Singapore week in SelfridgesWas informed by Renee previously about the Singapore week in Selfridges and have been looking forward to the event eversince and it's finally arriving!!

Known as the cultural melting pot of Asia, Singapore has a solid reputation as a food lover’s paradise. From exquisite fine dining to exotic hawker fare, the island has no lack of variety to satisfy even the most discerning gourmet.

Tastes of Singapore is a food promotion which will run in-store from 1 October to 7 October in the Foodhall, London Oxford Street to highlight the breadth and depth of grocery products available for use in sweet and savoury cooking from Singapore.

There will be 12 Singaporean brands stocked during this period with cooking demonstrations, food sampling and tastings each day.

The Gallery restaurant will also be offering a Tastes of Singapore Special Menu to coincide with the event from 28 September to 9 October. The promotion is in collaboration with the International Enterprise Singapore, the government agency spearheading the development of Singapore's external economic wing.

We look forward to welcoming you in-store to experience Tastes of Singapore!

Definitely going to London next week.

Png Kueh 饭桃

Recipe for Png Kueh from these 2 website ( Asian Eats and Roseskithcen)
Ingredients - Dough
300g rice flour
50g tapioca flour
Boiling water, about 2 rice bowls
A few drops of red food coloring

Ingredients - Fillings
300g glutinous rice, washed & soaked for 3 hours.
Soy sauce to taste
100 g dried prawns, washed and soaked
4 dried mushroom, soaked

Fillings
For the glutinous rice, add enough water (I used the water from the soaked mushrooms) and steam until cooked.
Cut the dried mushroom into strips and stir fry it together with the dried prawns until fragrant.
Add the cooked glutinous rice.
Add Soy sauce to taste
Mix well and set aside.

Kueh
Mix the flour together, add the boiling water until dough is formed and mix with a wooden spoon.
Add the red food colouring
Mix well and leave for a few minutes until the dough is not hot to touch. In the meantime, you can prepare a small bowl of water with some oil (water-oil solution).
Grease the plate for steaming and the mould for the kueh.
Knead the dough using the water-oil solution.
The hardest part of the task - Wrapping the filling and make the mould.
Pinch out a small round of the dough, flatten it and placed it over the mould, like a bowl.
Put about 2 tablespoons of fillings into the "bowl" & wrap the dough by pulling the dough together to cover up the fillings.
Press the wrapped dough into the mould. Knock the moulded dough out.
Place it on the greased plate and steam for about 15 mins.
Pan fry later when ready to eat.

The above recipe makes about 15 png kueh. I think it's possible to make more than 15 as I kept pushing the filings in and the skins are thin. Some leftover dough, thus likely to make more than 15 if you go easy on the filings.

Sam comment : Too light shade of pink!

Hokkien Prawn Noodles
Found a recipe for Hokkien Prawn Noodles in the diary received on Singapore Day which I thought was achievable. Receipe as follow, modified by me (to serve 3) :-

Stock - about 20 prawn heads, some pork (should be pork bones), half ikan bilis cube, 1 dried scallop, 1 tbsp sugar, some light soy sauce (add to taste), 1 bulb garlic (separated and peeled), some white peper and water. Bring this to boil and simmer for an hour and need at least 4 ladles prawn stock.
4 eggs - beaten, fried and cut into small pieces
Pork lard - fried
6 small squids, sliced into rings
12 prawns
Some fish cake (none at home, so didn't put this in)
Bean sprouts
5 sprigs of spring onions, cut into about 5cm pieces
Bee Hoon (1 pack from Tesco)
Yellow noodles (1 pack from Tesco)
Limes (forgot to buy from Tesco!!)

In the wok, heat the oil and fry the garlic. Add the prawn and squids for about 1 minute. Add been hoon and 1 ladle of stock, ensure that the been hoon absorb the stock. Add the yellow noodles and add in 2 ladles of stock. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the lime. Add chili (sambal blachan) if you want. Add the ladles of stock. Add water if you want it abit more watery.

That's it, delicious!!

Singapore Day in London

Had been looking forward to the Singapore Day in London, all the food...... can't wait...

The event was held yesterday at Hampton Court Palace, took us about 1 & a half hours to drive there. The place was easy to find and well signposted.



The weather forecast wasn't too good and there were dark patches of clouds around, but it stays bright throughout the whole event. The entry of the event was the ERP, however no payment required for this event!!



Map of the event but there wasn't a need for the map cos we can see and smell food!! The event opens at 10.30, we reach the place about 12pm and it was packed with lots of people queuing for food!



First stall I queued was the Hokkien Mee, took me forever to get a plate but it was worth it (so good!). All the food are free, with the stall holders flew in from Singapore, authentic hor. Needless to say, we queued for other food too and dapao some (Curry puff).... The Kwak Chap was very nice too (all the way from Toa Payoh!)




Of course, there's a stage for performance and entertainment. But we too busy with food, so only sat down for abit. Mark Lee and Jack Neo was fantastic at making us laugh.



The desert was serve from 2.30pm onwards and we queue for Pulut Hitam, too full afterwards for anything else. Some of the stalls were closed by this time, finished. Overheard that the Old Chang Kee Curry Puff was closed at 1pm, well it was the shortest queue among all the stall and very easy to re-queue, thus we dapao-ed! The event was scheduled to end at 4.30pm but we left early at 3pm to avoid the rush.

So what did we bring home?

The Goodies bag

Which contains :-
- a mat to sit on for the event, very handy!
- a rain cost in case in rains, be prepare!
- a pack of wet tissue (to clean ourselves after eating, how thoughtful)
- a packet of Muruku Dhall cracker, to make you miss tibits in SG
- a paper ball, to make you miss your childhold in SG
- a packet of kuti kuti, to make you miss your childhood in SG
- a puzzle , to pass time if you need to
- an eraser, to??? to make you miss SG as you work?
- a 10% discount coupon from Charles & Keith (valid till 31 Dec 09). What is this any good??
- a booklet on Information on registration of overseas electors (a very good way to distribute info)



Another goodies bag from Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA).
Includes :-
- Singapore tote bag (great for containing our dapao-ed stuffs!)
- A t-shirt (Of course, there's always some mention of SG on the T-shirt and this time, it's a Singapore flag on the back. See below for the 2 front design to choose from)
- a 18-month planner cum recipe book (I think it's too big and bulky for a planner)
- Singapore Swing, 12 familar Singapore songs in this jazz instrumental album. (Had not listen to it yet, but would if I miss home)
- Singapore flag pin (Errr, great for a souvenir).
- Stikfas lion, a toy (I'm too old for this)
- Roar for Singapore, need to punch out the pieces on this postcard to make this cute lion stand proudly on your desk. (Err, doubt I would!)



There's 2 design of T-shirt included in each goodies bag, you can only choose one and the size you want (S, M or L). I got the M and Sam got the L but the size different isn't huge, doubt Sam can fit into the L, guess both T-shirt are mine!!


The left t-shirt says "I want my laksa, teh tarik, nasi lemak, chicken rice, prata. Now."
The right t-shirt says "My heart lies 137km above the equator on a little red dot."

Lastly the items we dapao-ed.
- 17 packet of Yeo's Green Bean Soy Drink. There's free bottled water and Yeo's Green Bean Soy drink at the event and the drinks stalls are more than willing to give you extra. Before we left, the stalls were eager to distribute out the drinks, thus we gladly receive.
- 3 Old Chang Kee curry puff, had them for dinner yesterday night, delicious.
- 5 bottle of Satay Sauce. You need coupons (which is in your goodies bag) to redemn, but again they are more than willing to give out extra, hence we got 5.



According to ChannelNewsAsia, the cost of the event was S$6m!!! About 12,000 people turned up, that's a cost of S500 for each person..........

Wedding cake


Decided to get our wedding cake from Pine Garden and confirmed on Lychee Martini after we bought a slice of the cake once we arrived in Singapore. Best choice ever as the guest commented that the cake was really good!!

As for the design, we sent Pine Garden a picture of the wedding cake which I found on the internet (as seen in my earlier post) and requested Pine Garden to change the colour of the flowers to deep red.

Pine Garden do provide cake cutting instructions but it looks complicated, thus we leave it to the restaurant to cut it in their own way. The cake was 2-tier but we managed to feed 70 guests and had about 3 large quarter leftover, which we gladly brought home.

Even though the cake was expensive, costing $420, it was worth it as we didn't want a dummy cake.

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Catering
We booked the mini buffet for 15 person from Neogarden for the wedding lunch at my parents-in-law's place. Dishes we ordered were :-

1. Vegetarian Mee Hoon
2. Braised Beancurd
3. Sambal Fish Ball
4. Lemon Chicken
5. Steamed Siew Mai
6. Mini Chocolate Eclair
7. Sotong Yu Tiao
8. Almond Jelly Longgan

Each dish was packed in a plastic container and the food were still warm when it arrives.

As both Sam & I were busy changing into another outfit, chatting to guests and phototaking, thus we didn't manage to eat much of the food. Eventhough there were more than 15 person for the wedding lunch, there were still leftover for us as breakfast the next morning. The Mee Hoon was delicious!

PS : Was sooooo hungry by about 3pm at hotel room that I decide to walk to Far East Plaza and bought us a 3 piece meal from KFC...yummy.....

Pandan Cake
Obtained the recipe from this website (Baking Mum). Best recipe for Pandan Cake I tried so far and will be using this recipe from now on!! Too bad, my pandan paste is running out soon....

Baking is also one of my way of de-stressing from the wedding planning. Not sure why me sooo stress too, just kept thinking everything is sooo going to fall apart on the day... :(

9 Jan
Our ROM anniversary!! We planned to go out last weekend to celebrate but as we were down with the stomach bug, we stayed home instead. So yesterday I bought pork crackling to roast and make some soup, instead of eating out. A simple meal for Sam and some roses for me. Job done!!

Christmas Party

Back from last night's Christmas party. The food was good and the dessert was excellent. Thought we had to choose among the 3 choices but we got all 3 in the plate!!!

Nasi Lemak

Found the spicy chicken wing recipe online and I thought of trying it out, so here's my treat for Sam for dinner.
Notice the coconut rice is green hor. That's because instead of pandan leaf (which our pandan plants are still small but growing), I had used pandan paste.
Recipe :-
- Spicy chicken wings
- Coconut rice (2 cups of rice, about 150ml of coconut milk, abit of pandan paste & add water to require level to cook the rice)
- Eggs, Spam, Ikan Bilis, just fried separately.
- Chilli, we bought the paste from Singapore, so didn't make it myself. If not, you can found the recipe for the chilli here.
That's it. Next I shall try to source out the fish paste and make some otak!!

Dinner for one
Sam is working late again today. I can't be bother to cook something for myself so this is my dinner. Easy, simple and extremely addictive (I love saltly butter....). Not good for my waistline though.

The Company Shed

Since Jaster was coming here for the weekend, I thought we can have a day trip, so off we go seafood hunting.

My colleague had recommended me a place in Essex for great oysters so a search on the internet and I found The Company Shed. Great review and you got to bring your own drinks, bread and butter......hmmm...

Long way for Sam to drive us there and with me as the navigator, there's always a chance that we're lost!! Nevertheless, we eventually reach Mersea Island after crossing the Strood. The Strood can flood at high tide, you need to check the tide time before setting off.


It's low tide when we crossed, so was ok. You can see here that it floods. So inconvenient, if it floods, you got to wait for a few hours for the water level to drop. No other mode of transport available.


Finally found the place but there was a queue so need to wait. No advance booking for this place too!! See the big dog next to Jaster, thank God, Jaster offer to switch places with me.....

Can't wait to eat, really hungry.....


Seafood platter for 2!!! Yummy, tuck in!!! A pity that the seafood platter was serve as a cold dish... nevertheless, we finish it all and the seafood were absolutely fresh and juicy!!


Cannot go without hot food, so we order the grilled prawns with sea salt. We love it soo much, this was our 3rd plate.


Scallops with bacons and beds of leaves. Never thought the scallops tasted soo good with bacon. Ordered 2 plates!! Forgot to take pictures of the Oysters we ordered, hopefully Jaster will had took some pictures of it.


Of course, we walked back to our car feeling very satisfied. Think I ate too much, only had some bread in the evening as dinner and this trip had put me off seafood for a while... too much seafood (I guess).

Zestar Apple

It's pink and it's apple juice!! Don't like the taste, too tangy!! Reminder to self, never to buy this apple again.


According to this website for Zestar apple:-

A variety of apple that grows well in cooler climates. Zestar apples are harvested late in the summer season maturing into a bright red fruit with some greenish yellow coloring. Medium sized, the Zestar has a crisp white grainy flesh that provides a slightly tart but sweet and tangy tasting fruit. The sweet spicy flavor of this apple makes it excellent for snacking, as well as for baking pies, bars and sauces. Store it in refrigerated areas to keep for approximately 8 weeks. When kept at room temperature, the spicy and sweet flavors of the Zestar will increase.

Blueberry Cupcakes
Bought this Pre a Manger recipe book and tested out the blueberry muffins early this morning. I don't have muffins tray so made blueberry cupcakes instead. The recipe is great, the texture of the cake is just right and the recipe for the toppings makes it sooo much like those muffins you buy in sandwich shops (crispy on the top). Hmmmmm......delicious....

Reunion Lunch and Dinner

**Overdue post**

We went to Cafebiz at Traders Hotel for buffet lunch with Sam's parents. According to this blog, the place has the best buffet!


Due to CNY, there's Yu Sheng available. However, seems that they cut back on the amount of seafood available for buffet.....


Lot's of food, including sushi, otak & my favorite pinky rice cake...


Satay!!


Not forgetting desserts...

After lunch, we walked the food off but strolling along Orchard Road. Had to prepare our stomach for the dinner cooked by my mom in the evening.


Curry crabs cooked by mom.

Enjoyable lunch and dinner, especially the company... Miss everyone now....

No Signboard Seafood

A trip to Singapore cannot be complete without eating at No Signboard Seafood.... Yummy....

Sambal shellfish


Deep Fried Cereal prawns


Butter crabs

Last week in Singapore

So fast!! Already last week in Singapore. Tried soooo much food.... sure put on weight but it's worth it!


Pig's kidney soup at Bugis.


Paper Prata from Bishan Junction 8.


Curry Fish Head from Bishan.


A visit to Chinatown on a weekday.

Truely Singapore


A visit to Funan and I have to take a picture with the pig!


Swensen Ice-cream, cannot resist!


Dinner at Esplanade and a trip to see the Merlion.


And a picture of the 'Durian'.

Singapore Food!

We ate alot since we are back and here are some pictures (had only taken some pics cos we always forgot to take pictures before eating).


Bee Hoon at Junction 8 basement


Nasi Lemak at Bishan Market


Breakfast at Bishan Market


Big prawns noodles at Novena


Durians from Toa Payoh