thefoodiekid

The perfect Mother's Day treat

2008-05-06T08:48:00.013+08:00

Like mother, like son...my son P and I go through various food crazes and phases, and we are currently hooked on ice kachang.

Our favourite local desserts stall in Singapore is Sim Huat (Stall Number 48) at Newton Circus Food Centre, where we usually do takeaways of cheng tng, another family favourite. But last week, on a particularly hot and humid afternoon, we both spontaneously hit upon ice kachang on a quick scan of the colourful photo-menu on the stall's signboard. Minutes later, we were bowled over (no pun intended) by two, um, bowls of deliciously cold, giant mountains of finely shaved ice (which looked and felt amazingly like virgin powder snow, and were quite unlike the misshapen, sorry-looking

chunks of ice you get in lesser ice kachangs that threaten to chip your teeth with every bite) with generous lashings of lurid neon pink, green and brown sugar syrup. The syrup-infused ice simply melts on your tongue and in your mouth, creating a delightfully cold sensation and delivering a zing-ing sugar high to the system within seconds...maximum impact for minimal effort - yay!

The owner, a quiet, pleasant chap, doesn't stinge on his ingredients and positively beams with delight when he sees others enjoying his sweet creations. He uses quality ingredients such as real gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup in his ice kachang, with plenty of goodies at the bottom of the bowl such as kachang, sweet corn, black grass jelly (chin chow), brown agar-agar jelly, attap chee, and for regulars, extras like the large, wonderfully chewy sago balls that he uses in his cheng tng (invariably everyone's favourite, and in my view his pièce de résistance), honey sea coconut, dried and canned longans.

His cheng tng, available in both hot and cold versions, is equally superb and both versions are yummilicious, depending on your mood and the weather.

Prices are unbelievably cheap too, at S$1.50 per serving of ice kachang and S$1.50/S$2 for a bowl of cheng tng - I am a fan of the S$2 deluxe version (more is more, after all). It's the perfect dessert for an Asian-themed dinner party - but be sure to store the cold version in the freezer to keep the shaved ice from melting and diluting the taste. Don't buy more than a couple of hours prior to serving as it doesn't store well - the sago balls turn hard. A glamorous foodie friend of mine dresses up this humble everyday dessert by serving it in exquisite Mariage Frères tea cups of hand blown glass with dainty little spoons of fine bone china. Nifty improvisation and instant elevation to cult status...handy for when she is out of her monthly supplies of Pierre Hermé macaroons and candied fruit jellies!

It's become a bit of a daily afternoon ritual for the two of us when P comes home from school. And it looks like we are headed there again this weekend as he has promised to take me there for my Mother's Day treat!

Tokyo for the foodie kid

2008-04-27T09:39:00.035+08:00

What better way to kick things off than with a post on Japan where we spent the Easter holidays with a week's skiing in Niseko followed by a week's Disney-ing in Tokyo with our two young foodies-in-training.

Already a firm fan of Hokkaido's deliciously creamy milk and yoghurt from previous trips, my 2 year old daughter S gleefully upped her intake of both for the duration of the trip. She also opted for rice and soba at every meal. However, as the youngest member of our foodie family she was usually tucked up in bed by dinner time, so it was my 9 year old son P who came out for some dinners with us.

In Tokyo, P voted the Tapas Molecular Bar at the Mandarin Oriental hotel his hands down favourite as "the food was yummy and weird" (for the uninitiated, "weird" somehow equates with "cool" in a 9 year old boy's vocab) and "it was fun because it was like many different chemistry experiments". To me, it mattered that the food was very tasty and not just gimmicky in its preparation (different temperatures, or deconstructed recipes like Tommy Thai below) and presentation (there was the odd-looking grid of what looked like inverted syringes and some pipettes but nothing too strange).

Initially, I had some reservations about P's ability to sit through a two and a half hour meal of 24 courses of "molecular gastronomy", as the last thing I wanted was a glum little face midway through the meal with a bored voice intoning a constant refrain of "Can we go home now?". As for me, I was somewhat skeptical as to whether it might turn out to be all style, no substance (like every other hip hotel these days), despite my husband's assurances that his recent dinner there had been infinitely better than our last foray into molecular cuisine at the much-feted The Fat Duck a couple of years ago which had been a trifle underwhelming.

My fears were unfounded, however, as P not only polished off every morsel on his plate with gusto, but also listened attentively to the chef explain how each course was prepared, what ingredients were used, and what temperatures they were cooked at. He took it all very seriously indeed, and could even repeat the detailed instructions on the sequence and method of eating each course to his parents, who were too busy glugging their wine to pay much attention to the proceedings.

If you do go with your little ones, I would suggest taking the 6 o'clock sitting, as we did (and not the 8.30 one which would end at 11, way past their bedtime).

The Tapas Molecular Bar is located on the 38th floor of the hotel and on that clear spring evening, we enjoyed spectacular views of Tokyo, and as an added bonus, saw the sun set over Mount Fuji in the distance. As there are only 7 spaces per sitting, there is a cosy, intimate feel to the whole set-up. Two couples (one Spanish, the other Japanese) joined the three of us for dinner that night. One degustation menu, no time wasted agonising over difficult decisions. Ditto on the wine front as we took the easy way out and went with the sommelier's suggested pairings of champagne, one white and two reds.

There were two chefs who presented each course simultaneously in English and Japanese. Their presentation and delivery was slick and well-rehearsed, and we were all in a playful and adventurous mood as we tucked into each course. Kudos to the MO staff for efficient, unobtrusive service. Plus extra marks for informing the chefs, even before we had taken our seats, of the presence of a minor, so that without missing a beat the aperitif and courses to follow were all tweaked with non-alcoholic substitutes without compromising on the taste.

P liked the Strawberry and Pesto Spaghetti, which turned out to be strips of parmesan masquerading as spaghetti - fun! I was partial to Tommy Thai (deconstructed tom yam soup -

you mixed the raw ingredients any way you liked and ate them with the "soup" which had somehow been crystallised into something resembling a Vietnamese rice paper roll, with really tasty results). We all liked the Cabrales Cuttlefish (crispy fried cuttlefish in a sealed see-through packet) which went really well with our aperitifs (beer and yakult foam served in shot glasses; mix of lychee and pineapple juice with yoghurt for P).

Another fun item on the menu was the Warm Sizzling Beef where they slow-cooked vacuum-packed wagyu beef at 53 degrees Celsius for 6 hours, then ripped open the packaging just before serving. The rush of air bubbles into the meat created the appearance of sizzling beef on the plate.

Juicy Lamb reminded me of xiao long bao as the juice squirted out of the lamb when you bit into it. Illusions, delusions...more humour and surprises came in the form of a metal straw in an empty metal tumbler in which the waitress poured with great aplomb...nothing! Bemused, we slurped obediently on the straw when told to do so, and were rewarded for our efforts (or rather, caught off-guard) when a refreshing jelly-like concoction of passionfruit and something faintly alcoholic slid into our mouths. Bashful grins all round.

P's favourite dish was Blue Hawaii - the first of several desserts. A mound of "smoking" crushed ice with blue colouring was placed in front of each of us. We were told not to eat it like ice cream by letting it melt in our mouths, but to crunch the ice with our teeth and finish it within 15 seconds. Because of the sub-zero temperature of the ice (which I think had been frozen using liquid nitrogen but I was too sloshed by then to bother with the details), we were warned not to leave the spoon in our bowl as it would then stick to our tongues when we placed it into our mouths (which was not a good thing). Not knowing what to expect, all 6 adults hung back and watched P, the unofficial guinea pig. It was hilarious as he started emitting smoke-like vapour from his mouth and nostrils as he crunched on the ice, looking like a fire-breathing dragon.

In the Fruit Course we were introduced to the "miracle fruit" from Ghana which was a bright red, oval-shaped berry containing a single seed. After rolling the pulp round our tongues for about 30 seconds, it transformed sour fruit like lemons, limes and oranges into sugar-bombs. The effect lasts about 30 minutes for most people. Wow!

There was one more surprise at the end of the meal when the chefs suddenly brandished pistols and fired them at us...but I won't spoil the surprise for you. Needless to say, P was utterly fascinated and asked to see the gun. He then asked the chef for a copy of the menu and begged us to take him back for dinner the next day! Would I go back? Absolutely!!

P also liked Gonpachi, a lively restaurant styled like an old Japanese inn (it inspired a setting for one of the famous fight scenes in Kill Bill) with several floors for children to explore, although he thought the food there pretty average. Both he and his little sister S had a great time at Rainbow Roll Sushi, a contemporary sushi restaurant offering a delectable range of sushi rolls. He liked the red interiors and bar counter dining concept at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, although he was so tired the night we took him there that he fell asleep at the bar counter, and missed out on his favourite mini foie gras burgers. (Meanwhile, an adorable foodie toddler a few seats away from him eschewed the grilled fish his mother had ordered for him and kept yelling for uni. We exchanged knowing grins and promptly struck up a conversation about our foodie progeny and their adventurous palates.)

As for the skiing bit, if you visit Niseko with children, check out one of my favourite izakayas called Big Cliff where we (3 families including 6 kids ranging in age from 2 to 9, plus 3 nanny-helpers) had dinner on our last night there. We pre-booked and occupied the whole of the loft-like space upstairs, and had a blast. The tatami seating was perfect for the children, who alternately sat, stood, jumped, rolled around and lay down on the floor, as children do. The ume-flavoured chicken skewers, kakiage oysters, house tofu salad, meat and potato croquettes, fried mochi and warabimochi dessert with vanilla ice cream were simply sublime and got a unanimous thumbs-up from the little ones.

Gochisousama deshita!

The rise and rise of the foodie kid

2008-04-25T11:35:00.044+08:00

While I don't profess to be a gourmet or possess any gastro-credentials, I do love good food and make it a point to try out iconic or new and interesting restaurants both at home and abroad. That said, I can't even call myself an amateur cook, I don't make it a point to hunt down the freshest seasonal produce or artisanal ingredients, and I certainly don't swoon over state-of-the-art kitchen equipment or cooking utensils. Thus when I use the term "foodie", it should be loosely interpreted as one who enjoys food as I do, likes to talk about food and new restaurants, and plans holidays around A-list restaurants and other foodie haunts.

As a foodie parent, I was determined that foodie-training should begin way before potty-training, and so both my offspring (aged 9 and 2) were introduced from an early age to a wide range of cuisines and exposed to sophisticated adult food. I harp on about the importance and the joys of eating together as a family. Gastronomic milestones (their first taste of uni/foie gras/stilton) are cherished as fondly as developmental milestones (their first smile/step/word) in our family. In common with other foodie kids, they have done their fair share of Michelin-star restaurants, initially as infant observers and now as fully fledged participants. Lest you think us a bunch of pretentious gits (I can see hubby's eyes rolling here), let me hasten to add that we love our comfort food too, whether it's a hearty plate of spag bol, a juicy beef burger or Hainanese chicken rice. This multi-faceted approach seems to have worked, for the two of them share my passion for eating well.

The good news is there are many foodie kids out there with finely honed palates. You know this because restaurant staff rarely bat an eyelid these days when they see young children padding into establishments that would have frowned upon such company not so long ago.

In some respects, I believe this small but growing segment of the market will present the biggest challenge to restaurateurs in the not-so-distant future. They are the most demanding customers (they know exactly what they want and have no qualms in letting you know their likes and dislikes), they are purists in the truest sense (they want simple, tasty food, and as any foodie knows, that can only be achieved with the freshest of ingredients), their judgement is unclouded by food reviews or Michelin star ratings (most have not started to read yet), they are totally unfazed by haughty and aloof maître d's (children don't notice these things) and, most importantly, decor and food aside, restaurants must be defined by that special something, a certain je ne sais quoi, to merit a ranking in their books.

And it's not just the restaurateurs. Patissiers and chocolatiers, beware the unstoppable rise of the foodie child, who knows his Pierre Hermé from Sadaharu Aoki, Jean-Paul Hévin from Pierre Marcolini, and can reel off those names faster than he can recite his times tables. But it's good news for everyone else in the foodie world, because it can only mean one thing - the setting of new standards of culinary excellence.

So here's looking at you, foodie kid!