Of Silk, figs, and Andre

This past Sunday was our 12th wedding anniversary, which is also known as the silk anniversary. I only found out about this via an internet search when a friend asked which anniversary is the 12th. As it happened, one of the presents that I got for hubby is a silk tie, so it’s totally in sync with the theme!

Two days before our anniversary I received a tip from a chef friend that my local supermarket just got a shipment of super sweet Turkish figs. The next morning I rushed over to said supermarket and bought four packets. I love figs, but only if they’re sweet and actually taste of figs. Often times even when they are ripe they have a watered down non-descript taste that won’t excite anyone. These ones were very sweet, with intense fig flavors.

Hidemi Sugino has a fig tartlet that I have never been able to try, because I somehow always go to Tokyo when figs are most definitely not in season, like in the dead of winter. So naturally the first thing that popped into my head was to make the fig tartlets. As far as Hidemi Sugino recipes go, this is one of the easiest ones, all you have to do is to find good figs. For the first time, I’ll share his recipe on my blog with you guys, because it's not too long to translate. You’ll need to either know or look up some of the basic techniques, since I’m too lazy to type it out, but it should be fairly easy to google and find out. So here it goes.

Tartelette aux figues (makes 12x 7cm tartlets)

Pate sucree:
90g unsalted butter at RT
60g icing sugar
30g whole egg
20g almond powder
150g light flower

crème patissiere:

250g milk

55g caster sugar

¼ vanilla bean

50g egg yolk

12g light flour

12g corn starch


Crème d’amandes
40g unsalted butter at RT
40g icing sugar
40g whole egg
40g almond powder

6 large figs

kirsch

30B syrup (130g sugar +100g water)

crème Chantilly

Apricot jam
Raspberry jam

1. Make pate sucree and chill in fridge

2. Make crème patissiere and chill in fridge (steps 1 & 2 can be done the day before)

3. Roll dough out and fit into tartlet pans, rest in fridge while making crème frangipane

4. Make crème frangipane by whisking together crème d’amandes and crème patissiere

5. Take tartlet shells out of fridge, use another tartlet pan to press dough down, then prick with a fork a few times.

6. Pipe about 25g of crème frangipane into each tartlet pan and let rest in fridge for 30 minutes

7. Meanwhile, slice each fig into 16 slices, removing skin only after you’ve sliced them, one slice at a time. This took me almost an hour, but it results in neater outside edges, so it’s worth it.

8. Arrange slices on a tray and sprinkle granule sugar on it (how much sugar depends on how sweet your figs are), then sprinkle with kirsch. Chill in fridge for 30 min

9. Bake tartlets at 170C for about 15-20 minutes, until crème frangipane is a dark golden brown

10. Remove tartlets from pans and cool.

11. Whip up crème Chantilly to very stiff peak. You’ll need about 20g for each tartlet

12. Mix together 20g of 30B syrup, 10g water and 12g kirsch. Brush onto top of tartlet, let syrup soak in

13. Spread a layer of raspberry jam onto the baked tartlet, then pipe a mound of Chantilly on top.

14. Arrange 8 slices of figs in an overlapping pattern onto each tartlet

15. Heat 50g apricot jam and 10g kirsch in a small saucepan until fluid. Brush onto cut surfaces of figs

16. Top each tartlet with a raspberry and you’re done!


We had some of this for dessert the day before our anniversary and gave some away to friends when hubby went to play tennis with them, but our real celebration was the dinner at chef Andre Chiang’s eponymous restaurant Andre. I liked his cooking when he was helming Jaan at the top of Swissotel, but somehow never got around to trying his own place since he opened it about a year ago.  I made the booking more than a month ago because it is F1 week in Singapore and it never hurts to be prepared.

The front of the restaurant was so inconspicuous that I missed it the first time and had to double back and drive down a short stretch the wrong way to get back. Good thing Sunday night traffic is light in this part of the town. The restaurant has the feel of a house. Off to the side on the first floor is a small sitting area, but we were led to the second floor dining room. The space has the clean modern feel of a French house. One side of the wall has black and white wall papers of a little forest, and sheep clad in suede are used as bag stools.

Hubby chose the wine pairing, as it is too tiring to try to pick out wines that will go with most of the eight-course meal, especially since I don’t drink. I notice most other guests opt for this lazy option as well.

Before we start we were treated to a quartet of palate cleansers: “fish and chips”, “popcorn”, some silvery fish slices on a crisp cracker served with porcini chips and Andre’s signature chicken skin chips.

His eight-course menu is based on his “octophilosophy”, the concept of which is highlighted in the link above, so I shall not repeat it here.










The first course is Pure, which was scallop ravioli, chives& dill flower in purple cauliflower consume. Very little seasoning was used and the fragrance of the dill flowers ties everything together nicely.

Next came Salt: French oyster wrapped in Japanese seaweed, served granny smith foam. The dish was decorated with tiny cubes of cucumbers and apples. No salt was added, only the saltiness from the oyster provided seasoning.

 

The third course was Artisan - Kyoto eggplant topped with caviar, served with a savory crème Anglaise sauce sprinkled with hazelnut shavings and fried burdock roots (gobou). The savory crème Anglaise was a nice twist and the fried gobou brought a nice contrast to an otherwise creamy dish. To top it all off, the dish on which this course was served is designed by chef Andre.

The next course is named South and pays homage to chef Andre’s time spent in the south of France, close to the Mediterranean . It consists of flounder with tomato & white peaches, and tomato sorbet in one dish. Uni risotto and blue crab foam in a second dish. The risotto was probably one of the best I’ve ever tasted, done to perfection with just the right amount of bite to it and is perfectly flavoured with the uni sauce.

Texture came next and is squid "arborio rice" with charcoal rice crackers. The “rice” is actually squid and tasted much better than my chicken substitute. I usually don’t like squid because of the chewy texture, but here the texture is completely changed, and I find myself wishing I had stuck to the original dish.

The sixth course is Unique, and here the unique ingredient is French artichoke. The dish was stuffed baby barracuda, French artichoke and artichoke foam. To be perfectly honest I felt that the artichoke was rather tasteless on its own, however the sauce was so robust and the stuffed baby barracuda so tender that they saved the dish. I just felt that to be THE unique ingredient in the “unique” course, the artichoke should’ve taken a more front row seat.

The next course was “memory” and it was a dish that Andre has always kept on his menu, with different variations. Tonight it’s a baked foie gras jelly with black truffle glaze. The “jelly” contains egg white and has the silky consistency of a well-executed chawanmushi, and the black truffle glaze was so fragrant that even later, when the next table had the dish we could smell it. Although hubby thought it was a great dish and I loved it too at first, ultimately I felt that either the portion was too big, or it needed an accompaniment to cut down on the richness, like a champagne jelly or something similar.

Our final course was “terroir”, although in our case it’s something from the sky: French pigeon with pigeon jus, pea purée & potato gnocchi. I was still recovering from the last dish and found the pigeon a little too gamey for my taste, although to be honest it was a perfectly cooked pigeon, with just a hint of pinkness in the centre, so Hubby was more than happy to finish my portion for me.

Before dessert, we cleansed our palate with mini marshmallow, strawberry granita & yogurt jelly in a cute little pot. Dessert was chocolate sponge, which really looked like a piece of sponge; soft chocolate sphere filled with warm chocolate ganache, and burned butter ice cream. I’ve always found restaurant desserts boring and this was no exception. I think it was my least favourite course of the entire evening, but I guess nobody is perfect.

When my latte came the waitress apologetically said something about “please be careful, the cup is designed by chef Andre and the shape is a little strange” and indeed it was. The cup was more of an irregular rectangle rather than a round, and hubby immediately commented that he could’ve made one just like that. It wasn’t until I picked it up that I realized the bottom was not flat. Good thing I didn’t try to set it down on the table!

We rounded off our meal with some French figs, popcorns that “pop” in your mouth, passion fruit marshmallow and honey hazelnut Madeline. All in all, it was a very memorable meal. I’ve heard mixed reviews about Andre but we felt this was the most exciting meal we’ve had in Singapore in years. I think chef Andre is a creative genius and is really setting new standards for all restaurants in our little dot on the map. So hats off to him!

The Gingerbread House Chronicle

The first time I attempted to make a gingerbread house was four years ago. I was in Tokyo and going to Le Cordon Bleu. That was also the last winter we lived in Japan. Since then, Christmas seasons had been spent moving, traveling, and being busy with teaching and churning out cake orders. This year, I made a decision to stop teaching all classes one week before Christmas and not to take any orders for Christmas and New Year. This year, Christmas was to be spent cooking for friends and family.

Ever since the success of my first gingerbread house, I’d been itching to make another one. Living in hot and humid Singapore, however, presents its challenges. With the humidity level constantly hovering around 90% , everything turns soggy so a gingerbread house will no doubt collapse within hours of being constructed when the walls absorb moisture and give in to the weight. Two years ago I made a gingerbread tree with the yummiest, most buttery recipe I’d ever tried, but making a gingerbread house with that recipe is out of the question.

After some research I found two “structural” recipes. They are supposed to be very sturdy and humidity proof. In the end I chose one that had very simple ingredients because the alternative is one that contains honey, which is bad news because the house will be an ant magnet.

Time spent searching for recipe: 2hrs

Once the recipe is chosen, the next step is to finalize the design of the house. The cottage I built in Tokyo was cute, but for my second house, I had grander plans. I wanted Victorian, with two sections, a bay window, and maybe a porch. I found a basic template on the internet but to make sure everything fit, I cut out some foam boards and fine tuned the design. The pitch of the second roof that joins the main roof proved the most troublesome. I knew I should’ve paid more attention in three-dimensional geometry, but who would’ve thought you’d need that for anything, let alone baking? After endless tweaking, the roofs finally fit together, but I made the executive decision to forgo the porch this year. After all, I need to keep something for next year, don’t I?

Time spent building and fine-tuning the foam model: 4 hrs

Just like landscaping is an integral part of building a real house, some thoughts need to be put into building a garden for the gingerbread house. A snowman is a must, of course, and since the house will sit on a big board (13”) there’s space to place a girl making a snow angel, plus Princess Libby doing a doggie angel in the snow. But why limit yourself to just outside the house? Since I had all those big windows, I made a Christmas tree for the living room too.

Time spent making fondant figurines and ice-cream cone trees: 4 hrs

At this point, I was spinning a little out of control. Never mind I had no idea just exactly how sturdy this supposedly “structural” recipe is, and whether it can really stand up to the Singapore humidity, I must have light in the house! Here is where I ran into some trouble. You see, once upon a time in high school physics, I clearly recall yours truly wiring light bulbs and building circuits, but that part of my education must’ve been permanently deleted from memory. It didn’t help that there’s no true DIY stores like Home Depot back home, so I wasn’t able to find any electrical wires even if I were capable of wiring the house. Dear hubby, whose Electrical Engineering degree from M.I.T. had been collecting dust since the day he graduated, offered this when I asked how come he could once build a robot but now can’t even wire my house: “Do I look like an electrician to you?” Plan B: I bought a mini flashlight to be stuffed inside the house through the doggie door in the back. Whatever works, right?

Time spent pondering the myriad of products on display at Home Fixe and other DIY stores: 30 minutes


Baking the cookie pieces with this recipe was so easy. Since there’s no baking soda or powder in the dough, whatever shape I cut out, baked the same exact shape after it came out of the oven. There was no need to trim after baking!

Time spent baking: 3 hrs



After baking the cookies, I let them rest overnight in a spare bedroom with a dehumidifier running before decorating them. The one lesson I learned from making my first house: it’s much easier to decorate the walls and windows BEFORE you put them up. I had a lot of fun dreaming up how the house should look. I knew I didn’t want a childish rendition, but I also didn’t want a pure brown and white house, so I went with a classic look. I knew I wanted windows this time, but didn’t want to melt candies inside the window holes (again, fear of ants), so I used gelatin sheets instead. Simple! To decorate the roof, I decided not to cover it with candies or cookies. I was afraid that the added weight would cause the walls to buckle, so instead I piped snow “garlands” and small designs inside. The inspiration was from a flickr member’s gorgeous gingerbread house designs, and it worked out well. Another decision I made was to not leave the back wall blank, because, even though nobody will look at the back, I thought the back deserves some attention too. Since I’m planning to have Santa stuck upside down in the chimney, I thought I’d pipe Santa’s sleigh and his reindeers on the back wall, to make it look like they’re waiting for him. To fill up space, I also did a Star of David, and a doggie door through which the light source is to be stuffed inside the house to light up the rooms.

After decorating the pieces, however, I was horrified to find some of the cookie pieces starting to sag. NOOOO!!! The culprit, after I calmed down to find cause, was the flooding of royal icing. The extra water used to thin out the icing was absorbed by the cookies and made them soft. Horrified that I may not have a house after all, I laid out all the pieces on cooling racks and placed them into the spare room, with not one but TWO dehumidifiers running around the clock. I went to bed with my fingers crossed, hoping the pieces would dry out the next day.

Time spent decorating cookie pieces: 7 hrs

D-Day: will the house stand up or will it collapse? Holding up the walls with royal icing was very easy, but you know sometimes you have this nagging feeling but couldn’t really put your finger on it? For days I’d been thinking the position of the doggie door was weird, but didn’t know why I thought so. Then it came the time to put up the back wall, where I painstakingly piped Santa’s sled plus reindeers, along with the beautiful Star of David that almost caused the wall to collapse, and it hit me! I had forgotten to flip the template when I cut out the back wall, so now, all the piping details are INSIDE the house! I was so sad I could’ve cried, but construction must go on. Besides this major blunder, the only other minor hiccup encountered was that after putting up a weight-bearing support wall between the two parts of the house, I realized that I needed a hole in that wall for the light to shine through, because (didn’t I say the position of the doggie door was bothering me?) the doggie door where the light was going to be pushed in was on the other side of the house! So that wall quickly came down and I managed to saw an opening in it. Boy, now was the first ray of hope that this house just might stand up after all, because that wall was so tough to cut through!

After I had gotten over the trauma of the inside-out back wall, I started to enjoy the process of putting all the pieces together. I took one last look at the Star of David that is now a wall mural for the living room, and placed the roof on. Now it’s looking like a house! Even with all the tweaking and fine tuning, the two roofs still didn’t fit exactly, but the beauty with gingerbread house is that you can fill up any holes with royal icing and call it snow! I know I did a lot of planning for this house, but this is where I improvised. I added candies to the bay window roof, made extra bushes with gummy candies, put down a Quaker oat square doormat, and placed a pretzel fence around the house. I was having so much fun it was hard to stop adding stuff to the house!

Time spent assembling the house: 2 hrs

So there you have it, the gingerbread house that cannot be eaten and has to live in the spare bedroom where the humidity level is maintained at 50% by two very hard-working dehumidifiers. It did sit in the living room front and center during my dinner parties and will go to Palate Sensations for a photo shoot. After that, it will live in the reception area of the school until the humidity gets the better of it.

Until next year!

Pierre Hermé in Singapore

One thing I won’t complain about living in Singapore is the size of the place. True, it is just one tiny island that you can drive from one end to the other in less than 45 minutes, but it is conveniently located for easy traveling. Most places in Asia are just a short hop away and even Europe and Australia are well within 12 hours. North and South Americas and Africa are a little far to get to, but I don’t need to go there too often, now that my parents have retired and moved to Shanghai, and how many times do you need to go on a safari, right?

Anyway, my point is, Singaporeans are a well-traveled bunch and coming from a food-loving culture, they eat where they go at the best places they can find. As a result, mention any internationally renowned chef to any globe trotting Singaporean and chances are he/she has not only heard of the chef but has also eaten at the famed establishment. It is therefore no surprise that each year at the World Gourmet Summit held in town the list of guest chef looks like the who’s who of the culinary world. I missed the one last year because I was back in the States helping my parents move, i.e. tossing out high school report cards, college notebooks and even my wedding dress from their basement.

This year, I made sure I was in town during the WGS and I am so glad I did, because Pierre Hermé, the man who single handedly changed the way desserts are made and presented was one of the guest chefs.

I have long been a fan of Mr. PH ever since my Tokyo days and have visited his store in Paris as well. He may not be my all-time favorite pastry chef ever (that honor goes to Mr. Hidemi Sugino), but his innovative flavor combinations never cease to amaze and inspire me. Naturally, when my friend called to tell me that he’s going to be serving his signature desserts at Mezza9 I wanted to make a reservation right away. I also wanted to attend his master class, however I was not as decisive in that front. So in the time it took me to come to the conclusion that yes, I really do want to watch him from the back of an auditorium that seats 200, all the tickets were sold out. At least we booked our seats at the Mezza9 early enough.

After more than a month the day finally came. The six of us agreed (or rather, the wives decided on behalf of the husbands) to order a light dinner so we could try all seven desserts on the menu. In true Singapore “kiasu” style we pre-ordered our desserts before our meals, just in case any particular item runs out. While we were deciding what main dishes to order, Mr. Pierre Hermé stepped out into the dining room and all of a sudden I could feel my heart palpitating. He came over to our table and I asked Jason to take a photo for me with the master himself, then another one with all three ladies at the table. Normally I am not the type to swoon over a movie or rock star but I found myself gushing in the presence of Mr. PH. So it was in the presence of an iconic chef that I finally got a little taste of what screaming fans must feel when they’re faced with their idol.

At the waiter’s urge we ordered some side dishes to go with the main, but the main dish portions turned out to be very generous. I had almost half a duck on my plate and in order to conserve precious stomach space I had to give most of it to Jason. When finally the dishes were cleared away we ordered a bottle of dessert wine and waited for the arrival of Mr. PH’s masterpieces.

Now, in the order of flavors going from lightest to heaviest, they are:

Dessert Ispahan – rose flavored macaron filled with rose petal cream with raspberries and lychees, served with sorbet ispahan: lychee, rose petal aromas and raspberry sorbet.

I have had both the ispahan (macaron) and the sorbet (in the form of and ice cream bar, named Miss Gla-gla), which are both excellent on their own. But I have to say that having them side by side like this, when you chase the ispahan macaron with a light, refreshing bite of the sorbet, you’ll understand why this is his best known dessert.

Emotion Satine – compote of passion fruit, seasoned orange segments, cream cheese cream, topped with shortbread cubes soaked in flavored syrup.

I have also had this while in Tokyo, when the range was first introduced. I’ve always liked the tartness of passion fruit, especially when it’s paired with something sweet and creamy. One of my favorite elements of this dessert is the shortbread on top. People are weary because they look like brown sugar cubes but of course when you pop one into your mouth you’ll immediately realize your mistake.



Revelation – puff pastry with tomato, mascarpone cream, olive oil, pieces of black olives, tomato and strawberry compote.

There is a split of opinion on this dessert, with only two guys in our group liking it. Usually I am the first to order something weird like this because I am always for trying new flavors, but even for me this is a little strange. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tomatoes in desserts, it is a fruit after all. In fact, one of my favorite tarts was a cherry tomato tart from a bakery in Tokyo. However, the revelation lacks the magic element that pulls all the components together, so the tomato tasted like salad and the olives seemed really out of place.

Tarte Mogador – shortcrust pastry filled with milk chocolate and passion fruit ganache, with a piece of flourless chocolate cake inside, topped with roasted pineapple

Here is another one I did not like. For one, the short crust pastry shell was really hard and very difficult to cut, and then there’s the problem of the pineapple. Maybe the Hyatt couldn’t get a good batch, but it was kind of tasteless. Then there’s the cacao nibs. I confess I’ve never been a fan of cacao nibs, and especially not in ganache. I am all for contrast of textures, but biting into cacao nibs in an otherwise silky and smooth ganache is like finding coffee grinds in a nice cup of latte. It’s just not my thing. Sorry, Mr. Hermé!

The next dessert has no name but only a description: variation of chestnut, passion fruit and matcha green tea.

The bottom half of the martini glass was filled with a silky custard so rich and creamy and full of egg flavors I couldn’t stop eating. Then there was a layer of sweet chestnut cream and a layer of matcha mouse. Passion fruit pulp was drizzled on top to give this sweet and rich dessert some zing. The scoop of ice cream lent a nice contrast in temperature and it was all rounded off nicely with a paper-thin tuille. This is more like the Pierre Hermé I know.

Crème brulee with foie gras, cranberries and pear compote

Ladies and gentlemen, this is by no means your regular crème brulee! Although I eat foie gras at every chance I get, I’ve never had it in a dessert and to be perfectly honest, I had my doubts: will it be too rich, will it be too weird? All my doubts were dispelled the moment I took a tentative little bite. Oh how do I describe it? You know when you eat foie gras, you like the intense rich flavor but the burst of oil in your mouth is not really pleasant? Well, somehow Mr. Hermé managed to solve that problem. You taste the intense fragrance of the foie gras without the greasiness because, me thinks, it is first neutralized by the custard cream and further played down by the refreshing combination of cranberry/pear compote and fresh pear chunks. In the words of Randy Jackson, (watch American Idol much?) “Yo, listen dude, this is molten HOT!”

And last but not the least, an assortment of macarons:

The vanilla was too sweet for my taste and the chocolate had the same problem with the tarte: cacao nibs in ganache. I didn’t try the passion fruit milk chocolate ganache macaron but I really enjoyed the rose flavored ispahan, again. My favorite, however, was the white truffle. I know it sounds so cliché, but I really did enjoy it the most. I know it’s hard to make a good truffle dessert because I’ve had some pretty bad truffle ice creams before. Nevertheless, when it’s done right, it is the most incredible experience of flavor and aroma, which PH managed to do in perfection. The fragrance of the truffle is neither too pungent nor too subtle and the flavor is neither too intrusive nor too delicate. And with that perfect macaron we finished off our wonderful dessert course.

I was feeling content and happy about the whole experience, until the next day, when I found out that there was actually another different dessert menu just next door in the Martini bar. Had I known that I would’ve convinced my dinner companions to skip dinner altogether and order that entire menu too! Oh well, there is always Paris and Tokyo. Until then, Mr. Hermé.

Eat Your Type

Our waiter greeted us with “Hello, my name is Mike, and my blood type is O. What’s your blood type?” Yip, our waiter. I was at a restaurant, not a blood bank.

Lynette and I and a couple of other ladies started this lunch thing last year. We don’t meet regularly and it’s not always the same group because people are out of town all the time, but whoever can make it will go and we usually try to eat at new places or where we know the chef.

This time the venue is the newly opened My Blood Type restaurant at the Golden Shoe Building in the financial district. Bertrand, the executive chef is a fellow teacher at Palate Sensations and has worked in various hotels and restaurants. In fact we have been waiting for the restaurant to open ever since he told us that he was working on the menu at the end of last year. The menu comes divided according to blood types, and then there is one called “friendly” suited to all blood types. They do not use artificial flavors, refined sugar, saturated fat or processed food in their cooking so you can eat to your heart’s content without feeling guilty.

The menu for type B (my blood type) was long on starters and desserts but short on main for some reason, so I opted for two starters. My first starter was lightly seared yellow fin tuna on a bed of salad greens served with citrus dressing. The taste was light and refreshing and healthy food doesn’t get any better than this. My next starter was a little unusual. Normally people want their food to be savory, no? Well, the ricotta cake was slightly sweet, and lemony. It was still very nice but I was just not expecting anything sweet before dessert.








The food my lunch companions ordered are a very nice shrimp and mango salad wrapped in grilled paper-thin zucchini slices; a slightly garlicky pasta; and a very juicy and flavorful grilled rack of lamb. I was told Bertrand used to man the grill station when he worked at Flutes at the Fort so grilling is obviously his forte.
To finish off lunch we picked three desserts to share: peach tart (which was recommended to us by the owner), jasmine tea jelly with lime sorbet, and chocolate covered pandan chiffon cake. The peach tart took us by surprise because we didn’t want to order it initially, thinking how good could a peach tart be? Well, it was pretty amazing. Instead of almond or crème patisserie, which is usually what comes in a tart, it was filled with a peach compote made on site. To top it off, little balls of peach flesh was poached and lightly caramelized with a torch. From taste to presentation it was perfect. The tea jelly had a very mellow jasmine taste but all our taste buds were woken up by the tangy lime sorbet. It’s the perfect ending if you had eaten something heavy, such as lamb or a creamy pasta. We were a little disappointed by the pandan chiffon cake, however. Since the restaurant only uses spelt flour, the “chiffon” cake didn’t rise the way chiffon cakes are supposed to rise and the delicate pandan flavor was overpowered by the thick chocolate covering. On the other hand, the dessert that another group of friends that I happened to run into at the restaurant was excellent, according to them. I think it was the raspberry short cake parfait?
Minor hiccups aside, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the food was at a so-called health restaurant. When it comes to food I usually believe that if it’s healthy it can’t taste too good, but I have to say I am changing my mind on that. Just a little though, because you won’t see me baking without butter or eggs any time soon.

Have you Lo-hei’d this year?

Last Saturday, we went with Lynettte and a group of friends to the lovely Sichuan Do Hua restaurant for a Chinese New Year celebration dinner. But, wasn’t CNY last week? Yes, and no, because traditionally CNY is celebrated for fifteen whole days, ending with the lantern festival on the fifteenth day. So we were well within the celebratory period.

Lynette had outdone herself by booking the most beautiful private room in the restaurant and before we even finished wooing and aaahing, two waiters served us tea kung-fu style. Now that’s service with panache!

One must-have Chinese New Year dish in Singapore is Yu Sheng, which means raw fish literally. It is actually a salad with sashimi and various other ingredients, all carrying auspicious meanings. The way to eat it is called Lo Hei, which is Cantonese for “lifting up.” The restaurants usually prepare long chopsticks (about a foot long) so everybody can stand up around the table and use the chopsticks to toss, or throw the salad in the air, depending on how you look at it. Some say that the higher you toss, the more luck and prosperity the new year will bring. Even though we have lived in Singapore before I had never taken part in Lo Hei or eating Yu Sheng until then. In fact, only a handful of people in our group have had it before so the novelty factor caused us all to giggle like little kids while enthusiastically scattering salad greens and precious abalones all over the table. We only stopped when someone pointed out that if we carried on like that there’d be nothing to eat.
According to our Yu Sheng expert (a Singaporean and two Italians who have eaten it before), Si Chuan Do Hua’s version is a little different. They included abalone and a crispy fish skin, and also used a very nice plume sauce for the dressing. I loved it so much I had two heaping servings and would’ve had more if there was any left.
Besides the Yu Sheng we also had the following dishes: eight treasure seafood soup sans sharks fin, steamed red grouper, braised prawn in spinach sauce, DongPo pork, scallops in potato basket, fried noodles, and a dessert of longan and red date soup.

Everything was delicious, although I was puzzled as to why there weren’t any spicy dishes since the chef is from Si Chuan, home of Ma Po tofu, until Lynette reminded us that she was the one who picked the menu, hee!



At the end of the dinner we were served fortune cookies! I was tickled to see those because I didn’t think anyone else used them except Chinese restaurants in the US. When I opened my cookie, I found a fortune that said I had won a $50 dining voucher. But the best part was, I had two fortunes in the cookie, which means I won two vouchers. Now if that’s not an auspicious sign for the new year, I don’t know what is.