Backdated to 16/09/07 - Pork chop king bento

I ate the fried pork chop bento and braised pork chop bento (last pic), from a franchise in Taoyuan, in order to compare the two. I like both of them and I think they tasted good – the pork is tender and juicy inside while their fried outside were flavorful. The cooked fresh bamboo shoots were nice. I don’t care for the preserve ones because it smells/tastes like dung to me. They also use Taiwanese rice which is sticky, fragrant and fluffy – like those used in sushi – I like it over fragrant Thai rice.Unfortunately I’ve never tried the original ones before it became a franchise so I can’t really tell if they are as good as the original. Nonetheless the franchise chain is pulling in the crowd. I wished the pork chops were crispier; then again I ought to have eaten them immediately instead of bringing them home to savor them. While on the way home, the smell of these two bento had me salivating in the car.

Backdated to 15/09/07 - Taiwanese Pow Mian (instant noodle) galore!

Take your pick: seafood-, pork-, chicken-, mushroom-, veg- and, beef-flavored instant noodle (ramen) – Taiwan has a wide selection of them and most of them taste good. Some ramen companies even hire renowned chefs to make their instant noodles tasty!

These instant noodles will taste really good during camping or reservist training when you are stuck in the boonies, under some tree – consider oneself lucky – with the mosquitoes or flies keeping you company naturally.

Once a Taiwanese bloke traveled on a train in China during a biz trip there. As he ate his cup noodle, its flavor floated thro the carriage, and that got the other local commuters asking him where he bought his cup noodle? Reason being they aren’t readily available in China. He struck gold after opening up his instant noodle factory in China.

FYI: I only took pictures of some of the shelves stocked full of instant noodles in this supermarket.

Backdated to 15/09/07 – Tien Hsien Lo, Landis Hotel, Taipei

This Michelin-star award-wining Chinese restaurant serves tasty and refined food. One dish that stood out for me was their shark fin soup. It doesn’t contain stock e.g. chicken and ham – where it full of sodium nitrate preservative (I find it gives a unpleasant strong “iron” taste) – and corn starch. I find the delicacy taste to be light and natural with the subtle flavor of seafood from the shark fin. The Taiwanese don’t add vinegar or pepper to detract, enhance or “cover” its original flavor. I like it very much and after finishing it I don’t feel thirsty – due to them not using MSG. It is politically incorrect to eat shark fin but I’ll suffer it for now.

Landis Hotel also serves delectable international breakfast. I’ll highlight the notable ones that I have enjoyed. Their plain chai tow kuay is to die for. I have never tasted anything this good before ever. I felt like asking the cook there that morning who was scrambling eggs for customers to sir fry my chai tow kuay first before adding eggs, chai poh, spring onion and finally prawns into it with a dash of soya sauce…. Wah that will be the best chai tow kuay that I’ll ever taste in my life!

Coming back to the other dishes (sorry I got carried away there for a moment) their smoked salmon is the best I have ever tried. It is not fishy or salty and the slices are thick…. I can’t remember how many slices I have tucked away…I am still drooling just thinking about it. Their bacon slices are fried right, not like a dried piece of cracker. It is juicy, not salty and surprisingly quite chewy. Then again I didn’t taste a lot of sodium nitrate in it too and that is a rarity these days.

Backdated to 15/09/07 – “Lim tah tah, seh lum par” (Southern Taiwanese Hokkien saying)

It means “Finished up your tea, and have sons.” Not politically correct thing to say but it’s their traditional saying. The guests from certain parts of southern Taiwan – may not be all of them – will utter this to the newly wed at the end of their wedding dinner while on their way out. That was a culture shock for me, I wish I was making it up, and I thought I understood the Chinese culture. Surprise!

Backdated to 14/09/07 – Missing my clear-broth beef noodle

This car park lot 145 (is between pillar 27 and 28, B Section beneath the flyover that intersects Loong Aun St) used to mark the approx. spot, where a lady sold her tasty clear-broth beef noodle in the night market. The tasty beef is tender, the soup is flavorful and the noodle is chewy. I enjoyed eating her tasty clear-broth beef noodle with lots of kiam chye (salted veg). She told me she learnt her recipe from a shifu (chef) who cooked it for years, I believe her. Unfortunately biz was slow there and it closed down after a year. If she had moved her stall elsewhere, I‘ll certainly go patronize it repeatedly.

If anyone has info on where she had relocated please let me know. Thanks!!

Backdated to 14/09/07 – KLG fried chicken, Loong Aun Street, Tao Yuan, TW

I ate 2 pcs of their chicken plus a local Song Hey sarsaparilla for NT69 (SGD3.5) on a warm, lazy afternoon; the traffic was zipping past beside me and a local soap opera has aired on TV in the stall. Surprisingly their chicken’s – cooked local style – crispy fried batter coating was tasty and its meat was tender without being too greasy. I zest my up with some hot pepper powder, which made it even tastier. The Song Hey sarsaparilla drink is a lighter version of our Sarsi here.

Who knows this franchise could be the next KFC that went global.

Backdated to 13/09/07 – 1st wedding at Taipei story house

A rich tea merchant built this beautiful Tudor-styled house in 1914 – the bottom floor is made of brick and mortar while the second floor is wooden. It was used to entertained local and overseas politicians and gentry alike. From 1990-98 it became an artist activity center. In that same year it was proclaimed a heritage site and was closed for remodeling. From 2003 it was called Taipei story house, a museum dedicated to promoting Taiwan life culture with emphasis on heritage sites preservation. My sis-in-law got married here – the first event of its kind since it re-opened. It has a splendid garden surrounding it too with sculptures adoring it. Yes, and I did stop to smell the flowers too. (The doggy in the pic was for a dog story event, which was taken down shortly before the wedding.)

Backdated to 12/9/07 – Mom-in-law's braised black pig trotters

Her braised black pig trotters dish is very good. (I dipped it into my Singapore-style chilli sauce which I had made earlier for them there.) FYI: trotters are tasty because it has plenty of bones – makes the meat sweeter & tastier – and the skin is rich in gelatin. BTW: Local black pork here is tastier then their regular pork. I also go ga ga over my mom-in-law's fried Taiwanese pork chop especially when she uses black pork again. Mmm yum.

Caution: Goodness gracious please don’t use Indonesian pork, they stink really bad and ruin both your cooking and your appetite too. I am sure there are those who will disagree with me on this point.

Backdated to 11/09/07 - Gao Chi Restaurant at Yong Kang St, Taipei

I had their delicious beef noodle soup. The soup is clear, flavorful and tasty. The noodles are chewy and their beef is tender and yummy. We polished off everything.















They are also famous for their steamed meat dumpling with soup in it. They tasted yummy too.

Backdated to 11/9/07 – Yong Kang St, Taipei

I had hu jiao ping (black peppered meat bun) SGD2.00. It is divine. When the gentleman at his pushcart, situated next to the famous Ice Monster (that serves fruits with shaved ice), removes the lid from either one of his two earthen "tandoori" ovens, which uses hot coals, in order to takeout the buns, the flavor escaping from the oven will simply make one drool...bring out your tissue paper, I did. When you bite into it, the tasty hot juice can scald your tongue if you aren't careful. So beware! But I feel this tasty experience makes all the blisters on your tongue worth it. The sesame-seeded bun is also extremely tasty, crispy and chewy too. Eat already eh - steam eh! Eat to believe it – take not my word for it. If you are going to do as I did, learn some sign language because it might come in handy. Their biz hr from 2.30pm to 10.30pm.

Backdated to 10/9/07 – Taiwanese peanut candy from Shilin Night Market, Taipei

Taiwan is also famous for their nutty candy too. They make them hot and cut them on the spot for your eating and seeing pleasure. Their almond-slivered candy is adequately coated in sugar syrup to hold them together, without the sugar syrup becoming too sweet, thick and hard like some peanut candies I have tried here – you might find your molar embedded in it when you are eating it in your old age. The almond-slivered candy is crunchy when you chew them, and them flakes just crumble in your mouth… The more you chew them, the more fragrant they become, and before long you discovered to your horror that you ate half of a container of them! Yummy but you don’t really care because you are just counting your calories……as a pointless exercise. Just let your jaw, tongue and digestive tract muscles do the exercising.

Backdated to 10/9/07 – Shilin Market, Taipei

The Brits got their fish & chips and the Taiwanese got their fried chicken chop. The Shi Lin (night) Market (accessible by MRT) is famous for their fried chicken chop SGD2.00. It is big (length of a 600cc coke bottle) and tasty. One of my former Indian colleagues who served his NS in Taiwan likes their fried chicken chop. He will most likely be salivating when he sees this pic. I can't blame him because once you have eaten the good ones, it calls your name, again and again...

Backdated to 09/9/07 – Tina coffee serves organic food

I had organic breads, herbed butter, salad, steak, cheesecake and peppermint tea in this restaurant. They were all good and I tucked them all down gleefully. I like their raspberry salad dressing – natural and without load of addictives mixed into it. I felt good after having three generous servings of their lovely salad, and my body responded to it positively. Their tasty tender steak was cooked medium rare, accompanied by red wine sauce with a hint of oregano in it. Their cheesecake wasn’t too sweet or heavy – others simply stick to my upper palate – which was delightful. Finally, I had peppermint tea to wash it all down while conversing with my in-laws. A lovely way to end a Sunday evening. I think I’ll go for more organic food in the future if I can.

Backdated to 07/9/07 – the late Luciano Pavarotti

I was saddened to learn of his passing. I got home and promptly played his CD with him singing “Ave Maria” by Schubert. He sang it beautifully and glided from note to note effortlessly. Another of his performance, my favourite, is his rendition of Verdi’s La Traviata with his mentor Dame Joan Sutherland. Pavarotti was the mentor of the new Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Farewell Luciano, we'll miss you.

Backdated to 31/8/07 – Jose Carreras sang Verdi’s Requiem

Watched “Verdi’s Requiem” on Laser disc conducted by the late Herbert von Karajan with a good friend, he has a working LD player. Jose Carreras sang “Ingemisco”. Carreras performance brought tears to my eyes. That can means two things – he was either fantastic or awful. He was fantastic. I wished the video directions were better like when Carreras was singing “Ingemisco”, the camera ought to be on him when he was singing it passionately instead of Karajan conducting. Agnes Baltsa rendition of “Lacrimosa” brought tears to my eyes too – it was spiritual and she sang it with emotion. Sintow and van Dam (baritone – not the movie fighter mind you) were first rate also.

Backdated to 25/8/07 – Hungry Ghost Festival

I have my own ghost story to share with you. Back in June 2002, I did my final reservist training. No need to be politically correct by saying I am a “National Serviceman” (NS). Ai yah if “Reservist” just say “reservist”. Call a spade a spade. We slept in Cheshire Block, 4^th floor in a certain airbase in the west of Singapore. That night was the last night of my reservist training also. One of my flight mate named Joseph, who asked me the next day while in the midst of exchanging our military ID for our Pink ID, he asked me if I had seen anything last night? I said no. Why? He (has perfect eyesight) then said that he saw “something” standing next to me. Subsequently I remembered that I did wake up in the middle of the night, I removed my pillow from my face (I slept next to the doorway and the lights from the corridor would shine on my face thro the glass panes) and I remembered seeing, without my glasses everything is blurred, a elliptical-shape greenish glow in front of the darkened closed door, which was beside me. I thought nothing of it and put the pillow over my face again and zzz. Well it looks like he was right since we saw the same “thing”. Earlier on I had to make up for a skipped reservist training, before this last one, by training with another flight. Incidentally it was also that flight’s last ICT. At its closing, their OC said he wanted to remember those soldiers who had passed away. He mentioned one reservist, who was found naked when he scaled the fence, he said he had seen a ghost! Thereafter he was admitted to hospital where he passed away suddenly. I wished I were making this all up.

Thankfully, I didn’t end up doing the same thing.

If you see a “ghost”, do like what Joseph and I did – just take it lying down.

Backdated to 18/8/07 – New World (Teochew) Mutton Soup

Actually it is from Singapore. The stall #01-55 is in Bedok bus interchange hawker centre. It got an award including newspaper write outs because the mutton is very tasty including the rich soup too. Nothing is left in my bowl when I am done, except for the bones. (Glad I remembered to take a pic before the decimation continued.) Some customers will chew on it first before spitting them out. This stall’s mutton soup has the same standard like Lagoon Leng Kee Beef Kway Teow at #01-33, East Coast Lagoon Food Village.

Backdated to 17/8/07 – Cookout at Tanjong Beach, Sentosa

My friends called yesterday and wanted to die, die must have a cookout at Sentosa like before. Being able to do it was miraculous because it had been a wet day. Instead of heading to Silosa beach like before – because it is all dotted with eateries unlike in the past – we went to Tanjong Beach. We found three picnic tables and benches at the very end of it, in a roundabout. Thankfully I got my gas lantern to illuminate the table because it was dark, no lamppost in the roundabout. I grilled the steaks and Taiwanese pork chops – my mom-in-law’s recipe. All of us loved the Taiwanese pork chop especially my friend’s wife. She ate it really slowly savouring each bite. They also dipped their chips into the pork chops’ juices because it made them taste even better. We had clam chowder and salad too. The bread that my friend got from a popular local eatery chain was mouldy and I ate a few pieces of it. Yuk! After that we headed off to The (sprawling) Sentosa resort and spa (I love the ambience there) for some juice and listened to the Lighthouse trio belting out jazzy songs in the lounge before retiring from an enjoyable night out. My friends said let do it again, and I agree.

Backdated to 16/8/07 – Gave a ZEN to a friend

I have a good friend whose iPod died after a year of use. She was feeling low that she doesn’t have the means yet to get another MP3 player so she can listen to music while she commutes fro and back from work. I decided to get some friends we know to chip in some cash so we can get her one. She was delighted and was very pleased when I presented her the new MP3 player. I had downloaded her favourite songs into it before giving it to her. FYI: The first new ZEN I got for her malfunctioned after one day of downloading of .wma files. Earlier on I had even downloaded the latest ZEN’s firmware into it but do didn’t do much good either. Creative Service Centre at IBP replaced it promptly with a new one.

Backdated to 15/8/07 – Tai Wah Mee Pok

I have been eating this gentleman’s mee pok since secondary school in the early 1980s. My friend, who became a movie star, introduced it to me. I remembered eating it in the pre-WWII shop house along Singapore River back then – still has a pong to it. (Maybe that’s why tai wah mee pok tastes slightly different nowadays…kidding) Their quality is consistently excellent. I understand many enjoy eating it fresh. I enjoy it best by packing it and eating it a few hours later. Reheat it in microwave at high heat for 3mins and eat it. Add some black vinegar also to enhance the flavour. Sinfully good.

Backdated to 11/8/07 – 9th Street Band, Ph. 9425 5823

Met these two musicians in Wheel Lock Place underpass. First time I had seen a busker (named Amran) playing on a double bass here! They sounded good because Idrus can sing besides playing the guitar. The tunnel gave them the necessary acoustics to make them sound good. Their aim is to sound good acoustically without any electronic amplification. They told me a European embassy had hired them to perform for them before too. Listen to them from Mon to Fri, 4pm-6pm at Wheel Lock Place underpass. Fri to Sat, 8.30 – 10.30pm at UOB’s promenade (where the fat pigeon statue perched) next to Singapore River.

Backdated to 10/8/07 – Provence, San Moulin, St. Leaven Bakeries

The pic is of my favourite chocolate rolls from Provence at Holland Village. They taste even better then it look – beware of imitations! I also love the donuts from this Japanese bakery San Moulin, situated at the basement of Isetan. The St. Leaven bakery’s donuts at Takashimaya basement are just as good too. I understand the San Moulin uses Yamazaki bakery’s dough. Yamazaki bakery, a Japanese co., is big in Taiwan. Their bread tastes really good without any need to hype it up – in order to attract customers to buy them.

Backdated to 09/8/07 – Char siew and siew yok rice

I had Toh Kee char siew rice at #01-1061A People Park Food Centre. Makansutra gave them a 2.5 bowls award this year, down from 3 bowls previously. I had also eaten Lau Phua Chay Roasted Duck char siew rice at #01-20 Alexandra village food centre a few days back. Makansutra also gave them a 2.5 bowls award. I think their char siew is juicier and their siew yok is just as good as Toh Kee. I prefer the latter because they give a bigger serving for the same price.

Backdated to 08/8/07 – Laughter is the best medicine

I suddenly remembered this joke that a platoon mate told me while we were doing reservist training. He got a good sense of humour after coming back from down under.

Humor: Did you know Mao had a Christian name? But he didn’t use because it won’t go well with his dictatorship image. His Christian name: Mickey.

Backdated to 03/8/07 – The Queen & Cotton Mary Videos

Finally I had the chance to watch the video. Helen Mirren gave a sterling performance indeed as Queen Elizabeth. Her acting defines the English’s “stiff upper lip” mannerism extremely well. I find the behind the scene going-on to save the monarchy from becoming “unpopular” in the eyes of the English masses prior to Diana’s funeral fascinating. The people’s princess’s sudden death really impacted the English Monarchy if the screenplay is right. Another highly recommended video to watch is “Cotton Mary” by Ivory Merchant Production. It is a story about an Indian woman, during English rule, and her fantasy of being “English”. Caution: Have an airsick bag by you when you are watching it.