Ramadan Bazaar

Living here in KK all these years, I've never been to Ramadan bazaars. I can't even give the reason why. Maybe it's because my parents never went to any and so we don't know what we miss.

My son Wey has more Malay friends than I do, since he went to an 'English' school, and they took him to the Ramadan (the Muslim month of fasting/feasting) bazaar in 1 Borneo a few weeks ago. That opened his stomach to ayam penyet and kuih muih and he came home asking why we never go to Ramadan bazaars. Since then, we've been to the Asia City bazaar three times and the Lok Kawi bazaar once. I prefer the Asia City bazaar because of the variety and better quality than the Lok Kawi bazaar, which was stinky and dirty and most of the food already packed, with tons of flies swarming around. In the Asia City bazaar too, it was flies galore and that took much of my appetite away. The heat was sweltering and just walking for 20 minutes left me  exhausted and drenched with sweat.


Chicken and beef satay.


Grilled sting rays.


Murtabak. I ordered one and it came covered with a sweet orange chili sauce that was awful.


A chicken curry.


Hinava, a local fish ceviche.


Rojak, a yummy Malaysian salad served with peanut sauce.


This was what we went to Asia City 3 times for. Nasi kerabu, the rice colored blue by the blue pea flower/bunga telang. Chili sauce, raw bean sprouts, long beans, bunga kantan, mint, daun kesom, fried grated coconut, half a salted egg and a mackerel stuffed chili made this an awesome dish of complex flavors and taste.


Laksam, a rice noodle dish from the state of Terengganu.


Ew-looking fish and coconut gravy goes with the laksam. Not exactly to my taste although I will eat it if I'm hungry.


Tempeh (where the hands are) is a delicious soya bean dish of Indonesian origin.


Roti John, something I've never eaten before and refused to try because smell of cheap margarine--I wonder which brand it is--made me shudder and nauseous.


Who drinks ICI paints?


Psychedelic ais kacang.


Unfortunately, these were tasteless because they were made with artificial coloring, artificial pandan extract and either little or canned coconut milk.


Puteri Ayu (Princess Ayu) are little pretty pandan-flavored sponge cakes with a rim of fresh coconut but these were bland, with hardly any pandan flavoring. What a pity that traditional kuihs have now become totally adulterated and awful tasting.


Kuih batik.




The following are photos taken at the Lok Kawi bazaar:


Wey had to buy the greenest ondeh ondeh in the market. The gula melaka inside was sourish, he said, and tasted of cough medicine. Serves you good I said.


Ayam percik. I've tried ayam percik, ayam penyet and nasi katok chicken and found katok chicken the best.


The vendor said this was Johor fish laksa, rice noodles with fish soup. It doesn't have as much spices and flavors as Penang assam laksa but it was tasty.

One more day before Hari Raya and 12 months before the next Ramadan bazaar...

Kuih Serimuka

Traditionally, kuih serimuka is green custard on top and white glutinous rice on the bottom but I've used blue pea flower to color the rice, making a nyonya kuih serimuka.

Kuih is a Malay word derived from the Fujian word kway for steamed 'cakes' made of flour (which can be wheat, rice, tapioca or glutinous rice), sugar and usually coconut milk. The flavoring is usually pandan leaves, an awesome ingredient largely unknown outside of South East Asia. Kuih are usually sweet but can also be savory. Economical to make or buy, kuih are eaten for breakfast and afternoon tea.

I found out recently that my son Wey loves kuih serimuka ('pretty face kuih') and any kuih made with gula melaka. Gula melaka is palm sugar and if you haven't tasted it, pity. Regular white sugar has no flavor but gula melaka has this awesome flavor I can't describe. Anyway, the only kuih serimuka I liked, make that loved, was Aunty Teo's. Nobody's kuih serimuka could compare. For that reason, I seldom buy kuih serimuka and never made it either because I thought I'd never be able to make one as good as Aunty Teo's.

But being a martyr mother, I wanted to surprise my son when he came home from school so I decided to make kuih serimuka one day last week. There are lots of serimuka recipes online but they couldn't be more different when it comes to the amount of liquid used to cook the rice. I followed Nee's recipe because the large amount of liquid used to cook the rice seemed more correct. I didn't realize until after making my kuih that the amount of coconut milk used to cook the rice depends on whether the rice is pre-soaked or not. I also made the mistake of using a large square baking tin which didn't quite fit properly into my wok so it took an hour and a half to cook the rice instead of half an hour. Despite the struggle to get the rice cooked, the kuih serimuka turned out fabulous--smooth, delicious and wonderfully pandan and coconut flavored--and I think Aunty Teo would've agreed.

 I never buy the kuih from the markets because the rising cost of ingredients has resulted in tasteless kuih made of artificial coloring and cheap ingredients. Sometimes home-made kuih are sold on foldable makeshift tables outside grocery stores and those kuih are not good, but edible. Just remember this. For the best kuih, you must use fresh quality ingredients. Don't be lazy or cheap. Use real pandan leaves, not color from the bottle. Get real gula melaka. You'll know when you taste it. Get freshly grated coconut. I go to the grocers and watch the guy grate my coconut. Then I come home and extract the coconut milk by hand. It has to be that fresh, and it makes all the difference. My son said my kuih serimuka is excellent, better than any he has eaten.  Of course, I said, you're eating quality kuih my boy. In my unbiased opinion (haha), this kuih serimuka is even better than Teck Neo's.

Last night, I came across this beautiful blog. Pickyin's photos and cakes are so beautiful that I looked at every one of her cakes. Twice, three times. She styles her cakes the way I like: simple, tall and elegant. Do check her blog out! Oh, my point is this. Pickyin cooked her glutionous rice in an electric rice cooker instead of steaming it. Now why didn't I think of that.

My recipe is adapted from Nee. I've changed the proportion of flours (and added cornstarch) to get a custard that is neither too chewy nor too soft (traditionally, the custard layer is soft).


Beautiful natural blue dye from the blue pea flower.


The blue color was so pretty I had to control myself from coloring all the rice blue.


Regular pandan leaves (left), new variety of very strongly scented miniature pandan leaves (middle) and leaves for coloring (right).


Okay, I think I had a bit too much chorophyll in the custard layer. The green color will deepen after the kuih cools, remember that.


United colors of Chartered Bank.

Kuih Serimuka 

Bottom Rice Layer
500 gm glutinous rice, washed & soaked 1 hour
500 ml thin coconut milk*
1 1/2 t salt
2 pandan leaves, roughed up by rubbing it with your hands (to release the flavor)
optional: 12 or more blue pea/bunga telang flowers

Note: *this amount is for steaming the rice. If using electric rice cooker to cook the rice, use enough thin 'second' coconut milk (because the rice will burn if the coconut milk is too rich) to cook the rice to el dente but not soft stage. If steaming, use a richer coconut milk by mixing 250 ml thick coconut milk and 250 ml water. This is a tip I took from Nasi Lemak's recipe. I used about 900 gm grated coconut (from 1 1/2 coconuts) and added about 2 cups of water to make the thick milk, then added more water to the squeezed coconut to make the thin or 'second' coconut milk.

1. Drain the rice and put it into an electric rice cooker with the bruised pandan leaves, salt and enough coconut milk to cover the rice to a level about 2 cm above the water. Cook until done. If steaming, use 500 ml semi-thick coconut milk for a richer flavor. I prefer to steam. You can fluff the rice halfway through steaming/cooking.
2. Make the blue dye by adding 3 tablespoons of boiling hot water to the flowers. Wait a minute, then crush the flowers with your hands and massage the color into the water.
3. Fluff the cooked rice, pick out and throw away the pandan leaves and spoon rice into a lightly oiled 9"/23 cm square baking tin for higher slices of kuih or 11"/28cm square tin for kuih of about 1.5"/4 cm height.
4. Spoon the blue dye over the rice in random spots. Use a spoon or potato masher (the hand held one with holes) and press on the rice firmly, to compact and level it.  Place the tin in a steamer, covered, and start the water boiling gently while you make the custard.

Top Custard Layer
800 ml thick coconut (400 ml thick + 400 ml thin coconut milk)
200 to 220 gm (I used 220) castor sugar
3 large eggs, beaten well
80 gm tapioca flour
50 gm plain flour
1 heaped T cornflour
6 to 7 pieces good pandan leaves + 6 pieces pandan color leaves*

Note: * Pickyin's tip on making pandan leaves. Cut the leaves into short sections (say 2"/5 cm long), blend or pound them until fine and add 3 to 5 tablespoons of water. Massage with your hands to release the color and strain through a fine seive. Let sit until the liquid separates into a top layer of dark green and a bottom layer of lighter green. Use the top layer only if you want a very thick and green custard, or add some of the second layer of pandan liquid.

5. Put the flours, sugar and coconut milk into a bowl, stirring until the sugar is mostly dissolved.
6. Add the eggs, stir well and strain through a sieve into a small pot.
7. Stir over very low heat until mixture just thickens and turns shiny. Don't cook until custard is too thick or the texture won't be smooth.
8. Pour mixture over the rice, level by shaking the baking tin and steam 25 minutes over low heat. Cool completely (a couple of hours) before cutting into small rectangular or diamond or triangular pieces  with an oiled knife or wet knife. Kuih is best served at room temperature and is best eaten same day or within 24 hours.

Hawker War

29/7/12


I just love the rain trees in Singapore. They are well-trimmed, healthy and everywhere, especially along pedestrian walkways and roadsides. It makes sense to grow large shade trees in wet, humid, tropical weather instead of palm trees which are more suitable for dry weather, such as in California or the Middle East. 


There's always about five feet of grass that separates the roads from the footpaths, and the paths are always shaded by big beautiful trees. In Malaysia, the footpath, if you are lucky there's one, is usually  right next to the road and illegally parked with cars.

Although Singapore imports all its foodstuff, the fruits and veggies are very fresh and of good quality. I was just talking with a friend who owns several grocery outlets in KK and he was surprised that blueberries in Singapore can be as cheap as S$2.99/RM7.50/USD2.50. Not just that, I told him, the punnet is bigger and the berries are also much bigger than the ones we get here, which according to my friend, are re-imported from KL. I love tropical fruits for their intense and exotic flavors but I love berries for their colors, beauty and flavors too. At RM16.90/USD5.50 per small punnet of blueberries, RM21.90/USD7 per small punnet of raspberries and blackberries (which have recently appeared in our supermarkets), I can't afford to make summer pudding, one of my fave desserts, unless there's a special occasion. Frozen berries are cheaper but just don't taste as good as fresh ones.






Tropical fruits.

It was our last day in Singapore and I made sure that Wey got to eat the crispy pork knuckle he had dreamed of for years. Western Food 85 used to be where Chai Chee Pork Porridge is but they are now at Blk 416 Bedok North Avenue 2 until next year when they will move back to where Chai Chee is, at 85 Bedok North 4th St.




Chicken chop. I didn't try this but it looked good and it was cheap, S$5.50/RM14/USD4.50 I think it was.


Crispy German pork knuckle.

We had two orders of the crispy pork knuckle, which I think was only S$12.50/RM32/USD10.20 each. All agreed that this was good, the skin crispy and wonderfully lard-scented but the meat was rather dry, which I suppose is not surprisingly since the knuckle was boiled and then deep fried.


Wonton noodles, only S$2.50/RM6.40/USD2!




Noodles with fish slices, a couple of Singapore dollars. A little too fishy for me.


Herbal bak kut teh.


White pepper bak kut teh.

We had bak kut teh twice this trip and found them insipid. The portion and meat quality are much better than what we get in KK though.

The Chief Minister of Penang was reportedly upset two weeks ago when Penang was ranked behind Singapore for hawker food. A wise woman would not get into this hawker feud but me being the opinionated me, let me give a fair--I am East Malaysian, unbiased enough?--comment on this issue. There's no way Singapore hawker food is better than Penang hawker food (shoot me). BUT at the risk of being stoned to death by the Penangnites (and I love Penang assam laksa and can live on it everyday, and char kuey teow too if I can eat it and not become a whale, and cendol and popiah), I've heard so many people comment after a trip to Penang that after three days, they start all over again eating the same thing they ate the previous days. I didn't find the variety lacking because I ate assam laksa everyday, but if you don't like assam laksa, what else do you eat after char kueh teow, nasi kandar and cheong fun? Otak otak, oyster scrambled eggs, peranankan food, roti canai and such can also be found in Singapore. Singapore's restaurant scene has expanded and improved so much you need to plan five meals a day to scratch the surface of their list of restaurants and stalls. My conclusion is that Singapore is many rungs higher than Malaysia for variety and quality of restaurant and fine dining places but for tasty hawker food, Penang reigns. Period. At least for now. Decades ago, Singapore's hawker food was better than Malaysia's. Remember People's Park? The difference between good and excellent hawker food, I think, depends on the condition of the kitchen. Slightly unhygenic chaotic kitchens and passionate local-grown cooks = excellent hawker food. There, I've made myself persona non grata in both Penang and Singapore.

Capella Lunch & Boon Tong Kee Dinner

28/7/12




Capella Singapore.

It was lunch at Capella Singapore, a luxury resort hotel on the tiny island of Sentosa just 15 minutes away from Orchard Rd. Because Su had an extended meeting and I had to be back to the city before 3 pm, we couldn't explore the resort at all, so maybe I'm not fair if I found the place desolate, the landscaping amatuerish and Norman Foster's renovation totally unimpressive. Which is such a pity, because the hotel sits on the top of a hilllock and walking around the grounds can give a 360 degree view of Singapore. If you go to their website, the hotel looks spectacular in the evening. It is funny that they call it a resort hotel and not grow more plants, especially since there are are many beautiful giant rain trees in Singapore. Even if the reason is to allow a better view of the city, there are many areas where lush plants and shrubs can  give the hotel the resort look.

Lunch was Chinese food served western style, course by course served individually instead of the traditional all-dishes-on-the-table style. At S$48/RM120/USD39 nett per person, it was agreed that the price was very reasonable for a meal in such settings. Everything we ate was impeccable and elegantly served, and I really couldn't fault anything. But. Chinese food served individually subdues the whole Chinese dining experience (can't think of a better word) . I guess serving the portions individually and elegantly to each person is the way to present meagre portions.  Big hunky portions would be so crass, so un-haute cuisine for high class hotels, I suppose.




The soup of the day was black chicken soup with Chinese herbs. Light, tasty and refreshing. 


For starters, we could choose 6 out of 10 dim sum on the menu. Everything was good (the open dim sum at 10 O'clock was so so) but for me, dim sum tastes better steaming hot from a bamboo steamer.




Crispy skin roated duck, crispy skin pork and  cold pork slices.

The meat main was a choice of crispy pork, crispy chicken, crispy duck or cold pork slices. I had the duck, crispy pork and cold pork. The crispy pork (middle of the photo) was excellent, with an elegant crispy skin akin to crispy suckling pig and the crispy duck was gorgeous, the skin crisp and the meat "almost like liver," said one of my dining companions. I've not had duck so tender that the meat didn't have a fibre texture. Was it cooked sous vide? If so, how did they get the skin so crisp? I wished I could have a second piece to sooth my surprised tastebuds but it was fine dining so no seconds. The cold pork slices were mediocre and could do with a splash of Shao Xin wine.


For carbs we had a choice of fried rice or yee meen and I'm a noodles person so yee meen it was. This was good, not as good as the yee meen I used to eat in Shatin, Hong Kong when my grandfather lived there but yes, it was good.


Dessert was a few choices again and I enjoyed my chilled steamed Chinese pear in a soup of kumquat, goji berries and osmanthus flowers. It reminded me to serve more refreshing desserts such as this instead of heavy creamy cakes and puddings.

Singapore is so small that our hosts could drive me from Sentosa Island to my bakery class in Holland Drive in 20 minutes on a Saturday.

The class was jam packed with more than 40 people, something I didn't expect. I thought I could have a hands on baking class. The lesson wasn't anything I didn't know but still, it gave me an idea of what baking classes are like now.




Holland Drive is very pleasant with many beautiful restaurants and a relaxed ambience. I'll definitely check the place out on my next trip.

We hadn't yet had one of my fave Signaporean food, chicken rice, so for dinner, we made our way by taxi to Boon Tong Kee in Katong. The ride cost S$16 and I thought that was quite a rip off because I didn't know which road to take when the cab driver asked. Are Sg cab drivers getting cunning, I wondered, because I've always found them to be the best compared to cabdrivers anywhere I've travelled.


Pork belly with preserved veggie, very tasty. Wey ate most of this.


Plain boiled chicken.

This is a tricky dish to rate. Su berated me for loving Singapore chicken rice. "The chicken's flavorless and we can get better chicken rice in KK." Oh I beg to differ. Yes, the chicken was flavorless, made good by the msg and soy sauce sauce, but it was tender and smooth and the skin was slightly el dente. The chicken was chopped evenly and of a good size, unlike the chicken shreds we get in KK. The rice was high grade rice cooked with less water to give individual grains coated with chicken fat and stock, unlike the wet broken cheap rice we get in KK. Su, next time we bump into each other in Singapore, I'm going to take you to Wee Nam Kee in Thompson Rd. The chicken will be whiter and more bland than Boon Tong Kee's and the sauce is totally msg but I can eat three servings because the rice is delicious and the chicken is super slippery smooth.


Chinese cabbage with mushrooms and dried scallops was yummy.

Hub must've been in Singapore too long because he declared the 3 course meal for S$46/RM117/USD37 meal for 4 persons "cheap".  

Teck Neo, Singapore

27/7/12



We usually judge a particular food against the first such food that we ate, don't we? Mee Siam ('Thai noodles') is not a dish that you find in KK and my first mee Siam was that made by my friend Linda. I love Linda's mee Siam and it was such a treat when she invited us for dinner and mee Siam was on the table. When Linda moved to Australia 4 years ago (time flies!), she finally gave me her mee Siam recipe but I've not yet muster the courage to cook the dish because it seems like a lot of work. Maybe soon. Maybe.

I'm used to Linda's dry mee Siam with dried shrimps and Singapore's version with an intensely sweet and sour gravy--and no dried shrimps--takes a bit of getting used to. Anyway, I'm so glad that AH and B brought us to Teck Neo, a family-run Peranakan restaurant located below a block of HDB flats. The restaurant is old-fashioned Peranakan quaint and there's a pretty al fresco area in front of the entrance that is very comfortable even in the hot humid tropical weather. If you are ever in the neighborhood, you must eat a meal at Teck Neo because the home-made Peranakan food is delicious and authentic, made by a Peranakan lady whose husband and son help run the restaurant. We tried as many kuihs as we could eat, and as many breakfast items as they had (lunch and dinner menus are more extensive) and all of them were delicious. However, I found the mee Siam too sweet but I put that down to my preference for dry-fried Malaysian mee Siam, and my limited tasting of the dish.


IMO, this was Teck Neo's best kuih and it was so good I bought some to go and ate another two for lunch. The grated coconut and dried shrimps filling was superb and the coconut milk scented glutinous rice, dyed blue by blue pea clitoria flowers, was cooked perfect, not too soft or too hard.


Sticky flour kuihs with mung bean filling. The 'skin' was soft and slightly chewy and the mung bean filling not too sweet. Tasted very home made so I ate it without any reservations. I usually dislike kuihs because of the amount of coloring and poor quality ingredients used.


Zhongzi.


Butter cake.


The taro cake was rather bland, lacking in taro flavor and toasted dried shrimps but again, it tasted home made and better than most commercial taro cakes.






Teck Neo's mee Siam is AH's favorite and while it was thick with gravy and a generous topping of boiled egg, fried bean curd boks and a prawn, I found the gravy too sweet.


This was tons better than Ponggol Nasi Lemak.


This fried tofu with peanut sauce was delicious; don't miss it.


I had a bit of B's mee rebus and wished I had ordered it instead. Yummy.

Teck Neo
 Blk 35, Teloh Blangah Rise, #01-303

We had lunch at Gleneagles Hospital because we visited a relative. The food court in the hospital would put all the hospital canteens in KK to shame.

I was able to finally get an hour to myself for shopping and guess who walked into the store where I was trying on a skirt? My friend Su, who was also in Singapore. She had walked in from Hyatt next door so we ended up having dinner at the Hyatt Club where Su was a member. The food was great but I was too stuffed from the snacks we had while walking on Orchard Rd.

After dinner, Su asked me to stay with her and I took the offer because I had a baking class to attend in the city the next day. Plus it was Club Hyatt's suite, so why not.