New Majestic Restaurant, Singapore

The highlight of my trip to Singapore was dinner at the New Majestic Restaurant, a newly refurbished restaurant serving modern Chinese cuisine.

We had the degustation menu:

1. Salmon tartare with sake sauce.

The best way to describe this would be chopped up sashimi in a sake sauce. This was served in a small glass dish surrounded by chipped ice, accessorised with an elaborate leafy plume.

2. Sharks' fin soup with crab meat.

Very few restaurants in Singapore serve sharks' fin soup as a thick broth nowadays. More commonly found are the clear double boiled versions - perhaps to emphasise the authenticity of the soup. But this was served the way I like it, thick, starchy, yet smooth and exquisite, and chalked full of crab meat!

3. Braised tofu with seaweed

This dish seems very popular in restaurants in Singapore nowadays. This would be the third time I've eaten braised tofu with seaweed on this trip. Again, very well done.

4. Wasabi prawns + peking duck with foie gras.

By far the most memorable dish. Wasabi prawns, too, seem to have taken over restaurant menus, as with salted ducks' egg yolk prawns. This was served with a singular prawn topped with a creamy mild wasabi sauce.

Accompanying it was the coup d'etre of the night: peking duck with foie gras. I love the shine of a perfectly roasted duck - so rich and moisturizing and lovingly oily. This was served a single sliver of duck skin on top of a slice of pan fried foie gras. It was the perfect combination: the crunch of the crispy duck skin melting into soft bed of foie gras - I think my tongue went a bit crazy for a while. And to balance out the oiliness, a little cluster of jelly fish had been thoughtfully hidden underneath this divine concoction. Perfect!

5. Braised lamb chop with chinese carrot cake.

This was an unusual combination. Chinese carrot cake (or chai tow kuay) is hawker food, usually found in markets or homemade, but not typically served in restaurants. Chubby Hubby (below) had waxed lyrical about this chinese carrot cake, so I was quite looking forward to this course. However, as it turned out, the carrot cake tasted like mum's carrot cake, and I found the combination of braised lamb and carrot cake a tad strange - I'm not sure what was the thought process behind this marriage frankly. But taken individually, very well done indeed.

6. Mango pudding with bubur hitam.

Conclusion:

There were obviously a few stars of the night, but generally not spectacular although every dish was consistently well done. So what really stayed in the memory was a) the chef's culinary perfection, and b) the modern chinese fine dining experience.

Chubby Hubby also has a great review of the New Majestic Restaurant, with excellent photos, here: http://www.chubbyhubby.net/2006/02/majestic-restaurant.html

Trying to get out of bed

10am. I open my eyes. Oh God, another new day. I shut my eyes close again. After failing to will myself out of bed for a few hours, ignoring one call and two smses inviting me to go out (and get out of bed), I reached for my laptop instead. And so that's what I'm doing right now, writing in bed with my laptop on my, well, lap.

A few reasons why I'm going to get out of bed after this:

- Because John Piper did not waste his cancer, and I've only had my heart broken for goodness sake.

- Because a woman older and wiser showed me how wonderful romance and love is, and also said this:

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you:
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
~ Song of Songs

- Because that's just life. Things like this happen. It hurts, but it's nobody's fault. If we want to pray, then we should pray against a fallen world where things do not go perfectly as planned.

- Because God loves me.

...

Still, I wish I knew how to quit you.

Some things I will miss

Four more days in Singapore. Am very tired tonight, so will let pictures tell the story:

Home, family

Dog, who is approx 105 years old (human years)

Conversations by the river with friends, sisterhood, grand marnier souffles

Roti prata and Milo dinosaur/teh tarik with best friend at 3am, 24 hour food

(finishing the story)

... Domestic help

... Clean, efficient, glossy, 应有尽有 bubble

... Hanging out with old friends, like old times

... The stuff is cheap man, cheap I tell you

... Food

... like durians

Chinese New Year reunion dinner # 2

My family had our second reunion dinner tonight. My brother's girlfriend, Q, joined us. The girls had our de rigeur political arguments with dad after dinner, but first, food. What a feast! All those delectable dishes my mum and helper had whipped up in the kitchen. Mind you, this was straight after the mini-feast at Muthu's (see below)!

Some highlights from the kitchen:

1. Yu Sheng

First up, yu sheng (raw fish salad). This is an auspicious dish, first invented in Singapore. The word "yu" in Chinese means "fish", but it can also denote prosperity. No new year feast is complete without it. In those wilderness five years when I was stuck in London over new year, this was the one thing I craved most.

Besides being full of colour and textures and flavours, yu sheng is loaded with symbolic meanings. Each ingredient represents a good wishing for the new year (I have denoted some sayings below).

to start with, strips of carrot, chinese turnip, cucumber etc., as well as more exotic condiments like assorted preserved gingers, pomelo seeds etc. are arranged poetically on a ornate plate.

most people use raw salmon nowadays, but we like the more traditional saito

万事吉利 - lime is squeeqed over the raw fish to "cure" it

年年有余 - the raw fish is then added to the salad

红运当头 - cinnamon powder and pepper are sprinkled

甜甜眯眯 - the salad dressing, a sweet plum sauce, is poured over with some oil

金想事成 - small golden crackers (my favourite bit) are scattered over the salad

步步高升 - the salad is tossed as high as possible, the higher the better for the new year!

lo hei!

2. Roasted Suckling Pig

<-- before pic

after pic -->

This is the golden roasted pig, which is gigantic. We actually bought the smaller roasted suckling pig. The pigs are first marinated, then mandatorily kept in the freezer for two days to dry out. They are then roasted in an industrial oven, before being glazed and decorated. In the factory, modern technology has taken over traditional techniques. In fact, pigs are no longer roasted over charcoal anywhere, except in very few restaurants. Instead, they are cooked in an electric oven. Personally, I think charcoal gives a smoother, more refined finish to the skin; it's not as tough, for one, more crackly. But this was delicious nonetheless, dipped in a cloying sweet black sauce.

3. Rabbit fish

This is a deceptively plain-looking fish, because it is just so expensive during the Chinese New Year season. The mating cycle of the rabbit fish follows the lunar calender, so come January/February, it's belly is always filled with delicious roe - yellow and slithery and succulent. Hence, its rarity. It is always bought cooked from the market. The hawkers will parboil the fish in a pan as large as my dining table, and after many turns, the water is chalked full of sweet goodness, flavouring subsequent pans of fish.

4. Ho See Fatt Choy

Ho see refers to oysters - not the freshly shucked types, but dried Chinese oysters. Fatt Choy refers to the black wisps of moss that grow at the edges of the deserts, preventing their sandy borders from expanding, and which of course the Chinese eat as well. This dish is cooked in a delicious red beancurd sauce with Chinese mushrooms and dried scallops, my favourite.

"Ho see" sounds like "all things" in Cantonese, and "Fatt Choy" means to grow in prosperity. So taken phonetically, this dish is a wishing that one will prosper in all things.

Sunday lunch: Muthu's curry

WARNING: Intense food porn


Today, dad took us to Muthu's for a Sunday curry lunch. For as long as I can remember, this has been one of my favourite Sunday lunch outings - a trip to Race Course Road. Our venue has evolved over the years. My most enduring memory is going to The Makan Shop for lunch, with the always perfectly groomed matron overseeing our orders and bill. When I was young, I remember being fascinated with her immaculate makeup and glittery jewellery, that is, before being distracted by the food. The Makan Shop has been an institution in my family ever since my dad was a young medical student interning in the hospital next door. Of course, I wasn't born yet, but it's a tradition that's certainly been passed down to me! Till today, every single member of my family maintains that The Makan Shop still has the best black sotong (squid), sambal chilli prawns and perkedil (fish and potato patties). Unfortunately, more and more people (including us) have been drawn away to the glossy refurbished Indian restaurants next door. First, it was The Banana Shop, then Muthu's curry - now touting a new zen look - where we lunched today. Muthu's, pioneers of the fish head curry in Singapore:

fish head curry

the tandoori chef at work, making naan

(I had my kasmiri naan at last (see http://www.20six.co.uk/nextEntries/16mwiz6fkpeqk), peppered with nuts and candied fruit. yummy!)

tandoori chicken, fresh out of the tandoori oven

sambal chilli prawns

(these are real king prawns, not the namby pamby suckers you find in Tesco or Sainsbury, claiming to be king prawns... and you haven't even seen tiger prawns yet! hyak.)

eating off a banana leaf, which is supposed to have antiseptic properties

There's also a funny story about this pic, something about my kindhearted mum wanting to feed my dad an egg yolk and giving him a fish eye instead:

Muthu's website: http://muthuscurry.com/flash/

Family is important

Scene from Oxford Circus, London. Chinese New Year

It's 5.30am in the morning in Singapore. I am, yet again, awake. Have been in Singapore Wed, Thurs, Fri, and have slept through all three days! So, I am nursing a slight guilt for "wasting" my holiday sleeping, when suddenly, an epiphany strikes: I am on holiday. heck.

Slowly, but surely, though, crawling out of my hiding nest:

Tues night - reunion dinner, or feast, as recounted before. To be repeated this Sunday. Also watched the new (and final) Jet Li martial arts movie, Fearless. In a cinema within the first few hours of being in town - even I'm impressed!

Wed night - family dinner al fresco in Tiong Bahru. I truly miss this in London. The balmy night breeze and rustic surroundings of old Singapore, the fairy lights above dancing in the moving air, no pretences. The kind of setting where you make inner peace with yourself. It reminded me of al fresco nights in recent Tenerife, when everything was just the way it was supposed to be.

Thurs night - cleared my cupboards and threw away my old diaries, the same way I had burned all of mine in London. Diaries. I decided to destroy all of mine. For me, diaries are a process. Once inexpressible thoughts have been converted to words and ink, they have done their job. As an old friend once put it, 写了就算了. They are lost to me after the last full-stop. I don't know why I kept them for so long. What about blogs, I wonder?

Fri night - pilates with Emelia. Dinner at Kuriya - I had the sushi gozen, with zaru soba. Have been craving cold handmade soba for the past week, for some unknown reason. I think I just like to watch sesame seeds bobbing on the surface of the fish sauce that you're supposed to dip the soba into. Watched Memoirs of a Geisha - definitely a film made for commercial release, and which I enjoyed accordingly. I think the cheongsams in Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love make for a richer visual feast.

Weekend - visiting various friends to 拜年. And of course, the now much touted CNY feast. Cooking with mum, learning, practising, bonding. Resting.

It's good to be back. Family is important.

"you believe in him and are [note: present tense]

filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

for you are receiving the goal of your faith,

the salvation of your soul"

~ 1 Peter 1:8-9

Burberry's, London. Christmas sale.

Chinese New Year goodies

A selection, clockwise from the top:

Kueh Lapis - a layered cake. Each thin layer of butter/eggs/sugar is baked separately in a tray, and when it is done, another layer is added and so on, making it an extremely laborious and time-consuming process . The top of each layer browns when it is baked, hence forming yellow/brown alternate layers. A Malay influence is to insert a few prunes into the layers, but I prefer the traditional plain cake. I used to eat kueh lapis by peeling off each layer of cake in turn, and would always incur my mum's ticking off, "That's not ladylike." (I was never allowed to chew gum for the same reason.)

Hay Bee Hiam - dried chilli shrimp is wrapped in little cocktail spring rolls and deep fried. We buy the tidbit in jars, but my helper at home always fries a jar of stand alone dried chilli shrimp for me to "smuggle" back. It's a wonderful condiment to sprinkle over any dish or to use as sandwick filling - in London, I like to mix it into plain white rice to add that bit of S.E. Asian pinache!

Cashew nut cookies - my dad's favourite. We buy this in jars too. I don't know why, but local biscuits always taste just that bit more buttery and are more crumbly.

Kueh Bankit - for melt-in-your-mouth biscuits, these white little gems are the thing. The secret lies in using freshly grated coconut from mature coconuts. They must also be baked to perfection - not too soft - and then left to cool. When I was little, I liked to wait for the kueh bankit to melt in my mouth before swallowing. I still haven't grasped the rationale of chewing kueh bankit actually.

Love letters - these coconut egg rolls are poured out as pancakes onto a hot patterned griddle, rolled into rolls while they're hot, then allowed to cool and harden into a crisp rolled biscuit. My mother often exploited me when I was little by making me roll the hot hot batter with my baby fingers, which were apparently more nimble for the job. Nowadays, an ubiquitous "aunt" gives my family a giant Milo tin of home-made love letters every year, and although I don't know who she is, I am eternally grateful for her gift. I once munched through half a tin watching CSI (Las Vegas). The lesson was that these sugar-and-coconut-artery-clogging babies are not the thing to be eating when one is not concentrating.

Japanese mochi - ok. These aren't traditional Chinese New Year goodies, but I was craving mochi before I left London and begged my mum to buy me some. My favourite are the sesame flavoured ones (green). I love these gooey balls, but my mum absolutely hates them.

Pineapple tarts - there are two types of pineapple tarts depicted here. The ones on the left are the "open top" ones. The "closed" ones on the right are made by my Aunty Agnes, and are shaped into little pineapples with a clove at the end for a stem. Her pineapple tarts are little heavens of short-crust filled with sweet succulent shredded cooked pineapples, and they are my favourite CNY goodie. Personally, I think all that peeling, cutting and shredding of pineapples is too much work, but I am only too happy to eat the final product.

This Saturday, my mum has promised another round of all the new year goodies that I missed, just for me! Will post more pics then.

In Singapore now

I started this post last night, but fell asleep in bed with my laptop literally on my lap, sleeping right through today. Must be the jet lag. But it does mean that it's 3am in Singapore at the moment and I'm wide awake.

Singapore first impressions

Things I appreciate:
* Quick immigration
* Multiple efficient ways of booking cinema tix
* Clean auto-flushing loos
* Ticketless carparks (and car)

Things I dislike:
- Homogeneity
- Ah bengs
- Never-ending construction

Things I'm not sure I need:
? 24 hour cinemaplexes


Chinese New Year dinner

Roasted suckling pig is a new year delicacy. The entire pig is "spatchcocked" like a chicken and roasted, sometimes over a layer of smouldering black beans to give it a dark, salty taste. Young pigs are used so that there is just enough fat to crackle the skin, but not enough to kill the consumer. I like mine served with the thin layer of meat intact, although some people prefer to cut off layers of the crackling and just serve that. Dipped in a cloying sweet black sauce, mmm... I think my mum has preserved the head and legs in the freezer, so pics will follow. Legend has it that children will be kept filial if they are fed the ears of the roasted pig, presumably so that they will "listen" to their elders!

Vegetarian zhai is another delicacy. It consists of a mixture of chinese white cabbage, vermicelli, fried beancurd skin (tian zhu), chinese mushrooms etc. stewed with salty beancurd (nan yu) and ginger. My gran does it best, but as she's getting along in years, my mother and then me have inherited the recipe.

Abalone and king prawns are traditional dishes in my family too. I like my abalone served just out of the can, but sometimes mum stews it with vegetables. King prawns in Singapore are not the same king prawns you find in London, which we consider ordinary prawns. Singaporean king prawns really look like the king of prawns - huge, juicy, succulent crustaceans steamed with their heads and shells intact, to retain the sweet flavour.

Aside from the above staples, Chinese New Year dinner varies from year to year. In addition, this year, we had claypot rice with poached chicken and chinese liver sausages and fish maw soup and other little assorted goodies. Mind you, all this food was cooked to feed a mere family of five. No better way to welcome the new year than with open arms and a big feast...

Or more correctly, feasts in plural. Since I arrived on the third day, I had missed all the other festivities. But I promise to make up for it!

Weekend Away, Dorset

Some brilliant moments. Also some really hard moments. But God caught all my tears. I struggled, oh how I struggled with Him! But there was only one decision that gave me peace, such peace that transcended all understanding. I feel assurance that it is what God wants, so I'm going to stick with it, even if I don't understand it at all (why would God give mixed signals?).

I know God can be trusted.

A few truths that have come to me after, reading the first letter of the apostle Peter especially:



1. To love unconditionally.

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." ~ 1 Peter 4:8
"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." ~ John 15:12



2. To continue waiting on the Lord.

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." ~1 Peter 2:2

"Be holy, because I am holy." ~1 Peter 1:16

"[Stand] firm" ~ 1 Peter 5:9



3. To repent of pride and vanity.

"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewellery and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master [even though, frankly, he made some disgraceful decisions; if I had been his wife...]. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear." ~ 1 Peter 3:1-6



4. And finally, to submit.

"To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps." ~1 Peter 2:21