JAPANESE SHRIMP CURRY

16 April 2010

It’s TGIF and I am into the third day of a valiant attempt to reduce my oft-criticised overhanging belly.  Today I walked down Suntec City, through CityLink Mall all the way to Raffles City, exited and went through Funan Digilife Mall to Victoria Street.  I thought I would check out an old coffee shop at Armenian Street, one of the places where I got my ‘char kueh teow’ fix.  Alas, the entire block of old shop houses had been demolished and in its place stands a spanking new grey uninteresting building partially occupied. 

At least, I discovered the exact location of the Peranakan Museum. Until then, I had a vague notion it was somewhere at Armenian Street. (Pssst ... I am half Peranakan.)

I decided to go back to office by way of Stamford Road. As I was walking pass Stamford House, there at the last shop before Capitol Building is the Curry Favor (sic) Japanese Kitchen. Years ago Ann and Joan introduced me to this restaurant specialising in Japanese curry.  I enjoy the sticky Japanese curry.  It reminds me of the sticky Hainanese curry you get with your Hainanese curry ‘pung’ (rice) which our family really like. I went in and ordered the shrimp curry, this being a Friday.  I prefer the fried breaded pork cutlet curry.

Overall, I thought the curry, though enjoyable, was not as good as when I first had it. But then nostalgia has a way of colouring things. The 5 shrimps were a disappointment. They were a bit mushy, so definitely not fresh. The crab potato salad (the white lump on the plate) was good, soft and tasty. Just a yum. 

One thing I know for sure, if I continue my walk, I will always have two constant companions - wet armpits.

INDIAN ROJAK

15 April 2010

This is the second day of my walking regime.  From Suntec City, in office attire, I walked across the overhead bridge over Nicholl Highway to Beach Road.  Then down Middle Road to Waterloo Street.  Unlike my first walk which was rather random but ended with me eating a $16 ramen.  I had a secondary mission this time round.  Striding along Waterloo Street I finally arrived at Block 262 where Nan Tai Eating House is. And my favourite Indian Rojak stall.  It had taken me some 20 minutes to reach here. So a refuelling stop was called for.

“Rojak’ is a Malay word for mixture.  Indian rojak is just that – a mixture of mostly deep-fried food items like shrimp fritter, coconut fritter, tofu, fish cake, fermented soybean (“tempe”), potato, re-expanded dried cuttlefish, and many others.  You choose what you want and the seller deep fries them again and serves them garnished with slices of cucumber and onion and a spicy sweet potato sauce as a dip

I chose my favourite bits – the shrimp fritter, tempe, tofu and cuttlefish.  To me, the most important part of the Indian rojak are the shrimp fritter and the sauce as they define how good a particular rojak is.  The great thing about the shrimp fritter at this stall is that it is mostly shrimp with just enough flour to hold the shrimps together.  More often than not, the shrimp fritter you find at other outlets is mostly flour.  The crucial ingredient in the sauce is the pureed sweet potato unlike the watery peanut sauce you find elsewhere.

After recharging, I walked back through Bras Basah Road and passed the ‘Flirting Point’ at the Singapore Arts Museum (SAM).  No one was around to flirt with though. The whole loop took an hour, 20 minutes to walk to the rojak point, 20 minutes to eat and 20 minutes to walk back.  Can I sustain the regime? If I don’t succumb to stinky armpits first.

Ramen

14 April 2010

Today I had a bowl of ramen for lunch.  I did not go out specifically to look for ramen.  Today I started on an exercise regime by spending my lunch hour on a brisk walk.  To improve by well-being May has been cajoling me to take up some walking. She seems to think that my belly is dangerously overhanging my belt. So I decided that my lunch time is ideal for the exercise.  I walked from my office at Tower Three Suntec City to Funan DigitalLife Mall, taking about 15 minutes. Arriving at the Mall I was greeted by a huge sign with tantalising pictures of bowls of ramen proclaiming that they can be had at Bishamon, #01-18 in the Mall. I went to check it out. It is next to Ya Kun and MacDonald. Until today I had not eaten any ramen for more than a year, so was easily tempted. I went in and ordered the Assari Miso Ramen.

A chef’s recommendations, the Assari Miso Ramen is made with pork and clam miso stock and comes with about 4 small slices of pork, a half of a boiled egg, and a few strips of clam.  I must say that the stock is really delicious though a mite oily.  The pork is tasty and tender. The egg is done just the way I like it – the yolk cooked but with the centre just a little runny thus rendering the white still soft and spongy.  I washed the whole thing down with hot green tea.  Yum, yum.

But I was out of pocket to the tune of S$16.20 (ramen $12.80, tea $1, service charge $1.38 and GST $1.06). Was it worth the money? Well, you can get a bowl of wanton mee with ‘char siew’ for $3.50 in a food court.  But then, I did enjoy the ramen. So what value enjoyment?

Christmas Turkey

14 April 2010

I was in the grip of ennui. Didn’t feel much like writing, let alone blog. The thing that really kept me stirred was exploration in the Web. Then I began watching “The Big Bang Theory” when my daughter Ann told me about it and I got my laughs. I am again energised. The other day May, in one of our casual conversations, mentioned that she really liked Joan’s Christmas turkey.

We spent last Christmas in Perth (Western Australia) with our daughters, Ann and Joan, who are working there. Christmas in Perth is the same as in Singapore, and, as I believe, elsewhere in the world. It has been hijacked into a holiday festivity. The true meaning of Christmas is vague except to those who really believe. Last Christmas was an intimate family only affair, just us and the dogs, Harry and Rosie. We had our usual Christmas Eve dinner. Joan baked a Christmas turkey.

The great thing about Joan’s turkey was that it was moist and succulent. Most turkey I had eaten had been dry. As Joan explained to me, the trick to a moist baked turkey is to stuff butter under the skin of the turkey and to bake it in a roasting bag, making sure that its inner temperature does not go over 175 degree C. The traditional turkey stuffing appears grey, looks and tastes somewhat weird. We never did like it. In its place Joan stuffed a cut apple, some onions and fresh sage. They added a pleasing and subtle fragrance to the turkey.

The best part was eating that turkey with whole cranberry sauce perked up with orange zest. Yum, yum.

PHO

May agreed to go with me to see “2012”, the doomsday movie. Surprisingly, this did not need a big effort at persuasion. So at lunch time, I went down to the Eng Wah cinemas on the 3rd floor of Suntec City Tower 3, my workplace, to book the tickets. While down there, I did a little a exploration and came across this Vietnamese restaurant – Pho Hoa Noodle Soup. It seems to be a chain with outlets in the USA, Malaysia, Philippines, Canada, China and Indonesia, so declares a decorative wall in the restaurant. I vaguely remember this chain. I think they had an outlet in Siglap, in the eastern part of Singapore, before the ascendant of Thai food and the decline of Vietnamese food in Singapore. Now, I have not had pho (pronounced ‘fur’) for a long time, not since returning in March from visiting Ann and Joan in Perth. I do really like this Vietnamese beef soup noodle. Without hesitation, I ordered a regular bowl with a mixture of flank beef and steak beef, after the waitress explained that the flank has some fat on it and I heard the fat calling me. The pho was really ‘cheng’ (‘clear’ in Chinese). There was no oil floating on the soup, like those I ate in California; neither were there beef flotsam. Nice and pleasant looking. It was served with the usual mint, bean sprout and lime that come with pho. On the whole the pho was good. The flank beef was not powdery and the steak beef was chewy but not tough. I made a mistake though, should have asked for the steak beef to be on the side. Then I would have had it pinkish, more to my taste. The soup clearly had a good stock, with a beefy aftertaste that went down well with the light sourness of the lime. Yum. The pho I had in Perth was better. Was it worth the $12.36 I paid for it after adding a service charge of 10% and7% GST? Nay. A bowl of equally good local beef kuay teow soup in a food court would have cost me only $5 at the most. For those who want their bowl of pho, you can find it at Pho Hoa Noodle Soup (Suntec), 3 Temasek Boulevard #03-027, actually Tower 3 on the 3rd Floor, above Carrefour.

FUNGHI POT PIE A LA KOONIE

Yesterday's dinner nearly didn't happen. One weekend morning last week, May and I just happened to be watching Rachael Ray on TV.  She was in Chicago visiting the local favourite eating joints and resaurants.  We were intrigued by a dish she tasted.  It looked like a mushroom pot pie with spaghetti sauce.  So I decide to to make a couple after we got all what we saw were the ingredients.

I needed two porcelain bowls. The pot pie we saw was baked in a bowl, not dish, one bowl for each diner. Alas, there was none in the house. Go and buy some. Easier said than done. No bowl that can be use for baking. Not even at Phoon Huat, the baking haven. Almost gave up. But then my resourceful wife found some at N2 Shopping Street ( that's Tampines Neighbourhood 2 Shopping Street; what's else?) right in front of our noses. But Phoon Huat did have prepared puff pastry sheets. Bought a pack.

Come Sunday, yesterday. All the ingredients were ready. May lightly stir fried about 120 grams of minced beef with chopped garlic and onions in a sauce pan. Poured in half a bottle of a 737 gram bottle of Prego spaghetti sauce ( given by May's friend Mary).

Placed two slices of real, not the processed kind, cheddar cheese at the bottom of each pie-pot.

      
       Halved the button mushrooms, about 5 to 8 medium sized ones for each pot, and dropped them into the pots.

Filled the pots with the spaghetti sauce. Covered the pots with the puff pastry.

 

Began pre-heating the oven to 220°C.  Temperature determined by looking at the baking instructions for the puff pastry sheets. No recipe; everything ‘agak agak’ (guessing, educatedly, be assured).

Poof ... all the lights went out. Tried to reset the earth-leakage circuit break. No joy. Switched off the mains to the oven and tried again. Lights on again. Switched on the oven, lights off. Conclusion – oven faulty. So now what to do with the unbaked funghi pot-pie a la Koonie?

Resourceful May to the rescue again. Use the turbo broiler, said she.

Voila, ready, top brown and crispy.

Turned over the pot and dropped the pie onto the dinner plate. Ready to be eaten with fresh cucumber. Let me say that getting the koonie pie onto the plate was quite a feat. The pot was smooth and oily and hot, and had no handle. Difficult to hold. Nearly made a mess of it.



I must say, for a concoction without a recipe, it was good. The funghi was succulent and earthy, the sauce was piquant and tangy (Prego is good) and you could still feel the crispiness of the crust despite the sauce. Yum, yum. Now to see to the oven.

CHENDOL

This afternoon I had a delicious bowl of chendol. After sending her mother home from church and lunch, May wanted to go to Katong Shopping Centre. She had to exchange her new bra for a larger one. Her favourite bra shop is in this shopping centre. She shooed me away from the shop and told me to go and have some dessert.

One of my favourite dessert place is this one, B1-66, in the basement of the shopping centre. Well, I don't know what's the name of the shop as it is in Mandarin. I have been to this shop many times since it opened several years ago. Mostly, I had eaten dessert pastes like 'chee mau woo' (black sesame seed paste, one of my favourite) and almond paste. Never the chendol. For no apparent reason, I ordered the chendol. Boy, was I glad. This chendol is the real McCoy. The chendol is the original light green type, made from sweet potato flour, not those plastiky, deep green you get now-a-days. It is so soft that when you use your tongue to press it against your palette it squishes out and leaves a pleasant mushy sweet taste. Then you feel the sweet, with a tinge of sourness, gula melaka (coconut sugar) gliding down the back your tongue. The soft but firm red beans were a pleasant complement. Yum, yum. Still, can't beat the one in Malacca.