Changing time zones

This is what it looks like to arrive at our parents' home in Singapore. Milky tea with sugar, with lots of bubbles on top. Books with interesting titles on the coffee table. Some time to sit on the sofa and ruminate, allowing all the puzzle pieces in the mind to disconnect from their jammed positions and float away.

Pandan sighting!

Frangelico and I were at the Singapore Botanic Gardens this afternoon. Walking around the Orchid Garden, I said to him that I could suddenly smell pandan in the air. That reminded me that I'd tried to describe the fragrance of pandan to you guys by saying that it's what a South East Asian rainforest smells like after the rain. (Part of the grounds of the Botanic Gardens, incidentally, consists of 6 hectares of rainforest. Singapore is home to one of only two urban, city centre rainforests in the world. The other one's in Brazil.) Just as I'd made the pandan remark, I spotted this!

So now I finally know what pandan leaves look like as they're emerging from the ground. I was seriously excited by the find and wanted to share it with you guys. (Yes, I'm a geek. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'd already know that.)

This makes me think that a South East Asian rainforest probably smells of pandan after the rain, because there is a lot of fragrant pandan growing in it... Caught in a circularity trap, I am.

Anyway, here are pictures of some of the stunning rare cultivars in the Orchid Garden. Don't say we only ever talk to y'all about food. :)

Love

Truffle

Relish, Singapore

Eating all that South East Asian food in Singapore is great, but sometimes you get a craving for something not so spicy. Yes, I'll admit it, I want some relatively bland food, in the same way my dad needs a regular fix of chili when he's traveling in Europe.

To this end, Frangelico, my dad and I visited a new burger bistro in the city. (It's apparently been there for 3 years, but hey it's new to me.) Owned by the same group that gave us Wild Rocket - a rockin' Modern Singaporean experience - Relish features burgers, shakes, rings, fries and pastas.

Spam fries - because just spam wasn't good enough

Cinnamon Goes to Singapore

Hello! We are back from Singapore! We went on a quick one week trip to see my parents, to vacation, to attend my 20th high school reunion and to eat lots of Singaporean food. I had my fill of Mee Pok, Satay, Kueh Pie Tee, Chwee Kueh, Mee Siam, Chilli Crab and Chicken Rice. I am now back, reminiscing about our trip.

You know, I always thought I was the one going through all the change, living in different countries, experiencing different cultures, and developing in complex ways as a person. I expected Singapore to remain the same all through these years. But it too has changed.

My first experience of change came on day 2, when Prince Charming and I left the kids at home with my parents and went to Ann Siang Hill, the trendy hot spot for bars and restaurants. There we had dinner at Cugini's - an Italian restaurant. We were very excited when we got there as the ambience was great and the place was filled with Italians! No better endorsement of restaurants than to have its ethnicity filling its tables, I say. But, we were a little disappointed with the food and the wine. The shocker of the evening came when the bill came at the end....US$350! We had even shared the appetizer and dessert!

We had a similar shocking experience when we lunched at PS Cafe on Harding Road. This time the food was five-star and the ambience hard to beat. It is set in an old colonial building surrounded by trees of dense rainforests. But, my parents waited for an hour for the table and each main course was no less than $23!! What had happened to my inexpensive Singapore!

Singapore Takeout

This is going to be a quick post, because if you're kicking around London this afternoon, you might want to hot-foot it to the South Bank, instead of spending too long in front of your computer.

Truffle here was recently invited along to preview a taste fest called 'Singapore Takeout'. Singapore Takeout is kind of like mobile food - except that the 'mobile' is a shipping container, the 'food' is Modern Singaporean cuisine, and it's free. It's an event showcasing the best of Singaporean cuisine in 9 cities around the world, including Paris, Moscow, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Delhi, Dubai and Sydney. You can find dates for your city here.

The first stop is London (of course). Each city is treated to the delights of one Singapore chef working with one local hero. Londoners have Janice Wong - chef of the 2am Dessert Bar - and Peter Gordon. Peter Gordon needs no introduction in this city, but for the benefit of our international readers, he's a New Zealand-born fusion chef and entrepreneur who started off Notting Hill's Sugar Club, and who's now behind The Providores and Tapa Room in Marylebone, and new Covent Garden arrival Kopapa.

Janice Wong and Peter Gordon

The event ends at 8pm tonight, so I'm going to get to it!

Kueh Pie Tee! I am coming home!

Did you read my sister's post on that fabulous Singaporean meal in London? OMG, it has caused much turbulence here in Charlotte. I have been craving Kueh Pie Tee, Satay, Beef Rendang, and all things Singaporean ever since and am deeply frustrated by my lack of options.

As a result, I am dragging my friends, Swiss Chocolate and Rhoshogolla, to Cuisine Malaya in Uptown Charlotte tomorrow for lunch where I am going to declare that I am Singaporean and that they better serve me some authentic Beef Rendang!  If not, they are going to be dealing with one grouchy and hungry Singaporean!

I also sent my mother an email this morning. My little family and I are going to Singapore to visit my parents at the end of the month, with our friend Kohlrabi and her little ones for our summer break. I will also be attending my 20-year reunion at RJ.... (wah lau, 20 years!).  My mother had already informed me that she will be putting together an Excel spreadsheet for our 7 days there so that we squeeze in as much as possible during our stay. You know, Monday - Singapore Zoo, Tuesday - Botanic Gardens, Wednesday - that big ferris wheel that looks like the London Eye, so on and so forth. "You sure you don't want to take Kohlrabi to the Night Safari?" "No need, Amma! Zoo enough already!" The email I sent my mother this morning was a request to add another column to that spreadsheet specifying what we will be having for lunch and dinner that week. Tuesday - Botanic Gardens plus Dhoby Ghaut Popiah on the way back, Friday - Hindu Temple plus Maxwell Road Food Center etc.

A call from home: the Singapore supper club in London

Last week, I got a call from home. Stumbling around the internet, I came across a Singaporean supper club right here in London. I contacted them immediately, but found out that places were already full for their inaugural dinner. I gave them my number (in case spaces came up), feeling that I just might hear from them again. The Universe works in mysterious ways. As Frangelico and I were having a late brunch on Sunday afternoon, I got a text telling me that they'd moved the furniture around and found spaces for us!

For our international readers, supper clubs have been a popular dining option in London since around 2009. They're basically dinner parties, hosted by dedicated foodies out of their own kitchens. Paying guests attend, with their own drinks, and are seated at shared tables in the host's living room. It can be a great way to have an informal evening out, while discovering new styles of cooking and meeting new people who are also into food.

The +(65)/plusixfive supper club (named after Singapore's international dialling code) features Goz as head chef and Wen, writer of Going with my Gut, at front-of-house (she also made a dish of her own). One of their aims is to show Londoners that there is more to Singaporean food than the 'fictitious dish of Singapore Fried Noodles'. (That's right, people, there is no such thing. The turmeric-covered, thin rice noodles, with prawn or pork or whatever, was invented on this Continent. Probably by Marks & Sparks.)

Before telling you much more about +(65)/plusixfive, I'm going to get straight to the food. We started with one of my favourite Singaporean dishes: kueh pie tee.

Kueh pie tee shells, newly fried and waiting for fillings

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Hi, everyone.  Just wanted to say that we haven't disappeared!  Cinnamon has a stock of food photos to share with you from Singapore, and  I (Truffle) am at this very moment in the fantastic city of San Francisco, taking plenty of notes to report back to you on the food scene here.  I didn't bring my laptop (long story), so please be patient while posts get uploaded.  In the meantime, you can follow my discoveries real-time on our Twitter page.  We're @CinnamonTruffle or http://twitter.com/CinnamonTruffle.  (Rice Krispie, I know you're on Twitter, so get following!)

Love

Truffle

Emerging from the Straits

So, my sister Cinnamon complained on Facebook the other day that she’s been waiting to hear about my recent trip to Singapore and all the food experiences I had there. Rewind a few weeks, and a telephone conversation between us had me telling her about my latest idea for the blog and her saying she wanted to hear all about Singaporean food instead. I mulled over this, but nothing came, and I didn’t write.

I was thinking the other morning (after seeing her Facebook post) about why it is that I don’t feel drawn to writing about my Singapore food experiences. It’s unusual for me to feel that way, because I usually see Singapore as a, to use my sister’s words, Food Mecca. Hey, I usually see it as a Mecca for almost everything. Every time I fly to Singapore on the world’s best airline, it’s as if I’m going on a pilgrimage - I go to pay respects to the origin of me, my home, my family, the food I love, the warmth... all the things that England doesn’t have and can’t give me. Rewind a little more (okay, a lot more), and we have me first coming to the UK to go to boarding school (not because my parents didn’t love me – it was my crazy idea!). I remember after one of my trips home for the Christmas break, I brought back in my schoolgirl suitcase a box of Singaporean Kleenex and I cried into it for two weeks. Yes, I really missed home.

Forward back to the present day. Things seem to have changed, and I noticed it more than ever this time around. I am one of these people who feel a permanent sense of displacement. I’ve lived my entire adult life in a country that I can’t fully call my own (much as I have wanted to, the tabloid-induced xenophobia makes it very difficult for me to feel accepted…). But when I’m in Singapore, I’m definitely not a ‘local’. My messed up accent betrays other influences and my approach to life isn’t safe enough. The country where our parents were born isn’t a candidate for a real ‘home’ either, as I’ve never lived there. Don’t get me wrong – I completely appreciate how flexible I am and how global an outlook I have thanks to my own and my family's varied experiences. But when it comes to the question of where I feel at home, I can’t put a pin on a map. Even if you gave me more than one pin, I couldn’t put two of them close enough to each other to feel good about it.

And so, in Singapore, which I used to look at as a beautiful paradise full of all things wonderful that cheered my heart, I didn’t feel the same this time. And that’s why I haven’t been able to write about the food – no longer did I feel that Singapore had the best food to offer me, or even the comfort food I wanted. Over the past year, I’ve built a system here in London that’s custom-tailored to my health needs, and I missed it. So much of the food I ate in Singapore (outside home) didn’t make me feel good anymore. It made me feel heavy, sluggish and over-stimulated. So often I had the feeling that it was oily, packed with white carbs, made from ingredients that weren’t of the best quality and thrown together really quickly. I knew then that it was over. The connection I’d clung onto since my school days had been severed. And I realized that, even if the broader British Isles don’t yet qualify for the title, this little flat here in London was maybe, just maybe, becoming home. Somewhere in the aftermath of the avalanche, a small blossom peeks out of the snow...