The Times UK: Meet the Food Bloggers: nordljus

From Times Online

June 23, 2009

Meet the Food Bloggers: nordljus

Keiko Oikawa uses her photography skills to bring to life the food she encounters on her travels

Nick Wyke

11. Blog: Nordljus

What inspires you to write a food blog?

I never considered myself particularly obsessed with food. Rather, I've always just loved cooking and appreciated good foodwith no fuss. So when I started my blog, it was more of a record of my cooking discoveries - I moved to the UK from Japan about ten years ago and living in Europe has let me explore the diversity of many different ingredients and cuisines. I got my first camera when I started my blog. It has inspired me just as much and I feel lucky to be starting a career as a photographer.

What sort of posting really gets your readers excited (good or bad)?

My blog isn't only about food - I like to share my other interests and experiences, especially travelling. I really enjoy shooting when I travel - it inspires me in every way and I think my readers enjoy sharing it through my eyes, too.

Which cookbook can you not do without and which chef is your hero/heroine?

I couldn't possibly choose one, but having lived in the UK for quite some time, my heart tends to go to British writers such as Diana Henry, Nigel Slater, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Skye Gyngell (I know she's Australian but I think her books can count as being British) who focus on simple recipes and seasonal ingredients. As well as the recipes themselves, I'm also inspired by the personal writing from these and other wonderful authors. Also, although he's not published in English, Japanese patissier Hidemi Sugino's book is great for reference.

Share a seasonal recipe with us...and a tip for a local restaurant?

I've just posted a couple of [ice-cream recipes: one with an Italian twist - hoping that we'll have a hot summer this year, and this elderflower dessert is lovely at this time of year, too.

Tell us something about food from your part of the world?

I'm from Japan, and, as you probably know, they are obsessed with food - with more exclusive food shops and restaurants than anywhere else in the world. The Japanese go to great lengths (and expense) to get the ultimate ingredients and authenticity of seemingly every cuisine. Such an attitude certainly has its downsides, but I'd like to think that being able to appreciate good food is generally a good thing. However, I think there is now an ethos of returning to traditional Japanese methods and ingredients which is great, and I'm hoping to share some of them on my blog sometime.

What would you eat for your last supper?

I'm very open and adaptable when it comes to food, but it would have to be either Zaru-soba (buckwheat noodles served cold with dipping sauce), or hot Udon noodles in a light broth. I do love any cuisine, but for me they are the ultimate comfort food and I never run out of them in my pantry.

Which other food blogs do you read regularly?

There are many inspiring blogs, but my recent favourite is White on Rice Couple - I fall in love with their stories and beautiful recipes every time I visit.

BTO: Ready, set, fire

Business Times - 27 Jun 2009

GUEST CHEF


Ready, set, fire

You can't smoke your way through barbecuing - there's an art to doing it right, says celebrity chef and barbecue-ologist Robert Rainford. By Audrey Phoon

BAKING. Dehydrating. Sauteing. Pureeing. One can readily understand how these cooking techniques contribute towards producing works of culinary art, but barbecuing? Many would consider that a primeval method of cooking, one simply involving slapping huge slabs of meat onto heated pits and firing the beejeesus out of them.

Barbecue-ologist and 'BBQ King' Robert Rainford, however, begs to differ. The celebrity chef of the Asian Food Channel's Licence to Grill programme, who was in Singapore last week to fire up the new Kamado barbecue grills at The Fullerton Hotel Singapore (the world-famous barbecuing machines will be introduced in the hotel's Town restaurant next month), believes 'there's a huge art' to turning out food on a barbecue. From cedar-planked salmon and chicken on a beer can to smoked pork belly, a barbecue is capable of a vast range of delicious dishes, he says - you just have to know the right techniques.

To begin with, if you are using a charcoal barbecue, start the fire with the help of some lighter fluid and paper, then build it substantially before you start cooking. 'What we want to do is get the charcoal from black to a really thick white ash before we start cooking,' says Rainford, a Canadian who prefers to use gas-operated barbecues himself because 'you can just turn some knobs and it's on right away'. He adds: 'Once the coals become this thick white ash, you're ready to cook.'

If you cook before the coals are white, he warns, you get 'an acrid smoke and that smoke is partially what's cancer-causing - so it's really important that you know how and when to start barbecuing when you work with charcoal'.

That done, adding different types of wood to your barbecue - whether it's into the flames in a charcoal barbecue or as a pouch of wood chips on a gas barbecue - will enhance the flavour of your food with a lovely smokiness. Just remember to consider the sort of produce you are cooking when choosing a type of wood to pair with it, says the chef.

'Mesquite and hickory are the two major types of wood that everyone uses, but they're so powerful in their taste that they can overpower food to a certain degree.' While those woods are fine if you are making barbecued pork ribs because 'pork is a naturally neutrally-flavoured item so you would want to introduce some big smoke into that', robust-flavoured foods (such as the beef ribs in the recipe here) do better with woods such as apple and cherry as they have more subtle flavours.

You can also marinade your food by 'throwing an oil and an acid together in combination with onions and garlic', suggests Rainford. 'It's the simplest of marinades but that will infuse flavour into meat, chicken, whatever.' For vegetables, he recommends a simple seasoning by placing them with a bit of olive oil and herbs in a plastic bag and just 'shaking them around'.

When it comes to barbecuing your food, there are basically two main techniques: high and fast, and low and slow. 'Things like chicken breast and chicken, veal or fish burgers are what you would cook fast and on high heat,' the chef says. 'But if I wanted to do ribs or some other type of cut that is very tough, I would use low and slow.'

What the latter method involves is cooking using indirect heat for between three and five hours (depending on what you are cooking), with the fire going only on one side of the barbecue. 'The side with no fire is where we put the meat, close the lid, and allow it to become what I would consider an oven,' explains Rainford, adding that this will help cook the food through without burning it.

Combining both the fast-and-high and low-and-slow techniques will give you the 'two-tiered heat approach' that the chef uses most frequently. He explains: 'I will put one side of my barbecue on high and the other on medium to medium-low. I will start cooking on high to get a crisp exterior and then shunt the food over towards the medium-low side, which gives me the slower heat that's needed to cook things through to the centre.'

This approach helps to prevent food from being cooked only on the outside, but even so cooks must 'look for markers to tell you when to take your food off', says Rainford. In the case of chicken wings, for example, 'when the joints move freely and the juices run clear, we know that cooking has hit the bone'.

Alternatively, if you are using a thermometer, don't put it on the bone; instead, stick it into the fattest part of the meat. An internal temperature reading of about 74 degrees Celsius will tell you that your food is cooked all the way through.

Of course, as with every cooking method, culinary art or not, there's the cleaning-up afterwards. To get rid of any residue on a barbecue grill, crank up the heat if you're using a gas machine, or light a fire and close the lid on a charcoal barbecue to heat it up as much as possible. The heat burns the residue, making it easier to scrape off with a wire brush instead of just smudging back and forth when the grill is cold.

'Proper maintenance is important,' emphasises the BBQ King. 'At least quarterly, take everything out and pressure wash it down, scrub it all nice and clean.'

aphoon@sph.com.sg

Spicy grilled beef short ribs
Serves 4

Ingredients

4 beef short ribs, bone in 
1/3 cup five-spice powder 
1/3 cup brown sugar 
3 tbsp garlic salt 
3 tbsp celery salt 
3 cups wood chips (cherry or apple)

Method

1. Combine all of the rub ingredients in a large bowl the day before you plan to serve them. Rub half of the rub mixture into the ribs and reserve the other half of the rub for use the next day. Place the ribs in a large plastic bag and into the fridge to marinate overnight.

2. A half-hour before you plan to put the ribs on the grill, take them out from the fridge. Remove them from the plastic bag and apply the remaining rub, leaving approximately two tablespoons to sprinkle on the ribs while they smoke.

3. Let the ribs stand for half an hour to come to room temperature. This will ensure that they cook evenly on the grill.

4. Place 1 cup of the wood chips in cold water to soak for 30 minutes.

5. If your grill has several grates, remove one on the end and set it aside. Preheat the grill to high heat (approximately 200 to 225 degrees Celsius).

6. Squeeze the excess water from the soaking woodchips and place in the centre of a large piece of aluminium foil. Add the remaining two cups of dry wood chips. Fold the aluminium foil around the chips to create a sealed pouch. Using a fork, poke holes in the package on both sides to allow smoke to filter through.

7. Place the pouch directly over the flame on the side where the grate has been removed. Close the lid and wait for smoke to start building in the barbecue.

8. Once smoking has begun, lower the heat under the pouch of wood chips and turn the heat off on the other portions of the grill. Wait for the temperature to reach approximately 100 degrees Celsius.

9. Place the ribs on the grates where the heat is off. Close the lid and leave to smoke with indirect heat for approximately four hours. After 11/2 to 2 hours, flip the ribs and sprinkle with the remaining rub mixture.

10. After four hours, the ribs should have a crispy delicious rub exterior and the meat should be almost falling off the bone.

STI: Bishan Beckons

June 26, 2009

HEARTLAND FINDS

Bishan Beckons

It's more than just Junction 8 - go off the beaten track for hidden eats and treats

Say 'shopping in Bishan' and Junction8 is likely to spring to mind.

But the 24-year-old HDB new town in central Singapore has more than just the shopping mall.

After combing four streets - Bishan Street 11, 13, 22 and 24 - for three hours, Urban shortlisted six HDB shops and four eateries in the housing estate.

The search was well worth the time as our heartland finds are indeed gems.

There is the women's boutique which looks to be an auntie haven at first glance but turns out to be a vintage treasure trove.

Then there is the cosy photography studio where one can get family portraits and a makeover done for everyday prices.

Foodies would love the neighbourhood eateries with oomph.

Capolavoro, located in a coffee shop on Street 24, for example, is run by Peter Bontoi.

The former chef of Il Piccolo, a restaurant in Bukit Timah that has since closed, serves up hearty, restaurant- style Romanian and Italian fare.

Pontian Wanton Noodles at the S-11 coffeeshop at Block504 on Street 11, meanwhile, is also a heavyweight. The lunchtime queue and newspaper cuttings that plaster its wall are proof of its star status.

There is a good reason Singapore's funniest family - Tan Ah Teck and his brood - made their home in Bishan in the 1990s local sitcom Under One Roof.

EAT

Capolavoro

01-62 Block 279 Bishan Street 24

This is probably as exotic - and yummy - as coffee shop fare goes.

Romania-born chef-cum-owner Peter Bontoi, who used to work at the now-defunct Il Piccolo restaurant in Bukit Timah, lovingly whips up cuisine from Italy and his hometown.

There is the curious- sounding tochitura ($8), a dish of meat in cornflour bread covered in a yogurt sauce, and the mysterious-sounding Romanian Dessert ($3.50), essentially biscuit and jello covered with whipped cream and raisins - a likely hit with kids.

Those less adventurous can opt for the wide variety of pastas ($5 to $10) and pizzas ($6 to $16) or Bontoi's popular handmade pork sausages ($7).

Western Chow and Pontian Wanton Noodles

01-444 Block 504 Bishan Street 11

These neighbouring stalls located in the area's famous S-11 coffeeshop are indeed one dynamic duo.

Western Chow serves up a mix of hearty American fare - think grilled chicken chop ($5.90) and oxtail stew ($8.50) - and fusion grub like Hainanese beef stew ($6.50) and dory fish cooked with assam or tamarind ($6).

Pontian, meanwhile, specialises in the popular Malaysian wanton noodle dish tossed in dark soy sauce ($2.70 or $3.20).

We love how its noodles remain springy even after take-out. This probably explains the lunchtime queue which started at 11.30am when we visited.

Ye Shanghai Cuisine Restaurant

01-390 Block 508 Bishan Street 11

Get a taste of traditional Chinese cuisine at this rustic restaurant.

Bestsellers include Shanghainese delicacies such as prawns in fermented rice wine and herbs ($12) and chicken stuffed with glutinous rice ($6).

The owners have even imported a special earthen pot (Photo 4) from China so that customers can savour authentic Beijing hot pot ($18 per person).

There is a special steamboat offer where four customers dine for the price of three.

SHOP

ABC Photography

01-382 Block 509 Bishan Street 11

Live out your modelling dreams or capture precious moments without spending a fortune at this no-frills photo studio.

Owners Andy Tan, who has more than 10 years of experience, and Angela Chen, a former make-up artist, offer a slew of portrait packages.

A 30-minute Best Friends Forever session, for example, costs $268 and includes a CD of all the shots as well as a framed picture of your choice. Till Aug 31, the package goes for $148.

Check out www.artbeaute.com for more promotional packages.

E Bi Ku Da

01-189 Block 151 Bishan Street 11

This tiny shop is crammed with sartorial gems.

Rummage its racks for pretty, breezy dresses such as this cotton one with floral cut-outs (Photo 6, $72) or this cute denim number (Photo 7, $26) that Paris Hilton would approve of.

Friendly owner Catherine Lau says she sources her chic garb from Hong Kong, China and South Korea, with new pieces arriving every month.

Prices range from $5 for a plain tee to $100 and up for a silk evening dress.

Chew's Optics

01-155 Block 282 Bishan Street 22

You know this place is a must-visit from its constant flow of customers.

Its frames are more classic than cool.

These wooden ones (Photo 8, $85 a pair without lenses), for example, are statement-making without being over-the-top.

Most of the patrons are from neighbouring offices who love the wallet-friendly prices - $30 to $400 a pair, excluding lenses.

I & U

01-147 Block 282 Bishan Street 22

This old-fashioned shoe shop houses a small but dazzling array of beaded handbags that both tai tais and fashionistas would love.

Sourced from Indonesia, these handbeaded totes are a steal with prices ranging from $15.90 to $50.90 - at least half that of those sold at department stores.

There is also a range of beaded purses in shapes like fruits, insects and hearts ($6.90 each) that would delight the young at heart.

W2 Trend

01-512 Block 513 Bishan Street 13

Imported from Hong Kong and South Korea, the clothes at this humble shop boasts some of the best workmanship we have seen.

Cotton shirts are comfy yet crisp, while linen blouses and dresses are light and floaty.

The best part: Design details like ruffles and the seamless combination of contrasting materials give the garb a high-fashion touch.

Prices range from $5 for a tank top to $49.90 for a jacket and tube top set.

Chao Yang Trading Kiosk

01-219 Block 152 Bishan Street 11

Do not sniff at its old-fashioned interior and name.

Set up more than 20 years ago, Chao Yang's vintage-style garb would thrill fashion fiends.

We spotted printed polyester blouses that, when paired with skinny jeans or an A-line skirt, look more chic than chintzy.

The discount rack on the side is also well worth checking out: We found this pretty paisley print dress (Photo 13) going for just $10 (usual price $22). Prices range from $5 for a cotton tank top to $50 for a blouse. The shop is closed right now but will reopen on Tuesday.

STI: Shoot while it's smoking

June 21, 2009

Shoot while it's smoking

Food photographer Edmond Ho has an eye and a taste for good food

By Fiona Low

Food photographer Edmond Ho will fly to Bangkok just to satisfy his craving for one particular dish - charcoal-grilled prawns.

He is such a big fan of the dish that the owner of the street stall in Bangkok's Chinatown recognises him and knows his order.

'The prawns are so succulent and so fresh,' Ho gushes.

Given his love of food, it is no wonder that the photographer, who is in his early 40s, chose to specialise in the field of food photography.

The area was relatively neglected when he first started, he recalls: 'Back then, all the photographers wanted to do fashion and shoot models.

'Food photography in the 1980s tended to be very contrived, so I decided that this area was a goldmine and I wanted to capitalise on it and change people's perspective of it.'

Since then, the graduate from the Malaysian Institute of Art has shot more than 25 cookbooks and won numerous awards for his work. Most recently, he received a gold at the World Gourmand Cookbook Awards in 2008 for his photography in Tea Flavours Cookbook, a publication by The Peninsula Hotels group.

His passion for photography began at an early age. As a secondary school student, the enterprising shutterbug would shoot pictures of Hong Kong movie stars when they came to Singapore and sell the prints to his classmates.

'I've always wanted to be a photographer,' says the Malaysian native who is based in Singapore. 'My dad wanted me to study business, but the thought of that didn't excite me. Art is in my blood.'

Today, the accomplished photographer runs two studios. He first started Edmond Ho Photography in 1995 and later Jambu Studio in 2004, which he set up with the aim of providing a platform for young photographers.

'It's a fantastic career,' he says reflectively as the interview rounds to a close. 'I would not change it for anything in the world.'

You spend a lot of time with food for your job. Are you also a foodie?

Absolutely, especially when it comes to Japanese food. I am a huge fan of the cuisine. I must go to Japan at least once a year just to eat otoro, which is fatty tuna. I'll buy it sliced fresh from the market in Japan and it is so good it literally melts in your mouth.

What are some of the challenges faced as a food photographer?

Sometimes it is difficult dealing with chefs who are temperamental or rigid about their food. As a photographer, it is sometimes necessary to add garnishing or to rearrange certain items on a dish to make it look better, but there are chefs who will get angry with that.

Also, it is difficult trying to please so many parties, including the chef, the art directors, the marketing department and the F&B directors who may all have a different idea of what they want.

Lastly, it is also a great challenge to keep photographing the same items over and over again, especially during certain times of the year. Mooncakes are especially hard, because they tend to look the same no matter which restaurant they come from. So there is a need to be continuously creative and to look for new ways to photograph them.

What is your secret behind taking great food pictures?

Going up close and making sure you capture its true essence. Pictures should translate the taste of the food.

It is also important to shoot food when it's fresh, either when it is piping hot or icy cold, as in the case of ice cream. Speed is always the key - to catch the food when it is still smoking.

What is the most difficult food item to photograph?

I would say clear soup, such as those served in Chinese restaurants. Because it is clear, the soup is difficult to capture on camera, especially if the chef presents it in a white bowl. Also, you need to continuously scoop away the oil from the surface of soup.

To solve this, photographers will usually prop up the ingredients in the soup so it rises above the surface, making it look more appetising.

What is your favourite quick meal to have when you are pressed for time between shoots?

Tom yum-flavoured cup noodles. It's unhealthy but I have it about once a week. Otherwise, I try to have muesli bars or apples on the go.

What is the craziest thing you have ever done to satisfy a food craving?

I am willing to drive for 45 minutes to an hour just circling around looking for a parking space to get my favourite bak kut teh in Geylang. And if I still cannot get one after that time, I am willing to drive to Beach Road, where the stall has another outlet, just to get my weekly dose of pork rib soup.

What is your favourite local dish?

Other than bak kut teh, I also really like chicken rice. I used to have it up to five times a week, but these days I have been trying to cut down and watch my diet.

I go to quite a few different stalls but the one I eat at most often is Tian Tian chicken rice at Maxwell Food Centre. I like white chicken rice and I enjoy the skin most.

What is your comfort food?

Pork belly marinated with dark soy sauce and braised with spices such as star anise. I love it when my domestic helper cooks the dish, but my wife, Joycelin, stops me from having it too often because it is very fattening, so I only eat it about twice a month.

Are you a bigger fan of hawker centres or fine dining?

Even though I love fine dining, I would say I am a bigger fan of hawker food.

In my line of work, I deal with food from fine dining restaurants every day, shooting as many as four restaurants in a day, so I tire of it sometimes.

I grew up with hawker food, so I just want to go back to that and be able to enjoy my meal in a relaxed atmosphere.

What are some of the perks of being a food photographer?

I certainly get a lot of free food, as you can tell from my size. Making friends with chefs and those in the F&B industry also means I often get better tables in restaurants and special items which are not on the menu.

WHAT WOULD YOUR LAST MEAL BE?

For starters, I would have a rocket salad with beetroot, roasted walnuts and blue cheese, drizzled with olive oil.

This will be followed by Buddha Jumps Over The Wall, which is a soup of scallops, sea cucumber, abalone, shark's fin and various other ingredients.

For mains, I will have charcoal-grilled Kobe beef topped with unlimited shavings of white truffles and three slices of fatty tuna.

I'll skip dessert, but I'll round off the meal with a glass of Merlot.

STI: Learn to dress up your cakes

June 21, 2009

Learn to dress up your cakes

By Valerie Wang

By day, Mrs Karen Allan, 33, is the managing director of a branding consultancy.

But at night, 'I do baking and cake decorating at midnight all the time after work. I find it really relaxing', she says.

Her love of baking has led her to sign up for a new professional cake-decorating course that has arrived in town. It is the famous British-based Knightsbridge Precision Machining Engineers (PME) Professional Diploma Course.

Mrs Allan, who is married and lives in a condominium in Novena, is doing one of the three modules. 'I have read many books that mentioned this diploma, so once I heard that it was coming to Singapore, I jumped at the chance and signed up for the Sugar Flowers module,' says the selfconfessed bake-o-holic.

Classes for the three modules will be held on the premises of cake decoration and sugarcraft retail store Bake It Yourself (B-I-Y), located at Bukit Timah. The store has been appointed by Knightsbridge PME to be its first authorised course centre in Singapore.

Knightsbridge PME is well-known among baking enthusiasts as the home of the PME range of sugarcraft tools used by pastry chefs around the world.

The founder and director of B-I-Y, Mrs Cheryl Chee, says: 'This diploma covers an extensive range of techniques that I know enthusiasts like myself will want to learn.'

Half the slots for the classes have been taken up since the course was announced on June 13.

This differs from another course that B-I-Y offers, the Wilton Method of Cake Decorating course.

While the PME Professional Diploma course recommends that participants have experience in cake decorating, the Wilton course has a module specifically for beginners. That introductory course costs $270, much cheaper than the PME Professional Diploma course which is $650 a module.

Mrs Chee says of the Knightsbridge course: 'Beginners may also enrol but they have to keep in mind that it is a professional course. It is designed specifically for anyone anticipating selling cakes either to family or friends or even as a commercial business.'

Ms Malar K. Velu, a housewife who has signed up for two of the three PME Professional Diploma modules, is such a person.

As a mother of two, she thinks setting up a business might be too time-consuming, but that does not stop the 44-year-old from selling cakes to her friends and family.

She says: 'I've been doing cake decorating and baking for the past 10 years and I just wanted to take it one step further by taking the course. I'm not an artistic person so I wanted to prove to myself that I can do well in this prestigious course.'

Pragmatic Mrs Allan has no intention of setting up a business after finishing the course, but says: 'I bake for my own pleasure, but now with qualified instructors teaching me how to use different techniques, I won't have to learn through books anymore.'

STI: Fluffy goodness

June 21, 2009

Cheap & Good

Fluffy goodness

By Thng Lay Teen

Curry puff seller Moh Kway Kheng certainly knows how to make the humble snack look cute and appealing.

When she started selling the puffs more than 20 years ago in the Bukit Timah area, the 56-year-old stall owner wanted to make them stand out from the usual fare.

Instead of the commonly seen semicircular shapes, her chicken curry puffs ($1.10) look more like pyramids with three pleated folds coming together in the centre. They proved to be a hit.

And it is certainly not a case of style over substance. The curry puff skin is thin and crispy and the generous curry chicken filling with potato and boiled egg is moist and yummy.

The correct proportion of pastry margarine to flour is important for the skin to turn out crispy, says Madam Moh. Add too much pastry margarine into the dough and the skin breaks during frying, but if there is not enough of it, the skin is too soft to hold the filling nicely.

Rolling the dough repeatedly also requires patience and skill to ensure that the hard pastry margarine enclosed within is evenly distributed throughout the pastry itself.

Equally important in the making of a good curry puff is the filling. Madam Moh's homemade curry paste is just spicy enough, so even children can enjoy it.

A lot of work goes into making each puff, whether it is the chicken curry, spicy fish otah (80 cents), sardine (80 cents) or vegetable versions (80 cents).

For the chicken puffs, thigh meat is marinated before it is fried till just cooked but still tender.

The potatoes are boiled but not overcooked so they do not become mushy before they are cut into cubes and fried in the curry paste.

All the puffs are handmade and small batches are prepared each time to make sure they are always piping hot and fresh.

Since I chanced upon the stall not too long after Madam Moh relocated to a coffee shop in Toa Payoh Lorong 7 about 10 months ago, I have been going there for my weekly curry puff fix.

A close second to the chicken curry puff is the otah puff. The juicy homemade bei kah (horse mackerel) filling with curry paste is, like the chicken curry puff, spicy but not overwhelmingly so.

The sardine puff is also not too bad, with the canned fish fried in a little of the same curry paste, young ginger and big onions.

However, the vegetarian puff is unremarkable. The filling of carrot, turnip and taukwa (fried beancurd) is a bit dry and not tasty enough for me.

HOME-MADE CURRY PUFFS

Block 19 Toa Payoh Lorong 7, 01-264

Open: 9am to 6pm (or till sold out), closed on Mondays

Rating: ***

STI: Light flavours at The Lighthouse

June 21, 2009

Light flavours at The Lighthouse

Reopened restaurant serves up Italian fare that could be more flavourful but the view is perfect and the decor chic

By Wong Ah Yoke

After an absence of six years, The Lighthouse has returned to the top of The Fullerton Hotel - but as an Italian restaurant.

The original Lighthouse, which opened in 2000 together with the hotel, was a French restaurant by the Les Amis Group. That closed in 2003 and the eighth-floor space, which housed an actual lighthouse in the 18th century, was taken over by the Saint Pierre Group and turned into an Italian restaurant called San Marco.

That, too, ceased operations in March this year and The Lighthouse was brought back this month. It is still an Italian restaurant but is now run by the hotel.

The tiny space, which seats 52, has been given a new look and boasts a contemporary colour scheme based on brown and orange tones.

Besides a stunning view of Marina Bay, the other highlight is a panel of entwined rings at the far end of the room. The rings are a stylised rendition of the number eight to signify the eighth floor and is no doubt a nod to the Chinese belief in the number's connection to good fortune.

What is also new is that the rooftop is now open to diners to enjoy the view of the bay with a drink in hand before or after dinner. It is accessible through a flight of stairs from the restaurant and is pleasantly cool after sunset when a light breeze blows in from the sea. On a sunny day, however, it is scorching hot.

The restaurant's kitchen is helmed by Italian chef Diego Martinelli, who comes from a stint at the Bulgari Hotel in Bali and specialises in traditional Italian dishes with modern presentations.

One of these is a wagyu beef carpaccio ($26) where the paper-thin slices of beef are laid out into a neat square, giving it a modern geometric symmetry. What also updates the dish are crispy bits of onion sprinkled on top.

The flavours, however, fail to excite the palate. The dressing of basil and anchovies is a tad timid, leaving the parmesan cheese shavings to do most of the work.

The chef probably wants to let the natural flavours of the main ingredients take centre stage but in this and a few other instances, they fail him.

Another example is the strozzapreti pasta with sea urchin, prawns, clams and tuna bottarga ($35). Though I cannot seem to find any sea urchin, the rest of the seafood tastes fine. But their delicate sweet juices can barely flavour the pasta rolls.

You will enjoy it if you like very light tastes but otherwise, the pasta will be more pleasing if it comes in a more robust sauce.

The Isolana-style risotto ($28), however, is good as it is. The rice is cooked with pork sausages and flavoured with cinnamon and rosemary. It smells lovely, is tasty and the sausage meat has a nice bite.

You can also try the butter squash tortelloni ($36). The pasta squares come in a cheese and thyme fondue which is rich and velvety. Pieces of crispy pancetta strewn on top add dimension to the flavours.

Among the main courses, I like the grilled pork cheek ($36) where the meat is first braised and then grilled lightly for a smokey flavour. Served with pumpkin puree and green apple compote, the tender meat does not feel heavy at all.

Desserts include the common tiramisu and cannoli, but there is also the unusual Emilia Romagna tagliolini and almond pie ($16). The chef says it is actually an old Italian recipe but this is probably the first restaurant here to serve it.

It is pasta baked into a sweet pie with the strands on the surface slightly crispy and those underneath chewy. It is a strange dessert, but the almond flavour is pleasing and I probably would have liked it more if my jaws were not tired out by the chewing.

Overall, the cooking is decent but nothing actually wows. Perhaps it is just a matter of adjusting to local palates and in due time, The Lighthouse can become a gastronomic beacon.

ahyoke@sph.com.sg

THE LIGHTHOUSE

Level 8, The Fullerton Hotel Singapore, 1 Fullerton Square, tel: 6877-8933

Open: Noon to 2.30pm (Mondays to Fridays), 6.30 to 10.30pm daily

Food: *** 1/2

Service: ****

Ambience: ****

Price: Budget about $100 a person

STI: Eater's Digest

June 21, 2009

Eater's Digest

By Tan Hsueh Yun

You've read their food blogs, now should you buy their books?

Cooking & Screaming

By Adrienne Kane

2009/Simon Spotlight Entertainment/

Hardcover/272 pages/$43.50/Books Kinokuniya

Adrienne Kane is about to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley when she suffers a stroke.

The arterio-venous malformation leaves her completely paralysed on her right side and this book is a sometimes poignant account of how she recovers and the role food has played in making her whole again. She has come a long way - starting a catering business, relocating across the country with her husband, starting a food blog and publishing a book.

I check in with nosheteria.com fairly often because I like her sunny tone and the pretty pictures. She has not discussed her troubles at length on the blog but I appreciate it even more now, knowing that it cannot have been easy to do all that cooking and photographing.

The book, however, seems a little insubstantial. The chapters dealing with her recovery and with her dad, who also suffered a series of strokes, are the most heartfelt. But the book then peters out into a collection of anecdotes. Some are interesting, some are not.

Still, there are the recipes, one for each of the 20 chapters. I tried the simple one for Tagliatelle With Grated Zucchini and it is a keeper. The zucchini practically dissolves, making for a creamy, velvety sauce.

The Sweet Life In Paris

By David Lebovitz

2009/Broadway/

Hardcover/279 pages/$43.61/Books Kinokuniya

This is a funny and absolutely un-put-downable account of how American cookbook author David Lebovitz leaves his life and comfortable home in San Francisco and moves to Paris.

It all sounds terribly romantic, of course, until he has to deal with being an American in Paris. There is the dinky little kitchen the pastry chef, who worked at Berkeley's Chez Panisse restaurant for 13 years, has to contend with. There is also the bureaucracy that thwarts his every attempt to obtain a visa, and the many French people who seem to live only to make his life miserable.

To his credit, the book is not so much a litany of complaints as a wry observation of life in the French capital.

I have new-found respect for him after reading about that kitchen. It has no counter space and even less storage space but he manages to cook an awful lot of things in it.

But ice cream, for lack of space, is made in his bedroom. He tested an entire book of recipes for the frozen dessert (The Perfect Scoop, 2007) with three machines churning non-stop there. I guess I have no excuse for not using the one I recently bought.

The book comes with 50 recipes and I tried the two he includes for Chocolate Mousse. I was intrigued by the one made without eggs, developed for Americans wary of eating them raw. It turned out dense and more like chocolate ganache than mousse.

The other recipe, much like the one I always use by French pastry chef Pierre Herme, produced an altogether different dessert. The mousse, lightened by beaten egg whites, was airy and intensely chocolatey.

I have long been a fan of his blog, www.davidlebovitz.com , for his clearly written recipes. I'm a bigger one after reading this book.

Hungry Monkey

By Matthew Amster-Burton

2009/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/

Hardcover/260pages/$41.01/Books Kinokuniya

This book is required reading for any parent wanting to raise children who will not scoff at anything other than chicken nuggets. Former rock journalist-turned-food writer and stay-at-home dad Matthew Amster-Burton writes a breezy food blog at www.rootsandgrubs.com and that same approach carries on to the book.

He has a sensible approach to the care and feeding of little Iris, now four, and that is what makes this book worth reading.

There are no lectures on feeding children only organic food and certainly no dirty tricks like sneaking vegetables into other food.

Instead, by continuing to eat adventurously and well after having a child and by exposing said child to a wide variety of food, he and his wife Laurie have managed to raise a daughter who can tell the difference between supermarket and artisanal bacon (her preferred brand is Nueske's), and who relishes pad thai and sushi.

hsueh@sph.com.sg

STI: Four steps to good food

June 21, 2009

Four steps to good food

Season, heighten, tighten and clean - two bachelors show how it's done in a cookbook

By Huang Lijie

Marketing consultant Nicholas Lin, 25, and chef Adhika Maxi, 24, became fast friends over a conversation about duck fat a year ago.

It happened in New York when Mr Lin overheard Mr Adhika, then a stranger, talking to a friend about using duck fat to fry chips.

Mr Lin, a Singaporean who works in the Big Apple, says: 'I felt compelled to join in because I like eating duck fat and using it in my cooking.'

He and Mr Adhika, an Indonesian, discovered that they were neighbours in the same apartment building and shared a mutual interest in food.

The next day, the two met for dinner over bowls of century egg congee and fried pig's intestines and decided to collaborate on a cookbook teaching bachelors how to whip up easy but presentable dishes.

The book was a long-time dream for Mr Lin, who graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in marketing. He says: 'I've been passionate about cooking since I was 13 because I like eating. I would invite friends over to my home and cook for them.

'While my culinary skills improved with experience, the presentation of the food I served remained very rustic.'

However, when he turned to his collection of about 15 cookbooks, they provided no suggestions on how to plate or serve a dish attractively.

On why he warmed to the book idea immediately, Mr Adhika, who spent six years studying in Singapore at the now defunct Fowlie Primary School in Katong and St Hilda's Secondary School, says: 'Men today buy books on how to dress better and they groom their eyebrows, so there should be books teaching them how to cook better and plate their food nicely.'

The former chef de partie at celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's eponymous restaurant at The London hotel in New York City adds that in the past, male friends have sought tips on how to cook to impress dates, so he is confident the book has a ready market.

Their self-published, 213-page cookbook titled Bachelor's Banquet features more than 80 recipes from appetisers such as chicken satay and mint rice salad to entrees such as zucchini and vodka pink penne.

There is also a section on desserts such as wine-poached pear, and a playful category called In Bed Aphrodisiacs featuring bite-size treats such as white chocolate petits fours.

The pair dipped into their savings to pay the book's $30,000 publishing fee. It has an initial print of 3,500 copies and will be on sale in bookstores here in September.

On how they chose the dishes, the bachelors say they went with food that they enjoy eating which were simple to cook.

They even came up with a catchy mantra on how to make tasty, good-looking food: Season, heighten, tighten and clean.

Mr Adhika explains that as much as a dish should look good, its taste is equally important and seasoning each component ensures every mouthful is well-flavoured.

He adds that dishes should have some height - achieved by topping it with garnish - to enhance the presentation. A tightly put-together dish adds to the visual appeal.

'Finally, fingerprints and smudges on the sides of the plate should be cleaned away,' says Mr Adhika, who took a course in advanced culinary techniques at the French Culinary Institute in New York.

Every recipe ends with instructions on how to garnish and plate the food.

The book took a year to complete, of which six months were spent brainstorming the dishes and testing the recipes. Mr Lin says: 'After Max finished work at the restaurant, we would cook from 1 to about 5am. This would happen almost every day for six months.' Max is Mr Adhika's nickname.

They share a recipe for lemon chicken with corn relish from their cookbook.

lijie@sph.com.sg

Visit www.bachelorsbanquet.com

A hardcover copy costs $23.99 while a softcover one costs $18.99. There is a 15 per cent discount for online pre-orders until Sept 4.

MAKE IT YOURSELF: LEMON CHICKEN WITH CORN RELISH

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 tsp grated garlic

salt to taste

2 chicken thighs, deboned

1 tbs olive oil

2 thin lemon slices

2 cups fresh or canned corn kernels

Juice from 1 lemon

1 tsp grated lemon zest

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

pepper to taste

2 small radishes, thinly sliced

A few sprigs of baby radish sprouts or any type of microgreens (young vegetable shoots)

 

METHOD

1. Combine lemon juice, sugar, rice wine vinegar, garlic and a pinch of salt thoroughly in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

2. Lightly season the chicken thighs by rubbing salt on them.

3. Add olive oil to a medium skillet and sear the chicken thighs, skin side down, over medium heat.

4. After one minute, add the lemon marinade to the chicken.

5. Baste the top of the chicken thighs with the marinade repeatedly for three minutes.

6. Flip the chicken thighs and continue to baste them for another three minutes. When done, set aside.

7. Sear the lemon slices for two minutes in the skillet or until caramelised. Set aside.

8. Blanch the corn kernels in boiling water for one minute, drain, then cool under cold running water for about one minute. Drain thoroughly and set aside.

9. Combine juice from a lemon, lemon zest, extra-virgin olive oil and salt and pepper to taste in a mixing bowl.

10. Add the corn kernels and radish and toss to mix well.

11. Spoon the corn relish onto a serving plate, place the lemon chicken over the corn and garnish with microgreens and a slice of seared lemon. Serves two.

STI: Return to the classics

June 21, 2009

Return to the classics

A number of new Chinese restaurants are bringing back time-honoured dishes from the past

By Huang Lijie

After flirting with wasabi prawns, foie gras with Peking duck and other contemporary takes on Chinese food, some restaurants are going back to basics.

No fewer than six eateries such as Tung Lok Classics in Amber Road, which serves traditional Chinese fare, have opened in the last few months. More are joining the fray, including Duo Le, a restaurant chain from China's Shaanxi province opening soon in Orchard Central.

Even established names such as Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant in Keppel Road are offering promotional menus featuring time-honoured Chinese dishes.

Contemporary Chinese cuisine with its East-meets-West cooking and refined presentation might have been the flavour of the month in the past but its novelty has worn off a decade on.

Mr Dennis Wee, 56, chairman of real estate company Dennis Wee Group and a foodie, says he misses 'good old, honest Chinese food' which has been overshadowed in the dining scene here for a while.

Indeed, chef Jereme Leung, 39, founder of the food and beverage consultancy Jereme Leung Creative Concepts, feels that Singaporeans are ready to re-embrace traditional Chinese food.

The consultant chef behind Empress Jade on Mount Faber, which specialises in Singapore's Chinese heritage cuisine, says: 'Many contemporary Chinese restaurants have mushroomed in Singapore since the late 1990s and now is the time when people look back and seek to understand the roots of Chinese cuisine as part of their culture.'

Hence, he included dishes such as paper-wrapped salt-baked chicken and old-fashioned Whampoa fried noodles with prawns and scrambled eggs - popular here from the 1960s to the 1980s - in the menu.

Diner Ken Jung, 58, an engineer, likes the traditional offerings at Empress Jade.

He says: 'The food at Empress Jade brings back old memories and familiar tastes, unlike a meal at a modern Chinese restaurant where guests don't know what to expect.'

Former actor Moses Lim, 60, who runs a gourmet club, says: 'Food trends, like fashion, go in cycles. Modern Chinese food was the 'in' thing, but with promotions such as the Nostalgic Beijing Dishes offer at Prima Tower Revolving Restaurant, traditional Chinese food is attracting people's attention again.'

According to Mr Benson Loi, 52, general manager of PFS, the food services arm of the Prima Group which owns the restaurant, the ongoing month-long promotion, which features Beijing delicacies such as cold jelly pork with vegetarian goose, has received over 70 bookings since it started. The offer has also drawn more than 40 tables of walk-in customers.

Response was equally enthusiastic for a two-month classic Sichuan food promotion at modern Chinese restaurant Peach Garden's Thomson Plaza outlet in April and last month, which included tasty treats such as camphor smoked duck and Sichuan hot and sour soup.

Its assistant director for sales and marketing, Mr T.C. Ho, 41, says the restaurant received between 10 and 15 bookings a day for the promotion and adds that there are plans to bring it back on an annual basis.

 

Truly, this growing appetite for unpretentious and authentic Chinese cuisine was what prompted Ms Ju Wen Jing, 28, and her husband to set up Lao Jiang Shanxi Liang Pi in Lorong 13 Geylang.

She says the northern Chinese food it sells, such as liang pi, a cold noodle dish, and mantou, steamed buns, are popular not just among its customers from China but also among Singaporeans.

That Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant at the Sheraton Towers hotel, which specialises in traditional Cantonese cooking, recently won the World Gourmet Summit's regional Asian Restaurant of the Year award further places classical Chinese food back in the spotlight.

To widen the appeal of these old-fashioned dishes, however, some restaurateurs have taken liberties to update the food without compromising the integrity of its taste.

At Tung Lok Classics, which offers various regional Chinese cuisines, its Shanghainese fish puff - fish meat whipped with egg white, deep-fried then braised in stock - is served in smaller bite-size pieces instead of the usual unwieldy chunks. At the restaurant, it is also paired with noodles instead of being served on its own.

Mr Andrew Tjioe, 51, executive chairman of the group of Tung Lok Restaurants, a forerunner of modern Chinese eateries here, says: 'Singaporeans are well-travelled. Many have been to China, they know what traditional Chinese food tastes like and they expect the same authentic taste to be served in restaurants here.

'Modern Chinese cuisine is definitely here to stay, but for Singapore to be a leading food paradise, we must also have Chinese heritage cuisine.'

lijie@sph.com.sg

WHERE TO GO

If you are looking for classic Chinese food, here are some new restaurants serving up traditional Chinese fare.

EMPRESS JADE

Where: 109 Mount Faber Road, The Jewel Box, open: 11.30am to 11pm daily, tel: 6377-9689

What: This restaurant specialises in Singapore's Chinese heritage cuisine, which includes dishes such as paper- wrapped salt-baked chicken ($24) and spinach and pork liver soup with egg white ($8)

CHAOZHOU INN

Where: 80 Marine Parade Road, Parkway Parade, B1-84D, open: 11am to 11pm daily, tel: 6346-6617

What: As its name suggests, this eatery focuses on Teochew cuisine and highlights include savoury crystal bun filled with chives and shrimp ($2.90), and braised duck with beancurd ($16).

PARADISE INN

Where: Three outlets, including 154 West Coast Road, West Coast Plaza, B1-48, open: 11.30am to 10pm daily, tel: 6777-9950

What: Comfort local Chinese dishes from the past such as claypot soups (right) and steamed minced pork with salted fish and water chestnut ($8) are on its menu.

TANG DIAN WANG

Where: Four outlets, including 101 Thomson Road, United Square, 02-02, open: 11am to 10pm daily, tel: 6253-6708

What: This Shanghainese restaurant offers classic treats such as Shanghai-style braised giant meatball ($12.80) and lotus wrapped rice ($13.80).

PRIMA TOWER REVOLVING RESTAURANT

Where: 201 Keppel Road, open: 11am to 2.30pm (Mondays to Saturdays), 10.30am to 2.30pm (Sundays), 6.30 to 10.30pm daily, tel: 6272-8822

What: Its Nostalgic Beijing Dishes promotion this month features dishes such as cold jelly pork with vegetarian goose ($25).

TUNG LOK CLASSICS

Where: 21 Amber Road, Chinese Swimming Club, 02-01, open: 11.30am to 3pm (Mondays to Saturdays), 10am to 3pm (Sundays), 6 to 10.30pm daily, tel: 6345-0111

What: Specialises in various Chinese cuisines ranging from Hunan and Shanghainese to Sichuan and Cantonese. Must-tries include sweetened red dates stuffed with glutinous rice ($5) and Shanghai- style braised mian xian with fish puff ($7).

STI: What's hot, what's not

June 21, 2009

What's hot, what's not

New eateries are springing up in new malls from Orchard to Ang Mo Kio. LifeStyle checks them out

By Huang Lijie and Valerie Wang

Tertiary student Pauline Su, 21, found herself walking in dazed circles at Iluma in Victoria Street during lunch time on Tuesday.

She says: 'I didn't know what to eat. There are so many restaurants to choose from and some of them are new brands. It's hard to tell which is good.'

Indeed, as shopping centres debut and old malls revamp their food offerings, a slew of no fewer than 19 new eateries have popped up on the dining scene from Orchard Central to Ang Mo Kio Hub.

Gastronomes salivating over the exciting array of fresh offerings are spoilt for choice.

Will it be an American-style diner for sliders or a fusion restaurant for burgers in Chinese mantou? Or what about a fast- food chain selling Portuguese-style spicy grilled chicken?

Diners whom LifeStyle interviewed say price, ambience and cuisine type are major considerations when picking a new eatery to sup at.

These factors, however, do not provide a reliable indication of the quality of food. Hence, disappointments are par for the course when consumers try out new outlets.

Risk management consultant Gordon Song, 29, takes it all in his stride.

He says: 'It happens a lot that I go to a place expecting the food to be good but it turns out to be mediocre.'

To hedge her bet, polytechnic student Tan Hui Ling, 20, patronises restaurants that are filled with customers.

She says: 'If there are a lot of people in the restaurant, the food is probably not bad.'

To eliminate the guesswork, because no one should be wasting hard-earned money over bad food in these tough times, LifeStyle tells you what is worth eating at recently opened eateries.

Mall offerings

ORCHARD CENTRAL

Where: 181 Orchard Road

The soft launch of this swanky new shopping centre is not until next month but some food and beverage outlets have already opened.

Tonkichi

Where: 07-06, open: 11am to 11pm daily, tel: 6238-7976

What: This familiar tonkatsu (Japanese deep- fried pork cutlet) restaurant has outlets in Ngee Ann City, Shaw House and Suntec City, but what sets this one apart is its 16-seat outdoor dining area with aerial views of Orchard Road.

The restaurant also boasts a larger range of items than its two other outlets in the Orchard Road belt, including an expanded sushi and sashimi selection as well as tasty grilled morsels such as fugu mirin boshi ($8, above), strips of sun-dried fugu (Japanese for puffer fish) with a honeyed mirin glaze, which is served warm and tender to the bite. Great as an appetiser or as a side dish.

To sweeten the deal, there is an opening discount of 10 per cent on the bill until the end of the month.

Heaven's Loft

Where: 08-01, open: 11am to 11pm, Sundays to Thursdays, 11am to 1am, Fridays and Saturdays, tel: 6884-9505

What: Opened by the franchisee for Ben & Jerry's here, this three-in-one restaurant, dessert and bar concept boasts an 80-seat outdoor bar balcony with a stunning view of Orchard Road.

The gem here is the sweet pumpkin ice cream from the restaurant's dessert sampler menu (from $7 for one item to $20 for four items).

Besides a lush, velvety mouth-feel and a naturally sweet flavour, the lingering aroma of roasted pumpkin makes it unforgettable.

THE LUXE

Where: 6 Handy Road

This chic-looking condominium located between Plaza Singapura and The Cathay is home to an art gallery and a three-week-old dessert shop, 1 Caramel, by the food and beverage group, One Rochester.

1 Caramel

Where: 01-01A, open: 11am to 11pm, Sundays to Thursdays, 11 to 1am, Fridays and Saturdays, tel: 6338-3282

What: This eye-candy of a patisserie is, thankfully, more than just a good-looker. Its Mango Mascarpone ($8.90) is a winsome combination of tangy mango compote with an airy mascarpone cream cheese body and an addictive coconut crumble base. For chocolate lovers, its Chocolate Berry Lust ($8.90), a chocolate ganache tart topped with a medley of berries, will satisfy cocoa cravings.

ILUMA

Where: 201 Victoria Street

This recently opened mall, a magnet for the young and trendy, has no fewer than eight new food and beverage brands that are open.

Ebisboshi Shotengai

Where: 04-08, open: 11am to 10.30pm, Sundays to Thursdays, 11am to 11.30pm, Fridays and Saturdays, tel: 6238-1011

What: This Japanese restaurant boasts seven different brands under its roof, including Teppan No Hoshi, which specialises in Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (a savoury pancake), where the ingredients are layered instead of being mixed together like in the more common Osaka-style version.

Its rice cake and cheese okonomiyaki ($12.80) is packed with soft, chewy rice cake slices with a slight char, gooey cheese and layers of yakisoba (fried noodles) and cabbage.

Another must-try is its salmon yukke gunkan ($4), seaweed wrapped sushi topped with marinated salmon and a raw quail's egg. The oozy yolk and chunks of fat-marbled salmon belly are a perfect combination.

Empire State

Where: 04-03, open: 11am to 10.30pm daily, tel: 6238-7076

What: This American-style diner with its pop-coloured decor is good for its generous portions. Its spaghetti Bolognese with giant meatball ($13.90) is not for the faint-hearted, but the juicy, well-seasoned meatball should hit the spot for those who like their meatballs with a fine mince.

Hua Li Xuan Fusion

Where: 04-12, open: 11.30am to 10.30pm daily, tel: 6884-7727

What: Fusion is not a dirty word at this eatery. Its mantou burgers are rather tasty. Get the mini mantou set ($4.80 for three burgers), which offers flavours such as black pepper beef, teriyaki chicken and sweet sour pork, and steamed, fried or garlic buns.

Stick with the baked garlic buns, which are crusty and carry a rounded garlic flavour.

Teadot

Where: 01-23, open: 10.30am to 11pm, Sundays to Thursdays, 10.30am to midnight, Fridays and Saturdays

What: This is somewhat like a Starbucks for tea and offers Lavender Wilderness (from $6.15), a romantically scented ice frappe brewed from lavender blooms and black tea leaves. If you prefer your tea without milk, opt for its refreshing Arctic Dragon's Brew (from $5.85, left) of oolong tea with yuzu, a tart citrus fruit.

THE SAIL @ MARINA BAY

Where: 2 Marina Boulevard

This exclusive condominium shot up in the middle of the CBD half a year ago. Now it has new eateries from Health Fuel Station to more familiar ones like Harry's Bar.

Hokkaido Sandwich and Sashimi

Where: 01-33, open: 9.30am to 11pm daily, tel: 6509-0685

What: The signature bite is the Tarabagani or King Crab Sandwich ($10). Fresh crab meat is mixed with mayonnaise and a special sauce, then made into a sandwich with Japanese white bread. Another must-try is the Ebi Katsu sandwich ($8), with breaded and deep-fried prawns.

Health Fuel Station

Where: 01-31A, open: 8am to 9pm, Mondays to Fridays, 11am to 9pm, weekends, tel: 6509-4955

What: This colourful health food shop offers an array of tasty salads, wraps, juices and smoothies.

The salads (from $7.50) are fresh and are made on the spot. Add another 50 cents to design your own if you know what you want with your greens.

Da Paolo Gastronomia

Where: 01-15, open: 9.30am to 9.30pm daily, tel: 6224-4148

What: The new outlet of the Italian deli chain just opened on Tuesday and offers sandwiches that are not available in the other branches.

The generously portioned roast beef sandwich with mozzarella ($13) on ciabatta bread is tasty and packed with the meat. As the sandwiches are made to order, be prepared to wait a bit during peak hours.

ANG MO KIO HUB

Where: 53 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3

What: This heartland mall opened in 2007 but six food tenants are setting up shop there this month.

My Dessert House

Where: B1-51B, open: 10am to 10pm daily, tel: 9180-9959

What: The ice-cream chendol ($4.50) here is an interesting twist on a favourite dessert, with plump azuki red beans taking the place of the usual smaller ones. The white fungus longan ($3.50) is refreshing for the current hot weather.

Coffee Kaki

Where: B1-51C, open: 7.30am to 10pm daily, tel: 6752-4569

What: With faux-antique chairs and tables with marble tops, this cafe might look like the usual kaya toast joint. But it also offers gourmet sandwiches.

The roasted chicken mayonnaise filling goes nicely with ciabatta or focaccia bread and the set ($4) comes with a cup of local coffee.

Otaru Hokkaido Street Food

Where: B2-32, open: 10am to 10pm daily, tel: 6853-6085

What: The omelette beef rice ($4.60) is delicious. Japanese rice with beef is wrapped in egg and the combination of intriguing spices with a special sauce will leave you wanting more.

BTO: Cheers!

Business Times - 20 Jun 2009

Cheers!

Tucker or tipple? These establishments combine decent fare with speciality beverages, and should leave both diners and drinkers satisfied

Tawandang Micro Brewery 
26 Dempsey Road, #01-01 
(Opening soon)

BANGKOK is known for its food, beer and entertainment scene, pockets of which are generously sprinkled along its numerous sois. Beginning from sometime over the next few weeks, however, those looking to experience all that need no longer fly to the Thai capital and trawl its streets - they can instead head to the Dempsey area's latest offering, Tawandang Micro Brewery.

This direct-from-Bangkok brand has two outlets in the Thai capital (one in the city on Rama III road and the other on the outskirts) and was voted by Time magazine in 2003 as the 'world's best Thai-German bar and restaurant'. Granted, there can't be many in that genre in the world, but that vote of confidence plus the fact that both the Thai outlets are packed to their 600-strong capacity nearly every night speak volumes about what Tawandang offers.

On the menu (which will probably be somewhat similar here) are dishes that span both Thailand and Germany, which means you can have the house speciality of deep-fried pork knuckles along with coconut-juice-laced tom yam kung, or mixed grilled sausages and Thai spring rolls with crab meat.

To drink, there are beers that are brewed on-site, of which three types are usually available in the Bangkok outlets: German wheat beer, dark lager and pilsner. All are made in accordance with the Reinheitsgebot (the German beer purity law).

They could be just what you need to cool down when the nightly floor show hots things up - Tawandang's entertainment (if it's anything like what it is in Bangkok) ranges from traditional Thai music and dance to magic acts, acrobatics, comedy skits and even breakdancing. Now, who's not going to say cheers to that?

Fiesta Brasilia 
101 Thomson Road 
#B1-15 United Square 
Tel 6250-0108

WHEN S P Semmy started Fiesta Brasilia, the Brazilian churrascaria restaurant, last November, he had a rather ambitious aim: not only should the food be as authentic as that in Brazil, but the drinks list should also mirror those offered in the original churrascarias.

With that in mind and the help of Fiesta Brasilia's general manager Rethish Rajan, Mr Semmy - who founded Singapore's first churrascaria, Brazil Churrascara, 14 years ago on Sixth Avenue - scoured the country to put together a drinks menu that boasts an impressive selection of Brazilian beverages.

'At first we started small, just the traditional cocktails which we make exactly as they do in Brazil, with properly muddled fruits such as the Caipirinha ($11.80) and a list of Brazilian wines ($42 for the house bottle and upwards of $64 for the rest) that are exclusive to us,' says Mr Rajan, adding that the restaurant also stocks a range of Brazilian wines for its regulars which are not listed on the menu due to the small number of bottles brought in.

'But with a greater demand for authentic Brazilian beverages, we started to expand this list and now we have coffee made from Coffex, a brand of Brazilian beans exclusive to us, and a range of other alcohol such as Brazilian brandy which we use in Cafe Brasilia Royale ($11.90), an after-meal coffee drink with liqueur.'

The restaurant has also just launched the Fiesta Mojito ($11.90) which is made using a Brazilian rum called Cachaça, and will go on to introduce an extensive range of Brazilian beers ($9.80 per bottle) by the end of the month.

'Cocktails like caipirinhas and mojitos are popular with our clients because they make good aperitifs, opening up the stomach for all that meat,' says Mr Rajan. 'As for the beers, at the moment we only have the Nova Schin, a light pilsner that has been such a hit with our customers, we knew we had to bring in more. Brazilian beers are popular because they are lighter, fruitier and fresher, so they go better with our food.'

The restaurant's signature food, of course, is the classic churrascaria fare of an eat-all-you-want, on-the-go Rodizio that boasts more than 10 different kinds of tasty, well-roasted meats including beef, pork, lamb and fish, guaranteed to make any meat lover's day.

The additional offerings of soup, salads, pastas and ice cream make the buffet extra value for money although a la carte options are also available.

Mr Rajan says that the restaurant will continue to evolve based on churrascaria trends in Brazil. 'The reason why we have a pasta bar in Fiesta Brasilia is because many churrascaria restaurants in Brazil have one now,' he says. 'We are looking to add a sushi bar because that is the next big thing there now. It also gives guests a wide range of variety while dining at Fiesta because we are more than just meat.'

The Rodizio costs $21.80+ for lunch and $38+ for dinner on weekdays, and $40+ on weekends.

 

Agave 
25 Church Street 
#01-02 Capital Square Three 
Tel 6438-1656 
www.agave.sg

LIKE a desert plant that has sprouted out of practically nothing, Agave (which very appropriately refers to the hardy plant from which tequila is produced) sprung up in Capital Square quite by chance.

'We were previously a beer joint, but the landlord requested that we change our concept because they wanted some variety in the tenant mix,' says its managing director, Charles Guerrier, who is also behind Oosters, the well-known Belgian brasserie along the same stretch. 'It so happened that I have a friend who's a Mexican chef who was willing to cook for us, so we turned it into a Mexican place.'

While Agave may have come about by the bye, that doesn't mean the owners aren't cultivating the establishment properly. The restaurant-bar, which opened in February and takes up two shophouses along a nice restaurant-lined stretch, offers authentic Mexican fare courtesy of Mr Guerrier's pal, Angeles Herrero, who helped set up Cafe Iguana when that first opened. The chef also runs an established home catering business and a small but well-known taco bar at Changi Business Park.

On the good-sized menu are things like generously-stuffed enchiladas topped with home-made salsa (from $15.50 for the grilled chicken version), sizzling fajitas (from $15.50) and yummy cheesy quesadillas (from $12). Nearly everything is decent, although we found the red hot ribs ($17.50) to be more sweet than fiery and rather gristly.

If you can't decide what to have, spring for the Mexican mixed platter ($25) that's laden with mini chicken tacos, slices of hot shitake mushroom quesadillas, tortilla chips with home-made dips and cute beef sopes that resemble petite quiches.

Of course, any place named after a tequila plant had better be worth its salt (or salt-rimmed margaritas), and the drinks list at Agave should satisfy most. Alongside a list of spirits, wine and beer, there are about 15 types of tequilas served here by the glass and bottle, with prices that range from $9 for a glass of Jose Cuervo Especial to $900 for a bottle of Patron Platinum.

For those who prefer their drinks a little more subtle, there's the milkshake-tasting Tequila Rose Cream liqueur ($8 per glass) or the smooth Agavero liqueur ($8 per glass), which is also reputed to have aphrodisiac properties. 'What we have ranges from the basic levels to some very good premium tequilas,' says Mr Guerrier, who admits to having become 'a bit of a fan' after going through numerous tastings.

Thanks to a 'good pick-up' in business since its opening, the concept that began by chance will be consciously grown in future, say the owners. For now though, it's just the one outlet, so go early if you're there for dinner and don't fancy sitting in the stifling heat - there are only three proper dining tables within the restaurant; the rest of the furniture comprises either high tables and chairs, or outside seating.

The Times UK: Meet the Food Bloggers: Dorie Greenspan

From Times Online

April 21, 2009

Meet the Food Bloggers: Dorie Greenspan

Dorie Greenspan loves sharing recipes with her readers and knows the best people and places for a pastry in Paris

Nick Wyke

7. Blog: Use Dorie Greenspan

What inspires you to write a food blog?

Inspiration comes from everywhere – from the surprises of daily life; from the mundane stuff, too; from the excitement of travel; and, most especially, from my readers. I started my blog shortly after my last book, Baking From My Home to Yours, was published and I discovered that there were bloggers around the world baking from it, posting pictures of what they'd made and sharing stories about their kitchen adventures. I loved that a community had grown up around my recipes and I wanted to be part of it, so I began blogging.

What sort of posting really gets your readers excited (good or bad)?

Recipes and stories about life in Paris are probably at the top of my blog's hit parade. Oh, and posts that provide a peek behind the scenes at Paris patisseries or a preview of the season's newest sweets. Lots of my readers like to play around in the kitchen, so if I give them just the hint of a recipe, more of a sketch than a full-fledged formula, they'll jump on it and come up with fabulous ways to build on the idea.

For example, I wrote what was really just an outline for a recipe based on hollowing out a pumpkin and filling it with bread, cream, onions and herbs – it was something a French friend had told me about. My readers loved the idea and came up with all sorts of variations. I'm delighted by experiences like this.

Which cookbook can you not do without and which chef is your hero/heroine?

I no longer have one go-to cookbook or one I can't live without, but I have so many that I treasure, among them Lenotre's Desserts and Pastries, Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts, Richard Olney's Simple French Food, Simone Beck's Simca's Cuisine and Pierre Herme's Secrets Gourmandes. I hadn't realised this before, but as I look at this list I see that the books that I love are each an author's first work.

I've got two culinary heroes and I was lucky enough to work with both of them: Julia Child, who'd never allow herself to be called a chef, but who encouraged millions of Americans to get into the kitchen, cook and enjoy it – she was the personification of joie de vivre; and Pierre Herme, the Parisian pastry genius, who defined the new wave of French pastry and who never keeps culinary secrets. In addition to being talented and imaginative, I think that for chefs to be worthy of herohood they have to be generous and to actively pass on what they know to the next generation. Both Julia and Pierre get gold stars for all 
they've done to inspire and train others.

Share a seasonal recipe with us ?

Since I consider chocolate an ingredient that's right for any season, here's my recipe for Classic Brownies (adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours)

Makes 16 brownies

2 1/2 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 5 pieces

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt (according to your taste)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup chopped walnuts

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet and keep the set-up at hand.

Set a heatproof bowl into a pan of gently simmering water. Put the butter in the bowl, top with the chopped chocolates and keep over the simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the ingredients are just melted – you don't want them to get so hot that the butter separates.

Remove the bowl and whisk in the sugar. Don't be concerned when your smooth mixture turns grainy – it's normal. One by one, whisk in the eggs. Add the vanilla and give the ingredients a vigorous whisking before gently stirring in the salt and flour; stir only until the new ingredients are incorporated. Switch to a rubber spatula and fold in the chopped walnuts. Scrape the atter into the foil-lined pan and level the top.

Bake for 30 to 33 minutes, or until the top of the brownies is dull and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the brownies to room temperature. When completely cool, peel back the foil and cut into 16 squares.

...and a tip for a local restaurant?

When you're looking for a fabulous steak or an outstanding burger and fries, skip the famous places and the ones owned by star chefs, and go to T-Bar Steak and Lounge at 1278 Third Avenue in Manhattan. The steaks are terrific, the service is great and all the non-steak dishes are A+. Even vegetarians like this place!

Tell us something about food from your part of the world?

Since I live in both New York and Paris, I'm never really sure where my part of the world is, but both cities are wildly cosmopolitan and home to food from every part of the world. I think is especially true of New York, where one day you can have Thai food and the next Italian, Ethiopian or Greek, and it will all be top-class. And there are extraordinarily good French restaurants. Whenever I eat at Daniel or Le Bernardin (which is never as often as I'd like), I'm amazed that President Sarkozy doesn't insist that the chefs return to French soil. The only thing I can think of is that he understands what good ambassadors they are.

What would you eat for your last supper?

I'm not sure about the savoUry part of my last supper, but for sure I'd have ice cream and cookies – lots and lots of both.

Which other food blogs do you read regularly?

I love reading David Lebovitz and Alec Lobrano, both Paris pals. David is funny and smart and has a delightfully quirky take on Parisian life, and Alec is wise and gracious and knows everything there is to know about the Paris restaurant scene and generously tells it all. And there is never a time when I read Michael Laiskonis's blog that I don't come away with something fascinating to ponder. Michael's the pastry chef at Le Berardin in NYC and his writing is as elegant as his desserts.

The Times UK: Meet the Food Bloggers: Delicious Days

Times Online

June 9, 2009

Meet the Food Bloggers: Delicious Days

Nicole Stich blogs about unusual ingredients - radish pesto, anyone? - and hearty traditional fare from Bavaria, Germany

Nick Wyke

10. Blog: Delicious Days

What inspires you to write a food blog?

Like a dear friend of mine says, "food always tastes better with a story to it" and I couldn't imagine it any other way. When I discovered food blogs it was like discovering a whole new world, one that provided everything I could possibly wish for: people who could talk about food forever and who were passionate about cooking; who loved to create new recipes and exchanged tips and tricks about how to prepare, for instance, an out-of-this-world pesto.

The trust people put into my recipes and their immediate feedback (via comments and emails) is a wonderful reward to the effort I put into my blog. Meanwhile my love of food writing and food photography has become a full-time job, and led to this book. I couldn't be happier.

What sort of posting really gets your readers excited (good or bad)?

Recipes that contain an unusual ingredient are quite popular, for example my radish leaves pesto got many readers excited just recently. Or the postings about traditional German/Bavarian/Czech fare from my grandma (like the sponge cake roll, apple greaves dripping or Zwetschgenknödel – it's always nice to read comments about my readers' own food memories. Food is such an emotional element in our lives.

Which cookbook can you not do without and which chef is your hero/heroine?

I could never pick just one. It's the whole collection I treasure, from different books on bread baking to Indian cuisine, so I can compare recipes and see the diversity of food, style and culture.

There's also no particular chef I admire, but I have a lot of respect for every passionate chef working in a restaurant kitchen – I don't think I could stand the pressure (both physically and psychologically) on a daily basis.

Share a seasonal recipe with us...and a tip for a local restaurant?

When my grocery shop offers different ripe and fragrant melons, I chop them up in little bite-sized cubes, add some crumbles of good feta cheese and finely chopped fresh mint – a quick and colourful snack to enjoy your very own - "summer in a bowl".

We have this amazing bakery in our neighborhood, led by Japanese ladies. Obori (Lothringer Str. 15, München) sells fantastic tiny mousse cakes and their breads (French baguettes, Fougasse with walnuts and bacon) are out of this world.

Tell us something about food from your part of the world?

Bavarian food is not necessarily light and healthy, quite the contrary. But if you look closely and don't overeat on pork roast and potato dumplings with gravy, there are some real gems to discover. Regional and organic food has become highly popular in the past couple of years. Traditional cakes, baked goods and breads are exceptional.

Beyond that, the immediate proximity of the Alps, Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy has influenced our cooking style quite a bit, let's say we take the best of each and combine it with our own roots.

What would you eat for your last supper?

How about a 10-course meal, consisting of some of my all-time favourites – in smaller quantities, of course... Like burrata with oven-roasted tomatoes, pumpkin gnocchi with browned sage butter, basil-lime sorbet, my grandma's mushroom-soup with Schoppala, lettuce with rendered bacon cubes, a wood oven pizza topped with fresh arugula, a really hot chicken curry with buttered naan, my tiramisu, a semifreddo of roasted pumpkin seeds and a huge cheese plate with membrillo. Seems full of carbs, fat and many, many calories? For my last supper it'd better be!

Which other food blogs do you read regularly?

The number and creativity of foodblogs out there amazes me each time I surf the web. A lot of my long-time favorites are on Times Online's list of 50 of the world's best food blogs, but I also enjoy stumbling onto some fairly new ones.

The Times UK: Meet the Food Bloggers: Chocolate and Zucchini

Times Online

June 2, 2009

Meet the Food Bloggers: Chocolate and Zucchini

Clotilde Dusoulier blogs on her edible adventures in Paris

Nick Wyke

9. Blog: Chocolate and Zucchini

What inspires you to write a food blog?

When I started Chocolate & Zucchini five years ago, I had been cooking with growing passion for a few years, and I had reached a point where I needed an outlet to express my thoughts on the subject and share them with more people than just my friends and family. I had discovered food blogs a few months before, and I thought the format was exactly what I needed -- a casual, open journal in which I could document my daily food adventures. It has certainly exceeded my expectations, leading me to quit my job, become a full-time food writer, and publish two books.

What sort of posting really gets your readers excited (good or bad)?

I don't really think of blogging that way: I just write about what gets me excited, and hope to get that enthusiasm across to my readers.

Which cookbook can you not do without and which chef is your hero/heroine?

I use many cookbooks for inspiration, but in the end it's the reference books, such as the Larousse Gastronomique, that I turn to most often. As for heroines, I'd have to name my mother and my grandmother, not chefs but excellent home cooks, who have each in her own way built the foundations of my cooking.

Share a seasonal recipe with us... and a tip for a local restaurant?

For summer: my mother's strawberry tart. My favourite winter salad is one made with grated carrots and beets, and my latest restaurant crush is for Chamarré Montmartre, where the chef serves a sparkling French-Mauritian cuisine. The lunch menu is a particularly good deal.

Tell us something about food from your part of the world?

Well, Paris, let's see. Where do I begin? A distinguishing feature of the Paris food scene is that it offers a unique mix of tradition and modernity - shops and restaurants that have been around for centuries sit side by side with contemporary businesses launched around novel ideas. There is something comforting and exciting about this - the old and the new coexist, and complement each other.

What would you eat for your last supper?

Beef tartare with hand-cut fries, then 36-month-old comté cheese with fresh baguette from my neighborhood bakery, followed by a slice of my mother's strawberry tart. And after that, coffee and a piece of dark chocolate.

Which other food blogs do you read regularly?

I'm very interested in Japanese cuisine, so I enjoy reading bento blogs, such as Maki's Just Bento or Lunch in a Box.

The Times UK: Meet the Food Bloggers: Orangette

Times Online

May 26, 2009

Meet the Food Bloggers: Orangette

Seattle's finest Molly Wizenberg gave up a doctorate to become a humble home-cooking scribe

Nick Wyke

8. Blog: Orangette

What inspires you to write a food blog?

When I started Orangette I had just decided to quit a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology and didn't know what to do with myself. The only thing I knew was that, whatever I did, it had to involve food and writing.

I come from a family of avid home cooks and have loved to write ever since I was a kid, and here I was, in my mid-twenties, at a crossroads of sorts, trying to find a way to go after what I loved. A journalist friend of mine suggested that I start a blog. He said that it would help hold me accountable to my interest in writing: it would force me to sit down and work at it, even when it felt difficult. So I started Orangette. At first I didn't know what on earth I was doing, or what on earth I was trying to do, but I just kept going, writing about food and the stories that come with it, and almost five years later, I'm still at it.

What sort of posting really gets your readers excited (good or bad)?

Well, I tend to post about home cooking, and almost every post has a recipe, and the ones that tend to get people excited are, surprisingly, the simplest. I am still getting grateful e-mails about my husband's chickpea salad, a recipe I posted over two years ago! It has only five ingredients, and it's dead simple, but for a quick, tasty lunch, it's very hard to beat. I used to worry when I posted simple recipes like that, imagining my readers chuckling under their breath or, worse yet, getting so bored that they would nod off before the end of the post. But I don't worry so much anymore. When you've got good ingredients, and when you combine them thoughtfully, you don't need to do much more. I think there are a lot of us who feel that way.

Which cookbook can you not do without and which chef is your hero/heroine?

It's a tie between The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, by Judy Rodgers, and All About Braising, by Molly Stevens. I don't like to let either out of my sight.

The chefs I admire most are not necessarily the ones who do the flashiest, most innovative work, but rather the ones who are more like craftspeople, the ones who work hard to achieve a humble vision, to make simple, beautiful food without pretense.

The first person who comes to mind is Domenico DeMarco, owner of Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn, New York. He has been standing in front of his oven for more than 40 years, making every single - uncannily delicious - pizza that he sells.

Another person who comes to mind is Jean-Pierre Xiradakis, chef-owner of La Tupina, in Bordeaux. Today, he is something of a celebrity, with his own TV show, books and whatnot, but when he first opened La Tupina, he was in his early 20s, and did everything himself. He not only stood at the hearth and cooked, but he also waited tables, seated guests, and mopped the floor. All these years later, that passion - that love, you could really say - is still obvious when you walk into La Tupina.

Share a seasonal recipe with us?

A recent favourite in our house is boiled kale with a fried egg and toast. It doesn't sound like much, but it delivers.

Tell us something about food from your part of the world?

Seattle has fantastic food. In the summer, there is a farmers' market every day of the week, and two of them are year-round, braving even the nastiest months of winter. We have so much terrific local produce: wild mushrooms, raspberries, blackberries, marionberries, huckleberries, cherries, wild watercress, hazelnuts, all kinds of things. And, of course, being on the water, we have great seafood. This is a big salmon town.

What would you eat for your last supper?

Oh, that's tough. Maybe a cheese pizza from Di Fara, and then a scoop of black raspberry chip ice cream from Graeter's (an ice-cream company in Cincinnati, Ohio). That combination would be hard to beat.

Which other food blogs do you read regularly?

The Wednesday Chef is always a favorite. Luisa Weiss, who writes it, has a warm, smart voice and a great eye for recipes.

STI: Sweet pastry dreams

June 14, 2009

Sweet pastry dreams

Chef Laurent Cantineaux knew he found his calling when cooking invaded his sleep

By Fiona Low

Since he was a child, Laurent Cantineaux has known that he wanted a career in the culinary arts.

The Frenchman says: 'I've dreamt about pastries since I was six years old.'

Today, the 38-year-old is the executive chef and co-owner of Cafe Atlantique, a French-Latin restaurant in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.

While he had initially wanted to pursue a career in pastry making, an apprenticeship in 1998 at the renowned Guy Savoy, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Paris, fuelled a passion for cooking instead.

'Cooking is more demanding, but I like the spirit around cooking,' he explains.

The talented chef has since worked in critically acclaimed restaurants all around the world, including Restaurante Le Scholteshof, a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Belgium and Daniel in New York, which was rated one of the top 10 restaurants in the world by the International Herald Tribune.

'The pleasure of seeing people happy and enjoying my food is the best part of my job,' says Cantineaux.

In addition to his restaurant, he now also runs a catering service, En Escena, and the Gaga Galeria Gastronomica Culinary School.

The secret to his success, he says jokingly, is 'work, work and more work'.

'But, of course, a good organisation, trustworthy colleagues and discipline are essential as well.'

Gastronomes can try his cooking at the Harbour Grill & Oyster Bar at the Hilton Hotel from June 22 to 27, where he will be presenting a series of French-Caribbean creations.

Who has been the greatest influence in your career thus far?

Working with Daniel Boulud, one of the most renowned chefs and restaurateurs in New York, was an intense experience. He is both a great person and an extraordinary professional.

Working there, I got to learn how time-honoured French techniques can be applied to fine seasonal American ingredients.

What is your philosophy when it comes to cooking and food?

To always stick with the concept of the restaurant, to respect the ingredients and to be aware of the client's taste.

I also aim to enhance local flavours available with both classic and modern French cooking techniques.

What was your favourite childhood dish?

Aligot, which is a dish made of melted cheese blended into mashed potatoes, with ribeye steak and Bordelaise sauce.

As a child, my mother would cook it for me when I was being good, so it was always a special occasion.

What are the two most important items in your kitchen?

Butter and olive oil.

Butter is in almost every dish in French cuisine because it adds colour and flavour. I like butter from Normandy in northern France. It is of good quality and has a nice salty flavour.

Olive oil is also important because it is found in most Mediterranean, Spanish and Italian cuisine. I have no preference about the type of olive oil, just that it be of a good quality and extra virgin.

Do you like Asian cuisine?

Yes, I would die for good crispy skin pork belly or dumplings.

I like pork as I find it the most tasty meat. Also, it looks perfect cut out into squares. I also like dumplings for their simple, light taste and the fact that they have almost no calories.

I tried both on my first trip to Asia when I came to Singapore some years ago.

What is your signature dish?

Black seabass wrapped in arrow root with tomatillo coulis, Swiss chard and quinoa.

The seabass fillet is wrapped in thin slices of arrow root and cooked in a pan with clarified butter until it becomes golden and crispy.

What is your ultimate guilty food indulgence?

I like good traditional bread, especially the big, round, wholewheat loaves found in the Poilane bakery in France. It is like country bread with a crunchy crust and a slight acidic flavour due to the fermentation process.

You were awarded Best Chef of the Year by the Venezuelan Academy of Gastronomy in 2005. How do you feel about that?

Good. I got the award after being in the country for six years, so I was appreciative of the recognition. I am also proud to be the first French chef to get the award.

With so many accomplishments under your belt, what's next for you?

I will be opening a new restaurant on an island in the French Caribbean next November, featuring French-Latin cuisine.

It will be a small, cosy place with a big yard in front and pictures on the walls. I want a place that will make diners feel at home.

fionalow@sph.com.sg

WHAT WOULD YOUR LAST MEAL BE?

I don't want to think about it, but every time I get a special meal, I enjoy it like it would be my last.

STI: Cracking keluak

June 14, 2009

Cracking keluak

By Chris Tan

Q I understand that the buah keluak nut is poisonous and needs to be soaked for several days. I usually soak the nuts overnight in several changes of water and scrub them well before cracking. But I have been told to soak them for seven days or boil them for 15 minutes. I am really confused now. What should I do? Also, can I freeze the nut paste?

Diana Poh

A The buah keluak tree's wood, leaves, fruit and nuts (actually seeds) are all poisonous. When they are bruised or crushed, a glycoside compound they contain converts to hydrocyanic acid, also known as cyanide.

Some vegetables also share this property, such as bitter almond kernels and some kinds of cassava and bamboo.

In parts of Indonesia, the plant's lethality is exploited to make pest repellent and to stupefy fish and prawns - broken up keluak tree bark is simply thrown into the water - so they can be easily caught.

In Sabah, a little crushed dried keluak nut meat is added to a pickled fish dish to prevent spoilage. Some Indonesian tribes crush and sun-dry the nuts, then pack them into cleaned, fresh-caught fish with a little salt, in order to preserve them for a few days' travel.

However, fear not. All buah keluak nuts sold for culinary use have already been rendered safe by various permutations of soaking, boiling and burying in ash, processes which leach away or inactivate the glycoside, and let the nuts ferment into their chocolate-hued edible state. So soaking the nuts for 24 hours, preceded and followed by a good scrub, is perfectly fine, as you are only looking to clean and soften the shell enough to crack it easily.

Once you have cracked the shells and extracted the nut meats, wipe the latter off with damp paper towels, pack them into thick resealable plastic bags, press out the air, seal and freeze. They will keep in the freezer for a few months.

Cake oozing with choc

Q I love sinful fondant au chocolat but I just cannot seem to get it right. My recipe calls for mixing whipped egg whites with melted chocolate and flour. But after seven to eight minutes' baking, the result is more like a rich chocolate cake with many air pockets. How do I get the signature oozing chocolate centre?

Katrina Koh

A Unlike souffles, fondants au chocolat do not require an amply aerated batter. You do not need those whipped whites.

Perhaps the most famous (though not the first) recipe for these molten-centred chocolate cakes was by French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. It calls for eggs and egg yolks to be first beaten with sugar until thick. Subsequent whisking in of melted chocolate, butter and flour deflates the yolk foam, resulting in a dense mousse texture that bakes up quite gooey.

You can find this recipe in the New York-based chef's cookbook Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home With A Four-Star Chef. As long as you use a good chocolate, an accurate oven and keep a stern eye on the clock to avoid over-baking, it works well.

Heston Blumenthal's chocolate fondant recipe, in his cookbook Family Food: A New Approach To Cooking, does not bother with aeration. It calls for stirring melted chocolate and butter into unwhipped egg whites. The result is silken and fragile rather than mousse-like.

Should you feel uncomfortable about eating half-cooked cake batter, you can also achieve a molten centre by dropping a frozen chocolate truffle into each batter-filled mould before putting it in the oven. When the cake is cooked through, the truffle should still be soft and runny.

Going to pod

Q Having read about the substitution of ingredients such as palm oil for cocoa butter in chocolate, I am considering making my own chocolate. Is it too ambitious to start from the cocoa pod itself?

Dominic Peter Mason

A That depends on your stamina, wallet and palate. If you favour smooth, ultra-refined, European-style chocolate, you will have to exercise extreme care in obtaining, fermenting and drying the beans, then cracking, roasting and winnowing them, milling and pressing the cocoa nibs, and mixing the cocoa liquor with cocoa butter, sugar and other necessary ingredients. Then, you have to conch (knead) the chocolate for at least a day to improve its texture and mature its flavour.

Finally, you have to temper and mould it. Frankly, I am perfectly happy to pay the folks at Amedei, Valrhona and so on to do this for me. But if you really yearn to have a go, explore www.chocolatealchemy.com for tips.

Somewhat easier to emulate is the Mexican and Filipino tradition of grinding rustic-textured, intensely flavoured chocolate at home. Start with top-quality roasted cocoa nibs (pictured above), which you can buy from high-end chocolate houses or online. Warm them in the oven, then grind them to a paste, ideally with a pestle and mortar or grinding stone (domestic food processors tend to overheat).

In Mexico, almonds, cinnamon and vanilla beans are commonly added to the nibs for flavour and in the Philippines, peanuts. When you have a gritty paste, add sugar (fine raw sugar or golden caster is good) and some cocoa butter if you like, and continue grinding until the chocolate smoothens out. Then simply form it into patties or spoon it into moulds and let it set at cool room temperature. Store the unmoulded patties in resealable bags in the fridge vegetable drawer.

Try a ratio of six parts nibs to four parts sugar and an optional half-part of cocoa butter, by weight. You can nibble the chocolate as is, use it in baking (do not expect it to act exactly like its Euro cousin) or best of all, whisk it into hot milk or water for frothy hot chocolate.

You will be rewarded with deep, complex nuances that show off all the fruity, nutty, earthy, winey, floral, smoky, spicy and bitter faces of the cocoa bean.

STI: Volcano hot, Love is so-so

June 14, 2009

Volcano hot, Love is so-so

Zento's sushi rolls, concocted by an Indonesian-born chef, are mostly exciting and enticing

By Wong Ah Yoke

The label 'contemporary Japanese cuisine' is a clear warning not to expect the traditional at Zento. Indeed, there is nothing conventional about this two-week-old tenant in the Dempsey restaurant enclave.

It is an offshoot of an eatery in Philadelphia in the United States and its Indonesian-born chef, Gunawan Wibisono, trained under Masaharu Morimoto of Iron Chef and Iron Chef America fame at the Morimoto restaurant in the Pennsylvanian city.

Not surprising for a restaurant that has its roots in America, Zento's menu is aimed largely at the Westerner whose idea of Japanese food is sushi rolls. So although you do find the usual sushi and sashimi, the focus is on unique sushi rolls and maki concocted by the chef. There are also the odd non-Japanese items such as a fried calamari served with sweet Thai chilli sauce and a spicy seafood soup.

The entree section includes dishes such as rack of lamb and roasted duck breast served Western-style, except that there may be a mound of rice and stir-fried bokchoy on the plate.

The culturally confused menu will, however, not be a problem here. After all, where can you find more eclectic tastebuds than in Singapore, where people happily eat a bowl of laksa right after plates of sashimi and raw oysters at a buffet?

Besides, Zento's food is both exciting and enticing.

The rolls are delightful, each one packed with a mix of ingredients that contribute different flavours and textures. If you like other American creations such as California rolls and rainbow rolls, you will find much to please you here.

There is the Salmon Cream Cheese And Scallion ($18), which also packs in king crab, cucumber and avocado. The dollop of cheese inside is chilled so you get a refreshing sensation when you pop the piece of sushi into your mouth. And something wonderful called Dragon ($22) breathes fire with crunchy spicy tuna, eel, avocado and tobiko.

There are many more to choose from that are just as good, including Green River ($30) comprising toro, eel, avocado and plum paste, and Zento Square ($28), which is made up with eel, avocado and plum paste with slices of tuna on top.

Among the selection of futomaki, which are fat rolls wrapped in seaweed, there is the just as creatively named Volcano ($25), which has shrimp tempura, smoked salmon, avocado, crabstick and masago, a fish roe. I love it for its mix of crunchy and soft textures, which I find more alluring than Love ($26), which contains a combination of fishes such as tuna, salmon, yellowtail and eel.

The one that really bores me though is Spring Garden ($20), a riceless maki that is as healthy as it sounds. It comprises mixed greens, crab, shrimp and wakame wrapped in rice paper, all mild-tasting ingredients that need a strong dip to excite the palate. Think Vietnamese rice paper rolls without the sweet chilli dip.

The entrees are good though. My favourite is Roasted Marinated Duck Breast Zento's Style ($48), which is a cross between French and Chinese roast duck with its juicy meat and sweet sauce. It comes with a small piece of foie gras, stir-fried bokchoy and rice.

I will also go back for appetisers such as a delicious tuna pizza ($22), with slices of spicy tuna and tomato on a crisp tortilla, and scallop carpaccio ($25), thinly sliced scallop dressed in a sauce of yuzu, garlic and ginger and hot grapeseed oil.

If there is anything to complain about, it is that the staff, while friendly, needs to be more proactive. After I specified that all the dishes were for sharing, we still had to request serving spoons for each round of food that came to the table. Having to ask once is understandable. But not three times.

ahyoke@sph.com.sg

ZENTO SINGAPORE

18B Dempsey Hill, tel: 6474-0378

Open: Noon to 3pm daily, 6 to 10pm from Sundays to Thursdays, 6 to 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays

Food: ****

Service: ***

Ambience: ***

Price: Budget about $80 a person, without drinks

STI: Eater's Digest

June 14, 2009

Eater's Digest

By Ong Sor Fern

Some like it hot. So this week, we look at cookbooks that spice up your life with zingy dishes that will wake up your tastebuds.

A Touch Of Tropical Spice

Recipes From Four Seasons Hotels And Resorts

Tuttle Publishing/2009/144 pages/Hardcover/$40.66/Major bookshops

This book is a glossy, classy affair. It has a foreword from no less a culinary celebrity than Nobuyuki Matsuhisa.

There is a nice glossary of essential ingredients that demystifies everything from belacan to pandan leaves.

And the array of recipes, which offers everything from a variety of sambals to Clams In Red Sauce With Chinese Sausage, accompanied by mouthwatering photographs, promises to re-create adventurous fusion cooking in the home.

Well, the two recipes I attempted were certainly an adventure. Although the one for Papaya Clove Jam produced an exotically fragrant paste scented by lemongrass and cloves, it was let down by imprecise cooking instructions.

It failed to define how much heat was needed for the initial boiling of the fruit and the instruction to slice lemongrass finely resulted in a jam tainted by the woody stems of the herb.

A much better approach would be to simply bruise the stalks and remove them after cooking.

The Lemongrass Sambal recipe was also very puzzling as it was not so much a paste as a sliced herb salad that would serve better as a topping for steamed and grilled meats rather than a dip, which is what the name sambal implies.

Some recipes are also spectacularly fiddly, worth the attempt only if you are cooking in large enough portions to justify the effort.

The saving grace is that quite a few dishes, such as the recipe for Hokkien noodles, which comes with a recipe for pork stock, ring authentically true.

Which leads me, in a roundabout fashion, to my conclusion. The recipes here are worthwhile and some are wonderfully inventive. But they are to be attempted only if you are already fairly confident in the kitchen and can manage the book's lapses in details.

Fabulous Curries And Chilli Recipes

Periplus/1997/112 pages/ Paperback/$21.40/Major bookshops

After the rather trauma-inducing, cavalier approach of the first book, Periplus' no-nonsense Step-by-Step series is a relief.

The compiled nature of this book is betrayed by the recipes, which swing between detailed options that demand the assembly of rempahs from scratch and cheat versions using curry paste.

But all the recipes are properly notated, measurements and cooking times specified clearly. Even better, there are little icons for each recipe indicating the level of difficulty.

This book is so accessible, it has even cured me of a minor phobia about cooking curries - something I have always thought of as much too fiddly and complicated to assemble.

But the Chicken And Lime Curry (wonderfully fragrant and zingy from the limes) and Indian Prawn Curry were a breeze to whip up even though the spices were assembled from scratch.

While the first half is dominated by Indian recipes, with a few Thai dishes thrown in for token variety, the second half boasts a more international flavour, with Italian, Mexican and Asian options clamouring for space.

For ease of use and clarity of presentation, this cookbook is the clear winner this week.

30 Minutes Or Less: Spicy Food

Parragon/2008/96 pages/ Hardcover/$19.21/Books Kinokuniya

British publisher Parragon should stop reproducing that risible laksa recipe with carrot, no coconut milk and no laksa leaves.

Other than that strange tic, its cookbooks are actually rather practical and friendly.

But be warned that this collection of 40 recipes, easy as they are, have been toned down for British tastebuds.

The three recipes I tried - Spicy Crab Soup, Indonesian Sweetcorn Balls and Pad Thai - completely failed to light my fire as I am accustomed to far spicier offerings.

But all the recipes resulted in tasty treats. The fiddly sweetcorn balls, which had a lovely nutty crunch from the peanuts, are quite more-ish and the pad thai had a tangy zing and was so easy to cook I am adding it to my arsenal of quick meals for weekdays.

The book can also be accused of false advertising. No one, unless you move like the Flash, can assemble the recipes in under 30 minutes if you factor in the prep time needed. The fastest dish I managed was the pad thai, which took at least 40 minutes from start to finish.

Nonetheless, the recipes are fairly user-friendly. You just need to double, if not triple, the amount of spices stated if you want something hot enough to make an impression on Singaporean tastebuds.

sorfern@sph.com.sg

STI: Slices of sunshine

June 14, 2009

Slices of sunshine

Keep it simple and brighten your day with a cake that's spongy, light and full of lemony flavour

By Tan Hsueh Yun

Some weeks ago, I wrote about my obsession with celery and gave a recipe for a simple stir-fry that had just three ingredients and four steps.

One of them was not even technically a step, since it was 'Serve with rice'.

I have to say I had a lot of misgivings about the column. The recipe seemed way too simple, I kept fretting to a friend. It seemed like such a cop out. Why would people even need a recipe for such a no-brainer?

But S had tried cooking it herself and was the one who had urged me to write about it. Believe it or not, she is still cooking it.

'People want things they can whip up fast,' she said. 'Basically, some of us are lazy. We want to cook but we don't want to mess with a dozen pots and pans and bowls.'

Well. She was right. I got several e-mail messages about the column, with readers declaring their love for celery and giving me some of their own recipes for the vegetable.

Two people I chatted with after a dance performance at the Esplanade brought it up. One of them had made it for her son. Poor kid, I told her. You made him eat celery. He's going to hate me.

But I learnt something from all this, and it is to keep it simple.

I don't cook many complicated things but sometimes I get carried away.

Take this week's recipe for Lemon Yogurt Cake. I chose it because it is simple and delicious. There is no need to drag out the mixer, no need to wait for butter to soften and no esoteric ingredients. It is basically a dump and stir cake.

But then I started thinking about jazzing it up because, you know, I cannot help myself. Maybe I should add some of that candied yuzu peel I love so much.

'Oh, and where are readers going to find this peel?' asked P. 'People are going to read the recipe and turn the page.'

Gee, thanks. But good point.

Okay, how about making a raspberry coulis to go with the cake?

'What happened to keeping it simple, huh?' asked another friend.

So in the end, I decided not to fuss around too much. I even simplified the original recipe, which comes from American cookbook author Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa At Home.

It calls for both a lemon syrup and a lemon glaze. I'm omitting the glaze because seriously, who needs to blanket a perfectly good cake with a white glaze made from way too much powdered sugar?

The sticky stuff takes away the sunny, lemony flavour that makes the cake a real winner. I also upped the amount of zest and made the syrup less sweet.

The result is a bright-tasting, every-day cake that is good enough for company.

But while it looks like a pound cake, it has an unusual spongy texture from the oil. You will not get the velvety texture of a cake made with butter or the flavour of butter.

The trade off is not too bad though. This cake is much lighter than a pound cake and I like the tanginess that the yogurt brings to it.

It is such a versatile recipe too.

Instead of vegetable oil, use the same amount of good olive oil. Use lime, grapefruit or orange zest and juice instead of lemon. Add bits and bobs to the batter - berries or nuts, say.

Cook strips of citrus zest in sugar syrup and...

Okay, okay, maybe not.

hsueh@sph.com.sg

MAKE IT YOURSELF: LEMON YOGURT CAKE

Adapted from Barefoot Contessa At Home by Ina Garten

INGREDIENTS

200g plain flour

2 tsp double-acting baking powder (below)

1/2 tsp sea salt

250g plain, full-fat yogurt

225g sugar

3 large eggs

zest of 3 lemons (below)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

125ml vegetable oil

For lemon syrup

80ml lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)

2-3 Tbs sugar

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Grease and flour a 21.5 by 11cm loaf pan.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a medium-sized bowl, add salt, set aside.

3. To a large mixing bowl, add the yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla extract (above). Whisk together until smooth. Whisk in the flour mixture slowly (below).

4. Pour in the oil and fold it into the mixture gently using a rubber spatula. The batter will curdle but just keep at it until the batter is thick and smooth.

5. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

6. While the cake is baking, make the lemon syrup: Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan and heat until the sugar is dissolved. Take off the heat and set aside.

7. When the cake is done, stand it on a metal rack set over a foil-lined tray and let it cool in the loaf pan for 15 minutes. Using a blunt knife, loosen the cake gently from the sides of the pan. Remove cake from pan and place over the metal rack.

8. Spoon the lemon syrup over the warm cake and let it cool completely before serving.

Makes 1 loaf cake which serves 8 to 10.

Barefoot Contessa At Home by Ina Garten, 2006, Clarkson Potter, costs $62.95 with GST at Borders.

BTO: Wok this way

Business Times - 13 Jun 2009

GUEST CHEF


Wok this way

A Cantonese kitchen may not utilise as many technical machines as a Western one, but there is precision and method in its cooking too, says Chan Kwok. By Audrey Phoon

THERE aren't many chefs who would touch authentic Cantonese cuisine with a 10-foot pole, simply because cooking it competently requires ladlefuls of skill and years of experience. The cuisine, after all, is regarded as one of the Four Great Traditions of Chinese cooking (the others being Sichuan, Shandong and Huaiying cuisine), and is built around a core of 36 cooking methods and a great diversity of fresh ingredients due to the fact that Guangdong, where the cuisine originates, was a trading port in the old days.

But like the sort of acrobat who can not only balance but spin plates atop long, thin poles, some chefs - such as Chan Kwok - are capable of more than just a touch of Cantonese cuisine. Chan, the group master chef of Orchard Hotel, hails from Hong Kong, the home of fine Cantonese cuisine, and has been responsible for turning out all sorts of delicacies for the hotel's traditional Cantonese restaurant, Hua Ting, since he joined the company 12 years ago.

As with any other traditional cuisine, there are no space-age machines or super scientific methods in a classic Cantonese kitchen, says Chan. He adds: 'It's more based on experience and how we use our equipment.'

Still, that's not to say there is no method to the making. Instead of cooking vegetables sous vide (where ingredients are sealed in air-tight plastic bags and slow-cooked at a temperature far below boiling point so as preserve the food's nutrients), for example, the Cantonese 'control the fire' when wok-frying to keep the cell structures of the ingredients intact, notes the chef. Bear in mind though, that 'you should not cook them for more than 20 seconds - otherwise, the nutrition will be gone', he cautions.

Coating your wok with a little oil first will also create a 'buffer' layer that should stop the hot metal surface from scorching your food the moment it touches the pan. 'You should scoop a bit of cooking oil into your wok and swirl it around for a few seconds before ladling it back out,' explains Chan. 'This will create that layer and also help to cool the pan a bit before you put your food in.'

To do without too much fat and oil in a meat stew, the Cantonese way (no George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine needed), simply pan-fry your meat quickly without overbrowning it before putting it in the stew - as in the recipe here, suggests the chef. The heat will help to draw out the fat plus reduce any smell from the meat.

Alternatively, another fat-extraction method that makes use of heat - and has the added benefit of washing away excess blood - is to dip your meat into boiling water for about 'one to two minutes' before adding it to the rest of the ingredients.

Those tips should help in the preparation of the oxtail recipe here, but what is equally important is starting with a good piece of oxtail, emphasies Chan. 'It's not important where you buy it, but how fresh it is,' he says, adding that a good gauge of freshness is to buy meat that is a 'bright blood colour'.

Picking oxtail that has more muscle than fat - muscle looks like clear gelatin while fat is more opaque - will also make for a healthier eating experience, reckons the chef. Not to mention that muscle, when simmered over long periods of time, becomes deliciously fork-tender too.

Full-flavoured meat such as the oxtail is good for dishes that are either stewed or steamed because the flavour of the meat is retained within the sauce or jus, Chan says. But he concludes: 'I like wok-frying best because it's fast and you get the qi of the wok then - it's good for the nose when cooking and eating!'

aphoon@sph.com.sg

Stewed oxtail with brown sauce
Serves 10

For the meat

10 pieces of oxtail, each about 2cm thick 
100g celery, roughly chopped 
100g carrots, roughly chopped r2 star anise 
2 tsaoko fruit 
1 stalk Chinese parsley 
3 stalks spring onion 
6 bay leaves 
3 slices ginger 
1 onion, diced 
A bit of cornstarch

For the seasoning

1 tbsp minced garlic 
2 tbsp preserved bean paste 
1 tbsp oyster sauce 
2 tsp chicken essence powder 
50g rock sugar

Method

1. Pan-fry the oxtail until fragrant, then immerse in boiling water for 2 minutes, remove and drain dry.

2. Put the rest of the ingredients for the meat in a pot and place the pieces of oxtail on top of the mixture.

3. Fry the minced garlic and bean paste with a bit of oil in a clean wok, then add it to the pot. Top up with water until the water level covers the oxtail.

4. Set on high heat until thoroughly cooked then turn the heat down low.

5. Simmer for about three hours until oxtail meat is softened, then discard the vegetables in the sauce and thicken the sauce with cornstarch.

6. Portion oxtail pieces onto plates and pour the sauce over each piece. Serve hot.

BTO: Fishing for compliments

Business Times - 13 Jun 2009

Fishing for compliments

It's freshness guaranteed at a couple of new establishments with a strong emphasis on seafood

Zento Asian Global Cuisine & Sushi Bar 
18B Dempsey Road 
Tel 6474-0378

SUSHI bars in Singapore tend to have pretty straightforward origins: the chef comes from Japan and sets up an eatery here, or a Singaporean chef learns his craft from a Japanese sushi chef and goes on to open his own place. Zento, on the other hand, comes to Singapore via Philadelphia and is helmed by an Indonesian chef who spent a year working with Morimoto Masaharu, one of the famed Iron Chefs based in the US.

The career path of chef Gunawan Wibisono and his wife Dyana Sulistyawati has surely been a colourful one. Both met and married in the US, where he moved seven years ago, and she, 10. Starting out in a takeaway sushi place, Chef Gunawan gradually worked his way up to the position of head chef in a New Jersey restaurant. But he wasn't happy and after 10 persistent applications, he finally landed a job at Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant in Philadelphia. The third Iron Chef in the highly acclaimed Japanese reality cooking show in the late '90s, Morimoto was a former Nobu protege who went on to open his own eatery in 2001, specialising in fusion Japanese cuisine.

'The first month he was there, he couldn't take it - he wanted to quit,' says Ms Dyana. 'It was so tough.' From being a head chef, he was relegated to a minion's role at Morimoto's, ranked last of his 10 chefs. But by the end of his year's stint, he had 'learned more than he did anywhere else' and vaulted over the other nine chefs to become number one, earning the right to work side by side with Morimoto himself.

Even at Morimoto's restaurant, Chef Gunawan knew that it would be hard to go any further as an Indonesian chef making sushi. So the couple struck out on their own, starting a small takeaway sushi place in a shopping mall food court, until the general manager of the Ritz Carlton Philadelphia noticed their food and invited them to open a sushi bar in the hotel lobby. They opened sushi bars in top hotels like the Grand Hyatt, and started a catering business where they supplied sushi to hotel buffets and at convention centre events, earning a reputation for quality and freshness.

While the catering business boomed, the takeaway service didn't, so the couple gave that up and opened the 25-seater Zento in the Old City - a trendy area of Philadelphia - that had a proper kitchen. From there, Zento's menu concept bloomed. Inspired by his stint with Morimoto, Chef Gunawan's food took on a pan-Asian influence with dishes like tuna pizza where a flat round toasted corn tortilla is topped with slices of tuna sashimi and drizzled with a spicy cream sauce.

With two young children aged six and two, Ms Dyana knew that she wanted to return to Asia eventually so they started to look at either going back to Jakarta or settling in Singapore. 'We felt that Singaporeans are more appreciative of Japanese food than Indonesians, so we decided to open our first branch of Zento here,' she explains. Meanwhile, they still retain their business in the US.

The restaurant at Dempsey is much bigger than the original, and offers a clean, funky vibe that's not quite Japanese even though the staff offer the same customary greeting when you walk through the doors. While Philadelphia doesn't strike you as the cornerstone of fine Japanese cuisine, Chef Gunawan's emphasis on freshness means the quality of the fish at Zento is as good as some of the high-end Japanese restaurants here (then again, Zento charges similarly high prices too).

Zento's food is a refreshing change from the norm. It has quirky but tasty fare like 'riceless maki' with chopped raw fish encased in cucumber slices ($30) - perfect for low-carb dieters. Carpaccio ($25 for scallop) is served warm - scallop sashimi is topped with garlic, ginger and yuzu-soy sauce and 'simmered' with grapeseed oil such that the top is cooked but the bottom is raw. A $65 sushi set lunch sounds expensive but is fairly decent value for six pieces of sushi and sashimi, and eight pieces of spicy tuna maki. The fish is fresh and of good quality.

For dessert, check out the deep-fried ice cream or the house specialty of chocolate lava cake - properly done with oozing chocolate sauce and moist cake.

Call it Iron Chef, Philadelphia Japanese or Pan-Asian cooking, but Zento is a bright spark on the local scene that's worth investigating.

Nautilus 
#04-09 Ion Orchard 
2 Orchard Turn 
(Opening July 21)

THE Nautilus, which dates back to the time of pterodactyls and iguanodons, is one of the few shells in history to have survived the ages. But the upcoming restaurant that's named after (and shaped like) this fossil is anything but a dinosaur.

Sure, it may be mammoth-sized with 140 seats and a kitchen that's roughly 40 per cent the size of the dining area, but the seafood-specialist eatery - which will have Ion Orchard's curved glass facade running along the length of it as a feature wall, and be fitted with solid timber floors and dark wood furniture - also looks to be one of the sleekest and most contemporary around when it opens next month.

It will offer some of the best views for crowd and chef-watchers too: the glass wall will look out onto the busy Paterson Road, Orchard Road and Scotts Road junction, and the restaurant will feature lots of open-concept cooking, including a dessert counter where sweet treats will be made a la minute as well as an oyster bar where diners can slurp up oysters as soon as they are shucked.

Perhaps you could call it a case of global perspective literally translating into impressive views. Nautilus, after all, is owned by Indonesian businesswoman Ingrid Prasatya, who operates The Prime Society steakhouse at Dempsey, and it will be helmed by her company's new corporate executive chef, award-winning New Zealander Jason Dell, along with head chef Australian Lucas Mcmillan.

Says Dell, who left 'a dream job' in New Zealand to move to Singapore with his family three months ago for 'a change of scene and to lock down into a job that gives me the creative licence to do what I enjoy but also some sense of normality' with regard to a work-life balance: 'Nautilus will be contemporary without being too adventurous; we will not be focusing on molecular gastronomy.

'What we will be doing is showcasing great-tasting seafood such as sashimi-style fish appetisers where we don't mask the foods with too many complex layers and flavours.'

For a restaurant that's selling itself as a seafood joint, however, Nautilus seems to fall a tad short on variety: only 'a couple' of varieties of oysters will be brought in and there will be no particularly unusual types of seafood served. But what it lacks in range may be made up for in quality: Dell plans to have fish brought in two to three times a week from local and international waters so that what is served will always be fresh.

That includes a delivery of king salmon ('it's even better than Norwegian salmon', says the chef) and mussels from New Zealand. Prices will range from approximately $3.50 per oyster to $65 for a whole broiled crayfish tail served with garlic butter, French fries and hand-chopped slaw.

Those who are not fans of ocean catch won't feel at sea here either. 'While seafood is a key focus, we will also offer an extensive selection of other items,' says Dell. As such, the menu lists dishes that should please both meat or veg lovers too, from crispy duck leg confit with sherry prunes and cumin creamed parsnip, and smoked beef carpaccio, to handcrafted potato gnocchi infused with lemon, rosemary, mint and peas.

If that sounds fancy to you, rest assured that Nautilus is anything but. 'We're comfortable and family-friendly,' Dell states. 'We're positioned to cater to a diverse audience, from mothers with babies in prams to foodies looking for a good meal along Orchard Road.'

BTO: Food central

Business Times - 13 Jun 2009

Food central

Singapore entrepreneurs are stepping on e-platforms to dish out global food ventures which hold as much business potential as they do delicious content. By Audrey Phoon

FOOD. If ever there was a tangible universal language, that would be it. From Henry Fielding's 18th-century ode to roast beef, to modern-day gastronomy festivals, food inspires and ignites passion the world over like no other life ingredient. No surprise then, that it has long been used as a platform by companies to build their business and consume global audiences in numbers that may never have been possible otherwise. Tyre brand Michelin was one of the first to do this when it launched its Red Guide in 1900, and other companies such as oil giant ExxonMobil later followed suit with similar publications.

Then came the age of mass air travel and the computer, and with it, cyberspace entrepreneurs who realised the potential of a similar review-style platform on the Internet with the addition of contributions from the man on the ground. 'The dramatic growth of new media has redefined how food enthusiasts access tasty content,' says Doug Collister, the executive president of Foodbuzz Inc, one of the World Wide Web's top food-and-dining websites and its third-largest. These days, there is a huge market for reality publishing internationally, he believes, and the Net allows his website to feed that demand by capturing the immediacy of diners' experiences, be it a memorable meal in a restaurant or a trip to a market.

Judging from Internet traffic measurement service Quantcast, Mr Collister's view is right on the money. In April, the service found that San Francisco-based Foodbuzz, which launched at the beginning of 2008 but only introduced a global platform in October, had doubled its number of food-blogging partners since going international. This boosted the website's reach to an average of 6.7 million people in more than 45 countries monthly, and subsequently helped it attract - at last count - over 1,600 publishing partners with the delivery of some 30 million advertisement views per month.

Hungry local entrepreneurs are beginning to ride on the same food truck too. Singapore-based Canadian Mario Hardy, for example, set up Map2Cafe three weeks ago with the intention of sharing information on coffee places around the world. It currently covers around 40 cafes in 10 countries.

Meanwhile, the founders of top local food-review website HungryGoWhere expanded their business into Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and Melbourne last year. There are also plans to move into other 'major South-east Asian cities' such as Bangkok soon. 'We have shown that this is a viable model in Singapore and we would like to bring it to the countries around us,' says one of the website's three founders, Wong Hoong An.

The larger exposure - done via the use of freelancers, friends or foodie volunteers in the various countries with administrators in Singapore verifying content - increases audience numbers and thus boosts the potential of monetisation, say the websites. But it does not automatically equate to more revenue. For hits to be converted into dollars, the businesses have firstly to be active in generating user content, says Mr Hardy.

'As with any user-generated-content website, there's a risk because you may end up with no content if there are no users,' he says, adding that Map2Cafe has attracted about 3,000 people since it launched. 'It's all about the content, and until you've got significant content, you can't really start generating money.'

Then there's the issue of monetising the sites properly. Explains HungryGo-Where's Mr Wong: 'Basically, there are three methods to make money on the online market. One is subscription, which we don't believe in because the Internet is such a free world, and besides, that doesn't work all the time unless you have proprietary information. And there's online marketing and providing real-world services such as food delivery.'

The latter two methods are what HungryGoWhere employs to reach out to audiences. But it was a struggle at first as Internet advertising made up just one per cent of the local advertising pie when the site first launched. Wooing Chinese restaurants to advertise on HungryGo-Where proved especially difficult too, recalls Mr Wong. 'A lot of our early customers were Western restaurants and hotels; there were very few Chinese places because they did not understand the value of what we bring.'

Through sheer perserverance ('I liken us to a cockroach that refuses to get killed') and several strategic partnerships with telcos, credit card companies and search engines to promote the website, the company has managed to push up its revenue.

Even as such websites grow and gobble up whole regions in coverage, however, another platform seems to be making even greedier progress.

Rather than being Internet-based, buUuk is a free smartphone application (currently available to the iPhone and Android platforms) based in Singapore that launched at the end of last year and expanded into Indonesia and Malaysia in March as well as Hong Kong and Western Australia this week. It provides a location-based service that allows users to search for restaurants and bars based on where they are, plus upload reviews on the spot because it operates on real-time. But that's not the most significant offering the application is bringing to the table.

Says co-founder Jon Petersen: 'The way we see it, a number of things are changing. We are now in the age of the smartphone, the fastest-growing part of the mobile phone market, and people are with their phones 24/7 these days. Previously, there were guide books and the information provided was very good but it was provided with no intelligence, really. Now, using Internet technology, we can filter that information more usefully.'

This means consumers will no longer have to put up with the frustration of receiving messages that they do not need or want, he continues. 'With the enormous amounts of data that we get (the application has about 50,000 users already although not all of them are regular), we have the ability to send someone something when they are searching for it, and where they are searching for it.'

Although it's too early for the company to have generated any revenue 'worth mentioning', especially since it has expanded so quickly, buUuk's founders are confident their concept will work because 'the F&B industry suffers from a product that degrades over time'.

'We're here for the long haul,' says Mr Petersen, adding that his company aims to eventually get people to use buUuk 'as a habit'.

Taking things a step further

By AMANDA DE GUZMAN

SEX toys are part of Rhonda Wong's family legacy. Her father, a trader of agar wood, started House of Condom, the first-ever sex shop in Singapore, so it seems only natural that his daughter would take it one luxurious step further. Prominently displayed in Rondavous, her new lingerie shop in Far East Plaza - the opening was attended by the likes of Taiwanese star Vanness Wu - are beautifully crafted sex toys in materials like platinum, gold and diamonds.

'Instead of giving his wife a diamond ring for their anniversary, he could give her one of these,' says the 24-year-old former financial trader in a matter-of-fact manner. The products can retail for up to $6,000. 'Paris Hilton has bought one of these,' she muses about a gold and diamond encrusted JimmyJane piece.

'I was inspired on a trip to Miami,' says Ms Wong. But it wasn't the bronzed hardbodies on South Beach that got her thinking.

'A lot of people here have stereoptypical perception of Miami, with all the beautiful actresses on TV shows,' says Ms Wong, who visited the city to attend a music festival. 'Actually, lots of old people who are around 50 to 70 years old, retired by the beach. A lot of couples lay out there naked or in bikinis, having a good time, just the two of them. I wanted to bring that culture here, couples who are in love and have been married for 20 years can still enjoy themselves.'

Ms Wong has the ideal background for her field, as sexual health and education was a key component to her upbringing. She says her sex education at school was 'not useful' and that she got her real education at home and during a stint at House of Condom when she was 21, which attuned her to the needs of couples.

'Being at House of Condom really helped, I really understand people who are 40 or 50,' she says. 'You wont believe how many stories I have heard about their problems in the bedroom and they ask how they can save their relationships. So we recommended products.'

Her father also encouraged communication and openness. She recounts a story when she was 12 and tearing up strips of condoms into individual packs; she 'didn't know what they were' but that it was a fun thing to do because the packs were 'colourful and cute.'

'My dad wants this whole lifestyle to be out in the open. A lot of stores are very hidden. That's where me and my dad are similar; we think that sex is part of everybody's life.'

However, she states that her father was highly conservative in the dating department, only allowing her and her sisters - who form the Hong Kong based Cantopop band 2R - to have boyfriends when they were 21. 'I think Singapore is a hub. We have a very diverse group of people in this country who are very open,' she says. 'Being sexy is not something you have to hide. Obviously a society must be run by rules, but how you live your own life, how you want to spend your time with your loved ones, that's up to you.'

STI: Feast for the family

June 7, 2009

Feast for the family

Meals with loved ones are why Travis Masiero wanted to become a chef

By Fiona Low

Big steaming roasts, laughter, warmth and family all made Travis Masiero fall in love with food.

'Food meant a great time,' says the 30-year-old chef who grew up in New England in the United States, the second of three sons. 'My family loved food, eating and drinking. Through them, I grew to appreciate all that.'

Today, the American is the co-owner of Spruce, a three-month-old restaurant nestled in Phoenix Park, just off Tanglin Road. The charmingly rustic restaurant serves mid-priced Western fare.

'I was very fortunate that I knew from an early age that I wanted to be a chef,' he says. 'So from then on I was always headed in that direction.'

He started his training at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, at the age of 17, after winning the National Culinary Competition organised by Skills USA, a non-profit organisation aimed at preparing high school and college students for future vocations.

He graduated with an associate degree in culinary arts from the institute and went on to the prestigious Cornell University Hotel School, graduating in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in hospitality management.

He has also worked at the oneMichelin-starred Hotel Konigshof in Germany and Clio Restaurant in Boston. Clio was voted one of Boston's 25 Best Restaurants in 2005 by Boston Magazine.

He came to Singapore in 2005 when a mutual friend introduced him to Devin Kimble, founder of Wine Garage, and helmed the kitchen of the wine bar at Riverside Point for three years. He liked it here and decided to stay on.

'There are so many great things about Singapore and as a food city, there is hardly anywhere in the world that can match it,' he says. 'The passion that people here have for food is amazing.'

When the opportunity came to open his own restaurant here with a partner, he jumped at it. Hence Spruce, which is named after a coniferous evergreen tree indigenous to his hometown, was born last March.

'We both wanted a casually sophisticated neighbourhood cafe that would serve great food with warm and welcoming hospitality,' he says.

Chef Masiero is married to massage therapist Erika, 30, and they have a three-month-old son, Lucas.

What is the concept behind Spruce?

Honest food, sincere hospitality, great ambience and real value. That's it. We really try and hit each element and always ask ourselves: 'Is it the best that it can be?' If not, we continue to refine it until we get it right.

The food is an assemblage of my travels and time in Europe as well as a reference to my humble American roots.

Do you like Singaporean cuisine?

I love it! I think it is important to try the local food in a country to really get a sense of the essence of a place. I have come to be a great fan of local food and I have a few choice spots.

The Hokkien mee from Thye Hong at Newton Circus and the chicken rice from Wee Nam Kee are my favourites. I eat these about twice a month.

But the one thing I will not try here is fermented beancurd. There is absolutely no way I can eat it. The smell alone knocks me out.

What is your one pet peeve about Singaporean diners?

The only thing I wish people would practise more here, and this goes for expatriates as well, is tipping. Service is an essential part of a great restaurant, and if you feel like the service has been exemplary, it is always appreciated if you leave a little extra for the staff.

What is the most essential item in your kitchen?

Salt, hands down. If you use it in moderation, it brings out the flavour of every ingredient and makes them taste better. I use a medium-grind sea salt as opposed to table salt, for its natural taste.

What is your philosophy when it comes to cooking and food?

Keep it simple and focus on the ingredients and technique. The better the ingredients, the better the final dish. Of course, technique is important as well.

What was the first dish you cooked?

Chicken Parmesan, which is a very American dish of breaded chicken breast topped with cheese and tomato sauce. It's simple to prepare and even though I was only nine years old at the time, it turned out fantastic.

What is your signature dish?

The Spruce Burger. It is a labour of love. The bun has to be the right thickness to absorb the juices from the burger and just soft enough so it can be chewed easily. Even its size has to be right to get a good ratio of bread to patty.

We use beef chuck for the patty and the meat is ground on-site every day so it does not lose its flavour. We handmake our pickles and cut every last potato for our fries by hand.

What has been the most important lesson you've learnt as a chef?

To be humble and never take anything for granted. You must never forget that the guest is the most important person to your success.

I believe that a chef must not cook with his ego. He must cook food that people will crave and come back for.

fionalow@sph.com.sg

WHAT WOULD YOUR LAST MEAL BE?

It would be with my family, lingering over bottles of wine and great food at my favourite pizzeria, Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona. I would have a simple meal of pizza marinara with a good Amarone wine from Italy.

STI: Italian revival

June 7, 2009

Italian revival

Saraceno Ristorante offers a delicious mix of both traditional and unusual Italian fare

By Wong Ah Yoke

The Tanjong Pagar area seems to be a magnet for Italian restaurants. If you remember, that was where Da Paolo first opened in the late 1980s and the restaurant helped to ignite Singaporeans' passion for pasta and tiramisu.

Since then, others have followed: Pasta Brava, Buko Nero and, more recently, Oso and Otto.

Within the last three months alone, two others have joined the list. Capricci, which I reviewed in this column three weeks ago, took over the premises of Oso after it moved to nearby Bukit Pasoh.

Three months ago, another Italian restaurant, Saraceno, took up the space left vacant for more than five years after L'Aigle d'Or restaurant in Berjaya Duxton Hotel closed.

Little has been changed in the layout of the dining room, although the original glitter of chrome furniture and table lamps have been replaced by a duller brown colour scheme throughout.

And while L'Aigle d'Or was a fine-dining French restaurant, Saraceno aims for a less lofty status with its Italian menu comprising a mix of the common and the less familiar.

Among the usual suspects are antipasti items such as beef carpaccio ($16.80), linguine alle vongole ($20.80) and tiramisu ($9.80). But there are also traditional fare that are less familiar here.

Among them is a very nice involtini di melanzane ($15.80), eggplant filled with mozzarella cheese and baked in a tomato and parmesan sauce. I love eggplant, especially when it is cooked till soft and mushy, and the version here has the thin slices virtually melting away as your teeth sink through them into the chewy mozzarella inside.

And on the palate, the tomato and parmesan provide the perfect tart and salty flavours to perk up the sweet eggplant and mild mozzarella.

A more uncommon dish is the lasagnette pasta with king prawns, courgettes, butter, sage and parmesan ($20.80).

The pasta is a smaller version of lasagna sheets but is still larger than most pasta shapes. What is very unusual is that for this dish, the pasta sheets are fried over high heat with the other ingredients. This gives them an enticing aroma not found in normal boiled or baked pasta.

The only problem in this otherwise winning dish is the overly generous amount of butter used in the frying, which results in everything sitting in a puddle of oil.

If you like large pasta shapes, the paccheri alla Amatriciana ($19.80) is pretty decent too. The large tubular pasta is tossed with smoked bacon, tomatoes, onions and parmesan, and the result is pleasant, if not very exciting.

Among the main courses, I am rooting for the lamb cutlet ($32.80), which is served with sauteed courgettes in fresh mint and blue cheese. The lamb is tender and I like that both the mint and blue cheese are used subtly enough not to intrude.

There is also a spicy kick in the sauce which I could have sworn comes from chilli, but the chef says the heat is from mustard. Whatever it is, it will surely appeal to chilli fiends.

My dining companion's pan-fried fillet of cod with ragout of mussels, clams, prawns and cherry tomatoes ($32.80) is less successful, however. The cod is overcooked although the shellfish ragout is decent.

His starter of fish soup ($9.80) also fails to impress. The broth is too dilute and desperately needs to be reduced further.

Among the desserts is one that is perfect for a hot June day. It is intriguingly called ravioli di ananas ($9.80), which is pineapple ravioli. Thin slices of pineapple are filled with lemon sorbet and frozen solid before they are served with stewed strawberries and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

The pieces look like bright yellow ravioli and taste very refreshing with the combination of citrus and pineapple tartness. They are also very cold, so I would suggest them for lunch rather than dinner.

ahyoke@sph.com.sg

SARACENO RISTORANTE

83 Duxton Road, tel: 6438-9638

Open: Noon to 2.30pm, 6.30 to 10.30pm from Mondays to Saturdays. Closed on Sundays

Food: *** 1/2

Service: *** 1/2

Ambience: *** 1/2

Price: Budget about $70 a person, without drinks

STI: Eater's Digest

June 7, 2009

Eater's Digest

By Cynthia Low

For most people, ice cream is something special. A treat and, sometimes, an expensive one. But it is also very easy to make. Here are four books with recipes from a frozen 'quick fix' to an elaborate five-star dessert.

Paul Gayler's Little Book Of Ice Cream And Sorbets

By Paul Gayler

Kyle Cathie/2009/ Hardcover/112 pages/ $19.94/Books Kinokuniya

This book has something for everyone.

As with all of Gayler's books, the instructions are easy to follow. Even though he is the executive chef at London's prestigious Lanesborough Hotel, his style is down to earth. The recipes are well within the reach of the home cook.

There is a step-by-step guide for making ice cream and sorbets, either by hand or with the help of an ice cream maker.

Along with basics such as vanilla and chocolate, there are some interesting flavours to try, such as Sweet Corn, Goat's Cheese Ice Cream and Coconut Milk Sorbet.

The pictures are mouth- watering - one for each recipe, which makes choosing difficult.

There is also a chapter on sauces to serve with ice cream, such as mango coulis, toffee sauce and the unusual Cajeta sauce, essentially a cinnamon-flavoured cream sauce to serve with pancakes and roasted bananas. The recipes for pancakes and bananas are here as well.

Also useful is a section on the pros and cons of investing in an ice cream maker, plus hints on freezing and storing ice cream.

Frozen Desserts

By Francisco J Migoya: The Culinary Institute of America

John Wiley & Sons/2008/Hardcover/440 pages/$105.88/ Major bookstores

This truly handsome book is for the dedicated chef or anyone keen on the intricacy of every type of frozen dessert. But the science of making professional ice cream calling for the use of refractometers and hydrometers to measure density may seem rather over the top for the average cook.

Frozen Desserts has charts, pictures and mathematical formulas on how to calculate levels of fat, non-fat solids and sugars to get exactly the right result. But if you are willing to do the maths and scale down the volume of ingredients listed for many of the recipes, there are some good ideas here, especially when it comes to presentation.\

There are recipes and pictures for some beautiful concoctions worthy of any five-star restaurant, such as Spice Ice Cream with Gingerbread and Chocolate Mousse timbale, Green Mango Sorbet with paprika bubbles and Marzipan Ice Cream terrine.

The book is probably way above the heads of most home cooks but its saving grace is the wealth of explanations and the section on base recipes for most flavours of ice creams and sorbets.

The book is clearly a labour of love by the author, an assistant professor at the Culinary Institute of America. It is certainly not a casual read. But for serious cooks, it is an excellent educate-yourself-at-home guide - a serious book for serious makers of frozen desserts.

500 Ice Creams And Sorbets

By Alex Barker

Page One Publishing/ 2009/Hardcover/288 pages/$15.94/Books Kinokuniya

If you do not have an ice cream maker, do not worry. This book shows you how to make ice cream with or without one.

With 500 recipes to choose from, your family will never suffer from flavour repetition. If you are on a low-fat, low-sugar diet and desperate for a treat, there are recipes and hints on how to keep the fat and sugar levels down.

The layout is very practical - each base recipe for ice creams, sorbets, water ices and granita has instructions for at least five variations.

One intriguing idea, which seemed just right for a hot day, is watermelon and strawberry slush. That may not sound appetizing but the easy-to-make mix of crushed ice, fresh strawberries and watermelon was, well, slushy and delicious.

There is also a useful section upfront on techniques such as marbling, how best to store ice cream and the basic ingredients from which you can dream up your own concoctions.

Delicious Ice Cream

Parragon Books/2007/ Paperback/96 pages/ $8.51/MPH Bookstore

A small and uncomplicated book that has pretty much all you need to make your own ice cream.

Despite its size, it has instructions for both machine and hand methods for each recipe. The layout is simple, one recipe a page with an enticing picture on the facing page.

I decided to try out the recipe for one of my favourites - ginger ice cream. The result was worth the hunt for a bottle of stem ginger. However, next time I will substitute milk for some of the cream called for to cut down on the richness of the end result.

If you do not fancy ginger, there are instructions for cappuccino, coconut, chocolate fudge and peanut butter ice cream. All the recipes are easy to understand, so if you want to keep your homemade ice cream-making uncomplicated, this is the book to choose.

cynlow@sph.com.sg

STI: Chocolate therapy

June 7, 2009

Chocolate therapy

Teng Ei Liang destresses by making chocolate treats for his friends on weekends

By Huang Lijie

Hotel development manager Teng Ei Liang has his mother to thank for inspiring his love for baking. But not because she is a particularly skilled baker.

The 29-year-old bachelor says: 'I used to accompany my mother to baking classes when I was about eight years old so she could baby-sit me at the same time. But she didn't always remember every step in the baking process, so I ended up helping her during class.

'We learnt to make all sorts of cakes from Opera to mango mousse.'

At home, when his mother tried to replicate the recipes she learnt, she would ask him to help her bake.

And he never protested.

'Then, it was just about having fun, playing around with the cream, making things that looked nice and tasted good.'

His friends learnt of his baking skill when he made tiramisu from an aunt's recipe for a party.

He says: 'I was about 14 years old then. My friends liked the tiramisu so much that they asked me to make it for every pot-luck gathering and birthday celebration.'

He made the treat all the way until he entered university and even gave lessons to close friends who wanted to learn how to whip up the dessert of espresso-soaked sponge fingers layered with mascarpone.

He says: 'I've made so many that I am now extremely scared of its smell.'

When he was not busy making tiramisu, he tried baking other treats such as swiss rolls and black forest cakes. For these, he relied on recipes from the baking classes his mother attended, as well as recipes from his maternal aunts, who are also avid bakers.

Indeed, he was so passionate about baking that he wanted to enrol in the famed Le Cordon Bleu culinary school to study pastry-making after completing national service.

But his parents preferred that he pursue a university degree, so he followed their wishes and studied finance at the Singapore Management University before working at the Singapore Tourism Board as a manager for attractions development.

Unable to shake off the call of cooking school, he left his job in 2007 and signed up for certificate programmes in basic cuisine and patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu's London campus.

He paid for the courses, which cost about &pound7,000 (S$16,000) then, using mostly his savings and some financial help from his parents.

Of the five months he spent in culinary school, he says: 'It was tiring because I would be in the kitchen from 8am to 7pm but it was also a lot of fun because everyone in class was passionate about cooking.'

After completing his courses, however, he left with no illusions about embarking on a career as a patissier, a cook or a restaurateur.

He says: 'I realised I had learnt only the basics and there was still a lot more to learn.'

Nonetheless, he was excited by a new skill he picked up at Le Cordon Bleu - making chocolate truffles.

He says: 'I've always loved chocolates but before my patisserie course, I had no idea how to make them and I always thought it was daunting and involved rocket science.'

The chocolate truffles he made for friends as gifts were so well received that word soon got around and he found himself getting orders from friends for his handmade orbs of cocoa goodness.

Unlike his experience with tiramisu, though, he says he is not sick of chocolate truffles even though he makes them almost every weekend, spending about six hours spread over two days making about 1,000 pieces.

'There's something therapeutic about making chocolates. It may be mundane to roll them out one after another but it helps clear my mind, especially after a long day of staring at the computer.

'And I still steal a few pieces to eat every time I make a batch of truffles for friends.'

The chocolate hazelnut tart recipe which he shares below marries his love for chocolate with the basic tart shell recipe he learnt at Le Cordon Bleu.

lijie@sph.com.sg

MAKE IT YOURSELF: CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT TART

INGREDIENTS

200g plain flour

5g salt

5g sugar

100g unsalted butter, chilled, cubed

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

10ml water (if necessary)

190g dark chocolate

80g hazelnut praline paste, available in speciality baking stores

60g paillete feuilletine (crushed wafer flakes), available in speciality baking stores

150g whipping cream

15g liquid glucose, available in speciality baking stores

METHOD

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190 deg C.

2. Sift flour, salt and sugar into a big bowl.

3. Add butter and combine the mixture with your hands until it resembles coarse crumbs.

4 Form a well in the centre of the mixture, pour in the egg and vanilla extract and combine with your hands to form a smooth dough that does not stick to the sides of the bowl. If the dough is too crumbly, add water to it gradually.

5. Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

6. Roll the dough out to 2mm or 3mm thickness and line it on a tart tray with a 20cm diameter.

7. Prick holes on the base of the tart dough with a fork.

8. Cut open an oven cooking bag and place it over the dough, making sure it is large enough to cover the edges. Fill the covered surface with dry rice or beans. This ensures that the crust holds its shape during baking.

9. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the oven before removing the oven bag with the rice or beans. Bake the tart shell for another five to 10 minutes until golden brown.

10. Allow the tray to cool at room temperature before removing the tart shell and chilling it in the refrigerator.

11. Melt 40g of dark chocolate and praline paste in a metal bowl over a pot of boiling water. Stir to mix well.

12. Allow the chocolate mixture to cool to room temperature before adding in the paillete feuilletine. Mix well.

13. Spread the chocolate mixture on the base of the tart with a spoon to half the height of the tart shell. Make sure the chocolate layer has a smooth and even surface.

14. Place the tart in the freezer for about 30 minutes or until the chocolate sets.

15. To a pot, add cream and liquid glucose, stir and bring to a simmer over low heat.

16. Crush the remaining 150g dark chocolate in a bowl before adding the simmered mixture.

17. Allow the mixture to sit for five minutes before slowly stirring it until a smooth chocolate ganache forms.

18. Pour the ganache into the tart, filling it up to the brim. Smooth out the surface using a spatula.

19. Place the tart in the refrigerator for about four hours or overnight until it sets.

STI: Is 99 cent sushi just as good?

June 7, 2009

Is 99 cent sushi just as good?

By Natasha Ann Zachariah

Diners have been flocking to three Japanese restaurants for a sushi fix that does not hurt their wallets.

Suki Sushi, Nihon Mura and Shin Tokyo are offering sushi such as maki, gunkan and inari at just 99 cents a plate.

The bargain prices have attracted long queues during lunch hours and on weekends at these restaurants where customers can pick sushi off conveyor belts or order directly from service staff or sushi chefs.

But some have also complained about the quality of the fare. Their grouses range from the freshness of the food to the unappetising taste of the sushi.

First-time patron Sarah Tan, who ate at the Suki Sushi outlet at Punggol Plaza, was attracted by the price but felt that the quality could be improved and the variety expanded.

The 21-year-old student says: 'The sushi has obviously been left out too long, it tastes a little flat rather than fresh.'

Mr Jeffrey Lim, a patron at Nihon Mura at The Cathay, noticed that the portions were considerably smaller here than at other Japanese restaurants where the same dishes might be priced at $1.99.

The IT consultant, 35, who ate eight plates of sushi, says: 'The portions are obviously halved. Maybe they stinge on it to keep the prices low.'

The restaurants maintain that despite the low prices, the usual ingredients are used and food quality controls are in place to ensure freshness.

Ms Jill Ng, business development manager for Suki Group of Restaurants, says: 'The chefs periodically remove sushi that has not been consumed and they take the necessary measures to ensure the quality of the ingredients.'

She adds that the most popular sushi are placed on the belt, so they are taken up quickly.

Shin Tokyo's co-founder and managing director Yvone Lim says that the food at her outlets is constantly monitored to ensure freshness.

She says: 'Customers can order straight from the menu and it's prepared in front of them, so the chances of it not being fresh are slim.'

There are 13 Suki Sushi and Nihon Mura outlets, owned by The Suki Group Of Restaurants, located islandwide in places including Tampines, Ang Mo Kio and Orchard.

Nihon Mura started the promotion when it opened in 2006, while Suki Sushi introduced the offer in March last year.

Shin Tokyo, managed by Ramen Ten and Shin Tokyo Group of Restaurants, comprises three outlets at Tampines, Yew Tee and Clementi.

It began offering 99 cent sushi when its Clementi outlet opened in January. The offer has been so popular that it has become a permanent feature.

Regular patrons to these restaurants admit that they are attracted by the price, rather than how the food tastes.

Ms Eunice Ke, a 30-year-old IT consultant who has been to Nihon Mura's Tampines outlet more than 10 times, says: 'The food here is normal but I come here because it's cheaper than restaurants like Sakae Sushi or Sushi Tei.'

Both chains say that profits are marginal and rather than create a price war, the promotions are meant to keep the sushi affordable and the customers coming back.

Of Shin Tokyo, which is halal, Madam Lim says: 'The brand is just six months old, so this way we can introduce ourselves to our customers.'

And customers say they will keep coming as long as the price is right.

Mr Alex Sim, a 23-year-old student, says: 'It's really about the price and location. It tastes decent to me and it's Japanese food at a good price, so I'm not complaining.'

BTO: Kitchen sessions

Business Times - 06 Jun 2009

Kitchen sessions

Ever wished you could have the undivided attention of the chef? Get up close and personal to chefs like Sam Leong and Eric Teo as they re-define the chef's table dining concept. By Jaime Ee

Sam Leong


My Humble House 


8 Raffles Ave, #02-27 


Esplanade Mall 


Tel 6423-1881

SAM Leong is a busy man, but it doesn't mean that all his hours are spent cooking up a storm in any of the Tung Lok Group's restaurants. As director of kitchens, he's kept on his toes ensuring consistent quality standards in the group, while overseeing its overseas restaurant ventures in cities like Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and New Delhi. Not to mention his numerous TV appearances, guest chef stints and generally, living the harried life of a celebrity chef.

But sometimes a chef just wants to get more hands-on with his craft, which is why chef Leong has just launched a chef's table at My Humble House where he personally cooks for a party of six to 13 people for lunch or dinner, by advanced booking only.

Priced at $125++ per person (food only), diners get to sit in the restaurant's private dining room right next to the glass walled kitchen so they can watch Chef Leong prepping, cooking and plating each of the nine to 12 course menus that they can customise according to their needs.

'The idea is to give people an opportunity to appreciate fine, modern Chinese cooking the way that Sam has developed it over the years,' says Ricky Ng, Tung Lok's executive vice-president. 'It's also a chance for guests to watch him work and also to interact with him on a more personal basis.'

The chef's table is still fairly rare in the local dining scene although it's more common in top restaurants in Europe or the US where diners with some 'connections' are able to snag a table right next to the kitchen where they can watch the chefs prepare their meal. But forget about getting the chef - usually a Michelin-starred or celebrity chef - to come by and chat at length, not when he has to worry about the meal service for the entire restaurant. Apart from the novelty, dining at a chef's table isn't always comfortable - it's warm and noisy, although the buzz and excitement of being so close to the action makes it a literally hot table to be at.

At My Humble House, though, there's none of that. The kitchen is sealed off so you won't hear any cussing or pot banging - not that the quiet and efficient chefs in there are prone to any of that. Chef Leong works quietly and efficiently within, sending out the dishes, coming out to serve the last dish of a barley-rice porridge pimped up with slices of lobster sashimi that's comfortingly decadent.

The private room itself is a great venue for small parties as it can be dressed up to suit the occasion. A well-thought out selection of wines (displayed in the wine storage wall along one side of the room) lets you pair your food with good-value wines.

Indeed, Chef Leong's cooking - Chinese at heart but modern in approach - is well-suited for wine pairing, and the staff do well in picking a choice Riesling to go with the rich braised shark's fin in brown sauce with firm steamed crab claw served with a demitasse of intense morel consomme. Or a fruity red to perfectly match a crisp-tender fried kurobuta pork rib served with a red berry sauce and braised eggplant.

'All the dishes are new,' says Chef Leong. And they are reserved only for guests who book this exclusive menu. Highlights include fresh momotaro tomato marinated in a wasabi-soya oil and konbu dressing, fresh crabmeat filled rice paper rolls with avocado salsa, and poached white asparagus with Spanish ham.

With only one table to look after, Chef Leong even handpicks the fruit that's served at the end of the meal - ripe juicy quincy melon, sweet mangoes, lychees or crunchy persimmon. 'You can get good fruit in Singapore but you have to know when it's in the best condition to be served,' he says. It's something he picked up in Japan where he was inspired by the way fruits were always sold in peak condition.

Of course, if you want tips on fruit-buying, cooking or just want to enjoy the chef's company - just like the group of women who have already booked him a few times - Chef Leong is happy to oblige. Who knows, this could be the start of a new dining trend.

Eric Teo 


Dolce Vita 


Mandarin Oriental Singapore 


5 Raffles Avenue 


Tel 6885-3551

ERIC Teo probably couldn't decide whether he wanted to cook or be a comedian when he was charting his career path, and finally decided to be a funny chef.

As it turns out, the executive chef of the Mandarin Oriental Singapore has parlayed his penchant for wisecracks into a part-time TV career as an actor and most recently on Channel 8's cooking and reality shows like Star Chef and Buzzing Cashier, where well-known chefs help struggling hawkers to rework their recipes and rebuild their businesses.

What with him juggling responsibility for the hotel's restaurant operations and his role as president of the Singapore Chefs Association, Chef Teo hardly gets behind the stove to cook for paying customers. That doesn't stop regular guests from occasionally asking him to whip up a favourite or two for them, which he's happy to oblige when he can. For this month at least, you can catch him - albeit fleetingly - at Dolce Vita restaurant where's he's signed up to personally helm a chef's table for two Friday dinners.

The chef's table idea was spurred by a recent sell-out event - a molecular tapas promotion by Mandarin Oriental Tokyo's chef Jeff Ramsey - which prompted the Singapore hotel to make better use of the bar-dining concept at Dolce Vita restaurant.

'We got comments from guests that it was a good way of using the space,' says Kelly Tan, public relations manager. The pool-side Mediterranean eatery boasts a circular counter that seats eight people, facing an open kitchen where orders are prepared for diners in the main dining room. So, while the hotel's top management were brainstorming on how best to use the bar area, the idea dawned: why not introduce a bar-dining concept where Chef Teo and his executive sous chef Mario Corti - himself a Michelin star import from Germany - take turns to cook exclusive dinners for parties of eight?

Bingo - and already the first two instalments of the hotel's Friday-only dinners for eight at $1200++ have been booked up. The first one took place yesterday with Chef Corti and he will cook again next Friday, while his boss Chef Teo takes the June 19 and 25 slots. Only bookings of eight people will be accepted so if you're taking clients out for dinner or if you're hosting a small dinner party, this would make for a dinner with a bit more flourish than the usual restaurant reservation. Right now, the plan is only to offer the chef's table for the month of June, although if demand is strong, they will think about extending it.

'We think there's a market for unique dining concepts,' says Chef Teo. 'Guests always like it when the chef pays full attention to them and we get to interact with them too.' There's no shortage of interaction for sure with the effervescent Chef Teo, especially when his cheerful demeanour and his keen comic timing make a meal with him more like dinner theatre.

Still, there's no funny business involved when he's cooking, and budding home chefs can pick his brains on anything from the right way to cook a steak to the best kind of chopping boards to buy. In between, he serves up a luxurious five or six course meal including scallop sashimi with clear jelly cubes made with mineral water and lime vinaigrette; seared tender Alaskan king crab leg with smooth carrot puree; richly satisfying foie gras and shredded roast duck nestled in a crispy baked filo pastry boat; poached salmon in heady saffron-scented broth and a classic seared wagyu tenderloin.

Dessert is a multi-chocolate extravaganza created by executive pastry chef Ruben Jan Adriaan. The Pierre Hermes alumnus is an award-winner himself, most recently as part of the Singapore Pastry Alliance Team which won the top pastry awards at the Hong Kong International Culinary Classics last month.

At $1200++ for eight, it works out to $150++ per person - which isn't exhorbitant once you work in the high end ingredients and the personalised chef service. Chef Teo may be a funny man, but when it comes to giving value for money, he's pretty darn serious.

BTO: Natural growth

Business Times - 06 Jun 2009

Natural growth

It's been 10 years since organic agriculture caught on in Singapore, and farms - along with top-end hotels and recently restaurants - have been conscientiously growing the movement here. Now for consumers to catch up. By Audrey Phoon

BACK in 1999, farmer Chai Nian Kun didn't have a clue as to what the term 'organic' entailed, agriculturally speaking. But he had just begun to rein in the use of pesticides and other chemical products on his parents' Lim Chu Kang property because 'it was affecting our health and we wanted to do something about it'.

'When my father farmed using conventional methods, he got sick a lot. So that was why we started trying to farm without using chemical substances. Organic? We were not really sure what that was at the time,' he recalls.

Fast forward a decade, and FireFlies Health Farm - the Chais' business - is one of the leading organic farms locally in terms of techniques used and produce grown (the family also doesn't need to see the doctor much any more).

The owners travel 'a lot' to keep themselves updated about what other countries are doing, and the farm is run using forward-thinking methods that minimise its carbon footprint and are aligned as far as possible with Mother Nature's. Pests are largely left alone and only hand-picked off the crops when they become too much of a problem, and most recently, a new product derived from mineral-rich sea water minus the sodium was brought on board to nourish the plants.

FireFlies is not alone in progressing with the times. Others, such as Green Circle Eco-Farm and Quanfa Organic which were both set up around the same time as the Chais' farm, have also kept up to speed with organic agricultural methods. Quanfa, for example, recently developed its own eco-friendly blend of compost that it intends to market to farms around the region, and Green Circle set up its first permaculture plot (permaculture being an agricultural system that is gaining popularity among organic farmers because it mimics natural ecological relationships) just last weekend. It will help regulate water flow due to the way the beds are contoured, and reduce the need for piped irrigation.

Perhaps the clearest indication that going organic is really catching on in the local agriculture industry is the rising number of farms.

While FireFlies' Mr Chai notes that 'there were virtually no organic farms about 10 years ago', the tally has grown to about five today (although no exact figures are available because the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority does not differentiate between organic and non-organic farms). And that's despite the fact that there's no such thing as a cushy urban life if you're an organic farmer.

'If I wanted to make money, I wouldn't be doing this,' half-jokes Green Circle's owner, Evelyn Eng-Lim, who gave up a comfortable job as a chemical analyst to follow her passion.

What are the benefits of supporting the efforts of these local farms? Well, aside from the fact that vegetables tended by Mother Nature are known for their flavour and for being healthier because they are untainted by chemicals, buying local organic produce means that less energy is spent delivering it to the customer.

Notes Mrs Eng-Lim: 'Organic is not just about growing healthy vegetables without pesticides and chemicals; it's also about reducing pollution while farming.'

Meanwhile, within the concrete jungle, a landscape of hotels and restaurants that are sowing the seeds of organic agriculture on their premises has started to sprout.

Earlier this year, Swissotel the Stamford and Fairmont Singapore combined to set up a spice garden within the hotel's shared fifth-floor Sky Garden, where plants such as basil, pandan, rosemary, thyme and bay are grown in organic soil. These are fertilised by decomposed matter from about 600 vegetable-fed white worms imported from Australia.

The spices are used in the hotels' restaurants such as Jaan, explains chef de cuisine Andre Chiang, adding that 'we are now also planting lemon, tangerine, eggplant and tomatoes on trial'. In future, he says, he is 'planning to grow more delicate herbs to go with my Forgotten Vegetables dish'.

Au Jardin Les Amis, too, started a 'test bed' of mustard leaves, papaya, lime and fine herbs this year, while on Monday, Four Seasons Hotel Singapore planted its first vegetable patch. The hotel's initiative 'spearheads the launch of our Green Movement this year', says its director of public relations, Adeline Toh.

She adds: 'When the time comes, we will harvest this produce for use in our kitchens. The chillies, for example, will be used to make XO sauce at Jiang-Nan Chun, the mint leaves will garnish the mojitos at the Bar and Alfresco, and the bananas will be used in our dessert creations.'

Evidently there is no shortage of options offering consumers a healthier choice when it comes to eating greens these days. But considering the fact that organic vegetables sometimes cost nearly three times as much as conventionally-farmed ones (because they require more labour, space and time to grow), the question is: will they make that choice?

The restaurants and hotels, naturally, have a ready-made market for their home-grown produce. But all the farms that BT Weekend spoke to reported that they were struggling to make a profit from the agricultural aspect of their businesses alone (that is, not taking into account sidelines such as compost-retailing and eco-tours), generally because people shy away from spending on such a basic necessity. Those who do buy are mostly organic and vegetarian shops, as well as individuals who are 'really into health', say the farms.

Green Circle's Mrs Eng-Lim acknowledges that the price point can be a crucial deciding factor for consumers. 'But if you can spend money to feed your car petrol, all the more you should do it for your body,' she reckons. Those who want a more economically viable option from the local farms, she suggests, should go for perennial crops such as ginseng leaves which are easier and quicker to grow, and could prove just as delicious 'depending on how you cook them'.

Perhaps more realistically, the key to getting people to turn over a new (pesticide-free) leaf when they go grocery shopping - and realise the responsibility that they have to buy food that has been produced using sustainable and environmentally-friendly farming methods - lies in a gradual learning process, reckons chef Chiang.

'We need to educate diners more on why they should buy healthy food which might be slightly more expensive than normal but hugely more nutritious,' he says. 'That will push the green concept a big step further. I guess it just takes time for the market to grow - maybe eventually we will reach the level of France, where 90 per cent of growing is organic already.'

Whether or not we have the luxury of time, though, is another issue altogether.

Straight from the source

Quanfa Organic 
35 Murai Farmway 
Tel 6793-7693

ONE of the largest organic farms in Singapore at six hectares, Quanfa cultivates about 40 types of fruits and vegetables using its own all-natural, vegetation-based compost system derived from a Japanese technique. All crops are harvested and packaged every morning so that freshness is guaranteed, says farm manager Max Liao, whose parents own the farm.

While Quanfa offers delivery, note that there's a rather hefty minimum order of $100 for the service, so if you're not planning to swaddle yourself in chye sim, stop by the farm's on-site store where you can buy its hand-picked produce along with a range of organic foods such as award-winning cold-pressed olive oil from Dash in Western Australia.

Green Circle Eco-Farm 
41 Neo Tiew Road 
Tel 6861-9286 
www.greencircle.com.sg

OWNER of Green Circle Evelyn Eng-Lim says she wishes her customers would eat more plants that are indigenous to the region instead of those that have been transplanted from overseas, which is why her two-hectare farm produces plenty of native crops such as cekur manis (sweet leaf), tapioca, sweet potato, wild spinach and wild bittergourd.

The vegetables are harvested the night before or on the day of delivery itself (Green Circle does not have an on-site store), and to minimise its carbon footprint the farm has a delivery schedule that covers certain areas on different days each week - for example, deliveries to the east coast area are done on Wednesdays, those to Bukit Timah and central areas are on Thursdays and customers in the west receive their orders on Fridays.

The minimum order for delivery is $30.

FireFlies Health Farm 
Lot 75 Lim Chu Kang Lane 2 
Tel 6793-7875 
www.fireflies.sg

TO MIMIC Mother Nature as much as possible, FireFlies grows its more-than-40 varieties of fruit and vegetables using fermented home-made compost comprising rock dust, beans and seaweed. Chai Nian Kun, whose parents own the three-hectare farm, says many of his customers are China and Taiwan nationals, who chomp up his xiao bai cai, nai bai and kai lan because 'it tastes like what they have at home'.

To sample those flavours, head to the farm's on-site store, which stocks imported organic fruit such as kiwis, grapes, apples, oranges and lemons too. FireFlies also provides a delivery service for orders of $80 and above.

STI: Tutti-fruity treats

May 31, 2009

Tutti-fruity treats

Pastry chef Gregoire Michaud's loves using fresh seasonal fruit in his sweet creations

By Fiona Low 

 

A side from creating scrumptious desserts, pastry chef Gregoire Michaud has another talent: The Swiss native can also speak Cantonese.

 

After joining Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong in 1999, the 33-year-old who was born in Entremont, a district in southern Switzerland, found himself lost. Few of his kitchen staff had a good grasp of the English language, much less French, his native tongue.

 

'I needed to assimilate quickly in order to communicate,' says the jovial man who now has a fairly sturdy grasp of the dialect, albeit with a halting accent.

 

In Singapore to present his newest dessert creations in the Afternoon Tea promotion at The Bar and Alfresco, Four Seasons Hotel, from now till June 30, he tells LifeStyle about his passion for the craft.

 

'I did an apprenticeship in a pastry shop, Patisserie du Pont, in Switzerland when I was 15 and I loved it. It quickly became clear to me that this was my future path.'

 

After completing his stint there four years later, he has worked in hotels all over the world, including the Broadmoor Hotel, a five-star luxury hotel in Colorado and the Beau-Rivage in Biloxi, United States, among others.

 

He has also written a cookbook, Artisan Bread, which was launched in 2008. The book, which features more than 50 recipes, is specifically tailored for the Asian cook as the recipes take into account the effects of humidity levels on bread-rising in this part of the world.

 

He is currently writing a new book, to be launched in July, and has plans to open his own business in future.

 

'I have had a love for food and business ever since I tried selling french fries to my neighbours when I was 12,' he says with a laugh. 'I'm not sure what it will be yet, but I want a business that is related to pastries and desserts.'

 

The chef is married to a Hong Konger, whom he met while working in the country. They have a son Clement who, at the tender age of three, is already fluent in Cantonese, English and French.

 

'He is very energetic and full of life,' gushes the proud dad, who is also teaching his son to cook.

 

Who has been the greatest influence in your career?

 

Mr Fabrice Pravato, whom I worked for at a pastry shop in Martigny, Switzerland, in 1996. He was passionate about the quality of ingredients and precision, and pushed all his staff to pay the same amount of attention to detail.

 

Why did you decide to specialise in pastries?

 

When I was a teenager, I tried both cooking and pastry-making but enjoyed the precision, the order and the artistic side needed in pastry-making more. I still enjoy cooking. I cook very often at home and I can make anything from Asian to French and Italian cuisine.

 

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

 

Seeing people enjoying my creations.

 

Where do you find inspiration?

 

In everything I see, hear, smell, touch or taste. Music is also a great source of inspiration for me. I listen to anything from classical pieces to slow ballads to rock. I can visualise food when I listen to music.

 

In your opinion, what makes a good dessert?

 

The equilibrium between all the elements - flavour, outlook, temperature and texture - are very important. However, the true key to a good dessert lies in the quality of the ingredients.

 

What is your favourite food from your homeland?

 

Anything cooked by my mother because it always has her special touch. I am particularly fond of her quince jam, which she makes from a simple recipe of water, sugar and the fruit.

 

It tastes almost like honey and I love it with a fresh baguette, salted butter and a cup of black coffee in the morning.

 

Do you like Asian cuisine?

 

I love all Asian food, especially Indian curry and Sichuan food, for their complex flavours. I also love Singapore noodles, which I believe is a Hong Kong dish. Late at night, there is nothing better.

 

You create so many sweet treats as a pastry chef. Personally, what is your favourite dessert?

 

I love ice cream of all sorts. It is best served simply with fruit - either fresh, caramelised or in compote, which is a flavoured syrup.

 

What is your favourite ingredient to work with?

 

That is a tough question. I can say that fresh seasonal fruits are my favourite ingredients, but I also appreciate the complex taste of pure chocolates as it allows me to create great flavours.

 

What is the most important thing to know for first-time bakers?

 

That you will fail a few times before getting to where you want to be. Perseverance is the key to success in baking. Take no shortcuts, keep trying and you will improve quickly.

 

What is your signature dish?

 

I don't really have one, but I am very keen on using breton shortbread, demisel caramel and mangoes. I like to have a bit of a salty taste in my desserts because it always makes the tastebuds more excited.

 

A fresh, crisp breton shortbread with fresh mangoes (above) and a demi-sel caramel ice cream is one of my popular dishes.

 

fionalow@sph.com.sg

 

WHAT WOULD YOUR LAST MEAL BE?

 

Cheese, grapes, sourdough bread and wine. It's a simple combination, but simple things are the best.

STI: Sheets of comfort

May 31, 2009

Cheap & Good

Sheets of comfort

By Thng Lay Teen 

 

Blanket is not a word you would associate with food. But pu gai mian, a type of noodles originating from Sichuan Province in China, is so called because it comes in large sheets.

 

Like a blanket, it is also comforting. This is food for a rainy day, when you sit down to a steaming hot bowl of wheat flour noodles. And you don't have to go all the way to Sichuan to sample the handmade noodles.

 

Pu gai mian is available in Little China, a stall in Lau Pa Sat. There are three versions - original ($4), herbal chicken pu gai mian ($4.50) and herbal duck pu gai mian ($4.50).

 

The original version uses stock made from old hens and pork bones, simmered for about three hours.

 

The pork cubes in the topping are first marinated with oyster sauce, dark soya sauce, salt, sugar and a special blend of homemade chilli before being steamed and then stirfried. They lift the otherwise subtle stock, which is also enhanced with the chilli oil typical of Sichuan cuisine but which is not spicy.

 

The more flavourful ginseng chicken version uses herbal soup stock made with old hen, duck and pork bones together with herbs such as ginseng, angelica root, licorice root, cardamom, Solomon's seal, fig and wolfberry.

 

The tasty soya sauce-braised or poached chicken is then added separately.

 

I like the chicken version, with its distinctive fragrance of ginseng and tender braised chicken pieces.

 

You can also check out the herbal duck version, which uses the same herbal stock and roasted duck.

 

But eating the noodles requires some dexterity. They are tricky to pick up with chopsticks but once you get the hang of it, the reward is the taste of silky-smooth noodles that are thicker than kway teow (flat rice noodles) and almost like ban mian (handmade noodles), but nicer.

 

The pu gai mian is cooked to order. The little balls of dough are rolled into circular shapes and stretched to make them as broad and thin as possible.

 

Four big sheets of dough are then thrown into a big pot of boiling water to cook briefly for each order.

 

Stock is added, followed by the different ingredients, depending on what you order.

 

LITTLE CHINA

Stalls 87 & 88, Lau Pa Sat Festival Market, 18 Raffles Quay

Open: 24 hours

Rating: ***

STI: Party time

May 31, 2009

Party time

Besides the usual seafood offerings, Crab Party has some unique dishes that will sizzle your tastebuds

By Wong Ah Yoke 

 

Yio Chu Kang Road does not usually pop into my head when I think of seafood. Unless you live in the area, it is not very convenient via public transport and parking on weekends is near impossible.

 

But I had been hearing good things about Crab Party, so last week I ventured into what was an unfamiliar part of the island to check it out.

 

It looks very much like most local seafood restaurants: a shophouse with a wide open front and seats spilling outdoors, except that it also had an air-conditioned unit next door for those not keen on braving the heat.

 

The menu featured ubiquitous seafood dishes such as chilli crab and crispy cereal prawn, but the wide selection also included unique items.

 

Among these were what friends had recommended, so I automatically zoomed in on them. Instead of chilli crab, for example, I ordered the prosperity creamy crab ($38 per kg).

 

Other restaurants offer crabs in a creamy sauce but what was different here was that whole pieces of dried chilli were stirred into the sauce. This gave it a bit of fire that nicely balanced its sweetness. But because the chillis were left whole, the sauce was not too spicy.

 

I had a very meaty 1.5kg crab, and what impressed me was that the waitress showed me the live crab before taking it into the kitchen so I could decide if I wanted something bigger or smaller. Very few restaurants do that.

 

Another oddly named dish which I tried, fried prawn in volcano style ($20 for small), was a lot more spicy as the dried chilli was mashed up and fried with other spices until they formed sambal granules used to coat the meaty prawns.

 

If you are a chilli coward, steer clear but otherwise, this dish is a must. The spices were delightfully fragrant and the prawns were fresh and firm.

 

All the dish needed was a pinch of sugar to balance out the spiciness.

 

I also ordered a common dish, chilli mussels ($8). Many restaurants turn out overly sweet versions but Crab Party did an excellent job with just enough spice to tickle the nostrils without burning the tongue.

 

To balance all that spice, try the Frankfurt crispy pork trotter ($20). The deep-fried trotter came to the table whole but the waitress helpfully offered to cut it up into bite-sized pieces and remove the bone.

 

It was served in a light, creamy sauce which added little to the flavour but helped to moisten the drier meaty parts. The bits of skin and fat, the best part of the trotter, would have been better with a dash of chilli sauce.

 

There were also dishes that did not impress me. One was the Shaolin lo hon cai ($10), which was just an ordinary stir-fried mixed vegetable dish despite its fancy name. And the Teochew mee sua ($6), while decent, lacked the fragrance or wok hei that could have made it memorable.

 

But when it came to the main dishes, Crab Party did a good job and certainly made it worth the trip to Yio Chu Kang.

 

ahyoke@sph.com.sg

 

MUST TRY

Frankfurt crispy pork trotter ($20)

Good value for a delicious deep-fried trotter reminiscent of the German pork knuckle

 

CRAB PARTY

98/100 Yio Chu Kang Road (opposite Serangoon Stadium), tel: 6288-8588

Open: 11.30am to 1am daily

Food: *** 1/2

Service: *** 1/2

Ambience: ** 1/2

Price: Budget from $35 a person

STI: Eater's Digest

May 31, 2009

Eater's Digest

By Chris Tan 

This week, find out how some of the best things in life come in small packages.

 

Verrines

By Jose Marechal

2009/Hardcover/128 pages/

Murdoch Books/$37.95/ Borders Books

 

A prominent restaurant trend in recent years has been the presenting of small, jewel-like dishes in little glasses or bowls. Verrines uses this framing idea to display a side of modern French cuisine that readers seldom see - no-fuss, quick- chic Parisian home entertaining.

 

The result is a smashing primer for the novice cook on how simple but wise combinations of ingredients can add up to more than their elements.

 

Strawberries, limoncello and fresh basil? Dangerously, aromatically addictive - next time I have to make a triple quantity. Hummus layered with carrot puree and topped with corn chips? A savvy juxtaposition of three kinds of vegetable sweetness and very more-ish. Salmon tartare with green apple, redcurrants and shallots? Little bursts of tartness ornament the rich fish.

 

Not all the recipes walk on the safe side. Consider blood sausage with butter-fried bananas and crushed spice biscuits, or a savoury 'milkshake' of celeriac with crispy bacon and breadsticks, or quinoa layered with rocket pesto and salmon roe.

 

Along with full recipes, there are also brief suggestions for items you can put together quickly with pantry ingredients, for example flaked smoked fish with potato cubes and creme fraiche, or cubed fruit 'kebabs' skewered with Pocky pretzel sticks (called Mikado in France), plus chocolate sauce for dipping. You will be dipping into this book often, I promise.

 

Pintxos

By Gerald Hirigoyen

with Lisa Weiss

2009/Hardcover/200 pages/

Ten Speed Press/ $45.95/Borders Books

 

This is a beautiful, eloquent illustration of why Spanish cuisine is simultaneously so very good and so very difficult to export, namely because it rests on a foundational fanaticism about good ingredients.

 

This is straightforward, often very simple soul food but because of their sheer guilelessness, many recipes are not worth making if you have anything less than stellar produce. For instance, caramelised pearl onions skewered with cubes of idiazabal cheese, or young spring fava beans with creme fraiche, mint and lemon, or morcilla blood sausage braised in cider.

 

Fortunately, not everything is beyond reach. I made pan-seared and braised chicken in a 'Basque ketchup' of tomatoes, peppers, onions and sherry vinegar, which was finger-licking, bowl-scraping good. A wondrously refreshing lychee gazpacho is cannily paired with seared scallops but it would suit almost any shellfish and I would happily drink it by the pint.

 

I love how the chapters are divided quirkily but perfectly in context: beans, innards, fried bites, things on bread and so on. The mostly Basque or Basque-spirited repertoire is given an occasional Californian touch by San Francisco-based chef-restaurateur Hirigoyen, hence a panko-breaded-chicken sandwich and lamb 'slider' burgers. Each recipe is accompanied by sensible, concise advice on wine pairing and the glossary is an excellent practical guide to Spanish ingredients.

 

Dessert Fourplay: Sweet Quartets From A Four-Star Pastry Chef

By Johnny Iuzzini

and Roy Finamore

2008/Hardcover/288 pages

Clarkson Potter/$70.90/ Borders Books

 

This fourplay should be attempted only by those in committed relationships, with their suppliers of kitchen equipment, gourmet grocers and, possibly, their junior college chemistry teachers.

 

However, despite his frequent calls for foam canisters, Silpats, calcium lactate and such, James Beard Award-winner Johnny Iuzzini has crafted a surprisingly winsome book.

 

Its main conceit is the construction of desserts comprising four variations on a theme.

 

For instance, strawberry, citrus, 'exotic chocolate' - each of which you could also make as a larger single dessert in its own right.

 

He has some great ideas, such as a spice-infused apple soup with apple tempura and sweet potato gnocchi, or a simple salad of sliced peaches with farmer cheese and candied pistachios.

 

He loves to play with textures in a way that would be exhilarating in a restaurant but is downright exhausting in your kitchen.

 

After much page-thumbing to find something I could make with my low-tech equipment, I baked the pumpkin and pine nut cake.

 

Studded with boozy prunes, it had a richly complex flavour that was let down by a stodgey crumb and a flourless streusel topping that looked not at all like the photograph.

 

Chocolate spaetzle, a dessert version of the German dumplings, turned out better, delicious little melt-in-the- mouth bites of bittersweet cocoa touched with olive oil and salt.

 

These did look like the photograph, but unfortunately, also like something your dog might decorate a pavement with.

 

This is infectiously enthusiastic reading for those wanting sweet inspiration or for home cooks wanting to make the leap into pro-level contemporary patisserie. Just make sure you have energy drinks on hand.

 

suntimes@sph.com.sg

STI: Put a crinkle in your day

May 31, 2009

Hunger Management

Put a crinkle in your day

...in the form of a soft, moist cookie called the Chocolate Crinkle that looks like a lump of coal but tastes out of this world

By Tan Hsueh Yun 

 

So I was trying to decide what sort of chocolate cookie to write about this week and I was sure, so sure that my informal testers were going to go with the thin and crisp one.

 

I had made what I thought was a pretty fantastic chocolate butter cookie.

 

It was stylish, had pizazz and a deep chocolate flavour. The texture was perfect - crisp but not in a way that might crack a tooth. Buttery like anything.

 

That cookie was a star.

 

And yet, it was a soft, moist cookie - the Chocolate Crinkle - that won the day. This rather plain, unassuming American cookie from the 1950s looks like a lump of coal with a cracked top.

 

But those ugly lumps proved irresistible.

 

And while I hate to admit it, Crinkles do have a certain allure. They are gorgeously fudgy, packing a good chocolate flavour that continues to intensify after baking.

 

To think I made them out of frustration. I was reviewing cookie cookbooks and a recipe for Green Tea Cookies from one of the books would not work, no matter what I did.

 

I ditched it, decided to try out another recipe from the book and hit paydirt.

 

Crinkles are usually rolled in powdered sugar before baking, so the finished product looks like a snowball with hints of dark chocolate peeking out from under the cracks.

 

Powdered sugar stands no chance in Singapore's humid weather.

 

By the time I rolled the last ball of dough in the stuff, the sugar on the first one was already starting to melt.

 

So I dispensed with the sugar coating for subsequent batches. I added a little brandy to the chocolate because the two are great together.

 

And because I think salt helps deepen the flavour of chocolate, I doubled the amount. I have used Maldon and a fine sea salt and both work fine.

 

I also made the cookies bigger than indicated in the original recipe because, frankly, I got impatient rolling endless lumps of dough. One way to make sure all the balls turn out the same size is to use a spring-loaded ice cream scoop. The small one I use holds a little more than a tablespoon of dough. The resulting cookies feel right in the hand.

 

It is important not to overbake the cookies. Just stick to the size indicated in the recipe and the suggested time and the cookies should turn out fudgy and cakey.

 

The recipe is pretty simple but to make this humble cookie taste sensational, use good ingredients, starting with the butter. I use President, available in most supermarkets.

 

For maximum chocolate impact, you cannot beat Valrhona cocoa powder and the French brand's chocolate buttons or feves. Both are available at Shermay's Cooking School in Chip Bee Gardens.

 

While there, look for Nielsen-Massey vanilla extract, which has a beautifully complex flavour you will not find in bottles of vanilla essence.

 

Otherwise, look in supermarkets for pure vanilla extract, Dutch-processed cocoa powder (not hot chocolate mixes with sugar and milk added) and Lindt or Green & Black's dark chocolate bars.

 

One last thing and this is a tall order: Try to wait a while before eating them. I let mine cool completely, then stored them in an airtight container overnight.

 

The smell of deep, dark chocolate wafting out of the box when you open it is just intoxicating.

 

hsueh@sph.com.sg

 

MAKE IT YOURSELF: CHOCOLATE CRINKLES

Adapted from Field Guide To Cookies

INGREDIENTS

170g dark chocolate

85g butter

1 Tbs brandy (optional)

185g plain flour

2 Tbs cocoa powder (below)

¾ tsp baking powder

115g sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla (below)

½ tsp sea salt

 

METHOD

 

1. Place the chocolate, butter and brandy (if using) in a metal or heat-resistant glass bowl, set it over a pot of simmering water. The bottom of the bowl should not touch the water. When the mixture is glossy and melted, give it a good stir and set aside to cool.

 

2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Set aside.

 

3. Beat the sugar and eggs until thick and smooth in either a stand mixer, a handheld mixer or by hand. Add the vanilla and the melted chocolate. Mix until combined. Add the flour and cocoa mixture and the salt, mix till just combined.

 

4. Scoop the dough out into a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid, cover and refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight.

 

5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 170 deg C. Take the dough out of the fridge and let soften for 20 minutes while the oven preheats.

 

6. Line a cookie sheet with baking parchment or a silicone baking mat. Scoop out generous tablespoonsful of dough, roll into balls and place on cookie sheet about 3cm apart. The balls should be about the size of an unshelled walnut. Place unused dough back in the fridge.

 

7. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until the tops are cracked. Remove from oven, let cookies cool on cookie sheet for five minutes then transfer them to metal rack to cool completely before serving.

 

8. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Store cookies in an airtight container. Makes 20 to 22 cookies

 

Field Guide To Cookies by Anita Chu (2008, Quirk Productions) costs $30.90 and is available at Books Kinokuniya.

STI: Pulp is good

May 31, 2009

Pulp is good

By Chris Tan 

 

Q I have a soya bean milk maker. What can I make with the soya bean residue instead of throwing it away?

 

Soh Kim Hong

 

A Think of okara - as the Japanese call the bean pulp left over after soya bean milk extraction - as an extender that will boost the fibre and nutrient content of anything it is added to.

It is an excellent addition to, or substitute for breadcrumbs in, minced meat mixtures destined for meatballs, rissoles, meatloaf, steamed meat patties, dumpling fillings, pasta sauces and such.

 

You can likewise blend it with fishball or cuttlefish paste to make a base for fried or simmered fishcakes and patties, or yong tau foo stuffing. It will make the paste drier and looser though, so you may need to add a little starch or grated fresh yam (wai san) to help bind it.

 

You can add okara to baked goods such as breads, pound cakes, cookies, muffins and even cheesecake, but expect to go through some trial and error in adjusting the other ingredient quantities to accommodate the subtle textural changes it will cause.

 

Okara can also be worked together with oats or other cereal flakes, sugar, oil and some milk to form a clumpy dough, then baked on a tray until crisp to make a crumble topping for desserts or breakfast cereal.

 

It also contributes body to soups, especially miso soups and cream soups, root vegetable purees, white sauces, cereal porridges such as polenta and oatmeal, and even smoothies, if you don't mind a slight graininess.

 

A classic Japanese recipe stir-fries okara with finely cut vegetables to make unohana, a side dish named for the small white flowers that okara is poetically thought to resemble.

 

You can also make a coconut-free serunding sambal with okara. Season it with salt, sugar, a little oil and pounded spices such as lemongrass and chilli, then simply fry it over medium heat in a large wok, stirring constantly, until it dries out and becomes fluffy and lightly browned. It crisps up further on cooling. Once cool, store it in an airtight container immediately.

 

The fresh tofu counter at Meidi-Ya supermarket sells bagged okara. If you are friendly with your local soymilk hawker, try persuading him or her to sell you some. Small-batch okara retains more nutrients than that from industrially made tofu.

 

Smooth finish to carrot cake

 

Q I have tried making Chinese-style steamed carrot cake using rice flour. It turned out okay but was not as smooth and soft as the carrot cake in dim sum restaurants. How do I get this result?

 

Ann Yong Kuen Guek

 

A To get a silky, slightly soft texture, you need to mix the rice flour with a starch that has a softer set, such as tapioca (cassava) starch, cornstarch or wheat starch (tang mien).

 

Ratios vary quite a lot from cookbook to cookbook: start with 20g of starch (which can be a single one or a mix of those mentioned above) for every 200g of rice flour, and see if the resulting texture suits you. Increase it to 30 or 40g if you want a still more delicate set.

 

Experience helps when measuring the water quantity. The optimum amount varies a little depending on the juiciness of the radish you have. Taro or pumpkin variations will also need water quantity adjustments. Very juicy radishes or crisp pumpkins need a tad less water.

 

Remember also that the flour-starch mixture has to be stirred with hot water or the hot par-cooked radish. The heat helps the starch to hydrate and gelatinise, and subsequently cook more evenly during the steaming.

 

If you're steaming the cake in individual bowls and serving it in them, then you can aim for a softer texture. If you want to pan-fry the cake, you need a firmer texture. Chilling the steamed cake overnight before slicing also helps you make neater slices.

 

Old hens, tastier chicken

 

Q My Hainanese mother swears by old hens to make the stock for chicken rice. She is right - the rice really turns out tastier. Why is that so? Shouldn't younger chickens taste better?

 

Vincent Chua Kok Choon

 

A Youth is not always to be desired. Chicken rice stock is much like celebrity autobiographies and blended cognacs - the older the source material, the better the flavour. No disrespect, but whose life story would you rather read: Dakota Fanning's or Robert de Niro's?

 

Nubile young pullets may have a juicier texture but you can't beat a mature chicken for depth and intensity of taste.

 

Older hens, like the one below, have exercised more, especially if they are free-range, and thus have built up more red muscle fibres, in which reside much flavour. For the same reason, chicken-leg dark meat is generally more flavourful than the white muscle fibres of chicken breasts, and wild birds of any kind are stronger-tasting than farmed ones.

STI: Touch & order

May 31, 2009

Touch & order

Self-ordering, interactive menus let you choose your meals without having to call for the waitress

By Huang Lijie 

 

Self-ordering menus that 'talk' might sound like an invention in a fictional world until you step into Ebisboshi Shotengai, a Japanese food hall at Iluma in Victoria Street.

 

The newly opened restaurant boasts seven dining brands under one roof and five of them, including Menya Manpei, a ramen outlet from Hokkaido, share a common seating area with a capacity of 230 guests.

 

The menu in the common dining space looks like any other laminated paper menu except it is embedded with barcodes next to pictures of the dishes, which diners tap on using a stylus to place their orders.

 

The stylus then reads out the order in English, and upon confirmation, it is sent via a wireless network to the kitchen. The food is served to the table by wait staff.

 

This novel way of ordering food at a restaurant is the latest example of how eateries here are experimenting with new technology to enhance the dining experience for guests.

 

Indeed, self-ordering, interactive menus have been around in Singapore as early as 1999 and a pioneer in this field is Japanese sushi chain Sakae Sushi.

 

It introduced interactive menus displayed on flat computer screens, which diners can browse and order from using a mouse. These screens are located along the sushi conveyor belt in the restaurant.

 

Mr Douglas Foo, 39, chief executive officer of Apex-Pal International, which owns the sushi chain, says: 'The idea came about because we had more than 200 items on our menu and the market was quite new to Japanese food then. So I thought, why don't we create a simple computer system where customers can click on an item and get information on the dish, the ingredients used and what the food looks like.'

 

As such technology was relatively new here, its team of designers had to create the ordering system from scratch. The programme has been upgraded over the years to be more user-friendly and it is now running on its fifth version.

 

For both Ebisboshi Shotengai and Sakae Sushi, the self-ordering system is also meant to increase the service efficiency of the wait staff.

 

Mr Koki Matsuda, 46, managing director of Komars Enterprise, which owns Ebisboshi Shotengai, says: 'Wait staff usually spend about 35 per cent of their time taking orders. With this self-ordering system, however, they have more time to focus on serving food to diners faster.'

 

He adds that this system also shortens the ordering process because customers do not have to wait for staff to take their orders.

 

Consequently, with both ordering and service times reduced, the table turnovers and sales takings increase.

 

A desire to up service efficiency was also what led Japanese restaurant Tampopo in Liang Court to install an innovative self-ordering and automatic food delivery system from Japan last year.

 

A touch- screen menu, available at 10 booth seats in a section of the restaurant, lets diners send their orders for sushi and sashimi to the kitchen electronically so that the food may be prepared immediately.

 

When it is ready, it is placed on a plate that travels along a glass-enclosed conveyor belt which winds its way around the booths. A chip embedded in the plate allows it to recognise the table that ordered the food and move off the belt to deliver the food onto the correct table.

 

These technologies, however, do not come cheap.

 

It cost $160,000 to set up the wireless self-ordering system at Ebisboshi Shotengai, while the interactive menus at Sakae Sushi cost a five-figure sum to install at each outlet, according to Mr Foo.

 

For Mr Clive Siek, director of Kitchen Mogu Mogu, a casual restaurant in Far East Plaza, a touch-screen ordering machine was installed in the restaurant in 2007 to cut down on manpower cost.

 

The machine, which looks like a vending machine, has a touch-screen interface that lets customers send their orders straight to the kitchen, thus minimising the need for wait staff. Cash is slotted into the machine for payment and there is no need for a cashier.

 

When the food is ready, the kitchen calls out the number that is printed on the receipt for the customer to collect the food at the counter.

 

Diners, it seems, are embracing this new technology.

 

Mr Takaaki Takagi, owner of Tampopo, says more than 80 per cent of his reservations request for booth seats with access to the touch-screen ordering system.

 

Mr Melvin Teo, 46, a sales director who was dining with his family at Ebisboshi Shotengai, found its newfangled self-ordering menu a breeze to use.

 

He says: 'It is simple enough and user-friendly. Also, children these days are used to all this technology and my son found the ordering process interesting.'

 

lijie@sph.com.sg

STI: Organic express

May 31, 2009

Organic express

It's easier than ever to have fresh fruits and vegetables delivered to your doorstep

By Huang Lijie 

 

The desire for fresh food fast has driven more consumers to request speciality purveyors to deliver fruits and vegetables to their homes.

 

And to date, more than 10 retailers, supplying air-flown produce from Japan to Nepal, are offering this convenient service.

 

Many of these outlets provide free deliveries with a minimum spending of as little as $30 and boast multiple delivery days in a week to ensure the freshness of the produce when it arrives at the customer's doorstep.

 

Decopon, a home-delivery service that offers fruits and vegetables grown in Japan, for example, has seen its membership rise by 25 per cent in the last year.

 

This home-delivery service began in Hong Kong in 1994, and later branched out to Japan and to Singapore in 1998. It takes great pride in making sure that its produce, such as organically grown carrots and seasonal items such as burdock, reaches consumers within two days after harvest.

 

Similarly, SuperNature, an organic purveyor in Orchard Boulevard, has seen demand grow by about 20 per cent in the last two years for home deliveries of fruits and vegetables, and it recently launched an online ordering system.

 

The shop also expanded its range of pre-packed produce boxes to five types to suit various diets.

 

Its new Asian Farm Box ($70), for example, caters to customers who prefer Asian produce such as kailan and kangkong.

 

Its spokesman says: 'More and more people understand the benefits of organic living and we are seeing a growing group of individuals passionate about eating and living as healthily as possible.'

 

Most of the speciality retailers LifeStyle interviewed say their home deliveries typically began as a goodwill service to accommodate cancer patients who were too sick to make it down to their stores.

 

Mrs Ann Tan, 58, co-owner of Four Seasons Organic Market, with outlets in Great World City and Suntec City, says: 'We started making home deliveries about a year after we opened in 2006 because we received requests for this service from customers who were chronically ill and found it inconvenient to go out and shop.'

 

Mr Peter Lim, 66, chief executive officer of organic shop Nature's Glory in Outram Road, cites a similar reason for offering home deliveries.

 

Like many other retailers, he too has expanded delivery services over the years to cater to a broad spectrum of customers, including healthy consumers seeking a time-saving, hassle-free and costefficient way of buying fruits and vegetables.

 

Lighting consultant Peggy Tan, 33, who has been receiving weekly deliveries of organic produce and health supplements from Four Seasons Organic Market for a year, says: 'I became a fan of its home delivery service when I became pregnant and continue to be one now that I have a baby in tow. Their home deliveries make it so convenient for me to get fresh organic produce. I just have to call and order and it's usually free because we spend more than $200 each time.'

 

She adds that even when she drops by the store to select the produce, she will request for it to be delivered because it frees her up to 'go shopping elsewhere or catch a movie'.

 

Retailers offering home deliveries of speciality fresh fruits and vegetables say the service has helped grow their businesses too.

 

Mr Chai Kien Chin, 59, owner of Fire Flies Health Farm in Lim Chu Kang, says its business increased by about 10 per cent when it began delivering its organically grown fruits and vegetables to homes in 2005.

 

And despite the economic slowdown, requests for home deliveries have not been severely hit for most of the purveyors LifeStyle spoke to.

 

Mrs Tan of Four Seasons Organic Market says: 'I had expected business to drop drastically, but instead it has been stable. I believe the consumption of the fresh, organic produce that we deliver has become an important part of our customers' lifestyle.'

 

Many purveyors including Mrs Cynthia Wee-Hoefer, who delivers organically grown fruits and vegetables from Nepal to customers in the Bukit Timah area, however, encourage first-time customers to drop by the store to buy and select their produce.

 

The 57-year-old owner of Organic Himalayan, which imports produce from her farm in Nepal every fortnight and sells them from her home near Bukit Batok Nature Park, says: 'I want customers to meet and ask questions about the farm and our way of organic farming. I believe you have to shake the hand that feeds you and establish trust at the beginning.'

 

Retiree David Tan, in his 50s, says he started placing orders with Decopon about half a year ago based on the recommendation of a friend.

 

He says: 'I have always been impressed by the quality of Japanese produce so I decided to try Decopon's home delivery out of curiosity.

 

'And the service has been good. We had leeks in our box once and they were large and sweet. My family and I enjoyed cooking them in soups and stir-fries.'

 

Get fresh

Here are some speciality purveyors offering home deliveries of fresh fruits and vegetables:

 

Organic Himalayan

 

What: Organically grown fruits and vegetables from Nepal are flown in every fortnight and varieties include peach, radicchio, salad greens and potatoes. Customers pick what they want from a list of seasonal produce in an e-mail that is sent to members every two weeks.

 

Price: From $9.50 a kg for potatoes to $35 a kg for salad greens. Free delivery for orders of $50 and above in the Bukit Timah area. Deliveries are every fortnight when supplies are imported from Nepal.

 

To order: E-mail cynthiahoefer@mac.com

 

Fire Flies Health Farm

 

What: The 3ha organic farm in Lim Chu Kang grows a wide range of fruits and vegetables such as chye sim, kailan, bananas and pineapple. Customers are free to choose what they want for delivery.

 

Price: From $2.50 per 400g for vegetables such as kailan and $4 a kg for fruits such as bananas. Free delivery for orders of $80 and above. There is no fixed schedule for deliveries and arrangements will be made to accommodate individual requests.

 

To order: Visit fireflies.sg for its order form and place orders either by fax, 6794-6908 or e-mail, info@fireflies.sg or call 6793-7875.

 

SuperNature

 

What: Choose from five types of fruit and vegetable boxes that offer a range of pre-selected produce for different dietary needs. The Asian option, for example, includes familiar Asian greens such as angled gourd and kangkong. Each box has between nine and 12 types of fruits and vegetables, and the selection varies depending on the seasonal availability of the produce.

 

Price: From $70 for an Original Farm Box that feeds two to three persons. Free delivery for orders of $70 and above. Deliveries are made on Tuesdays, Wednesday, Fridays and Saturdays.

 

To order: Call 6304-1338 or order online at supernature.com.sg

 

L'Organic

 

What: The store stocks organic produce from Australia, New Zealand and Europe and customers are free to choose what they want for delivery.

 

Price: From $7 a kg for cabbage to $44 a kg for snow peas. Free delivery for orders of $150 and above. There is no fixed schedule for deliveries and arrangements will be made to accommodate customer requests.

 

To order: Call 6474-7142

 

Four Seasons Organic Market

 

What: The store stocks organic produce from Japan, Europe, Australia and the United States and items include kale, rainbow chard, grapes and apples. Local vegetables such as spinach and bok choy are also available.

 

Price: From $1.50 for an apple and $2.60 for a 250g to 300g pack of kailan. Free delivery for orders of $200 and above. Deliveries are made on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays but arrangements may be made to accommodate individual requests.

 

To order: Call 6836-1855

 

Decopon

 

What: Produce grown using reduced amounts of pesticide and fertilisers as well as organic methods are sourced from farms all over Japan, including Chiba and Hokkaido. It is then packed into boxes, which each contain between 14 and 15 types of pre-selected fruits and vegetables such as cabbage and seasonal items such as Japanese mustard spinach. Supplies are flown in every fortnight and delivered within two days of harvest.

 

Price: A box costs $170 and this includes delivery charge. Deliveries are made islandwide every alternate Tuesday.

 

To order: E-mail info@decopon.co.jp to request for an order form

 

Bunalun

 

What: Bunalan's Organic Family Box Sets will be able to last a family of two or four for a week. The produce is air-flown from Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Europe with a choice of 18 Asian or European vegetables and fruits. The European selection, for example, includes beetroot, zucchini and strawberries while the Asian option carries pak choi, chye sim and dragon fruit.

 

Price: Available in two sizes, the smaller one weighs 6kg and costs $70 and will feed two people while the larger one weighs 8kg and is for a family of four for a week for $95. Delivery costs $12 for orders under $60, $7 for orders over $60. Deliveries are made every day except for Sundays and public holidays.

 

To order: Order online at www.bunalun.com.sg, e-mail service@bunalun.com, fax 6491-6566 or call 6479-2598 from 9am to 9pm daily.

 

GreenCircle Eco-Farm

 

What: This biodynamic organic vegetable farm offers vegetables such as kangkong, caixin, pumpkin and endive.

 

Price: Prices start at $2 for 200g for its vegetables. Delivery is free for purchases over $30. Deliveries are available on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

 

To order: Visit www.greencircle.com.sg or call 6861-9286

 

Nature's Glory

 

What: The shop offers more than 150 types of organic as well as organically grown fruits and vegetables including items such as beetroot and avocado. Customers are free to choose what they want for delivery.

 

Price: From less than $4 a kg for carrots to $13 a kg for seedless grapes. Free delivery for orders of $120 and above. Deliveries are made daily, except Sundays, according to geographic locations.

 

To order: Go to natures-glory.com

 

Sunny Choice

 

What: Offers a wide range of organic vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, celery, cabbage, capsicum, tomato and other vegetables, all from abroad and local farms. Sunny Choice also has a cafe serving organic meals and even ice cream.

 

Price: $2.30 for a 250g packet of leafy vegetables. Delivery is free for orders $50 and up. Delivery is subject to driver availability.

 

To order: Call 6892-2383

 

Eat Organic

 

What: It provides a wide range of organically grown vegetables such as carrots, broccoli, celery, potatoes, pumpkin, spinach and more unusual selections such as fennel, swedes, parsnips and kale. All of them are air flown from the US, Australia and various South-east Asian countries every week.

 

Price: $2.40 for a 250g packet for local leafy vegetables. Free delivery for orders above $200. There is a $12 delivery charge for smaller orders. Deliveries are made daily except on Sundays, subject to the driver availability.

 

To order: Call 6219-7156 or fax 6219-7157.

BTO: All set to shine once more

Business Times - 30 May 2009

All set to shine once more

The Lighthouse
The Fullerton Hotel Singapore
1 Fullerton Square
Tel 6877-8933

 

AFTER a brief black-out, The Lighthouse looks set to shine brightly over the river again as the Fullerton Hotel completes its 'takeover' of restaurants in its premises.

 

After years of leasing out its main restaurants (apart from Town), The Fullerton took its first step towards F&B independence by taking over the operations of Jade from the Tung Lok group when its lease expired at the end of 2007. It put in its own Chinese chef, kept the name and hoped to keep the crowds that made Jade one of the most popular names in the Tung Lok stable.

 

The test was, of course, whether it could do it - and so far it seems to be doing a credible job - and if it could, it would be a matter of time before it took over San Marco, the Italian offshoot of the Saint Pierre Group.

 

That time came about in March, when San Marco finally closed to make way for the hotel's new concept which was unveiled on Thursday.

 

The hotel certainly isn't taking its new gastronomic challenge lightly, giving the premises a completely new design aesthetic. Primed to capture as much natural light as possible, the dining room is painted in contemporary light hues, with each table guaranteed a stunning view of the river (assuming diners are not sitting with their back to it).

 

It also looks like a fengshui master with a keen designer eye has left his mark on a wall feature covered with rows of entwined circles - an auspicious interplay of the number '8' (the restaurant is on the 8th floor) and the circle representing a beacon of light. Even the 'O' in 'Lighthouse' takes on the same elegant logo, as does the folded menus.

 

Rather than pluck a chef from the pool already available here, the hotel has brought in a promising young Italian chef de cuisine, Diego Martinelli. Despite his youth, the 27-year-old native of balsamico country Modena has chalked up 11 years of working experience, starting out as a commis chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in London's Park Lane and moving up the ranks till his last post as restaurant chef in its Cairo property's Italian restaurant.

 

For the last two years, he was chef de cuisine at the Bulgari Bali's Italian eatery and now, he's set to conquer finicky Singaporean palates with his own approach to classic Italian cooking.

 

Chef Martinelli doesn't tinker with the basics, playing around instead with a modern presentation. Classic carpaccio, for example, is shaped in a square and uses wagyu beef and delicate garnishes like crisp-dried onion slices and petal-shaped tomato skin. His signature dish is a sunshiny palette comprising the warm colours of hand-made tortellini stuffed with butternut squash with rich melted cheese sauce and bacon bits.

 

If you're feeling adventurous, check out the lavender-hued Isolana-style risotto - a poor man's dish from the Veneto region - where the rice is cooked in red wine, vegetable stock and pork sausage meat, heavily scented with fresh rosemary while a dusting of cinnamon adds a bit of sweetness to counter the wine's acidity. If you can get past the curious colour scheme, it's actually quite tasty.

 

Chef Martinell's emphasis on fresh flavours is a big plus - a nicely grilled wagyu steak with simple accompaniments like crunchy asparagus and celeriac puree hit the spot for fuss-free simplicity.

 

While nothing hits the 'wow' meter as yet, one expects that this intense young man will soon find his footing, and if he plays his cards right, people will go to the Lighthouse for more than just the view.

BTO: Japanese additions

Business Times - 30 May 2009

Japanese additions

One's a top Tokyo brand and the other is a neighbourhood eatery, but both these new Japanese restaurants have something in common - they differ from the norm. By Audrey Phoon

 

Shirokane Tori-Tama Singapore
11 Unity Street
#01-02 Robertson Walk
Tel 6836-5680

 

THERE is no shortage of places where aficionados of beef and pork can satiate their palates in Singapore - steakhouses and restaurants offering numerous cuts and grades of wagyu or kurobuta are aplenty. In contrast, chicken lovers, poor souls, have mostly had to fly the coop to get their fix.

 

But the road to poultry paradise has shortened drastically since Japan yakitori specialist Shirokane Tori-Tama opened its first outpost here in mid-March. The company has three other restaurants located in upmarket Tokyo: the first in Shirokane opened 16 years ago followed by two more in Ebisu and Kagurazaka.

 

It decided to open in Singapore as it considers the Republic the 'centre of Asia', says Takeo Ishii, the assistant general manager of Tori-Tama's parent company, Orihara. (Orihara is primarily a sake wholesale company from Japan that has a store next to Tori-Tama at Robertson Walk because 'good food needs good drink to match'.)

 

'Tori-tama' translates roughly to 'chicken-egg', and that sort of sums up the bulk of the restaurant's menu: practically every bit from a chicken's anatomy unfussily seasoned and tenderly cooked yakitori-style over charcoal. There's the stomach lining, the meat from the neck, the tail end and more, and the restaurant would have the bird's uterus and embryo on the menu here too - just as its Japan outlets do - if not for AVA regulations that do not permit such parts to be brought in, says Mr Ishii.

 

Of the extensive list of chicken parts, he explains: 'We are trying to let people know about what we have in Japan. We want to share this in Singapore.' Yakitori in Japan is highly appreciated to the point that it is considered an art form, he adds, and the restaurant is hoping to cultivate a similar appreciation here.

 

That should not be too hard, considering that Tori-Tama (which is in the process of being rated by the Zagat guide in Japan and which Mr Ishii says is the top yakitori brand there) turns out quite a unique brand of food. The restaurant's secret apparently lies in the seasoning, cutting and extraction of the meat, which makes preparation for just one skewer very time consuming.

 

'It requires a lot of skill to properly extract the delicate parts of a chicken, and only our chefs know how to do this,' explains Mr Ishii, adding that a number of competitors have come to the shop to try and find out how Tori-Tama does it. 'They ask if they can take away the food. We say, take! They can't duplicate what our chefs can do - and our chefs don't speak English!'

 

In fact, the restaurant has already managed to grow its clientele base of locals by quite a significant margin since its opening here. 'In the beginning, our customers were 90 per cent Japanese - they would come here and ask, is this Tori-Tama the same one as in Shirokane? But now our customer base is 30 to 40 per cent non-Japanese,' notes Mr Ishii.

 

Despite the locals bagging a few more seats out of the restaurant's 48, however, eating at Tori-Tama feels very nearly like you're in a Tokyo establishment. Inside the discreetly-furnished blond-wood interiors that house tables, counter seats and a private room, groups of Japanese salarymen huddle together for after-work drinks sessions while chefs with bandana-bound heads (from Tori-Tama's Japan outlets) at the yakitori counter expertly flip orders.

 

The service, too, is typical of Japanese omotenashi, or hospitality - the staff are friendly but not intrusive and they are reasonably knowledgeable about the food and drink.

 

Still, Mr Ishii reckons there is a long way to go before the next step forward can be considered. 'I hope for so many things,' he says. 'But it's too soon to know what the future holds yet because this shop is still settling down. Making sure the hospitality for customers, set-up and operations are all okay - this must come first.'

 

Kitagawa Japanese Restaurant
1 Orchid Club Road
#02-02 Driving Range
Tel 6852-0128

 

THE probability of finding a decent Japanese restaurant in the heartlands used to be as unlikely as discovering a piece of otoro in the fish section of a neighbourhood wet market. That is, until Kitagawa opened in Yishun recently.

 

To be more specific, the restaurant - located within the driving range of Orchid Country Club - began business two weeks ago. Yet it's already attracting a steady stream of diners, and not just golfers at that: at lunch on Tuesday, for example, the restaurant was more than half-full with people in office attire who were obviously there to eat, not hit, buckets.

 

What's drawing them is the fact that Kitagawa offers decently done and reasonably priced gourmet goodies such as wagyu tataki ($60.50 per 100g) alongside house specials like braised sharkfin with chawanmushi ($20.50) and deep-fried sole salad ($18.50). A must-try is the kajiki nabe ($15), a tasty broth containing melt-in-the-mouth blue marlin belly in a claypot.

There's also a sizeable selection of sushi (including otoro) and sashimi, which is not surprising once you realise that the restaurant's head chef, Marcus Yan, used to work for sushi guru Yoshio Nogawa. He's also chalked up stints at Tatsu Sushi at Chijmes, and Kihana in Jakarta.

 

Yan is not the owner of Kitagawa though - two first-time restaurateurs are. Pals Sandy Wong and Jimmy Woo are from completely different industries - she's an artist who won the UOB Painting of the Year award in 1986, he runs a family business - who both decided to 'follow our passion for food' by opening a restaurant, recession notwithstanding.

 

Understandably, because of their relative inexperience in the F&B industry, they've given Yan a free hand with the food, which means he is able to buy and serve whatever he wants within reason. So Kitagawa's ingredients are 'all from Japan', claims the chef, who adds that the food is brought in thrice a week from Tokyo's Tsukiji Market and Fukuoka. 'Sometimes (the owners) scream when they see the invoices, but the costs are secondary - customers must firstly be satisfied,' he says half-jokingly.

 

Ms Wong and Mr Woo have also splashed out on renovating and decorating their 102-seat restaurant to the tune of half a million dollars, which shows up in the form of a hand-assembled ceiling comprising stylised orchid-shaped wood panels; solid wooden floors; and humongous gurgling water-feature vases. In addition, there are both indoor and outdoor dining areas as well as counter seats, two tatami rooms and a VIP room. The latter is set apart from the rest of the restaurant and has a private entrance plus its own LCD TV and karaoke set, should the food make you want to sing.

 

Yan says the aim of the restaurant is to make diners feel comfortable and special, and he plans to help them along by, say, sneaking extras into their bento boxes if they order the sets, or whipping up special finger food items for those seated at the sushi counter.

 

No doubt those little touches will continue to bring in customers - and if they don't, the free parking will.

BTO: Let's roll

Business Times - 30 May 2009

GUEST CHEF
Let's roll

Precision and the right procedures will help bakers make the most out of their dough, says Four Seasons pastry chef and author Gregoire Michaud. By Audrey Phoon

 

'IT IS a sad reflection on our civilisation that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of the planet Venus, we do not know what goes on in our souffles,' the late physicist and gastronome Nicholas Kurti once said.

 

If he had met Gregoire Michaud, however, he might be of a different opinion. After all, not only can Michaud, the pastry chef of Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, quote Kurti, he does know what goes on in souffles - that and nearly every other type of pastry, in fact.

 

The chef, who is here until next Saturday to present his creations as part of a special Afternoon Tea menu at Four Seasons Hotel Singapore, is big on understanding things 'in order to know what's happening in our foods'. He's even written two cookbooks - Artisan Bread and the soon-to-be-launched Never Skip Dessert (which includes the recipe provided here) - that feature the hows and whys of baking alongside the recipes. And, as you might expect, he believes that chemistry - especially learning about a few basic key reactions like fermentation, oxidation, coagulation, gas retention and the Maillard reaction - is paramount in pastry because 'everything revolves around the chemical process used to transform ingredients'.

 

He cites the example of how yeast works to make dough rise and give it flavour: 'What happens during the fermentation process in a bread dough is that the yeast converts fermentable sugars into carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is then released into gas cells and the dough expands. Lactic acid and acetic acids are generated, and flavour is created.'

 

Then there's how eggs, when heated, can contribute towards the resulting texture of a substance. Michaud notes that egg yolk coagulates once it reaches 82 degrees Celsius, which means eggs can serve as a thickener if you're cooking them with, say, milk to make a custard or cream.

 

Apart from all that brainwork, baking must also involve the use of the senses. The chef advises novice bakers to always touch their dough and stretch it out to check the elasticity if they want to be sure it's ready - that is, after the dough has been kneaded thoroughly to produce heat via friction, which in turn causes the glutenin and gliadin molecules within the dough to lock together and form a network.

 

'When stretching the dough, my boss used to tell me that you should be able to read a newspaper through it,' says Michaud. 'At the same time, it should remain in one piece and not tear apart, and it should look and feel like a sort of 'skin'.'

 

Those who are using a dough mixer, on the other hand, should eventually be able to attune themselves to hear when the dough reaches an optimal kneading point by the way it 'slaps' against the wall of the mixing bowl. Adds Michaud, who is of Swiss-French descent: 'Back home, we say that the mixer is 'calling' us!'

 

Once the dough is done, bakers must be sure not to leave it uncovered in an air-conditioned room. That could dry it out, which will 'limit the product development during the baking process', explains the chef. But that's not to say one should bake in a non-airconditioned room; in fact, because basic ingredients such as salt and sugar absorb moisture all too readily in Singapore's humid weather, which affects their quality, it's 'good to have an airconditioning unit in Asia'. Just make sure your dough is well-wrapped-up and use proper storage methods for all ingredients.

 

The final step is, of course, the baking. But what happens if you've done everything right and your cake still isn't rising in the oven? Well, you could try turning up the temperature of your oven to boost the rising effect from the leavening agent, suggests Michaud. 'If you use baking soda for leavening, for example, it will start its thermal decomposition at 70 degrees Celsius and start to release carbon dioxide at that point, allowing the cake or whatever else you're making to gain volume,' he explains.

 

Note that this can only help cakes that were made correctly but started off in a too-cold oven, though. 'If the recipe wasn't done properly, raising the temperature won't help,' says the chef. 'The thing about pastry is that it comes down to measurement, precision and procedures.'

'But,' he concludes, 'to fail is to learn.'

 

Biscotti shavings with tiramisu dip
Serves 'a bunch of friends'

 

For the biscotti

250g cake flour
150g white sugar
4g baking powder
2g salt
2-1/2 eggs
1pc fine orange zest
100g whole almonds
35g whole pistachios

 

1. Mix all the ingredients except the nuts and knead into firm dough.

 

2. Add the orange zest, nuts and mix until the nuts are dispersed evenly in the dough. Roll the dough into 10cm-wide loaf and place on baking tray.

 

3. Bake at 190 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes until golden brown and crackled.

 

For the dip

1 kg mascarpone
5 egg yolks
5 egg whites
5 tbsp sugar
6 pcs savoiardi biscuits
40ml strong espresso coffee
20ml marsala wine
Spoonful of cocoa powder

 

1. Cream the mascarpone.

 

2. Whip the egg yolks with half of the sugar in a bowl. In another bowl, whip the egg whites with the other half of the sugar.

 

3. Fold the egg yolks into the mascarpone and finally, fold the egg whites into the mixture.

 

Assembly

 

1. Lay a layer of biscuit in the bottom of a deep dish and soak it well with the coffee and the marsala wine. Spoon the tiramisu mix over and repeat this step to make a few fine layers of soaked biscuit and tiramisu.

 

2. Slice the biscotti as thin as possible, like shavings, and toast them briefly in an oven heated to 200 degrees Celsius.

 

3. Place the toasted biscotti shavings on a plate and serve with the dish of tiramisu dusted with a little cocoa powder.

 

Tips and tricks

 

1. Bake the loaf of biscotti a day ahead so that you'll be able to slice the biscotti without it crumbling the next day.

 

2. The tiramisu, too, should be prepared a day ahead for a more intense texture and flavour.

 

3. To give the tiramisu extra kick, add a dash of cognac or Grand-Marnier when soaking the biscuit.

STI: Food deliveries warming up as orders triple

May 25, 2009

Food deliveries warming up as orders triple

Most are families with kids or working couples who want to save time

By Jessica Lim 

 

AS PRECIOUS time eats into consumers' busy days, food delivery services are on the up and offering more than the perennial favourites pizza and burgers.

 

A Straits Times check with food delivery companies and eateries that deliver revealed that demand has at least tripled in the past year alone.

 

Those ordering are mostly young families with children and young working couples who spend $40 to $100 a pop.

 

At East Coast's 26-year-old Yellow Light Thai Food, 400 delivery orders are received every week, four times the number in September last year.

 

Killiney Road's Orange Lantern, which serves Vietnamese food, now gets 30 delivery orders daily. Two years ago, only 10 such orders were taken daily. Their minimum order? $40.

 

The Chicken Rice Company and Friends both currently take 30 delivery orders every week, up from fewer than 10 during the same period last year.

 

The same goes for fast food companies. Online orders at Pizza Hut, for one, are experiencing 'steady double-digit growth on a monthly basis', said a spokesman.

 

It is the same story for online food delivery companies - like HungryGoWhere.com and RoomServiceDeliveries.com - that tie up with eateries in Singapore to deliver food to homes all over the Republic.

 

Eleven-month-old HungryGoWhere.com currently gets about 700 orders monthly, up from about 150 when it first started out. At RoomServiceDeliveries.com, about 40 meals are delivered daily, up from about two orders a day when the business was set up five months ago.

 

Customers, said Mr Wong Hoong An, the founder of HungryGoWhere.com , are willing to pay the price because 'there is a need out there'.

 

The 31-year-old, whose customer base consists mainly of professionals from double-income families, said: 'Busy people now want food to come to them and don't want to waste time waiting at the restaurant, because time is so precious to them.'

 

Food deliveries are booming here because time-strapped parents want to enjoy home-cooked meals, but do not have the time or energy to cook, said head of retail management at Singapore Polytechnic Angie Tang.

 

'Demand also goes up as variety goes up,' she added. 'Now, ordering takeaway is not restricted to... pizza or fried chicken,' she added.

 

The range is ever-expanding. HungryGoWhere.com has seen its online directory of restaurants increase from 20 to 31 since July last year, ranging from Middle Eastern cuisine to beef noodles. Another three restaurants are signing up this month.

 

'Many customers asked us to deliver, so we thought why not?' said Mr Thomas Chiam, owner of Friends, which started delivering food in June last year.

 

'Nowadays, customers are finicky. We figured we couldn't just count on restaurant walk-ins to survive.'

 

Ms Lisa Seow, 48, orders dinner in at least once a week for her family and spends about $100 each time. 'We want variety and we want it fast. Travelling to have a meal outside takes time. We don't have much of that.'

 

For father of two Mr Lee Jun Ying, the delivery service is a godsend.

 

'My wife and I work late hours, so we'd rather have the food come to us,' said the 42-year-old banker, who often gets Thai food and gourmet pizzas delivered to his home in Bukit Timah.

 

'This allows us to have a nice meal in the comfort of home without rushing about and queuing for takeaways.'

 

limjess@sph.com.sg

 

Newcomers

 

KO Japanese Restaurant

When it started: March 2009

Most popular dishes: The Deluxe Maki Sushi Bento, which includes grilled eggplant with miso paste, black cod with sweet soya sauce and sushi

 

Chinese restaurant Xi Yan

When it started: January 2009

Most popular dishes: Japanese tomatoes in sesame wasabi sauce and Sichuan style braised beef brisket

 

Spice Sutra Restaurant & Cafe

When it started: January 2009

Most popular dishes: Vindaloo, Rogan Josh and fish curry

 

Fifth Season Express

When it started: December 2008

Most popular dishes: Sweet and sour prawns, chilli chicken and fried rice

STI: Food for the soul

May 24, 2009

Food for the soul

Memories are made ofgood food, says National Heritage Board boss Michael Koh

By Fiona Low 

 

A 30-minute ferry ride is nothing to Mr Michael Koh if the journey takes him to lip-smackingly good fish and chips.

 

About three years ago, the 47-year-old chief executive officer of the National Heritage Board (NHB) took a half- hour-long boat ride from Sydney to Manly Beach while on a family vacation.

 

'We had a sudden craving for the wonderfully greasy fish and chips there,' he explains.

 

Of the trouble, he says: 'It was definitely worth it.'

 

The architecture graduate from the National University of Singapore joined the Board in 2006.

 

Since then, he has been making waves in the local museum scene with a series of unusual marketing campaigns, including the use of showbusiness personalities such as comedian Mark Lee as ambassadors and introducing museum tours for taxi drivers in Singapore.

 

'We are always looking for new ways to engage Singaporeans and tourists,' explains the affable CEO. 'The challenge is drawing audiences from our heartlands, especially seniors and young folks.'

 

The father of two, who holds a master's degree in design studies from Harvard University, was previously the director of urban planning and design at the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

 

For him, food is more than just about satisfy