Sinpopo at Joo Chiat Road

In Singapore's highly competitive restaurant scene, it is quite difficult to write about food because somehow they get outdated quite fast!

Fortunately, unlike some other establishments I've written about, Sinpopo is still going strong.  Although, it looks as though they expanded the menu since I went...

Sinpopo is run by the folks behind Awfully Chocolate but this is completely different in concept, serving "old style" Singaporean food with a twist.  I came here with two lady friends and we had a good gossip, over luncheon meat crisps (terribly unhealthy), deep fried wantons  (scarcely less so), the crab meat bee hoon (my fave) and for dessert, gula melaka cake and brown butter sugee cake.  Washed down with Katong Jelly drink (red agar agar jelly in a 7-Up and soda mix).

Whilst I did feel that the gula melaka cake really brought out that gula melaka flavour, I was not sure that the brown butter flavour was really that prominent in the sugee cake.  Rather, the brown butter flavour was more obvious in the thin layer of butter cream icing the cake.  I was intrigued however by the whole idea of "updating" sugee cake using brown butter and so I was inspired to make my own version of brown butter sugee cake!

First of all, I had to learn how to brown butter.  Fortunately there's a pretty good guide here on Serious Eats.  Briefly, butter is melted and then boiled over the stove till the water evaporates.  As the melted butter continues to boil, tiny little particles of milk solids emerge and as these brown, they impart a nutty, caramel flavour to the butter.  However, you need to watch it carefully to make sure that the little flecks of milk solids don't burn!

My Brown Butter Sugee Cake

Having browned the butter, I then went on to make my sugee cake, which I've written about here.  I soaked my semolina in the browned butter and then made my sugee cake as per normal.  As usual, I did not put any icing or butter cream on the cake which enabled me to taste the "natural" flavours of the cake.

The verdict?  The colour of my sugee cake was a little darker than in the past - not so much a bright sunny yellow but a slightly browner shade.  As for flavour - well, I enjoyed the buttery flavour of the cake, but again the brown butter flavour did't really emerge.  I suspect that with the traditional marzipan and royal icing, the buttery flavour would be overpowered by the strong almond flavour.  It's probably better to take it to a different flavour profile altogether, add brown sugar in place of some of the white, and top with buttercream made with browned butter.. hmmm, seems to be what Sinpopo has done :-)

From Stones to Living Stones - Holy Family 80th Anniversary

Holy Family 80th Anniversary Book

Late last year, my parish celebrated the 80th Anniversary of the Church of the Holy Family.  Holy Family has featured a few times on this blog, like these posts on Easter celebration (with hot cross bun recipe!) and the Peranakan mass on CNY.  So how can I omit mention of this most special occasion?

The parish celebrated with a few events, including a fun fair and our 80th Anniversary Mass held on the Feast of the Holy Family, 30 Dec 2016.  It was a joyful Mass, with the Archbishop con-celebrating with eight other priests including our three parish priests (really nice photo here).  The other five priests had connections to our parish too - our former parish priests or assistant priests, and a young priest who was a parishioner here before being called to the priesthood.

The Parish also released our 80th Anniversary book at the Anniversary Mass.  Entitled "From Stones to Living Stones", it is a story of our Parish.  Of course, this is my excuse as to why I am only putting up a post on the 80th Anniversary in 2017, when the Anniversary was in 2016!  How am I supposed, after all, to write a post on the book in 2016 when I only receive it on the evening of 30 December.

But as I said, this book marks the origins of our Parish - when the worshippers went for mass in a small little hut set up by the La Salle brothers.  But as our Catholic community (one of the oldest in Singapore) grew, the need for a proper church building was felt and a charitable landowner donated the tract of land along East Coast Road.  Here, the first church building was erected, and has been rebuilt twice since to accomodate an ever-increasing congregation. Apparently, the Parish had to shift our masses to a cinema hall whilst the old church building was being replaced for the first time!  Of course, I was fully aware that masses had to be held in St Patrick's School whilst the current beautiful church building was being built.  I well remember those days of going for mass in St Pat's large school hall and not having kneelers for a few years - really toughened up those knees :-)

It was also a real pleasure to hear the "voices" of Holy Family in the book - contributions from past priests, including Fr Michael Arro and Fr Rene Nicolas (who served in Holy Family in 1957!).  It was good to see a little profile on Fr Alfred Chan, a true Baba of Singapore, and Holy Family's longest serving parish priest. No one has said the Peranakan mass quite like him since. Each parish group had its contribution - all the choirs, the lectors, wardens, Eucharistic Ministers, RCIA etc etc.  Individual parishioners told their tales too.  I saw many familiar names and faces in the book.  Indeed, we are the "living stones" of our little Parish.

In short, this was a book well worth reading, well worth keeping.  Many thanks to those who worked on it, and the many contributors to it.

Happy Easter everyone!

The Long Table

The "Tok Panjang" is a Hokkien/Malay "portmanteau word" which means "long table", or a table liberally covered with lots of yummy dishes where the family serves itself, buffet style, on special occasions such as Chinese New Year or birthdays, etc.

It's also the name of a new restaurant on East Coast Road, which ironically serves a limited menu meant for individuals/ small groups having a quick meal.   Dishes like mee siam, Penang laksa, Nonya Lam Mee, etc.  There are a few mains such as babi pongteh, rendang, and sambal prawns, which can be purchased a la carte or as a set (which comes with rice and a serving of chap chye and itek tim).  It has also a selection of appetisers for sharing, such as kueh pie tee, ngor hiang, etc.

In general, the food is tasty and good as one would expect of restaurants under the House of Peranakan group.  I enjoyed the mee siam, which was sharp and tangy, and the Penang Laksa tastes like the real thing.  Even my father (who compares every bowl of Penang laksa to his grandmother's family recipe) said it was "quite good".  On another occasion we shared a babi pongteh set and sambal prawns amongst two people and it was probably just right for two light eaters.

Prices are reasonable too - though obviously a little more expensive than hawker centres.  But I did find the appetisers a little on the expensive side, as portions are small.

In the highly competitive restaurant scene, it's really a struggle for all these small restaurants to survive and thrive.  All I can do is publicise my favourites as best I can on this blog.

So here's wishing Tok Panjang well!

Celebrating Easter

Whilst everyone in Singapore is enjoying a lazy long weekend, observant Catholics, on the other hand, spend a lot of it in church. Starting with Maundy Thursday, what with the washing of the feet and the holy hour (I skipped it this year), then the Good Friday service (2 hours long) and Easter Vigil (3.5 hours) on Saturday night.  Then we have a big Easter lunch on Easter Sunday to celebrate.  What with cooking and eating (and sleeping off the lunch), that's the whole weekend gone.  And this year, I decided to further eat into my weekend by making Hot Cross Buns on Saturday afternoon (they took me 4.5 hours, including the time for proving and baking, and tidying up).

Hot Cross Buns have always been associated with Easter, what with the symbolism of the cross, the spices in the bun and the bread, to be broken and shared.  But its first mention, according to the BBC no less, was in 1733 in that famous old ditty, "One a penny, two a penny, Hot Cross Buns". Clearly the buns had staying power as they are still around today.

I made my buns from a Paul Hollywood recipe, from his book "How to Bake".  You can however find a similar recipe here. To be honest, I had tried making them last year but they were not very pretty and looked more like rock buns.  Fortunately, appearances were deceptive as certainly the buns were fluffy and soft on the inside.  My buns still weren't that pretty this year (I decided against the apricot jam glaze) but the cross is nice and clear.  What I like about it - the inclusion of the apple - its tart flavour contrasts with the sweetness of the bun and the dried fruit peel and sultanas.  

I managed to finish the buns just in time for a quick shower and a hurried dinner before rushing to Easter Vigil.  Need to go early, to get a good seat and before the church is plunged into darkness.  

Indeed, it is a special moment, the hush (at least it would be a hush if people weren't still coming into the darkened church and others weren't talking) in the church, just before the start of the Vigil.  Outside, the great fire is being lit, and from the fire, the Pascal candle is lit before being brought into the church.  And from this one candle, all our little candles are lit.  It's really such a beautiful moment, when all the church is slowly coming alight, and each of us contributes to it.  Then, we have the glory of the Exultet (beautifully sung by our MEP priest).

Here at Holy Family, also celebrate the baptism of adults entering the church.  And we get another round of candle lighting as the newly baptised too get their own candles.  It's a joyous moment, alleluia.

P.S.  Yes, I'm late with this post.  Easter Sunday was on 27th March 2016, some two weeks ago.  I've been busy!  

Corner Coffeeshop to Gourmet Gastrobar

Katong is slowly becoming gentrified.  Humble coffeeshops are giving way to gastrobars, restaurants, cafes, all-day breakfasts - the eating scene is changing slowly.  Interesting new ideas and concepts are starting to evolve. The new AliBabar is one good example of this slow evolution.

Once upon a time, at the corner of East Coast Road and Joo Chiat Rd, was a humble little corner coffeeshop, called AliBaba, famous for selling tau kwa pau. But there was something special about this humble little corner shop. Over time, it gained a reputation for incubating new restaurants. Aston's started out here.  Casa Bon Vento (Eurasian-Peranakan food) took up residence when it wanted to return to the East. A little French stall (Saveur) also had its start here before gaining popularity and moving off to the CBD. As such, one entrepreneur felt that it was timely to do up the place a little and introduce a new concept marrying the tradition of the old coffee shop with its reputation of being a place where one could get good food at hawker prices. Enter AliBabar, coffee shop by day, bar at night!

A longer review is available here, so I'll just give a brief run down of what's available. Just like a normal coffeeshop, there are a few stalls serving their fare- Le Petit Paradis, the new French stall, a   Filipino stall and a fried noodle stall (my uncle swears by the fried mee sua).  The first two are open for both dinner and lunch, but the fried noodles are only available during the day. At the time I visited, there was one more stall which was not opened yet..And, of course the bar.

I had dinner at Petit Paradise, a really nice pork collar with sauerkraut on the side.   The pork was nicely cooked - moist, savoury and tender.  It went really well with a glass of Silly Saison - did I mention that the bar sells specialty Belgian brews?

Variety, choice, new types of eateries are indeed very nice to have.  But I do hope that some of the traditional corner coffeeshops stick around for a long time to come.

The Kim Choo story

Ayam Buah Keluak, a photo by Taking5 on Flickr.

There was a rather nice story in today's Sunday Times about Mdm Lee Kim Choo, of Kim Choo Kueh Chang fame.  Mdm Lee is a true pioneer of Singapore, who struggled to bring up her family by making and selling Bak Chang.  Today, her small little stall is a two-unit shop house on East Coast Road, selling an expanded range of nonya delicacies, a restaurant, and a small heritage centre cum shop selling nonya wares and clothing.  Mdm Lee has retired, and her family members are running the business today.

My family frequently go to the restaurant, Rumah Kim Choo - in fact we bring our visitors to Singapore here.  Rumah is Malay for house, so it's translated as Kim Choo's House.  The food is nonya homecooking, so that means it is pretty tasty, unpretentious and generally good value.

The ayam buah keluak here is one of our favourites.  For those who do not know, buah keluak is a nut with a dark, oily slightly bitter meat within. This is a tough dish to make as the nuts must be cut open so that the flavour of the buah keluak flavours the gravy and the spices of the gravy flavour the buah keluak. This dish is truly a Singapore peranakan classic.

The next-door shop sells sauces, pastes, and other peranakan cooking essentials. Their ready-made belacan is firey - so be warned!

Growing up in Katong

I was surfing on the Perankan Association website and was immensely pleased to find a rather charming article by Cynthia Wee-Hoefer on Katong in the 1950s and 60s!

Just my kind of thing, and a very nice article to link to from this blog. 

But there is also a link from this article to this blog.  Cynthia mentions that she used to live in an obscure little lane off East Coast Road ‘after the Joo Chiat traffic lights, the small lane on the right, opposite the Shell station.’ Well, am pleased to say that  I have in fact written an earlier short post about the very same street!  She describes it also much better than I did, with her description of

"...neat rows of raised terrace houses with curlicue frescoed fronts, patterned mosaic steps and a narrow veranda. The houses were pretty and deep to accommodate three bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, and a kitchen covered by a zinc roof. There was a toilet (originally of the bucket system but modernised years later), a bathroom, and an airy basement that worked as an additional storage space, sleeping quarter and hide-and-seek playground."

For more on Cynthia's story, do read her article on Growing up in Katong.