121 replies to this topic

[nikkib]

First of the sweets was this little coconut coated tapioca kuih. From what i gathered Kuih/keuh is essentially a generic word for sweets found everywhere from china, indonesia, malaysia etc and they can vary in preparation, ingredients etc hugely so forgive me if i make any errors on these... These were filled with a liquid and we were instructed to pop the whole thing in our mouth so as not to dribble! They were incredibly sweet but pretty good. Next we had these little pinapple tarts - essentially just a really buttery pastry filled with a condensed pineapple and sugar jam




This dessert platter followed



You have the multi coloured Angku which is a tortoise shell shaped nyonya delicacy which is made with glutinous rice flour wrapped with varying fillings depending on the outer colour - ours included red bean, green bean and peanut fillings amongst others. Angku is commonly used for Chinese prayers and served during baby full moon parties and at chinese new year as well. The green pancakes are Kuih dadar a rolled crepe flavored with pandan juice and filled with grated coconut steeped in gula melaka or Malaysian palm sugar. Pandan leaf is the core ingredient of kuih dadar. The green exterior of kuih dadar is made of batter colored with natural pandan juice extracted from pandan leaves (and i suspect a healthy dose of food colouring!) These were nicknamed drug cakes by our guide as they were so addictive !!
The middle multi coloured kuih are kuih lapis (i didnt try those so cant tell you much more about them sorry)
Then you have the dumpling looking ones that are actually filled with taro, peanut, chilli and dried shrimp which were well, odd to say the least. I think the pyramid shaped ones were kuih Koci - made with glutinous rice and peanut paste

Finally a pink tapioca pudding served with palm sugar and coconut milk/oil on the side for added flavour (again sorry no photos..)

[nikkib]

Naturally the next morning i was not hungry but ordered a Kopi Peng (iced coffee) on my way to work and mid afternoon had some fish congee. A rice based porridge almost - i added rousong (pork floss made from reducing pork and sweet soy sauce and then dried in a number of ways)Also some tofu or Koo Wok and pickles and spring onions - delicious and cleansing!

[nikkib]

Of course by dinner time some 10 hours later or so i was STARVING so made a trip to the Banana Apollo Leaf which is reknowned for its fish head curry. Pictured is the small portion at $18 which could easily serve 3 people ( i should note i made very little impact on it!) Now Banana leaf Apollo is an Indian restaurant where they make it spicer than teh chinese version. The head of a fish (google says red snapper but mine certainly was not red snapper)is stewed in a curry base with a few vegetables such as Okra and then is served with rice and accompniments - someone will have to help out on this, one was, i believe potato based but i wouldnt like to say for sure...The sauce is quite a thin gravy with definite tamarind flavours but it is hotter and not as sour as the assam pedas from the night before. The dish apparently originated in Singapore with an Indian chef trying to make his food more "Chindian" to appeal to the large Chinese population who consider fish (and shark) heads a delicacy. This was great - i have eaten this before and it is a lot less scary than it sounds. There is a huge amount of meat on the fish head and there are relatively few bones - i heartily recommend tryng this on a trip to singapore...





I didnt even try to eat this with my hands (which i am getting better at) as it is just too soupy (not to mention hot) but suire enough i was the only one using a fork and spoon I will master this art before i leave singapore if its the last thing i do damn it!!!

[nikkib]

I admit it - breakfast this morning was a can of redbull and 3 large espressos in quick succession and a banana (worst eG foodblog breakfast ever?!) At lunch i managed to pop out and went for another classic Hawker dish - Rojak, a traditional Indonesian fruit/root vegetable salad with pineapple, bean sprouts, jicama, cucumber and woo kok crispy tofu in a chilli, belacan, lime, tamarind and palm sugar and toped with crushed peanuts.









This was at the Maxwell Court food centre - one of the most central and well known hawker centres - queues for more popular dishes and stalls can be up to one hour at lunch time (Anthony Bourdain for example raves about a Hainanese chicken stall here)

Edited by nikkib, 19 November 2011 - 08:31 AM.

[nikkib]

Dinner was another Indian meal - a southern Indian Thali at Anjappar restaurant in Farrer park - chapatti, papad, white rice, 3 types of vegetables, sambar, kara kuzhambu (not sure what cocolcasia is - jenni/Percyn?) rassam and curd. I dont really bother with much of the rice -rather using the chapatti to scoop up the thicker vegetables and then using the papad dipped in the sambar. Very tasty indeed and at $7 not bad value at all!

[Jenni]

The hindi name for colocasia is arbi. I've tried to look this up before to work out exactly which colocasia arbi is as there are many, but it gets confusing as I have seen at least two very subtly different things called arbi in markets. I think they are sometimes called taro in English. Here is a wiki page on it.

And btw naughty naughty for not eating your rice! In a South Indian meal that is the main point! Still, if you have not mastered sloppy dishes with hands you will get less enjoyment. Next time though, try eating sambar mixed up with rice accompanied by some veggie dishes. Then eat rasam and rice. And finish with curd mashed up into the rice, with a bit of pickle and pappad mixed in as you like. I often leave my chapati, no please for it in a Southie meal if you ask me!

[nikkib]

So i think i have another 24 hours to go before i finish to factor in my working hours and inability to post then, will do my best to get some good food in before this time tomorrow!

[percyn]

Agree with Jenni. I think cocolcasia is a type of Taro leaf.

Great blog Nikki and sad that it will end soon

[heidih]

At lunch i managed to pop out and went for another classic Hawker dish - Rojak, a traditional Indonesian fruit/root vegetable salad with pineapple, bean sprouts, jicama, cucumber and woo kok crispy tofu in a chilli, belacan, lime, tamarind and palm sugar and toped with crushed peanuts.

Ahh thank you! Rojak was one of the dishes I fondly remember. I need to acquire some belacan in order to replicate it.

[Jenni]

Agree with Jenni. I think cocolcasia is a type of Taro leaf.

Great blog Nikki and sad that it will end soon

Oh, I wasn't even thinking of the leaf but the tuber-y thing (i am not sure which dish it was in so I cannot use visual clues)! Leaf is used too though so either way it is the same thing.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk

[nikkib]

At lunch i managed to pop out and went for another classic Hawker dish - Rojak, a traditional Indonesian fruit/root vegetable salad with pineapple, bean sprouts, jicama, cucumber and woo kok crispy tofu in a chilli, belacan, lime, tamarind and palm sugar and toped with crushed peanuts.

Ahh thank you! Rojak was one of the dishes I fondly remember. I need to acquire some belacan in order to replicate it.

Without wishing to spark an international incident with the US post office, I can post some if it's hard to find stateside...

[nikkib]

Breakfast today was another roti prata, this time an egg version with vegetarian curry sauce - i also have re posted the roti from the other day as that appears to have vanished from my previous post. I prefer the plain rotis on reflection this one is a bit too like an omelette and less like a bread (they crack the egg on top of the bread and then flip it over/fold it so the egg is inside the bread almost fully fried - very clever!)

[nikkib]

I had a couple of coffees at work and then was able to get out for a bite to eat this afternoon - Mee Hoon or Bee Hoon is a fried noodle dish, i wasnt really sure which version i was going to get - in the end it was bee hoon goreng, a fried version with mutton stirred through it, the large pieces were a little chewy so i left those. It also had egg, dried peas, shallots and chilli and was served with fresh cucumber slices to temper the heat.

Edited by nikkib, 20 November 2011 - 06:53 AM.

[nikkib]

In place of a proper dinner after such a heavy lunch, i settled for a couple of kueh pie tee another popular peranaken dish. It is a thin, crispy pastry cup which is filled with stewed spicy, sweet vegetables such as white radish and mushroom, a couple of small prawns and fresh coriander complete the dish.

[nikkib]

Thought you may like to see some photos of some of the produce at the night market in Little India on Sundays, it is absolutely packed!

Edited by nikkib, 20 November 2011 - 07:43 AM.

[Blether]

So that's what Japan's "biifun" is supposed to be comes from.

[nikkib]

So that's what Japan's "biifun" is supposed to be comes from.

Looks like it blether doesnt it! Places sell both bee hoon and mee hoon here and i cannot seem to find a difference in those either!

[nikkib]

Sorry i didnt get to do more supermarket/market shots. I had all these amazing plans for the week that were abandoned when i realised my shedule wouldn't accomodate it all - really wish i could have shown you more hawker centres,curry puffs, mee siam, laksa, mee rebus, stingray aarrggghhhh the list goes on and on! Will aim to keep the singapore eating page updated with some better info/more pictures in the weeks/months to come and like i said before, if any of you do head over here, look me up for a drink!

[nikkib]

Ok so i am now relaxing at home, G&T in hand. I hope you have enjoyed my foodblog - if anyone has any questions or comments i will do my best to reply - Thanks for reading!!

[Blether]

Thanks for writing - and for covering so much

[Shelby]

Really enjoyed following you around this week!

That G&T looks very refreshing.

[Genkinaonna]

Thanks so much for sharing with us this week...I know how hard it is to get it all in!

[Hassouni]

Ok so i am now relaxing at home, G&T in hand. I hope you have enjoyed my foodblog - if anyone has any questions or comments i will do my best to reply - Thanks for reading!!

I have those exact same coffee cups! A dozen for 3000LL....

[percyn]

Nikki,
Thanks for an interesting week and for elevating the priority on my visit to Singapore.

[JTravel]

Thanks for showing us Singapore. I had always wanted to visit and finally made it a couple of years ago just after Tet. It was great, but there was a Heat Wave! Like normal isn't hot enough. We could have eaten better having seen your blog....but hard to go wrong from the food courts to the street markets.
Hope you don't mind a couple of pictures....the outdoor kitchen at Raffles (didn't eat OR drink there), and Kaya toast.....YUM.

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Edited by JTravel, 20 November 2011 - 11:28 AM.

[nikkib]

Ok so i am now relaxing at home, G&T in hand. I hope you have enjoyed my foodblog - if anyone has any questions or comments i will do my best to reply - Thanks for reading!!

I have those exact same coffee cups! A dozen for 3000LL....

Couldnt leave Lebanon without them!

[nikkib]

Thanks for showing us Singapore. I had always wanted to visit and finally made it a couple of years ago just after Tet. It was great, but there was a Heat Wave! Like normal isn't hot enough. We could have eaten better having seen your blog....but hard to go wrong from the food courts to the street markets.
Hope you don't mind a couple of pictures....the outdoor kitchen at Raffles (didn't eat OR drink there), and Kaya toast.....YUM.

Couldn't agree more - the standard of eating is very high indeed, certain places seem to excel at certain dishes but I have yet to gave a really "duff" meal anywhere! That's what makes it so fun in my opinion! Glad you enjoyed it!

[Jenni]

Thanks for a great week Nikki!
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[Kent Wang]

Thanks for a great tour of Singapore! I'll be in touch in late January.

[blue_dolphin]

Thank you so much, nikkib, for taking the time to share your food world with us.

I just started reading Cheryl Tan's memoir, A Tiger in the Kitchen, about her return to Singapore to explore the family, cooking and culture she grew up with. Your blog photos gave me a colorful glimpse into the world that Tan describes in words. As I read about another new dish in the book, I've been returning to your blog to see if it's one that you've pictured.

Thanks!