Boon Tong Kee - Deluxe ข้าวมันไก่

Had a fairly lazy Monday at the office. I think I'm setting a very low goal about what task to finish before taking vacation later this week.

Anyways I was taking bus 65 home, when I looked up from my book to see an old favorite - this little chicken rice place called Boon Tong Kee on River Valley Road.

So before you know it, I'm jaywalking across the street to have a little supper. First thing I notice is that well... this place now has got table cloths - black and purple (สีบานชื่น).
And no more bowl and chopsticks to eat out of - now the rice comes on plates in little pyramids (the pic is courtesy of Mr. Miyagi - somewhat of a celeb in the Singapore blogosphere. He captures the new dining experience at Boon Tong Kee perfectly in this post).

Thank goodness that the food is stil good like I remembered it. Chicken here is always tender and moist and they the rice has a little kick of ginger.

What I also love the kai-lan with oyster sauce - just quickly cooked so that it's still has crunchy stalks but no hint of unpleasant 'greenness'. A nice meal although on the expensive side (12 SGD = almost 300 baht for one). But well, this is 'upscale' chicken rice :-)

Dish of the Day

From Bill Granger's recipe:



I was cleaning up the fridge today and found a punnet of blueberries hidden under the mess. So had 6 big pancakes for dinner... still full now...

How to make a bad sandwich; Breakfast Top 4

With my legs still madly aching from the jog I took yesterday (more on that later)... I decided not to travel to far for my lunch - hmm... the corner coffee place looks good for a cappucino and a sandwich.

The 'chicken-mustard' sandwich caught my eye. I imagine a piece of tender chicken breast with crisp hot mustard encased in what Philippa Davenport would call 'bread of good character'. But alas, dear friends, I got this:



How to make a bad sandwich:

1. Take the chicken breast and microwave until dry. Absolutely no flavouring should be added - in additon to having that dry and stringry texture, the chicken should be also tasteless.
2. Flake the dried out chicken and combine with a bland, fatty mayonnaise. Put in some whole grain mustard for decoration, but make sure the unique taste of the mustard is completely over powered by the mayo.
3. Take some dried bread (perferably of 'bad character') and toast until all moisture has been evaporated. It should be dried enough that, when bitten, tiny crumbs should vaporize, causing you to have coughing fits and minor throat irritation. (If to be served in restuarant, make sure the waiter ignores the customer flagging him down for a glass of water.)
4. Spread the chicken mixture on bread, making sure to put lots of mayo to 'flavour' the chicken. Add anonymous salad leaf and serve.

*************

Even though breakfast is one of my favorite meals, I rarely have a chance to partake of it on weekdays. When I'm in Singapore, one of my favorite things to do is to have a lazy Sunday lunch with a pile of newspapers. Some of my favorite places:

1. River Cafe

An Aussie-style cafe, very laid back with good simple chic food best eaten on the veranda overlooking the Singapore River. I had the ricotta hotcakes with banana and honey comb last time... so good.

It's in the same building as the Tyler Print Institute, which puts on some very cool exhibitions. I've always like prints and textiles.. there's just this right mixture of having that practical craftsmanship and artistic inspiration.

2. Nosh Cafe - Three words: All day breakfast!

3. Whitebait and Kale

Tucked away in a posh private hospital is probably the my favorite of the bunch. The homely off-white/brownish/bluish interior is very inviting with and open kitchen - reminds me of a nice beach side place somewhere in Australia.

The menu looked so inviting I think I had way too much to eat. Started with a healthy virgin mary then a not so healthy helping of eggs florentine (poached eggs on a bed of toast and spinach) and this yummy chocolate waffle.. *drool*

A nice latte ended the meal... hehe.

4. Marmalade Pantry

This cool earth-toned bistro is located in the basement of the Singapore equivalent of snooty Gaysorn Plaza. Their Sunday brunch is a place to be seen drinking your lychee bellini. Or some other drinks for their nice bar:

Lovely food here as well, although the presentation can get irritatingly complex. Their chicken pot pie, if I can remember, was a tall tower shape thingy that needed to attacked with a knife rather than just simply eaten.

Random Links

It's been a surprising tough week this week - though I should have seen it coming. Errands to run for the Tokyo trip (visa, tickets, etc.) and things at work are picking up. Anyways here are some random snippets and thoughts...

1. Have a secret? Here's an anonymous say to let it all out: http://postsecret.blogspot.com (scroll to the bottom to see instructions).

2. There's quite a surprising variety of advice columns in the world. Some of my favorites:

• Dear Economist: The tagline is 'Resolving reader's dilemmas with the tools of Adam Smith'. I read it from the weekend edition of the Financial Times. You'd have to say it's not particular useful (low utilility) although it's kinda funny in a nerdy way how hard the guy tries to answer everyday problem in terms of the dismal science.
• Savage Love: Sex advice (mostly) for straights from a gay man. He's not called 'Savage' for nothing - notorious for the one-liner put down. The people who write him and his advice are both hilarious. I do think beneath it all he gives pretty ok advice though.
• Word Court: From the Atlantic Monthly, this column tackles nit-pickingly obscure questions about the English Language. Is there really no difference between being a postgraduate or graduate student, etc?

3. Dish of the week - Linguine with pesto.

I somehow felt the urge to do it the traditional pestle-and-mortar way, as urged by Neil Perry in his XXX food porn of a book:

[Pesto] is usually made in a blender, ends up tasting more of roasted nuts and garlic than it does of basil and comes out dark green. It should be made in a mortar and with a pestle so that the basil leaves are creamed and their oils are released, rather than chopped and heated. It sounds hard, but it is really simple.

Yeah right! Trouble was that I didn't have a pestle or mortar handy in Singapore... so I improvised to use the bottom of a tea cup. Housekeeping must be pissed at the mess I'm making these days. This is after a good 20 minutes of pulping...

End resulting turned out to be quite worth the labour... with fresh basil aroma + kick of garlic/pepper + creaminess from olive oil and parmesean + a sweet nuttiness from the pine nuts. Definitely will make this again.

Any of you out there thing it's weird if I go out and buy a ครก (mortar)? Comments please... I could get a designer ครก:

Well-known architect Duangrit Bunnag has expanded his creativity to design a collection of furniture and household items for Anyroom. For this show, he presents a low wooden table, Alone, in a natural brown colour in minimalist style, and Krog, a granite mortar that retains its normal function but assumes contemporary form. [Nation, Sunday June 19]

Adventures in the kitchen - Part 2

Someone (:-P) has been calling me "my pooh-like, easy-go-lucky, consultant-turn-chef, always on the luck, boyfriend"... and while I object to being called pooh-like, but I do like the sound of 'consultant-turned-chef'.

I've had something of a positive-feedback loop in the kitchen for a while. You make a soufle and it rises, bake a cake it the roommate likes it... Who doesn't enjoy being praised with 'You should open a restaurant, man' - just for making some nice little friend rice.

Cheese Souffle in the oven and out!

The Incident of the Orange-Almond Cake

I saw the recipe in the cookbook and I knew I had to make it. I'm a sucker for oranges/mandarins, you see, and I would get to use my new handblender.

So first simmer oranges in barely boiling water, then leave to cool:

Then with the handy handmixer, puree:

Then bake:

So far so good. Sit down and thinking about that first bite out of the cake after it's piping hot out of the oven... my favorite rewarding moment.

Then amid the daydream, disaster strikes... the cake was happily baking when I realized that 'no sugar was used in this production of the cake batter'... panic hits.

Should i take it out? Mix in the sugar now? My roomie sees me peering into the oven with sweat on my brow muttering (he's thinking: leave the guy alone).

I concoct a seemingly brilliant solution. Make a light syrup and poor it over the cooking cake - the sweetness will be absorbed into the cake and the sugar will turn caramel on top.

Two minutes pass by. I shake the cake pan and the water is slushing around... okay, be patient, let's wait a bit more. Ten minutes and I can't see the cake cos the whole oven is steaming!

At this point I'm pissed. I spent two hours boiling these oranges, perhaps another to scrape off the skin and cut them into nice matchsticks to make the candied zest. So I decide to take the whole thing out and mash everthing back together with a fork... work out my agression :P

Another hour later (it's about midnight now), I find that it didn't turn out to bad after all.. hehe




Tada... at least with no sugar it's low calorie

Lesson learned: In cooking as in life, it pays to keep a bright outlook.