Chinese New Year Eve

This posting is not about a particular food place but it is more of a personal entry with regard to the recent Chinese New Year celebration.

For the benefit of visitors from other cultures, a brief overview about the Lunar new year or Chinese New Year or in Chinese it is known as "Chun Jie". " Chun Jie" means the Spring Festival. The Lunar new year day marks the first day of the Lunar calender year which is not the same as the Normal Calender year which is used by the majority of people. The calender that is used is based on the lunisolar Chinese calender.

The coming of Chinese New Year symbolises the beginning to another fresh start in one's life. Just like the arrival of Spring to the natural world is the arrival of a new year of growth and vitality, the Spring Festival heralds new hope and prosperity among people. The Lunar New Year is the most important of all the Chinese holidays. During the duration of the Lunar New Year which lasts 15 days, the main idea is that it is a time to reaffirm family ties. This is especially relevant in today's society where family members maybe working in different parts of a country or sometimes in different countries.

On the eve of the Lunar New Year, it is traditional that the family members near and far will gather together for a reunion dinner. The practice is to have a feast on that day and some of the essential things are one of the dishes must contain fish as the chinese saying goes 年年有餘 (nián nián you yú), which in English means every year to have surplus sounds similar in Chinese for every year got fish.

This year as the first day of the Lunar New Year falls on a Sunday, my uncle and auntie from Penang made their trip on Friday so that they can join us for the reunion dinner on Saturday which was the eve of the Lunar New Year. As tradition in my family, we had our reunion dinner at home.

My family always have a steamboat feast at home. Why steamboat you may ask? Steamboat has advantages, the soup base can be prepared earlier in the day and the raw food to be put in can be also prepared earlier in the day so not so rush. The other reason is since it is steamboat, you have to put in the food and wait for it to cook therefore everyone will be at the table hence there will be chances to converse and to catch up on how everyone is doing.

The following two photos are the pictures taken before dinner began. As can be seen, there are pork, eggs, fishball and meatball, prawns, pig liver and kidney, fish and three different kinds of vegetables.

The soup based was done by boiling the chicken bones earlier with the addition of whole dry scallops to further enhance the taste. Chicken bones are used instead of pork bones as it will help maintain the clearness of the soup unlike soup using pig bones as base.

In addition, we also ordered a Suckling pig this year which is shown below. The plate which is filled with a lot of stuff, in the next picture, that looks so colourful is called "Yu Sheng". There are a lot of stuff place into this dish and every item symbolises something. When everyone arrive and ready for dinner, they will go and toss the "Yu Sheng" wishing for luck, good fortune and a smooth year ahead.

The picture below is a close up shot of the "Yu Sheng". This "Yu Sheng" which was bought from Ah Yat Restaurant, was very well done as the texture of the ingredients was not too rough and the sauce was also not overly sweet.

The picture above shows the suckling pig head as well as the crispy skin which is cut from the pig. Really surprising when you considered that the pig was quite big but once the bones are removed what is left is two plates of meat and skin. The suckling pig was ordered from Tiong Bahru market. The suckling pig was very well favoured.

It was a really good meal and was great to see my uncle and auntie from Penang.

What a ribbing day

Last Sunday, it was really a ribbing good day! It was because I had pork ribs for all my meals that day.


In the afternoon, I went out with my family to the Guan Yin temple at Waterloo street in Singapore. As we are going to pray, we decided to have lunch after going to pray. My dad brought us to his favourite bak kut teh stall in that area. It was a stall in a coffee shop at Rocher Centre. The stall name was Song Fa days night Bak Kut Teh. When we reached there, the whole coffe shop was filled with people and nearly 75% of the tables were having the Bak Kut Teh, a good sign on the quanlity of the food that was going to be served.

My father ordered a salted vegetable, a serving of stewed pig trotter, a serving of stewed pig intestine, a pipping hot bowl of pig kidney soup and three pipping hot bowls of Bak Kut Teh as shown in the following pictures.



You can see from the picture above, that the Bak Kut ( Pork ribs) is very big in portion and there are quite a bit of flesh on each of them. Also in the picture is the salted vegetable which was not really that good as it was not really covered in a lot of gravy. ( Matter of personal preference) Some people prefer it less soaky. The other dish in the background is the pig trotter. There is a clearer picture later.



The next picture is again the Bak Kut Teh. See the size of the pork ribs. The ribs were very well flavoured and the soup was also very good. It had a peppery taste but it did not overpowered the soup natural flavour which is actually the soup base using the flavour of the ribs. Most importantly, the ribs had a lot of meat. Good for me a meat eater hehe. The other two items in the picture is the kidney soup and the stewed pig intestine. There is a closer view of the items in the following photographs.

A close up shot of the pork ribs.

The above is the Kidney soup. The soup was not as nice as the Bak Kut Teh soup. It lack a certain punch. In addition, I felt that the kidney was overcooked as it was pretty tough. This dish in a way disappointed me.

Serving of stewed pig intestine

This dish was not too bad as the intestine was cooked to a decent texture. Would have been better if the gravy over it was a bit thicker. This is more of a personal preference rather than the gravy was not good. Overall, it was not bad.

Serving of Stewed Pig Trotter

The stewed pig trotter was quite delicious as it was stewed till it was of the right texture. This dish was quite good.

Overall, the meal at the stall was quite satisfying and it was relatively not expensive as the amount that we ordered could have fed 6 to 7 person and it cost abt 38 bucks. More importantly was the food was good in general.


In the evening, my friend called me to meet up for dinner before catching the Singapore vs Thailand game later on. We met up together with another two friends at Junction 8 in Bishan to decide on what to have for dinner. As my friend got his first pay check, he made the call on where to had dinner. He decided on going to cafe cartel for dinner.

He ordered the 4 person combo meal to share and a serving of the day soup. I did not take a picture of the soup as I forgotten abt it. It was a tomato based soup. I did not really enjoyed it.

Next to arrive is the main course which is the combo meal for 4 shown below. Taken from different angles.

BBQ spare ribs and fried honey chicken wing

Taken from my side. See the sweet corn quantity, there is 3 only. Wonder how we are going to share three sweet corns among four people.

Angle taken from the sausage perspective.

In general, I felt that the chicken wing was a bit on the sweet side, guess it muct be their style of preparing the wings. The sauage was quite good and it was very tasty. There were two type os ribs in this combination set. The ribs given were the black pepper rib and the honey rib. There were not bad, personally prefer the honey ribs better as I felt the sause was better than the black pepper sause which was not that strong in flavour.

It was a good place to gather and talk and the service there is also quite good.

Asean Champion Final Controversy: Penalty! Protest?

On Wednesday, it was the first leg of the ASEAN football Championship between Singapore and Thailand. With all the recent political happenings b/w both countries, it provided an interesting backdrop to this game.

From the start of the game, Singapore was using a very robust approach style of play to impose themselves in the match ( remind me of how some teams like to use this approach against Arsenal in the EPL) There were a lot of niggling fouls all over the pitch and no one had any time on the ball. The match was played generally in good spirit although I felt that the Thais at time are being victimised by the referee.

In spite of that, the match was proceeding as expected, a tight game with few goal scoring opportunities and a lot of robust play. That was until the 82 min. A free kick was given to Singapore. The free kick was floated into the penalty box and the goalkeeper catch the ball. The goalkeeper was about to continue when the whistle sounded for a Singapore penalty due to a foul on the striker which was spotted by the referee. This decision shocked the Thai players. On the other hand, it was greeted with great delight by the Singapore fans.( Kallang Roar) The Thai players were very adamant that it was not a penalty and contested furiously. What happened next shock everyone, the Thai coach seem to have signaled his players to walk off the pitch and all the Thai players walk off. The referee watched with not much concern. It took the tournament organiser as well as the FAS and the Thai football team manager to persuade them to go back to the pitch to continue. It was a remarkable episode in many ways. They were off the pitch for 14 mins and they had to eventually get the Thai coach to persuade them back t the pitch. The whole situation was a bit surreal. It was really what ASEAN football did not want to show to fans who watched the match from all parts of Asia.

In my opinion, there a few issues to look into. Firstly, was it a penalty? Even at first view, it looked a very soft penalty to be given. After watching a few more times on slow motion, it further convince me that it should never have been a penalty. I would only say that the referee gave it based on his point of view which may have been obstructed. In any case, if a referee is not sure if it is a penalty, the penalty should never have been given. In addition, the line man should have a clearer view and would have been better placed to make the call. On this aspect, a poor call has been made. ( Although I have seen a worse case in the EPL, where the striker was not touched but he fell but the referee gave the penalty)

The next issue is about the Thai players walking off the pitch as a form of silent protest. After discussing this issue with a few friends as well as reading the comments in the press, there seem to be two main viewpoints.

The first viewpoint which is the one I also share is that I felt that the Thai should have left any protest that they had to after the match was over. This would be the professional thing to do. This is because it is clearly stated in the rules that once a decision is made by the referee, it is not reversible. In my opinion, there is no way that the referee will change his mind even if the whole Thai team had walk off and decided not to come back unless the decision is reversed. I felt they were doing it as more of a symbolic gesture but in a way it backfired as it reflected very badly on the professionalism of the players as well as the coaches involved. In a way, it seems a bit childish as it is like a spoiled child when he cannot get what he wants, he will stamp his feet in protest. This incident plus some of the poor decision making that plague this tournament in general gives a very poor impression on the professionalism as well as the standard of football in this region. This I feel will be the most disappointing aspect in this tournament as it feels like ASEAN football has taken a step backwards.

The other viewpoint is that people feel that the Thai action is correct. This is because they feel that the referee was biased against the Thai and the football game was already tilted towards Singapore favour. Their opinion which I think is also how the Thai feel is that since the game is already biased then that is no need to play anymore as all the 50-50 decision will go in favour of Singapore. This is what people in our region called Kelong. (For those not in this region, the term kelong means that the match for some reason or another is now favouring one team. Sad to say there have been a few cases of match fixing that had occurred in this region. Hence in our region, whenever there is a controversial decision in a game, there is a tendency to think that the referee or players involved have been bribed.) They felt that this game is already fixed. My personal opinion is that I watched the game what i could comment is that sometimes referee do make mistake and in this case it could have been an honest mistake. However the referee was too hasty giving a penalty as a penalty should only be given when the referee is very sure else no penalty should be given.

In any case, this whole farce have spoiled the impression that ASEAN football has been trying to raise the standard and professionalism of the sport in the region. This I feel will be the biggest regret that will come out of his tournament irregardless on who win the second leg to be played today.