Food and Wine

The husband's birthday was 2 weeks ago, and it was a brilliant weekend of wining and dining with family and friends. The celebrations started with an evening of drinks at home with his best mate and a few good wines.

A Penfolds Barossa 2009 Viognier that I picked up in Adelaide in April - cellar door release only. Very light nectar taste. Absolutely beautiful.

Got this Yarra Valley Cab Sav from the Yering Station cellar door in 2006, and kept it till now. Took a bit of time, but it was brilliant with amazingly complex flavours once it had a bit of time to warm up and breathe in the glass.

Smoked cheese and brie - surprisingly good with cherry tomatoes.

For the husband's birthday pre-dinner drinks, we headed to Wine Connection at Robertson Quay to wait out the 1 hour or so before our dinner reservation at a pseudo Japanese-European fusion restaurant at River Valley (which I'm not blogging about because we were quite disappointed with the food). We had the Wine Connection platter ($18) consisting 2 cheeses, mixed olives, duck rillettes, smoked salmon mousse, spiced beef rolls, parma ham and crostini. This was quite good value for money with a pretty good assortment of different items. The beef rolls were very nicely done - moist and tender without being too salty.

The platter was amazing with a 2008 South African Cab Sav. The husband had a 2005 Bordeaux (not pictured).

I recently went to Le Carillon again at Ann Siang Hill, and realised with horror that the price of their escargot has gone up from $18 to $24, which is a 33% increase. I don't think it's worth the money anymore, although it's still as delicious as ever. The eats at Wine Connection are much better value for money.

Spice Spirit 麻辣诱惑

After dreaming about the tofu for 6 months, I also managed to make it to Spice Spirit in Beijing not once but twice. They now have quite a number of branches all across Beijing, and also in Shanghai. Part of the appeal for me is the modern interior, the clean dining environment and the relatively reasonable prices.

Among all the dishes, the chicken wings with dried chilli was my top pick out of all the meat dishes (Too bad can't see any chicken wings only dried chilli) The wings are deep fried till they are crispy with all the flavours from the chillies absorbed.

The tofu with fish roe was still as good as I remembered it

Best eaten heaped on top of hot steamed rice

The ma po tofu was very hot, very spicy and very tasty. This was less oily than most other ma po tofus in other sichuan restaurants.

On my second visit, in addition to the wings and tofu, we ordered the long beans fried with chilli as well. This was decent but not very exciting.

The most eventful dish from my second visit was the 水煮鱼. Translated as fish cooked in water, it's a real misnomer for one of the spiciest dishes in a sichuan restaurant. The fish slices are immersed in really hot (both taste and temperature) oil, which also has dried chillies and sichuan peppers in it.

They give you a piece of dry bread which helps to absorb the oil. Not the spice though! We also ordered golden mushrooms, which went really well with the long bean sprouts which were sitting at the bottom of the bowl. Absolutely fantastic.

Website: http://www.spicespirit.com/

Plenty of branches around Beijing, so take your pick! The one that's probably the easiest to find is on the 3rd floor at Village at Sanlitun.

西环广场店北京市西城区西直门外大街1号西环广场T1座5层订餐电话：010-58302398
十里堡店北京市朝阳区十里堡甲3号都会国际A座2层订餐电话：010-65579989
长虹桥店北京市朝阳区农展馆南路12号通广商务楼2层订餐电话：010-65389880
五道口店北京市海淀区成府路28号五道口购物中心A座6层1号订餐电话：010-62666788
大钟寺店北京市海淀区大钟寺东路太阳园小区会所2层订餐电话：010-82119966
西单君太店北京市西城区西单君太百货7层订餐电话： 010-82656688
西单中友店北京市西城区中友百货8层 订餐电话：010-66037068
东直门店北京市东城区东直门外大街46号天恒大厦3层订餐电话：010-84608558
崇文门店北京市崇文区崇文门外搜秀商城7层 订餐电话：010-51671099
新中关店北京市中关村大街19号新中关大厦2层订餐电话：010-82488228
万达广场店北京市石景山区万达广场步行街3层订餐电话：010-88689939
双井店北京市朝阳区双井富力广场4层订餐电话： 010-59037040
三里屯店北京市朝阳区三里屯路太古广场（VILLAGE）南区2号楼3层订餐电话：010-64132908

Air China from Shanghai to Tianjin

I returned to Tianjin from Shanghai via Air China, and was scheduled on an 8.20pm flight. By the time I made it to Hongqiao it was 7.15pm and all the dinner grub in the lounge was almost gone.

This was my first pick: Spicy beef noodles - it looked rather promising


...but turned out to be terribly disappointing.

So I gave up halfway and decided to go for the remainder of the dinner. There was only porridge and pickles left by this time.

Fortunately the inflight food was not too bad...this 烧饼 was pretty yummy. I also had the Wang Lao Ji herbal tea, which was quite nice.

Gui Jie Part 2 - Ming Hui Fu (明辉府)

I managed to squeeze in another visit to Gui Jie, this time for dinner. Using the never-fail criteria of seeing where the crowds go, we walked into a random restaurant along the strip which had quite a number of tables already filled at 6.30pm. This looked slightly more upmarket than the previous place we visited, which was fine since were were looking for dinner not supper.

Some of the menu translations were quite amusing.

The grilled chicken wings were quite tasty still, but a bit more dry than Zai Zai Kao Ba's

We had the xiao long xia, or mini lobster. This was probably better than Zai Zai Kao Ba's - the crustaceans were larger, and the sauce was more tasty.

I ordered a sea cucumber with superior sauce - this was much better than Da Dong's. The sauce was full of oh-so-yummy flavours which I was struggling to decipher - whether there was chinese ham, dried scallop and other flavourful things I couldn't really tell. But suffice to say, it was very tasty.

And it was brilliant on top of steamed rice.

We also had a crab dish....it was awesome.

Address: 201 Dongzhimen Neidajie

Tel: 86-10-64013636

Open 24 hours

Gui Jie Part 1 - 仔仔烤吧 at Dongzhimen Neidajie 东直门内大街

I went to Dongzhimen NeiDaJie - also known as Gui Jie - twice during my stay in Beijing. It's a great place for dinner and supper, with many of the eateries open until the wee hours of the morning. I was told by a taxi driver that contrary to popular belief, the Gui doesn't actually mean ghost 鬼, but is actually 簋, meaning food container. I have no idea whether this was the actual origin of the name, or a subsequent decision made by the authorities to change a less auspicious name to a more neutral one.

We walked into a randomly chosen restaurant - there were plenty on the street to choose from - that had a good crowd (meaning the food must be good), and had space for our party. And so we ended up at 仔仔烤吧, or Zai Zai Kao Ba.

The restaurant was packed to the gills - fortunately they had smaller rooms out at the back and managed to fit us in.
The menu looked really exciting - with lots of chillies in the pics!

Sadly we couldn't order the 水煮鱼 because some of us had already eaten dinner : (

Grilled skewers galore

Lots of alcohol flowing to keep the customers happy. Instead of Qingdao, they usually serve Yanjing in Beijing, which is pretty good also. The Yanjing Chun Sheng Pi Jiu 燕京纯生啤酒 is very refreshing, light and tasty.

What we started with:

We ordered the 小龙虾, or tiny lobsters.

Head and claws too big....

But body too small! Each piece requires a lot of effort to peel and eat. In the end, you only manage to eat about one-third of the entire crustacean. But it was oh so yummy, especially dipped into the spicy liquid.

Also had grilled chicken wings. These were marinated with garlic and were fabulously yummy.

These meatballs were a surprisingly good find.

Yang rou chuanr, or grilled lamb skewers. These were really good.

I was still hungry and managed to convince my eating mates to order 辣子鸡, which are small chicken bits fried in szechuan peppers and dried chillies and everything else spicy. It was DIVINE.

A trip to Gui Jie is highly recommended...if you can't take spicy stuff just go for the skewers. My only regret was that I didn't get to eat hotpot as well.

仔仔烤吧 Zai Zai Kao Ba

东城区东直门内大街 Dongzhimen NeiDaJie 181-3号

Tel: 86-10-64055537

Makan at the Singapore Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010

I managed to visit the Shanghai Expo last week, and got to see the Singapore Pavilion. Much has been said about it in the papers, so I won't comment on what I think of it since this is a food blog not a venue for architectural or cultural discourse.

But a few plus points - the roof garden consisting of tropical plants like orchids, heliconias and ferns was absolutely stunning, although I heard a cold spell 2 weeks back had frozen some of the ferns.

The video depicting Singapore's urban landscape was pretty good too (ok I'm probably biased).

But the main point - we had lunch in the Singapore Pavilion. The Kriston team had been cooking various local delights for sale at one of the stalls just outside the Pavilion, and they were responsible for catering our lunch.

Otak sandwich and a chocolate brownie (not very Singaporean)

Laksa - fairly good considering that laksa leaf and coconut probably couldn't be obtained locally in Shanghai.

The satay was not too bad either...

And getting kueh pie ti was also a huge surprise.

Singapore food is definitely best prepared and consumed in Singapore, but it was a nice touch nonetheless : )

Da Dong Roast Duck in Beijing 大董烤鸭

I was in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai for work recently, and managed to take a few days off to tour Beijing at the end. Having previously gone to Da Dong for work-related meals during which photo-taking would have been extrememly inappropriate, I was very pleased to have finally gone there on leisure which meant that I could take all the photos I wanted to my heart's content. Of course it meant that I also had to pay for my own meals :(

There are 3 Da Dong branches in Beijing, but I've only been to the 2 older ones. This one's the one at Dongsishitiao - it's housed in Nanxincang, which is a restored precinct (I suppose the term 'conserved' wouldn't apply since it's probably entirely reconstructed).

You have to walk past the older single-storey buildings to get to the new glass curtain wall tower at the rear.

The menu is super huge, heavy and has so many things in it there's even a contents page.

Of course we had to have the roast duck.

That's my duck hanging around somewhere in there.

We ordered the 口水鸡，named after its ability to induce a lot of salivation in hungry diners.

The 口水鸡 did not disappoint! The blend of sesame sauce and chilli oil was just perfect.

We also had scallops with XO sauce. These were good too. The scallops were fresh and solid, and the XO sauce was sufficiently spicy without being too salty. Plus I thought the hydrangeas were a very pretty touch.
This is the 招牌菜, or signature dish - Chef Dong's braised sea cucumber. This was amazingly small for the amazingly high price. I didn't think it was worth the money though - the sauce was too salty, and had a tad too many spices which complicated the entire taste.

We knew the roast duck was on its way when they brought out the condiments. The most important one was the sugar granules, meant for dipping the duck skin in.

Our duck being carved by the master.

The skin's the best part!

There wasn't much left of the duck after it was deboned : ( But the skin was oh-so-amazingly-crisp...one bite and we were left melting in our seats. There really wasn't enough skin to satisfy us.

In addition to the flour skins, they also serve 烧饼, or little biscuit-like things to eat the roast duck with. I thought the duck went better with the crunchy shao bing.

We also had jellyfish with garlic, sesame oil and a touch of vinegar. This was nice and crunchy.

Da Dong also gives fruits and a choice of one dessert per person gratis - either an almond cream with papaya, or sesame cream. Both are pretty decent too. This meal cost us around RMB 600-odd (including tea and beer), which translated into just over S$120. The main culprit was the braised sea cucumber, which cost about RMB 200-odd for a 70g piece. Comparing Da Dong with Quanjude, although it's more expensive, I think Da Dong's better value for money in terms of the quality of food and the ambience. Not only is their roast duck one of the best in Beijing, the rest of the other dishes were also pretty well done.

5th floor Jinbaohui Shopping Centre

No. 88 Jinbao Street, Dongcheng District

Tel: 86-10-85221111

No. 3 Tuanjiehu Beikou (South-east of Changhong Bridge)

Chaoyang District (nearest Subway station: Tuanjiehu Station)

Tel: 86-10-65822892

No. 22 Dongsishitiao at Nanxincang

Dongcheng District (nearest Subway station: Dongsishitiao Station)

Tel: 86-10-51690328