My darling and always hungry wife S and I are big Thai food fans. Which means (quite automatically) that we’re big, big fans of Chef David Thompson. No chef has done more to teach us non-Thais about really good, authentic Thai food than David. So, when we heard that David’s latest restaurant, Nahm, located in […]

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 […]

Several years ago, while scouting hotels for uber-sexy boutique hotel collections company, Mr & Mrs Smith, I had the pleasure of meeting hotelier and restaurateur Narelle McMurtrie and visiting her boho chic retreat in Langkawi, Bon Ton Resort. I loved Bon Ton, both for its rustic charm as well as for Narelle’s fabulous food. Since […]

Chef Malcolm Lee in his new kitchen
It’s always great to discover a new, fabulous little restaurant. Even better still when the chef-owner is a bright, earnest, young guy that you’ve watched grow from strength to strength.
One of the most rewarding things about producing The Miele Guide (Asia’s only truly regional and independent restaurant guide) each […]

There are some restaurants or cafes or coffee shops we go to because of one specific dish. You know the ones. The things you just have to order every single time you visit. The dishes you can’t fathom dining at these places without ordering. The dishes you crave. The ones you’ll even visit a place […]

Last weekend, my darling wife S and I enjoyed a fantastic meal at True Blue Cuisine. True Blue is one of my favourite restaurants and easily one of the best Peranakan restaurants in Singapore. It’s a place that S and I like to bring visiting friends to, as well as to go by ourselves for […]

photos courtesy of Spice Temple
As we start the new year, I’ve been looking back at 2009. It was a crazy year, one filled with tough challenges, new opportunities, lots of travel, and, of course, many exceptional meals. Which makes it hard to pick my ten favourite dining experiences of the year. Some fabulous meals, I […]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t care how cliched it may be, or how overrun with tourists it can get, Venice is still (and probably always will be) one of my favourite cities in the world. Maybe it’s the lack of cars, the addictively delicious tramezzini that stare out at […]

A friend of mine said something really interesting the other day. He asked me if I’d ever noticed that while Bali has several stunningly beautiful restaurants, with gorgeous views and great design, and some great local restaurants, that serve both fantastic Balinese and other regional Indonesian dishes, it was pretty much impossible to find a […]

When you think about great foodie travel experiences, there is perhaps none more quintessentially synonymous with Sydney than having breakfast at bills. For many of us, a trip to Sydney just isn’t complete without having tucked into the best scrambled eggs in the Southern hemisphere or a bite of bills’ fantastically fresh corn fritters. Bill […]

When I was 21 years old, I had the great fortune of landing a summer job in Paris. The pay was miserable, but I didn’t care. I was thrilled to be living in the City of Lights. But because my allowance (I won’t even call it a salary) was so low, I had to find […]

Now, you might not need any convincing to head up to the Hunter Valley on your next trip to New South Wales, Australia. Knowing it’s the country’s oldest and one of its most exciting wine regions may be all the reason you need. But just in case you needed a little extra motivation, S and […]

There are a small handful of dishes, cooked by an equally small number of amazing chefs, that I’d travel for. At the top of my list is Chef Armando Percuoco’s fettuccine al tartufovo. Chef Armando’s fettucine with cream and parmesan, topped with a fried truffle egg, and tossed at your table, is one of those […]

I have at least a half dozen friends that will kill me for writing this post. But I figured that it was high time that I shared with local readers a place that I’ve been enjoying eating at for the last year and a half. Not that this little eatery is only a year and […]

mint jelly at kikunoi
While I do have a few more posts to come from my recent trip to Western Australia, I thought I’d switch continents and post about an even more recent trip to Kyoto, Japan. Over the past few years, Japan has become S’s and my favourite holiday destination. We love the obsessiveness and […]

truffled foie gras potato tempura at Antonio’s
Ever since S put together Inside the Southeast Asian Kitchen, arguably the best book on our region’s cuisine (and at the very least the only one in which all contributors were actually from Southeast Asia), she and I have been obsessed with visiting what we realized is probably the […]

I might actually be among the last foodies, and food bloggers, in town to try Tippling Club. While I’ve known about this ultra-modern gastrobar since it opened a year ago, my darling wife S and I had not, until recently, been inspired to visit this somewhat controversial restaurant. I say “controversial” because any time that […]

It’s always nice to see, in these tough economic times, people you admire taking risks. In the cases of Chef Travis Masiero and Keith Loh, that would be opening two of Singapore’s newest and coolest restaurants.
I’m a big fan of Travis’ food. Have been ever since my first visit to Wine Garage, where he used […]

I don’t usually write posts about hawker food. It’s not that I don’t like hawker food, it’s just that (1) there are others, like Leslie who know a helluva lot more about these dishes than I and post very eloquently about their findings, and (2) my darling wife S, despite also enjoying hawker food, doesn’t […]

This past weekend, my darlin’ and always hungry wife S and I decided to get out of town. We didn’t want to go far, so we decided to drive up to Malacca, just a quick couple of hours away. I have been wanting to check out YTL’s new boutique hotel, The Majestic Malacca, ever […]

I’m pretty sure that with this post I am going to upset a pretty big group of Singaporeans who have been keeping a collective secret for the past two years. That secret is Mary’s Kafe, one of the best places for Eurasian food on the island.
For readers unfamiliar with Singapore’s history, here in the Little […]

We had some exceptional meals during our trip to South Carolina. Our favourite restaurants were Ela’s European Market & Deli in Columbia, FIG in Charleston (both of which I mentioned in my previous post), and Hominy Grill, also in Charleston.
I wish I had a place like Hominy Grill in my neighborhood back here in Singapore. […]

Merry Christmas y’all. This year, S and I decided to trade hot weather for a nice wintry holiday visiting my best friend from high school, who lives in the USA. More specifically, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina. We decided to fly into Charleston (which is a two hour drive from Columbia), both because the […]

I’m really sorry that I haven’t been posting for several months. While I do have two rather substantial excuses (first, S and I have been moving house and we really haven’t had access to a working kitchen for a while and second, we have both been ridiculously busy with work), I know for some of […]

Some restaurants, when they first open, need time to mature. Too often, restaurants open before they’re actually ready for public scrutiny. The food disappoints. The service is slow and inefficient. Sometimes, even the decor isn’t properly finished. But when an experienced, successful and talented restaurateur decides to open a new signature restaurant, chances are high […]

S and I both love good restaurants. We love all aspects that contribute to a great place to dine, including delicious food, top-notch service, well thought-out menu and collateral designs, chic uniforms, gorgeous interiors, a good wine list and an equally yummy cocktail list, a sexy and soothing soundtrack, smart lighting, a great and unique […]

I love tonkotsu ramen. It ranks as among my all-time favourite foods. The cloudy white soup, made with crushed pork bones, is sinfully rich and always satisfying. Served with firm, well-made noodles, perfectly roasted slices of pork, and a ni-tamago (a boiled egg with firm whites but a soft yolk), and I’m in heaven. Here […]

There are some restaurants and cafes that I go to specifically for one dish. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the food served at these places isn’t up to snuff, it simply means that that one dish has become one of my favourite things to eat. A meal in one of these establishments […]

There are some restaurants that one goes to regularly, places you head to after a long day of work when the last thing you want to do is cook. There are other places as well. Some might be places you go to begrudgingly, because your friend or family-member really likes it — while you never […]

It’s always nice to walk into a new restaurant, sit down, look at the menu and feel instantly hungry. Earlier this week, my carnivorous and gorgeous wife S and I finally got around to checking out Cork, a sexy new wine bar and restaurant opened by the uber-trendy Marmalade Group. Designed by Albano Daminato, this […]

While I’ve certainly written my fair share about chi-chi restaurants on this blog, the truth is that S and I can’t afford to eat expensive meals all the time. Usually, we’ll splurge at most once or twice a week on something special (unless we’re entertaining clients) and forage in or near our neighborhood for good […]

Istanbul is a stunning city. I first visited this amazingly historic city back in 1994. In between a summer internship (in Paris) and the start of a semester abroad programme (in Austria), I spent a few weeks backpacking through some of the Greek islands and then in Turkey. Back then, my travel companion and I […]

I really love the “new” National Museum of Singapore. I think what architect Mok Wei Wei has done with this space is simply fantastic. He took an aging institution, preserved and updated its best and most beautiful parts, and then added a vast, striking and modern extension, turning it into one of the country’s […]

Well, it’s about time. After over a year of whinging and whining to Wild Rocket owner-chef Willin Low that he just simply had to open a burger joint, this crazy, charismatic and very talented chef has done just that. Relish, Chef Low’s super-cool and casual burger restaurant, opened last weekend in Cluny Court, a small […]

Starting your own business when you’re still in your 20s is both brave and just a little crazy. But it’s also highly admirable. It takes a lot of confidence to strike out on your own and say to the world, “I think I have what it takes to succeed.” Last month, 24 year old Janice […]

One of the very best things about being based in a place like Singapore is that it’s just a hop, skip and a jump from a number of interesting and attractive destinations in the region. A very popular place for a quick weekend jaunt is Bangkok. Each and every week, hordes of Singaporeans and other […]

Last weekend, my wife S and I, accompanied by two friends, had brunch at one of Singapore’s most talked about new restaurants, Mimolette. Since it opened a few months back, we’d heard both very good but also very bad things about this little restaurant, discretely located next to the Bukit Timah Saddle Club on Fairways […]

J is for Jam. Not the sweet, syrupy breakfast spread, but the horrible, exhausting, inexplicably omnipresent, and maddening traffic jams that clog all of Jakarta’s main roads. I’ll be honest. I actually like Jakarta. It has some pretty amazing food. Some cool shops and shopping areas and some interesting new developments. But I can’t stand […]

There are some restaurants that, no matter how good the food is, just don’t work. You might attribute their lack of success to bad feng shui, a case of ugly interior design, poor service, a less than desirable location, too much nearby competition, or a number of other reasons. Unfortunately, way too often, when […]

I remember when Keith McNally opened Balthazar. It was the Spring of 1997. And even though I was no longer living in New York, word of this ultra-hip, retro-chic, uber-trendy and neo-traditional French bistro reached me in Hong Kong. The NY press went wild over SoHo’s hottest new restaurant, dedicating several column inches to cover […]

New restaurants open all the time in a city as busy and buzzing as Singapore. Which means some open with greater fanfare than others. Some open quietly, with nary a whisper of publicity or media interest. Others open with a bang. And when a new restaurant is opened by a chef whose last efforts helped […]

For the past week, I’ve been on a work trip in Indonesia. Unfortunately, several of the places I stopped over in were not particularly wired, i.e. I’ve had great difficulty getting access to the Internet, and thus I haven’t been able to post anything. I’m currently in Jakarta, en route to Manado. I started the […]

While Singapore (or more specifically our Tourism Board) likes to lay claim to having one of the world’s most diverse culinary scenes, one food that has always been hard to find here is good, authentic Mexican. Note that I say both “good” and “authentic”, because while we do have a fair share of places […]

Over the past few months, my darling wife S, who is also my business partner, and I have been working on a few rather exciting projects.

One of them is the creation and development of a new Modern Asian restaurant for a boutique hotel in Penang, Malaysia. We had the good fortune of being introduced […]

One of my favourite foods in the world is mentaiko pasta. It’s a dish I’ve written about previously on more than one occasion. When I first tasted the dish quite a few years ago, at the house of a Japanese friend of mine, finding mentaiko pasta on a restaurant menu was a rarity. There was, […]

We all have bad days at work. You know what I mean. Days filled dealing with self-serving, obtuse lunkheads whom you’d rather be smacking in the back of the head with a baguette rather than working with. Days filled with interminably long meetings going nowhere that make a 10 hour layover in Los Angeles […]

For several months, friends have been telling me that I simply have to check out Wine Garage, the contemporary American wine bar and restaurant in Singapore owned by the same guys that started Brewerkz (and conveniently located just next door). One friend raved about their steak tartar. “It’s the best in Singapore,” she gushed. […]

It’s always nice to discover new places run by young, talented and passionate local chefs. This past week, I’ve had the immense pleasure of dining at two such establishments. The first is Macaron, an innovative “dessert restaurant” owned by the very well-known Les Amis group. The second is The Universal, a smart and cool Modern […]

On our recent trip, S and I spent 3 days visiting a friend in Dubai. Our friend CC co-owns the coolest (contemporary) art gallery in town and if you are ever in that area, you must check out her cool space, called The Third Line. While there, we enjoyed several excellent meals. We passed […]

Paris is still one of my favourite cities in the world and a place I hope to return to over and over again. I first fell in love with the City of Lights when I was an intern there back in 1989. I’ve returned several times over the past 18 years and each time, […]

This post is pretty late (as is the other US-centric post that will follow; I’m waiting for a recipe from a friend before I can post that one). S and I spent almost 2 weeks in the USA, stopping in Los Angeles for 3 days, heading down to Orange County for a friend’s wedding […]

I’m skipping our trip to Los Angeles and Orange Country briefly in order to write about one of the most amazing meals that S and I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying. (We do have a post on California in the works; that should be up by early next week.) This past Sunday, […]

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten more in such a short period of time as I have in the 4 ridicously decadent days I’ve just spent in Tokyo. Because most of my recent travel has been either alone or with colleagues, and has been primarily for business, I had kind of forgotten what travelling with […]

For the next 4 weeks, S and I will be filing reports from the road. Yesterday marked the start of a slightly crazy round the world trip. And while part of the trip is work, an almost equal portion of it is leisure. I’m personally very excited because next week we’ll be attending the wedding […]

There are so many reasons why Bali is still, despite a recent run of lousy luck, one of the most beautiful and interesting places to visit in Southeast Asia. I’d go so far as to say that no other destination in the region can compete with its combination of culture and history, gorgeous beaches, lush […]

It’s always nice when an old dog learns new tricks. Even better when that faithful friend’s new trick involves eggs, hollandaise, oysters, Champagne and coffee. In other words, brunch. In this case, the old pal is the Pierside Kitchen & Bar, located in the One Fullerton complex in Singapore.
For the past seven years, fashionistas, ladies […]

The view from Rayavadee in Krabi
Huge snaps to my wife S for updating this blog while I’ve been on the road. For the past 10 days, I’ve been flouncing my way across some of the prettier parts of Southern Thailand on an assignment. (In a nutshell, I was scouting the area’s boutique hotels and […]

There are some friends whose emails and text messages you simply don’t ignore. My buddy IC is one such fellow. Prone to over-ordering (and over-eating), he has one of the most discriminating and well-cultivated palates on the planet. It’s funny because for many of my friends, whenever they travel, they email my wife S or […]

It might seem a little odd for some of you that I’m writing about Italian restaurants in Bangkok as opposed to recommending places for delicious Thai food. But what I, and many other foodies, have discovered over the past few years is that Bangkok is home to some of the best Italian restaurants in […]

hazlenut tropizienne with salted caramel and vanilla ice cream from Caprice
Two of the restaurants we were most excited to visit in Hong Kong were L’Atelier de Robuchon and Caprice. Both establishments opened recently to great fanfare. Both are French imports, the former part of a growing international chain helmed by Joel Robuchon, once considered […]

I’ve previously written about both Hutong and Shui Hu Ju. Owned by the Aqua restaurant group, these are two of my all-time favourite places to stuff my face in Hong Kong. While the two restaurants serve similar menus — super-delicious, rustic Northern Chinese fare — each has its own unique feel. Hutong, located high atop […]

S and I are currently in Hong Kong for a few days. One our first night in town, we revisited a restaurant that we really liked when we first tried it back in August 2005. At that time, Opia, located in the JIA hotel, was under the consultancy of Melbourne celeb chef Teage Ezard. And […]

Because of a new client, I got to spend a couple days last week in Langkawi. It was my first visit to this sleepy and picturesque tropical island just off the northwestern coast of Malaysia. While there, I visited a number of really gorgeous resorts and ate in some lovely restaurants. Best […]

My wife S and I have realized, over the years, that we eat more Japanese food than any other cuisine when dining out. While we have perennial favourites (like Tatsuya, Nanjya Monjya, Kandagawa, and Shunjuu), we’re always thrilled to discover a new and noteworthy Japanese restaurant. Last week, after visiting a friend’s shop, we spied […]

S and I are admittedly a little boring. When going out for a meal, we tend to prefer dining in familiar favourites than checking out new places. There’s a lot less risk. There’s nothing worse than shelling out hard-earned cash on an awful or disappointing experience. It’s so much easier to simply return to places […]

One of the things that I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to do over the past few years is work on a number of pretty nifty books. The latest one to see print is titled French Classics Modern Kitchen (okay, I’m tootin’ my own horn a little here). It’s the cookbook for the […]

One of my favourite simple meals is a good plate of Cantonese roasted meats served with some rice. I’m partial especially to a beautifully roasted duck. The skin has to be just a tad crispy and the meat juicy and tender. And while I’m usually not a huge fan of char siu (barbecued pork), if […]

Zen tempura experience

I’m a big, big tempura lover so I made it a point to ask our hotel’s amazing concierges to recommend a good place to eat tempura. They suggested Ippoh, which they said is both the city’s best tempura restaurant and one of Osaka’s oldest. I couldn’t pass on the idea of eating in […]

A few weeks ago, S and I made our very first trip to Osaka, Japan. While I’d been to Japan previously and had explored quite a fair bit of the country, I had never been to Osaka. In fact, up until a few years ago, I had never really given visiting Japan’s third largest city […]

It’s been a long time since S and I have gone out with friends and pigged out, mostly because she’s still trying to finish her long-overdue doctoral thesis. As I’ve written previously, we’re currently trying to stay in most nights. However, there are some friends that you just don’t say “no” to. Ever. N & […]

Modern cities are built upon the backs of hard-working immigrants. Scratch the surface of any major metropolis and you’ll find hundreds, sometimes thousands, of stories of people, driven by dreams, who packed up their lives and crossed oceans and borders to start new lives. Too often, we look down upon these new arrivals. But their […]

Six months ago, in response to the way that Restaurant Magazine fashioned its annual list of “The World’s Fifty Best Restaurants”, I launched a little survey of my own. Through its results, I hoped to celebrate the very best restaurants (as well as our favourites) in Asia-Pacific. I also hoped that the results would held […]

S and I have just returned from a wonderful trip to Margaret River in Western Australia. While we had gone down in order to attend the wedding of two good friends, we’ve never really needed a reason to visit this gorgeous wine region. Margaret River is one of our favourite near-by vacation spots. And we’re […]

Khao Tang Na Tang
Regular readers will remember that a few weeks ago, S and I spent a fantastic week attending the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s 7th Annual World Gourmet Festival. Despite eating almost every single lunch and dinner that week in the hotel, S and I did manage to sneak out a couple times (although, […]

I’m a huge fan of Northern Indian food. Going to university in New York City meant that I lived partially on a staple diet of Chinese and Indian takeaway meals. My flatmate and I were pretty sick. At least my wife considers what we did pretty vile. Every few days we’d call our favourite neighborhood […]

I have to admit that I bought Emily Luchetti’s A Passion for Desserts primarily because I had to have her recipe for the enticing chocolate chip ice cream cake that’s featured on the book cover. While there are days when one may be inspired to take on Pierre Herme’s Plaisir Sucre, the demands of […]

Of all the great chefs that flew into Bangkok for the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival and cooked their hearts out over the past week, the one that impressed me the most was Chef William Ledeuil. This always affable, enthusiastic and humble chef runs one of Paris’ hottest restaurants, Ze Kitchen Galerie. […]

lamb tagine with olives, eggplant and lemon confit
One of the chefs attending this year’s Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival whose food I was most excited to try was Fatema Hal. Ms Hal is considered by many to be one of the most important proponents of Moroccan cuisine on our planet. Over the […]

butter-poached kobe tenderloin with sauteed spinach, horseradish mash and pearl onions
Easily one of the biggest attractions at this year’s Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival is Michael Mina. Named Bon Appetit Chef of the Year as well as Restaurateur of the Year by the International Food and Beverage Forum in 2005, Mina has become […]

Marco Talamini is the chef de cuisine at La Torre di Spilimbergo in northeastern Italy and is considered by some to be one of Italy’s best chefs. Earlier today, as part of the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok’s World Gourmet Festival, S and I had the pleasure of attending a cooking class and lunch featuring […]

Peter Gordon isn’t afraid to call his food fusion. He’s also one of my own personal food heroes. I first heard of Gordon in the mid-nineties. A couple years later, I got a chance to eat at the Sugar Club in London. And I was hooked. More recently, I’ve dined at Providores, Gordon’s current […]

It’s been a fantastic trip to Bangkok so far. Monday morning, my sexy spouse S and I woke up in a gorgeous room at the Four Seasons Hotel, had a great breakfast at Biscotti and then spent the rest of the morning chilling out with one of my food heroes, Chef Peter Gordon. After […]

tucking into a pasta at Basil Alcove

Fine food in a not so fine place
I heard about Basil Alcove just a few weeks ago. A fantastically talented art director I’ve been working with on a project mentioned it to me, telling me that it was a great place for good, cheap pastas. I have to agree. […]

One of the things I like most about my wife S is her love of big English breakfasts. Neither she nor I are partial to buffets — we try as much as possible to avoid all those Sunday hotel brunches that the rest of our countrymen and women seem to adore. I personally think that […]

One of my favourite food writers and bloggers, Melissa from The Traveler’s Lunchbox has just tagged me with her very first meme. “Things To Eat Before You Die”, also known as “The Foodblogger’s Guide to the Globe”, asks participating bloggers to list five amazing food experiences that they think everyone should have at least […]

oxtail pastilla
I’m a huge fan of small, humble restaurants that are owned and operated by young couples, especially when one of them is the chef and the other runs the front-of-house. One of my newest, favourite restaurants is such a place. Sage, located on the second floor of Robertson Walk, is run by chef Jusman […]

Regular readers know that one of my all-time favourite foods is a good burger. A delicious, well-made burger is hard to beat. It can also be hard to find. At least, it’s hard to find here in Singapore. I can count on one hand the number of places that I think serve up really great […]

I first met chef Anderson Ho in 1998. He and another young chef named Jimmy Chok were at the helm of a fantastic little restaurant called Fig Leaf. I loved eating there. These two young chefs prepared lovely European and fusion dishes. The food was good. It wasn’t too refined or sophisticated, but it was […]

Well, it’s time for bloggers to nominate what they feel are the best and their personal favorite restaurants in Asia-Pacific. Non-bloggers still have until 12 June 2006 to email me (aun@chubbyhubby.net) their own nominations. For more info on the Asia Pacific Best Restaurants List and how to take part, please click here. While I’ve been […]

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m a pretty regular customer at Garibaldi, considered by many foodies in Singapore to be our best Italian restaurant. I’ve been going there consistently since it opened and, for a good year or so, I had lunch there with colleagues and clients at least once or twice a […]

Regular readers know that I have only good things to say about Ignatius Chan and his restaurant in the Regent Singapore, Iggy’s. It appears that big-time foodie and celebrated food writer Kevin Gould feels the same way. This weekend, he contributed an article on Iggy’s to The Guardian newspaper.
Mr Gould, among other things, writes, “Ignatius […]

One of the things that I’ve always debated with friends and colleagues is, “How soon after a restaurant opens should one wait before reviewing it?” A related question to this is ,”How many times should someone dine in a place before writing a review?” Another is, “Is there a different standard that amateur reviewers, i.e. […]

IMPORTANT UPDATE: voting is extended to 12 June 2006. If you are a non-blogger, you can email me your results anytime from now until Monday, 12 June 2006 (bloggers, please continue to post your nominations on 2 June 2006).
********************************************************
Announcing the First Annual

I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about Restaurant magazine’s survey of the […]

photo courtesy of Iggy’s
Regular readers know that I’m a huge fan of Iggy’s, the fantastic Modern European, over-the-counter fine dining restaurant in the Regent Hotel here in Singapore. Owner Ignatius Chan and chef Dorin Schuster have, through perfect service, exquisite food, and a wonderfully serene setting, created what I believe is one of the region’s […]

It’s Wednesday, which for foodies who like to plan ahead means it’s time to think about where you are going to eat this coming weekend. And while I know S and a whole lot of other friends are going to kill me for leaking this juicy little bit of information, I just can’t help myself. […]

I finally got around to having dinner at Graze, the chic new restaurant in Rochester Park. My wife S and most of our friends had gone for a pre-opening tasting while I was out of town, so I’d heard quite a bit about the place before this visit. And despite some mixed reviews from friends, […]

Apple Strudel
S and I had a wonderful time in Vienna. We ate, shopped, drank copious amounts of coffee (einspanners, melanges, kleiners, you name it), ate multiple varieties of cake, and drank fantastic local wine and beer. Instead of recounting our exploits chronologically, I’ve decided it would be easier and potentially more useful to write a […]

I’m back in Singapore for 24 hours. This morning, S and I jet off to a fabulous resort in Krabi, Thailand, to attend the wedding of two good friends.
During my last day and a half in Hong Kong, I had the pleasure of enjoying 3 excellent meals. The first meal was at a new restaurant […]

One of the great things about having lifestyle journalists as friends is that they’re always sussing out new or cool places to check out. This includes a variety of things, like spas, boutiques, hotels, and of course restaurants and cafes. This past evening, I had the pleasure of tagging along with one such arbiter of […]

One of the most unique restaurants in Singapore is the Colbar. This 58 year old, out of the way, non-air-conditioned, and inexpensive restaurant has been a cult favorite of locals and (especially) expatriates for decades. I’ll admit right away that I’m a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the Colbar. While I’ve known about it for […]

If I were told that I had one last meal before I died and then I was given the choice between a super chic 15 course degustation meal cooked by Thomas Keller, Tetsuya Wakuda, Ferran Adria and Joel Robuchon and a perfect cheeseburger, the choice would be easy. I’d pick the burger without a moment’s […]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a little bit about the new Majestic restaurant and its chef, Mr Yong Bing Ngen. Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to dine at the Majestic three times, twice pre-opening and once post-opening (last night to be more exact).
To be completely honest, the first time, the food was […]

One of my all-time favorite places for a relaxed yet slightly swanky bite is the café attached to the Project Shop boutique in Paragon shopping centre. Owners Peter and Philip, svelte, elegant gourmands, created an utterly charming and effortlessly trendy café there. From the rows and rows of imported fashion, design and lifestyle magazines to […]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the best, casual and local dining experience in Singapore can be found at the Sin Huat Seafood Restaurant, located at the corner of Geylang Road and Geylang Lorong 35. Of course, for many foodies out there, and especially the local ones, this is hardly […]

I, like so many others, love finding really small holes-in-the-wall that serve good food at really low prices. One that S and I like a lot, which we discovered through another local blogger, Cheryl, aka the baker who cooks, is Miss Clarity Café, on Purvis Street. S, in particular, has become addicted to the club […]

I first ate Jean-Georges’ molten chocolate cake some 10-11 years ago. It was at a restaurant on 105th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in New York called Metisse. It had just opened and, as one of the resident food and movie critics (among other things) for my college newspaper, I made it a point […]

I’ll begin my report on Shanghai with the lunch my wife, S, and I had flown there to eat, a hairy crab meal cooked by chef Jereme Leung.
To introduce Jereme, a friend and fellow Singaporean, allow me to quote Patricia Wells, food critic for the International Herald Tribune. The following started a review that was […]

It’s amazing how a great meal can all of a sudden put you in a good mood. That’s how I’m feeling right now. Happy, bubbly, energized but at the same time stuffed and sated. But I’ll get to that meal much later. There’s a lot to catch up on.
I flew into the UK last Friday […]

Sometimes you have to be in the mood to write. Unfortunately, I haven’t really been in that mood for a week or so, which explains why this blog hasn’t been updated for a while. For that, I apologize. Fortunately, a lack of eagerness to tap on my keyboard hasn’t reduced my appetite. (It did mean, […]

Yesterday, S and I decided to be among the first folks in Sillypore to try Wild Rocket. I should state that visiting a restaurant on its opening day is the kind of thing professional food writers usually try to avoid. No matter how hard a restaurateur and his team have prepared, there are always bound […]

I have to admit that I really only became a real ramen fan after watching Tampopo, one of the best and funniest food movies ever made. For those few of you who haven’t seen this delicious and delightful film, boy are you in for a treat! I’ll try not to spoil too much of it, […]

Unfortunately, I didn’t make the delicious looking cha siu pau pictured above. Fortunately, I did have the pleasure of eating it and a whole table filled with other delicious dim sum this past Sunday morning.
Waking up too lazy to make our own breakfast, S and I decided to take a short walk around our […]

What a trip! We ate, we shopped (well, actually S shopped), and we ate some more. Truth be told, I took very, very few photographs. Right before we left for the airport, I decided to ditch my Nikon and only bring along my little pocket-sized Contax. S, ever-annoyed when I whip out a large professional-looking […]

For months, a chef friend of S’s and mine, who moved to Taipei last year, has been raving to us about the amazing produce–seafood, meat, veggies, fruits, etc–available in Taiwan. Not only is it better than what we get in Singapore, he would tell us, but it is also much cheaper. We simply had […]

I’m back home now, after a long week and a half in Venice. It was a wonderful and tiring trip. The last few days were a blur of visiting exhibitions, meetings and trying to squeeze in a few culinary adventures. On my second last night, one of my bosses asked me to organize a (thank […]

I had a bit of free time today, so a friend—also in town for the Biennale—and I went to visit Gianno Basso. Basso is a bit of a mad genius. He’s a printer and stationer and in my opinion makes some of the most beautiful name cards and stationary in the world. He’s also unique […]

I’ve never eaten at Da Fiore, acclaimed by many as Venice’s best restaurant. That said, to me, the best restaurant in Venice has got to be Corte Sconta, a gorgeous cult eatery hidden away—appropriate given that the name translates as “hidden corner”—on a tiny lane in the Arsenale sestiere. I only discovered Corte Sconta late […]

As mentioned, I made it to Harry’s Bar last night. It was, as it always is, packed and buzzing with life. Our table was upstairs, tucked in a corner near the staircase. Definitely not one of the better tables available, but beggars can’t be choosers. Then again, the moment that first Bellini was placed in […]

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine who owns a fantastic little restaurant nestled in Fort Canning Park called me to ask a favour. She needed some photos done of one of her chef’s signature dishes; a local high-society magazine wanted to run it. Always happy to help a friend and equally thrilled […]

I’ve written in previous posts that Iggy’s is one of my favourite restaurants. Maybe it’s because I’ve known Iggy—Ignatius Chan—for more than a decade. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for (and total believer in) the culinary world’s latest gastrotrend, the counter-dining experience. (Going to L’Atelier de Robuchon last December was a religious experience.) But […]

I’ve always been a big fan of owner-operated restaurants. And one of the best in Singapore is Restaurant Ember. Owned by Chef Sebastian Ng and his always cheerful wife Sabrina, this small restaurant on the ground floor of the Hotel 1929 serves up delicious fusion food at moderate prices. We visited Ember this week to […]

Last night, we got together with a whole host of friends at Mag’s Wine Bar-Bistro. I’ve mentioned Mag’s before, in my post on my favourite Singapore restaurants. Mag’s is a wonderful little restaurant that’s a bit of an anomaly in Singapore. It’s tiny, with one big communal table and a couple small ones; it’s […]

One of my favourite restaurants is also one I rarely go to. And that’s because it’s harder to get a table there than any other in town. Not that it’s super-chic or anything. In fact, quite the opposite, Buko Nero is a small, humble 20-seater run (and staffed) by Oskar and Tracey, a lovely husband […]

People are always asking my wife or me where they should go eat. Whether it’s for a family meal, a special occasion, or just a quick bite, we get queries by phone, email and SMS on a regular basis. Not that we mind too much. After all, for a good part of our professional lives, […]