I will be the first to admit I seldom eat food that we normally associate and categorize loosely as “Chinese”. But porridge is one comfort dish that I could hardly say no to, on days where I am just too sick and tired to taste and to chew, and on days that are particularly cold and chilly. As many of you would be aware, there are two different types of porridge.

There is the plain type that you eat along with side dishes. Here, the rice grains remain fairly distinct and the porridge is watery. Sometimes you find peanuts or sweet potato chunks cooked with it. The side dishes are often preserved and canned, thus quite salty and the plain porridge is a really suitable vehicle to add balance. I never really fancy this type of porridge though.

Then there is “jook”, where the rice grains are cooked down to disintegrate into a massive pool of white, sticky gruel. How does “jook” become so smooth, do you know? My mother tells me it is a combination of techniques and tricks. Slow cooking short grain rice is one, adding a bit of quick cooking oatmeal (just a handful) is another. I find these little tips interesting and it is rather sad that the younger generation generally have little interest to learn how to cook. Imagine that all these nuggets of information will be lost forever.

No prizes for knowing that I prefer “jook” anytime. For a quick fix, Crystal Jade Kitchen solves my problem. Here is a bowl of fish slice porridge with preserved egg and parsley.

Three of my favourite ingredients for porridge, all in one. It would be slightly over the top, if I had to say so myself, but it would have been the bomb if it had a raw egg cracked in as well. A freshly prepared bowl of porridge may look boring initially but a major fun for me at least, is digging into the bowl and trying to find the hidden treasures within. Concurrently, I will the porridge to cool down so I could start eating. A burnt mouth is. not. cool.

There is a lot of personalisation in a simple dish like porridge. I think that is what I like about it as well. Not only do I get to choose what sort of ingredients goes into the base porridge, I could also top it off the way I like it. My usual toppings are: a small dash of sesame oil and a lot of white pepper. Soy sauce is optional, more applicable if I had a raw egg. The “yow char kwai”, I could do without.

Where do you go to satisfy that porridge fix? How do you like your porridge done your way?

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Porridge |

Most foodies would be aware that we are into Singapore’s inaugural Restaurant Week this week. Meant to be a great opportunity to indulge in fine dining without hurting one’s wallet too badly, I signed up for one of the restaurant’s dinner (intentionally leaving out the name of the restaurant). The three-course dinner was a pretty good deal for $35++ and the food was decent, albeit pedestrian. The dessert that caught my eye immediately was the tarte au citron.

I love a good lemon tart. What is there not to like? My ideal one would be one served slightly warm, with a buttery and slightly crunchy crust that is filled with light, luscious lemon curd, almost cream-like in texture. On the first taste, the slight acidity from the lemon curd would make me purse my lips and squeeze my eyes. But there would be vanilla bean ice cream on the side to counter that and add also provide a play in the difference in temperature. Together, there would be a perfect balance of sweet and sour, warm and cold, crunchy and soft.

Alas, the one at the restaurant week was sooo sour it made my eyes shut tight at every mouthful. A lemon tart should be sour, I know, but this was way off balance.

Thanks to the rather disappointing lemon tart though, that I remembered the more awesome one I had a couple of months ago. The lemon tart is actually not on the store’s menu but is a little secret that regulars would know and have to ask for. I wish I could share the place with you but I promised my friend I would not divulge his little secret. Here’s the picture though

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My Favourite Lemon Tart |

For some weird reason, everytime I am in Perth, I have a craving for fish & chips. Strange, no? It’s not even like the aussies came up with this dish, but with the number of British folks now living down under the number of chippys have grown. One of the takeaways around the neighborhood was reputed to have one of the best fish & chips so we headed there.

Johnny’s Quality Fish bar serves all kinds of deep fried & grilled seafood including prawns, calamari, scallops, mussels, oysters etc but it was the good ole fish fillets that I was looking for. Even then, they have snapper, shark fillets, mackerel or other premium fish. The menuboard states that Johnny hails from Greece and started this joint in 1965.

Thick cut fries, freshly fried slabs of fish….yum. Craving’s satiated for the time being. Hehe.

Johnny’s Quality Fish Bar
1c Barker Ave
Como, Perth
Western Australia, 6152

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Johnny’s Quality Fish Bar, Perth. |

My flight to Perth arrived pretty early and Rifo’s open from 7am onwards so we headed there for breakfast. It’s relatively empty given the early hour but the red accents everywhere sure was a perk-me-up. They serve quite a fair bit of breakfast dishes, and casual italian cuisine such as pasta, pizza etc but we decided to go to the foccacia sandwiches to share.

This is the toasted New York with filling consisting of ham, salami, sundried tomatoes, eggplant and pesto mayo. Served with a side salad. Pretty generous with the filling, I’d say.

My choice was Seattle as I am a bit fan of smoked salmon and avocado. Hehe. But apart from that, they had additional ingredients that goes well with the salmon such as capers and creme cheese.

Service was ok but I found the telly a tad distracting. Still, given the extensive menu and long hours (by Perth standards), this is still worthy of a visit.

Rifo’s Cafe (www)
Maylands Outlet : 189 Guildford Road
East Vic Park Outlet : 933 Albany Highway
Open 7am-10pm

other reviews;
- breakfast in perth
- susi’s spice

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Rifo’s Cafe, Perth |

I love to buy baking hardware on the spur of moments but many times, they are left neglected in the kitchen somewhere, forgotten. Once in a while, I like to go through the kitchen cabinets and rediscover my kitchen tools and get inspired to bake.

These madeleines au matcha were the result of yet another (re)-discovery episode. Think of it, I had bought this 9-count silicon madeleine mould more than a year ago from a warehouse sale! Since this was my first attempt, I decided to just use the simple recipe attached to the mould.

These shell-like cakes were eggy and the matcha flavour quite mild. However the texture was slightly heavy. I would like them flufflier but they somehow did not rise much. I wonder if it was because this recipe did not use any other rising agent other than yeast. As I was surfing the web for other recipes as a reference, I noticed that baking soda is commonly used as the rising agent. The next time I make madeleines, I would try a different recipe and definitely add a little more green tea powder to intensify the flavour.

Nonetheless, these were pretty decent. I brought a few to my colleague’s place this morning when I visited her newborn baby and she loved it.

Ingredients
(I made about 14)
2 large eggs
75 grams fine granulated sugar
90 grams unsalted butter, melted but cool
90 grams all purpose flour
2 tsp green tea powder
pinch of salt
3 grams yeast
a few drops of vanilla essence
zest of 1/2 a lemon (I obmitted this because I didn’t have lemons on hand)
10 grams of honey

1. Whisk sugar with eggs until fluffy.
2. Add sifted flour, green tea powder, salt, yeast and zest until smooth and well-mixed.
3. Add melted butter and honey and stir thoroughly to mix.
4. Rest mixture in fridge for at least 30 minutes, or overnight if you are making it ahead.
5. Preheat oven at 160C.
6. Fill moulds with batter, almost to the brim.
7. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned.
8. Turn out to cool on a baking rack.

By the way, the history of madeleines is a pretty neat story. You can read it from Wikipedia here.

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Recipe: Madeleines au Matcha |

One of the buildings that first caught my eye, when I first walked along Lt Collins St, was this building. Looking from across the street, you could not help but wonder what is situated inside this building. Along the sidewalk, you could see a row of tables, filled with patrons, busy chatting with one another while sipping coffee or a glass of wine. You could also occasionally find a group of street performers, like in this picture, playing their old style of jazz.

One day while we were doing some shopping in the area, I told Sayang and family, if they wanted to try out a nice cafe that seems to serve some nice looking sandwiches. Everyone seemed happy with the idea, so we popped in. It looked like a nice cafe, well lit. The first impression was that this place is busy as you could see a long line of people queing to make an order for their food.
It did take me a while to make up my mind, but in the end I opted for a Ham Baguette. Its a half baguette filled with ham, cheese, cos lettuce and tomatoes. It must have been one of the better sandwiches I’ve had, I mean a sandwich is a sandwich, correct ? I tell what made the difference. The ingredients were so fresh, I might have mistaken their lettuce and tomatoes to be garden plucked. The bread was fresh, aromatic, had a crispy crust and soft on the inside. All this finished off with a sprinkle of freshly cracked peppers. Unlike most other sandwiches this was not toasted, or pressed. Served cold as is.

Sayang and parents went for the Tuna Focaccia bread. Her parents just love Aussie bread. Focaccia bread isn’t exactly our main staple in Malaysia. Its simply just focaccia bread with tuna, butter lettuce, and tomatoes. Sounds simple enough ? But I took a bite of it and would say their bread was nicely baked.

To finish off we ordered a box of six macarons. Unfortunately for us, macarons is one of the hardest pastry to make at home. Theirs had a nice firm crust on the outside, and a bit chewy on the inside. The flavours were just exquisite.

The best thing about this restaurant is that, although it looked like a million dollars, the sandwiches were just about $14 each, the macarons were just about $15 for a box of six. Coffee and tea was nice and decent as well.

For more information about Laurent, please visit their website.

Laurent Boulangerie-Patisserie

306 Lt Collins St,

Melbourne 3000

Melways Ref: 43 H8

Other bloggers’ posts:

MaiLin Talks

Rabbit Eats

Two-KG

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Melbourne – Laurent Patisserie |

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Hokkaido Fair @ Isetan, Scotts Road, Singapore.
Till 9 February 2010

More about Sapporo.

Read more here:
The Betrayal |

Original post: 
Unforgettable Hakone |

Do you know how many shapes chicken rice can take in Malaysia? As far as I know there are three with the most common one served in a semi-spherical or bowl shaped. We can all agree there’s nothing fancy about this. In Melaka, their chicken rice is available in the shape of a ping pong [...]

Originally posted here: 
Pyramid Shaped Hainan Chicken Rice @ Wiya Coffee Restoran |

More:
Snacking in Kyoto. |