Senoko Fishery POrt

I did the crazy thing of visiting the fish port at 4am in the morning. I was jet lagged......





Check out the hot pink fish baskets !!!








One of the perks of a multiracial society is that you still get to eat Indian prata even though its Chinese New Year ;)

Happy CNY 2012 !!!

Back in Singapore after a week's long receiving and what better ways to celebrate other than to be able to spend some good quality time with my family and relatives over a reunion feast. I reckon this is my 3rd time back during the Chinese new year period but only the 2nd time actually being at the reunion dinner table.

My Dad's a strong traditionalist who firmly believes in reunion dinners taking place at home rather than at restaurants. So much so I don't recall ever having any dinners at a restaurant on Chinese New Year's Eve.

This year's dinner was to take place at my 3rd Uncle's place. Back in the good old days when Ah ma was around, dinner always took place at my house. Over the last decade, we have started rotating around the different households.

My 3rd Aunt is into her natural flavours when it comes to cooking and focuses on presentation as part of accentuating the chow down experience. Also being a whole zodiac cycle younger than my mum, her choice of ingredients are much more adventurous and modern.

The amount of preparation that goes into a CNY dinner cannot be taken lightly. Besides the considering the quantity, you need to think about catering to the different generations as well. In the past, it used to be more difficult with my little cousins (The Macdonald's Generation) being small and not liking the more blend par boiled steamboat ingredients. They much prefer deep fried stuff and ketchup haha. Now that they are older, they seem less interested with the deep fried morsels. I, on the other hand, just eat everything cos I am deprieved haha.

In contrast to the kiddies, my Uncles and Aunts much prefer their fishes. More on white rabbit fishes in another post but without fail, this prized item always squeezes itself onto the table. Being Teochew and liking fish is one thing but being in a family where your grandfather used to be a fisherman and having a Dad who travels all the way to Sembawang to buy fish at 4am on CNY day1 really says something about how much this family like their oceanic swimmers.

There is not limit to the variety of ingredients that you have. I am not even going to compare with Seoul garden but I am sure every family have their favourite items that they would like to have on their table. Its like going to CHina blue in Glasgow and ordering the same dishes every time -_- hahaha.

Prawns, pork, chicken, sea cucumber, fish maw, fish ball..... the list goes on and on .

I found this platter of cooked ingredients rather interesting. Reminds me of the cold appetiser / deli section in a Western buffet. Anyway, starting at the top and going clockwise, cold pork belly with crisp garlic, right century egg with ginger slices, abalone, cuttlefish, spicy bah kwa, Cherry TOMATO??? and in the centre, preserved spring onion bulbs ?

Huat AH !!!

Post Dinner activities heh heh heh.

In which I am not normally a winner -__- "




Happy Dragon Year Everybody. Hope you are taking time out to chat with your folks and celebrating wherever you might be . !!!

Happy 2012 !!!!

Happy Happy New Year everyone... !!!! HOpe everyone has had a great start to the year. It was Especially fun for me when you have a drunkard ringing the door bell at 4am on 1st of Jan. I don know why I thought it was the postman with my package. Clearly no one does delivery on 1st Jan.

New Year's normally my time to cook and I couldn't resist the opportunity to try out some recipes inspired by Gordon , Nigella and Jamie

Salmon seems to be going at half price every Christmas. Naturally it was the perfect excuse to splurge and make a SAlmon en croute. I bought 2 arm length slabs of salmon, buttered them generously with herb butter. Layered on some pre-sauteed spinach and mushroom. Salt and peppered them and made a sandwich out of it.

Got some puff pastry as well and very gently wrapped it up into this fish looking like parcel. Do you like the 2012?

Egg painted the whole thing and popped it into the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 1 hour. My parcel was 1.5 inches thick at its maximum and cooked perfectly without burning the puff pastry. The dough was strangely burnt resistant and baked to a nice golden brown.

I picked up this orange glazed duck stuffed with mince pork and cherry from M & S. Slightly dry after baking for 2 hours but the drippings were good enough to moisten it all up again.

Coca-Cola BAked ham. I thought it would taste alot sweeter and less salty after boiling it in cola and baking it with marmalade and lots of brown sugar.
Think I shall leave the ham to Aa next year (if there's one hahhaha)

Would you like a slice?

First time making bread and butter pudding having only eaten it twice in the past.
Too Soggy !!! hahahah
Thankfully our dear friends from Edinburgh brought us some Ice cream from St Andrews. I really need to check out this place in the future. !!

Merry Xmas - One Final Time?

Merry Christmasss !!!!..
Time of the year where my flatmate cooks and I stuff myself into a big fat pig.
WIne sponsered by the 2 couples. lol.





A hunky chunky piece of Beef from Whole Foods. A whooping 70 quid ```!!!! O _ O !!!!!
We wanted to char the entire beef with a blow torch but look at how pathetic our torch was lol.
We tried. At least the flames provided for some great photo taking.





Check it out !!!!





TurDucKen Roast from M & S. Chicken covered by Duck covered by Turkey . Get it?





All the trimmings !!!


Who knows where I will be next year. Whereever it is. It will all be good.

Congratulations Dr & Mrs Lim

Just for the Record.. Congratulations to the Both of you !!!

Cail Bruich - Market Menu

Merry Xmas one and all. Its great to be back blogging again. I do miss it but work does take over the better half of my time.

Met up with some year mates at Cail Bruich one weekeday evening to try out the market menu.
17.95 quid for 3 courses
14.95 for 2 courses.

Whiskey Cured Oak Salmon with Lemon CApers, creme Fraiche and Herbs. Nice plated and not looking like it was ready to fill you up even before the main course.

Venison liver Parfait, apricot, pear & saffron chutney, toasted sourdough bread. Didn't realise that parfait is also known as pate... Good thing the chutney did well to mask the gamey taste of the pate. still a nice dish though

Hake, ratte potatos, sprouting broccoli, Seville Orange Hollandaise. Greatly pan fried fish, fresh veggies, and creamy potatos. The seville orange hollandaise sauce provided a nice tangy kick to the fresh fish.

Braised Pork Cheeks, Pureed Potatos, baby onions, Lardon, mushrooms, parsley.

A very competent brownie. Simple pleasures. mAximUm Satisfaction.

Cail Bruich West
----------------------------
725, Great Western Rd,
Glasgow,
Lanarkshire
http://www.cailbruich.co.uk/


G12 8QX

Ian Brown - Food and Drink

Its not usual for the West Ender to venture into the South side of Glasgow in search of gourmet food. 1. There's alot more restaurants that I have yet to discover in central Glasgow and 2. there are not many restaurants in the South side. If you guys know any that I might like, please recommend.

so Aa's idea of a romantic getaway with C over the weekend (yes.. lightbulb again...) was to pay a visit to the newly opened Wholefoods Super market. If you like me enjoy watching Topchef, would know that its one of the higher end supermarkets you can splurge on.
Sorry Waitrose, someone's up the ante.

And because we were in the South side, there's a great excuse to try out one of the List's hitlist restaurant.





Looks can be deceiving and if you ask me I wouldn't think that the restaurant was helmed by the once head chef of Ubiquitous chip if you look at the restaurant front. Step inside and instantaneously, the "posh"ness of its modern interior set my stomach rumbling for what I was hoping will be a nice luncheon.





We went with the set lunch as we thought it was the most economical.
Before we even placed our orders, a very nice gesture in the form of a sweet potato basil oil veloute was presented before us.




Customary JPO breadshot haha!! Homemade bread with extremely good quality olive oil.





Aa had a smoked mackerel salad dill dressing. Good quality smoked mackerel !!! and not too heavy at all for a starter





Asparagus Custard with a garlic sippet and pea sauce. That's for me.
The custard was alittle light in flavours but the pea sauce was great.





Your humble Greg's bridie made posh in this restaurant.





For mains, Aa had a venison pie. Chunks of venison certainly made this worthwhile





C had a pan-fried mackeral with mustard sauce. She likes it !!.

And I had a stuffed chicken risotto with new potatos and vegetable spaghetti. Succulent chicken, crispy skin and a playful take on spaghetti kept me wanting for more.

+ Great classy food at great prices. Nice ambiance. Friendly staff
- South side of town makes traveling difficult for me haha.


The man himself wasn't in that afternoon but the food certainly did not fall short of his high standards.

Ian Brown Food and Drink
---------------------------------

55 Eastwoodmains Road

Glasgow, G46 6PW
Tel: 0141 638 8422
www.ianbrownrestaurant.co.uk

Thai Lemon Grass

I have been to 3 Thai restaurants in Glasgow and amongst all these, Lemon Grass ranks atop the Thai food kingdom. Don't be too quick to dismiss it off as another Thai restaurant that has modified its flavours to suit the western palette. Truth be told, there was something uniquely Thai about the food we had that night.

We started off with a nice house sampler consisting of chicken satay, fish cakes, Grilled pork neck, spring rolls and prawn cakes. All of which were impressive. The.chicken satay breast were moist and matched well with the fragrant peanut sauce. The pork neck was my favourite. So well grilled on the outside with a moist pink centre.

The thai chicken coconut soup was a little like a diluted down version of thai red curry with coconut milk. Tasty but not attention grabbing.

For mains, we had a stir fried roast duck with chilli paste. Never heard of this dish but it tasted nice. Certainly reminded me of something that I might have had in Thailand.

The thai green curry packed a good punch of spices. Just wished it was spicier. I like it atomic hot haha

Finally the star of the night was this deep fried seabass topped with a spicy mango salad. Fresh juicy chunks of meat that has been deboned by the chef for your eating convinience. If you like something tangy and sweet, you'll like this.

This was as close to Thai food that I would ever get in Glasgow and I applaud the efforts of the owners in their efforts of trying to recreate the same atmosphere in their interior designs and attention of garnishes in their food.

I paid more than what I usually would for food today but what I had was satisfying and I looked forward to a good excuse to splurge on something nice at this restaurant again.

Thai Lemongrass
------------------------

24 Renfrew Street

Glasgow, G2 3BW

Phone: 0141 331 1315

p.S : I have been relegated to doing monthly restaurant reviews with my work ahhaha. oh wells.

Emirates Business Lounge Terminal 3.

I finally got a chance to visit the business class lounge in Terminal 3 with my upgrade to business class on the - GLA leg.
Frankly, it wasn't as exhilarating as I thought it was going to be.

The food was essentially the same except that there were like 6x times as many counters serving food. In terms of variety, its largely the same. The most significant different is that the mango juice was totally out of this world and they had fridge of free flow haagen daaz ice cream. yum yuym.

Its alot more spacious than the business class lounge in Terminal 1 but it dosen't really bother me as much as the lack of new food items.
FYI: Silver members are allowed into the business lounge in Terminal 1 only. Only Skyward Gold and business class passengers travelling on emirates flight out of DXB are allowed into the business lounge in Terminal 3.

Anyway. its free so I shan't complain haha