Li Bai, Sheraton Towers, Singapore

Some days you're just pretty drained after a long day at work and you don't really want to risk a dinner slot to a new restaurant. Those are the days where I normally just make my reservation at Li Bai for some trialed and tested Cantonese cuisine. Located at Sheraton Towers, it's central enough to be accessible and not right in the middle of the bustling Orchard strip which I tend to avoid on tired days like these.

Li Bai puts in those little frilly bits to make you feel just slightly more pampered, like this tea that is constantly kept warm by the little candle beneath.

Salt and pepper whiting was ordered as the appetizer. This was crunchy and tasty but surprisingly wasn't served hot. It was not even mildly warm. I actually ordered this because I didn't want to start off my meal with the cold scallop salad.

Scallop salad was next. The Thai influence in this dish is very strong with the mango bits and sweet tangy chili sauce making it rather refreshing.

Our third dish of the night and first hot dish was a soup. This hearty broth of sharksfins and cured Chinese ham definitely hit the right spot.

They don't tend to ask you how you'll like your steak to be done in Chinese restaurants. Although this was very well done, it was still tender and greasy enough to agree very well with me. I would still have appreciated a little blood though.

The way this dish was served pissed me off quite abit. It was placed on the little serving table behind us for a good ten minutes before some Einstein realized it was meant for us. Fortunately, it was still warm because this would have tasted pretty crap if it was cold. The tofu is fried with a layer of spinach on top and covered in a thick sauce comprising of egg white and seafood bits. Quite delectable indeed.

A dish I have to order nine out of ten times when I'm here is this fish noodle. Sometimes I order it with lobster but today the prawns were recommended to be fresher. But where's the fish? It's in the noodle. The noodle itself is made from flour and minced fish meat is incorporated into it creating an extremely bouncy and hearty bite.

Mango pomelo sago was dessert. A typical dessert to be found in most Hong Kong cafes, this was ok. Mildly sweet with the occasional refreshingly sour pomelo pip, it was a good way to end off the meal.

I realized the that today's standard of service was significantly lower by a few notches and I think it was due to the fact that Li Bai was also catering to two minor occasions. I made the mistake of not asking them if there were any events going on tonight as service and quality tend to suffer when a restaurant is catering. The problem about trailed and tested eating is that it becomes predictable and if it becomes predictable, it tends to become boring. After tonight's experience, I'm thinking of giving Li Bai a rest for awhile until I do get a real craving for their stuff.

D

Spicy Grilled Belly Pork Vietnamese Style

I'm quite ashamed to admit that although we finished the beef and almost everything else during the 100th post celebration, we did not manage to finish the pork. No biggie, meat is very easy to recycle. I marinated it that very night because it had been sitting in room temperature for quite a while (actually it was really near a slab of hot stone). My favorite method of cooking thinly sliced belly pork is to grill it, not really because I'm that concerned about letting the fat drip off but rather because I like that semi-charred crisp finish that I can get from my grill.

Ingredients:
1. Thinly sliced belly pork
2. Pounded ginger
3. Salt, pepper, sugar
4. Fish sauce
5. Pounded lemon grass
6. Japanese chilli powder

Method:
1. Marinate the pork with the pounded ginger, salt, pepper, fish sauce, lemon grass

2. Place slices on a rack for grilling

3. Generously scatter chilli powder

4. Grill till nicely charred
5. Serve hot

I wanted to impart a slight Vietnamese twist to this dish by using the fish sauce and lemon grass but the Japanese chilli powder went so well with it that night that I could not resist adding some as well. This is a variant of a dish in Vietnam where beef slices are used instead and grilled over a charcoal grill and that's basically where I got my inspiration from.

D

Sunset in Chicago, Illinois, USA

At 94 stories high, the view from the Hancock Observatory (not to be confused with the 60 storey John Hancock Tower) cannot be described as anything but spectacular. Taking sunset photos from a such an aerial view is always fun, the other location I enjoy snapping sunset photos is by the sea.

This place isn't open-air like the Empire State Building because of the strong winds that blow across this city (Chicago is known as the Windy City). This shot shows Navy Pier, a popular tourist attraction with touristy food and a large ferris wheel.

Chicago is really a symbol of resilience and tenacity since most of it was destroyed during the Great Chicago Fire, they have managed to rebuild themselves to one of nicest (I'm biased because Chicago is my second favorite city in the USA haha) sprawling cities.

The architecture of some of the buildings such as the Chicago Tribune Building still maintain an old Chicago charm. The days of Al Capone.

Since this place is all sealed up with glass walls because of the strong winds, it also leaves an annoying reflection in my photographs as the day grows darker.

South Chicago isn't really a pretty sight compared to the rest of Chicago and some guidebooks have even advised travellers not to go there because it can get rather dangerous. It is however, home to the Bulls Stadium, where there's a huge statue of Michael Jordan (the only man who has defied gravity) erected in his honor. The Bulls Stadium is almost in the centre of this photograph. It's a white, broad and flatish building with the rounded edges.

I accidentally left this out when I posted this. How could I forget the beautiful coastline of Chicago? Well, technically it's not really a coast because that's not the sea. That's Lake Michigan, one big mama of a lake!

Just when I was about to leave for dinner, I saw this sign which I thought was rather amusing. I think I would have stood a better chance of survival if I smashed a window and jumped down instead haha.

D

Plum Village, Jalan Leban, Singapore

Plum Village has got to be one of the oldest Hakka restaurants in Singapore. This is quite evident from the stained and torn cover to this menu. You know they've been around for while because their telephone number doesn't have the "6" prefix yet!

Hakka stuffed beancurd, the characteristic difference between Hakka stuffed beancurd as compared to the other stuffed beancurds is that the stuffing here is made almost exclusively from pork not fish. This is due to the fact the Hakka were tradionally land-based and nomadic in nature and as such did not have access to fresh fish. There weren't many Hakka fishermen apparently. Fried to a crisp finish and covered with a tasty gravy and crispy fried garlic bits, this definitely was a good appetizer.

Pork belly stewed with preserved vegetables. I love this, the oil from the fatty pork belly is mixed with preserved vegetable bits producing a most fragrant aroma. The preserved vegetables here aren't too salty as well but it still goes excellently with a bowl of steaming hot rice.

This dish of prawns in rice wine paste uses the residual bits of rice at the bottom of the earthen container when you brew rice wine. The fragrance of the fermented rice pulp brought out the freshness of the crunchy but more importantly pre-shelled prawns.

The salt-baked chicken is really more like a chicken that's been pre-boiled and then steamed with a coating of Chinese chicken salt. Although it's not deboned, most of the flesh has been scrapped away from the major bones, this allows the salt to get deep within so that even the thicker pieces have flavor. Although this was rather tasty, it wasn't really spectacular and not anything I could not make myself at home. It's good for those like me who can't do without a decent serve of meat in the meal though.

Of course, a Hakka meal warrants a serve of Hakka "abacus seeds" as well. This was not the best I've had but definitely was not the worst either. It was greasily well-fried with generous minced pork bits and mushrooms but the "abacus seeds" were too soft. It seemed like they used too much flour and too little yam in the making of the seeds.

In the end, there were some hits but also some misses with Plum Village. I'll still come back again though, there just aren't many Hakka joints in Singapore to make one too fussed.

D

Oktoberfest 2006

Well, this post is kind of belated but I actually had a little Oktoberfest celebration of my own before my trip to Bangkok and now since we're already in November, I thought it better not to procrastinate any further. I love Oktoberfest, ok, honestly, I love any festival or celebration that has a lot of food in it. It could be something like this:

D: Hey what are you guys celebrating?
Random: It's John Doe Day
D: Say what?
Random: You know, John Doe he...
D: Wait, is there food involved?
Random: Yeah, as a matter of fact..
D: Put on your party hats dudes!

Having your own little Oktoberfest is very simple, just serve some "fairly" authentic fare and wash it down with a good German bier. If it doesn't feel authentic enough, just drink enough bier and believe me, it will become authentic haha.

This is how I celebrated my Oktoberfest:

Ingredients:1. A variety of sausages. From bottom left corner in clockwise we have: Bratwurst, spicy German salami, cabanas, rolled knackerwurst, smoked chorizo. (It doesn't matter if they're not all German in origin as long as they taste good haha)

Method:

1. Slice them all up

2. Grill them till they're charred as desired

Hint:
1. Try to cut your sausages into even slices if you do not want some other pieces to overgrill and dry out
2. Chill your bier glasses so that they do not impart any heat to upset your the temperature of your bier

Serve sausages hot with some icy cold German bier.

D

Hai Nan Xing Zhou Beef Noodles, Toa Payoh, Singapore

I wonder if any of you remembered the Cuppage Centre hawker centre? Not a foodcourt but an actual hot, greasy and hardcore hawker centre smacked in Cuppage Centre. Well, after the renovations, the hawker centre disappeared and along with it went my favorite Hainanese beef noodle stall. This stall was one of the pioneering stalls of Hainanese beef noodles, even before the mediocre ones started popping up in virtually every bogus food court.

I was almost jumping with joy when I saw this stall at at #01-06 Blk 22, Lorong 7, Toa Payoh claiming to be the one from Cuppage Centre. I could not remember how the owners looked like so I had to let my tastebuds decide if they were the real deal.

This is a bowl of their dried beef noodles. Dry Hainanese beef noodles aren't really dry per se but comes in a thick sauce. The beef slices were barely scalded leaving it very tender and still slightly pink. The tendon and tripe were generous in proportions and the tendon was stewed to a perfect texture. The toppings of spring onion and preserved vegetable finished off the taste I thought was lost forever. Since I was feeling rather warm I needed to order something to drink.

What better thing to drink than a bowl of hearty beef soup haha! Just as generous as the dry version, there was heaps of tender beef slices, tendon, tripe and beef balls. The soup didn't give me that MSG hit later on so it had to be made from some good stock. I'm still not sure if this stall is the one from Cuppage Centre but they must at least have the recipe to make this stuff taste so good. For all of you who miss the beef noodles from the Cuppage Centre of old, despair no more.

D

Tenshin, The Regent, Singapore

My lunches are generally pretty sane because I like my dinners to be huge. We were feeling abit hungry that afternoon and decided to have something light. When "lightness" came to mind, we immediately thought of the light and crisp batter used for the tempura at Tenshin, so off we went.

They have the whole range of condiments here but I seldom use them because the freshness of the ingredients speak for themselves.

Started off with the appetizer of cold spinach topped with bonito flakes. I'm a sucker for bonito flakes and I used to watch Popeye abit when I was a kid, so this went down very well with me.

The salad was a typical Japanese one with crisp greens and the tasty tangy citrus dressing. The crunchy bits on top were freshly fried as well.

Tenshin is basically a tempura joint, they do not have a huge range of dishes here but what limited choices they have, they do very well but stick to the cooked dishes because their sashimi is really only average. The deep-frying oil used here is imported in from Japan; this plus their batter recipe creates a finish which is most crisp and light. There's hardly any grease left on it once it's fried and this can be illustrated by the near spotless greaseproof paper sheet on the plate.

The grinded radish tastes fresh and the tempura sauce is fragrant without being overly salty.

The lunch set is priced at 30+++SGD which makes it really quite reasonable for the quality you get here. The vegetables are extremely fresh as well and although they're deep-fried, there is no trace of oil, it's almost as though they were boiled or steamed.

The alternative to the tempura set is the tendon set which is very good in its own right. You get a slight variation in the ingredients but the tasty sauce on the soft and fluffy rice makes it a very satisfying meal too.

The miso soup here is excellent, exhibiting depth of flavor without that obvious taste of salt. It goes very well in between mouthfuls of rice.

Finished off with a refreshing mango sorbet, this was really one sweet way to end the meal.

D

Walkers Shortbreads, Esplanade, Singapore

I was getting pretty excited during the finale just before the intermission because I was hoping they would serve those mini steamed hamburgers that they ocassionally do at the Esplanade. Unfortuntely, they did not serve any hot food at all tonight. I did see something at the bar that I had not seen before; Walkers Shortbreads. Although these are made in Scotland, I remembered having quite a bit of them when I was in Australia. For old time's sake, I got some to nibble on.

Just before I opened the pack, I had a quick glimpse at the ingredients to make sure it was what I remembered it to be. "Butter (min 31%)" Alright, they spoke my language. Anything which is made out of almost a third of butter is definitely worth eating haha. Funny how as I was snacking on this and listening to the idle chatter in the background about the orchestra, music, composers etc, all I could think to myself was, "Hmm... this still tastes pretty damn good."

D

Banoo, Mohamed Sultan, Singapore

I have a huge penchant for Middle-Eastern food and since I had a mega craving for koobideh one evening, I thought it was about time I paid Banoo at 7 Mohamed Sultan a visit.

We started off the typical breads and dips. As with most Middle-Eastern joints in Singapore, unfortunately, the bread was not baked fresh. It tasted as dry and plain as generic supermarket "Middle-Eastern" breads despite the server purportedly claiming that their breads are flown in from Dubai daily. In fact when I was browsing through Cold Storage at UE Square later, I saw pre-packed Lebanese unleaven breads which look identical to these.

The hummus was pretty good. The serve was generous and the dash of olive oil really added to the fragrance. I would say it's better than the one at Cafe Le Caire but still not as good as the one at Nasser Elmassry.

In addition to the hummus we were also recommended to try the Kashk-e-baadaemjaan which is some grilled aubergine dish. I actually expected whole grilled pieces like Cafe Le Caire's but this came as some blended paste. Quite unique but I don't think I'll be craving this on a regular basis.

To enhance the whole dining experience we asked them what sort of beverage is authentically Persian and they suggested some Persian yoghurt drink. I'll try to describe the flavor without using any expletives but this, in all honesty tasted rather nasty, it was served at room temperature, slightly sour, saltish (quite) and had chopped mint in it. It was also non-homogeneous so you had to constantly swirl your drink to get an even consistency before sculling it down. Yes, that's right, this stuff didn't agree with us so much that we had to scull it. In fact, we ended up playing finger number games at the end of the meal to get the loser to finish off the jug. In a sad twist of fate (I was really setup), I was that sorry-ass loser that night. I'm really not sure if this is how it's supposed to taste like but if anyone knows, please drop me a note.

Another dish with aubergines, the koreshteh baademjaan came in a nice tomato based sauce with nicely grilled aubergine slices and some beef chunks. The beef could have been abit more tender and I would have preferred a cut with some tendon in it but I guess that's just personal preference.

I forgot what this is called but it's essentially a giant minced lamb ball. Served with a similar but less strong sauce as the koreshteh baademjaan, this also came with some crunchy potato slivers which sort of remind me of those crispy French fry snacks you get. This tasted pretty good but I wished they had not added some much potato filler in the meatball.

Finally, what we came here for, the koobideh. This tasted excellent. It came piping hot, there was a small pack of butter for us to put on the rice(all of it of course) and the servings were good (we ordered the upsized version). The koobideh was seasoned just right, not too salty but heaps fragrant and the rice was something else by itself. The quality of this long-grain was evident and when we were stirring in the melted butter, I could almost feel myself melting as well, it just exuded this fragrance that was most heavenly. If I had anything to gripe about this, it would be that I found the minced used in the koobideh slightly too fine, I would have preferred something slightly chunkier but I guess that's just bordering on being pedantic.

We ordered the chicken koobideh for a fun comparison and although this was rather tasty in its own right, it could not compare to the lamb koobideh. I guess it's a good alternative for those who don't eat lamb (yes, such people do exist!).

The only thing lacking from the koobidehs was a drizzle of lemon juice so I asked the waiter for some lemon wedges and instead got this bowl of pre-squuezed juice. He apologized that they were out of fresh lemons and had to use bottled juice instead. Although this tasted rather ok, it just didn't have that fresh flavor or satisfaction from a hand-squeezed lemon wedge.

When I found out that they had baklava, I had to order it. This wasn't the best baklava I've tasted but it's decent. The pastry was abit dry and seemed as though there wasn't enough rose water syrup to perfuse the layers of filo pastry. The walnuts did taste fresh though and the citrus syrup on the side was refreshingly not too sweet as well. I guess this will have to satiate my baklava cravings for now.

I will definitely return to Banoo for their koobideh alone and maybe that odd baklava or two.

D