Tag: Asia

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Blog Breakfast

G’day Sydney

After a 7 hour flight from Singapore, we arrived in downtown Sydney just before 8am. What better way to begin our stay in Australia than by having breakfast at one of the city’s excellent cafes.

My wife’s order is shown in the photo below: eggs benedict with spinach and bacon on sourdough toast, with balsamic drizzle.

I ordered smashed avocado on sourdough toast, with soft poached eggs. I especially liked the addition of crumbled feta and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

These were accompanied by a couple of long blacks (what we in the UK would call an americano) with milk.

There is a very strong cafe culture in Australia, and standards are high. The making of a cup of coffee is something of an art form.

Singapore also had a distinct culture in its kopitiams (coffeeshops). One very popular dish there was 2 lightly boiled, and still runny, eggs, served cracked into a shallow bowl, making a dip for kaya toast – toasted bread sandwiches with coconut jam.

Also a little different was kopi (white coffee made with condensed milk), and kopi C (white coffee with evaporated milk). Both had a pleasant enough taste, and seemed to work as part of the overall quirky kopitiam experience, though I can’t see either catching on back in the UK.

Or Australia for that matter – I shudder to think what the barista’s reaction would be if I asked them to open a tin of Carnation milk, and pour it into that long black they’ve been carefully crafting for the past 10 mins.

After breakfast, we’ll be picking up a hire car and heading out past the Opera House (see my main photo above) and Sydney Harbour Bridge into New South Wales. There really is only one song to be played when setting off on the start of an Australian road trip, so it’s time to add this track to the ADK Playlist: AC/DC with Highway to Hell.

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Blog Food

Satay by the Bay

Satay by the Bay is one of Singapore’s many hawker centres – places where a variety of independent food and drink outlets congregate around a central area with tables and chairs. The idea is that you buy as much or as little as you wish from any of the stalls, then take a seat to eat it.

Access is through Gardens by the Bay, a beautiful and lush green park built on reclaimed land between the Marina Bay area and the waterside. It has two vast domed greenhouses, each of which maintains a bespoke climate to suit plant life that would not thrive here otherwise. It’s a bit like Cornwall’s Eden Project, but set in 30C year round temperatures.

The vast pipe outlets that help maintain the indoor climate of the domes have been dressed up as Supertrees. A 22m high walkway connects them, and gives terrific views over the Gardens with a backdrop of the glass and steel of the CBD.

Some of the many walks allow views of Marina Bay Sands, the vast triple-towered Hotel with a viewing deck across the top. Its design reminded me of my visit to Stonehenge a few months back. It also looks like a huge cricket wicket. Howzat.

In the evening, the Gardens are the venue for an impressive sound and light show, with the Supertrees choreographed to light up to the rhythm of classical music.

All of which makes a pretty good after dinner show for the diners at the hawker centre.

We chose plates of chicken and beef satay, that are cooked to order over hot coals.

The skewers are then served with a spicy peanut dipping sauce, as shown in my photo at the top of the post.

Now, sat here in Singapore’s Changi Airport, our flight is being called, so it’s time to stow my laptop and get to the departure gate.

We have had fun and eaten well in Singapore, but it is time to move on to our next stop. To find out where in the world that will be, check back here this weekend.

Keeping up the current international theme on the ADK Playlist,  here’s Transglobal Underground with the catchy Temple Head.

Categories
Blog Food

Kampong Gelam

Here in Singapore, the district of Kampong Gelam (also spelt Glam) is the traditional heartland of the city state’s Malaysian community. Our visit there, in search of some traditional Malay food, coincided with the start of Ramadan, the period where people of Muslim faith fast during the hours between sunrise and sunset.

We hadn’t been in this part of town during the daytime – that was spent in Chinatown and the Botanic Gardens. Due to the fasting though, I’m guessing that daylight business might have been a little slow for the local catering sector.

However, as Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys once (nearly) said, it changes round here when the sun goes down 🙂 .

As we arrived, the wailing sound of the call to prayers was all pervading, booming out across the network of tightly packed streets from the local Mosque.

The religious service inside was being broadcast live on a large screen, and very well-attended it seemed to be. After a day of fasting, it’s no surprise that the hungry worshippers were ready for some great food, as they spilled out on to the streets afterwards.

And how well served they were! There was traditional Malaysian food, like Satay…

…alongside a range of Turkish, Lebanese and Middle-eastern outlets.

The already numerous restaurants and takeaways were supplemented by the Gemilang (meaning Glorious) Festival, bringing even more food options through abundant market stalls.

I was keen to try a Malay dish I had read about called Nasi Lemak. We found it in a small restaurant that has made it their signature dish, and earned themselves a Michelin star, no less, in the process. For the record, the place is called Nasi Lemak Ayam Taliwang, and you can look them up in the Michelin Guide.

The food arrived as shown in my main photo at the top of the post. The undoubted star of the show was the mysterious green parcel to the side of the plate.

The wrapping is a pandan leaf, used in south-east Asian cuisine to add fragrance to food. It is secured at either end by bamboo skewers. These are unpinned, and the parcel unfurled to reveal steamed, soft, fluffy jasmine-scented and coconut-flavoured rice.

The rice is served with tender chicken that falls off the bone and a spicy peanut sauce. There is a side of crispy peanuts and anchovies, and soft roasted aubergine.

An interesting and satisfying meal was rounded off with a glass of fresh, chilled coconut juice, that complemented the food well.

There’ll be another post from Singapore in a few days. In the meantime, let’s have some more suitably themed music for the ADK playlist. Here’s the mighty Asian Dub Foundation with Fortress Europe.

Categories
Blog Food

Hello Singapore

I’m off on my travels again, and hoping to post about some excellent world cuisine over the next little while. First stop is the city state of Singapore, home of the Merlion I snapped in my main photo above.

After a 13 hour flight from London, my wife and I were hungry and ready to explore the local neighbourhood where our hotel is located, in the city’s district known as Little India. It is so-called because, since the 19th century, workers and their families travelling here from India have made this district their home.

Consequently, a walk around the local streets is an experience to behold. They teem with garish gold jewellery shops and the lingering scent of incense. There are spangly market stalls packed with colourful saris and dress shirts, at which industrious tailors sit by their sewing machines, ready to customise a garment to your precise fit.

The lanes are sided by canopies and known as five-foot ways. Originally designed to afford residents fresh air with shade from the hot sun, they now provide alfresco seating for hungry diners at the many restaurants and food stalls selling authentic Indian food.

We settled at a corner establishment and ordered the selection below: chicken and vegetable birianis, which came with a raita and selection of dipping sauces.

The side of vegetable samosas was unlike any I have had before. I am used to a filling wrapped up in a deep fried, triangular parcel of filo pastry, but these were pear-shaped, in a crispy pastry that had the sweet, coconut flavour of peshwari naan bread.

It was authentic, no-nonsense fare, cooked and served with cheer (check out these guys, and their cool t-shirts, below).

I’ve read that this is generally an expensive city, but this food came at reasonable prices (less than S$20 per head, which is about £10/US$20, and that included the Tiger beers).

There’ll be more to come from Singapore, so watch this space. If anyone wishes to send me recommendations on local places to eat, or food to try, please post in the comments below.

I’m keeping the Indian vibe going with this track from Monsoon added to the ADK Playlist: Ever So Lonely.

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Blog

Souq Waqif

Most of Doha’s development has taken place in the last few decades, funded with the money from the oil industry. The notable exception to this is Souq Waqif, the origin of which dates back to the early 20th Century. Doha was then a small coastal town with an industry in pearl diving. The Souq is where bedouins – the inhabitants of the deserts across Arabia – would come to trade food and textiles with the local people.

By the early 2000s, it was a little worse for wear and, with the focus very much on new development in the city, consideration was being given to its demolition. However, what now seems a very inspired decision was made in favour of renovation. It is now a popular destination for visitors to the city – particularly at the moment with people here from all over the globe for the Football World Cup.

A walk through the Souq is a joy for anyone who recalls the old Arabian Nights legends. The low level sandstone buildings, and narrow, meandering alleyways could be a theme park land, or film set from an Indiana Jones movie, until you remind yourself that this is actually the real thing.

A tiny shop door leads to a cavernous collection of colourful and richly textured carpets. Hey, maybe one of those might fly? Street traders sell bejewelled plates and ornaments. Could a genie be hiding inside one of those lamps, I wonder?

Colourful birds chirp from their cages. You can buy everything you could possibly need for your falconry hobby (including the falcons).

The Souq is a real experience for the senses. Our arrival coincided with the call to prayers echoing from the tower of the nearby mosque, mingling with the hubbub of the crowd and haggling from the stalls. The air is filled with the scents of burning incense and people smoking from the sheesha pipes at the pavement cafes. Then there are the aromas and colours from the spice market.

I had read about the spice market before coming here, and was looking forward to a visit. It is a whole subset of the Souq, with more shops than it seems possible could be sustained, selling every spice imaginable, along with nuts, dried fruits, seeds, loose tea and local sweets. The produce is mostly sourced from across the Middle East and Asia.

Everything is sold loose, so that you can buy as much or as little as you wish. The photos that follow give some impression.

It is also very reasonably priced. I bought about 300g of Qatari spices – a local mix of 9 different spices – for 3 QAR, working out about 60p (or under 1 US Dollar). I also bought some loose green tea from Iran.

We chose a pick and mix bag of local sweets to eat as we walked around – mostly comprising nougat, nuts, dates and often with bitter fruit jelly or rose petal coatings.

As regular followers will know, the Middle East is a stop for me on the way to spending some time in Australia. A plan is developing in my head to marinade chicken pieces in the Qatari spices mixed with yoghurt, and barbecue them on skewers for our family and guests on Christmas Day in the sun. Future posts will tell if that comes off!

As for musical choice, I was astounded to realise recently that one of my favourite all-time bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees, have yet to appear on the ADK Spotify Playlist. With this post, however, your time has come, Sioux. Cue Arabian Knights.