u m a m i

Eating the Highlands Part 2

 

When she heard I was going to Scotland, Sui Mai told me that I must eat "haggis with neeps and tatties". The version I had at The Dores Inn was so delicious that I decided to go back a few nights later. The restaurant is located about 20 minutes drive away from Inverness, and features a short menu of unfussy and well-cooked dishes. It also backs onto Loch Ness and the view from the back of the restaurant is phenomenal.

Back to the haggis, this was meaty and deeply savoury, like concentrated fond from roasting mammoth dinosaur bones. I liked also that it was relatively free of distractions like oatmeal fillers or peppery spicing, just pure melt-in-the-mouth-gasm with every bite. Neeps are mashed turnips- a bit watery and bland despite the bright orange hue, tatties are mashed potatoes which I preferred, the velvet gravy lapping over them comfortingly.

 

The view from the back of the restaurant. Isn't it marvelous?

One morning we decided to drive out to explore the Cairngorms, which is Britain's most extensive mountain massif. It is dotted with tiny and very charming little villages with the most adorable names like Aviemore, Kingussie and Laggan. We visited a clan museum, then moved on to find lunch at the Mountain Cafe. Situated in Aviemore, an amenities-centre for the rugged holidaymaker, the food served in the cafe is wholesome and politically correct. No haggis or anything that twee, but my sweetcorn and zucchini fritters (more like a dense skillet cake than fritter) was rather too filling. What blew me away though, were generously thick chunks of hot smoked salmon tucked between; so much better than cold-smoked, hot-smoking rendered the yummy Scottish salmon even more smoky and voluptuous-tasting. After lunch, one could go shopping in the sports equipment shop below but not me. I am not the sporting type, besides the goods are so expensive and rather ugly.

After such a hearty lunch, it was time to visit the Highland Wildlife Park. A bit like doing a safari, visitors drive and walk around to observe exotic foreign species like wildcats, bisons, yaks and even wild boars. It was a fun outing for V, she had enjoyed seeing rare sheep and chickens in a rare-breed farm in Fort William the day before (image above) and this thrilled her even more. I think the animals found me exotic, the Chinese woman with big sunglasses and parasol. 

Literally next door, there is the Highland Folk Museum, straddling the two villages of Kingussie and Newtonmore. A sprawling complex of farmhouses and ye-olde churches, train-stations, schoolhouses etc, visitors can explore traditional Highland ways of life, and of course, take a ride in pre-war type buses. It was totally charming.

Clan life, wild life, Hebridean life. There is definitely more to the Scottish Highlands than castle ruins, whiskies and the Loch Ness monster. Darling, take me there again?

The days flew by quickly, and soon we had to leave for Glasgow. Instead of going by the A9, husband took the slower, older A82. We thought we would make Glasgow for lunch, but we didn't account for the meandering two-lane highway full of trucks and leisurely drivers. Couldn't blame them, the view of the waters of Loch Lomond and surrounding forest parks are gorgeous. By noon, and still in central lowlands rather than further south, we had to improvise. Thumbing through the Rough Guide and the road map, I told husband to stop at the next village of Tyndrum, where the Real Food Cafe is said to "serve fast food that is locally sourced and cooked to order".

The cafe sits on the side of the highway. No other buildings save a few houses on the other side of the road. Not even a convenience store or a petrol station in this neck of the woods. Hmm, how many buildings make a village? The carpark was full of trucks containing frozen fish boxes with Eastern European words. Not too local eh? Still, we had no back-up plan, who knows what was in the next town, so we decided to take our chances here.

Inside, it was quite spartan but warm and quietly buzzing. Lots of recyclable cups and blond wood à la Ikea. Families, farmers, mountain trekkers. We sat ourselves in a sunny corner while husband queued up to place our lunch orders. He came back with hot tea and scones for me. The scones did not contain white flour, but were still quite tender and light, there was jam but no butter. I was slowly getting the impression that mountainside establishments hold possibility of good unpretentious food (unlike, say, their competitors in town fooling around with lemongrass infusions and masala veal chops). A middle-age lady and another volunteer shepherded a gaggle of elderly residents out for their lunch outing. All the old ladies ordered fish and chips. The manager came out to take care of them personally.

Eventually, like 25 minutes later, our lunch came. Old ladies table got served first. Husband had ordered burgers for me. The burgers, handmade from good local beef it may be, was too dry and skinny with a cardboard texture; I would have preferred something more recognisably meaty. Still, the cheese was tasty, the bun nicely toasted and the salads properly fresh and crisp.

I munched half-heartedly and then took a bite of husband's fish and chips. Hmm, what is this? Crispy batter with very fresh-tasting fish inside. I couldn't believe it. We had been eating fish and chips at various locations the whole week, including a famous pub in the fishing village of Ullapool which had won awards for its beer-battered version; all had been huge disappointments- too greasy, too bland, too boring. The fish and chips at Real Food Cafe was absolutely fabulous. We were all over the plate, it was the best fish and chips I've ever tried. 

I was not the only fan. The boards near the restroom were covered with appreciative letters and approving reviews. The trucks were a red herring (haha); the fish do come from far away, from the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia. It is good fish, cooked upon order, in a light but still crisp-crunchy batter coating, as it should be.  So there we had it, a most excellent fish and chips served not by the seaside but a roadside cafe in the middle of nowhere in Scotland.

Dores Inn Dores, Loch Ness, Inverness T: 01463 751203

Mountain Cafe 111 Grampian Rd, Aviemore T: 01479 812473

Real Food Cafe Tyndrum on the A82/A85. T: 08457 484950

Eating the Highlands Part 1

The second part of our holiday happened in the Highlands, which accounts for most of the northern and western part of Scotland. It is a terribly romantic place. Relatively uninhabited, unindustrialised and quite remote (3 hours drive from Edinburgh), it is dominated by lochs and mountains. The waters in the region are very pure, they go towards making the national beverage that is Scotch whisky. The whisky from this area, in particular Speyside, have beautiful and long notes of floral, citrus and fruity aromas, mirroring the splendid countryside of its origins. 

Here I found the Scotland of my fervent imagination- brave warriors with flying ginger hair and distinctive plaids defend their beautiful lands against the bad, greedy-assed English invaders, in their castles their women are called lasses and their dogs westies, the land marked by exotic growths of heather, gorses and thistle flowers where grouse fly and dignified broad-antlered deers survey the magnificient lands. Aye, can you hear the wail of the bagpipes and the lilting harps? When you stand in the grounds of a long-ago deserted and much crumbled castle like Urquhart you most definitely can. They say it is more beautiful at night, when the tourists like us are gone and the former inhabitants return to their haunt. I don't know, I was plenty carried away myself that day. 

Back to the present, the café at the castle Urquhart was bang on trend with their cupcake selection. Here we had a cupcake with butterscotch frosting and toffee bits, particularly delicious eaten with force 10 winds howling in your hair and the coffee risking premature dilution with the perpetual Scottish rain overhead, all dead romantic really.

Speaking of another Scottish delicacy, we were much taken with Scottish marmalade, in particular that of our b&b. The Westbourne Guest House in Inverness is a 4-starred establishment because among other things, it provides tea-making facilities in the room, fan (no air-con), shirt-presser and shoe-shiner machine. We think. It can't be because the toiletries are supermarket brand,or because of the plain dormitory furnishings and a blown-up dishrack doing double-duty under the sink as bathroom shelves and basically lack of any natural stone, chintzy swags, swivelled mirrors or Grohe amenities. Their lounge has a common PC, every time someone opens the fridge in the adjoining kitchen the PC reboots itself, very Monty Python.

On the plus side, it was clean, the room was roomy enough for the three of us and they didn't complain when V left her bed all bloody one morning after having a nosebleed in her sleep. They did laundry too, i.e. I gave the landlady a bag of clothes and she ran it through her machines and returned them folded though not ironed, all for the rather reasonable price of 6 pounds.

Well, back to breakfast. Lots of choices in terms of cereals, yoghurts and fruits etc etc. Bacon, ham and haggis of ordinary quality which meant we stuck to toast for most of our stay. They use good grainy bread and the homemade marmalade was one of the most delicious we have ever tried. Terribly good stuff, packed with flavour and the texture was just right-thick yet spreadable, really much better than some award-winning marmalades we later brought home as souvenirs. The landlady also made sure we got two fingers of her home-made shortbread in our room every day. Two may sound a bit mean but these were outrageously rich biscuits, really buttery, flecked with tongue-tingling citrus peels (presumably from making the fabulous marmalade). Every evening when we returned from our excursions V and I take turns biting from the cookies and say to each other how good it was. Sometimes we couldn't finish them so we eat leftover chunks for breakfast.

Besides exploring castles, including Cawdow where the real Macbeth had ever stayed, there were other activities. Like visiting farms and picking strawberries. Rain had spoiled most of the crop, but V thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The better specimens were available for sale, and they were big, deeply red and tasted very sweet and vibrant like high summer. 

Just another view of the placid lakes. Until I read the little plaque at the side of the river which documented that this was a site of some bloody massacre in the great bloody past.

We took the old Jacobite steam train on the western side of the country. Run on coals and puffing white smoke as it chugs along the rugged mountain ranges, it thrilled all the train buffs in the carriages including a shy terrier lass sitting next to me. The seaside town where it ends, Mallaig, is small and touristy. I did well to have packed sandwiches from Tesco for our lunch on the pier.

The eating options in this area are not as great as in the larger towns. In Inverness itself there are a few cookie-cutter bistro types that didn't really appeal to me. A foray into the Indian restaurant scene was even more disastrous- the newly opened Jaipur actually offers a menu of different sauces poured on tandoori meats, it was the worst meal of our trip.

In terms of Chinese food, all we saw were takeaways, not exactly something I wanted to take back to our airless room (even if we got past the landlady). One evening we took a random turn into Academy St, off the city centre, and I spotted Gathering Place. It seemed like a mirage, there is nothing else of note along this drab street, but there it was, a sit-down restaurant that would not be out of place in Gerrard Street, London. The menu is predictable and their takeaway business was going on non-stop while we ate our dinner. The waiters are from Malaysia! The food was good and cooked with practised skill, we had a happy feed of fried rice, sambal kangkong and a prawn stir-fry. I reckoned this was the best Chinese option for miles around, heck I don't think there is any other Highland competitor, still, to do better, the waiter recommended going up to Aberdeen where they have the largest immigrant Chinese population in Scotland. 

In Part 2, we get acquainted with the truly Scottish food icons i.e. haggis, black puddings and the mythical Scottish salmon. 

Gathering Place 87 Academy St, Inverness T: 01463 713 244

Eating up Edinburgh Part 3

Back in the early 90's, on holidays with university mates in the Lake District, we visited what used to be the poet Wordsworth's house. My friend Pernell went into the gift shop before we actually went into the house, meanwhile back in the car (we were waiting for a parking lot) my two other friends sniggered at her seemingly uncultured ways. God bless them all, but I think P was on to something. On this holiday, we found the shopping at museum shops utterly delightful. There was something for everyone: books, clothes, mugs, whisky shot glasses, fruit cakes, Royal Family-themed chinaware, plushies and tartans of course. My favourite find was a woolly cushion with Union Jack pattern, something I had wanted for a long time; it is meant for dogs but Mimi and Rufus don't have to know that. 

The eating possibilities were none too shabby either. Out of curiousity, well, actually, the endless rain was a major push factor, we looked in on the Café at the Palace, of the Palace of Holyroodhouse. After a grey morning of exploring the ruins of its abbey, and breathing in the intrigue surrounding this former residence of Queen Mary of Scots, we were more than ready for a warm pot of tea and some cakes. The Cafe operates like a canteen, customers line up and load their trays, pay at the counter, collect cutleries and serviettes and sit down to eat in the glass-enclosed atrium or, in good weather, the al-fresco area overlooking the Salisbury Crags.

The home-made cakes looked so tempting, I forced myself to choose only three types. After all, this was lunchtime, so we started with soups and sandwiches, all very fresh and tasty, much better than what I had expected for a museum cafe. Raisin scone was lovely and very correct, cakey and crumbly without any metallic aftertaste, served with proper clotted cream and good fruity jam (plastic tubs bring the tone down though). Lemon drizzle cake was uplifting, it had lemon sponge, lemon curd, lemon cream and lemon glaze, sweetness and tartness in equal measures. The Victorian sponge cake sat proudly at the cashier's corner, but it was the weakest of the trio, let down by a somewhat dry sponge and indifferent fillings.

The day before setting off for Inverness, husband collected his rental car. We drove a few kilometres to Southside. While the laundry went through its cycles in the laundromat, we snacked on Polish sausages (Edinburgh is home to a big immigrant Polish population), stocked up on crisps, Marmite,Tabasco sauce and gossip magazines, and explored the many charity shops in the area. After that, a vegetarian buffet lunch at Kalpna, followed by a need for dessert, so off we went to the affluent neighbourhood of Morningside for ice cream and cakes. S.Luca is a local institution. Upstairs it was hot and stuffy, and crowded with white, anglo-saxon teenagers, stroller mums and their offsprings. Teenage servers run the place in an unhurried, indeterminate manner,quite unaware of their waiting customers

Strawberries and ice cream for V, and toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream for us. It was sensational, the pudding: velvety and oozing lava-like craters of molten dark toffee, sweet but never too sweet, the cold cold creamy ice-cream in contrast, oolala what a delicious treat.

We left Edinburgh on a Saturday, but not before stopping by at its weekly market on the Edinburgh Castle terraces. A small collection of stalls selling premium meats, handmade oatcakes, unpasteurised cheeses, cold-pressed soaps, artisanal jams and the like. Keywords: rare, unusual, natural, preservative/hormone-free, organic, biodynamic, local, seasonal, fancy. One stall featured a whole roasted pig.

I bought a sandwich complete with stuffing, crackling and added apple sauce and bbq sauce. Yummy. Equally good was a bison burger in the background. I stocked up a half-dozen bottles of blaeberry juice for our road-trip.

The Crisp Hut serves freshly made potato crisps. Doesn't get better than this.

 

Salt and vinegar flavour. We sprinkled our own vinegar, and was cautioned that the vinegar would dampen the crisps slightly over time. No danger of that actually because we gobbled it all up within a few minutes.

Café at the Palace Palace of Holyroodhouse, Old Town T: 0131 652 3685 

S. Luca 16 Morningside Road, Southside. T: 0131 446 0233

Eating up Edinburgh Part 1

I know, it has been ever such a long time since we updated this blog. It was summer's fault, this past glorious summer of many long and sunny days.

The projects were packed away to make room for simple amusements like puzzles and books. Mid-brow fiction was my daily vice; I got into the old habit of finishing a book every other day. And then there was the daily nap in the late afternoon, just before rousing reluctantly to make dinner, which inevitably featured tomatoes, and later on, peppers and eggplants. Amazon.UK (not the France one which majorly sucks) sent me emails at least three times a day about their amazing DVD and book deals and I inevitably succumbed, every week the gardienne brought up a package for V and I to gleefully rip into.

In the evenings, we sat on our tiny terrace and sipped icy cocktails while trying to catch a little breeze, looking at the parade of the people passing by the street below, mostly well-dressed families of middle-eastern holidaymakers making their way to one of the three Noura food outlets around the corner. Friends and my fourth sister dropped in occasionally, or we met for some ice cream outside. So all in, we had a very agreeable lazy time at home to really decompress.

The French like to ask, "Did you go away?" because they probably did and want to exchange stories about their wonderful vacation. Ours was lovely too, and when they heard we went to Scotland the jokes about whisky and bad weather came thick, fast and a little too often.

They're right though, about the weather. Over our two-week holiday it rained on all but two days. It being summer though, the rain usually came and went and we remained quite dry throughout. We started in Edinburgh, then drove up to the Highlands before heading back south to Glasgow. It was a leisurely trip, our modest aims every day was to sightsee a little and eat something really tasty along the way.

I told my mother about our vacation, summing it up as "We ate a lot of fatty foods like scones, cupcakes, butterscotch, haggis, black pudding, bacon etc" and she went, "Sounds delicious!" That's the gist of it, so if you want to know the details, here we go.

We tried to keep costs down by staying at bed-and-breakfast places. Only these days the B&B industry has upgraded themselves and they are knowns as guesthouses. They are, if at all, rated by the Scottish Tourist  Board, according to their facilities. We were to stay in 2 four-starred places, and 1 three-starred establishment. My criteria are more more straightforward. How is the bed? and How is the breakfast?

Our Edinburgh guesthouse, 23 Mayfield, scored well on both. Our bedroom was large and comfortable, with a double as well as sofabed for V, plus room for 2 armchairs, an armoire and a proper console with flatscreen TV. Fine, quality linens and solid wooden furniture. The bathroom, though small, has shower cabin and swanky Grohe finishing, so sophisticated I didn't know how to unplug the sink. The owners are very friendly and hospitable, the rather masculine common sitting room is furnished with buttonholed-leather sofas and a laptop for surfing.

Their breakfasts are award-winning. Everyone, including V, pre-orders the night before. The range is wide: tea, coffee, cereals, yoghurts, porridge, fruits and something cooked like traditional breakfast, kippers, pancakes or waffles. The Full Scottish selection includes the amazing Stornaway black pudding, decent haggis, meaty bacon, grilled and marinated tomato, sausages etc of which we choose up to six items. On the first day we tried almost everything, by the second day I had dropped to four and some days I had their pancakes with perfectly crisp bacon.

One morning husband ordered for himself the cheeseboard, it comes with oatcakes which is basically dense biscuits made of oats, delicious. V usually has either an egg or some ham, but always with marmite on toast which she took to liking.

The first thing we ate in Edinburgh was Indian Vegetarian in Southside. At 1.30 p.m. the chef at Ann Purna wanted to go home, so only buffet selection was available. Not much to choose from but food was really tasty, especially their subtle-spiced pakoras. Learning that buffet lunch is so good in Indian restaurants here, we tried another at Kalpna a few days later. Wider selection of dishes, delicious, healthy and inexpensive. We ate better at Indian places than Chinese, but for Asian food, Kampung Ah Lee, also along Southside, delivered the goods. Their Nonya fried chicken, nam-yee marinated pork belly and stirfried kangkung hit the spot for us, but don't order their satay which comes in huge pieces and were undergrilled. 

While shopping along Multrees Walk in New Town, we came across Valvona & Crolla VinCaffè. We stopped by for coffee and cakes. Their cupcakes were not too Italian but totally yummy. V ate the whole cake, not just the frosting. We ate a lot of cupcakes during our holiday, this was one of our favourites. Moist cakey crumb, creamy frosting that melts its fruity flavours onto the tongue (and not the icky buttercream type that doesn't soften no matter what). The banoffee pie was acceptable, but the cupcakes were better. I should also have tried a strawberry tart which looked so tantalising with their shiny jammy glaze. They sell books and some kitchen stuff too, I bought a book on housekeeping that is written by a man.

In Part 2, palace cafes and handmade crisps by the castle. Also lots of puddings and a whole roast pig.

Ann Purna 45, St Patrick's Square , Southside T: 0131 662 1807

Kalpna 2/3 St Patrick's Square, Southside T: 0131 667 9890

Kampung Ah Lee 28 Clerk Street, Southside T: 0131 662 9050

Valvona & Crolla Vincaffè 11 Multrees Walk, New Town T: 0131 557 0088

Rasa sayang, eh rasa sayang sayang eh!

Ask anyone who's been through the Singapore education system about the songs they learnt in school or even just imbibed from sitting in front of their television and they'll sing you Majulah Singapura, the national anthem (usually without understanding what the Malay lyrics means because, duh, they've never learnt the language). Otherwise it'll be some patriotic national songs like Count on Me Singapore or even One People, One Nation, One Singapore which have always reminded me of the equivalent of brain detergent.

Ask any Malaysian over the age of 30 and they too will sing you the national anthem Negaraku. Usually not very well, because it goes on too long and is rather weepy. Then they'll move on to their all-time favourite which is Rasa Sayang. Rasa means taste or feel, sayang can be a verb or a noun, to convey love, dear, beloved.

Everybody can sing Rasa Sayang, at least the chorus part. The body of the song is a mix of poems and good advice. The chorus itself is infectious and catchy. Another reason for Rasa Sayang being embedded in our consciousness is the children's variety show by the same name, in those days before internet, Wii, PSP or multi-channel cable TV we really looked forward to this simple entertainment aired during public holidays. For one hour we would be treated to songs and dance performed by little schoolchildren like ourselves, sometimes in a basic stage or sometimes in a picturesque outdoor setting with waving coconut trees in the background. Yeah, we were easy to please in those days.

It's 2009 now. We have everything. Internet, robots, GPS systems and even smartphones. Some things remain unchanged, example, we continue to love the foods we ate growing up. Malaysian hawker favourites like satay, rendang, roti canai, kari ayam etc etc. We accept that outside Malaysia it'll be less authentic, less spicy, less sedap, yet we cannot walk past one without hoping to be proved wrong because honestly it doesn't even have to be very good, just not worse than what any anonymous food court stall in any shopping mall back home can muster.

So it was that just after we had dumped our luggage in C's flat, hopped on the first bus to Dean St in Chinatown and then striding eagerly to HK Diner for our Cantonese food fix when my internal food radar buzzed agitatedly. I looked around, ah, just to the right, along the little side street of Macclesfield St (No 5, T: 020 7734 1382, or next to Leong's Legend) was a boldly-lettered panel of the Rasa Sayang signboard proclaiming that they serve Malaysian/ Singaporean cuisine. Interesting, they even have yee-sang, the typical Chinese New Year fish salad that is wildly popular in both these countries but never really took off in other big Chinese communities elsewhere.

We stepped inside. Ikea furnishings and bright lighting make it seem more like a cafe, reinforced further by black and white prints of typical kopitiam scenes hanging on the wall, and slowly the ears tune in that customers and staff were speaking English with that distinctive Malaysian accent.

We ordered extravagantly. Nasi lemak, char kway teow, sambal kangkong, nam yu chicken wings. Drinks like soybean milk, soybean with cincau, teh tarik. Desserts of pulot gula melaka, ondeh ondeh. When the nasi lemak was placed in front of me, I nearly cried, it looked so beautiful and right. The generous portions of rice and chicken curry, the rich spicing of the chicken and achar, really hit the spot, and it was only GBP 6.50 which cannot buy anything even half as satisfying in Paris. The curry was not as hot as I prefer, but the waitress readily gave out more sambal when requested.

Vera ignored her plain soymilk and slurped up all the grass jelly from my glass. She also ate the whites of my egg with rice and later we shared desserts.

There is also a small snacks menu from which we ordered chicken wings marinated with nam-yu (red fermented beancurd) and deepfried. GBP 3.00 buys you three drumlets and three wings. This was superb, crispy outside and well-flavoured chicken succulence inside.

Sago gula melaka came with proper palm sugar syrup and lots of coconut milk. Lovely. I asked about ice kacang and cendol, the nice young man from Pahang said it is 'akan datang' (in the works).

We ate here again on the first day of CNY because of its yee-sang. They had all the fixings, the lurid green and red strips were actually fried taro, quite tasty, and the waitress took the time to say out all the lucky phrases, as it should be. The salmon was too oily and fishy, and it wasn't the best version of yee-sang ever, but it's better than not having any.

Not every dish here is a winner. We like their beef rendang, the meat tender but not cooked to a mush, and the spicing just right, no shortcuts detectable. Curry laksa came with requisite tau-pok (fried tofu pockets) and the gravy was adequately aromatic and tasty. Nasi goreng was sedap (delicious) too. Misses included fried spring rolls which were just pathetic little cigarettes without much discernible fillings (incidentally, they looked and tasted like those we didn't like at Busaba Eathai's). Char Kway Teow was pale and looked like it wanted to shrivel with embarrassment, someone or something had forgotten about wok-hei here, without the typical fire-smoky aroma this dish should not even be listed on the menu. Ondeh ondeh was also a miss with its odd rubbery texture and even weirder taste.

There didn't seem to be many Singaporean dishes in the menu. Fish beehoon soup and chilli crabs are listed, next time perhaps. Speaking to the young man again, we learnt that they have been opened for only six weeks. I hope they do well, the food is mostly good, authentic and reasonably priced.

We went shopping at Liberty after lunch, at their fabric section I got talking to an old-timer staff whom I recognised from my student days when my mum and I used to buy fabrics to be made into dresses. They also had a wider range of silks, velvets, tweeds and all sorts of beautiful fabrics in those days, now mostly the cottons endure but relegated to a sad balcony space and no longer inside one of the main halls.

This time I got some shirts and let V choose a fabric for her dress, perpetuating our little family tradition. We chatted about fabrics and the better old days, from the way he spoke I asked if he was also a Malaysian and he confirmed that yes, he was. In comradely spirit he told us of two places to eat in London. One was at a very posh place, you don't need to go there he said, everyone is going to this new place in Chinatown instead, it's called Rasa Sayang, and is operated by the ex-owners of the old Bali at Edgware Rd (before it went downhill and had to close some years ago). Flashback! I remember Bali, it was the first Malaysian restaurant we went to when I first arrived as a student, I nearly fainted at paying the equivalent of RM3.50 for a stick of satay which in those days could have bought us more than a half-dozen back home.

Fast forward twenty years later, and well, nothing's changed. We're still paying whatever it takes for a taste of home, the taste we love, this rasa sayang sayang eh!

All together now,

Rasa sayang

eh rasa sayang sayang eh

eh lihat nonya jauh

Rasa sayang sayang eh

The NY Diaries Part II

Day 4: Tuesday 13 May 2008 (Sunny)

I have decided to add the weather report to the diary because (did you know?) according to Chinese grammar it is a rule that the date must be followed by the weather summary. Ah the useless stuff I imbibe from watching TVB serials.

Wake up. Turn on Food Network. Ah, it's still too early, have to watch infomercials instead. C, my 4th sister, goes for a jog. Try to read the subway map. Give up. We'll wing it.      

            

Plan is to return to Bleeker St. C wants to get that super-tiny dress at Ina. It's made of toile de jouy- "curtain fabric" I say to her- but she is set on it so we humour her. With ignoble intention to eat breakfast at either Rocco's or Amy's Bread along the way. That is, until we pass by Zucker's Bagel & Smokefish on 146 Chambers St even before entering the subway station, and get distracted by a hitherto unknown diversity of smoked salmon and other exotic fishes. Basic cream cheese and lox bagel lavishly piled on. Bagel a bit too dense. F is frustrated by the stuff that passes for coffee.

Ina opens at 12. With 1.5 hours to kill we explore the rest of Soho. Major credit card damage. Shopping with the sisters can be very testing on self-restraint, they are both totally in love with fashion, we encourage each other on, and end up with loads of pretty things.

            

Shopping is hungry-making. C is set on pizza while I am distracted by groups of people eating grilled corn at a corner sandwich shop. Not just any grilled corn mind, but Mexican style , the specialty item of Cafe Habana at the corner of Prince and Elizabeth St. They grill it to black blisteriness, then smother with a funny white cheesy coconutty substance before finally sprinkling with mild chilli powder and serve with a wedge of lime. Seriously, effingly amazingly delicious.

            

New York is full of cute cars like these yellow school buses, yellow taxicabs, brown UPS vans and construction vehicles with gleaming front carriages. I've been to other American cities but here, the vehicles just seem bigger and more vividly coloured. The exuberant colours go very well with the energetic buzz everywhere and I love it.

            

Lunch spot.

          

Waiter is very king & patient. All vegetarian on one side, a bit too many anchovies and Italian sausages on the other side but on the whole pizza is very tasty. House salad is really just an old-fashioned cos lettuce and tomato ensemble.

Sun shining too brightly. Hot hot hot. More shopping at corner pharmacy for Burt's Bees lip balms and kiddie shampoo. Stressed that it is nearly 5 pm and we are still in Houston. Get lost in subway maze again before emerging somewhere outside Central Park. C & F wait in square outside FAO Schwartz while I buy presents for V, then they invade Bloomingdales while I admit defeat and make the long trek home.

Cousin's apartment a cool and quiet oasis. Nap. Shower. Primping. Sisters return and do the same. We ride the subway past Houston again to the Upper West Side. Ouest expecting us because I made an Opentable reservation beforehand; they give us a very nice big table. Dry martinis all round. The martinis are ginormous; I can loll in them all day long. This is the defining New York experience for us, sipping dry martini and giggling together, feeling young and carefree. Well, until the two of them get into a little 'disagreement' as is vont to happen when family gets together. Cousin arrives from work, he orders dirty martini. We imbibe his lesson on what makes a good 'dirty' martini. So young, and so sophisticated already. The food arrives, the sisters stop squabbling for the moment. Generous portions, excellent food. Foie gras and cauliflower mousse for appetisers. Meat-falling-off the bone porkribs, grilled pork, roast squab, entrecote steaks, all things that go well with a large martini. Equally large and lavish desserts. Coffee. Still tipsy from the martini. I feel the beginnings of a sore throat but hope the alcohol would somehow nullify that.

Cousin irons his workshirts while we watch bad food TV. This week Food Network is showcasing "Drive-ins, diners and dives"-retro diner cars, all-day breakfast menus and hearty variations of dishes based on the triumvirate of eggs, ham/bacon and cheese. The one thing in common seem to be lack of moderation, most of the food seem too much, too rich. CNN says the current food crisis is the fault of people in China and India who are eating more meat. I disagree, the Chinese do not eat nearly as much food and in terms of meat, hardly as much of the massive steaks, the orgiastic bbq fests or the fittingly named 'heart attack' burgers. I don't understand the so-called expert on CNN who said that large tracts of the South America rainforests are being cleared to grow corn for the Asian cattle industry; I am Asian and I don't know of any Asian country that can even boast of a cattle industry, well except for that of rarified wagyu in Japan which does not really count. In the end we switch channels and I catch the last episode of this season's ER. Does Abby die? Do I care? No, all along I thought she was not good enough for broody and handsome Luca.

          

Day 5: Wednesday 14 May 2008 (Very hot)

C flies back in the afternoon. She wants a last shot of culture and goes off to MOMA. Me and my sore throat just want to lie in bed. Decide to take it easy with visiting market at Union Square and a walk through Gramercy Park to Madison Square Gardens. Tulips in magnificient bloom.

         

Stand in line. A very long line. Why, it's for the famous Shake Shack burgers of course. After 35 minutes could finally put in order. Then wait a bit more for the food.

         

The burger is really good, F and I rate it as the best we've ever eaten, ever. Very juicy beefy patty with fresh vegetables. And soft buns which are a surprise, we were expecting sesame crusted ones, must have been years of conditioning by McDo's. Soft buns make good hamburgers because they do not distract from the meat and vegetables, and they mash agreeably with the savoury juices myumyum. The fries are excellent too, extra crispy outside and fluffy soft outside. Unfortunately sore throat means I can't eat much of it. We don't like the hot dog- too hard, too dry in spite of the pickles etc, too boring. The frozen custard is godsend to scratchy throat. Cold, soothing, creamy. Natural taste of the day's flavour of banana foster.

         

Meet up with happy C, MOMA is super she says. On way back to apartment, stop by at Kitchenette at 156 Chambers St. Their red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting is good, we finished that this morning. This time I am lured by coconut cake. It is good, but the portion is way too large even for the three of us.

         

Crash out in apartment. Watch the construction work in tower block opposite. F visits the Borders bookstore and later comes home to cook the asparagus we bought from the market. Watch more tv, this time it's The Golden Girls and A Different World, these oldies are actually good.         

         

Day 6: Thursday 15 May 2008 (Sunny)

Take a very long train ride to Flushing. It's way out in Queens and has a thriving Chinese community. All the caucasians exit the train at the stadium stop just before Flushing and the last leg of the trip it is only us the yellow-skinned people left.

I buy a generous amount of American ginseng as present for husband and self. After walking aimlessly for lunch we return to the medical hall and ask them for recommendations. Budget or high class? High class I say. End up in Canton Gourmet. Bright. Tiled flooring. Formica topped tables. Large posters of delicious looking food on the walls. Lots of Cantonese spoken, I feel so reassured. Today the throat is actually worse, the left side is completely out of service. But I cannot resist ordering a plate of their special fried rice. Eat slowly, swallow with a lot of difficulty. Sedap nya! Perfectly fried, separate grains imbued with breath of the wok, light and fragrant. Bits of fried egg and shredded conpoy add to the enjoyment. So happy.

We wanted, or rather, I wanted to try Korean fried chicken. But clueless about which subway station to exit from. Decide against asking the medical hall people again. Big mistake. Ended up in a hispanic community instead. Shop at Rite-aid and Payless Shoes.

Back at TriBeCa. Explore the shops along Greenwich St. There are some very snooty sales people in this neighbourhood, everyone in the pet shops, the Pilates studio, the children boutiques are reluctant to answer questions or muster a smile; Parisiens can probably learn something from them.

No dinner. F eats leftover cake and cookies. I drink warm salty water continuously. Cousin does not actually have salt in his apartment, so I go down to the 24 hour convenience for that.

         

Day 7: Friday 16 May 2008 (Rain)

F leaves at 6 am. Cousin goes to work.

Clear up mess. Drink more warm salted water. At some point feel better. Yoga. More Golden Girls. Finish the Sunday NYTimes paper. Pack.

Still raining. Walk to Devin's Tavern, chosen randomly the day before because I have never heard of it. It is big. Rustic, beige and upscale. Soup of the day is of white beans and bacon. It's good but as expected, will later cause bloatedness in the plane. Sandwich of lobster and truffled cheese chosen but did not expect it to come grilled. Grill marks did not pose as much problem to sandy throat as expected but still, sandwich not up to expectation. Too little lobster meat. Too heavy on the cheese and the truffle oil taste does not go with either the cheese or the lobster it's place in the sandwich seems superfluous. As this dish cost 17 dollars before tax, I make an effort to finish the sandwich at least.

The Devin's Tavern lunch is not one of the best meals but we're at the end of our holiday and on average have been eating incredibly well. If only I did not have such a painful throat, think of how much more good food I could have ingested...   

The NY Diaries Part I

Day 1: Saturday 9 May 2008

Paris is hot and sunny. Load suitcase into car. Drive to Boulangerie Poujaran/Secco, 20 rue Nicot to get madeleines for Robyn. Long line at the boulangerie. Everyone dives like lemmings when they bring out a tray of warm croissants-flaky and too buttery. Madeleines get packed in a Filipino salt cracker box, tied with ribbon and snugged into special nook in valise.

Earrings set off metal detectors. Hands scanned for explosive powder. French man had in his carryon luggage toiletry case containing humongous bottles of perfume, aftershave, lotions plus a nosehair clipper. Hello which mountain did he sortir from?

At the 'best of France' shop, consider buying the crystal studded pooch harness. 150 euros, the equivalent of 20 fresh rabbits. Erm, no thanks. How about 80 euro shoulder massages? Relax. things will be cheaper in US. Repeat to self, over and over.

            

Flight arrived 3.35 pm. Wait for the sisters and cousin in the lobby of his apartment building. Hesitate before greeting each other. Me a little sulky after waiting 40 minutes, and everyone else controlling their surprise at the first sight of my very big newly-permed hair.

Cousin's apartment overlooks a big field where people play ballgames. Don't know what games though. The two white cranes in the upper left quadrant is where Ground Zero is. Beyond the skyscrapers is the sea.

Dinner at Prune. I am the clever one, booked 3 weeks ago. They actually called my Paris number the day before to reconfirm the reservation. Small and aggressively hip but have no fear, I am wearing silver spangled Repetto flats! Parmesan omelet outstanding. Fiddlehead ferns a novelty, never again to be honest, too glue-y. Fried veal sweetbreads with caper sauce excellent. Further details hazy but overall a fun dinner.

Day 2: Sunday 10 May 2008

Wake up 6 a.m. Check out 24 hr convenience store (meanwhile husband in Paris laments that because of long weekend many restaurants are closed), stock up on tea, juice and mik.

Eat madeleines. Eat one banana. Drink milky tea. Exit apartment.

Navigate subway system. Painfully.

Exit subway, bumble along Madison Avenue until we locate Sarabeth's East for Sunday brunch.  Sucky service, ginormous portions, average food.  Real maple syrup should run, not sit recalcitrantly in plastic tubs. Waffles sprinkled with old raisins is too pathetic. Big thumbs down. And they didn't want people to take pictures of their lousy food....

Central Park. The Frick Collection. Since I am not a steel magnate I buy a postcard copy of my favourite painting of Sir Thomas More by Holbein, only 1 USD.   

Ferry to Staten Island. It's FREE. View Statue of Liberty through grimy rain-slicked windows. Back on the Manhatten end of the ferry terminal, I buy a Jamaican pie at the refreshment stand. It has rubber casing and an oddly tasty spicy meat filling. Sisters  horrified by radioactive glow emanating from it.

Met cousin at Blue Ribbon Sushi near Houston St (pronounced How-stone). Hugely popular, casual and noisy. Fish very fresh. Uni test: pass.

               

Day 3: Monday 11 May 2008

The day we ate too much

Wake up early again. Try to make sense of the maps. Give up.

Drink tea and juices. Eat butter cookies leftover from AirFrance flight.

First stop is nearby- Century 21 is the place to find a bargain as everyone tells me. The walk though, seems forever because it is raining hard and my expensive high-tech ultra-lightweight Japanese umbrella crumpled piteously at the very first NY gust. When we finally made it there, C is hungry so we exit the store to find some food. Into randomly chosen Roxy Food Shop on 20 John St along the next block.

Roxy fulfils all the criteria for what my sisters and I romantically imagine as the typical American coffeeshop/diner. Not tricked up with too much chrome, shiny leather and jukeboxes. More stark lighting, linoleum and emanating strong proletariat vibes. With handy coatstands attached to each banquette no less. Their menu has all the expected omelets, sandwiches and platters of meat-with-token vegetables but everytime I find myself in such a setting, I only want lots of bland watery coffee and corned beef hash with toast and jelly.

               

And that's what I order. Should have ordered rye toast instead of plain though. Hash very yummy. Potatoes underseasoned. The waitress, cook and other customers eye the three of us with open curiosity, and maybe some awe too, as they witness our two pint-sized sisters devouring pan muffins.

             

The muffins are soft, fluffy and moist with very tender crumb. With no discernible baking powder feel on the tongue. What goes into them F asked. Buttermilk? Cream? Don't know he says, it comes pre-mixed. Mysterious...

Pit stop at Century 21. Socks for the sisters. Kiddie clothes for V and the niece.

Onwards to Momofuku Ssam Bar for lunch even though we are not hungry. Still, totally awesome food. If I live here I would come often. Their version of samgyupsal is different from what I ate in Seoul but still incredibly delicious, love the clam-XO sauce condiment it is served with. Fluke with sour cherries and olive oil also impresses. So does roast cauliflower dressed with fish sauce and spices. Steamed pork buns let the side down but redeemed by accompanying pickles.

Shopping. Lots of shopping once past Greenwich Village and into Houston and Bleeker St. We get trapped in Bleeker the rest of the afternoon. It's a long street, every store is different. Vintage clothing, small boutiques, cult stores, high chain fashion names interspersed with even more eating opportunities: Jewish bakery for cookies, Rocco's for more cookies in fennel and liquorice flavours this time and why not a cannoli piped with sweet cream on the spot? Grom gelato. Between us we sample many flavours, the all-round favourite is cassata. Creamy with a hint of iciness, laced with sweet liquor and studded with colourful fruity bits. We get so full just from grazing and have to forego Magnolia Bakery cupcakes and red velvet cake at Amy's Bread.

7.30 p.m. Oops we have dinner appointment with Robyn at El Castillo De Jagua at 113 Rivington St. Say goodbye to Bleeker St and promise to come tomorrow for breakfast. Decide the subway is too complicated and hail a yellow cab instead. Robyn has brought her friends along: Kathy of A Passion for Food and Olivia of olivia abtahi.com. We exchange madeleines for MORE cookies. I confess to Robyn that we have eaten way too much already so she wouldn't think me a spoil sport. Seafood soup, just the thing. My fried sweet plantains remind me of bananas. I prefer the salty version that Olivia let me try.

                   

Stagger out of restaurant. Thought we were done for the evening. But Kathy keeps urging us to try the all-American dessert we have never heard of, its name is Banana Pudding. One of the best can be found just across the road at Sugar Sweet Sunshine she continues to tantalise us. Oh hell, why not? We have already crossed the point of no return way back in the afternoon, giving in to all the baked goods temptation, what's one more? Or two? The bakery-cafe is crowded, we squeeze ourselves into a tiny table and order a banana pudding as well as a baby cheesecake. The pudding has banana pudding matter, whipped cream, wafers and chopped bananas. Creamy with soft crunchy bits though I wish they put more bananas inside. A bit too rich even between the four of us but who is to say, if we live in NY maybe we will build up our endurance. The cheesecake on the other hand, is super, we finish that at lightning speed. The staff asks if we are Malaysians, she is one herself she admits, and had noticed our accents right from the beginning. We chit chat with cousin a bit more until the bossy owner kicked everyone out- it's closing time she said, and her face looks so fierce nobody wants to mess with her. On way home, our cab passes How-stone St again. We are fated to cross it again and again.   

February sun, trains and Chinese eats in London

               

The wedding was beautiful. The bride wore three wedding gowns, not all at once of course. The final gown was a nose-bleeding sexy dance number which raised temperatures in that cold northern part of England. Champagne cocktails flowed, emotional speeches were delivered, scottish country dancing was learnt and the candy buffet was visited many times, well actually they let people make doggy bags of it, how lovely no? Mine were filled with mostly Chinese sweetmeats and hard candies.

We spent every day of our trip on a train. Paris-London on Friday, London-Newcastle Saturday morning, Newcastle-London Sunday morning and London-Paris on Monday. At the train stations we sometimes arrived hungry and succumbed to trashy but tasty junk food like a Big Breakfast Butty and Whopper at Burger King and Cumberland Sausage Baguette sandwich from Upper Crust.

               

We went to Chinatown on Sunday but missed the parades. At Trafalgar Square the pigeons were missing, a bit bizarre because for years I have avoided this place because of the birds, now they're gone I feel a bit empty and disorientated. What happened to the pigeons?

                   

But for Chinese food, we didn't get that from Chinatown. These days all the action is happening elsewhere it seems. Like Queensway, home of Royal China and Four Seasons. This time round we made a beeline for Goldmine (102, Queensway Rd), reputedly where the ex-chefs from Four Seasons set up camp. Everything we ordered were good to mindblowing, top honour deservedly goes to their signature roast duck. The skin was teeth shattering crispy and the fats in between skin and meat so alluringly melty-savoury it would be a crime to discard. Non-roast dishes were excellent too- kangkung with fu-yu came in a generous portion with little excess oil and plenty of garlic, chilli and the fermented beancurd sauce, and a casserole of tofu with minced meat was given extra oomph with addition of crispy dried shrimps.

               

Hunan Restaurant is located in deep sloaney enclave of (51) Pimlico Road. On the second day of the Lunar New Year we found ourselves the only Chinese diners in the back section of the restaurant but to our relief it doesn't serve watered down Chinese food. The meal was by no means a bargain, to be honest it was quite dear but worth the splurge as everything we ate was spot-on with hardly a false note. A considerable feat given their format: there's no menu, they bring small servings of dishes to the table in a seemingly endless parade until your stomach waves the white flag.

Octopus dressed in spicy sauce, steamed whitebait with black fungus, meatsoup in twee bamboo cups, fish rolls with seaweed, braised porkbelly with spicy undertones. My favourite dish was one of duck steamed with fresh tangkwei, the slight bitterness played off beautifully against the natural duck richness. Not everyone gets the same dishes. We were spared the lettuce wraps of minced meat whatevers, and got instead esoterics like duck tongue with bamboo shoots. We lost count of the number of dishes and polished almost every plate clean, save for the bamboo shoots which were authentic in that it still had that dreadful funky smell, to their credit, the funkiness did ease with successive bites, to keep up our good showing I ate up all the pieces of duck tongues.

The standards were consistently high, perhaps the fact that they have a set menu means they've gotten all this down to a perfect science. Every dish managed to taste right, not over or under-seasoned, yet with its unique take, the novelty was what kept us excited most of the time, whether it was the unexpected play of textures or the surprise of szechuan peppercorn hiding in a salad garnish.

Just when we thought we were about done, they brought over a big bowl of slippery egg noodles with roe-reddened soup and sweet finely fleshed crabs. Then a whole steamed baby-sized seabass. Now we're talking! We had to turn away some egg-fried rice but not desserts which included wo-peng and nian gao, tiny servings of the red bean pancake and traditional new year rice cakes to be sure, but much appreciated for its reminder of the festive season.

               

Dragon Castle (114 Walworth Rd) sounds grand doesn't it? It occupies two storey, has a grand entrance of a pair of red doors which opens into a reception area complete with a carp pond, the dining area is spacious and feels like any number of bigh restaurants one would find in Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Yet it is located in the decidedly grim neighbourhood that is Elephant & Castle and neither me nor my sister would ever dream of venturing there if it were not for husband who found out about this place from the Internet. We tried the dim sum items for lunch, the quality ranged from OK to very good. Very good applied to standard items like spring rolls, yam puffs and braised chicken feet. Our hands down favourite though was a very unassuming small claypot of rice topped with steamed chicken and chinese sausage (lap mei fan, not to be confused with a fried version made with glutinous rice which had stood around far longer than it should) it exemplified the best of what we ate in Guangzhou before, simple ingredients transformed into something magical, the meat oils and quality soy sauce flavouring the rice just so without it losing its inherent clean taste, needing only a small bite of wine-and- ginger-marinaded chicken to make it come together. I have a feeling the cooked dishes are better than dimsum and it would be worth a return trip to test that out. Best of all, the prices are amazingly cheap even for London, I bet their weekends are jampacked with hungry students and three-generation families.

             

When husband was studying for his Master's degree at Imperial College a good 15 years ago he used to go often to Stick & Bowl (31 Kensington High St) around the corner from his hall of residence. He told me this as we passed the place on the way to Whole Foods so I pulled him in to relive his nolstagia for their good and cheap eats. The decor is decidedly unfussy with its canteen style counter-top seating and homely decor which husband informed me is a vast improvement on its former self, the staff are friendly and chatty. We were too full from a very good lunch of tandoori lamb chops, aloo gobi and bindi pakora at Haandi Restaurant (136 Brompton Rd) so we only ordered a plate of beef-horfun and a bowl of wonton soup to share. The wontons had nice slippery skin  but the fillings were too stodgy and meaty. The horfun was rather alright, plentiful, not too greasy yet with that requisite, albeit mild, smoke of the wok. Again not expensive which is surprising given its upmarket location, all the more so that it has been providing this community service for such a long time.

             

Other than Chinese and Indian, we also ate at a pub. The Eagle is a gastropub in Islington and it was crowded on the Sunday afternoon that we visited. I think I should have ordered the roast chicken but instead settled for a chowder because I wanted to see how haddock would combine with pollack (answer: not very interestingly). The soup was hearty but got very boring quickly. What we all enjoyed instead was the evil cream sauce that they drown some rabbits in, bread dunked in it tasted extraordinarily good. We gobbled up so much bread that another basket had to be requested and that was soon dispensed with as well. Me and my sister can never be trusted with a basket of bread....

What else? Ah, Whole Foods. To be honest I was overwhelmed by the sheer scale and wide variety. I wished I could take home the readymade puddings (Bannofee and treacle looked especially tempting) and husband was impressed with the meats and all that PC rearing information but in the end I could only settle for some organic dry goods and bottled pepper jellies.

             

Back in Paris the sky is blue and the mercury has risen a few degrees. We've got enough good food tucked under our belt to resist venturing into dodgy places that tries to pass off onion rings as bhajis or spring rolls stuffed with fillers of mystery vegetables and bleached beanthreads.

               

               

               

Eh, how come you never update your blog?

                        

That came from my sister C. She is probably the only one in my family who follows my blog and as we can see, she is keeping me on my toes. Which is just as well, because we are already seeing the end of June and I have pictures from way back when we were in London, so here is the rest of what I was going to say.

When I was younger, I was more obsessed about food. Hard to believe I know, but it's true. For my 21st birthday, I invited about a dozen of my friends over and spent a whole day cooking for that dinner. The menu included toasted bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter, grilled lime-soya chicken, grilled 'mediterranean' vegetables, hummus, deep fried wantons, there was probably a quiche or fish pie of sorts, all very BBC Good Foods of the late 80's and just about all I could afford on the pocket money my parents sent over to cover my student's expense.

With jobs came money, which meant dinners became more elaborate and plentiful. If I was on call and had no time to shop or cook I ate ready-made Marks & Spencers or Waitrose foods because suddenly I could afford to. C had to tell me to stop feeding her so well as "not everyone likes to eat like you do".

And when I travelled, I was a bit of a monster. Some people have heard this story before, and some have not. Anyway, Paris, in the summer of 1993. My travel companion, she who did not think it strange to serve undoctored microwaved canned salmon for her dinner parties, well, she was shocked at how few francs our miserable sterling pounds bought us and decreed that we should prioritise our spending for museums and attractions. Now then, food and shopping was my department, she was in charge of sightseeing, this division worked good for our previous holiday in relatively cheaper Madrid. Fine. Deep breaths. Understand also that her family is well-off and we were earning good salaries, we could afford to indulge a little but no, she had to be her usual kedekut self.

We were in the Opera area on the third day of our five-day trip, and I was hot and bored. Suddenly I felt like eating an omelet, a runny cheesy omelet with a little side of green salad, and it had to be eaten inside one of those mirrored, chandeliered belle-epoque type places in the area. Just because. What do you mean just because, it is neither lunch or dinner, and are you crazy, it is probably very expensive. But I want to. No. Silence. More silence. I am going home. Tomorrow. But we have two more days. I don't care. Silence. Oh fine, go ahead and have your dxxxxx omelet. Well, she didn't exactly say that, she is not the type to swear, but she did relent. We didn't have anymore arguments about meals afterwards and needless to say, we stopped going for holidays together.

I like to think that I am a little more relaxed these days. And probably also a lot more lazy. I no longer study the guidebooks compulsively and plan everything in the minutest details, checking reviews against forums and 'best of' lists. I read a little around the subject, and maybe earmark something to try but is not too crushed if it falls through and leave it all up to chance.

Why, on our last trip to London I even placed faith in the concierge. The one who unabashedly suggested the hotel's own restaurant's The Bugis Street Cafe when I asked for Chinese food. Which I know is the pits, and I told him so. Still, we went ahead and decided to meet my sister for dinner at his second recommendation. On the way there we stopped by a Chinese grocery store, when I paid for my chilli oil, I asked the cashier what was her favourite neighbourhood restaurant and ate there a few nights later. Now, hose recommendation was better, can you guess?

Both places were brightly lit and busy, and smack in the middle of Chinatown. The waiters were quick, brusque but occasionally friendly. One served very moreish crispy salt-and-pepper prawns and a decent but not cooked a la minute dish of crabs stirfried with young ginger and green onions. Their tung-choy (kangkong) with fermented beancurd sauce of fu-yu was exemplary and so was their cha charn tng staple of iced milk tea. Details: HK Diner. 22 Wardour Street, London, W1D 6QJ. T: 0871 0757361

                        

The other was not a typical Cantonese joint, as we had initially thought. The staff spoke Mandarin more than Cantonese and they had many chain-smoking Mainlander customers, the menu even listed lau gan ma sauce fried rice. I was tempted to back out but it was late and the others were hungry. The cooking was predictably cruder and MSG intensive, the only standout was a 'water-cooked beef' which was for once not too spicy as to kill the tastebuds. Not exactly a redeeming detail but in this case it was appropriate. Details: New Laughing Buddha, 12 Macclesfield Street, London W1D 5BP, T: 020 7437 5598.

HK Diner was recommended by the hotel concierge. 

                        

I didn't eat much Chinese this time. In between the Brit foods, there were other standout gems too. In the happy party land that is Upper Street in Islington, I was at one time torn between Carluccio's and Ottolenghi. Both restaurants have an inviting demeanour, their see-through windows beckon with tempting displays of baked goods and appetising salads. But my sister prefers Ottolenghi (287 Upper St, T: 020 7288 1454) and I can see why. Even though I had initially wanted to order a cup of coffee and a cake to eat while I look through my French verbs, a cavernous bowl of plum and beetroot salad called out to me and I was miraculously saved from an otherwise sugar-loaded teatime. The wait staff, all young and beautiful, were also very friendly and attentive. I loved the beetroot salad, and should have gotten a whole plate of it instead of combining it with the peas which were fine, but not not quite as magnificient.

                      

After the power-packed lunch and much window-shopping, it was time to rest. And then time to eat again, this time at nearby Exmouth Market because I was curious to try Moro's, having read about it for, oh, only the past 10 years. Ah but I was full even before we sat down, so we decided to eat lightly from their tapas and mezes menu. The fried patatas were very good, so good that potato-phobic C ate quite a bit of it, helped along by an unbelieveably tasty tomato sauce. The chorizos were amazing, though I'm not sure if it is the same chorizos as the one sold at the famous Brindisa next door. Everything on the meze plate was eaten up, even the little pink radish was adorably sweet unlike the ones I usually buy from my market. Damned good chorizos, but I had already mentioned that.

So the next day I went to Exmouth Market because it was a Friday and on Fridays there have outdoor stalls. Also, my sister mentioned that Brindisa serves a mean tortilla. Unfortunately by the time I dragged my lazy self over, they had sold out, it was a very hot day and the picnickers had nabbed them all. Also, the St John's Bakery stand there only operates on Saturdays, so no Eccles cake for me either.

                     

And by the time I reached the head of the queue at Moro's Paella stand, they were officially sold out. I contemplated waiting 20 minutes for the next batch. But the very nice man said he could give me the pan scrapings for free if I didn't mind that there would be no seafood. Blink. Are you sure? He smiled. Oh Yes. Wow! I would absolutely love some thanks very much.

                     

So there it was, my very nice free lunch. I am not saying this because it was free, but the paella was great, so much nicer than all the other paellas I ever had in Madrid. It tasted of caramelised prawn shells, of saffron, of tomatoes, of peppers, of plump toothy rice. Yummy!

Speaking of free food, London has been kind to me in this aspect. At Krispy Kreme, although I paid for two hot donuts they gave me an extra one. And both times, because we checked in early and our rooms were not ready, the hotels soften the disappointment by offering free breakfasts.                     

                     

Breakfast. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that our 6.30am journey home in the Eurostar comes with a choice of hot or cold breakfast. Now I know why the tickets are so expensive, but we had no choice as I didn't want to miss my exams that very afternoon. The juice, the jams, the breads and hot drinks were fine, but the omelet and sausage were of the same unappetisingness as their airborne cousins. Thank goodness because it gave me the excuse to chomp instead on my takeaway Exmouth Market brownies and cardamon shortbread.

                     

In London, I was gripped by a wanting for lemon cakes during our nightly outings to the 24-hour Sainsbury's nearby. Their supermarkets are open nearly all hours, very cool. But everytime I looked at the labels, including yours Mr Kipling, I saw long lists of ingredients and the dreaded "e" word emulsifiers, and regretfully I had to put it back on the shelf. Until I was at one of the many Pret & Manger outlets, ostensibly to buy a bottled drink but also keeping a lookout for a prawn cocktail sandwich. Which I didn't find but in another case was a selection of cakes sold by the slice.

                   

Granted, they are a bit too full of their own PC-ness but hey it listed no emulsifiers nor unnecessary additives. The cake was wrapped in plastic which is then packed inside this informative box, tsk tsk. The cake itself was delicious, moist and lemony with a great homemade taste and generously speckled with poppy seeds.

We're down to one small can of Heinz baked beans now. C, you know what to do right?

Ye Good Ole Fashion English Nosh

                   

The visitors have come and gone. After the sisters and daddy stayed for nearly 10 days, we had to stuff the washing machine and dryer to turn over the linens for another set of visitors who 'checked in' the very same day and stayed till the weekend. Two mad hectic weeks of sight-seeing, champage quaffing, shopping and plunderings of every chocolatier/ boulangerie/ fromagerie/ patisserie/ marche in our paths. Little V is still calling out to her yi-yis and kong-kong but we can only show her their photographs. She also had to miss a whole week of halte-garderie because of a recalcitrant cold. Me, I strained my right shoulder so bad I could not reach behind my back to fasten the bra straps let alone move the mouse.

The good news is, I passed my exams. It was only the debutante level but still, yay! Husband has now unleashed my half-baked articles and prepositions on the unsuspecting shopkeepers, no longer can I rely on him to translate my enquiries.

I will take a break from school for a while to catch up on readings and sewing. And processing photos of course, dearie me, we have rather a lot to get through. Here is the first batch, from the last trip to London where I spent most of my time reading a translated version of a bodice-ripper novella with the aid of online dictionary in an effort to learn me of some grammar. Trashy to be sure, still, it beats the tedium of memorising verbs after endless verbs.

Meal breaks were mostly taken alone, usually takeaways or pub lunches when I felt that it would be beneficial for me to see other tourists and hear some spoken English.

Stanhope Arms (97, Gloucester Rd, London, SW7 4SS) feels bright and spacious but can be very smokey, but I decided to go in and try their famous fish and chips anyway. The fish was brilliant, all flakey and tender and encrusted with a light and crisp beer batter, chips were quite ordinary but nothing a good shot of Heinz ketchup couldn't fix. The mushy peas I would give full marks too though, very yummy. When I asked for desserts, the barman apologised, saying he was not on the menu. Didn't know whether to laugh or feel insulted. The steamed treacle sponge with custard could do with more of the lovely custard to balance the sweetness, the teeth were literally yowling with pain; I had plain forgotten how sweet treacle is. Feeling confident in them I sent husband out one evening to buy some takeaway ploughman's sandwiches for my dinner, and what he came back with nearly made me cry- they used shredded processed cheese and very little of it, and charged an outrageous 5 pounds to add further insult. 

The hotel concierge preferred Hereford Arms instead (127 Gloucester Road,
SW7 4TE) and it was slighly better. My steak and ale pie was very tasty with largish chunks of tender beef and a beautifully browned meaty crust. Too bad the peas were hard as pellets and the chips falling short of average.

Better than my pathetic cheese sandwich was another takeaway dinner of onion bhaji, pilao rice and chicken tikka masala from the corner Waitrose. I love chicken tikka masala, it is a dish invented outside India but is delicious and right up there alongside with fish and chips as a traditional British food. Snacklike dishes such as pakoras and onion bhajis are great in UK too, well, compared to Singapore; one of the tastiest selection was from a vegetarian Indian stall in Exmouth Market. I miss onion bhajis most, next time I'll buy more for deepfreezing.

Within walking distance of my sister's apartment in Angel, kind of behind Liverpool Street, is a lively street market where I came across the Naked Sausage stall. Home-made sausages and burgers are grilled to order and served with mash and gravy or in a bun. I enjoyed my Cumberland sausages which was especially good accompanied with mustard and onion marmalade.

London was where I thought I could find myself some tasty scones. Husband had enthusiastically recommended the Orangery in Kensington Gardens so off I went to meet dim sum dolly for tea. They microwaved the scones before serving it to me, for heaven's sakes. I had been hankering also for some lemon cakes, and again, their version was pretty damn lame. Avoid, avoid, avoid. The rest of Kensington Park and adjoining Hype Park was marvelous though, English parks with grasses and gravel are just so much better than the prissy sandlots we get over here.

And what foods did we bring back this time:

1. Heinz baked beans

2. Colman mustard

3. Wilkin and Son Little Scarlet (Vintage Year) strawberry jam. It cost me 8 euros at Carrefour and the domestic and V finished the jar before we had a chance so this time we'll not be so sharing.

4. Marmite

5. Cheerios

6. Jaffa cakes

7. Kettle Sweet Potato Chips

8. Chilli oil

That'll do, I think, until the next trip.