Posts from the ‘Asia’ Category

Mar 31

Sakae Sushi

Kaiten, a.k.a. conveyor belt sushi, was oddly popular in the malls of both Penang and Bangkok. The glory didn’t belong to a single chain either; competitors resided on the same floors or one above the other like Sushi King and Sakae Sushi in Gurney Plaza.

We chose Sakae Sushi, a Singaporean chain, which I’m now seeing has/had (the URL is dead) a midtown and West Village location. I had no idea. I would not be surprised if this hyped in 2008 restaurant was already kaput because the food isn’t anything special once you get past the novelty.

But if I’m in a foreign country for at least five days, I feel ok with branching out into other cuisines than what’s native. We’d crammed in so much laksa, rojak, satay and char kway teow into our first few days in Penang that I was ready for something lighter, maybe Japanese. Inevitably we ended up with lots of ricey/fried dishes so my original intent was lost.

I was a little excited about the touch screens at each table so you could order with zero human interaction, but we got the loser space for two with a broken monitor. This was a strange aspect of Penang—we always got horrible seats. Others had huge booths for small groups while we got a cramped tiny table hidden in the back. Being the only Westerner in a place can go two ways—either you get uncomfortable, over-the-top service or the staff gets weirded out and tries not to interact with you. This was the latter.

You pay by the plate, which are color coded. On the low end a green plate of simple vegetarian sushi might cost 60 cents and a special black plate prawn concoction with kimchi and tomatoes might cost $3.75. Nothing is outrageously priced, which is why we were surprised that we managed to spend $45 (tax and 10% service charge included—to tip or not to tip always posed such a dilemma), our most expensive meal in Malaysia at that point. A couple Tiger beers were also involved.

Eel-wrapped something or another.

Some cheapo crab stick, omelet sushi.

Soft shell crab tempura with ponzu dipping sauce off the menu.

Sashimi, also off the menu. They go for practicality over presentation, leaving the icepack beneath the raw seafood.

Fried chicken nuggets. I grabbed the plate because of the fish cake sails.

I just like the fried fish head popping out of the roll.

Tempura’d sushi.

Sakae Sushi * Gurney Plaza 170-03-87/88/89, Penang, Malaysia

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Mar 30

Line Clear Nasi Kandar

Unlike my first gluttonous foray into nasi kandar, point-and-pick Indian-Muslim food over rice, I showed restraint on my second visit to Penang. I might’ve ordered more this time too, but I go with the flow when I’m not completely familiar with a dining style.

“White rice or biryani?” was the first question. Plain, trying to save calories (I kid…sort of). The New Yorker in me can’t bear holding up lines, so no time was wasted with the “What’s in that pan?” game. I identified chicken curry and settled on that. I would’ve liked something from the sea, maybe squid eggs, as well. My contemplative mood was ended by, “What vegetable?” Uh ok, green beans, then. “Cabbage?” That seemed like a requirement…so, yes. Then the guy manning the station ladles gravy from different dishes, not necessarily the ones you ordered, onto the rice. See? You don’t really need the biryani.

Some people eat with their hands, some don’t. Everyone eats quickly and no one wastes a speck. Even though I didn’t load up with a zillion different items like at Kayu Nasi Kandar (now out of business), this was a lot of food. I wouldn’t normally eat all of this rice, but to leave food behind seemed very American and grotesque and I have a hard enough time throwing away food as it is.

Clearly, there are scraps to be had. This tiny cat had a chicken bone to herself. 85% of the felines I’ve encountered in SE Asia are unusually small, angular-faced and have short tails, not like manxes but half the length or a typical US cat, with stubs on the end like they’ve been broken. This cat’s tail doesn’t extend behind the table leg, what’s pictured is the end of it. My cat weighs over 20 pounds even though I feed her as much as our normal-sized cat, so I am fascinated by these sylphs. I also wonder if you could possibly eat nasi kandar on a regular basis and not plump up.

A man at the table behind me wanted to chat because he had heard our American accents (I’ve always wondered if in SE Asia, for instance, they can distinguish among different English accents—there are definitely more Australians and Germans speaking English than Americans). He was in Penang taking his mother to a cardiologist even though he lived in Idaho where he runs a Chinese restaurant. I really wanted to ask what kind of food he serves—how could someone who probably enjoys char kway teow serve kung pao to his neighbors? Maybe he could answer this question I stumbled upon today in the Boise Weekly, “Why does most of the Chinese food in Idaho, well, suck?”

Line Clear Nasi Kandar * Jalan Penang & Lebuh Chulia, Penang, Malaysia

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Mar 28

Lorong Seratus Tahun

1/2 I try to be open minded about others’ food limitations. Even so, I will admit that while at a sushi lunch with a few workmates the other day, I was stunned to hear that crème brulee was something that one coworker’s new husband reluctantly tried for the first time on their recent Disneyworld honeymoon. “Um, that’s a delicious dessert, not something weird,” added the other luncher. Indeed.

While I don’t go in for the gross for the sake of being shocking antics, if a dish traditionally contains un unusual ingredient I definitely want to eat it the way it was intended, not toned down for delicate sensibilities. If it turns out to be loathsome? Lesson learned.

So, maybe I was being sneaky when I ordered two bowls of curry mee at Lorong Seratus Tahun, nodding yes to all of the mix-ins. I knew full well that James wasn’t going to be as enamored of pig’s blood as I.

“Should I even ask what this is?” he hesitated, poking at the jiggly crimson cubes. “Kidneys? Heart?” I had to break the bloody news, but countered that the texture isn’t much different than tofu. Oh, that’s right, he doesn’t like tofu either. I ended up with a double-dose of pig’s blood cubes.

Anyway, I loved this soup. Even though Penang laksa had undeniable hot-sour charms, I always fall for the spicy-creamy coconut milk-based soups. As you can see from the color of the prawn-enriched broth, they use a light hand with the coconut milk. This isn’t lemak as the curry laksa that’s more common in Singapore.

The fried bean curd puff soak up the flavor, cockles, shrimp and squid (not sure if that’s common or not) add chewiness from the sea and the coagulated pig’s blood? Yes, that is unusual. I suppose Portuguese combine shellfish and pork in delicious ways. Just as I can’t even imagine how it was decided to combine cuttlefish, fruit and prawn paste in rojak, I don’t how the idea of putting pig’s blood into a seafood-based soup came about either. Definitely a Chinese influence, and far from wasteful. Two types of noodles are used, both fat yellow egg noodles and rice vermicelli. You can add as much sambal as you like for extra oily spice; containers are left on the table.

I have been thinking about this bowl of curry mee off and on for the past few weeks, usually at work when I try to calculate if I have enough time to hop up to Chinatown and back during lunch. I’m not even sure where to go downtown. Nonya? New Malaysia? Skyway? Malaysian food in NYC often seems like a facsimile in ways that are harder to pinpoint than with American Thai food. I think it just comes down to ingredients and lack of a strong Malaysian/Singaporean presence in the city to keep flavors on track. I’ve had positive experiences at Taste Good in Elmhurst but that takes more planning.

As the check was brought at the close of my sushi lunch, a send-off plate of cantaloupe showed up instead of the usual orange slices. Payback time. After discussion of crème brulee and pig’s blood fears, I was faced with my own irrational won’t-touch-it dislike: melon.

Lorong Seratus Tahun * 55 Lorong Seratus Tahun, Penang, Malaysia

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Mar 28

Air Itam Laksa

“Laksa,” the taxi drivers hovering at the bottom of our hotel’s driveway in Penang started calling out when we’d walk past. “You like laksa! You want more laksa?” Embarrassed and a little proud, we’d have to turn then down, “No, we’re just walking.”

Penang is not a huge place, so after one of the men drove us out to Air Itam for laksa on our first day on the island, we became recognized as the laksa-lovers. I liked that about Penang, that locals were kind of amused but didn’t think it was particularly odd that the Westerners wanted to go on laksa excursions.

For contrast, in Bangkok, we used Saochingcha, the Giant Swing, as a landmark to direct taxis, not because we wanted to see the monument or the wat next to it, but Saochingcha was a word we could pronounce and that would be recognized and happened to be near a good eating neighborhood off the subway system, away from the hotel strips of Sukhumvit and Silom.

But when we asked our doorman at our first hotel to explain our destination to the cab driver (one of the most humbling aspects of traveling in a non-English or Spanish speaking country) he was discouraging and warned, “There’s nothing to do there.” Our “Oh, we’re going to eat” reassurance just baffled him further. Later in the vacation when we told the man directing cabs at MBK that we needed to get to Saochingcha he actually shook his head at another staffer and rolled his eyes.

Air Itam, a community that’s also home to Penang Hill (sadly, they closed the funicular just a week before we arrived—not that the rickety incline during a rainstorm didn’t jangle my nerves on our last visit) and Kek Lok Si temple, is just under four miles from the Gurney Drive area but feels much more isolated. I actually saw a man using a kandar, a long wooden pole atop his shoulder to carry plastic grocery bags, a modern nod, rather than balancing pots or baskets of yore. The entire area west of Air Itam on Google Maps is blank.

Air Itam is also known for its laksa. I had read that this corner stand is a tour bus stop and feared mobs, but when we arrived in the early afternoon no one else was seated at the few metal tables.

The first thing you’ll notice about this soup is that it’s much chunkier than what you typically find at stalls. They use a base that contains a larger proportion of flaked mackerel. Combined with the fat, round rice noodles just below the surface, even a smallish bowl (they have one standard size for RM3.00, which seemed to be the going rate for laksa in Penang, about 90 cents) is hearty. We were asked if we wanted chiles. Yes, and you should too. Malaysian food is spicy but rarely hot. The red chile rings meld with the sludgy topping of mint, onion, cucumber, bunga kantan (torch ginger bud—not that that means much of anything here either) and black prawn paste, and makes the whole hodgepodge taste like…well, laksa.

Easier said than done. I’ve never attempted to cook this asam style at home but my forays into laksa lemak and Sarawakian laksa (using a paste straight from the Malaysian state) fell flat. Something is lacking (don’t say love) and the flavors always end up dulled. Good enough for NYC but not great.

Air Itam Laksa * Jalan Pasar next to the Air Itam Market, Penang, Malaysia

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Mar 25

Northam Beach Cafe

Northam Beach Café is a newer, more organized, I guess pricier, hawker center than Gurney Drive. I liked having a numbered table because who’s to say you’ll find a seat near where you ordered? The other benefit was a dedicated beer stand where you can get your large sized Tiger beer (we initially grabbed a bottle out of the cooler but the cashier gave us a colder one from behind the counter) and two iced mugs. Two fresh mugs each round. In Thailand they drank ice in their beer, a practice I didn’t encounter in Penang.

And while there appeared to be fewer obvious tourists (I couldn’t identify a Singaporean or Kuala Lumpur resident by sight) the stalls were more international, going well beyond Malaysian classics. What convinced me to try this center in the first place was the supposed presence of a Mexican food stand. That, I needed to see. Unfortunately, it wasn’t there.

Consolation prize went to La France. I do still wonder about the advertised frisee salad with lardons.

German sausages were a close second.

My international maneuver was a mistake. I got excited when I saw the words ihawan and Filipino bbq because in the US that means sweet, smokey meat on sticks. I love it way more than satay. But they only had dinner combos and bbq pork ended up being a few fatty slices or meat drenched in a gooey sauce and served with spaghetti. If you’ve ever encountered sugary, wiener-laden Filipino spaghetti, you’ll know it’s an acquired taste. I’ll eat pig’s blood, shrimp paste and the like, but really do think you have to have to have grown up with this spaghetti it to love it.

Some of that perfectly pleasant satay. Chicken because they were out of mutton.

Gurney Drive has pick-a-mix pasembur where you can choose from plates and plates of fried beige things to be tossed with the sweet potato dressing. Here, you get what they give you. I like the idea of crunchy bits, seafood and vegetables tossed together but it’s bland compared to rojak.

James will almost always order fried chicken when it’s available and it was plentiful in both Malaysia and Thailand. I told him I saw a stand in the back corner. What I didn’t tell him was that it was belcan fried chicken. He thinks that he hates shrimp paste, though I really think he just hates the smell of the block I keep wrapped up in the crisper drawer of our refrigerator. It really isn’t that strong after it’s been cooked, I swear. The funny thing was that he didn’t notice the shrimp paste until the chicken cooled down to room temperature. The fishiness doesn’t hit you over the head, instead adding rich umami undertones.

Mua chee, as they call it, is mochi. Here, steamed glutinous rice blobs drizzled with a peanut sauce. Apparently, offering a variety of flavors is unusual. You can mix two and I had pandan and black sesame. The others were sweetcorn, original and green tea. My only quibble was that the pretty colors don’t show up once peanut-coated and displayed under the night sky.

Northam Beach Café * Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, Penang, Malaysia

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Mar 25

Gurney Drive Hawkers

When I first started reading user reviews of Penang's G Hotel, which is shoulder to shoulder (but not adjoining—that air conditioned, never-exposed-to-the-elements luxury is more Singaporean) with Gurney Plaza, they were almost evenly split East-West. I'm generalizing of course, but a typical Asian reviewer might say, "It's next to a mall—great location" while the Europeans (Americans barely make a dent) would be more, "It's next to a mall—ick."

Not ick because the hotel, which didn’t even exist on my last visit in 2005, is not just next to a mall, it's also across from the Gurney Drive hawkers, the best-known outdoor food court in the city. If you're a novelty-seeker like me, it doesn’t get much better than walking out of your room to beef ribs at the ground floor Chili's and rojak down the street.

Here would be said crazy salad of jicama, cucumber, pineapple, water apple (the fruit a cashew is harvested from. I know! Nuts from fruit?), cuttlefish, bean curd and Chinese crullers tossed in a thick, spicy prawn paste and topped with crushed peanuts. I am a fiend for the hot, fishy sweet. Shrimpy and fruity is likely to either disgust or charm you, no in-between.

You can buy the dressing at the stands here and probably elsewhere, too. I'm not sure what the difference is between the white-topped and red-topped jars. Perhaps one is pure prawn paste and the other has sugar and chiles added for a ready-to-use dressing.

Penang laksa is a totally different beast than most Malaysian laksas. Coconut milk-free and lemongrassy, the asam style is soured with tamarind and enriched with flaked mackerel. Once again, the sweet and fishy combo. Toppings usually include cucumber, pineapple, mint and torch ginger bud. The dark condiment on the spoon is black prawn paste, same as in the rojak. I don't order this in NYC because my experiences have been more bad funky (at Singapore Café there were twigs floating around in the broth) than appetizing funky.

James picked up some chicken and a few other unidentified fried tidbits served with sticks at a stall wonderfully named McTucky Fried Chicken.

We only made one attempt to seek out exemplary char kway teow on this visit. Loh Eng Hoo Coffee Shop, my first choice, was closed. Honestly, I'm not enough of a connoisseur to find fault with this version.

Sarsi is a sarsaparilla soda. I thought it tasted a little like Dr. Pepper. I was told to order a sugar cane juice with lime so I did. Some proprietors can be pushy, not rude more this is our specialty. If I'm correct the beverage-sellers have territories, so if you sit in their section you have to order from them. I'll say yes to practically anything because the food is cheap even when tourist-priced. For reference, the laska above was RM3.00 (approximately 90 cents).

Gurney Drive Hawkers * North end of Gurney Dr., Penang, Malaysia

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Mar 23

Gai Yang Boran

Dismayed by the no-explanation gate down at Chote Chitr, Bangkok’s most un-secret hole-in-the-wall (apparently, they do not open until 6pm despite dinner and lunch being touted in most reference sources) and first-day-in-the-tropics heat-shocked, plan B lunch became Gai Yang Boran, a rare air conditioned restaurant in the Saochingcha district. Import Foods’ handy map and guide proved very useful (as did James’ Blackberry—traveling is so different with online maps and GPS. My smartphone did not work internationally and I shouldn’t have even bothered bringing it as it got stolen out of my luggage. Three phoneless weeks later and I’m still quite angry about this and too frugal to buy a replacement).

I didn’t realize gai yang and som tum were so popular in Bangkok. The common Northeastern twosome (sticky rice rounding out a perfect trinity) were everywhere on the street, food courts and non-touristy yet comfortable bilingual menu restaurants like this place.

Of course we ordered the grilled chicken. Supposedly, the chickens are farm-raised and the sweet chile sauce is made in-house. Thai chickens are scrawnier and more flavorful than our typical grocery store birds. Notice the plain rice in the background—I didn’t think to specify sticky rice when ordering.

A salty, hot, catfish salad with lots of roasted rice powder. I was imagining that fluffy fried style but this was more pulverized.

Pork larb was springy, wonderful and punishing.

This was where we were introduced to the concept of “Can you eat spicy food?” This is typically what you’ll be asked if the staff speaks a little English (when they didn’t, they often held up a chile pepper instead to see if you shake your head yes or no). Not do like it but can you physically handle it as if the ability to eat hot food were an inborn trait. I’m sure there are more sophisticated full sentence ways to explain yes, I can eat it, but I stuck with “chawp pet,” which roughly translates to I like spicy. It seemed to work even if I felt like I was using caveman speak.

Gai Yang Boran * 474-476 Thanon Tanao, Bangkok, Thailand

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Jan 16

Hutong

The Chinese aren’t the most sentimental people. Mainlanders only recently started to fetishize the past with the creation of Maoist, peasant-themed eateries. It takes a more Westernized city like Hong Kong to name a high end restaurant Hutong after the maze-like back alley dwellings rapidly being demolished in Beijing.

I avoided slick restaurants on vacation (Robuchon, while expensive, was more garish-regal) but for our final evening in Asia I wanted to do the whole guidebook-approved fancy cocktails and dinner overlooking the skyline. And you’ll end up paying for that, no getting around it. Not only are the Chinese un-sentimental, they have no problem requiring customers to spend set minimums. At Aqua, one floor above Hutong on 29, you are must spend HK$120 to enjoy the atmosphere. No one ever need encourage me to order two drinks (which easily added up to more than the $16 rule) so that wasn’t a problem.

It did seem odder to set a number (HK$300/US$39) at a chic restaurant. I’ve never encountered practices like sharing fees and $10 per person musts at diners and the like. But I knew this going in based on the confirmation email that also spelled out the no short, slippers or sleevelessness (for men only, I would think) policy. I can see dirty backpackers being a problem in Bangkok but Hong Kong doesn’t really attract the bumming around element. Or maybe they are trying to keep out those pesky Chinese who wouldn’t stop wearing pajamas in public even for the Olympics.

Unfortunately, I goofed off like a good tourist taking copious photos of the glowing red and blue interior and picture window view so poor I was forced to delete them. At 8pm, they start a laser light, pyrotechnic show, “A Symphony of Lights” in Victoria Harbor (and we think the Empire State Building periodically changing color themes is hot shit) which is hard to ignore. In no time I got a red battery low signal that had me panicked over missing shots of our last supper.

I greatly prefer the strong flavors of Northern Chinese food over the pure delicateness Cantonese is known for or else I would’ve booked a place like Lung King Heen, recently bestowed with three Michelin stars. I’ll eat atmospherics right up too; the wire bird cages that sit on each round antique carved wood table until diners arrive and they’re whisked away, the dim cavernous space with outer edges divvied up into mysterious private nooks and even the rendition of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” orchestrated on plinky Chinese string instruments. The cover was almost as good as the first time I heard Musak version of “Hungry Like the Wolf” piped into a Hallmark two decades ago.

The food wasn’t anything like the upscale Chinese that plagues NYC. The Waikyas, Buddakans, I don’t know, maybe Shang (I haven’t tried it yet but have higher hopes). Hutong served Chinese food that was actually good. And being Hong Kong, items you’d never see on an American glossy menu—marinated pig’s throats, lamb organ soup, lots of salty egg yolks and crab roe—were right at home. I’m still not certain what “crispy yuppies” are. I’d guess a fish, as
this dish was listed in the seafood section, but that could also be
because it sounds like guppies.

Family-sized portions provided way more than I had expected. Thankfully, the chilled daikon crab meat rolls were light. The sweet-vinegary edamame cabbage slaw on the right was a freebie relish/appetizer.

Lamb ribs were a signature dish and present on nearly every table. I acquiesced. I would be good with these crackly skinned, lightly fatty slabs replacing pork belly as cut of choice. If I’m correct, the meat is de-boned and slow cooked while the skin is fried separately then reconstructed. Accompaniments included crushed garlic, julienned scallion whites and a soy based sauce. The sharp raw garlic and onions helped cut the natural sweetness.

The fish head wasn’t on anyone’s table, and got lots of ogling from the Middle Eastern couple sitting near us who asked the waiter what we had. I’ve never encountered a Sichuan fish head preparation and am not sure whether it’s traditional or not. Who cares? The sauce tasted salty and hot from chile bean paste and was enriched with minced pork, very much like a ma po tofu preparation.

The last surviving photo from Hong Kong/Singapore/Macau extravaganza 2008. My battery died immediately after I snapped this shot of the “jade” bamboo shoots. Not only did these taste amazing, they also were incredibly pretty, pale green and glistening. I thought they had forgotten this dish since it arrived half-way through the meal; there was no rhyme or order to the courses. I could’ve sworn these were cooked in butter as they tasted salty and rich, though the menu only said wok-fried with no clues. I’m not crazy about gloopy cornstarch-thickened vegetables so these were perfect.

We did the high in the sky, bar with a view sandwich (or is that a bookend) and had a few nightcaps at Felix, famous for its window-facing urinal in the men’s room. I had no idea how tiny—one long table and a curving leather banquette off to the side of the circular counter–the Philippe Starck-designed bar was. Or how much the peach and pistachio pudding color scheme enhanced by underlit marble reminded me of ‘80s Santa Fe style with a dash of Golden Girls’ Miami. It never looks like that in photos, though. It’s quite possible that my observation skills were dulled by too much food and drink.

Hutong * 1 Peking Rd., 28/F, Hong Kong

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Jan 10

Yunyan Szechuan Restaurant

I had to keep postponing my desired Sichuan meal because I didn't think my stomach could handle it. By our last day in Hong Kong I just gave up and risked a lunch anyway.

Yunyan was a nearby backup plan (plan A, San Xi Lou, seemed like a pain to navigate at the last minute on public transportation) on the fourth floor in a mall that housed a disproportionate amount of Japanese retailers: Muji, Uniqlo and Sekiguchi (the Monchichi store that I bring up often as possible).

I had read in Time Out Hong Kong, I think, about a spicy intestine dish they served. What I didn't realize was that even though Chong Qing wasn't in the name or description, it's exactly the same preparation as Chong Qing chicken, which we also ordered. D'oh.

We ended up with two massive plates heaped with dried chiles, one with hidden bits of fried chicken cubes to sift through with chopsticks and the other studded curled with porky tubes.

I always enjoy a good intestine, but am better acquainted with Argentine grilled chinchulines. These must've been quite fatty because they crisped right up, the soft inner layer only making an appearance after an initial crackly bite. And yes, the heat level was high. In the US, the intimidating pile of chiles is often more decorative than fiery. The heat never seems to transfer from pod to protein. Not the case here.

The tongue-numbing properties were also amped up to that buzzy point where your mouth starts tasting metallic. You really need other flavors for balance and we didn't have those. The two closely related entrees were so strong that the dan dan (spelled tan tan here) noodles seemed sweet and soothing by comparison, probably from the sesame paste and maybe a touch of sugar.

A green vegetable, any vegetable is seriously lacking from this meal. But we were afraid of over ordering since leftovers are troublesome on vacation. What we ended up doing was adding the remaining intestines to the chicken pile, got it to go, wrapped the Styrofoam container in serious plastic and brought it back home with us on the plane. This was totally not my idea, though I'll admit that after 15 hours of flying with a head cold and coming home to an apartment with bare cupboards, a few nibbles of day-old mouth-burning Sichuan organs was kind of fortifying.

One of the more photographically comprehensive posts I found about this restaurant, resides on the blog of an eight-year-old. Yes, an eight-year-old.

Yunyan Szechuan Restaurant * Miramar Shopping Centre, 132 Nathan Rd. 4/F, Hong Kong

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Jan 10

My Mum’s Place

I’m
not sure if we were just hungry from scoping out so many restaurants embedded
in maze-like malls, but this food was really good, way better than I would have
expected from an eatery across the walkway from the always-busy Spageddies
(Hong Kong has a chain called The Spaghetti House, which looks equally
frightening). Being housed in a mall means nothing in Singapore, though; there
was also a branch of Din Tai Fung, a highly regarded Taiwanese chain I tried in
Beijing, around the corner.

I
love Nonya cooking but James always makes a stink (ha) about the rampant use of
shrimp paste in the cuisine. The strong flavors were balanced perfectly, just
hot and sweet enough padded with that belachan in a way that boosted everything
rather than overwhelming, kind of like a natural msg or narcotic even.

I’ve
had shrimp sambals in NYC that were like eating nothing; a few sad prawns
sitting in a dull ruddy puree. I’ve also made sambal, myself, a huge tub sits
in my fridge that tastes like damp mush. This sambal could be a multi-purpose
condiment even minus the prawns. Plain white rice is all you need to go with
it, or even white bread for colonial-style tea sandwiches. Crusts removed, of
course.

Kang
kong (I know, I always want to say king kong because I’m corny) is another one
of those things that’s lackluster in my hands (though I think our produce can
take some of that blame) but vivid here. There was plenty of shrimp paste in this, yet it didn't overwhelm the water spinach in the least.

The
requisite beef rendang, ordered primarily to appease James who still contests
that we never had any in Malaysia and doubts its origins, altogether. This is
one SE Asian dish I don’t ruin. it’s hard to destroy coconut-and-spice stewed
meat, especially since it’s designed for tough sinewy cuts.

It's odd that I can't seem to find a website for this restaurant. They were selling branded spice mixes and pastes at the front of the room, which implies broad name recognition.

My Mum’s Place * Paragon Shopping Centre, 290
Orchard Rd., Singapore

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Posts from the ‘Asia’ Category

Sakae Sushi

Line Clear Nasi Kandar

Lorong Seratus Tahun

Air Itam Laksa

Northam Beach Cafe

Gurney Drive Hawkers

Gai Yang Boran

Hutong

Yunyan Szechuan Restaurant

My Mum’s Place

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The Past Will Haunt You

Pigeonholing 101