Up, Victor's Kitchen

Met up with Kelly on Thursday (Sorry Jeremy it rained out and its like, first day of THE month!) and we caught Up at the Cathay. Awesome show it was, for once I actually liked an animation (didnt't like Ice Age nor Wall.E). As much as it revolves around couple-y moments (Elly really reminded me of our Sunflower, Marc) and family themes, the suspense and vulnerability of a floating house, and the very vulnerable characters of a grouchy widower slowly opening up his barriers to lead the adventure he never got a chance to with his married life, was absolutely touching.

I like today's popcorn. Thickly coated +++ I think Cathy comes in a close second after cine's popcorn (must go to the one near the level four box office)- must go and try the one at Shaw Leisure Towers as recommended by Nat. and the very yummy sourlicious jalepeno and sour cream crackers (on offer at $3.50) that we got from Marks and Spencer's. All the crunchy shapes made it very interesting for our palate as we were totally consumed by the movie.

Just before the movie browsed at a bazaar ouside SMU (happened to pass by cos I missed Mr Bean's icecream too much) and I found a gorgeous Japanese inspired top for $15 ! Shall go to all the flea markets from now on. Shenzhen has spoilt me way too much.

We walked to Victor's Kitchen (91 Bencoolen Street #01-21 Sunshine Plaza ) for dim sum after the movie. The best item on the dim sum menu is this You tiao Chee Cheong Fan - the youtiao within remained crispy and chewy and sandwiched between layers of silky cheong fan with soya sauce the contrast was fantastic.
I had the steamed prawn and vegetables dim sum but found the skin a little too thick. Otherwise the ingredients within was fresh and delicious.

The custard buns weren't the runny type that we were craving for - instead it was like a custard paste within, and a salted egg yolk right in the middle.

I had the wala-wala porridge - there's a multitude of ingredients within: cuttlefish, fish, peanuts - but the porridge itself was really too bland ! Ah Chiang's at Tiong Bahru and Zhen Zhen at Maxwell has spoilt me.

Ditto for Kelly's century egg and fish porridge..

Ditto my comments for Kelly's king prawn dim sum (famous and was featured in the Top 100 snacks list some time ago) again the skin was a little too thick..

And the uncle cheated our money about this yam spring roll ! Again rather out of the mill..

We were trying (very hard) to relive our Hong Kong experience so I had my hot yuang yang and Kelly had her iced summer tea - both were really really thick. What was unique was that the iced tea had the ice around the cup instead of within, so as not to dilute the tea. Quite thoughtful!

The only other item worth trying here (other than the youtiao chee cheong fan which is rather hard to find in Singapore) is this steamed milk custard. It is served piping hot (gotta wait 15 minutes), and that's the best way to have it cos it preserves the original milk flavour, just like how powdered hot milk taste like, but in a custard form.

After that we wanted a second round of desserts (despite being very full from all the junk) at the new icecream shop at Sunshine Plaza (which I'll blog about soon) but it didnt have the very interesting flavours we saw on its list...like Kaya Toast! We'll keep coming back till we manage to try those flavours.

We then walked over to the National Library (and not getting good karma crossing numerous roads cos we were laughing too much too hard at someone) and I managed to borrow Wally Lamb's latest novel which i've been wanting to read for a long time. We...managed to resist a trip to Tom's - and the rain !! Oh boy the rain. Drats....Night cycling for another time then!

Warung Nasir (Kiliney Road), Udders (Goldhill Plaza)

Okay I'm itching to write an entry about the many many awesome meals I had when I came to Singapore back from HK (havent even got started on Aus yet!) so finally gathered the momentum to start writing again. And this entry is stat....for once!

Had excellent nasi padang with the rj gang today at Warung M Nasir (69 Killiney Road)- Chiara Silvanus (congrats, Silvanus!) Pam and Carol. My 4 dishes of sweet tapioca leaves, eggplant, beef rendang and tofu-tempeh ($6.30) of which i really liked the tenderlicious beef rendang. The tofu and tempeh (Jeremy wasnt there to eat all the tempeh for me) was also fried well, chewy and full of flavour. I ate all the tempeh. Loved the creaminess of the sweet tapioca leaves curry too - pity that that was the only vegetable left! The eggplant was a little stale, wouldnt eat it again. However, another commendable dish was the chicken curry (which Silvanus and Pam had) which was also super tender.

Anyway, the rice had such tiny grains and compressed so well together it looked like a pile of icecream to me (just before you put in all the ingredients). Okay I (and Pam) was perhaps hallucinating Udders.

I found myself returning to Udders (155 Thomson Road, Goldhill Shopping Centre) more than ever after the new flavour Chocolate Whiskey appeared into my life one fine day when Kelly and I decided to pop in late one afternoon during pychiatry posting at TTSH. Carol and Chiara left (Have fun in Cambodia, Chiara!) and Ian and Shuwan joined us after Serene's party (thanks for cabbing down we were dying waiting for you all to start on the icecream and getting damn amused by police cars, double lightning lines and icecream fanatics zooming out to get their cars) In Nat's words, the whisky vaporises through your hard palate right to your nostrils as the smooth dark chocolate slides down your throat. Awesome possum!

And coming close is Tiramisu, which has alcohol ++ too, the coffee flavour is overwhelmed by the liquer... They sprinkle some coffee powder (or is it chocolate?) atop the Tiramisu, adding more to the aesthetics than anything else...

I used to be crazy over their triple sec (orange chocolate bitters) - its in between an uber thick chocolate milkshake and real orange chocolate - but since Chocolate Whiskey appeared, this has ceased to be a craving...

Shuwan wanted the rum and raisin but I don't like it all that much cos the raisins arent plump and soaked in rum as much as I would like it to be... and is not as potently alcoholic as the Chocolate whiskey or Tiramisu

Yihan really liked this combination of Lime Choya Umeshu (also Kelly's ultimate favourite) and Earl Grey but I don't like sour stuff and Cedele has spoiled me with their Earl Grey and Fig icecream so.....was busy with the top two double scoops.

Udders has a 4+1 offer promotion on ieatishootipost but its only redeemable on Mondays to Thursdays! Till the end of the month of August.

Thanks Ian for your matcha kit kat and Pam for the earrings, and Silvanus for the icecream treat! And Breaking news (in more ways than one) only when we were about to leave! Traded stories about everything under the sky from magicians to 0/10 beauties (or lack of). Hilarious benchmarks they were...

Anyway, Mr GS, must drive us around in your swanky car next time. Meantime shall await that frap/Big Sweep Ticket/dream STB-IR job (which Silv cleverly made a connection! thanks ah now i'll be even more sore in this line) amidst year 5 craziness.

Hong Kong : The day we went to the heartlands of 牛頭角

Openrice.com is such a fantastic hungrygowhere website for the clueless as it ranks eateries by categories. Egg waffle, or zidanzai is a signature Hong kong snack Kelly and i grew to love, so clearly, there was reason to do a search on hungrygowhere and out churned out this little street stall 無名炭爐雞蛋仔 (牛頭角下邨第9座食街對開(球場旁), Hong Kong), in 牛頭角- right in the heartlands in North Hong Kong.

雞蛋仔 Zi Dan Zai, is actually a 3 D waffle - instead of the usual sunken in squares you get in Western waffles (in Prima Deli) or those Belgian waffles, you get popped up circles.

What is unique about this stall is that their waffles are all placed on this charcoal grill after they are made, giving it a really unique, smokey taste.

We really loved their normal waffles - the batter was rather buttery and delicious, and has a charcoal grilled aroma. In Hong Kong, the waffle filling is a very creamy peanut butter and alot alot of white sugar, making the peanut butter very "gritty" and delicious !

And this is their amazing zidanzai... and after going around trying zidanzai from all over, we realised the density of those little bubble pops (reminds me a little of a more palatable version of umm, bubble wrap) is different in different stalls - some stalls specialise in light, airy versions, some half air and half dense cake, and others - like this stall, very dense inside.

Its like eating a very big, interconnected kueh balu..
Then Kelly led me to this dessert stall, 肥媽甜品粉麵小食 (牛頭角下村14座, Hong Kong) infamous for having a mystery hunk who helps his mom run the stall....but we asked him to help us take a picture (of ourselves) instead of taking a secret shot of him...doh...

Okay im damn sad now, after searching thru openrice.com, i realise this stall has folded....its such a gem i think its so wasted!!

There is Durian Steamed milk and mango sago pudding. The durian steamed milk was quite amazing, its like a durian custard. We realise Hong Kongers have a fetish for durian too!! And this marries their all time favourite steamed milk with durian. The mango sago pudding was not bad too.

They also have a fetish for this durian dumpling roll - we had this at Honeymoon desserts too.

But the difference is that the durian flesh here is much more than Honeymoon dessert's, which was full of cream. You can find this back in Singapore too, at Far East Plaza (level 2)

After that string of desserts we finally decided to head for proper food so we settled at a cha chan teng, 興記茶餐廳 (牛頭角下村10座11-12號, Hong Kong). Kelly the food leader recognised the picture of a shack and brought us here....and in we went, to a very old school cha chan teng.

Do you notice the chair seats are rather unusual? Anyway, the eateries in Hong Kong all have this table format - and sometimes, when you have to share tables, you share the same seat with your food partner, and may end up having to face total strangers - never understood why circular tables a la Singaporean hawker centres are a rarity in Hong Kong.

The black pepper chicken rice was fantastic. The chicken cutlet was freshly fried and was most crisp. Again, mopped up most of the pepper sauce with the rice. I need to find a replacement for this back in Singapore!

Kelly had Butter bread with omelette...

And Pork chop with maggi noodles - which she wished the meat wasnt soaked in the noodles...

Had my usual Yuan yang (although he didnt really understand my order)

We passed by another eatery which was really crowded at first and was really tempted to queue for dinner but then we became wiser and chose the above (cos the long long queue was like for a zi char stall and there was only 2 of us). Then we passed by another fried dough fritters stall and couldnt resist.

What is really unique about the dough fritters in Hong Kong is the Fried French Loaf. This is amazing, your normal baguette dipped in egg batter and fried - its sweet, savoury, with soft bread right in side.
I still like my sesame dough fritter - though this one was empty and extremely doughy inside. Miss my peanut filled dough fritters ! Those at Rochor Tau Huay at Selegie Road rocks my socks man.

It was a pretty interesting excursion to the heartlands - similar to Singapore - the corridors thru the flats were extremely claustrophobic with flats lining both sides of the corridors (and some were pretty dark and dodgy as well) , and the coffee shops and zichar concepts are really similar too - except that the Hong Kongers really eat at all times of the day, keeping these eateries up and running through the nights. Its a dream for all who indulge in supper.

Hong Kong: Cha Chan Teng special

You cant consider yourself to have experienced Hong Kong until you step into a Cha Chan Teng and experienced the ambience and buzz in the eatery - the brusque (and if you are lucky, enthusiastic) service, the fast-in-fast-out turnover of the place, and the noisy atmosphere and general busy-ness of the place. Most of the time, the popularity of the place is proportional to the quality of the food you can come to expect.
This first place I am going to talk about is Honolulu Cafe (Central, Hong Kong). We have returned to this place many many times for its egg tarts.We also almost always order the yuan yang - coffee and tea, and the ones here tend to be really milky - as compared to the faux ones in Singapore which has a larger coffee component which kinda overwhelms the tea.
My dear friend Kelly also started a pineapple bun (polor bun) frenzy and we loved it that it came with a thick slab of cold butter.
The egg tarts were the best part of the meal cos it was the flaky kind, which is quite rare in Hong Kong where there are many with buttery crusts..
The egg custard was really soft and flimsy and you can see the flaky, crisp layers of crust beneath - it was such a thin layer the whole egg tart eating experience was gone in a flash.
We came to Cui Hua (Central, Hong Kong) later that night. This place was also featured on the U-Magazine and is famous for its fishball noodles. This place operates 247 and is in the clubbing district so it is popular with the clubbers for supper. This place is so colourful and has so many cheerful bright colours it makes us happy just being in that place.
This was my mixed fish ball noodles - there was fish everything - fish ball, fish cake, fish stuffed beancurd and beanpaste - I liked it all cos it was great comfort food in the middle of the night.
Kelly had less variety in hers as she just went for the normal fishball noodles set - and she was eyeing those fried chicken cutlet/chicken rice/curry chicken that other tables were having.
Whilst the fishball noodles was nothing much to rave about, these hot buns are - they are just toasted butter buns were awesome !!! they were toasty and buttery and so delicious- especially since they were only HKD$1 (like, 20 cents in Singapore?!) per bun.
Their french toast was pretty much normal - all the grease and fried batter you can imagine, its here =P
Another place we always frequent (cos we're always in the Mong Kok area) is Jin Hwa (Mongkok, Hong Kong). We receed this place the night before and never looked back since then - we came here about 3 times.

The hot yuan yang here is my favourite, cos its so thick but well balanced.

The stir fried beef horfun is highly recommended. Plenty of worhei, and tender beef slices. Its greasy but we loved it.

The black pepper chicken chop with rice was also good, there was plenty of rice to mop up all the delicious black pepper sauce. It was high quality cha chan teng fare, I wished there were such good everyday meals I can tuck into back home in Singapore.

Then before our second visit back to Jin Hwa again, we stopped by Kang Nian Bakery just next door to it.

One of the novelties in Hong Kong is that their street food is literally, sold in the streets. This bakery kept churning out baked goodies and displayed it outside the eateries, a whiff of the pastries and its hard to rein in your temptation.. This napolean cake is like Hong Kong kueh lapis - layers of butter cake sandwiched between bread pastry.

Amazingly, we also saw roast meats being sold too - they just hang the carcasses all ready to be chopped up..
The egg tarts were scorching - they scalded Kelly's but it was no problem for me cos I ingest burning foods (hot Soya bean milk =) ) all the time. Egg tarts straight from the oven is certainly the best way to have them.

Okay, so much for the prelude to our second visit to Jin Hwa. Having one round of pastries did not stop us from having another round...

THe U-Magazine actually recommended the Polor - you (pineapple bun with butter) but they sell out everything in the day so during our first dinner visit we didnt get to try it. This is one of the best we've tried, the top crust crumbles so easily, giving way to soft bread within..

Ditto for the popular egg tarts, the pastry has a more buttery texture as compared to our favourites from Honolulu...

It has a balanced proportion between buttery crust and eggy custard.

It was a freakin hot day so I settled for the cold yuan yang... if you noticed I like my drinks hot - whether is it soya milk, milk, tea, coffee - i think the hotness retains the wholesome flavour of the drink.,
On our third visit here we had the beef omelette sandwich but it doesn't beat Kam Fung's (scroll further down). Nonetheless, steamed bread in sandwiches is something we miss dearly from our Hong Kong days.

Kelly loved the beef horfun so much, we had another round - the crunchy beansprouts and leeks was a good balance to the greasy kway teow..

We couldnt miss the polor you again...

And the egg tarts !! (Actually, we were just eating not cos its fantastic -as compared to Honolulu or Tai Cheong - but cos its a little strange to just eat polor you without any egg tarts after that, its a ritual already....)

I guess you should know what time of the day I came to drink my cold yuan yang (and getting to those popular egg tarts and polor buns...)

Let's venture abit off the urban central Hong Kong into Stanley - a rustic, weekend getaway for many eco-loving Hong Kongers, and a playground for the foreign expats and tourists.

It holds a gem: Si Yi (Stanley, Hong Kong) a traditional eatery right in the city centre of Stanley. Whilst the expats and foreigners hang out at the waterfront bars which seem swanky on a cursory glance, real traditional food is to be found within this smoky, hot, crowded place, with almost aloof service (as it seems, a hallmark of Cha Chan Tengs)

Mind you, its quite a queue to get in, and sweating in the mid afternoon sun waiting in hunger for your lunch is no mean joke.
As usual, our yuanyangs..
The pineapple bun with butter...this was rather soggy though..
The beef omelette sandwich was quite good - in Hong kong, they steam all their white bread that is used to make their sandwiches, making it very soft and fluffy.
Well we made this treacherous journey and braved the long queue to have this French toast with kaya...
Yes, they place kaya in between pieces of bread, then they fry it in egg, then top it all off with a slab of butter - how sinful can this be !! It was a grease bomb, with kaya and butter spilling everywhere but it was most satisfying.
This entry is so dated, the Stanley excursion actually occured on Easter so we had hot cross buns after our lunch...this was by the waterfront of Stanley beach. We loved these cinnamon flavoured hot cross buns, with scattered sweetness of raisins.
We were actually opening our toys from the Kinder Bueno Easter eggs... Mine is the uglier one and I am sure you cant decide which is...
There is also a new Kinder Happy Hippo in the Easter sale..
I am sure they still look happy....
Later that night we stopped over at Kamfung Restaurant (Wanchai, Hong Kong) for dinner. I read in hautestuff that this place has legendary egg tarts, but a secret (that Yixiao revealed, thanks for the let in!) is that their beef omelette sandwiches were fab as well...
Well too bad that night they were closing so they had neither!! We settled for their sets instead - Kelly's teh ping (which was apparently famous) and my warm milk (so I can dip bread in)
I had the pineapple bun with omelette - sweat bread with salty greasy omelette was good comfort food, eggs with bread is always my favourite.
During our second visit to Kam Fung, we had the fantastic beef omelette sandwich. The steamed bread was so soft and lovely, holding in between creamy eggs and tender whole slices of beef. This is the best sandwich I could possibly have, simple and nutritious, but so good.

We had the chicken pie too - the pastry is extremely buttery, unlike the flaky ones that I prefer.

And I'm sure you can guess that the egg tarts are also extremely buttery..

Kelly had their famous milk tea..

After that we then moved on to our next U-magazine recommendation - a Kaya Pineapple bun, to be found at Harbourcity Kitchen (Convention Centre, Central, Hong Kong) They call it the Crispy Kaya Sweet Bun, and we were very excited to try cos it encompasses two of our favourite things. Note that there is a one-for-one promotion after 3 pm (but we couldnt wait for it).

Actually, they pride themselves on making real Pineapple buns, or Por lor paus. Almost all bakeries in Hong Kong sell them, but the crust is mostly a sweet crisp crust, with no relation to the 'Pineapple' at all. Here, in Harbourcity, the buns have a fruity crisp crust, giving way to a central core filling of pineapple chunks and kaya. Well the brown kaya wasnt strong at all !

Later that day (yes, we went to 3 cha chan tengs in a day), we had tea at Lan Fong Yuen (Central, Hong Kong), an institution in the Central CBD district. It looks like a shack, doesn't it? They are famous for their takeaway milk tea sold from this shack.

Luckily the interior was decent (crowded, but got aircon =)) and there happened to be filming of some food variety show when we were eating there. Quite good entertainment - and for a while I was quite excited to spot some HK star - but they started speaking mainland Chinese so..... =P They interviewed the bosses for such a long time, the food just became cold and I'm not sure if I'm convinced when they eat (a small bit) of the food and rave about it..... take your food variety shows' ravings with a pinch of salt...

I had the condensed milk with peanut butter thick toast - extremely creamy I loved it, especially when I dipped it into my milk tea..

We had the french toast with kaya too and this takes the cake for having such a thick layer of egg crispy batter. This is like the one we had at Si Y but the kaya is not the nonya kind that we're used to in Singapore. Its sweet but doesnt have a strong coconut flavour.

Ended off with their legendary hot milk tea..