What's up @ World Street Food Congress 2013

One of the benefits of having chefs as a friend, they never stop being resourceful on the guilty pleasure of life, FOOD!

Today my chef friend and I made a pit stop at the World Street Food Congress.

Well we went there early so the stalls were ready but the crowd were slowly building up.

The entry ticket was SD28, inclusive of SD20 food coupon and SD8 as the entry fee.

The first stall that caught my attention..Indonesian.

Not bad for an appetizer.

The soft shell crab burger from USA.

This was actually what motivated me to attend the event.

Honestly it looked nothing like the advertised picture, it has a really small portion, but what the heck, the soft shell crab was crispy. Though it was not as satisfying as expected, the sauce they used were kinda tasteless.

But that was just the beginning, moving on..

Yum Yum seafood tostada.

The lady boss was really friendly. There was a choice of level of spiciness and whether you prefer sourish or fruitish sauce, I'm guessing the sauces are special ingredients made all the way from Mexico? I don't know. But it was creamy and good. Quite expensive though for just a piece like that, SD10.

Next..Indonesian as well. Pisang Roa

Fried banana fritters, with the special sambal roa, which tasted absolutely delicious.

There was a description of the dish on the side but somehow, I did not manage to capture it, but I did saw a glimpse of the ingredients, fish and ikan bilis and.....stuff..I would buy a jar of this if they were selling.

This next dish is from USA. To me, it was the second best dish i ate there.

The Shrimp & Grits.

Golden deep fried shrimp topped up with a special sweet and spicy sauce, and beneath it, creamy polenta. It was gooooooood...

Up next, Thua Paep, from Thianland. A sort of glutinous rice dumpling covered wit mung beans. I'm not a fan of beans but Thailand, you're doing it right.

There were the savoury ones (white and purple on salad), and the sweet ones. The flavours were pandan, pumpkin and *blue pea flowers. 

*A sort of flower used in medicine and cooking. Just search it up on google. When i asked the guy what is that, he showed me a jar of those dried blue pea flowers, just like those in the google image.*

It seems this is eaten as an appetizer in Thailand. Pity I went to Thailand earlier this year and have not tried this.

Choui Nuong from Vietnam, a banana sticky rice according to the description.

The banana fruit is wrap with a layer of sticky rice and char-grilled, then smothered with coconut sauce.

The banana filling match well with the coconut sauce, it tasted nice but we were too full to eat something so creamy that moment.

Then we had some extra money and although I'm not a fan of pork, I thought, why not..

The PEOPLE'S PIG..what a name eh..

This porchetta sandwich had a generous filling of pork in it. It was all good, fresh meat.

The weather was a killer so this had to be tempting for anyone!

Non stop eating for 2 hours, it was about 1pm+. Sadly we did not stay for the live performances because both of us had elsewhere to go.

With the extra money I da pao this for my dear aunt.

Her comment: Mm, it's nice.

So there, these were just what we had. There are plenty more stalls from various countries like China, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Denmark, etc. If you're free, please stop by and have a look-see.

Here are some random pictures taken but there were not enough fund to buy them.
The tortilla chips was a pity case as we were short of 50cents!! We really wanted to try it.

Don't worry about the coupon though, you can still buy them from the crew members who are going around selling coupons which only comes in a SD10 bundle. We already bought extra SD40, so total we have spent would be about SD80 on food and drinks? Yeah, not a normal meal but, it's just a one time experience since I have not been to these kinda food fair before.
Also, if you get thirsty..there are 2 huge drink counters selling water, soft drinks and beer.

This event only last 10days from 31st May to 9th June, located at the F1 pit building just beside the Singapore Flyer.
Bring your eating buddies who just got their bonuses. =D

Friendly Seafood Tostada lady boss

NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM......

So there I was in Malaysia for my graduation and a cousin's wedding dinner

And of course, it was a  great opportunity for me to visit my old friend and cooking sifu

at his own restaurant

Nom Nom Chomper

 A small outlet with simple and attractive (bonus to the Marvel posters) decorations, 

not to mention comfortably furnished.

 

This is Edmund
A well respected chef by everybody,

and i mean EVERYBODY.

From running a restaurant to serving for events,

he's there.

The most talented chef i know,

famous for his asian dishes and bakery.

At Nom Nom Chomper,

the bread served are baked fresh everyday from scratch

Can you imagine those hard work?

And trust me,

I would go there again, just to have another bite of his charcoal burger bun

This time, my food adventure buddy was my lovely sister

Chia Mei

Here are what we had:

(Left) Chomper, the outlet's specialty drink

(Right) Strawberry yogurt shake

 Mushroom burger with homemade chicken patty with the special charcoal bun

Norwegian  Salmon burger with charcoal bun.

I would like to give a 4.5/5 rating to the food

The bun was marvelous, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.

(the picture above is taken to illustrate the crunchiness) 

The portion was fairly generous.

Credits to the homemade chicken patty

Unlike any other, this patty was real juicy and thick!

So much flavour!

Place is clean, staff were friendly and service was quick.

Definitely a must try.
Located on Ground Floor of Kelana Square,

it's facing the main road, hard to miss.

Tim Ho Wan

The cheapest 1 michelin star 

dim sum restaurant 

that just opened in Singapore last month.

Located 1st floor in Plaza Singapura, Orchard Road.

 Efforts were taken to be there before the opening hours,

However we were few minutes late(10.10am), and

BAM!

a 1hour++ queue just before us.

Prior to being seated,

a list of menu was handed out to pre-tick our order
Thus, it did not take long for the food to come 

the most we waited for was about 3 minutes?

Pork dumpling with shrimp

Well,I'm not a fan of carrot cake

To me, I would say it's not as oily as what is sold outside

But the taste is not there for me

It was rather plain compared to the kopitiam's

Fried carrot cake

This was my favourite,

I'm surprised it is not dry like what you can get from outside

To some people, it may be quite sweet

Being a sweet tooth, i like it just fine

Steam egg cake

Vermicelli roll with BBQ pork

Beancurd skin roll with pork and shrimp

glutinous rice dumpling

Well, at first i thought it was just plain rice dumpling

but when we break through the rice

there were chicken

(something went wrong with my camera, image kinda blurry here)

To be honest, it was almost tasteless.

 And then,

The very famous BBQ pork bun

We could not get enough of this

The skin is so crispy yet soft

And the BBQ pork filling is remarkable

A must try

Because of the high demand,

each customer is limited to only 3 buns

Nothing much..it's just one of my favourites =)

Vermicelli roll with shrimp
A must have for me

 For dessert

Tonis medlar and osmanthus petal cake

 This was something new to me

The texture of the jelly was good 

(not the cheap type of agar-agar)

The sweetness was fine

And you could just taste and aroma of the osmanthus blending in smoothly

I would say this is a must try too

Another dish we ordered was the prawn dumpling

It was fairly ordinary.
Our total bill came up to SD72
Not too pricey, as we had second orders of the dessert and BBQ pork buns
and some drinks

Overall experience:
I wouldn't say this is the best dim sum I have tried
However, I would come back for just those few dishes that i favour.

Staff was friendly, clean and fast place (faster than fast food),

 not one to hang out in.

List of items on the menu was rather little,

as you can see,

we ordered not much but it was already 2/3 of the menu
Other than that, queuing up 1-2 hours for this is not really worth.

Pastamania delivery

Alright alright, so it's my day off. 

I decided to stay home and order something.

So i've been seeing this Pastamania pamphlet lying around the house for a few times now and I thought,

why not huh..

Thus.....order made and reached in 1 hour time.

I've ordered a combo for 2.

As you know, my appetite is kinda heh heh...moderate. >.<

The combo includes, a 7 inch pizza

I picked the Hot Basil Pizza, which looked nothing like advertised

This is what i got

There weren't even any pieces of chilli

 Looks big don't it?

What about now?

 And trust me, I have one of the smallest hands amongst my girl friends.

It was not hot nor warm, really dry

All I could taste was the chicken and the cheese, 

what about the basil? The spicy tomato sauce?
Same quality that can be found like those frozen pizzas from the supermarket
Except, those frozen pizzas taste better.

Another thing included was any choice of pasta.

The Turkey Bacon Cheesy Crumble was my choice.

It was awfully DRY.

Couldn't even taste the bacon or the sauce.
Tasted like a pasta I first made using whip cream.

The side dishes were waffle potato and 2 coleslaw

Also, a packet of tissue

Funny how there is a trend here where people 'chop' tables at kopitiam with just a packet of tissue.

Overall satisfaction:

1/5

This will be the first and last from Pastamania.
Dominos is still my best choice.

Mexican Adventure

Another rainy day, another successful food hunt with non other than my big cousin brother, Melvin.

This next place, Mexout

Located in Far East Square along with other restaurants.
I chose this restaurant because it is newly opened, it was published in the news, and also I have not ate Mexican food before.

 

It has a simple decor.
The place is nice and comfortable though, great place for hanging out.

And now, the good stuff

 These tacos comes in 3 for SD13

What we had lamb, pork and beef respectively in each.

With different types of salsa sauces each

 salsa fresca (vegetarian), salsa picante and mango pineapple

 This is the mini burrito with rice and char grilled chicken, SD9

Well, the portion was quite small for a price like that

Therefore, second round........

My couz ordered a 

Nachos with black beans and pork meat, SD15

for me

The rice bowl with char grilled chicken because they ran outta lamb

and the spicy salsa sauce, SD 13

Drinks:

Tequila Sunrise, SD 10

It was happy hour for Margarita and Corona

So I had both for SD 7 each.

 Overall experience..

Staff were friendly, food were pricey

I will come back occasionally if my friends or family wanna try some mexican

But not on regular.

Not a real update

Hey guys, for those who follow my food blog. I was supposed to go on a food hunt today but my plans were cancelled. This post is nothing of a new adventure at all, only thing is I realised there are quite a number of posts about food in my 'non-food' blog, so just gonna tag those links here aight.

This here is when I first came to Singapore

This is when my close friend came to visit me in Singapore

This long post squeeze alotta things in from festivals to prayers to family dates

Here is when I  went back to Malaysia for a break

This is buffet from Conrad Centennial Singapore as an appreciation dinner