A Peranakan Garden

I brought my mother to the Singapore Garden Festival 2010 a few weeks ago. After exploring the grandeur of the landscape gardens, and the whimsy of the fantasy gardens, we walked two storeys down to look at the orchids and visit the Community in Bloom. This is one of my favourite sections of the show - I love looking at the herbs, and looking at the ingenuity of the wall gardens and vertical gardens, the floral art and so on.  This year, amongst the gardens developed by communities around Singapore, I spotted the "Peranakan Garden".

I thought it charming, with the old style frontage of a Peranakan house, the stools and table in the garden reminescent of the Peranakan tableware.  My mother, however, was looking at the plants.

There were not enough, she felt, of the plants for the Peranakan kitchen.  Nonyas use a fair amount of herbs in their cooking, and most of the time, they source the plants from their very own backyards. She was a little happier when I showed her the chilli plant, and the bunga telang creeper (or the butterfly pea flower - used as a natural food colouring to stain food blue), and some ginger flowers.  But there were others, she felt which were missing.  (I'm sure we must have missed quite a few) But when we went to the "Supermarket Garden" she found some "suitable" plants - for example, the banana tree and sugar cane plant, curry pulai and lemongrass.  I remember munching on sugar cane during the mid-autumn festival, cut from my grandfather's garden, just as I remember the pots of mint at the back.  My mother still maintains a few pots of herbs in the garden, but herbs are fragile things and may die quickly.  Still, our pandan has been going strong for many years. 

So I ask you, gentle reader. What herbs do you grow in your garden?

Big Eat Out!

The food website hungrygowhere, together with food blogger ieatishootipost and the Peranakan Museum, has organised a major food event, Big Eat Out as part of the Explore Singapore! festival. Held on 22 Nov 2008, selected "master" hawkers were invited to contribute their efforts to charity. There was satay, poh piah, hokkien mee, char kway teow, nasi padang, indian rojak, beef noodles, peranakan food etc.


Needless to say, two of the hawkers (the pohpiah and char kway teow stall) have their stalls in the east and two others were previously located in Katong but since have moved out. So the reputation of the east coast area as the prime foodie zone in Singapore has been certainly upheld.


My cousin and I turned up at the event venue - the Peranakan Museum car park - bright and early. In fact she got there 10 minutes before the official start of event and had gotten her poh piah before the queue built up. Indeed, Kway Guan Huat Poh Piah is the best! (All stall reviews can probably be found on ieat's website. I echo his views completely on this one - their poh piah skin is indeed a culinary marvel. It is thin yet strong enough that the filling doesn't break out of it. The filling was tasty and juicy and I loved the crispy bits inside. To remember it is to want to revisit it - Original stall is at 95 Joo Chiat Road.)

We went on to eat the Hill Street Char Kway Teow (now at Bedok South Hawker Centre), the Thye Hong Fried Hokkien Mee and the Kwong Satay and much more. My father and his friend turned up when we were half way through our meal and helped us finish up some Indian Rojak and Satay after they had eaten their nasi padang. We ended up with some Apom from Peramakan, which has been the subject of earlier posts, most recently here.


Some downsides though - the marquees did not completely cover the venue and so people ended up queueing for food in the noonday sun. The drinks stall was pretty pricey and if I pay $2 for a canned drink, I do expect a straw. But by and large, this was an excellent and worthwhile event, especially as it was for charity. Finally, it also came with an opportunity to revisit the Peranakan Museum for free! More of that later (hopefully I'll get to it at some point).
Photos (not many though) here.