Manpuku @ Tampines 1

I am sure most of you are familiar with "Manpuku" which is located at level 3 of Tampines 1. This Japanese Food Mall was once flooded with crowds when it first started early last year. According to some read up, this place can hold roughly about 500 seats which is consider a big mall with 10 different food stalls selling all kinds of Japanese food, dessert and drinks.

Today I was meeting up an old friend for lunch whereby she suggested that we can have lunch over at Manpuku. At first, I was quiet shock as because I ask her that isn’t it will be too crowded to fight with the lunch crowd at this food mall? But she told me that I would be surprised to see how empty the place is compare to what it is before. Now they also do away with the “card” system and customer can just walk in and order from whichever stall and just make payment.

Although their business might not be as good as before, but I was kind of attract to their window display outside the shops and interior decoration in the food mall.

After going round the food mall, Tracy settles for the Kimchi Chicken Ramen while I went over to “Hokkyokusei Omu Rice” stall and get a set of their promotion Mixed Sauce Omu Rice with Mushroom Soup for S$7.50. The mushroom soup was kind of diluted I guess that is what to expect for the price of S$1.00.

“Mixed Sauce Omu Rice” is just Japanese fried rice wrapped with omelette then drizzle with half each of tomato and creamy sauce. Overall I find the sauces still goes well with the rice and since both rice and eggs are my favourite item I am quiet satisfy with the dish too. But Tracy on the other hand mentioned that it was rather not worth to have just rice and egg with sauce for S$6.50.

SuperNature Organic Products

SuperNature store is located inside Park House Condominium that is near the road junction of Orchard Boulevard and Tomlinson Road. This organic store was established in 2001 and offers a complete range of organic and natural products in the meat, poultry, dairy, grocery and household care categories in a combined floor space of 4,500 square feet.

At the entrance of the store, you will notice a lot of carton boxes and cooler bags display on the left side of the shelf. These boxes are known as “Farm Box” whereby they offer 5 different range of farm box varieties for customer to select from such as “Asian Farm Box” (popular leafy greens, herbs, tubers and fruit in Asian cuisine), “Juice Farm Box”(different types of fresh organic fruit to blend into fruit juice to quench thirst) and etc.

This place is like a mini supermarket where you can find all kinds of fresh vegetables, seasonal fruits, frozen meat/poultry, dairy products and etc. Although the price might be around 10 – 30% higher than those usual products we get from the local supermarket but I am sure these organic products are worth it penny because of its' health benefit values.

Look at the fresh vegetables section, most of the vegetables such as egg plant, pumpkin, corn, green pea, mushroom and etc are all imported from overseas countries such as Taiwan, Australia, France, Japan, USA and many others. These products are all pesticide and antibiotics free and as well retain its very own vitamins and minerals.

Breakfast items are always one of the most important groceries that I would rather spent more to select some health choice for my family members. So while scanning around SuperNature store today, I am so delighted to find a wide range of Organic breakfast cereal, oats and dairy products. At their dairy section I also saw this “Straus Family Creamery” fresh milk that is imported from Marshall, California.

Next let’s take a look at their Pasta section where they have all kind of pasta such as Penne, Spaghetti, Shell, Elbow and some of them are even made of brown rice and they are “Wheat and Gluten-free”. Apart from the wide range of pasta sauce that can used to cook these organic pasta, you can also find some soy sauce, ketchup or more others seasoning sauce to lift up your dish from mundane to marvelous taste.

There are still many interesting sections in this store that I would like to share with you but due photographing restriction, I can only share some of the items which I find it great for working mum like me because some of these products really makes a great different to what we normally consume. Especially if you have young kids or old folks around, healthy life-style and food are always a great investment for them. Apart from the above, I also read from their website that they are having some "Dumplings"(made from organic pork belly & mushroom, click Here for more promotion detail) specially made for this coming "Dumpling Festival".

Other than the grocery store, SuperNature also has another new "Wellness" store that is location at the other end before the Supermarket near the entrance of the Condominium. Even before you enter the store, the light and refreshing scent of aroma is filling around the air and surrounding area that makes you attracted to the store. As I was rushing off, I only just roughly glance through the store to see what they are offering and I was surprised to find many organic baby food products such as drink, biscuits, cereals and etc.

Another discovery I found in this store is, they actually have "Organic Laundry Detergent/Powder" that does not contain any chlorine, phosphates or other chemicals which dangerous to our health. Perhaps I would drop-by another day together with mum and aunty to find more on their organic household items and beauty products which they might be interested in. If you are keen to know more about this store and the items they offer, you can click on their website stated below or drop-by their store and take a look at their products too.

SuperNature
21 Orchard Boulevard
#01-21/23 & 27 Park House
Singapore 248645
Tel:(65)6304 1338
Fax:(65)6735 0366
Email: sales@supernature.com.sg
Website: www.supernature.com.sg

Rice Dumpling Aka ZongZi

The yearly Dumpling Festival is just a couple of days away which falls on Wednesday, 16 June 2010. I am sure these few days you can smell the aroma of the mouth drooling dumpling circulating around your neighbourhood area as some families are busy with the wrapping and cooking of this festive food. And as usual a few weeks to a month before the festival, most of Chinese restaurants will create all kinds of festive dumplings using some special ingredients in order to attract more customers.

Although the traditional Nonya and Cantonese rice dumplings are good, but most often we are still looking forward to delicious new creations to satisfy our taste buds. Recently I read from a food magazine that this year Cherry Garden offer a special “Lychee Braised Pork Belly Dumpling” which consists of ingredients likes dried lychees and braised pork belly flavoured with lychee liqueur. I wonder how it will taste as normally we only used cooking wine instead of fruit wine as seasoning. But I am sure this will taste great with lychee flavour.

No matter where is your choice to get the best rice dumplings or you are intending to make some before the festival. I am sure there is always something suitable for you everyone. The “Savory Pork Dumpling - 咸肉粽” shown in the photos above are made by my Mother-in-law. Sometime I just wonder in this modern society, is it only those older generations folks are willing to spend time and effort in the kitchen making all these traditional foods. Because most youngest like us tend to buy read-made products instead of spending the whole day preparing and making these time consuming food.

But if you are interested to try, there is a Rice Dumpling making post(with video) in my recipe blog that you might like to read more about it. (click Here)

Crystal Jade Kitchen

Crystal Jade Kitchen has a number of branches scatter at different parts of Singapore. Their menu consists of authentic Hong Kong Style Dim Sum, Roast Duck/Meat, Congee, Noodle and Cantonese dishes.

Last week, we happened to shop around Bishan area so we decided to drop-by one of the Crystal Jade Kitchen located at basement 1 of Junction 8. While queuing up for our seats, we are attracted to their Rice Dumpling promotion(click here).

From the list, we decided to try something sweet and savory so we ordered this "Rice Dumpling with Pork - 五香咸肉粽" that consists of pork belly, whole salted egg yolk and green bean. The glutinous rice is very soft and lightly fragrant by the spices and seasoning and it goes well with the tender pork belly that make you crave for more. Personally I love the adding of green bean to this savory rice dumpling as it really blends well with the ingredients, especially with the salted egg yolk.

Since it is around lunch time, we decided to try their 2-in-1 combo lunch menu. This set comes with the "Poach Chinese Spinach with 2 kinds of eggs" and "Deep-fried Prawn Coated with Wasabi Mayonnaise".

This vegetable dish taste great with the combination of 3 different eggs such as Egg, Century Egg and Salted Egg. The soup broth of this dish is very tasty and you can even drink it like a soup because it is cook using superior stock.

Next dish is this "Deep-fried Prawn Coated with Wasabi Mayonnaise" which we find it a bit disappointed. The large prawns are coated with batter and almond flakes then deep-fried till golden. Although the prawns are very fresh and crunchy but it was kind of overpower by the over coating of Wasabi Mayonnaise sauce. The wasabi sauce actually makes the dish too spicy and greasy to consume. If the sauce is slighter lesser like what is shown in the their menu, I guess this dish will taste better than what is it now.

Ginger Vinegar Trotter - 猪脚姜醋

Hello to all the Asian mums! I am sure you are familiar with this dish which brings back memories during your “Confinement - 坐月” days? Ginger Vinegar Trotter (猪脚姜醋) is one of the traditional "must have" confinement dish that is good for expelling the wind from the stomach, the calcium in the trotter plus the heat from the ginger  which helps to revitalize and replenish nutrients in the mother's body.

To prepare this dish, the two key ingredients are matured (old) ginger and black vinegar. Matured ginger is used because it imparts a stronger and more intense flavour for the dish and most of the folks also believe that Black Vinegar purifies blood and cleanses the arteries of stale blood while Old ginger drives out the wind in the body. And in order to prevent the vinegar for being too acidic and weakening the stomach; glutinous ligaments and collagen of the pig's trotters are added to serve as a lubricant.

Ingredients: (serves 2 -3)
1 Pig's Trotter, ask for the front trotter and cut into big pieces
2 Big Piece Of Old Ginger (老姜), about 500g
1 Small Bottle (375ml) Of Black Rice Vinegar (黑甜醋)
1 1/2 Bottle Of Water, use the same vinegar bottle
1 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
50g Rock Sugar/Brown Sugar
4 Hard Boiled Eggs

Method:
1. Scrap, wash and cut the old ginger into big pieces then flatten slightly.

2. Heat up sesame oil in a large claypot and saute old ginger till fragrant.

3. Pour in vinegar and water, covered and bring to a boil. Reduce to low heat, cook for about 45 minutes to an hour, remove from heat and leave it to stand over night.(alternatively you can transfer the mixture to a slow cooker and cooker for AUTO for about 3 hours then switch it off and let it stand over night)

4. Trim the pig's trotter, rinse and blanch into boiling water for about 3 minutes. Remove, rinse again and drain well.

5. Preheat frying pan with 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, saute the prepare trotter for a few seconds to seal the meat.

6. Next bring the vinegar mixture to boil, add in the pig trotter and cooked for 30 minutes on low heat then add in the hard boiled eggs. (or you can transfer the mixture back to the slower cooker and cook over AUTO for another 2 hours before adding in the egg and cook for another 30 minutes or so).

7. Continue to simmer for another 20 - 30 minutes till the trotter is soften to bite then add in sugar to taste.

8. Remove from heat and serve hot or you can prepare this in the morning and let the mixture stand till the adsorb the flavour from the vinegar broth. and serve in the evening.

Note:
~ Cooking in Slow Cooker prevent the soup from drying out when compare to simmer it over the stove on low heat.

~ Ask for front trotter from the butcher as it contains more meat than bones or replace it with pork belly for more meaty dish.

Although this dish might seems a bit time consuming to prepared but you can always prepare the vinegar broth a day ahead and add in the trotter on the second day. Between this dish taste better after one or two days and you can store the unfinished portion in the fridge too but remember not to use plastic container for this dish due to the vinegar reaction to the plastic.

Seafood Bee Hoon Soup

One dish meal is always the best dish to be served on the dining table during weekday’s menu. If you are bored with rice or bread perhaps you can try out this quick and easy Seafood Bee Hoon Soup. You can add in whatever seafood that you prefer to give the soup its natural sweetness.

That day I managed to find some very big and fresh "Clams - 蛤蜊" in the wet market and instantly I knew I want to use them to add extra flavour to my seafood soup. This clam is very cheap and good which cost about $4 per kg and you can also use it to cook herbal clams soup, pasta with clams and etc.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
1 Piece of Dried Bee Hoon
500g of Clams
8 Medium Fresh Prawns
1 Bunch of Choy Sum
2 - 3 Slices of Ginger
1 Stalk of Spring Onion, cut into section
1.5 Litre of Water
1 Ikan Bilis Stock Cubes, optional

Method:
1. Soaked the dried bee hoon in water for about 30 minutes till it soften. (you can cut it into a few session for easy consumed)
2. Trim the choy sum and cut it into sections and soaked in water for a few minutes to wash away the dirt. Rinse then set aside.
3. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a soup pot, add in ginger and spring onion, saute them until fragrance then add in water and bring it to boil.
4. Simmer the soup for about 5 minutes, then add in stock cubes and season to taste. Set the broth as side while blanching the seafood.
5. Bring another pot of water to boil, add in the clams and cook for about 30 seconds or less, when it opens removed it from the water immediately and rinse with cold/ice water.
6. When the clams are done, turn off the heat, and add in the prawns into the hot water. Let it soaked for about 1 minutes, removed and rinse with water.
7. Next bring the soup broth to boil, add in the soft bee hoon, when it comes to boil again add in the prawn and choy sum and cook for another 1 minutes or so.
8. Lastly, served the bee hoon and other ingredients in a big bowl, top with some clams and pour over some hot broth and serve immediately with some cut chilli and dried shallot.

Note:
~ You need to soak the clam in some salt water for about 10 - 15 minutes to remove the soil and dirt in it.
~ Blanching of the seafood before cook is to retain their crunchiness especially for the prawn so that it will not be overcooked and the soup broth will be clear.


So with all these wonderful ingredients, you can also served your very own Seafood Bee Hoon Soup at home in less than 30 minutes time. And most important you can assure that all ingredients used are fresh and full for bursting flavour. If you don't preferred clams, you can always replaced it with fish slices, squid or etc that suits your family preference.

Matcha & Chestnut Chiffon Cake

It has being almost a year for chiffon cake baking since my last tried on “Banana & Passion Fruit Chiffon Cake”. While preparing the ingredients I was still kind of worry and nervous whether the texture of the chiffon cake will turn out with desire outcome.

Today’s combination idea came from my Matcha Madeleines. After using that new Matcha powder that I bought a few weeks ago, I was delighted to try out another recipe using it. So in order to have something light and healthy I decided to bake this Matcha & Chestnut Chiffon Cake.

HOPPY - Herbal Duck @ Johor

Talking about "Roast Duck - 烧鸭 " or "Roast Meat - 烧肉", which is your favourite stall in Singapore that you love to patronise. Is it "Kay Lee Roast Meat Joint - 琪利珠江烧腊" or "Dian Xiao Er - 店小二". But no matter which is your choice, perhaps you might like to try out this "Restoran HOPPY - 好比港式烧鸭" which is about 2 streets away (10 - 15 minutes walk).

The "Dang Gui Ya - 当归烧鸭 " shown above is one of the top 3 selling item in this stall. The meat is nicely roasted and infused with a light and fragrance Dang Gui scent which leaves you crave for more after each bite.

"Restoran HOPPY - 好比港式烧鸭" owns a shop at No. 31, Jalan Meldrum, 80000 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia that is just beside "Bee Cheng Hiang - 美珍香" shop at the junction.

Second on our list is "Pao Sheng Roast Duck - 泡参烧鸭". The taste of the herbs is not very strong so it suitable for every members in the family including the kids. The herbal sauce that drizzles on the duck taste great with the steam rice.

The main item that brings us to this stall is their Roast Pork - 烧肉. The top layer of the skin is so crispy and fragrant when bite and the meat itself is so tender and juicy. I love this dish as you can have a few layer of taste when you bite it.

Bamboo Charcoal Bread @ Lavender Cake

Have you seen this "BLACK" colour bread before in Singapore? If you have being to any “Lavender Cake Shop” in Malaysia, or even other bakery shops Japan or Taiwan. I am sure you will not be shock like most reader, because this bread are made of "Bamboo Charcoal Powder" which is one the common ingredients found in their countries.

So upon entering the Lavender Cake Shop in City Square I was immediately captured by all their Bamboo Charcoal bread. I have read about it from baking books and etc but I have not seen the actual product till today. So without hesitate, we grab 3 of their bamboo charcoal bread products. First on the photo is this “Bamboo Charcoal Bread - 竹炭健康包” which consists of nut, sesame seeds, cranberries and most important ingredient, the “bamboo charcoal powder” which makes the natural black colour of this bread.

According to write-up Bamboo Charcoal has high mineral contents such as potassium, calcuim, iron and sodium. And for many years, people from Japan used bamboo charcoal in many area such as household items, kitchen tools and etc.

The second photo above is "Charcoal Mochi Bread - 竹炭麻薯面包". It has a very chewy and fragrance texture.

Sugar Donut is one of my dear son's favourite. But when he saw this "Charcoal Donut - 竹炭甜甜圈" he was kind of back off due to it’s colour. Although the colour might not look attractive compared to those “fancy donut shops”, I must admit this taste great compare to the other two above. The texture is kind of elastic when bite and it has a very light and sweet taste when you chewy it, which I can say it, taste rather different from those usual donut that we have.

Another interesting item that I found in Lavender Cake Shop is this "Tau Hu Sau - 豆腐沙" which mean the cake is soft and smooth like "Beancurd - 豆腐" and sandwich with "Red bean paste - 红豆沙". We all agreed that this is a very nice sweet pastry, which I think the white portion might be some steam sponge cake. Most important of all, it is healthy and not too sweet to our taste. A recommend item when you visit their shop.

Avocado Delights @ J. Co

During our shopping trip at City Square, Johor Bahru. We saw one of this J.Co Donuts & Coffee outlet located at level 1 of the shopping mall. The 1st thing that comes across my mind was not those attractive donuts but rather on their new promotion item which is on the "Avocado" products.

1st time when I saw this Avocado drink, it was at the outlet in Tampines 1 shopping mall a few weeks back. Tracy and I was still wondering how it taste like to have the combination of Avocado with Coffee. So today, I decided to try their "Caffe Avocado" and "Avocado Dicaprio".

Caffe Avocado was served together with a "Glazzy" donut (sweet honey glazed donut which is so soft and fluffy), which is a complimentary item for every beverage ordered. To us this "Caffe Avocado" is not as fragrance as what we thought of as it contain very little Avocado taste compare to the overpower of coffee in it. But this might be great for those who does not fancy the buttery taste of Avocado, because you cannot really tell the taste of Avocado used in this beverage.

Avocado is always one of my favourite fruit to get whenever I spot it in the fruit stalls or supermarkets. So I also grab one of this "Avocado Dicaprio" when I saw it appears on their Donut Menu. This donut is glaze with avocado cream and coated with some chocolate bits. Personally I don't really fancy the avocado whipped cream filling which I think it makes the donut too greasy and messy when consumed.




P/s: You can also get to try these Avocado Delights at any of the J.Co outlets in Singapore too.....