Bugis Street in London!

There is a Bugis Street in London! Nope, it is not a street named 'Bugis' but rather a promotion of Singapore's food in London. There is this hotel (operated by our local CDL) Millenium who offers Singapore (and China) cuisine and adverises the whole event as Bugis Street.

I took a look at the menu, and I must say most of the food names look authentic, except for a few like 'Bang Bang Chicken'. Is that Ayam Penyet? Lolz. Nonetheless I would not pay 5-8 pounds just for fried noodles or nasi lemak. There are many different food to try in London and I can give this 'Bugis Street' a miss. Other than these two signboards, you can actually see other promotional posters in the London Tube (i.e. MRT).

Since I only had a short time there, I didn't have time to explore London proper but took short walks instead. There is this shop along Portebello Street selling interesting signboards and postcards. The street is somewhat touristy and offers small items to passer-by. One shop was selling a mix of items like tea leaves drainer, paper weight...etc at rather cheap prices, and a tourist asked about the origins of the goods. The owner replied that he got it from those shops which gone bankrupt. Hmm, the impact of financial crisis.

Oh, nearby Portebello Street is a house where George Orwell used to stay! He wrote Animal Farm, among other great works.

Of course, when one is in London, one should visit the famous mouth watering roast duck place, and I will write about it in a coming post.

Loving Hut @ Parklane: good vegan food

Today I had my dinner at Loving Hut, located at Parklane. The place serves good vegan food at quite reasonable prices. They had laksa, noodles, 'rainbow' friend rice... etc. The general deco is alright with two big LCD playing videos about vegan food, but there is lack of seats and I think at meal times it will be crowded.

A bowl of laksa costs $4.80, and the serving is pretty decent, with yummy gravy and ingredients that don't make the meal feel like it's a vegan meal at all. They added in mint leaves for the gravy, which gives it a unqiue flavour. Here's a picture of the laksa. For those interested in having healthy (yes, just skip the laksa and take other dishes), do give Loving Hut a try.

Teo Guan fish porridge @ Haig Road market

There are many good food to be found in markets and hawker centres. In these economic trying times, good value for money meals are especially welcome.

One such stall is Teo Guan fish porridge located at the Haig Road market. It seems they have won some awards in teh past (the two certificates shown in the picture).

The fish slices they served are fresh and succulent, while the soup is tasty without MSG (or I didn't detect any). They also added in sea weed, and a bit of 'bian yu' (flatfish) in the soup to give the soup more flavour.

I ordered both the porridge as well as the noodles, and both are equally satisfying. Prices are about $3plus, typical hawker centre prices. If you are dropping by the area, give Teo Guan fish porridge a try!

煎年糕 - Fried Rice Cake from Chinese New Year

Every year after the Chinese New Year period, there will be a lot of Rice Cakes (nian gao), i.e. 年糕, and we always look forward to eating the fried rice cakes. Rice cakes or 年糕 are typically served during Chinese New Year because it symbolises good luck for the new year due to the phonetic resemblance to the phrase '年年高升'. Traditionally the sweet rice cakes is also served as a worship item to the Kitchen God during the eve of the Chinese New Year, since the sweet sticky paste will stick to the mouth of the Kitchen God, and thus when he reports about that particular household activities for the whole year, only sweet things will be said.

For fried rice cakes, we have to wait for weeks before the rice cakes hardened sufficiently to be fried. Here's a picture of these rice cakes, properly cleaned and dried.

Well to fry them, we need to cut them into smaller pieces of about 5cm by 3 cm. The thickness of the rice cake pieces is up to individual preferences I guess, but try to keep it to about 1cm thick.

Eating fried rice cakes plainly is not as fun, and many people will also add in sweet potato and / or yam slices to give the dish the crunchiness feel as well as lessening the sweetness of the rice cakes. Sweet potatoes are root vegetables, and they need to be cleaned thoroughly before cutting them into pieces of similar size with the cut rice cakes.

The cut rice cakes and sweet potato pieces are dipped in flour batter so that they will stick together when fried. Slight coating of the batter will do or else the flour batter becomes a thick outer crust that spoils the taste of the dish.

Viola, now the pieces are ready to be fried! Those who have rice cakes at home, do give this dish a try. The dish is quite filing though, and best serve with chinese tea or other drinks to 'wash' away the oiliness.

Home cooked winter melon soup

Nothing beats home cooked food, especially charcoal boiled soups. One of my favourites is the winter melon soup. Cooked with pork ribs, dates, wolf berries, and dried baby scallops, (aka conpoys) the soup tastes delicious after a few hours of slow simmering over the charcoal fire.

This soup often completes a meal by itself, since there are both meats (pork and scallop), and vegetables in it. A whole bowl of soup is quite substantial actually, especially when one adds in a bowl of rice. In cool rainy days, i.e. this few days, this soup is particularly satisfying.

My Vinyl Records & Turntable

Anyone still remember these vinyl records? They were the main medium for music from the 1950s to the early 1980s, before cassette tapes, Compact Discs (CDs), DVDs, MP3 etc replaced them. I was cleaning my room and found a stack of them, containing memorable music from a long time ago!

It is pretty exciting to see so many vinyl records, some from famous artists like Teressa Teng and the Eagles. I can still remember listening to Hotel California track from the vinyl record when I was young. Back then such medium were considered more superior compared to radio music, since these records were often played using good hi-fi systems. Due partly to ignorance, I think I scratched a few of them when I placed them on the turntable.

Feeling pretty excited, I brought these to a friend's place to try the records since I knew he recently bought a turntable. Somehow the music no longer sound as great as I remember them. Perhaps the technology development is such that CDs and DVDs are indeed the better medium to store music. Actually I still have the old turntable from long time back, but the 'reader head' is spoilt, and I'm not sure if it is worth the effort to find a replacement. Oh well, I will stick with my CDs instead.