I ate here.
I’m taking forever to finish half written posts.
So look out for-
1. Hana’s 1st month updates
2. More cloth diapering updates
3. My latest kitchen gadget..
Archive for the 'Eat like a Grub' Category
Photo from here
Whenever H and I troop down to Sunlik, usually for my stash of Valrhona (by the way what was I thinking, buying a 1 kg block of Guanaja 5 days before my due date, I’m not sure how my pregnant mind thinks), we pop by Raffles Hotel which is just across the road and walk thru their gardens and shopping arcade. Its such a relaxing place in the heart of the city. I love the traveller’s palms and ornate garden furniture. We always drop by the Raffles Creamery for my ice cream and his cappuccino which is as reasonably priced as any cafe in town. We’re usually the only ones there and we enjoy the solitude and quiet while feeling a little worried that the creamery might close due to it being underpatronized. Other items I picked up at Sunlik was feuilletine flakes for a simple chocolate tart as I still have some sweet almond pastry in my freezer which I feel I have to use up or its fate would be to remain in the depths of my freezer forever. I’m thinking of a simplified tart based on this recipe.
I picked up some Cajun spice mix, it looked quite pretty. Probably make some spicy wings. Bought some Valrhona cocoa nibs, no ideas for that one yet. As you can see I’m on an unhealthy junkie roll.
H and I have generally come to a consensus that Arabic food in Singapore is pretty much awful unless you are willing to pay thru your nose for meagre portions of meat at a high end restaurant usually with a huge and colourful bar, blasting Arabic music and a fat belly dancer. Having said that, there are places which we do go to and quite enjoy though they have received mixed reviews from food bloggers.
Having had to increase my meat intake due to iron issues and anemia in pregnancy, we’ve been having more than our usual dose of kebabs lately. I am completely intolerant to chilli right now due to heartburn and a growing belly so spicy Malay meat dishes are ruled out. Its been kebab, kebab and more kebab eating out, much to H’s carnivorous delight.
Our usual haunts are:
-I actually secretly go for the kanafeh, rather that the meat, a sweet shredded phyllo pastry filled with stretchy turkish white cheese and drenched in syrup. I usually ask for the syrup to be served separately and get a huge bowl of it served on the side. The chef tends to be a little generous. I asked for some tomato sauce and yogurt to go with my kebab once and got two huge soup bowls of each sauce. If you don’t ask for the syrup to be served separately, its really drenched with syrup, it is literally swimming in it and is really really sweet.
Photo from a greek food website
-The service has improved over the years. We didn’t go for a long time as we were really disappointed with the slow service and cold food. But things have changed recently and service is prompt, the food is good and the portions fair for the price paid
-I discovered that they started selling Turkish cheese in the small display counter by the cashier. Haloumi is so much cheaper than at Cold Storage and they sell Turkish white cheese which I’ve not seen sold elsewhere in Singapore. The cheese is sold in 250g-1kg packages and all have turkish words on them. Ask the manager and he’ll recommend their best sellers, which I still have not figured out the names, he describes them as mild, a little stronger and similar vague words. You’ll find it helpful to ask him, which cheese goes on the pide, and which is in the kanafeh, to get a rough idea how the cheese tastes. They only accept cash for the cheese and use a separate invoice from the main restaurant’s so be prepared. We didn’t have enough to pay for the stash we bought, so the manager actually let us take the cheese without paying at all asking us to return when we had the cash. We came back a week later to pay.
-we usually go to the Parkway branch so I can’t comment on the one at East Coast Park which is the main branch. You can check out this review
-At Parkway, they have a makeshift kiosk which is open air so would be hot in the midafternoon
-I love this dish called the “gravy potato” which is slices of kebab drenched in toamto sauce served with mashed potatoes covered with cheese on a hot plate. Its always well done by the same chef, this young turkish guy who seems to run a one man show in the tiny open kitchen. You have to be prepared to wait for our order though. H always runs over to buy some fries from Macs to go with the meal. Fries isn’t on their menu if I remember correctly. Since we’re quite regular, they don’t seem to mind us eating something not bought from the kiosk (we’ve not been kicked out so far..).
The above food kiosk is currently closed ?due to surrounding construction works outside Parkway when I last passed by on 11/8/09
-this restaurant at Merchant’s court also owns two small kiosks in Merchant Court. One sells kebab and is just a couple of shops down and opposite the Hagen Daaz. The kebabs are good though a warning, do NOT order the spicy chicken kebab, it is so spicy, it kills the taste of the entire kebab.
-the down side is there’s no proper seating, its a place you grab the kebab and go. There are a few tall chairs and 3 small round tables in front of the kiosk but its almost always occupied. Though the kebabs are good and the portions generous, the location is not such a pleasant place in the evenings. They start selling only at 7 pm and as the night progresses, this place gets packed with pub crawlers and blasting music.
These are my random thoughts on places that we often visit and a reply to the question I’m always asked, where can we eat good Arabic food? Let me know your thoughts if you’ve tried any of the places.
I’ve been having terrible salty chocolate cravings. I need salt in my chocolate. I’ve been eating lots of these:
Bakerzin Sweet Pleasures: Layers of hazelnut praline dacquoise, Jivara milk chocolate ganache with fleur de sel, topped with chocolate mousse. There’s a super salty layer somewhere in there.
Beard Papa’s Chocolate Fondant: Valrhona chocolate molten chocolate cake on a biscuit base. And its salty!
And you know how much I love awfully chocolate’s ice cream
On a separate note, I think I’m addicted to Mt Sapola’s lemongrass range. Picked up a tube of lemongrass handcream and bought mom a whole hamper for her birthday.
Things have been busy with 3 calls, 3 weddings and lots of cooking this week till the new year. I just want to say a huge thank you for all the little thoughtful gifts I’ve received. Sheerin, thanks for the sweets from India, you know the way to my heart. Mel, thank you for the Indonesian coffee and my staple: teh prendjak! I can’t live without it. Quizas for the thoughtful Christmas card and always making me feel that we’re close though we always struggle to find a time to meet! Its hard we both have crazy schedules. Mama, for good stuff from Saudi Arabia: olives, feta, dates, figs, pistachios, you’re the best! I know you struggled to hand carry the load on the plane! Mama (mom in law) for the loot from Vietnam: rice paper, vietnamese coffee, custard apples, the coasters, the kitchen accessories, the scarves, the silk.. Thank you for everything! With all the nights I’ve been working, days are merging into each other and I feel like I’ve been working continuously for days. I feel that Sturday night with H and Mel at Marrakesh for moroccan food and Nectarie for coffee and dessert and loads of people watching was just yesterday.
Photo and text from hungrygowhere.com: …
“..Caramelized bananas with chocolate (S$7.50) here is good. In fact, it ranked among the top 50 cakes by Sunday Times. Undoubtedly the best cake Nectarie has to offer, the banana and white chocolate mousse was velvety and rich. But that wasn’t the best part, eaten together with the crunchy base, the taste was divine. And all of us unanimously agreed it was the star.”
Its a good thing I passed over all my pita during dinner for H to finish. That left me lots of room for dessert. The caramelized bananas in the mousse layer of the cake was a local banana so it held its shape beautifully and were really banana-y in flavor. I found the scribbling on the plate a little strange because it didn’t taste raspberry coulis but more like a waterred down strawberry jam.. For drinks, please have the tea that Mel had, peony jade tea which was served in a beautiful press with white tea leaves and peony flowers floating at the botom. Sugarless and hot, it went perfectly with the sweet cakes and the cool night air. Next Saturday night Mel?
I’ve sorted out more photos, I think there’ll still be a part 3 though.. Here is a little booklet about the Kranji countryside. Did you know there’s an eco farm resort in the area? With the rain, we didn’t get to explore much but its definitely mentally bookmarked.
Spiky unknown fruit.
Banana flower in the cafe
Figs on the tree
And hanging off the trunk
It ended up in the fig tea I had. Home brewed and fruity
H and his cappucino
Pitcher plant and pandan bushes to take home.
Droplets everywhere
More droplets of rain
Don’t u feel lucky you live in the tropics?
Burger King just released a cologne for the meat loving man. Flame grilled meat loving men to be specific. So its not a wierd thing that Elia wants to smell like fried onions.
I wanna smell like a fresh from the oven chocolatey chocolate swirled buttery yellow marble pound cake! What would you like to smell of? Marble cake courtesy of the guys at Da Paolo who are currently doing all the baking for me lately.
Today I realized something scary, when I looked at my pay slip, I realized that I had received a monthly payment called the “special allowance”. This is a little extra 5% of your base salary given to you for doing a rotation that is unpopular with other doctors usually because it is an extra busy or difficult rotation. The last time I received this special allowance for 6 months, it drove me out of clinical work and avoid hospitals and patients. I definitely need a break after this. At least in a quiet department like cardiology or neurology. This week was almost unbearable, I started counting down the days to the new year. At least there’ll be 4 more months till I’m out and I am taking a few blocks of leave because I think I need something to cling on to my sanity. Trust me, no money in the world is worth losing you sanity for! Its really really bad. I’m just gritting my teeth and bearing it for now. Count down with me will ya.
Soft fluffy warm tapioca cake
Vegetarian spring rolls with sweet Thai chilli sauce and cucumber pickle
This looks so edible to me. And I’m not even hungry. They were all sorts of wild sprouting mushrooms, I think its got to do with the rain
Something brilliantly orange on the dark damp ground, it caught my eye
Nature’s artful display.
More stuff on the ground
The clouds and rain made some photos cool and some warm
A flower called cat’s whiskers.
That banana cake, with organic local tropical bananas, notice the banana pieces that look slightly purple with a yellow center? The great thing bout local bananas are that they don’t disintegrate when cooked so they fry beautifully and now I’ve discovered, bakes into beautiful cakes.
Quick update:
For those people asking me about the weight gain I’ve had recently, I weighed myself today, after 9 days of work and I’ve lost half a kilo. My next day off is the 31st of December, that’s 16 days of working straight including 3 30 hour shifts or night calls. I’ve started cutting back on eating after 8pm, started eating breakfast of fruit and oatmeal in a mug, squeezing in time in the morning by waking and sleeping earlier. My breakfast idea was inspired by little Arianne who eats her oatmeal by dipping apples into it. It makes oatmeal eating much yummier. Its ok, you can do it too and your age can be double digit in years and not in months. I’m going to toast some almond slivers and dice some dried apricot to make a breakfast fruit and nut mix so I don’t have to be sleepily cutting fruit in the morning. More breakfast ideas soon!
I have been cutting back on rice but with a little difficulty because the aunty in the hospital canteen refuses to halve my rice portion. I’ll ask her for less rice and she’ll say that its already too little and I should eat more, I’ll protest and SHE’ll protest, I explain and SHE explains how I need more for more energy for doctoring(?!). In order to not agitate the person behind me I exasperatedly give in, and when I have like a full plate of rice, I can’t bear to throw it away and I am quite hungry anyway. I went to another canteen today and the uncle also refused to half my rice. ??! And he threw in an extra side, for free. Its strange but I think being short makes people feel you should eat more, I’m not sure if they know that past puberty, these bones ain’t growing.
Black on Black Pierre Herme Truffles
Published December 15, 2008 Chocolate , Cookbook , Dessert , Eat like a Grub , Malay , Quick bites , Recipes , cookies 10 Comments
I made a vow to myself to start baking from the books I currently have till I have mastered the recipes and techniques before buying another. There’s still that voice in me that’s screaming “I need another cookbook!!” But lucky for H, I surpress that monster. Though it still comes out once in a while especially when I feel the need of some cheering up. Cookbooks have it all, beautiful words that read like a novel, pretty photos, glossy pages, excellent design, hard covers, slippery jackets, big and heavy, and everything else I love in a book.
So anyway I am going to cook my way thru my cookbooks and what better way to begin than with the pastry master himself. I had some cream that was going to expire soon so these truffles were perfect. You need just 4 ingredients: chocolate, cream, butter and cocoa powder. I used Valrhona Equitoriale 55% which was S$9.50 for 300g at Sia Lik. I used only one container for the whole recipe so its quick and easy and not much cleaning is involved in making the ganache. The cocoa powder part is a little tricky though.
Black-on Black Truffles
Adapted from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Herme
260g bittersweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream (I used Bulla’s Pure Cream)
31/2 tablespoons butter
cocoa powder for dusting
How I did it:
Melt the chocolate in microwave on high for 40-60 seconds in a plastic container with a cover like an old plastic ice cream tub or tupperware, timing may vary according to your microwave. My chocolate was at room temperature and my microwave is quick so I had to watch it to make sure the chocolate didn’t burn. It took slightly under a minute. Add in the cream and stir to blend, then the butter a tablespoon at a time. Stir to melt. You may need another zap in the microwave if your cream was very cold to start with and the chocolate and cream mixture has become too cold to melt the butter. Leave the ganache to cool at room temperature for a couple of minutes. Cover the container with the lid and leave in the fridge to set(now u can make sense of the tupperware bit right, less washing up and the ganache is in an airtight container), about 3 hours or overnight if its convenient for you. Put your cocoa powder into a bowl and dust your hands with the powder. Scoop a tablespoon of the cold ganache onto your palm and roll to form a ball, this can get a little messy. Toss it back into the cocoa powder and gingerly toss it around to coat. Put straight onto serving plate or in a covered parchment lined airtight container and kept in the fridge for consumption later.The ganache itself is very yummy. But please let it set to let it live to its full potential as a fat round truffle.
Addition: I think the cream wasn’t such a good idea because of the high fat content (read:45% milk fat) the ganache ended up solidifying to quite a hard block, akin butter. And I had one hell of a time rolling it into balls. In the end my truffles looked like chocolate rocks. Ugly chocolate rocks. I have to be brutally honest. I found it easier to roll when it rested a mere 2 hours in the fridge than when it rested overnight.
For help always turn to Martha. All photos courtesy of MarthaStewart, I gave away all the truffles before having the time to photograph them. And yes, they were VERY ugly.
On a separate note, I have so many photos from the bolywood veggies outing, here’s a sneak:
Somehow snails move seem to move very fast when you’re trying to squat, adjust your manual focus, hold your umbrella and try not to get the camera wet.
Erm Shafia (my cousin), somehow your umbrella followed me to Kranji. I think you left it at my mom’s house and I somehow picked it up and brought it home with me then its sort of found its way to my car. I only looked at it at bollywood veggies and somehow figured out it belonged to you. Let me make it clear here: when I went to medical school, it WAS NOT called Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, it was called Faculty of Medicine.
Because wordpress doesn’t allow me to shrink my vertical photos without blurring it, here’s a gigantic photo of the kuih bingka. Oh the kuih bingka. If I can create an idiom today, it would be: “never trust a bingka with a flat top” Bingka is a Malay cake made of grated tapioca, coconut milk and sugar and it should definitely have a craggy crispy top! I also had a delicious, small overpriced loaf of banana cake that was oh so delicious, I’ll share my favourite recipe soon and more photos, including the “warriors” that run Bollywood veggies.
I spent today moping bout my too short a weekend like a love lost.
When H says “I wanna drink airplane orange juice”, I brace myself for eye squinting, salivary glands contracting sour juice. (you know that sharp pain you get at the angle of your jaw when ur taste buds are hyperstimulated by the sourness of it all) But after a while, I got hooked, and we started drinking all sorts of brands.And loads of fresh juice from the hospital canteen. Its one of the few things I buy from the hospital canteen. Don’t get me started on the food they sell. I’ve recently grossed many people out by the chicken spit story, so I shall not share my experience in the hospital canteen. Well, unless you really want me to..Anyway, we currently like the brand Real Juice which is as unreal a juice as juice can get. But well, what’s life without contradiction!
Today I received a couple of emails from people who made me smile, thank you! It was a long day so it made me happy at the end of it. I will reply, though it would take me a couple of days. Ask my friends, its the same when it comes to sms. Its the weekend! This is my FIRST weekend off since November excluding my one weekend that was taken during my leave, because well, I was on leave.
Oh the marble cake was yum, I had it dunked in cappucino which H hates cos he has to drink up all the crumbs. Oh well, I stirred ice cream in his “teh tarik” once cos I thought it would make it taste super good and that almost made him cry, you know how much he loves his milk tea. I was trying to “affogato-ize” it. It became rather tepid and like warm tho, not something I would do again. Anyway I think he forgave me, eventually. At least till the next cup of tea.
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