Ancient Kingdoms

I have been missing for a while, but here i am back with pictures of a "recent" trip i have been. I know many will debate about the definition of recent, but time is relative right? These were pictures from Vietnam (Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh), Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Siam Reap), Thailand (Bangkok). Unfortunately, descriptions will be kept to a minimal due to the large amount of pictures =P.

Hanoi Grilled Fish. Really Oily Fish.

Hanoi Fire Sauce - Tabasco?

Ice Cream

Meat balls with BBQ sauce, Curry Chicken, Mango Stir Fried Fish

Amok Fish i believe that is what they call it.

premium pasta at pasar prices

It has often been said the east of Singapore is where all the good food is and to a certain extent there is some truth there. With this latest discovery, the West is now one up. Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre is well known for its carrot cake (chai tow kuay) and a few other hawker centre comfort food. But recently, it is the location for another gem of a find. Affordable western cuisines have been popping up in various locations all across Singapore and this latest addition is perhaps the only hawker centre pasta find where one is able to enjoy a sophisticated truffle-scented carbonara at hawker centre prices…. Read it again, it’s truffle-scented carbonara!

Le Pasta is a recently opened place for pasta and helmed by a chef who had previously worked at the kitchen of a very popular and chic restaurant (which shall be left unnamed). He whips up a selection of classic favourites such as bolognese, vongole, arrabiata to the classier frutti de mare (seafood), amatricianna and even the ‘exotic’ puttanesca (with olives and anchovies). And you have a choice of pastas as well - linguini, spaghetti and penne. Le Pasta is pasta that you will get from swanky Italian restaurants that charge between $15 to $25, which you get a fraction of the price without any discounts on the taste or the quality or the freshness of the ingredients.

As the truffle-scented carbonara was not available on the day we went, we settled for the creamy al funghi, the amatricianna and the aglio olio. The al funghi was good, with a creamy sauce that well executed and well balanced. The tomato-based amatricianna was generously sprinkled with onions and chopped crispy bacon which added ‘oomph’ to the pasta. But perhaps what wowed me most was the aglio olio.

I have always believed that the true test of a pasta restaurant is in the execution of the simplest aglio olio. The one served here has a generous amount of sliced garlic and a sprinkling of chopped chilies to kick up the taste a few notches. The garlic was sufficiently pan fried such that the garlicky scent is evident without the bitter aftertaste of overdone garlic. It was a simple pasta dish excellently executed. The great thing about the pasta here is that if you need to kick up your dish a few notches, you have the option of adding various other toppings to your pasta, such as tiger prawns, bacon and even seafood.

The mushroom soup also deserves a mention. It is NOT your typical canned mushroom soup served with some freshly chopped mushrooms. Rather is it a sophisticated mushroom soup that is served with freshly blended button and shitake mushrooms.

I returned 2 days later (with another of my friends) and ordered another two pastas, the truffle-scented carbonara and the pesto. I did not have my camera with me and cannot tempt you with the pictures. But like the aglio olio, both these pastas wowed me over yet again.

di, who's friends with the chef, has also eaten here and he added that the Frutti de Mare is also excellent choice. Pasta at a pasar….. well, make a trip to Le Pasta and be bowled over yourself! It’s premium Italian pasta at pasar prices!

Rating: 4 byps

Le Pasta

#02-158, Bukit Timah Road Market
Bukit Timah Road

peace for di.... always

It’s always a difficult decision when it comes to planning a birthday dinner for di. We’ve eaten at quite a number of places, as evidenced by the blog entries here and it probably takes a lot of thinking to surprise di. So when he’s birthday came around, I was down to two choices. The first, a western cuisine and the second a recent food find in Macpherson. I finally opted for the Cantonese eatery since di has had another birthday celebration at Garibaldi’s. Guess I will leave the other option to sometime towards the end of the year…. hehe.

In some ways the place bears a similar Chinese name to that famous hotel in Shanghai, Peace Hotel and the food they serve is definitely comfort food. Wo Peng Eatery is opened by Chef Julian Tam Kwok Fai, who was the former executive Chef of The Furama Palace, in Chinatown. Wo Peng is famed for their double boiled soups as well as their seafood dishes.

As we arrived a little later than the usual dinner time, we were a little disappointed that di was not able to have his double boiled shark bone soup as they were sold out by then. In place, di had another herbal soup which was double boiled with a few root looking like herbs and with pork. The soup tasted pretty flavourful for one (like me) who’s uninitiated in Chinese herbal soups.

We ordered also the specialty here at Wo Peng which is fried fish skin served with a rich broth. The skin was so crisp, it was much like the crackers (koropo) that we are familiar with in this part of the world. We were told that we could either eat the fish skin separately or to dip it in the soup before eating it. It’s one of those dished where one is able to enjoy not only the sight and taste but also the sound of the dish as the crispy fish skin crackles as it is dipped into the soup. A thoroughly enjoyable appetizer.

The next dish to arrive was the venison with a particular kind of mushroom what had the texture of chicken ham. It was a good combination of meat with fungi/vegetables. The mushroom had a chewy texture which well complimented the tenderness of the venison.

The dish to complete the dinner was the famed lobster noodles. Being the typical traditional person, no birthday dinner is complete without eating some kind of noodles and Wo Peng serves up an awesome lobster noodles. The stock for the noodles is well-scented with the use of ginger slices and spring onions and the chef was generous with the pieces of plump and juicy lobster.

The good thing about Wo Peng is that it is restaurant food served at tze-char prices, well maybe a little more than your typical HDB tze-char places but definitely value for money. A great place to have that typical Chinese birthday dinners for a couple of tables. It was a great place for dinner with di. We were quite stuffed and decided against desserts since we were headed to a café to round off the celebrations.

Good food with family. I am at peace……and praying too that peace will not only prevail here but also for di as he celebrates another birthday.

Rating: 3.5 byps


Wo Peng Eatery
476 Macpherson Road
Tel 67479892

teacher's day dinner...'imperial' pleasures

It’s becoming a sort of a tradition when di invited me to dinner this year to commemorate Teacher’s Day. I was his pastoral care tutor while I was in ACS and that has been about a decade ago. We eat together quite a bit but this was no less a heart tugging affair for me.

We arrived at Huang Ting, which was a place we had wanted to try having seen it at Central. But the fact that it’s tucked away in some obscure corner probably is not helpful, especially since we seem to be the only diners there that evening; di joked that it was because he had made reservations for the entire place that evening! But the lack of diners should not be attributed to the quality of the food at Huang Ting. The dishes we ordered were very good.

Knowing that Peking duck is one of favourites, we ordered half a duck. The skin was exceptionally crisp. The only grumble I have was that it was served in egg crepes rather than the typical wheat dough, which is a more authentic version. But egg crepes are perhaps more typical of a Cantonese interpretation of this Beijing delicacy. Each bite however, was packed with a crunch and balanced with a flavourful sweet bean sauce.

We tried two different soups. I chose the hot and sour soup while di had the ‘Tam Kar’ seafood broth which was perhaps a better choice, given that this is a Cantonese restaurant. The soup was chockfull of seafood and is a typical comfort food.

So it was with the tofu dish. di ordered the tofu with spinach and assorted mushrooms. It was a simple dish but very well executed as the flavours exploded with each mouthful of the tofu.

The roast chicken is perhaps one of the most impressive dishes in Huang Ting. The crispness of the skin contrasted with the tender juiciness of the chicken meat, a typical Hong Kong specialty.

Huang Ting serves a buffet dinner too and for $38+++ one can basically try all the chef’s specialties on the buffet’s ala carte menu. We were initially tempted to check that out but were told that it was only available for a minimum of four diners. Given the total number of people in that restaurant that evening, perhaps the manager could have made a concession for these two diners who could have passed as four!

It was an enjoyable dinner made much more memorable because it was di’s way of celebrating teacher’s day for me. It was a meal that made me feel as like royalty and yet celebrated the loyalty we share as brothers. Writing this blog entry, I cannot help but be thankful for that opportunity to make a brief yet nonetheless significant impact on some of the students at ACS. And in the same token, my life has been so much more enriched. Thanks di!

Rating: 3.5 byps

Huang Ting Restaurant

6 Eu Tong Sen Street

The Central #04-63

Tel: 6410-9750

http://www.huang.com.sg

mango madness......

This is loooong overdue….. but perhaps this is well worth the wait especially if you are traveling to the other food haven of South East Asia, Bangkok. i was in Bangkok with ah di sometime in July this year and we were visiting with couz in Central Thailand.

While in Bangkok, ah di and i came across this gem of a dessert place smack in the middle of Siam Square, just opposite the Siam Paragon, the seeming favourite hangout of Singapore tourists in Bangkok. Mango Tango is fronted by an entire counter of fresh sweet thai mangoes.

di and i had already had a scrumptious lunch at another popular Thai restaurant at Siam Square, called SomTam. We hence decided to order a sampling of the different mango desserts available here. We ordered the khao niao ma muang, the mango with sago and a mango ska, sort of a mango slush, which is one of the popular items in Mango Tango.

Both the ska as well as the mango with sago were fulfilling for a mango junkie like me but di and i agree that the khao niao ma muang (mango sticky rice) is definitely one of the best that we ever had. Ripe chunks of succulent mango that is accompanied with a serving of sticky rice, drizzled with rich coconut milk and sprinkled with a generous touch of fried mung beans. The crispy mung beans added a completely different texture to the whole traditional Thai dessert. The mango sherbet on the side was an equally refreshing addition to the dessert.

So the next time you are in Bangkok, make a point to come to Mango Tango. And it seems that this dessert place has won numerous accolades in Japanese travel magazines. Mango Tango is a gem of a find and one which will leave a tingling in your tummy and a tingling in your feet, as you tango your way home.

Rating: 4 byps

Address:
Mango Tango Cafe
318 Siam Square
Soi 4, Rama 1 Rd
Bangkok
Thailand

paradise revisited

When couz came back on another one of his visa runs, we decided to return to Paradise again, more accurately Seafood Paradise@Flyer since our last visit at the seemingly remote location at Defu Lane had been memorable. It was a reunion of sorts for couz, di and i since we have had not eaten together for some time. The stylishly designed interior of this latest restaurant of the Paradise Group was a visual hors d’oeuvres. The food….. well, almost celestial! They don’t call it paradise for nothing!

We ordered a seafood tofu soup which came piping hot in a coconut! It was a stroke of culinary ingenuity as the flavor of the fresh coconut was infused into the soup though the steaming process.

The prawn bacons rolls enrobed in a tangy barbeque sauce was another treat! I guess you can only let your eyes do the feasting…..

We also ordered the coffee ribs, which was very well executed, with a great balance of the contrasting flavours of soy and coffee. Definitely for the caffeine addicts!

Couz’s favourite fish is cod and no dinner is complete without an order of cod. The baked cod in teriyaki sauce was delicately exquisite and served with French flair. The melt-in-the-mouth smoothness of the cod was well marinated and baked to perfection.

No visit to Seafood Paradise is complete without an order of their crab dish. Of all the different permutations of preparing crabs, we highly recommend the crab in superior stock (which comes with tang hoon or vermicelli) AND their signature butter crab.

The crab with superior stock is simply a dish in a class of its own. It’s a dish that both couz and di has had at the other Seafood Paradise at Defu Lane. This was my first and i can finally understand the well deserved accolades.

The butter crab came in a pool of butter cream stock, sprinkled with a brown toasted ‘crunchies’ which we later found out was deep fried coconut bits. Yet again it demonstrated the chef’s creativity. The blend of textures and flavours added to the buttery goodness. Deep fried mantous only added to the indulgence.

For the calorie-conscious, there is little need to be overly concerned since this is, after all, Paradise.

Rating: 4 byps

Address:
Seafood Paradise@Flyer
30 Raffles Avenue 01-01
Singapore Flyer
Tel: 63365101

duh! It's D'bun!

It’s a ritual for me on a weekly basis, standing in front of this little shopfront after church, waiting for the bus to take me to town to get another bus home. Yes, I am one of those who have to rely on public transport. And on one of those extended waits, I ventured into this little haven. I had often wondered why so many inconsiderate drivers would park their vehicles in the bus bay for that mandatory stop to pick up some ‘paus’. It finally dawned on me why they would risk the honking of the frustrated bus driver and the dirty looks of the irritated passengers waiting to board the bus…. here was one special ‘pau’ shop - duh!

I was introduced to the shop’s latest innovation, the ‘shao rou cha siew pau’, the ubiquitous char siew pau with a piece of juicy tender roast pork, ‘shao rou’ encased in the sticky super savoury cha siew. I had to buy a couple for my family - my mum and ah di, who felt that the roast pork kicked the taste up a few notches.

For me, not being a great fan of roast pork, just the char siew alone makes my day. But perhaps the bigger gem of a find (for me), was this somewhat ‘normal’ looking ngoh hiang. But this too is also an innovation of the lady owner of D’bun. It is a tofu ngoh hiang, mixing tofu with minced pork and prawns to achieve a blend of flavours and texture that makes it this one of the best ngoh hiang I have had ever. Crispy on the outside, with a tofu and meat filling that is simply scrumptious. Little wonder that i have no complains each time i have to wait for the bus at this stop.

D’bun has other goodies as well, as is evident on their web site: www.dbun.com.sg. And I now know better whenever cars park at the bus stop to make a rush into the shop. Duh… they’re going to D’bun!

Rating: 4 byps


Address:
D'Bun
358 Joo Chiat Road
Singapore 427603
Tel 63448110

Culinary Delights of Chinatown X - final one in the series

Apologies that this post is so long overdue... As evidenced by the posts, there is seemingly one author for this blog right now and the author has been busy with lots of things and on top of all the busyness, the laptop decided to take a permanent ‘holiday’ - it crashed! Sigh. In any case, this is the last of the very long drawn series on the culinary finds in Chinatown. There are a lot more culinary discoveries in Chinatown to be introduced but we decided that we should begin with these ten. And for this last post, di and I have been vacillating if we should write about this last culinary find. It may not be too much of a secret for those who are familiar with Chinatown but it is a ‘secret’ that we had hoped to keep to ourselves for fear that the marauding hordes will cause an increase in price. But for all the faithful readers of this blog, we decided that this warrants the final coveted spot of culinary discoveries in Chinatown.

This is di’s favourite chicken noodle or you ji mian (油鸡面 ) stall and when he first brought me here, I was wowed by the tender chicken breast meat and the springy texture of the noodles. The sauce used to braise the chicken seems to be some secret family recipe as evidenced by the fact that a few shops down the road, there is a similar chicken noodle stall that bears almost the same name albeit different by just an ‘i’ - Chiew Kee. It might have been some family squabble but I guess we’ll leave that to some culinary reporters who seem to relish in digging out the stories behind feuding foodie families. The important thing here is that the readers of this blog will go to the right you ji mian stall. Perhaps you might want to be adventurous and venture to discover the difference between this and the other one down the road. And if you do, please do keep us informed.

The chili which is stored in the ubiquitous plastic squirt containers also deserves a mention. It goes so very well with the chicken pieces adding a zing to it. The you ji mian itself is already fantastic, the chili sauce kicks it up another few notches. And if you are eating with friends, you’ll have to place an order for the prawn dumpling soup (shui jiao tang, 水饺汤) as well. The freshness of the ingredients and the flavours in those dumplings swimming in a bowl of soup that came from many hours of braising the chicken and other soup stock adds to the overall experience of eating at a simple street shop in Chinatown.

Need I continue? You’ll just have to head down to Upper Cross Street to check this out for yourself. Perhaps then you will understand our hesitation in letting this discovery out.

Address:
Chew Kee Eating House
8 Upper Cross Street
Singapore 058327
Tel 62220507

Culinary Delights of Chinatown IX

With Chinese New Year just around the corner, i figure that this post should be timely. This is probably one tid-bit that every household will buy in celebrating the Spring season and it's definitely one of my favourite CNY delicacies. It's a must have for all 'carnivores' - i am referring to the ubiquitous 'bak kwa' (barbeque sliced pork).

Of late there has been news about the spike in prices of barbeque pork and the extremely long lines in Chinatown as the New Year approaches. As i post this entry, it is going at an almost ridiculous price of $50 per kilogramme! And the wait is for at least 3-5 hours! I am referring to the name that is synonymous with 'bak kwa' in Chinatown - Lim Chee Guan.

i figure that they do not need this publicity, there is already a huge following as evident by the crazy long snaking queues. Thanks to di, i get to enjoy Lim Chee Guan all year round and also during the CNY. There is something inexplicable about the bak kwa from LCG, but it's definitely an enjoyable experience each and every bite.

But there is more than Lim Chee Guan in Chinatown. di's mum also bought me bak kwa from another famed Chinatown shop and since i've eaten from this other place, i have actually come to like it as much as LCG. The slices of bak kwa is not made from minced meat but whole slices and looks a little desiccated but the real test is in the taste. The bak kwa is unbelievably tender and the blend of spices that went in the marinate makes it the CNY equivalent for potato chips - there is no stopping at only one piece! Priced at $45 a kilo and where one does not need to spend hours in a line waiting to buy it, i strongly recommend this if you prefer not to stand in line, an extremely long line at that! Incidentally, i am referring to Kim Hock Guan which is also in Chinatown.


Kim Hock Guan does not look as 'glitzy' as the recently made-over Lim Chee Guan. The signboard looks very much like the usual shops in Chinatown that has not been exposed to the artwork of urban advertising professionals and there is still an air of tradition in it. So before the stock runs out and before the crowd gathers, it's time to get down to Chinatown to soak in some of the Chinese New Year festive atmosphere and get yourself and your loved ones a packet (or two, er... make that three... erm... four) of the snack of choice for Chinese New Year!

And before we forget, we (di, couz and myself) here at jialard wish you all a blessed and prosperous Chinese New Year! Huat ah!!!

Address:
Lim Chee Guan
203 New Bridge Road
Singapore 059429

Kim Hock Guan
150 South Bridge Road
#01-02 Fook Hai Building
Singapore 058727

thai kingdom come

This is the first post of 2008 and I figured I should share a great culinary find to begin the year. I was introduced to this restaurant by a Thai friend of mine, Boat. i have known Boat for more than a decade and if a Thai tells you that this is his favourite Thai restaurant in Singapore, i don’t think i have the audacity to disagree. i could not withhold such good news from ah di and so we found ourselves coming to E-Sarn for dinner a week after Boat bought me lunch there and I ordered the exact same dishes that Boat had ordered too!

E-Sarn presents a selection of Thai food from the northeast region of Thailand and one of the more prominent E-sarn dishes is the grilled pork (kor mu yang). The grilled pork was sliced into strips and served with some raw vegetables and a piquant chili sauce which is an infusion all the flavours that are synonymous with Thai cuisine.

Instead of the usual tom yum soup, I was introduced to another alternative tom sab, which is a spicy soup that is somewhat different from the ubiquitous tom yum goong. It seems that there is more of a sweet and yet tangy flavour to the soup that is derived from tomatoes. While we had ordered this soup with chicken, we were served the soup with pork instead. It was a very minor hiccup but the we still enjoyed the soup nonetheless.

We also ordered a dish of beef with basil (nuer pad kra pao). While more often the meat cooked with basil is of the minced variety, E-Sarn’s interpretation was to serve thinly sliced beef strips with basil in a great tasting sauce. This is perhaps a simple and typical Thai dish, yet the E-sarn’s dish more than outstrips many other Thai restaurants.

Boat mentioned that his favourite dish at E-Sarn is kung ob woon sen, which is prawns with tang hoon (vermicelli). Served piping hot in a clay pot, the vermicelli had absorbed all the rich flavour of the stock used to cook this dish and further infused with the whole stems of coriander and cloves of garlic. While other reviews had raised questions about the freshness of the prawns, i have had no such similar complaints on both my visits to E-Sarn. The prawns were relatively large and went very well with the vermicelli. ah di and i enjoyed this dish a great deal too.

To round off the meal, di and i shared an order of khao neow ma muang, mango with glutinous rice and a serving of coconut ice cream with nuts and nata de coco. The sweetness of thai mangoes are just unbelievable. And we came to the conclusion that the Thais must have watered their fruit trees with sugared water to make most Thai fruits so unbelievably sweet. The glutinous rice that was served with the incredibly sweet mangoes exuded a fragrance which pointed perhaps to the use of coconut milk. The coconut ice cream I ordered was also out of this world. The peanuts and the nata de coco added much to the ice cream in terms of texture. But the ice cream would have been a winner on its own too. The richness of the coconut milk used in the ice cream was simply amazing.

Compared with the most other Thai restaurants, we do concur with Boat’s assessment that E-Sarn is easily one of the best reasonably priced Thai restaurants in Singapore. Enjoy the best of the Thai northeast, right here in Singapore!

Rating: 4 byps

Address:
E-Sarn Thai Cuisine
20 Sixth Avenue
Singapore 276479
Tel 64625608