Sitiawan Food

Sitiawan, the haven for Foo Chow food....
Following are some snap shots of the food we had at this sleepy town...

Deep Fried Oyster Egg: The eggs were deep fried together with green onions resulting in a fluffy texture. It was then topped iwth a generous portion of local oyster... I remembered this dish was fabulous previously but it appears standard has dropped.
Sweet Sour Fish slices: Typical chinese dish, but this packs a heavy sourish tinge from the vinegar. Tangy yummmyy! The fish was ultra fresh and i mopped them up clean.
Fish Maw Soup: Slices of local dried fish maw braised together with fish slices and prawns. The soup is too starchy and sweet to my liking... and it packed a fiery punch as well. Too sweet still, urgh.

Sitiawan Cheong Cia Gong Pian

Sitiawan is a pretty famous rural town situated about 80km from Taiping. However, this place produces some of the most authentic Foo Chow food in Malaysia and it remains THE ONLY reason to travel 2 hours of bumpy ride to Sitiawan for me. First up from Sitiawan is the famous Cheong Cia Gong Pian that makes the assorted Foo Chow biscuit. The gong pian comes in onion filled, pork filled and plain dough that is akin to bagel but filled with greasy fragrant braised shallots and pork bits. a Total Grease Bomb!
The CREW at work. 1 guy prepare the dough, 1 guy fill up the dough, 2 guys fire up the stove and place/remove the biscuit. 1 girl makes all guys happy.
The hand at work: Placing teh dough in the Pot like stove using 2 hooked sticks
Crew 1: Placing the dough and making sure they are not burnt. Approximately 15minutes for each dough to get crispy and fragrant! The heat is amazingly hot
Snap shot of the inner stove. Check out the Chinese Naan.

Bodegas Toro Albala Pedro Ximenez Gran Reserva 1971

Opened this for WS and TS and Papa while resting in Taiping. First tasted 1 year ago, which set a lasting impression of light, silky, elegant honeyed black juice and i bought half a case of this. However, the past 2 bottles i'd tried was full of chinese herbal on the nose, heavy viscous, Raisin upon breathing and with some bitter note at the end palate. not throughly enjoyable but the old age does impressed some people. I suggest having this after some heavy, spicy meal as this PX is able to cut thru.
Winespectator 93pts: Almost black, yet this is light and lively, with molasses, bitter chocolate, raisin and mineral aromas and flavors. Well-balanced and integrated, it's fresh and long on the finish. Drink now. 1,500 cases made.

–BS

Dogmama's Mommy Treats @Taiping

This post is all about the Miscellaneous home cook food by Dogmama while Dogma spend the whole 2 weeks in Taiping. After spending close to 10 years abroad, it feels so great to be at home, close to family and close to the heard warming, Dogmama food........................The above is Fried brinjal + long beans in Sambal sauce. Spicy spicy and packing a good crunch!

Taiwan Beef Noodle: As Dogmama is an true blue Taiwanese, this is as close as you could get in Taiping for a good Taiwan Beef Noodle. The beef and tendon is perfectly braised for hours and the noodles were specially bought to provide the right QQ chewiness. Add a spoonful of Taiwan Chilli oil, and you are on the first train to YUMMYLAND! Mom always freeze a few packs of the braised beef stock in the freezer for emergency Beef Attack occasions.
Healthy healthy seaweed soup that provides a gazzilion iodine ( thyriode prevention and good for your hair!)
Homemade Roast Pork: Lacking in spice and saltiness, a tad dry. Mom should use more pepper/5 spices to marinate the pork before turbo boil it.
Big "chickap" fish wrapped in seasalt and banana leaf: This is daddy's creation since long ago. For this trip, daddy purposely went to source for a big (>1.5kilo) Chickap fish and prepared the fish by himself. The fish is full with bones and very oily but after grilling in in banana leaf/seasalt, the blend of charred banana leaf aroma, seasalt, and fish oil just makes this magical. Oohlala
Coconut milk Curry fish: Lacking in spice. The fish chunks are generous but need more spice and salt.
Home made Chicken Chop: nicely battered skin, fried to perfection. The meat is still retain the juice while the skin is dry clean crispy. Euphoric
Steam Fish with blackbeans: Steamed fish topped with a concoction of soya sauce, fermented blackbeans, chives, garlic. Oohlalala, pack a big punch of myriad of flavour. You gonna love this!
Starch paper cold dish in peanut sauce: NO matter how unappetising this looks, this is definitely one of my favouraite home dish. Fried omellete strips mixed with cucumber slices and starch paper slices + the famous Sacha Peanut brown sauce from Taiwan... AHHHHHH,,,,,, salty, peanuty, and savoury....


Zack: Me wants to eat Dogmama's food as well!

Home made Soya Bean Milk

A glass of pure home made Black-White Soya Bean Milk. Blended upon request and no sugar added. Pure Blisss...Arhhhhhh

The aftermath: Starch and residue from the blending process. Mom mixes equal portion of black soya bean with white soya bean. The black soya bean gives it a more rustic grainy texture to the milk and supposedly has lower cholesterol or something.
What's up Doc? My name is Zack, keeper of the Ong's Mansion. Getting on candid camera is more important that the lil doggie treats on the floor.

Heritage@Sixth Avenue Centre

Demona: It was a cold, wet stormy Sunday, which got our emotions even more haywire. Full dose of solemness. We decided on splurging a little bit, and chose good quality North Indian food was our last comfort meal together before Dogma begins a new career path in KL.

The patrons were mostly Caucasians. We weren't surprised as the restaurant was located at 6th Avenue and the food was priced slightly higher than restaurants at Little India. The waiters were ever ready to any requests and very polite indeed.



Demona: This were the sauces/dressings given for the papadam appetizers. Dogma absolutely loved the mint sauce and the onions. I definitely felt his love for the onions alright, or shall I say...I definitely SMELT his love for it. The pickles were very, very salty and spicy. Even a chilli gobbler like myself felt challenged with it!



Demona: Their papadams were slightly different from the common round puffy cream coloured ones in most restaurants. The papadams were coated with peppers and spices, and rolled up like ice cream cones. Eating the papadams itself without any sauce/dressings was enough to give a small TNT inside our tummies.



Demona: Despite having only 2 of us, the solemness somehow affected the size of our tummy capacity also. Not only on the cost, we also splurged on the amount of food too. These greedy foodventuras ordered half a tandoori chicken. SGD 16.




Demona: The tandoori chicken was ...... SUPER DELICIOUS! Not only was the meat extremely tender, grilled to perfection with the burnt edge, it also absorbed all the tandoori marinates! Unlike the common problem of tandoori chickens in many places that looked reddish and delicious from the outside, but once you taste them, they are like any other grilled meat lacking flavours. The looks was due to the colourings.

What else could anyone ask for? Besides great grilled meat, the sauce was *smuckers*. Home made mustard sauce. It was tangy, spicy, with a slight hint of mint: a sauce that commands attention! Adding them onto the meat was a remarkable combination!

Demona: Dogma did the honour of ordering a brinjal gravy dish, knowing that one of my all time favourite vegetable dishes are brinjals. The brinjal skins were fried just nice, not too soft or too hard and maintaining the insides very soft. The coated spicy, thick curry gravy blended in so well with the brinjal slices. Little toes up to this dish! SGD 10.

Demona: We also ordered a mushroom dish too. This one however, was fairly disappointing. I guess, our expectations could have also risen up real high as the previous two dishes deserved all the praises. They were actually button mushroom slices, and despite the nice looking gravy, it failed to lock the flavours into the mushrooms. The dish ended up tasting very oriental. SGD 10. I can safely say that we will probably never ever order this dish again.

Demona: We ordered cheese naan and garlic naan as our 'rice' replacements. The cheese naan was more oily than the garlic naan, and the taste of the cheese was not strong enough. If I hadn't known what it was, I wouldn't have guessed that it was cheese flavoured. The garlic was also average only. SGD 2.50 - garlic, SGD 3- cheese.


Verdict: Anyhow... we weren't really complaining much. Overall, the meal was satisfying indeed. Credit cards from banks eg: OCBC, UOB are entitled for a 15% discount. Woo-hoo for my paymaster (Dogma) is a UOB card holder. Total bill was ~SGD 30/pax. The meal portion was actually too much for two, for three persons then it would be just nice. We couldn't finish what we've ordered also, ending up packing some naans and leftover mushrooms to bring home..... for supper later!

It was one of the best North Indian meals that we had so far, besides Jaggi's at Little India. Since I had my meal there, I've been actively promoting this restaurant to some Indian friends.

P/S: Watch out for their masala tea.

Demona: One masala tea please.
Waiter : One cup? or two cups?
Demona (hmmmmmm?) Ummmm... just for me.

....................tea with pot arrives.................................

Demona : (wow... that's nice. a small pot for me!) Thank you!
Waiter : (takes out tiny cup and pours into it. Then walks off with the remaining tea in the pot)
Demona : Wow.. not bad eh? They'll pour for me everytime I'm finished with a cup.
Dogma : *GULPS ALL TEA DOWN*
Demona : Hmmm.. the pot's on the waiter's serving area. My cup's all dried up.

5 mins passed by....

15 mins passed by....

(uh-oh) SGD 4 is only for a small kuchi kuchi cup of tea. Totally not worth it.

Heritage- The North Indian Cuisine
805, Bukit Timah Road
#01-03, Sixth Avenue Center
Singapore 297668
Nearest Parking : Cold Storage, Sixth Avenue, Bukit Timah Road

Contact Numbers:
Tel: 6875 0433 / 6875 0434
Fax: 6875 0423

website: http://www.heritagecuisine.com/

Misc Wines@ Czar's Pad

Chateau Potensac 1995, Medoc: Some dust, blackcurrant,pencil shaving tone onthe nose. Palate wise, dusty grain tannins coating your throat. Silky. Short to medium finish. Not spectacular but an classic Medoc effort. Classic.

Winespectators review:
Pretty aromas of blackberries, violets and spices. Medium- to full-bodied, with a lovely velvety-tannin structure and medium finish. Best from 2001 through 2008: 88 pointers

Veuve A. Devaux Brut Millésimé 1996: Very citrus, astringent, and metallic. Very one dimentional. Bubbles + metalic citrus attacking your palate. Nose with some brioche but citrus dominates. A very poor showing.
Spatburgunder: not sure maker: Too much extracted fruit, and lean in palate. Gummy. Not my liking.
Mclaren Vale Petit Verdot: Not sure maker as well. Did not impress me by a bit. Some jammy fruit not, currant and earthy tone. Pretty boring. Substantial alcohol heat. BLeh

o'Zack Four Cheese Chips

We bought this from the Junction 8 NTUC Jap food section. Amazing pungent 4 cheese smell once opened. THe chips are tad thin and not packing much bite but the smell is gorgeous/smelly socks depending how much do you like cheese. I find it pretty enjoyable but Demona aim for the nearest fire exit when i opened it up.
Thin potato chips. Wish it had packed a crunchier bite to it.

De Bortoli Yarra Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1998

Had my last bottle of the De Bortoli Yarra Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 together with Demona last week. I remembered the first bottle that I'd opened has everybody guessing it as a old world Bordeaux left bank.

Opened up with a splendid nose of green cassis, sweet licorice,cedar, plum, currant and dust. Leather emerging after awhile. Pretty elegant stuff. At it's peak now. Level of fruit is just nice at this point but will go further downhill if cellar longer. Powdery tannins and very enjoyable.

Following are some tasting notes from Winorama:
Red with some bricking. Aromas of blackcurrant, tobacco, truffles, licorice and cedar. Quite sweet smelling. On the palate quite soft now with fine tannins and flavours of blackcurrant, truffle and cedar. The oak looks a bit varnishy on the palate and the alcohol is sticking out just a bit. I remember the 1998 as being a big ripe year for this wine and possibly not as long term as some vintages. Probably a good idea to start drinking this from now and over the next few years. We have a six pack and will take our own advice. Really enjoyed this wine though and it made for quite a distinct contrast next to the 96 407 served alongside it. Rated : 90 Points



Check out the faded orangy at the rim. Sign of an aged wine...

Home Baked Ginger Snaps!@Demona's new found crib

Demona: As the days of Dogma's return to homeland drew near, the level of solemness and anticipation of loneliness grew higher. More baking! More baking! I passed my cookie bible book to Dogma and asked for his recipe preference.

He chose ginger cookies, as they reminded him most about his childhood times.

So here I go! Baked him a huge batch of ginger snaps! Once I'm slipped off his mind... *pops!* a ginger snap. KACHING! Rememberrrrrrrrrrr....



Demona: Phoon Huat's bag of preserved dried chop ginger bits were tangy and sweet. These crystal-like beauties did a good job as ginger snaps cookie decoration. I made a mistake being greedy by baking two recipe batches, which was supposedly yielding 30 cookies per batch, but it ended up giving 50 cookies per batch! Gosh! Thus, the baking time dragged on to a couple more hours.

I did not place each cookie far apart enough and my first baked batch was a disaster. Almost all the cookies joined with one another, forming a huge cookie, fit for a GIANT. I had to cut them apart and because of the cookie joining issue, the insides weren't crunchy. The heat couldn't get in.

Anyway, lesson learnt! I placed each cookie much further apart on the second baking round......

Resulting in.........




Demona: KACHING! Golden brown ginger snaps! Due to the added mixture of golden syrup and melted fragrant butter, gave the cookies the very chewy texture! For those who prefers crunchy cookies could skip the syrup, but for those who are in with me on the delicious, gooey chewy texture..... ooh lahlah!

I'll reduce the sugar much more the next time I bake them (I've actually reduced the sugar content by 20 plus grams). I think that the extra added sweetness came from the sweetened dried chopped preserved ginger.

I'm not too sure about the public ratings, but I personally enjoyed every chew, every bite, every swallow!

More baking bits to come!

Breakfast and Pastries

Another brief recollection of a tasty snacks we had courtesy of Aileen.
Aileen has bought us some tasty Ritz Apple strudels and these gems were tasty!!!
Light, flaky with just amount of sweetness, the strudels makes excellent tea time!


Check out the glistening Straberry Strudels! Sweet with a slight sourish berry tang! slurrrrp!

The original Apple Strudel. Good apple custard taste, and not too sweet. we bothlike it!
Close up inspection on the apple fillings.

Snap shot of the Coffee Bean brek o meal. At around 7SGD inclusive of refillable coffee/tea, this is quite a steal in city area! It comes complete with scramble eggs, 2 sausages, salad with raspberry bits and cherry tomatoes, and bread.


Pastries from Provence: Another gem that capture Demona's heart. No girls can ever resist a hearty chocolate coated pastry. Light flaky pastry with rich bitter sweet chocolate. OOO LALALAL

Mcdonalds @ Commonwealth

On an ultra early morning around 6ish, Demona and I went for a McDonald's breakfast around Commonwealth area. Besides getting the normal coffee and muffin fix, we too found a lone turtle at the carpark. Dogma informed the Mcdonalds staff and they requested us to help catch the turtle and put it back to the ponds..What a great early work out chasing turtles!

In ancient times, we could be breaking this shell up to prophesize about future/fortune telling. (Jia Gu Wen)

This cheeky little crawly hid itself in the middle of a large Van and refuse to come out. Dogma has to crawl in and pick it out...You cheeeky bugger.
The reward for the early work out---Yummy McMuffins from McD!
Demona making her special blending of Mcdonalds coffee which i find is the best blend. Due to the different sizes of the cups between Malaysia/Singapore Mcdonalds, Demona even come out with her own formula/recipe.
For Singapore McDonalds Coffee cup: 1.25 packs of Sugar + 3 packs of Cream.
For Malaysia McDonalds Coffee cup: 1 pack of Sugar + 2 packs of Cream.


TRY and YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT!

HomeMade Salmon Burger

I was lazying around at home while Demona was off working to bring back the dough and bread. Rummaging thru the fridge, i took out the last piece of Fassler Salmon Patty ( about 3.50SGD for 2 pieces at NTUC).. Ideas come into mind and I pop this patty into the oven for a good 10 minutes, drizzling generously some good old extra virgin oil on top. When the patty is crisp and done, spead some homemade mustard sauce on top. Tangy!

Salmon Patty: Grilled to perfection, with a beautiful mound of mustard spread + Sarawakian Black Pepper!
Emmentel Cheese + Bon Mama Raspberry Reserve: LALALA. a match made in heaven! Sweetish and Berry-ness + creamy emmentel cheese + savoury salmon patties.. OOOOOO LALALA
The cross section: The real burger deal: Maximum Patty, Minimum bread. MEATY DINO!