Food Bytes: Hairy Crab DIY!

I am a big fan of hairy crabs, but here in Singapore, not only do restaurants tend to over price it, its also hard to get really good ones. Firstly, most of the crabs here are from Tai Hu and not the authentic Yangcheng Hu ones. Secondly, most of the crabs are the male ones and not very large.

Female hairy crabs from Yangcheng Hu

So when a friend managed to score some authentic ones from Yangcheng Hu, a group of us decided to go for it and try cooking it ourselves. Each crab comes with a special tag on it, certifying that its from Yangcheng Hu.

Female hairy crabs from Yangcheng Hu

They are relatively simple to cook, just wash under the tap, scrubbing it lightly with a toothbrush (SQ disposable ones!), and then plonk in the steamer with a slice of ginger on top and steam for about 20 to 30 min depending on weight. Its easy to tell the female from male ones just by looking at the shape of the shell on the underside. Female ones are round while male ones are triangular.

Female hairy crabs from Yangcheng Hu

People complain that eating hairy crab is difficult and troublesome. But actually there's a method to it that's quite easy to follow. Sorry no photos as my hands were pretty full!

This was my first time trying the female ones, which are supposed to be more expensive. The roe is harder than the male ones and slightly more concentrated in taste.

Male hairy crabs from Yangcheng Hu

The male ones we managed to buy were much larger than the ones usually found in Singapore. 

Male hairy crabs from Yangcheng Hu

Super yummy! Most of us liked the male ones better, as the roe was soft and creamy and just melted all over our mouths. 

Home-made ginger tea

To end off the "cooling" crabs, was home-made ginger tea. It's surprisingly easy to make, and I loved the spiciness. 

In case you're wondering, this exercise was not cheap....! But I guess if you compare like for like, its definitely cheaper to DIY at home, given how hard (and therefore expensive) it is to find Yangcheng Hu crabs in the first place, much less those of a comparable size. Will absolutely do this again next year if I get the chance!

2012 Formula One Singapore - Concerts

Concerts were another big highlight this year, with Jay Chou and Maroon 5 performing on the days I could attend. I am trying hard not to think too much about how difficult it was to walk from Paddock to Padang, as well as from the Padang to City Hall after. Suffice to say it was pure hell with tons of sweaty smelly bodies packed closed together moving at a snails pace and bad traffic control almost resulting in a stampede and riots. Thankfully I have a short memory and only remember the good things!

For Jay Chou, we arrived late due to the massive crowd slowing our pace, and missed getting into the side entrance into the fan zone (ie front section of the Padang) by like 10 people (*sob*). Ended up at the much further section at the back and poor short people like me could barely see anything. Thank goodness for taller friends who can wield my camera for me!

Jay Chou was "ok". (Am I about to get stoned by the millions of his fans?) I didn't find his vocal performance particularly impressive, made worse by the fact that he mumbles a lot and didn't engage much with the audience. Still it was exciting to be there!

At first I thought Maroon 5 would be less popular, but I was terribly wrong. Not only was it just as packed walking there, the crowd this time was 90% caucasians who are not only taller than me, were disgusting enough to smoke despite us being packed like sardines!!! Even though we started walking earlier, we ended up getting there late again.

This time round however, we managed to get into the fanzone right in front! I was so glad that I brought my 70-200mm lens (well *Shinta was the one lugging it around the whole day). The shots are amazing. I barely had to crop it. Sadly we were quite at the side so you will only see the left side of his face.

More importantly, the music, sound and performance were brilliant. His guitar work and vocals were exciting and he engaged really well with the audience. He didn't need to rely on fancy props or dances, it was just him, his guitar and the band.

Sadly I didn't have tickets for the last day with Katy Perry. That would have been a treat! Well that's the last of my posts on Formula 1 this year. Who knows whether I will be lucky enough to get tickets again next year, and whether the programme will be as great! 

2012 Formula One Singapore - Como & Culina

Johnny Walker only had a bar this time. Whereas previous years they had a suite with Masa from New York catering. Missed them this year, but luckily there was Como who tied up with Culina, and they had the second best food after Jean Georges.

Extra points for ham off the leg!!!!

I had like 7 plates of this... in one night! Super shiok!

Also, extra points because they had oysters! These ran out super fast and in order to get some we had to ask nicely at the counter for them to start bringing out additional batches.

Caviar with tuna wasn't as good as Jean Georges, but hey, caviar is still caviar!

*Shinta loved the wagyu beef rendang. I almost felt it was a waste of wagyu, but the rendang was actually quite good and worthy of the good meat.

Beef tatare pie with truffles in it. As you can probably guess, quite a few of these went down me!

Can't remember what these mushrooms were but they were pretty good!

The menu was much more extensive than what I showed here, there were lots of smaller bites and the dessert was really well received. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of it, but their panna cotta version of the chendol with green jelly chokful of pandan flavor was a really big hit too.

This year's F1 had so much caviar, truffles and ham for me that I wonder what they have to do next year to match the same standard for me!

Food Bytes @ 2012 Formula One Singapore - The (wonderful) World of Jean Georges!

Although this was my third time there, it was *Shinta's first. Much of our time therefore, was spent checking out the food. Similar to last year's set up, Jean George's had their own restaurant in the main lobby area, while individual suites had separate catering arrangements.

The queue was a lengthy one, and last year a lot of items had run out because we went too late. Not going to make that mistake again this year!

Way too many good dishes on the list, so I'll just highlight my favorite ones. #1 is the Osetra Caviar and Creme Fraiche Beignets. Loved this so much, with the salty balls of roe on crispy beignets that burst open with fresh cream at the lightest bite. I unashamedly sent *Shinta back a few times to get me more servings of this.

Next to the cavair is the Crispy Sesame Calamari with Yuzu Dipping Sauce. It was good but not enough for me to allocate valuable eating capacity to it, but *Shinta liked it enough for thirds (or was it fourths?). No prizes for guessing what my #2 favorite was; Sauteed Foie Gras with Lychee and Black Olive. The lychee was.. interesting. It was so soft and mushy that we thought it was lard at first!

#3 on my list was the Black Truffle Fontina Pizza. Its difficult for anything with truffles to go wrong with me, and this pizza was just chockful of them.

#4 was the Wagyu Beef Tenderlion with Mushrooms and Grainy Mustard Butter. I guess ultimately I like classics done well.

The Roasted Black Cod, Asparagus and Miso Butter is worth a mention. Also a classic done well.

The second day had slightly different dishes, which is strange because the printed menu was exactly the same. Maybe they ran out of ingredients or something?! Anyway there was lobster done with noodles and lobster done on some bread base. Unfortunately neither could match up to the lobster dish of the year before.

Dessert wise, I loved the Chocolate Pudding with Crystallized Violets and Whipped Cream. The crystallized violets were amazing and added a nice crunch to the creamy chocolate.

I'm not a fan of citrus fruits in my dessert, so its not really fair for me to comment on the cute little lemon cupcakes. But I suspect the lemon taste would be a little too overpowering for most.

Eating here was one of the priorities this year. *Shinta and I had actually eaten at the New York restaurant itself earlier this year, and really enjoyed that. So yes a review of that will be coming up in due course...

2012 Formula One Singapore

Its the annual end of September post on Formula One! Was lucky enough to score tickets for 2 nights this year which meant that I could take my time to enjoy everything.

Food and Concerts were a big part of the programme this year, so I'll probably do separate posts on that.

Probably the most special thing about the tickets is the access to the pitlane. It was super crowded as usual. It's actually pretty cool being able to do the walk, but this being my third year attending, I didn't see the need to go twice. Hid upstairs gorging myself on food one of the nights instead.

The ladies from Ms Universe lead the pitlane walk every year. In the meantime they can be found at Jean Georges hanging out at a special reserved table, surrounded by just as good looking guys.

Simulator has been downsized from the full scale one. Still it makes an exciting drive and a humbling one especially for those who think race car driving is easy!

Oh did I forget to mention that there are actual fast cars? No panning shots this year because I decided to head over to the flyer to see if it was possible to watch the laps from there.

Yes, this year we went on the flyer at night instead. It was my first night ride, and I must say I was very impressed. It provides a really gorgeous view of the entire race. One of the capsules was booked by an alcohol beverage company (I forget which) and equipped with a bar inside, they went round and round the entire time without disembarking!

The night view of Singapore is really gorgeous. Do Singaporeans realise how beautiful it is? Something to be proud of.

The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Ma Peche in NYC

It was with much anticipation that we started our trip to the US. Reservations lined up for almost every other night! *Shinta had made reservations at Ma Peche (by Momofuku) almost a month in advance, although that's probably not necessary since its not as difficult to get a table compared to the other places we wanted to eat at in NYC. It was on our first night arriving from Singapore, so we made an early reservation in case the jetlag was too much for us to take. 

To enter Ma Peche, you enter through the Milk Bar (more on that later). On the ground floor is the bar area with some limited seating, but take the stairs down and you'll enter a large roomy high ceiling area.
  

Wanted something light and not too tiring for our first day, so it was the perfect choice since "small" and "large" plates a-la tapas-style was great for sharing and allowed us to try lots of stuff without it being too long or heavy a meal. The menu is basically fusion style, you could sense a hint of Japanese influence in each dish.

Spanish mackerel with romaine, tofu and brown butter. Light but tasty. I have a soft spot for brown butter so practically anything with it can't go too wrong with me!

The lobster bun was one of the "must tries".  I liked the lobster filling a lot, but for some reason I'm not such a fan of them using the chinese bun in this way.

The cod was recommended by the waiter, but sadly I think it was pretty much forgettable. Well at least other than remembering it was well cooked, I don't recall much else!

The quail was *Shinta's choice. I'm not really a fan of quail but this was quite well done with the sweet corn providing a nice sweet crunchy texture to it. Wasn't overcooked or too dry as quail tends to be sometimes.

The kale was a serious mistake. It was highly recommmended by the waiter, and I must say to the Americans the mixture of slightly bitter vegetable with the sweet pork floos must be quite appealing. To those of us more familiar with SEA cuisine however, this dish was just half-soggy half-crispy mui chay with pork floss. Not as yummy as the "fried seaweed" they have in London Chinese restaurants, and not as tasty as the usual kind we have with bak kut teh.

Ma Peche has its own list of desserts, but we were more keen to try the range from Milk Bar. Thankfully upon our request, they allowed us to order from there too, and the desserts turned out to be the star of the evening.

I was a little miffed when the crack pie turned up like this. They basically just took the box from the shop upstairs and put it on a place. I guess the wrapping is decent enough to excuse them this time.

The Crack Pie was one of the sweetest yummiest things ever. The whole thing is basically fudge and sugar, but put together so well that you just can't stop eating it despite knowing the calories will ruin your diet and even adults will be on a sugar high for the next few hours.

I fell totally in love with this cereal ice cream. Never mind the crappy wooden spatulas and the fact that it came in a cheapo paper cup. You know the milk left in your bowl after you finish your cereal? This is basically it, made into ice cream form. Such a simple idea but no one seems to have thought of it before, and it was so well executed. Absolutely loved it.

I find it's hard to get really good fusion food. Most of the time the chefs just put things together piecemeal without really thinking about the flavors. Or they borrow too much from one type of cuisine that we can't help but just compare it to the original and something just feels "wrong". I rate Ma Peche an "ok", but given that I'm not in NYC much, it's not on my list of "must eat" places. The Milk Bar gets two huge thumbs up from me though!



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Ma Peche
located in Chambers Hotel
15 W. 56th street btwn 5th + 6th ave
New York, ny 10019
http://momofuku.com/new-york/ma-peche/
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