Drunken Fried Beehoon

Sunday and creativity can do wonders. I was feeling productive when i woke up at 9am today so i decided to take a look at my kitchen cabinet. I rarely cook at home and usually eat out just because it is more convenient and therefore, I have an almost empty kitchen cabinet. But then, I saw a packet of beehoon (rice vermicelli) and I thought, okay I should make fried beehoon. I opened up my fridge and Its empty, no veggie at all. All I had was half can of spam, a tau kee (fried dried beancurd), and a quarter of soybean paste chili. Luckily, I remembered the time when I went to one of the fried beehoon store at redhill market and saw the way the uncle cook. The key is: BROTH. So, I quickly opened up my kitchen cabinet and there I found.. the miracle broth: Drunken Chicken Hotpot Broth. So, putting all these ingredients together, I made fried beehoon. Here is the details:

Ingredients - portion for 2:

1/2 packet of rice vermicelli
1/2  packet of drunken chicken broth, mixed with 500mL of hot water.
2 spoons of soybean paste chili
spam (as much or as little as you want), chopped
taukee (again, as little or as much as you want), chopped.
5 cloves of garlic, chopped.
oil for frying and stir frying
~ 3 tablespoon of soysauce
~ 2 tablespoon of pepper for seasoning (adjust to liking).

To make:
1. Soak the beehoon in a hot water to soften the beehoon. It will take roughly 5-10minutes. It gets soft pretty quickly. Drain, put in a bowl, sprinkle a tiny bit of oil so it won't stick to each other.

2. Heat up oil, stir in spam and taukee (at this point, you can put pretty much anything that you would want to fry). Cook until golden and set aside.

3. Heat up oil in a wok, stir in garlics and soybean paste. Cook until fragrant then dump in all the beehoon. Stir until the colours are even. Slowly, pour a little bit of the broth and cook until the water all drains out and then put in more broth, around 1/2 cup at a time. Put the wok lid and wait for about 3-4 minutes until the water drains out and the beehoon is soaked with the "miracle broth".  Turn off the fire and top with spam and taukee (or any other thing that you want to add in).

4. Serve while its hot.

A hidden gem: Sushi Bar

Who am I kidding, I'm a major shopaholic and a glutton. My perfect choice of meals on a saturday when I just want to kick all the shops at the Orchard rd is a quick and fulfilling meal that can fuel my shopping for the whole day. For that, I came to a sushi bar located at Far East Plaza.

My good friend introduced this place to me. The place is pretty hidden, we got lost 2x before we actually found it. It is located at a corner of level 3, the exact location is #03-87. The place itself is very small, there are only 6 tables of 4. I ordered 3 things on this visit: aburi salmon with soft shell crab (heavenly), fried small fish a.k.a shishamo (again, really good!), and chawan mushi. None of these dishes fails. I believe this place need a little more advertising so here I am writing to promote this place!

Sushi Bar

Far East Plaza #03-87

No reservation required. 

A secret bar: The Library

At the heart of chinatown, there lies a stretch of hipster bars (seriously cool bars!). The one that I have recently visited was a bar called THE LIBRARY. If you passed the keong saik road, you might wont realize that the bar even existed. I went there once but then I missed the place the second time. Luckily, I memorized their address. The front of the bar is just a bookshelf and to enter you need a password. The password changes every week and you need to enquire before you get it. Pretty unique, huh?!

Enough of that. I went there on Saturday at 7PM (yes, I know its early for a drink but I was trying to avoid the crowd). When I went in, the bar was pretty empty and I was just loving it. The place smells really good too. Now, I need to make a note to ask them what candles they are using the next time I visit. Just FYI, the bar usually get really packed by 9PM, so come before then with a password in hand!

It was just the two of us and we came with a mission to try this duckie drink (It turns out to be called duck-ah-dub-dub - correct me if i'm wrong). Also beware, this drink is meant to be share by 4 people as it is HUGE and quite potent. I also ordered chili fries and Iberico Ham with cheese toastie. To my surprise, they are REALLY GOOD! I made it a point to bring more friends to this place just for this.
The rest of their menu seems really good too, the table next to us ordered Lobster sandwich and it looked pretty good to me. The place really offered a unique cocktail experience (they also have mocktail,FYI) but we didnt get to try the rest of the drink menu. Overall, unique experience that I would probably be babbling about for the next 2 weeks or so.

Iberico Ham and Cheese Toastie

The infamous duckie-ah-dub-dub!

Cheers to the night!

 Address;
47 keong saik road
Chinatown. 089151

For pw, called earlier at: (+65) 6221 8338

Makassar: a food heaven

I finally feel that as a food blogger I should start promoting the food from the place where I grew up. As much as I love eat and travel and have tried many hatted restaurants,I guess nothing can beat the taste of hometown food. So, i am dedicating this blogpost in an effort to promote my very own hometown.

it is known to many Indonesians that Makasssar (used to be known as  Ujung Pandang) is a food heaven. Long ago, when my cousin visited us from Jakarta, he said Makassar could make him gain 10pounds in a week. Why? I'm telling u we have the Best of the Best cuisine.

The food in Makassar varies based on the time of the day.  It is also largely influenced by a mix of Chinese and Indonesian roots. Here is some of the food that you have to try when you visit:

1. Pangsit mie (wonton mee)
This food can only be found from breakfast till afternoon (usually 2-3pm). There are a lot of stores that sells this. My favorite is the one at Jalan sangir called pangsit mie palu.  Ask your guide to bring you there. The most famous one is angpinglao which in my opinion is overpriced.  Not as good as they used to be.

2. Gobar from ratu gurih
My bf favorite food in makassar. He go about promoting this dish to everyone here in sg.  Gobar is a fish dish made by frying and grilling hence the name gobar (goreng bakar ) . Again ask your guide about this place they should know.

3. Mie kwantong
Again this dish is very chinese inspired. In Singapore it is almost like horfun or ee mie.  But i still like the one back in Makassar. It is much tastier.  My family favorite is kios lombok located at jalan lombok.  While there also try the red fried rice and fried soya sauce boneless chicken (beware: it is life changing)

4. Ayam goreng sulawesi
Now this chicken dish is just everyone's favorite. I have the fondest childhood memory of this dish. My dad used to bring us eat there after we went for afternoon exercise. It is delish!! There are several store and they taste relatively similar. It is a musttt try. I don't know how to emphasize this enough.

5. Coto Makassar
I have to warn people first that this dish is an acquired taste and you have to be very open minded to eat them. The soup consisted of internal organs. From brain to intestine. This might sounds gross but mt favorite is the brain and the intestine. Lol. This is definitely a local favorite and a legacy Makassar should keep on passing to the next generations. Family favorite is coto nusantara at jalan nusantara.

Mie Kwantong - Kios Lombok

Fried Soya Sauce Boneless  Chieken - Kios Lombok

Red Fried Rice - RM. Ujung Pandang

Gobar Fish - RM Ratu Gurih

Ayam Goreng Sulawesi (Sulawesi Fried Chicken)

The "Pollen" Experience

I felt like a bee when I entered one the latest addition to Singapore's fine dining. Pollen really fits its name. It is established at one of the most famous tourist spot in Singapore: Gardens by the bay. For more info on the garden, here is the link: http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg/en/home.html. Now back to the Pollen. So, pollen is a mediterranean-inspired cuisine lead by a michelin star chef: Jason Atherton. He has another restaurant called Esquina, I have yet to go there but I will soon, I promise.

Anyway, I would say that the winning aspect of this restaurant is the Flower Dome, the buggy and the service. It is also unfair to leave out the dessert. But that's about it. We ordered an ala carte menu (thank God we made that wise decision): 2 appetisers, 3 mains and 4 desserts. The number of dishes were chosen based majorly on how we felt while reading the menu. There were 4 of us that night and as I said, we made a wise decision because we were too full at the end of our meal. Imagine if we had a degustation!!

So here is a breakdown of what we had that night:

Snack: Pork Crackling

Appetisers

1. Roasted Quail "Brunch" with foie gras on a toast, cereal, and quail tea
2. Back to front squid risotto, cauliflower, and roasted squid consomme.

Main

1. Rack of Lamb, Braised Shoulder, artichoke, sheep's curd, roasted salsify, olive
2. Iberico pork chop, belly, fermented apple, seeds, grains
3. Cote de beouf, duck fat chips, green salad

Desserts
1. Japanese "green tea", raspberry sorbet, yoghurt mousse
2. PB&J - peanut butter and blueberry sorbet
3. "Ocumare cremeux", pistachio parfait, honey saffron ice cream, toasted brioche.

and obviously some cocktail we can't leave out:

Mint, Lemon and Cucumber with Vodka (pretty much: lemon-cucumber mojito)

Back to front squid risotto, cauliflower, and roasted squid consomme

Roasted Quail "Brunch" with foie gras on a toast, cereal, and quail tea 

Rack of Lamb, Braised Shoulder, artichoke, sheep's curd, roasted salsify, olive

Iberico pork chop, belly, fermented apple, seeds, grains

Cote de beouf, duck fat chips, green salad

Pre desserts: Chocolate mousse with chocolate ball (seriously)

Verdict? I would say that apart from the beef (which had too much fats which according to the waiter, it is because its rib-eye steak thats why 50% of the meat consists of fat as if I have never eaten a rib eye in my life but oh well), the dishes are decent. Not a chef-hat or michelin star standard even for a one hat. I have tried many one chef hat restaurant in Sydney, such as Bistro Ortolan or even golden century and the food here doesn't come close to that. The dessert, however, is living up to the reputation. I think we digged in to the desserts way too fast, I couldn't even find a single picture of it. Must have been really good.

Anyway, it is a good place if you want ambience and a free entrance to the flower dome. You can book them online through : http://www.pollen.com.sg/#!/welcome or give them a call +65 6604 9988

 And for some extra: here is what I wear to the dinner. It was my bday so yes, I had to dress up for the occasion.

For more picture, here is my instagram account: #Followme!!

Famished...

was the state I was exactly in at 1PM on Saturday afternoon. Busy with work on weekdays, makes me reluctant too wake up earlier than 11am.. sleep in is all I was for. But realizing that brunch places fill up pretty fast on weekends helps me to get on my feet and made my way to Orchard.

As I said in my previous post, I have been craving for good brunch place and hardly found any. Last saturday, I decided to try Wild Honey to see what's all the fuss is about.

Went with 4 of my buddies, we were asked to wait for our table. Wild honey has 2 outlets, one at Mandarin gallery and the other at Scott Square. We decided to go for the scott square one because word has it, Mandarin gallery's wild honey is impossibly crowded on weekends. At scott square outlet, we were asked to wait for our table (they took reservation but I think they disconnected the line in the morning cause I couldn't get to them that morning). There were 6 table ahead of us but we got the table within half an hour, not too bad a wait for that kind of crowd. While we were waiting, we were offered a complimentary cake for tasting, its cranberry tea bread. In my honest opinion, I would say it's dry and slightly tasteless. If it would to be one of their signature breads, it needs slight changes in their recipe proportion.

When we were seated, we were pretty quickly served, the manager even went with us through their menu. Basically, they have 3 popular dishes: Big Brekkie (named English), Egg Benedict (French), and Baked eggs (Tunisian). We ordered 2 French and 2 Tunisian with accompanying tea/coffee. I had peppermint. The food came pretty quickly, filling up our little table in effect but it was still somewhat comfortable.

The egg benedict was served on their signature brioche (rather than a typical english muffin), mushroom and egg-wrapped in prosciutto and showered with generous serving of hollandaise sauce. The tunisian brekkie (a.k.a baked eggs), was pretty good too, the only thing that turned me off was their choice of chorizo. It is sweet and taste more like lapchiong (Chinese pork sausage). It doesnt go really well with that particular dish.

Overall, the place was a pretty enjoyable experience. I would definitely come back to chill while striving to find a brekkie that's close to Sydney :D

The end and the new beginning

Finding myself in Singapore for good is somewhat exciting. However, I must admit that the food culture isn't as broad and as elaborate as Sydney. True, there are plenty of local delish to choose from but I'm still struggling to adjust myself and be content with whatever the city has to offer. I have some favorite dishes in this country but tbh, I haven't found a favorite place where I am happy with as a whole package (i,e. ambience, food, service, etc). I truly miss finding myself on a sunny saturday morning sitting in a buzzing little suburban cafe surrounded by fashinoably dressed Sydney-siders accompanied by friends while indulging in my brekkie. Singapore, for some reason, lack this aspects of homey-feeling cafe. In general, the design of the cafes are way too modern for my taste and the weather is too horribly hot to suit up for my usual saturday morning regime.

One of the better place I found was the marmalade pantry at the Stables. Nothing like Sydney's cafe but I guess the remote location it established on makes it somewhat cozier than any other place I found so far. To reach the place, one must drive because if I recall correctly, the road to the place is so confusing. As the name implies, it is located near a horse stable so you may try to ride a horse adding to the overall experience in this place. I went there for an afternoon tea so I only get to try their dessert and I chose chocolate deluxe which tasted like the brownie I made (part of the reason I liked it, I guess).

Anw, as I thrive to adjust myself to this new place, I hope to really find something I can fall in love with and return to Sydney in a very very near future.