rice cake confessional

I have three younger brothers. Three of ‘em. I’m the only girl and therefore my dad’s favorite daughter. Being the oldest and having only stupid boys running around also means I have bossy tendencies. I can assure you that it was a necessity. We can’t have little brothers running amok can we?

The age gap between my brothers and I is big enough so that I can spoil them (read: me and the youngest are 10.5 years apart). The middle one’s birthday is the day before Halloween. This means that when I was 8 he messed up my Halloween because my dad made me and Brother #1 visit him in the hospital. Something about ‘being born’ or whatever. All we got that year were 2 lollipops and some tootsie rolls. Fail.

Back to spoiling. Brother #2 turned 20 this year and like all of us under the Scorpio sign, he is plagued with the high possibility of midterms on his birthday. In addition to this, he’s currently a CS major which makes life, like, 80x worse. (Until, of course, you get your degree, make lots of money, and then push little people such as myself around.)  I’m rambling more than usual today. 

With the help of Facebook, I tracked down someone that looked like a good friend (shout out to Jeff for his help!). After some pondering over flavors and some trouble with the dorm address, I successfully ordered 1 dozen cupcakes to be delivered on his birthday (post-midterm, obvs). Good Friend Jeff had to pick them up to sneak them into Chris’s room which he did with Bond-like stealth. I have to give props to Good Friend Jeff because I messaged him out of the blue, he had never met me before, and I had all kinds of weird requests for him. (Can I give the cupcakery your cell phone number??)

I ordered the dozen from Cupcake Culture, a bakery in San Diego (Brother #2 goes to UCSD). I picked a split dozen of Strawberry Blondes (strawberry cake, lemon buttercream, fresh strawberry slice) and Morning Sunshine (dark chocolate coffee cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate covered espresso bean). The entire thing cost a very reasonable USD35 – delivery included. They even piped a Happy Birthday message on top with no extra charge. (If you’re wondering about the message, ateh = older sister in Filipino.)  I also only had to order 2-3 days in advance. Payment was easy, the staff was great, and the cupcakes (per the brother) were delicious. 

I figured that college kids need a little more than cupcakes for sustenance. I know this because I look upon my college days with the memory of the Freshmen 15 that I gained. Why stop at cupcakes? Why not take this party all the way to town?

Did you know you can order Domino’s Pizza online? Did you know that you could pre-order it so that it arrives at a specific time? Did you know you can get 2 pizzas, breadsticks, and chicken wing thingies plus a 2L of orange soda for USD30? Well, you can. 

Oh man, I miss pizza. The toughie with pizza delivery is that you have to have the credit card used for payment ready during the delivery. I worked this out though so no worries. 

The point of this post is that: 1) pizza and cupcakes are yummy, 2) this is a fast, relatively stress free gift for people who are living abroad but don’t want to send flowers or a fruit basket, and 3) I’m not good at a lot of things but I’m good at being a sister.

My brother posted this picture on his Facebook post-birthday surprise.

Halloween birthdays are funny. hehehehe

I tried to send cupcakes to Brother #1 and #3 but there are no such delivery mechanisms in Hanford. Don’t be sad for them, there are plenty of cupcake times ahead for us.

Do you smell that? If you were in Singapore you would most definitely smell that. You would smell it in almost every single grocery store you stepped foot in. The strong, overpowering reek of overripe fruits mixed with sweat. That is the smell of the oft feared durian. 

True confession time. I’ve never had durian. I’ve been meaning to. I am was open to the idea. I just never really got around to it. For the record, the smell of durian doesn’t turn me off completely. Its pungent for sure but not gag worthy.

After running an errand into Chinatown we were momentarily distracted by the smell of crepes mixed with the never to be mistaken aroma of durian. Thoughts that ran through my head include: ‘ugh, durian’ ‘no time like the present’ ‘how bad could it be’ and ‘maybe the chances of me liking durian will be higher if I eat it wrapped in a yummy pancake.’

The ‘pancakes’ are super thin and are cooked long enough that they actually get quite crispy. It’s SGD1.20 for one crepe and they also have other flavors like peanut butter if you’re not willing to take the durian plunge.

The filling is actually durian ice cream with fresh durian bits. I took a bite. 

Blech. It tastes like kitchen cleaner. Cold, icy, kitchen cleaner. Very chemically and not at all fruity. I actually expected it to taste like overripe jackfruit for some reason but no, def not the case. 

The pancake part was good.

Chances of me eating fresh durian: very slim.

I’m from California. This means that I’m used to having easily accessible Mexican food. Make that easily accessible and GOOD Mexican food. Understandably, this is harder for a girl to get her hands on in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, it’s not gonna stop me from trying.

On a recent post-work Friday, a group of us made our way to Cafe Iguana at Clarke Quay to grab margaritas and dinner. The verdict: not bad – not great, but not bad.

Before the picture parade, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that the brightness and contrast on these pictures is doctored. I don’t usually make changes to my pictures (other than resizing) but the place was so dark that you couldn’t see much in the picture without me tweaking the brightness control.

They have blended margaritas in tons of different flavors including kiwi, banana, mango, pink guava, strawberry, and, what I ordered, soursop. As a soursop margarita it was a fail – didn’t taste like soursop at all. As a margarita – not bad, adequately tart with that zing of alcohol at the end.

We shared appetizers of fried calamari, queso fundido (not pictured but cheesy and delicious), and chicken and mushroom quesadillas (not memorable). Most of us ordered tacos or burritos as a main course (other than Cathy who got the lettuce wraps).

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We rented rollerblades and bikes at East Coast Park today. I’ve wanted to do this since my first visit (I’m one of those weird people who still likes rollerblading even though the last time it was seen in cool pop culture was in the Mariah Carey video ‘Dreamlover’ about a millenia ago) so I was pretty excited to finally get the chance to strap ‘em on and rollerblade up and down the park. Imminent rain be damned.

Too bad that saying ‘imminent rain be damned’ doesn’t actually *stop* the rain. We got about an hour of rollerblading in before the rain came. We hid out at a pub type place before hoofing it to the black pepper crab place frequented by Pearl.

This place is about a 15 minute walk from the Marine Parade Library on Still Road next to the giant durian eatery. Poor Erika waited an hour in line to snag us a table.

The place was packed and while there were a few other stalls along the side that selled rojak and satay, most of the diners were feasting on the famed BPC. By all accounts, this scene makes it a promising meal.

if you’ve ever been to LA you’ll know that LA County grades restaurants on cleanliness. They do this in Singapore too. A’s are hard to come by unless you’re in a mall and B’s are pretty standard for most hawker stalls. This place has a C. You can see it in the picture above – on the right under the ‘Eng Seng Restaurant’ sign. There are generally 2 reactions when you are at C-grade restaurant.

Reaction 1: Oh shit, this is probably going to be good.

Reaction 2: I’m glad I have my hepatitis shots. Did I bring my antibacterial hand sanitizer?

Honestly though. Are you going to turn this down? Sorry, I’m skipping ahead. There were a few other dishes that made their way to the table first.

A giant plate (we’re talking bus steering wheel sized) of fried rice with overcooked egg and green onion. I prefer white rice but this was acceptable.

Remember you tiao? From the hypothetical Taiwanese breakfast that may or may not have happened? Take those, cut them up, fill them with squid paste, fry them again, and then drizzle them in mayo. Sounds kind of gross, tastes really good. The double frying is questionable but the result was not overly greasy. The squid paste has a balance of snap and softness and the mayo adds a little zing.

Veggies came too (kangkong with shrimp paste) but I’m not going to take a picture of kangkong everytime I have it. That would be overkill.

Yuuuuum, black pepper crab. I easily prefer this to its slightly messier chili crab cousin. There is hella pepper on this sucker. After you’re done it will be all up in your teeth like you’ve been chewing on charcoal. The sauce is oh my goodness good – slightly sweet and sticky with a dark soy sauce base. The pepper is tingly hot. Hits you hard at first and numbs a bit over time. It’s nicely tempered with rice and some of the extra sauce at the bottom of the dish. The claws come cracked but you’ll need extra strong teeth, clean fingers, and stealthy chopsticks to get to the goods.

We also had some fish. Pearl says it was grouper. It was gingery and tender but I only had a few bites. Obviously I was saving stomach space for the BPC. No room for this fish nonsense.

The meal was SGD340 for 8 people – 6 big crabs, fried rice, veggies, steamed fish, and veggies for all. We had about SGD10 worth of wet naps. Ha!

Lastly, I leave you with the aftermath. Hot mess.

Eng Seng Restaurant: somewhere on Still Road near the Four Seasons Durian place.

Most airlines are charging for meals these days. That’s all fine and dandy I suppose. I mean, anything that keeps the price of the ticket a bit cheaper. It’s kinda sad that you can’t bring your own food onboard. But if you’ve ever sat next to people eating dried squid or toasted anchovies then you’ll learn to appreciate this rule. (BTW, I like both dried squid and toasted anchovies but am not rude enough to eat this on a plane where air circulation is limited.)

On my Jetstar flight home from Taipei I ordered a toasted chicken sandwich. The picture looked decent and for SGD7 I thought it was pretty reasonable. A few minutes later the not-so-friendly Filipino cabin attendent dropped off the sandwich and, not really noticing, I took a few bites. Toasty. Buttery. Where are the fillings? Is there chicken in here? I put down the trusty Kindle to inspect further.

The hell. Is this what I ordered? Is there even chicken in there? I coulda sworn it looked good in the picture. (Picture me shuffling through the seat pocket to pull out the inflight magazine that includes the menu.)

Uhhhh, Jetstar. This is not even close to what you served me.

These are not the same.

I haven’t done an airplane food post in awhile but my first ever flight on Vietnam Airlines definitely deserves a little shout out. It’s sad that most US airlines have eliminated free food from their flights, most Asia carriers still serve them. The flight from Singapore to Hanoi is only about 3 hours long and we still got a nice meal.

Singapore to Hanoi. From the top left going clockwise: fruit plate with watermelon, pineapple, and lychee, warm bread, entree of mixed veggies, Thai curry rice, curry with fish cakes and prawn, and potato salad with pastrami.

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Okay, they aren’t *technically* called banana donuts. Real name: bánh chuối.

Super sweet banana (no added sugar) + rice flour batter + hot oil = banana donut heaven.

That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Look closely – do you see me in the reflection of the spoon?

Linh treated all of us out to dinner on our last night in Hanoi and picked Quán ăn Ngon for the festivities. If I remember my Vietnamese lesson correctly, Quán ăn Ngon means ‘delicious eating place.’

The place was bustling with activity. There’s a small buildling with indoor seating and then a large tent covered outside area bordered by small food prep stations along the perimeter. Before ordering, Duong and Linh suggested that we take a promenade around the place to pick out things we wanted to try.

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We spent Saturday morning at Silk Village which was recovering from the floods that plagued most of Hanoi that week. After doing our part for the Hanoi economy by indulging in many of its fine silk goods, we were starving.

This dish is now tied with pho as my favorite Vietnamese food. I hope I’m able to recreate it at home some day or find some place that serves it. This dish is a Hanoi speciality and they make it with a fish that is only found in the area. If you find yourself in Hanoi make sure to order yourself some cha ca thang long.

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Do you like how I whipped out the diacriticals and everything for the title? I like how the word looks with the fancy stuff on top of the ‘o’. It actually reminds me of steam coming off a piping hot bowl of phở. That makes me sound kinda crazy, doesn’t it?

I was in Hanoi this weekend to attend a wedding (Congrats Linh and Bryan!) and had a great time taking in some sights and eating plenty of good food. After taking care of some biznaz, Charif, Duong, and I were ready for lunch. After roaming around Hoàn Kiếm Lake for a bit we ended up at a phở place that Charif had tried the evening before.

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