rice cake confessional

Bleh. I can barely look at these pictures without being a little bit queasy. We had so many eggs this past Saturday! My cholesterol must be outta control.

Learning how to cook eggs is important though. It’s a basic skill that any home chef should have. Also, eggs are good. It’s only around number 3 where you start feeling kinda gross.

Chef Francois shows us how an omelet is done.

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Does your work make you do self assessments? Mine does.

To make myself feel better I refueled with some french toast made using the brioche from breadmaking class (I put it in the fridge which I keep at near-freezing). Two slices dipped in an egg mixture jazzed up with black sugar (my best guess? unprocessed cane sugar – tastes more molasses-y sorta like palm sugar), kalamansi (lime) juice, and vanilla extract. Fry it up and drizzle low fat vanilla yogurt spiked with cinnamon and then top it with frozen blueberries and a drizzle of honey. Yuuuum.

I finished my self assessment in record time. Coincidence? I think not.

I’ve been on a cooking spree lately. It’s a bit more ’spency (too much slang? read: expensive) but it’s nice to know what’s going into your food sometimes. Plus it’s kind of a nice way to unwind. I’m not doing anything too complicated in the kitchen. After all, I have exactly 1 pot, 1 pan, and 2 burners at my disposal. This past week I made chicken adobo using chicken wings that I picked up at the supermarket. 

In a moment of genius I opted to use the leftovers to make some adobo fried rice. Not quite as fancy as the adobo fried rice omelettes of Las Vegas fame ( it was a moment of genius coupled with laziness) but still a nice way to wrap up a day of Sunday housecleaning.

Ingredients:

• rice (I used brown but white rice is a-ok)
• garlic, minced
• chicken adobo leftovers (shred the chicken, pick out the peppercorns)
• green onion, chopped (just for looks really )

No measurements for the rice and adobo. I made one medium sized bowl of it and used the meat of 2 chicken wings, 3 tablespoons full of adobo sauce, and a heaping scoop of rice. Fried rice is pretty forgiving so do whatchu want in whatever proportions you want. 

Method:

1. Add a little oil to a hot pan and throw in the minced garlic (I used 1 tsp). 
2. Add the chicken and adobo juices. It might be a bit watery so let the juices cook down a bit (stir constantly to avoid burning). 
3. Throw in the rice and mix like you mean it.
4. When its heated through and mixed well, take it off the heat.
5. Throw on the green onions and take a picture. 
6. Enjoy.

If you’re not lazy, you could make this into a Japanese style omelet (aka omurice) with the rice in the middle and an omelet wrapper. If you’re only moderately lazy you can add scrambled eggs to the mix (cook beforehand and add unless you want to eat brown eggs).

Yah, this post is totally about Dempsey Hill again.

Before we got into the eats, let’s talk about my arduous journey to get there. I live on the East side of the island which I heart very much. One of the things that I do not heart is that I live on a road that is often closed off and used for marathons, races, and other annoying fitness related activities that I do not care to partake in. When I say ‘closed off’ I mean that they turn off the bus service that feeds into and out of my area. Take the MRT you say? Yah, there is no MRT where I live.

This means during these marathons and races and whatsits I’m pretty much trapped. Not cool. The only way out is by taxi and everyone is scrambling for them so you’re best bet is to call for one. Total taxi fare from my humble abode to Dempsey Hill: SGD17. Ouch.

Whatevs though. I’m getting my darn pancakes – raceathon be damned.

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I can’t recall ever making a post about a restaurant in my hometown. If you haven’t read the About page it will be news to you that I’m from the Central Valley. People like to ask me fun questions like – are you from Northern California or Southern California? Erm. Central. Central – where is that exactly? Like, in the center. Pull up a Google map of California, close your eyes, and aim for the center. There. That’s my adopted hometown.*†

I like to round up the High School bffs every once in awhile. It’s nice to catch up and laugh about how lame high school was and how terrible we dressed and how cool we thought we were. We don’t see each other often but it’s easy to get together and pick up right whereever we left off last.

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Unless you’re a major NSync fan, the post title is strictly informative and not funny.

I had a fantastic 2 1/2 weeks at home in California. Two of those weeks I spent in Hanford with the family vegging out, eating lots, and hanging out with the brothers. Not too many new meals but lots of old favorites.

I spent 3 days in the Bay Area catching up with good friends. The grand finale there was a meal at Pho Vi Hoa. I ordered the sliced pork meal. It was as good as I remember it. (Thanks to Jane and Jlin for housing me while I was in the Bay!)

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Hypothetically, if you find yourself coming out of one of those 24 hour karaoke places in Taipei at 5:45 in the morning, you can go straight to breakfast.

You could even get Taiwanese breakfast – the kind that comes with you tiao aka oil sticks aka deliciousness and hot steamy soy milk in a bowl.

It would probably, most likely cost you a little over a dollah (just an educated guess). Hypothetically, you would enjoy, in that binging-after-a-long-night-of-debauchary kind of way, dipping the crunchy, donut-like, deep fried sticks in the yummy soy milk. You might have the entire meal on a few rickety stools on some random sidewalk. The other diners would probably be far more rested than you and eye you suspiciously. You would just continue with the slurping.

Hypothetically.

Admittedly, I was not impressed when Thiena mentioned PS Cafe to me. I mean, seriously, S$17 pancakes? Not so appealing. After mulling their site over a bit and hearing everyone else’s raving I figured it was time to give it a shot. When Therese asked if I would be down to check out the area around Dempsey and grab brunch at PS Cafe, I was up for the trek.

And wow what a trek. It took me 3 taxis before I found a driver that had any idea where this place was. Then when we got to Dempsey Hill we went round and round trying to find the cafe. The driver even asked some passerbys with no luck. I ended up getting out and wandering around myself.

Finally…

Therese was already there (trying to get me some assistance via the helpful waitstaff) enjoying some white wine. I ordered myself a lovely peach iced tea to calm the nerves post the wandering in the equatorial sun.

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As predicted, Singapore is a food blogger’s paradise. Three new meals a day means lots of food pictures. Extreme laziness (and the aforementioned not so comfortable internet connection setup) means lots of blogging backlog.

Back to the paradise. Some food is good and some food is bad (okay not *that* bad). Here’s a sampling of what food-life has been like. Get comfy. It’s a doozy.

HIT: I’m a creature of habit and I’ve grown accustomed to turning right from the service apts into Clarke Quay. Vinny, crazy guy that he is, suggested that I try going LEFT. Strange, strange idea. Resulted in mini-wok of soupy but crispy noodles and seafood. Add a drink and it will set you back about SGD 5.

HIT: Char kway teow. This one from the stall at Kopitiam at Central. The man that works the counter makes 2 dishes: char kway teow and some prawn mee something or other. Agree to add chilli and feast on pad see ew-like goodness of wide noodles, bits of egg, crunchy bean sprouts, cockles (aka mochacocka – what an awesome name), Chinese sausage, and fishcake. SGD 4.

MISS: Mom and Dad came and I took them to the previously mentioned Kopitiam. We picked the pho and were disappointed. Little shriveled bits of meat, an oddly sweet broth spiced with lemongrass (sorry, not a fan), and other greenery. The longer it steeped, the more turned off I got.

HIT: Porridge from one of the many stalls at Lau Pa Sat (LPS – learn this acronym, you’re going to get pretty familiar with it). Chicken and egg, green onions, crunchy noodles, fried onions, white pepper, and cut up ‘oil sticks.’ This was ridiculously cheap like SGD3.50 or something.

HIT: Looks weird, tastes good. Kopitiam also has a dessert stall and I had this two nights in a row. Crushed ice with soursop (that’s that fleshy stuff on top with the big black seed inside), some tapioca like/frog eyes looking business, and ice jelly with a kalamansi as garnish. Very light and very refreshing. Compare that to…

HIT: WOW. Peanut ice kachang from the same dessert place. Crushed ice, sweet corn, a sweet peanut sauce, condensed milk, crushed peanuts. The heaviest shaved ice dessert ever. Better than a candy bar. SGD2.60

MISS: Ramen with gyoza from LPS. This one though is probably my fault – I didn’t eat it on the spot and took it back to the office instead. The noodles were very soft and the veggies and garnish were kind of one big mass. The gyoza was pretty good though so all was not lost.

MISS: These were the worst spring rolls I’ve ever had. Weird herbs and dry spring roll skin. Blech. From the same place as the funky pho.

HIT: Steamed bun with sweet yam filling from 7-11. I tried to get another one today but was moted by the steamed bun cabinet – it would not open! I had this one with soy milk for breakfast the other day. Hit the spot. If you’re wondering, the filling is yellow. A snack for Laker fans?

You are probably concerned about my health and are wondering if I’ve ballooned to 500lbs. Luckily, I walk about 2 miles a day (not an exaggeration) so that’s helping keep the calories in check and allows for guilt-free gorging at lunch.

Why is breakfast always one of the more awesome meals of any trip? Perhaps because breakfast is one of those meals that rarely gets transported to other shores in restaurant form. Who knows.

On our last morning in Singapore, Charif took us to the Hawker Center near the office. We had tried to venture to one of these HCs earlier in the week but had never made it. Needless to say we were blown away. They look so small from the outside but are really expansive inside – like the tougher, gangsta relative of mall food courts. Lots of selection and super cheap.

We tried out Quay 18 (or was it 16?) and put down SGD2 for the breakfast special.

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