Shake Shack, Manhattan, NYC

This little cafe nestled in Madison Square Park (at the corner of Madison Ave and 23rd Street) has quite a cult following for their burgers and other fare. In fact, there's even a webcam on their website to show you how long the queue is.

So even though I was here at the off-peak hour at near three-ish, there was still a decent line. I waited about 15 minutes before I got to the counter to order my stuff.

They passed me a little pager and after about another 10 minutes, it buzzed and it was time to collect my grub. All in all, it took me only 25 minutes, not too bad compared to the hour-plus sort of waiting times I've heard from others.

But since 25 minutes is still rather long for a hungry guy, I decided to go for the bigass Shack Stack. The Shack Stack on the website is described as a "Trilogy of cheeseburger, Shack burger and the Shroom burger" which basically means there are two patties in this, a breadcrumbed portobello mushroom, American cheese, melted Muenster cheese, lettuce, tomato and shack sauce. I washed this down with a black and white (chocolate and vanilla) shake. Well, so what was the verdict? If anything, I found the burger just a tad bit salty and the shake a little sweet but that being said, this was definitely one filling meal. I'll be back to try their fries, frozen custard and dogs.

D

Mee Noodle Shop and Grill, Manhattan, NYC

American Chinese food is almost like a unique entity to America. It's like Hainanese chicken rice which is pretty much a Singaporean dish. It's unique because it's Chinese food with some modifications in flavor and taste.

Here's General Tso's chicken which is pretty much present on almost every Chinese restaurant menu here. It's really like a sweet and sour variant with a very slight spicy edge.

I was quite surprised that the stir-fried vegetables in garlic sauce came with a rather thick reddish looking sauce. I was expecting a savory clear garlic sauce instead but apparently this is how it's done here.

On another note, the dumplings at this place seem pretty popular, so I may drop by one day to try them out.

D

The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Chinatown, Manhattan, NYC

This place has been churning out delicious ice creams for almost 30 years. Apparently, there's another place which looks very uncannily similar (a competitor?) hence the need for the word "original" in their name.

You'll always be spoilt for choice when you're here. With a variety ranging from almond cookie and green tea to more interesting ones such as wasabi and coconut fudge, it's really quite impossible to try all the flavors in one sitting. I think all the fruit stalls selling lychees and mangoes I walked passed must have planted some sort of subliminal message in my head because I walked out with a double scoop of mango and lychee ice cream. Boy was this good stuff, thick and creamy, full of fruity flavor but not overly sweet, this was the ideal chill pill for the summer heat.

D

Steak, cheese and egg bagel, Mcdonald's, NYC

Yet another result of my jetlag; found myself up at about 6-ish looking for food. Chanced upon a Mcdonald's and true to the bagel culture in New York, they have them here as well. I went for the steak, cheese and egg bagel which included some grilled onions as well. This wasn't too bad really, albeit quite greasy and the bagel didn't really taste that fresh. I need to get over this jetlag soon.

D

47th Street Growers' Market, NYC

Whilst I was taking a walk down 2nd ave, I chanced upon this little congregation of growers selling their produce. It then dawned upon me that I was told of this grower's market before. Well, since I was here I decided to have a look around. I don't know which days exactly that they're open, but I was here on a Wednesday. It's July which is the season for berries. Although the blueberries did look very tempting, I get a better deal at my local supermarket haha.

I did pick up a punnet of white cherries though. I've only seen these once in Singapore and didn't buy any, so I was definitely going to try some that day. These tasted very similar to red and black cherries, maybe just very slightly a tad less tart. Then again, the novelty was quite fun.

D

Diner Breakfast, NYC

One thing funny (actually it's not funny, more like annoying) about jetlag is that you wake up at the oddest hours. So here I was laying in bed at 3am, by about 5am it was getting bright, so I ventured out for some grub. Not many places were open then (maybe it was a Sunday as well?) except for Dunkin Donuts which seems to be a 24hr joint here (and yes, there's no queue).

This little diner was just opening for the day and since I was rather famished at this point, I decided to hop in for a breakfast platter. Here's a standard breakfast platter with sausage, sloppy fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, buttered toast and a refreshing glass of orange juice. This wasn't too bad although it's still rather weird that I'm eating breakfast when my stomach was tuned in to dinner mode. If there's one thing I hate more than 18hour longhaul flights, it'll be jetlag.

D

Coda (Goodbyes taste like 85% cocoa chocolate)

It's been almost a year since I started blogging about food and perhaps to a lesser extent, my travels as well, which pretty much focused on food anyway. It's quite a pleasant revelation, really, that I've surprised even myself with staying on this blogging thing for that long.

It's almost funny how this blog was started in Australia, based pretty much in Singapore but will not get to celebrate her first year's anniversary there. Well, Singapore did share her 100th post milestone, which till today is one of my favorite posts.

A new place beckons, with a totally new environment, people and of course foods to check out. I do not think that the question of whether I'll continue blogging or not needs to be asked.

I'm in this one for the long-run. Heck, I've known relationships to last even shorter than my blog haha!

I guess you can take the guy out of the blog but you can't take the blog out of the guy. Wait a minute, that sentence didn't really make much sense haha. Oh well, I'm rambling on again, but I was never one for waxing lyrical, rather preferring to write in prose; I write like how I'll speak.

I'm actually typing this rather belatedly for I've actually already left Singapore quite some time ago but I felt I needed to post the "Farewell" ones first for completeness' sake.

Anyway, here's the giveaway to where I'm based in now.

Stay tuned for more.

=)

D

Kuriya - Farewell III

The third and last farewell meal in the series saw us back at Kuriya again. We decided to do the seasonal kaiseki this time round.

We started off with an additional order of seared duck breast with sorbet. An odd combination but I liked how the tangy and slightly sweet sorbet paired up with the savory duck flesh.

The appetizer course of grilled pike eel skin, wax myrtle, egg omelette, boiled squid with thin tofu and black sesame seed tofu was not bad. The best in this trio would probably be the grilled eel skin in my opinion, but I've always liked eel.

Then came the sashimi, seabream tasted the best this time round. Then again, this is coming from a non-sashimi fan.

The grilled item of sweet fish with Dengaku miso paste was pretty good, especially the fish, which I felt tasted better alone because the miso paste was slightly too sweet and thick for my liking.

I quite enjoyed this dish of eel on foie gras mousse with pumpkin sauce. The matching of the ingredients complemented each other very well.

As usual, Kuriya's nigiri sushi is always pretty satisfying.

I do apologize for not having any pictures (my battery died on me!) of the last two courses of soup and dessert but if you trust me, you may take my word for it that they were pretty good. Especially the mango flan which came with the dessert.

D

Tian Tian - Farewell II

We seemed to be hitting all the old favorites in this little farewell series. Here's the front of Tian Tian, which I don't see very often because I like to sit in the alley behind. There's something about eating in an alley which accentuates that whole feeling of "hardcore" dining haha.

We started with the usual staples such as the steamed bamboo clams with garlic.

Deep fried rock oysters.

The prawn paste chicken here is pretty good although my preferred choice is still Fatty Weng's.

This is the first time I'm trying their prawns fried with salted egg yolk and it's not too bad. It's abit different from the ones in Hong Kong due to the addition of the curry leaves and chili bits but that didn't bother me.

Salt and pepper spareribs, just some mammal to balance the meal.

I've always liked the fried rice here because the rice doesn't stick together and each individual grain has an intense smokey wok hei flavor. This came with scallops and huge ones they were.

D

Wo Jia Can Ting, Shanghai

As the name suggests, when you dine here, you're actually really dining in someone's home. This small joint tucked away from most of the public eye is a little gem in Shanghai which serves traditional Shanghainese fare.

We started off with some cold dishes; this is honey barbecued pork.

Pork cooked with Shaoxing wine.

When I read the menu, which described this as sugar tomatoes, I thought it was a variety of tomato as sweet as sugar. Turned out, it's a dish of tomatoes with sugar scattered on it! Needless to say, this was rather sweet.

The fresh water shrimp was sweet too but in a good way because they were so fresh, they exuberated this natural sweetness.

The salt and paper pork rib batter was slightly too heavy, but other than that, this was pretty ok.

Their noodles here are excellent. This is just a plain noodle with some oil and seasoning. A huge serve for less than 1sgd, this is large enough to feed three.

A nice change from the more commercialized eateries in Shanghai, do try to drop by if chance permits.

D

Steamed Buns, Shanghai

As mentioned earlier, wheat is the predominant carbohydrate staple in Shanghai. As such, little stands like these which serve steaming hot buns are popular all year round.

Here's a red bean bun which was surprisingly pretty good, the bread being soft and fluffy and the filling, not too sweet.

D

Mutton Skewers, Shanghai

These are the mutton skewers (akin to China satays) which I enjoy so much during Winter. Since I was here, I had to grab some for old time's sake.

The meat on the skewers is now removed into a little paper cup, so you don't get to eat off the skewer anymore. A spoonful of chili powder, pepper and we're ready to go.

D

Qing Quan Fang, Hangzhou

We stopped by at another place that seemed popular with the locals which was also conveniently on the way to the train station.

The cold chicken had a nice hearty bite but other than that didn't really have much flavor.

The Hangzhou specialty of braised belly pork in soy sauce and dark vinegar was pretty king. Stewed to tender perfection, this is something that definitely demands seconds. See the nice marbling of fat? That's right, you eat that too.

The vegetables tasted pretty fresh and the broth was quite tasty but this wasn't really anything out of the ordinary.

The final dish of shrimp fried with longjing tea leaves was a bit of letdown though. Considering this took 40 minutes to prepare and cost more than the other dishes combined, there wasn't really any longjing flavor in this, the scant dressing of tea leaves would make even a stripper look modest. Maybe we didn't order the right dishes but the only thing here which will be memorable was that pork belly, in fact I feel like some right now!

D

Chamber Rouge, Hangzhou

With the new high speed train, it takes only slightly over an hour to reach Hangzhou. Hangzhou is such a scenic place and a nice change from the busy Shanghai city. This used to be the place where the Emperor would take his concubines to on dates; it's that good. Besides being home to pearls, silk and longjing tea, Hangzhou also has some pretty tasty cuisine which is unique to herself.

This joint was recommended by locals and it was crowded with locals. I'm not sure how the translation ends up with "Chamber Rouge" but that didn't really affect the food.

Braised waxed duck is a specialty of Hangzhou. The duck is waxed and preserved first before braising. Although it may sound like it'll be really salty, it wasn't really. In fact this was pretty fragrant and tasty. A pity the duck became pretty scrawny after the whole cooking process and each mouthful had to compete with some pesky bones.

I forgot the name of this fish but it's another specialty of Hangzhou. The texture of the flesh is pretty tough, almost like chicken in fact, which may be a turn off for people who prefer soft flakey fish flesh but I'm ok with a little chew.

A deep-fried long spare rib is good to grace any table, any time. This rib is heavily seasoned in five spice and preserved bean curd which gave it a rather unique flavor.

The beef with green chilies were tender and succulent with the chilies adding more of a fragrance than any heat (in the spice sense), in fact these chilies weren't hot at all.

I'm not a fan of cabbage usually but I was pretty wowed with the stir-fried cabbage. It wasn't overly fried so it maintained a nice crunch and I think the slices of fatty pork belly and preserved clams helped enhanced her flavor.

We finished off the meal with another Hangzhou specialty dish. This is a pasta dish commonly known as "cat ears" because the pasta supposedly looks like cat ears? Cooked in a broth of pork and preserved vegetable, this is a good filler at the end of a meal or could even be a meal just by itself.

D