My Little Spanish Place - Take 2

These photos were from a visit earlier this year to MLSP, and I've only just got down to uploading them. Over the past 2 years, the food has been consistently good and I'm happy to say that this would be my go-to Spanish restaurant in Singapore.  

There was a beautiful leg of ham on the counter when we arrived

Absolutely beautiful 

Some of the cold cuts that we started with

Croquettes - the first of our tapas

Mixed salad - perhaps the most boring dish of the night

Tortillas 

Anchovies with grilled peppers on bread

Mushrooms with melted cheese

 Gazpacho

Grilled squid

 Garlic prawns - great with their white wines

The star of the evening - their roast suckling pig

Slicing the pig wasn't too difficult - I found out after I had a go. Apparently it's traditional for them to smash the plate after the pig's all cut up. And the use of a plate with a fairly blunt edge also was a good sign - it meant the pig was super crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside.

Almost there

One platter on our table - the cheek supposedly had the best meat

You can't come to a Spanish restaurant and not order paella

 I think this was apple pie, but it was difficult to also stuff in the desserts after all that food

Traditional Spanish sweets taken post meal

Dubai and Italy Overview

The husband and I went to Italy recently on Emirates via Dubai, and while the food photos are going to take some time to sort out, here's a selection of some of the places we went to.

 

The Burj Khalifa - we went to the observation deck at the 120th floor, which had a pretty insane view. Dubai has changed so much since I was last there in 2003, and it seems that all their growth has been relatively insensitive to the human scale, with huge buildings and roads that are seemingly inaccessible to the normal person.

 
We even had time to get an abra to go from the silk to the spice souk, and back

 
The colours of the spice souk - I managed to get 4-5 pods of fresh Madagascan vanilla for 15 dirhams, and one small pack of saffron for 20 dirhams.

 
The Colosseum

 

 The streets of Rome in Trastevere - a lovely district with lots of great eateries

 

Castel Sant'Angelo and the Tiber River

 
St Peters at sunset viewed from the park near the top of the Spanish Steps

 

Siena's skyline 

 

 

 Winery in Montepulciano

 
View of Tuscan hills from Montichiello

 

Montalcino at sunset

 
Streets of Florence

 
View of Florence from Piazzale Michaelangelo

 
Bernini's dome in the Siena Duomo 

 
Towers of San Gimingano

Bak Chor Mee

This is a post from 2009, and I've just realised I forgot to publish it. It was meant to be a comparison between various bak chor mee places, and maybe one or two of them have already moved - I know for a fact that the one at Prince Edward Rd is no longer there, and I'm not sure what's happened since the renovations at Bedok Blk 85. Anyway, here goes. 

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First up - the bak chor mee at Bedok. They're open only at night, which was perfect for me after coming back from a work trip around 10plus at night. There are 2 stalls side by side (I didn't know that until I got there), so I took a chance and ordered from Xing Ji Rou Cuo Mian on the left, which apparently is the "original" one (or so I was told later) - whatever that means.

Apparently they only have soup noodles. Nice, but...well...eating soup noodles isn't really any fun.

Next stop: Tai Hwa Bak Chor Mee at Crawford Lane. This had an insane queue, which is always a good sign. All you need is patience and time.

We also ordered a serve of dumplings with soup on the side. Too much tur kwa but we never told the uncle not to put tur kwa, so we couldn't ask him why he gave us tur kwa.

It was like heaven in a bowl - by some stroke of magic (or more likely years of sweat, toil and pain to perfect his skills) - the uncle behind the counter whipped up a pure work of genius with pork lard, salted sole, chilli and vinegar. The husband had mee kia.

I had mee pok. Both just as good.

Thirdly, Tai Wah at Bestway Building at Prince Edward Road - this was very crowded at lunch time.

It looked similar to the Crawford Lane version, and while it was a decent bowl admittedly, it was nowhere near as outstanding as Crawford Lane's.

And frankly, those tur kwa pieces just look unwell. Ugh. But to be fair, I did go back again a few times to fulfill my lunchtime bak chor mee cravings. They're just not the best though.

Mi Si Hunan Restaurant (密斯湘菜馆)

A colleague of Hunan origin brought me to this Hunan restaurant for lunch, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was great knowing that it was an authentic place, and I'd be happy to go there again anytime.

The name of the restaurant on their tissue packet - I never know that Hunan food was called 湘菜.

 

干锅烟笋烧腊肉 - smoked bamboo shoots with waxed meat  ($22.80). This was amazing with steamed rice. The bamboo was extremely fragrant, and the waxed meat flavours complemented it perfectly.

干锅茶树菇($19.80) was a dish I had eaten many times in China, and really enjoyed. The mushrooms were a bit tough, but generally tasted similar to what I knew.

香锅飘香鱼 ($24.80). We wanted to eat the 双色鱼头王- fish head with chillies of 2 colours, but the waiting time was too long. The fish slices in chilli oil were very much like 水煮鱼, so it was more 川菜 instead of 湘菜. This was decent, but I would probably order something else next time. 

Based on these dishes, the restaurant is definitely worth a repeat visit.

密斯湘菜餐厅 

Tel: 6225 5968 

Add：24 Smith Street

Big Mama at Kim Tian Road

Big Mama is a fabulous place for dinner on Saturday nights - we were there in a group of 7, and having booked the first seating at 6pm, we were told we had to leave before 8pm. No problems there, since the food arrived very quickly. It's a homely, unpretentious place and excellent for large rowdy groups, since you can get to try a bit of everything - the servings are huge.

They're very generous with the appetisers, and when the plates were emptied, offered refills cheerfully. Top marks for service.

Close-up of the various appetisers -my favourite was the jelly-like spicy blocks, which were a bit like cubed 凉粉.

I absolutely loved their seafood and chives pancake. Soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.

Great with the chilli dipping sauce

We ordered suyuk, which is...siu yuk. The platter arrived looking like this:

Ooh the pork was delicious - very soft and tender, and not too fatty so it didn't feel too sinful popping everything into our mouths

Two ways of eating it: either with sauce and cucumber, or with a slice of radish and bean sprouts.

Bulgogi beef - this turned out soupier than expected, but still tasty nonetheless.
 
We ordered a spicy grilled chicken, which came with raw veggies and had to be stir-fried at the table.

The final product with rice cakes - excellent.


The seafood hotpot was really good as well - this was not too salty, just the right amount of spice and really good with white steamed rice.

It had noodles at the bottom, which were nice and chewy.

A fantastic place to go with greedy friends.

Website: http://bigmama.sg/menu