Can he do it?

Yes he can!

This post is dedicated to my dear, caring mother. Yes mother I am eating fruit and veges:

That is all. :D

Legendary!

Long time no post! I'd have to say, I blame it on the weather! It's been raining in Singapore recently, and as you know, I love to stay curled up in bed on a rainy day. Makes me very lethargic, and (thank God!) decreases my appetite just a little. Good for the waistline I say :D

Last week, I had the chance to go running with Melvin out at East Coast Park. His incentive throughout the run was "Legendary Fish Soup!" In fact, he couldn't stop talking about it! The fish soup can be found in this dingy little stall at the hawker centre just below his place at Bedok South.

As with many of the hawker centre food stalls, this one has been here for over 20 years. Melvin still remembers coming down to this same stall as a kid and has (and still does) eat this fish soup at least once a week. He is a pescatarian, so fish soup is one of his mainstays! Trust him to know the best!

As well as fish soup with vermicelli, they do fish porridge and duck.

The "Legendary Fish Soup". Looks av? I know, but don't let looks fool you! That soup tasted like it had been stewing there for the past decade! A really full flavour with depth and history behind it. I could almost taste the blood, sweat and tears of the struggling stall owner, working 18 hour days just to stay afloat.

The soup features vermicelli, vegetables, fried shallots, steamed fish slices, fungus and (shh) fried pork fat. A wholesome full meal in one huh =p

After the fish soup, we headed over to the ubiquitous dessert stall for something to cool off.

Not so appetising huh. Looks like baby vomit spread over something else that belongs down below...

What I actually got was Ice Chendol with Durian puree (that's the yellow stuff on top). Chendol are those green wormy looking things you see poking out from under. Also in this dish is shaved ice (the white stuff), red beans, grass jelly, coconut milk, gula melaka (aka palm sugar syrup) and atap seed. A real mixed bag of delicious surprises hidden under that smelly durian mess on top. I love this dish for the variety of flavours you get, and the sweet milkiness of the palm sugar and coconut milk combined is almost like a milkshake! (My breath stank a bit after this though.. word to the wise: side effects of eating durian - no one wants to go near you afterwards).

Each neighbourhood in Singapore has its fair share of local gastronomical legends. The residents will vouch for particular stalls they've been eating since they were kids; sometimes it's hard to tell if the taste is simply ingrained into them as nostalgia, and their tastebuds are in familiar and comfortable territory. Solution for the adventurous eater: follow friends from different suburbs around and taste their local - the experience is sure to be good!

Lunch Mashup

We tend to head out from the office at 12 every day for lunch, just by clockwork. If you don't know what time it is, just wait for the call to arms and you'll know its 12 on the dot! As they say here, "Makan time!" ('makan' = 'eat' in Malay).

There isn't too much exciting fare to be had in the office surrounds, just a couple of hawker centres and a foodcourt. "Downstairs", as we call the tiny hawker centre just below the office, is always the fallback, as its closest, but by now everyone is getting a little sick of the food down there! I usually snap a couple of pics of lunch before tucking in, here's some of the highlights:

Mixed Vegetable Rice - there are many hawker stalls selling this kind of mixed "vegetable" rice (sometimes called Mixed Curry Rice), it's a smorgasbord of sorts - you just choose what you want and the server dumps it all on a plate of rice. Though they call it vegetable rice, half the available dishes are meat or fish options so.... idk.. Above we've got mapo tofu, omelette with onions, curry potatoes, sweet and sour pork and veges. This huge plate only $4!

Dumpling noodle soup. Pretty self-explanatory really. The ikan bilis (fried anchovies) adds a nice salt and crunch hit.

This is what we call the "Daily Special" - one of the Chinese stalls downstairs has a whiteboard with 3 specials on it daily at $3.50 a pop. Good for a surprise and a bit of variety. Above is Nonya Fish with rice and fried egg.

Another Daily Special: Rojak Chicken with rice and fried egg. Yum! Fried chicken (my fav) with a tangy sauce, julienned onions, and crushed peanuts.

This one wasn't actually lunch, but breakfast one day when I was feeling especially peckish in the morning (I don't usually eat breakfast.. sorry mum). This here is "Fried Bee Hoon" or fried rice noodles (米粉) with toppings - fried tofu skin, vegetables, a different kind of fried noodles and vegetarian (??!) BBQ pork (叉烧). Why would you make vegetarian BBQ pork?! It doesn't make sense! It's not right!

Beer for lunch?! Actually this is just ice lemon tea in a beer glass...

Grumpy old man serving up multiple bowls of.....

Fish Noodle Soup! They actually just call it "Fish Soup" here, even though it is always served with noodles.. A great tasting fishy stock with fried fish, noodles and vegetables. Very popular locally!

Mee Rebus. I have no idea what this is, I just ate it. Soft yellow noodles in a slightly sweet, curry-type gravy, served with bean sprouts, fried tofu bits, fried shallots, green chili, calamansi lime and a boiled egg. A Malay/Indonesian dish. Not bad, but the sweet flavour is not my favourite.

Extra veges! Yes mum, 5+ a day!!!

I found this great place just downstairs of where I stay in Simei (四美) called Snack Shop. It's a Hong Kong eatery!! All the servers speak Cantonese! Gosh.. feels like home and makes me miss HK so much! I haven't so far come across many HK places around. This was one of the first. Serving typical HK style fare (roast meats on rice), with a Singaporean twist (note the rice is actually Chicken Rice (!!) and cucumber slices).

Another Mixed Curry Rice, this time from the foodcourt, Koufu. Chose the eggplant because it was a beautiful purple colour but it wasn't cooked well - sorely disappointed!

That was lunch for the past couple of weeks, look forward to more! :D

Pretty.. Pretentious?

Though I would eat anything that tastes good regardless of what it looks like, there is something that much more fun about eating food that looks good. Proper presentation allures and excites the mind in preparation for the sensation to come - a combination of the sight, smell and taste sensory inputs all contribute to the final impression.

I am always impressed when it comes to the presentation of Japanese food, or food done by Japanese chains. One only has to look at sushi rolls dressed to the nines, decadent bento boxes or sukiyaki with everything arranged neatly, or in this case... cakes!

Though cakes (of the Western style) haven't been around in Japan for so long, they quickly gained prominence and are a great way for pastry chefs to display decorating skill with fanciful and imaginative designs.

This cafe in the Raffles City basement - Fruits Paradise - serves up some of the most delightful-looking fruit tarts I have ever seen! The sign could almost be mistaken for saying 'Fruit ART Shop' as opposed to 'Fruit TART Shop'; it would still be fitting! Here's a sample:

I haven't yet had the chance to try these tarts yet, but aren't they beautiful? And at $7.80 a slice, rather steep too. According to reviews though, they are not that tasty. Reports say too much cream, an insubstantial crust, and lack of co-ordination over all. Is beauty only skin deep? I'm sure I'll get the chance to find out..

Toro, Number One!

I had been craving for some fresh sashimi for a while since I got here. Japanese food is very popular and there are plenty of sushi bars, sushi trains, teppanyaki restaurants, and don cafes around. Every mall has at least a few of these!

I tempted Eileen into eating at Ion with me and she recommended Itacho, which had been recommended to her by several friends. They said it was the only place they would go in Singapore for sushi now! Must be good :D

The menu was beautiful and wide-ranging, with many many different types of nigiri and rolls available, as well as other Japanese staple foods - udon, tempura and the like. The range of fresh fish was astounding!

This one particularly excited me:

I have never had the chance to experience fatty tuna before, as we don't get supply of this good quality blue-fin to NZ. Toro (this section of the tuna belly) is highly prized for its scarcity, and the tender melt-in-your-mouth flavour that comes from the rivulets of intramuscular fat that run through the meat.

The tick-box ordering forms, categorised and colour-coded. How Japanese!

People sitting at the long sushi bar have the chance to watch the sushi chefs preparing the fish. In Singapore these a-la-carte sushi bars are considered as more high class, where as back home in Auckland there are only 2 sushi trains and they are the most expensive in town!

Discovered from the place-mat that Itacho is a chain from Hong Kong!! Of course, we HK always come up with the best! This branch at Orchard Rd is the only one in Singapore.

We started off with this Fairy Shrimp. It was super fresh and had that sweet flavour that is unique to raw shrimp.

Itacho Live Shrimp, Salmon and Fatty Salmon. The difference in taste between the Salmon and the Fatty Salmon was not so pronounced - it could be described more as a difference in mouth feel, as the fat presented a more melting, softer texture as well as a slightly more intense 'salmon fat' flavour.

Raw and Grilled Scallop. The Raw Scallop again has a very unique, sweet flavour as well as that delicious squishy texture. It was very fresh. The Grilled Scallop was slightly firmer after being flamed by a brulee torch. It was presented with a small dab of salty ginger paste on top to enhance the flavours.

This Jellyfish Salad was delicious and refreshing. Raw jellyfish tentacles have a texture something like rubber bands, though not chewy (and not that I have eaten rubber bands before!). Marinated with soy, sugar and chili, and served with cucumber base and sesame seeds, this was a great palate lifter! I love jellyfish!

The stars of the night: Toro, Fatty Yellow Tail, Grilled Toro. The Raw Toro (top, front) was amazingly marbled and almost looked like a piece of wagyu. The texture was as sublime - the marbled fat creating that full and rounded mouthfeel. The tuna flavour did not really overwhelm, however; it was quite different from anything i had ever tasted before.

The Fatty Yellow Tail was a lot less fatty than the tuna - a good firm white fish texture and the tiny dab of minced ginger/garlic/caper/oil on top really enhanced the flavour.

Grilled Toro was just as amazing texturally as the Raw Toro, but the grilling process had brought out the oils a little more making it feel more oily than fatty. Would also have preferred it a little more charred on top! The addition of the julienned onions was great though.

That was my splurge meal of the week - new experiences in raw fish that I am now SUPER keen to try again! 

Why oh why, Auckland?! We are surrounded by water! Toro toro toro!!!

Daily Staple

Sorry long time no update! Been busy with work organising the new media kit and prepping for our big launch party this weekend! More coverage of that to come!! For now here's a quick one:

One of the things I love about Asia in general is the BREAD! Boring, it seems, right? But you really just don't get this kind of bread in Western countries! 'Asian' style bread is very different from Western style - is is generally softer and sweeter, and we eat it less often in loaves and rolls, and more often with various random fillings and toppings. The Japanese, especially, are very creative when it comes to their bread! More on that later :D

Here are some of the bread shops in my neighbourhood and some of the delights I have already sampled:

Bread Talk is a chain of bakeries serving up delicious fresh breads - mostly lunch-type rolls with toppings.

Row upon row of assorted pastries and breads - fillings include sausage, ham, corn, curry, cheese, egg, and even caesar salad and roast meats!!

They even have a chiller for cold desserts, and various flavour sponge cakes.

My meal for the day: Ham and Corn Bread, Cheese Sausage Roll, Chicken Curry Roll with Parmesan.

These breads were my lunch another day. Don't know what Bak Kwa is but the Chinese says dried meat. It was the kind of sweet dried meats that you can buy in squares. As well as this, there were spring onions and black and white sesame seeds - Yum!

I love this! Not just because of the funky name - Smart Aleck =P Sweet puff pastry filled with chantilly cream custard! Delish.

Just a short post for now - I'm sure I'll be eating more floury delights before I'm through here :D