Musings

Matt isn’t a stranger to seafood here in Singapore: there’s an entry he wrote for our blog here more than three years ago tucking into Jumbo Seafood, with photographic evidence to boot. This time round, Matt was taken to seafood dinner by Tchung and Jasmine on Sunday – and that restaurant that’s named after a certain English footballer, “Owen Seafood”.

This restaurant’s a pretty popular spot among Singapore foodies (the Foo clan at Lentor is no exception). One of the really special things about this restaurant, or the place it’s located at rather, is that the seafood comes live and off a multilevel bazaar comprising huge water tanks. Basically, you pick which critters you want for dinner, and half an hour later, voilà – they’ll be on your table, all cooked and ready for you to tuck in. Some of those critters are freakin’ big, as in mutant-size huge. I wonder are they really open for sale and consumption, or are those really just intended as museum artifacts LOL.

No complaints about the food too: it’s as good as ever. We had chili and black pepper crabs, coffee pork ribs that were so good we ordered a second plate of, minced beef toufu and other veggies.

One thing though: the place, or heck the entire Turf City, looks a little rundown and in dire need of a major renovation effort. The pictures turned out pretty alright though on Matt’s D90 DSLR, coupled with the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8. Great lens, tack sharp wide-open.:)

The extended Lentor branch of the Foo clan had our birthday event for my dad at the Majestic Restaurant, located at the newly renovated The New Majestic Hotel along Bukit Pasoh street in a very quiet spot and tucked away from the normal bustle of Shenton Way. The restaurant is headed by an award-winning chef and serves up Cantonese cuisine. According to parents, the restaurant has actually been around since the 1960s, and is quite famous among the older generation.

Dinner was a pleasant affair. The restaurant itself was pretty packed with – surprise – mostly Caucasians, but the 13 of us were hosted in a private function room, with the 7 item menu comprising several of the restaurant’s signature dishes – including its Roasted Spring Chicken marinated with Chinese Wine and Steamed Sea Perch with Sake Sauce.

Hannah was pretty well-behaved for most of the event, though at about midpoint, a mini-crisis took place when she overloaded her diaper with pee while I was carrying her, and it seeped onto the polo-shirt I was wearing LOL. Ling fed her tiny bits of dinner too, and she seemed to enjoy the sea perch especially.

And the family photo. Hannah didn’t want to look up, so here’s the best we could manage.:)

Another change at home since Hannah ‘popped’ 8 months ago has been cooking at home for the both of us. Before Hannah, we’d typically home cook perhaps 3-4 times a week. Since June last year, Ling very rarely cooks dinner anymore since she’s already occupied with Hannah’s milk feeds and in the last 6 weeks solids too.

Ling’s normal ‘free’ window of time at any given moment these days is about 1.5 hours. Hannah’s fed every 3 hours. It takes about 30-45 minutes to feed and burp her, 15 minutes to wash and sterilize her bottles post-feed, and between 15-45 minutes to prepare for a feed, depending on whether it’s milk or solids. And that’s not counting the time for sudden feeding mishaps, baby laundry etc.

So, these days it’s the man of the house who feeds the wife, though I must clarify that my repertoire of what I’ll whip up is really based on my entire value system when it comes to meals. And that value system comprises just one rule: Any meal that takes me more than 45 minutes to whip up is not worth the effort.

When I cook, timing is everything, i.e. I project exactly what time we start eating, then work my cooking and prep time back from there. And that timing’s always spot-on. If one goes into my kitchen, you’ll see a picture of someone who’s honed a small range of recipes to optimum efficiency. Carbonara? Time from reaching to the kitchen counter and having that plate of pasta on your table is exactly 25 minutes. Stir-fry vegetables with rice? Exactly 22 minutes. Green curry? Exactly 40 minutes!

In contrast, Ling takes her time during the months when she did whip stuff up in the kitchen. She’s more an artiste than I ever am – she cooks for self-edification, I cook to feed, factory-styled. Unfortunately, that also meant that our meal times were frequently out of whack. When she says dinner would be served at 6:30 pm, we’d be lucky if we got to eat at 7:30 pm!

In any case, I haven’t been doing quick curries for nearly a year now, but just recently got back to it in view of Matt coming by to stay with us later this month. Have to practice and get my touch back. Here’s Malay-styled chicken curry courtesy of paste from NTUC. This was done in 30 minutes from the moment I stepped into the kitchen and walked out with the pot and bowls of rice. Paste called for nearly enough ingredients and meat to feed a family of 4, but I cooked just for two persons – which made the curry super potent.

Litmus test: Ling said just now she prefers what I whipped up to Lentor mum’s similar LOL.

We haven’t had a nice family dinner – not counting brunches at Swensen’s – for the three of us since the wedding anniversary last November. So, last night after work, we drove down to Hougang Mall to compensate.

Most of the restaurants in the mall are clustered around one side of level 2, but the lots sure change quickly. Over the years, there’s been Vietnamese food, Cafe Cartel, and Thai Express – but all of them moved out and got replaced by other restaurants.

The lot formally occupied by the latter was under renovation for several months, but was recently reopened as a Shabu-Shi Buffet restaurant. For about $18.90++ per head, it’s a free-for-all on a conveyor belt. Not that I was too interested in most of the items on the belt – I was really just there for the tempuras.:)

Anyway, Hannah was well-behaved for half of the dinner, interacting cheekily with the wait staff and even a couple of patrons from the Ichi-ban restaurant beside Shabu-Shi (the two restaurants are separated by a low glass partition). From midpoint onwards though she started grumbling, which put some level of stress on the both of us as we had to finish up dinner double quick and take turns to pacify her.

Took a couple of pictures though. Not of the food, but of our darling girl. Yeah – she was groping for the food whenever we carried her.:)

Apart from spending most of the New Year on assembling the new PC and also cleaning up and refreshing the old one for Ling, we were at two events with family on the New Year day and the day after too.

The first was at a Teochew restaurant at Robertson Quay, reviewed here. Great food, and as Ling remarked, the restaurant had a very homely feel to it in its decor and also the way the dishes were prepared and presented too. Hannah behaved very well too, didn’t fuss when each in the family took turns to carry her, and even took special delight interacting with her cousins. Here’s Hannah with Jasmine and Danyel, and having fun with her aunt’s sun glasses.:)

The second dinner was already planned for the same New Year day, but we were unsure if Hannah was going to be able to adjust well to heading out for two events in town on the same day so asked Josh – Ling’s brother – to arrange it for the January 2nd. Dinner was at Thai Express, and here’s Hannah again sandwiched between me and Josh.:)

Josh taught Hannah how to blow raspberries, and it took just 5 minutes for her to learn. She blew raspberries non-stop in the car when we drove home. Video evidence to come soon.:)

Well, that’s enough of Kumamoto and Japan for the time being now, until I start working on the HD video footage maybe, well, next year. There’s a string of other posts I’ll like to make over this end of year Christmas period, including for a couple more films we caught on rental and also Blu-ray, and of Hannah.:)

Another hang-out place that we checked out on Tuesday afternoon was the (relatively) new Tampines1 mall, just directly opposite the existing Tampines Mall. The place boasts a slightly more unusual mix of shops aside from the usual mix of Bata, Popular, Breadtalk, McDonalds and KFC staples though it’s still nothing like the couple of spanking new and glossy huge shopping malls along the Orchard Road that just opened a few months back.

One restaurant we’ve gone to twice now has been the F.I.S.H. restaurant, operated by the successful Fish & Co. franchise here. The ambience is good, seating comfortable – and there’s a salad buffet there that we both really enjoy. We like the service standards too, and the salad buffet was just about SGD12 per person with the Tuesday 20% discount.

That’s Hannah playing with the Specials Card, and already looking as though she’s interested in ordering items off the menu.:)

This restaurant is also special for the both of us as we had the same salad buffet on the 5 June – Ling’s last ‘lomatik’ outing before Hannah popped the very next day, and unexpectedly earlier too.:)

Friday evening was the last day in which dinner was complimentary from my hotel.

Dinner last night was exquisite as always though the restaurant wait staff were terrifically busy as there was a small wedding reception hosted in the restaurant too. The married couple were dressed in full traditional costumes, with the bride looking exactly like what you see in paintings – magnificent hairdo (though from my end it looked suspiciously like a wig), a huge kimono; and several of the guests were also in Japanese-styled suits and kimonos too.

Their reception table was partitioned off, though I managed to just take one picture of the happy couple (won’t post it here though).

So, coming back to dinner; it started with a very interesting long porcelain plate of appetizers:

Then raw meats: was that beef I ate…?

Then Japanese-styled meat balls:

Can’t remember what the name of this is: but it’s kaige something something!

And finally the main course (didn’t take pictures of the dessert):

It’s just incredible: I’ve had six evening of Japanese fine dining, and none of the dishes on each evening were repeated. Just goes to show the huge variety of cuisine here. Though at this point I’m already getting a little tired of Japanese cuisine. It’s delicious, but right now I’m already dying for roti prata, roti john, char kway teow, bak chor noodles etc.!

So, for tonight’s dinner I’m wondering: shall I go back to KFC / MacDonalds…? :)

I’ve remarked on this blog here that Restaurant Matsuri at my hotel enjoys a magnificent view of the castle both by day and night.

I haven’t been able to show pictures of this from within the restaurant itself so far, as I’m usually just rushing out of the hotel each early morning to make the 7:40 AM train, and the restaurant itself only opens at 7:00 AM for breakfast every morning – and that’s not counting the 18 minutes it takes for me to walk to the train station itself. Breakfast, in other words, for all my teaching days is a mad rush.

Still, my Thursday activities started an hour later than normal yesterday, so I managed to enjoy a more leisurely breakfast that morning, and also take a few quick pictures. Most mornings I get to occupy my usual table, which is a nice private spot at the corner of the restaurant with a great view of the castle and it near the breakfast spread too.

The other picture below is a HDR composition merged from 5 pictures, taken from the balcony garden beside the restaurant. Yep I had to step out into the freezing cold for a couple of minutes, put the D300 on bracket + high-speed drive mode exposures, fired away, and ran back into the warm restaurant interior.:)

Boy – am both I exhausted but glad too that my toughest day of lecturing completed this evening. There’re still two more days of lectures to deliver, but the two topics today were the hardest to teach in compressed mode. Fortunately, my Japanese students took to the lessons gamely and it was a unreserved delight teaching interested learners.

Dinner was still at Restaurant Matsuri, with the wait staff the same team as yesterday. I’m guessing they’ve got different day shifts on roster or something. The dinner sequencing was different from the last several days too. Rather than have one dish arriving slowly at a time, this time round, 10 minutes after sitting down, this tray landed on my table:

Yep, everything came at the same time. I wonder why the change. Maybe perhaps they felt that since this poor guy is coming into our restaurant looking very tired every day (after work) and all he wants is to eat and go back to his room, let’s just plonk everything on his table and let him rip.

Or maybe the head waitress concluded that Japanese fine dining is lost on this obviously-non-local guy who has no clue how to truly enjoy Japanese cuisine, so why bother.

Either way, while dinner was as delicious as before, in truth I was really too tired to enjoy the meal anyway. Lips were numb, throat was dry and my legs were aching. So, I finished dinner chop-chop, then mowed through this exquisite dessert like I was eating cheap Magnolia ice-cream…

… in double-quick time, then zombie-walked back to my room to do up this quick post, and look through tomorrow’s lecture materials before turning in.

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Tomorrow’s agenda is going to be a little different. The college is receiving visitors from the other national colleges around the country, and the guests are interested to see this collaborative teaching arrangement between my institution and their national colleges. So, I’ve been asked to do a presentation, meet them and talk about what we do in Singapore; and they’ve asked to sit into my lecture too as I teach the Japanese students too.

And oh yes also; I’ll be brought out to dinner tomorrow by my Japanese counterparts. Not sure if it’ll be polite to take pictures of everything that’s put on my table but I’m going to assume it’s not. So, sorry folks: you’re going to have to just read about it tomorrow.:)

I conducted the second day of the intensive program today comprising lecturing and workshop activities, with the day starting at 0830 and ending at 1800. Since the season is winter here, at 6 PM the entire place is pretty much pitch-dark and about what what we’d normally experience at 9 PM in Singapore.

Add to that that this morning and evening was bitingly cold. All of a sudden, my normal cotton fabric short-sleeve shirt, business pants and a normal jacket wasn’t nearly so adequate anymore LOL.

Dinner at Matsuri Restaurant was exquisite again, though I noticed that the wait staff this evening was a different team (more on this later). I’d prepared a list of Japanese phrases I wanted to try using. Among them was for English tea, as I wanted something hot with milk in it. Green tea after six hours of teaching with freezed-up and numb lips is sooo not a good idea. So, I asked for one, which the wait staff readily understood.

Then, the appetizers arrived, starting with…

… which was boiled fish served with a sort of egg-white liked substance. Then…

… sashimi was next. The sashimi was sliced incredibly thin – I wonder what kind of knives were used – and served with two sauces. Next…

… which I really liked. It’s a sort of braised pork that’s cooked till it’s very tender and soft, and served with condiments. I was really surprised by the fourth appetizer:

… which reminded me greatly of Italian cuisine. It was served on a large clam shell, with melted cheese, scallops and broccoli. Amazingly delicious! Then the main course:

This we see in Singapore widely, with every Japanese restaurant and eatery-wannabe dishing it up. It’s tempura.:)

And check out this dessert:

It’s flavored ice-cream, but the decoration looks even better! :)

The dinner however ended on a very slightly negative note. I think the English tea I asked for was considered off-complimentary menu, so I was charged an additional 450円 (SGD7) for it. I thought that was strange, because whenever I am seated at my table at the start of dinner, I’m shown the beverage menu and asked what I’d like. And while I can’t understand the Japanese characters in the beverage menu, I recognize the price numbers, and they look dreadfully expensive. I thought I’d just order something modest.

The bill processing by the wait staff this time was also more business like this time, and not quite with the warmth I’d experienced with the other team from earlier nights. And no, this time no one walked me to the lift lobby either. Maybe they were a little irritated that I asked for something unusual, and they had to quickly send a runner somewhere to find this obviously non-Japanese guy English tea!

Oh well. Next time, I’ll just ask for ice water.:)