La Braceria

I usually have business lunches with customers over at La Braceria as it is one of the good restuarants nearest to my office.  It used to be at Greenleaf area but moved over to Greendale Ave maybe about 1-2 years ago.  The location is a great choice as business has become so much better for them especially during dinners.  Advisable to make a reservation if you are going for dinner.

Tripes

I usually order dishes that I feel are consistently of high quality.  I ask them to do anti-pasti, fish carpaccio, beef carpaccio, mushroom risotto, seafood linguine, tripes (oh yes) and if we have about 3-4 persons - the T-bone steak (yes, yes, yes!).  Of course, I rotate the dishes every time I go there; how to eat so much??? The heart cannot take it!

T-Bone Steak

(poor quality of this photo was a result of the photographer being too hungry to snap a better picture;-))

Once I brought a lawyer from Switzerland to La Braceria and when she took the mushroom risotto, she said to Fabio (one of the owners) that it was the best risotto that she has ever eaten.  She can't help saying that it was ironical that she was eating this in Asia.  Ya, the risotto is consistently very good but I think she was also a bit tired and very hungry after a whole day of contract negotiation with me !!! ;-).

Chocolate Lava with Fiery Flame

Of course, cannot forget the dessert.  Must always save some space to take the chocolate lava.  It comes with a fiery flame.  So watch out for your hair when they bring it over your head.  It is shouting good.  Soft and creamy in the inside and crispy on the outside.  The ladies will love this! However, I am not sure if this is a true Italian dessert. But who cares!

They have a range of pretty decent and reasonably priced Italian wines.  Singaporeans are beginning to discover Italian wines.  They are still relatively cheaper than comparable French wines and of course they go very well with Italian food.  If you are taking the meaty stuff, go for the amarones ;-).

Raw Fish Carpaccio

A side note on carpaccio.  I bought this book "Why Italians Love To Talk About Food" by Elena Kostioukovitch from my recent Melbourne trip.  It is interesting to read that carpaccio is a relatively recent addition to Italian food cuisines.  This dish first appeared about 50 years ago  in Harry's Bar in Venice(No joke! Didn't know that Harry's Bar existed then!  Blur me, thought Harry's Bar started in Singapore).  The name of the dish was taken from a Venetian-born painter, Vittore Carpaccio (long dead at that time), whose paintings were enjoying enormous success at that time the dish was born.  The dish was made by Harry's Bar's owner, Giuseppe Cipriani, for a very prominent Venetian lady, Amalia Nani Mocenigo, who was prescribed by her doctor to eat raw meat to combat anemia.  It's kind of funny how some dishes come about!  Carpaccio (the dish I mean) is now so famous that there are other versions of it such as raw fish carppaccio and mushroom carpaccio.

Black Tau Gua

I couldn't help snapping a picture of the black tau gua (bean curd) that my mom was eating with porridge for breakfast this morning.  This is traditional breakfast food for Teochews especially for the poor Teochews of decades ago.  It is slightly hard and usually black sauce is poured over it to give it a sweet flavour.  It is difficult to find this in Singapore and we usually buy it from the wet market over at Albert Centre.  I think this black tau gua will be "extinct" in maybe the next twenty years as only the older folk eat this ;-( .

Boxing Day Christmas Dinner

I could not recall a Boxing Day that rained nearly the whole day. Good thing was it wasn’t heavy; just light rain. That night, my brother and I went to my dad’s friend, Tony, for a Christmas dinner. Dad could not come along as he was having gout.

Tony certainly knows about cooking and makes really nice food. This time he roasted a turkey which turned out to be the juiciest turkey I ever eaten. The meat was not dry like many turkey meat that we usually have to endure during Christmas. I took a few helpings. I packed some back and my wife also declared that it was the juiciest turkey that she ever eaten. Wasted I forgot to take a photo of it.

Tony also made wonderful stuffing and fruit cakes. For the fruit cakes, he actually preserved the various fruits in liquor for about a year!

His brother contributed delicious braised pork with pau which in my opinion was better than Westlake.

Looking towards last year’s Christmas dinner at his place again!

Christmas morning at Waterloo Street

Christmas Day morning was spent at Waterloo Street. Mom made her monthly visit to the Kwan Im temple and at the same time went to the Lady Boss shop at the Albert Centre to buy dry provisions.

People were making use of the holiday to visit the popular temple for prayers. It was pretty crowded though it was still early morning. Stalls were already starting to sell Chinese New Year goodies and ornaments even though CNY is some 7 weeks away.

The Albert Centre recently completed renovations and the place is as vibrant as before. Many old tenants have returned though a few have decided to retire. We noticed a number of new food stalls on the ground floor where the hawker centre and wet market are housed.

The dry provisions stalls are on the third floor. We have been frequenting Lady Boss for many years. The older folks, like my mom, love to go there for the dry provisions. Prices are consistently reasonable and the folks there are friendly and nice.

The lady boss herself will serve my mom and gives good discounts. Friendly and reasonable prices – two very important factors that make customers loyal.

Through the years, Lady Boss has grown and now occupies quite a number of units on the third floor.

Ma Ling luncheon meat

I was surprised to see a few cans of Ma Ling luncheon meat on display at Cold Storage. I didn't know that it has been allowed into Singapore. Ma Ling was taken off the shelves about a year or two ago as it was found to be contaminated with nitrofurans.
I have occasional cravings for Ma Ling as many of us have grown up eating its luncheon meat. The other brands are simply not as delicious as Ma Ling.
Hmmmm ....... I have to ask my mom why she is not buying Ma Ling since it is now available.



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Xmas Eve - Roast chickens at Cold Storage

This was the scene at the roast chicken section at Cold Storage in Causeway Point. It was towards closing time at around 9.30pm on Christmas eve. I was surprised that they were still making roast chickens when I walked pass 15 mins earlier. By the time the chickens were almost ready, there was a long queue and the chickens were selling fast. Not sure if it was that the chickens were really good or cheap or because it was Christmas eve.



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Xmas and a Birthday lunch at The Line

Every year during the Christmas period, the usual pre-U class mates will try to meet up for lunch. Ya, that's how "young" we are - from pre-U not JC ;-(. The lunch was today at The Line and it happened to be one of the guys birthday also! Happy Birthday G! We all had an enjoyable afternoon doing the usual catching up and teasing one another on our body shapes and recommending health supplements etc etc.

I usually do not go for buffet food but some food items were good. We all love the satays, laksa, cakes and cheese. And as usual with buffet, I am suffering from overeating .... sigh .....


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Blogging from iPhone

Just downloaded this iPhone application for blogging from iPhone. If you are seeing this, it means it's working! ;-). Now I found 2 ways of blogging via iPhone - one via email n now this via this application.


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Indian Lamb Stew

It may not look neat. But this is the best lamb stew I ever eaten.
Made by a friend's Sri Lankan maid. Always look towards this dish
whenever we are invited to eat. Fantastic with champagne.

Bottarga

Two years ago, I was introduced to a Greek version of bottarga.  Bottarga is supposedly a poor man’s version of caviar but it is by no means “cheap”.  This Greek bottarga is produced from grey mullet roe. It is packaged in a “bar slab” and coated with natural bee’s wax.  It can be dehydrated and grated and thus can be kept much longer.  It goes very well with salad and pastas.  This is an “acquired” taste; either you like it or hate it – as with most delicacy.  In the mouth, it has lots of sea flavour (i.e. fishy ;-)) and at the same time full of berries.  I tried it on scrambled eggs and loved it.

Siglap

osh, Siglap area has changed so much. I have not been to this area for quite some years. There are now many eateries but it looks like the local food still attracts a lot more people. Need to check with my friends who stay around here on the good dining places. A number of condos is coming up. They are mostly low rise not like those at the nearby East Coast. It may be due to plot ratio. It's a nice area to live in.

Australia Trip - Nov 2009 – Part One

Ya, so sorrie. I have not been disciplined enough to keep up to date on this blog.  It has been a struggle to keep up with work and I have been kind of lazy.  Hope to put in a couple of entries this coming two weeks on my Aussie holidays last month.

We decided to go down south for our holidays as both of us have not been there for far too long.  It was also good that our buddies will be in Melbourne at about the same time.  Thus we decided to go to Sydney for the first week and cross over to Melbourne during the second week.

Trying to get SQ seats to Sydney was surprising easy and we managed to purchase two-to-go tickets for a good price.  It was a red-eye flight and after landing we headed straight to the train station to catch the 2 hour train journey to the Blue Mountains.

We stayed at Lilianfels in Katoomba for the 4 days that we were at Blue Mountains.  This is the most expensive hotel in the Blue Mountains.  The hotel is nice and is only a very short walk to the viewing gallery of the Three Sisters.  The hotel is old but is well kept and modeled after the “Victorian” style.  But I would like to try out the nearby Echoes Boutique Hotel which is more modern the next time I go there.  Echopoint has bedrooms that are right at the edge of the Blue Mountains.  Hmmm…wonder if there are earthquakes there.

We rented a car and drove ourselves to Jenolan Caves.  The drive took about close to an hour and I had to drive through relatively steep and narrow downhill roads when reaching Jenolan Caves.  I nearly thought that I had taken a wrong turn.  There were close to 10 different cave tours and they were all guided tours.  Looking at the rock formations brought back memories of my last cave tour over at Mulu National Park in Sarawak and there was at least some 15 years ago.

Other than Jenolan Caves, we spent the rest of our stay on shopping over at Leura, doing some tracking and exploring restaurants.

Though we stayed in Katoomba, we spent quite some time over at Leura.  We did not like Katoomba as we felt it was getting too commercial.  Leura is a small time and is very friendly.  It has just two row of nice little shops.  But these shops have their own specialties.  There is a Christmas shop that sells Christmas stuff all year round; a candy shop that stocks all kind of candies and a small bookshop that has the type of books that I like.

For food the locals know best.  I checked with one of the staff over at the Megalong bookshop to recommend restaurants that he personally will go and makan.  He recommended two places which turned out to be really nice - Cafe Bon Ton and Pins.  We loved Pins.  

This lovely little place is run by a Scottish husband and a Japanese wife – Simon and Keiko.  The style is Japanese-European fusion and the dinner we had was real pleasing both to the eye and taste. 

 I was quite surprised to find such quality of food at Leura; a small little town right up the mountains.  

Café Bon Ton is modern Aussie food and is also good. Compared to what we had at these two restaurants, the  two-hatters restaurant over at the Lilianfels Hotel was over-rated and we had to pay a lot more L.

We had take away roast duck and pork for lunch last week. It was
really good. Try them out if you have not ;-)

Gardenia bread and Ayam Brand’s sardines and tuna - 29 August 2009

I wrote on Facebook that Gardenia’s Nutri Multi-Grain bread with Ayam Brand’s chilli & lime sardines in tomato sauce is very nice; having tried that for breakfast. My friend commented and asked me to try Gardenia’s Focaccia with Ayam Brand’s chilli tuna but not to put the chilli with the Focaccia. Woke up early this morning to go to the supermart to get them for breakfast. Wah! Wonderful combination. Spicy good and shiok shiok shiok! I had to wash my hair to get rid of the sweat after that.

Birthday cake and eggs

Even though I am no longer young and am married, on the day of my Chinese birthday, my mother will, without fail, go to the neighbourhood cakeshop to buy a simple cake and boil eggs for me.  The eggs are coated with a type of red-pinkish colouring and the whole family will eat at least an egg for the day.  Simple family tradition.

Birthday Dinner at Tatsuya - 25 August 2009

My birthday dinner was at our favorite Japanese restaurant – Tatsuya. I reserved 2 counter seats and specially asked that we sit in front of Chef Goh-san. We asked Goh-san to give us 2 omakase sets and to include more of cooked dishes.

We started with 2 small appetizers each– my wife had pan-fried tofu with fish roe and freshly cut figs and I had the sliced rolled smoked salmon with roe and the freshly cut figs. These were good to start with and prepared us for a greatly enjoyable evening.

Next came a large rock oyster for me. It was smooth and sweet and could have easily slight down my throat.

Fugu mirin boshi – fried puffer fish with a sweet liquid flavoring made from glutinous rice and shochu- was next. We always asked for fugu mirin boshi without fail at Tatsuya. It was so so good and it’s liking eating bak-kwa with no guilt. Of course fugu can be deadly if not prepared properly.

Next came a plate of sashimi. Tatsuya consistently serves one of the best sashimi in town. Just look at the photo. Doesn’t it look at a piece of art? ;-)

Sliced cooked awabi (abalone) topped with bits of salmon skins and marinade was next. Each slice was chewy and crunchy. Nice contrast to the sashimi.

Next came a warm thick broth that had generous cubes of grilled eel mixed with radish. I think miso must be one of the ingredients and the broth was sweet.

We had a grilled isaki next. It was light and delicate but not as sweet as the kinki (my favorite and bloody expensive). I think it may be because the isaki was grilled instead of steamed. We finished the whole fish except for the head and tail.

The preserved ginger and pickled vegetables were good and they are usually served with the aburi sushi.

Tatsuya is well known for its aburi (grilled) sushi. We had a couple of them. Below is a picture of a piece of hirame (flounder) sushi. A check with Chef Goh-san and we found that it came from a left-eye flounder. Nice grilled aroma, chewy and juicy with lots of oomphs. I also asked for a piece of Matsusaka beef sushi. Gotta have Matsusaka beef whenever I am there.

My wife was served a bowl of tasty hot thin white noodles (I think this is hiyamugi) soup with beef. It was so good that we had to ask them where to buy the noodles.  Understand from one of the chefs that the hiyamugi is available over at the Isetan supermart.  Will definitely go and look for it.

It was late in the evening when we neared the end of the omakase course. Throoughout dinner, I had umeshu which was made by Tatsuya and bought for us as an anniversary gift from Andrew and Pat. The umeshu went well with the dishes and I think it will become a lot better given a couple more years of ageing. We were the only customers left and took the opportunity to chat with the chefs while they were cleaning up the counter.

Dinner at Pietrasanta - 22 August 2009

Was at Pietrasanta for dinner with 3 of my closest friends for a special occasion.

We skipped the tripes this time around as I having too much of these lately (Chinese and Western styles). So for starters, we had cold cuts, deep fried anchovies and Portobello mushrooms. I love all the starters especially the fried anchovies which I never seem to get tired of. They are not salty, not too hard or soft , simply just the right stuff for me.

For the mains, the four of us shared a slow cooked lamb shoulder, a steamed Italian sea bream, 4 grilled fresh langoustines (freshly flown in from Italy that day) and alio olio with crams.

The lamb shoulder was marvelously slow-cooked. The meat was soft, juicy and combined well with the excellently done mashed potatoes. This was a good change from the equally excellent beef steak that we usually order.

The steamed Italian sea bream was a surprise. Usually I do not order fish in Italian restaurants as the dish usually come out dry. But this was delightfully delicious. It may be because the shipment just came in on the same day.

The grilled langoustines were the highlight of the dinner. They were fresh, succulent and sweet. But atlas, being langoustines, we could only get so much meat out of them.

We opened a bottle of 1997 Carpineto Brunello di Montalcino which was “potong” from Andrew (not at dinner);

and a 1996 Marques Caceres Gaudium Gran Vino, courtesy of CW. Both wines went very well with the food on the table.

Overall it was an excellent dinner with close friends. We should meet up more often for meals rather than wait for special occasions; hah.

Pomegranates Finally!!!

Finally, I manage to find pomegranates at one of the wholesalers over at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre. They are very fast moving and I quickly grabbed about 20 of them. Given half to Andrew as his daughter loves them. Just opened one. They are good ;-). The arils (seed casings) are very red, sweet and tasty. I think the pomegranades can last me for a week. I am a happy man.

Looking forward to golf at this place next month - 21 August 2009

Not going to say where this place is...for now;-)