Food Trip Singapore Part 3

One of my favorite things to do when I visit a country is to bring back the food and the food products unique to that country or those products that are not available here in Manila. Here are some of my food "loots" during this trip to Singapore several months back. (Click here to see Part 1 and Part 2 of our Singapore Food Trip :)




A pack of ginseng root. I use this for our tonic Chicken Ginseng Soup or our delicious Snow Fungus with Red Ginseng dessert. This pack costs around 16 Singapore dollars. That's roughly 500 Philippine pesos. But since I use this pack for several servings, each serving would be less than 100 pesos (less than US $ 2).






Flower teas. I tried the dried rose petals. Well, it smells like roses. But I still prefer the good ol' green tea :)





Finally, I got fennel seeds! The other pack (below) is coriander seeds, but we have that available here. I have been searching for fennel seeds for a long time here in Manila and could not find some. Now, I know what it looks like, what it smells like... I sound like a kid :) Anyway, I have baked bread with fennel seeds, this one waiting for its turn to be posted.





I have tasted this crab sauce and it is oh-so-flavorful, so I bought a bottle. I do not have to slather this on crabs. I think this would be perfect for stir-fry noodles! :)





Is this the Bak Kut Teh spice pack recommended by Noobcook? I think it is. This pack is more expensive than the other Bak Kut Teh spice packs but I think it is worth it because it contains real dried Chinese herbs. I have made soup with this and sure enough, it tasted better than the other brands of spice packs we've tried. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of my soup! But not to worry, I have several more packs and I promise to take a photo and blog about this! :)


I do feel good when I can recreate here at home some of the foods I've enjoyed in other countries, don't you?

Food Trip Singapore Part 2

Part 2 of our Singapore Food Fair brings you some of the food we were able to taste. Not much, for we have eaten with our friends before we visited the fair :) We chose the food that we have not tried before (except for the noodles), that we do not usually find here in Manila...




These grilled sausages were so tasty and juicy. They come in different flavors - if I remember right, they have three flavors, selling at S$1 each. The peppered sausages stood out for they were really full of peppers. You cannot taste the meat anymore :) Daughter loved it, nevertheless. Another one was cheese sausage, and it was super cheesy, one bite and the hot cheese spurted out. The other was plain meat sausage. These two were very tasty. We went back for seconds :)




I simply call these omelets. But they have a fancy name for these omelet (which I forgot... he he...) They also come in three flavors, but we chose the salmon omelet (the ones on the left where the seller/vendor was cracking an egg.) The base is made mostly of cabbages. These were cooked right on the spot, so they come piping hot.



This is the salmon omelet, served in the ever-convenient, but definitely not earth-friendly styrofoam... all chopped up into bite-size pieces. Actually, it was nothing fantastic. It tastes like... well... egg, fish and veggies... plus a dash of mayonnaise... It was a bit disappointing actually. I was expecting a different exotic flavor, like a special herb used or something... :(




Ahhh... the Laksa. When you come to Asia, specially Singapore and Malaysia, you really have to taste their laksa. This is a spicy noodle soup dish made with coconut milk and various spices. This stall sells the laksa with different toppings - chicken, prawns and I think one with no meat topping at all. But the noodles used are the same, and the soup base is the same. The vendor simply laddles the same soup to different bowls.



We chose the prawn laksa. For the price, he only included one piece of prawn per bowl. :) The vendor was thoughtful not to include the chilli directly into the noodle soup so that we can have the choice to put in the amount of heat that we can take. This one is soo yummy, it is making me hungry just to remember and type about it... :)




Hubby bought this "Mee Goreng" (fried noodles) from another stall that I was not able to take a good picture. (Sorry, it was really crowded. It was kind of hard to jostle for a space to take picture when many people are queing and waiting for their food...) This looks like our regular pancit canton (stir fry noodles) But it is not. It has a different flavor, and quite spicy but very yummy. I detected a little curry, a little chilli, soy sauce, of course...


Up next are the food we bought to take back home... :)

Food Trip Singapore - Part 1

I had to unearth my photo archives for these pictures. I totally forgot that I wanted to share these pictures with you. These are some pictures taken from a food fair in Singapore. Isn't it just great that when we arrived in Singapore a few months back, there was a food fair! We actually did not know about this. We have to thank our friendly taxi driver for this valuable information :) (Of course this information is valuable to us food lovers... he he)

Of course no Singapore food fair is complete without the Bee Chieng Hang. This is Singapore's most popular food store! It is often featured in Singaporean movies. I love their meat floss and peppered beef jerky. Yum!

Takoyaki Balls, Singaporean style. I think this originated in Japan?? Taiwan also has their own version. These are made of eggs and various fillings. Very tasty!

Hubby, being a noodle fan, of course, cannot resist handmade noodles!

Madelines and other sweets and pies...

More pies, both sweet and savory... can you see the people waiting for their turn?

Why is it I cannot resist Sushi wherever I go?

Stay with me! More foodie pictures to come!

Street Food Bangkok

In a post last week, I showed a very interesting, portable ice popsicle maker. (You may want to read about it here.) I asked readers to guess where it might be found. Jescel of Spice of Life, Wiffy of Noobcook and Rita of Mochachocolatarita got it right. I'm sure Wiffy and Rita had been to Bangkok because they got the answer right down to the specific market where the ice popsicle maker can be found!!!

Chatuchak market in Bangkok, Thailand boasts to be the biggest open-air weekend market/bazaar in Asia. It is actually quite an enormous place. We were not able to finish the whole place in a day. But it is also probably because of the heat. We started out in the morning. Shopping at that time was quite enjoyable. There was a little breeze. However, by noon, it was becoming unbearably hot. Take note, this is December. It is winter there. :) I wonder how hot it will get in summer. :) We opted to stay in the shade by this time, so, we were not able to see other interesting things. After lunch, there were a lot of people. As shoppers know, if a place is crowded, it is not that enjoyable to shop anymore. :) But the atmosphere is festive. Chatuchak sells a lot of things from clothes, to antiques to pets, flowers. Thai people claim that they have whatever you need in this market.

Of course, there were lots of food!!! Here are some of them.

Barbecues, barbeques everywhere you look!




Fried shrimps, fried quail eggs
(see the little sunny-side ups on the left?),
fried this and that...
enough to send our cholesterol high up the record...



and all of these are fried right there for people to see.

These are so "un-Thai" because they are so "Japanese" -sushis!
colorful, delicious, and filling!

The noodles are cooked right on the spot.

You can choose from the different flavored hot soup to add to your noodles.

Of course, the best part is the dessert!
Homemade coconut ice cream
with peanuts and fresh coconut meat.
This item sells a lot because the weather was quite hot.

Slices of the fragrant jackfruits.
Take note of the interesting, pyramid-shaped, plastic food cover.



Warning!!!

The last picture might jolt the sensibilities of some people.
My kids were so shocked that they were selling these for food!!

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Yes, I'm a coward. I can eat balut
(fertilized duck egg with fetus inside)
but I can never eat these insects and larvae and worms. Eeeww!

Ice Popsicle Making Cart

If I did not write the title, I bet you would not know what these are. Many wooden sticks (thinner than chopsticks) stuck inside bright and colorful gel-like mixture inside small tubes. The (1-inch diameter) tubes are attached to this big drum filled with ice.





The vendor makes the popsicle right on the spot. He pours liquid-y concoction inside the tubes, shakes the drum occasionally. But we did not dare to buy and taste these. We do not know where the vendor got his water or his liquid syrups. Look at the bottom picture where he keeps his water and syrups. :)




This is a street scene from the country we visited last December. From this contraption, can you guess where we went? :)