Wah Piangz!

Just reread my previous post. Apologies to anyone who witnessed that atrocious piece of work. I have redrafted it to make it more bearable and less grating on the mind. If you are brave enough, do reread it as it will make, a lot, more sense now.

Btw, it’s FRIDAY!!! TGIF!!!

I am listening to the Man in the Vineyard OST in office and I am enjoying life here!!! Whoop!

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant

In my mind’s eye, the two words – Kim Gary – brings up images of a hairstylist boutique with its smelly chemicals and hair littered floor. Only the word ‘restaurant’ is a dead giveaway as to what Kim Gary is about. Basically, it is a restaurant serving Hong Kong cuisine.

Visited the branch at Vivocity for brunch last Sunday. Sundays as always, and I mean always, are good for that extended snooze, but waking up at 11am and finding that the bread bag is empty ain’t exactly a great way to start the day.

With stomach growling, me and my wife thought hard about where to find our chow. Once we  decided that our trusty corporate food supplier – Macdonald’s – is unlikely to deliver breakfast on time, we started thinking about other palatable alternatives.

Seah Imm hawker centre, Kopitiam, Banquet or any restaurant in Vivocity were the automatic choices to come to mind since they are nearby. With limited choices like these, we decided to take a risk by heading down to Vivocity and try our luck. If you have been to Vivocity, you should know by now that, as with most shopping centres in Orchard Road, it ain’t much of a place to satiate a hungry stomach in the morning.

With its natural lighting, Vivocity is a joy to take a nice morning stroll. Compared to other shopping centres, I find that Vivocity exudes a certain relaxing charm about it. Guess its wide walkways and cavernous layout have something to do with that.

Anyway, with my stomach threatening to go on strike, I quickly scanned the row of restaurants on level 2. As with all things, the first restaurant in my field of vision became my ‘first’ choice, since I am hungry and any type of food is good food. I believe the restaurant was called something like Olive Tree and Figs (?). Basically it serves western cuisine; sandwiches, fish and chips, steak, etc. Stuff which we would usually not have for breakfast. They make good lunch and dinner though. I was all ready to call out to the waiter for a table when my wife pulled me aside and said “Kim Gary”, I was like “huh, what’s that?”

Looking diagonally from where I was standing, I spied a rather innocuous storefront with words you see in the title of this blog. Being a person who associates weird named ‘things’ with weirder things associated with them, my first reaction was “No way am I going to anything from a person called Kim Gary who serves Hongkee food”. However, my curiosity got the better of me, not that my wife’s ’strong’ hint of preference for something resembling more like breakfast food for our brunch.

With a mental deep breath, I took my first step into this new and unknown restaurant. Not knowing what to expect, we were ushered to our table by a friendly auntie who strongly resembled the wonderful staff we have at the Crystal Jade La Mian restaurant at Takashimaya. Once seated, we began poring through the 100 odd items which Kim Gary serves.

To my surprise, the restaurant serves a huge, and I mean really huge, variety of food items. In the menu were items such as curry, baked rice, fried spaghetti, and classical breakfast items such as toast.

By this time, I was totally famished. I would gobble down anything that is put in front of me. After looking through the menus, with double quick time I might add, I decided to have the Fuyong Egg Rice, throwing in the French Toast to add a ‘breakfasty’ touch to my brunch. My wife decided to give Hong Kong’s version of Beef Curry Rice a try.

First to arrive was the french toast. The egg dipped, and fried, yeah!, slices of bread were perfect. A healthy, or rather sinful, amount of honey was spread all over it. More importantly, Kim Gary is aware of how important butter is to all toasts. It must be with that in mind that his chef left 2 huge chunks of melting butter on top of the already succulent slices.

A bite into the toast revealed that peanut butter and butter, yay more butter, were used as spreads on the inside. Needless to say, this uber sinful dish left an unforgetable memory on my palate. Thinking about it now makes me salivate.

With uncanny timing, my wife’s beef curry came at the moment when we were about to finish the toast. One look at the curry and you have the word “fusion” flashing all over it. Guess its fusion character came from the fact that a layer of melted cheese was to be found on top of the dish. Interesting. Never thought cheese would complement a dish like curry. Then again, curry from Hong Kong shouldn’t taste like those we have in the region right? Well Kim Gary either must have a good sense or humour, or his customers in Hong Kong, if he has an outlet there, must love spicy food.

The curry was spicier than the normal curries found in our Indian food stalls. As a person who tolerates spicy food rather well, Gary’s beef curry had a real oomph which stinged, and singed, my tongue. Did I mention that it was my wife’s food? Hmm…. Despite it’s rather spicy nature, I have to say that the thinly sliced beef were rather tender and the curry sauce was pretty good. Give it a try if you tire of the flat local curries. Gary’s curry is sure to set your tongue aflame.

The beef curry was fantastic. But it could never in its lifetime beat the proportion of my ultimate Fuyong Egg Rice. It is one ’sumo’ of an egg rice. Coming in the form of the now infamous 金桢头 style of presentation, the Fuyong fried egg form the cover of this humongous serving of white rice. I could have sworn that 2 bowls of white rice were hiding under the Fuyong egg. This dish should be called the Fuyong Egg Sumo Sized Rice. Not knowing where to start, I tore open the egg cover to expose the white rice. To my horror, it was plain white rice! My mind was screaming and asking “where’s the black tasty sauce that comes with dishes like this!!!”

To my delight, I found that there was actually some, althought a rather paltry amount, of sauce at the bottom of the rice mountain. This definitely made downing that amount of rice bearable. Seems like I am rather fixated with the rice. You have to forgive me as the serving still gives me the shivers now.

For the egg, I can only remember that it contained, among other things, onions in it. It was fried rather nicely, in that it was juicy and not too dry. Taste wise, I can only say that it’s pretty good. But I am sure that I have eaten better Fuyong eggs.

 

And that’s my first adventure to the Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant. I said it’s my first as I intend to make further forays to the place and try out more of their interesting stuff. Give this restaurant a try if you are tired with the run of the mill Hong Kong tim sum cuisine. I promise that you will not be disappointed.

葡萄地里的男人 – The Man of the Vineyard

My Lovely Samsoon was the last ‘good’ Korean drama-comedy which last held my attention. TVB’s “The Charm Beneath” and the recent “薯童谣” were pretty good series. But I missed having a good laugh and the coaster-roller emotional rides of romance comedies. I can be rather sentimental under the cold hard logic, aloof and critical veneer which some of the public have come to associate me with.

葡萄地里的男人 – The Man of the Vineyard, is a series involving a man (actor – Oh Man-seok), from the vineyard, and a girl (actress – Yoon Eun-hye from the 宫 series) from Seoul. The setting is a classical case of the cocky urbanite meeting, and eventually falling in love, with the honest, sensible rural chap.

Basically, the girl’s grand-uncle owns a huge vineyard in the rural area, and having no descendants of his own, decides to hand the vineyard to her if she works there for a year. A host of heartwarming, hilarious and touching events eventually brought the girl and man together.

Laughter was never absent through the 15 episodes which me and my wife sat through within a week and a half. Although it’s a little in your face type of humour, one cannot but burst out laughing at Yoon Eun-hye’s portrayal of a materialistic, and sometimes ‘bitchy’ urbanite persona. Her huge doe-like eyes, barbie doll cute looks and her plehtora of comedic expressions made her a perfact choice for the role. Oh Man-seok also did a good job playing the roguish rural chap that lacks that refined gentleman’s touch. By the way, this guy has a fantastic voice, since he kept singing in the series. Look out for the Genghis Khan song. It’s hilarious.

There were many points in the story when I felt tears welling up in my eyes. It were these heartwarming moments which made this a great drama. Lessons are aplenty if you listen with your heart as you watch with your eyes. I have come to better appreciate the simplicity in life is one of the most beautiful things which one can possess. Trying to disassociate oneself from the ultra-materialistic environment in Singapore is never going to be easy. However, one should also take a step back, look around, and ask if the car, condo, credit card, country club and cash, is more important that finding one’s real meaning in life and living out that meaning if it means a life as simple as that of a farmer.

I highly recommend this series to anyone who needs a ‘wake-up call’ from modernity’s relentless hassle and routine. Watch it and gain a new perspective on life’s purpose and meaning.

HungryGoWhere

Hungry Go Where? My answer to that is “Go Find Makan Lah!” The former is a rather Singaporean sounding name for a food website(?) started by 3 blokes supposedly from the government’s Administrative Service. And they apparently did it out of passion. Hmmm, can’t help it, the cynical overtone just cannot be removed, not today, not a thousand years.

Anyway, my wife brought this webpage to my attention yesterday since she herself, being a non-cynical person that I am, still found it queer that Digital Life gave the website so much print space. To her it’s queer as what’s reported on the IT supplement sounds more like a PR salvo by ST, or SPH, to help our ex-scholars succeed. A disproportionate amount of space was alloted to harping on the blokes past successful careers in the garmen, to borrow the term from Messrs Sim Wong Hoo, and how they were possessed by the entrepreneurial spirit, or ghost, to start their own business, with, oh my god, no business plan, er, or back up plan.

One of the blokes were quoted as saying that to have a backup plan is to plan for failure. Brave are the stupid businessman. And these blokes, despite all their supposed intellectual brilliance, are just to proud to admit plan B is always a good idea. Having plan B is being flexible, not defeatist. Sometimes scholars are so. . . full of themselves.

Ok, that’s the cynical Teddy speaking. Now for the more objective Teddy who actually surfed the site this morning, in office.

And here’s what I think of the website (fully extracted from my email to my wife in the morning):

XXX (term of endearment), just checked out the site. Out of 5, I would rate it 3. The overall presentation is pretty slick and interface is user-friendly. Read one review, which happens to be on the main page, by a ‘member’, and found the review rather amateurish and ‘trying too hard’. Another wannabe food critic. Never really check out the food establishment thingy. Although the credit card discount finder feature is useful, there are just too many choices to go through. Choices as in cuisines etc. The most useful part is the one about how to prepare food by this ‘Auntie Swee Cheng’. Although the tips shared can be easily found in other websites, but I guess having a local telling us how to prepare food ‘locally’ is always a plus. Hmmm think I will post these comments on my blog hee.

There you have it. Check out the website here  and tell me what you think.

江南

Nope. It is definitely not the title of the latest Chinese pop song. Neither is it a novel on the martial arts “武侠” world which the media depicts. It’s the place, or rather places, which I visited during the Chinese Lunar New Year two weeks back. 江南 is a very beautiful place. As the saying goes, 上有天堂，下有苏杭. See, going to the country does improve one’s ability in that particular language.

If you have noticed, I have changed my blog’s banner with a photo of some 梅花 which I took during the trip. Apart from the fact that I love the beauty they portray, they also signify the change in season and denotes a welcome for the new year.

The trip took me to 上海，无锡，富阳，苏州，and 杭州.

Here are some photos of the trip.

My flight was delayed from 10.10am to 2pm. It was a long wait…

I love the leave-like shape of the shelter outside T2. Adds a nice airy and natural feel to the place.

Trolleys.

This house used to be the residence of some big-shot official in Suzhou. You can tell by the nicely manicured garden. I wish I had such a garden to go to each morning and evening. Such a relaxing place. You can feel stress easing away just standing by the garden and enjoying the serenity of it.

Now I fully appreciate the Chinese saying 开门见山. You literally see a “mountain” at every door. Fancy that!

Hangzhou is as lovely as what the Hangzhou people would have you believe. 西湖 is really picturesque. The lake is so still. The breeze so cool. One can just lose oneself in the peaceful surroundings. I am definitely visiting Hangzhou as a single stop in the future.

This was a postcard moment. Not an easy shot as I had to jostle with hordes of other tourists. Love the atmosphere of old ancient villages. By the way, this is 西瑭, a very old village near Shanghai. The place was bursting with tourists. Pity we only had time to dine there.

This is none other than a shot taken in the famous 城隍庙 in Shanghai. You guessed it. It’s the Year of the PIG! Oink! Oink!

Inspired by the wishing tree in Hong Kong, the opportunistic Chinese erected one of their own, with golden leaves to boot, in the middle of 城隍庙 so that people can toss a slip of red paper with their wish on it onto the branches of the tree. The belief is that is the slip manages to hang onto any of the branches, one’s wish will come true in the next year. By the way, each slip costs 5 renminbi, or S$1. And look and how “red” the tree is. Bet the owner of the tree threw the first wish, with the word “prosperity” on it.

And that my friends is a short pictorial journey of my 江南 trip. There will be video clips in YouTube later once I edit my very first movies filmed using my new Handycam. Do look out for it.