Hotpot for Lunar New Year

A Friend and I decided that we would do lots of beef for the Lunar New Year hotpot this year.

 

No less because we'd discovered this new hotpot place somewhere along Tanjong Katong Road, but more so because we wanted to go ballistic and have the celebration of chicken, pork, beef and fish for the occasion. (Hey, we're no more in the olden days where meat was scarce and we needed to ration it out, are we?)

 

What we really ate at the hotpot place, however, turned out to be four portions of beef, one portion of pork, no fish, no chicken and no vegetables at all.

 

It was a deliberate choice- a plunge we took after having happened to look across at the table next to us- and seeing how beautifully arranged their slices of raw beef were. The decision was to either take less beef and have the vegetables, or to have all beef, no fish, no chicken and no veggies.

 

Us being us we conquered took the latter- and conquered four portions for our meal.

 

And well we did, for served at our table were four rectangular plates of thinly sliced raw beef, each rolled up and arranged prettily. The meat was fresh, really fresh, and that- I think- made all the difference. Elsewhere with other hotpot meals we might have chucked all the meat into the pot and let it boil on its own, but here, no, couldn't be done, simply because the slice was too thin, and the freshness made it a necessity to go elegant shabu-shabu style. It became necessary for us to pick up each slice with our chopsticks, dip it into the soup, stir it around a bit, watch it cook, and then and only then put it on our dish and eat it.

 

Slice by slice by slice that's how we worked through the four plates.

 

And it was good. Even the combination sauce of sesame sauce and sesame oil topped with coriander and Chinese parsley blended well with the fragrance and homely taste of the meat, and took none of it away.

 

Same it was with the perfectly shaped handmade pork balls that we balanced on our ladles and dipped into the soup. That same homely taste, that tenderness of the meat in the balls, all of it came together well for our meat-dominated meal- never mind that the raw balls came presented to us on a serving dish that had a wide-eyed (porcelain) doll dressed in period costume. (!)

 

Perhaps what I dearly loved wasn't just the food, or even the collagen-rich soup.

 

What I loved was how the deliciousness of the food, and the way the meal was done slowed down the pace of our meal. There was no rush. There was no hurrying to and fro. The restaurant was quietly occupied, it was a fun experience, and our entire eating experience became remarkably tranquil.

 

Far from the noisy, festive vibes that we might have had in other places, this one, was what we needed, and yes, what I cherished, enjoyed, and loved.



Lunar Year @ Home

 

Tis' the way we do our Lunar New Year reunion meal at home, and interesting it is too, for there is love, there is effort, there is celebration, and not only do we get our traditional favorites, we get to experiment with (new) dishes too.

 

Like the spicy meat dish that we had this year.

It was a surprise. Generally we tend not to do spicy stuff for Lunar New Year (chili sauce and chilies not counted) but this year it was decided  that a little bit of chili a la Sichuan style would provide that extra kick to our traditional favorites, so out the dish came, in a special pink platter that we only use for special occasions.

  

And it was thought that more vegetables would make the meal much prettier, tastier and healthier, so for this year we had an abundance of lettuce, plus an abundance of cherry tomatoes. I particularly wanted more of the yellow tomatoes, and The Parents kindly obliged.

 

There were mushrooms- button ones- which we broke tradition and dipped with Thousand Island coz The Parents felt it sort of balanced out the East and West.

There were the fish balls- the fried ones- for the element of fun, which was what we really wanted, coz equality is important to us, and The Family being a small one, what were we going to do with one of those huge steamed fishes, tell?

Our reunion dinners have grown more unconventional as the years go by. For some, consistency may be the key, but for The Family, being together is all that matters, and whatever we do, just so long as we break no traditional rules, hey, that's fine.

Reunion meals become more of a surprise, and thus more enjoyable as well. It's like, you won't know what it is you will get for the year, you won't know what to expect and so we all go with the flow. It can be cuttlefish balls and mushrooms together on one plate for one year, and it can be specially ordered roast duck for another. On one year we can do bottles of Fanta orange (for nostalgic purposes) and maybe a tub of ice cream, on another, we can do pink guava juice and Thai sesame cracker rolls.

But there'll always be the familiars and the favorites. There'll always be a citrus fruit somewhere (coz we all want the Vitamin C and the 'gold'!), we'll always have the dong dong dong qiang festive music blasting through the player, and we'll always have the flowers, the snacks, the red packets, and the siew mai.

Because dim sum is pretty much a Cantonese thing, we're Cantonese, and because I have a special thing for steamed siew mai. 

Year of the Boar

 

 

We're well into the Year of the Boar, yes I know, we're three months away from the Mid Autumn Festival, yes I also know. but since I did make a trip to the bazaar at Chinatown during the season of Spring this year, and since I've got the pictures, well, might as well plonk them here, eh?

 

After all, who doesn't love a festive looking palette of pictures?

 

That's one thing great about being Chinese.

 

We can talk about our pinks and reds and cheongsams and qipaos and chinoiserie and peonies and chrysanthemums like anytime.

 

Year on year I make a special trip to Chinatown during the season for the celebratory atmosphere, and to capture the scene. Some years I get there in time to take plentiful pretty ones. Some years, like this one, I get there in time just to inch my way through and grab as surreptitious a picture as I can. 

 

Whatever it is, the atmosphere is one that I'm there for- and never once has the spirit of the bazaar failed me.

 

It doesn't matter which side you begin from. Whether you're starting from Pagoda Street, Temple Street or Smith Street, whether you're coming from the Eu Tong Sen Street side or the South Bridge Road side, either way you're going to pass by the signature stalls, and the ubiquitous ones.

 

There are some that you will most certainly not miss.

 

Like the jellies stall.

 

Of which I have no pictures this year because I'd arrived in the afternoon and the stall was packed with people jostling about with plastic bags filling them up and I couldn't get a nice, colourful panoramic shot.

 

Neither could I get a shot of the sacks of red melon seeds, black melon seeds, green melon seeds(!), walnuts, groundnuts, roasted groundnuts, milk groundnuts, garlic groundnuts, pistachios and so on. There were lots of people at the stall- some buying, some sampling. I did get a few samples of the garlic groundnuts and the milk groundnuts though.

 

Samples are one great, great, great reason to come to Chinatown. 

 

If you ask me, their generosity with the samples highly contributes to the fun. Tourists love it- they get to try some of the festive stuff without needing to expend their wallets. Locals love it- we get to exercise our kiasee side in a legit way. And even if you're there in some sort of mood, their upbeat moods and cheerfulness will set you smiling anyway. 

 

The jelly guys are lovely with their samples- whichever place their stall is at, you'll spot their scissors working overtime as they dip their hands into the chiller box, snap a jelly in half and hand it out to eager, outstretched hands. It's often a game for me to see which flavour I get. (Plum is my oft received one- plum and mango) Then there are the mochi guys, the seaweed cracker guys, the mushroom guys, the melon seed guys, the soybean milk (from South Korea!) guys, and the pineapple tart guys.

 

It works; I've seen countless purchases being made simply because of these samples. One year I bought the soybean milk (even though I'm not a fan of soybean) because I liked the taste and I wanted the bottle and okay, because it was from Yonsei. Then another year I got the pineapple tarts from the stall because they tasted good even though I have my regular place for purchase. But even if I don't get from this stall this year, I usually get it another year.

 

That's what I do with the dried persimmons that are a family favorite.

 

I would have loved to spend a longer time there this year, but I couldn't, so this year I did a quick run between the gao lak (roasted chestnuts) stall, the dried persimmons stall, the décor stalls, the candied fruit stall, the lap cheong stall, the cookies stall, the flower stall, the sweets stall, and the piggy toy stall.

 

I'm already looking forward to next year.

 

But first, Lanterns and Mooncakes!

Jerusalem: A State of Mind

I behold a city on a hill

A nation torn by war

But in that place

Adonai says

His Grace has been poured forth

 

Shalom Jerusalem

Messiah will come

HE'll wipe away your tears and pain

Rejoice, Daughter of Zion

 

I behold a people who

Are waiting for their Lord

For HE will come

With trumpet sounds

As nations watch in awe

 

Shalom Jerusalem

Peace be within your walls

Yeshua will return to reign

In majesty and power

 

When we see the Son of God

Descending from the clouds

HE'll be arrayed in light

Shining glorious and bright

On you, Jerusalem

How interesting it is that it should take me so long to realize that the "Jerusalem" in this song need not necessarily mean the literal city of Jerusalem, but can also mean a frame- or state- of mind.

I think I should never have found it out, had it not been for the depressed mood that I was in, had it not been for the panic attacks that I was experiencing, and had it not been for the tiredness and the fear that consumed my heart and mind.

For all of eleven years that this song had been sitting in my iPod playlist, I had always assumed that it was a spiritual prayer of blessing to the city of Jerusalem in the Land of Israel, for after all, this song had been released by a megachurch on our shores around  twelve years ago in 2007, and the church was known for taking members on Biblical trips to the Land.

Yet when I heard it again (as a remixed version) this time, all of a sudden it dawned upon me that Jerusalem wasn't just the city that physically exists in the Land of Israel.

It was me.

It was me- I was "Jerusalem"- in soul, and mind.

Everything came so clear. Yes, it wasn't just the city that had been torn by conflict and terror. So had I. It wasn't just the people that were waiting for their Messiah. So was I. And neither was it just the city that needed peace within her walls. So needed I.

I needed peace within me.

Plenty of it.

For not only was I a "nation torn by war" , not only was I the "people waiting for the Lord", it hit me that- in my mind and soul- I was truly inhibiting the conflict, chaos, tension, tumults, fear, exhaustion, tiredness and terror the same way that Jerusalem (as a city) had had for the longest time, and till today still did.

I was torn, inside out.

There had been panic attacks.

There had been fears to face the day.

There had been uncontrollable tears.

There had been wishes to drift happily into eternity.

But I never fell asleep at night and woke up in Paradise. And neither did I fall so down the line that I couldn't keep my day going- even if during it all there was this consistent, never-leaving sense of tension, exhaustion and fear.

Which was where this song brought me more than just a new understanding of "Jerusalem".

It brought me the reminder that yes, I needed "peace within your walls", that "Messiah will come", that "He'll wipe away your tears and pain". that "Yeshua will return to reign" and that "grace has been poured forth".

I still cry a little when I hear this song. Not as much as I used to, thankfully, because there are some things that just wont' lie- a Promise being one of them- and so since such Promises are good, faithful, covenantal and true, well, as a "Daughter of Zion" I'll learn, and try, despite the annoying presence of the chaos and conflict, to live, do something with the s*** and "Rejoice". 

Laksa Hotpot

 

This place- located at a row of shop houses in the northeast at the junction of Upper Serangoon Road and Boundary Road- came recommended.

 

Highly recommended- in fact- because (someone) wanted to have laksa hotpot, and the previous place elsewhere had been pricey, awkward and short of stellar.

 

The soup is of utmost importance when it comes to laksa hotpot.

 

Have a baseless, bland, watery concoction that tastes like something salvaged from the seasoning packets of instant noodles and I'm not going to ever turn up again. If I'm going to risk getting body heatiness for dunking all that meat in soup, you can be sure I want my soup to taste good. 

 

Thank goodness the soup at this place is way thicker, tastier and overall better.

 

They might have used the base (for all I know and I wasn't going to ask) but at least it was thicker, and didn't taste like they had dumped a ton of packet seasoning into a pot of water.

 

We were careful with our selections. Laksa offers one a very distinctive taste when it comes to food pairings, and you won't really know what goes well with the flavour until you cook it and eat it.  A fail safe is seafood- fish slices or prawns or fish cakes or fish balls- but meats like beef and pork can go pretty well too.

 

Beef slices took the bulk of all the meats for the day and we took a couple portions of pork too. There was going to be chicken, but then we decided that since there was har cheong gai (prawn paste chicken) on the menu, we'd go for that instead. The beef was good. The laksa didn't overwhelm the taste so you got the beef, and you got the spice plus coconut and all.

 

Seafood would most certainly have been a better choice but because I didn't want to fill up on fish balls and cuttlefish balls (even though they're an absolute fave of mine) so skipped out on them instead. Wait, maybe I did take one, or two fish balls... or was it the cuttlefish balls....?

 

There were the vegetables- of course- one can't do without vegetables when it comes to hotpot- and the portions included seaweed, cabbage, mushrooms and corn. Why I chose the corn I have no idea- couldn't taste anything with all the spice going on- but cabbage and seaweed went perfectly well with all the chili and the coconut. I love cabbage with hotpot. The veggies get all soft and mushy and slurpy with the soup. And it doesn't matter what soup base you have, dropping in lots of seaweed will grant you the distinct umami taste adding just that bit of oomph to your food.

 

Of course, one mustn't forget the dipping sauces. Hotpot in Singapore tends to grant you the usual sauces of chili, fish oil, soy sauce, more chili, salt, sugar, sesame seeds, peanut sauce, sesame sauce, sesame oil, chili flakes, spring onions and parsley. Here they had all of these, and so I took a bowl of sesame sauce dribbled with sesame oil and a handful of parsley.

 

All in all it was a fantastic meal. 

 

The serving portions were adequate, the buffet portions were nicely presented and fresh, we had drink selections of bottled oolong tea, soft drinks, and/or lime juice, they weren't stingy in their quantity and variety, and there was dessert in the form of ice cream.  Cookies and cream it was for me (tasted a lil bit funny though), chocolate for my Co-Diner (much wiser a choice, honestly!)

memories of the Girl

Lying here on the bed day on day, spending a good amount of time staring up at the fluffy white clouds drifting across the sky, Miss Brown has had a lot of time to think. 

She doesn't contemplate a lot.

 

She's not the sort.

 

But there are the memories- and eighty years is no short time. Still, it is the last fifty that keep coming to her mind, and it is the last fifty that she keeps chewing over, and over, and over.

Had there been nothing that she had not done for this girl? Had there been something that she could have done more, other than what she had already done? What went wrong? What had not been done right?

This was a girl whom her birth parents had rejected and thrown away because she was believed to be a jinx. This was a girl whom nobody- not even her first foster family who returned her to her birth parents- wanted. The reasons for their rejection of this child, Miss Brown remembers no more.

She only remembers her barren state, the taunts, and the insults she received from the viper-tongued women in her husband's family.

She had wanted a child. 

She had so needed a child. 

And then this little girl had come into her life.

Barely six months of age, the baby grasped her outstretched finger tightly, trustingly, and didn't let go. 

This one gesture from a tiny baby spoke volumes to Miss Brown. From then on it was sealed in Miss Brown's heart that this child wanted her, needed her, and would never let go of her. They had merged into one, baby and barren lady, and they would be together for life.

This little girl belonged to her, and her alone. She would forever be her daughter, and Miss Brown would forever be her mother. Nothing would separate them. Nothing would come in between them. They would be together- for life. This girl was hers to keep.  

And she gave the girl what she could.

A new name, an education, a family.

Everything the family had, she shared with her. She strived to spend time with her, even moving out from the extended family's shop house to their own flat just so mother and daughter could have their own time without the interference of the rest of the family.

They brought her on excursions to Malaysia. They brought her to excursions to the beach, and to the parks. There were many places that they went together as a family, so many that Miss Brown cannot remember.

But it is the day to day that she recollects in flash snippets here and there. The girl at home in the flat. the girl in her school uniform, the girl and her talking, birthday celebrations, meals eaten together, doing the grocery runs together, they going to the wet market together, family visits during the festive occasions, the girl playing with the rest of the children at the shop house....

Day on day...

There are photos of them together, many of them. There is one of them standing on the sandy beach together. Another is of them at a kelong. There are photos of them at a park during a family excursion where they are sitting on a picnic mat surrounded by boxes of food. They are smiling. Then there are the photos of them on a family trip together. She, in her pink dress, casually leaning against the rocks, with Miss Brown perched daintily on the rocks further up.

Would she see those photos again?

Or had they disappeared the same way the girl had now disappeared?

The Mitten

I've not written about Miss Brown for some time.

 

The last time I wrote of her was when I described how she'd knocked on the door of her daughter's new, rented place for answers only to find out that her daughter called the police for harassment upon her.

 

She's still in the Home.

 

And although she can be doing happier, she's still doing well.

 

I say happier, because being happy is a choice, even if it is not one of the easiest decision to make when you're eighty years of age and sitting in a geriatric chair watching television surrounded by strangers whom you never prepared yourself to meet.

 

Neither can one find it an easy choice to make when you wake up day on day not knowing what the day will bring, except for the fact that you're going to have a bath, have breakfast, have your right hand slipped into a huge mitten, and then walked over to the chair where you'll sit (for more or less) the entire day watching the local television channel.

 

Sure, Miss Brown didn't quite lead a very active lifestyle prior to the Home. She was more of the sedentary, homebody sort who would not leave her house unless there was an errand she had to do. But still, she does find herself trying to get used to the not-so-new arrangement.

 

Which generally encircles around THE MITTEN.

 

She HATES the Mitten.

 

No one will remove it for her.

 

The clinical nurses won't. Her caregivers won't. The in house doctor won't. And as she recently found out, neither will the doctor at the clinic whom she regularly sees for her medication.

 

They say it is because she scratches herself too hard.

 

They say it is because she doesn't know her own strength and has scratched herself until her skin breaks and she bleeds.

 

But she doesn't know why she itches. Neither does she really know her own strength. You can't gauge for yourself unless there's a method or something. She just knows that if she's unable to lift one hand, she will want to use the other to achieve the goal she desires, never mind if it draws blood. She's not afraid of the blood. She knows she won't bleed out and die. At most she'll get an infection of sorts, and well, maybe, IF it gets serious enough to get an infection... there might be that chance for a re-work again.

 

Better than sitting down here with no other purpose or goal so unlike what her caregivers used to have her do.

Tea @ Marriott

 

 

Very rare is it, I tell you now, that I will put the hobby of picture-taking over the necessity of filling up my empty plate (albeit strategically) when I am at a buffet.

But on this particular afternoon at Crossroads Café, I actually made a quick run for the camera before reaching for a plate.

Because I so happened to begin the exploratory round of the buffet spread at the dessert section- and the sight of all these kueh kuehs, rainbow lapis and sliced cakes so beautifully arranged on their serving plates caught my eye.

And since I already had the camera, I decided I'd try to take pictures of everything else in their still-neat, garnished glory.

I made it as far as the sandwiches, chocolate fountain, salmon sashimi and the prawns before deciding that it was time to whack the chicken satay, the fried chicken wings, the sayur lodeh and a bit of chye tow kuay. Trust me, it was a very brown looking plate.

Crossroads Café at Marriott Tang Plaza has been one of my favorite places for high tea, buffet style, for a very long time. There's something about their warm ambient lights, their table arrangement, their staff and the entire atmosphere that makes the café a lovely, conducive place for a team of two, or a party of ten. 

And for someone like me who loves a blend of cuisines wrapped within a single meal (typical kiasee Singaporean lah), Crossroads has a high tea offering that fits my palate.

On one hand you have the smoked salmon with the toppings of sour cream that is not very sour, and slices of lemon. Then you have the sushi maki which I think consists of plenty of Californian maki. Of course there is the salmon sashimi with soy sauce and wasabi and which we usually go for. Here they slice the salmon sashimi really thick, so it actually does fill you up.

The cooked food sections are interesting. You've got a bit of Indian cuisine- for some reason there's always prata and chappati with curry and butter chicken. Then you've got the hint of Indonesian where there's satay, sayur lodeh, fried chicken wings and a little bit of red meat stew. Then there's the hint of Mediterranean where there's couscous, pasta, barley and on this day, steamed white fish pieces in pesto sauce. Over on the other side, separated by the dessert section sits the local and Chinese offerings. Local offerings vary, at one time there was char kuay teow, at another there was chye tow kuay, but always- always- always- there is chicken rice, which is served like chicken in one big plate and rice in another plate. Further on after the noodle soup (and laksa!) are the dim sum offerings. I tend to skip this part of the offerings unless there is the crystal pau- then I go for it.

I like crystal paus, and I can have a few at one go.

Of course my meal is usually planned in a strategic manner whereby I try to have the best of many worlds.

Inevitably I end up having to pass some worlds, like the pastries and the buns, but sometimes, like this afternoon, I decide to go a bit of English high tea and went to get wholemeal cucumber sandwiches, some of tuna, and then I saw the sugar on top of the doughnut calling out to me so I went to get it, and then after that, the shiny, wobbly blueberry jam on top of the pastry seemed kind of nice and so I decided to get it too.

I got my sashimi- filled up two plates of it between us and we finished it all.

I got my prawns- peeled them by myself and dipped them with salad sauce minus Tabasco.

I got my salad- the romaine lettuce was enticing, they had juicy rock melons at the fruits section and I added black olives because I like black olives, but then I wish I had added a bit more of the couscous this time.

Then I took a bit of laksa soup because it is very silly to see all this glorious laksa gravy soup shimmering prettily in front of you whilst wafting the fragrance of coconut and not take a share.

And of course I got my dessert.

I never miss dessert at any buffet. Ever. In fact, my litmus test of how good a buffet is depends on the dessert section. A place that bothers to make the dessert section good will likely make the rest of the offerings good too. For me, the dessert is the highlight of the entire meal. 

Not that I take a lot.

Today (thanks to the sugar doughnut), there was a little bit of restraint. I took one rainbow lapis- tried eating it layer by layer but then I lost patience and gave up, a bowl of sticky date pudding (of which I feel Crossroads is renowned for), a little bit of earl grey cheesecake, one tiny slice of the chocolate cake, and two scoops of ice cream.

I skipped the chocolate fountain.  

Viet @ Jln Besar

One doesn't usually expect to find Vietnamese food in the enclave of Jalan Besar. After all these days the zone is popularly known for its millennial-influenced cafes that serve good coffee, waffles with ice cream, scrambled eggs with French toast and specially crafted beer in the evenings.

 

But step out a bit further past the Tibetan temple towards the main road where the back of Hoa Nam Building is, turn left. and along a row of shop houses you'll find this little nook that takes you out from the bustling street of Jalan Besar and somewhere onto the streets of Vietnam.

 

I've not been to Vietnam- not yet- but sitting here in this café it is easy to imagine how the street food vibes of Vietnam might be.

The space is well organized with the tables, chairs and even bins placed neatly beneath, yet so well calculated and so effectively maximized that if you were to close your eyes, you might feel the noise and atmosphere of a street side stall around you,  Never mind if you are the only one in the shop.

Maybe it is the tables and chairs. They are as low as it can be- very much like a low stool- that there is no other way to sit than to crouch in some sort of position with your elbows on the table. Adding to the vibe is the rest of the décor, with a grey smooth concrete floor. walls painted a warm shade of brown, or orange and distinctive decorative pictures hung at strategic positions.

It is altogether a very warm, cosy vibe. 

 

Over here they serve Vietnamese BBQ, which I haven't tried, because it was afternoon when I went there and it was pho that I wanted. But I took a look at the menu and it was quite extensive, with a variety of soup choices, the seafood platter which had clams and mussels and the meat platter which had pork, beef and tripe. And there were lots and lots of vegetables.

 

My meal was beef pho that day, and it was good. The bowl was large, the portion was huge, the noodles springy and light. The beef slices were tender, and there was the warmth of the soup which I especially loved. It might have been the fish sauce, I don't really know, but I got this distinctly rounded taste that gave me the sensations of umami.

 

And then we had spring rolls too.

 

I have a special love for Vietnamese spring rolls. They're filled with minced vegetables, have a little bit of meat and are fried so well that the skin is crispy and crumbly and the flavors make you feel at once healthy, clean, light and fun all at the same time.

 

What I like about this place is the homeliness, and how they not only offer you the satisfaction of great, wholesome food in a lovingly decorated setting, they also grant you a memory to take along.

Near the entrance are shelves displaying local produce from home like instant rice noodles, bottles of fish sauce, leaf-wrapped packets of seasonings and herbs, and boxes of Vietnamese coffee.

And swinging proudly from the ceiling in the middle of the café are the full sized flags of Vietnam and Singapore.