u m a m i

Guangzhou = Good Food

After the rains on Monday the pollution eased a little, but it is still quite dusty and there is a lot of noise from construction works at every corner.

Guangzhou is not exactly a tourist destination, more like a convenience town for the thousands of manufacturing plants in the Guangdong region. The urban planning is haphazard and sprawling, high-end lifestyle stores next to grimy toolshops, residential block sharing acreage with offices and shop, the grey concrete all pervasive, and the taxis very ill-maintained and can sometimes be difficult to find. Fortunately our apartment is located in what the locals describe as an upmarket desirable neighbourhood and there are plenty of shops and restaurants nearby. We've been quite the homebodies, other than the trips to the agency and immigration departments, we have stayed mostly indoors, venturing to the wet market for very fresh produce (fresh as in you point, they kill) or the local Jusco or Park n Shop for groceries.

The eating has generally been good to excellent. Even their fast food is not something to sniff at, one night we ate dinner at the very popular fast food chain Zan Gong Ku (Real Gongfu) which uses Bruce Lee's face as their logo. The food was generous, tasty, nutritious and inexpensive, best of all, there wasn't any MSG after-effects.

This city is very down-to-earth, there isn't a see-and-be-seen restaurant scene that I've come across yet. In fact, the more fancy places isn't that much better in terms of food quality than a humbler establishment. A lunch at Peach Blossom in Garden Hotel was terribly disappointing while a repeat visit to Upday Chao revealed that their forte is dim-sum not more elaborate dinner dishes.

A better bet would be in any of the modest airconditioned eateries popular with the locals. Last night we walked randomly into Man Fook Lau,one of the many eateries along Beijing Road. The manageress took us in hand, helping us to order a homely slow-boiled soup, charsiew, lettuce hearts and hotpot rice. The charsiew was first-class, sticky sweet-salty with melting fats in between tender meat. The seasonal lettuce hearts were simmerred in a rather oily broth but the surprise was a generous topping of fresh bamboo pith, almost a heaped bowlful of the sweet crunchy stuff. Best of all though, was the "yim yau kuk fan" literally riced baked with salt and oil, the rice not in the least greasy but infused delectably with fragrant shallots and soy sauce, good food at its simpliest best. Portions were vast, we took home the leftovers which were just as well appreciated the second time round.

Pictures to come later, promise!

Hello Guangzhou

We have internet access, and we can blog! A good thing, since I have problem sleeping. No pictures until we are back home and I can edit them. I will also write the emo, non-food related stuff in the other blog from time to time. For now, some quick notes.

Arrived Guangzhou at noon with husband and G, our domestic helper. The air quality is bad.

Checked into Springdale Serviced Residence, an Ascott property which is so new it is not officially opened yet. Clean, comfortable and convenient. 

The neighbourhood: Next door is the Victory Plaza, where we had an excellent dim-sum lunch at Upday Chao. Further across the road is mini Hong Kong TeeMall which houses Jessica, Wanko, Jusco, Luk Fook, Mannings, a Maxim's bakery as well as an amusement centre complete with bumper car rides. Ate dinner at the Cafe de Coral cha charn tng, which we enjoyed very much. It is true what people say about this city, the eating's very good.

I went into the bumper car ring three times, as driver of course, wheee.......

We're going to Guangzhou tomorrow morning to finalise the adoption. Back in two weeks, will post if the China blogpolice allows.

Preserved Crab

It's salads only for lunch this week, my dinner schedule is crazy. Only other person as crazy (or maybe crazier than) me is Ivan who is similarly booked this week. Better still, he is more conscientious in documenting it all, so if anyone is curious how greedy we can get, look no further than his blog.

So, just when we think weve seen everything, eaten every bizarre food known to men, along comes this dish known to the Teochew people as Preserved Crab. Ivan has taken all the gruesome pictures and details, read it here. I was initially just as intimidated by its appearance, hell, the whole table did a double-take, and the imagery of cockroach skeletons was from my overactive mind I have to confess. But the taste and sensation, wow, intense would be an understatement, the flesh was mostly like sashimi, texture was fine fleshed and soft, but not gooey, and blessedly free of pungent smells. The marinade and peanut bits reminded me of rojak sauce- the brininess coming through from the crabs. Eating it was so wild that I had to take a break after, you know, to let everything come back into focus.   

I am still eating.

While I am on my break it doesn't mean I stop eating well. E.g the weekend started with a bang, 8kg of prime roast to be precise. Ivan organised the fabulous feast, read all about it here. I am the person wearing the pink shirt with an onion ring perpetually dangling from the fingers.

Aston's sell very nice bottled root beers too, btw.

Have a Break

                   

It has been a roller-coaster year for me so far, non-stop highs and lows and hardly a day goes by without new events unfolding. Plans were made, then modified, revamped, abandoned, then revived again. At work, not a few troubles caused by 'siew yan' or petty people which was weirdly enough predicted by my mum's geomancer in the beginning of the year. This is not to say that it was all bad, there have been a few small miracles and good news, breakthroughs even.

There is also two major events in our lives coming up in the next few months, but more of that as it happens. The ride is by no means over.

The best coping strategy in the face of so many unpredictable and uncontrollable train of events is, I discovered, just take a big step back. Back to basics. Like spending time with people you get along with and relaxing at home. Basic pleasures such as (*sim) foot massages and reading by the window where the cool wind blows in.  Like taking care of the physical self- last weekend we tackled Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, it was bloody tough, the steep incline towards the Keruing hut nearly killed me, but I can't wait to go back again.

And of course, taking care to eat well- these curry puffs ($0.60 each) from a stall at the Whampoa Market and Food Centre (temporarily relocated a few steps away) was one example. It is a simple thing, thin deepfried pastry encasing spiced potatoes. But it was good, not too greasy, the spices blended just-so, the potatoes crumbly and sweet. The stall holders call it their 'special curry puffs', and at weekends it is almost impossible to get hold of because people order it by the boxes. I like their sardine puffs and mee-rebus too. Sorry, I didn't note the name of the stall, it is the one closest to the fruit vendors and the carpark. Go early.

Banana dulce de leche muffins

                  

The local ST newspaper publishes a fashion supplement, Urban, every Thursday. However, my favourite part of the supplement is not remotely clothes or make-up related, rather it is the Posh Nosh page by Tan Hsueh Yun that I turn to first thing. Ms Tan writes about the latest, fanciest food products and events in small bite sized columns, and makes me wish that I have her job, or that I can be her food sampler.

Anyways, one such snippet informed that ready made dulce de leche is available in our supermarkets. For many years I have read with wide-eyed fascination about how daredevil cooks boil cans of condensed milk for hours to caramelise the milk sugars and turn the thick milk into sticky milk jam. When they open the can, the pent-up pressure within the can would cause the boiling caramelised lava milk to shoot out forcefully causing painful damage on skin and kitchen ceilings. Ouch! But there's no need for that now, because when I was at Cold Storage I came across the very stuff, in stout glass jars, available in Original and Banana flavour. I brought home one of each.

They are very sweet, these dark brown gooey jam, a little bit makes toast taste very nice. It is high in calcium too, says the label on the jar. The domestics love it, after all condensed milk is practically a national food for Filipinos. Yesterday when I was making some banana muffins I decided to swirl some of the banana version onto the top of each little piece of cake. The milk jam was even better baked up and mingled with cake crumbs, the sweet sticky caramelised milk-goo melting into the cake satisfyingly rich and voluptuous. And the calcium, surely doing my bones extra good too, no?

I won't bother to write down the recipe for the muffins- the end product were not as tender as it should be. Next time I would also omit the extraneous raisins and cinnamon, maybe add some more oil, and definitely swirl extra dulce de leche into the cake!

National Day 2006

Today Singapore celebrates its 41 years of independence.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

         

               

Vanilla Salt Cookies

                     

These cookies were made using from the recipe for Vanilla Wafers in the "Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking". Instead of sugar crystals as suggested in the book, which I did not have on hand, I pressed some pink Himalayan salt crystals on the top just before baking. The salt accentuated the sweet vanila butteriness of the cookies, intriguing those who tasted with its familiar yet novel sensation.

The recipe calls for one whole block of butter, and makes over 60 cookies. For a small household like mine it makes sense to freeze part of the dough. The ones above were from one of the frozen portions, slightly overbaked and crumbly, but still really rather scrumptious. Next time I might increase the quantity of flour.

250g butter

1/4 tsp salt (or if you are like me, omit this and use slightly salted butter)

125g sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 tbsp vanilla extract

315g plain flour

Beat the butter, salt and sugar at medium speed untill smooth.

Add egg yolks and vanilla and beat at low speed until blended.

Add flour and mix until a dough forms.

Divide dough into three or four equal portions. Roll each portion into logs about 1.5 inches in diameter. Wrap logs in plastic wrap and freeze or refridgerate till firm.

Before baking, unwrap log and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices. At this point you can op to sprinkle crystal sugar, crystal salt or chopped nuts on the surface. Bake at 180 C for 12-15 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Diandin Leluk

                   

My life these days has been reduced to these few activities:

• work- to earn money for rice, soy sauce,cooking oil and shoes.
• sewing- I have started my 7th project whilst even though there are still 4 others Work in Progress pieces. But when it is all done I'll have 4 new quilts and 1 laptop bag.
• watching charismatic China actors play emperor on DVD (Hanwu Dadi)
• jogging on the treadmill -we have a "chop card" system at home where every 12th 15 minute slot entitles us to a treat like roti prata, hamburger, ice cream and so so. Self-defeating no?
• photography, Photoshop Elements and flickr, what will I ever do without photo-editing software?
• trawling through the 400 feeds I subscribe to on Bloglines. Is this considered excessive?

So, there is no time for shopping, not the window shopping shopping, though I have to say the nice lady at Foot Fetish has analysed me down pat, she keeps shoes for me that she thinks I'll like, this past three weeks alone I have succumbed to 4 pairs and a chocolate leather handbag, even though I spend less than 20 minutes in the shop on both occasions! Me very bad, but me now have super gorgeous shoes in me closets, hah.

Like I said, no time for non-shoe shopping, no time for reading glossy magazines. So how do I keep myself current? Well, remember the 400 feeds? Turns out that reading blogs is not just a time-sucking activity, occasionally  life can even be positively enhanced by it. Take for example, last weekend. slurp met up with us to go take pictures of the NDP rehearsals fireworks. For dinner after, I decided on nearby Diandin Leluk simply because I had happened to read in The Baker Who Cook's blog how she enjoyed her meal there and remembered only good things about a dinner with my friends at the same place almost 3 years ago. Truth be told, even if there wasn't an NDP preview happening I would have dragged myself there to partake of the luscious looking crab tunghoon. The crab was sweet and succulent, but the tunghoon was to-die-for, having absorbed all their crabby essences.

                  

We had other dishes too, for instance the mango salad was unrestrainedly spicy, pure torture honestly.

                  

Thai BBQ pork was more palatable, a little like char siew but not so sticky, more aromatic with lemongrass and tamarind accents. I'll gladly order it again.

                  

Olive rice came in a claypot but it wasn't really cooked in the pot, just tipped into it for serving purposes. I would have preferred more olives but it went well with the salad and bbq pork.

We didn't have room for desserts but earlier on I had finished a young coconut before the first dish arrived on the table. Tummies full, we went home and started to plot our next crab adventure....