it's been a while... but i'm still here...

as recommended by channel u and what a letdown it was. after the upsetting news that our regular claypot chicken rice stall had moved to clementi, e mom and i decided to chance it and head to abc market to try one of e two stalls selling said meal. unfortunately, despite coming highly recommended, the meal was uninspiring and left fond memories of after dinner chats with e mom just slightly tainted. :(

and to add insult to e injury, e mom lied to me. she coerced me into eating pohpiah with her. she said only one roll, but she came back with two! liar! bra on fire. old man please come back soon, my stomach is not expand-able as yours...

post-blog update: transfered this from my main blog to here.. since it's food.

just to elaborate on the meal, the rice was not as fragrant as my fav stall. the chicken was 'overcooked' in the sense that it was as tender. the chicken from my fav stall has that kind of 'you-can-suck-the-meat-off-the-bones' quality. it is that tender! i guess it's the period where it goes from slightly raw to cooked. and that in itself is an art/skill to be mastered.

also, the above stall doesn't let you mix your rice up (i'm sure they will let you if you ask...) but i like the fact that my fav stall lets you choose whether to mix it up yourself or not right off the bat. when our pot came, the black sauce and oil was already added inside! and did i mention that they gave too much chicken breast? in line with all the unhealthiness that goes into the pot, i figured that if it's already that bad for health, might as well go all the way and just heap us with the fattier parts of the chicken. that way, not only will the pot be more flavourful, people eating will also feel more shiok (denoting extreme pleasure towards things/food etc).

there weren't too much kiam hu that didn't give the salty tinge to the rice as i have come to think of as synonymous with claypot chicken rice.

(digressing - and as i was trying to google the hokkien spelling for fish, i learnt something new! i initially thought that fish in hokkien was spelt something like herh. don't ask me why. wahhaha but it's hu with the 5th tone [mandarin only has four tones] - amazing right? in the 5 - 8 mins of 'researching' i learnt more about my dialect than the last 26yrs of trying to sound at least authentic)

the mom and i came to a conclusion that the ingredients were pre cooked such that they could serve up the claypots at a relatively fast rate. usually, at my fav stall, we call in advance (at least 20 mins) and by the time we head down, it'll be ready for us. even if it's not, we'll only have to wait for about 5 - 10 mins for the pot. but over at this stall, we only had to wait less than 10 mins for our pot. i think that in itself is the key factor why this stall CANNOT beat my fav stall (which i'm not going to tell you the name)!

we also ordered a soup to go along with our pot, and the watercress soup was bland. there wasn't too much flavour in it. disappointing. esp when i'm so used to have the black chicken feet with black beans and pork ribs soup (that actually have taste!). now that's one uber yums soup!

time to try the other stall at abc market. i hope it doesn't let me down as much as this stall. but hey! different strokes for different folks, and while the mom and i might not have found it delicious, i'm pretty sure there are people out there who likes this stall. :)

was food-porning some blogs and flickr and i came across this blog for spring onion pancake. looks damn awesome! i'm going to try it out at wh's place when we hold our baking session soon. woots! will be reporting back with photos and results. been craving sambal a lot recently, prob due to my batam trips. need to dig out the recepie for the sambal that nikum used to make soon. can't tahan the lack of sambal in my life. :)

10.10.08 (part 2)

**long overdue post**

as the brother could not join us for the actual dinner on the 10th, we had to do a make up dinner for the parental units later that week. and also, the mom just didn't want to eat the expensive food without the bro. what nonsense. anyways on with the review.

we went to Tajimaya Yakiniku/Shabuya at Vivocity (#01-102/103 - Tel: 6377 0060 / 6377 0070). the establishment itself houses 2 different sections for shabu shabu and yakinikyu. yakiniku means grilled meat in japanese. and shabuya is what we singaporeans like to call a steamboat joint. we went to the yakiniku section of the restaurant.

meal and drinks cost me about SGD$310, for 4 pax. and i liked the fact that they had a set menu for 2/4 pax. the set menu had a wide variety and greedy people can really get a well rounded taste of the meats available for grilling.

the charcoal grill

the sauces

marinated raw beef with egg yolk (yummy)

kimchi and seasoned cucumbers

the array of meats that came with our set menu. wagyu, beef tongue etc

pork

garlic fried rice

prawns were the last bit of seafood that we grilled.

we had fish and squid as well, part of the set menu.

desert were mochi balls! my fav!

i don't think you can go wrong when you eat at a yakiniku place. esp when you're cooking your own food, unless you're the kind who burns even water. the food fresh, and the marinate was pretty tasty. overall, the dining experience at taijiyama was good. though i think their service could improve, with faster response to our requests.

10.10.08

shop has closed. :( (17 July 09)

happy 26th anniversary uncle and auntie ting!

dinner was fantastic for that night. quite surprising because the place seem pretty nondescript, in fact, not even too impressive. the waitresses were in chong sum, given that the place seems to be opened by a China Chinese. i think one thing that irked me the most was that the waitresses, they seem to be catching a train while recommending or apologising to us. i can't seem to understand their already accented chinese. that and they kept saying '不好意思'. my head was spinning everytime they interacted with us. and it wasn't just one waitress, BOTH of them were catching trains. *shivers*

here's what we had for dinner:

herbal turtle soup

carrot,white fungus, onions and potato soup with pork ribs

winter melon and pork ribs soup with various herbs

claypot stewed eggplant with minced meat

hong kong styled steam fish head (half fish head)

3 types of beef (tripe/meat and something else ^_^)

the whole meal was fantastic. esp the eggplant and beef! i loved it. the eggplant was done to perfection. soft but not mushy, a bit spicy and flavourful cos of the sauce. the beef was tasty and soft enough that i didn't feel like i was chewing gum. the sauce was of cos flavourful as well. the fish head is worth a special mention simply because it was so fresh!!! and you know that it's good stuff when you have the old man attacking the dish with such vigour and enthusiasm. and truth be told, for such a delicious meal, the cost was pretty cheap. about 50 odd bucks. i honestly didn't have much faith in that place. 真的没看好这个地方. i must say that the food has surpassed my expectations. i'm definitely heading back there for more herbal soup.

4 starfishies for this place.
2 butterflies for the service - simply because the waitresses overwhelmed me.

and i don't even know the name. all i know is that it's at the stretch where the teochew porridge (that is super not delicious) is. all your zouk-sters should know that area. near the bkt (havelock road).

seems like the cambodia post is taking a while to be written. so there will be a food post instead. stay tuned!

Siem Reap, Cambodia - Day 1 (Part 1)

our flight was at 0600 hrs in the morning and by 0430 we were all at the airport raring to go. well i think bubbles and jac were. i was more or less still three quarters asleep. had our breakfast at the kopitiam like place at T1. not too bad. for a person who is three quarters asleep, i could down a whole bowl of wanton mee. the parental units were there with us, so we chatted till boarding time.

having done sufficient research before heading for this trip, we were mostly pretty confident about really enjoying ourselves there. and boy were we right. the flight was pretty uneventful. i guess what you can do on budget airlines is just to sleep away the journey. we had wanted to take a better airline, but seeing as our itinerary was SIN - SR - PP - SIN, the cost was too exorbitant. so we bought 2 one way tickets at a total cost of $298 per person (pp), which jac got it at least 50 bucks cheaper! (yes i'm still sore about that... )

the airport at siem reap was what amazed me. it kinda reminded me of what sukarno hatta international airport looks like. tall ceilings, lost of bricks and wood. stone cravings. greys and reds dominate the colour scheme. made me feel at home immediately. it was a small airport but nicely furbished. except the customs counter. there was only one. and one man manning it. (pardon that obvious pun) when the plane landed, there was no sheltered walkway from the plane the the airport. we had to actually walk across the tarmac and head into the building itself. quite an awesome experience.

us on the tarmac... the sun too bright, hence the squinty eyes!

we had airport pick up by DMS Angkor Villa (USD15 per night, twin sharing), run by Savong, who also opened a language school for kids. they teach english and japanese there, so bubble brought heaps of comics for the kids to peruse. the hotel was about 20 - 30 mins away from the airport. and i kinda lost track of my directions (not that i have much sense of direction to begin with) after 6 mins in the car. the sights along the way reminded me of indonesia (again). lots of open space, cows and low-rise buildings.

honestly, the hotel didn't really impress me that much. and there seem to be very little people staying there (could be because of the low season), it even seemed as if we were the only people who checked in. Savong, his brother - La and another boy were chatty and seem pretty nice.

by the time we reached the hotel, checked in and freshened up a bit, it was only 9am (10am singapore time). we decided to ask Savong for his recommendations at which temples we should hit first, even though we already had an itinerary to follow (as done up by bubbles! babe.. we should have followed urs... ^_^). so La tuk-tuk-ed us to the entrance to the temple.

3-day pass at USD40 a pop! and they take your photo on the spot and print it out.

breakfast of basil chicken and rice - USD3. yummy!

past the entrance

first temple of the day - BAYON

BAYON

there's a reason why Bayon left such an impression on me. it's such a happy temple! everywhere you go... you seem smiley faces. i feel happy just being there. heh!

next temple that we wondered to was, Baphuon, which is like a temple right at the end of a long, long walkway. the sides of the walkway are lined with greenery and ponds (?). it's pretty scenic from the top picture. like a dream-like castle. okie in my pov.

the girlies at the start of the long walkway. this temple is kind of connected to the terrace of the elephants. and will also lead you to another temple further inside.

the walkway nearer to the main building. pretty neat columns.

Baphuon itself. we can't enter the place. i think some restoration work might be going on. judging from the steel structures sticking out like a sore thumb to the side of the temple.

after this temple, we kind of wonder towards the right of it.. and were brought to... the Phimeanakas ('celestial temple') temple. and it was celestial indeed. the steps were sooo steeped that i'm pretty sure people have died, climbing up. the pictures shall do the exclaimation!

after climbing up the stones! then we realised how steep it was. CRAZY mad steep it was. we didn't want to take the wooden stairs. trying to be advanturous. bottom view up. seriously i think rock climbers are the only people who can conquer the temple steps safely.

we apparently took the easier way up the temple! THIS IS THE REAL THING! the steps are so steep and well worn! there's a sign that says 'climb at your own risk'. the brave ang moh person.

after the steep flight of steps up! there's another rocky portion to climb up to actually head to the TOP of the celestial temple. i actually used some techniques i learnt in rock climbing to go up. awesome isn't it!

part 2: 3rd and final temple of the day and the nightly activities. stay tuned!

hola!

hello world! this is actually the 2nd attempt at getting my 'travel and food' blog up. the first one didn't end up so well. i've actually decided to have 2 blogs, simply because on this one, i can focus on catalouging the places and food i've eaten. over at the other one, there are too many 'distractions' (i.e. ramblings). i don't expect this to become super famous or well read by others but i just hope that whe you guys read it or chance upon it, it might help someone - be it where to go for makan or where to visit in SEA (at the moment).

i'm going to start off my blog with a couple of posts on cambodia. which is the most recent trip i've taken. then if time and my laziness permits, i shall backtrack with my HK and taiwan trip! ^_^ exciting. also, the blog will be loaded with pics rather than words. so hopefully through this, i can also brush up on my photography skills.

and for some teasers... here are just some of the MANY tons of photos we have taken!