No need to miss China’s food
My uncle and aunt took me out for dinner tonight. We were supposed to go to East Coast Park to ‘whack’ the beef noodles, but we ran into the small obstacle of heavy traffic leading to the ECP, compounded by the petrol tank light being on. So we needed to find a Shell, and fast.
Tanjong Katong has one. Tanjong Rhu has one. Oh wait, Geylang should have one.
We drove along, not spotting any petrol stations, until we reached East Coast Road (or thereabouts — since I don’t do much driving in Singapore, I’m pretty clueless about how to get places). A Shell came into view. Having fed the car, it was now time to feed ourselves. There were loads of restaurants we spotted along East Coast Road, and my uncle was particularly curious about one called Charlie’s, although we eventually decided to try someplace new, the Northern & Eastern Dumpling Restaurant (Charlie’s had barely any patrons on a Friday night, while the dumpling place was pretty jumping).
I am truly Singaporean, so I expected that the only thing I would miss about not living in Xiamen is the variety of Chinese cuisines. There are some pretty good Dongbei places in Xiamen, so imagine my surprise to see dishes like Beijing pork rolls (京酱肉丝), shredded potato (土豆丝), braised potato, eggplant, and peppers (地三鲜) — something I did not expect in Singapore. I got a bit excited and sent Neil a text, since he loves the Beijing rolls.
By the way, their menu has a picture of some Chinese basketball player (not Yao Ming) on the front. The same picture, plus a few more, were framed up on the wall near the kitchen. A relative, perhaps?
And damn, was it good. We ordered way too much: for just the three of us (granted, my uncle and I can eat like it’s going out of fashion, but a human body has limits), there was seafood and pork stuffed biscuits (三鲜馅饼), pan fried dumplings (锅贴) soup dumplings (小笼包), minced pork noodles (炸酱面), fried green beans (四季豆), braised eggplant (红烧茄子), hot and sour soup (酸辣汤), mutton skewers (羊肉串), and sweet potato in caramelised sugar (扒丝地瓜) for dessert.
As you can tell by the photos above, we couldn’t wait for me to snap a photo before tucking it, it all smelled and tasted so good. The proprietors (or at least the managers) appear to actually be from the north, which explains the accent and why their food is so damned 正宗 (authentic).
Then I shared a Tsingtao with my uncle and it cost a whole $3.50! With the exchange rate, it’s not much more than a bottle of the same at The Londoner or The House (15RMB).
And the bill? With the 10% service charge and ordering twice what we could realistically manage to put in our bellies (half a wafer thin mint would kill us), it came to $62. Bargain.
It was just about the best Chinese meal I’ve ever had in Singapore! Well, not counting seafood. Seafood is in a league of its own.
Eastern & Northern Dumpling Restaurant
218/220 East Coast Road
Singapore 428917
Tel: 63447002
This weekend I…
- had dinner at Brewerkz (I love clam chowder)
- met Ian and Chriss (Neil’s old flatmates) and had a drink at Forbidden City (mmm, lychee martini)
- had lunch at Prima Taste in Centrepoint
- had dinner at Liang Kee Teochew Restaurant
- had drinks at Muddy Murphy’s and Sound Bar (and walked through Mohamed Sultan Road’s deadness in between)
- walked to Zouk (but DJ Shadow was playing and we did not want a repeat of Chinese New Year)
- had supper at Spize Cafe (butter pratas are so unhealthy but gooooooood)
- had lunch at Shaslik (hehehe)
- fed the cats at Animal Lovers League (if you like cats and have the time, you can go volunteer to feed the cats or just show them some attention from 2 - 6pm)
- read more of Until I Find You
- had dinner at Choon Seng Ponggol Seafood (which is not in Ponggol, a concept that still makes me smirk)
- had dessert at Estivo (gelato and waffles)
- tried to get tickets for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Neil wants to see the cars) but there weren’t any good seats left
If you think my time in Singapore is all about food and eating, you’d be wrong. I also watch a lot of movies and (er) eat popcorn. And read. And eat crisps while I’m reading.
Makan, makan
Thought I’d share Neil’s birthday dinner menu with the Internets. In the spirit of foodiness, I tried something a little different and organised a meal for ten at Garden City Cafe, a restaurant owned and cheffed (?) by Singaporeans. We had eleven people at the table, so Neil has friends after all (private joke).
Barbecued sambal stingray is a favourite among late-night clubbers in Singapore who get peckish. We had ‘a guy’ at Newton Circus who was most accommodating (probably because we were usually so pissed he could charge us anything). Best combined with a plate of baby kai lan stir-fried with garlic, but they couldn’t get any, so we settled for kang kong instead. We also ordered ourselves a large plate of fried carrot cake (the Singaporean version of ‘bubble and squeak’, according to Wayne), which I had to explain several times (”No, it’s not carrot, it’s turnip or radish, white carrot”) and fried oyster omelete (Singapore style is apparently the same as Taiwan style). I never appreciated oyster omelette until fairly recently, so I was quite happy they could do it. And we got more eggs, another omelette with preserved turnip, or chye poh nng — bloody hell, egg in Hokkien is hard to spell phonetically. I’m not such a fan, but Neil likes it.
(Aside: I’m a big fan of that steamed egg with minced pork, anyone know the name of the dish?)
Jeff’s girlfriend Via loved the har cheong gai (fried chicken with prawn paste) , chicken and pork satays were welcomed by everyone (but the ketupat — rice cakes — weren’t cooked enough). The first attention-getter was really the popiah, unfried spring rolls, basically. They came on individual plates and it was all quite posh-looking. I reckoned that since I was the only Singaporean in the bunch, they wouldn’t quite get into the nostalgia of rolling their own popiah (”What? It’s a restaurant, isn’t the food supposed to come ready to eat?”).
One of Neil’s requests was beef kway teow, but we ended up with beef hor fun, the egg-y type. Those were leftovers I brought home, but Neil managed to drench the (paper) container it came in when he bounced home at 6am and was looking for something to eat (or perhaps wash).
The least popular thing, and I ordered it only because I was afraid there wasn’t enough food, was coffee-flavoured ribs. People found the combination of flavours a little… odd. I vaguely remember Singapore doing a chocolate-flavoured version, but I could be imagining things.
Now I wish I’d taken photos of all the food, but I never even think of my camera when food is put in front of me. It was pretty authentic, so I don’t need to make such a long ‘to eat’ list next time I go to Singapore. Bagus, man.
Mince piessssssss
Sheer torture, I tell you, to look at pictures of mince pies, quality chocolates, and Christmas pudding. Xiamen’s not exactly New York, or Shanghai for that matter. I hark back to 1992, when a visit to Sevenoaks in England yielded my first real taste of mince pies.
Mmmmmmm……
Need I mention our annual Christmas tradition in Singapore, a feast, a mighty feast of gastronomical delights at my uncle’s townhouse? Turkey (and I get more than a sliver), roast beef, potato salad, my aunt’s specialty macaroni in chicken broth (okay, not very Christmas-y but it’s our tradition), chocolate fondue (if my cousin is in town with his chocolate fondue pot), Christmas pudding, and Blue Stilton with port?
Aaaaauuuggggghhhhhh……
This is why I’ve got a Santa Claus decoration hanging outside our front door. This is why we have a foot-high tree. This is why I’ve gone out and bought two large Christmas stockings that hang in the bedroom. If I can’t get to eat like I normally do at Christmas, I’m going to do something festive even if it turns me into The Grinch at the end, goddammit.
Ho ho ho.
Where did you say you wanted to go again?
‘Foodie’ can’t have been a word that was coined among the English-speakers of Asia, because that doesn’t narrow anything down. Us Asians, especially ethnic Chinese, love food. We spend hours eating it, talking about it, even arguing over it (ask a group of Singaporeans where the best place is to get pretty much anything and a full-blown discussion is likely to occur).
Not being able to speak, much less read, a word of Chinese, my boyfriend approached a neighbouring local stir-fry, pointed at another customer’s meal (noodles and vegetables in soup), and Noodle Man was born. The positive review (”It hit the spot”) led to more visits, and eventually, when I arrived in Xiamen, my first time there. The first thing to note is that at all Shaxian Xiaochi stores, there’s a hell of a lot more than noodles available.
We haven’t eaten there in a long time, but our favourites were dumplings, bian shi (small wonton), fried rice, and fried bai guo. Noodles don’t even feature so much on our list any more, but the name’s stuck. We’d spend our ten RMB at the ‘Good’ Noodle Man, or the ‘Not So Good’ Noodle Man, depending on how far we wanted to walk.
Sea World is a common moniker attached to seafood restaurants that proudly display their “So fresh it’s live” ingredients to all and sundry. I first heard this phrase uttered by an American visitor. I enjoy seafood, I really do, but walking by tubs of fish slowly turning upside down in shallow water (or attempting to make a break for it), baby octopi in styrofoam, grey prawns not moving very much in overcrowded tanks, and crabs sitting, bound, in dry plastic tubs, does not make me want to partake in that particular meal.
And if the specialty is seafood cooked live in a hotpot right at the table, I’ll just meet you after dinner, okay?
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to BBQ Street? Apologies. A Xiamen institution is the BBQ vendor, the illegal hawker lining the side of the road or standing on the beach, dispensing sticks of BBQ to all and sundry who’ll pay the price. BBQ street is a legal collection of BBQ ‘restaurants’. Wander on down, pick one shopfront that agrees with you, have a seat, and commence ordering whatever you like.
I haven’t actually been there yet, but I’ve walked by, and lots of my friends are regulars and survive visits to the place, so I reckon I can talk about it.
Cafe Ayi is the name given to the office canteen that provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner to all staff. It doesn’t matter if you eat in the canteen, or the special boss and foreigners’ room, the food is the same (cold) and the price is right (free).
That’s one of the peculiar things about China (or maybe only Xiamen). In Singapore, you get your monthly salary and you’re on your own, buddy. If you work in the CBD, look forward to bringing your own lunch from home or spending a good amount of money on a soup and sandwich. In Xiamen, it doesn’t matter what your position is in the company, your meals are included in your benefits package, if you want them. If you’re not too fussy about eating Chinese food every day, it’s a great way to save money. Especially if you want to spend a bit of time with the boss!
[Apologies for skipping last week. The national holiday threw me for a loop and I lost track of days.]