Stun your co-workers by putting this at your desk

Padang is a type of Nasi

Not a small quadrangle of grass,
Encased for burning rubber;
Nor a Malaysian state.

- The Nasi Padang dairies

Nasi Padang stalls are probably right up there with (good) tze char stalls in the list of places you can eat at for more than a year without getting sian.

We went in two cabs to this lovely place Sylvia has been going to for the past 20-odd years. It's a small little corner coffeeshop called Minang, at the corner of kandahar street next to the Sultan Mosque.

"Every day during my pregnancy while I was working nearby I would come here and have the ikan," she claimed.

After the meal, we had no reason to doubt her.


Ok, I was trying to caption the picture, but realised that (because I'm not Malay) I don't exactly know the right names of the dishes. So pardon my weird descriptors for now!

We ordered a total of ten dishes:
1. Beef rendang
2. Fish in black sauce+onions+chili
3. Ayam Masak Merah (At least this is how I heard SS pronounce it?)
4. Ayam in satay sauce
5. Cooked jackfruit pulp (serious!)
6. Ok I cannot remember what this was, but it looks spicy. Probably chicken.
7. Tempeh with ikan bilis and nuts
8. Very cool vegetables
9. Fish with very spicy toppings

Oh, I suppose it was 9 dishes (only?) :D

The winners:
2. Easily the simplest dish of the lot, yet achieves perfect balance between the natural salty sweetness of the fish and black sauce, the spiciness of the chili and the tangy kick of freshly cut red onion. Also the stall's best-seller, so be sure to come early to avoid disappointment. Be warned though, that this fish is of the bony variety, similar to nasi lemak fish.

5. When Sylvia and SS pointed at this from behind the glass, I had honestly no idea what it was. Then they told me it was jackfruit pulp - lovingly stewed in curry. What was intriguing about the dish to me, was its texture. It's somewhere between the soft mush that is stewed brinjal and the cabbage in sayur lodeh. I, for one, have never seen this before, so I suppose it's not too common?

7. I love tempeh. It's nutty - if a little cloying if consumed in copious quantities - and goes superbly with many other dishes, or even on its own and a friend called sambal. Together with petai, which was unfortunately not available that day, they are easily my favourite non-meat nasi padang ingredients for their distinctive taste.

When done right, petai, in particular, makes your mouth explode with an overwhelming bitterness - kind of like when you bite into a grape seed by accident. At the exact same time, the sambal it is invariably fried in comes to the rescue, enveloping your tongue in a protective sweetness. Beautiful.

The losers:
1. To be fair, I think this is just the most common dish in nasi padang, and...well... I've had better. The meat did not fall off the fork (ok, see how impossibly high standards are?!) and the gravy was a tad too salty. Still, better than average but not good enough compared to the rest and thus makes the losers list.

Yep, that's about all the losers that this place deserves.

In sum, this is definitely a place to return to, whenever those nasi padang pangs strike.

The Foodie Returns

It's not that I've neglected my tummy recently...I just haven't had the time to food blog - honest!

So here's a month's worth of gastronomic adventures:

Chicken Karage Aglio Olio

Very few aglio olios here are able to combine the zing of pan-fried garlic with perfectly-done pasta in a way that doesn't make your mouth feel like the inside of a bottle of olive oil.

Here's one that does - Ambush! at taka basement. Some other blogs that have done reviews on this tiny Italian joint can be found here and here.

It's actually been around a lot longer than most people think, but under different management. The food has also been tweaked - sadly - and they don't offer the favourite crayfish aglio olio any more. They also used to have the decadent habit of sprinkling all servings of aglio olio with generous showers of deep fried garlic bits - absolute heaven.

Nonetheless, this is pretty good bang for your buck, as meals here tend to be more of the "quickies" variety where you just plonk yourself down, eat, then leave (under the watchful eye of the waitresses), before someone else get's ushered to your seat in less than 3 mins of your departure.

Meals, including drinks and dessert, will only relieve your wallet of less than $15 per person. Oh, and if you're the kind who cannot take food-smell on your hair (i.e. most girls), don't bother.

Ambush! Taka basement (next to the lifts)
Taste: 3.5/5 (no one does aglio olio like they ((use to)) do)
Value: 4.5/5
Ambience: 2/5 (cramped seats which are assigned to you hardly make for any semblance of ambience - it's a fast-food Italian joint like pastamania)

Verdict: Will be back for sure - there will always be the days that the lure of good aglio olio proves too good to resist.

Earlier that same day, we went to the Royal Copenhagen Tea Lounge, a not-so-quiet cafe styled as an out-of-the-way rest spot in a corner of the busy departmental store.

My first impressions was that this place was much bigger than it looked from the outside.

Easily seats 30 plus people

Well, since it's a cafe, the obvious thing to order would be the cakes/pastries/tea right? So we did, haha.

Warm Baked Chocolate Explosion $12.90

Honey Date Pudding $7.90

I had the honey date pudding, which reminded me a little of a more stylo version of nian gao. The caramel-ly taste of the date pudding going well with the natural sweetness of the accompanying honey. The cream gave the dessert good balance in terms of overall texture, and - let's face it - it's always more fun to have your desserts come with whipped cream to play with.

The rather fancily-named chocolate explosion was good; though one has to ask why they named it such. (it really was just a simple cup-shaped very dense chocolate sponge cake with fudge on the side. No explosion anywhere) Still, good.

Overall, this place is a great option to rest those tired legs in the middle of town.

Royal Copenhagen Tea Lounge Taka level 2
Taste: 4/5
Value: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5

Verdict: Will be back for sure - Those tea time treats just won't eat themselves will they?

And away from Taka, we now head to the never-before-mentioned-on-this-blog-food-place, Millenia Walk! They have this tiny foodcourt squirreled away on the second floor next to the Harvey Norman (go harvey go harvey norman - go!) which houses a gem of a Western food stall.

Ok, say first, I forgot the name of this place, though that's no indication of how gd the food is.

Strip steak, aka Kansas City Steak $11.80

It's surprising enough to find a foodcourt stall that sells beef steak that doesn't look like

eeeeeeeee.

The steak at millenia walk is tender and flavourful. Importantly, if you look at a cross-section of a random cut across the steak, the colours range from a light brown to a deep, reddish hue; highly unusual for the neighbourhood steakhouse.

The sides were a let down, but hey, you're there for the meat or what, punk?

They also sell a cut of beef I fell in love with in Argentina - the Filet Mignon ($16.80). A little pricey considering the environment, but hey, I think I have to try this at least once :D

Until then, here's a preview to my next post, which will be entirely devoted to the wonders of Nasi Padang, in view of Hari Raya (wah, multiracial sia this blog - cannot arrest me for sedition).

Habis Cobis, Makan Kueh Lapis - wise words of a colleague

p.s. the spread is for a group of 5 people (I know what you're thinking - Even I cannot eat so much la!)

Dirty Sexy Politics As Usual?

I'm not an American. Which is probably why the latest twist in the US presidential elections is both frustrating and yet totally expected.

John Freedland from the Guardian began his report on the swing that Palin's got for the red camp with this lead:

The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: "It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more."

Read more

It's funny. Just like one of those "evergreen" titles you can just keep on your yet-to-be-published book called "The ongoing crisis in the Middle East".

Just how petty can HC's female voting base get? Not only have you polarised your party, you've shown your young people just how easily hope can be crushed by nothing more than sheer spite. Perhaps you weren't being democrats in the first place - how else could you possibly justify your defection?

A generation of young Americans - who back Obama in big numbers - will turn cynical, concluding that politics doesn't work after all.

Perhaps all is not as dire as Freedland suggests, yet it is truly disheartening for an admirer halfway around the world to see the world's leading (?) democracy raise a collective finger at a man who represents fairplay, integrity and hope.

Interestingly, there was another article in TODAY which announced the results of a worldwide poll which showed that people in most countries preferred Obama - no surprises there. What was particularly stark to me was the fact that among the countries polled, Singaporeans led the way in respondents who "didn't know/neutral/didn't care". Ha! Empirical proof that we just bochup!

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One of my latest crazes is the TV serial Boston Legal. It's awesome and I'm completely hooked on it. Think a darker, sexier version of Ally McBeal with even more compelling characters who are a study in extremes.

At the end of every episode, however, the two lead characters always end up on the balcony of their big-shot law firm, where they recount their day while drinking a glass of scotch and enjoying a cigar.

*cringe alert*

Still, I find myself drawn to that idea - that we all need that little bit of peace and tranquility at the end of the day to reflect and think; to make sense of it all. What's the point of working 40 floors up when you don't look at it at least a little at the end of it?

So I watched my first sunset alone in the conference room today. :)