Travel Blog Updating

I had posted my recent travelling experience in my the other blog:-
http://aaron-travelogue.blogspot.com/

Hope you like it and please give me your comments.........

Food Fair (19/9/09)

When to the "World Food Fair 2009" in Suntec. After walking one round the stalls, it was found that most of the stalls are same as other Food Fairs which were held in the same premise or Expo. Only 2 foods that really draw my attention:-

怡保猪肠粉

It was different from the plain 猪肠粉 or 上海猪肠粉. It merely put the ingredients into the 猪肠粉 during steaming process. It tasted a bit like 水糕.

Hungary Chimney Bread

Learnt about this bread is from the Travelling and Living Channel where one of the travelling programme introduced this bread. It just rolled the dough on a roller form of holder and then send to an oven. Once the bread is ready and was removed from the baking roller..... a Chimney Bread is done. It comes with few different flavours. I tried the Oreo flavour. Just very average.....

True version of 阿给

For those who really like to know how is the real 阿给 looks like, visit the following blog:-

http://vagabond-man.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post_2337.html

http://vagabond-man.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post_4858.html

新版阿给

Sometime back, saw that this restaurant in Citilink is serve ring Taiwanese food. Took a look at the menu, there are typical Taiwanese food, however I found some interesting dishes in the menu……. '棺材板' and '阿给'. I had tried '阿给' long time ago when I traveled in Taiwan and I missed the food. As there was a long queue outside the restaurant, thus I did not queue to go in during that moment.

Finally, I went there to have dinner tonight. I ordered the '阿给' and Taiwanese Fried Chicken Chop rice. The Fried Chicken Chop rice is a normal type where the chicken meat is coated with Sweet Potato flour and deep fried. However, when '阿给' was served to my table….. I asked:” what is this?”….. the server said “It’s '阿给'!”.

我当场傻眼了!!! This is NOT '阿给'!!!! It is just a '酿豆干'!!!!

I think if my Taiwanese friends see this….. fainted men!!!

The actual version of '阿给' is using '油豆腐' (or so called '豆卜') stuffed with '冬粉' and use '鱼浆' to seal the opening.

Makan in City Square, JB

Went to JB to fix up my glasses ...... same time to try out this restaurant in City Square as recommended by a friend. The restaurant name is 《客人来》and it is located in a corner at the second floor. The restaurant mainly served Hakka dishes...... I ordered 卤肉面 and 洋参菊花茶.

The noodle and the drink not bad........ the chilli sauce is very nice..... a bit like 虾米辣.....

My friends ordered some cooked dishes..... stewed soup, steamed mince meat with salted fish (咸鱼蒸猪肉), fried pork and mince meat roll (五香卷).... Suddenly realized so much meat dishes....... hahaha

The cooked dishes were quite OK except the steamed mince meat with salted fish ......

cannot taste much of the salted fish....

On our way back to Custom, we took a different route (usually we use the bridge which connect City Square and JB Central). While crossing the road to the JB central... something smell nice....... found this Malay uncle selling pancake slightly away from the entrance to the JB central building. As the smell was so nice and cannot resist it, bought a few pieces home to try and it's only RM0.50 per piece. When reached home about 1 hour later, the pancake still has it's crispiness and taste is good.... Only have one flavour .... peanut with butter.

Vegetarian Food... Nice but.....

Went to have dinner at this relocated restaurant that served vegetarian dishes. Simple and cosy place. Food was great. However when the bill came, we were a bit shock...... the total is exceeded what we had expected...... Anyway, I will not mention the place in this blog... as others may find the place nice and reasonable...... I will only tell my friends in private.....

Dempsey Hill

This place used to be the Central Manpower Base (CMPB) of MINDEF, where all Singapore male citizens reported here for army enlistment.

This building used to be the SAF Career Centre, promoted to those people who would like to take up army as their career.

This formerly was the enlistment center where every quarterly (called as major intake, mainly during Mar, Jun, Sep & Dec), thousand of young men will come here to report and surrender their civilian IC. After they had reported, the recruits will then be sent to respective training camps to start their 2 to 2 1/2 years of army life.

But now, most of the buildings here had transformed into restaurants and furniture shops.

This building, where I spent my army days, had turned into a restaurant (current owner is serving Thai food). The green field in front the building had changed a tar coated road.

Singapore Botanic Garden (28 Jun 09)

It’s been a looooong time not going to the Singapore Botanic Garden. No specific impression that I had visited there in the few years, the only memory I had it was during my childhood days.

Many changes had been made to the place.

Immediately, after the entrance, we were walking on the Main Gate Road. However, I’m vaguely still remembered there was a pond after you entered the garden…. I still can recalled that I fell into the pond while trying to catch the tadpole during my first visit there with Mom…… But the pond no way to be seen.

Walked along the Main Gate Road, the weather was quite breezing cool….. Many Filipinos are having picnic or gathering on the green…..…

Reached the Swam Lake…… only few swan was observed.

(gazebo next the swan lake)

Ohhhhhh….. why I can’t take any more photos with my camera…… camera indicated memory storage full….. how can it be…… .. Alamak…. SD card not in the camera…. Then I realized I had left the SD card in my notebook after working with it…….

So just walked without taking any photos…… After the Swan Lake, it is the Ginger Garden….. there was a man-made water fall…. Saw a couple taking wedding photos there… Next to the Ginger Garden was the Orchids Garden…. Needed to pay for the entrance…. Since unable to take photos, decided not to go in….. just taken another walking path back to the main gate….

I think I’ll go again to visit the Orchids Garden.

Taiwan Snack

A friend of mine returned from Taiwan and brought back a packet of 铁蛋 and 牛尾巴饼。However, the 铁蛋 tasted extremely horrible ..... despite he mentioned that it was from a famous shop in 淡水....... I felt like biting a rubber ball. I think he could have bought it from the wrong shop..... I prefer the one make from chicken egg than quail egg as I still can taste the egg white.


I yet to open the 牛尾巴饼... I think it may be something like 牛舌饼. Talking about牛舌饼, I make a blunder years back when I first visited to Taiwan.........


在一间台东土产店.......

老板：来尝尝我们店里的特产..... 牛舌饼.... 带点回新加坡给你朋友或同事尝尝
我：老板，不好意思啦！我的同事不能吃有牛的东西啦！

老板和我的朋友笑翻了................ I really want to dig a hole......

Frangipani

Passed by Raffles Hotel and saw there were few frangipani trees outside the hotel.


It reminded me of the road which I used to pass through before reaching grandma's house and to primary school.

Frangipani is the national flower of Bali Island, you can see Balinese .. male or female will wear one on their head... however Singapore Chinese do not like this flower especially the older generation people..... beside calling 鸡蛋花 in Chinese...... Frangipani has another Chinese name...... 死人花.... dead people flower............ because Frangipani in the old days was used to make the flower ring especially for the condolences occasion.

Memory Lane....

As mentioned in my previous post, visiting the museums really bring back some of my childhood memory............

This was the tuk-tuk kueh mobile stall that they will cycle to different areas or streets to sell the kueh..... and nowadays I already hardly eat tuk tuk kueh......

You still able to see this ice kachang machine in the dessert stalls, however now mainly operate by electric. In those old days, planing the ice block is done manually. I still remember, there was a stall down the end of Tras Street where my grandmother used to stay. With 5 cents at that time, I am able to buy a ice ball with colored syrup (those put in the ice kachang) on it........ added another 5 cents to have the red beans in it. Sometime what my friend and I did is to chip out 5 cents each to get the ice ball with red bean and asked the owner to half it for us. We always ended up with sticky hand.

Incidentally, I passed by the areas where I grown up.........

The house where I was born had been demolished years back.... now it just a plot of field waiting for development.

Just on the other side of the road, it was the building where my grandmother used to stay. I also did stay there during my primary school days.

My primary school is just next street from my grandmother's house. In those days, it was rare to have lift in a school. My primary school is one of them which have a lift and the other school that I know was Pearl Hill Primary School.

International Museum Day (31 May 09)

It had been long since I last visited a Museum (you can image, way before the National Museum underwent the major renovation)..... hahahe you should have guessed how many donkey years liao......

Thus, due to the open house in most of the museums (free admission) today, I purposely wake up early this morning to start off my one day museum hopping. I managed to visit 4 museums, namely Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore Philatelic Museum, The Peranakan Museum and National Museum of Singapore. The crowds were still alright. However, the most killing part is to queue up for the Singapore History Gallery in National Museum of Singapore. It took me more than a hour to get in, and before I could slowly look and listen to the exhibit, it was about to close.....

Anyway, it was a fruitful day and some of the exhibits really bring me down the memory lane.

Makan in JB

Haha... went to JB makan again. On this trip we went to this well known restaurant in Palangi area. The restaurant has a very special name.... 三楼 three story

We ordered their signature dish.... Fried Bee Hoon. Other dishes ordered were chili crab, fried baby squid and a Luo Han Zhai 罗汉斋.

Fired Bee Hoon

Chili Crab with Fried Man Tou (馒头)

Fried Baby Squid

Verdict is that Fried Bee Hoon is the best dish. The texture of the Bee Hoon is different from Sg or Taiwan 新竹米粉. After fried, the bee hoon still maintain it's moisture. Next is the chili crab, the crab fresh and sweet. As for the Luo Han Zhai, it is too 'plain' and the Fried Baby Squid is oily...... prefer the Sg style... deep fried with sweet dark sauce. Anyway, will go again to try other dishes.

Mr Baoz is launching their new item.... baoz in hamburger way. Will try them during next trip to JB.......

Free Laptop??????

Always received this sort of emails, mentioning that if you forwarded the email to how many people you will stand a chance to win or will have a free stuff. The most recent one that I got is the Free Laptop from Ericsson.... I just simply deleted the mail away..

Because I don't see anyone step out and said he or she got the PRIZE from these emails ........ Anyone.....???!!!

Lunch at Hua Mui

Brought friends to have lunch in Hua Mui last Sunday. This round I didn't order the chicken chop. Instead, I ordered a Kumpong Fried Rice. Not bad, it fried with chicken and ikan billis... and ....... spicy. The other plate (upper one) is Hua Mui Fried Rice..... just a normal fried rice with sausage

My new travel blog

My new blog 开张了!!!
I had my recent Bangkok trip posted

http://aaron-travelogue.blogspot.com/

请多多指教...........

New feature in MRT

Saw this new feature in some of the new MRT. It lets you know which station is the train will be stopping at and which side of the door will be open.

This is not a new thing, Hong Kong MTR has already installed this system many years back.

Bag....... AGAIN!

今天闲来无事到处逛逛，又不觉中买了一个包包............ 嘻嘻！受不了引诱.........

Found this bag and the design is unique. Despite I have several bags.... stilll can't resist it.........

New discovery from Bangkok

Found 2 new interesting food/snack during my recent visit in Bangkok:-

Bael Fruit Tea (Matoom Tea)

After a massage session, I was served with this tea. It has a bit of coconut taste. The taste was quite pleasant that decided to buy some back.

Managed to find the tea in supermarket. It come in 2 forms:- an instant tea mixed type. Simply pour water to the mixture and you get the tea.
While the other is it's dried fruit. Cook the dried fruit as like you boiling 凉茶. Add sugar once tea is boiling. Cook it a bit longer time as to let the fruit release it's smell. Drain out the fruit and you still can cook it for another time except that the smell of the tea will be mild.

Tum Yum flavoured Chestnut
I had the Tum Yum peanunt before but not the Chestnut. It is not so spicy but with strong Thai herb taste especially the Kaffir leave. In it, there are also Garlic, Sesame, Lemongrass and Chilli Padi.

It's yummy..........

Luk Luk

Found this mobile food van parking opposite Taman Sri Terbau Hawkers Centre. The van is selling 'Luk Luk'.

'Luk Luk' hardly can be found in Sg.
What is 'Luk Luk'?
It is a simplified version of steam boat. So that if you just want to have a quick bite, pick up the items (fish ball, fish cake, veg, tofu, chicken meat.... etc) that you like, soak them into a pot of boiling clear soup. Take it out once the food is cooked and dipped into the necessary sauce. Mainly, those food items are skewed and you just pay according to the number of stick that you had consumed. Different colored stick represent different price.

My most memorable 'Luk Luk' is in Malacca. It is called 'Satay Cheh Luk'. Instead cooking with a clear soup, the skewed food is dipped into satay gravy to cook.... mmm yum, yum.

The well known Hainanese Chicken Chop in JB

Hua Mui Restaurant in JB had been introduced by some of the bloggers and highly recommended in some food magazines.

I ordered their signature dishes - Hainanese Chicken Chop.

The food is served as shown in the picture. The presentation of the dish is simple.

Once I took the first bite....... Wooow..... the outer skin is crispy and the meat still remain juicy inside. In fact, I'm not a fan of chicken chop.... but this may have changed my mind........