André Chiang is the Executive Chef here, wowing his customers with French Nouvelle Cuisine, being light and delicate dishes with an emphasis on aesthetics and presentation. His cuisine is French, having plied his trade all around the world in 3 Michelin star rated restaurants but you’d also think he is a bit of an artist on the side. He looks good on paper, but did he deliver the goods on the plate? We venture up 70 storeys and opt for the $58 SNG ($47 AUD) for a 3 course lunch meal to find out.

Starter

Parmesan & squid ink grissini breadsticks with Butter and Eggplant Puree with Olive Oil

You usually expect warm bread rolls with butter to start off a meal, but at Jaan they go for something a bit different. There is a novelty to nibbling on these breadsticks, which are lightly flavoured in parmesan or squid ink.

(...)
Read the rest of Singapore, JAAN par André (1,075 words)

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East Coast Lagoon Food Village

I touched down in Singapore a day before everyone else, so I had a bit of time to explore. The first thing I did was go to Orchard Rd so I could find a shirt for the awards night. I somehow forgot to pack a shirt, so I was left with a suit and about 5 t-shirts, what a disaster.

Luckily my dinner was a bit more organised as Teresa and I had planned to meet Leslie from ieatishootipost for what he would call late night supper. We met up at 10pm on a Thursday night for this feast, something which would be unheard of in Sydney. Also making an appearance was Nuffnang co-founder Ming, who loves his food as much as any one else. He is very passionate about his food, especially on what is Singaporean or Malaysian as often some dishes can be claimed by either country. We agreed to let that debate run another day, and just enjoy the food because we were all starving.

This is apparently one of the best satay bee hoon you can find in Singapore. It doesn’t look too appealing, but it’s something which needs to be eaten to be admired. Beneath the sea of nutty satay sauce is rice vermicelli noodles and slices of pork. This to me is comfort food and believe me, it doesn’t need to look good to taste good!

The chicken satay wasn’t any different to what you can find in Sydney. What you won’t find in Sydney is perhaps the good price of $3.

I made an effort to try as much oyster omelette’s as I could in Singapore. It’s the type of dish you can get sick of easily (like pancakes), but it’s interesting to see the different ways the dish is prepared by different stalls. The key is fresh oysters, a hot chili sauce and a balanced use of potato starch. This store had it all.

Rojak is a type of salad which is often made from fruit and vegetables. This one is made up of fried dough fritters, bean curds, boiled potatoes, prawn fritters, and cucumber mixed with a sweet thick, spicy peanut sauce. To my surprise, it also has pickled ginger and a preserved egg called century egg. The ginger and egg is new to me, but it is a great substitute for the usual hard-boiled egg.

I tend to neglect fruit and vegetables when I go overseas, so a fruit platter was something needed to keep me in check. You’ll find fresh pineapple, mango, pawpaw, water melon, pear and kiwi fruit.

Siang Hee

After eating at East Coast Lagoon with Leslie, it seems that he has the insider knowledge on what is good to eat in Singapore. I made a note to eat with him again before going back to Sydney, but this time bringing along the rest of the es&t crew and also Suze and Helen.

We ate at Siang Hee, which is a cze shar restaurant. What the hell does cze zhar mean ? Well, it is usually a Chinese outlet which serves a variety of ala carte style dishes. These are usually served with rice and soup. For the Sydney siders, if you go into the Eating World foodcourt where Gumshara Ramen is you will see a few of these stores. It is usually a casual style eatery, Cabramatta has a few of these as well-run by predominately teo chew people.

Anyway what makes this store so special is the unique dishes created by the Chef. She is constantly trying to be unique and creative with her dishes, and thanks to the exposure Leslie has given on his blog her sales in her Restaurant has increased dramatically. As a result, she’s coming up with new types of dishes all the time and we were luckily enough to try a few.

Most people who come from a Chinese family would know about a soup or herbal tea made from Luo Han Guo . It is actually a fruit, but a lot sweeter. The Chef here reduced the fruit into a thick sauce along with a few other mystery ingredients. The end product was a taste like sweet and sour pork, but with the added kick of luo han guo sweetness. It’s hard to describe the taste.

Deep fried pork knuckle with copious amounts of crackle. This wouldn’t look out-of-place at a German Restaurant such as Lowenbrau. This wasn’t just normal fried pork, the meat was still tender and you could taste some of the collagen still hanging on it’s dear life on each piece of pork.

This was probably our only proper intake of vegetables throughout the trip.

This oyster omelette was a bit different to others. It does not contain any potato starch in it, resulting in a more natural taste. The fried garlic pieces on top really top off the dish.

This is Leslie’s “spin doctor” and right hand man, the man who helps him out on his forum. It’s tough life blogging in Singapore, I’m not sure how they do it in the heat!

Our vegetable intake returns to its normal daily requirements. This stir fry dish of house tofu with one side coated with spinach, mushrooms and vegetables is a simple dish and looks like something which you can find in most Chinese restaurants.

Deshelled prawns coated with a light batter, deep-fried and served with a creamy pumpkin sauce.

Steamed groper, served the classic Chinese way with soy sauce, fried garlic pieces and shallots.

This is called har cheong gai and seems to be an original recipe from the Chef. The secret (or not so secret) ingredient is shrimp paste. Leslie sums up the dish well on his blog :

For her new Har Cheong Gai recipe, she changed her Prawn Paste to a brand from Hong Kong. She also tells me that in order to get the flavour deep into the bit between the two bones, she marinades the wings over two days. Lastly, she uses seven different flours to make the batter so that it comes out thin yet super crispy.

Food Republic Food Court

This food court is located in the Wisma Atrium shopping centre.

Shopping in Singapore

To break things up a little because of all this food talk, I’ll provide a few tips I picked up while shopping in Singapore.

For a Shopping Centre experience with designer brands such as Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Prada, LV and smaller stores such as Top Shop and Zara, I recommend the newly opened Ion Orchard Plaza. If you catch a cab, they even have someone open the door for you. You won’t find that in Paramatta Westfields that’s for sure. There is also a massive food court at the bottom level.

For the Paddington and boutique/vintage store experience you must visit Haji Lane. It’s got the Surry Hill’s, laneway, indie vibe to it and has cool cafe’s and graffitied laneway to match. Along with name brands, you will also find alot of Independent designers there. I managed to pick up Van’s shoes for only $45 AUD and also some very cool A.P.C and Band of Outsiders style shirts for about half the price of what it would probably cost at Incu. For the girls, check out Lady Melbournes wrap up of what she bought there.

Haji Lane is also good for Hookah, if you are into that type of stuff. It’s good relaxing fun without the tobacco.

Photo taken by grabyourfork

East Coast Lagoon Food Village
1220 East Coast Parkway

Siang Hee
89 Zion Road
#01-137

Food Republic Food Court
Wisma Atrium Shopping Centre Level 4

Haji Lane
Just take a cab and ask for Arab St or Haji Lane

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Tiong Bahru Market

I was told by a friend that the Tiong Bahru Market has some of the best hawker food in Singapore. Luckily, our hotel was just across the road and as a result, this was the hawker centre which we visited the most. Out of the three which we visited, this would probably be my pick due to the extra variety of food available. Not only did it have the usual Singapore hawker fare, there was a lot of teo chew food as well.

Queue for soy bean milk

The line for this store was huge, every day people would line up. We figured you can’t go wrong with a crowd so we also lined up. It cost us a measly 70cents a cup the size of a medium Macca’s coke. Served ice-cold, it’s the perfect wash down in the humidity of Singapore.On a side note, a local told me not to judge a store by its queues. Often people just line up because it is cheap.

Store next door, could use a few more customers

Check out that pork belly, so bad but so good.

Steamed rice flour cakes topped with preserved radish, $1 for 8 if my memory serves me correctly. It’s a little hard to describe, but the texture is a bit like sauerkraut but without the sourness.

Pork rib and prawn mee

The queue for this store was also huge, so I hopped in. The pork ribs are very tender, fall off the bone material. I think the strength of this dish is the sweet soy sauce it is mixed with, as the dish is served dry and not with a soup. The other little condiments such as crunchy fried onions and garlic make this $3 bowl unbelievably good.

Nasi lemak

Everything in this store was baked on the premises, these egg tarts were freshly baked and I picked one up for a cool 30 cents.

Fried chive dumplings and rice flour cake stuffed with sticky rice

Breakfast somewhere …

Sadly, I didn’t take note of the name of this restaurant. We went for a quick breakfast during our Mint Museum of Toys tour. The food options were interesting to say the least.

Kaya toast

This was very average, despite the butter it was very dry. They were quite tight with the kaya but for $1 for 2 slices, what more can you ask for.

The name of this dish escapes me, but the idea of soft-boiled eggs is something that I couldn’t knock back. The idea is to crack open the eggs, pour the yolk and whites into the bowl and top with sweet soy sauce and salt and pepper.

This was new to me, but a bloody great dish. It would have been great with some toasted white bread as well.

Maxwell Food Centre

If you look on google, Maxwell is sure to pop up if you’re searching for hawker food in Singapore. It’s in Chinatown and is quite easy to find. While the food there is good, it’s probably ranked third out of the three I visited.

Hungry after our tour

Black carrot/radish cake

Fish ball soup

Popiah , a type of spring roll

Rojak

Fried noodles with beef

Oyster omelette

This is different to the normal version as it is not crunchy because it does not contain any potato starch.

Wonton and roast pork mee

Fresh wonton and crunchy fatty roast pork, this cost a measly $2.40 AUD and despite its simplicity was one of my favourite dishes.

I’ve no idea what is in all these desserts, but they are live saver in the Singapre heat. Most consist of shaved ice, coconut cream and syrup.

Sin Hoi Sai Eating House

It was nearing 10pm and we were getting hungry. The thing with Singapore is that the heat spoils my appetite, and I tend to eat later in the evening. Luckily, Sin Hoi Fai was just across the road from our hotel and is open until 5am every day. We actually got a tip-off from Leslie , he suggested we go there for the salted egg crab. None of the food blew me away, but the flavours were good. At nearly $40 SNG/KG, it was a bit expensive but on par with Sydney mud crab market prices. All the seafood is kept in tanks and you get to choose what you want.

Oat meal deep fried prawns

Salted egg Sri Lankan crab

Black Pepper Sri Lankan crab

Stayed tuned for Part 2 of our Singapore street eats, there are way too many photos to go through!

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Nuffnang Asia-Pacific Blog Awards 2009

Some of you might have been aware that we were recently nominated in the Best Food Blog category for the Nuffnang Asia Pacific blog awards for 2009. It came as a massive shock, considering how many good food blogs there are who are apart of Nuffnang, not only in Australia, but also in Asia. We still consider ourselves quite below the pecking order as a food blog, but who could knock back a trip to Singapore to represent Australian bloggers ?

Last week, we were flown up to Singapore for a few days as part of the Awards night. It was a massive night and we got to rub shoulders with some of Asia’s finest bloggers from all types of blogs from fashion to food. Overall, us Aussies did pretty well with every Aussie who was nominated in a category taking away an award except for us. Way to go Team es&t!

Congrats to the following Aussie for taking away an award as the best Blog in their respective category : Mr Gadget, Lady Melbourne and Childhood 101. Complete list of winners below :

• Best Blogshop: bonitochico.livejournal.com
• Best Fashion Blog: ladymelbourne.blogspot.com
• Best Parenting Blog: childhood101.blogspot.com
• Best Travel Blog: ironwulf.net
• Best Celebrity Blog: joannepeh.com
• Best Entertainment Blog: kennysia.com
• Best Geek Blog: mrgadget.com.au
• Best Hidden Gem: dedoodleblog.blogspot.com
• Best Original Blog Design: xiaxue.blogspot.com
• Most Influential Blog: xiaxue.blogspot.com
• Region’s Best Blog: xiaxue.blogspot.com

One thing we did come away with was how massive blogging is in Asia-Pacific. If you check on Twitter for the hash tag #nnawards, there was a lot of activity and interest going around before and after the awards night. It was the talk of the town, with everyone wanting a ticket to the awards night. If the same event was to be held here, it wouldn’t of generated the same hype due to the relative infancy of blogging in Australia. Blogging is still regarded as a niche activity, some would even say a nerdy past time. But hey, someone has to do it right ?

This is Xia Xue. Unknown to me before the awards night, she has a massive following in Asia and can be considered an Internet celebrity of some sort. It resulted in her taking away 3 awards,  the most of any blogger. One thing to note is that she is a full-time blogger, even though her blog doesn’t focus on any topic in particular. It’s a fascinating career for her, apparently she makes a fair bit of coin too.

Food for the night wasn’t too bad, but the food wasn’t what everyone came for.

One thing I noticed about Singapore was, everyone pretty much has an SLR.

Lunch with ieatishootipost

Meet Leslie Tay, the winner of the Best Food Blog award. I’ve been a long time follower of his blog even though he lives in Singapore, it’s a great resource for finding places to eat if your in Singapore. I’ve spoken to him via email for the past couple of months ever since he asked es&t to give a list of places to eat in Sydney. His blog is amazing, considering the amount of places he has covered in a food crazy country such as Singapore.

One thing to note is that he is a Doctor (GP) by trade and still has the time to consistently blog. The feat itself is a testament to how dedicated and passionate he is with his blog, definitely someone for us at es&t to look up to. He also knows a thing or two about Sydney, having studied here for a few years whilst becoming a Doctor.

While we were in Singapore we were lucky to meet up with him twice over some good Singaporean food. One of the best meals we had was at Siang Hee Restaurant run by the woman in that photo up there. Don’t be fooled by the hawker style kitchen, she whipped up a few innovative dishes which you wouldn’t expect from a road side eatery.  It was great having the opportunity to sit and chat with him, he is one of the most down to earth blokes I’ve ever met. Stayed tuned for my full post on Siang Hee Restaurant and lunching with Leslie.

Shopping

I’m not one who shops that often, but I picked up a few things while I was in Singapore. I went nuts in Zara, TopShop and G2000. Zara has everything, their suits are awesome as they are the only brand which I don’t need anything tapered. My entire work wardrobe is also from G2000, it’s so bloody cheap and the quality is up there and sure beats the living daylights out of brands like Industrie which are three times the price but half the level of quality.

Haji Lane is also somewhere which I can recommend. If anyone shops at Paddington or somewhere like Incu , you will love Haji Lane. I picked up these sunnies from there, cost me a cool $70.

Singapore street food

Oyster pancake ($1.65 AUD)

One thing you begin to realise is that Singapore live to eat and not eat to live. It is a food mad country, and no matter who you talk to, they will have their take on what is the best and worst of food in Singapore. I must admit though, the heat got to the better of me and my appetite wasn’t as big as it usually is during my trip. But fear not, I still managed to fit in copious amounts of meals and I’ll combine all my hawker style adventures in one post in the next few days.

Pork rib and prawn mee ($2.45 AUD)

The line for this bowl was huge, naturally I had to join the queue. When I got to the end, an old woman saw my camera and she said to me “you bloggers pick the right restaurants ” in Cantonese.  I was shocked to hear it initially as I surprised she even knew what a blog was, once again you never judge a person by their age. I look to one of the walls of the hole in the wall store and the owner has stuck up a few blog posts about his bowl of noodles, word must have got out on how awesome his noodles were.

Mint Ice cream w/ wafer (80 cents AUD)

There was no shortage of these ice cream carts selling ice cream sandwiches on Orchard road. For 80 cents, I expected something tasting cheap and watered down. Instead, it would of gave top line supermarket ice cream a run for its money.

Lunch at Jaan par André

I first saw and heard of Andre Chiang at the World Chef Showcase as part of SIFF 2009. He was running a session with Mark Best and I could already tell that he was quite a special chef from his demonstration. We had enough time for one decent lunch and it was a toss-up between Iggy’s and Jaan. After a flick of a coin we chose Jaan par Andre, I think I made the right choice. He’s trained at several 3 Michelin Star restaurants and you can tell by his food where his influences come from. He also made a debut at No. 4 in the Miele Guide 2009/2010 which lists Asia’s top restaurants, a bit like our Good Food Guide.

I won’t reveal too much and leave it for my post which is coming up in a few days. We went for the 3 course set lunch for $58 SGD which I though was pretty good value considering the type of food we had.

Flying on Singapore Air A380

This was my first time on the A380 so I was quite excited. The food was the usual Singapore Air quality which is a cut above other airlines in my books. For dessert, we even got ice cream which is my favourite part of the flight before kicking back and enjoying a movie.

One thing that has improved dramatically is the Entertainment system. Not only is the screen wider and clearer, the user interface has dramatically improved. To top it off, it has a USB port so that you can plug-in your own devices and watch movies off it, view photos and even listen to your own music. Well done Singapore Air.

I managed to fit in a few movies on my trip : The Taking of Pelham 123, Julie and Julia, Up!, The Land of the Lost and Terminator Salvation. My pick of the movies would be Up and Julie and Julia.

Thank you Nuffnang

Finally, thank you to Nuffnang for flying us over to experience the Nuffnang Awards. Awards aside, Nuffnang are doing a great thing for Australian bloggers by being the first company in Australia dedicated to Online advertising for Blogs. While blogging is still at a relatively early stage of its development life cycle in Australia, it’s good to know that they are around at the foundation level. Hopefully this spurs us on to improve the blog and hopefully be there next year again in one capacity or another. Special mention to David Lee and David Krupp who we have been working with over the past ten months.

Over the next few days we will be posting about what we ate in Singapore, stayed tuned!

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It’s been a whirlwind of a few days as the EST crew have been in shock since it was announced that our baby of a food blog was listed as a finalist in the first annual Nuffang Asia Pacific Blog Awards! The nomination came as an absolute surprise to us and there may have been a little bit of screaming and keyboard denting in our various offices when we found out the news.

Nuffang.com prides itself on their community building and over the last 2 months have been gathering nominations for blogs in a wide range of categories from the Australasia Pacific area culminating in a 3 day 2 night extravaganza for the 60 finalists and 360 guests in Singapore on the 23rd of October.

We are absolutely ecstatic to find ourselves on the lists of finalists and will be headed off to Singapore on the 23rd of October to experience Nuffang and Singaporean hospitality and attend the the Grand Blogger Affair. Thank you to everyone who nominated es&t in this category, we never expected to go this far especially knowing the amazing calibre of all the food bloggers out there. To be honest, we didn’t pay that much attention to the nomination stage, considering how many great food blogs there are out there working with Nuffnang.

We’re shortlisted with some great blogs and will definitely be looking forward to putting faces to some blogs.

Votes for the overall winners are now open! The entire list of nominees are up on the Nuffnang website and we invite everyone to check out all of the finalists and vote for their favourites, you can also vote via the poll currently embedded in the sidebar. In order to vote you must vote in every single category, and you are restricted to voting once every 2 hours.

The nominees are judged by the following criteria -

1. Presentation (10%) – Overall appeal, neatness, user-friendliness of the blog
2. Content (20%) – Readability, images and expression of the content
3. Relevance to Category (20%) – Professionalism and usefulness of information
4. Votes (50%)

Bloggers, Fancy a trip to Singapore ?

Stage 2 of the Blog Awards consists of the Blog Contest.

Bloggers from Asia-Pacific stand a chance to be a part of the first ever Asia-Pacific Blog Awards along with 60 of the region’s best bloggers, regional entertainers and a Uniquely Singapore experience.

Nuffnang.com is running a regional blog contest to crown the top 100 blog entries. These bloggers selected as the Top 100 would receive a pair of invites to attend the glamorous award ceremony.

Foreign bloggers invited to the blog awards would receive an exclusive 3D2N Uniquely Singapore experience inclusive of transportation and accommodation.

Blog contest starts from 17th September to 11th October 2009.

All of the details regarding the contest are available from the Nuffang website. Get entering guys, it would be great to have a few more Aussie’s at the awards.

Thanks for all of your support over the last 18 months that we’ve been writing, it wouldn’t have nearly been as fun without y’all. We’re still developing overall and admire a lot of Sydney (and world) bloggers out there for paving the way for food blogs. It’s definitely a growing community in Australia, hopefully it means some great content for the readers out there.

Oh and if you want, feel free to vote for us

The EST Team

Howie, Linda, Minh, Teresa & Qing

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