Goodbye my friends

Helloooooooooo ladies and gentlemen... what's up?!?!

"Holy crap u son of a..! Where the hell have you been?!"

Relax.... I'm still here. Well, at least alive physically, after being gone for er... 5 months? oops!

Annnnyways, life has been good.. awesome.. hectic.. busy.. up.. down.. hungry.. full.. satisfied.. sad.. angry.. happy.. a mixture of emotions and events. I really have to apologise that the Singapore trip update didn't really come. I guess that somehow along the way, I just placed down my pen (or keyboard) and decided to move on with other things in life. Blogging was good, but it already served it's purpose for me; getting through my damn boring NS life. Taking from Geneen Roth's book; just because a canoe got you across the river, doesn't mean that you've to carry it with you. It had served it's purpose, so lay it down, and move on.

Nevertheless, it's been an interesting journey. Writing about food was fun, but tasting food was definately more fun. Although one thing bad about having a food blog is that you'll tend to obsess about food all the time. I mean, food is great; it's such a huge component of our daily lives, celebrations, health and satisfaction, but if it occupies your mind almost 24/7 of the time, you're not gonna have time to enjoy the other things in life. Take a breather, walk out to the garden, smell the roses, look at the sunset and enjoy life. Life's a funny thing; it's not ridiculously short or annoyingly long but it sure flies by fast and by the time you know it, you wouldn't have time to do most of the things you want to do.

Enjoy life.. take my word for it. You don't wanna be 60 years old, taking out photo albums on entire your life and all your travels to reminisce, and be staring at pages and pages of pictures of food and go "What the fuck...".

So if you're one of those people who is thinking of laying down your blog/food blog, let me just say that it has done you good, so now look up, move on and don't look back. Don't waste your time obsessing about how many hits you have on your blog everyday, how many blogs link to your site, or checking back every 15 seconds to see how many comments you've got on that latest post. When it's all over, it doesn't matter. Unless you're earning some kind of money for blogging now, it doesn't matter how famous you get because it's only 15 seconds of fame. After 5 years, who the hell will remember you anyway? So get out there, stop staring at the computer every second in your life, and enjoy the things that you'll regret not doing if you don't get to it.

And if you're one of those people who is perpetually on a diet; life is short, and one day when you are at the last few minutes of your life, you may think, "I really regret not having that slice of warm chocolate fudge cake they got me for my 18th birthday, I've always wondered what it tasted like". So if you walk past that dessert shop with the chocolate cake you've always wanted to eat. Eat it. And don't regret it. At the very least, the words on your gravestone will write "I lived my life" rather than "I was skinny".

Phoo.. well, okay where was I? Sad to say, this will be the last post for Yummiedummies. Its been a nice journey meeting other floggers, getting to know the Singapore flogger community and getting comments from readers. To all those who have supported this site and still pop by occasionally; my deepest thanks. To all other floggers who have been or are still flogging, good on ya and keep up the good work.

Goodbye my friends. Good luck to everything you do and have an awesome life. :)

Away for a little while my friend

Assignments.

Projects.

Tests.

Geez, I really can't squeeze out any time to stuff in a post. But I promise I'll be back soon when the exams are over.

I'll blog more about the good food in Singapore soon. *hint*

Red Nano - The new Google?

Remember long ago it was Yahoo that dominated the search scene? Then of course Google came along and everybody relied on Google like monkeys relied on bananas.

Need to find data. Google.

Need to find images. Google.

Research for project? Google.

But sometimes you can't rely on Google for everything; say, for something more specific like Singapore-related stuff. I know how many of you had typed in "good nasi lemak in Singapore" or "best mee goreng" in Google and came up with frustrating and hair-pulling results.

And that's where Rednano comes in. Rednano is SPH's new version of Google, and it's catered to Singapore, or at least, around the region. Meaning, you type nasi lemak like I did and you'll find most results on blogs blogging about various nasi lemak stalls. Not bad, I'd say. I know how many times I wanted to hang myself using Google for that sorta thing.

And check out what's cooler than that. Click on the images on the left and most pictures are nasi lemak stalls from Singapore!

They also have maps, news and directory on the sidebar to cater to specific needs and a mobile rednano link; which I haven't figured out is about yet.

So if you really need to satisfy some cravings today, yet don't know where to, why not click on the Rednano link above and give it a go? You may be surprised at it's usefulness. :)

Cross apples & Japanese food

Hold on a minute, I haven't yet covered any Jap food stalls in Perth yet have I?

Bother bother, getting a recommendation from a friend, we decided to pop by Applecross to check out a Japanese food stall. I wonder how the name Applecross originated? Like.. perhaps they had a farmer who grew very angry apples.

..or not.

Anyways, this place is fairly small, yet fully packed with a long waiting line for takeaway. It's got a good variety of dishes but the creativity is in that you could choose a main dish (eg. Katsu) and there are 5 sets which you could choose from. So you could have set A which comes with a soup and rice or set C which comes with 8 pieces of sushi or set D which is like a bento. I'm sure you get the idea.



Aah, this is the bento, which comes in a box for you to take home. Just kidding, you can't take it home, although my friend did.




What's in it? You've got fried tofu, a sesame chicken salad, sliced up vegetables with some dressing, two pieces of sushi and your main dish.

To rate what's best, I'd say the tofu; with a nice crispy outside, soft innards and tastily drenched in sauce. The sushi is surprisingly good too; of course, not Singapore-styled but more OZ-styled, that is, a little sweet overall.Sorry, didn't try this main course which was the teriyaki beef.



What I did have was the chicken katsu. It didn't come in a large chopped up chicken piece but in small nugget-like pieces, which I wasn't really enthusiastic about, and they were kinda oily. I loved the sushi though (in a sweet kind of way).



But on a lighter note, the teriyaki salmon was awesome. Soft yet tasty, a pity the portion was a little bit small.

Did I also mention that they have free flow green tea? Not something you can commonly find in OZ.

Overall, the price is a little higher than average (thinkg 14-16 for the bento set), but the food is not bad and definately worth a visit.

Hop

Are you feeling guilty about that chocolate ice cream.

Feeling like a whale?

Feeling... FAT?

Go workout on sanitary pads. Umm, at least that's what Jackie Chan recommends.

Muscle spasms

I'm seriously trying very hard not to cringe while typing every letter of this post. Oooh... my forearms.. Thing is, yesterday I spent like 3 hours squeezing and gripping and pinching and the bottom line is, I was hanging on for dear life.

Ah comon, it's only rock climbing. Only my ass, now even my back is sore.. And when you have a fear of heights, you look down halfway up and you feel like peeing.



I've never done rock climbing before but it was hell load of fun. Of course, it's necessary that you risk yourself looking like a spastic idiot with muscle spasms while trying to drag yourself up that wall. Well, at least I think that's what I look like.

All in all, you get a fantastic workout; basically your arms, fingers, legs and face doing all those expressions and it's only 13 dollars! (Well, student price, sorry!) If you need a harness it'll be an extra 5AUD and an extra 6AUD for shoes as well.



This is what it looks like; a pretty huge place actually, and loads of people!



I sure am going this Sunday too, anyone wanna come?

If you're interested, check out www.rockface.com.au

Collins road

When pictures start getting blurry, and your camera takes 10 seconds to focus, you know something's not right. Alas, I guess that's what happen when you drop your phone too many times. Well, at least you can still make out the pictures.

Mmm mm! Hawker food today! I'm always in the mood for hawker food aye? Just around the corner of Collins Road at Willeton, a small restaurant always buzzing with people having their meals.. Big meals, that is. The portions here at Taurus is so large, that you can actually ta pao for dinner as well. Check this out, the plates (some of them) are more than 30cm across! And not half empty, if that's what you're thinking, they really stuff you well.



Apparently what was recommended here was the yee mien, which came in an astonishingly huge portion and it was fairly good as well. Stringy noodles snapping in your mouth accompanied with a light yet sufficiently savoury egg sauce, with a good amount of chicken pieces and other condiments. I'd say it's a darn good deal for $8.



I had the mixed meat rice, an entire serving of chicken thigh and BBQ pork, for $8. That's a good deal! At least here in Australia. You know how people complain like how Australia food is expensive? I seriously don't think so, because you pay 8-10AUD on average, but two people can share the amount of food. Alas, the BBQ pork was thin and overly dry, the chicken was not too bad though.

Oh well, hop across to the next stall called Asian food or something and you'll find a smaller shop selling things like Bak kut teh, mee siam, satay, prata and claypot rice; very Singaporean, or Malaysian, considering how similar those two both are.




Here, I ate the best claypot rice in Perth, considering it's the only claypot rice I've ever had in Perth. Nah, it's alright; not fantastic or whatever, but tasty enough (I'm actually hard pressed to find a satisfying claypot rice in Singapore). A good portion of chunky chicken thigh pieces with lup cheong and salted fish pieces, drizzled over with loads of dark sauce and a fair bit of oil I suppose. Quite tasty, but don't think you can finish it all (too much!)



So if you ever need some good asian food, hop on down to Collins rd. On weekends, they serve nonya kueh, curry puffs and rice dumpings toos. Oops, I meant dumplings?

A picture post

Aaah, bugger me, I've left this blog half dead again. Don't place the blame entirely on me though, I've been really busy with school work!

Well, anyways, we went to this korean restaurant in Northbridge located near Billy Lee's. I'm really busy so I'll just pop the pictures up. Hmmm, I also wouldn't say the food is that great but here goes.



"Steamboat" w/ beef, rice cakes, mushrooms, sausages. (AUD13 per person)



Chicken bulgogi (Not bad, but looks really spicy/oily)

Beef bulgogi (Same sauce as chicken)

And some vegetables from the garden, as well as check out this super huge potato and watermelon we got from Canning vale market!



Potato (never seen one so large)


Watermelon ($5 only)


Cucumbers and long bean




This super small cantaloupe we grew and accidentally "dropped" is actually quite sweet.

And I've got to show you this place we have lunch at in school. It's this huge grass area with loads of tall trees and everyone just sits on the grass and lie down/relax/have lunch/chit chat. And there's a live band/DJ every Wednesday as well. It's really awesome (yes, come to Curtin).



And the view from our physio common room. Best view ever.

Poppo

There are probably lots of Korean restaurants in Singapore and even more Korean food available in food courts these days but how many are actually true, blue Korean cuisine? Well, the only restaurant I recall is at Suntec City top level and another stall in the food court of Meridian hotel. And another which I've never tried before located at Thomson road called Auntie Kim or something along that line. Don't even mention Seoul garden or Zingdo to me or I'll throw a container-ful of kimchi at you.

Let's put it this way, things are a little different here in Perth. Because of the multi-racial influx of immigrants over the years, you get a nice mish-mash of cuisines available for your picking. And other than that, most cuisines are whipped up by their countrymen. So if you go into a Korean restaurant, expect Korean chefs and even Korean waitresses, kebab stalls are mostly open by Turkish people, gotta learn Vietnamese when you enter a Viet restaurant and of course nicely sliced sashimi by Japanese chefs plus cute Japanese waitresses as well.

You what you get is really, the real stuff, except of course it may have been a little altered towards the Australian style. but it's still good nevertheless.

This little restaurant situated along the road at Perth's city center is called Poppo and is (from what I observe) a Korean-based restaurant which serves Japanese food as well. Prices range from AUD8 - 10 for lunch and around 9 - 15 for dinner. They do serve smaller portions though, like how you can order chicken teriyaki for AUD7 instead of 9 (comes with a smaller serving of course) so don't take the price range I gave as it is.



Qin ordered the spicy bean paste broth (AUD12 I think) which comes in a small stone bowl accompanied with side dishes of radish, bean sprouts, sweet potato and fish cake. She claimed that it was very rich and from what I saw, the ingredients were generous as well. Sorry, couldn't give much info because I couldn't try it, but it's pretty good and Qin said that she would go back for it again.



I ordered the chicken teriyaki for AUD9 which was really filling enough. The chicken was definitely not Japanese-styled teriyaki but more towards the korean way of cooking. Sweet sauce with a sufficient taste of wine. Hmm, don't come here if you are expecting some Japanese teriyaki chicken but since I was kinda sick of Japanese food already that day, this proved to be a welcomed dish. Plus, it satisfied my sweet tooth as well.

One more thing we didn't order but saw the next table did was the seafood pancake. It was HUGE. And it looked very crispy with loads of squid and prawns as toppings. Verdict: Ang moh who ate it said it was good. (I didn't ask him la.. we only overheard)

So yeah.. we didn't get an address but it's across the road from Macdonald's at Perth city.

Comfort food

Back to Perth but still craving Singaporean food, qin and I decided to hit the alleys of Northbridge to get our fix.

Northbridge is Perth's Chinatown. Well, sorta. It isn't as packed with chinese as, let's say, LA's Chinatown where it's literally filled with chinese people, restaurants and groceries stores. It is, however, where you can find many dim sum places, chinese tze char restaurants, hong kong tea houses and taiwan bubble tea cafes. Not to mention a good amount of vietnamese and korean restaurants and the occasional malay restaurant. It's also home to the famous Corica apple strudel and Hog's breath cafe, plus a few other western restaurants which look a little too high end for my pockets.

The place we dropped by yesterday was called Da pai dang, or Hawker place in english. Apparently it's a Malaysian-food based restaurant which served quite a good variety of dishes, amongst them the Singapore-styled chilli crab.



We had Nasi goreng special ($9) and Hainanese chicken rice ($9) which were quite decent. The only bad point with both dishes were the rice which was a tad too soggy. Other than that, the chicken rice came with a whole chicken thigh which was tender and well flavoured. Although the rice was too wet, the taste was there as well and paired with the chilli, made for a very good meal. The chilli, however, is different from those we normally have in Singapore. Instead, it resembles more like the chilli served in chinese restaurants. Think chicken rice chilli infused with a little thai chilli sauce. Slightly sourish sweet but very tasty nevertheless, definitely a nice alternative to what we usually have.



The Nasi goreng was also well fried, a pity about the rice's moisture though. Filled with juicy prawns, mixed vegetable and chicken meat, it also comes with 2 sticks of satay which were not too bad. It also came with a freshly fried chicken wing which qin said was "very good!". Plus, she said that the belachan they provided was "quite power".

I'm really glad we still have Northbridge to fall back on. Stay tune as I'll be back for it's dim sum restaurants, Viet eating houses and Taiwanese tea cafes!

Goodbye Singapore. See you soon

So practically for the rest of my trip I've been spending time with my girlfriend's family, going out for dinner and luncheon, helping qin's mum with her business packages (They own a bridal shop at IMM level 2 called E-Bridal. Her mum designs very nice dresses and her dads a very good photographer. If anyone is getting married, please pay them a visit!) driving up to Malaysia for bak kut teh (damn power) or simply having full day shopping-cum-eating trips. It was my first time going to City Square in Msia and although the shopping wasn't as good there, it was a fun trip. Bought loads of dvds back as well, hohoho! (shhhh)

Life's been good in Singapore, and I'm glad I went back. Soaking up the weather and the humidity has been good for my skin and the festive mood definitely lightened my spirits. Thank Eu Yan Sang as well for curing my eczema. For the past six months my eczema had been so bad I couldn't move in the morning and hurts whenever it dries up. It was just a nightmare, and thank the gods it's finally 80% cured. It's a pity though I only had time to meet most friends only once or twice. The first 2 weeks I went back my eczema was so bad I had to stay home and the next time weeks I was rushing to buy stuff back for home and hanging out with my girlfriend's brothers, and not to mention stuffing my face with kuehs and desserts of sorts.

You cannot imagine how grateful I was to walk the streets of Orchard road again, scourging the Takashimaya basement for snacks, or squeezing through the busy Bugis Streets. I miss Singapore, and surprisingly, I miss the crowd. I guess I'm Singaporean, and nothing can change that. Circumstances have forced us to move away to another place, but if one day I have the ability to consider a choice, I would move back home again. Plus, you can't really find good nonya kueh in Perth.

PS: I just hope that when I move back, some prick currently managing the country wouldn't be around. My heart weep for the people whose hard earned money are used to line someone's fat pocket. And a gambler at that.



Anyways, Ang mo kio market has reopened. Yay! It's much more spacious now and as clean as can be. The food stalls are mostly the same though (thank god). AMK hub is also fully opened and although it isn't a very good shopping place, it's nice for hanging out. I guess if I really move back, I'll stay in Ang mo kio which is near qin's family as well.

I also miss living with qin's family. It's really fun living there and the family's great. Her mum's great and somehow resembles my mum, her dad always whip up nice dishes, and I like hanging out with her brothers. Actually, they're one of the main reasons I wanted to go back to Singapore as well.

So until the next time I go back guys, I would just like to say



HUAT AH !!!

Back to SG! Post 2

Singapore getting too fast-paced. I've only been away for 6 months and the basement of Bugis junction and Plaza Singapura have changed?! I'm not complaining though, only means more food stalls for me, ha!



This mochi balls were bought from Plaza Singapura B2. It's a shop selling japanese snacks and they grill this mochi ball on this takopachi-like cooker which does the cha-cha. Yes, it shakes.



It's nice, and yummy, but the filling will give your tooth the aches. I like the chestnut flavour though, and the strawberry as well.

And it's back to Chinatown again. Well, not exactly, but somewhere close. I was at Amoy Street Food Center be exact, after popping by the temple to give my prayers, and decided to try this dessert stall which was mentioned in ieat's blog ages ago. Apparently this lady here makes her own Ah ballings and her desserts are quite kick ass as well.




Verdict: I like the red bean soup, barley gingko and cheng tng but they are all too sweet. Don't take my word for it though, maybe my taste buds have tamed down living in Perth. The cheng tng ($1.50) is teeming with ingredients and I would say it's actually a very good deal for the taste and quantity.



The red bean soup was tasty as well, but couldn't beat the one at Maxwell's (where it has brown rice in it). If only the sugar level was lower, I'm pretty sure the full flavour of the red beans would come through.

What about the rice balls? Hmm, you could give me a commercially made rice ball and a home-made one and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They are practically the same, skin or filling. But it's nice, trust me on that one. I like the small rice balls without filling though, it complements the red bean soup very, very well. And it's tangy too!




Ah-ha, finally the barley gingko. It's just too sweet, and the flavour couldn't fully come through because of that. It's really a waste, because it had the potential to be really good.

A pity as well, because what this stall is most famous for is it's nut pastes. Too bad, they were sold out when I got there, which is good for me because I can't take nuts either, Ha!

Back to SG!

As the airplane flew over my homeland, a city filled with bright lights, late night movies, 3am suppers and great shopping, my heart skipped a beat, to say the least.

Dashing to Perth after finishing the horrid 2 years of slavery, I've forgotten how much I missed Singapore. The beatiful weather, the awesome food, the shopping and the crowd, I missed them all. If only Perth is only an hour's flight away and costs only a hundred bucks to get to. Sigh.. Stop dreaming Sam.

Well, I'm just counting my blessing I was able to come back during this CNY period, I missed out on ang baos the previous two years you know?!

Okay, back to blogging. I didn't take much pictures during this trip back so I'll probably cover my trip in two posts.



The first day I landed we went to eat my favourite place for San lao or stir fried hor fun with fish slices and bean sprouts. This restaurant in Chinatown is a branch of the XO fish beehoon and serves equally well san lao.



As the plate of steaming hot, savoury rice noodles landed in front of me, all memories of Singapore food returned. The thick and flat noodles, nicely charred with a generous serving of sauce, is complimented by the huge serving of beansprouts which gives the dish a nice crunch. Wah... shiok...



And then the XO fish beehoon, which I couldn't eat (because of my skin, cannot take alchohol and milk lar) is also equally power (because I've eaten it in the past). Let's just say XO in fish beehoon is a good combination okay?

Other stuff we ate in Chinatown included Xingxing's kueh. Wah piang eh! I regret not taking a picture of it man. I tell you, their tapioca kueh is the most kick-ass in Singapore. I've never eaten a kueh so soft yet tangy and which taste melts in your mouth. It's soft, yet with a firmness which allows you to handle it quite roughly. (er... quite X-rated hor... solly solly!)

But really, it's flavour is unprecedented, and even Bengawan's doesn't come in close. 3 large pieces for a dollar is also a good deal as well. If you're there, buy a couple of kueh kosui as well, it's equally good. And since you've bought those, might as well buy the damn good ondeh ondeh and mochi right?

On the other hand, Sgkueh's kueh has deteriorated badly. It's ondeh ondeh has become hard, and so has it's kueh. Plus, I bought abought 4 kuehs and asked for a box and the lady refused to give it to me. Wah lao, so niao meh? I also asked if certain kuehs contained milk (because I'm allergic to it) and she irritatedly tell me "Don't know la, don't know la". Wah... Sgkueh's boss, if you ever read this, please take note.

On the next post, I'll cover Zhen jie's desserts and the rest of my trip.

Yummie dummieS are..

..landing in Singapore in 8 hours! Woohoo!

Ooo... the humidity. Call me crazy but I like it.

Here n there

Some of our latest addition into the garden includes this cucumber, which is quite tasty, and this weird colored chilli, which is really very hot! A hundred bucks for anyone who eats 3 in a minute, no kidding. No swallowing of course, that's just cheating.




I haven't tried this capsicum though.



Let's see, our grapes are growing well as well and we've bought a peach plant, a mango plant, an avocado plant, an apple plant, a nicely on-the-way melon patch. I'll take some pictures, when they really do get more interesting.



Here are some other nice flowers from my dad's hard work.



And we've got a few pet hermit crabs! Which we bought at $2.50 each at Cannington's Sunday market. It's selling at $16 per crab in Singapore at Junction 8. What a rip off.

Busselton Jetty

Haiyaiyai, I've been meaning to post ages ago, but I just can't seem to move my butt to upload these pictures.

I finally did it.

Oh well, here are some pictures we took over at busselton jetty, a jetty which stretches out 2km into the ocean. We caught three huge squids on lure! With a different story to each one! Hohoho, I have the time, I'll tell you the stories :P



The first squid my mum was hooked on to this fish. When I was rushing over I saw this squidy shape on the surface on the water and down went my lure and wala!



The 2nd squid was caught like normal, just casting and retrieving the lure.



The third squid was the best! I had a live bait on float and was talking to my dad when I couldn't find my float on the surface. Ended up a huge squid took my live fish at the surface! Well, I reeled it back (oh, with a little bit of fight this one) and when I was pulling it up it dropped back down into the water.

Heng ah, my squid lure just beside me I plopped it down and it whacked it. Lucky lucky!


And we got some fishes as well, mostly my dad.



I got sunburnt all over but it was worth the trip, and this was the result of our squid.