New favourite grape variety :)

Recently I have the good fortunate to try a whole range of Riesling from around the world and found that it is a style of wine that I liked generally.

Riesling is one of the interesting white grape variety which can produce extraordinary wines in every style from the bone dry to the super sweet style of wines. Riesling is like a Sauvignon Blanc which expresses the different flavours when planted on different soils and produce distinctively different wine styles depending on the climate where it is grown.

German Riesling are the most famous. There is different level of clasification on the level of sweetness for German Riesling:

The most dry style ( least sweet) will be the Troken. In increasing order of sweetness will be Kabinett, Spatlese ( Late Harvest), Auslese, Goldkaspel ( Gold Capsule), BA ( Beerenauslese ) ,Eiswein ( Ice Wine) and most sweet will be TBA( TrokenBeerenauslese).

Auslese is considered as very good quality and sweet. BA, Eiswein and TBA are dessert wines with the TBA as been the rarest of them all. If anyone has tried a TBA do let me know how is tastes like.

A lot of the New Zealand and Australian Riesling been made are more of the off dry style. This means that there is the acidity which is well balanced against a sweeetness in the body with a good finish. Actually riesling goes very well with almost all types of food.

For Alsace Riesling, the ones that I have tried are more of the drier style which means that it is not sweet and what you get is a lot of minerality. I still prefer the sweeter style of Riesling.

Currently, one of my favourite Riesling excluding the German Riesling Spatlese and Auslese is the Mount Brown Riesling 2010 from New Zealand Waipara Valley. It is a light bodied wine which has good acidity balanced with sweetness hence making it a very refreshing wine by itself or with food.

Lunch at Jin Shan at Marina Bay Sand

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Jin Shan at Marina Bay Sand. It is located on the 1st floor at the hotel. We decided to order their Peking Duck as well as a selection of dim sum and main dishes to try out.

Trio of seafood dumpling with different toppings. Unlike the versions that I had tried at other places, where the skin is quite hard, this version skin was delicate and gently encompass the fillings.

Peking Duck, One of the best that I had. The skin is so crispy and was excellent with the crepe. The sauce which accompanied the duck skin was full of flavour.

My mum absolutely loved it as it was oozing with the char siew and gravy.

The meat and pumpkin from the pumpkin soup which was lovely in flavour. Meat though was almost tasteless as all the flavours are in the soup.

Stewed Chicken Feet and in the background it is the salted egg yolk prawns. The chicken feet was very tender but it was a tad not salty enough. For the Salted egg yolk prawn, it was delicious. the saltness of the salted egg yolk did not over power the natural flavour of the prawn.

Prawn paste chicken. The prawn paste was evident and it was juicy. It is good but not outstanding.

Long Beans fried with mince pork. It is fried with a Sizchuan style. The flavour is outstanding and go perfectly with a steaming bowl of rice. The slight down point is that the long beans were a bit soggy and not crunchy. 

Coffee flavoured pork chop. It is a well balance dish with the coffee flavour evident but not over-powering unlike how it is prepared at other places.

In general, the dishes were good with a few stand out dishes such as the Char siew Pau and Peking Duck. Price though is on the higher price point. Budget should be about $50 to $60 a person ordering dishes that are not fresh seafood. Service in general was quite good though quite a few staffs are more comfortable conversing in Chinese.

Boon Tong Kee at Bong Keng ( New place to have yummy chicken rice)

Recently I have moved place to another area of Singapore hence a new journey to explore the food in the area. One of my current favourite food haunt is the Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice near my place. It is usually full during the weekend lunch and dinner crowd.

We decided to order a selection of their dishes as well as their famous chicken rice. I totally loved the rice as it is fragrant and light on the palate.



Famous white steamed chicken. The chicken meat is tender and the gravy goes perfect with it. Together with their chilli sauce and black sauce, totally awesome.



Stirred fried Kang Kong with sambal. Nothing outstanding.

Fried Prawn Roll. I quite liked it.

One of my favourite dish. Stirred fried pork liver in claypot. The pork liver has a lovely texture and the sauce goes well with the rice. :)

Beancurd with crabmeat.

Recently, we have went by a couple of times and one of the dish that I would highly recommend is the seafood bee hoon. Really dish and full of flavour.

This is a nice place to go for some home Zi Char dishes as well as for their famous chicken.

Personel sentiments of Election 2011

This year election in Singapore has been one of the most anticipated elections in many many years. There has been a higher caliber of candidates from the various opposition parties and coupled with the introduction of a new PAP team which has been perceived as more of an elite group and not able to appreciate the ground sentiment.

In addition, the ground sentiment is that the government in the past few years has not paid heed to the various grievances such as cost of housing, public transportation, in flux of foreign workers and inflation in Singapore
This has made this election much more of a closer call and I would dare say it could be the benchmark of the upcoming few elections as the Generation Y voters will play a more significant role in the votes casting.

This is the first election in which social media such as facebook, Twitter and YouTube plays more of a significant role and it allows more people to view the speeches provided by the various candidates. I have been very impressed by the eloquences and energy of some of the new opposition candidates.

The opposition parties also brought up a lot of ideas. The below are some of the proposals and areas which I am impressed and the government should consider looking into it.

1. Pegging minister/members of parliament pay against a multiplier of the median pay in Singapore rather than GDP. GDP is an overall number and is not reflective of the ground situation. A Median pay will be more representative of the ground sentiments and will drive the MPs to look into ways to improve the overall pay of Singaporeans. I do not fully subscribe to PAP idea of paying top dollars for MPs. We must reward the MPs for their sacrifice to be in parliament but if they are going into parliament for the pay then it defeats the core principle of an MP. An MP is a representative of the people on the ground and should serve the people.
the current perception is that the people are tax to give high pay to the MPs.

2. Public Transportation, the proposal to de-privatize the public buses and MRT. Though the concept of privatizing these crucial infrastructure is to lead to more competition and lower prices. However the opposite took place as transport keep on increasing prices as they are run as private business and are accountable to their shareholders. These key infrastructures should be run more as a public service. When average Singaporeans are finding transport cost is increasing and when you hear SMRT profits is running in the hundred of million, it is quite mind boggling.

3. Using other means of measuring Singapore Growth, GDP is only one aspect but it may not be the best and the opposition had proposed a couple of other means which may be more reflective of the society.

In my opinion, the government in the last few years has project an image of arrogance as they do not seem to take the ground sentiment seriously. It also seems to be less caring as they are always looking at GDP numbers and other hard numbers which are not reflective on the ground.

In spite of that, the government in general has managed to keep the country growing and our strength of our dollar is very strong. At least in my case, the candidate had delivered what he promised in the last election.
Also some of the proposals raised by the opposition is also not realistic such as the idea of free education and health care, who will bear this burden. Now we will be able to do it as our budget is plentiful but in the long run how will it be possible to sustain. The idea of moving our of manufacturing and fully focus on service is not viable. Manufacturing is one of the core of the economy and hires a large amount of people. Getting rid of it will cause a lot of lose of jobs. Manufacturing is an area which is less volatile to cyclic downturns unlike service industry.
Now the key issue for all Singaporeans is whether would you want to vote for a change in the system and it is a step into the unknown or you would rather keep to the present situation and hope the government understand that we are not always looking at hard facts but want them to engage us and appreciate what the ground is feeling.

We only hope that we will not end up in a situation where we will spend all our time debating issues without any actions while the world overtakes us.

We will know on the 7th of May 2011, how things will develop.

Unique Western food joint near Art Museum

For this eatery, it was a mistakewhich led us to try the food. We had actually wanted to go to the National Museum to view some exhibitions but due to my poor sense of direction we landed up at the art museum and saw some exhibits which we did not know what is been shown.

Anyway after the error, we spotted a cafe which is the Food for Thought Cafe and gave it a try. An interesting concept they have is they are will support a good cause in which they will donate part of their profit for good causes such as donating for the UN food programme.

We ordered a few dishes to try.

Interesting concept cafe with afforable comfort food that is quite generous on portions.

Fries with rosemary garlic. Simple but delicious

Calamari, prawns and salmon Risotto. Wanted to try what is a Risotto and realised it is too rich for me as too cheesy. Very filling though did not really fancy it :(

Hoisin Har Cheong Baby Back Ribs. It is supposed to be one of their more popular dish and it really showed. The back ribs was very well flavoured and it goes well with the potato gratins. Excellent dish and highly recommended. 

Ice lemon tea. Nothing to say :)




Highly recommended restaurant for Healthy Chinese food with an elegant touch :)

This is another long overdue posting. This restaurant was recommended by a friend and it is really very good.

The name of the restaurant is Restaurant Ten. It is located at 7 Purvis Street #01-01. Telephone number: 6333 9901.

It is a restaurant which focus more on classic wellness in a contemporary style. Below is a selection of the dishes which I had ordered there during my previous visit.



Table setting. They will offer a very pleasant starting drink.

Egg White with dried scallop in a potato nest. The contrast of the fluffy egg white with the crispness of the potato nest and the slight saltiness of the dried scallop is a wonderful combination.

Herbal Chicken. One of the best I had, the meat is super tender and infused with the various herbs that was used in the preparation. Highly recommended dish to order.

Stirred fried apples with pine nuts. Interesting combination and flavours. Something that will appeal to guest who wants a bit more crunch for their vege dish.

Ee Fu mee. Excellent in taste and presentation. Had the Wok hei flavour and succulent prawns. 

Special selection dessert platter. Three very distinct flavours of dessert with the order to enjoy it from left to right.

If you are looking for an interesting place to have Chinese Food with a modern taste which is tasty and healthy, do consider this place :)

Latest update: The restaurant has unfortuntaley closed recently :(

New Favourite food haunt for great food @ good value ( Ka Soh)

This is my first entry in quite a while as have been very busy with work.

My dad recently recommend us to try the food of Ka Soh at the Alumni Association @ No.2 College Road ( near Outram MRT).

One of the highly recommended dish is their fish head bee hoon. We decided to order a selection of dishes to try. The below are the review of some of the items that we tried during our 2 visits to the place.

Stirred Fried Hor Fun with Fish meat. This dish was superb. You get to enjoy the Wo Hek feel for the Hor fun ( not many places do it well) and it is so fragrant and tasty. Absolutely must try this dish 

The next dish we tried is the fish meat bee hoon. It was good. However if you are a fan of fish head, it is recommeneded that you have the fish head bee hoon which gives the soup a much more complex flavour.



Ka Soh version of cold dish ( my favourite item was the gong pao chicken pieces)



Fried prawn ball with spicy sauce. The prawns was very crunchy and the sauce was excellent.

Prawn Paste Chicken. Nothing much to shout about.

Wasabi Prawn. It was good but I preferred the version tried elsewhere where the prawns is coated with a layer of the wasabi sauce.

Special Fried Pork. I totally loved this dish which is both crispy and the meat is juicy with full of flavours.

Stirred fried chill Kang Kong with cuttlefish, It was delicious and there was the spicyness in the chilli.





In general, the dishes were excellent especially for the stirred fried items. On the pricing, it is quite reasonable as it is priced closer to Zhi char pricing then a restaurant price. If you would like to try some local Chinese food, I would recommend this place.