Canton Wok, Joo Chiat, Singapore

Chef Ang Song Kang, the man behind Canton Wok was recently accorded membership in the Chinese Cuisine category of the prestigious Les Amis D’ Escoffier Society.

La dee da, doesn't mean anything unless he churns out tasty food.
Fortunately, he does.

Canton Wok has found home in a refurbished detached house (bungalow) at 382 Joo Chiat Rd after previous locations at Tiong Bahru and then Upper Serangoon (where I started to take his stuff seriously).

A great starter dish to whet the appetite is the deep fried aubergine (eggplant/brinjal) with pork floss. This is a nice dish to create some aubergine converts because it tastes delicate, crisp and light with no resemblence to most sticky and slimy aubergine dishes.

Pork chops with Portuguese sauce. This is a rendition of the popular Hong Kong baked pork chops and rice with Portugese sauce. He uses tender pork fillets here, tasting very similar to tonkatsu, the fragrant creamy sauce complements the pork perfectly with its slight hint of spices and sweetness.

Home-style beancurd braised in a thick brown sauce with dried scallops and mushroom bits. The beancurd is so smooth it practically glides down your throat. The sauce is ideal to stir into your rice as well.

Another signature dish here is the bacon-prawns served with mayonnaise. I prefer this alot more than that wasabi prawn dish that is being spawned everywhere simply because of one reason - crispy streaky bacon. The saltiness of the bacon is countered by the tangy and sweet mayonnaise so it actually tastes quite balanced.

The obligatory "guilt-relief" vegetable dish of Chinese spinach tasted so good, it was almost guilty in itself. Cooked in a light broth with three kinds of eggs (salted, century and normal), this dish managed to hold its own weight against the rest of the tasty meat dishes.

I reckon a sign of a good chef is the ability to make tasty food out of simple, normal ingredients. This dish of black pepper lotus root is an example of such culinary mastery. A great meat substitute for the vegan.

Canton Wok is one of my favourite food joints for Chinese food not only because it serves kickass stuff but it's also unpretentious and consistent. Oh, on a final note, they do not charge for corkage here so bring along a nice wine (like the Xanadu 2003 Featherwhite we had) to enhance your overall dining experience.

D

Have Car, Will Travel

The world of automobiles is an ever evolving one and a multi-billion dollar industry. It is a world of horsepowers, quarter-mile timings, V6s, V8s, turbo-charging, super-charging, scantily-clad models, 0-100s, torque etc. Somehow, perhaps because I've already been there and done that, my interest in all this technical mumbo-jumbo has waned and the only excitement I get from a vehicle is if I know it's going to transport me somewhere which serves kickass grub.

I felt that no metal box on four wheels could ignite much interest in me anymore. I'm also not a strong believer in love at first sight but no amount of skepticism could prepare me for my encounter the car of my dreams. I was having a little weekend get-away in Dearborn, Michigan and decided to visit the Henry Ford Automotive Museum where I saw this baby - The Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile!!! I fell for it immediately. I figured since I can't physically BE an Oscar Mayer wiener (damn that's a catchy-ass song isn't it?) I could at least damn well drive one.

And to all you guys out there who feel that cars should be chick-magnets, here's some word of advice.

1. If a chick only goes out with you because of your car, you're going to be in for some miserable times.
2. BUT you won't have any problem getting the ladies with this baby!

OK everybody, sing together now!

"Oh I wish I were an Os-car Mayer Wie - ner
That is what I'd tru-ly like to be
'cause if I were an Os-car May-er Wie - ner
Ev-ery one would be in love with me."

D

Sarawak Kolo Mee, Upper Thomson Rd, Singapore

This branch popped up a few weeks ago near one of the places I work so my colleagues and I decided to check it out. I must admit that there seemed to be a lot of hype surrounding this joint with huge banners, pictures with local celebrities and whatnot. So it claimed to have a "new taste" and is a "must try", honestly, I'm not sure how famous this is or I must be living in a hole for too long because I've never heard of it before; till this one appeared. We decided to order a bit of everything on their menu to give them a fair chance.

So it arrived, the only main difference I saw was the noodles looked like instant noodles but were apparently fresh and "air-flown from Sarawak daily". Disappointingly, it tasted pretty much like instant noodles too! They had some local chilli at the side which helped salvage this dish abit but despite a generous wallop of the stuff it still remained rather unremarkable. This bowl of noodles was also priced at SGD6.00, which I feel is quite a rip-off.

The fish soup was quite pathetic. It seemed that monosodium glutamate was the seasoning of choice here and fish mongers were on strike. I could see this meal becoming a forgettable one pretty soon.

The only dish that was half-decent was perhaps the fried dumplings. At least the oil they were fried in seemed fresh. That being said, I really need to ask my friends from Kuching if this is really how "Kolo mee" should be or I had been hoodwinked into trying some poor imitation.

D

Give us this day our daily bread...

Nothing beats the smell of freshly baked bread, especially when you've just woken up from the annoying buzz of that damn alarm clock. But unless you live above a bakery you need to seek other alternatives. I found mine in the "Bread Factory Plus".

Purists might balk at the notion of using a bread machine to make bread but hey I'm a big fan of modernisation in some ways and if this does the job almost as good, that's good enough for me. Look at the options on the top: pizza dough, rye, whole wheat, the list goes on. Besides, I'm a simple person with simple needs, I leave the complicated baking and pretty decorating stuff to C haha.

The model I chose has this little nifty window at the top so you can have a little bread-making peepshow to satisfy that voyeur in you. Great viewing pleasure. The bread maker does EVERYTHING, it's almost like magic, you put your ingredients in, walk away (unless you like to watch) and come back later for pure unadulterated bread, simply magic. Well I do use breadmix which I buy in bulk from overseas but I'm sure you can get it here as well. I can even set it to start making bread a few hours before I wake up so by the time I do, it's hot and steaming fresh but more importantly, smelling awesome to make my start to the day just that little bit better.

Look at that. Crusty on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, excellent for spreading on some of that lemon curd C makes. Cleaning the machine is a breeze as well as the non-stick metal box is removable and fits easily into any dishwasher. If you really enjoy the smell (and taste) of freshly baked bread but find it too troublesome to make it from scratch everyday, seriously do consider investing in one of these babies, you won't regret it.

D

Meidi-Ya, Liang Court, Singapore

Sometimes we're too lazy at work to dine-in so we take-away. Whenever we go down to Tampopo at Liang Court, we always have a fun time looking around at all the stuff in the Meidi-Ya supermarket. Everything looks so neatly packed and arranged it's almost like being in a toyshop. Today we decided to just get an assortment of pre-cooked grub from Meidi-Ya and stuff ourselves silly back at work.

We each had our ricebowl and shared the side-dishes. Not surprisingly though, with the amount we ordered we could have dined in somewhere instead but we really wanted to try to re-enact the slave-driven Japanese-I've-go-to-eat-in-my-office feel. I was later informed by a colleague who works in a Japanese company that they only get one ricebowl or bentobox so my version might have been slightly over-the-top (I'm not complaining haha). Meidi-Ya's food is slightly better than the sushi offerings from local supermarkets, perhaps even as good as some of the localised Japanese restaurants but of course it still can't beat dining at a proper Japanese restaurant, there's just something about heating up my karaage in a microwave that doesn't seem quite right.

To complete the whole Jap affair, we took some imported drinks as well. I went for the Calpico because there was no indication on the bottle at all on how it's supposed to taste like. It said "Pure and Gentle Flavor" on the front. Gee, I was really excited to taste "purity" and "gentleness" which are more like human virtues than flavors but in the end it only tasted like diluted carbonated Yakult - not too flash. Maybe mine wasn't chilled enough so I'll give it another go in the future when I'm up for more "pure and gentle flavor".

D

Mei Heong Yuen Dessert, Temple St, Singapore

Just a little walk down from Xiao Ping Hotpot is this pretty cool dessert shop selling a variety of desserts including the Hong Kong style milk and egg custards. Not too bad a place to get some sweets after a savory, spicy meal. This place closes pretty early though at about eight-ish so don't rock up at supper time.

They also offer some snacks such as local savory yam cakes and rice dumplings but their desserts are still their mainstay offerings. I noticed that they seem to be pushing alot of Farmer Brand peanuts over the counter as well and to satisfy my curiosity I asked them if they were agents or distributors for the Farmer Brand. The lady at the counter said in a flat matter-of-fact tone, "This is OUR brand. We have owned it for almost 60 years" whilst tapping at the Chinese characters on the packet of peanuts which *gasp* actually spelled "Mei Heong Yuen". I felt like the total dumbass because I've only always known them as Farmer Brand peanuts without actually trying to figure out what the Chinese characters mean haha.

We ordered the egg white custard with ginger and the walnut paste, both of which were not too shabby at all. One thing I liked about their desserts was they weren't too sweet although I heard later from some colleagues that this tends to fluctuate at times. I'll come back one day to try their cold "mango with pomelo and sago" only for the reason that it occupies more real estate on their picture menu than the others and therefore it MUST be good.

D

Xiao Ping Hotpot, Temple St, Singapore

When I have a craving for something, I like to try to satisfy it with the best in its genre. After trying a few hotpot places including Chang Chang Lai in the Maxwell Food Alley and a few along the "hotpot" street near Beach Road, I have to say that Xiao Ping at 57 Temple Street in Chinatown still provides the best overall dining experience due to their consistency, predictability, and quality of ingredients. Don't expect fine dining here, it's frequented by mainlanders as well which only serves to enhance the whole "keep-it-real" dining experience, sometimes I almost feel like I'm in China when I'm dining here due to the background heavy accented Mandarin and the ubiquitous Mandarin music being played.

As you can see, their menu is rather extensive. The only thing I wish they would add are pork balls. I'm not really a big fan of seafood and find it too much of a hassle to eat shrimp or prawns unless they're shelled for me which can happen depending on who I'm dining with haha.

The meats are what I'm here for and I normally order up to three rounds of the beef, mutton and pork. Semi-frozen so they can be thinly sliced, this buffet is done a la carte style so you're ensured freshness because your ingredients aren't sitting in a trough for hours. The freshness and quality of the meats are always good. They are cut so thin, you can even cook them shabu shabu style if you so please. They also have a pretty decent range of condiments and sauces which include sesame butter, raw eggs, two types of vinegar and even monosodium glutamate (MSG). Their homemade dumplings are tasty but may often require some reminders before they're served.

I normally order the mixed (yin-yang) version although I think I'll graduate to the pure spicy version soon. This place uses an electric pan to heat up the soup which I think is a good idea because although it takes abit longer for the initial boil, the heat is more consistent and you don't risk bruising your knee against a bulky gas tank.

This place keeps their overheads low by not hiring any workers at all. It's run by a husband and wife team and occasionally their son "helps" out. Not sure about the helping out part because he seems to have a part-time obsession with adjusting the climate by turning down the fanspeed or playing with the air-conditioner (an effort to save electricity??). Those funny quirks aside, this joint is still my place of choice when I feel like a good hit of spicy hotpot. Just get ready for your little own chilli blast in the toilet the next morning (cue all the Richard Pryor toilet humor here).

D

Tian Tian, Tiong Bahru, Singapore

It's almost routine now to stop by TianTian (239 Outram Rd) on my way back from the airport as I'm usually quite ravenous by then due to my ongoing boycott of airplane food. This place caters to the dinner and supper crowd and opens till late. It's located near some big nightclubs so you get to see a rather interesting mix of people both young (mainly female) and old (mainly male). I usually opt to sit behind in the alley because it feels more hardcore (a la street style) and I also avoid the constant inhalation of exhaust fumes if I sit in the front just by the road.

This place offers quite a variety of live seafoods which consists of a range of shellfish even including geoduck clams. The steamed bamboo clams with garlic is my appetizer of choice. The flesh is steamed just right, developing a certain degree of crunchiness whilst still holding on to a tender texture. I love the sauce they use on this, I'm just a sucker for anything that has oil and roasted garlic.

I swear, this place has one of the best fried rices I've had in Singapore. It has a smokey aroma and each grain is coated with just enough oil to make it smooth without being too oily. This one was a "custom order" of chicken, barbecued Chinese pork (char siew) and salted fish. I love it that they only use beansprouts because I utterly detest frozen veggies such as peas, carrots, corn etc in my friedrice.

Another one from the live seafood selection. These are medium sized oysters, they used to have larger ones but recently seem to have depleted their stock. These can be eaten au naturale but I normally choose the batter and quick fry method because I prefer to eat something steaming hot at night. The sweetness and juiciness of the oyster is totally contained due to the encasing of thin, crunchy batter around it. I normally eat this dish with mayonaise, local chilli (they have a pretty kickass sambal balacan too) or a mixture of the two. Sometimes (depending on the chef?) they sprinkle abit of rock salt on top the oysters and that is enough seasoning for me.

Probably one of the better salt and pepper squids in Singapore. This place uses a hard crunchy batter instead of a lighter, crispier one like the ones you get in Asian restaurants overseas. This dish of theirs has been improving over the years although I still find the batter a tad bit too heavy and they could use larger pieces of squid which would provide slightly more bite.

Tian Tian quite consistently delivers a safe, trialed and tested meal. They have a pretty mean chilli crab and black pepper crab as well which I usually order to go because it's so much more convenient to get messy at home. They're supposedly famous for their steamboat as well but despite patronizing this place for years, I haven't tried it yet. Something about a hot pot of boiling soup in a non-airconditioned environment and 30degC weather doesn't make it seem that appealing. Maybe when Singapore starts snowing.

D

Singapore Chinatown, Northbridge, Perth

Singapore Chinatown (SCT) is found in the "Chinatown" of Perth i.e. the Old Shanghai area. That's about as much relevance the name has because the owners aren't Singaporean but mainland Chinese and you can't find food like this in Singapore. I first tried this place for supper some time ago and it has found a place on my restaurant rotation list ever since. The servings are huge, prices reasonable and taste predictable. Don't expect anything fancy here but just straight forward flavors and substantial serves. They open till two or three in the morning which makes them ideal if you get those supper cravings.

I would pay twice the amount I paid for this if I can find it in Singapore. This is wong kum (yellow gold) squid which is basically deep fried squid in a batter infused with salted egg yolk. I think the person who thought of this combo should be given a Nobel prize because although the thought of mixing salted egg yolk and squid may seem weird, the taste that's created in this process is awesome. The fragrance and saltiness of the egg yolk in the light batter complements the naturally bland fresh squid.

Salt and pepper spareribs. Why does everyone in Singapore make prawnpaste chicken but not this? This is almost a staple item in any Chinese restaurant in the States and Australia and is probably Hong Kong in origin. This places uses thick spareribs so they don't dry out too much in the frying process and still retain juicy and succulent when served. It's hard to get hot chillies in Australia so although they sprinkle a generous portion on the top, they do really nothing to you at all.

Braised beancurd with roast pork. This is a good dish to accompany the white rice because it has some gravy for stirring into. I'm always amazed at how huge the servings in this dish are. It's almost as though it's automatically upsized (at no additional charge) without asking.

Consistent, predictable, substantial, these words basically sum up SCT. Located in this tight enclave of Chinese restaurants, I can only imagine how tough competition would be and the only way to prevail and stand out from the rest is by your serving sizes and consistency. You can only lower prices that much because of the rent. After trying the rest, I dare say that SCT has prevailed so far.

D

p.s: They serve a really refreshing complimentary cold milk sago for dessert with slivers of honeydew or watermelon floating in it. Good stuff unless you're severely lactose intolerant.

Binh Minh, Northbridge, Perth

This is a new little gem that opened only in the recent months, taking over from some phở shop which I did not care for much anyway. In an coincidental spate of events, I was dining here with a Vietnamese friend and his verdict was that the food is very tasty although he would classify it as modern Vietnamese as it's apparently not very traditional. Go try it and be your own judge I say.

Grilled beef salad, the beef was only just grilled around the edges and was slightly rawish in the middle, almost abit akin to a modified carpaccio of sorts. The harmony of flavors in this was just excellent, the salty beef combined with the sweet and tangy dressing plus the onions were just the things you wanted in a starter. This dish seemed to have a Thai influence but it sure kicked more ass than the ones I had in Thailand.

Salt and pepper squid, Vietnamese style that is. This was their take on the salt and pepper squid served in almost every Chinese restaurant in Australia. I actually enjoyed this version alot because instead of the straight forward salty flavor this had a subtle sweet fish sauce added and the batter which melts in your mouth tasted almost buttery.

Deep fried fish with sweet sauce. When we ordered this I was almost fearing a thick sweet sauce (a la sweet and sour fish) but the sauce which went with this was pleasantly light. The texture of the fish was amazing, it was fried to a crisp externally but was still soft and fluffy on the inside. Perhaps one of the better battered fish fillets I've tried. The serving was huge too which was a notable plus.

The highlight of the meal, Vietnamese steamboat (great for winter). My Vietnamese friend gave his seal of approval for this one because it had pineapple and lady's fingers (or okra, we're not talking about the lady's finger spongecakes we use in tiramisu). I really liked how they used this inverted sombrero-like structure as the steamboat, in that way the table wasn't crowded up with the ingredients. But if you really want to be a hypochondriac about it, you could argue that raw juices from the food would be constantly seeping into the soup hence rendering it not really "safe" per se if you're afraid of raw food containing bacteria and whatnot. Ok, I digress, let's go back to the rest of the yummy stuff.

Vietnamese fried crispy noodles, this dish was ordered almost purely for amusement factor because we wanted to see how it compared to the typical Chinese crispy noodle (Shang Min or sometimes even called crispy chow mein). Well, to be fair to this variant, it did provide reasonable competition. The noodles were crispy without being hard and did not even have a hint of rancidity so I guess fresh oil was used to fry it. A nice little filler-type dish, although we were almost bursting even before this dish arrived.

Wait a minute, didn't someone mention "bursting"? But yeah, there's always room for dessert and besides dessert is like the fullstop at the end of a sentence, the meal isn't complete without it. But boy were we glad to order this banana with stickyrice and icecream. The banana was layered with glutinuous rice, nuts and redbean in a little sea of coconut milk below three scoops of icecream and more crushed nuts - simply heavenly.

I really enjoyed Binh Minh's food and I actually saw them revising some prices so I'm expecting a price increase soon (hint to everyone to check it out asap to avoid the price increase). If you were observant enough, you'll notice that Binh Minh is one of the few Vietnamese restaurants that actually garnish their foods, hence providing a nice little touch of finesse but I'll come back again just for the taste even if they serve on paper plates.

D

p.s: They only serve one-dish meals during lunch, so if you want to try what I had, please go during dinner.

University Asia Restaurant, Nedlands, Perth

On the way back from M.River, we decided to stop by University Asia Restaurant in Broadway, Nedlands for some Chinese food. I was actually craving Chinese food heaps after spending those few days in M.River. This place has an interesting history, it used to be owned by Billy Lee; after his demise, it was sold to a Singaporean lawyer and now it's owned by Malaysians from KL (which still somewhat explains the Cantonese theme in the food). The food and service of this place is pretty much checkered with ups and downs over the past few years but currently is pretty good resulting in a slightly higher patronage from ourselves.

Started off with a thick soup with soft beancurd and prawn bits in it. It was a tad bit too salty today but was hot enough to be welcomed on a cold, rainy winter evening.

Sometimes I get queries on why I like to eat Chinese food in different countries when you can get Chinese food in Singapore. The answer is simply because Chinese food in different countries is different, you get alot of variations that you'll never find in Singapore and honestly, most of the best Chinese cuisine I've eaten is outside of Singapore anyway. This dish is pork ribs with portwine. Although port is slightly sweet, the seasoning of the deepfried pork ribs still overall made this dish deliciously savory. The chargrilled onions and shallots also gave a subtle fragrance which only served to enhance the dish further.

Roast (actually deepfried) chicken with soy sauce. Another variant of the crispy roast chicken, this allows the chicken to be more moist and flavorsome as it soaks up the soy sauce with roasted garlic that's poured over it.

Probably more Malaysian than Cantonese in origin, this dish of beancurd, mincemeat and sweet-spicy sauce over a raw egg base seems to be dying out in Singapore. Still sizzling when it was served, it went really well with the steamed white rice.

As is customary in most Chinese restaurants in most Western countries, the obligatory serve of fruits at the end of the meal were oranges. I only took this picture because this place took the effort to deseed and peel the oranges for us which I thought was pretty cool.

D

p.s: University Asia also supposedly serves a pretty wicked chicken rice set (which I have yet to try) during lunch which is popular amongst the students (UWA is just across the road).

Sunset at the Mortar Wheel, Augusta, WA

Sunset at the mortar wheel near Augusta where the South China Sea and Indian Ocean meet. The first sunset entry on this blog. I'm a sucker for sunsets, probably because I'm too lazy to wakeup early to take sunrises, then again it is alot easier to stayup rather than to wakeup!

D

The Haul from Margaret River

Besides all the eating that took place in M.River, we still managed to have quite a fruitful time increasing our wine collection. A haul of 64 bottles this time. Off the top of my head it consisted of:

Bettenay Premium Wines - Lostplot Sweetdreams
Bettenay Premium Wines - N.V White Port
Bettenay Premium Wines - 2003 Sparkling Shiraz
Vasse Felix 2005 CaneCut Semillon
Cape Mentelle 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon
Juniper Crossing Wrights White Port
Juniper Estate 2004 CaneCut Riesling
Adifern Estate Shepherd's Harmony 2005 Autumn Harvest Cabernet Sauvignon
Voyager Estate 2003 Shiraz
Voyager Estate 2004 Shiraz
Howard Park 2005 Merlot
Howard Park 2005 Riesling
Beckett's Flat 2006 Liquer Chardonnay
Belizar's (Beckett's Flate) 2005 Autumn Harvest


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Vasse Felix, Margaret River, WA

Vasse Felix is the oldest winery in M. River and is supposedly to have very nice lunches. We were turned away the day before so we tried our luck (yet again with no bookings) today. Being a weekday, they were still reasonably crowded but were able to accomodate us with ease. The picture above shows a view from the restaurant, the little tunnel under the hill leads to their cellar which is kept constantly cool rather naturally because it's underground. A nice river runs through the estate providing fresh water for the vines. I guess one of the advantages of being the first on the block is you get choice land.

For starters we ordered the sampler platter again, from the top we have their goat's cream cheese, followed by some quiche of sorts, the roast chicken with Jewish artichoke hearts and the steamed pork bun (which was actually very similar to a normal pau!). Not being a big fan of artichokes, I'm not sure what the big difference between Jewish artichokes and normal ones is but it still tasted pretty good. Not surprising, the bun was the least impressive of the lot but still proved rather amusing.

This main really started the suspicion of whether the chef behind the scenes is Asian because if you look closely at it, it was basically roast pork! So I had a pau for starters and now I am having roast pork. I found it most hilarious actually that I was receiving some sort of Asian inspired food in the oldest winery in M.River. It still tasted good though and I'm a sucker for crackling.

The catch of the day was grilled snapper. This tasted really fresh and was cooked just right. It was by far the tastiest fish we had this trip, beating VAT's barramundi and Knight's Inn's pink snapper hands down. The serving was also rather huge but it was still very tender with no hint of toughness anywhere.

The sides we ordered were the croquette and pork roulette. The croquette was quite tasty because it was rather salty and greasy due to the streaky bacon bits in it and the roulette serve was worthy to be a main in its own right.


We ordered the cheese platter (only two because we aren't very fond of blue cheese), the creme caramel which looked really pretty because of the caramelised pear, the steamed

ginger pudding with vanilla icecream and the carrot and date slice (not pictured).

The cheeses were well cured and came with dried raisins on the stalk which always looks pretty cool for presentation. Plus they had both bread and crackers to accompany them which is refreshing from a single option.

The creme caramel was done well; smooth, with no lumps or bubbles. Pretty standard as I'm seldom blown away by even the best creme caramels.

But the king of the desserts would have had to be the steamed ginger pudding. For ginger fans (I love ginger tea, gingerbread men etc by the way) this would have been a little piece of heaven. Steamed to perfection, its soft porous consistency acted as the
sponge to soak up the creamy vanilla icecream. What a way to end the meal. As this was our last meal for this trip in M.River, we wanted to go off with a blast. Well, this meal was indeed good no doubt, but it was predictably good which doesn't really give it "blast" status. Nevertheless I can see Vasse Felix replacing Xanadu or Vat 107 easily on my list of "must-go" places in M.River.

Not wanting to be offensive to Aboriginal culture or anything but on a really random aside, I saw this statue as I was walking out of Vasse Felix and the moment I saw it, I nearly shouted to myself "Dennis Rodman!" Look at the resemblence!






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