I Want A Fancy-Schmancy Nespresso CitiZ
By daniel | May 31, 2009
The fire engine red Nespresso CitiZ, one of the prettiest coffee makers around.
I totally love the heady aroma and golden crema of a good coffee, any time of the day. Esther? She’s one of the rare few that can’t even stand the smell of coffee. There are very few things Esther and I disagree on, but coffee is definitely one of them.
There’s no coffee in our house, save for a few packets of 3-in-1 instant coffee mixes for when my mother visits or to accompany dessert when we host dinner parties. But most 3-in-1 coffee mixes taste dastardly, and Esther never allows me any coffee in her presence in any case.
I’m hoping that the Nespresso CitiZ single-head automatic espresso machine will change her mind. She’d still hate the smell of the fantastic coffee it’ll make, but she can’t deny its beautiful design and how well the fire-engine red version (they have one in steel grey as well) will go fantastically with the decor in our kitchen. It even goes well with our retro red EuropAce stand fan in our living room.
If she still says no, my equally coffee-mad colleague Janice has actually suggested we share one for our office - and we know the perfect little space near our cubicles to put the S$548 machine. It’s recession time after all, and we should really cut down on the coffee from Tully’s and Segafredo Zanetti’s nearby our office. With the CitiZ, we’d even have a selection of 16 premium Grands Crus coffees to try. The only problem? I know we’d have a long line of colleagues queuing up to use it.
So please, Esther, can we have one? I’d do the dishes for a year.
Topics: Coffee | No Comments »
Fish and Chips at The Queen And Mangosteen
By daniel | May 24, 2009
Fish and chips at The Queen and Mangosteen.
I’m often at Vivocity as the company that I work for has a store at the huge-ass mall.
So one Saturday a colleague and I popped over to The Queen and Mangosteen (run by the good folks at Archipelagos so you can expect decent beer as well) on the mall’s first floor after an event for a chill-meal. I ordered the Fish & Chips ($14), which was under the “Nibbles” section, thinking it’d make a sizable snack. Turns out it’s big enough for a meal.
Having lived in Australia for more than four years, I’m a stickler for good fish and chips. Verdict? Fresh fish, excellently crispy but oily crust. Oh, and fabulous fries. The curry tartare sauce takes getting used to - gimme malt vinegar and ketchup anytime.
I like Archipelagos’s traveller’s wheat, so that accompanied the gut-bursting snack.
You can check out their menu here.
Topics: Beer, Restaurant, Western | No Comments »
Brunettes Over Blondes
By daniel | May 24, 2009
Pure Blonde
I had my first taste of Pure Blonde at last night’s FUEL Party at the F1 Building. I wouldn’t have been there other than the fact my company was one of the party’s sponsors.
The Pure Blonde tasted pretty alright, although at 4.7% alcohol it didn’t give me much of a buzz. It’s touted at having 70% less carbohydrates than a regular beer, so I didn’t feel like I wasted my jog earlier that morning.
Between a Pure Blonde and a stronger, darker German wheat beer (a Weihenstephan comes to mind) - I’d still go for the latter.
Topics: Beer | No Comments »
New York: The Home of Cheesecake
By estar | March 28, 2009
I was in New York a week back, and over the course of four days, subsisted on oversized American portions. From large bowls of Italian pappardelle to my favourite US fast food joint Chipotle Mexican Grill for a burrito fix, the meal I crown “Most damaging to one’s figure” has got to be the dinner I had at Junior’s.
For the uninitiated, Junior’s Most Fabulous Cheesecake & Desserts is a New York tradition going way back to 1950, and serves up typical American fare such as the humongous Swiss Burger I ordered. The ten-ounce all-beef patty came with hand-cut fries, and generously battered deep-fried gigantic onion rings . Talk about a heart attack on a plate! It was sinfully delicious, nonetheless.
But as the name implies, Junior’s main claim to fame isn’t the diner food, but its delightfully rich and creamy cheesecakes. My boss took one bite and proclaimed “This is the best cheesecake in the world!” And she’s probably right. In fact, Junior’s cheesecake was voted “New York’s Best” by New York Magazine, and is a must eat when in the city. I just had to bring a slice back to my hotel.
Smooth and hardly cloying at all, it was an indulgence worth every single calorie!
Topics: Desserts, Restaurant, Travel, Western | No Comments »
A Seoul Food Experience (Part II)
By estar | March 9, 2009
With all the snacking, Fen and I were hard pressed to find time to eat more substantial meals - yeah right! Every street we walked down had cafes, restaurants and other eating establishments shouting out to us. We just couldn’t resist!
We visited a 49 year-old shop in Myeongdong after reading a rave review of its Tongdak (Roasted chicken) online.
The review was spot-on. Crispy and juicy…just the way chicken should be.
Yes. I ordered this despite its rather interesting description of “Sea-ear, Seaslug & Clam Porridge.
Fen ordered this traditional Pumpkin Porridge - made from glutinous rice flour and pumpkin. It was mildly sweet and absolutely additive.
And of course we just had to sample the original version of these Korean classics:
From top to bottom: Soondubu Jjigae (Spicy tofu stew), Dolsot Bibimbap (Stone bowl rice and vegetables with spicy bean paste), Samgyetang (Ginseng chicken soup)
What made the biggest impression on me in Seoul however, was not the food, delicious as it was. It was the fact that every food court had one of these - a water dispenser - for all patrons to drink from. What a change from having to buy drinks at exorbitant prices in our local joints!
Topics: Korean, Travel | No Comments »
A Seoul Food Experience (Part I)
By estar | March 8, 2009
While recently in Seoul for a short getaway, I was actually not looking forward to five days of Korean food, thanks to my dislike of kimchi. Fortunately, the trip proved that Korean food had much more to offer than preserved vegetables and I ended up loving most of my meals there! I was especially thrilled with the variety of street food:
Grilled pork sausage meat wrapped around a rice cake centre - The rice cake was deliciously unexpected!
Egg cheese bread - This had a whole egg inside!
Grilled chicken with very spicy bean paste - My mouth was numb for half an hour after eating this.
Hotteok - A lightly fried pancake with brown sugar cinnamon filling - yumz!
Topics: Chinese, Korean, Snacks, Travel | 2 Comments »
Basilico: Food An Italian Mama Would Be Proud Of
By daniel | February 21, 2009
Esther and I have been very impressed with Basilico at the Regent Hotel ever since our first visit some months back. However, the pictures we took during the first time turned out really poor so I didn’t bother to blog about it. When we went back again this afternoon with our friend Jen in tow to sample their Saturday lunch buffet, the pictures turned out well.
Basilico, as I found out later, was named after the herb basil and not a type of medieval church as I thought (which is actually basilica). Interestingly enough, I didn’t see any basil in the restaurant, but there were quite a lot of pots of fresh mint scattered around the buffet spread as decorations. Go figure.
What caught my eye was this machine displayed in the centre of the buffet table, with which a chef was shaving extremely thin slices of parma ham (she ducked when I took the picture). One of the reasons why we really like Basilico is their spread of cold meats - mortadella and salami, for example - which are hard to find in other buffets in Singapore.
This is the same for their cheeses - today there was a selection of seven to choose from including parmigiana, provolone, and my favourite percorino! I was also astounded by the wide selection of condiments and dried fruits supposed to accompany the cheeses.
And if you’re wondering, this is the size of the parmigiano. Yes, it was huge. I recommend stabbing the cheese vigorously with the knife to relieve stress and tension. Food therapy, if you will.
But of course, that was just the antipasti section. We proceeded to the hot food section. There was a curiously out-of-place station comprising of Asian dishes such as beef rendang and sweet-and-sour chicken. This we utterly ignored. Instead we swooped onto the pasta station and proceeded to build our own pastas.
Jen totally loved the sauce in her squid ink pasta but she couldn’t place her finger on what gave the dish a special zing. We were so curious that we went back to the station to ask the lady chef what went into the sauce, and we found out that the secret ingredient in the secret ingredient sauce is… anchovies! Tiny anchovies are crushed and added into the cream sauce for that heavenly salty, smoky flavour. We’re so going to try to recreate that some time. The spinach linguine in tomato sauce that Esther and I shared - not so great.
Native Italians would feel at home here - al-dente risotto, oozing lasagne, hot thin-crust pizzas that came out of the oven in a constant stream and eagerly snapped up by patrons. One dish that deserves special mention was the roast lamb. Usually I hate the roasted meats at buffets because they tend to be tough from overcooking and being left out for too long. But the roast lamb here was tender, juicy and so flavourful that even Jen went for seconds (which is a surprise because she is the petite sort). The roasted peppers that accompanied it? Mama mia!
And of course, no Italian meal is ever complete without dessert, and in particular, tiramisu. The dessert selection is fantastic, and the tiramisu here in my opinion is to die for. The poached pear with zagblione was decent too. It was hard to resist the gelato, to go along with the apple strudel that just came out of the oven (Esther spied the pastry chef poking at it while in the oven so we waited for it to come out fresh and piping hot).
Most hotel buffets usually try too hard to impress with a humongous selection of dishes from multiple cuisines in the world, and hence you get a very confused culinary experience. At Basilico, you get unabashedly great Italian food. Other than the disgraceful Asian hot food station (which it really should get rid of), it eschews the hallmarks of most hotel buffets - sashimi and cold seafood for example - and instead focuses on quality Italian ingredients (airflown Romano tomatoes, for example) and cooking techniques.
So if you like hearty Italian food, you could do a lot worse than Basilico. If you’re the sort who insists that all hotel buffets should have Japanese sashimi, oysters or lobsters, give this a miss - I’ll be more than glad to take your place.
Basilico is located at Level 2, The Regent Hotel, One Cuscaden Road Singapore 249715. Tel: 6733-8888.
Topics: Italian, Restaurant, Reviews | No Comments »
Recipe: Rummy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
By estar | December 22, 2008
Every Christmas, I go on a baking rampage and my repertoire always includes baking a huge batch of cookies. While my signature is a version of the Toll House chocolate chip cookie, Daniel requested for a rum and raisin cookie this year to feed his *alcoholic* colleagues. After tweaking a basic online recipe, I found the perfect proportions to produce a delicious cookie that stays soft and chewy even after a week!
Rummy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1 1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup salted butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsp rum essence (use vanilla if you can’t find rum essence)
1/3 cup rum
1 cup raisins
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
Directions
1. Bring the raisins and rum to a gentle boil, then remove from heat and let cool. Alternatively, nuke them in a microwave for 5 min then let cool.
2. Preheat oven to 175ºC and line a baking pan with a non-stick baking sheet.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg together.
4. Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in the egg and essence.
6. Fold in the sifted mixture.
7. Stir in the cooled raisins and liquid, followed by the oatmeal.
8. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough onto a non-stick baking sheet and bake for 8 min. When in doubt, it’s better to under-bake slightly rather than over-bake, to avoid hard cookies. Remove from oven and let cool completely on a wire rack before storing.
To store soft cookies, place them in an airtight container. If keeping for more than a week, periodically place a slice of white bread overnight in the container to reintroduce moisture and keep the cookies from getting hard.
Topics: Desserts, Recipes | No Comments »
Recipe: Roast Duck
By estar | December 15, 2008
Inspired by my roast duck experience in London (London: Ducks Under the London Bridge) and the roast goose in Hong Kong, Daniel and I decided to buy a whole duck and try to recreate the dish in our humble oven. “It can’t be much more difficult than roasting a chicken right?” we thought. We couldn’t be more wrong.
To begin with, a duck has more fat than a chicken. A lot more. This means a greasy result is guaranteed if the duck is not prepared properly. Duck also has an inherent gaminess, which can be a turn-off. With the aid of cookery books, magazines and extensive online research, we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the most recommended methods of preparing the duck. The results weren’t too bad, even if I do say so myself!
Roast Duck
1 whole duck
Salt
Sugar
Cracked black pepper
Paprika (You can also use whatever herbs you fancy – thyme, five-spice)
Directions
1. Add 1/4 cup of salt and 1/2 cup of white sugar to a large pot of boiling water.
2. When the water comes back to a boil, lower the duck into the pot and let boil for 8-10min. You will notice some of the fat melt away from the duck into the water.
3. Remove the duck and let cool on a wire rack. This should take about 30-45min. While cooling, the oil will surface through the pores of the skin. When the duck has cooled completely, pat dry with paper towels.
4. Using a skewer, gently prick the duck skin all over at close intervals (maybe 1 cm apart), being careful not to pierce the meat. This allows the fat to drain from the duck while cooking. The duck can be refrigerated after this step for a few hours if you are not roasting it immediately. Bring to room temperature before proceeding with the next step.
5. When ready to cook, pat dry the duck again with paper towels. Preheat the oven to 190ºC.
6. Season the duck generously with salt, cracked black pepper and paprika.
7. Place the duck breast-side down on a wire rack over a baking pan to collect the duck fat. After half an hour of roasting, turn the duck over. Repeat twice for a total cooking time of 1 1/2 hours. Don’t worry if your oven gets a little (ok, a lot) smoky during the roasting period.
8. Allow the duck to cool for at least 20min before carving.
Make sure you keep the drippings from the duck! Sieve out the solids and what remains is flavourful duck fat that can be used for roasted potatoes or tossed through with pasta. Keep jarred in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
Topics: Chinese, Recipes | No Comments »
London: Ducks Under the London Bridge
By estar | December 1, 2008
Everyone who returns from London comes back raving about the duck. Not these (whom I photographed innocently frolicking at Hyde Park, unaware of their fate…muahaha).
But this.
While there are many Chinese restaurants around Bayswater, my colleague – a frequent visitor to London – steered us towards a very crowded Gold Mine, claiming it serves the best roast duck in the entire area.
And he was absolutely right. The other dishes we ordered (cereal prawns, mapo beancurd) were fairly pedestrian, but the duck was a revelation in itself. A crispy, slightly charred skin and tender juicy meat sandwiching a layer of melting fat in between, this could easily rival the best roast duck in Hong Kong. Each mouthful left a lingering sweetness from the caramelized skin. The half an hour wait for a seat was definitely worth it.
Topics: Chinese, Restaurant, Travel | No Comments »