basement @ the central

And it was full house when we got there. Almost end of lunch hour at almost 2pm. The tables cleared shortly after. I'd rather this than pizza. 

Flower beef stew rice was my choice till I looked closer and saw that it wasn't available.

Well that left me with the happy rice bowl. 

I was expecting savoury.

I mean, it's braised meat rice as stated in mandarin.

Firstly, it was minced.

I'm fine with that.

A cube of braised beancurd and a whole braised hardboiled egg with a side of boiled cabbage.

It should be good.

And the operative word being -should-

This was not savoury :(

It was sweet. To be fair it wasn't sickeningly sweet.

It just was -not- savoury.

Needless to say, this bowl of rice was left wanting.

And before I sound like I'm whining.

Then there was chicken curry rice.

The japanese curry sauce was too watered down to be of any interest.

The fried chicken was more battered than meat but substantial nonetheless.

A fried egg was a good topping.

Pun totally intended.

And there's nothing about the food that draws people to this place.

I see people eat.

And then I see them do a takeout.

Of a half a dozen cups of these kungfu milk tea with pearl.

It was HK style milk tea.

Thick and done with finesse.

So that's why it was a full house!

I wish I had a large cup. With pearls.

And no, I stopped myself from getting another to-go.

I'm coming back for drinks.

Few and far between.

Late lunches with you.

Thanks for getting out of bed just that little earlier to make sure I'm fed. :)

wonderful taiwan delights

This was their swan song. And since this place is now defunct, I write a tribute to them and I do hope that someday soon, they would find a suitable location to serve up their delicious homestyled taiwanese fare.

A nondescript shop along the Jalan Leban area with limited parking space, it's hardly the kind of place I would choose as a dining option. That night was no different from the usual. We wanted to try out a new hotpot place, the irvin's seafood restaurant but in the end, we settled for this cramped but quaint shop. With its faded signage and simple set up, it seemed the perfect dinner venue for a girlfriend catch up. :)

 

For their size, the variety on the menu was more extensive than I expected. Of course, it also turned out that every other thing was sold out. I exaggerate. But their house specials were sold out. No more dumplings nor pot stickers. :(

Well, we still had to eat anyway. Never fear! For the other menu items are just as much a treat as their house specials.

The herbal duck mee sua lived up to its namesake.

The soup base was herbal indeed- a delicate balance between an overkill on the herbs and a sweetness imprated from the wolfberries to the clear soup thickened slightly by the mee sua itself. Black fungus and duck meat completed the dish. It was healthy and tasty food. :)

This was not on our original order. But we ate it anyway. Fried chicken bits with a generous dash of chilli pepper and salt. It's passes as an appetizer alright but I'd rather have the Shilin chicken anyday if you know what I mean.

And this, was the star of the night. For this, they have every reason to continue shop operations. Please? I really should just let the photo do the talking. For they speak volumes. The delicately braised pork. The peanuts were not mushy but if there was an al dente for peanuts. This was it! And the gravy. Of course the gravy. Suddenly, plain white rice seems to be the perfect accompaniment. :)

And there's reason why the hot sour soup is last. The photos are in chronological order. But heck, every dish was a treat except the chicken and sadly, we never made it back for a second round. As with all good things, they do come to an end.

Towards endings and new beginnings. Or a pending trip to Taiwan, pronto! :)

what's cooking at home

It's never an easy task to be cooking daily. Grandma isn't in the best of health and she can't stand for extended periods of time. Sometimes we want her to just take a good rest and buy takeout instead. But if given a choice, she'd rather cook. It's sort of like a responsibility she's taken on and she's lost if she doesn't have to cook. She's good at it. And no, not because i'm biased. Food outside never tastes the same when replicated at home. For better or for worse- the taste, that is :)

Braised pork trotters with egg

Perfectly braised pork trotters with tender meat falling off the bones and the flavour infused hardboiled eggs. Chases away the cold rainy nights. 



when leftover rice takes on new life when wok fried



Leftover rice is sometimes my grandmother's biggest bane. She's left to decide whether to fry it up or to just to steam it with the new batch of rice she cooks. It used to just be eggs and rice but these days, she's taken to adding in strips of charsiew that she buys from the market. This is an entire meal all on it's own. But of course, we always have dishes on the side. :)



sea bream smeared with curry powder



That's the taste of home right there. I haven't had curry powder smeared on fish outside before. Not that I've ever come across. Chilli/ sambal yes but curry powder, her secret blend of spices, nope. And rarely a night goes by without fish. :) I've taken to loving both the crispy skin and curry powdered white flaky fish meat within. I used to avoid eating fish because of it's bones and the patterned skin. Psychological.

And yes, there are vegetables as well. Depends what she gets from the market. That's the one dish we finish up without fail every night. For the very reason that vegetables aren't recommended leftovers what with a loss in color and their nutrients. We love our greens. :)

What's home cooked food like at yours?

Midautumn night's treats

It was a quiet affair this year. I miss the lanterns that grandpa used to hang all around the trees in his garden. Age does catch up. Especially when one sits around at home daily issuing an open invite for age to ravage the self. 

Still Alice was a book I just read by Lisa Genova. It chronicles the timeline of an English professor diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. The words that she used to wield power over now lost at the tip of the tongue.

You see an object. You can describe it. You know what it should be called. But the word eludes you. You're somewhere. You know you aren't far from your destination. But you look around and everywhere seems foreign. People pass you by. The fear of being lost takes over and triggers the emergency response in your body.

I imagine my grandparents in these situations. And it worries me. Are they aware of what's happening to them? Do they know how to react? Will they tell us if this happens to them? I try to speak to them more. To be around them more.

That day, sitting in grandma's room on the flat wood planks that she sleeps on, sewing while she was talking on the phone. It brought me back to days when I was still in school. When I came home and refused to bathe, sitting in my pinafore on those planks, sewing bits and pieces of what I knew how to, watching television till it was time for dinner. Where did those days go?

My grandfather washed my socks two weeks ago by hand for me thinking they were dirty. He used to do that for my brothers when they got home from school. Daily, he would wait for them to come home, take their socks to hand wash and wring dry before he set about to cut fruits or squeeze fresh juices for them to have after dinner. Where did all that time go?

I miss those days and I appreciate every single dish grandma puts on the table every week day. Cooking for at least 5 people every night isn't easy yet she manages it day after day. Today she fried up a batch of fried rice chock full of ingredients- fried egg strips, char siew slices and thin strips of hormel luncheon meat. :)

A pot of braised pork packed with fatty trotters and lean meat. Not forgetting a dozen hardboiled eggs, peeled and left to braise in the dark sauce gravy over a charcoal fire. That stove makes all the difference in the world. No fire control needed, no constant hovering over the fire and food that's infused with flavour, left gently boiling till it's ready to be dished out. 

And her chicken curry. I am ashamed that I still have not mastered the recipe. There are a few things in her culinary expertise that has rendered me unable to appreciate any other variations of these items- homemade kaya, rice dumplings and chicken curry. It just never tastes the same anywhere else. I'm not a snob. I just have specialised tastebuds for these items. She buys the different spices and gets these spices ground and mixed by the kilos at a stall in Little India. I love her curry. :)

It's something that's hard to say face to face. But I really appreciate and love you both. Thank you. For everything.