In the second part of the 3 part series about guests and restaurants: Specifically 10 days after my Mother In Law left for the United States, the great country that gave the world George W. and Michael Jackson, my brother and sister in law came to town!
I told them that in Singapore, you have to go to a buffet. Its everywhere. Its everything. Its part of Singapore culture. As if a buffet is the greatest social equality equalizer. There are no elitist in buffets. Just people eating in whatever order they like however much they like. Me and my big mouth brought us to the Straits Kitchen at Hyatt Hotel.
Now, I tried to make reservations the night before and I was gladly amused. Wow, a buffet having no tables available? The restaurant must be awesome! I made a reservation for the following day and we strutted ourselves there and were gladly surprised. It was a beauty. Straits Kitchen is probably one of the prettiest buffet/restaurant I have seen. The china was fancy. The service impeccable. The walls were out of this world. The food you ask? Well ... there's only so few words you can use but I shall use three. Glorified Hawker Center. Take away the masks of a hotel, china, air conditioning, and service. Its just very expensive hawker food. Maybe I am crazy stingy but to pay $44 a person including tax for a buffet that serves hawker food, which by the way did not have that much variety is a crime. I would like to take this time to publicly apologize to my brother and sister in law for dragging them to such an overpriced ostentatious experience.
I wanted my brother and sister in law to have a kick ass gastronomical experience. I wanted them to experience some local home cooking but not cooked by me, I thought of having some friends cook Chinese dishes. But the thing is, none of my friends can do it! They can cook mind you, but a 6 course traditional Chinese meal? Ouch! We are hopeless. I only know of a Victoria Junior College teacher, and friend of mine who can do Hainanese Chicken Rice? That's about it. Armed with that knowledge in mind, I decided to bring my guests to Liang Kee Teochew Restaurant, at Robertson Quay. Now let me get this straight. I am not Teochew. I am a misplaced Khek that can't speak a single word or swear with my own dialect and can barely speak some Hokkien and Cantonese. The reason why I chose Liang Kee was because it was my grandfather's favorite restaurant. And ever since he passed away over a year ago, I just somehow always think about going to the restaurant and have been back several times.
The food was good. Not great. The most important thing was that my brother and sister in law loved it. We sat al fresco style outside the restaurant and we ordered the goodies. The only disappointment was that they didn't have the braised goose meat, which is one of their specialities. We ordered the prawn rolls for me, hot plate tofu for my wife, some beef hor fun to share, some stir fried vegetables, my wife's favorite stewed pork with steamed buns, and I think some egg omelet. For all that, and I probably went through 3 rounds of Barley and or green tea, and maybe 2 rounds for everybody else, I have to say $60 some dollars was worth the ticket. I would gladly go back again. Only I would order the goose and cold crab!
Now, I can't afford to always bring my relatives to nice restaurants. So on some nights, we went to hawker centers and food courts. In my earlier posts, I stated that I have never stepped into Vivocity until my mother in law was in town, now I never stepped into the Food Republic in Vivocity until my brother and sister in law were in town. Let me just get this of my chest right now. Food Republic in Vivocity is the BEST, you heard it right, the BEST food court in Singapore. Bar none. Even better than the Food Republic at Wisma and soon to be in Suntec. Best. The people who got to the planning of that particular Food Republic got it absolutely right. From the location, to the type of food served to the decor of the place and the music that's played. Absolutely spot on. Its a lovely place. Great place to eat and I highly recommend this foodcourt more than any others.
The other place that my brother and sister in law loved was the temporary Chinatown market right next to Outram MRT. Okay. The way it was built is disgusting. You'll be inhaling and smelling like smoke if you sit in the wrong aisle and its always so crowded that you can't even find seats. The thing is that, the smoke inhalation and the over crowdedness adds to the charm of the place. I know it sounds weird but if Chinatown market was as sterile and as clean as a regular food court in the mall, why would I even think about going there? The food is good but I always wonder why in the world does a small stretch of stores always want to be serving the same type of food as their competitor? In this case, steamed fish head? That aside, I have always loved the Chinatown market and love the hawker center. This time, we went there primarily for the famous clay pot rice which we waited for 45 mins, we downed many glasses of the fantastic lime juice and sugar cane drinks as well as my sister and brother in law experiencing their first bbq sting ray. Cool.
My brother and sister in law loves Indian food. So we brought them to Little India to try one of the several Singaporean inventions that actually put us on the culinary map. The fish head curry. We didn't want to go to Muthus because it would feel like we were in an Italian restaurant and we thought it would be best to have them try Indian food in a comparatively somewhat more "local," place. Now, I have not been to the Banana Leaf at Race Course Road in a very long time. So I asked both of the Incredi-gohs to come along. Man-goh was amped for it. I could tell because he showed up early! Mrs. Goh was her usual calm and cool self. Actually the reason why I asked Man-goh to come was because I knew he could absolutely obliterate a fish head by command, just in case the tourists didn't like it. And boy did he!
My sister in law who is NOT a vegetarian but eats mostly vegetables cringed at the sight of the fish head. I don't blame her because I would too. My wife never liked fish head was quick to have me order other non spicy dishes for her,which I did. My brother in law, always game for anything and willing to try anything once had a field day. The fish tasted decent. The tandoori. the mutton curry the various vegetable curries were great. What wasn't was the effect it had on my stomach the day after. Now, I am not blaming the restaurant for my bad tummy. But lets just say that after that day, I wasn't going to go back to the restaurant again. My stomach twisted and turned so bad that I couldn't go to work and the feeling of nausea encapsulated 3 days worth of food. I hardly ate anything for 3 days after, and did I say that I was going to Hong Kong on the 4th day? Besides my stomach, the other thing I didn't like was the service. It was slow and I thought it was bad. We waited 45 mins for the food to come and when we try to get a server's attention, they always pretend to not see us? You know? That kind of service? I was upset. But oh well. Lesson learnt. Nothing bad happened to my brother and sister in laws stomachs. So that was good.
My guests being here meant that we could eat things that I normally wouldn't eat with the missus. That meant spicy food and seafood! One of the best kept secrets in local cuisine is still the Peranakan food. Their mixture of Malaysian spiciness and Chinese taste gives Peranakan cuisine an edge that maybe only Thai food can trump. We had to go to the heart of the Peranakan Restaurants, the ones at Katong and we picked and ordered some claypot satay chicken, my favorite salted vegetable soup, some otah, some stir fried and stewed mixed cabbage and mushroom, and of course the deep fried pork rolls in tofu skin. It was a lovely experience. The
restaurant was quiet on that weekday night and we had the restaurant all to ourselves. Service was prompt and we had a great time. I wondered why I never had more Peranakan food before.
I called and asked Mr. & Mrs. Tasty Bites along for our seafood experience. I wanted to bring my brother and sister in law to try some good chili crab and what better place to try it then the No SignBoard Seafood Restaurant at the Oasis. We made our reservations and we actually grabbed a bus there. We ordered 2 chili crabs, drunken prawns, those fried breads, stir fried broccoli, fried squid and no fish. We had a great time. Service was prompt. They held our food until everybody showed up. Everybody ate the crab, and the prawns. We ordered the fried bread twice. There's just something about chili crab. First of all, its more ketchup than chili and second of all, its more starchy than spicy. Thirdly, crab eating is hard work and sometimes, I don't feel like doing so much work for eating. But I did enjoy the experience we shared together. That was great.
Kopi. My brother and sister in law loved Kopi. They drank it like more than twice everyday. We went through the various types of Kopi like Kopi Si, Kopi Kosong, Kopi Kow, Kopi Pok, Kopi-O, the works. And I think they took about 3 days to identify what types they like, and my guess is they probably tried every kind and decided what they liked in 3 days. Unlike American coffees, the Singapore counterpart is usually thicker and it actually taste like coffee and not water. The places of choice always ended up to be Toast Box, Ya Kun and even the neighborhood coffee shops. The sock method does have its benefits.
In writing so much about my brother and sister in law, I guess what I am trying to say is this:
Kevin and Laura, we miss you.
No comments:
Post a Comment