A Tiger In The Kitchen

786 Yassin Restaurant: "Drunk Food" To Remember

2010-02-08T23:06:26-05:00

The moment I heard about 786 Yassin Restaurant, a place in Singapore that reputedly serves outstanding Indian mutton soup, I instantly begged to be taken.

When done well, soup kambing, as it's called, is a hefty flavor bomb that's hard to forget. It comes infused with coriander, cumin, cardamom, turmeric, nutmeg and star anise (among other spices) and dotted with crispy fried shallots and soft onion chunks.

This, no doubt, is the Chanel of soups.

When to have it, however, turned out to be something to consider.

"You can't have soup kambing now lah," said my friend Basil, who had told me about Yassin, prompting me to immediately suggest heading there for dinner. "It's mabuk food."

Ahh, drunk food -- the dishes that are the perfect panacea when you're leaving a bar at 2 a.m. and looking for something to quell your hunger and sober you up. In the case of soup kambing, this heady concoction of spices does an especially efficient job of clearing your head and helping you wade out of your Chivas fog.

I didn't want to have to get drunk in order to try Yassin's though. So after some persuading, we were on our way.

Now, even though the place has the word "restaurant" in its name, like most fantastic eateries in Singapore, it's a pretty bare-bones operation.

Sticky tables are set out on the grimy sidewalk; air-conditioning, of course, is non-existent.

If you order roti prata, the crispy Indian pancake that you dip in curry, the very open kitchen right in the center of the restaurant allows you to watch them make it from start to finish.

Right by the entrance, you can also get a close look at the massive tubs of curry that you'll be dipping your prata into.

We had come for the soup kambing, however.

For just Singapore $3 or U.S. $2.10, you get a pretty large bowl of soup. And what a soup it is.

For starters, it comes flecked with so many spices your tongue could explode trying to dissect all the flavors. (If you're not generally a fan of mutton, do not be afraid -- the spice combination in this soup more than stands up to the strong taste of the meat.)

At Yassin, the soup is served with so many mutton bits, onions and crispy shallots (that are particularly amazing after they've become sodden with soup) that each spoonful gives you added big chunks of flavor. But even without them, the broth itself is so stuffed with spices that it's practically chewy.

Ask for the French bread (for an additional Singapore $0.50/U.S. $0.35) -- you'll want it for dipping.

But make sure you dunk it all the way in, pressing it down firmly so it gets completely soup-logged and mushy.

We decided to sample some mutton murtabak (Singapore $5/ U.S. $3.50).

It was just OK -- and a little skimpy on the minced mutton. But honestly, after the soup kambing, anything else we ate at Yassin would probably have been a letdown.

The perfect ending to this meal, of course, was a mug of piping hot, milky ginger tea.

Yassin does a nice job with its teh halia -- you can definitely taste the fresh ginger (and sense it in your nostrils) but the overall flavor is not overpowering.

As we left Yassin, sated and still on a soup kambing high, I knew I'd definitely be back.

I just hope I remember how to make my way there the next time I'm mabuk.

786 Yassin Restaurant, 945 Serangoon Road, Tel. No.: 6298.9815‎

International Food Stall: A Nasi Lemak Breakfast

2010-02-04T02:13:44-05:00

It was at Nyonya, a Malaysian restaurant in New York City, that I recently found myself with the legendary and insatiable Gael Greene, trying to explain the wonder that is nasi lemak, a Malay dish of coconut rice topped with a fried egg, fried chicken, crispy anchovies, cucumber slices and fiery sambal chili sauce.

"We eat it for breakfast -- or lunch," I said, explaining that some Singapore hawkers will have packets of the rice tightly wrapped up in banana leaves set out in the morning, ready for the harried to buy and eat on the run.

"Breakfast?" she said, looking intrigued.

Granted, it's hard to appreciate nasi lemak as one of the best ways to start the day when the New York version set before you is a mound of flavorless rice paired with a mushy mess of sodden chicken and anchovies that are limp and cold instead of crunchy and tongue-searingly hot.

But if you've had the real thing for breakfast while sitting in a humid hawker center in sweltering tropical heat, trust me, you'll be a convert. Oatmeal and French Toast will be all but a distant, lesser memory.

In Singapore, one of my favorite places for the stuff is a little stall in Changi Village, a somewhat sleepy nook by the sea. It'd been many years since I'd been there -- but I'd heard its lines remained as impossibly long. (Always a good sign.)

Clearly, it was time for a revisit ...

When people try to describe how to find International Food Stall, which is located in a warren of Malay food stalls, each touting its own nasi lemak as famous or good, this is what's usually said: "Look for the one with the very long queue."

Which is sound advice, really. Even at off-peak eating hours, this place always has a line.

The offerings here are straightforward -- you can get nasi lemak with a fried chicken wing, fried fish or otak, a spicy, coconutty mackerel paste. (Based on what you get, the dish ranges in price from Singapore $3 to $3.50, which is about U.S. $2.12 to $2.50)

Being a fried chicken fanatic, there's really only one kind of nasi lemak for me. (And I like the chicken deep fried and dry, not the sauce-drenched kinds that you'll find in Malaysia.)

At International Food Stall, it's the chicken that particularly grabs me -- it's super crispy on the outside, always juicy on the inside and leaves a lingering trail of ginger and garlic on your tongue even after it's disappeared.

The anchovies are always crunchy and the chili sauce has a delicious and delicate sweetness to it, which really allows you to taste the coconut flavor in the rice. (If you're up for working through the bones of a smallish fish, the turmeric-laced fried fish version is pretty darn tasty, too.)

As my nasi lemak disappeared that day, I stared morosely at the ever-more-clean plate and vowed that I wouldn't let another 10 years pass before coming back here again.

It was a promise, it turned out, that I had no trouble keeping.

Not even week later, when the call of Changi Village nasi lemak beckoned once again, I immediately listened.

International Food Stall, Changi Village Food Center, Block 2, Changi Village Road, #01-57.

The Loading Dock: "Worthy" Fish Tacos

2010-01-31T19:45:46-05:00

This might be what they call a classic New York food fairytale.

Boy moves to New York. Boy starts selling fish tacos at out of a little stand at the Brooklyn Flea in Dumbo. Boy's tacos develop a hungry following. Boy opens restaurant.

And to add to the cool factor, he opens it in the loading dock of a former garment factory in downtown Brooklyn -- talk about economical use of space in this land-starved city.

The Boy in this case would be Forrest Cole, who explains on his Web site that he first started selling fish tacos at the flea after fruitlessly trying to find a "worthy example" of a Baja-style fish taco in the city.

Now, that's talking quite a bit of smack about New York's many pre-existing taco joints.

We had to see just how "worthy" these fish tacos were ...

Now, the Loading Dock, which opened in December, is in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it location. Situated in what could be described as the armpit of downtown Brooklyn, it's nearest landmarks are the McDonald's across the street and the nearby police station.

Once you get there, however, the gray grittiness of wintertime Brooklyn washes away. The place is airy, spacious and more SoHo-like in decor than you'd expect of a fish taco stand turned restaurant.

But there's a reason for its mod-rustic tables and luxe fur pelts draped over chairs just so -- the place also doubles as an art gallery. (The current exhibition of massive watercolor headshots by Erik Hougen are bearable, if a little eerie, backdrops for lunch.)

There was immediately something to like about the place -- its selection of Mexican sodas.

We started with a carnitas burrito, filled with rice, beans and slow-cooked pork ($8). This was a perfectly decent burrito -- if a little overstuffed with rice and understuffed with pork.

As tasty as it was, after a few bites, we immediately regretted not heeding the strong urgings of the waiter to order the fried fish burrito ($10) instead.

Imagining a massive burrito stuffed with crispy, deep-fried fish instead was almost too much to bear.

Next, a carne asada taco ($4) and beer-battered Mahi-Mahi taco ($5) appeared.

Both came wrapped with six-inch corn tortillas and stuffed with onions, cilantro, lime, salsa and a delicious and creamy house-made dipping sauce made with avocado, tomatillo and parsley.

The grilled steak taco was so-so -- the little cubes of meat were well-seasoned and nicely grilled. But once we had our first bite of the fish taco, everything else we'd tried -- the carne asada, the pork burrito -- instantly faded into oblivion.

The batter was light and crispy and the fish was perfectly fried. The pillowy fish puffs paired with the crunchy vegetables and soft tortilla were a lovely combination.

We immediately craved another.

Instead, we decided to sample the pollo taco ($4), which was filled with chicken in an adobo marinade with chipotle. The little chunks of chicken were once again very well-seasoned and just a smidge spicy.

If I'd never tasted the fried fish taco, I'd say this was pretty good.

As the waiter appeared to bus our table, I effusively burbled that I'd liked the fish taco a great deal.

Looking a little embarrassed, he said, "We haven't gotten it to the level that we're proud of."

It turns out that the fryer at their Flea stall is just a little more powerful and able to churn out even better fried fish. "But we're working on it," he said chipperly.

Now, if these fish tacos are only going to get better, we're definitely going back.

Loading Dock, 170 Tillary Street (near Gold Street), Downtown Brooklyn, Tel. No.: 646.355.7518, http://www.chonchostacos.com/loadingdock.html

Indian Chicken Curry: A Grandmother's Recipe

2010-01-28T19:53:14-05:00

A few weeks ago, I found myself on the phone, frantically shuttling between calls to my aunt and my grandmother, trying to jolt their memories and nail down the ingredients we needed for my Singapore family's take on chicken curry.

As the calls got more confusing and the ingredient list grew more nebulous, my friend Basil, a Singaporean of Indian ethnicity, sat nearby, listening in with an increasingly incredulous look.

"You're sitting next to an Indian," he finally said, "and you're not asking him how he makes his curry?"

A very good point.

It turns out Basil, better known to his friends as the hard-to-miss, gregarious guy at any bar that he frequents, also knows how to cook. He learned 20 years ago in his grandmother's kitchen, when he was drafted as a teenager to help her after she'd lost a leg to diabetes. "She would park her wheelchair at the entrance to the kitchen and bark out instructions to me," he said.

Well, her lessons must have stuck because Basil then proved that he could rattle off her curry instructions as quickly and surely as he can list the latest Manchester United stats.

The moment I got back to my Brooklyn kitchen, I knew I had to try it.

The recipe begins as many other curry recipes do -- with loads of garlic, ginger and shallots.

Basil's flexible on how finely to chop up the garlic, ginger and shallots, but I prefer my curry gravy less chunky. So I used a food processor to turn the ingredients into a paste-like consistency.

After all that prep work is done, the curry is a cinch to make. It basically involves heating up oil, frying up mustard seeds until they pop, and adding some of the garlic, ginger and shallots. Then, to use Basil's words, "you just dump everything in" and cook for 45 minutes.

Now, the curry that my family makes -- and the curry you tend to see in American restaurants -- is rather liquid.

So I started to panic when I filled up my wok with the ingredients and noticed how dry it looked. The spice paste was barely coating the chicken, much less filling the pan with gravy. Would this burn? I had no idea.

I'll admit -- I ran to my pantry at this point to grab a can of coconut milk, briefly considering adding that to the mix, even though Basil had expressly said, "No coconut milk."

In the end, the desire to preserve our friendship led me to follow his instructions to the letter.

The final result, however, was delicious.

The melange of spices is complex -- and without the sweetness of the coconut milk, the taste of this chicken has a deep and slightly smoky quality to it.

It's a taste that will linger and intensify over days. (You might want to make this a day ahead.)

Having found a recipe that's a keeper, I'm of course greedy for more. Also on Basil's grandmother's lesson plan was a recipe for spicy Goan pork curry that he says is to die for.

If we're all lucky, maybe he'll share it.

~~~

Basil's Grandmother's Chicken Curry

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, cut up into parts
3 TB chili powder
1 tsp fennel seeds
1.5 TB ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp cumin
1 or 2 whole star anise (optional)
10 dried chili peppers
10 shallots
3 inches of ginger, peeled
20 cloves of garlic
1.5 heaping TB mustard seeds
2 stalks of curry leaves
2 TB corn or vegetable oil
Salt, to taste

Chop up the garlic, shallots and ginger. (You can use a food processor if you'd like a less chunky gravy.) Set a small portion of this mixture aside. Then mix up the rest with the chili powder, fennel seeds, coriander, turmeric, cumin and set that aside for 15 minutes.

Heat 2 TB of oil in a wok over medium to high heat until the oil is very hot. Add the mustard seeds and fry until the mustard seeds start to pop and split open. Add the small portion of garlic, ginger and shallots that you'd set aside and fry that a little, until fragrant, then add in the rest of the ingredients (the spice mixture, chicken, star anise, dried chili peppers, salt and curry leaves).

Cook for 45 minutes over medium heat, or until chicken is cooked through, stirring occasionally. If you'd like a gravy, cover the wok while cooking. If you'd prefer a dry curry, don't cover it.

Serve with rice.

Colicchio & Sons: Super-Rich Locavore

2010-01-26T13:13:35-05:00

Unless you've been in deep hibernation, if you live in New York and have been known to consume food, you've probably noticed that Tom Colicchio opened a new restaurant in Manhattan last week.

The breathless chatter over Colicchio & Sons in the Meatpacking District has been inescapable since the "Top Chef" judge announced that he was turning his ailing Craftsteak space into a locavore joint with a comfort food bent. (The restaurant is an offshoot of Colicchio's popular Tom: Tuesday Dinner, a weekly 32-seat event in which Tom himself put together a $150 to $200 meal made with of-the-season ingredients.)

Now, being a big lover of red meat -- even if I wasn't exactly a fan of the concept of Craftsteak's $100 steaks -- I'm always a little morose whenever a steakhouse shutters.

If its replacement is a worthy one, however, that's another matter.

We decided to investigate ...

First things first -- Colicchio has himself a beautiful space here. It's cavernous, it's grand, yet it's (relatively) spare. It's not overdone or hipped-up like some of its surrounding restaurants in this too-trendy neighborhood.

In short, you walk in expecting to be fed a solid, serious meal.

The pizzas and beer in the bar area, now the "Tap Room," were tempting. But Colicchio's locavore menu in the main dining room beckoned.

Shortly after getting seated, pans of rolls hit the table. They were lovely -- sticky, sweet and just slightly warm.

For starters, the raw tuna topped with julienned green apples and paired with a horseradish gelee ($16) was refreshing -- the combination of tart apples with sweet tuna and the just-slightly fiery gelee worked well.

The squid with cavalo nero risotto, spicy tomato and flecks of cacao nibs ($15), by comparison, was a little disappointingly bland.

The entrees were equally mixed. The roasted sturgeon with pumpkin and saba ($30) was perfectly fine -- nothing to write home about.

But the red squab with beets, hen of the wood mushrooms and roasted leeks ($34) came so bloody that one of my dining companions dubbed it "squab sashimi."

I'm all for rare meat -- and I'm always loathe to question the way a chef thinks a dish should be served -- but this bleeding, not-that-far-removed-from-alive squab was a little hard to stomach, even for the adventurous.

The roasted sirloin with bacon and black garlic ($36) redeemed the evening -- the meat was flavorful and had a nice char. (Of course, steak is a little hard to screw up.)

And any dish that comes with chunks of bacon is always a winner in my book.

Now, I don't know if you've been noticing the prices of these dishes as I've gone along. But, as much as this place has been billed as a somewhat affordable place for well-done farm-to-table fare, the truth is, it really isn't.

Sure, the steaks on the menu are only in the two figures, not three -- but with entrees starting at $27 and appetizers reaching as high as $22 (for gnocchi with chestnuts, bone marrow and black truffles), Colicchio & Sons may be less expensive than its predecessor but it's by no means inexpensive.

Would we go back? Probably not.

"Overpriced" -- a word currently being bandied about in online discussions of this restaurant -- is a price I'm sometimes willing to pay, yes.

But only if what I'm getting is a consistently good meal.

Colicchio & Sons, 85 Tenth Avenue (at 15th Street), Tel. No.: 212.400.6699

Poilane Miche: Tackling A Legend

2010-01-21T10:09:15-05:00

As usual, I had bread on my mind the moment I returned to New York from my latest trip to Singapore.

After weeks away from my oven, I always touch down just itching to bake something. And this time, a quick check with my fellow Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge bakers revealed that they were mired in a difficult spot in the bread lineup.

"We are in Sourdough right now," said Daniel in Berlin (a.k.a. @MisterRios of the Ährelich Gesagt blog). "Everyone is tRYEing their best."

Ahh, bread humor. Gotta love it.

After the laughter subsided, however, I started to get worried. Sourdough in the hands of lesser bakers can be a massive pain in the tush.

I should know.

Just last month, bolstered by a successful pane Siciliano and wondering what to do with a bowl of sourdough starter, I brazenly decided to take on a legend: Poilane miche -- the Holy Grail of breads.

Now, Poilane and I, we go back a few years.

I've never visited the vaunted boulangerie, whose breads used to be regularly flown to New York by Concorde so it could be sold relatively fresh in Manhattan. But I have enjoyed it hot and fresh in Paris both in its pure form and topped with ham, melted gruyere and an egg in a deliciously sour Croque Madame.

So I was immediately tempted when I saw it on the list in Peter Reinhart's bread book. Sure, I hadn't made even basic sourdough bread before, making this attempt a little insane.

But a girl can dream -- why crawl when you can fly, right?

From the beginning, however, this bread was my nemesis.

On the first day, I mixed together some starter, whole wheat flour and water to form a ball. The dough was incredibly dry at this point and a little crumbly. Nonetheless, I decided to power through.

The next day, problem number two emerged. After you add seven cups of flour, salt and water, this dough becomes massive -- so massive that you can't use a standmixer to knead it.

I hadn't thought this would be an issue until I realized how stiff this dough was. After several minutes of kneading, I began to intimately understand what "working your fingers to the bone" might mean.

After more fermenting, I formed it into a boule and let it ferment even more.

It started to look OK -- a little professional, even, after scoring it with a hash sign to look like the picture on the cover of the book.

The big cracks appearing were worrisome, however. The dough also felt very dry and incredibly heavy. But we'd come too far to turn back by this point. So after prepping the oven for hearth baking, in it went.

How did it look at the end? Well, like a big rock, essentially. And just about as heavy as one, too.

In short, nothing like the Poilane miches I'd seen in my life.

After sawing through the rock that was my miche, we found a dense, dry bread that bordered on inedible.

My rose-tinted visions of home-made Croque Madame with my very own Poilane-style miche instantly disappeared.

What went wrong? I'm not entirely sure.

But just as I wouldn't have bought a sewing kit and expected to create a Yves Saint Laurent masterpiece in a day, I probably shouldn't have expected to nail a Poilane miche on the first try.

This is not to say I'm giving up on sourdough breads, however.

But first things first -- I'll have to learn how to crawl.

~~~

Not all Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge bakers were such massive failures at Poilane miche. Check some out here:

Jude's at Apple Pie, Patis & Pate

Oggi's at I Can Do That!

Phyl's at Of Cabbages & King Cakes

TXFarmer's at The Fresh Loaf

Sally's at Bewitching Kitchen

You can also check out more Poilane-style miches at Yeastspotting.

Gayatri Restaurant: One For The Road

2010-01-19T10:14:33-05:00

Your last meal in any city is no small matter, I've always believed.

It's the meal you might still be able to taste as you look out at the diminishing skyline from the plane; the one that you'll be thinking of to tide you over until you return again.

During my most recent trip to Singapore for book research, where to have my last supper was a particularly hard decision.

I'd eaten well. In just a few weeks, I'd clocked not one but two visits to Hock Lam for the umami bomb that is its gooey beef ball noodles. I'd trekked to the seafront Changi Village to sample the nasi lemak, a Malay dish of coconut rice with a fried chicken wing, sambal chili, fried egg and crunchy anchovies, from a hawker stall I loved but hadn't visited in over 10 years. And I'd had a lovely lunch at Iggy's, a high-end restaurant that served up a custard-like French toast dessert topped with thick flecks of truffles that was truly unforgettable.

When plotting the appropriate finale, one thing instantly came to mind.

My friend Basil had told me a few weeks back about taking some people to his favorite restaurant in Little India to eat spicy mutton, drink beer and watch the world go by.

The choice was obvious.

Come, I said, let's go.

So on a Sunday night, we found ourselves stepping off the train at Farrer Park station and plunging into the dense thicket of locals and tourists that fills Little India's narrow streets and sidewalks in the evening.

Amid this hubbub, Gayatri Restaurant is pretty easy to find -- it's a gleaming, polished beacon in the generally dimly lit neighborhood. Now, I'm normally suspicious of local restaurants that are even remotely gussied up. Air-conditioning, decorative shrubbery and fetching neon signage? All signs that a place may need to compensate for its food. And Gayatri even had buttons on the table for us to press to summon a waiter for drinks or the bill.

The place had cred, however. Basil assured me that he'd been going there for years and that yes, it once was a hole in the wall with no creature comforts to speak of.

So we sat down, pushed a button and soon enough, the food started appearing.

Papadums, hot and crispy, and chilled Tiger beer were the first to arrive -- the perfect starter.

But it was the mutton mysore that captured my heart. It's a dish of cubed mutton braised in an intense cocktail of spices -- turmeric, cumin, cinnamon, star anise, cloves, chilli ... the list is never-ending -- and flecked with cashew nuts and big pods of cardamom.

"Sip your beer, take a bite and then sip your beer again," Basil instructed, showing me how his father used to load up papadums with bite-sized forkfuls of mutton.

Basil's beer-bite-beer combo was a sound strategy for palate cleansing -- as it is with the ritual for caviar, it made each bite seem new. And each mouthful was seriously unbelievable -- the complexity of the spice mixture more than stands up to the intense flavor of mutton and will stay with you for a while.

The one thing to avoid is the cardamom pods -- accidentally bite into one (as I did) and that's all you'll taste for a while.

We also sampled other dishes -- none as good as the mutton but not bad overall. We had squid, battered, deep-fried and served with a dipping sauce crowded with sliced, super-hot chili padi. A lackluster prawn cutlet, breaded and deep-fried. And some amazing fish cutlets, which are patties filled with potato cubes and shredded fish -- also breaded and deep-fried.

Perched at our outside table, unhurriedly sipping and nibbling while watching the endless hordes of people jostle by, I realized a better ending couldn't have been scripted.

Soon enough, there would be a flight back to New York. And back in New York, there would be deadlines, stress and even more deadlines.

But here, for a moment, there was just a girl, her mutton, and her ice-cold beer. That was all.

Gayatri Restaurant, 122 Race Course Road, Tel. No.: 6291-1011, http://www.gayatrirestaurant.com/

Chicken Adobo: Baguio Beckoning

2010-01-08T05:04:54-05:00

As we were hunched over the stove, embroiled in some recent kitchen experiment, my Singapore family's maid Erlinda noted in passing that it'd been almost two years since she'd eaten her own home-made adobo.

Two years? This seemed like an interminably long time for a Filipina not to be enjoying her national dish, cooked by her own hand.

My mother doesn't stock vinegar in the kitchen, she explained, which instantly makes brewing a pot of the vinegary pork or chicken stew impossible. And the soy sauce that we Chinese use happens to be just a little too sweet for real adobo, it turns out.

Now, being a massive lover of the stuff, I immediately decided that Erlinda's adobo drought needed to end. (This had nothing to do, of course, with the fact that my mouth often starts to water the moment I hear the word "adobo.")

So, with some instructions from Erlinda on what she needed for her adobo, off we went.

In my Brooklyn kitchen, I make adobo with some frequency. It's a go-to dish when I crave a savory Asian stew to pour over a plate of rice and slurp up. It also helps that the pork adobo I make has been whipped together so often that I can practically do it with my eyes closed.

I also thought it would be the perfect contribution to January's Let's Lunch -- a monthly virtual lunch-date and recipe swap a bunch of food bloggers spread out from San Francisco to Paris have been having since an international craving for BLTs took hold one Sunday a few months ago.

With Erlinda's instructions in hand, I set off for Singapore's Lucky Plaza, a mall that's filled with Filipino cafes and mini-marts.

Back home in Baguio, Erlinda uses two main ingredients for the adobo recipe she gleaned from her Mom: Silver Swan soy sauce and Rose vinegar.

Silver Swan was a cinch but Rose vinegar was nowhere to be found -- Erlinda, however, assured me that Datu Puti, the apparent Filipino vinegar brand of choice in Singapore, was a worthy substitute.

With those in hand, we prepped some potatoes, garlic, bay leaves, shallots and peppercorns, and the cooking began.

How was the adobo? Not earth-shaking but tremendously satisfying -- a quality we should all be lucky to have in a home-cooked meal. The balance of vinegar and a particularly deeply savory soy sauce with peppercorns, shallots and garlic was lovely. And the dish was incredibly easy to put together.

This recipe, I'd say, is a keeper.

As I type this, Erlinda is up in the air somewhere over the South China Sea, heading back to Baguio for the first time in two years.

On the other side, she has her family, her husband, her four-year-old son waiting for her.

And perhaps, too -- I hope -- a big bowl of her mother's adobo.

~~~

If you'd like to join Let's Lunch, go to Twitter and post a message with the hashtag #Letslunch -- or, post a comment below.

And don't forget to see other Let's Lunchers' hearty stews below:

Cathy's Pichelsteiner stew at Showfood Chef

Danielle's Thai Green Curry at Bon Vivant

Ellise's Mom's Vegetable Beef Stew at Cowgirl Chef

Nicole's Butternut Squash and Chickpea Stew with Israeli Couscous at Pinch My Salt

Stephanie's Hearty Lentil Stew with Smoked Sausage at Cosmic Cowgirl

~~~

Erlinda's Chicken Adobo

Ingredients:

200 grams chicken, cut into pieces

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and bashed

6 bay leaves

2 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges

1.5 Tablespoons peppercorns (white or black) -- crush half of them and leave the other half whole

2 cups water

5 Tablespoons Silver Swan soy sauce

3 Tablespoons Rose or Datu Puti vinegar

1 teaspoon salt (Or more, if you'd like it to be saltier.)

Bring two cups of water to boil in a large wok, then add shallots, garlic, bay leaves, pepper, soy sauce and vinegar. Bring that to a boil and then add chicken and salt. Cover the mixture, bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for 25 minutes. Add potatoes, cover and boil for 10 more minutes.

Serve with rice.

Ice Kachang: Savoring The Old

2010-01-04T05:11:45-05:00

This is what inevitably happens when I get together with the Fairways Kids, a bunch of friends I've known since I was 11, back when my family moved into a Singapore condominium building named (naturally) Fairways.

Sure, we'll catch up on jobs, lives, kids, significant others. But somehow the conversation always wends its way back to one thing: ice kachang, a sugary dessert featuring a bowl of sweet corn, red beans, palm seeds and jelly topped with a minor hill of shaved ice that's been doused in syrup so sweet you can practically feel a toothache coming on as you shovel spoonfuls into your mouth.

We were a rambunctious lot -- still are, some might say. Rough soccer games, fearless, kickboxing fights in the swimming pool, endless games of volleyball in the tennis court -- this was how our youths were misspent. But the highlight of those idyllic days often was a trip over the fence (the shortcut before the condo association built a back gate) to the hawker center in the back.

What lay at the end was an ice-cold mountain, festive and pink.

Back behind the fence, we had homework, exams and, later, boy or girl problems to consume us. But at Telok Blangah Food Centre, things were simple. All we had to worry about was whether we had enough coins that day for a bowl of ice kachang.

After our most recent trip down memory lane, I decided to venture back to the old Telok Blangah neighborhood to see if our ice kachang stall was still there.

At Fairways, which is something of a ghost town these days as most of its residents have moved out, the good old back gate remained ...

And on the other side of that gate, our trusty old hawker center appeared.

The hawker center looked the worse for wear but a familiar red sign immediately beckoned ...

Immediately, I placed my order -- one ice-kachang, plain and simple.

It costs $1, or U.S. $0.72, these days, which may have been a little expensive for our tastes back then. But it was comforting to see the familiar ingredients getting scooped into a bowl.

The ice kachang itself tasted perfectly fine -- sweet and cold with the reward of jelly-like chewy palm seeds (better known as attap chee in these parts) right at the bottom.

But it was disappointing -- just like any other ice kachang, that is. Nothing special or hallowed, as I remembered.

The missing element, of course, was the company.

Around the table, there was no Francis, Leonard, Kevin, Sam, Kelvin or Daphne. No Yunn-Yunn, Teng-Teng, Peng-Peng or Pauline.

There was no bickering, no laughter over the latest skateboard spills, no showing off of the latest roller-skates someone got for Christmas. And at the end, there were no belches from Sam, which he'd perfected into such an art that they literally could be heard loud and clear from 10 floors up.

I may return for the Telok Blangah ice kachang but I may not. But that's alright, really.

These days when the Fairways Kids meet up, we share dim sum, sushi, beers and cocktails.

As much as we looked forward to and savored our journeys over the fence back then, of course it never really was about the ice kachang.

Red Swallow's Hot and Cold Desserts, Blk 79 Telok Blangah Drive (Telok Blangah Food Centre), #01-13.

Top 10: The Memorable Eats Of 2009

2009-12-31T06:53:57-05:00

You know it's been a good year when you are able to say this: 2009 was when I began to eat for a living.

I'd always been a devotee of affairs of the stomach. I may have written about fashion and other lifestyle areas for a living but baking, braising, trying new recipes, eating out -- those were what consumed me when weekends rolled around.

Luck has its ways of finding you, however. Now, on the precipice of 2010, I'm beginning to close out a lunar calendar year of cooking and eating with my family in Singapore as research for my book, "A Tiger In The Kitchen."

My journey so far has taken me many places -- France, where I had the loveliest gingery champagne cocktail with friends old and dear; China, where my father and I went in search of my great-grandfather's footprints in the village of his birth. And, of course, Singapore, where my aunties and maternal grandmother have been plying me with meals, recipes and much, much love along the way.

With all that I've packed into 2009, it's hard to decide what the highlights have been. But, inspired by some stellar Top 10 gastronomic lists out there (definitely check out Sam Sifton's list of Top 11 dishes in New York in the New York Times), I decided to give it a go.

Here, in no particular order, are my 10 memorable eats of 2009.

Enjoy, buon appetito and listen, let's do this again in 2010 ...

My Late Grandmother's Bak-Zhang: I'd always taken these glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves for granted as a child in Singapore. These dumplings, filled with braised pork belly and mushrooms, usually magically appeared around the time of the dumpling festival in June. I never gave much thought to the hours and care that went into them -- until I learned to make them this spring.

Let me tell you -- they're not easy. And I now have more admiration than ever for my paternal grandmother, who thought nothing of rising at 4 in the morning in order to make them for her family.

Auntie Jianab's Ayam Masak Merah: I may be of Chinese ethnicity but I've long been obsessed with Malay and Indian cooking. The blends of spices, the scorching-hot pastes, those fiery bowls of noodles -- they've always been much more of a siren call to me than (generally) far blander Chinese meals.

This year, my high school friend Aisah's mother graciously agreed to share her prized recipe for ayam masak merah, a sweet and spicy crimson-red Malay fried chicken.

Auntie Jianab learned how to make it from watching other women churn it out at Malay wedding feasts. It's pretty easy to put together and delicious to boot. As recipes go, this is a keeper.

Cancale Oysters: It was cold, drizzly and we were miserable from the, well, cold and drizzle.

Still, the little wooden huts filled with crate after crate of oysters by the bay in Cancale, France, were irresistible one gray day this past summer.

At under 4 Euros for a dozen, they were a bargain. After a little squeeze of lemon and a few slurps long and loud, we were satisfied. And all too soon, it was time to move along again.

Bull's Penis: I will be the first to say that I am a squeamish person.

Nonetheless, when I heard that a new restaurant in New York was serving bull's penis soup, I figured I had to try it.

So how was Pho Sure's peen? Gelatinous. And not much else.

Was it worth the slight anxiety over what I was about to eat? No. But it sure was priceless watching how green my dining companion got after sampling it.

Angel-Hair Pasta with Caviar at Gunther's in Singapore: The restaurant meals I've had in 2009 have been hard to top -- right up there are the nine-course vegetarian meal Michel Bras, the famously reclusive French chef, whipped together at wd-50 during a short visit to New York, and a scenic lunch I had at Alain Ducasse's Jules Verne, looking out over Paris as we were perched up high in the Eiffel Tower.

When I think back on specific dishes, however, one keeps coming back -- cold angel-hair pasta tossed with truffle oil and chives and topped with a generous, salty dollop of caviar at Gunther's in Singapore.

The noodles were perfectly al dente and the delicate combination of flavors was simple and subtle, toeing the line between the comforting and the luxurious.

Sin Huat Eating House's Crab Noodles: It's hard to resist a place once Anthony Bourdain names it one of his "13 places to eat before you die."

Once Sin Huat Eating House, famous for its crab noodles that cost $80 a plate (an astronomical figure by Singapore standards), made the list, we knew we had to try it. How were the crab noodles? Delicious, as billed -- we especially loved the salty, grainy roe mixed into the noodles.

But was it worth the high price and its particularly grimy setting (you'll have a view of algae-clotted fish tanks) in Singapore's largest red-light district? The jury's out on that one.

The Satay Man's Hainanese Pork Satay: Recently, I discovered one of the last vestiges of Singapore's old gastronomic scene -- a traveling satay man. These roving hawkers used to fill Singapore's streets decades ago but with the advent of central hawker centers, they've all but disappeared.

I'm grateful this satay man in Singapore's Tiong Bahru neighborhood still exists, however. His satay, threaded with massive chunks of fat, can't be beat. And his lovely sauce, which cuts a fiery peanut gravy with sweet, crushed pineapple, is unforgettable.

Catch him while you can.

The Cheryl Burger: A small dream came true earlier this year for me -- a dish I created appeared on a menu. Like, of an actual restaurant. With paying clients. Who are not my friends.

After years of sampling my kitchen experiments, my friend Simpson, who owns Cafe Asean in New York's West Village, issued a challenge -- if I came up with an Asian-tinged burger that he liked, he'd put it on the menu. And so in March, the Cheryl burger, a cilantro-chicken burger, made its debut on the specials menu.

As you can see, I just could not get enough of seeing people I did not know order and eat my burger.

Home-Baked Bread: The joys and smells of home-baked bread had eluded me for years. This changed, however, after I joined the Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge, in which amateur cooks from around the world are baking their way through Peter Reinhart's bread bible.

There have been the misses but also many hits. My favorite of the lot so far, however, is casatiello, an amazing Italian bread that's studded with bits of salami and melted cheese.

If you're going to bake one bread in your lifetime, this should be it.

Let's Lunch Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato Sandwich: Of all the meals I put together in 2009, it may surprise you that it was a sandwich that topped my list of favorites.

It wasn't just any sandwich, however -- it was a sandwich that was born out of an all-consuming craving that three women spread across the globe had for BLTs one lazy Sunday morning. Out of that craving sprang a virtual lunch date in which we each created our fantasy BLT. Mine was one featuring a lattice-weave baked bacon patty with tomato, lemon-avocado spread and lettuce, wedged between home-made focaccia.

Months later, our international lunch-date is still going strong.