Dragon Ramen with egg, $16

I apologize in advance for the poor image quality; all these photos are taken with a 5 megapixel phone camera that acts like it’s 2 megapixel.

Anyway, KL had the Dragon Ramen which is apparently spicy. I had the chashu ramen.

Chashu Ramen, $16

You may notice that the soup looks really murky. It is. To me, the broth maketh the ramen. Bad noodles can be compensated with good broth, but not vice versa. So, the broth looks really murky. Given the reputation of this restaurant I would believe it’s from triple and quadruple boiling pork bones that resulted in the murkiness.

Another look at the soup broth. Copious amounts of what I assume to be dark sesame oil was added. I tasted the broth and already my verdict was down in the first mouthful. I WILL NEVER RETURN TO THIS ESTABLISHMENT. My reason? In the words of Ziyi-Zhang’s VISA card commerical – “The soup is too salty.” I know some people like their soup this salty, that’s why they all queue up to eat this ramen. According to KL, Ippudo Ramen, another holy grail ramen store in Singapore, has an even saltier broth. It made me wonder – is there something wrong with my tastebud? It’s not like I don’t usually eat salty things, I have my fair (and sometimes unfair) share of chips and salty sauces. Yet I found their soup too salty. It was very disconcerting.

Gyoza, $6

I saw gyoza in the menu and I made us order some. Till date this is the most overpriced gyoza I have eaten. And it’s not big; it’s about the size of a cocktail weiner. Plus, to make sure the gyoza is crunchy they added quite a bit of roux-water when frying, resulting in the charred bits you see. Yes, it’s crunchy, but it’s not worth the price at all.

The food was an utter disappointment. As I have said, I will not return to this place.

Nantsuttei Ramen Singapore
9 Raffles Boulevard #P3-06
Parco Marina Bay, Millenia Walk Singapore
Tel: 6337 7166

My sister recently bought a $3-loaf of tomato herb bread by Gardenia from the supermarket. We loved the bread. But being the cheapo when it comes to food, especially bread, I found it too expensive. I’m not the kind to pay good money for well, air pockets in flour mixture you know. I had to recreate the bread for myself.

I made my own oven-dried tomatoes. It’s basically fresh tomatoes, oil, herbs and salt and baked in the oven till it shrinks to something you can work with. Since I was incorporating the tomatoes into the bread dough itself and not sprinkling them on like pizza, I decided to keep them a little wetter than normal dried tomatoes so that the juice can be used in the dough.

Speaking of the dough, it’s special. I recently came into contact with a Japanese method of making bread that involves a water-roux mixture. A water-roux mixture is essentially mixing bread flour and water in a 1:5 ratio and heating it a little so that it becomes slightly sticky. By incorporating this mixture into a bread dough makes the bread fluffier and lighter.

I took this picture before the first proofing stage. I love how the tomato fibre and skin is peeking out of the dough; it has a certain artisan feel to it.

This is the first loaf. I don’t own a bread loaf tin, so I used a pound tin instead. I covered the pound tin with aluminium foil during the second proofing and part of the baking process. The accidental nick at the top is from tugging off the foil too hastily. My bread rose to adhere itself to the foil. Note to self: oil the aluminium foil too the next time.

That’s an interior shot. I am happy that the bread has quite a bit of air pockets. Very different from the very first time I made bread. Anyway, this is the first loaf made in a pound tin, and the picture at the top of this entry? That’s the second loaf made rustic style. I preferred the one made rustic style because I think it proofed longer and hence it was lighter. (The woes of having a small oven – batch baking.)

On taste; it’s not as tomato-ish as I’d like. Perhaps the next time I’d increase the amount of tomatoes, and instead of using water to moisten my dough I might use a can of V8 or something. We’ll see.

And a picture of the loaf sliced up. I actually found a bread sawing knife at home. I made my sister use some of it to make a sandwich to bring to school.

I don’t like paying for bread especially when they are so easy to make. Easy and way cheaper than baking a cake if you asked me.

1. Using keywords in your URL

That means, if your post is about how to grow a cactus flower, it makes sense to have an URL that is akin to “http://domain/growing-cactus-flower” rather than “http://domain/post5671″. This is one thing that many bloggers ignore because URLs and Permalinks are auto-generated by the blogging software. Unless someone points it out, people miss it.Very true.

2. Over usage of keywords

Don’t use keywords too often or you may get registered as spam by search engines. Scary, isn’t it?

There are more tips on the site, and frankly those are good tips for people who want to boost blog traffic. While the blog itself is also trying to boost its own popularity, let’s remember that the internet has its own ecological system – blogs fuel each other in advertising building up a network.

Click this for more SEO tips.

I was slightly ashamed of myself for pigging out and enjoying myself so much over the past few weeks, so I delayed posting this entry.

We went to Sun With Moon Japanese Dining and Cafe last week for dinner, our last dinner with Angela before she flies back to the US. Since, in her words, LA has crappy Japanese food, we decided to eat Japanese.

Avocado prawn salad

The prawns are battered and deep-fried, but inside each flour pocket is a succulent and fresh prawn. The dressing they drenched the prawns with is very tasty. The “bowl” is actually a piece of springroll crepe, deep-fried to be a serving bowl. We cleaned this plate.

Unagi metal pot rice

I had the unagi metal pot rice, one of their signature dishes. It comes with a minute-hourglass, and I was instructed to only open the pot after the minute is over. I waited, and took pictures.

That’s the engraving at the top of the hourglass. Told you, it’s their signature dish so even the hourglass bears their name.

Unagi metal pot rice

After one minute I opened the pot to be greeted with unagi and steamed broad beans atop flavoured rice. In the rice there are more broad beans and chestnuts. Unfortunately, I belong to the group of people with infantile pharynx – I choked on soft unagi bones. Yes, I’ll say it again – a piece of soft unagi bone got lodged in my throat the entire night. Among other bones that were difficult in going down. It’s not like I didn’t chew, but somehow I am just very sensitive to unagi bones.

sushi moriwase

Angela had the sushi moriwase, presumably to stock up on good sushi.

sashimi platter

She also shared the sashimi platter with Su. The presentation is pretty; the fresh seafood and fish are served on ice, and the wakame seaweed progressively soaked up water and expanded itself when the ice melted. I am not a fan of raw flesh so I didn’t really get turned on by this dish. But I think it should be good. (It’s expensive, so it better be!)

ramen set meal

Su had a set meal consisting of pork broth ramen, beef steak, and half-broiled salmon sushi.

I like how the sushi look.

We shared the tofu cheesecake. It’s served in a tiny cage with a tiny origami bird in the cake (not really seen in the picture). The cheesecake is light, but not in the same way as fluffy Japanese cheese cake. It’s light as in not cloying. Then again it  was puny, so it’s pretty hard to try to get it to … cloy someone.

Overall Sun With Moon is definitely one of those places you pay for ambiance. The food is nice, yes, but the serving is small. Anyone with some kind of appetite will agree with me. Apparently they have different menus for lunch, tea and dinner. Nonetheless I don’t think I’ll return to this place. I think it’s mainly because I don’t eat raw flesh, and their cooked food (namely, metal pot rice) didn’t impress me, so it’s not on my to-go list. However if you love sashimi and is on the prowl for super fresh luxury sashimi, this is one place to consider.

Sun With Moon Japanese Dining and Cafe
501 Orchard Road, Wheelock Place
#03-15
Tel: 6733 6636
Please check their website for opening hours.

1. Join and run some kind of marathon

It seems that we like to run marathons, ranging from “relatively short distance of 5km” (Oxygen magazine, August 2010) to the full-blown 42km, and even vertical marathons and bi-and triathlons. This stems from a pursuit of a healthy lifestyle in jogging regularly and pushing ourselves to some boundary. Also there’s that rush of adrenaline not only from the workout but also from the participation in such social rituals — we are social creatures.

2. Volunteer

Some of us have a good heart and weekends are devoted to volunteerism and other humanitarian projects.

3. Seek out good food

The keywords are seek out. Some of us relish prowling the Internet and streets for obscure, non-mainstream good food. Even if that means walking through narrow lanes in Bukit Pasoh, hunting down one restaurant in the middle of nowhere, making reservations weeks and months in advance … we do it. Part of the charm of such an activity is the rush from anticipation. We go to the restaurant, we sit down and whip out our cameras, take note of the names of dishes, and mentally draft our blogs and Facebook captions. The food isn’t all that matter.

4. Watch plays

Regardless if they are artsy blackbox productions or high-profile musicals, twenty-somethings like to attend plays. And some love it in the evening, where they get to play dress up and air-kiss acquaintances at the foyer.

5. Read non-fiction

Freakonomics, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Obama Diaries, Blink!, The God Delusion … books like these line our bookshelves. Reading non-fiction sometimes make us feel smarter and more worldly-wise. Plus non-fiction have higher conversational value; what are the odds of meeting someone at a social event who has read Throne of Jade?

6. Watch cable TV

Chances are we are well-to-do enough to have cable TV at home. No one watches free-to-air TV anymore. We hanker after commercial-free up-to-date movies, educational Discovery channel programmes, and TLC shows that unleash the wanderlust in us all. Which brings me to the next point -

7. Travel

We yearn to go somewhere. Anywhere. Preferably exotic. The unbeaten path. Or really somewhere to get away from our real lives, somewhere to rest and relax, somewhere to go shopping, somewhere to pretend we are someone we aren’t. Some of us can’t stand not going for vacation once in a while. We actually enjoy the planning and logistics, we love free-and-easy, and those whose shoulders can still take 15kg– backpacking. We cross out countries and cities on a list and we post pictures of our vacation on Facebook. Our inner wanderlust is not easily satisfied.

8. Have a religion

Some of us have a religion and we are fervent. These people go for religious classes, attending meetings, help out in the community, outreach to the lost and damned.

9. Drink

We drink alcohol, and not only during special occasions. Some of us meet for a TGIF weekly unwind, some more frequent. Some swirl cocktails and martinis, others beer or harder liquor. To us, shaken not stirred isn’t necessarily a joke.

10. Joke about sex

Regardless if we’ve been there-done that, we are able to laugh at sexually charged jokes, and even tell a few of our own. Some of us practically eat, live and breathe double entendres.

Evidently some of these things don’t take a 20-something to do but come on, look at your Facebook page and you’d realize many of your 20-something friends do at least one of those things.

Pristine tapioca flour in a red bowl

According to The Internet, tapioca flour and tapioca starch are the same thing and can be used interchangeably, whereas there’s a big difference between corn flour and corn starch. I love how tapioca starch is really white and clinical looking.

To make Pao de Queijo I actually made my own cheese. Nothing fanciful, just non-aged whole milk fresh cheese. It is not as daunting as it sounds actually. In fact, all you need to do is to heat some whole milk (full cream milk) in a saucepan or a small pot, add some salt to taste, and add some white vinegar. The acid will cause the milk to curdle – do not fear, this is what we want. Filter the mixture through coffee filter or cheesecloth, and there you get whole milk cheese and the clear liquid is whey. If you can stomach the liquid, it’s packed with milk protein.

Waiting to be baked

The first two attempts I used a recipe that produced batter to be poured into muffin moulds. This time, I attempted a different recipe that requires heating and consequently a thicker mixture that can be rolled into balls. It is still a little on the soft soft, not like Chinese rice balls, but while I rolled the cheese puffs I had a feeling this is a winner recipe.

Indeed, the cheese puffs raised nicely and stayed in shape even out of the oven. The previous failed attempts had the cheese puffs deflate upon cooling. The cracked surface is due to the flours from rolling; to get rid of the cracked surface you can dust off the excess flour and spray some water on while baking. That also gives it a shinier glistening surface.

Another shot.

Interior

The cheese bread has a chewy texture not unlike Japanese mochi. That’s the unique aspect of this gluten-free treat.

For the recipe, please go to Chef In You.

I have mentioned this on Twitter, but this is a week of pigging out and enjoying good food. An unreal life that is bound to crash any time now, but let me relish it while it lasts. Angela and I went for Vietnamese food in Chinatown in a small homey restaurant called Yummy Viet. It’s on Smith Street, along the heritage food street (something like that). We saw good reviews on HungryGoWhere and thought we might give it a try.

Pomelo salad, $6.90

I insisted on ordering a pomelo salad. It’s generously built with ripe pomelo, prawns (there are two more hidden under the salad), peanuts, shredded carrot, cucumber, radish, and fried onion. The dressing is a sweet tangy clear dressing that is very appetizing. There are a few salads available; I wanted to try to the lotus root salad, but I was afraid that the lotus root might be raw and that seems bizarre.

Springroll, $3.90

The deep-fried spring rolls are crunchy but the texture of the fillings is foreign.

Springroll interior

There appears to be copious amounts of rice noodles (beehoon) in there, along with vegetable. I didn’t really enjoy this. The summer rolls (see below) were better in my opinion.

Summer roll, $3.50

Summer rolls as such are quintessential of Vietnamese cuisine. Prawns and vegetables wrapped in translucent rice paper served with a dip – simple fare than resonates what we want to believe about the Vietnamese people and lifestyle; non-frills yet complex.

Summer roll interior

In the summer roll there is beehoon, scallions and vegetable, alongside prawns. The scallion can be a little daunting especially for people who eat too much fast food. I bit the bullet and ate the scallion. My infantile tastebud was a little traumatized but my spirit came out victorious.

Crab soup, $3.50

The crab soup looks like thickened Chinese sharks’ fin soup. It tastes potent, and there are bits of crab meat in the soup. After I drank one mouth, a question came up – where is the dark vinegar? Vinegar would have made this soup complete, not that it is not tasty enough, but vinegar would add a much-appreciated tang to the soup.

Beef pho, $6.90

Angela had the beef pho. I stole some of the broth, and boy it’s good. I commented that the soup base is real good, provided it is real. I would like to believe the soup is made from hours of boiling beef bones, but sometimes restaurants may cheat by adding commercial additives and factory products. I am not claiming that Yummy Viet does that. I really like the broth and I want more of it, so it’s best if it’s natural.

Chicken pho, $6.20

I took the chicken pho. I squeezed a fresh lime into my soup which made it surprisingly refreshing and appetizing. The vermicilli, as you can see, was like skinny kway teow without the oil film. I didn’t quite like it. I would have enjoyed the pho much more if it were made of glass noodles. I love glass noodles.

Vietnamese coffee, $3.50

Also on the menu is traditional Vietnamese drip coffee, which I recommend for coffee addicts ONLY. It is very strong and potent and one sip nearly made me gag. I believe it’s because it’s unsweetened and black that made me go green in the face. I am not a coffee connoisseur, I’m afraid.

Overall, I enjoyed the food at Yummy Viet and will certainly return for the pho! I like this place because they do not add on service charge and GST at the end of the bill; what you see is what you pay.

Visit their official website, which really is a page to showcase their address, at http://www.yummyviet.com.sg

Yummy Viet
28 Smith Street, Chinatown
Tel: 6222 5191

Yuja-ade, $4.50

I had one of their signature drinks, the Yuja-ade, made of a certain Korean yuja citrus which is sweet and yet has the citrus tang. It’s mixed with presumably sweetened soda.

Garlic Bread Tower, $7.90

We shared the Bread Tower. Frankly this was a disappointment because I expected something bigger. The Bread Tower, when it first arrived, was about 12 cm tall. However, it is quite hollow within. The server sliced and prepared the bread for us and as you can see it became four pieces on the plate. The filling tastes garlicky, but I prefer commercial garlic bread any day.

Sauteed Fresh Mussels, $26.90

The girls shared the Sauteed Fresh Mussels in tomato-based sauce. According to them, the mussels are fresh and big. I tried some of the sauce, it’s nice and goes really well with bread. They should totally provide a bread bin for this dish.

Garlic For You steak, $32.90

Angela had the Garlic For You Steak, that is served with capsicum, grilled garlic and some sort of specialty sauce. I am not a garlic fan, expecially when it’s whole garlic or garlic I can pick out of food. However yesterday I took the courage to try the roasted garlic. Boy, it was sweet. Roasted well enough there’s no heat to it. Am I a garlic convert? Not really. I will still pick garlic out of my food, unfortunately.

Garlic Hug Steak, $32.90

Su had the Garlic Hug Steak. The cream sauce looks innocuous at first, but do you see the dried chilli placed in it? The sauce has some serious heat. The steak was sliced open in the middle and chopped garlic was stuffed into it. Su commented that it’s more steaking hugging the garlic, than garlic hugging the steak. True, true.

Mushroom Risotto, $17.90

I had the Mushroom Risotto. It is served with chicken on top.

Risotto interior

I don’t know if I took too long to eat the risotto but it got progressively stickier and cloying. Not only that, me being in m adventurous mode, did not request the kitchen to lessen the spiciness and hence the risotto was hot. It was an okay dish, not thoroughly enjoyable for me though.

If you like garlic this place should please your palate. Apart from that, people with infantile tastebuds like mine should stay away. Far far away. I won’t return to this place I’m afraid. Too much garlic on my breath keeps Vladimir away, you know?

Visit their official website at : http://www.madforgarlic.com.sg/

Mad For Garlic
#01-039 Suntec City (near Harry’s)
Tel: 63331507

So we got a new TV yesterday. It’s one of those fancy-schmanzy flat-panel full HD LCD TV that’s as skinny as a runway model. It’s bigger, 32 inches, and it can read SD cards and USB flash drives, making it an overpriced photo frame I suppose.It has 1920×1080 pixels, if that’s the kind of things you understand. So we came home and hooked up the TV to the Starhub set-top box. The graphics look like shit. Imagine taking analogue TV signal and stretching it to a 12:9 aspect ratio. It didn’t have the sort of clarity and WOW I expected with a HD TV. So I did a little scouring on the Internet and it turned out that to make full use of the HD-ness of my new TV, we need HD-compliant set-top boxes instead. Great, and so now we have to pay more per month just so we can watch TV clearly. So we bought a TV to incur more cost. Great news technology!

My recent romp to the neighbouring country of Malaysia and thereby encounters with conservation Muslim women was one of strongest cause for my doubt. They are dressed in burqas and veils and sitting in the shade at water theme parks while their husbands and sons run about in speedos and ogling other women. Fundamentally, this is wrong by a WEIRD (Westernized educated industrialized rich and democratic) standard. Yet the more I think about it, the more I start to understand how we can never expect to assert our own cultural understanding on them. By talking about women’s rights to independence from husbands and brothers and by talking about ditching the veil we are in fact inciting them to disobey religion. Who are we to do that? That can only come from a closeminded viewpoint, to even question someone’s religion as, plainly, sucky. Are you going to be responsible for their salvation?

We know why religion favours men and disses women. It’s all written in the histories and nothing can change that. Religion is important to the masses; there are many deeply religious people in this world. If we ask them to consider a faithless life, they lose their spiritual guidance, and all the practicalities that come with. In a way, we will end up starting a train without building the tracks. Where do recently emancipated women in a conservative society go?

And so when I met these women is their conservation garb toting LV purses and herding their children, I wondered if they feel like they have a fulfilled life. It was a Huxley-esque moment; they were evident brought up to believe such a lifestyle is wonderful and that those of other women of other cultures were undesirable, just as we were socialized from young, as Singaporeans, to believe that girls can, will and should go to college, work, own cars and houses. Transplant either of us into each other’s cultures we cannot survive. There’s no envy, there’s no pity, it’s mere respect. Each culture have their own dirty linen, airing it serves no purpose but to incite hate and prejudice, and pity from the White Supremicists. We have no need for that, no, we don’t.