Phuket - A short getaway

The husband and I got a discounted weekend stay at the Marriot Vacation Club in Phuket, and decided to bring the mother along as well, since the room had 2 bedrooms. It's a lovely resort that's near the airport, but absolutely cut off from all the action near Patong and Surin. So we decided not to take up the package.
We didn't eat in the resort at all since we rented a car, after reading all the Trip Advisor reviews about how ulu the resort was. But we had breakfast at the cafe outside the resort, with exhorbitant tourist prices too. Breakfast the first morning was khao tom muu. I love Thai porridge with the fried garlic bits.

We drove to Patong to spend a day there but there wasn't much to see or do. I did end up buying durians and sneaking them into the hotel triple-bagged : )
We ate dinner at a little restaurant just next to the beach near the hotel. When you're in an unfamiliar place, the safest thing to do is to look for a place with people.
We guessed that the place was run by Muslims, since they didn't serve pork and there weren't any spirit houses around.
We had the curry crab - this was superb, especially with white rice. The crabs weren't huge, but they were fresh and sweet.

The som tum was pretty good too. Good balance of sweet, sour and salty

We had a tom kha gai.
They were very generous with the chicken pieces.
And a larb gai too. This was pretty good!
The green curry was a bit thin, and came with some weird melon. This was just okay.
We had this baked seafood thing that was something like otak - pieces of different types of seafood baked in a curry-like coconutty mixture with egg. We were quite pleasantly surprised by this.
And breakfast again at the same cafe - phad thai
And khao tom goong.
And just before take off, at the Thai Airways cafeteria at the airport. Khao niaw mak muang : )

Oyster Night

One evening we (okay, me) had a huge craving for oysters and went down to the supermarket to get some. We found some huge Canadian ones, and came home happily with a dozen costing us around 30 bucks.

All set...you bet.
That's a mighty big oyster against my not-that-small WMF fork.
The shell was almost twice the length of the lemon.

Otowa at Cuppage

I had been wanting to try Otowa for some time after a friend's recommendation, but never managed to get down to it until recently, unfortunately after Tan Hsuen Yun discovered (and started posting about) the place. So I thought I'd better hotfoot it down before hordes of hungry Singaporeans did. It's one of those places that has no English name, and looks fairly intimidating if you're not a Japanese. Only 10 bar seats available.

The amuse bouche - konnyaku, some veggies and a bit of squid.
We ordered chicken cartilege - I love this dish so much.
We had chicken wings which were really nicely done - crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.
My doctor friend ordered a very unhealthy stick of chicken skin.
The healthy finance person ordered a salad
Raw octopus salad
Same unhealthy doctor ordered chicken backsides.
Tofu - not very exciting at all.
The chicken was good quality - fresh, moist and cooked through.
Tsukune with chicken cartilege minced inside. yay!
Seaweed salad that looked a bit odd I thought
Unhealthy doctor ordered pig stomach.
Mushrooms - these were very enjoyable.
Same unhealthy doc ordered chicken hearts.
Kurobota pork, which was tender and flavourful.
And the cold korean noodles at the end were the best - I love the texture.
Really chewy noodles.
It's on the 3rd floor of Cuppage Plaza. Can't recall the exact address, and can't find it on the internet either! Not cheap though - the bill was about $50 per person. It's not exactly value for money but it's a pretty good feed.

天记 Porridge at Maxwell Market

There's always been this stall where I see the operator packing and washing up when I arrive at Maxwell Market, no matter how early. The rest of the day and night, the shutter is down. I got curious and asked one of my older colleagues if they knew what it sold. Trust these wise old people, who wake up at 5am and come to the office by 7am, to know something good.

It's a porridge stall that opens at something like 4am, and they normally sell out by 7am. One time I arrived at 7.10am and the operator shook his head and me and said 卖完了. To satisfy my curiousity, one morning I proceeded to drag the poor husband out of the house at 6.45am (it was his fault that we missed the stall the last time) to make sure that we got there on time.
They sell pork or fish porridge, and the gruel mixture is soft, not too thick (I think Zhen Zhen is a rather negative example of thick porridge) and flavourful. It's easy on the tongue and throat.
The raw fish salad is pretty good too. Not too much ginger (think Zhen Zhen again), and a good mix of lime, soy and sesame oil dressing.
This cost me $7. I was very pleased with it : ) It's not the cheapest hawker breakfast, but it's good quality and $4 is a reasonable price for good raw fish salad.
I think this is worth waking up at 6am for, just not everyday.

It's on the same row as Tian Tian chicken rice, between the double-boiled soup stall and fruit stall. It's a fantastic alternative for my favourite porridge stall that unfortunately closed down last year : (

Malacca: Eating all the way

The husband and I went with the inlaws to Malacca for church camp (theirs, not ours) over an extended weekend so the only thing I was really looking forward to was the food. Fortunately we had some good company from the group who were nice enough to invite us on a night stroll out with them for supper.

The Malacca old town is lit up with red lights at night - possibly the same colour of the Portugese Fort? Anyway the streets look more beautiful at night, cos you can't see the cracks or holes so clearly.
We were brought to a coffeeshop called Restoran Sin Yin Hoe, which served soft shell crabs and oyster omelette.
The or luak stall looked seriously exciting! I was really looking forward to trying some.
Check it out - en route to perfection
I completely loved the or luak. It was the right combination of starchy vs eggy, and felt light and crispy enough not to be too soggy or heavy, with with the gooey starch texture intact. Much better than the super long queue one at Jalan Bunga Raya, I felt.
Someone at the table ordered kong bak pau. This was not bad.
Oooh but the horfun was super amazing. The noodles were soft and supple, brimming over with a wok hei aroma. Worth a return visit.
The soft shell crab came towards the end, and most of us were pretty full by then (this was after a buffet dinner...heh) so I don't think it was that amazing but I might have felt differently had I been hungry. It was not bad.
After that, we proceeded to eat chendol on Jonker St. No good photos with the bad light unfortunately, but we brought the inlaws there the next night and they loved it. Photos to follow later.

We had the afternoon off the next day and went walking around town. This chap was driving around and enjoying the attention from all the passers-by.
We went to Jonker 88, which was where we had eaten during our previous trip. The chendol was ok but not as good as the one we had the night before.
Still packing in the crowds though.
That evening, after a full day of shopping, we went to this place that we had read a lot about on various food blogs - Restoran Lee just opposite Bayview Hotel, and on the same side as Renaissance Hotel.
We got there just after 6 to be sure we could get a table.
What the coffeeshop looks like on the outside
Every kind of crab you could ask for.
We ordered the salt egg crab. This was solid salted egg yolk mashed onto the crab, without any of the floury stuff that other places add.
This was pretty amazing. Licked even the shells clean.
We ordered a fried bee hoon, with dark sauce which is typical of Malaysian noodles dishes, and overflowing with pork lard flavour. Heavenly.
Boring. The requisite veggie dish to make us feel a little better about ourselves.
The milk crab was sweetish with a slight hint of chilli - I daresay there was condensed milk as well.
They gave us bread to mop up the milk sauce. ooh so good.
Ready to make other customers happy.
After that, we headed to the Jonker St chendol stall for dessert.

The husband and I also shared a bowl of assam laksa, which was really quite good. Given that we had just been stuffing our face with crabs, that's pretty damn good laksa.
This gets my vote for BEST chendol in Malacca with the tastiest richest gula melaka.
View of the night food street.
On the way back to Singapore, we stopped at Tangkak for beef noodles upon the recommendation of a JB friend. We had swung by a month before our Malacca trip, enroute back from Port Dickson, and the shop was closed. We were most disappointed then. So we were most relieved to find it open.
You know a place is good when they sell only one thing.
Chilli prepared in anticipation.
My husband's beef meat and beef ball noodles. The beef balls were fantastic, absolutely springy, with the right mix of tendon and whatnots giving it a bouncy yet meaty texture.
My kuay teow with all the various cow parts. The soup was amazingly sweet and yet not overpoweringly herbal.
Directions on getting to Tangkak: Get off the NS Highway, drive towards the town, and take the first right turn when you see a police station compound with blue and white buildings at the junction. The restaurant will be on your right.