Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

  • 15 Aug

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    Food meme!

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    Courtesy of Andrew Wheeler squared (as if one isn’t enough! Thank you Andrew Wheeler and Andrew Wheeler). The rules of the meme: bold those you have tried, strikethrough those you wouldn’t eat on a bet. Brief descriptions are provided for some of the more obscure items.

    1. Venison
    2. Nettle tea
    3. Huevos rancheros
    4. Steak tartare
    5. Crocodile
    6. Black pudding
    7. Cheese fondue
    8. Carp
    9. Borscht
    10. Baba ghanoush
    11. Calamari
    12. Pho
    13. PB&J sandwich (peanut butter & grape jelly sandwich)
    14. Aloo gobi
    15. Hot dog from a street cart
    16. Epoisses
    17. Black truffle
    18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
    19. Steamed pork buns
    20. Pistachio ice cream
    21. Heirloom tomatoes (home-grown, no less!)
    22. Fresh wild berries
    23. Foie gras
    24. Rice and beans
    25. Brawn, or head cheese
    26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (only once & only a sliver. That was enough!)
    27. Dulce de leche
    28. Oysters
    29. Baklava
    30. Bagna cauda
    31. Wasabi peas
    32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
    33. Salted lassi (but I prefer sweet)
    34. Sauerkraut (also the Chinese equivalent of salted mustard greens … superior taste, imo)
    35. Root beer float
    36. Cognac with a fat cigar
    37. Clotted cream tea (if we’re talking tea & scones, that is)
    38. Vodka jelly (again, homemade. I’m such an alcoholic!)
    39. Gumbo
    40. Oxtail
    41. Curried goat
    42. Whole insects
    43. Phaal (very hot Indian curry)
    44. Goat’s milk
    45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
    46. Fugu (I can’t find the haiku along the lines of, “I’d like to eat fugu, but life is sweet”)
    47. Chicken tikka masala
    48. Eel
    49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
    50. Sea urchin
    51. Prickly pear (a cactus)
    52. Umeboshi (pickled plum-like fruit)
    53. Abalone (can’t see what all the fuss is about, tbh)
    54. Paneer (Indian cheese; easy to make at home. But what about Haloumi?)
    55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
    56. Spaetzle (MIL makes it; they’re like a lazy hybrid of noodles and tiny dumplings)
    57. Dirty gin martini
    58. Beer above 8% ABV
    59. Poutine (french fries topped with cheese curd & brown gravy)
    60. Carob chips (I’m not a fan of carob’s grainy texture)
    61. S’mores (marshmallow, chocolate and crackers)
    62. Sweetbreads
    63. Kaolin (edible clay)
    64. Currywurst (although all wursts are not created equal)
    65. Durian (also durian cake and durian ice-cream!)
    66. Frogs’ legs
    67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
    68. Haggis (I like it!)
    69. Fried plantain
    70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (cooked pig intestines)
    71. Gazpacho (cold soup of Spanish origin)
    72. Caviar and blini
    73. Louche absinthe (a type of spirit)
    74. Gjetost, or brunost (caramelised Nordic cheese)
    75. Roadkill
    76. Baijiu (recently discovered this (white spirit made from rice). Great for mixing!)
    77. Hostess Fruit Pie (variation of a Twinkie, from what I can gather)
    78. Snail
    79. Lapsang souchong (a type of tea from China)
    80. Bellini (champagne and peaches)
    81. Tom yum (J is the tom yum tasting expert)
    82. Eggs Benedict
    83. Pocky (Japanese chocolate-dipped snack sticks)
    84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (2- but not 3- … not yet, sigh)
    85. Kobe beef
    86. Hare
    87. Goulash
    88. Flowers
    89. Horse
    90. Criollo chocolate
    91. Spam
    92. Soft shell crab
    93. Rose harissa (Russia has a similar condiment called adjika)
    94. Catfish
    95. Mole poblano (Mexican savoury chocolate sauce)
    96. Bagel and lox
    97. Lobster Thermidor
    98. Polenta
    99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (what, not civet?)
    100. Snake

    Think I scored 84. Your turn.

  • 18 Jul

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    Impressions of KL II

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    Central Market, as well as being a popular tourist haven, also contains an interesting shop that specialises in selling t-shirts with topical slogans emblazoned on the front. For anyone following the sub-prime fiasco, there’s “HSBC: Highly Suspicious Banking Corporation”, various ones alluding to “Singabore”, George Bush t-shirts, and ones poking fun at Malaysians (“Malaysians aren’t rude people at all! So, just get out of my f&$*$%ing way!”). Malaysian companies are also lampooned. My current favourite is from a local political controversy regarding a politican called Lingam, a taped phone conversation, an unidentified person at the other end of the call and allegations of corruption. It says, “I’M the one who spoke to Lingam”.

    Out of curiosity, we visited the Mid-Valley Mall. Oh. Mama. I think it would seriously take two days to comb through every shop in that centre. It was HUGE! Blatant, marble-tiled consumerism everywhere. Made doubly frustrated by the fact that there was absolutely nothing I wanted to buy … except mustard. Yes, despite the prevalence of mustard seeds in this region, a good selection of mustards ranks up there with continental parsley as the holy grail for gourmets. We found a supermarket and stocked up on some jars. Who would’ve thought I’d now regard it as one of my major food groups?

    It didn’t take long for KL to weave its chaotic magic on me again, but it was not the same with J, who thought the city was “a little mean” and full of angst-driven individuals. Admittedly, we didn’t get to sample a lot of food, but tried chicken at two places and found Johor chicken to be much more tender and flavourful in both cases. (My MIL says the eggs in Johor also taste wonderful.)

    As a personal observation, almost all the Johoreans we’ve spoken to have been exceedingly welcoming people, and genuinely interested in our wellbeing, from the man doing our kitchen who got us in touch with a security ironwork company because he was worried about our personal safety, to the private taxi owner who picked us up even though we didn’t confirm the appointment (mobile ran out of juice) because he thought we’d have problems getting around without knowing much of the local language, Malay. They have all gone beyond their current jobs to organise services for us, and are delighted that we’re settling in their state. The vice-principal at The Wast’s new school, the nephew of our kitchen cabinetmaker, the manager at our leasing bank, even our car salesman (who bought us lunch, drove us to TW’s future school, and waited in the car while we participated in an ad hoc 30-minute interview), have unstintingly taken us under their wing, with humour and good grace. In J’s eyes, KL — with its capital-city, ‘you have to know what you want first’ attitude — doesn’t come close.

    So, even though I was born in KL, I was happy to get back to Johor, and to a more relaxed and friendly people. And, just to top it off, Johor food kicks serious ass. Makan boleh!

  • 02 Jul

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    Things I miss … and War Games

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    I yearn, bereft of
    juicy pork bits and parsley.
    My stomach rumbles.

    So, I’m on the hunt for a slab of smoked pork and a bunch of parsley, goddammit! It’s almost three weeks and no luck. This part of the world doesn’t use parsley as a matter of course. Coriander is the ubiquitous herb around. And I like coriander. But not in my pesto, or other pasta sauce.

    As for the smoked pork, well Malaysia is predominantly Muslim. That’s not to say there are no Chinese shops selling porky goodness, because there are. But we have the same problem as we did in Singapore and that is, Chinese have a dreadful habit of putting sugar in EVERYTHING! It’s like honey-roasted pork with a coating of sugar syrup. If there are any Chinese out there reading this blog (and I’ll be asking my Chinese friends the same question), could you please let me know the name of the person who told you that sweetening and perfuming pork sausage (and I’m particularly thinking of lap cheong here) was a good idea? I mean, a little sugar with the spice is sometimes a nice thing, but in moderation, people! Sweet ham, sweet bacon, sweet sausage, sweet sandwich bread. I will never diss an olive again for as long as I live.

    The only spot of brightness on the horizon is the realisation that Carrefour is opening a store here in a month’s time. It will be about a 20-minute drive from our house. Can I say that I doubt there has been a grocery shop opening that was looked upon with such anticipation? I even go there every now and then, and watch the delivery trucks arriving, just to make sure it’s actually happening. For all you non-Carrefour readers, Carrefour is a French chain of supermarkets. Cheese! Dairy! Pork! Parsley! Countless varieties of mustard! My sanity is saved … sometime in August.

    So, while I wait for the weeks to tick away on feet of lead (Salsify! Escargots! Salmon!), Chapter Nine of War Games is now up at my site, regardless of what the home page may say. There is a confrontation between Rumis and Koul at the Nineteen’s HQ, subsequent to Cheloi’s capture by the rebels. Cheloi/Laisen has a discussion with Copan that he’s not happy with. And she remembers the love of her life, Eys.

    FAVOURITE QUOTES FROM CHAPTER NINE

    “Speaking of replacement, I think your assumption of command is just a little premature, Colonel.”
    “As is your grasp of reality, Major.”

    “I’ve always valued our talks, Doctor. I just wanted to make sure that I told you that.”

    Her parents loved Eys. Hell, everybody loved Eys. People panted and trailed after her like puppies. Men and women, it made no difference. But she was Laisen’s. Only Laisen’s.

  • 06 May

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    Afternoon tea @ the Shangri-La Hotel

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    I had my name day recently. As a family, we’re always on the lookout for celebratory days of one sort or another. It became a bit of a running joke at work, where my co-workers would always ask what we were celebrating that week. My reasoning was that, for the price of one $2,000 plasma TV, I could afford to buy cakes and have a celebration at home or picnic outside once every two weeks for a year and a half.

    So, anyway, when the time came to decide how the family should celebrate my name day, I didn’t hesitate. In this part of the world, there is no substitute. High tea.

    I adore high teas, and have missed them dreadfully as I’ve travelled away from south-east Asia. It’s an Asian twist on the English afternoon tea, with an entire buffet laid out across a range of cuisines, from savoury to sweet. The Rose Veranda is a restaurant at The Shangri-La Hotel that holds a daily high tea, with two afternoon sittings on weekends. The ambience is lovely, with comfortable armchairs, low tables and full-length glass windows looking out on, er, well, other buildings mostly. This is high-density Singapore after all.

    Foodwise, there were curries (mutton, vegetable, Thai fish, chicken), briyani rice, a variety of sandwiches, curry laksa with noodles, Thai salads, western salads, Indonesian stuffed hors d’oeuvres, fresh spring rolls, sushi and salmon sashimi, fresh bread rolls, a variety of cheeses, baked potatoes, crab cakes, quiche, and a small carvery station. For dessert, we could have strawberries and marshmallows in a chocolate fondue, handmade chocolates, cookies, a couple of cheesecakes, chocolate truffle cake, bread & butter pudding with custard, filled crepes, tiramisu, scones, vodka jellies with redcurrants, and fruit tarts, as well as a couple of other choices I forget.

    The idea is that you pays your money and takes your choice. For 6 hours (weekdays) / 3 hours (weekends) you fit in as much to’ing and fro’ing as you can, accompanied by a teapot of one of 100 types of tea available. It is absolutely decadent and entirely irresistible. It’s also not cheap. We got barely any change from SG$200 (US$150 / EUR95), but I figured it this way. If J and I had decided to treat ourselves to a top-flight dinner for two somewhere, we wouldn’t have been able to get away without dropping around SG$150. For only $50 more, we had a family event for three adults and two children that the kids (and J’s mum) really loved and will remember.

    Because I’m such a nitpicker, I have to admit that the High Tea wasn’t perfect. The service slacked off after the first hour. (We couldn’t get a refill of our water glasses for love nor money. Later on, I read on a board that the Shangri-La was supposed to offer free-flow tea, but that wasn’t evident either.) The delicious looking chicken from the carvery was seasoned heavily with five spice powder which, while loved by Chinese, tasted more like medicine to all of us at the table. A couple of chicken choices would have gone down better. Some of the food took too long to be replenished. When the delectable Brie and smooth blue-vein was finished from the cheese platter, they were replaced by a substandard cheddar type. The quiche was tasteless. The bloodline was left on the salmon sashimi, instead of being trimmed away. The price of ‘extras’ was breathtakingly extortionate. (SG$11 for an orange juice?!!) And the idea of having hot dessert plates to hold things like chilled cheesecake and handmade chocolates was pretty stupid.

    We left before the end of the session and took a walk around the hotel before waddling home. The hotel itself is very opulent and the food there is good (this is my second visit to two different restaurants at the Shangri-La), but there are unmistakable signs of tiredness in the frayed furniture, and the clumsy way many fittings have been installed. Away from the main, and impressive, foyer, the air is musty, indicating carpets that are well past their use-by date.

    High Tea at the Rose Veranda, Shangri-La Hotel Singapore: 7 out of 10.

  • 19 Feb

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    Blog to our new cooktop…no, really!

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    I was flicking through a recent issue of Wired magazine and noted that one of their coolest geek toys was a standalone tabletop induction cooktop panel that you could pick up for a mere US$1400. Induction cooking is very cool. You can turn on the hotplate and put your hand on it and, as long as you’re not wearing iron-based jewellery (I wasn’t going to chance it while wearing my wedding band, tbh), the plate will feel cool. Yet, put a saucepan of cold water on the same plate and it will boil within 30 seconds. I remember a vivid ad which showed an egg, half on the induction hotplate, the other half in a cross-sectioned saucepan. The half in the saucepan was frying nicely while the half that was slopped on the hotplate remained raw. This side-effect (the hotplate not the saucepan) has the further advantage of being easy to clean because no food ‘cooks’ on the hotplate, and I’m all for lazy cooking.

    The way induction works has to do with magnetic fields and electrical resistance, so I won’t go through it here. (I know, I really am restraining myself! Aargh, losing battle … electricity is used to set up a magnetic field which causes heat due to resistance within the non-pure base of the iron-based saucepan. And that’s all I’m saying.) However, I will show you our cooktop.

    Isn’t it a beauty? How could we not buy one? It even lights up with flashing blue LEDs when the power is on and I’m a sucker for flashing blue LEDs. Akira is a local Singapore brand, which explains why it was cheaper than the usual Japanese imports. During the Chinese New Year sale at a local Carrefour store, we paid SG$109 for it. And included with the hob was a saucepan with glass lid. That works out to about US$76 or EUR52 for the set. And the speed of cooking is blinding, much faster even than gas. So fast, in fact, that prep work is essential.

    Of course there’s always a downside: my earthenware pots — not containing any iron — can’t be used with induction cooking, and neither can my Pyrex dishes. And the hotplate has questionable value for a wok. Also, aluminium/aluminum pans can’t be used either. This is not a problem for us, because most of our cookware is cast-iron or the heavy-bottomed steel-copper type, but it may be a problem for you, so check your cookware and review your cooking habits first if you’re thinking of investing in this energy-efficient über-cool gadget.

    When we finally move to a place of our own, I’ll be bugging J for an induction/gas hybrid cooktop. But I don’t think I’ll have to do too much persuading because he’s sold on it too. And did I tell you that, because of its energy efficiency, the electricity bills will be lower? Win-win for safety, clean-up and money. And that’s exactly the way I like it.

    UPDATE: In the interests of good science, I put my wedding-band hand on a working induction plate set to boil water. Y’know, there’s always that conflict between rationality (my wedding ring is gold, which should not contain any iron compounds, therefore it will not heat up) versus emotion (put my hand on a hotplate that can boil water in less than 30 seconds?! Are you crazy?!). I’m happy to report that my hand, and ring, survived intact. Ah, the things I do for my readers.

    FURTHER WARNING: While the hotplate remains cool until something iron-based is put on it, the plate retains the heat of the saucepan after it’s done. While heat dissipation is quick, the plate is hot after cooking. Or, to put it another way, if you don’t believe me and want to try the hand-on-the-hotplate trick for yourself, do it before you begin cooking, not after, or you may get a nasty burn.

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