Steals From The East

Dad and I went for another round at the Expo today as there was a Pet Expo on and we wanted to see if there was anything nice for Barkley, and maybe look to see if there are any dogs we might be able to adopt. Other than that, there were a few samples being given away and we took some for Barkley. Then they were giving away cat kibbles and dad blindly took them, and I thought I could always give them to Adi's girlfriend, or make friends with some strays. There were a few dogs there I would gladly adopt, but I'd have to ask Barkley first. He can be a bit crazy sometimes.

Later on we went to the fair Watsons was holding to look for a few household products and ended up with more snacks than anything. However, there was a deal on nail polish and I called Angie to check if she might want to get some, and she was happy to get a few colors. Following that was the book fair which helped me add a few more "branded" books to my collection. So far it's Bovril, Coca Cola, Heinz Baked Beans and Lyle's Golden Syrup. Wonder how many of these books are out there.

Following our Expo visit, we headed to Changi beach as Dad wanted to cast his net and check out what fish he might snag. Going in, he found the ground too muddy and soft, making it a big problem for him to stand. Furthermore, the strong winds were blowing the net back towards him, which didn't do anything to help in the cast. We decided to walk along the shore to check out what we could dig up and we ended up with a few oysters (only because we didn't have the right tools)

I would say it was a really fruitful day.

Setting Standards

I've been eating from this coffee shop for at least the last 30 years of my life (I can't account for the first 2and a half years), and it is a place that has set a few standards in my culinary journey. It is the place I had half boiled eggs which I slurped from a saucer, followed up by pouring my hot Milo in the same saucer to cool off, and then drank from. It was the place I got my first taste of assam laksa, the first kaya toast and also the most awesome iced Milo kosong. So far, I haven't found any kaya toast and iced Milo kosong that have even come close to the ones I get at Chin Hin Eating House. 

Problem with these standards is finding another place which does things just as good. Other than the passing of the lady who made the assam laksa, the coffee shop, along with the neighboring blocks, are all moving out. While some of the shops have found another location, the owner of this coffee shop has no time to search for one as yet. So now everything is in limbo, and I shall have to wait patiently to find out if I will ever get another place to chill out with a refreshing iced Milo kosong and crispy, buttery, sweet, salty kaya toast.  

Guess I have to learn to make my own kaya toast for now… hmmm….

I Love Eggs

My favourite food has always been the simple egg. Soft-boiled, hard-boiled, poached, scrambled, fried or whichever way it's done, I like it. Sadly, eggs had to be drastically cut out of my diet when it was struck by HFMD, which gave me some weird rashes when I ate more than 1 in a week. Oh the misery of looking at breakfast menus and pining over a a typical full English. 

However, that problem seemed to have passed after a while, and it could be due to the eggs being produced these days, with added vitamins and minerals. So once I didn't get weird rashes from too much eggs, one of the first things I made was an egg mayo sandwich. Full of eggy goodness!

Can't wait to try the egg mayo sandwiches Angie have been raving about though…. Om Nom Nom!

The Knife That Broke

Things seems to improve with technology but seems like they also start to get more fragile. So we can now look at the people calling us over the phone, but a hard knock and there goes the screen. 

Today's hard knock seem to happen to the knife I was using to try cutting off a piece of nougat. The nougat wasn't tough, but if I broke it off, it would have been too big. So as I was trying to cut a piece of nougat, the handle of the knife broke off, leaving the blade stuck in nougat. Not sure who bought this knife, or if it was some freebie, but it's crap! 

Air Fried Snacks

We've been using the air fryer to experiment with a lot of things ever since we brought it out of hiding for our CNY reunion dinner. Air-fried whole prawns are one of the best things to come out of that gadget, but not everything comes out as nice as it would out of a hot oil bath. The good thing about air fryer is cooking meat with fat around it. Most of the fat liquifies to help make any skin crispy, and the excess drips away. However, things like mantous don't turn out with soft and fluffy insides when you finally get the skin browned enough. What turns out good are chicken tails and necks. Low heat and slow cooking just makes the fat drip away and turn the skin crispy.

So good I only got a picture when it was half gone.

Hanging Gardens At Westlake Mansions

I get a message this morning from my aunt asking if I'd like to head down to Sungei Tengah to get some vegetables and plants. My aunt has a strange affinity for flowers; she's like a bee, attracted to any bright colored flowers, even on the ugliest of plants. It might be because my grandmother used to have a wonderful amount of plants outside the house, most of which were orchids that bloomed with an assortment of colored flowers. And ever since I found a place which sold little orchids for cheap, right next to farm-fresh vegetables, Kok Fah Farms was a place she'd always asked if we were free to take her to. 

Since then, dad and I managed to find another place with really nice plants at low prices and since we were already in the area, we had to bring my aunt there for a look. Eco Garden sells a different range of orchids. Mom already fell in love with the ones we got for her for the birthday, and bought a few more herself when I brought her there with Angie. This time, my aunt got a look and was so happy to find the amount of flowers they had available. 

I on the other hand, was just looking at the edible stuff which I'll probably blog about once I've got it done to my satisfaction. For now, all I will show is mom's hanging garden, which was started with some donations from my aunt. I'm wondering how crazy this would get. 

Local Flavours Are Best

On the topic of sales held at the Expo, I love the finds at food events. Although most times there are the same old big companies trying to ply their goods, there are the smaller companies trying to breakout into the market, or find experimental flavours of old favourites. 

One of the first finds I had was dried bean curd skin, about the size and shape of tortellinis. I haven't seen it in supermarkets, and they made a simple dish with it just using spring onion, garlic and soy sauce. Well other than my love for bean curd skin, the dish actually sold me as you could taste all the flavours that had been absorbed by the bean curd skin. 

Another item was Noi Noi's range of sausages. I like sausages with a casing that snaps and cracks under your bite, with a slightly chewy, meaty filling. This obsession was because of the Viking Hotdog we used to have in Singapore, and Noi Noi got memories flooding back. However, Noi Noi managed to capture my dad because of the use of bacon wrapped around their pork sausage, while I really liked their MaLa flavour which is like a silent killer that creeps up on you. Seriously good on a bun, with instant noodles or just on their own!

At another event, we found an old favourite with new flavours, bamboo stick ice cream, or more commonly known as Potong ice cream. These ones were done by Rasa Sayang and they had Coconut, Cempedak and Cendol flavours. I couldn't decide, and since it wa cheaper to buy in bulk, I got all three for myself! 

Can't wait for more food discoveries!

Warehouse Bargains

I'm not one for crowds, but when it comes to getting a good deal out of a sale, I'd put on my boots made for walking and stomp right through. There are sales that can be held so often that you can skip a few and just bulk buy whatever you need in the next. Or there are the rare ones that you miss and hope it will be held in six months or wait another year. 

Big sales in Singapore are usually held in 2 places, Suntec City or Singapore Expo. Although Expo is further than Suntec, the good thing is the accessibility of sales schedules on the Expo website. This helps in planning your week, and when to execute a mass bargain hunting mission. Dad is always up for a hunting mission, and he got hooked with our first successful hunt at the Mayer sale. Now every time I ask if he wants to go for some sale or exhibition, he's always up for it. 

Today, we head to Expo for a few of the sales with Angie. We had planned to go on Saturday so that she didn't have to take time off from work, but our plans changed for different reasons. She had to go get some Tau Sai Piah and I didn't want to compete with people coming in for the Michael Learns To Rock concert. In the end, she took half a day off work and we met up at Expo for the book and clothes sale. Dad and I were there a little earlier and decided to look through the baby stuff sale to see if there was anything we could get for Brayden. 

All sales so far have either been rather well displayed, or at least only one sample was displayed while the rest required staff to get your order. I think the worst sale I've seen was the fashion one where all the clothes were just dumped into bins that everyone had to dig through. Wouldn't it be a chore once the sale ends and auditing starts?

Anyway, I guess we could call it a good hunt when we managed to get some stuff for Brayden, a birthday gift for Adi (birthday in March), and some good books and bookscrapping accessories. Time to start printing photos. 

My Personal Muppet

If you haven't noticed already, there's one four-legged fur ball that is featured in a few of my posts. His name is Barkley. Originally called Ah Wang, then Elvis, he was sadly passed up by 2 families and ended up with us. I'm not sure exactly what happened to him but he came to us not knowing or not able (I'm still unsure) to climb up stairs. Then we found he couldn't lift his leg like most male dogs when he peed, and he had a very sensitive left hind leg. Then I later realise that the left side of this jaw had teeth that was in odd positions. that didn't mirror the typical sure of a dog's jaw. I honestly think he had a really rough start in life.

Whatever is it, Barkley has been a joy to have. He brings out a happiness you see in the smile everyone has when they see the muppet bounding in on Sesame Street with his love. His love for the outdoors, love for everyone he meets, the crazy love for anything covered in tennis-ball-green felt, love (or obsession) for squeaky toys, the unrelenting love for the wind in his face, and his greedy love of liver. 

Just look at that face!

Sharing Is Caring

I guess in my case, sharing was part of caring for my cousin's son, Brayden. It seems like he always like to share whatever I'm eating, or at least check out what I have in my food bowl, and there are certain foods which he would sit absolutely still to enjoy.

Today was no different, and the thing that got him to be an very good boy was a crunchy, juicy Fuji apple.

App Testing

Was a little bored and decided to play around with the app, Photo Grid, which I've been using when I need to get a collage of pictures to post. I've been using the app for a while but have yet to try the 'Template' function in it. So I open it up only to find a very limited number of templates which were definitely not what I'd ever use for the photos I take. Then I found the list of new templates which I could download and started clicking on a whole load of them. 

As I was going through the templates, this one caught my eye and I decided to give it a go first. It started out with just a few pictures from London, and in the end, it ended up as a little summary of Adi's trip to England! Guess I'm happy with the result and it's obviously something I would use with the kind of pictures I take. 

Marathon Time

Mom took a nap after her babysitting gig and woke up around 10 to catch the latest episode of NCIS. All of us then seemed to be wide awake and with no other new series on tv, mom finally decides to watch the stuff I've got on the computer. Basically, this would be the first time we've used the Apple TV since my sis left. Now it's time to get the drinks and snacks, sit back and get comfy for the longhaul.

Test Kitchen

Once in a while, the moods and ideas just gel together and I would end up getting a few recipes tested out in the kitchen. Once in a while I'm joined by Adi. Once in a while they fail, and once in a while the results are awesome.

So this weekend, I was actually craving something like a lemon meringue tart, just without the meringue. Yet, I didn't want something gummy like a lemon bar. Plus, I was too lazy to go all the way out just looking for a lemon tart, and I couldn't seem to find any everywhere I went. Since I planned to make Nutella tarts to help finish the bottle Adi opened a while back, I decided to try making lemon tarts. The idea to make Nutella tarts also came from the idea someone posted about Nutella Day, with a recipe for Nutella Dream Cookies, which we decided to try as well.

Mom also asked to try out a chilli crab recipe my aunt, Jeannie, mentioned a few days before. That led to us getting a few ingredients from Jurong Point, that led us to a Philips fair selling the air fryer my cousin wanted, which saw us buying a set for him, and then sending it to their house in Teck Whye Lane. On the way, I suggested picking a few belimbing, and so dad went hunting while mom and I continued on with the delivery. That's when the cooking list increased with a few more ideas to try.

In the end, within the 2 days, mom, Adi and I made Nutella Dream Cookies, Nutella Tart, Lemon Tart, Chilli Crab, Whole Apple Pies, Belimbing Chutney, Belimbing Pickles and even Candied Belimbing. PHEW!

Airport Nosh

Once again, the album dug out another dish that made me drool with both the hunger to eat and travel. This was the chicken pate served at the bar in Heathrow Airport's terminal 1 departure area. Oddly I can't remember the name of the place, but it was on the left corner right after immigration. The strange thing about this pate was that it was exactly like the one I remembered having a few years back, before immigration, at terminal 3. However, looking at the list of pubs and restaurants available, there doesn't seem to be any in both terminals of the same name. Stranger still is that both serve their pate the same way, on a board. The strangest thing is, I didn't take a photo of the first one I ate!! 

Anyway, this definitely made skipping the inflight sandwich worth it, and I would definitely lengthen a transit in Heathrow, or just fly there for this one. 

One Of The Best Things About Singapore

One of the best things about Singapore is that the food scene has been expanded to a point where you can get almost any country's famous dish. Anyone can say that every particular dish will always be best sampled in the original country, but you can't deny that proud countryfolk wouldn't try their best to replicate them. Other than particular ingredients that might be hard to come by in Singapore, most streetfare and grandmothers' recipes require what is readily available.

Lucky is someone like me who loves my travels and food. With the ease in which I can satisfy my cravings for food from foreign lands without having to bring along my passport, I'd say I'm a happy camper in Singapore. Just like heading down to Malaysia Boleh at Jurong Point to get a lovely, flavourful and well-balaced bowl of Penang laksa. The lines for the Penang char kway teow and oyster omelette were really long as the frying process was really slow. However, good things come to those who wait, in this case at least.

It was like dinner in Penang again, and topped off with the cendol for dessert. Big savings on the travel and accomodation, with just as big a satisfaction in the tummy.

For The Love Of....

As I was posting the travel photographs onto Facebook, I couldn't help drooling when I got to these 4 pictures of the early dinner we had at the Lobster Pot at Portland Bill. The crabcakes, crab salad, crab sandwiches, and scones with jam and clotted cream are to die for. I would definitely travel all the way to Dorset just to have that, and have done so the 3 times I was there. So far, I've not had anything done so good, and so simply really.

Now I need to find a way to replicate this or find cheap airfares!

Need Some Colour

My room is turning out whiter than I'd like and I'm wondering if I should add some colour or do some stencil work on the cupboards. It might be nice considering my birdcage candle holder has a nice pattern I could try to replicate yet I think that would be a little too much. 

Or I could fill empty spaces up with colour?

The One Thing I Like About Paris

After the 2 days in Paris, I realise that it is one city I did not like, and other than to visit Disney Studios which we didn't have enough time for, I probably will not go back there again by choice.

However, I did enjoy the food, and one of the first things I had in Paris was a Croque Monsieur from Disneyland. It was really well done, considering I took the one with a huge patch of browned cheese. The sliced brioche had a really good toast on the outside, and yet stayed really soft. Cheese in the centre, just like the top, melted into that perfect stringy texture. Even the ham was lovely, not too salty and thin enough to give a nice flavor and texture to the whole dish.

Now that is one thing I crave from Paris, but I still rather go to other parts of France for it if I ever was that desperate.

Childhood Favourites 05

Today mom made another one of my childhood favorites, although she didn't use my favorite or 2nd favourite filling. My grandmother called them potato cutlets, and was the one who made the first ones that the blew my mind. They're made like bergedils, the potato balls that go great with soto ayam, but my grandmother's twist was to mix them with luncheon meat instead. The luncheon meat kind are my 2nd favourtie filling though. The one that really captured my heart was when she made them with sardine. A potato-sardine cutlet, eaten with a green chilli akin to prawn vadai - absolute heaven!

Mom made a new version with corned beef or mutton, depending on what she found in the pantry. We never had corned beef as my grandmother was a buddhist. Since my dad, grandfather and brother-in-law love their corned beef, as well as it being halal for Adi to enjoy, it was quite easy to see why mom decided to make these instead - more mouths to finish a big batch!

Spreading Some Pepper Love

During this year's reunion dinner, my cousin Javier took a liking to my battery-operated pepper grinder as it was quite easy to use and was just as simply designed. My pair was bought while on my trip to Australia and it really has come in handy, especially with you need to pepper your food while cooking, or even when marinating, and you don't have 2 hands to work a manual grinder. The best thing it is for is actually for pasta and soup, when you just need that bit of freshly ground black pepper to add a lovely hit of earthly spice

So while out with Angie at JEM, I was walking in Robinsons when I saw them being sold there, and with a discount to top it off. Since I was looking for another one myself, I ended up getting Javier a pair  instead of waiting till his birthday in November. Goes to show how much he liked it as he sent his dad to pick it up the day I posted it out to him online.

Beggars Aren't Choosers

Went out with Angie today and I felt like I needed to have a cup of coffee the whole day, preferably with some soy milk. In the end, we went to McDonald's after dinner and shopping and I got some iced black coffee from McCafe. Honestly, the coffee is alright, but somehow, even with 3 shots of espresso in it, they still managed to make it diluted. Guess I've to ask for an iced espresso next time, if there is a next time. The whipped cream didn't even help either. Thank goodness for the brownie though.

An Addict Since Four

I got my first blue passport that allowed travel between Singapore and West Malaysia in 1985, and that also meant that it was the first year I started getting out of the country. Ever since, I've been enjoying my adventures out of the country, but my adventures have gone much further than West Malaysia after I got a red passport.

I remembered the first few trips were mainly to Malaysia, and by long car rides. A memorable one was to Genting and I remembered 3 things very clearly - my grandmother having a go at the sharp shooter game near the casino, "chicken in a basket" dish (which was so good, I could eat everyday), and frozen in fear over crossing the bridge over the swimming pool (which I still am some what uncomfortable with). Obviously, this trip was probably the one that got me hooked as it was basically awesome new experiences and 99% of the memories were awesome.

The second big trip definitely got me hooked on flying. Well, I don't exactly love turbulence that comes with flying, but it is the fastest way to get to far off destinations. However, my first flight was only to Kuala Lumpur on a big Malaysian Airlines plane that had little bumps on the way. The take off was exciting and I was seated next to some guy with mom and sis behind me. After landing in KL, we were soon onto our second flight to Pangkor on a tiny little propellor plane that took about 10 passengers. Everyone was a bit skeptical about it, but it obviously got us to our destination, and boosted my confidence in air travel.

If only we had digital cameras then, so that taking photos would be much easier as you would know if the shot was good in an instant. However, I didn't have a camera, and mom was too busy making sure we didn't freak out to take pictures out of that tiny plane window to compare them to what I do now.

Twisting An Old Recipe 02

I've always loved the chilli crab sauce, but eating crab while it's hot isn't one of my favourite things. A while back, I had a chilli crab pasta and it gave me an idea to substitute the crab with prawns. Since it could work as a pasta sauce, I didn't see why I couldn't work as a dish alone. Then just before CNY, I got a few bags of frozen crayfish and thought I do a chilli crayfish instead. However, the freezer wasn't closed properly yesterday, causing the prawns to defrost. So I ended up with a big pot of chilli prawn and crayfish.

What better to do when  you have a big pot of food? Share! So I told Uncle Dennis to come for some and they brought the perfect accompaniment, mantous!

Twisting An Old Recipe

I wanted to test the oven on the apple pie recipe again, but didn't want to bother with making 9 mini pies. Since I already tried this for my sister's birthday party, I decided on making the apple slice so mom could have a try. 

Seems like we managed to get the oven setting right this time as the party didn't get to dark. So now we've got a new version we could do for Christmas so everyone can share, along with the little pies to take home. 

Seasonal Experiments

Just last year, my mom reintroduced me to this super sour fruit. She didnt have much ideas as to what to do with them other than slicing them into her sambal belacan, and that was best eaten with fried fish. Furthermore, we usually got only a handful or two of these at a time when they are in season, which made it hard to experiment with. 

Lucky for us, her cousin has a huge tree that happens to be bearing a lot of fruit just as Uncle Raymond visited them for CNY. He brought about 10 handfuls of fat, juicy fruits back to our place, more than enough for Uncle Dennis and experiments. The suggestions then came in with stories about people using it as replacement for tamarind and made me wonder what else I could do with it. Mom also wondered how it would taste if it was pickled. 

Guess it's time for some experiments.

Childhood Favourites 04

Went to the Floating Platform at Marina Bay today for the annual River HongBao and found another favorite of mine in the food corner. Putu Piring, similar to Kueh Tutu, but there's less rice flour mixture, lots more gula melaka, and no pandan leaf to sit on. The texture also differs from the chinese version as this is more like a dense sponge cake even if it's over-steamed. The kueh tutu somehow feels like gum paste in the mouth when it's over-steamed. 

Anyway, I can't really remember when I first ate one of these, but I do remember mom getting some kueh tutu from the coffeeshop under the Tai Chung building. They were either filled with the sugared shredded coconut or peanuts, but I loved the chewy texture of the rice flour mixture and the lovely panda smell. However, once I tried a putu piring, the gula melaka just got me hooked. There are some stalls that place these on pandan leaves, and that just makes it all sooooooo good!

Learning From Kids

Manvinder's son, Aaryan, got his own bowl of noodles and a plastic spoon so he could feed himself as we had dinner together As all of us were enjoying our dinner and were chatting about the mundane, we caught sight of how Aaryan was eating and it only brought laughs to all of us. So it's no problem if you eat messily as long as you enjoy it so much that you lick the spoon clean!

Beach Combing

The tide was really low and we went to Changi beach again to check out what yummy gems we could get. Other than the edible stuff we got, there were a few cool finds hidden in many spots across the exposed seabed. Fat starfish, skinny starfish, lots of hermit crabs, corals, weird weeds n anemones. Cool to know there's a good amount of sealife even with the traffic in our surtounding waters.

Christmas Treat For CNY

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!! Day 1 of Chinese Lunar New Year and everyone came over to our place for dinner as planned. We had a few usual things on the menu and mom had place the christmas pudding on the trolley together with the rest of the sweet stuff. Looking at the pudding, I decided it was no better time to cut it up for everyone to eat as everyone wouldn't mind something new. Looking at the box, it was named "hidden orange christmas pudding" and I wondered how hidden the orange would be. Cutting into the pudding, I realised they hid the whole orange in the pudding, and it was really nice with the liquor and sugar soaked into it. Other than it being really sweet, it was a refreshing treat to the same old CNY goodies.