Thursday, May 31, 2007

I was sitting in the plane, looking out through the window. The street lights were a sea of golden orange dots, like stars plucked from the sky and attracted by a certain allure on the ground. Once we landed, I was greeted by colours - the yellow signs, the blue signs, the purple carpet, the clothes, the food. My mum said, "I feel so shiok, finally. I'm so proud of our airport."





Indeed.





I was at Shanghai and Busan the past week and the dullness that lurked in the stale air at both "confluences of air travel" was stunningly bad. It marked a trip filled with surprises and shocks.





The food (of course, the biggest indicator of good travel/leisure/enjoyment) is phenomenal. I had at least 50 xiaolongbaos in Shanghai. I remember vividly queueing up for a good half an hour for the famous NANXIANG xiaolongbao situated in a temple, to realise it tasted only as good as the ones which I had for my previous meal for half the price. You need to eat the bao whole to savour the goodness, because when the juice oozes and hits the walls of your oral cavity, it culminates to a sort of culinary orgasm. Then there's tangbao, which is a giant xiaolongbao, big enough that a straw is inserted into the top opening for uninhibited splurping. The soup/gravy within just rocks your socks. Baby lobsters by the street for S$4 and they tasted firm and fresh, spicy and with the kind of unpretentious, intense flavour that only roadside stalls have. Beijing Roasted Duck skin washed in plum sauce, with slices of leek, rolled in a small prata of sorts, made for absolute heaven. And who can forget the soups! Shanghainese soups, perhaps for the province's cold weather and a population not known to be particularly diet-conscious, are mostly thin broths or stocks with thick oil, served in huge pots for bowl-after-bowl of relishing. You musn't give Shanghai a miss. I had the most unbelieveably delicious Turkish turkey roll with its tender meat and crispy greens dressed with sprinklings of freshly ground black pepper, the heart-fluttering boluobaos with that golden shine and the most sugary fruit ice drenched in sugary sugar.



Some call Shanghai a city tht has "lost its past", "rising from the ruins of history", I kind of agree, it shows in the food. Other than xialongbaos, tangbaos and dumplings which the locals boast, the rest of what people usually eat are simply meat splashed with some combination of sauce and vegetable. That's it. Or perhaps, that's Shanghai, was and is and still will. Shanghai's development is amazing, just imagine the CBD area in Singapore - just 50 times bigger. And that's only a scratch on the surface. Just like how hidden treasures like Siew Mai, stuffed with sticky rice rather than meat, Milk tea, with its inexplicably silky texture, and various boils of Porridges, Daoxiaomian and liangmian that dot the metropolis are merely an introduction to a culinary scene where tradition fades to give way to pizza joints and fast food outlets. A character gives way to a personna, a mere vehicle of characteristics.



The food in Busan is immaculate. Prior to every meal, a variety of kimchi is served in small dishes. IT IS a religion that permeates Korean cuisine and I wish I was a devout follower much like many Korean families which prepare their own kimchi and purchase a separate refrigerator just to store their preserved vegetables!



You look at most Koreans and you will realise how rosy their cheeks are, how smooth their skins appear to be and how generally they look so darn healthy! You can owe it to their frequent mountain-climbing (they are avid outdoor enthusiasts!) combined with a diet that is both tasty and healthy. Ginseng chicken soup is easily my favourite. With rice stuffed in the chicken that is boiled in a clear stock with the herbs you can imagine DaChangJin collecting from the hills, it is very filling and just bursting with protein goodness. You get a warmth from within as you sip the soup. The meat is so damn very tender, thank you. (for such a creation, lord!) Then, there is the BBQ. Quite uninteresting la. Then there is shobu shobu, which is essentially Korean steamboat. I leave it to your imagination how sweet the soup tasted at the end, combining the essence of mushrooms (again the DaChangJin kind), lettuce, spinach, golden mushroom, prawns, dumplings and beef (the Yoshinoya kind) in a superconcentration.



There is a kimchi rice culture that exists among Koreans, not quite like how burgers are to the Americans. Or sushi is to the Japanese. It's quite hard to put it. It's so prevalent that every restaurant sells kimchi rice and you see the exact same picture of it plastered on the glass walls. It has the signature Korean/Japanese rice as base, with an egg yolk nestled at the centre surrounded by a variety of sliced vegtables. I don't know what is so exceptional about its taste or why people love it so much, but it just sits well with every Korean.


The shopping's really expensive in both Shanghai and Busan so screw it. Yea, we walked around, but for the same price or lower, we can get the same thing in Singapore. So I reckon, after returning home, that some of our purchases were made on impulse and on compulsion to HAVE to buy something when you are overseas be it an overpriced shirt or awful-tasting ginseng sweets.

I love travelling.

Friday, May 18, 2007

I wish in the near future, I would have earned enough money to buy a short street's worth of rental space. There would be enough for around 10 eateries.

Eatery Number one: Bakery. Think Bake Inc./Crystal Jade's My Bread
featuring Bo Luo buns, lots of floss, Donuts!, Tau Sar Piahs

Eatery Number two: Baos. Think Kong Guan
featuring Honey-glazed Char Siew Bao, black Dou Sha Bao, BIG siew mais, Char Siew Chee Cheong Fan

Eatery Number three: Dessert. Think Ben and Jerry's/Mr Bean
featuring homemade ice cream and ice-shaved dessert. Dublin Mudslide!, Chocolate Fudge, Cookies and Cream, Red Ruby, Ice Kachang

Eatery Number four: Bubble tea shop. Think Sweet Talk
featuring Oreo milkshake, Champagne grape, Milk Tea, Mocha Ice Blended.

Eatery Number five: Soup Haven. Think Maxwell/Jurong West St 92 Fish Soup
featuring fried fish slice soup with carnation milk, seafood soup, yong tau foo, XO fish soup

Eatery Number six: Prata House. Think Prata House/Al-Ameen
featuring oily murtabaks, Nans, teh alia, sinful pratas, with smooth curry, red mee goreng

Eatery Number seven: Italian. Think Pizzeria/Pastamania
featuring Banana chocolate pizza, tortellini, ravioli and all the oodles and doodles.

Eatery Number eight: Beijing/Chinese restaurant. Think LaMianXiaoLongBao, DianXiaoEr
featuring soup baos, har gau, siew mai, wanton, chicken feet, la mian

Eatery Number nine: Sandwich. Think Subway
featuring Subway the way it perfectly is. More veggie and cookies.

Eatery Number ten: HK/Taiwan cafe. Think Wangjiao HK Cafe.
featuring milk tea, toasts, nissin noodles, mee sua, chicken cutlet .

I really really really really really want this to happen.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

I knew I had to capture this precise moment on my blog.

My grandmother had just finished breakfast with me at her house's nearyby coffee shop. She stops by the staircase of a block of flats.

She looks deep into the eyes of the uncle sitting on the steps. There is this weird electricity about the gaze.

Then they start talking, like they've known each other for decades.

"Wah, this uncle, very good, the other time, he gave me 2 dollars to buy coffee," she nods to me vigorously, her sagging cheeks jiggling with joy. That priceless, rare smile from a cynic of life. (The Singlish kind of spoils the wonder of the conversation. The way she said it in Cantonese - perfect moment.)

She moves on, in some urge or unique inner summoning, to wipe off a sesame seed which had been sitting on the uncle's lower lip. You could almost sense that l'amour, like the sense of attachment you get when you run your fingers on the cold glass surface of a picture frame (of one of those faded, grey photographs awash with memories)

He shares with her how the NKF is all a scam, but he has to visit the dialysis centre nonetheless. "I'm taking a rest, I get very breathless when I climb the stairs." Then randomly, my grandma repeats from out of nowhere, "This uncle is very good, the other time, he gave me 2 dollars to buy kopi." I laughed abit, because I found the different wavelengths they were on was exactly what was so congruent about their relationship. Just veterans of life, who have seen the world, who cherish and prefer the simple things and the simple people in life. Stairs to escalators. Wash board to washing machine.

I guess old people share this common, special something. As they recount the past and lament at how life has changed, it makes me wonder how much society and rat-race players like you and I have neglected them. Their nagging becomes fluffy noise, their physical deterioration becomes an assumed norm. I guess that's why there's such a thing as a generation gap.

Then as I got into the car, ready to leave, she says, "Don't come la, next time. Don't waste petrol, don't have to care about me la, ok!"

But deep down, I knew she meant the exact opposite.

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