This was one of those off-the-cuff things.  It was one of those what-shall-i-cook-?-dun-wanna-eat-the-same-old-stuff kind of days.  Yeah, you've had one of those I'm sure.  PY has them one in a while - just replace cook with buy and stuff with clothes.  So I hope that I'm the FIRST IN THE WORLD (!!) to come with the concept of the IOS (Inside-Out Sandwich).  So instead of the "filling" inside, it goes outside ... you can probably call it the "peeling". 

So for the above, take some chix breasts or thigh fillets. Put them on a board and cover with film or into those transparent plastic bags, pound till flattish using whatever you can find ... a vase or an old keyboard or a block of nian gao left over from last year.  marinate up your meat; whatever turns you on.  I did a simple salt and black pepper marinade.  But you can do BBQ, spicy or cajun.  You can even brine the meat too.  Then I lightly toasted some bread (the reason will be made known later), sliced up some tomatoes, bought some smoked ham, grated some cheese and grabbed some dried basil and parsley.  So at the bottom, I started with a layer of meat, then bread, then in-no-particular-order, your cheese, ham and veggies with a sprinkling of herbs as desired.  I used parmesan and mozzarella in this instance.  And the smoked ham gives it wonderful flavour. Then you end off at the top with bread, meat and if you like more cheese at the top (for example, if you like browned mozarella).  The reason for toasting the bread is so that dry bread absorbs the tomatoes and chicken juices better.  (Well, that was my reasoning - I haven't tried this a second time with non-toasted bread slices).  Then you pop the whole thing into a 200 degree celcius oven for about 20 mins.  Make sure you check that the meat is cooked - use a small sharp knife to pierce the meat, if juices run clear, it is cooked! (Chicken carpaccio or sashimi does NOT work well here).

So the beauty of this inside out sandwich is that first you see MEAT MEAT MEAT outside, yum! And then the bread absorbs all these wonderful juices, so make sure to put meat next to bread.  I recommend using good quality ingredients - the cardinal rule to making a good sandwich.  Use expensive bread, vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh chicken - it's well worth it! Some good pairings with chicken include avocado, bacon and mayonnaise.  Play around with the flavours.  Try it also with beef patties, beef burgers, emu meat, zebra steaks, crocodile fillets etc - whatever pleases you.  Just find the right blend of "filling" and "peeling" and you'll be flipping happy inside-out in no time.

Actually this blog post was up a long time ago albeit only with the pictures and no text.  I had put it up last weekend but just had no time to type anything because I was busy preparing to fight this monster called The Manex Assessment due last monday.  Put simply, this involves driving your ship in a confined and exact way to variouspoints located only a few hundred metres away from each other.  So its something like "dancing with your ship" and testing your skills and to some extent your luck.  If you looked up at the big bright moon that day, you might have seen Chang'e,嫦娥, with a big question mark over her head wondering what the hell were these tiny grey vessels doing moving in a zig zag fashion in the world's busiest waterway with 200m long and 100,000 tonnes heavy merchant ships going at full speed.

But if you ever thought that the mid autumn festival was only about the moon and the moongal, you might be glad to know that it also celebrates the end of the summer harvesting season.  This means that farmers and their family members come together to celebrate the harvest by doing the usual eat-pomelo-burn-lantern-play-sparkle-and-eat-mooncake while the scholars buy atas Raffles hotel mooncakes and flaunt their haute and bulging "Raffles Hotel Mooncake I-Am-Not-A-Plastic-Bag" bag all over town.

So for awardees like me, who straddle the fence between this farmer-scholar divide, are burdened with the onerous task of performing both these mid autumn rituals.  But to serve our foodie purposes here, I present only the yummy mooncake portion.

So first up we have, this snowskin champagne truffle and white chocolate ganache mooncake from the famous Raffles Hotel, Singapore.  At $48+ for a box of eight, this has an atas-ness score of 10 upon 10.  If anyone tells you so-and-so chicken is melt in your mouth or so-and-so cake is melt in your mouth, take it with a pinch of salt.  But if someone tells oyu that Raffles Hotel snowskin mooncakes are melt in your mouth, boy are they right.  These sinful little ones are so fine that popping one in your mouth sends you almost to the pearly gates.  The secret I feel, lies not in the fancy filling but in the delicateness of the snow skin which is just exquisite.  Pity that this can't keep for long, best eaten up to five days after purchase.  But that shouldn't be a problem.

And after Raffles Hotel, I trekked down to Raffles City where there was a mooncake firesale since it was the last day of the MAF.  I managed to pick up this white lotus paste double yolk from Polar Cafe.  I got it for only $5, a real steal.  For a mid-range mooncake, the taste was pretty decent but I thought the skin was a tad bit too hard.  A little over-baked perhaps?  But the filling was quite kao-kao, or quite plentiful and the skin not too thick.  What I would have liked was more melon seeds!  Thre was only a grand total of like maybe 4 seeds in the whole mooncake.

And coming in at the bottom range, we have this roll of  豆沙仔 from NTUC.  Ok, so for five of these, you pay $1.70.  Hardly something you'll even find in Hotel 81.  They're hardish, the skin is quite thick and the filling is rough and a bit fudgy.  But after eating the first two, these little buggers kinda grew on me.  I'm the type who likes to eat hard stuff, as opposed to PY who likes soft.  So she eats the soft, chewy subway cookies while I prefer famous Amos.  And I was pretty happy just chewing and chewing on the 豆沙仔.  Rather therepeutic.

But of course, coming in at the "bottom bottom" are the home-made mooncakes by my Aunty Shah.  The cost price of each full sized mooncake is probably about $2 or even less.  The ingredients are from Phoon Huat and Bake King.  On the left is her famous green tea filling mooncake with a flaky parmesan cheese sprinkled crust.  It's not pastry-like flaky but rather cake-like flaky as you can see.  Each piece is slightly bigger than the size of a golf ball and contains two hazelnuts each.  On the right is the traditional lotus and egg yolk filling.  Once again, a thin skin with substantial amount of filling and melon seeds. Oh yes, in case you didn't know, the egg yolks in mooncakes are from salted duck eggs.

So there ends my mooncake culinary adventure ... at least until a year later.  Wishing you, my friends, a very happy harvest.

"Big Justin Tan" or otherwise known by his online moniker, Bonos, was finally back in Singapore. Apart from the fleeting fact that he lost 30kg (!@#$@#%$), he was still same 'ole justin tan. So PY, Meiling, Yanjie, Gillian and I met up at Brotzeit's spanking new branch at Raffles City for some German grub. I actually had planned on going to Brotzeit for some time especially after this poor experience at Magma I had heard some good things about the branch at Vivocity so I was looking foward to trying the food. And lo and behold, the special of the day, as indicated on their blackboard outside was the classic german pork knuckle - no better way to gauge the authenticity of the restaurant.

(Firstly, thanks to Gillian for the use of her 5mp phone and her time in sending me these photos :))

This really was a "special" - its not in the menu. Come to think of it, its a little strange since pork knuckle is like the most german of german dishes besides sausages. Anyhow, quality-wise, it was of little surprise that this was a smashing good dish. Nothing like the roasted knuckles I had at Magma. The meat, bar the outer edges, was succulent. The sauerkraut, pickled German cabbages, was tasty and had the right amount of tang. Plus, the potato salad was smooth and creamy with deep fried onions as a topping. I could find little fault with this dish, it even came sliced like we requested. But I could have done with some gravy on the side though. The major boo-boo about htis dish was not in the taste but in the price and the manner of advertising. A quick glance of the Brotzeit main dishes will reveal that mains usually average in the mid $20s +++. But we were shocked to discover that the pork knuckle was a whopping $36+++. The shitty "I got ripped off big time" feeling was compounded by the fact that the previously mentioned blackboard at the entrance to the restaurant conveniently failed to mention the price. Sure I can certainly be blamed for ordering something without asking for the price. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded paying but no one had informed us of the price beforehand. It just left us feeling stupid at the end of what we thought was a good meal.

Some saving grace however, can be found in this dish:

This is what the Deutch call Meeresfruchtesalat - mixed salad with smoked salmon, tuna, prawns, semi-dried tomatoes, olives, grilled zucchini, oranges and sour cream dressing, Now if there ever was a Salad Olympics, this will be a strong contender for gold. Every bit, and I mean every bit of this dish, is high-quality stuff. The Real Deal Stuff man. Everything is fresh and tasty; I especially liked the seared tuna. Everything was so good that it masked over the fact that the ingredients may not have complemented each other very well. I mean, there were so many things that its hard to make a match of the tastes and textures. It's not like a Caeser's salad where the cheese, romaine leaves and dressing go well together. Another plus point to this salad is the very delicate sour cream, not your usual over-powering stuff or tartare sauce masquerading as sour cream. This dressing tied everything up perfectly. And at $20+++ I would have gladly ordered two more of this rather than the pork knuckle

Service-wise, I was not pleased either. The restaurant uses either bluetooth of 3G wireless PDAs to key in orders which then appear magically in the kitchen's screen. Gilliang was pretty intrigued by this and asked if she could see the PDA. But the curt reply from our waitress was "No". The waitress wasn't really trying to be rude but her reply can be roughly translated into "No! You're just here to eat, so eat. Why you want to know so much about our new spanking German technology?". Well firstly, a waitress shouldn't be curt to customers. Secondly and more importantly, never reply a customer with the word "no". There was a gazillion ways to reply - "I'm sorry m'am but...", "M'am, unfortunately...", "M'am, I'm afraid I cannot...". But the bottomline is (pardon my caps): WHY THE HELL SO PROTECTIVE ABOUT A COMMON WIRELESS PDA SET?! I mean, unless there's some top secret nuclear code inside or something. The waitress could very well have demonstrated to us how the restaurant utilises this technology to save time and costs and it would have left us with a nice, warm and fuzzy feeling about the wonders of cutting-edge wireless gadgets ... *wow*....

Oh yes, back to the service, nothing special I'm afraid and thoroughly forgettable. Not particularly warm, friendly or affable.

Atmosphere-wise, the restaurant was an an open concept i.e. no air-con. Somehow, deep down in my sweat glands, I doubt that Singaporeans take very well to non air-con restaurants unless it is a zi char stall or some famous Geylang turtle soup. When they look at the prices and they look at the location, it is almost inevitable that most Singaporeans will expect some cool comfort. I mean, no surprise, we're not exactly living in a temperate climate. Furthermore, I don't see the cost savings in electricity being used to offset the cost of my pork knuckle...

What I did like was the good use of benches amidst the wood-theme decor - suitable for large gatherings and gave a feeling of earthiness.

Overall, I doubt I'll be back at Brotzeit. The restaurant scene in Singapore is way too vibrant for anyone to accept subpar standards, no matter how good the food. But of course, this doesn't apply to hawker stalls where the hawkers can be as curt and rude as they want or locate their stalls in the 18th level of hell for all Singaporeans care, they'll endure all sort of abuse for their good chicken rice, you char kway or wanton mee. But unfortunately, not for sauerkraut.

Welcome to the schizophrenic world of the Singaporean foodie.

Food 8.5, Service 5.5, Atmosphere 6, Value for money 5

If there ever was a dish that can best symbolise the state of my life at this moment in time, it is a thai green mango salad.  Or rather, more specifically, this concoction of a green mango salad that I've created here.  It has the semi-sour and semi-sweet crunch of unripe mangoes, its a little bit messy, it has some uneven crunch with crispy bits of pork rind, some fulfilling moments with the fat, nutty taste of cashews, some hot, hairy and tear-jerking moments with the chillis, and a nice sprinkling of toasted white dessicated coconut that look like the frequent graces and blessings from God that blankets most of our lives.

It's never nice being a junior military officer.  Its worst that a BMT recruit.  That's because as a recruit you do not have any responsibilities.  In fact, you're the centre of attention...the whole BMT complex exists to serve the recruit.  But as the most junior officer, you are tasked with all sorts of rubbish jobs, get an earful when superiors get stressed, and then need to face responsilibilities involving big guns and men's lives that could screw you and your career up big time and lastly, you are still expected to fulfil your primary job of training to become what you're supposed to become. 

So this dish here is dedicated to all junior officers, whether in the military, in the civil service or a private company.  Even the "lowest life forms" deserve some good food!

Serves 4 hungry humans

Ingredients

4 green unripe mangoes

Half cup dessicated or shredded coconut (lightly toasted using a pan over a small flame)

1 cup fresh basil

1 cup cashews

4 chilli padis or 2 large chillis, de-seeded

5 sprigs or 0.5 cup of cilantro / chinese parsley

0.5 cup mint leaves

Grated rind of one lime

4 tbsp fish sauce

4 tbsp lime juice

2tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp peanut oil

Cashew nuts

Crispy pork rind

-Mix together your wet ingredients with the sugar to form the dressing.  Make sure it is well mixed.

-Peel your mangoes using a potato peeler.  Ideally, use a peeler that juliennes to shred up the mango flesh.  I, unfortunately, did not have the luxury of having one and had to settle with the strips made by a potato peeler.

-Use only the soft stalks of the basil and tear them into bit size pieces.  Do the same with the cilantro.

-Finely cut up your chillis.  Be careful with the chilli padi, hot stuff!

-Mix the veggies and mango together with the lemon rind.  Then dress the salad in a big bowl

-Top with cashew nuts, coconut and the crispy pork rind.  The rind and nuts should be broken into smaller pieces.

-Best served freshly cut and tossed.

I got most of my ingredients from the Little Thailand of Singapore a.k.a Golden Mile Shopping Centre.  I would recommend you go there, if nothing, at least to soak in the authentic feel of Thailand.  Remember to search for the unripest of green mangoes, those which are the hardest.  Otherwise, you'll get ripe flesh near the mango seed (mangoes ripen gradually from the inside).  You can also choose to add meat or seafood too if you want.  but I suggest you don't, just K.I.S.S

Most of the time spent on this dish was spent peeling the slicing the mangoes, you could use fancy equipment to help you expedite this process if you do have them.  Otherwise, it was pretty therapeutic doing something brainless and monotonous. 

Just what every junior officer needs!

I once saw someone wearing a T-Shirt that said "The Best Thing Since Baked Bread".  I really couldn't argue with it, not with the fact that he/she is the best thing since baked bread but the fact that, by implicit meaning, baked bread is good.  Good Stuff.  I wonder who in the world ever thought of taking wheat, beating the stalks about for a bit till the grains fall out, wonder what the hell are these tiny things, proceed to smash and grind them till a powder is produced, and then putting in some bacteria and finally putting the gooey thing over heat.  Like DUH? But this process gave the world baked bread.  Virtually anyone in the world can appreciate the smell of freshly bake bread.  Bread is my favourite carbohydrate and I'll eat it any day.  What I like are loaves, not the gardenia-type bread slices which are boring but like loaves from Breaktalk or Q Bread. 

So I was pretty glad to be in Marina Square one day when PY and I stumbled on Pong's Laksa House which served their signature Laksa Bread:

Ok lar, most of you will realise that it isn't really overflowing with fish and prawns; as if it is chocked full of it inside.  But for $5.50 I think this is a pretty good value dish.  The bread is the same type as the Singapore version of the french loaf - rather fluffy.  But the magic is in the laksa gravy - what I like about htis gravy is that it manages to deliver taste without too much fat.  Very often, laksa stalls (and homecooks) like to use heavy coconut milk to bribe the customers with fat.  But Pong's laksa gravy is more on the mild side and is decently flavoured.  The taste of the shallots, turneric and daun kesom are all there.  I enjoyed this lighter version quite a lot.  And the best part is that Pong's very obligingly gives you an extra bowl of laksa gravy too; I like bread ends so it was very handy for me.

A little bit on the Marina Square food court.  I'm not a big fan of food courts because the food is usually just standard stuff and variety isn't very great.  But I think two food courts in Singapore stand out - the food terrace food court at Suntec city which is just amazingly huge and the Marina Square one.  This Marina Square food court is decent big, has a decent variety of food (even suckling pig is available albeit at an exorbitant price) and best of all a great view of the upcoming IR.  I half expect the stalls there to put up a hand scrawled sign stating something like "With affect from August 2009, all items food price increase 30 cts due to IR completion and the very accompanying sceneries to offer".

Oh yes, for those who like 芋泥 or aw nee, the dessert stall there sells the cold version: yam paste over shaved ice with corn and gingko, a steal at $2.80. 

Yes, laksa bread and yam paste - you'll be in heaven too!