Feed the Curious Kitten

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). 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 cookies ... y'kn

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

White Chocolate Nori Ice Cream

Recently, it was herbs and ice cream... now it's seaweed and ice cream ! This time, it's from Tom's Palette @ Shaw Tower, Singapore. They have many other interesting flavours on their menu, as you can see on their site, but I thought that this flavour, which happens not to be on their site, was quite unique and interesting. The ice cream base was like salty white chocolate ice cream , although I suspect the salt came more from the seaweed than the white chocolate flavour. I'd mentioned before in my posts on sea salt dark choc cashews and malt chocolate rusk that chocolate and salt seemed to go well together, the way people add salt to hot chocolate and chocolate brownies. White chocolate and salt was no different. There were bits of a certain nut in it too... I think it was almond , as I'll explain later. Anyway, the crunch of the nuts gave it some texture. And as you can see, the seaweed was interspersed in the cream. The nut and seaweed flavours compleme

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

Ondeh Ondeh Lattes

I love trying interesting lattes, whether tea or coffee, and ondeh ondeh lattes aren't all that common, so there's a good chance I'll order it if I see it on the menu. I've tried two so far from different cafes - Mellower Coffee (probably only their Singapore and perhaps Malaysia/Indonesia branches would offer this) and Eaglewings Loft . For those not familiar with the region's cuisine, ondeh ondeh is a dessert that features the pandan and gula melaka (palm sugar) flavours strongly. Gula melaka tastes a bit like caramel, but less burnt, somewhat more woody and with a hint of floral sourish tone, whereas pandan is fragrant and comforting, and described as the Asian version of vanilla (only in terms of flavour... it is extracted from leaves instead of bean pods). I thought both were equally impressive, both in presentation and taste. The first one was by Eaglewings, and as you can see, there's lovely latte art with the normally-white parts made green with pandan-

Pandan & Pistachio Revisited

That was in reference to the pandan pistachio mooncake that I posted about in my *very* first post (!!! nostalgic moment). Although, this time the pandan is actually part of the overarching kaya taste. It's kaya pistachio cookies from Yakun Kaya Toast! (One of Singapore's homegrown companies, which makes me kinda eager to support.) I'd seen their shelf-stable cookies on sale for a while, but never quite had the occasion to eat them until recently. And I thought it was a good buy indeed! Normally, local cookies sell for S$16 a bottle, which I would reckon is about 4-5 packs? This was S$2.50 a packet, so I thought it was good value . Taste-wise, the pandan and pistachio flavours blended too well , so I couldn't tell the difference. I suspect though that there was no pistachio flavour in the cookie batter proper, so it was probably just the bits of nuts that you can see in the picture to give the cookie an added texture and a nice splash of colour in green, yellow a

Marron Pie

I got this from Dulcet & Studio @ Liang Court, Singapore, a French-styled Japanese patisserie and cafe. I've been wanting to try their sweet potato cake (a creamy, layered sponge version, like a strawberry shortcake), but as they are tellingly very popular and I usually only managed to visit in the evenings, they have always been sold out. So I settled for the marron (chestnut) pie this time around. It is basically a typical Western buttery pie pastry wrapping a Japanese sweetened (or candied) chestnut filling. The pastry was first rate - buttery, flaky and savoury. Although it was a thin layer, there was a good and prominent wheat flour taste. However, the filling was too sweet and a little thin on the chestnut flavour. Perhaps the buttery flavour blended in too much with the pastry? Or perhaps they candied chestnut which they used just had too much sugar. The filling texture was good though - like a smoother version of the powdery roasted chestnut texture. Over

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

The Leaf Pie Challenge Episode 1

"So what's a leaf pie?" Basically, it's pure pie pastry, without any filling, baked in an aesthetically pleasing and usually bite-sized shape. So a normal competition would have many participants, but I suppose I could say that the "qualifying" rounds have already knocked out the vast majority of the competitors - I won't even consider those that use margarine. In this round, there are two - Gateau Festa Harada 's, bought from Osaka's Hanshin @Umeda department store, and Rokumeikan's, from Singapore's Takashimaya food basement. (I couldn't find the second company's page on the product.) First up, Rokumeikan's, since it is available in Singapore. This had a moderately nice buttery taste, but I felt that it was overwhelmed by too much sugar, which masked the pastry's flavour. The texture was nice and relatively crispy, but there was a hint of sogginess to it. I also felt that the granulated sugar could have been fin

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