u m a m i

Epoisses

We bought this cheese yesterday because I happened to be at Culina, and the name of the cheese reminded me of a rave review I read sometime ago on Cheese Diaries.

Every bit as wondrous as they say. We took it out, let it sit for about 20 minutes (which should be equivalent to 30 minutes in temperate climates I'd say) to come to room temperature while we ate our boring dinner of plain congee and steamed chicken. After 20 minutes or thereabouts, our little wedge had melted into this gooey cheesy river beckoning us to dive right in. Full bodied, creamy, nutty, salty, it was all that, and I especially liked the more salty chewy rind.......though I did wish it was a little more stinky. The lady at Culina told us this cheese would keep right up to December, by then it would develop to its full potential stinkiness. My problem is, it is already so good I don't know if what's left in my box will last till the end of this week!

I had read somewhere that it pairs well with raisin bread, and there is some raisin bread in the freezer, but we could not bear to wait for the bread to defrost. Instead, we did the next best thing, which was to pair it with a touch of blueberry jam. The sweetness jammed so well with the cheese it made it taste even more intense, those explosions of tastes in the mouth, woohoo*!!

woohoo* If you play sims2, you will know what this expression means. Clue: It is related to an activity that burns a lot of calories.

TofuFrangelicoNutella

We never refuse invitations to dinner at people's homes, especially if the dinner is organised by our generous friends M & F. Loads of good food prepared with lots of heart, and eaten with unbridled enthusiasm (no shy-shy here) by their food-loving friends.

Picture above: Fusion Tofu Appetisers. Fresh tofu layered with century-egg and pickled young ginger and drizzled with a belacan sauce. Damn appetising. May be kind of Fear Factor-ish for belacan-neophytes, but some people were trying their darndest to mop up every drop of that funky sauce. The rest of the meal proceeded along the same vein; everything very yummerliciously good, some with fusion touches, some very classical, but all rendered with great confidence.

Dessert was a very gratifying end to the meal. Nutella Cake and Frangelico, a combination I've never come across but now it seems to me the most perfect match. Frangelico, F educated us, is a hazelnut liquor. Mellow, sweet, creamy, nutty and ever so lightly boozy (or so we thought). We were advised to take a sip of this with every bite of the cake.

This cake was made without any flour. Very rich, very chocolatey. I blame the Frangelico, it made me ask M for a second slice. Hic.

Mae Pranom Shrimp Flavour Crushed Chilli

This is our favourite new condiment. We find ourselves sprinkling it on everything. Noodles, congee, salads, sandwiches, fried rice. Sometimes I even plan meals centred around these magic flakes.

Essentially a dried chilli and fried shrimp mixture, it packs a lot of heat and a little spoonful can set your tongue and mouth ablaze. The texture is pleasingly dry with chewy little specks of dried crustaceans. More tasty than our local hae-bee-hiam certainly.

I think I got it at a Thai fair months ago, it sat in the fridge until one night when I sprinkled some on my Myojo Shrimp Tanmen. My friend tells me that it can also be found at Golden Mile Shopping Complex. The name is a bit long I think, they should give it a punchy name like Ca Tan (Bomb).

Hairy Crabs

Hairy crab season is here! My colleague told me the happy news last night, while we were attending another colleague's wedding dinner. One meal not digested yet, and we were already planning the next.

I ordered one female crab at our Sunday lunch at Royal China. The captain (that's what we call the senior waiter in a formal Chinese restaurant) asked if I preferred a male or a female. Of course, I said, female crab lah, male crabs don't have any roe! His colleague overheard our amusing exchange and joined in the conversation, adding that there are fans of the male crab out there too.

My crab was small with very sweet meat, though the roe was barely more than a tiny teaspoonful. The waitress did something I've never come across elsewhere- she offered to and helped me to deshell most of the claws and legs, all I had to do was to dip the legs in a little vinegar and tug the meat off with a little bite. Indulgence la la.

Hairy crabs are believed to be a "cooling" food, so ginger tea, with its warming qualities, are served alongside to neutralise the cooling effects. And there was a minor to-do at our table because the accompanying ginger tea was slow making its way to my table. First the male captain called for the tea for our table, we could hear him speaking into his little earpiece-with-microphone. 5 minutes later, his female colleague made the same request. 10 minutes later, still no tea, but we could hear their frantic request being radio-ed to the kitchen. Husband whispered "you'd better not sneeze or cough" (symptoms of cooling), still, it was very heartening to see the staff taking their job so seriously.

Ginger tea can be bought from the supermarket, but it is also the simplest thing to make yourself.

Water
Thumb-sized pc of old ginger
Brown rock sugar

Peel the ginger and smash it with the back of a cleaver. Boil with the water, at medium heat, for about 30-45 minutes to get the flavours out. Strain the tea. Sweeten to taste with the sugar.

Matsuo Restaurant

There are three Japanese restaurants in the Goldhill Plaza area. The worst would be Marui, which shamelessly tried to pass a greyish cut of fish as "Indonesian Tuna" sashimi- I dared not even smell it. Marui's neighbour is apparently better but I have not tried it.

But everyone I talk to acknowledge that Matsuo (next to Premier Thai) is the best of the three. And Matsuo knows it too. The place is always full, and it is hard to get reservations on Friday nights and weekends.

We've eaten at Matsuo three times in the past year, and all three times, the food was passable but the service had ranged from indifferent to completely rude. Tonight, they completely outdid themselves in being rude and crass. Tonight my normally placid and undemanding husband got so annoyed with his dining experience he took the never-before-done step of deleting their number from his mobile phone. Condemned the place vehemently! What, one may ask, happened tonight?

At 6.45 p.m., we arrived at the restaurant, after securing a reservation about 20 minutes before. Only one table occupied by diners. Sushi counter was not occupied either. Two female staff in attendance. Owner and assistant manning the sushi counter. No welcoming greeting at all. One of the female staff pointed to the table nearest the front door. We asked for a table closer to the middle and they said no. How about the counter? "OK," one of them said reluctantly "..you can only sit at the far end (next the kitchen entrance). We kept quiet, since we had to go to the Hossan Leong performance before 8 pm. Throughout the meal, we never heard any of the servers say Please or Thank you or smile at us.

Umami: What is good today?
Server: Sashimi
Umami: Uh-huh, what sashimi is good?
Server: Sushi

The server would bring the dishes to the counter, say "Excuse Me" and use the plate to nudge the other things on the table away to make room. Many times her hands were right in front of my face, it was too much trouble apparently to serve from the side. We had to ask the sushi assistant for plates to eat our grilled fish with. He relayed the request to her and she came back with a 2 X 3 inch soya sauce dipping dish. We ate our dinner of grilled saba, ebi tempura, ikura oroshi, maguro sushi, california maki and spider roll without being given a side plate, or any plate at all. Husband was especially pissed when he saw that she sat a Caucasian man at the front of the counter (7 p.m.) and also when was deferential to a trio of Japanese customers. Apparently reserves her worst behavior for local customers.

I could not wait to leave the place. The bill came to $64.68 and a bellyful of frustration and annoyance. If they did not want our business, they could have just said so. I am sure we would not have died of hunger if we missed a meal there. And we were not eating for free. My only consolation is that I can record my unhappiness in my blog and warn others about this place. So there!!

Matsuo Restaurant
1 Newton Road #01-17
Goldhill Plaza

I Support Jeff Ooi

I could have put this on my non-food blog but this site gets more viewers. This saga is agitating the Malaysian blog community. As a fellow Malaysian, the least I could do is to spread the word around.

Button courtesy of Dr Liew.net.

Sign petition here

Chuan Restaurant

One Sunday I wanted to eat ma-po tofu so we headed to the Chuan Restaurant at Purvis Street. A few days before that I had eaten a really cheek-and-lip-tingling version which was curiously addictive, so I wanted to relive the experience. The meal at this Shanghainese restaurant was not as exciting, but we had a fairly good lunch.

The mapo tofu, though weakly ma-la (numbingly hot) in effect, had a pleasing spicy savoury sauce which went well with rice. We did ask for some Szechuan peppercorn powder in a vain attempt to up the ma level, but it did not work. The waitress advised us to call ahead next time so the cooks could make a more powerful mala sauce base.

The next dish of prawns stir-fried with celery and crab roe was a refreshing contrast. The juicy prawns married well with the rich roe while the celery's crunch provided a welcome balance. This dish could be made lighter if they had substituted some stock for oil.

We didn't really need another brown dish because we had eaten too much rice with the tofu. But I could not resist trying out the last dish because it paired two favourite ingredients, i.e. salted fish and brinjal (eggplant). The brinjal was not saturated with oil as I feared, and the tender slices had absorbed the salted-fish-infused gravy beautifully. The rice happily soaked up the sauce which was studded generously with little nuggets of salted fish.

The restaurant seemed to be staffed by Chinese mainlanders, I noticed their accents on the way to the restroom. It may have been truly Szechuan when it first opened. Now I wouldn't say the food has been completely adapted for local palates, but they are probably heading that way judging from the disappointingly mild ma-po tofu. I hope they don't go too far in this direction, as it will then be hard to differentiate it from the rest of the pseudo-Shanghainese/ Szechuan joints around.

Ficus Bistro

The next time you are at the Botanical Gardens and need a bite to eat after that taiqiquan workout, do yourself a favour, by walking past the overpriced cafes in the garden, and instead, head over to the adjoining SMU campus to forage for better nosh. Ficus Bistro is a good bet. Follow the signs or ask a security officer, and head over to this unassuming cafe (I wouldn't really call it a bistro) with lovely views of trees and greenery on the second floor of one of the buildings. The staff are friendly and the food and coffee are good too.

Lor Mee $3, (blurry picture taken with mobile phone), came with generous amounts of ngor hiang and braised belly pork, and half of a braised egg. A family at the next table were enthusiastically tucking into this dish. I am not an expert on lor mee, but I liked this version well enough.

Husband's beef noodles, also $3 ($2.50 if you are an SMU student) was not a watery beef soup as we had initially expected. Instead, the beef was stewed to a rich and unctuous tenderness which would have been even better served with a bowl of rice instead of noodles. But at 9 am in the morning, we didn't think to ask if they had rice on hand.

The cafe is open every day, and also serves a reasonably priced Penang buffet for weekday dinners and Sunday brunch.

Otak Prata

Friends who live in the East Coast recommended that we try the latest prata variation. Otak Prata, available at Sia Prata near Frankel Avenue. Mildly spicy fish paste sandwiched between suitably fluffy prata layers and then slowly fried till the outside is crispy. Egg included too.