Feed the Curious Kitten

The title of this latte had me curious so I had to try. Butter and coffee is a combination I tried as ice cream once, and wished there was more of. But the name of Little Butter Latte is apparently a branding collaboration between Luckin Coffee and the Butterbear Cafe in Thailand which has as a mascot called Butterbear ( Nong Mee Noei in Thai). The mascot went viral sometime back in Thailand and the region, getting turned into Line stickers and so on. As you can see from the shop signboard, it's super cute. Tastewise, it comes close to a popcorn honey butter flavor superimposed over a caffe latte. Just as there's a caramelised taste to the popcorn honey, so this latte had a prominent caramelised flavor. But it's different from a caramel latte because there is a strong milky taste that reminded me of caramel fudges that use condensed milk, or the milky component of Jersey cow milk desserts or milk bars. I think that's the actual "butter" component, and it bri...

Buah Long Long Juice

The name was bewildering enough for me that I didn't need to think of any creative twist for this post's title... I'd never have guessed that there'd be a fruit named "buah long long"... but well, yes, it does exist. The official name is Spondias dulcis , and buah long long is how the Singaporean Chinese know it. It's known as kedondong in Indonesia, pomme cythere in Trinidad & Tobago and some other countries, June plum in Bermuda and Jamaica, juplon in Costa Rica, golden apple in Barbados and Guyana, jobo indio in Venezuela, cajá-manga and cajarana in Brazil (see, they couldn't even decide on one name in the same country), amra in Malaysia, and quả cóc in Vietnam. That's a mind-boggling list of names if I've ever seen one. What's more amazing is that its juice is being sold by a rather common food stall. We found this at a branch of the food stall chain 1983 @ JEM food court, Singapore. Pardon the menu image for being pixelated as i...

Polvoron - The European Version of Chinese Cookies

Someone recently bought back this box of polvoron from the Philippines. It's a soft and very crumble Spanish shortbread made of flour, sugar, milk and nuts ... and since this is from the Philippines, shortening of course. =P The Philippines adopted it as a part of their culture, apparently, because they were a colony of Spain. This box came with a giddying number of interesting assorted flavours - original, cashew, peanut, coffee, cookies and cream, ube (purple yam), and pinipig (immature grains of glutinous rice pounded until flat and toasted, or rice crispies). The flavours had me gleefully excited... I had tried ube-flavoured desserts in the Philippines, but not in a baked product. Also, I had never heard of pinipig before this. The original flavour was a fine, powdery milk cake ... very smooth as it melts in your mouth, except for a sandy crunch from the granular sugar. The cashew and peanut flavours were most reminiscent of crumbly Chinese New Year peanut and cashew co...

Vietnamese Roasted Cashews

Someone I know first introduced these cashews to me a number of years ago, after she had bought some packets of these back from a trip to Vietnam... they are processed in an interesting way, roasted with the skin on, and are sold to you as such. I'm not sure if the skin is what makes the difference, but these cashews have a much more fragrant taste than almost all of the commercial cashew nuts I've tried , from American to European to local brands, whether salted or not. Perhaps it allows them to be roasted for longer without getting burnt, resulting in the sugars being slightly more caramelised? My impression is that these cashews are a slightly deeper, more saturated and almost orange yellow , as you can see in the image below, than most other cashews I've tried, which tend to look slightly paler. These are also crunchier than other commercial cashew nuts that I've tried. I'm not sure if it is related to the way they are processed, or whether it's ju...

Tie Guan Yin Sun Cake

It's a new year, and I thought I would try to pick up with new posts again, but lowering the barrier this time by not expecting myself to type so much for each post. I think from now on I will stick to simple descriptions as far as possible, so I won't feel like it's a burden to post. Today, I'm featuring the first in a series of interestingly-flavoured sun cakes by Ru Yi Tang (如邑堂) in Taiwan. And I guess them being called sun cakes vaguely relates to the theme of the new year, as the sunrise signals a new beginning. I ordered a box of 5 flavours - original, tie guan yin (a type of processed oolong tea), rose, honey and cheese. In general, the original had pure ingredients - butter and milk, no margarine or shortening. But the flavoured ones seem to have some type of vegetable-based shortening based on the taste and the Chinese ingredient list (植物性酥油), which I didn't like because of the waxy taste and increased risk it poses to cardiovascular health. So I mostly d...

Okinawan Sweet Potato Tart

This sweet potato tart ( beni-imo taruto /tart) was a marvelous mouthful to savour. Although the pastry was somewhat soft (despite the silicon gel pack), that was easily solved by reheating it in the oven. After reheating, the pastry had a nice buttery fragrance, and the sweet potato paste was warm, smooth and flavourful. An absolute delight, and not unaffordable – about ¥750 all in for a box of 6. I bought this from a random gifts and snack shop in Osaka, particularly drawn by the fact that it was made only with butter, not margarine. But apparently it is an Okinawan specialty, so perhaps it was flown in to Osaka, and it may not be easy to find outside of Okinawa. A unique and worthy gift if you are looking for something authentic, of quality and relatively harder to acquire in Singapore. Do note though that the expiry date may be soon, presumably because they don't use preservatives. So make sure to pass it to loved ones and relatives as soon as you get back. Found these ...

What's behind the Amy Yip Pau name? How is Amy Yip related to this Chinese steamed bun?

So this is an Amy Yip Pau (葉子楣大包) . Why is it called that? Basically, it is a reference to this actress formerly famous for her F-cup feminine assets, and the pau is trying to match that not just in size, but also in shape. For older people familiar with Western pop culture, it's like a bakery selling a Dolly Parton Bun. I don't know if that helps to whet or lose one's appetite. Maybe it depends on the gender. This was from Nam Kee @ Turf Club City, Singapore. Check out the size of that thing compared to my hand! It's around 5 inches in diameter I think. And man it attracted a lot of stares. Most people ordered it as a takeaway item. We were one of the few occupying the table nearest the stall entrance with a pair of gigantic buns sitting in front of us. Well, kinky innuendos aside, it *was* good to eat and good value too. It was packed with large chunks of meat, in contrast to the minced meat mixed with fillers usually found in other buns. The meat ...

Smoked Duck Kueh Pie Tee

So we got inspired by the smoked duck prata wrap and respawned it in a deep fried cracker cup... no idea what you call it in English, but in Singapore we call them kueh pie tee. It's basically wheat batter, deep fried in these cup shapes. Most people just buy them off the shelves nowadays. Each cup's pretty small - about 1.5 inches tall. So after adding the other ingredients, you can pretty much pop the whole thing into your mouth. We normally put Peranakan stewed shredded turnip mix in first, followed by Asian salad veggies like cucumber and fresh coriander leaves, boiled shelled prawn and garlic chilli sauce inside these cups. This time, we used these ingredients: From the bottom in an anticlockwise direction, it's black pepper smoked duck, coriander leaves, shredded cucumber, spring onions, and two sauces - one spicy and the other non-spicy, but otherwise similar. Basically, you just put everything in according to the proportions that you like, and drizzle t...

Toffee Hazelnut Oat Latte by Luckin Coffee

I thought this Toffee Hazelnut Oat Latte was another interesting drink by Luckin for the festive season. Starbucks has its usually similarly named Toffee Nut Latte, but I thought the oat milk replacement was interesting as oat milk tends to have a nuttier quality as it is, so I was curious to try how it was with toffee and hazelnut. It was pleasant overall - I could taste the sweet fragrant hazelnut syrup which is similar to vanilla. And the toffee taste was prominent. I also felt the coffee taste was stronger than what I remembered of Starbucks' version. But to nitpick, I personally felt that dairy milk would be nicer. Oat milk is already nutty, and while the hazelnut syrup adds a roundness via its sweet vanilla fragrance, the woodiness of the hazelnut overemphasises the woodiness of the oat milk and coffee combi, which leaves a gap where the creaminess of dairy normally sits. Nonetheless, because it's not as creamy or rich, it is a lighter drink overall, especially if you ...

Chinese Tea Cookies

No, I don't mean cookies that Chinese have as they drink tea... I literally mean Chinese tea-flavoured cookies. I saw online that Kee Wah had these Chinese tea cookies, and so got someone I know to buy it back from Hong Kong... no regrets at all! For some reason, everything about them strikes me as Chinese as opposed to, say, American. They are thin, smooth, perfectly circular, perfectly tapering edges, and not very sweet ... like smooth Chinese lacquer or jade accessories. (Whereas American cookies tend to be thick, rough and rocky-looking, hand-rolled in unevenness, and really sweet.) They came in four flavours - black tea, oolong tea, jasmine tea and green tea (the fragrant Chinese version). All the flavours were really fragrant, really like drinking a well-brewed and high quality bubble tea where you can savour the differences in each type of tea leaf. The cookies were all very crispy and crunchy, although in a finer, more delicate way than the hearty crunch of Am...

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