, newspapers and coffees - yet La Bourgogne was pulsing with an energy of its own. Large groups of friends boisterously relaying the week's experiences, clusters of anxious couples clamouring for an empty table, waiters marching purposefully forward with laden trays... even the pigeons pacing the overhead beams seemed nervous with anticipation.

After a 15 minute wait, our turn came!

Starter was a mountainous salad of leeks in mustard vinaigrette, which is quite possibly my favourite French dish of all time. Nothing groundbreaking, but oh so good. Main was braised beef cheek, tender and comforting, but perhaps a little too hearty for the early days of autumn.

So yep, Paris has some good things going for it, especially when it comes to eating out. But for all the cosy brasseries, flashy bistros and quirky cafes, give me a good French patisserie any time! And that is the subject of another post entirely... that should be up next week :) See you then!

Istanbul round-up

2006-10-02T11:23:00.000+08:00

One last post about our 3 day stay in Istanbul and I'll finally be done with summer holiday posting, so bear with me a little longer :) Will try to keep this post long on pictures and short on words. P.S. Had some problem with aligning photos, so apologies if some of the layout comes out a bit wonky.

I must admit, prior to the trip, I'd approached the thought of Istanbul warily, occasionally prodding our Time Out Istanbul guide with a stick from the sofa in case it jumped up and bit me.

This caution began from reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as a child, where Turkish delight, a candy that I'd never previously heard of and whose name gave no insight whatsoever as to its shape, taste or form, took on sinister proportions, its power to entrance so strong that it could sever the bonds of family and lead to the downfall of entire kingdoms.

Later on in life, my imaginings of Turkey involved burly mustachioed men in tiny towels, plotting all manner of dishonourable transactions through the dense steam of cavernous tiled baths.

The real Istanbul (or perhaps the Istanbul outside the bathhouse - I eventually didn't visit one) turned out to be nothing of the sort. Roads between the major historical and tourist sights are paved with cobblestones and sheltered by broad, leafy trees; multi-hued, picturesque guesthouses offer comfortable, if not luxurious, abodes, and restaurants advertise an almost endless variety of fresh seafood. Infinitely more Seville than Slovakia.

An apple tree on the street, just like that! If it weren't for all those Hao GongMing (Good Citizen) classes we took in school, I would definitely have run away with a stolen apple or two. Incidentally, Hao GongMing class also taught me how many squares of toilet paper would be sufficient per trip (e-mail me if you want to know the answer), and to run with a pair of scissors with the blade pointing to yourself - so if you trip you only kill yourself and don't inadvertedly wound others.

View of the Blue Mosque from our hotel's breakfast terrace

As with most holidays in recent memory, the trip quickly became about the food. We breezed through the beautiful and impressive Sultanahment Palace, sped through the admittedly sexy underground waterways, and flew through the world reknown Grand Bazaar in a matter of a couple of hours, and only really slowed down when, in the neighbourhood around the Grand Bazaar, we found ourselves confronted by the smells and sounds of street food. With a kindly proprietor beckoning like this, who could resist, no?

First stop was for lahmacun, a kind of mutton pizza where chunks of grilled lamb mince met a generous sprinkling of fresh parsley on a thin and crispy pita base. Add a squeeze of lemon, and it's just perfect.

Our appetites whetted and courage bolstered, we then ventured to try some mussels being sold by a random uncle on the sidewalk. Here's the "thank God I had my hepatitis shot before coming" mussel tank:

Turns out the mussels have been removed from the shell, cooked, then stuffed back into the shells with a mound of saffron rice. 1 Euro is all it takes to get Mussel Uncle to open one of these babies up for you. These were really yummy - the subtle brininess of the mussels soothed by the cool, delicately spiced rice.

After a bit more of the requisite tourist photo taking and earnest guidebook consulting, we settled on dinner in the Kumkapi neighbourhood.

A brisk 10 minute walk from the major sights of Sultanahmet, Kumkapi is a laidback quarter encompassing 4 or 5 streets just off the coast. Fresh seafood, alfresco dining, fairy lights and the robust music of wandering minstrels is standard fare here. We tried to be a bit scientific about it and scoured the streets for the restaurant that seems to be most occupied by locals, but gave up after a while and eventually chose the one with the prettiest lights - Restaurant Neyzen :)

Most of the establishments appear to offer similar menus - after being seated, a large platter containing all the day's appetizers is laid out in front of you, leaving you to order via the extremely tourist friendly point-and-grab technique. These salads would typically contain tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber, melons, cured fish, calamari and cheese in various combinations.

You then supplement your starters with a choice (or several choices) of grilled fish. Small fish, big fish, medium size fish... whichever catches your fancy or looks the least threatening.

Day 2 and more food was on the agenda! We boarded the ferry to the Asian shore of the Bosphorus to check out the weekend food market in the Sakerci neighbourhood - it's considered less expensive and more expansive than markets on the European side of the city. Plus, after all our travelling up to that point, it was almost reassuring to be back on Asian shores again :)

Asia sweet Asia!

First stop was the fruit stall, where we succumbed to temptation (that was quick!) and bought a box of strawberries for immediate consumption, and a carton of fresh figs to be handcarried back home. This endeavour actually brought out our best charade skills, as we tried painfully to enact the request "Can you please give us firmer figs as we are BOARDING A PLANE... CARRY... NO EAT TODAY, EAT TOMORROW... HARD GOOD SOFT BAD..."

After that harrowing experience, we went to explore the rest of the market, precious box of figs in hand and lips already stained pink with strawberry juice.

Here's the fish section - the "before" to last night's "after" dinner.

Olives of sufficient quantity and variety to make me consider requesting a relocation to Turkey...

Stallholders enjoying a morning chat while hand peeling the leaves and shells of macademia nuts (insert nut joke with homesexual innuendos here).

A local bakery - words cannot describe how good the smell coming out of this place was.

And something you don't see everyday, the neighbourhood honeycomb store!

Lunch was at a cafe in the same neighbourhood - its perky outdoor patio appearing like a mirage almost as soon as the market stalls ended. Philippe had a shish kebab with fries, grilled peppers and rice, while I opted for a combination of items from the self-serve salad bar:

Most of my items were cold salads involving what seemed to be local wild vegetables, herbs or even some sort of bracken, together with eggplant and grape leaves stuffed with rice. The salads were all strongly seasoned with alternating combinations of parsley, onions, lemon juice and tomatoes, and were exceptionally refreshing on a hot summer day.

Dessert was a slice of melon pickled in sugar syrup and topped crushed nuts (feel free to continue on earlier nut joke here), plus a gooey slice of pistachio baklava.

Our visit to Sakerci ended with what turned out to be an extremely long stay at the local patisserie - Cafe Erol, where we ordered enough boxes of baklava and multi-coloured Turkish delight to feed both our offices, families, all our friends, plus a couple hundred more people (cos you never know who might come to visit right? Might as well be prepared!) I'm sure you'll understand how irresistible they were though after seeing the next few pictures (I went a bit snap happy with the camera as you can tell) - it's really the candy store dreams are made of!

How cute are those little baby sweets? Presumably they're for sending out when celebrating the birth of a child (they come in a blue boy's version too) as opposed to being for satisfying some kind of depraved cannibalistic craving.

A brief stop back at the hotel to deposit our various treasures, and we were off again for more eating, this time along the bustling pedestrian boulevard of Istiklal Caddesi.

First stop was an unscheduled one - we first noticed the crowds of people filing into this cafe, then the numerous frame awards on display on the window, and finally the mounds of chocolate slathered choux that seem to be the only item this store sells. In my book, any eating establishment that can survive on the sale of one product only (see: Singapore hawker stalls) has to be pretty damned good.

We weren't disappointed. The chocolate sauce was dark and silky, the custard cool and firm. Definitely one of the eating highlights of our trip, and we found it ourselves! (Self-congratulatory pat on back)

Perhaps as a result of our new found overconfidence, our next stop didn't turn out to be quite so successful. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely an experience and worth visiting, but maybe we could've been a little more circumspect in our choice of dessert. This stop was Cafe Saray, a brightly lit, bustling cafe filled to the brim with mouthwatering mountains of solid sugar.

Philippe opted for a savoury dish - a slice of the macaroni and cheese pie in the above photo.

I forgot the name of our desserts, but I opted for the brown-skinned roll you can see in the top left hand corner of the menu photo (and also the same corner of the display shelf photo). It was one of those desserts that I'd sold my heart to the minute I set my eyes on it, and nothing was going to get in my way from having it. All the same, to make conversation with our server, I casually asked what it was made of. He replied with a grin "chicken ice-cream, Turkish specialty". My eyes grew wide with horror as Philippe had a good, gut-busting laugh.

"He's obviously making fun of you, and you fell for it! You're such a tourist bwahaha!"

Feeling a bit sheepish, I silently dug my spoon into the ice-cream topped plate of confectionery. It turned out pretty good at first bite - creamy, the sweet vanilla ice-cream contrasting nicely again the savoury chicken flavour.

Hang on, did I say chicken???

IT WAS UNMISTAKABLY CHICKEN.

Turned out the brown "skin" of the roll was none other than chicken floss - gossamer thin strands of dried chicken meat, the same way you'd get pork floss or fish floss. There also seemed to be some chicken floss in the cream cheese-like filling itself, as telltale strands continually appeared on spoon or plate.

Needless to say, after about 4 mouthfuls, the dish went from exotic surprise to just plain weird, and our stay at Cafe Saray came quickly to an end.

Dinner, unfortunately, didn't leave me with much to report. The restaurants of Istiklal Caddesi essentially serve the same type of food as Kumkapi, albeit in a buzzing New York bar street setting. But after a couple of days of very fulfilling and non-stop dining, we weren't in a position to complain.

All in, I'd highly recommend Turkey for anyone looking for a slightly more exotic European holiday. Istanbul is good for 3 or 4 days, and the country's numerous islands and historical sights are only a short flight or bus ride away. People are friendly, food and lodging are inexpensive, and the monuments are some of the most impressive you'll find anyway. Oh, and did I mention the food was good?

A couple of parting shots: kids concentrating hard on a game of chess in the neighbourhood of our hotel, and a view of the ceiling of the Blue Mosque, whose tiles gave the mosque its moniker, through the iron frame of one of its chandeliers.

Now I'm depressed 'cos the end of summer holiday blogging means I have to acknowledge that summer holidays are over, a fact I've been in denial over for a couple of months now :)

Cairo-ho!

2006-09-27T23:15:00.000+08:00

Continuing on my long overdue trip blogging, Philippe and I arrived at Port Said in Egypt after 9 days of sailing from Colombo.

This might sound really daft, but the first thing that struck me upon entering Egypt, via the Suez Canal, was just how much sand there was everywhere - on the streets, blanketing vehicles, choking even the mangy looking wild dogs roaming the alleyways.

Second, it was bloody hot, even though we arrived in the evening. This wasn't helped by my well-intentioned attempts at modesty, covering up at the port in long sleeves, jeans and a headscarf only to be surrounded the next day in Cairo by Russian tourists prancing around in hotpants, spaghetti straps and stilettos.

Coke that's ice-cold and not covered in sand, how I love thee! Actually I hope it was really Coke and that the Arabic doesn't actually say Caramelized Camel Pee.

Third, Egyptian people are really hard to deal with. Our captain had warned us several times on the ship that nothing gets done in Egypt without tips or the odd 100 cartons of free cigarettes (most other ports only require 20-50 cartons to get through customs apparently) and, true enough, we found ourselves fighting for every little thing just to get around.

"No, for the last time, we don't want to visit your cousin's papyrus museum"
"No, we are not going to pay you any more than the metered fare"
"No, I don't believe you don't have change for my bill"

Honestly, having bargained our way through China, India and most recently Sri Lanka (where the bellboy at the Kandalama literally stood in front of our car, preventing us from leaving until we had tipped him sufficiently), I'd thought I was fairly thick skinned when it came to defending my right to not be cheated, but Cairo literally had me alternatingly screaming or scowling in frustration.

My impressions were nothing but heightened when we arrived at our first stop - the Pyramids of Giza. Sand and heat aplenty, plus what appeared to be a festering ground for trainee touts, from the lanky teenagers acting as policemen demanding to see our entry tickets where entry tickets weren't even required to the grinning men on smelly, malnourished camels trying to rent you a ride from pyramid to pyramid, even when the pyramids are barely 100m apart along well-paved roads. Here's one such charming gentleman:

The one thing that Cairo does have going for it though, is good food. In particular, good food that is usually hard to find in our little corner of the world.

Ok, so it has splendid Islamic architecture too, but you can't eat that, can you?

So, after a head blazing, joint aching morning hiking around the pyramids, we headed off by funky taxi (an honest driver for a change! must be the soothing cow spots on the dashboard) to the sprawling bazaar of Khan al-Khalili, led by visions of mint tea, bags of jewel-coloured spices and mountains of perfumed sweets.

Khan al-Khalili is a sprawling warren of store-lined streets and alleys, stocked with every thing from religious literature to tourist kitsch to cheap made-in-China household sundries. Passing our first few stores, I'd made a mental list of not-so-awful souvenirs or potentially cute home decor that we could attempt to acquire:

Camel stuffed toy for baby Gabriel...

Oriental leather slippers or gilded shot glasses for Tam and Sa...

Funny fez for Aaron...

...only to have that list shorten each time we passed another store selling the exact same thing, with the gradual realization that what I thought was charming then would later turn out to be unforgivably tacky or, at the very least, simply too curious. Eventually my list got scratched down to zero. And so we simply focused on what we could eat.

First stop, the revered Cairo institution that is the El Fishawy Coffee House. While host to numerous Lonely Planet pilgrims, the coffee house fortunately also had its fair share of locals, lingering over shisha and mint tea. This, more than the pyramids or the cantankerous touts, was what Egypt was about - thick, candy scented smoke, steaming hot tea in the middle of the afternoon, peeling walls and chipped mirrors boasting a blissful ignorance of the passage of time.

Refreshment pit stop over, we then wandered through the souk in search of more food to eat or buy.

Philippe turned out to be a bit overzealous and, while I was engrossed in a neighbouring spice shop, skipped over to this vendor to inquire about how to eat his wares.

They were loofahs :)

Ok, some real food! Fresh baked bread...

More bread...

Coffee vendors...

And finally, an assortment of honey covered desserts. Just as well we didn't have this in the morning - the sugar rush from one slice alone would have sent me running up and down the pyramids.

We rested our feet and took in some much needed airconditioning at Cafe de Najib Mahfouz, named after Cairo's famous novelist-philosopher and the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Apparently one of his writings was actually titled The Khan Al-Khalili which, if the cafe's elaborately carved heavy wooden doors and gilded tables were anything to go by, might've been a swirling mix of intrigue and exoticism. Or maybe not, who knows.

By good fortune, my random choice of drink turned out to be incredibly good. I need to look up the name but it's essentially a warm, thick milk, almost like a lassi, that's scented with almonds and coconut. You get a little pack of condiments - nuts, raisins and toasted shredded coconut - to toss in, and the end result is practically a hug from your grandma in a glass.

And, before we knew it, it was dinner time! Dinner was at the Zamalek branch of Abu El Sid, a sexy, Arabesque chain of 3 restaurants across Cairo that bring out the best of the city's see-and-be-seen crowd.

While the decor was undoubtedly glamourous, the food turned out to be disappointing. We had falafels, hummus, a yoghurt dip, stuffed vine leaves and the house specialty of grain-stuff pigeon, all of which were average at best. The funky lighting which had so awed us upon our initial entry also eventually threatened to throw us into fits of epilepsy, so we ended up rushing through our meal and leaving a fair bit on the table.

Oh, and a note on the wine. Don't ever ever EVER attempt to drink Egyptian wine. I'm no wine expert, but this was just plain vile. Water from the Nile, downstream from a camel settlement, would possibly taste better.

Although apparently Egyptian beer is pretty good.

Changed hotels the next day in order to check out the Mena House Oberoi at Giza, a gorgeous and stately former hunting lodge of royalty-turned-luxury hotel.

Lunch was good and light - the usual suspects of hummus, yoghurt dip, cucumber salad and the like, but refreshing after a couple of sticky days.

And what better way to celebrate the end of stickiness that an afternoon by the pool, gazing cocktail in hand in the distance at the same pyramids we so painfully trekked around the previous morning?

Yeah, I know it looks like Vegas, but that really is the real Great Pyramid of Khufu in the background.

Date trees! Lining the hotel driveway.

Spent our final evening too lazy to stray from the hotel, so ate dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants that had a cultural show thrown in, just for the kitschy fun of it. Most of the entertainment came from us trying not to choke on our food while the visibly bored staff members went through the motions of dancing, clapping and hooting to Egyptian techno music.

My own personal favourite? The spinner man, who was not only highly skilled in the art of continuous twirling, but who also managed to peel off layer after layer of twirly skirt to turn himself into the human technicolour prata.

And so we reached the end of our little Cairo adventure. It was exhausting and frustrating; it was exotic and intriguing. Would I do it again any time soon? Probably not. But I will be on the lookout for more good Middle Eastern food, and making myself a cup of hot mint tea every now and again. Spinning prata man to entertain me while eating or no.

Ahoy!

2006-09-19T23:40:00.000+08:00

Finally getting around to post on last month's cargo ship holiday. By way of a refresher, Philippe and I spent 10 days on board the Marseille-registered CMA CGM LILAC as Phase 2 of our summer break - Phase 1 was 10 days in Sri Lanka, our boarding point; Phase 2 the ship trip across the Indian Ocean and up the Suez Canal; Phase 3.5 a couple of days in Cairo and Phase 4 three days in Istanbul before flying home.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the ship. We'd opted to travel by container ship in order to experience the joys of cruising without the commercialization - the whole cabaret-casinos-buffet dinner shtick that comes with passenger cruising. Instead, we would have the ship to ourselves as the only fare paying passengers, and the opportunity to catch up on our reading and with each other in peace. We were also excited by the route, the opportunity to sail through the Indian Ocean and up the Suez Canal like sailor merchants of yore.

And so, on a dark and humid Sunday evening, we boarded the LILAC at Colombo Port, and arrived on the deck of our new home for the next 10 days.

Not being much of a technical person, I really can't tell you too much about the dimensions of the ship, except that we were told it can carry up to 3,000 containers, which is small by modern standards but considered large up to a few years ago.

All the accommodation on the ship was in the column-like area, i.e. the broad "chimney" space you'd find in a child's line drawing. In our case, this area housed 5 floors, each floor marked by a poster of a different region featuring the graphic profile of a CMA CGM ship against some exotic setting in a stylized French cafe poster style. Starting from the bottom:
- Accessible only from the outside, my favourite-named Poop Deck ("you said poop, hurhurhur...")
- Amerique du Sud (South America) - the Main Deck with crew quarters and the storeroom (aka booze and cigarette paradise)
- Baltic - the "ground floor" with the kitchen, officers' and crew's dining and mess rooms, and the admin office
- Tour du Monde (Around the World) - additional crew quarters
- Liban (Lebanon) - a couple of officers' cabins and, most importantly, our room - the owners' cabin
- Caraibes (the Caribbean) - the bridge, from which all the charting and navigation is done

Our room was very comfortable, with a twin bed, sofa area, writing desk with shelving, closet and attached bathroom. It wasn't particularly fancy, but was clean, well appointed and had the air of a homely ski cabin. Indeed, throughout the trip we were treated more like guests in a family inn than as commercial passengers getting in the way of day-to-day operations. The 24 Filipino crew and Croatian officers were always friendly, and ready with offers of a guided tour around the ship, funny anecdotes from past sailings, or just a generous smile even as we tripped over their tools and pressed buttons we weren't supposed to.

One reason for their perpetual good humour must have been the food. Meals were served promptly three times a day (breakfast from 7-8am, lunch from 12.30-1.30pm, and dinner from 7-8pm), and all were whopping affairs, with lunch and dinner particularly following a standard formula:

- On the table: fresh garden salad, assorted cold cuts and cheeses, a bottle of Greek wine
- Soup of the day: vegetable soup, or chicken noodle and the like
- Appetizer: typically something very light, like, oh, pizza, or lasagne!
- Main course: seriously heavy stuff, e.g. steak with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables
- Dessert: cheesecake, or banana pie, or chocolate mousse, in portions that would make Hard Rock Cafe proud
- Fruit basket: plums, oranges, apples, bananas, help yourself!

Likewise, breakfast consisted of fruit juice, cereals, yoghurt, bacon and eggs, cheese and cold cuts, coffee or tea... you can imagine we never went hungry.

We soon settled into a daily routine organized around meals.

Post breakfast would be a trip up to the bridge for a morning discussion on the day's route with the captain. Having pored through the charts and examined the various instruments as if they were actually intelligible to us, we would then descend for reading on the deck with our brand spanking new "carry them wherever you feel like plonking down" Lafuma deck chairs, with nothing but colourful Lego block rows of containers and the wide open sea around us.

After lunch would be a couple of hours of brainless DVD watching on our laptop, making full use of the ship's 300-strong DVD library. Another trip up to the bridge to check on our progress, then down to the poop deck to explore the ship, look out for whales and dolphins (both of which we did see!) and watch the setting sun in reflective silence.

Dinner would conclude with a chat with Captain Malasic and his wife, then it's back to our room for more reading and a DVD movie nightcap.

Repeat for 10 days.

The one exception during the trip was Barbecue Night. Once each sailing (i.e. from China to Istanbul or vice versa), the crew organizes a barbecue on the open deck, featuring an open roast. The crew was kind enough to time barbecue night during our stay, and we had the honour of having an entire goat roasted. (Due to logistical reasons, we eventually departed the ship prematurely, without time to take the requisite final tours and photos, so I never got to visit the kitchen's cold store, but I'm sure it must be a weird and wonderful place if there are whole goats lying around.) Add to that an endless supply of duty free alcohol and tobacco, and the incessant roar of the waves created by our passage, and the scene was as lively as any pub at the end of a working day.

All in, it was a wonderful trip. We got to see the daily workings of a full-fledged container ship, we travelled down the exotic and historically significant sea route, and passed such rarely visited destinations as Somalia and Ethiopia, we were well fed and well rested, and we got to meet incredibly warm and wonderful people.

The port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Should the crew or officers of the CMA CGM LILAC ever come across this humble post: thank you for the wonderful trip and memories!

A prelude to my next post on Egypt...

For every port of call, the ship had to hoist the local flag... There's even an entire cupboard on the bridge full of flags for every country.

Sailing down the Suez Canal, which was even narrower than I imagined... one way, one lane only!

View from the ship - Coke branded outposts and just enough sand to say welcome to the land of pyramids.

The port pilot - his job is to take over the steering from the captain once we're near the port, and to ensure the ship docks safely. In other words, valet parking for ships!

Egypt post akan datang!

Guest chef Halima!

2006-09-11T21:35:00.000+08:00

Question: So what does someone who was born in Algeria, raised in Brazil and Cuba, and schooled in France make for a casual dinner at home?

Answer: Amazing food that's fast, simple, and an absolute riot of flavours.

Halima, an old college neighbour of Philippe's in Marseille, came to stay with us for 10 days last week as her first venture into Asia. Not that you could tell it was her first trip to the region - by the second day she was ordering kopi like a local, ravenously wolfing down curry puffs (6 in one sitting!) and launching into philosophical discussions with our neighbourhood food reflexologist.

Like a good cultural ambassador though, Halima decided to share some of her own home cooking, and subsequently took over our currently much neglected kitchen to whip up a casual Sunday dinner at home. The dishes came from all over the world, but were united in that they all represented some form of comfort food to her.

This was our menu for the evening, together with the primary regional influence:

Mechoui ya - Grilled pepper and tomato salad. A traditional Algerian dish that can be found in any household
Guacamole - South American
Cucumber and yoghurt salad - Mediterranean
Beef keftas - North African
Grilled eggplant and tomato salad - Mediterranean

Like most traditional home cooking, many of the recipes can be modified in various ways - a bit of garlic there, some onions here - and none of them need any precise measuring of ingredients or even a specific cooking method - it's all to taste. But here's our version, enjoy!

Mechoui ya (Grilled pepper and tomato salad)

As a prime example of how dishes can be modified, mechoui ya simply means 'grilled salad' - anything goes.

Start by grilling red and green peppers. I usually throw my peppers directly on the gas flame until they're charred, then chuck them in a plastic bag to steam up for a while before slicing.

Halima's approach was similar but with more drama - fill a frying pan with a fairly deep layer of oil, add the peppers, then cover with a tight fitting lid. Smaller peppers work best for this. The hot oil will pop and splatter over the inside of the lid, thereby searing the rest of the pepper not sitting directly on the frying pan. If necessary for a more even charring, turn the peppers over after a few minutes and repeat. Just be sure the oil has stopped exploding before you do that!

Exploding oil

Gorgeously charred peppers

We'll end up peeling the skin off anyway, so get your peppers nice and burnt on the outside so they'll be tender on the inside.

Toss the hot peppers into a plastic bag, and seal to let steam. Once it's cooled down, you can easily peel the burnt skin off, and your peppers will be nice and soggy... like this!

Soggy peppers ready for eating

Last step, slice the peppers, throw in some chopped tomatoes and red onions, dress liberally with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Let sit for an hour or so for the juices to mix, and then you're set!

Aside from being very pretty and incredibly tasty, the salad can also keep for a while, perfect for preparing in advance or for making something on the weekend to set aside for fuss-free weekday dinners.

Guacamole

Mush up an avocado or two with a fork, add chopped garlic, some salt, lemon juice and olive oil, and you're done! Cream optional.

Cucumber and yoghurt salad

Sliced cucumbers, Greek yoghurt, pinch of pounded garlic and olive oil. Because of the yoghurt, the salad can have a strong sour aftertaste if you eat it straight away, but this disappears once you've let the salad rest a while (in our case, in as much time as it took to run to the cinema to watch The Devil Wears Prada before returning for dinner, but in reality probably much less - I'm guessing an hour would suffice).

Beef keftas

In our case, approximately 2 stalks of parsley, freshly chopped, and one red onion to 600g of minced beef. I know parsley is rarely considered the coolest herb, but it's really surprisingly how a generous dollop of fresh parsley can transform a dish. Philippe's a big fan and I'm a convert now as well - in salads, with fish, and now with red meat.

You can add an egg as well, which would give the impression of more tender beef.

Shape into mini-burger sized patties...

...then fry or grill till nice and browned.

Our final additional dish was an eggplant and tomato salad, very simply, eggplant charred on a gas flame with the skin subsequently peeled off, then tossed with chopped tomatoes and a generous amount of finely chopped garlic. As it was a last minute addition, we ate this warm as opposed to the chilled pepper salad, and the contrast nicely brought out the different flavours.

A slice of dark rye bread to soak up all the juices, and your tummy is set on a trip around half the world. Total cooking time for everything: an hour, tops. You spend more time at the table with your fork suspended in mid-air, trying to pull yourself away from one dish to try another - it's all fantastically yummy, guaranteed. Best of all, it's so simple, even the worst kitchen dummy couldn't muck up, yet plated nicely or upsized for a larger dinner party, could be incredibly elegant and/or exotic as well.

Merci Chef Halima :)

Food bloggers' dinner!

2006-08-28T11:27:00.000+08:00

Loads of trip updating to do, but first things first... thanks to everyone who made last Friday's food bloggers' dinner at Sage so fabulous and fun!

Or so we called it a food bloggers' dinner. The other guests at Sage may have guessed differently, possibly surmising that our gathering was in fact a support group for People Who Cannot Eat Without First Photographing Their Food Under Various Lighting Combinations And From Several Different Angles.

The whipping out of cameras, the frantic setting adjustments, the contortionist-like angling, all set against the backdrop of frequent yet resigned sighs from loved ones watching their food turn cold... these were all symptoms that we'd previously suffered in silence. But now, such company!
It's like that scene in Ice Age 2 when Manny finds out he's not the only mammoth around and his species isn't going extinct - enough to make me bawl into my SQ hot towel (in-flight movie lah) really.

As you can imagine, the dinner is now the most documented event in the Singapore food blogosphere this week. I don't have much to add to the wonderfully detailed write-ups (with pics! such a gorgeous lot we are) at Only Slightly Pretentious Food, Recent Runes and Kitchen Crazy Daffy (amongst others), so will skip straight to the Oscar thank yous:

To Colin, for organizing. I think we've all run out of superlatives to describe the evening

To the good folks at Sage, (for me at least) a previously undiscovered gem to which I now swear eternal loyalty. Note to the curious: the poached eggs/escargots dish aka Fricassee of Burgundy Escargot with Lentil du Puy and Field Mushrooms, Poached Egg and Italian Parsley Cream as well as the beef short ribs aka US Corn Fed Beef Shortribs Braised in Red Wine Topped with Slices of Foie Gras and Bone Marrow, Glazed Root Vegetables and a Mousseline of Butternut Pumpkin are on the regular menu, and you'd be doing yourself a great disservice if you don't try them soon.

To Razor Sharp, for the seriously sexy Kasumi knife; Staub for the lucky draw prizes (next year, dammit!) and to Chubby Hubby and Daffy for organizing and distributing the above.

To Julius Truffles, for the lovely truffles. The pyramid-shaped cognac ones were amazingly creamy and rich, while being terribly addictive and pop-able. I want more!!!

To Gryphon, for the very sophisticated looking box of Straits Chai tea. I haven't tried it yet simply because I intend to keep the box (which says that it's meant for the IMF/World Bank Board of Governors' Meeting) in the vain hopes of convincing people that I am in fact on the IMF/World Bank Board of Governors and hence deserve VIP treatment at every major hotel/restaurant/spa across the island from 10-20 September. Heck, if I'm even stuck in a traffic jam during that time, I'm gonna wave the box out my window as an excuse to overtake irresponsibly.

To Ivan of Recent Runes, for making us feel like celebrities with his paparazzi-like photo taking, and for attempting to get us suitably celebrity wasted with limoncello and grappa shots. For a brief moment, I even fancied myself as Paris Hilton and developed a strong urge to record an album.

Likewise, to Umami, for the yummy wines that never seemed to stop flowing.

And to my immediate dining companions - Joone of Nibble & Scribble, ST of Cheat Eat, Lavender Cupcaker, Cindy of Cinheartlife, Charmaine (hope I spelt that right) of ILoveMyPaddington - it was really a pleasure to meet you. Look forward to keeping up with all of you through your blogs! (Except ST: we have some jade shopping to do together soon!)

It was also great fun to chat with (albeit briefly) bloggers whose sites I enjoy reading - Dim Sum Dolly, Only Slightly Pretentious Food, Skinny Epicurean, Kitchen Crazy Daffy and Umami in particular. It's pretty bizarre to introduce yourself to someone, then realize that you know so many details of his or her life without ever having met him/her in person. Happy to report though that this was a much more dignified affair than teenage fan club days - those embarassing high pitch squeals at a Color Me Badd autograph session, or even the awkward stammering in front of Mark Richmond at 98.7FM sponsored Zouk event (yes, it didn't take much in those days).

For those who couldn't make Friday (Shaz!) do hope to meet you soon at next year's dinner... or how about organizing one before? ;)

Still alive

2006-08-25T11:33:00.000+08:00

Hallo all! Just a quick post to say I'm still alive despite the blogging silence :) Travelling's been insane the last few weeks - vacation took us from Sri Lanka to Saudi Arabia (pit stop), Egypt and finally Istanbul, got back in the wee hours of Monday morning only to fly off to HK on Tues morning for work and Bangkok the day after... really glad to have both feet back on the ground again! Nicking hotel soaps does lose its novelty after a while :)

Will hopefully be updating massively over the next few days so do stop by soon!

Day 8 - And we're off!

2006-08-06T17:37:00.000+08:00

Wanted to post pics from our stay in Kandalama - the sights there were really the most fabulous of our trip so far, with ancient ruined cities, stunning rockscapes, and loads of elephant safari photos. But of course Blogger's photo upload is mucked up again, so I guess it will have to be a while.

We're finally going to board our ship today - the CMA CGM LILAC - which had been delayed for a couple of days. From here we've got 8 days before we reach our first stop - the Suez Canal. The copy of the Economist that I grabbed at Changi Airport just before we left actually had a special report of the Suez Crisis of 197[6?] and I'm looking forward to re-reading it again just before we arrive to imagine all the drama and tension of the period. I vaguely remember studying it for 'A' Level History but nothing like seeing the actual place, right?

I'm guessing we're gonna be pretty cut off from the rest of the world while on the ship. There will of course be basic satellite communication that we can access, but I'm guessing it's not quite unlimited broadband. Will try to update once we stopover on shore.

Oh, and family and friends update - the shipping company assures us that our stopover in Beirut has been cancelled and we'll sail right by instead. Hopefully out of missile range - will confirm this with the captain as soon as we get on board! And of course will try to call whenever possible.

Fellow Singapore food bloggers - look forward to catching up with all of you soon, thanks Colin for organizing!

See y'all in a few!

Day 3 - Kandy

2006-08-05T20:33:00.000+08:00

Our morning view from Villa Rosa. The road it’s on is definitely not an easy one, but now I understand why they went through all the effort to build a hotel here. Below is the Mahaweli River, Sri Lanka’s longest, and the town of Kandy.

Local mineral water – Dingle’s! But who is Dingle and how did he produce this water? Hopefully it’s not some kind of Sri Lankan Newater-type joke. Scary.

Morning was spent visiting the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens, the private gardens of the last Sinhalese king until the British imprisoned him (no explanation why) and subsequently expanded the gardens.

What a nice leafy tree. Oh wait, those aren’t leaves, those are giant bats! Ooh. Garden stroll = haunted house of horrors.

Random shot of giant bamboo, just loved the burnt colour of the old leaves.

The evening saw the highlight of our trip to Kandy, the start of the annual Esala Perahera festival. The parade, which honours Kandy’s prized relic – a tooth of Buddha’s – is considered to be the world’s oldest parade and is celebrated with dancing, drumming, and the procession of numerous elephants, the last of which is tasked with carrying a replica of said tooth. The picture doesn’t show much, but you can just make out elephants covered in decorative cloths spotted with lightbulbs. Will try to post a video up when back in Singapore.

The parade was really very impressive. To attend the first day of the festival is considered particularly auspicious, and the main street of Kandy was lined with little old ladies sitting on makeshift mats since early afternoon. As it seems with most events in Sri Lanka, joy and celebration are always underpinned by security concerns given the country’s turbulent past (and indeed present), and we saw more than our fair share of the reported 7,000 armed police who had turned up to monitor the event. (Although this had probably to do with our vantage point as well - a makeshift spectator gallery outside Kandy's one and only Pizza Hut. A note: Sri Lankan Super Supreme is NASTY.)

The parade had a pretty simple structure – a group of musicians or dancers, followed by a troupe of elephants, repeat several times. But the atmosphere was certainly intense, the clash of tambourines or banging of drums filling the jungle sky, the throngs of locals and visitors alike pushing in for a closer look, the solemn eeriness of these majestic elephants swaying along in progress, their thoughts as they survey the magical scene a complete mystery.

Day 3 - Kandy (missing elephant)

2006-08-05T20:19:00.000+08:00

My elephant pic somehow got lost in the previous post, so re-posting. Yah I know, you didn't miss much.

Day 2 part 1 - Colombo

2006-08-03T11:47:00.000+08:00

Instead of a dishy lifeguard, machine guns overlook the pool. Great. Fortunately no-one ever appeared at the top of the tower, so I’ll assume the guns are just there for their aesthetic value.

After the chaos of yesterday, our only venture back into the city was for lunch at the Elephant Walk’s Mahout Café. Elephant Walk is a haven for home accessories of assorted jewel colours and sparkly embellishments, while the courtyard Mahout Café was a perfectly tranquil spot to catch up on the news (cover page of the local daily: “Sex-themed arts festival in Sydney showcases man who paints with penis!”)

Lunch was roasted tomato soup and a Greek salad. Spot the hidden elephant in the last photo!

We met our driver, guide and otherwise companion for the next 6 days, and set off on the 4 hour ride to Kandy, the old Sinhalese hillside capital. The ride was fairly uneventful, the scenery reminiscent of Bali most of the time, and the drivers generally less suicidal than expected.

Arrived just after sunset at the homey Villa Rosa, and in time for our first local meal. From left to right: cashew nuts in a milky gravy, eggplant with green peppers, chicken curry, vegetable salsa, freshly fried pappadums and mango jam. Yum. Dessert was jaggery pudding, something I’d seen on a couple of menus in Colombo already and was keen to try. After inquiring from our German host, it turns out that jaggery, for its strange name, is actually something familiar to all us Southeast Asians – gula melaka or palm sugar. While the pudding was exactly the same taste and consistency as agar-agar. So jaggery pudding = gula melaka agar-agar. Not so exotic after all but good nonetheless.

Holiday blog - Day 1 - Colombo

2006-08-02T10:52:00.000+08:00

“Greetings from sunny Sri Lanka!”

… came the e-mail header confirming our hotel reservation.

And now here we are in Colombo, at the start of our first long vacation in over a year. The next three weeks will see us heading from Sri Lanka, through the Middle East, to finally arrive in Istanbul. Needless to say, in this short period we’ll only scratch the surface of what these exotic and historical regions have to offer, but the key purpose of the trip actually wasn’t just where we’d visit but how we’d get there – in our case, via the cargo ship CMA CGM LILAC.

But that’s next week. For now, we’ve got a week to spend in Sri Lanka before we board the ship at the port of Colombo. It’s Philippe’s and my first time in Sri Lanka, and even only after a day in Colombo, we’re pretty sure there will be more trips here to come.

Most guide books are quick to dismiss Colombo as little more than a necessary transit point to the real gems of Sri Lanka – the beautiful and expansive coast, the exotic hillside temples, the glamorous colonial fort, the serene, mist-covered tea estates.

I can see where they’re coming from. The city is dusty, hot and chaotic. There are few sights to see if you’re even remotely familiar with the hallmarks of British colonialism – parliament buildings, the old railway station… in fact the whole city looks uncannily like Penang, it just smells of a different blend of spices.

Highlights from Day 1, see what you think:

- Our visit to Odel’s, Colombo’s leading discount designer retailer and apparently a must-stop on the tourist circuit, lasted a full 20 minutes. It would’ve actually been much shorter if it wasn’t for the air-conditioning. Sure, you can find decent designer togs at a fraction of the price, but are you really going to buy Hugo Boss suits and Armani ties on vacation (and when it’s 30 degrees outside)?

- Likewise, while the highly lauded Paradise Road Studio housed shelves of chic tableware and the like, we just weren’t prepared to lug entire china dinner sets around with us the rest of our trip. Plus risk the possibility of seeing the exact same set on a future trip to Bangkok or Bali (elephants, elephants, and more elephants).

- (Alert: Food blog starts now!) The Paradise Road Café, however, was a lovely little lunch haven in the same décor and cuisine vein as Singapore’s Blood Café. Here’s lunch – Philippe’s Mexican beef pita pocket (my spinach and ricotta ravioli tasted good but wasn’t terribly photogenic), followed by our dessert of passion fruit meringue pie. Very local I know, but, hey, we’ll be journeying to the Sri Lanka heartlands tomorrow and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of opportunities, by choice or circumstance, to sample local cuisine. Right now, it’s just too hot to even contemplate curry.

- Our first attempt of the trip to play historical tourist led us via a white knuckle tuk-tuk ride to the old lighthouse at the north end of Galle Face Green, overlooking the Indian Ocean. According to our driver, the area used to be a popular al fresco seafood dinner destination until the Presidential Secretariat was established here. While the southern end of the Green is still bustling with strolling young couples, gossiping old-timers and kite-flying children, the north end is starkly desolate, even hostile. Our only companions during that 20 minute stroll were rifle carrying soldiers and hundreds of gigantic black crows, fighting over stubs of stale bread, circling silently overhead, or simply lined up in statue-like stillness on the seaside walls, staring out at the ocean like a scene out of a Vertigo comic book. Not quite Tourist Promotion Board material.

- Next, we tried exploring the pettah. In a word, this place is madness, quite worthy of the warning in our Luxe Guide to avoid at all costs. Narrow streets crammed with stalls selling everything from cheap shoes to outdated electronics to gems of dubious origins branch out in every direction from the main arterial street. Not that you could actually enter the shops even if you wanted to – the pavements are packed with parked tuk-tuks and mobile food stalls. Shoppers are thus left to jostle for passageway with cars, trucks, carts, motorcycles and tuk-tuks on the street itself, with each form of transportation gloriously issuing its own unique combination of exhaust fumes, horn blaring and reckless overtaking technique. Add to this the blazing sun overhead, and you soon realize that the best the pettah has to offer is its numerous bake shops.

- I guess as a result of its various colonial influences (Dutch, Portugese and British), Sri Lankans really love their bread, and it’s hard to find a street that doesn’t house at least a bake shop or two. We sat down at an empty table near the kitchen door, and watched an endless stream of fresh baked bread emerge, the variety of which was worthy of any European bakery.

- Through this afternoon, we constantly wondered where the other tourists were. We finally found them all by the pool of our hotel, the charming colonial Galle Face Hotel, engaged in an amusing game of musical deckchairs – Caucasians chasing the sun, Asians running away from it.

- Dinner was at Number 18 (food blog time again!), Colombo’s latest haven for the young and beautiful dining crowd. Helmed expertly by an Australian chef, it offers excellent modern Italian/Australian cuisine in a stylish courtyard setting, and is the perfect place to get the grime and chaos of daytime Colombo off your mind. My starter was squid and tomato petals with papardelle tossed in lemon oil and parsley, main was grilled rack of lamb with a caponata and mint jus, and dessert was passionfruit pavlova with butterscotch ice cream. Add to that a glass of crisp sauvignon blanc and chilled lounge music, and you’ve got a happy end to a long day.

Nogawa

2006-07-12T12:07:00.000+08:00

Celebrated Philippe's birthday on Tuesday at Nogawa at Sentosa Golf Club.

I guess when most people think of dining at Sentosa Golf Club nowadays, Il Lido is the first and probably only place that comes to mind. Philippe Starck decor... Garibaldi pedigree... much treasured haunt of apparently every minister and tai tai in town. Sadly though, a trip to Il Lido seems more about having your hair up and your nails done than actually enjoying the food. Which, from personal experience and even more from trusted secondhand reports, appears to be a fairly difficult thing to do (enjoy the food I mean, not your nails. Ahem.)

Nogawa evidently lies in Il Lido's publicity shadow, but ill-deservedly. The food is simply amazing. Ridiculously fresh, sometimes weird, always wonderful. If I hadn't chanced upon pictures of Nogawa-san from his website (he's the one next to MM Lee btw), I would have imagined him as the Willy Wonka of Japanese cuisine, replete with headband-wearing, sashimi-carving Oompa Loompas.

Ok, so maybe I exaggerate. A little. The dishes we tried did deconstruct into fairly basic components, and many recipes may very well be tried and true, but the quality of ingredients and dedication in preparation must be unrivaled by any restaurant in Singapore.

Which is possibly to be expected. Nogawa-san is widely considered the father of Japanese cuisine in Singapore. One evening at Hachi, our favourite Japanese restaurant and one of Singapore's best kept open secrets, we happened to find ourself chatting over the counter with both chef Watanabe-san and KF Seetoh as to the top Japanese restaurants in Singapore (aye, Seetoh of Makansutra fame. Not to name drop, but credit where credit is due. I haven’t yet reached the upper echelons of food bloggerdom whereby I can claim to have discovered and be singlehandedly responsible for the success of one Singapore’s now most beloved and famous eateries *coughcrabbeehooncough* hey, indulge a girl in a bit of bitching, maybe I'm just jealous ;) ).

Anyway, I believe it was Seetoh who brought up Nogawa first. Either he or Watanabe-san then informed us that Nogawa-san trained many of Singapore’s top Japanese chefs, including (if I remember correctly, don’t quote me on this) Yoshida of Sushi Yoshida and Tatsu of Tatsuya/Tatsu Sushi). How can you say no to that?

After a bit of googling, I learnt that the Nogawa brand extends to three restaurants – Akane at the Japanese Association on Adam Road, Nogawa at Le Meridien and Nogawa at Sentosa Golf Club. While I was really keenest to try Akane, apparently you need to be a member of the Japanese Association to dine there. Like any obsessed foodie, I then investigated how to join the Japanese Association, hoping that my recently acquired JLPT3 certificate would be useful currency. Unfortunately it takes more than a piece of paper and a bunch of anime DVDs to qualify one for membership – you actually need referral letters from two existing members! Anyone??? Please???

Anyway, long story short, we ended up at Sentosa Golf Club. The restaurant was very much what I’d hoped for – elegant, modern, great counter seat from which we could catch all the slicing and dicing action (although no view into the kitchen), and, best for Philippe (who since arriving in Singapore has turned into an uncle-wannabe), a gradual stream of post-golfing uncle regulars entering, ordering off-the-menu items which we could then piggyback off (“we want whatever that is!!!”) and raucously discussing politics, golfing expeditions and the now-infamous-but-then-still-current Zidane headbutt.

Sorry, that was a long sentence. Please pause for breath now.

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Sooooo. The meal turned out to be much more than that – the kindly young chefs at the counter took great pleasure in presenting us with little ‘on the house’ specials after every 2-3 courses, and even greater pleasure in explaining to us how the dishes were prepared, which ingredients were special for the season and should be particularly cherished, and so on. Will therefore end my long prologue (I’m starting to rival Chaucer in these) and share those gems of knowledge together with the pics. Happy virtual eating!

Oh, and for the curious, dinner came up to $400, of which $100 was wine. Definitely pricey but we went all out since it was a special occasion (according to Philippe, the first time I’ve bought him dinner since we were dating in 2000 :P). Also the menu is very flexibly priced if you don’t want to spend so much – individual dishes start from $15-20 each, while kaiseki menus are priced at $100, $120 and $180 – which is honestly not too bad if you consider the quality of the food, especially the sashimi. I’m guessing eating at a similar establishment even in Tokyo would cost heaps more, not to mention anywhere outside Asia.

First up: Sashimi

Salmon, tuna belly, amaebi and hamachi. Ever since playing around with a Tetsuya recipe for Hamachi with Blood Orange Vinaigrette dressing, I order it almost every time I have sashimi. But it's never been like this - creamy, rich, sweet and seductive... I was literally stunned by how different it could be from the fish I thought I knew. And let's not even get started on the tuna belly and the amaebi. Amazingly, the sashimi we had at the Tsukiji fish maret at 7am didn't even come close to this. The plate pictured was $45 but so mind-blowing it was worth any cent.

(Quick aside - I'm always a bit wary of using so many superlatives when writing in case all it does is expose my limited experiences. If by any chance you've tried e.g. sashimi that is much better than this, then do feel free to disagree, but please at least share with me where the better experience is! I am always grateful to be proven wrong and to learn that food much better than anything I've tried does exist :) But that said, I swear this sashimi is the best on the planet and worth selling your firstborn child for :) )

Shameless food geek photo #1: freshly grated wasabi

The chef at the opposite end of the counter from us was very amused by how we'd run across the counter, snap a pic of whatever he had and then run back like nothing happened, avoiding eye contact all the while. The grown-up equivalent of the bean bag shuttle runs we used to do in school! Evidently I still suck at them :P

Next: Free food #1 - shiro baigai (???)

House special courtesy of the chef. The name sounded like shiro baigai but not sure if I caught that right. We'd tried something similar looking at Kazu before but that turned out really nasty. But this one was really amazing. The creature had been marinated in a soy-based almost braising sauce/gravy and served cold, and tasted like abalone but more complex, with each chew releasing alternating layers of salty and sweet.

Sake-steamed clams

Traditional and good. 'Nuff said.

Grilled Kurobuta pork slices

Thin thin thin (somewhere between prosciutto and ham) slices. What was amazing was that the pork was grilled over a charcoal flame, and you could really taste the delicate smokiness. A first for me. Hopefully not the last!

Shameless food geek photo #2: Little big crabs

See how those two baby crabs appear to be in the midst of a heartwarming embrace? Well, first they're not baby crabs, they're full grown miniature crabs (ok big deal). Secondly, they are not clinging fondly together - they are clutching each other in frozen terror. Actually not frozen. They were thrown into boiling oil. Yup. That's either the grip of mortal fear, a final bitter attack ("you bastard! I told you we shouldn't have swum towards that guy with the net!") or quite possibly a vain attempt to escape imminent death by trying to climb on top of your fellow condemned. The crab version of Vesuvius. Fyi, we didn't order them, the uncles did. So judge the uncles!

On a cheerier note, we had the same corn as in the picture as a complimentary amuse bouche. It's from Hokkaido and the sweetest corn I've ever had. Dunno if they sell them in Japanese supermarkets or at Japanese food fairs, but definitely try it!

Something we finally actually paid for: Mini beef cutlet

Sinful but good. Was a little bit different in that the beef cutlets (wagyu by the way!) were first wrapped in bacon before getting breaded and fried, which enabled me to be health-conscious by sliding off the bacon-breadcrumb layer and eating just the beef. Except of course I then gave into temptation and ate said bacon-breadcrumb layer on its own :) Sauce was the traditional katsu sauce.

Yes, I died for you, you bastard: Tiger prawn roll

This was something we filched off the uncles. Tiger prawn, breaded and fried, in an inside out roll with mango and avocado slices and tobiko. Philippe burst a gut laughing when I innocently commented "I can't believe they found such long prawns!" but fell strangely silent when, upon eating the roll, he couldn't find any connecting bits (i.e. where they would've combined two normal length prawns to make a fake super long prawn). The jury is still out - mutant prawns or no???

Grilled cod with salt

Good, good, good.

Nogawa part 2

2006-07-11T23:18:00.000+08:00

More free stuff, yeah: Marinated eggplant

This was definitely an eye-opener. Japanese eggplant marinated in brine, soy sauce, vinegar and chilli powder for three days, then served chilled and eaten skin and all. Our chef later showed us the bottle, it looked like a House of Horrors apothecary jar, really terrifying. But the end result was a firm, crunchy, incredibly tasty eggplant that tasted more like fruit than vegetable. Very refreshing. Will keep it in mind for Weird Science home kitchen experiments days.

Even more free stuff: Crab liver

Yeah looks like fish cake or lotus root but is actually a quarter of a lobe of a gigantic crab liver. Who knew? This was really yummy - creamy and rich without being fatty. No idea what the little bits in the holes are but they were sweet and chewy like bak kua, affording you a good 30 seconds of additional chewing pleasure after you've finished the liver. I swear I am not making this up.

Almost the end! Stuff in miso

Two pics of these just because it was so pretty. The stuff that looks like cheese at the bottom of the foil is actually miso, while the ingredients consisted of wagyu beef, kurobuta pork, foie gras, some fish (who the hell cares what type of fish when you have all that other stuff??? ok it was probably some rare fish, but I was too elated to care), yam, green peppers, leeks and enoki mushrooms. Happy boy and girl.

The chefs were evidently very proud of this as they interrupted my photo taking to arrange the dish at several different angles :)

Dessert freebie: Marinated plums

In case you had wondered where all my raving about dedication and effort in preparation came from, this is case in point. These plums were simmered for three days in a special syrup. But in order to prevent the plums from expanding and bursting their skin, the chefs first had to poke hundreds of tiny pinholes into each and every plum by hand! The plums look a bit grainy in the photo, but those are really the little holes. Quite unbelievable. The end result is plum flesh that is soft, gooey and melt in your mouth - really the texture (but fortunately not the taste) of durian.

Last one (phew): Konnyaku noodles in brown sugar syrup

The Japanese equivalent of gula melaka. Too exhausted to write more :)

So there you go, Nogawa in a not-so-nutshell! In conclusion: if you haven't gone before, please try it, and if you have tried it: why the hell didn't you tell me sooner?!?!?!?!?

Hooray!

2006-07-04T16:25:00.000+08:00

Blogger is finally (momentarily?) able to post pictures, so I've done a mass upload of all my backdated pics. Please scroll down for pictures from Three Guizhou Men and Le Quai in Beijing, Zuko!, Peach Garden and FINALLY Wild Rocket (more than a month after I first posted, sans pics, about it).

Unfortunately while trying to merge old posts with new pics, I lost all comments on the old posts :( Thanks to everyone who commented though, it's always fun to hear from you!

P.S. For anyone who might've had trouble uploading pics on Blogger like me, this trick I found on the Blogger forums does seem to work - create a new post, enter a few blank rows, then upload. Uploading to previous posts, or to a new post but without the blank rows, still doesn't seem to work. Hope they'll fix that soon cos it really is a pain! What's food writing/reading without photos??? :)

Beijing notes aka The Day I Fell in Love with the Little Bastards

2006-07-04T11:06:00.000+08:00

Sichuan peppercorns.

They're small and they hate you.

Try to do a Sichuan peppercorn the honour of a gentle chew, a most delicate and respectful exploration of its flavours and texture. Try to celebrate its vibrant colours and heady aroma in hotpots, stir-fries and sauces. Sing its praises through the generations in prose and poetry.

And what does it do in return?

It camouflages itself amongst the food. Peering out from behind a sliver of bamboo shoot, or cackling sinisterly from under a shred of chicken, it bides its time, waiting slowly, furtively and eagerly until the moment arrives. The Big Peppercorn Mobilization Exercise. (If peppercorns watched TV, no doubt the announcement would be broadcast in flashing text across the screen, with team names such as Haha Gotcha!, Look At You Now, and of course the ever popular Little Bastards.)

With phantom stealth, the peppercorn commandos sneak into your mouth. They seek out the deepest, most awkward recesses, count to 3, and then...

You start to feel a bit strange. It's something sour... smoky... tingly.

The feeling spreads. Your mouth gets numb and number. (The prelude to Number and Numberer.) Beads of sweat start to form.

This is not good.

Water doesn't help, nor does tea. You try dislodging the peppercorn, subtly and politely, with a roll of the tongue or a subdued suck. The only result is that you lose all feeling in your tongue and on one side of your mouth. You start to tear. Your brain clouds up and your vision gets blurry.

I repeat: this is not good.

I'm convinced that Sichuan peppercorns are born into a conspiracy against human beings. They want to make us cry. Grown adults, trapped in silent screams and reduced to tears.

Halle Berry's Oscar acceptance speech?

Britney Spears on NBC Dateline?

And, most recently, David Beckham's red eyes on the bench of the England-Portugal match?

All the work of Sichuan peppercorns. (Ok lah, LKY's speech at Singapore's separation from Malaysia, that was real. Don't want no lawsuit there. *eyes shifting from side to side*)

During my two years living in Beijing, there was little I dreaded more than a direct encounter with a Sichuan peppercorn. Hole-in-the-ground toilets I could deal with. Pavement spitting? Wouldn't blink an eye. Lung-clogging sandstorms? Bring it on. But a Sichuan peppercorn? Gimme a one-way ticket back home, please! (Actually that wouldn't work. Those were the pre-credit card days, so the only way to buy a plane ticket would be to hunt down a Bank of China ATM, pray that it worked, then returned every day to withdraw the maximum RMB2000 until you had enough for a ticket, then lug your bag of cash like a Russian mafia goon to a travel agent. By which time the pain would finally have died down and you feel a right wimp. But I digress.)

The funny thing is, ever since I left Beijing, Chinese food never tasted quite as good. There was a complexity missing, a lack of aromatic headiness. Food didn't seem to engage, or tease or seduce in quite the same way. And, you guessed it, I discovered during last week's trip to Beijing that it was quite possibly due to the lack of the dreaded Szechuan peppercorn.

Sichuan peppercorns are, in fact, not peppercorns per se, but dried peppercorn husks. A deep reddish brown, they are employed in liberal quantities due to their ability to impart numbness or "ma", an effect that has been enshrined as one of Sichuan cuisine's five official flavours. The heat and perspiration it generates are also highly sought after for health reasons in both hot and cold weather.

This last trip, I got re-acquainted with the peppercorns first over a dish of gan bian si ji dou or dry stir fried french beans, a staple Beijing dish with Szechuan origins. I then had a chance to experience them in all their splendour when friend and host Amy brought me to Three Guizhou Men's Gongti outlet. Three Guizhou Men opened in Beijing a year or so ago, and its popularity with the young, local crowd soon led to the launch of several additional outlets. The restaurants are casual, but still incredibly chic and stylish - the Gongti outlet I visited is housed in a complex of upmarket clubs and bars (including Coco Banana, the latest offering from Beijing club stalward Club Banana) and boasts sexy contemporary Chinese paintings on each wall. A closer look at the clear ice-like sculpture at the restaurant's entrance yields not just your usual carved phoenixes and plum blossoms, but also cheeky scenes highly unsuitable for young eyes. Tables are filled with young clubbers filling up either before or after a big night out, playing cards and dragging on cigarettes with one hand and loading up on fiery cuisine with the other.

The extensive menu contains a list of Sichuan favourites (Guizhou province is adjacent to Sichuan and received an influx of Sichuan migrants during the Ming dynasty - praise to Wikipedia) as well as many more local dishes that were exotic to me. Most every table was laden with a hotpot dish serving up the restaurant's specialty - suan tang yu or literally sour soup fish - whereby the fish of your choice is served, together with any additionally requested ingredients (such as vegetables, tofu, mushrooms and bamboo shoots), in a scarlet broth of sour tomatoes. The Sichuan peppercorns of course made their appearance, but were sparingly employed to create an appetite whetting ma-ness, as opposed to sheer pain. I'm not usually a big fan of hotpots (Philippe and I actually first met and bonded through our mutual dislike of it), but this was absolutely delicious and practically a meal in itself.

We also ordered a starter of wild vegetables with chili sauce (pictured, also with liberal use of peppercorns), a plate of Guizhou sausages (xiang chang pai gu) which as its Chinese name suggests were more like smoked, spicy ribs de-boned and served as sausages, as well as a cooling plate of sliced pumpkin dressed in syrup. Every dish was wonderful and completely different from anything available in Singapore (at least to my knowledge, I would love to be corrected!) Do give it a try if work or pleasure brings you to Beijing.

Post dinner drinks were at Le Quai, the super stylish haunt of Beijing's glamour crowd. While the food (Chinese with a French influence) is apparently only so-so, the decor is stunning - the bar/restaurant's Qing dynasty interior is the reconstructed home of a nobleman from Jingdezhen city in Jiangxi province. It also hosts one of Beijing's hottest new galleries, the Beijing Art Now Gallery or BANG, on its second floor, and overlooks the lake by Gongti beimen (the north gate of the Workers' Stadium). Le Quai is certainly stunning and probably well-deserved of the title of Beijing's latest hot spot (ooh from hot pot to hot spot, what a witty transition o_O) for leisurely al fresco lunches, sophisticated dining, seductive drinks and even dream weddings.

**********************************************

Three Guizhou Men

8 Gongti Xilu (24 hours)

Tel: +86 10 6551 8517

Other outlets:

6 Guanghua Xilu, +86 10 6502 1733

1-2/F Building 7, Jianwai SOHO, +86 10 5869 0598

Le Quai

Workers' Stadium, across from Gate 12

Tel: +86 10 6551 1636

June news and notes

2006-07-03T17:39:00.000+08:00

It's been a month or so since I last blogged. Some notes (eventually with photos, damn Blogspot):

Zambuca is a great place for a business lunch if you need to impress without going too over the top, or if you just need a stylish recharge during the middle of the work week. Their 3-course set lunches are a reasonable $28 and you get a sleek yet sunlit setting and great service. I wasn't soooo impressed with the food as to plan a dinner trip back, but the set lunch was certainly solid enough.
For Easterners, Zuko! in Siglap at the corner of Upper East Coast Road and Jalan Tua Kong offers pedigree food in a residential setting. The chef was formerly from Dubai's Burj-Al-Arab and at one stage even trained under Gordon Ramsey. Service was personable and attentive. Some dishes were simply ok - bruschetta (typical), escargots (the cheese and olive oil crust was a bit too mild to be exciting) and pasta with crabmeat and pinenuts (according to Aaron, something you can easily fix up at home). The highlight of the meal was undoubtedly the Hokubee ribeye, marbled, earthy with an almost tuna-like velvety softness, which would be worthy of any fine dining establishment.
Forget Bintan. If you and your 9 closest friends are looking to get away from it all, you can probably do no better than Pulau Pangkil, a private island 40 minutes from Bintan. The island is lush and its driftwood accommodations the stuff of dreams. An array of optional activities such as kayaking, fishing trips, and massages give you the choice of lazing around on tented daybeds, jelly-like under the sun or getting sporty and adventurous. Plus the food is absolutely amazing and never stops flowing.
Peach Garden at Thomson Plaza was excellent, with signature dishes such as the roast pork and goose, as well as the shark cartilage soup and wasabi prawns, bordering on divine. The only disappointment was in our entire table experiencing MSG symptoms halfway through the meal, likely from the shark cartilage soup which honestly didn't seem to need it to be good. Parking was a bitch on Saturday night.
However, my prize for favourite Chinese restaurant of the moment goes to Min Jiang at One-North. The food was amazing and the simple but tasteful resort-like outdoor setting finally succeeded in making Chinese food in Singapore stylish. Don't forget to pre-order the Peking duck - the skin-and-pancake first serving is offered with three different combinations of condiments which were tons of fun to explore and compare. You also get to sign the "I ate one of your ducks" guestbook which tracks the number of ducks sold at the restaurant. That would have been fun if the pages hadn't been decorated with line drawings of fluffy little ducks, all marching (presumably) to meet their cruel and tragic fate. 647 big-eyed, innocent ducks and counting... you start to wonder if you should be signing your name with condolences instead.
Lastly....

Vive la France!!!!!!!!! My Euro 2004 jersey which never got to see the light of day thanks to early elimination, now has a new lease on life :) Allez Les Bleus!

Zuko! pics

2006-07-03T16:07:00.000+08:00

Chalkboard menu

Escargots

Pasta with crabmeat and pinenuts

Hokubee ribeye with Chinese chap chye and potato wedges

Peach Garden pics

2006-07-03T12:01:00.000+08:00

Menu

Roast pork, roast goose and fried whitebait

Shark cartilage soup

Wasabi prawns

Poached bai cai miao with mushrooms and roasted garlic

Oat crusted fillet of sea perch

Lobster noodles
Seating

The joy of food

2006-06-23T20:57:00.000+08:00

Apologies for the long silence. A close friend of Philippe's and mine passed away very suddenly from a heart attack three weeks ago, leaving behind his wife and their 1 1/2 year old baby. It's still incredibly difficult to come to terms with the fact that a wonderful person with whom we shared so many laughs and good times can be taken away from us so quickly and so early, and life has pretty much been an emotional rollercoaster since.

A good friend is never easy to forget, and it wasn't surprising that many of the little daily things in life would trigger memories of the times we spent together. What was surprising though, was how often food was the said trigger - walking past a restaurant we ate at together, walking past a restaurant we had planned to eat at together, seeing one of his favourite dishes on a menu, or even trying an altogether new dish but thinking how much he would've enjoyed it.

As food bloggers, we spend inordinate amounts of time scouting out newest dining places, experimenting with exotic ingredients and attempting to master that intimidating celebrity chef recipe. Let's never forget, though, how much the pleasure of eating is derived from the company around us, dear friends and loved ones whose smiles, jokes and friendship add more flavour and joy to eating than anything we can create.

G - we miss you.

Wild Rocket

2006-05-31T11:27:00.000+08:00

We moved into our new home in February and have been infatuated with it since.

Didn't matter if some odds and ends (or an entire floor) hadn't been completed, didn't matter if boxes remained to be unpacked, didn't matter if a layer of potentially carcinogenic sawdust blanketed the rooms - we'd waited a year to move in and we were entertaining at home, dammit!

Thus began an endless stream of Sunday brunches, weekday dinners, Saturday afternoon teas, a frenzied race to discover new friends - new friends! - or recover long forgotten ones, just to have continual excuses to host at home. Honestly, if a homeless person walked passed and asked to be fed, we would probably have whipped out the foie gras and champagne - although not before bringing said homeless person on a forced tour of every nook and cranny in the house, accompanied by our now well-rehearsed monologue on the origins of our furniture and design concept, followed by a 5 minute diatribe on how it's impossible to find a good contractor nowadays. It would be enough to make him bolt for the door.

I shudder to think how annoying we'll be when we have a kid.

At any rate, happy to report that the honeymoon period is now officially over! As evidenced by the recent slew of restaurant reviews in previous posts, we finally released our deathgrip on the walls and have rejoined polite society.

All this as a rather long prologue to tell you about Wild Rocket - a restaurant that I'd been meaning to try for months but never quite got around to.

Finally went there for dinner last Friday night with 4 other girlfriends for an overdue catch-up session. Wild Rocket is located at Hangout@ Mt. Emily, a funky and relatively new hostel off Mount Sophia. At the end of Upper Wilkie road, you arrive at a quiet, deserted hilltop park, above the lights of the city, an almost retro scene that just needs lovers whispering sweet nothings in open top Cadillacs. Next to that, an old iron gate covered in wild grass frames an enormous colonial mansion that has seen better days. Continue on this little panaromic sweep and your eyes finally settle on Hangout @ Mt. Emily, recessed behind a short but steep driveway. You descend to backpackers seated outside having a quiet philosophical smoke. You give the main door a little push, and the romantic, pensive mood you've painstakingly fostered in the last couple minutes quickly dissolves.

Tables are filled with large groups of friends, all sharply dressed, all gesticulating wildly, all chattering excitedly.

Uniformed waiters glide through the room in practised efficiency, carrying menus, pouring wine, serving baskets of bread.

The host, dressed and coiffured for a big Friday night out, cheerily greets you with a large and genuinely warm smile.

I like this place already.

Onto the food.

For starters, we had cod fish cakes and a serving of the laksa pesto spaghetti. The cod fish cakes were soft and flaky, more akin to crab cakes than to the rubbery white fishcakes that immediately come to mind. The spicy thai sauce that accompanied them was typical of any Thai restaurant - a little unimaginative but fortunately not bad.

The laksa pesto spaghetti, on the other hand, is one of the restaurant's signature dishes, and for good reason. The spaghetti was perfectly al dente and the pesto clung to it almost fanatically. The minimal use of oil helped to bring out the playful contrast between the sweet basil and the edgy, fragrant laksa. The result was a light but intensely flavoured mouthful which, like any good seductress, feigned resistance for the briefest of moments before yielding. So drama right??? Seriously though, I would hike up Mount Sophia in the pouring rain and my highest heels for a plate of this. Nicky even considered cancelling her main for a second plate, and when Angelina realized that the remaining sauce could be mopped up with our little squares of bread, the plate was left so clean the restaurant needn't even wash it.

My main was the crusted Chilean seabass with baby kale leaves and drizzled with a sticky black sauce that seemed a combination of a balsamic reduction and dark soy sauce - thick, sweet with a bit of tartness. I loved the idea of a crusted seabass as compared to other fashionable fish - the texture of miso cod makes me feel like a granny without her teeth in, gumming her way through, while seared tuna fillet is usually way too dry on the outside and occasionally fibrous on the inside. The crusted seabass, on the other hand, offered a combination of crisp and crunchy on top and light and healthy in the middle. The crunchy bits are apparently a combination of sundried tomatoes and breadcrumbs, and are incredibly addictive - the grown-up equivalent of the Long John Silver fish bits that we used to fight over as kids. Local seafood restaurants used to serve something similar - steamed fish topped with sweet and crunchy bits apparently made with beans, I've been told it's a Teochew preparation. It's impossible to find nowadays - anyone know of a place to recommend?

The other girls tried a variety of mains - salmon fillet, lamb rack, seared rib-eye, all of which were deemed good to very good.

Desserts for the table were warm chocolate gateau (i.e. molten chocolate cake, lava cake, you know the one), strawberry cheesecake with maple walnut ice-cream, served like a parfait, and a slice of kueh buloh tiramisu. All were exceedingly enjoyable - the warm chocolate gateau had a surprisingly thin cake 'skin' and oozed endless chocolate lava, the strawberry cheesecake was dense, roll-around-in-your-mouth gooey, and the tiramisu was reliable despite tasting less exotic than it intimated.

Total bill, including a bottle of wine, came up to a reasonable $60 per person.

Service had personality, in a good way. When we asked our server how big the garden salad was, he replied that it comes in a bowl. Nicky then pointed out that bowls come in different sizes, so could he show us how big their bowls are. Our server then burst into a fit of giggles that he wouldn't explain - we eventually figured that with Nicky's Australian accent, he probably heard her asking for the size of his balls. Supplemented with her hand gestures, "Bowls can be this big... or THIS big!"

Ahem.

Second incident was at the end of the night when we were ordering desserts. Angelina had had her heart set on the profiteroles from the moment we arrived, only to be advised by the same server that she try the warm chocolate gateau instead. He seemed quite adamant at refusing to let her order the profiteroles, and insisting that she would be much happier with the gateau. This bunch of girls not being the ones to take such bullying lightly, we eventually relented only on the agreement that if we didn't like the chocolate gateau, he would then serve us the profiteroles for free. When the gateau arrived, we were immediately humbled, realizing nothing would top this. All the same, we decided the server deserved a bit of a ribbing and were determined to tell him it tasted awful. When he eventually came round to gloat, he smiled at Angelina and asked how it was. The dear girl swiftly blurted out "It was fantastic!", leaving us stewing over the thought of lost profiteroles and once again sending the server into fits of giggles.

And all around us, you could see the same - waiters exchanging pleasantries and a smile with their tables of satisfied guests. A rare and beautiful sight in Singapore!

Our dinner concluded with a quick tour of the rooftop garden with its pots of herbs, dramatic mini-fountain and warm Balinese deck. It would've been perfect for an after dinner or post Sunday brunch drink, but we had already reached our perfect dinner sweet spot and decided to leave that for another day.

All in, compared to my recent adventures at Le Papillon and Graze, I have to say I like Wild Rocket the best. The personable service staff really make all the difference, and on top of that the food is faultless and prices are reasonable. It's one of the few places which, after the pomp and fanfare of opening to designer crowds and celebrity reviews, is still worth visiting a second, third and fourth time. I'm looking forward to my next one.

Sunday lunch at Graze

2006-05-22T15:10:00.000+08:00

Finally got round to checking out Graze with some girlfriends on Sunday. Just in time too, as that same day's paper had a review of the various Rochester Park establishments and rated Graze as pretty solidly disappointing. A quick search of local food blogs also unearthed no small amount of criticism - unexciting food and dubious service, despite the gorgeous setting seemed to be a recurring theme. Ah well, reservations had been made, and the company would be enjoyable, and so I cheerily trotted off to brunch in morbid anticipation of the meal to come. Just how bad could it be... ooh... images of incompetent waitstaff and bland, overpriced food starting filling my mind. Deep down inside, I began secretly hoping, silently imploring Graze to set new standards of awful.

Feed me with rotten food!
Ask me silly questions!
Refuse me ice water!
Be as pretentious as humanly possible!

Sado-masochistic perhaps, but after all the positive expectations surrounding the opening of Graze, surely epic disastrous would at least make for a more memorable dining experience than just plain mediocre?

Alas, it is with mixed feelings that I report:

It's not that bad lah. It's nothing fabulous, but it could've been worse.

From what I gather, the Sunday brunch menu differs quite significantly from the dinner one. The crispy pork hock and soy lacquered ox cheek that I'd heard much about were nowhere to be found. Instead there was a page of breakfast items such as pancakes, eggs benedict, muesli and scones (served till 2.30pm), followed by a couple of pages of barbecue items - a range of red meat, poultry and seafood - a page of salads and that's more or less it. Really nothing to get you excited when compared to other brunch options in the city.

I ended up with grilled lamb chops in an Asian inspired house marinade, served with a shiraz reduction and a house salad ($30). The portion of lamb was thick cut and generous. The shiraz sauce could've used a lot more flavour but was passable. The house salad, on the other hand, was liberally doused with vinaigrette and tasted fine but looked terribly tacky at 90% chopped green lettuce, 10% onion and cucumber and 10% others. You've probably seen the same salad at the Pizza Hut buffet bar or on economy in SQ.

We shared a dessert (well, technically a breakfast item, as Graze doesn't serve desserts at brunch) of banana pancakes with ice cream. No picture unfortunately but you know the drill... 3 pancakes in a stack, covered in caramel and dried mystery berries, vanilla ice cream on the side ($13). The pancakes were generally alright, although chances were every bite in four you'd end up with a lump of flour that must've been bobbing around in the batter, and the mystery berries were surprisingly inedible with seeds that could easily take a tooth or two out. I know that sounds dreadful, but really aside from that it was fine. Think IHOP. Didn't kill us in college, wouldn't kill us now.

Adding to the list of things that were fine but not outstanding, looks like the (former?) manager of P.S. Cafe is at the helm of the service team, which is now fairly capable. No special charms, no outstanding training, but recommendations were made, orders were taken and served, and the bill came all with minimal fuss.

The setting was, as to be expected, gorgeous. The Rochester Park estate was glistening from the morning's rain, the crisp black and white bungalow shone invitingly out from dense foliage, and by the time you've descended down the driveway and seated yourself in a large cushioned armchair, you do feel like you've plonked yourself in some posh friend's home. I can imagine the al fresco area looking quite charming in the evening, but it does seem made for lazy Sunday brunches. And if neighbouring diners were having any issues with the food, they definitely didn't show it. Our group of giggling gossiping girlfriends was surrounded by a couple more tables of the same, while the far side of the room was dominated by expat families with kids hyperactive from jam, syrup and ice cream.

Summary is thus, as far as Sunday brunches go, Graze is definitely a notch below established brunch locales such as Marmalade Pantry, Whitebait & Kale, Blood Bros Cafe and Sebastien's, in terms of both quality and variety. Try Graze if you've got good company - no-one picky about food, everyone at leisure - and you'll probably have a good time soaking up the ambience and (at the very least) filling your stomach without breaking the bank or bursting a blood vessel. Can't begin to predict what dinner might be like though, am still open to trying it another day. Armed with a healthy dose of morbid curiousity of course...

**********************
Graze

4 Rochester Park

Singapore 139215

Tel: 6775 9000

Le Papillon

2006-05-16T14:53:00.000+08:00

Celebrated a belated Mothers' Day with the family at Le Papillon, a newly-opened (as of last week) French-inspired restaurant helmed by Anderson Ho, chef behind the gorgeous book Asia Degustation.

Le Papillon is located in the Red Dot Traffic Building, itself brimming with style and potential. Formerly Singapore's traffic police headquarters, the renovated colonial building is now home to advertising and design companies, as well as the red dot design museum. When we arrived on a quiet Monday evening, workmen were still busily whitewashing walls and grinding floors at unoccupied units, but venture a couple of steps further down and you'll encounter well-heeled yuppies sipping martinis at Skin, followed by a small curtained door that leads the way to Le Papillon.

Unlike recent new openings such as P.S. Cafe and the Rochester Park area, Le Papillon hasn't opened to much fanfare (although it surely deserves to - more on the food later). Coupled with the fact that it was Monday night, and the restaurant was understandably quiet - our table of 4 was the only one that evening aside from another group helmed by Edmond Ho, photographer for Asia Degustation.

My first impression of the restaurant was, unfortunately, not a good one. The lady manager who greeted me upon my arrival (I had, in a rare moment of punctuality, arrived 15 mins before everyone else) had a decidedly snooty air, perhaps excusable at an established 5-star restaurant but unfortunate in a newly opened restaurant that should be making customers feel welcome.

Given the availability of tables, she asked if I had a seating preference. Seeing a booth tucked away with a window into the kitchen, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to catch Chef Anderson and his team in action, and so requested that, upon which I was told that in order to sit at that table the entire group had to order set menus (as opposed to a la carte). Wondering what was the big deal, given that the next table was only a foot away and thus also possessed of a kitchen view, she pointed to an earthy brown curtain surrounding the first booth, and explained that the curtain would otherwise be drawn to prevent other diners from looking in to the kitchen if they didn't wish to take set menus. The concept is mind boggling at best, pretentious at worst.

Since we had decided, prior to coming, that we would try the degustation menu anyway, I settled on the curtained table. Then the dreaded question came, my biggest pet peeve of Singapore dining:

"Would you like a glass of champagne to start your meal?"

Maybe it's no big deal and perfectly acceptable practice, but I personally find this question very rude, together with its sister question: "Would you prefer still or sparkling water?" In order to avoid a $100 water bill - this has happened before - you're left to reply that no, iced tap water is fine, following which you inevitably sound cheap. A no-win situation. And yes, that question did come up subsequently. Philippe's preferred response to the champagne question is usually "Ah, a complimentary glass of champagne? How nice!" accompanied by much batting of blur-foreigner eyes, leaving the flabbergasted hostess to explain that no, actually sir, you have to pay for the champagne. (If he's in a good mood, he'll add with a grin "oh, in that case, why did you offer it to me then?")

The service glitches continued fast and furious. After all the fuss about having to order the set menu, I inquired as to what the set menu consisted of. Our server rattled off a bunch of dishes, then concluded with "well, at least that's what's been served the last few evenings. I don't know if the same will be served today". Sigh, so what's being served today? "Hang on, I'll check with the manager".

Manager comes back. "Oh, it's whatever the chef has chosen for today. I can't really tell you."

When our group had all arrived, we repeated this exercise once again. Eventually we explained that we couldn't choose the set menu if we didn't know, for example, even what choice of meat would be served, and on our fifth request, we finally got descriptions of the individual dishes. We are now qualified to be interrogators at Abu Ghraib.

The final hiccup of the night came when we asked to move from our precious table. Despite it being hard-earned, it was directly under an air-con vent and Sa was freezing, so off to the opposite end of the room we went. Five minutes into the meal and the spotlights began flickering sharply and incessantly, like an 80s disco. A quick wave to the staff and an elaborate experiment with the lights began. Eventually the problem appeared to be solved and we continued eating, only for the flickering to begin again 5 minutes later. When we waved again, the solution of choice was to turn the lights off and leave us eating in near darkness. Sigh. At risk of being the most unwanted customers ever, we requested a final table change.

Surprisingly though, the rest of the night was smooth sailing. Chef Anderson's perfectly executed, classically inspired dishes were flawless. Even the staff stepped up their performances a notch when the food was served, displaying no small amount of pride in the quality, flavours and colours being brought to the table.

Here's the six course degustation that we had:

Amuse bouche ("this is fish roe" said the first server)

Foie gras ("and that's all you need to know" the second server thought to herself)

Apple slices below. Perfectly cooked, firm on the outside, creamy in the middle, and a fairly generous portion. Fyi, this is when they turned the lights off on us, hence the dark photo.

Goat cheese and pesto on watermelon (the manager is more helpful in her descriptions)

Great balance of flavours. I'm not a big fan of goat cheese but this really worked.

Crab salad with honeydew puree

Again, a very fresh tasting, albeit classical combination. The fruits in each dish are like mini-palate cleansers, ensuring you never feel jelat during the onslaught of courses.

The dish with no introduction

Prawns in a seafood broth (the broth is actually studded with loads of little clams). Another classical dish whose familiar flavours you can easily take for granted - it's only on hindsight when you realize, oh hang on, that was pretty good.

Beef tenderloin and oxtail parcel with asparagus and mashed potato

The manager came back for this dish and informed us that the beef tenderloin is currently the restaurant's most popular dish. While it was flawlessly medium rare and exquisitely soft, the highlight was really the oxtail parcel (the thing that looks like a giant guotie). My first reaction was to echo Xiaxue's to her duck with pasta at San Marco - machiam spring roll! But the oxtail meat was velvety tender, richly flavoured and the filo pastry so crisp that you really do fall in love with it. The mashed potato is also heaven sent for any mashed potato fan, having clearly been lovingly strained to leave only lump-free, unadulterated creaminess.

(An aside though - while Tam and I enjoyed the tenderloin perfectly, my mom apparently suffered from a bad cut of meat that was simply inedible. To their credit, the staff offered to replace her dish twice, albeit at the end of the meal when everyone else had cleared their plates. Later, after having paid the bill, I was mildly disappointed that we were charged full price for my mom's meal, I'm still not sure whether to accept this as part of Singapore's general lack of initiative when it comes to customer satisfaction or whether to be genuinely annoyed. Any thoughts on this? I was also a bit surprised that, given it was opening week and we were, by this time, the only occupied table at the restaurant, that the chef never came out for a quick hi. We're so unloved!)

In addition to the 6-course degustation, Le Papillon also offers a 4-course set. For the curious, the 4-course consisted of the below Caesar salad, the earlier crab salad, a main course of lamb shank (below), and the same dessert. I didn't eat them, so no comments on my part. Pics courtesy of Sa.

Warm chocolate cake with strawberries and whipped mascarpone, and white chocolate mousse with raspberry puree

Nothing you haven't tried before, but solidly executed.

Vanilla macaroons topped with Earl grey tea leaves

My love-hate affair with the manager continued with her declaration that "only two of you are having tea, so really we should only give you two but we've given you four."

Thanks.

We left Le Papillon rather confused. There had definitely been opening teething problems with the erratic service, which hopefully will be rectified soon, but had nonetheless been a distraction through the evening. The food itself had been perfectly executed, with charming combinations of flavour and colour. Aside from my mom's dubious tenderloin, quality was definitely not an issue. In a word, the meal was... enjoyable. The one thing that seemed missing was inventiveness, a flash of inspiration, a spot of daring, that would really have cemented Le Papillon at the forefront of Singapore's dining scene. We caught a glimpse of this in the oxtail parcel, which was simply brilliant and hinted of greater things that were achievable.

All in, as long as there's the oxtail parcel, I'll be back, bearing hopes that better service and new dishes will escalate this restaurant from merely very good to great.

*****************************

Le Papillon

28 Maxwell Road

#01-02 Red Dot Traffic Building

Singapore 069120

Tel: 63274177

Langkawi eating report

2006-05-16T11:31:00.000+08:00

Just got back from 5 days in Langkawi, an archipelago of 99 islands in northwest Malaysia, about a 90 mins flight from Singapore. My mind and body are still radiating heat, and I've settled into comfortable denial of ever having returned.

Langkawi's largest island, Pulau Langkawi, is a charming expanse of rainforest, mangrove and paddy fields. Most tourist life is centered around the island's numerous resorts, which range from stunning (e.g. The Datai) to very basic. We encamped at Pelangi Beach Resort, by no means the most glamourous on the island, but comfortable, well-equipped, smack on the beach and reasonably affordable.

On the way over, I entertained visions of dining at rustic nasi padang stalls by the beach, lazily choosing between colourful dishes laden with spice and gravy. My plans were thwarted by (i) a sudden inability to move more than 10 metres from my cozy deck chair at any time and (ii) the blanket of heat and humidity that swathed us during the day, making it impossible to even think of eating anything remotely heavy.

So here's my little eating report, bolstered with the odd random pic. Not too productive considering the numerous choices available, but honestly, I could've been content eating hotel satay by the beach each and every meal :)

The quaint local beachside stall

The rather disturbingly named Laksa Tsunami was a little food truck by the beach smack next to our hotel. While the ambience was close to what I'd been seeking for - beachside, little white truck, local flies buzzing around, dense with the pungent smell of overripe fruit - the laksa unfortunately wasn't. The gravy was like a tablespoon of proper laksa gravy topped up with 2 cups of drainwater, the noodles were pale and dry (gluten-free perhaps?) and the ingredients decidedly mysterious. A likely food poisoning source if ever I tried one. End of the day, I'm just glad I survived without any detriment to my digestive system.

The sexy boutique restaurant

Bon Ton, former owners of the KL restaurant that bears the same name, is a boutique resort consisting of 7 traditional Malay villas, an outdoor cocktails-and-tapas deck overlooking paddy fields and a Moroccan-style restaurant/lounge complete with chill-out music. It's also home to the Langkawi Animal Sanctuary, and consequently plays palace to 140 cats and 70 dogs (our host assures us he knows each and every one of them).

The sunset here is nothing short of spectacular:

The menu, while at city prices, is a tantalizing mix of Malay, western and Moroccan flavours. My starter of BBQ Rock Lobster Tails with Satay Sauce, Served on a Guava Salad blended sweet grilled lobster flesh with creamy peanut, spiced with tart guava, red onion and pepper. (Apologies for the photos, I blame the romantic lighting!)

As a main, I opted for (after much deliberation - everything sounded good) Prawn & Pineapple Curry with Basil & Mint Sauce served with Yellow Rice and Ladies' Finger, while Philippe had the Seafood Platter of Grilled Rock Lobster with Chermoula Butter, Snapper Fillet, Pepper Prawns and Calamari with Lemon Harissa Aioli. Dessert (not pictured as we ate it too fast) was Steamed Apple, Macadamia and Butterscotch Pudding with Gula Melaka Ice Cream and Apple & Ginger Compote. Add to this mix a delightfully spicy Muscadet and a heap of martinis prior, and you have two very happy (and very stuffed) campers.

The ubiquitous "we serve everything" quasi-local cafe

Further inland, across the street from our resort was Padi Cafe, the entrance of which is postered with copies of an extensive menu listing everything from burgers to sweet 'n' sour prawns to chicken tikka masala. Which usually sets off warning bells in my head, but hey we're on holidays, what the heck. It did offer a serene view of rice fields dotted with pretty realistic scarecrows.

I had vegetable pakora and a chicken curry (I think it was called Chicken Merah Masak, but given my Malay I could be horribly wrong and just insulted your mother). It all looks fairly pretty, but is really just passable and not much more. It's a good option if you're travelling in a group and everyone wants something different, but don't expect the culinary adventure of a lifetime.

The real deal... finally!

We decided to spend our last day in Langkawi onboard StarDust, a lovely timber-decked yacht with full sails and wooden steering wheel, exploring the mangroves and smaller islands off Pulau Langkawi. As you can see, despite a small drizzle in the morning, the day couldn't have been more beautiful by the time we set sail.

The most pleasant surprise of the cruise, though, had to be the lunch prepared by the captain. We expected nothing more than a paper box with rice and a titchy fried kampung chicken thigh, but instead were treated to a spread of the best local food we'd had all trip, including a luscious beef rendang, sticky sweet prawn curry and a fiery but addictive pepper chicken. Needless to say, we all ended up sunning our bellies for the rest of the afternoon.

And, with that, the trip report is over! After Chiang Mai and Langkawi in the span of three weeks, I'm really itching to go on more short breaks... hopefully soon... In the meantime, I still feel the sun on my head and the sand in my toes...

Getting better with age...

2006-05-16T10:34:00.000+08:00

... happy belated birthdays to Chong and Chris!

Restaurants update

2006-05-15T11:43:00.000+08:00

Just got back from Langkawi for the Vesak Day long weekend, will post pics soon.

In the meantime, a quick update on two restaurants I'm very fond of:

Azhang (here and here) is back and friendly as ever at their new premises on 6 Mohamed Sultan Road. It was officially opened on May 8 and chef Patrick hosted their first social night at their new home last Friday.
Beijing Gong has finally whipped off the red banner covering their signboard and officially opened. To find out how good Northern Chinese food really can be, head on down to 41 Kreta Ayer Road, tel: 6323 3206.

Happy eating!

Chiang Mai - we came, we saw, we ate

2006-05-05T15:14:00.000+08:00

Went up to Chiang Mai with Philippe last week for the May 1 long weekend. Given that it was a first break in a while, the original plan was to take it easy - no planning, no stress, take each day as it comes. However, the recent Luxe Guide on Chiang Mai alluded to tons of great eats, ranging from casual street food to posh 5-star hotels, and our spare moments were soon filled with endless deliberation over where and what to eat.

Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city and the largest in Northern Thailand. In days of yore, it was the capital of the Lannathai kingdom and an offshoot of the southern leg of the Silk Road. Given its cultural and historical richness, we hoped to discover a unique cuisine not represented in your typical Thai menus of pad thai, green curry and tom yam.

Our success was mixed. Although the Northern Thai staple of kaow soi (yellow noodles in a curry soup, served with beef and pickled vegetables) was fairly easy to find, the only other dish that showed up with any regularity was the suspicious sounding (and equally dodgy looking) Northern Thai Spicy Sausage. More exotic dishes alluded to in the odd magazine, such as Khantoke - sticky rice with a variety of accompaniments - and Kaow Chae - sticky rice in scented cold water with accompaniments - proved elusive.

That said, Chiang Mai offered a plentitude of good food, ranging from traditional Thai to modern Asian to international, in equally diverse settings. In line with our attempt to take the weekend easy, we chose to spend most of our dining time in air conditioned comfort, checking out the gorgeous new hotels and elegant courtyards that dot the city. No doubt there were tons of delicious and exotic foods waiting to be discovered at market stalls and roadside eateries, but that shall be another trip for another day.

Of the restaurants that we tried, I'd recommend most in a heartbeat.

The elegant Rachamanka is a beautiful setting for lunch in the old city, with its lush courtyard, beautiful lamps and boutique gallery. The food is primarily modern Asian, paired with an extensive range of seductive martinis. We had our first kaow soi (main picture) here, deceptively termed 'Egg Noodles Osso Bucco in Spicy Coconut Broth', as well as lovely Coconut Flake-crusted Prawns in a Lime Tamarind Dipping Sauce.

Moxie at the D2 Hotel where we stayed, is swatched in electric orange and lush fabrics and testimony to Chiang Mai's cutting edge Asian style sensibilities. While most of the menu is international, we had a gorgeous Kaow Soi and a delightfully smoky Braised Beef with Rice (apparently the signature dish of the Dusit Group). Starters were a Royal Project Salad with D2 dressing - Royal Project indicating organic greens grown in the local mountainside - and Chilled Tomato and Saffron Gazpacho.

Compared to Rachamanka and Moxie, The Gallery is certainly down a few notches on the style meter. What this casual, almost rustic riverside establishment offers though is simple, unpretentious Thai food. The Burmese style Kao Tung Nai Tung ("crispy rice crackers with dipping minced pork and thick coconut cream") was a highly addictive, fun-with-fingers appetizer, while the Kang Hung Lay (Northern pork curry with ginger) and Hor Noung Gai (spicy steamed chicken in banana leaves) were a delicate balance of spices and herbs - the Kang Hung Lay had an intoxiating aroma reminiscent of Chinese medical shops, while the Hor Noung Gai combined sharp lemongrass with musky steamed lotus leaves.

Dalaabaa, opposite the British Council on the east side of town, likewise offered unpretentious Thai food, but in the sexy and intimate setting of a restored bungalow. While most of the menu items are fairly common, our appetizer of Sliced Beef with Lemongrass was very enjoyable, as was the Fried Tilapia Fillet with Sweet Chili Sauce.

Finally, Saen Khan Terrace in the Hang Dong District about 15 mins out of the city, is located in the country club of a gated residence. It offers romantic views of distant fields, and evenings resonate with the chirp of crickets and croaking of bullfrogs. This was our first (and last) encounter with the dubious Northern Style Spicy Sausages, served with deep fried pork rinds to constitute the aumsingly mispelled Northern Au-Derf selection. The Sweet Crispy Noodles, on the other hand, was absolutely gorgeous, each strand coated with (as I can best guess) a sort of caramelized fish sauce and topped with sliced peppers, diced tofu cubes and nuts.

TGIG - Thank God It's Gluten

2006-04-26T16:28:00.000+08:00

Finally got round to trying the gluten-free macaroni and cheese that I got at SuperNature a couple of weeks ago. Quick disclaimer: I don't have any dietary issues with gluten, but I know of some people who do, so thought I'd try this out of curiousity.

Curiousity satisfied. No more gluten-free anything for me ever again.

Perhaps I should've started with a search on gluten in Wikipedia. I found this out from the site only this morning:

Gluten is an amorphous ergastic protein found combined with starch in the endosperm of some cereals, notably wheat, rye, and barley. It constitutes about 80% of the proteins contained in wheat, and is composed of the proteins gliadin and glutenin. Gluten is responsible for the elasticity of kneaded dough, which allows it
to be leavened, as well as the "chewiness" of baked products like bagels.

Basically, gluten = chewy. Macaroni without gluten = macaroni without chewy (alright, chewiness) = not very good macaroni.

It looked pretty weird out of the box already, being an odd shade of chalky plaster white. The macaroni also had a strange tendency of sticking to each other while cooking. And finally, upon taste testing, it was bizarrely crumbly after the first or second chew, with the dry texture of half-cooked rice. The cheese sauce was pretty decent though in a luminous orange crappy cheese sauce kinda way.

So now, for the first time in my life, I know what gluten's about and am extremely grateful to be able to digest it (fingers crossed things don't change!). And, of course, filled with respect for all the people who are gluten intolerant yet make planning and eating fabulous gluten-free meals look so effortless.

Since the uninspiring macaroni didn't warrant any photo time, thought I'd end off by sharing a pic of my latest little treasure - macarons from Le Chocolat de H in Tokyo courtesy of Nicky's recent trip there. The beautiful assortment contained chocolate macarons with a variety of fillings - chocolate, coffee, caramel, vanilla, pistachio and framboise, with delightfully sticky, smooshy centers.

Needless to say, my macaron cravings, rather than being satiated, have now been whipped up into a frenzy that I reckon can only be addressed by a trip to Tokyo or Paris NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW.

Except that's not happening any time soon.

I guess I should still be grateful about the gluten though.

*Sigh*

Nuclear Sichuan: Da Ping Huo

2006-04-25T15:00:00.000+08:00

Was in Hong Kong last week on a work trip and grabbed the chance to check out Da Ping Huo, a cosy, private Sichuan kitchen that has been featured in numerous magazines and publications.

Da Ping Huo is located down an alley at 49 Hollywood Road, on the corner of Graham Street. The entrance to the restaurant is dimly lit and unmarked - a silent waiter standing motionless by the door was the only indication of the establishment within. We nod, almost conspiratorially, to indicate that, yes, we are the table for 3 for the 2nd seating. You start to wonder if you're off to dinner or to journeying into the underground to buy contraband.

A quick burst of energy - Wang Hai, owner, maître d', husband of chef Wong Xiaoqiong and apparently also a celebrated painter and talk show host, springs upon us with his cherry red glasses and beaming smile, and chirpily ushers us in.

The space looks more like a gallery than a restaurant, consisting of a single open room of raw concrete. The paintings on the wall - large, almost floor to ceiling canvasses, echo the colours of the room, gloomy grey with sudden splashes of colour. Bright spotlights enhance the drama of the room. Although the restaurant has a mere 5 tables (to seat up to a maximum of 26 diners), these tables are lined up against the wall, leaving a vast corridor in between that showcases the dishes being whisked from table to table.

Amidst the modern design elements though are deep hints of the familiar. The larger tables are round rather than rectangular, keeping to the spirit of traditional Chinese communal dining. Unreserved chatter flows endlessly from the tables. One wall proudly displays framed black and white pictures of the chef as a young girl in a Cultural Revolution-era uniform. And Wang Hai's sheepish apology for having to speak in Mandarin (his English isn't very good) reminds you that, for an evening at least, you've escaped from the Four Seasons and the slick, made-for-expats side of Hong Kong.

Likewise, the meal that followed, while sharp, delicate, elaborate and flawlessly executed, was quintessentially home cooking. In contrast to say, Xi Yan in Singapore, where each dish is lavishly presented and the nuances carefully explained, our dishes were served in plain white crockery and laid on the table with little more fanfare than "This is pork. Is not so spicy." (A variant which came up a couple of times was "Is spicy. Maybe eat with rice.")

All in, we had 13 courses, consisting of 4 appetizers, 7 "main courses", 1 closing savoury dish and a dessert. Being in the presence of colleagues (our job is in no way related to food), I was a bit sheepish to snap pics or write down elaborate descriptions of each plate, so unfortunately this is the best I can do from memory:

Sliced cucumbers in Zhenjiang vinegar
Mapo tofu
Glass noodles in a spicy sauce with pickled vegetables and crunchy soybeans
Chicken with peanuts, black beans, chili and sesame oil
Spiced beef stew
Braised pork belly with glutinous rice and sweet potato sticks
Melon soup
Dumplings in sweet chili and bean sauce

I'm missing 3 appetizers, a soup and dessert, I think. Additing to this smorgasbord copious amounts of rice and tea to douse the fires in us, and you can imagine how completely stuffed we were by the end of the meal. The pain eventually retired though (think by early next morning!), and gave way to pleasurable memories - of nuclear, stinging la and tongue-numbing ma, both of which were to be found in great quantities. Simply put do not trust Wang Hai when he grins at you and cheekily whispers "Is not so spicy". Run for the hills when he raises a worried eyebrow and cautions "Is very spicy". That said, it does save you money on collagen lip injections once the swelling kicks in...

The complexity of each of the dishes, despite their simple presentation and common introduction, really caught me by surprise. Each dish had subtle variances - sometimes a kick of vinegar, sometimes the lingering taste of honey, sometimes the crunch of fresh vegetables. It's amazing how many bad Sichuan restaurants think that a truckload of chillies and peppercorns is all that is needed to make a good dish (fie on you!). The order of the dishes was also perfectly planned in order to prevent your tastebuds from overloading any specific flavour.

In line with the restaurant's quirky but successful marriage of the stylish and the homey, the meal ends with chef Wong stepping out of the kitchen to greet the guests, then taking centrestage in the middle of the room for a round of traditional China music. Wong is a classically trained soprano, and her tiny frame belies her powerful voice. The night we were there, she chose a traditional Xinjiang folk song, a simple but haunting melody involving maidens brushing their hair by flowing streams and calls to harvest grapes for wine.

We finally leave the restaurant the same way we came in - cheerfully escorted by Wang Hai, who pretends not to notice (that or his glasses need changing) our stomach-grasping groaning and painfully slow walk. Even through our pain, we can't miss the pride in his face, the confidence that he, as our host, has shown us a wonderful, one-of-a-kind experience that we'll recall with fondness. He knows we'll be back.

Da Ping Huo is definitely worth checking out when you're next in Hong Kong. At HK$250 a head and 2 hour seatings, it's also a much smaller financial and time commitment than many other private diners, both in HK and in Singapore (dinner at Xi Yan, by comparison, is priced at S$80 a head and requires 4 hours). Pictures (aside from the napkin one that I managed to hurriedly snap) are courtesy of what appears to be the restaurant's official homepage: http://www.yp.com.hk/dapinghuo/

*******************************************
Da Ping Huo
L/G Hilltop Plaza
49 Hollywood Road
Central, Hong Kong

Phone: +852 2559 1317

Heaven in a bowl of soup

2006-04-18T11:23:00.000+08:00

I recently started watching a Japanese anime series titled Yakitate Ja-pan! It's the story of a young Japanese boy, Azuma Kazuma, with a talent for baking, and whose goal is to create a definitive bread for Japan. The series is very much a slapstick comedy, and a running gag features the exaggerated expressions of rapture and astonishment as people sample Azuma's latest inventions.

A bite of Azuma's first creation, soy toast, for example, sends his grandfather surfing stormy seas of miso soup on a board of soy toast, and swashbuckling his way through pools of natto in a fetching Kill Bill outfit.

A later creation, a breakthrough 324-layered croissant (apparently most regular croissants only have 54 layers - I subsequently tried counting my stale Simply Bread croissant and couldn't find more than 30) sees a teary Japanese cosmonaut landing on the moon (croissant-crescent-moon...), and launching said croissant into space while dramatically proclaiming "One small step for the baker, one giant step for the bread world!"

And so on.

I oftened laughed out loud watching these scenes - they were so exaggerated, so ridiculous, so plain fun that you really can't help it.

But either the series is really getting into my head, or there's some truth to these crazy scenes, cos last night, when I tried Neil Perry's Scallops with Sage and Burnt Butter in Pea Soup, I swear the universe stood still for a moment and fireworks exploded overhead.

In The Food I Love, Neil Perry's recipe for Cream of Pea Soup is footnoted with the statement:

"This soup makes a magical sauce for barbecued seafood and meat. Pan-fry scallops with sage and burnt butter, pour some pea soup into a bowl, add the scallops and then pour the burnt butter over - sigh, heaven!"

The man wasn't kidding.

I'd first tried the pea soup on Sunday afternoon, and served it with sliced fillet steak as the main course of a light Sunday brunch. A combination of peas, romaine lettuce, chicken stock, leeks and shallots, it was homey, tasty, simple and yet sophisticated, and the visual contrast between the bright green soup and the pink fillet steak made for a pretty picture.

Fortunately, we had lots of leftover soup by virtue of using it more as sauce than as soup, so yesterday evening seemed a perfect opportunity to try out the lauded scallop recipe.

And it turned out to be in a class of its own, quite simply one of the most fantastic things I've ever tasted, period. This can definitely be attributed to the amazing combination of ingredients, cos goodness knows it's also one of the quickest and most foolproof recipes ever (think about it - you're supposed to burn the butter, it's like free license to muck up as you please!). You pan-fry the scallops in a bit of butter, remove and plonk in the soup. You then continue frying the butter, adding more as necessary, and toss in some sage leaves. Fry the leaves till they're crispy, and then pour the lot over your soup and scallops. I ended up with the rough ratio of 1 scoop of soup: 2 scallops: 4 sage leaves: 2 tablespoons of burnt butter per bowl, which seemed pretty optimal.

The one big surprise that came out of this dish (aside from the metaphysical experience of course) was just how good sage tastes. I'd been pretty prepared to fish out the sage leaves and put them aside (I'm a big picker of food), but figured out I'd try just one in the name of culinary due diligence. I ended up gobbling all the rest. Those leaves taste pretty damn good - sharp and peppery, kinda like a cross between Thai basil and curry leaves. The taste and scent of the leaves blended very quickly with the butter, and resulted in a luxurious, caramel-coloured drizzle that elevated the humble soup into something really divine.

With this dish, words can only convey so much, so I'll stop here. Please try this when you can, and let me know what weird and wonderful world it transports you to ;)

World's top 50 restaurants

2006-04-13T10:31:00.002+08:00

The Restaurant Magazine just came out with it's 2006 list of the world's top restaurants, here they are:

1 El Bulli, Spain - The Penfold's world's best restaurant, best in Europe
2 The Fat Duck, United Kingdom
3 Pierre Gagnaire, France - Chef's Choice
4 French Laundry, US - Best restaurant in the Americas
5 Tetsuya's, Australia - Best restaurant in Australasia
6 Bras, France
7 Restaurant Le Louis XV, Monaco
8 Per Se, US
9 Restaurante Arzak, Spain
10 Mugaritz, Spain - highest new entrant

11 Can Fabes, Spain
12 Nobu, UK
13 Gambero Rosso, Italy - highest climber
14 Gordon Ramsay (Royal Hospital Road), UK
15 Restaurant Alain Ducasse, France
16 Jean Georges, US
17 Le Cinq, France
18 Daniel, US
19 Oud Sluis, The Netherlands
20 Chez Panisse, US

21 El Celler de Can Roca, Spain
22 L'Astrance, France
23 Hof van Cleve, Belgium
24 La Maison Troisgros, France
25 L'Atelier, France
26 Charlie Trotter's, US
27 Le Gavroche, UK - outstanding value
28 La Colombe, South Africa - Best restaurant in the Middle East and Africa
29 Enoteca Pinchiorri, Italy
30 Rockpool, Australia

31 Le Calandre, Italy
32 Le Bernardin, US
33 Noma, Denmark
34 Restaurant Dieter Muller, Germany
35 St John, UK
36 Hakkasan, UK
37 Martin Berasategui, Spain
38 Le Quartier Francais, South Africa
39 Chez Dominique, Finland
40 L'Ambroisie, France

41 Die Schwarzwaldstube, Germany
42 Dal Pescatore, Italy
43 Bocuse, France
44 L'Arpege, France
45 Gramercy Tavern, US
46 Bukhara, India
47 De Karmeliet, Belgium
48 Oaxen, Sweden
49 Comme Chez Soi, Belgium
50 DOM, Brazil

A grown-up Easter treasure hunt

2006-04-06T23:14:00.000+08:00

If Easter is anything to go by, I must've been a pretty pragmatic kid growing up. Every year, the shelves of neighbourhood expat supermarkets would suddenly be swamped by technicolour foil-wrapped bunnies, ribbon-and-laced baskets of miniature chocolate eggs and elaboratedly packaged egg-decorating kits. I understood the basic premise, that the Easter Bunny would hide said chocolate eggs and other assorted candies under the garden hedge, which we would then discover to our greedy delight, but this really didn't make much sense to me.

First off, you never see wild bunnies in Singapore. The Easter Iguana maybe, even the Easter Sewer Rat, but never an Easter Bunny.

Next, even if the Easter Bunny had journeyed via some underground trans-Pacific tunnel to my sunny shores, would he really know to go to Tierney's to buy his chocolate eggs? If he did, why didn't I ever see him at the checkout? Or at least, hear about him from the ladies in the butchery section who always seemed to have tons to report when my mom surveyed the latest cuts? Surely the appearance of a rabbit, buying a trolleyload of chocolate (does he pay by Amex?), would be worth sharing?

Third, we didn't have a garden hedge. A bunch of trees, yes, and a miniature botanical garden of potted pots, but what on earth was a hedge? Even if we planted one in anticipation, wouldn't it be rather unhygienic to leave food there - what about the 30 degree heat? the ants? Sure, free chocolate's great, but not if it's half melted and covered in assorted creepy crawlies!

And so I came to a simple and natural conclusion - let me buy my own chocolate, and eat it when I want, how I want. And let that right not be limited to Easter, but apply daily and in perpetuity.

All the same, I have to admit that the thought of gaining a hoard of edible treats - that a designated weekend equates to an entitlement to vast amounts of good food - was a bit tough to pass up this year. And so off I went to Culina, one of Singapore's top importers of fine foods, for this year's grown-up Easter egg hunt.

Amidst the seemingly 30 varieties of olive oil, mountains of cheese and assorted dry snacks, I finally settled on the following:

A jar of dried morels
A bottle of passionfruit vinegar
A little bottle of Tetsuya's Black Truffle Salsa (Chubby Hubby has raved about this on several occasions, so thought I'd find out what the fuss was about)
2 vanilla pods
4 100g slabs of Michel Cluizel Concepcion/Venezuela chocolate
A jar of Bonne Maman rhubarb jam (inspired by Keiko's recent rhubard post)
A mini tub of rendered duck fat

And my own personal favourite, a can of Clement Faugier's Creme de Marrons de l'Ardeche. Apparently, this chestnut puree is French kitchen staple, and is great dolloped on yoghurt or spread on a warm crepe. The can alone is tres charmant, non?

Sharing Culina's Park House premises is an organic supermarket aptly named SuperNature. I figured I owed it to the generations of intrepid Easter treasure hunters to pop in and look around, even if I don't have any particular philosophical inclinations towards organic food. I mean, I think it's noble and all but honestly, $13 for a pack of organic barley?

Still, I managed to find a handful of fun stuff to try:

A bottle of Thorncroft Pink ginger cordial. The thought of mixing this with ice cold sparkling water on a warm Sunday afternoon by the pool was impossible to resist.
A pack of spelt grains, for the day that I venture to try Alain Soliveres' spelt risotto.
A pack of Annie's Homegrown Rice Pasta and Cheddar (i.e. mac and cheese). Mac and cheese from a box always seems a bit vile, with all the artificial flavourings and preservatives, but this seemed fairly healthy. Plus it has a Rabbit of Approval, how much more befitting of an Easter theme could this be?

Tasting reports to come soon!

********************************************

Culina Parkhouse

21 Orchard Boulevard

#01-23 Parkhouse

Singapore 248645

Tel: 6735 8858

Mon-Sat: 10am-8pm; Sun: 10am-6pm

SuperNature

21 Orchard Boulevard

#01-21 Parkhouse

Singapore 248645

Tel: 6735 4338

Mon, Tues, Thurs, Sat: 10am-7pm; Wed, Fri: 10am-8pm; Sun: 11am-6pm

History in a bowl of prawns

2006-04-05T11:41:00.000+08:00

One of the great things about food blogging is that you get exposed to, and are encourage to explore, different exotic ingredients and cuisines. From rosewater to truffles, harissa to mentaiko, every meal becomes a culinary flight of fantasy into faraway worlds, every day a new discovery.

And so you scour markets and catalogues, track down reknowned chefs at their latest endeavours, and plan holidays or spare moments during business trips around the procurement of the best local produce or the latest hot restaurant.

Amidst all these pursuits, it's easy to forget that the best food is often what you grew up with. Which is funny in Singapore, where a simple walk around the neighbourhood can saturate your culinary senses:

The piercing smell of spices, sharp and pungent.
The shrill cries of hawkers inviting you to sit and partake.
Fiery woks in a state of perpetual motion.
Roasted meats hanging off skewers, waiting to be carved.
Rice of all colours, drenched in vivid gravies.
Thick, viscous coffee streaming out of well-worn pitchers.
Jewel-like cubes of dessert peeking out of beds of shaved ice.

All this amidst the neverending chatter of coffee shop talk in what seems to be a million different dialects.

Cooking at home is no less varied. Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, Malay, South Indian, Peranakan (itself a fusion of Chinese and Malay cuisines), Malaysian (a mix of all the above plus some unique dishes), Singaporean (all that plus), Western (bastardized to varied extents)... all fall into my category of food I grew up with, my native cuisine.

I'm therefore making a conscious effort to cook (and therefore blog about) more Singaporean food in all its guises, colours and flavours.

First up, one of my favourite growing up dishes that's planted pretty firmly in the category of 'Cantonese' - Chow Har (literally Fried Prawns).

I found the recipe for this dish in the great bible of Singaporean home cooking - Mrs. Lee's Cookbook. Mrs. Lee's Cookbook is one of the cornerstones of Singapore's short history as a nation, and can be found on almost every kitchen shelf here - it's as if a copy is handed out together with your citizenship. As if that wasn't sufficient contribution to shaping Singapore's collective social consciousness, Mrs. Lee is also the mother of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first Prime Minister and undoubtedly the most influential person in Singapore's history.

The first edition of the book was published in 1974 and till this day, thirty years later, is still the best selling cookbook in the Malay Archipelago. In 2003, Shermay Lee, Mrs. Lee's granddaughter and founder of Shermay's Cooking School, relaunched the cookbook in an updated, full-colour edition. The New Mrs. Lee's Cookbook subsequently won at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2003 in the category of Special Awards of the Jury (English – Rest of the World), testifying to the relevance of its recipes to a whole new generation of Singaporeans and beyond.

I'm proud to be the owner of a 1983 edition of the original book, which was passed to me by my dad shortly after I moved to Beijing. Compared to the elaborate and lush cookbooks of today, the original Mrs. Lee's Cookbook seems sparse, even unforgiving. Black line drawings of ingredients and dishes fail to visually inspire, and refuse to offer any additional guidance as to whether your dish will turn out as it should. Dishes and spices in their native Malay names intimidate any newcomers or non-natives - Assam Pedas? Ayam Buah Keluak? Heepeow? Do those sound even vaguely edible?

What the book does offer that few others can though, is the comfort and pride that you're cooking using recipes that have been handed down through the generations, the appreciation of food as an integral part of Singapore's social fabric.

It's easy, when cooking, to pretend that you're a little god, controlling the fates of ingredients, amalgamating and alchemizing to suit your whims. But a flip of Mrs. Lee's Cookbook humbles you - you realize that these are dishes that have been around for generations, that countless hands have put together over the years and will continue to do so for many more years to come. Dishes that trigger a million childhood memories and that today you can't live without. As funny as it may sound, you realize that food is bigger than you. Indeed, Mrs. Lee's Cookbook isn't just a collection of cherished recipes - its pages also contain a brief exposition of Peranakan history and women's lives in a Straits Chinese household; illustrations of traditional Nonya wedding dress; translations of frequently used ingredients' names between English, Malay, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Tamil and Tagalog; a foreword by Mr. Wee Kim Wee, former president of Singapore; and an example of Chinese calligraphy - strong reminders of the bonds between food, history, society and culture.

And so, on to the prawns! This is a very simple, toss-everything-together-and-fry recipe that shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to prepare, all in. The sauce is strong, thick and sweet - remember when eating a traditional Chinese meal, all meat and vegetable dishes are placed in the center of the table and shared. Your own little eating space is contained in an individual bowl of rice, on which everything is placed. Serve the prawns the same way and you'll find that, once all the prawns have been shelled and devoured, your rice is now covered with a layer of the sauce, which makes for a second round of enjoyment that is in no way inferior to the first.

Chow Har
Serves 4 as part of a 3- or 4-course dinner

1kg (2lbs) large prawns, seasoned with salt

(Mrs. Lee suggests that you "remove a band of shell from the centre of the prawn, trim the feelers & sharp tips." She also suggests that the finished dish is served on a platter garnished with cucumber and tomato slices, which was probably a lot more attractive in the 1970s than today. Feel free to experiment with both the presentation and 'user friendliness' of the prawns - in familiar company both steps can be easily skipped to no overwhelming detriment.)

12 stalks spring onion, cut into short pieces
8 tbsp oil

For the gravy, boil together:
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp cornflour
6 tbsp ketchup (the original recipe quaintly calls for 'tomato catsup')
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbsp ginger juice
1 tbsp wine
2 tbsp water

Hopefully I'm not violating a copyright by reproducing the below instructions verbatim from the book. I just loved their staccato pacing - short, succinct and punctuated. You can really imagine your own grandma standing behind you in the kitchen guiding you with the exact same words:

"TO COOK: Heat a frying pan until very hot, add in 8 Tbs. oil. When the oil is
hot, add in the prawns. Stir fry until cooked. The hot oil seals in the juices
of the prawns. Pour the sauce over the prawns, and stir in the spring onions.
Serve immediately."

Dark chocolate slice with masala figs

2006-03-29T10:30:00.000+08:00

Every now and then, a little milestone passes that makes me feel a wee bit more grown up in the kitchen.

First meal where no-one got sick. (Fortunately I think I managed to get pass this quite a few years ago. The human stomach is an amazingly strong organ.)

First meal where I actually received a compliment. (Accomplished this in college. I guess between lousy Philly food truck food for the 259th night in a row, or my roommate and my kitchen experiments, occasionally the latter became a fairly attractive option for starved freshmen. Yesss!)

First meal prepared and served on time. (I'm still working on this one)

Developing the discipline to wash up as I cook, thereby not leaving a mountain of mess in the sink.

Learning how to cook the right proportion so we're not stuck with heaps of leftovers.

And, most recently (this is what we're celebrating today), combining all the remaining bits of food in the fridge into something palatable.

In this case, figs, chocolate cream and half a bottle of masala.

It seems like the culinary deities were smiling on me that day though, cos as I absentmindedly flipped through the Pierre Herme book, I chanced upon a recipe that was perfect: Port-Steeped Fig and Chocolate Tart.

Monsieur Herme's recipe looks like a little meal in itself - you need to cook the figs, bake the tart base, make the chocolate filling and prepare a raspberry sauce. In the slapdash spirit of using up leftovers, I decided to compromise a fair bit:

Instead of a tart base, I went back to lazy first principles and make an easy crumbly base by pounding digestive biscuits and binding them together in the baking pan using melted butter
Out of concern that the chocolate may be too cloyingly rich, decided to up the biscuit base amount, thereby changing the fundamental nature of the dish from 'tart' to 'slice' (I'm still shivering from the power rush, it's like playing God!)
Figs were done per the recipe, the only change being the substitution of masala for port (the masala was from fig and zucchini night a while back). The figs were simmered in masala, sugar, cinammon and lemon and orange peel, then left to steep overnight
The chocolate filling was a combination of the leftover chocolate patisserie cream and classic chocolate sauce from eclair day
Skip the raspberry sauce (Pierre, the practical man that he is, did say it was optional)

Here are the figs sitting on the biscuit base, peacefully awaiting their chocolate baptism... a good way to go if you ask me:

The finished product was surprisingly easy to eat - the richness of the chocolate was well balanced with the rusticity of the biscuit base, while the masala-spice syrup really brought out the hidden sweetness of the figs. The addition of a raspberry sauce would definitely have upped the ooh factor to something worthy of a fancy restaurant's dessert menu, but the slice alone had sufficiently risen from the humble origins of its individual ingredients to make me pretty proud.

Now if I can just figure out a way to combine the leftover emmenthal, beer and cereal...

Update: I was just going through the Is My Blog Burning site, and it turns out that Slashfood was hosting a One Off MeMe event themed 'Spring Clean', i.e. recipes that make use of whatever is currently sitting in the fridge. Am still not sure how to add myself to the event (or whether it is even still ongoing - it was dated March 30 but is that the posting date or the deadline?) but still rather chuffed to be in tune, even if by coincidence, with the collective food blogging consciousness :)

Worth a thousand words: Noo rooz mobarak!

2006-03-22T16:06:00.000+08:00

It was Persian New Year early Tuesday morning Singapore time. In honour of the lovely Nina (100% Iranian) and Hema (50%), we got together on Sunday afternoon to prepare traditional Iranian dishes for a celebration on Monday evening.

Now as a food blogger, you spend an inordinate proportion of your waking hours (and indeed many of your sleeping ones) striving for kitchen perfection.

A fully stocked spice rack? Check.
Utensils for every whim and fancy? Check.
Ergonomic workspace? Check.
Preferred slicing and dicing technique? Check.
A photographic imprint in your memory of where each pot, pan and spatula is in your kitchen? Check.

But what happens when you find yourself in a foreign kitchen with a bunch of nutter friends, at least two of which see food as more plaything than art form? (You know who you are!)

Cue silent weeping.

And with that, I present a little photo journal of our descent into group cooking madness...

The run-up. So that's what consultants do...

Hema's job is clearly taking over her mind as she prepares a group shopping and kitchen to-do list in Excel. We pretended to be impressed although deep down inside we were horrified.

At least the closet programmer didn't write this stuff out in Visual Basic or C++ or whatever it is programmers write in.

Sunday. Chaos begins...

Nina attempts to saw off her own tongue (she saw this done on TV once), while Michelle wisely and hurriedly retreats to Aubergine-Dicing-Zen-Land.

Jean attempts to seduce a yoghurt-covered chicken drumstick...

... then celebrates her apparent success by breaking out in a impromptu chicken dance with Nina. I'm guessing it's not H5N1, but whatever they have is very worrisome.

Hema reinstates an air of professionalism as she sets about caramelizing dried cranberries. With a resigned air of patience, she secretly wonders if maybe she should have made a PowerPoint presentation as well.

The first slide on that presentation would've been...

... How To Tell That The Washing Up Isn't Quite Done.

Nina: "I'm done!"

Me (stunned): "Umm, I'm not too sure if that's really counted as being done..."

Nina: "Awww, are you anal like Hema too??????"

I need to make Nina a t-shirt with her mantra for the afternoon: Suds Never Hurt Anybody.

Once we figure out how Nina's gonna carry all this (plus the 3 food-laden pots in the kitchen) back home on her own, we're done!

Party night. The stage is set.

And so has the chicken. Into a jelly, that is.

Jean and I volunteered to come early to help Nina fry the fish. We get rewarded with the thrill of cheating death, not once, but twice.

Near death situation 1:
Jean: "Nina, your kitchen smells a bit stale, especially with the gas on..."
Nina: "Ooh really? Let me spray this flammable aerosol at you girls, right next to the naked flame!"

Near death situation 2: The kitchen towel meant to blot the fish catches fire and has to be unceremoniously doused under the tap.

Finally, we're done!

Clockwise from the red spoon:

Zereshk Polo - basmati rice with caramelized cranberries and pistachios
Cucumber, tomato and onion salad
Zafferoon Chicken - chicken cooked in saffron and yoghurt
Sabzi Polo - basmati rice with mixed fresh herbs
Mirza Ghasemi - minced aubergine and tomatoes
Mahi - fried halibut in saffron batter

Will leave you with a lovely picture of Nina's Haft Sinn, the traditional laying of the table to celebrate the New Year. (Fatemeh of Gastronomie has a wonderful post on the history and symbolism of the Haft Sinn here.)

As an aside, the poor goldfish on the far left is unfortunately no longer with us, but I'm sure he lived his final days filled with pride to be part of such a time-honoured and beautiful tradition :)

Noo rooz mobarak everyone!

Tetsuya - my nominee for Australian ambassador

2006-03-22T10:31:00.000+08:00

Tetsuya by Testsuya Wakada was another recent acquisition at the Kinokuniya sale.

I have to admit that I'd always been a bit of a Tetsuya skeptic. Having spent, at one stage, 8 childhood vacations in a row in Sydney, and having had to sit through Aussie friends and family endlessly wax lyrical on the wonders and conveniences of the continent, I had developed a determined prejudice against anything Aussie.

"Arid wasteland with no history or culture!" I'd sniff.
"Lowest common denominator wines!" Philippe would pout.

Silly us.

Maybe it's old age, maybe we've just given up fighting it, but we're now slowly warming up to various Aussie concepts.

A mid-day, mid-week beer is no longer slacking off, it's enjoying life.

Wine capped with a twist top isn't always a crime against humanity.

There are worse places to go for a vacation than Perth (e.g. Batam).

And that led me to Tetsuya.

To be honest, I really didn't know what to expect when I bought the book, shrink wrap and all. I'd heard much about him being considered Australia's top chef, and of his celebrated restaurants where reservations have to be made months in advance, but didn't actually know what type of food he served. My best guess was that it was elaborate fusion food: fancy, complicated, fussy.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

What immediately struck me was the simplicity and brevity of his recipes, some stretching their hardest to fill up even half a page. They were clean, they were classic, and almost all seem to follow the same basic principle: emphasize the natural flavours of the main ingredients with light and simple sauces, then dance around them with contrasts in flavour, texture and colour. The book was stunning, and revelatory, and at the same time appeared so intuitive and effortless. I was hooked.

A couple of e-mails later and dinner plans were made. Kit and Marc, our hapless guinea pigs from figs and zucchini flowers night, kindly volunteered to brave our kitchen once again (thanks guys!), and so began the usual mad dash to the supermarket, kitchen appliance store, etc.

The end products:

Consomme of Tomato and Tea

Quick comments: Flavourful despite its lightness. Need to make sure you strain the tea out quickly though, I left mine in too long and the tannins made it very bitter.

Sashimi of Hamachi with Blood Orange and Ginger Vinaigrette

QC: Everything about this dish is great - the flavours, the colours, the textures. I'd upsize this for a summer lunch or light supper. Used balsamic instead of sherry vinegar as I had it on hand, and similarly substituted a brief squeeze of grapefruit juice for orange oil. It works best if the hamachi slices are cut fairly thick to balance the strong citrus flavours.

Pan Seared Foie Gras on Rice with Avocado Puree

QC: Looked elaborate but tasted incredibly homey, like fried rice with a superstar makeover. Like the sashimi, this could easily be upsized to be a meal on its own.

Spaghettini with Cauliflower Sauce

QC: Pasta is tossed in Tetsuya's cold cauliflower soup, also in the book. Couldn't get shiso at the last minute so topped it with these daikon sprouts (kaiware daikon) from my neighbourhood Japanese supermarket. They look innocent but are actually incredibly peppery, great for spicing up the dish. Philippe and I had the leftover cauliflower soup for supper two days later, chilled but with piping hot cheese toast, and it was great.

Green Tea Panna Cotta with Kiwi Berries

QC: This was actually taken from Jane Lawson's Yoshoku, where it was topped with rhubarb. I couldn't resist the kiwi berries, which looked and tasted amusingly of grapes on steroids. Surprisingly, the combination of green tea, sugar and cream produced a flavour that was almost more pandan than tea.

So there you go, my little culinary traipse to Sydney. I've emerged enlightened, humbled and fully converted to the joys of Australian cuisine.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some cricket to watch and a koala to hug.

Celeb spotting

2006-03-21T11:20:00.000+08:00

My dad called last night to tell me he just got back to Singapore on the same flight as Anthony Bourdain, and even spoke to him briefly. He sounded pretty thrilled, so I guess this warrants a post :)

The day I became a Grand Master Eclair Chef

2006-03-21T10:37:00.000+08:00

Let me start by saying, I love the Kinokuniya book sale!

For the unfamiliar, Kinokuniya is a large Japanese bookstore chain that has several outlets in Singapore, including one at Ngee Ann City that sprawls over the better half of one floor and in whose labyrinthine shelves one can be lost for days. Aside from the Japanese books, magazines and literature, the store carries more or less everything you could ask for - the usual fiction and non-fiction sections, a language section, Western and Japanese comics, art and design books, totemo kawaii stationery and, of course, a generous cookbook aisle.

The best part is, every six months or so, Kinokuniya goes on a storewide 20% off sale. Which is the perfect excuse to buy up every single book you've set your eyes on over past weeks - stuff you want to read, stuff you should read, stuff you want to tell everyone you've read (o_O!)...

The grand allure of book shopping is that buying new books lets you feel like you're starting a new life. High on the fumes of freshly printed and yet un-thumbed pages, you get excited thinking about who you'll now be - a profound artistic soul waxing lyrical on Milton vs. Spencer? a cutting-edge pop culture specialist? a wheeling and dealing business person with up-to-the-minute views on Chinese trade laws? a diligent student of a foreign language mastering the art of conjugation through furrowed eyebrows?

In my case, all of the above, plus...

... Grand Master Chocolate Chef!

(Yes, I've started printing out the namecards already)

Yupyup, decided to pick up Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme (can someone please tell me how to write accents on Blogger?!?!) and Dorie Greenspan. It's a gorgeous book, dark, rich and timeless like its subject, each page eliciting audible gasps and more sinful than the last.

Fast forward to the weekend, and I'm crouched in concentration over our outdoor kitchen counter, attempting to delicately spoon chocolate pastry cream into dainty eclair bottoms.

Except it's 35 degrees Celsius (in fahrenheit: freaking hot).

It's been 35 degrees Celsius for the last three hours (that's how long it took).

All around, the kitchen is a disaster zone of pastry splotches, gooey pots and pans and little water puddles (you can almost hear wailing sirens).

And I couldn't be happier.

Actually, I'm exaggerating. The chocolate eclair recipe is long, requiring the individual production of four components (choux pastry, chocolate pastry cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate glaze) prior to baking and assembly. But it isn't difficult, and a lot of fun comes from methodically following the recipe in blind faith that everything will come together in the final moments, which it really does. It's also great to finally put together something that you've grown up with all your life, and have been accustomed to consuming without a second thought.

I'm looking forward to making this again and playing around with the components. Pierre Herme called for bittersweet chocolate in each of the parts, I'd like to try with something along the lines of hazelnut, or white chocolate, or a non-chocolate pastry cream (raspberry? green tea? lavender?) next time - it really does seem very versatile. Plus mini-eclairs sound like lovely gifts, who doesn't love eclairs? Friends and family, start dieting now!

Beijing Gong

2006-03-06T11:22:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday, Philippe, Philip, Angelina and I were invited to dine at Beijing Gong, a new Beijing cuisine restaurant on Kreta Ayer. The restaurant isn't due to formally open until the end of March, but we were fortunate enough to receive an invitation by virtue of being family friends with owner May Leung.

As a quick prelude, Philippe and I lived in Beijing for 3 years before moving back to Singapore in 2002. We readily acknowledge that, by Singaporean and French standards, Beijing food is really nothing to shout about, comprising primarily of lamb, pork and heavy starches. That said, you could always squeeze a decent, even exotic, dinner out of some of the local staples, good enough for visiting friends or a cold winter evening. It's those dishes that we've developed occasional but strong cravings for in Singapore, and hadn't found worthy replicas of - attempts here are either too light on the sauce, use the wrong cut of meat, flat out off or, dare I say it, simply prepared in too hygienic a manner.

Until we ate at Beijing Gong!!!! *cue celebratory fireworks and clashing cymbals*

Beijing Gong is located at 41 Kreta Ayer Road, just a hop skip away from another famous Beijing restaurant (the Neil Road xiao long bao place - it has a proper name but I think most people know it as that). Despite the abundance of restaurants in the neighbourhood, Kreta Ayer has remained relatively food free, playing host instead to a variety of clinics, reflexology centres and sundry shops. Walking past Beijing Gong's glass door and glancing in at the oil paintings and antique-style furniture, you could easily mistake the place for an art gallery (in fact, Aunty May is the artist behind the various oil paintings here). You wouldn't make that mistake twice though, not after dining there!

The hinata tagline: authentic Beijing home cooking that you'll not fine elsewhere in Singapore, served fine dining style in a modern, elegant restaurant.

Our meal began with an assortment of cold starters, as well as a gorgeous warm herbal tea that combined a rich plum flavour with the toasted grass aftertaste of many a Korean and Japanese tea.

Clockwise from top:

Zha Ou He (literally "Fried-Lotus-Root-Boxes") - Philippe's favourite Beijing dish of all time, and one that's hard to find even within Beijing. We asked for seconds and those disappeared, well, within seconds.

Cucumbers with dried red chillies - very kai wei (appetite whetting). Tossed with omelette, this is a Beijing staple and on every restaurant table.

Sliced cold beef - Likewise, a Beijing staple, this one very akin to an English roast beef.

Red dates - Sweet and very refreshing. We kept this through the meal as a frequent palate cleanser.

Next up, a hot and sour soup ("not too hot" smiled our host):

Followed by what we can confidently proclaim to be the best gong bao ji ding (or Kung Pao chicken to all you non-mainlanders out there). I hesitate though, to call it the most authentic, given that a proper Beijing gong bao ji ding would have scrappy bits of chicken fat and bone - this version is all juicy chunks of flavoursome lean meat. What sets this apart though, is the generous and accurate use of Szechaun ma la peppercorns, spiteful little bombs that numb your tongue and set off sweat glands you never knew you possessed. Angelina was rather taken aback by her first encounter with them, but recovered quickly and tried to convince Philip to crunch on a spoonful. Philip dutifully obliged but spat them out fairly quickly with a bewildered expression.

As intimidating as they may sound (and you don't one to accidentally pop one into your mouth), these peppercorns impart a rich, full bodied aroma that becomes immediately addictive. Kinda like your first glass of red wine.

Next up, crispy duck with pancake and plum sauce. Despite this being a Beijing restaurant, and despite the dish bearing an overwhelming resemblance to Peking duck, the restaurant staff were curiously reluctant to call it so, preferring the moniker "crispy duck". Which was probably fair - the duck meat was lean and smoky, without the typical layer of fat under the skin (Peking duck in Beijing seems more about eating fat than meat), and the skin is thicker and crunchier than its usual paper-thin counterparts. Whether this was a substition made for local tastebuds or a different dish altogether, it was simply gorgeous and a welcome change.

It was at this point in the meal that I turned to Philippe and said, "you know what would be the perfect dessert now? Those fruits covered in caramel that you dip in ice water to freeze up!" Philippe paused for a bit, sifted through some dusty memories and nodded eagerly upon recollection. And lo and behold!

These were banana chunks, battered and fried then literally glued together with lashings of caramel. You're supposed to pull them apart and dip the pieces individually in the bowl of ice water provided (thanks Angelina for the assist!). The caramel then freezes up, and you get crunchy and sweet on the outside, warm and soft on the inside. Happy us.

After that satisfying meal, Philippe and I really didn't have much to say by way of constructive criticism, preferring instead to request a couple more Beijing cornerstone dishes that did not make an appearance that evening. Aunty May reassured us that the first of our requests, yu xiang qie zi (literally Fish-Fragrance-Eggplant) is on the menu and has received rave reviews. We are now lobbying for jing jiang rou si (City-Sauce-Meat-Shreds) as well as for some bottles of er guo tou (the nastiest rice wine this side of the planet).

To conclude, do try Beijing Gong once it opens. It's really one of the rare places (if not the only place) in Singapore you can find authentic Beijing food, and enjoy it with both chic ambience and courteous service.

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Beijing Gong

41 Kreta Ayer Road

(Phone number not available at time of writing)

Wontone of my wontons?

2006-03-01T11:09:00.000+08:00

Apologies for the corny title, it's one of those days :)

Seems like I'm on a quest to make daintier and daintier things. Having pigged out on junky bar food early in the evening at BQ Bar with Jean and Hema, supper on Monday night was a wholesome and homemade bowl of pork and ginger wontons in dashi.

As an aside, this was my first attempt at making wontons, and it occurred to me that there was a sufficient variety of wonton skin folding techniques to warrant an origami book on the subject. A quick flip through my little library of cookbooks revealed triangles, flat crescents, ruffled crescents, hats... Reminded me of Primary 1 art class where one of our first assignments was to make curry puffs out of plasticine. I'm telling you, those little pleats are tough to make! Now, every time I look at a curry puff it's with a nod of respect to the hands that made them.

(As an aside to this aside, the subsequent art class was about making Chinese New Year lanterns out of angpows. What you're supposed to do is take the top end of the angpow envelope and staple it to the bottom of another, and same for the sides, and continue till you somehow derive a lantern shape from it. What you're not supposed to do, even at the foolish and tender age of 7, is to accidentally staple your own thumb. No prizes for guessing which one I succeeded at. My art teacher was not pleased.)

Fortunately, my wonton attempt proved much less eventful. I'd decided to use dashi as my broth, so thought I'd give the wontons a slight Japanese influence as well by first marinated the minced lean pork in a soy-mirin marinade. I then tossed in some chopped water chestnuts for crunch and a generous amount of finely chopped ginger for spice (a nod to our jiaozi eating days in Beijing).

As for folding, I eventually settled on a simple squish-the-edges-together technique, detailed below.

Pork and Ginger Wontons in Dashi
Makes 16 wontons

For the wontons:

150g minced lean pork
2 small water chestnuts, chopped, approx. 2 tbsp
1 small knob of ginger, finely chopped, approx. 1 1/2 tbsp
2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp soy sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
16 store-bought wonton skins

For the broth:

1 large strip of dried konbu
2 cups bonito flakes
4 cups water

Begin preparing dashi by soaking dried konbu in water for 10 minutes.

Marinate pork in soy sauce and mirin; set aside while choppnig chestnuts and ginger. Mix all ingredients together.

Heat water and konbu in a pot over medium high heat. Just before water starts boiling, remove konbu and add bonito flakes. Cook for 1-2 minutes over high heat, then turn off heat. The dashi is ready when the bonito flakes sink to the bottom of the pot. Strain to remove bonito flakes and keep warm.

Lay out wonton skins. Place a small ball of the filling (approx. 1 tsp, depending on the size of the wonton skin) in the center of each skin. Dampen edges of wonton skin with water using your fingers. Seal by picking up diagonally opposing corners of the skin and bunching them together, sealing these and any smaller openings with a light squeeze.

Cook wontons in a pot of boiling water. Wontons will be cooked fairly quickly, approx. 2 minutes or when wontons float to the surface and the skin has become translucent. Serve immediately in warm dashi.

Optional: garnish with konbu and bamboo shoots as desired. Freeze any remaining dashi for future use.

(Dashi recipe from Harumi Kurihara's Harumi's Home Cooking)

We interrupt this program to bring you this news development...

2006-02-28T09:51:00.000+08:00

I've just been informed by Philippe that as my cream puffs did not contain ice cream and were not topped with chocolate sauce, that they were not in fact profiteroles but choux a la creme. Which is fine with me since that sounds pretty good anyway. Except that mine are really choux a la "damn tasty and a lot of hard work went into this!!!" creme.