Mega Food Post Been reading about a lot of food related stuff lately and wanna recommend 3 which I love to read. First is Chubby Hubby, a Singaporean foodie who serves up alot of stunnning food photos on his blog (sidenote: apparently his foodie wife is in this month's Her World best dressed list). I believe you need a SLR to take those kind of photos. Though I still cant imagine someone whipping out a SLR in a restaurant or hawker center to take photos. Oh well... next up is the Makansutra forum. Very useful forum to discuss and read about everything related to food in Singapore and sometimes beyond. I picked up a lot of info from there for food recommendations and reviews. Finally is She Who Eats, a blog by a Japanese, who blogs in English. Again, the photos she takes are stunning! I swear she can take photos of natto and make me wanna eat it, despite the fact that I believe I can never acquire its very "unique" taste.

Anyway, based on those sources, I have been on a foodie trek lately. First up is Provence bakery. It's a Japanese run bakery, but with European influences. This is the thing about Japanese, they can take things from others and make it better than the original! In this case, European bread and pastries. In the words of CY, going inside the shop is like entering a different world. A world of quaint Europe, with all the delicious bread. I tried the coffee cream which was simply sinful, with lots and lots of coffee and whipped cream ($1.60). Then I had the sesame roll with cream cheese ($0.40), utter delicious. An pan, red bean bun which was nice. The sandwiches, which looked great although I only tried one type. SW swore her herb-tuna-ham one was outta the world. Btw mind you I went there several times, not just once. Yeah then the latest discoveries were chocolate wassants ($4 for 10) and their croissants. The wasants were fabulous and as I am typing this now I am popping one into my mouth. Oh actually wasants are tiny croissants but they are not flaky and have chocolate layers in them. I dunno how they make their bread so soft even though I kept it for more than a day liao. And their croissants... man I tell you, I never tasted croissants which was as good as this. The buttery taste is superb!!! I tried the mini one which went for $0.40 but next time I am gonna get the big one. Oh yah got 1 more, their cinammon roll ($1.80). Very sinful indeed. Truth be told their stuff is not cheap, but based on the number of their Japanese clientele and the quality, I believe we are paying good value for the quality.

Then there's Cafe Rosso at Holland V. Yet another Japanese style place. But this one is more of a cafe serving hot food. I heard good things about their breakfast sets. Apparently they use real maple syrup for their pancakes. This place is also very expensive with breakfast sets averaging around $15. Think most ppl will feel its crazy to fork that kind of money for a set of maybe toast + eggs + coffee + juice. But I'll reserve my judgement till I tried it with SW.

Another current "hot" place which I am going to lately is Alexandra Village food center. This place wasn't new to me as previously I've been there for the Rong Guang BBQ seafood. I love their crayfish, stingray and mussels though dunno y my mother say it's average. But lately I've been going there very often for dinner and trying out the other food there. There's 2 orh luak stalls there. One is selling orh luak solely while the other sells it together with char kway teow, hokkien mee, carrot cake, etc. The former is operated by a mid-old aged couple with a long beard (the man of course). Their orh luak is dryer and more akin to carrot cake style. The other one is wetter and is more starchy. Both are very different styles so you can choose which one you feel like having. Btw the char kway teow from that stall is good too. And similar to their orh luak, it is wet style and rather sweet, though not as sweet as the Lao Fu Zi stall at Old Airport Rd. Then there's the Bak Kut Teh stalls. Got 2 of them. The one facing the carpark is marginally cheaper but I cant taste a big difference between the two. Both are rather the same style and averaged $5 for a single person portion with youtiao. Then at night there's satay from the Ponggol satay stall which is damn good, though the gravy could be a tad more spicy though. Considering that I can't take very hot stuff, theirs is really very beginner level. They have pork, chicken and mutton though when I was there mutton was not available. Each is $0.40 and the ketupat rice is $0.50. Then there's BBQ chicken wing also which is really damn good! Each costs $1 (reasonable) and has crispy skin. The marinade is good as well. One thing to note is to eat it while its hot. Otherwise not so nice liao. The stall also sells rojak, the version which has cuttlefish and taupok. Haha... I think I becoming an expert at this food center liao. Another stall which I frequent is the one which sells tze-char. The reason is that they sell single person portions. It's actually side by side with another stall selling roughly the same thing but I always buy from the one with the mean-faced lady taking orders. Dunno y leh, but the stall just looks nicer. Prices averaged around $3.50. So far I've tried their Malay fried rice which comes with fried chicken wings (the fried rice not so good), beef with kailan (rather good) and beef with bittergourd (good as well and comes with black beans). I also like the fact that they separate the hot stuff with your rice when you tabao back. This ensures the rice remains dry not mushy. Will try their hor-fun and chicken chop rice one day. Wait... still got more. Tried pork chop from the stall opposite the tze-char stalls. The gravy was weird and overall not very memorable. Had the cold orh-nee from the vegetarian dessert stall. Not so nice as well. Oh this food center is famous for avocado juice as well. Can see many stalls selling them though actually I think only one of them is the one which sparked off this trend. It's the one facing the car park and in between the bak kut teh and duck rice stall. It was recommended by Yummy King. Oh and actually the duck rice stall is famous as well (Yummy King recommended too). Though during dinner they are usually sold out. Must try their glistening roast duck and char siew. Damn good! Man... this paragraph is never ending. I got a final stall to recommend. The Depot Road claypot laksa. It used to be at a kopitiam along Depot Rd, which is very near to the food center. Their laksa is served in a claypot and has chicken shreds and prawns. Caution due to the heat of the claypot + the spiciness, it is not for everyone. Actually personally I couldnt finish mine. I sweated like hell and numbed my tongue. :p Ok tat's all for AV, time to move on.

Pasir Panjang food center! Currently circle line construction is taking place there so might not be very convenient. Anyway I only tried the green char kway teow there. It comes with more green veges and cabbage than kway teow! Seriously... I just remember eating a plate of veges. :p Anyway its intersting lah, and featured in foodie guides as well. Worth a try, though mainly for the novelty. SW said its expensive, but my $3 portion was pretty ok lah.

Next stop. Holland V XO fish beehoon. Whoah heard about this place for long time but only recently went to try with CY. Was at their Chinatown branch before and the XO was nice as was their san lao hor fun and prawn paste chicken. This time round we had the XO fish meat beehoon for 2 person ($10). The soup was nice, fish well fried but the beehoon was slightly mushy. CY complained that the beehoon shouldnt be cut so small. Oh well... Overall soup was excellent while the beehoon could be improved.

(To be continued...)

  F-ed by me at 10:19 AM | 0 comments

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Lists List of Movies coming out in Dec which I'd be watching

1. Oliver Twist (technically it was out in Nov)
2. Narnia
3. King Kong
4. The Promise
5. Aeon Flux (watching with KQ)
   
6. A History of Violence
   
7. Perhaps Love (watching with YT)
8. Pride & Prejudice
9. Wallace & Gromit
10. Sha Po Lang
11. Just Like Heaven

List of Books I'd read before holidays end

1. Arthur & George
2. Warped Passages
3. Invitation to Contemporary Physics
4. Lost Japan
5. The Tipping Point
6. Freakonomics
7. Dan Brown series
8. (Now let's not get too ambitious shall we...)
9. The Road to Reality

  F-ed by me at 8:33 PM | 0 comments

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SD or CF faster I hate to break this to you, but CF is theoretically faster than SD cards simply because it has a bigger data bus, i.e. its pipe is bigger. Most if not all DSLR use CF and if SD is really better than they would have taken over the world by storm now since they are smaller than CF.

Cheers!
  F-ed by me at 8:06 PM | 0 comments

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When it rains, it pours... Photo of the day:






Scene: Bangkok


Read it however you want. I just love it.

*From the NYTimes (as usual)

  F-ed by me at 11:23 PM | 0 comments

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Fine... Ok fine, I got something to say. So I didn't win the trip to NY from the 8days contest, and to think I wanted to go so badly...

Another thing is my latest obsession, a digital SLR camera, or more specifically the Nikon D50. It ain't the meanest thing around, but hey it is the cheapest and is rather good. Other dslrs in my consideration is the Canon 350D which admitedly is better but is more ex oso, and I'd rather spend the xtra money on lens. Also I think Canon doesnt have a stabilizing all purpose lens yet. Another consideration is the Konica Minolta 5D. It has stabilization built in, so in practice I could just buy a cheapo zoom lens to pair with it. Still considering. Anyway this is what the Nikon looks like:






Only 6 megapixels. BUT... it is virtually noiseless (especially at high ISO) as compared to prosumer cams like the Panasonic FZ-30 which I was eyeing a coupla months back. Actually I wanted to buy that alreadi, but the noise was starting to bug me. Ok actually the initial reasons why I wanted the Pana was because it had 12x zoom, image stabilization and comparatively cheap price. BUT... now I realize a dslr can have some stabilization in the form of high ISO setting + stabilized lens. And of coz that's not all, to go along with that baby we need a lens, or more specifically a big ass zoom + vibration reduction one. It's called the Nikon DX VR 18-200 mm F3.5-5.6G Zoom. How's that for a mouthful?






Actually most pro people prefer at least 2 sets of lens la. One wide for landscapes and one zoom for telephoto shots. But then for me would be damn troublesome because I am lazy and wouldn't bother to change lens often. I want lens which can cover both wide and telephoto. And hence the above lens (which will come out in Dec) fits me well. It has 11x zoom. Only caveat is the price... estimated US$700 = S$1K+. =(


*Both images from DPreview  F-ed by me at 7:13 PM | 0 comments

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Hiatus On hiatus because of exams. Actually more of nothing to say.   F-ed by me at 7:10 PM | 0 comments

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