Old has gone... New has come

It is with a heavy heart that I annouced that this blog will not reaching its century post. Readership has not been at its best, and some feedback mentioned the name, or rather the URL of the blog is too difficult to recall - unlike the many other popular blogs. However, take heart that I have heed your advice, and I am proud to annouce the migration of my food blog to http://hisfoodblog.blogspot.com.

Thank you for your generous support and I promise to update more regularly to satisfy the many hungry souls out there.

Far Far Away

Back on the topic of my parents being far far away from home, I decided it was a good opportunity to invite a couple of friends over to my place for dinner. The last time I tried my hands on Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee was two years ago on National Day Celebration back in Perth (and that was my virgin experience as a hawker as well).

Armed with prior experience, I managed to whip up a decent plate of noodles for my mates – a pity though I did not prepare enough prawn stock to fry it wet.

Main Ingredients

Prawn (At least 1kg, save prawn heads for stock)
Squid
Yellow Noodle
Bee Hoon (Soak in cold water)
Bean Sprout
Pork Belly (Pan-fried for better taste)
Egg
Lime
Garlic

*Bonus Photo

Just finish a conference in Swissotel, and did a panorama shot of the Marina area on the 51st Storey.

Search for the Best Ramen II

Just when I thought my search for Singapore’s best ramen is over, out popped a certain Marutama Ramen – the first Southeast Asian outlet of an established Saitama and Tokyo-based ramen shop – that threaten to take over our little city by storm.

Reviewed by numerous foodies around the island, this outlet located at the 3^rd storey of Central, is first popularised by the Legendary Chubby Hubby in this post in March. Tickled by the curiosity generated within, I finally decided to make a trip down to this ramen place just to find out what is attracting the long queues. It took roughly 20 minutes on a Friday evening to get a table, and within minutes upon ordering, my doubts were quashed. Served in an aromatic chicken based soup, diners can opt to add items in addition to the plain noodles like Ajitsuke Tamago, or the Egg Seasoned in Soya Sauce, and Char Siu, or the Sliced Roast Pork, or the Kakuni, the Pork Belly.

The noodles are springy, and the soup, though a tad salty (usually the case with authentic Japanese Ramen), was tangy and flavoursome. The Ajitsuke Tamago though still could not quite match up to the one I had in Hokkaido. The pork belly was pretty tasty, but a pity that the flavour was too overpowering on the soup. However what won me over that night was the Char Siu – cooked simply to perfection – the meat was so tender that it simply melts the moment you tasted in your mouth.

I can boldly claim it as the best pieces of Char Siu I ever had in my life. Topped the ramen with fried garlic (do not be a Kiasu Singaporean and add too much, for it spoils the taste of the soup) and sesame seeds provided on the table and you are guaranteed a nice sumptuous meal for the evening. You can bet every penny that I will be back for its Aka Ramen, or the Marutama Original Seven Nuts Soup Base Ramen with Coriander. Itadakimas!

Rating

Food: 4.5/5
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4.5/5
Price: 3/5
Total: 15.5/20
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#03-90/91 The Central
Singapore 059817

Assume Full Control

My parents flew to Sydney for my sister’s ROM leaving me with a house full of chores. However the encouraging thing that derived out of it was that I have assumed full control of the kitchen – enabling me the chance to whip out a decent plate of seafood pasta for lunch over the weekend.

What about you? When was the last time you cooked?

An Authentic Teochew Farewell

A typical Teochew farewell can never do without a farewell dinner at an authentic Teochew restaurant. Made famous by the Dad, who has since passed away, the son has since took over the reins of the restaurant and vowed to continue the tradition of churning out bona fide Teochew dishes to loyal customers like my family, who have frequent this place for years.

Located at Mosque Street, Lee Kui Restaurant, or better known as Ah Hoi, or Crab in Teochew is famous for its Cold Crab. These meaty crabs are first steamed and then kept in the freezer giving the meat a firm texture.

Full of roe, a typical way to eat these crabs is to dip it into the sweet plum sauce. Next up was a controversial delicacy known to be served in special occasions - Shark Fin Soup, which has to be pre-ordered one day in advance.

The fins in themselves are said to be tasteless, but prized for its texture rather than flavour, noticed that these first grade fins are priced simply because it came as a whole fin and not in strands you get from lousy banquet dinner.

This was followed by my nephew’s favourite dish of the night – Assorted Deep Fried Dish – consisting of Seafood Cake, Spring Roll, Yam with Prawn Roll, and the best of all the Prawn Ball – flavoursome and fried to perfection, everyone on the table were commenting how good it was.

A personal favourite dish was up next, and at Lee Kui, you simply has to try the Oyster Egg – generous serving of oyster, the egg was wet on the inside and crisp on the outside – perfect complement for your plain rice.

The Vegetables were also surprisingly tasty that night – especially the refreshing Mock Abalones that really tasted like the real stuff. The Fish with Black Bean Sauce though a bit spicy, was very fresh.

In additional, the gravy went fantastically well with the porridge that we ordered. Sensing that we were still pretty hungry, Dad ordered a plate of Fried Noodles with Shrimps and Pork Slices. A pity that it was pretty oily, if not I was pretty sure everyone would had an additional serving of it.

This was because we were all saving the best for last, and what Teochew dinner would it be, if it did not end off with the authentic O-Nee, or Yam Paste with Pumpkin and Ginkgo Nuts - Sinfully Oily, Sinfully Good - a pity that it would be sometime before our family could gather again for such a sumptuous dinner.

Farewell sister!

Rating

Food: 4.5/5
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 3/5
Price: 2.5/5
Total: 13.5/20
8, 9, 10 Mosque Street
Singapore 059488

Made from Hong Kong Too?

Recently it has come to my knowledge that more and more HK-styled café are sprouting around the island. I have been to a few, and even blogged about it once, but so far, none has been impressive. But before it crossed your mind that I have finally discovered the elusive one, I regret to inform you that not only did I not find one, I have learn in disgust that there exist another one of those wannabes who disguise themselves as a HK-styled café, serving overpriced food with ghastly standards and equally bad service.

Situated along the now well known stretch of Cheong Chin Nam Road, fellow foodies please be forewarn not to be fooled by the brightly lit signboard, and my seemingly delicious looking photos. The HK-Styled Milk Tea was average, as compared to the price I pay for it – and to think this was its only saving grace.

I ordered a bowl of Oxtail Soup (Nú Weǐ Tāng) and was looking forward on chewing the bony, gelatinous meat that usually comes with it.

Noticed the word ‘usually’ – because their version does not come with it, and when I questioned the apparently rude waitress from China, she merely dismiss it with - that their version simply contains Nú Weì, or Beef Taste and no oxtail in it – the bones are thrown away after they have gotten the beef stock – my version of the story is that they merely used beef stock cubes, and I wasn't born yesterday. When the Pork Chop Baked Rice came, the serving was small and unimpressive.

Dig deep inside and you will find that the fried rice was plain and tasteless, and even when you go along with tomato-based sauce, it wasn’t in harmony. Even though they are offering 20% discount for all diners, I say you can have my last $12, but you will never see the back of me again!!!

Rating

Food: 1/5
Service: 2/5
Ambience: 2.5/5
Price: 3/5
Total: 8.5/20
18 Cheong Chin Nam
Singapore 599742

Made from Italy

Do you remember the days when Ah Hock would be ringing his bells selling ice cream and kids would rush down from their HDB blocks after dinner just to satisfy their sweet tooth? Well, I was one of those kids. Then, the flavours were only Vanilla, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip and Raspberry – with the choices of having it on two pieces of soft and fluffy bread, or in between biscuits. Now these Ah Hocks can only be found in the middle of Orchard Road and instead, swanky new ice cream parlours sprung out all over Singapore, including Island Creamery, which I have blogged earlier.

On top of the flavours of the old, you get fanciful names like Tartufo, and ice cream are refined and repackaged as Gelato from Italy. Call it whatever they wished, but the child in me can never resist the temptation of a smooth and soft Italian ice cream after work, at Venezia.

Beware though when you wished to takeaway, as the gelato is made fresh everyday with no preservatives, the quality will dipped after 3 days, and also, gelato is served from a different freezer than American style ice cream - a forced air freezer - which is usually held at about -15°C. This allows the gelato to be served immediately after being extruded from the gelato machine - the "forced air" maintains the product at a steady temperature. Therefore, you may serve ice cream from a gelato freezer but you may not serve gelato from a freezer at home, as the gelato would become too frozen, and texture too flaky for liking.

Rating
Food: 4.5/5
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4.5/5
Price: 3/5
Total: 15.5/20
Guthrie House,
1 Fifth Ave, #01-01