Dining Out: Brunch @ Oriole

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Had a lovely brunch at Oriole with K and PG.  Scrambled eggs on toast. Scones with clotted cream and jam. A Mexican platter of eggs, chorizo and tortillas.  One round of prosecco and coffee to round it all up.

K ordered the house special coffee known as chilli chocolate mocha which is an unusual concoction of fresh chilli juice with risetto.  It tastes like a normal expresso with a slightly spicy aftertaste.

Shopping followed brunch!  Some clothes and books for me.

Rain Towels – Keep Or Throw

I have been doing some major spring-cleaning the last couple of months. Every other day, I would pull out a drawer, go through the stuff and throw things out.

I’ve already given away slightly more than half of the books on my bookshelves to the library.

I’ve identified about a ton of clothes which I have not worn in the last six months, packed them neatly in paperbags, waiting to give them away.

How did I amass all these clothes, most of which I don’t even recall purchasing. I felt really awful while cleaning up. All the money wasted on clothes that I hardly wore and some never even seeing the light of day, having been stashed away in the far corners of the wardrobe. I knew I wasn’t ever going to wear these things but for a long while, I just couldn’t bring myself to give them away. There is always this “maybe I will want to wear this one day” thinking that prevents me from decluttering.

It is no wonder my fridge is always full. Full of old, expired foodstuffs. Mouldy cheeses. On-the-verge-of-rotting fruits and vegetables. It’s so GROSS. Why can’t I be one of those super neat and organised folks?

Old CD albums that no longer work, ancient VCDs, cushions, pillows, drinking glasses (good grief, why do I need like 3 sets of drinking glasses…?). I am on a roll. Once I get into decluttering mode, I can’t stop.

Then I found these in one of my drawers. Rain towels.

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I still can’t decide whether they are ‘to go’ or ‘to keep’.

Picking Saga Seeds

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Had a delicious kway chap lunch with C at Old Airport Road and chatted for a couple of hours at the hawker centre, oblivious to the crowds around us. At least I was oblivious; not sure about her! 🙂

Then I headed to Medi-ya at Liang Court to see if I could find my Korean banana milk. None to be found. Sigh. Ended up buying a tub of Haato gelato in two flavours – yuzu and black sesame – and Tampop Deli’s nama chocolates and a slice of cheese chiffon cake.

Yoyow! The chiffon cake is really good. Light, moist and airy. Now, I want to go back to the shop and get the whole cake.

While waiting for TBH to knock off, I decided to pop over to Fort Canning Park for a walk. It was nice and cool after the rain…and I saw plenty of red saga seeds lying around on the grass. Just waiting to be collected!

So that was what I did – hunched over, rustling amongst the grass, soil and piles of dead leaves, picking up saga seeds, piling them on a huge leaf.  I like hunting for the pods and plucking the seeds off them.  When I was a kid, my neighbours and I would have this competition to see who can collect the most saga seeds in a day.  And playing hopscotch.  That was how we amused ourselves then.

It has been a long while since I saw black saga seeds. Wonder where I can find them.

Chinese Steamed Pumpkin Cake

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OH. SO. YUMMY.

After resting the pumpkin cake (with heaps of Chinese mushrooms and pork) in the fridge for one night, I took it out this morning, sliced a wedge and pan-fried the slices in a sizzling hot pan till the sides are all crispy and brown.

Eaten with loads of cold chilli sauce. Damn, forgot to get Lingham’s so had to make do with Maggi’s.

Good thing that the husband doesn’t like this stuff so I have all of it to myself. I love pumpkin-anything, except when it is in its raw form.

I’m glad my mom learnt how to make this from my late paternal grandmother. This is about the only food that I really like which has been passed down from the Hokkien side of my bloodline.

Culinary Pick-up #001

Mom came over to my place today to hand down some of her recipes – Chinese steamed pumpkin cake and rempah.

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The problem is that she doesn’t have exact measurements of the ingredients, but arbitrary estimates that she pulls out of her ear.

“Four bowls of water”. What sort of bowls – big, medium or small?

“One spoonful of starch”. Erm.

“Half an Australian pumpkin”.  Half of a BIG pumpkin is very different from half of a small pumpkin, or even a medium-sized pumpkin.

“$5 of fatty pork” or “an amount that is the size of your fist”. Okay. Is it $5 of fatty pork for half a pumpkin or what…?? And am I supposed to tell the butcher to sell me some pork that is equivalent to the size of my fist? Will he throw the cleaver at me?

“Why do you need exact measurements..? No-one gave me exact measurements. After you make this a few times, you’ll know how much ingredients are needed.” Yeah, that’s just brilliant.

That’s one of the reasons why we have shouting matches whenever we are together. Not just because we have Hainanese blood in our veins, but because we operate very differently in the kitchen.  I like very dangerous objects such as KNIVES to be laid flat on the table or in the sink when not in use; Mom likes to wave them at me when she talks to me.  I think she might just POKE me in the chest with a knife one of these days.  She thinks my kitchen is an utter mess – she is the ‘keep your workstation clean all the time’ sort of person and I am clearly, not.

That was for the steamed pumpkin cake. It was the same arbitrary measurements for her rempah.

I am still none the wiser after spending the entire day with her in the kitchen. It was quite fun though.

Food Blog: Smitten Kitchen

I came across this food blog recently, Smitten Kitchen, run by a husband-and-wife team living in NYC. 

I like the look of the blog. 

It has a simple uncluttered layout (and to me, that means there are little of those migraine-inducing photo galleries plug-ins and OTT number of widgets), monochromatic colour scheme, easy navigation, well-taken photos and clear concise writing in a conversational style.

I haven’t tried any of the recipes posted on this blog (most of which seem to be adapted from cookbooks) but I will very soon.

Ah Hor Kway Teow Mee

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Drove out for lunch with a friend to Syed Alwi for Teochew kway teow mee and a bowl of fish dumplings.

As usual, I got lost and went here, there and all over before I found the place (I can picture my husband’s contorted face had he been in the car). I checked the street directory before I drove off, I swear! I think I should add a GPS system to my 2011 wish list.

Flavour of the noodles is nowhere as good as our favourite haunt in Simpang Bedok but the chilli is quite yummy. Not the fiery spicy sort but has a texture like heybi hiam. Wouldn’t mind buying a bottle to eat with plain rice, if only they sold it on its own.

Then we went to Mirabelle to buy charcoal buns, chocolate croissants, scones and tuilles.

Happy. Happy.

Murakami Reading Project

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I read my first Murakami book, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, way back in 2004 and I thought it was a rather odd novel. I couldn’t quite connect with what I was reading. Firstly, the numerous characters were all so wacky strange, they appear to be living on a different planet. Secondly, the book didn’t seem to have a coherent plot and comes across as a compilation of random, yet related, stories about the strange characters. Normally, I would have given up after two chapters but I found the novel sufficiently compelling for me to to finish reading it. And rather, enjoyed it.

Then I went and purchased two of his other books – A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance. These two books killed off my budding interest in Murakami’s works. The surrealistic plots in these two books, especially A Wild Sheep Chase, were too much for me and I wrote them off as nonsense. Seriously, a book about people hunting for a strange sheep which inhabits and controls a man’s mind…??

Maybe it’s age that makes me want to revisit stuff which I didn’t like when I was younger.  Recently, I decided to dip into Murakami again.  Yeah, can’t find a logical reason for anything, just blame it on AGE.

I read Kafka On The Shore and Norwegian Wood and liked both novels alot. Because the plots were not that outrageous and characters were very well-developed. So I’ve decided to read the rest of Murakami’s novels as a mini reading project for myself.  There seems to have one thing which I have in common with Murakami.  We like cats.  Black cats.

A particular book blog that I frequent is organising a Murakami Reading Challenge where participants (or rather, like-minded  bookworms) are supposed to read all of his books over the course of 2011 and thereafter, put up personal reviews about the books.   While I am not going to participate in the challenge, I thought it would be fun for me to read all the books at my own pace, then read these reviews and see if I agree or disagree with the points made in these reviews. 

I was searching online for a list of books and noticed that his book covers are very whimsical and quirky. Apart from price, two things I consider when buying a book are: book art AND the typeface of the font.  Which is why I never buy Penguin books unless absolutely necessary – the fonts are tiny and the covers almost always look terribly outdated. Sometimes, I sniff at the pages of the book to see if they smell nice.

Happy reading.

Zion Road Kway Chap

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^Boon Tong Kee Kway Chap at Zion Road Food Centre.

I really overdid it today. Kickass nonya laksa for lunch and artery-clogging kway chap for dinner. All on the same day.

Eversince I came back from Korea, I lost my appetite for hawker food for quite a while. Even the food served at my usual favourite hawker places didn’t whet my appetite.

Nothing tasted nice. Or right.

Today might be the day my appetite has finally come to terms with the fact that it is stuck in Singapore and won’t be seeing Korea-Korean food in a long, long while.

An Excuse For Ginger Soup

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It’s Winter Solstice. Tangyuan time.

I love tangyuan, especially the ones with peanut and sesame filling. But what I love even better than tangyuan is the ginger soup that the tangyuan is usually served with.

Ginger soup – I made it myself with young ginger and rock sugar.  Tangyuan, I got the packaged ones from Di Yi Jia. 

But I miss my mom’s home-made tangyuan.  She prefers tangyuans without any filling and serves it with a sweet, pandan-flavoured soup.

Books: Norwegian Wood

First, the Beatles song. Then the novel by Haruki Murakami. And now, a movie directed by Tran Anh Hung.  All known as ‘Norwegian Wood‘.

I have just read the novel and loved every bit of it.  It is rather different from Murakami’s other books, in the sense that this novel is a simple love story centred on a young man on the cusp of adulthood, and is devoid of any surrealistic plot devices that are common in Murakami’s works.  No talking cats, vanishing elephants, strange sheep, etc.  But like most of the male protagonists in his books, the main character here is an apathetic hero who reads widely and loves to listen to music.  This is another thing that I like about Murakami’s books – the numerous references to books and music.

I am looking forward to watching the movie when it screens in Singapore.  I read that it took the director 4 years to convince Murakami to turn the novel into a movie.  While I doubt the movie will be as good as the book itself, I can see from the trailer that the cinematography is gorgeous.  And because the story is set in the late 1960s, the movie set has a retro feel to it.

It would be interesting to see how closely the movie follows the novel and how the director interprets and fleshes out the story and emotions of the characters.

A Replica Of Granny

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“I turn ONE on the 22nd which is next Wednesday….!”

We had a gathering at my in-law’s place for an advance celebration of our niece’s birthday next week.  It was a low key event because my in-laws didn’t think that it was necessary to invite the entire family clan for a party.  Thank goodness.

It was a nightmare trying to get her to take a photo with the cake because she kept pulling the dolly underneath the cake towards her, which nearly sent the cake flying in her face.  I was glad that my mother-in-law bought a normal sponge cake with a fruit topping from the neighbourhood bakery instead of the colourful, fondant-heavy, cartoon-themed cakes that are so popular at birthday parties for kids these days.

The little imp can sit up but for some reason, can’t yet crawl.  So she moves around on her butt.  The two words that she can say are “mum-mum” and  “ball”.  She likes to eat and is fed all sorts of food, including laksa, just to keep her quiet.

She looks so much like her maternal grandmother (my mother-in-law) in this photo.

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