Pan Pacific Hotel 海天樓 @ 37th Floor

This is my first visit to 海天樓 in the Pan Pacific Hotel located on it's 37th floor. It will be closed after 15th April 2012 and will be relocated to the 3rd floor of the hotel, so this would be an absolute must go before it shifts out of it's current location and missing the great view!

There's a choice to have an ala carte buffet from it's lunch menu which contains about 60 odd dishes, some of which each table is only allowed to order 2 and some of which each patron is only allowed to order once, otherwise, everything else is unlimited as long as you are still hungry!

Very high quality food and absolutely worth the money!

Ellenborough Market Café @ Swissôtel Merchant Court

The Ellenborough market café has long been known for it’s durian pengat dessert.


It might not be an overstatement to say that the customers are booking their lunch buffets there simply for the sake of this Asian dessert.

Despite my numerous visits to the café, the durian pengat continues to maintain it’s standard with it’s thick and bittersweet durian paste. Two thumbs up!

记得吃 - Part 3

Next up on my 记得吃 dessert conquest list is the Banana Snow Ice.

The generous serving of banana flavored snow ice topped with peanut bits, nata de coco, thinly sliced banana and pearls had me grinning from ear to ear.

The wonders of the snow ice dessert lies in the snow ice itself. Aside from having the wonderful snowy melt-in-your mouth texture, the snow ice itself already carried the individual flavors, making the drizzle of any sweet flavored syrup totally redundant. I would have been more than satisfied even if there were only the snow ice and sprinkled peanut bits. The other toppings were simply bonuses.

I'll defnitely be back for a fourth time...perhaps I'll try the chocolate snow ice then! :)

Almond Jelly With Longans

Almond jelly with longans is one of my all-time favourite dessert. Despite so, it was not until recently that I finally decided to try making it myself after being a little fedup with the stinginess of the dessert stalls for heaving so much shaved ice on the few sparing cubes of almond jelly at the base of the bowl, topped with three, perhaps 4 pieces (if you are lucky) of preserved canned longans.

Longans are in season and I managed to get my hands on some fresh longans at NTUC Fairprice before heading to the baking section where I found three brands of almond jelly premix powder on sale. The most expensive brand cost $2.20 while the cheapest brand (Hollyfarms) cost a mere $1.55 - which is a whopping $0.65 or 30% price difference!

In the good spirit of wanting to validate whether quality is indeed proportional to price, I proceeded to make my purchase on two packets of almond jelly powder - the most expensive and the cheapest brand.

The almond jelly making process is fairly simple and straightforward if one were to dutifully follow the cooking instructions at the back of the packet. It simply involves the dissolving of the powder in boiling water, the pouring of the almond solution into a jelly mould and refrigerating it till the jelly is formed.

The end result:
* Hollyfarms yielded more almond jelly - approximately one more mould of jelly
* The more expensive brand yielded somewhat whiter and more porcelain-like almond jellies while Hollyfarms yielded more natural and normal-looking almond jellies (I definitely prefer the appearance of the latter).
* Taste-wise, it's not so much of a difference but I would rather prefer the Hollyfarms almond jelly as I find it to be slightly denser and closer to my personal liking.

Morale of the story: Good ingredients/food doesn't necessarily come at a higher price tag.

记得吃 - Part 2

Ever since my last visit to 记得吃@ Chinatown Point, I knew I couldn't hold my cravings for long before I had to make my subsequent appearance at the dessert shop again.

And boy am I right! I finally caved in to temptation after a mere 2 weeks and rushed head long into the shop, ordering the durian flavoured snow ice. The snow ice had the nice flavour of durian without the creaminess of milk ice-cream. They were also very generous with the durian puree topping with it's heavenly bitter-sweet flesh. This was well balanced with the slight sourly tinge from the pomelo.

My companion-in-crime (who, by the way hated durian) ordered the popular mango puree with pomelo and crushed ice. He was literally pigging at his bowl of dessert and it left me thinking if he was in fact trying to hide his nose from my bowl of delicious durian snow ice.

Until the launch of their next mind-blowing dessert, the durian snow ice officially made it to the top of my dessert list.

Anyone knows if the shop issues any VIP cards?

Rock Sugar Bird's Nest

This is the first time I received bird's nest as a gift. Never one to hanker after such 'delicacies', receiving it as a gift is a totally different story altogether! :)

Each tiny bottle contained barely a few pieces of bird's nest soaked in rock sugar solution. The bird's nest, alike shark's fin, doesn't taste much by itself. Once cooked, the texture strongly resembles that of agar agar, which is slightly harder than jelly.

Such delicacy is highly valued by the Chinese due to it's nutritional values, rarity, life endangering job of harvesting the nests from limestone caves and the arduous cleaning process before yielding pure bird's nest.

I have Jamie to thank for presenting me with the gift and certainly Philip too, for without whom such an opportunity would not have arised. :)

记得吃 - Part 1

For a start, I already like the name of this dessert shop - 记得吃. :)

I first got to know of this dessert shop along Liang Seah Street where it used to be the alternative dessert shop to patronise if one couldn't find a seat in the more popular 阿秋甜品 across the road.

However, since the launch of their durian puree dessert, the number of 记得吃 followers have been growing steadily, with me being one of them!

If you want to avoid the weekend crowd along Liang Seah Street and be assured of a seat immediately inside the shop without having to queue up, you could visit the main branch at Chinatown Point.

A recent visit revealed a new range of desserts in the shop - snow shavings! I believe the dessert was 'copied' from Taiwan where the shaved ice is so fine unlike ice kachang and yet taste like ice cream but without the sinfulness of the creaminess in the usual ice cream.

For those who doesn't like their dessert to be too sweet, you might want to request for the syrup not to be poured over the snow shavings.

We also ordered their hot dessert - almond paste with black glutinuous rice and similarly received a two thumbs-up compliment! :)

Attack of the Sweet Tooth Monster!

Question: "Will human ever get enough of money?"
Answer: "No"

Question: "Will I ever get enough of desserts?"
Answer: "NO"

4-in-1 Dessert@ Bollywood Veggies

(all 4 desserts are nonya kuehs which came in just the right portions and ain't too sweet)

Durian Puree with Pomelo Sago @ 记得吃, Liang Seah Street

(seriously, why bother spending tens of dollars buying durians at Geylang only to curse at the sub-standard quality WHEN you can have the bitter-sweet durian presented to you in a chilled bowl without the seeds!?!)

Bird's Nest

I bought these swiftlets bird's nest from Sabah where the price is considerably lower than if you were to buy them from reputable medicinal halls in Singapore. There are various grades of bird's nest depending on when the nest was harvested. The first harvest is considered the best and subsequently the 3rd harvest is the lowest grade as the then exhausted birds doesn't produce as much nutrients as when it built it's 1st nest. Also the 3rd harvest is done when the baby birds have left the nest and hence the nest is considerably dirtier and requires more work to clean before it can be consumed.

Nest built on the walls of caves are also considerably more expensive than nests built in man-made houses which are used to attract the swiftlets to build their nests. It is believed that the natural caves imparts certain amount of minerals to the nests as compared to none from the wooden planks in houses. This might have accounted for the varying colors in the cave nests as different minerals are deposited on the nests.

Bird's nests should be kept in a cool dry place. Bird's nests dries up during storage and so large quantity shouldn't be bought and kept for a long time. Usual quantity is about 1 qian which is about 7-8 pieces of nests. Each piece when cooked can provide enough quantity for about 7 days of consumption. I usually cook one piece each time and that will last me for 1 week and I will cook this once a month. Once cooked, I will leave it to cool and store it in a glass bottle and kept in the fridge.

Cooking bird's nest is simple. For the type of nests in the pictures, soak the nest overnight and tear the nest apart while removing any dirt or impurities, if any, embedded in the nest. Place the shredded nest into a double-boil container (typically made of porcelein), add a lump of rock sugar and topped up with water. Place the container in a pot and fill the pot with water up to about half the height of the container. Boil using a small fire for 4 hours.

The cooked bird's nest will give out a fragrance similar to boiled eggs. Consume a piece of bird's nest first thing in the morning after waking up and before consuming anything else.

Ondeh Ondeh (番薯蛋)

Following the runaway success of The Little Nonya (小娘惹) drama, everything and anything Nonya has become popular with many Singaporeans.

For me, it would have to be the mouth-watering Nonya cuisines. :)

Ondeh Ondeh (番薯蛋)

Ingredients (材料):

50g sweet potatoes (50克 番薯)

200g glutinuous rice flour (200克 糯米粉)

2 pieces gula melaka (两块 椰糖)

2 tsp pandan essence/green colouring (两茶匙 绿色素)

1 bowl water (一碗 清水)

100g grated coconut without skin (100克 去皮椰丝)

Method (做法):

(1) Cook the sweet potatoes in a pot of boiling water. Once cooked, mash it.

蒸熟后的番薯压成泥。

(2) Melt the gula melaka slightly with your hand temperature and roll into small balls.

与糯米粉混合，并慢慢加入清水和绿色素至能搓成软团状。

(3) Mix the mashed sweet potatoes with flour. Slowly incorporate water and the green colouring till a dough forms.

利用手指温度把椰糖捏成小球状。

(4) Roll the dough into balls, flatten it with your palm and add in the gula melaka balls. Shape the dough again into a ball and ensure that the gula melaka does not leak on the outside.

把绿色面团揉扁平，摆入椰糖小球后裹成番薯蛋。需确保椰糖不外露。

(5) Add the ondeh ondeh balls to a pot of boiling water. Once cooked, the balls will float to the water surface. Drain the balls of water and roll them on a plate with the grated coconut.

在锅中滚开水，下番薯蛋至煮熟浮起。取出后，趁热沾上椰丝即可上桌。

Verdict:

- the gula melaka can be a bit sweet so if you do not have such a sweet tooth, you might want to cut down on the sugar

Happy 牛 Year (年初一)

It has always been the tradition in my family to observe strict vegetarian dietary rules before noon on the first day of Chinese New Year. Lunch would be served at around 11am and it would always be the same two vegetable dishes accompanied by Cheng Teng (sweet dessert soup).



In addition to the reunion dinner, we would all be looking forward to this special vegetarian lunch. As of today, we still do not know why our mother never recreates all three dishes on any of the 364 days of the year.

Any of the dishes when presented on any other day alone without the other two simply doesn't taste as nice. :)

Happy 牛 Year - Reunion Dinner 2009

I realised something interesting during reunion dinner this year. While we are having increasing family members gathered around the dining table each year, there's ironically lesser varieties spread across the table.

But I'm not complaining as long as my favourite fish haw soup, fishballs, scallops, ngoh hiam and mango sago makes their usual appearances. :)

祝大家身体健康，笑口常开！

Green Tea Red Bean Jelly Mooncake

Green Tea Red Bean Jelly Mooncake

Ingredients (jelly egg yolks):

1/2 tbsp agar agar powder

350ml water

50g sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp instant jelly

2 tbsp evaporated milk

few drops of orange colouring

Ingredients (filling):

250g coconut milk

30g brown sugar

1 tsp agar agar powder

100g boiled red beans - mashed

few drops of pink colouring

Ingredients (mooncake skin):

500g thin coconut milk

90g sugar

8g agar agar powder

few pieces of pandan leaves

100ml thick coconut milk or evaporated milk

2 tsp green tea powder

100g fresh cream

Method:

(1) Boil the ingredients for the jelly egg yolk together in a pot

(2) Pour into small rounded ice cube moulds and let it set in the fridge

(3) For the filling, boil all the ingredients together and pour a small amount into cup moulds and let it semi-set.

(4) Put a piece of egg yolk agar-agar into the center of the semi-set filling and pour the remaining filling to cover the egg yolk.

(5) When set, remove from mould and set aside.

(6) For the mooncake skin ingredients, boil the thin coconut milk with sugar, pandan leaves and agar agar powder till sugar dissolves.

(7) Add in thick coconut milk , green tea powder and fresh cream.

(8) Pour some green tea jelly mixture into mooncake moulds and let it semi-set. Place the filling on top of the half set green tea agar-agar.

(9) Pour the balance green tea agar-agar on top of the filling till full

(10) Let it set and chill in the fridge before serving

Verdict:

- If exactly 100g of mashed red bean is used, the filling would remain soft even after setting. However, this creates a different texture from the skin and egg yolk agar-agar