A Tiger In The Kitchen

Mooncakes: The Taste of Sweet Rebellion

 

You know you're walking into a hardcore kitchen when the first thing you see is stacks upon stacks of boxes filled with gorgeous home-made mooncakes.

The women on my Dad's side of the family in Singapore -- they're fearless cooks.

Pineapple tarts, bak-zhang (glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves), black vinegar-braised pig's trotters? They could whip those together with their eyes closed.

Recently, however, the task at hand was Chinese mooncakes, eaten to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls this Saturday.

Now, there are a few old stories that explain the reason for eating these little cakes, which usually are filled with sweet lotus-seed paste and come either with a thin, baked crust or a soft, pliant dough skin that's scented with pandan, a vanilla-like flavoring used in many Southeast Asian desserts. My favorite is the one of Ming revolutionaries planning to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China during the Yuan dynasty and spreading word via letters baked into mooncakes. (Julia Child would've been so proud!)

During my Singaporean girlhood, I'd known the stories, I'd eaten the cakes. As for making them? That seemed so laughably difficult it never once crossed my mind.

It turns out, however, they're incredibly easy to make -- you just need the right teachers.

Daniel Boulud on Beijing, Lotus Leaves & Duck A La Presse

 

Daniel Boulud may like the potential of doing business in Beijing, but that doesn't mean he likes Beijing.

Speaking via Skype to a small audience in Singapore Tuesday night from his home in New York City, where he was just getting his day started, Boulud was surprisingly candid about his thoughts on Beijing for a man who'd recently opened a restaurant in China's capital. (Maison Boulud à Pékin opened in July, 2008.)

Boulud, who was dialling in to kick off the premiere of a reality TV-style show he'd done for the Asian Food Channel, recalled how he had flown to Singapore from Beijing during his trip last year.

"Coming from Beijing, I tell you, Singapore felt good -- Singapore was a little more civilized," he said, noting that one of the first things he did after getting off the plane was get a haircut. "I didn't trust anyone in Beijing to cut my hair."

Boulud, dressed in his chef's whites and flanked with a portrait of himself hoisting a glass, then breezed on to close with a nugget, noting that he hoped to open a restaurant in Singapore. (A public relations person for Singapore's Marina Bay Sands Resort & Casino was perched in the audience. Singapore's first casinos, which are still under construction, have been courting high-end chefs to open in their establishments.)

Such frankness, unfortunately, was a little less apparent in the reality show, "One Night in Singapore -- Daniel Boulud," which chronicled the chef's first trip to Singapore and his process of putting together a seven-course meal for a group of 50 diners.

The intention to showcase tension is there, of course -- the show kicks off with a dramatic voiceover heavy with Discovery Channel gravitas that notes the obstacles Boulud has to overcome to make his dinner a success: "high humidity ... a kitchen that is too far removed from the main dining area." But Boulud is too skilled a chef for much of that to be believable.

Let's face it, the man could probably toss together a seven-course meal with little problem if he were air-dropped into the middle of a desert and had one hand tied behind his back.

Sin Huat Eating House: A Red-Light Special

 

To say that the prospects of having a good meal at Sin Huat Eating House seemed dim when we first arrived would be quite an understatement.

For starters, it was hard find the place. Located in a desolate corner of Geylang, Singapore's big red-light district, this restaurant situated in an open-air coffeeshop was so dark that it blended right into the furtive blackness of its block. On top of that, every so often, its few fluorescent lights would flicker and go out for several seconds.

Then, there was the row of grimy, green fishtanks displayed front and center. And the sweaty cooks who would emerge now and then to reach into these fishtanks up to their arm-pits in order to scoop out shellfish whenever someone placed an order.

This was the place that Anthony Bourdain had included on his list of "13 Places To Eat Before You Die" for Men's Health magazine?

In all my years of eating around Asia, however, I've come to learn that it's usually the least appetizing-looking places that create the most memorable dishes. And in Singapore, some of the best places to eat are to be found in the seediest of neighborhoods. (In a travel story I did for the Washington Post this weekend, I list a number of mind-blowing places to check out in Singapore's red-light districts. These would be places to eat. Food, that is.)

And Sin Huat, once you get past its stomach-churning trappings, definitely fits this bill.

Light Wheat Bread: Simple Does It

The last time I baked a bread, what emerged from the oven was a loaf of casatiello, a gorgeous hunk of Italian bread studded with salami and oozing with hot cheese.

So you might understand why I wasn't exactly looking forward to this week's Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge loaf: Light wheat bread.

After the sexy Italian, wheat bread seemed like the yawner of a boy next door.

(You know -- the ugly one.)

But after having spent several weeks in Singapore without an oven at my disposal, I was itching to bake something. Anything.

And, as it turned out, this plain boy next door actually had his surprises.

Katsuhama: Pork Cutlets, Gussied Up

There are few dishes more satisfying than a good pork katsu -- a deep-fried cutlet that's lightly breaded and perfectly crispy on the outside, tender on the inside and all the better if it's drowned in sweet Japanese curry or just served plain with a side of Tonkatsu sauce, sweet and thick.

Given that I'll order pork katsu whenever I see it on a menu, I've sampled it in restaurants and hole-in-the-wall dives all over Manhattan and Asia.

And I've pretty much always had good experiences with the dish -- well, that was true anyway, until, I went to the new Katsuhama on West 55th Street.

Lime-Coconut Cake: Conjuring Summer

Yes, I realize with great sadness that summer is no longer with us.

But having grown up in Singapore, where it's generally about 90 degrees all year round, I've always chosen to regard this little "four seasons" concept as more of a state of mind.

And my state of mind all year round tends to veer toward clear blue skies, suncreen and sand-between-my-toes kind of weather.

Which is how I found myself thinking about tropical lime-coconut cake all morning.

And, just when I thought I was being silly and a little too wistful about bygone pie-filled, scorching-hot days these sage words popped up courtesy of Gwen, a chef who blogs at Pen & Fork: "Ignore the calendar. Proceed full speed ahead with 'put the lime in the coconut' cake and eat it all up."

Sound words indeed.

At wd-50: The French, They Came

Walking into wd-50 early Monday evening, you couldn't help but notice the distinct stillness.

It felt almost like entering a temple -- the air was plump with reverence, laced with frissons of anticipation.

The dinner about to happen wasn't just any dinner, after all -- Michel Bras, one of France's most highly regarded chefs, was manning the kitchen for just one night. And New Yorkers had been working themselves up into a lather over trying to get in.

Having had the good fortune of seeing the announcement of this dinner the moment Eater.com posted it (and also being in possession of fast fingers and a cellphone nearby), there we were, quietly filing into the dining room -- hungry.

The meal that lay before us was a nine-course vegetarian tasting menu. Bras, a three-star Michelin chef, has made his name on dishes with inventive treatments and combinations of ingredients -- powdered fruit, crushed seeds, sprinklings of whole flowers for added flavor -- that are carefully orchestrated to taste anything but pedestrian. (It's also worth noting that Bras, who also has a restaurant in Hokkaido, is also known for dishes that are presented with a tinge of Japanese artistry.)

Now, in his little restaurant overlooking Laguiole, a picturesque town in the mountains of Aubrac in southern France, fresh fruit and vegetables that grow wild in the region are the stars of the dishes. In New York, Bras applied the same strategy to his menu -- from the moment he arrived three days before, he'd been scouring the city's greenmarkets to come up with this meal after seeing what produce he could find, according to our waiter. In fact, Luc Dubanchet, one of the organizers of the meal along with three others featuring other French chefs at David Chang's Momofuku restaurants this month, told the New York Times that Bras said he is “incapable of doing it any other way.”

And so it was that we arrived with open minds and eager stomachs.

Terzo Piano: Where Chicago Is The Art

Terzo Piano is a restaurant that literally makes your heart skip a beat the moment you walk in.

With its high ceilings, crisp, white furniture, spare decor and wall of glass windows providing a sweeping view of Chicago old and new, it's the embodiment and reflection of the city's stunning Mies van der Rohe-infused skyline.

On a clear day, when light is pouring in, sending angular shadows shooting across the pristine, gleaming furniture, the space is just breath-taking. This restaurant, which just opened in the Art Institute of Chicago's modern wing in May, truly does the city justice.

All of this, of course, combines to set some incredibly high expectations for the food itself.

But that, it turns out, is another story.

Pluck: Super Easy Sweets

I'm getting tired of being asked a certain question: Where did you buy that dress?

Recently, I've been asked that a fair bit. And recently, my answer has tended to be the same: Pluck, a little boutique along Singapore's tiny Haji Lane that sells both new and vintage dresses and accessories.

It's an answer I hate to give because most of the people asking have been my American friends. And with Pluck, well, it isn't exactly close enough for them to pop in for a quick browse. (As an immediate gratification kind of person, this kind of thing just will not do for me.)

I recently discovered a bit of good news, however -- Pluck just started selling online and yes, it delivers overseas as well. So I'm writing about this here so that a) people can stop asking me where I buy my dresses and b) well ... a) pretty much covered it.

How does this relate to food? Not as tangentially as you'd think.

Pluck also sells ice-cream and dessert. While I heartily recommend the pear riesling and lychee martini ice-creams, it's been the little crunchy and sweet nibbly bits that co-owner Aisah sends out with tea and coffee that have piqued my interest.

When I bit into one recently, I immediately thought of the little cookies that mums would set out as snacks for visitors or after-school treats when I was a child. 

Scissor-Cut Rice: One Handsome (Tasting) Meal

My New York friend Mark likes to tell the story of how, on his first visit to Singapore, he stopped a group of people near a hawker center, asking them which was the best place to eat in the area. 

"Big scissors!" was the immediate answer.

Which may seem an odd name for a food establishment to some. But in Singapore, the word "scissors" indicates that this is a stall in which you buy a plate of rice, point to a bunch of dishes (usually holding items like tofu, fried eggs or pork chops) and the hawker then piles what you've chosen on the plate and snips it all up into bite-size pieces with -- you got it -- a big pair of scissors.

While this could come across as a rather unorthodox way of serving a meal, let me tell you, places with the word "scissors" in their names often churn out pretty darn satisfying food. In Mark's case, his meal -- which he still regularly recounts with great gusto and yearning -- was at Big Scissors Curry Rice at Maxwell Food Centre. 

Recently, I had the good fortune of discovering another gem in the "scissors" category: Beach Road Scissor-Cut Curry Rice.