Happy, happy Friday everyone! Well happy Saturday. I apologize for the late post but it was Amber's last night in Singapore and so we stayed out late and when we got back near midnight this girl was ready to go right to sleep.
This week’s post had me extremely nervous as Thursday night rolled around and I had yet to try anything new this week PLUS I had barely taken pictures of any of my meals. Talk about the stresses of being a blogger, hah! Luckily, Glenn (the token Singaporean friend of my travels here in Singapore) knew just what to do. Amber, Ethan, Glenn, and I had planned to go to Chinatown Thursday night for dinner so I could introduce my intense love of xiao long bao from the Noodle Man to Amber. I know, I know if we all had a nickel for every time I talk about my obsession with XLB aka steamed dumplings on this blog we’d all be rich (and you could all afford to come to Singapore and eat them with me). But I am happy to say that Amber is officially in love with them too and completely understands my obsession or she has an awesome poker face. Hey I’ll take it as a win for team XLB!
Amber's photo skills
Above photos courtesy of Ethan
Gong He Guan
After dinner Glenn directed us through the colorful streets of Chinatown which has now become my official favorite place in Singapore to a traditional Hong Kong dessert restaurant, Gong He Guan. We each got a different dessert to enjoy which meant trying 4 new interesting dishes.
Let’s start with Ethan’s pick: rock melon with sago. Rock melon is similar to cantaloupe and sago is the little green pearls you see in the picture. Sago is a starchy, tapioca like pearl that comes from the inside of tropical palm stems. Added to the fruit is cold coconut milk which makes for a refreshing, fruity, cold soup of a dessert. Ethan had thumbs up on this one.
Glenn opted for rock melon with grass jelly (forgive me as I’ve forgotten the actual name of it but its abbreviation was KLG). This included shaved ice, rock melon of course, and the black grass jelly. It isn’t as sweet as say jell-o and has a more dense consistency than it too. Amber was not the biggest fan of this dessert, but Ethan and Glenn were mighty happy with it. I was quite indifferent, it was nice, not sure I’d be able to eat the whole thing.
Amber chose the almond paste with glutinous sticky rice balls. Note- since Niles is 10,000 miles away I no longer have to be sensitive to eating nuts, sorry Niles! This was the only warm dish of the 4 and the almond paste wasn’t as thick as I’d expected and had a nice almond flavor to it. The rice balls were filled with peanuts and black beans. Though the picture shows how the black bean filling looked more like dirt and definitely wasn’t a crowd pleaser. I did really like the peanut filled ones and the almond paste with it too (so, so sorry Niles)!
Finally, I probably ordered the most simple of all the desserts. Mango pudding. It was cold, fruity, refreshing, not too thick, an all-around alright dessert in my opinion! Guess I opted for the least exciting out of the group but I figured you have to play it a little safe when dealing with desserts here in Asia as sometimes you get more than you bargained for.
Friday, my group took me out to lunch per usual of our two hour allotment. They told me we were going to a Hong Kong café and so I figured that meant more dim sum. Well we all ended up getting “western food”. They highly recommended the pork chop and spoo get tee (known to most westerners as spaghetti). I went along and figured hey you can’t mess up spaghetti. Well when I took my first bite I was immediately wronged. The sauce tasted like McDonald’s sweet and sour sauce that you’d put on chicken nuggets. My coworkers quickly asked me if it tasted just like in the US which I replied as polite as possible that the sauce is a little different than I’m used to. It was so thick and sweet, ugh I couldn’t stand it. I managed to get through as much as I could (which was still less than half the plate) in the hopes that I wouldn’t have to explain why I didn’t eat more of it. It may not have been as wild as eating chicken feet but it was gross enough for me to cross this off my list. Then again I don’t know what I expected ordering spoo get tee from a Hong Kong restaurant…Where’s Giada DeLaurentis when you need her??
The other new food I ate this week was the infamous Singaporean Chili Crab! Amber had asked if we could do a more special, fancy meal but keep it more geared towards traditional Singaporean or Asian cuisine. I can’t blame her for wanting to get her fill of Asian food before heading back to the US on Tuesday! Friday night (ok I am kind of cheating by using the US time zone difference to my advantage), Amber, Ethan, and I headed to Long Beach Seafood Restaurant at East Coast Park. We were hoping to go to Jumbo but that place requires reservations days/weeks in advance.
Our meal started out with spinach and garlic along with the house specialty prawn (both pictured above). We couldn't figure out what exactly was on the prawns but all we knew was that they were delicious! And then finally it was time to get our hands messy with the infamous Singapore chili crab!
We all enjoyed the perfectly spicy chili sauce and the Sri Lankan crab. But in my opinion the best part was getting to dip the warm buns in the chili sauce at the end YUM!! Of course there aren't any pictures of this because my hands were completely covered in the delicious sauce and I wasn't about to get it all over my phone too. You'll all just have to trust me on how great they were.
Now that I've tried both chili crab and black pepper crab, I think I will say that my favorite was the black pepper...but the chili sauce and the buns were awesome! Hopefully I'll get to try each of them again while I'm here and maybe have a different review!
Well that wraps up this weeks food Friday. As always please leave a comment on a new food you tried this week or something yummy you made/ate!
Happy weekend!
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