NomNom Adventure - Sukiyaki

Sukiyaki.
Or at least that's what my parents called it from my beginning. In actual fact, it's a poor imitation of the original. But that is what make it special, for that is my home.

Dipping meat in raw eggs. Doubt many families try that at home. I'm grateful that my parents are pretty much food lovers (my girlfriend too!), and adventurous. I'm gonna miss home cook food so badly :(

My dad's an awesome cook who stole all the recipes from my mom and improvised them :P

NomNom Adventure - Nann

As the hype of orientations and Rag subsides, i finally get to meet my friends for dinner. All the way to National University of Singapore... To the place where i always over-order and stuff myself with too much dough.

The radiating algae dish - Spinach and cheese. It's edible

Butter salt chicken. No idea why Blogger insist that the photo should be in Portrait.

Terry asked, "Isn't it a long walk back to KE7 hall?"
"When you finally realise that you are leaving, you start to appreciate the little things that we always complained about"
*flush toilet* I never liked having a conversation in toilet cubicles.

NomNom Adventure - Hotel Reception

This is NOT a food blog. I'm not a critic. I'm just a Singaporean who appreciates the crazy amount of food we have here, and I'm documenting them for my own visual consumption when my tummy is rumbling in Aberdeen, while all i know how to cook is Porridge and Pre-mixes.

Went to my cousin's university's welcome ceremony. She's the pioneer batch of chefs in the Singapore Institute of Technology. Quite impressive number of new batch of students, probably close to 300 polytechnic students? I loved it how they emphasized that they are in for sleepless nights and crazy workload. Because it is university. Oh Singapore, please dun dilute the joy of education!

Most important, was the Hotel's high-tea after the event. It as a jaw-dropping $55/head. Endless flow of a wide variety of food!

Finger food section - I just spammed the Sushi

Hot food. Just avoid it, the carbohydrates waste space.

Omg. Desert TOO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM.

So these 3 main tables, multiply by 5! That's the amount of food they had! I shouldn't have eaten lunch.
And of course, being a typical Singaporean, we wrapped some muffins into the handbag :) One day i shall try walking into one of this conventions/occasions without an invitation. All the food seem so wasted!

NomNom Adventure - JuJu Hokkaido Hotpot

Dating back Aug 9.
Mom decided to give both ourselves a treat after watching the National Day works blast off across the horizon of Marina Bay Sands, CBD.

Appetizers! An awesome Hard-boil egg which is soft inside.

The saucer looks egg-shaped O.o

NomNom Adventure - Frog Porridge

Pictures for my own consumption. My own memories.

They died for the right cause. 7 frogs get free plane ticket to Aberdeen!

What makes a happy family? 7 dead frogs. Great meal with my parents and girlfriend.

SlurpSlurp Adventure - Sugar Cane Water

Name: Sugar Cane Water
Location: Not available in any Hawker. If you see a shop, with a grinder and lots of Sugar Canes stacked, that's them.

Fallout 3: Radiated Water

I've realised that every single day i'm eating such interesting food that is worth blogging, that keeping to a 'one post a day' policy is causing a choke up on my archives. Nonetheless, even this unique drink is a personal favourite, so it deserves to be here.

Grinded, presses, rolled and squeezed dry, that's the fate of those sugar cane stems used to harvest this cup of greenery. The shop-keepers will make an effort to suck every moisture out of them, that the resulting pulp looks good enough to be sold at a book store as recycled paper. But really, i wonder what's the fate of all those dried fiber.

As the name goes, the juice is pretty sweet. Freshly pressed right before your very eyes, you know there are no post-processing to this drink, unlike Coca-cola. Makes u feel healthier :D.

But for a period of time, there was this odd tale saying, "Rats pee on the Sugar Cane that are in storage during the night, hence the rats pee is being absorbed, and you are drinking it!" *Shuns away. I never believed it, even when i was young and ignorant. But now I know that even if it was 'absorbed', it was through osmosis, a permeable membrane is involved and the urea and other waste products would be seperated. Well, it would be safe to drink then, if the auntie washes them first O.o

NomNom Adventure - Mee Goreng

Name: Hazel Tan Mee Goreng (aka Fried Noodles)
Location: Any Prata shop

No food can be sweeter than my girlfriend <3

The noodles are red not because they use goat's blood saved during sacrifices. It is noodles cooked with tomato sauce. So generally it has a sweet taste. I'm surprised to find myself ordering this dish time after time even though i don't have a sweet tooth and would choose 'Salty' over 'Sweet' anytime. Maybe cause i like the colour red?

Mee Goreng comes in many interesting combinations too. My indian friend taught me (but i forgot -_-) that if you wanted an additional egg, the direct translation would be 'Mee Goreng Sunshine'. Really brightens up my day.

Bee Hoon Goreng, Maggi Goreng... They should have a 'Mee Kia' and 'Mee Pok' Goreng too. But that leads me to the nxt point - NEVER order Mee Goreng from a Chinese stall. It's the taste of kitchen disaster. They cook it like any other noodle dish (eg. Hor Fun), with all their additional seafood and meat, which totally trashes how Mee Goreng should taste.

If I were to do a direct Malay-English Translation word for word. Mee = Noodles. Goreng = Fried. Hence, shouldn't it be called Noodles Fried? I guess that's why they do things really oddly most of the times.

P.S.: Remember to order a cup of teh tarik!

NomNom Adventure - Thai Food

Name: Green Curry + Pandan Leave Chicken
Location: Nahkon Kitchen, Kovan. Not Thai Express

Food taste better when sharing!

Random lunch meet-up with Uzzy. He's gonna study in another place other than Singapore. Thai food tends to be a little pricey in any country other than Thailand, and Food Haven Singapore isn't an exception. It's hard to find authentic Thai food here too. Thankfully, i have one right at my doorstep.

Green curry is my favourite dish. Firstly, the colour is odd green for something quite spicy. And the thick coconut base makes it like soup, which is worth covering your whole rice with. A downside though, they have quite abit of weird vegetable inside, that I usually let the adults eat :P

Pandan Leave Chicken is supposedly one of their signature dishes. Well, it's nice. but not fantastic. It also disrupts the flow of eating cause u have to put down the cutlery to unwrap the chicken. Oily fingers!

Thai-tea. Thai-bucks, half as cheap and half as good as Starbucks

With thai food being so expensive, even their 'specialty' drink was ex. Imo, it got conned for this cup.

Interesting fact: Singapore's Thai Express founder was from my ex-junior college, of which i'm not superbly proud of to be from - Anderson Junior College. Their food can be pretty pricey, but if you feel like splurging, it's actually quite satisfying. Don't miss their Soft-shelled crabs and Chendol drink!

Pay for the comfort of Air-Conditioning

NomNom Adventure - Chicken Rice

Name: Hainanese Chicken Rice
Location: Pointless to say, cause Singapore is littered with hawker centres and coffee shops, and every one seems to have a chicken rice stall. The quality is in question though.

Wonder how the breed so many chickens...

Sweet succulent chicken, fragrant rice and cheap! Keys to becoming a successful chicken rice seller. The number of chicken rice stalls are so many that you can get them just about anywhere. But looking for a good quality one is like looking for a righteous cop in M'sia traffic police department. Nonetheless, this dish is so 'Singaporean', that it has it's own intant pre-mixes that help us overseas peeps rmb how home tasted like.

As in name goes, chicken rice probably originated from Hainan. But apparently, Hainan chicken are served as a cold dish, topped with garlic with sesame oil, which is an appetiser. Whoever that whipped up today's Chicken Rice deserve a more deserving salute than our pres during NDP.

For one thing, i dislike breast. Breast meat. Its meat is stripped, tough and dry! Pales in comparison to drum or thigh meat. But my bro likes breast meat, on the basis of laziness and having no need of bones knocking against your teeth.

Chilli is a key determining factor. But non-chilli lover friends just spam black sauce till the rice looks like it changed its race to Indian. For me, plain is the way to go to acquire the most original taste :)

M'sia has an interesting variation of Chicken Rice. Along the roads of JB to Malacca, they sell chicken rice balls. The only difference is the rice is moulded in *not bite-sized* balls. It's fun eating them, but i will never forgive them for excluded the fragrance of Chicken Rice's Rice.

Rice balls you attempt to stuff into your mouth whole, but end up choking.

NomNom Adventure - GongGong

Name: Gong Gong
REAL NAME: Conch
Location: Basically, any seafood stall in Singapore

Looks cruel, but yummy!

Basically anything that moves, some crazy Chinese would throw it into the wok and whip out a dish. Most of the time, I'm faced with the visual barrier before i push myself to consuming these weird foods.

GongGong, or so we call it here in Sunny Singapore. Then there is also LaLa, ChuChu, and probably many more i don't know. A quick wiki of 'GongGong' brought up the description: A Chinese water god, or sea monster. How vastly differing entities that are existing in the water. No matter what, good or evil, toss them into the wok with some garlic and spring onions, and there you go!

This peculiar takes quite abit of skill to eat. They are served with toothpicks! With the expectation that u dig those little rascals out. But i prefer just using my hands and pulling them out. And for the taste... I say it's an acquired taste. Some people love it, but i will choose other shell-fishes.

P.S.: There are so many exotic/interesting dishes that i have eaten, snapped, and waiting to blog. But they are all bottle-necked by my present '1 NomNom Adv a day" policy.

NomNom Adventure - Samy's Curry

Name: Deep Fried Pomfret + Sotong + Chicken + Mutton + Papadum aka. Appalam
Location: Samy's Curry, Dempsey Hill

Always having a tendency to over-order Indian food

Indian food, always so generous with their servings (not their price though). Topped with lovely spices, chilli and curry everywhere. Most often, my mouth would be searing hot during the meal. Having to constantly wash off the burn with Lime Juice. Spicy food is really the Singaporean's way to go.

A lovely meal with my parents and girlfriend. Though we regretted not ordering the Fish Head Curry, the variety of food was more than enough to satisfy our rumbling tummies. I'm not really a fan of chilli (still), but curry is different. It's like soup :D Just a little spicy. Love how you can spam the curry onto your rice, making it all mushy and porridge like.

The highlight is the cheapest of all the dishes ordered. Papadum (Tamil: Appalum), which is a deep fried cracker with a very strong taste of spices. Papadum tends to be served as an accompanying dish to curry, etc., sometimes as a snack or appetiser. But Singaporean's mouth knows no customs, if it taste good, it goes into any part of our meal/life. It's pretty hard to find this stuff here, but priced at 50cents for 3 pieces, i'm gonna miss this.

NomNom Adventure - Century Egg Congee

Name: Century Egg Congee (皮蛋粥, Pi Dan Zhou)
Price: S$3
Location: Punggol Coffee Shop (which is found in Kovan -_-) Opens only in the night.

It is never completed without You Tiao (fried dough)

I love porridge. By that i do not mean any kind of rice thrown into water. Because fish porridge in Singapore usually turns out to be rice in fish soup. That i do not fancy.

Century Egg is a very odd dish. Firstly, it isn't even a 100 years old, it's just aged in chemistry. And if you ever looked at a whole 100yo Egg before, there seems to be a network of feather-like structures embedded in the whites. Doesn't matter, they just taste good. Though their taste is really unique, smells pleasantly bad and fermented.

My mom had a weird teaching about porridge. Every time i went to the hawker one of my choices would be Porridge. But she would tell me it's not filling for the stomach and it digest fast, hence cannot be considered as a proper meal for lunch or dinner. Den, i am pretty much never awake earlier enough for breakfast, or staring at the computer through the night and forgetting about supper to have much chance to eat it. I'm glad i realised that was a ridiculous school of thought.

Porridge makes me feel, uncle-ish. Older. Furthermore, i feel that it should be combined with a cup of hot Teh-O (Black Tea). I thought i could eat fast-food my whole life and never get sick of it, now when i look at MacDonalds, it just doesn't seem as appealing as before.

Gotta learn how to cook this. It's gonna be my staple food there. White plain porridge, den additional side dish from the local market. And what is popular in Aberdeen? Apparently their speciality is good fresh seafood (wild salmon and mussels) and beef.

NomNom Adventure - Won Ton Mee

Name: Won Ton Mee (云吞面)
Bosty's Translation: Cloud Swallow Noodles / 1-Tonne Noodles
Price: S$2.50 / S$3.00
Location: Kovan Heartland Mall Hawker Centre

Black = Salty. Black = Good

I grew up eating Won Ton Mee (shall call it 1-T Mee for short). It was my favourite hawker food when i was young, and still in my all-time favs. If i ever ate 1-T Mee from a new stall, i would always ask for black sauce. Singaporeans probably use Chilli as a grading system (eg. Chicken Rice, Kway Chap), but i don't care. Personally, i'm not a fan of Chilli, but that's not the reason. When i was younger, my Dad knew i rather enjoy the meal than to torture my young tongue. Still have yet to develop a sense of masochism that i think all chilli/wasabi lovers have. So he always ordered them black-sauced.

It seems chinese food is very commonly associated with take-aways in the west. But take-away noodles, esp 1-T mee is disastrous. All the sauce get absorbed into the noodles, leaving a hard ball of string. No longer good for eating, but as a toy for the cats.

Stop playing with your food

 No 1-T Mee is ever completed without its Char Siew (Pork. Charred?), and of course Dumplings (Fried comes as a + point). Looks like this dish is something i will only have as memories when i'm in Aberdeen.