Happy 60th Birthday Singapore!

Today is the 9th of August and Happy 60th Birthday to Singapore!!

I believe there are plenty of congratulatory notes all over the place and many of us (thos who didnt go overseas) would be looking forward to the National Day Parade at Padang this evening. The weather looks good thus far (dont jinx it!) and the fireworks will be fantastic, based on the views from past many weekends of pre-shows.

Taking this chance to continue showing support for locally made products, especially our vegetables and eggs! NTUC has been running many promotions for both vegetables and other locally produced food. They continued with the one for one - eggs, but it seems to have stopped for a number of NTUC outlets. I found this one at the Serangoon Nex (but the place is terribly crowded, definitely not my go to weekend grocery shopping place).

Chew's One for One Eggs - NTUC

The vegetables are on promotion too! I found the Green Harvest and Phyotgreen ones (nai bai, kai lan and others). Green Harvest offered free dou miao for any 2 packs of other vegetables bought. Heh our locally produced vegetables are pesticide free some more.

Well, not just locally produced vegetables and eggs, but we have plenty of other celebratory offers, including local favourites like chilli crab and durian flavoured food. So not surprising that fast food restaurants started with lots of chilli crab promotional food. I like the chendol flavoured ice cream cone from MacDonalds, and the chilli crab sauce seems authentic too.

Mac $1.30 Ice Cream Chendol Cone

Mac Chilli Sauce

So yup Happy Birthday once again Singapore! And looking forward to many many years of peace and prosperity for this Little Red Dot!! :)

Yours truly,

Little Red Dot Diaries

Luckin Coffee Available at NTUC

 I was somewhat surprised to see Luckin Coffee beind sold at NTUC. Heh nope not the normal version at the Luckin shops, but rather the different instant mix version. Even the Coconut flavour version (I thought unique and seasonal?) is available - per box of 9 cups being sold at $10.90 (discounted from $11.90). Not a bad thing but I wouldnt feel that uniqueness (or should I say experience) of getting a Luckin coffee via such an instant mix isnt it?

Luckin Coffee Coconut at NTUC

I can understand why Starbucks x Nespresso capsules work for some (me included) because all you want is a traditional coffee made quickly at home, i.e. an instant "cappuccino". Whereas the Luckin coffee experience is a different one - one order from their app prior to reaching the store with different vouchers to offset the price plus getting some varied flavour of the month. The latter would not be offered via a box of instant mix.

Oh well, who knows, maybe there are as many varied coffee drinkers with different preferences who might like it. Besides Coconut flavour, the mix traditional black coffee version is also available at $9.90 for 8 cups. Nope I didnt buy either - would still buy from their shop instead.

Luckin Instant Black Coffee

I think normal grocery food items being packaged with known brands is a thing - so while I was looking for that Demon Hunter Instant Ramen (not available yet), I came across this macadamia mixnuts with the Netflix brand instead. Maybe give them, i.e. Netflix, another month or so to get that spicy ramen flavours in all three versions right, and we would see them in stores all over. Heh with likes of Saja Boys' Your Idol topping the US charts, I think the related KPop Demon Hunter merchandise should be something made widely available soon.

NTUC Netflix Macadamia Mixnuts

More Eggs Promotion (Not Just Chicken Eggs) from NTUC

We eat eggs every day, from the half-boiled eggs with kaya toast to omelets and eggs fried into our fried rice. And it is a good thing that we started to have more supermarket promotions about eggs in this climate of increasing cost of living. The buy 2 and free 1 promotions seem to be on-going and I am glad. Buy 2 Get 1 Free extends to Chew's and Seng Choon. Rich or poor, eggs still form an important protein source for us and it is good efforts to keep the prices affordable.

Singapore imports large quantity of its eggs, supposedly more than 70%, from Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, and now even Poland, yup eggs air-flown from Europe. Not sure why though but it is a good thing that we diversify our food sources, especially for such an important ingredient like chicken eggs. Of course, beyond chicken eggs NTUC started running promotions for quail eggs too ($0.50 off for 2 packs purchased). I wonder if they are locally produced too.

Quail Eggs Promotion

We do have local farms for example names like Chew’s and Seng Choon although I wonder where does NTUC source its Pasar branded eggs from. Since the Pasar eggs are placed next to a sign with SG logo, I assumed they are locally produced too.

Besides eggs as a success story, hopefully the efforts to grow our vegetables farms can bear fruits one day, and we could continue to have access to affordable vegetables. Heh basic staples should be kept affordable.

See also:

- Support Local - Buy locally produced vegetables & eggs

Luckin Coffee Payday Best Day Promo

I'm starting to be a Luckin Coffee fan due to the many promotions that they have been running. Just had their Payday Best Day promo today with 2 cups of coffee at $8. Quite a good deal actually. Had an Yirgacheffe Latte (1 of their Black Cup series, i.e. special coffee) the other day, and tried an iced caramel macchiato on Friday. And yup I've already used that $0.99 promo previously. :)

They have many vouchers so honestly each cup of coffee is not expensive. Heh I can't get a kopi-o at $0.99 easily in town.

Yirgacheffe Latte from Luckin

Caramel Macchiato

Considering the many varieties of coffee that they are offering, I would get to try different flavours and not get bored. This month it is the Iced Minty Coconut Latte but nope I didn't try that. I might do that over this weekend if I "run into" another Lukcin Coffee outlet. lol. Other than the varieties, the ease of ordering (before you reach that outlet) with a pick up, scan and go, makes it really convenient for those in a hurry. 

I like the non-coffee stuff that Luckin Coffee is offering too. The strawberry Daifuku is nice and soft, just a bit small - one mouthful type of treats. Oh well that is at least something to go with the coffee. 

With as many as like 60 outlets in Singapore, I guess Luckin is doing well here. Nope I am not paid in any way by them, but yup I would continue to use their promo vouchers. heh.

Strawberry Daifuku

Cured Egg Yolks (Homemade Salted Eggs)

It is that time of the year where we have some extra time to try out new things, and heh generally the beginning of year is a good time for new stuff. So I have decided to make some cured egg yolks after watching those YouTube video cooking recipes.

Indentations in salt for yolks

The process seems a simple one - packet of salt and some sugar (I didnt add any spices since this is my first trial), And of course EGGS! There were a number of hyper market promotions about chicken eggs, so the cost of eggs is bearable enough to waste a few eggs on a new trial.

I poured the salt and sugar mixture into a plastic container, made two indentation and keep some of the mixture to cover the yolks later. Originally I wanted to make 3 cured yolks, but I over-estimated my skill of sifting the yolks and broke 1. So I have two nice yolks to cure instead.

Broken egg yolk

Cover the yolks with salt

Put the yolks into the two indentations and gently cover them with the remaining mixture. Gentle is the word because I wouldn't want to break yolks now, or the entire container worth of salt, sugar and yolks would have to be discarded.

As per the instructions from those YouTube videos, I put the container into the fridge for 5 days (the timing varies it seems but 5 days looks like a reasonable period). The cured yolks were a bit gooey and still looked somewhat uncooked. The colour is a nice orange amber like shade. So I baked the yolks in oven for a short while under low heat.

Baking the yolks in oven

Cured Egg Yolks (pre-baked)

So are the cured egg yolks tasty? Well, they tasted like the normal salted eggs that we can buy from the hypermarkets - i.e. those cured duck eggs that we used for porridge and mooncakes. Thus for a substitute that I can get for about $0.60 per egg, I think this is too much trouble. Maybe some day I will add some other spices and perhaps the cured egg yolks could be used for say, fried rice instead. Hmm.

Singapore will have more vegetables farms but less fish farms

So coincidental that the day after I posted the blog post about Supporting Locally Produced Vegetables, the Straits Times ran a few articles about local vegetable farms. The first article is "Local farms push ahead with international collaborations to further Singapore's 30 by 30 plans", starting with how Mr Webster Tham of Tomato Town is collaborating with Japanese companies to grow cherry tomatos. They were producing kales and lettuce as well. The article mentioned other companies in different state of developments.

I guess it is only natural that a non - agricultural country like Singapore, would look towards collaborations with agricultural companies for advanced agricultural techniques and sustainable practices. These collaborations should help our farmers improve production efficiency, with resilience against pests (not sure what insects in tropical Singapore eats tomatos), and innovate e.g. vertical farming.

Then there is this other Straits Time article that push innovative concept of farm to table dining for Singapore. Article is about a copany Artisan Green, who wanna implement sustainable farming practices with a dining venue, plus some tours and workshops to raise awareness about the benefits of local agriculture and sustainable eating. Not sure if I want to at right in the middle of a farm in humid Singapore weather. Tried wine tasting and dining in Australia, but that is against a nice beautiful scenery plus great weather.

Oh well, worth trying I guess.

But more importantly back to the 30 by 30 concept, I think it is also great that we try not to waste food, i.e. this 30 by 30 is afterall trying to build some resiliency locally for food consumption. And if we can waste less food, I think it works too! So it is great that we have apps and initiatives to cut down waste, for example article about this app to promote retailers selling discounted food near closing time. I really dont mind getting bread and pastry at a discount near the stalls' closing time, since I normally eat the bread for breakfast the next day anyways (i.e. dont need to buy the bread at an earlier timing).

So yes! 30 by 30, and less food waste!

By the way, vegetables farms seem to be working well, but the fish farms are suffering. The linked article showed that a quarter of fish farms are closing / had closed down in Singapore. Tough life for fisherman.

Support Local - Buy locally produced vegetables & eggs

I was buying my grocery at the NTUC Fairprice when I chanced upon their marketing banner to urge the shoppers to buy locally produced vegetables. Heh the locally produced vegetables are typically priced higher than those from Malaysia or China. I recalled there was a government initiative to sustainably produce 30% of our nutritional needs by 2030, i.e. that "30 by 30" programme, see this "Our Food Future" website. So I guess there is some reminder and support by NTUC Fairprice for this government food initiative. 

Support Local Food Supply - NTUC Fairprice

I am all for supporting local initiatives! Although to be honest there were only a few boxes of locally produced vegetables at the NTUC Fairprice. There is limited variety produced given our weather and limited land supply. I saw some packs of Xiao Baicai and Caixin hua. Sometimes I wonder how our local vegetables farmers can survive given there is not enough scale for their production nor could they compete in terms of pricing against the farmers in Malaysia or China. Yes I bought a pack of the Yili vegetables. I hope there would also be some form of government support for these local farmers, e.g. for some of the government events (e.g. those involving food and such), the organisers should also source from these local farms.

Vegetables from Yili

Further down the shopping aisle I saw this other promotion. This time the promotion is about Chew's Eggs, and great it is another local producer of food! The promotion is a lot more attractive this time round - Buy 2 trays of eggs and Get 1 Free tray. Essentially this translates to about 33% discount if the shopper buys 3 trays of eggs in total. Given all the concerns about food inflation and such, naturally this deal would be attractive to shoppers.

Chew's Eggs - Buy 2 Get 1 Free

Personally I think we could do more to support local producers of food. It was quite sad to know our local farmers (and fishermen) face many challenges when we know (or should know) food supply is a very key ingredient for our national security. I believe the price of chicken hasn't dropped since supply has been restricted from our neighboring country - the few pieces of chicken on our hawker chicken rice is honestly quite pathetic.

This was especially stark during the COVID period when everyone was worried about our food supply. I remembered that shelves were empty and the many shoppers frantically just grabbed any food that they could find. Now that COVID is over, I think our planners should at least pour in more resources or help to make sure the "30 by 30" programme succeed. Hopefully local enterprises like NTUC Fairprice could also help these local farmers (say local commission?).

Amazing Starbucks at Home Capsule Sales for Black Friday

Black Friday sale is often a time to buy coffee related items, including capsules that I used for my Nespresso machine. I usually hunt for the coffee capsules on Lazada and of course this means getting all the vouchers and planning the purchase process. 

The purchase was quite seamless, and I'm amazed at how fast the capsules arrived at my place. As usual, we would add the different combinations and such to the cart by Thursday evening. Straight after mid-night, and entering the actual Black Friday itself, I selected and cart out the purchase within 30mins, i.e. 1230am 24th Nov. Below is a pic of my selection that included the seasonal special of Starbucks' Toffee Nut.

Selection of Package on Lazada.

Amazingly I received my package this evening (Saturday evening), i.e. a short span of less than 2 days  (including a Saturday) from placing the order around 1230am Friday to the receipt of the package by Saturday evening! With the different discounts and such (price above was before vouchers discount), I've paid only $74.89. This worked out to be $6.24 per tube of 10 capsules, which is way cheaper than usual price at marts.

Starbucks Coffee Capsules & Mugs

Above is the picture of the package, nicely packed and with the 2 freebies of Starbucks Festive Mugs. I will try the Toffee Nut selection by tonight and see how it goes. The packers are quite careful with the fragile mugs, and they were actually wrapped tightly in bubble wraps. See the picture below.

Starbucks Festive Mug

2021 COVID Year 2 Just Flew Past (with bread making & basil planting)

 As we welcome 2022 with brighter hopes, I was looking back at the last two years and wonder how they just flew by. Two years of many changes, not just due to COVID. Nonetheless it was also a good time to reflect and try new things (at home) for new experiences.

COVID ART Test

Basil Planting

I have never been a green thumb and most of my plants died regardless of how much attention I gave them. So it came as a big surprise when my Lemon Basil plants grew with many green leaves. They did grew up somewhat "bent" instead of straight but heh they grew well! One of the basil plants even flowered! These little white flowers do look quite pretty and I look forward to seeing the basil fruits. Not sure how they look like though.

Basil plant with flower

Bread Making

I was surprised that I actually enjoyed making bread. I didn't have much hope of making good tasty bread when I first started. Indeed my first bun actually felt more "scone-like" rather than the normal bread texture. I think it is an issue of yeast control. I didn't let the bread dough rest enough.

Scone-like bread

The second attempt was not much better, although the bread buns gave a slightly more "bread" feel to it. It felt wasteful to throw them away so I ate some.

For my third attempt, I used a bread tin and followed the recommended timing for the dry yeast to do their proper job. The humid warm weather in Singapore does not create the best environment for bread making. The recommended 1 hour of dough resting in the room "temperature" is meant for those temperate climate with 25 degree Celsius I guess. At the 30 minutes mark, the dough had risen too much that I hastily put the entire concoction into the fridge to cool it down. 

The texture is much better compared to the earlier buns versions but honestly speaking still not good enough. Again the control of temperature and timing for yeast in bread making is critical.

Heh but with many failed attempts, I think I got it right on my fourth attempt! Letting the bread dough slowly rise in the fridge for more than 2 hours helped in the bread baking. This bread finally "tasted" like bread, and the crust gave that satisfactory "crunch" when I bite into the slices. The crust was a bit too thick because I left it in the oven longer to 'brown' it. I should try other methods next time.

Sliced Bread

After the fourth attempt, I tried making one with chocolate. The bread came out fine but the chocolate taste was not sufficient. Ok I guess practice and efforts are the basic ingredients for bread making. At least this side hobby is one good thing that came out of this dreadful COVID pandemic.

Stay Safe!

Breakfast @ Cheng San market - Bee Hoon (和發) & Coffee (天天茶室)

Many moons ago, it was during one of the rare occasions that I had a weekday morning off and I decided to pop by the Cheng San market for breakfast. The Cheng San market is located at Blk 527 Ang Mo Kio Ave 10, quite accessible if you drive and exit from CTE AMK Ave 5 exit.

I tried the 'Fried Sotong Bee Hoon' from Hwa Huat 和發 (because 1 key aim of visiting the Cheng San market is to try the coffee next door) and I was pleasantly surprised by how good and cheap the bee hoon is. The uncle would fry the bee hoon on the stop, i.e. hot delicious breakfast instead of pre-cooked portions. I added a Soon Kueh just to top my breakfast quota. 

 

和發

Of course for coffee I had the kopi from Everyday Tea Stall - 天天茶室. They were featured in the TV programme before, where the uncle (seen in the photo below) was commenting that he suffered from backaches due to long hours of making coffee. Nonetheless his coffee is damn good (for hawker fare) and there are often queues. 1 chap who was being interviewed even said that he would buy extra to keep in the fridge, so that he could enjoy the coffee when he couldn't come to the Cheng San market to buy from 天天茶室. Being a typical hawker fare, the mug is just a nice flower-design mug, i.e. not those nostalgic looking cups from the more famous kopi chains.

天天茶室

天天茶室 Uncle

天天茶室 Kopi 

So for those who have the morning off, and would like to try out good local hawker fare, drop by Cheng San market for a little culinary adventure. :)

Bak Chor Mee - Seng Huat Coffeeshop @ Hougang

Ever crave for bak chor mee at unearthly hours, say near mid-night? Well if you do, you could travel to Hougang for a bowl of yummy bak chor mee at the Seng Huat Coffeeshop! It is located straight next to Hougang Mall and right opposite the HDB office. Parking (for those who drive) is plentiful with two open air carparks nearby, and those who prefer the public transport could take the MRT to Hougang.

Seng Huat Coffeeshop Bak Chor Mee

Well I visited at slightly better hours, about 8 plus pm on a weekend and there are just about 6-7 customers in front of me, i.e. not a bad queue. The bak chor mee has received many awards and won many praises among the food connoisseurs. There are quite a number of articles and the owners put them up as plaques at his stall.

We tried both the bak chor mee (actually it is dried kway tiao) as well as the fishball noodles. Adding the anchovies to the noodles gave a nice crunchy texture, and the different ingredients were cooked just nice (unlike places where the liver is over-cooked). Sauce, i.e. the chilli and vinegar, is well balanced and brings out the flavour of the bak chor. Perhaps I had too high an expectation about the bak chor mee, and thus I would say it is good, but somehow didn't meet the high imaginary oomph standards that I had in mind... the curse of being famous I guess.  

Surprisingly though, we find the fishballs way exceeding our expectations. The texture / feel when you bite into the fishball is addictive and you would guess immediately that these are hand made fishaballs. Good size and great taste! So I guess I should amend my opening paragraph slightly... when you have cravings for fishball noodles at unearthly hours, do drop by Seng Huat Coffeeshop!

Pondok Laguna - Jakarta Seafood

Having traveled to Jakarta fairly frequently over the past year, I've had a chance to eat at some of their local favourite food haunts and one of these good seafood places is Pondok Laguna. The address is Jalan Batu Tulis Raya No. 45, Gambir, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta 10120. It is not difficult to get to the place; all the cabs know the place fairly well.

Pondok Laguna Jakarta

As you can see from their signboard, the fish is a popular dish at Pondok Laguna. We ordered two types of fish dishes, the 'flying fish' or deep fried fish prepared in such a way to display a 'flying stance' (see picture below) and the normal (but just as delicious grilled fish). Personally I like the grilled fish compared to the deep fried version but the deep fried version is the traditional Jakarta style cooking, a must-try when you are in Indonesia. When the fish is deeply fried, it is a bit harder to taste the freshness of the fish (or maybe I'm just too particular).

Pondok Laguna - Flying Fish

Pondok Laguna grilled fish

Of course, other than fish dishes there are many other seafood variety available. We had the grilled prawns and I like both the size of the prawns, as well as how the prawns are seasoned / prepared for grilling. For Singaporeans who took pride about our local crab dishes, do give their black pepper crabs a try. Those who like spicy crabs will love this dish.  In term of spiciness it is a tad too spicy for me, but I guess that could be the effect of taking too many different chilli dishes that night, including sampling from that chilli paste presented on a small stone dish.

Grilled Prawns

Rice is served local style where you scoop as much as you need from the basket, and yup other than those dishes described above, we had other stuff as well (some fried tofu(?) and vegetables). We completed the dinner with the desserts - an ice ball with thick coconut milk surrounded by avocado, coconut flesh and atap seeds. Sweet, sinful but completely worth it. So for those looking for authentic local fare in Jakarta, pop by Pondok Laguna and try out their seafood. 

Pondok Laguna - dessert