Travelblogue: Big breakfast in Penang

Discovered an awesome coffeeshop on the corner of Jalan Rangoon and Jalan Macalister, where the saying “eat like a king for breakfast” can really be put into practice.

In the morning, you can get prawn/crawfish noodles, awesome bannana pancakes, kick-ass gula melaka coffee and home-made dim sum with paos as big as your head.

Enough talk. Here’s what we ate.

Breakfast item #1: Har mee (prawn mee)

Har mee with crawfish (or 'lai liu har')

Prawn and pork stock makes for good soup and made even better with savoury chilli paste

Best buddies: sweet (if a bit overcooked) crawfish and succulent fatty roast pork with crispy skin. They'll dance the lambada in your mouth

You can also have pork ribs instead of crawfish. Don't bother with the dry version though. They just give you less soup

Does parties and functions too! If I lived in Penang I'd hire them every weekend!

Breakfast item #2: Banana Pancakes – A sweet and savoury concoction with bananas, raisins, egg and sesame seeds. Sounds weird, but it’s good, really good…

Frying up our pancakes on a griddle so large she could fry a few other orders of french toast at the same time!

The bananas carmelise in the heat and create a perfect crisp exterior while remaining soft and warm on the inside

The perfect blend of Asian and Western in a pancake

Breakfast item #3: Big pau…as big as your head. Lots of moist meat and egg filling…

In proportion to the coffee cup

In proportion to a hand

In proportion to the fork

And finally...in proportion to my head. Told you it was BIG

And if you can’t get enough of the coffee shop during the day, you can always go back at night when the place comes alive with satay stalls, claypot porridge sellers, an awesome Pi Pa duck stall and a whole bunch of other local favourites. (prawn noodles and pancakes are off at night).

Travelblogue: Belachan fried chicken and beer in Penang

Disclaimer: If you’re a health nut (like my dad who can skin a chicken faster than you can say “boo” and throws away all that fatty goodness) or don’t like animal fat, you can stop reading now… This post is about chicken. Fried. Deep fried.

You can fry a chicken many ways.  America has its southern fried style, Singapore has American-imported ‘Kentucky-fried’ style and Penang, I’ve discovered, has Belachan Fried style. I’ve eaten a lot of fried chicken in my day (and in credit to my waistline) and I have to say that Belachan friend chicken is way up on the yummy list. Especially when you’re over-stuffed from lunch (2 plates of char kway teow and 1 bowl of assam laksa) and are looking for a carb free, but not fat free, dinner (nor particularly healthy dinner – as my dad would say)

Juicy chicken thighs...sounds almost salacious...

It’s a common dish in Penang (from what I’ve read on other blogs) but I only ever saw one stall that sold it; which is funny because I noticed that many hawker stalls in the touristy areas of Penang serve the same dishes. It’s assam laksa, lor mee, char kway teow, lor bak, prawn noodles, oyster omelette, wanton mee everywhere you go. Just spit and you’d hit a stall that was selling one of these dishes. It’s not the most fun for an adventurous greedy girl, but it makes it all the more special when you find something out of the ordinary.

Happy as a lark at find something out of the ordinary and eating with gay abandon. Arteries? What arteries??

Up close and personal: that's how I like my fried chicken...

Up close and personal with a glass of cold beer is even better!

This Belachan fried chicken stall is on New Lane , a small street that runs perpendicular to Jln Macalister. At night, it turns into a food paradise with tables sprawled out on the pavement and hawker carts lining the roads with  such disregard for traffic, that you constantly have to lean close to the sweaty food seller in order to avoid being side-swiped by  passing cars and motorcycles.

Anyway, I’m off now to look for a Belachan chicken recipe to try. More updates on that later!

Travelblogue: Postcards from Penang – Char Kway Teow

I like getting postcards from exotic locations all over the world. If I were in Penang I’d send postcards like this to all my friends…

Dear Jane,

Just had some Char Kway Tiow…Wish you were here!”

It just so happens I was in Penang and did have this Char Kway Tiow. It’s impossible to be there and not! Who could resist a plate of freshly fried noodles, fragrant with ‘wok hei’ (the slightly charred aroma that comes from flash frying in a hot wok) and glistening with hidden gems of Chinese sausage, prawns, chives and beansprouts.

I don’t know if this sounds typically touristy, but staying on Jln Macalister is really the most convenient if you want to eat Char Kway Tiow and assorted other hawker food. With many stalls within walking distance of each other, it’s pretty easy to find something decent without having to worry about finding your way around (cabs are S C A R C E here)

Many 'kafes' here have the cooking done out front. As if it were the building that grew out from behind the food cart.

The stall I really like, and where this ‘post card’ was taken is Kafe Heng Huat. It was recommended by a friend’s aunt who lives in Penang (and by our long-awaited for taxi driver) and if the locals say it’s good, whose gonna argue?

It’s on Jln Selamat, just off Macalister , and easily distinguished by the cook out front who spends the whole afternoon ‘char-ing’ kway tiow in a flamboyant, fire-engine red chef’s hat.

It only opens from lunch onwards and closes in the evening. We were the last customers one evening, and got to watch the ‘Mrs Fire-engine’ fry up her last dish and unwind from the labours of the day by counting her takings – the fruits of her labour so to speak.

The noodles are gorgeous. So far one of the better versions I’ve had in Penang (don’t bother with Sister’s, just up the road at the start of Jln Macalister – not so great in my opinion).

Imagine a mouthful of this right now...

At ‘Kafe’ Heng Huat, the fresh strands of rice noodles are coated with just enough oil and egg to be moist but not greasy; and the perfect harmony of soft noodles, firm but succulent prawns and cruchy bean sprouts.

Imagine it steaming hot from the wok. Savoury and spicy and delightfully redolent with ‘wok hei’. Uunnghh…I would kill for a plate now. Damn the erosion of the good ole’ hawker tradition in Singapore. Damn the food court chains that serve soulless, tasteless, mass produced gloop.

The lovely thing about eating in Penang too is that you can be sitting in one ‘kafe’ but order food from a million other hawkers outside and they will serve you wherever you are. Nobody seems to mind – neither ‘kafe’ owner nor hawkers, and definitely not the customers. I think the only thing is you should order drinks from the ‘kafe’ you sit in – as a form of courtesy.

In Heng Huat, as you wait for your Char Kway Tiow, you can enjoy the delights of the street. And no, I’m not talking about hookers. More like Assam Laksa…hahah…you can get it from the stall diagonally across the street.

Noodles light as air (none of that spongy, fatty texture that’s so common in the Penang fat bee hoon), simmering in a soup that’s heartily flavoured with ‘hay kow’ (if you don’t know what this is, you don’t want to know) and mint, sweetly tangy with pineapples and crunchy with cucumbers and onions. Delightful, just delightful!

So much for postcards. Someone just send me an airticket to Penang please!

Travelblogue: Saigon sandwich king

For a person who likes sandwiches, there’s nothing better than a Vietnamese pork roll or Banh Mi Thit.

Imagine warm, freshly baked baguette, filled with roast pork belly, pork terrine, slathered with liver pate and mayonaise, brightened with pickled carrots, cucumbers; the bite of raw spring onion, chilli and cilantro…and of course a delicate sprinkling of fish sauce.

The very thought of this amazing sandwich was enough to drive us onto the streets shouting “Baaagguuete! Baaagguuete!” And when you find a place with a good Banh Mi, you immediately buy as many of them as you think you can eat, and make sure you return every day of your stay.

No less than 10 Banh Mi in every order

When you bite into the sandwich, the hearty richness of liver in the pate mingles with the pungent aroma of fish sauce to create pure ‘umami’ – or the fifth taste as the Japanese call it (an addition to the basic sweet, sour, bitter, salty). It’s the feeling of completeness that rounds out the taste of the food and makes it whole; and it perpetrates your entire mouth. Where you can’t help but to close your eyes and concentrate on nothing but the sensation taking over your palate. I like to call it “an orgasm in your mouth” – not so refined as the Japanese way, but a darn accurate description of the what’s going on on your tongue. A good piece of sushi will do that to you, and so will this Banh Mi…

It took 2 people to make the 10 Banh Mi we ordered

There are lots of things that you can put into your Bahn Mi including cheese, egg and a host of other weird meat by-products. But the basics rock pretty good without it. Notice all the pickles and fresh herbs, as well as the pork terrine and roast belly.

A sprinkle of the magical sauce. I think this was a soy and fish sauce mix.

A little goes a long way

Mmm...Umami in every bite. I couldn't resist and had a leftover banh mi at midnight (after a full dinner). My tummy wasn't too happy and neither was my sleeping companion (for the crumbs all over the bed) but it was worth it!

The shop. They also bake their own bread.

Travelblogue: Ho Chi Minh – Love in a bowl II

On a ‘breakfast run’ in HCM,  as we weaved through traffic outside the bustling road outside our hotel on Le Than Thon (just behind Bin Than market), we wondered what deliciousness the morning would bring.

Then on Truong Dinh rd, we came across a dozen or so small, low tables and stools sprawled across the pavement. A horde of rush hour communters and families with children on the way to school, had heads bent over, noisily slurping up steaming bowls noodles. Long, seductive strands, billowing steam and coated with sauce were pulled from bowls to mouths with a quick jerk of a hundred chopsticks…it was a sight that we knew we could not resist. And so we found ourselves a seat, quickly pointed at the words ‘rough noodles’ on a laminated sheet of menu that had an  English translation (we were lucky they had one…but even if they didn’t it would have been easy enough to point at what others were eating.)

Mi Thap Cam turned out to be roughly made egg noodles . The noodles are served with pork…pork anything. You can have just pork slices or the whole pig in your bowl…intestines, stomach, liver, kidney, heart…on 2nd thought perhaps is WAS lucky they had an English menu…

The noodles themselves are truly the star. It comes dry or soup, and you can h’ave it with your noodle of choice – pho, vermicelli, egg noodles and something called tough noodles’ which the lady didn’t recommend. The egg noodles were the best – think Chinese egg noodles but drier and less starchy and with a firmer bite.

The Vermicelli Version, but u can't really see the noodles for all the stuff that comes with it....succulent pork slices, sharp chives, savoury, spicy chilli ...delish!

The mound of noodles is perfumed with lard. I say perfumed because the smell of lard is not overpowering. It’s subtle enough not to be greasy but aromatic enough to make your mouth water. Ohhhhh…you get a whiff of it everytime you lift the chopsticks to your mouth, but you don’t taste any overly porky or lardy flavour in the noodles themselves. Pretty amazing stuff. The whole dish is nicely balanced out with fresh, crunchy chives and tender slices of pork with just the right amount of fat to make it melt in your mouth.

If there was anything I’d choose over the Pho at Vo Thi Sau, it would have to be this!

Like all food stalls in many Asian cities... the cooking is done out front

Travelblogue: Ho Chi Minh – Love in a bowl I

Ho Chi Minh.
Dusty, noisy, humid, overcrowded…
People complain it’s just another 3rd world developing city with no soul and blah blah blah… But here in the heart of the city, in true greedy girl style… I found love – in a bowl of noodles – actually lots of bowls of noodles.

Pho is the something I MUST MUST MUST have in HCM. And I only have it at one place – Huong Binh (The place of experienced person – it says on their card). This little shop at 148 Vo Thi Sau – Dist 3 (not too far from Dist 1) has THE best pho ga IN THE WORLD.

Served alongside are different cow and chicken parts, but we stayed away from the innards - preferring instead a peppery chicken meat ball which you see directly behind the bowl of pho. It's served in it's own savoury stock, which you can dip your noodles into...slurp!

The broth is clear and delicate but tasty. And with a liberal sprinkling of aromoatic spring onions, the mouth-wateringly pungent saw-toothed herb (a member of the cilantro family) and Vietnamese basil, it makes a heady conconction of meaty heartiness and refreshing crunch.

Of course there’s pho bo for beef  lovers too, and the most KICK ASS drip coffee I have ever tasted EVER! It’s a thick, caffeinated kick in the head, dripped into creamy sweet condensed milk. One sip is enough seduce your tongue and make your mouth forget any other coffee you’ve ever had! Huong Binh makes their own special blend of Arabica, Java and Cherry beans and roasts it in butter. Beats all other cafe sua da (iced dripped coffee) in HCM I reckon.

This place is a MUST visit! If you only have time to do one thing, forget the Kuchi tunnels and head here!

Saw-tooth herb on the top...

Here are some other Fun with Pho photos we took of the 2nd meal in our first hour in HCM…

Ready, set, squirt!

Eating it like some of the locals do with chili and hoi sin sauce in the soup

Glamourous Pho models

Obsession with Baked Pasta

I’m stuffed. I’ve been trying to perfect my Wino’s Baked Pasta by cooking (and eating) it these last 3 weekends…and the results are beginning to show. Unfortunately it’s not in the marked improvement in dish, but the development of my double chin. Fan-f*cking-tastic…

On the upside, it’s nice watch family and friends enjoy the fruits of my labour. Last night was spent enjoyably over a baked lasgne (what else?), a nice wine and some good company.

For those who have been drooling over my FB updates…here’s what you’ve been thinking about.

Guests have the first go...My happy friend YY

Just a small portion to start...

Creamy, cheesy, tomatoey.....tomatoey??

The only non rich dish on the table

Here’s the recipe so you can try it out yourself…unless you are volunteering to be guinea pig for the next baked pasta weekend

Wino’s Baked Pasta

Filling
500g Cottage cheese
250g Mascarpone
(Traditionally, ricotta is used in stuffed pastas, but I stumbled upon this option when I couldn’t find ricotta in the market. I actually prefer the option because it makes the stuffing creamier.)
Combine the 2 in a big bowl. Once well mixed, separate into 2. Into which you add:

Sausage:
5-6 Sweet Italian sausages
1 diced onion
100g bacon (or pancetta if it’s not costing a bomb)
Fry bacon till lightly browned, add sausage and crumble. Finally add onions and keep cooking till they turn translucent. Leave to cool (and remove the excess oil) then combine with the half portion of cottage and mascarpone.

Spinach:
250g baby spinach
150g gorgonzola
A handful of crushed roasted pistachios
Grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste
Wilt the spinach in some butter over high heat. Leave to cool and combine with cottage and mascarpone mixture, gorgonzola and pistachios.

Tomato Sauce:
400g tomato puree
400g rose/riesling (sweetish) + dash for good measure
1 can whole, peeled tomatoes
2 tablespoons of cream
Simmer the puree, tomatoes and wine for 45 min. Add ground black pepper to taste and the teeniest bit of salt. Remove from heat and stir in the cream.

Topping:
Parmesan
Gruyer or Comte

Assembly:
Ready a packet of large shell pasta for the stuffing. In the absense of large shells, you can also use lasgne sheets – which I did last night – though I prefer shells.
Ladle some sauce into a baking pan.
Stuff the shells and place into pan. You can either lay it half-sausage, half-spinach or do alternating rows. That way you get a surprise in every bite. If you are working with lasagne, do half a pan of sausage and half a pan of spinach. Spread the filling over each large sheet and layer about 3 sheets.

Once done with the whole tray, ladle the remaining sauce on over the pasta and cover with cheese.
before putting it into the over (180C) pour a liberal dose of the wine around the sides (the reason it’s called Wino’s baked pasta!). Bake for 45 min – 1hr. I guarantee your house will be filled with the most wonderful smell of cheese and wine!

Bon Apetito!

Mmmm….Burger….

I love a good burger. In fact…I’d kill for a good burger.

A slab of juicy beefiness, charred to sweetly carmelised perfection, between a soft bun with a crisp, toasted outer rim and slathered with tangy tomato sauce, creamy guacamole, crunchy sweet roasted onions. Uuuuunnnggghhh….

There are few places in Singapore that make a good one. Ice-cold beer is always good for a drunken fix; Relish’s burgers have good flavour (pity the buns always fall apart before you finish); and a Sunshine at Carries burger is damn hard to beat. But in my opion, the best darn burgers are ones you make yourself. Then you can put tender loving care into mixing your patty with good marbled meat, and preparing all the other fixings that go to making it the PERFECT burger for YOU.

Wagyu burgers at Wendy's with MJ and Flo. Easy to prepare and too, too easy to eat.

Trying to look coy but secretly also getting ready to take a big bite

Moment of truth...aaarrrmmmpphh!

The Fixins’

Meat is the most important thing in the burger, I agree, but all the ‘trimmings’ are what makes a burger truly special or just blah. There are just TOO many things you could put onto a burger. Cheese (Subtle like Gruyere or Comte or Strong like matured Cheddar or Blue), Onions (raw/grilled), salad, tomoatoes, pineapple (?? i know), guacamole, bacon, ketchup, mustard…the list goes on. Left up to MJ, she would have said peanut butter!!

This time, we kept it simple with some guacamole mashed from 2 avocados. No seasoning – just fresh, creamy goodness. Some sauteed mushrooms and some oven roasted sweet onions. Perfect accompaniment for the wagyu patty.

Sauteed mushrooms with lots of butter and oven roasted onions...oh yeah and some salad...

And what about fries? Gotta have fries. Tossed some potatoes (the waxy, yellow sort vs russets) in a generous helping of olive oil, and into a pan with sprigs of rosemary. Into the oven for an hour - it kept me slaving over the deep fryer. Not quite the same as fried potatoes, but a MUCH more convenient alternative.

My all-time favourite ingredient is roasted onion. My friend Andrew (and burgermeister at Sunshine at Carrie’s) REFUSES to put carmelised onions into my Sunshine burger, says it ruins the purity. I say give me a roasting pan and a splash of olive oil! I got this Grreat recipe off Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall, who does the River Cottage series. The ingredients call for onions and oil (good), bay leaves (good), port (VERY good) and some juniper berries (like, yeah, real easy to get here…if you can’t, a couple tablespoons of gin will suffice – also VERY good!). Just check it out yourself (Andrew…are u watching this??!)

Obsession With a Sandwich

It’s no fun being sick…actually it sucks pretty bad.

My tastebuds are dulled so everything tastes like soap, and I have hardly enough appetite to eat with gusto, though of course I still go through the motions and hence never manage to lose weight, unlike some skinny-enough-already people who drop 5kg each time they cough or sneeze!

My lack of appetite and non-desire to live it up with cigarettes or booze left me feeling pretty darn souless – like being kissed by a Dementor – so I decided to indulge in some comfort food…Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.

Nothing makes me feel better (and according to some old wives, makes a cough worse) than a grilled cheese sandwich…’cept maybe two grilled cheese sandwiches.

Cheese of choice: Comte from the Franche-Comte region in France – mine was from Carrefour though…hehehe. It’s one of my favourite cheeses because it has a slightly sweet nuttiness that intensifies once the cheese is grilled, so that it’s savoury and sweet, chewy and crunchy all at the same time.

I used turkey breast and sun-dried tomatoes for filling and added some Parmiggiano for saltiness. Tangy bits of tomato were a nice accompaniment to the cheese.

Smeared oil from the tomatoes on the outside to get a bit more flavour, and pressed it onto a hot pan to get a nice crisp crust.

Who can resist taking a bite out of that?

If Music be the Love of Food…

I love a good musical as much as I love a good meal. Whether it’s singing along with friends to Rogers and Hammerstein, or crying into a box of tissues at Rent or Miss Saigon.

If you don’t know Rogers and Hammerstein; never heard of Avenue Q, My Fair Lady, Rent or Miss Saigon, read on at your own risk.

B U T … if your heart skips a beat when you hear the overture to Hello Dolly, then raise your voices (and your glasses) because this post is dedicated to you!

I’m blessed to have friends who share the same passions. And when we gather for meals or drinks, we’re bound to sing a show tune or two, while guzzling a dinner and a half.

One of my favourites is Shall We Dance from The King and I. So when writing out an invitation to dinner one day, I thought it would be hilarious to use it. I changed some words to suit the occasion, and it turned out to be a freakingly funny but accurate description of the life and love-life of a foodie

The original song from the 1956 version with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr

MY VERSION FOR THE DINNER INVITATION

to be sung to the chorus of Shall We Dance

Shall we dine? (dum, dum, dum)
On a whole roasted camel shall we feast?
Shall we dine? (dum, dum, dum)
On the best in the world from west to east?

Or perhaps, on a quick, simple meal of bread and cheese?
Could we still be together, with our arms around each other
If we eat humble food such as these?

On a clear understanding that this kind of food can be served up
Shall we dine, shall we dine, shall we dine?

Shall we dine?
On a cushion of mushrooms shall we dine?
Shall we wine?
Shall we fall to the ground and lie like swine?

Or perchance, when the last little bit of food is left?
Shall we still stuff it in us with a big swig of Guiness?
And will I still have a chance at romance?

With a big, empty tummy,

On food that is yummy

Shall we dine, shall we dine, shall we dine?