Best turtle soup

In my opinion, the Ser Seng turtle soup restaurant in Macpherson, Tai Thong Crescent to be exact, can lay claims to serving the most delicious dish in the country.

Its soup is heavenly.

At $13 a bowl, for the cheapest set, the soup comes with generous amounts of turtle meat and ’skin’. The turtle meat is well prepared since it is tender although it retains the uniquely soft yet chewy texture we have come to expect from the flesh of a turtle. The soup is simply savoury. I am not sure what herbs or spices Ser Seng puts into it, but whatever the stuff is, it works well on the taste buds.

Having the soup together with a bowl of yam rice is a must! Don’t skimp on the cost with white rice cos Ser Seng’s yam rice has just a high ‘delicious quotient’ as its turtle soup.

Having tried it’s turtle soup a few times, I am looking forward to trying it’s black chicken soup on my next visit.

Till then, here’s a memory of the great meal I had yesterday.

Best turtle soup in Singapore

Happy (Fatty) Meals

I have know for some time that the so called ‘happy’ meals from the various fastfood restaurants were calorie/saturated fat laden. Another report (see article from Washington Post below this post)  has lend further credence to the argument that kids should be discouraged to consume fastfood at too young an age. However, it seems a large number of Singaporeans parents are blissfully ignorant of this. I know as I saw way too many parents, together with their toddlers, stuffing/gobbling fries into their mouths at a particular fastfood chain while I was at Causeway Point last weekend.

I am going to be a really unpopular dad as I am already seeing myself delaying the introduction of fastfood to my kid’s (future) life as long as possible. He/she can indulge in such pleasures once he/she understands the health hazards posed by the consumption of such ‘junk’ food. As the saying goes, ‘everything in moderation’, for discerning adults like myself, such indulgence is allowed, but only to a once a month basis. However, ‘up-sizing’ is a no-no for me.

 

Unhappy News on Happy Meal Nutrition

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Unhappy News on Happy Meal Nutrition

· Most kids’ meals at top restaurant chains have way too many calories to be healthy, according to a report released yesterday.

Nearly every possible combination of the children’s meals at KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic and Chick-fil-A are too fattening, the report on meals at 13 major restaurants found.

The average 8-year-old should eat about 1,200 to 1,300 calories a day, or about 430 calories a meal. But 93 percent of the meals at the chains had more calories than that. Instead of fried and fatty foods, restaurants should offer more choices that include fruits and whole grains, the report said.

Although some chains including McDonald’s offer apple slices as a substitute for french fries, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said many restaurants make it hard for kids and their parents to make healthy choices. Subway fared best, with 12 of its 18 kids’ meals having fewer than 430 calories, although that’s in part because Subway meals don’t include beverages.

Second visit to Shillawon

Made my second visit to Shillawon last Friday, making it my second trip there within the week. The meal there was unplanned as I was at Suntec City with my wife to get a refund from Carrefour for a box of expired eye drops. Yup, the international hypermarket chain carries expired eye care products. Do check the labels, very carefully, while purchasing stuff from Carrefour.

Let’s not have that unpleasant incident detract me from the main subject of today’s post – that being my meal at Shillawon. I have a feeling that there will be more posts of meals at this restaurant in the coming days.

One thing I realised during my second visit is that the lunch menu and dinner menu is quite different. There’s apparently more dishes served during lunch. More importantly, those dishes were what I considered reasonable price in my previous post. Gone were those dishes where grilled meats and vegetables (around $8 – $10+). Instead, the main dishes for dinner were focused on meat platters (prices starting from $10+ to $50+) for grilling.

Being a gout sufferer I can’t over-indulge in high protein foods such as red meats. Thus, I was quite disappointed to find the rather restricted choice of dishes available in the menu. After poring through the menu, I decided to fall back on another favourite Korean dish of mine – dolsot bibimbap (“dolsot” stands for the hot stone bowl which the dish is served in).

I love bibimbap for a simple reason. It’s a “fun” food to eat! There are not many dishes out there where the main dish allows the diner to “play” with the food. This act of play includes:

•  
  • Pouring the chilli paste sauce into the dish
  • Bursting the egg yolk – done sunny side up style
  • Using chopsticks and spoon to toss and mix all the ingredients up

All these are taking place even as the rice is still sizzling and cooking in the hot stone bowl. That’s what I call fun food!

Shillawon’s dolsot bibimbap is similar to what we can find at other Korean restaurants and normal foodcourt. It contains the usual ingredients such as soy bean sprouts, julienned carrots, julienned zucchini, mushroom, spinach, chicken, egg, chilli past, and rice.

For me, what sets one bibimbap apart from another is the holistic taste of the entire dish after everything is well mixed. Sadly, the dolsot bibimbap at Shillawon was a let down.

Taste wise, it’s not bad, but neither was it good. It was just so-so. In my opinion, the dolsot bibimbap at the Crystal Jade Chicken Ginseng BBQ is better. Crystal Jade’s version is more savoury and the chilli paste somewhat tastier. Another complaint I have against the Shillawon’s dish is the fact that despite all the meat dishes in its menu, the amount of chicken meat in my dish is pathetic. I had to fish around just to get a sliver or two to go with my rice.

The saving grace for Shillawon is its friendly and attentive staff. For dinner all entree dishes are served with the usual banchan. Another plus point is that the banchan is free flowing. Staff will offer a top-up once the dish is empty. There’s also a serving of fruit (watermelon, pineapple and honeydew) after the main course.

I was most pleasantly surprised when I was served a cup of tea at the end of dinner. My wife asked the waitress what was the drink as the cup was cold to touch and we had absolutely no idea what it is. We were told that it was persimmon tea. In the tea were slices of dried persimmon and pine nuts. They added a unique taste to this sweet and refreshingly delightful beverage. If nothing else, this cup of tea made up for my disappointment with my main course.

My advice to fellow Korean food lovers, if you are looking to satisfy your bibimbap craving, give Shillawon a miss. But this will not stop me from making more visits there, for There are still more dishes which I would like to try.

The “free-flowing” banchan at Shillawon. I love it…

Looks good. Pity the taste is just ordinary.

The persimmon tea is wonderful though.

Shillawon

My fascination with Korea and its culture started after watching the classic Korean drama Daejangeum. Well, what’s a better way to get interested in a culture than through its television dramas? Then again, there’s always the culture’s food.

Finding Korean food in Singapore is easy. Hop into any one of the foodcourts and you are likely to find a Korean food stall selling dishes such as Bibimbap or jigae (or Korean thick soup/stew).

The challenge then is finding good Korean food.

I admit that I am not a connoisseurof Korean cuisine, but I know good food when I taste it. And I tasted some good, actually pretty good, Korean food today.

Everybody knows that Suntec City is bursting at its seams with good restaurants. There’s Muthu’s Curry, Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, Crystal Jade Kitchen, and Carl’s Jr. But does everyone know that there’s this Korean restaurant – Shillawon – at the 3rd storey? Well, I didn’t! It was a pleasant surprise since none of the restaurants in Suntec appealed to us at that moment.

So in we go.

Shillawon is a cosy Korean restaurant that has a similar feel to Crystal Jade Ginseng Chicken BBQ restaurant at Ngee Ann City. All similarity ends there.

Shillawon has none of the claustrophobic feel that Crystal Jade at Ngee Ann is well known for. This restaurant is spacious, well-lit and tastefully decorated. There’s also the signature BBQ hotplate, hidden under a golden cover, in the middle of the table.

For meat lovers, there’s the usual plethora of BBQ meats to choose from. For the “not so much meat for me” diners, Shillawon also serves a variety of jigae, soups, and hotplates (kimchi, vegetables and meat).

Ever a fan of kimchi, I order the Jehyook Bokum(Spicy Fried Pork with Kimchee) set.

The set consists of a hotplate, with kimchi and pork still sizzling in their juice, banchan (side dishes – more kimchi, sprouts, greens, soup), slices of watermelon, rice and soup. I expected the dish to be really spicy since it had a “3 chili” mark in the menu. But the kimchi, though spicy, was not hot enough for me to call out for iced water.

The kimchi and pork had a nice sweet tangy taste to it. The sweetness blended well with the “sourish” taste of the kimchi. It was heavenly when mixing up the kimchi, pork and fragrant rice. It there’s a moment to describe the perfect blend of tastes coming together, it was then.

The food was not only good. It was reasonable priced. At $8+++, I considered it really cheap compared to the prices charged by Crystal Jade Ginseng Chicken BBQ. If you are looking for a nice Korean meal with a nice ambience, then Shillawon is highly recommended.

Here’s how to get there.

Shillawon Korean Cuisine
Suntec City Mall (Sky Garden)
#03-10/12Singapore 038983
Tel: 63393313

Platial Map Kit

Just found out this wonderful feature in WordPress. Called Mapkit, this feature displays a map of Singapore, based on Google Earth, and allows me to place markers on places of interest. The geographer in me is totally smitten with this feature. I have yet to decide what sort of markers my map should display? Yes, we can create our very own map.

As a foodie, I would love to tag all the nice makan places on the map. The adventurer in me would want places of interest, however few in Singapore, to be tagged. The romantic in me would like to find out lovers’ haunts. Err that didn’t come out right. The shopper in me would bargains plastered all over the map.

Oh dear, I am really a asking a lot.

Well, after much thought, I have decided to allow markers for all of the above and more! I have enabled the function to allow anyone, yes, I mean, you, you, and you there in the corner, to tag any place of interest on my map. It can be places of good food, heritage sites, secluded sandy beaches, good camping sites, free carpark lots, well, any place under the sun. The only condition is that my map has no place for seedy information, say Geylang-related activities. However, tags on good food places in Geylang is always welcome.

Those eager to place their markers on the map can do so now! Just scroll down and you will find Mapkit below the widget (or section) for Flickr. My map is called Topo, after the military term for topography. You will realised that Mapkit is so friendly that it even allows tags, comments, and uploading of photos related to the place. Try it and you will know what I mean.

I have placed my first marker on Vivocity to show everyone where the Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant is located. Fret not if you see 2 markers on the same place. In my haste to place the marker, I created 2, and now I have trouble removing one of them.

Cocoa rich food good for the heart

Chocolate lovers rejoice! A new study has shown that consuming foodstuff containing cocoa has the effect of lowering blood pressure. The study also tested the effect of tea on blood pressure. Results showed that tea has no perceptible effect on the blood pressure readings of the test subjects.

Before you dump those boxes of tea bags and grabbing that bar of Mars, do remember that tea has a host of other excellent effects on our health. As the age-old saying goes, eat everything in moderation. A calorie laden bar of chocolate may lower the blood pressure, but the increase in one’s weight, from the higher caloric intake, is likely to negate its blood pressure lowering effect.

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant Part 2

I think I am in love with the food served at Kim Gary. Was at Kim Gary Vivocity once again. This time it was for lunch. Following my unforgetable experience with the huge serving of Fuyong Egg Rice, I decided to give that particular item a miss for the next 10 outings there. Being more conservative this time round, I decided on a perennial favourite dish of mine, baked rice.

Baked rice is a dish close to my heart. I like it because it is what all food should be like. Tasty, savoury, succulent and, most importantly, inevitably unhealthy. Topped with a rich layer of melted cheese, most baked come with well seasoned ‘buttered’ white rice mixed together with either mushroom or meat.

Kim Gary’s version of Hong Kong baked rice follows the classic rules above. My order of the Cheese Covered Chicken Chop Baked Rice (see photo below) came in a traditional ‘basket’ known more for serving dim sum than baked rice. The aluminium foil and the basket setup gave Kim Gary’s baked rice a nice original touch when compared to the run-of-mill white porcelain plate which most places use to serve this dish. Perhaps it was an effort to give it the authentic Hong Kong touch.

Anyway, my appetite was already whetted by its unique presentation. To my pleasant surprise, underneath the generous helping of cheese was a chicken chop almost the size the circumference of the basket. Believe me, it’s huge.

The well grilled chicken chop was tender and it blended really well with fagrant white rice, which I believed was cooked with a generous helping of butter. Each mouthful of the cheese, chicken and rice was pure enjoyment. It was so good that I was trying to scrape every single grain of rice, and burnt cheese, off the foil by the end of the meal.

I so look forward to my next visit there. Can’t wait to try the other dishes. Thumbs up to this fantastic eatery!

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.

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.

Luna Esa’s Delectable Durian Puffs

This is a photo of the Durian Puffs which Luna Esa shared with me and Mydaemon last week. This is also my first try at an ‘artistic’ shot. Owing to the lack of proper equipment (setting, backdrop, flash etc) and software (for most, Photoshop CS), here’s my best shot out of 10 plus shots I spent trying to capture the texture of the deliciously beautiful puff skin. It wasn’t easy having to crane my neck to table-level to see if the shot has a good composition.

Enough about the photo. Here’s what I think of Luna Esa’s very own D24 Creamy Durian Puffs. Made with D24 durians, the cream filling was smooth and packed a punch to the taste buds with the powerful and aromatic taste that one have come to associate with D24 durians. The puff pastry was a tad hard for me. Told Luna that making it a touch ’lighter’ would have made the puff perfect. But taking a bite, one can forgive the ‘hard’ puff pastry as the cream and pastry combined well to get a nice balance texture. With the D24 durian cream giving it a nice strong taste without overwhelming the senses, it was a wonderful treat indeed!

I am looking forward to Luna Esa’s next creation.