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Tuesday, June 15, 2010
When my svelte and sexy wife S and I first started dating, one of her friends described me (behind my back) as a “very porky person”. I’m not sure if she was talking about my ever-growing mid-section or the fact that my favourite meat was and still is pork. I’m hoping that it is the latter. Maybe it’s a Chinese thing — to love pork so much — but for whatever reason, it’s the one meat I don’t think I’d be able to live without. Take me off beef? No problem. No lamb? Wouldn’t miss it. Even chicken I could leave behind, but pork? No way. And, of course, I have a few favourite preparations. Top of the list are xiao long bao and siu yuk. I don’t think I’ll be making xiao long bao any time soon. That said, I do keep hoping (aloud and as often as possible) that S will one day master the technique of preparing these delicious soupy dumplings. But siu yuk, or crispy roast pork belly, didn’t seem too complex. I mean, if I could make pretty decent char siu, surely I could roast me some pig belly too. (keep reading)        Posted by Chubby Hubby 38 comments 
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Friday, June 4, 2010
For the past few months, my darling wife S and I have been taking turns writing a rather short column for the Asian edition of Reader’s Digest. For this month’s piece (June 2010), S wrote about how she and I often prepare some of our favourite foods on weekends, freeze them in small portions and then consume them over the following week. It’s our own little way of ensuring that even when we need a fast meal, we can have something wholesome and homemade. One of our all-time favourite freezer foods is Hainanese Chicken Curry. This is a variation of chicken curry preferred (or most often prepared) by Chinese-Singaporeans. The taste is quite different from most Indian curries or even Malay, Indonesian or Thai versions. And while I said it was wholesome, it’s not really all that healthy. A lot of the flavour in the curry comes from copious amounts of coconut milk. Nonetheless, it’s really delicious and very, very comforting. Which is exactly what one wants after a long day of work. (Keep reading) Posted by Chubby Hubby 15 comments
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Monday, May 17, 2010
When I was counting down my favourite meals of last year, I wrote that one of them was had at Neil Perry’s very sexy Chinese restaurant, Spice Temple. While I had originally gone in slightly skeptical, I left a believer. And while the food may not have been the most authentic, it certainly had flavour, and a lot of heart. Since then, and because of that visit, my hot and hungry spouse S and I have been cooking more and more from Perry’s Chinese cookbook, Balance and Harmony: Asian Food. It was a book that we had originally purchased (before our meal at Spice Temple) because it was, well, pretty. As cookbook collectors, we occasionally buy texts not because we want to cook from them but because of the pictures, or the layout and design, or because we have all of the chef’s other books, or for any number of reasons. Neil’s recent books are beautiful. They’re a joy to look at, with clean design and gorgeous photos. And so, while we had poured over Balance and Harmony: Asian Food several times, we had never intended to actually use it as a real reference. When we wanted to cook Chinese, we usually turned to authorities like Barbara Tropp, Fuchsia Dunlop or Grace Young. But after that meal at Spice Temple, we decided to give Perry’s book a try. And we’ve been really happy we did. (Keep reading) Posted by Chubby Hubby 11 comments
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Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Okay, I have a new, local culinary addiction. And not just me. Most of my colleagues and I are currently obsessed with Chef Travis Masiero’s newest venture. The wunderkind, baby-faced chef-owner of Spruce has taken over a small shack in an obscure corner of Phoenix Park (where Spruce is also located) and opened (from what I can tell) Singaore’s first Taqueria. As in taco stand. And a pretty damned awesome one to boot. The new Spruce Taqueria is agonizingly open only from Monday to Friday and from 12pm to 3pm. It really is not much more than a tiny hut in which the chefs work and from which you place your order (everything here is self-service). There’s a tiny shaded area with some outdoor furniture and a few more tables along the side of the building. This is no-frills eating. That said, this is no-frills gourmet eating, as you would expect from a talented chef like Masiero. (Keep reading) Posted by Chubby Hubby 12 comments
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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
A few months ago, I was approached by a friend with a really interesting request. Would I be interested in shooting photographs of local food to be showcased as part of an interactive exhibition in the Singapore Pavilion at this year’s World Expo in Shanghai? Of course I said yes. Repeatedly. The 2010 World Expo, which opens in just a few days, is expected to draw some 70 million visitors. To have my pictures seen by even a small percentage of these people, supposedly coming from all corners of the globe, would be pretty darned awesome. Plus, I had an pretty immediate idea for the kind of photographs that I wanted to shoot. Or rather, I knew how I wanted the food to be portrayed. I didn’t want to shoot the dishes that were selected — obviously iconic Singaporean foods — in their traditional forms. I wanted to shoot them as re-imagined and re-invented by one of our most talented chefs. I wanted, through the photographs, to portray both our heritage and our innovativeness. In some ways, for me, this project wasn’t just about food but about our culture and where we’re headed. To help pull off the food I’d be shooting, I called upon a chef whose culinary concepts and continued exploration of our cuisine have always impressed me. To my great satisfaction, Willin Low, chef-owner of Wild Rocket, accepted my challenge and became my collaborator on this project. (Keep reading) Posted by Chubby Hubby 15 comments
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