Lovely Laos

The lovely Chris and I have recently returned from a short visit to Laos, a first for both of us.  I had meant to write this post from there, but quite frankly, we were too wrapped up in pursuit of hedonistic pleasure.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

Unfortunately there are no direct flights from Singapore to Laos, so we went via Bangkok, a pretty smooth journey which featured a most extraordinary incident on the travellator on the way to baggage reclaim.  There was a group of Eastern European guys just in front of us, built like front row forwards for the Vladivostok Vandals who suddenly started howling out loud and then jumped over the hand rail, off the moving carpet and set off in hot, still howling pursuit of a couple of blonde air hostesses on their way to board their plane.  Weird!

On arrival in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, we realized we had to get (by 'get' I mean purchase, for the bargain price of USD 36 dollars each) an entry visa.  Only greenbacks would do, no other currency and no credit cards.  Well, it's one way of guaranteeing a steady stream of hard currency I suppose.  The cost of the visa would have been a mere 35 dollars, but we had no photograph.  Fortunately, this serious security issue could be overcome by the payment of one more US dollar.  At one level I can understand the desire of the government to attract dollars, but Chris and I were amazed at how little resentment there seems to be on the part of the people of Laos of what the Americans did to their country during the years of the Vietnam war, the legacy of which remains in thousands of unexploded cluster bombs in the countryside (what monster allowed the manufacture of this abomination?) which are still claiming the lives and limbs of innocent people.  If you visit Vientiane, I urge you to spend some time, and some money at COPE - the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise.  While clearly not your normal tourist venue, this visit is eye-opening and intensely humbling.  You can read more about it on tripadvisor; just follow the link below:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g293950-d1092459-Reviews-Cooperative_Orthotic_and_Prosthetic_Enterprise_COPE-Vientiane.html

The Laotian currency is the charmingly named Kip, of which there are 12,000 to the pound.  Just for fun, we bought a million, and you can see TLC posing with them above.  We took dozens of photos, but even my most faithful readers are bound to have a limited tolerance for pictures of temples so I have sprinkled in a few other views throughout this particular post.  


We stayed in Vientiane first, the capital, which was nice, but not a patch  on Luang Prabang, which was where we spent most of the time - in the most gorgeous boutique hotel which had been recently converted from its previous use as a detention centre.  As we commented in the visotors' book before leaving, we plan to re-offend in the very near future!  The hotel had just 23 rooms and we were the sole occupants most of the time, as we went during the low season .  We never had to share the pool, the bar or the spa, which was not great news for the hotel, but rather lovely for us.  And talking of the spa.........
Stoned 

The pool at the Settha Palace

My regular readers will have shared what I call my "nook and    cranny" experiences since moving to Asia, where the normal observation of the client's modesty that prevails in the UK during massage therapy does not seem to apply here.  I had already decided that I was going to try and work my way through the entire menu of spa offerings over a couple of days ( and I managed all but one - pretty, good, huh?).  The lovely Chris was persuaded to join me for some of the treatments (our joint favourite over the two days was the hot stone massage) and so we padded off on our first morning to meet our therapists, who turned out to be a young man, for Chris, and a young woman for me.  All very fine, apart from the fact that the sessions took place in the same room.  Now, beautiful and light and airy as this room was, the massage beds were side by side, separated by no more than eighteen inches and all we were wearing was a pair of knicks.  No matter how deft my lassie's holding up of the sheet as I was lying down and turning round,  it all felt a little exposed, but hey, it's just one more for the nooks and crannies list.   Slightly more worrying was my therapist's declaration of love for me on the first afternoon.  Charming as she was, not to mention married with two children, I did not feel able to reciprocate.  

One of the many Buddhas we
saw in Vientiane

I'm conscious that I have been writing for some time and have not yet mentioned food - not at all like me - and there is plenty to write about Laotian cuisine.  Our favourite meals were probably the simplest, most notable of which was the lettuce wraps we ate on our first night in Luang Prabang.  I'm really tempted to try to replicate them with a different twist for one of my upcoming dinners with friends.  I'll keep you posted on the results. 

The other notable food moments were pizza for breakfast overlooking the Mekong and morning alms, both on our last day in Laos.  We  had heard good things about the Saffron cafe and were keen to spend some time by the river, which is particularly beautiful at that point.  Since I had been up since 5.30 in order to participate in the morning alms procession, I felt that pizza could be, on this occasion, a breakfast food.  TLC was more circumspect and had a banana muffin (and very yummy it was too).  The Saffron sells some of the best coffee I have ever tasted and the story of the coffee is fascinating.  Its genesis is the outlawing of opium cultivation by the Lao government which meant that the hill tribes whose livelihood depended on the opium crop were forced to engage in slash-and-burn agriculture in order to survive. This meant that entire mountainsides were cleared of vegetation and burned off.  The fields were planted for one season and then abandoned as a new mountainside was cleared - clearly not a sustainable solution for the farmers and barely enough to solve the short-term problem of feeding their families.  Enter David Dale, an American living in Laos, who discovered that Arabica coffee would  grow on the hillsides and Saffron Coffee was born.  He partnered with local tribes and created a coffee tree nursery, sending the little wee coffee trees to over 300 mountain farmers in more than ten different villages with the right land for planting coffee and purchasing all their coffee when it is harvested.  Talk about a virtuous circle!

Morning alms in Luang Prabang

I felt quite virtuous myself at the morning alms ceremony.  Shortly after dawn, hundreds of Buddhist monks leave their temples and walk along the main street to collect their morning alms - mainly sticky rice, supplemented by biscuits and fruit.  I had arranged with the hotel to join in, and it was another pretty humbling experience, but also a joyful one.  

Let me leave you with a view of the marvellous Mekong river and an exhortation to visit the beauties of Laos if you find yourself in this part of the world.  We will most definitely be going again, to see Luang Prabang and to explore new places.  My next post features the lovely AnnMarie, my fish spa chum, and  takes us back to Singapore, so watch out for "Chinatown", coming to your PC soon.  

The end of an era?

I do not normally comment on politics in this blog, but a recent, watershed event in Singapore's history most definitely merits an exception.


This weekend, Lee Kuan Yew, founding father of Singapore and its prime minister for over 30 years, resigned from the cabinet after his party, the PAP (People's Action Party) experienced its worst election result since independence in 1965.  From my perspective as a UK citizen, an election result that nets the opposition 6 seats out of a total of 87 looks like a serious victory, but the PAP's share of the vote dropped to 60% from 67% in the last election and both Lee Kuan Yew, whose official title is Minister Mentor, and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong decided to step down to make room for a younger generation to take Singapore forward into the next phase.  I have commented before in this blog that Singapore is a country that punches well above its weight and  Lee Kuan Yew's vision has been a significant enabler of this ability.  


Among the many accolades that have been printed, this is my favourite:  "There are many tall trees in Cabinet, but he is the last redwood". 

The Lynx effect

Those of you who are keen followers of this blog may already have seen my Italian post and watched the Lynx "Even angels will fall" advert, contributed by my good friend Steve.  Here in Singapore we do not get the Lynx ads, but seeing this one tempted me to YouTube where I spent several enjoyable hours surfing through dozens of Lynx ads.  When Chris left his study to find out the cause of the raucous laughter, I shared a few of my findings with him and he suggested that I blog some.  As I have already posted today, this is just a quickie to make you laugh.  I have included the angels ad for those of you who who have not already seen it, as well as a few of my personal favourites.  Laughter is good for the soul.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ib-7Dwhmnc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfeVEAZkJqM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeRZUjgLlIw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYSnLIys9o0

Nirvana

After almost four years in Singapore I still come across things that surprise me.  One such featured in yesterday's free sheet, the Today newspaper, over a two page advertising spread.  I consider myself pretty well read, but I have never before come across the term "Columbarium" (from the Latin for a nesting box for doves, for those of you who are interested).  If you don't already know, a columbarium is basically a facility for holding cremated remains and the Nirvana Memorial Garden, which was the subject of yesterday's ad, is a state of the art example.  Described as "Asia’s largest 6-star columbarium", Nirvana is the first privatized memorial park in Singapore and features "full air conditioning, lush carpeting and breathtaking art pieces" as well as lounge sofas scattered throughout the complex, a laser lights and sounds display that you can include as part of the memorial ceremony and a swipe card system to give access to the niches containing the ashes of your loved one.  Perhaps the part of the description that took me most by surprise was the assertion that "Nirvana Memorial Garden is positioned to be a landmark tourist attraction".   

When I think of visiting the last resting place of a loved one, I must confess that I don't think in terms of hotel style lobbies, comfy sofas or tourist attractions, but hey, each to their own.  

I've not written about movies for a while, but one of the two we saw this week has strong links to the mortality theme of this post, and would, in any circumstances, deserve a mention.  The film is Biutiful and stars Javier Bardem as Uxbal, a single father who struggles to reconcile the many conflicts in his life as he lives out his last weeks, having been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  It was a strange combination of bleak and uplifting and so gripping that when Chris and I talked about it, we could not remember whether it was in Spanish or English.  (It was in Spanish, with subtitles and Bardem received an Oscar nomination for his performance, the first entirely Spanish language performance to be nominated for Best Actor.)  Biutiful is set in Barcelona, but not the Barcelona of Gaudi, smart hotels and long lunches in fancy restaurants.  It takes place in Barcelona's underbelly, a world the tourists never see.  I find myself wanting to tell the whole story in this post, but that would spoil things for those of you who will see it, so I will hold back and leave you with the haiku review contributed by the lovely Chris.

Find intense beauty

not in the city squalour; 

in humanity. 

Ah, L'Italia!

Just got back a couple of days ago from a holiday in Europe, to the sweltering heat of Singapore and a rapturous welcome from Lola.  I think her little tail would have fallen off it she had wagged it any harder.  While I'm sure her enthusiasm was largely due to her being delighted to see me again after an absence of almost 3 weeks, she may also have been influenced by the fact that I was wearing perfume named after her.  Yes indeed.  It seems that Lola has caught the attention of Marc Jacobs the fashion designer, who has created a perfume in her honour.  For those of you who have not yet smelt Lola (the Marc Jacobs version, not the real thing), here is a description for you from Perfume Lover's website:


This warm floral bouquet conveys the free spirit of today’s sexy, modern girl – she is playful, cool, and flirtatious…The long-lasting, day-and-night scent opens with pink peppercorn, pear, and ruby red grapefruit. Blooming midnotes of rose, fuschia peony, and geranium make a feminine statement. Layers of vanilla, warm tonka bean, and creamy musk create a sensous drydown. 

You may have noticed the complete absence of "essence de chien" in this description, but what can I say?  While the real Lola smells pretty gorgeous just after her bath, she does get distinctly doggy towards the end of the week, so I think Mr Jacobs wins this one hands down.  As my regular readers will know, I aim to educate as well as amuse through this blog and if, like me, you have not previously encountered a tonka bean or the expression "drydown", then look no further. 


The tonka bean is the fruit of a  tropical South American tree (Dipteryx odorata for you botanists out there) with egg-shaped, one-seeded pods and fragrant seeds.  It is used as a substitute for vanilla apparently, so I'm not quite sure what the difference in smell is, but Perfume Lover seems to be able to detect it.  "Drydown" is a perfumery term used to describe the last stage in the evolution of a fragrance. After the top notes have faded and the middle and base notes have formed the body of the scent, what comes next is the drydown, or the end notes of the fragrance. And there you have it.


The perfume recommendation came from my niece, the lovely Claudia, sister of the equally lovely Hannah, who introduced me to the singing sensation that is Adele and to dancing around in your underwear.  (You had to be there for the underwear bit).  "There" was Italy - Venice, Florence and Rome to be precise - and my sister and I, along with TLH and TLC ate, shopped and photographed our way round the country, stopping only for the occasional coffee and to laugh out loud at the teeny weeny cars and buses that seem to fill the streets of Italian cities these days.  Stopping for coffee also entailed a fair amount of laughing out loud, this time on the part of the waiters when we asked for a cappuccino in the middle of the afternoon - several hours after 11 am, the latest acceptable point in the day for drinking any coffee other than espresso.  But hey, that's how we roll.


Venice was the favourite part of the trip.  We were staying in Cannaregio, in the north of the island, in a lovely little apartment from where we walked everywhere - well, not everywhere, of course, as that would have required the ability to walk on water, but you know what I mean.  The thing I love most about Venice is that it is such an improbable place; it shouldn't really exist, and yet it manages to survive and thrive year after year, century after century.  We all thought that Cannaregio is probably the part of Venice that we would choose to live in if live in if we were to buy an apartment there, although we might need sell everything we have for the down payment - Venice is one expensive city!  Some of the best moments had nothing to do with the history or the sights, for example our dinner in the worst run restaurant in the world - bizarrely, also one of the busiest restaurants that we came across, perhaps because they were so disorganised that most of the diners could probably have eaten for free since the sole waitress seemed never to write anything down or be able to report back to the man at the till what anyone had ordered, and   in any case spent half the time moving the furniture around or sitting down for a ciggie break with her chums.  


Our favourite restaurant of the trip was the strangely named Le Caveau, (strangely named for an Italian restaurant, that is) which was a mere 30 paces from our apartment.  We know that it was 30 paces because my sister measured it when it became clear that this was becoming our "local" and in fact we ate there every day of the stay in Rome.  The only thing that let them down was running out of milk on Sunday afternoon, a bit of an issue if you fancy a cappuccino, but not something that would bother most of their patrons I guess. 


Sadly, while we loved both Venice and Florence, Rome was a disappointment.  I have visited several times before and have really enjoyed it and Chris has always maintained that it is his favourite European city (personally, I think that both Barcelona and Paris kick Rome into touch, but he can't be expected to agree with me on everything - just most things :-)).   So why did Rome disappoint?  Well, it was really dirty, for a start.  Living in Singapore, I have high standards for cleanliness, especially in public places, but the girls were equally grossed out by the rubbish on the streets, the filthy underground stations, the ever-present graffiti and the generally grubby feeling pretty much everywhere.  Of course, the city that gave birth to the Colosseum, the Trevi fountain and the Sistine chapel, not to mention Penne all'Arrabbiatta, can't be all bad, and we did have fun, just not as much as in Florence and Venice.  The highlights of the Florence trip were haggling for leather goods and being first in the queue to see Michelangelo's David so that our view of him was unimpeded by anything or anyone.   Interesting fact coming up: Commentators have noted David's apparently uncircumcised penis, which is at odds with Judaic practice, but is considered consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.  


Since I'm not sure I can follow that, I'll sign off for now, with thanks to my friend Steve for sending me this link featuring Florence, but not the usual tourist sights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfeVEAZkJqM

Friends and Amis

Dear readers, I'd like to issue an advance warning to those of you who may think I have been devoting too much of this blog recently to writing about food - I'm about to do it again.  This post centres on a delicious lunch at Les Amis, arguably Singapore's best French restaurant.  Why do people say "arguably" in this context, I wonder?  Is it because there are usually several competitors for the title, or because there is bound to be someone out there who would argue about it, just for the hell of it?  I digress, so let me get back to my sheep, as the French would say.  ("Revenons a nos moutons" is what they would actually say, a phrase which apparently has its origins in a fifteenth century French farce in which a woollen draper accuses a shepherd of cruelty to his sheep).  I digress again, so it's time for a photo.  This one is of my main course - halibut cooked sous vide and served, as you can see, in a lovely white bowl, on top of a delicious mushroom ragout.  The halibut was meltingly soft (sous vide will do that; it could probably tenderise a rubber ball) and the mushroom thingy was deliciously mushroomy.  

I was lunching with three of my dearest, and soon to be ex, colleagues, so this was by way of a pre-departure lunch.  The ladies in question have looked after me in ways too numerous to mention over the last few years and this lunch was a small token of my appreciation and affection, not to mention an excuse to have lunch in a restaurant that I have always wanted to visit, as it is arguably the best etc. etc.


The lunch began with an amuse bouche of citrus marinated salmon served on a little wooden paddle, garnished with some tiny, frilly herby thing and some chopped chives.  The presentation throughout was fabulous - and a bit quirky, especially when it came to the desserts, as you will see further down.  Between the four of us, we sampled much of the lunch menu - the signature appetizer of eel served under (bizarrely) , rather than on,  a sliver of pork terrine- infused crispy ciabatta was the favoured starter of two of my dining companions, while I chose the foie gras served on a perfectly circular ring of soft caramelised apple, accompanied by some gorgeously buttery toasted brioche and served on a plate drizzled with three spots of a lightly truffled syrup.  The lovely Jennifer started with the ciabatta wrapped crispy egg, with Iberico ham and spinach on top of a ham ragout.  I forgot to take a picture of this, sadly, for it was a thing of beauty.

Moving on to mains, TLJ chose egg once more, this time as part of the char-grilled octopus on mushroom risotto, with lettuce and confit egg - see piccie above.  Joanna and I both had the halibut, and Tricia chose another of the signature dishes, the roast suckling pig served with cabbage, speck potatoes and caraway.  The servings were just enough to leave room for dessert, and the pastry chef is obviously a modern artist manque, as you can see from his pudding presentation, left.  This was my dessert of choice - rhubarb with tarragon ice cream - and the other choices were similarly wonkily picturesque. 


All in all, we had a really lovely time, as did my friend and fellow trencherperson the lovely Andrew, when he went off to try out Waku Ghin, one of the new celebrity restaurants in the Marina Bay Sands casino.  He had invited TLC and me to join him and his wife, the lovely Megan, but as Waku Ghin is one of those restaurants that serves slippy food (my regular readers - and probably anyone who has ever eaten a meal with me quite frankly - will know of my aversion to all things slippy, I declined).  Andrew's review of the restaurant follows:


We arrived at the second floor of the casino building to suddenly
realise that smoking is allowed on the pit floor (and I believe drinking
isn't--somewhat bizarre for a casino)...so the second floor balcony
where you enter the "celebrity chef" restaurants is very smokey.  Could
have been an interesting diversion peering over the balcony to see all
the people losing their money before entering the restaurant, but the
smoke was thick and a fair amount was getting in to Waku Ghin.

We got to the door and were immediately ushered in, although our table
wasn't ready so we waited at the bar area, which also happened to be one
of the five dining areas (more on that later). It took them too long to
realise we were thirsty and too long to get us the table and the "door
staff" were unimpressive generally...off to a shaky start.

Tetsuya was given a large floor plan for the restaurant...probably
bigger than he would have normally gone for, but he's made good use of
the space. It is split in to five different dining areas/separate rooms,
plus an extra area you withdraw to for desserts.  Each dining area is a
teppanyaki  style table, ie 4-6 diners all on one side of a very
expensive BBQ.  The good part of being in five separate areas is you
have a good chance of being away from the smoke...we were fine...but
you'd want to ensure you didn't have the table at the bar/front door.
The downside of the rooms was 1) small private dining areas means the
place isn't as vibrant (need to think about what kind of atmosphere
you're looking for), 2) if there's only two of you, you'll be at a table
with two other couples you don't know.  We were fine with this, but it
tends to mean that everyone is slightly quieter than they'd normally be.
Overall, a reserved and 'serious food' ambience.

The food was superb.  First three courses were raw.  Prawns to start (a
special kind from Japan...I didn't catch the name), then the signature
dish of sea urchin/prawns/caviar, then a confit of ocean trout (a play
on his Sydney restaurant's signature dish).  First two were fantastic.
I'm not normally drawn in to menu items that include the word "urchin",
but this was a winner. I knew that Waku Ghin tended to use the most
expensive ingredients available, and I was a bit concerned that they
were doing this to appease a certain clientele that likes expensive
things for the sake of being expensive...but the food created here
worked.  It just happened to be expensive.  The ocean trout was nice,
but the bitterness of the witlof came through a little too strongly for
my liking...stick with the Tetsuya's version.

Then they fired up the Beefmaster 8000 and the chefs started to work
their magic in front of us.  First up was lobster.  Couldn't fault it,
one of the standouts of the evening to me.  Then, unfortunately came the
bamboo.  Yes, bamboo. And this was the course that didn't really work
for either of us.  Luckily the next course made up for it big time:
potato mashed with truffle (and of course the potatoes were some kind of
rare exotic breed), with a hen's egg and more shaved truffle on top,
plus a good dollop of caviar.  I've asked that Rhoda start preparing
this for us at least once a week at home.

Wagyu, heavily marbled and cut/beaten into extremly thin slices and
then rolled on top of each other (a bit like how samurai swords are
made), was put to the flame and we were in heaven.  I think it was the
best beef I've ever had. Period.  Then they cooked up some more and we
wolfed that down too.

Flounder served in a broth with rice was last up and worked really well
(seemingly odd to have fish after beef, but it worked).

A green tea made from the young leaves of the plant, plucked by the hand
of virgins, gently brewed to 40 degrees Celsius, that used to be
reserved only for the Emporer was the palate cleanser before heading to
the dessert room.

There were two desserts: a play on strawberry shortcake (pretty sure
it's the same that they do in Tetsuya's in Sydney), and then a chocolate
mousse.  Both were great.

Overall, the food was perfect.  Great produce cooked to perfection.  The
courses were very well balanced and complemented each other and left you
feeling full but not bloated.  The only downside was the bamboo, and it
wasn't a problem, just not that special.

The wine list was extensive and not ridiculously priced (well, not by
Singapore standards at least), and there were options from $100 right
through to $20k.  With such a degustation, however, we wanted a range of
wines.  Happy to report they did a wine pairing which was very good --
better wines than used by Tetsuya's similar offering. And at $180 pp, it
was reasonable value.

Service, minus the initial welcome afforded by the staff at the door,
was excellent.  A good example was me ordering bread...I was starving
when we arrived and really needed something fast.  I asked for some
bread and they said they don't normally have bread, but he "was sure
they could arrange something".  They baked me up a batch pronto.  You
expect this in any other country, at this level of restaurant, but
Singapore finds this difficult.  Tetsuya was on deck himself and we got
the impression that a large number of staff were expatriated from Sydney
or elsewhere.  It will be interesting to see how the service holds up if
this changes.
Waku Ghin excited me like Tetsuya's used to when we first went there.
More recently Tetsuya's had become somewhere where you can get an
excellent meal, but you're unlikely to be 'thrilled' or 'surprised' by
anything.  I think he's gone a long way to reclaiming that appeal.

I rated Waku Ghin 18/20 which puts it in my top ten (behind El Bulli,
but on a par...for VERY different reasons, to the Fat Duck, etc).  The
staff at the front door, smokiness, wait for the table and bamboo left
Megan with no choice but to mark them down to 17/20.

Andrew is not yet a devotee of the haiku, so I shall use editorial privilege and provide one on his behalf:
Delicious food - if
somewhat slippy for my taste.
But beef to die for.

My kind of town

My regular readers will know that Singapore is my kind of town - well, my kind of city, island, state and country really, to give this wonderful place its due.  I'm conscious of the fact that I haven't shared very many pictures with you over the blogging years, but that is about to change.  I was lucky enough to have secured the services of an ace photographer a couple of weekends ago - the lovely Saffron, eldest daughter of the equally lovely Chris, so we took the lid off the convertible and went on a photographic spree around the sights and delights of Singapore, armed with a bagful of fancy lenses.

Those of you who have seen my own photographs, mostly taken with my trusty iPhone, will have gained some idea of what life is like here, albeit a blurry sort of idea, but this blog is now going high def!  Saff's new camera is a beast of a thing, a wonderful Canon digital SLR - so join me now in marvelling at its - and her - abilities.

View from the piano balcony 

First up, the divine Divine.  The Divine is a wine bar in the most amazing, art deco inspired building in Singapore, called Parkview Square.  The name does nothing to describe either the outside of the building or what awaits you inside.  The ground whole of the ground floor is devoted to the wine bar, which, as you can see, is a complete homage to art deco style.  The wine chiller is gigantic (it's the thing that looks like a huge church organ in the photo below) and is reached by a waitress, dressed like an angel, who is hoisted up to the right the right level to access the bottle of your choice.  Really.  I'm not joking. Honestly.  If you don't believe me, have a look at the video link below.  In fact, have a look at it anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75UWIVU4a6


If you live in Singapore, or are thinking of visiting the Divine make sure you go in the evening, as the flying angel waitress persons don't take flight till night.  As the ceiling is 15 metres high, and the wine chiller is 3 stories high, you may have to wait a moment or two for your drink to arrive.  The details are absolutely spectacular - like the bronze plaque at the bottom of this post.  Not surprisingly, the Parkview was the most expensive office building in Singapore when it was built as the last major project of a Taiwanese tycoon.  He wanted it to be imposing and monumental, yet stylish and elegant.  In my view, he succeeded on all counts.  Make sure you have a look outside as well, in the central plaza, on which a huge amount of attention to detail has also been lavished.  To my mind, this is more classical in nature and features a number of statues of famous people from the world of the arts, science and politics - Mozart, Dali, Picasso, Plato, Shakespeare, Lincoln, Plato, Dante and Einstein to name just a few.

The wine chiller

I'm conscious that It's been a while since I shared a film review with you in haiku form.  I've see a few movies recently (sorry, Steve, I quite liked Black Swan) but nothing reached out, grabbed me by the throat and insisted that |I review it in seventeen pithy syllables.  Last night though, I went to see Red Riding Hood - one weird film idea - which inspired me to comment.  So here goes. 

What were you thinking
Julie Christie, Bella's dad
Amanda Seyfried?

And there you have it - all that needs to be said on the subject.  Bella's dad, by the way, is the actor who plays the police chief in the town of Forks in the Twilight films.  And yes, Steve, I liked those too (apart from the second one, which was pants).

A few of my favourite things

It is Saturday morning and the lovely Chris is still abed, so it's just Lola and me, a cup of coffee and the chance to catch up on some blogging before he gets up.  I'm usually the one still zizzing at 7.45 on a Saturday, but not today, so my faithful readers will get the benefit of my early morning musings.  Lucky you.  In fact, you are doubly fortunate, as the PC on which I am writing was almost an ex-PC a couple of nights ago, when I managed to spill a glass of wine (a nicely chilled Kumeu River Chardonnay if anyone is interested) all over the keyboard.  Shock, Horror, Drama!  As it turned out, all was well, apart from the "c" key needing 24 hours' convalescence before getting back to work.  It's amazing how often you need to use c when writing and jolly irritating when you have no choice but to replace it with a k, thus making yourself look kompletely dyslexik, or else very bad at spelling.  Not sure which is worse.........


I'm sticking with my theme of Chinese New year for the first part of this post, and I also want to share with you some of my favourite places in Singapore - possibly even with a blurry photo or two.  One of the disadvantages of the iPhone is that it has a camera, so I never take the real thing with me any more when I am out and about.  Well, I say it has a camera, but it's not much cop really.  A positive blessing when you want a soft focus shot, but less effective when you're after some nice sharp definition or if you're taking photos when it's dark.   


The first is a picture of Yu Sheng (pronounced Ee Shung), which is a raw fish salad that is only eaten at the time of Chinese New Year.  I wrote about this a couple of years ago, but there was an article in today's paper which gave some new insights into its origins, so I thought I'd refresh the Yu Sheng story.  While the basic idea is Cantonese in origin, the dish is largely peculiar to Singapore and the story behind this is quite interesting - although it has very little to do with tradition and a lot to do with commerce.


Yu Sheng was basically the invention of four young chefs in the sixties.  They were having lunch at a hawker stall and saw the seller put together a dish (which sounds pretty disgusting when you read the description, but they obviously saw the potential).  The newspaper article tells the story like this:


"The four friends watched the fish porridge seller slices off pieces of swordfish.  On the raw fish slices, finely sprinkled with the black dust of vehicles driving by the Chinatown alley, the hawker scattered some chopped carrots and pickles.  He then drizzled some lime juice on it.  Customers then drenched the dish with vinegar,oil and sugar before slurping away.  There were houseflies swarming around the fish, and also smoke and dust because of the cars and motorcycles. It was bad ". 


It sounds hard to resist, I know, but as I said, they saw the potential, tarted it up and started selling it in their restaurant.  The modern dish still contains raw fish  - usually salmon, but sometimes jellyfish - and carrots, as well as julienne strips of bizarrely coloured vegetables, crushed peanuts, sesame seeds and little hollow square crisps, representing moneybags.   The whole thing is drizzled (I say drizzled, it's more like drenched) in oil and a sweet sauce, before being tossed using extra long chopsticks, with everyone at the table taking a turn, trying to toss the salad as high in the air as possible to the accompaniment of shouts of "Lo Hei" - an auspicious greeting. 


Yu Sheng is a big thing - not only on restaurant menus at New Year, but at all manner of formal dinners and official functions.  It seems that it has even been suggested as a Singaporean national dish - and all from such humble beginnings.  Apparently there have been attempts at a fusion version of Yu Sheng, by including pig's trotters, for example.  That is such a bad idea that I can't bring myself to say any more on the subject.  Well perhaps just one thing - Yeeurgh!

While I really like some of the components, I find the whole thing a bit sweet, so I'm tempted to try my own version, with lovely smoked salmon, shredded vegetables and crunchy things.  Watch this space for Yu Sheng reborn.


Some friends are coming to visit this coming weekend, so we will be introducing them to the delights of Yu Sheng at the Tanglin Club. These particular friends have been to Singapore before, but it was some time ago and they will notice some big changes.  One of the changes falls into my list of favourite things about Singapore - the boutique hotels that have sprung up over the last few years.  We stayed in one of them, the Scarlet, on Valentine's Day last year and we tried another of them, the Wanderlust, for Chris's birthday in December.  We took a room - it was called the Rusty Typewriter - and invited some friends for champagne and nibbles there before we all went down to the restaurant for dinner.  The restaurant is called Cocotte, and serves what it describes as rustic French food in a communal dining style.  This basically means that you can order large plates of things for the whole table - a bit like the way that Chinese food is served.  So, now to make you salivate; hopefully an easy task as the food was downright delicious.  We began with most of the starters on the menu - a bit like that scene in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere tells Julia Roberts over breakfast " I didn't know what you'd like so I ordered everything".  Talking of Pretty Woman, is it just me, or is that scene where she is wearing black undies under the hotel bathrobe and he hoists her up on to the piano keyboard one of the sexiest movie scenes ever?  It's in my top three.  The other two are the kitchen floor scene in 9 and 1/2 weeks and the one where Patrick Swayze  and Jennifer Grey dance together in his room before they go to bed together for the first time........


Moving on, and back to dinner (but that digression was fun, wasn't it?), we had:

• Homemade pork rillettes
• Pissaladiere
• Chicken liver mousse
• Fried tripe.  Well, obviously I didn't have any of this, given my food foibles, but those who did pronounced it utterly delicious. It was very un-tripey, which probably explains it, slow cooked until tender, dipped in breadcrumbs and then fried.  A sort of tripe goujon, I suppose.   
• Pig's trotters - thankfully served off the bone, and turned into little crispy medallions.  Again, not for me, but everyone else said "yum".
• Escargot gougeres.  Now I'm not normally a fun of the snail, but these were served as little profiterole sized choux buns, each containing a super garlicky buttery snail.  So garlicky in fact, that I suspect they were reared on a diet of garlic, and probably nothing else.
• Mussels in cider cream sauce

And those were just the starters.  We moved on to steak tartare - a tricky dish to eat communally, but we managed - the most glorious roast chicken I have ever eaten, roast pork collar, which was meltingly delicious and cooked in a creamy Dijon mustard sauce, beef Bourguignon and navarin of lamb - and then cheese, followed by a cholesterol test for everyone before they left the restaurant.  To be fair, we passed on dessert, but only because a friend had given Chris a birthday cake, which we managed to polish off with the coffee.   Here is a picture of the Wanderlust hotel, and one of me in the room taking a picture of myself in the mirror. I know that's a bit poncey, but it's a designer hotel after all, so I must have been channelling the vibe. 

More of my favourite things about Singapore in posts to come.  I hope this will keep you going for a while.  Thank you to those of you who wrote to tell me that my haiku on the prawn made them laugh.  Here's a haiku on hotels:


Just a place to stay?
Much more than that if well done
Like the Wanderlust.


A bientot.

More food for thought

Singaporeans love a bargain, and they love to eat, so the factory outlets that sell foodstuffs are pretty popular.  The lovely Chris and I are partial to a spot of fish, so yesterday we popped off to the Fassler outlet in Woodlands.  Woodlands is in the north of the island, very close to the causeway to Malaysia.  Woodlands is very different from where we live, in central Singapore.  Its development started in the seventies and it has grown into a huge neighbourhood, with lots of high rises, but also lots of green space.  It's not for me, but it is popular with a number of expats, because  the American school is there.  It was pretty popular yesterday too, but there wasn't an expat in sight, apart from me.  When we decided to go, I had forgotten that we are just 10 days away from Chinese New Year and it hadn't struck me that Fassler would be any busier than on a normal weekend.  What was I thinking?  Turning into the street should have been the first clue.  Fassler is one of a number of outlets in the same street, but parking is not usually a problem.  Yesterday though, there were coaches parked along the length of the street, which had transported hordes of Singaporeans shopping for their Chinese new Year dinner.  


Normally, I am in and out of Fassler in 15 minutes  - 10 minutes to shop and 5 minutes to pack and pay.  This time, though, there were 50 people in front of me in the queue and only two tills operating (double the number of a normal trading day).  Think Oxford Street on Christmas Eve.  If anyone from Fassler reads this, can I suggest you hire in some temporary labour for the run up to CNY?  


I was very tempted to abandon my basket and go home, but apart from the fact that it took ages to get there because our sat nav wouldn't play the game - it seemed to think we were walking there and kept giving us completely inappropriate routes - I needed some of the stuff I was buying to cook dinner that night.  So I stuck with it, got chatting to my queue neighbours and had as good a time as you can have when you are stuck in a queue for 50 minutes without a phone (I had stupidly left it in the car and I had no idea where Chris had managed to park), a book, or any stimulation apart from a basket full of frozen fish. 


The dinner, though, was a great success, so it was all worth it in the end.  We had prawn and pomelo salad  - a personal favourite - salmon fish cakes made with salmon belly, followed by Nigella's sticky chocolate pudding.  I'm not really a pudding girl, but this was dead easy.  It's the first time I've ever made it, but I'll definitely do it again.  Using salmon belly was a first for me as well, and it was amazing.  The belly is much juicier than the centre cut fillets I usually buy and it produced the yummiest fish cakes.  Once CNY is over, I'll definitely go shopping for more.


Here's a recipe to get your taste buds tingling:

Prawn and pomelo salad

• 1 large pomelo - I don't know how easy these are to find outside Asia, but you could try using a couple of pink grapefruit instead.  Keep the shells and serve the salad in them.
• 200g cooked prawns - peeled and de-veined.  I like to use big ones and chop them into 3 or 4 pieces, but leave a whole one for garnishing each serving
• a handful of chopped dry roasted peanuts.  You can use almonds or hazelnuts instead if you prefer, but it is important to toast the nuts in a dry frying pan to maximise the flavour
• a handful of chopped fresh mint leaves and coriander 
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot or red onion
• 3 tablespoons of Thai fish sauce, mixed with 3 tablespoons of lime juice.  Most recipes call for a bit of sugar in the dressing, but I leave it out
• 2 tablespoons of dry roasted grated coconut
• some finely chopped red chillis - as much or as little as you like

Make sure you leave all the pith behind when you get the fruit out of your pomelo (probably a bit harder with a grapefruit, but worth the effort).  Separate the segments out into little bits, with your hands or a knife, add everything else except the nuts.  Toss it all together and add a sprinkle of nuts to the finished article.  Enjoy!

My friend Steve is not a fan of the nut of the coco, and you can of course leave out the coconut if you like, but it won't be the same.  I feel a haiku in praise of the prawn coming 0n.

Strange little pink thing

Delicious with pomelo

And with mango too.

Food for thought

The New Year is off and running - halfway through January already - and the lovely Chris pointed out to me yesterday that I had not published a post since October. He's right of course, and while I was thinking "Easy for you to say", it did bring me up short and make me put finger to keyboard this morning.
You're probably thinking that I write a lot about food in this blog, and you're not wrong.  Well, we live in Singapore after all, and food is one of the two favourite national pastimes, the other being shopping, as demonstrated by the queues outside designer shops and the world's highest handbags per capita ratio (I'm guessing about that statistic, but it's probably pretty close to the truth).


On the food front, let's start with last night's dinner.  TLC and I were shopping near Orchard Road, browsing in Park Mall (one of Singapore's older malls, and very different from the new kids on the block, but full of really interesting furniture shops if you're interested in modern design) and decided to have dinner out.  There was a food court, as with all shopping malls, but it was Friday night and we fancied something with tablecloths, so we looked around and came across that rarest of eateries, a vegetarian Chinese restaurant.  Given my previous experience of Chinese vegetarian food, I was dubious, and a couple of  thoughts sprang to mind - it's a normal Chinese restaurant, but run by a vegetarian; it serves vegetarian food alongside the chicken feet; it serves vegetables - but I was wrong.  In fact, the Classic Lao Di Fang Vegetarian Restaurant, to give it its full name, was a revelation.  Nothing on the menu was made from meat or fish, although most things looked as if they were.  


We had three different dim sum to start.  The dumplings were delicious but the pretend pork in the barbecue pork buns was disappointing.  We also had vegetarian Peking duck, which was an interesting experience.  As we were munching, a thought flitted through my head, as thoughts are wont to do.  Why is it still called "Peking duck" and not "Beijing duck"?  


Among other delights on the menu were:

• Vegetarian fish soup
• Marmite with spare ribs (honestly)
• Shark's fin and crabmeat

and my absolute favourite - crispy suckling pig.  Excellent fun, but if you want really delicious vegetarian food in Singapore, head for Little India.  

The scene of the slime crime

At the other end of the food spectrum was New Year in France. France is about as vegetarian friendly as China, I reckon, but we did have a wonderful New Year's Eve dinner with friends in a restaurant called Gayda.  New Year's Eve is a big thing in France, with most people organising a great big dinner at home with friends.  The meal typically features oysters, as did the New Year's Eve menu at Gayda.  Bizarrely, given my horror of all things slimy on the food front, I'm pretty partial to oysters, but two of our guests were not, so I phoned up in advance to ask if they could have something else.  The staff are lovely, and told me it would be no problem.  One of our guests was French, and so not at all  fazed when the replacement for the oysters turned out to be duck tartare!  Our other friend decided to pass on that course, but the duck tartare got picked up by the rest of the table (apart from me) who pronounced it utterly delicieux.  The meal was fabulous, in fact, as was the whole evening.  Dinner was followed by dancing and when our taxi arrived at 1 am, we were the first to leave.  I must be getting old.........