The Great Starbucks Mooncake Epic Fail

      I have made a new friend named Lucy! (And she has a daughter named Lulu.) We met for coffee this morning at the rather upscale shopping mall at the Jurong East MRT station.  We were going to meet yesterday but she was babysitting her grandson.

      Starbucks is the first store when you enter the mall from the MRT, so we decided to meet there.

All Eight Starbucks Mooncakes.

     In the interests of researching the Starbucks conception of a mooncake, Lucy and I tried a bite of each, while we told each other our life stories. 

Lucy was born in 1942, so she's four years older than me. She was too young to remember the Japanese Occupation.  I told her about my father's voyage to Bombay, India, with a troopship of British soldiers, who sailed from on to Singapore arriving just as the Japanese attacked. 

Lucy was the second of 16 children. She grew up in the area of Singapore near River Valley Road and Zion Road. Her family consider themselves Paranakan Singaporean, tracing their root their roots to Riau in Indonesia and Southern China. Lucy attended Catholic school and was baptised a Catholic, and identifies herself as Buddhist. Lucy told me she did not consider herself Chinese, and I asked her what she meant by that. She explained that if she were to go to China, she would feel completely foreign.  She doesn't speak Mandarin.  Because her father, born in 1919, was adopted, it's not possible to trace his Hakka ancestors to a particular village. 

She has two children, one a lawyer, married to a lawyer, living in London, and the other, the father of her grandson, living here and working for his father.

I told Lucy about my two children, and she repeated, Atlanta, Georgia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We are planning to have coffee each week. She's studying oil painting, I'll be studying Mandarin, Chinese Brush Painting and Asian Film. I know we are going to have great conversations.

The Starbucks mooncakes are about two inches across, and bear the mould of the Starbucks mermaid. Our verdicts caption each one:

The Yuzu White Lotus Paste with Red Bean
was more like a macaroon than a mooncake.

 

We found the Coffee White Lotus Paste
with Maple Walnut, much much much to sweet.

Brownie with sea salt chocolate truffle?
Too sweet!

Mango with Passion fruit truffle?
Great flavours --- for sorbet!

White Lotus Paste with Black Sesame
was quite good.

The White Lotus Paste with Egg Yolk had
a balance of sweet and savoury.

You know I love Hazelnut, but Hazelnut
Macchiato with Milk Chocolate Truffle,
NO WAY

The Lavender and White Chocolate Pearls
with Earl Grey Truffle was back in macaroon land.

      I would love to know who dreamt up these flavours.  On one hand they seem to go against the grain of local tastes, yet then again young Singaporeans have very adventuresome eating habits!

When the Quotidien Isn't

    This morning, I'm headed off to the Indian Heritage Center.
     First, I wanted to muse on my good fortune at being here.  It is a delight to get up and go swimming every morning, with a almost 50 meter lap pool just a walk away. Then, breakfast,which is usually a salad---so healthy! Once a week, I indulge in the marvel of kaya toast and soft-boiled egg, or noodles.
     I'm in the midst of daily explorations both the gardens and the cuisine of Singapore.  At night, I delve into the extensive literature, scholarly and popular on these topics.  One terrific resource is from editor Ken Albala's Rowman and Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy: Eating Together: Food, Space and Identity in Malaysia and Singapore by Jean Duruz and Gaik Cheng Khoo.

     Here's what I'm not doing: Cooking. There doesn't seem much point when great food is available for S$3-6 a plate.
     Here's what else I'm not doing: Eating at the plentiful branches of western fast food. These are to be found in the shopping centers located at main transportation hubs.  But I am paying attention to the morphing of global chains to local/global tastes.  Here are some illustrations:

Pizza Hut does English Comfort Food for Australians?

Pizza Hut does Swiss and French?

    And this:

Starbucks Does Moon Cakes!

     Invention is everywhere!

You know you're craving a coloured flavoured soup dumpling!

     I know I'm craving plain Shanghai soup dumplings, an maybe, just maybe will try the truffle one.

     And speaking of Ken Albala and soup for noodles, here are the directions for making the Hokkien Meehoon Mee.  I begin to understand how the noodles get their flavor when this marvelous liquid is added back into the stir-fried egg and rice noodles.

      In a large saucepan bring 4 cups of water to a boil and add 1 and 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 lb pork butt. Stir in 3/4 lb shrimp, Unshelled, boil for 2 minutes, and transfer with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Let the shrimp cool until they can be handled and shell them. In the boiling liquid boil 1 lb. cuttlefish or squid, turning it for 1 minute and transfer it with slotted spoon to a bowl. Let the cuttlefish cool until it can be handled and cut it into 1/4 inch rings. Continue cooking the pork in the cooking liquid at a gentle boil, turning it, for 25-30 minutes, or until the cooking liquid is reduced to about 1 cup. Transfer the pork to a bowl, reserving the cooking liquid.. Let the pork cool until it can be handled and shred it. 

      This is the recipe that Gourmet's Fred Ferretti and his wife, Eileen Yin Fei Low extracted from the Hyatt Regency Singapore in 1986 for Gourmet.  I suspect that Zanne Early Stewart tested it as well!

Carrot Cake and Kristang

     Yesterday, I went to the Eurasian Heritage Center by bus. In a little more than an hour, I crossed about half the island, travelling towards the airport. When I alighted, I was ready for lunch, so headed a block or two farther, to the nearest Hawker Center.

Modernised Hawker Center at Dunman Road.

     It's located in a section of well-preserved shophouses, about three blocks from the sea. I've begun my photographic catalogue of hawker stalls.  The last hawker on my circuit intrigued me.

Can you just make out the chef with his bright red hair?

My instincts were good; I had never had carrot cake in either its black or white form before. He kindly offered to cook me a $3 plate of half each.  What is carrot cake? Chai tow quay pieces of steamed rice flour and radish, stir fried. The dark form is seasoned with sweet dark soy sauce. The light form is cooked with eggs.

Dark and Light Carrot Cake.

Delicious. The 35 year old chef sat down with me and explained that the dish is Teochew in origin, and that the Chinese prefer the light version. The dark is preferred by Thai people, it's too sweet for Chinese taste. The chef had wok skills!

Two giant woks.

    Refreshed, I walked back to the Eurasian Heritage Center.  A graphic explained that Eurasian refers to people who are a mixture of first Portuguese, Dutch, British and other European peoples, with Burmese, Ceylonese, Indian, Malay, Chinese or Indonesian peoples.  

     The first Eurasian came to Singapore with Raffles from Malacca. One Tomas Ferrao spoke Kristang as his mother tongue. I love Creole languages and Portuguese, and Kristang is creolized Portugeuse, but has vocabulary from Hokkien, Dutch, English, Hakka, Koncani and Malaysian. 

     In racially segregated colonial Singapore, Eurasians were not accepted as European, nor as Asian. 

     I was drawn to the brief section on Eurasian food in Singapore.        

Contemporary Singaporeans attribute their cosmopolitan, adventuresome tastes in food to these early creations.  

Devil Curry, Portuguese.

Feng curry, Portuguese. 

Beef Semore, Dutch.

Look Out Umami Burger

Umami 50

    Umami 50 is a prata filled with chicken sausage, chicken floss, mozzarella, egg, and Kewpie mayonnaise.  Springleaf Prata Place's creation was featured at the Ultimate Hawker Festival in 2015, the 50th Anniversary of Singapore's nationhood, and it was a big hit with me at the Singapore Garden Show.

     I watched it being made by a  Chicken floss was a new concept for me. Turns out, its rou song (肉鬆), shredded dried meat.  It can be made with pork, beef or fish. It's like very finely shredded or pulled meat, but dried. Indeed it cranks umami up a tick or two.

Michelin Meet Shiok!

Bib Gourmand Awards to Hawker Stalls in Friday's paper.

     Remember when San Francisco's beloved Slanted Door didn't earn a Michelin Star? The media reaction then pales in comparison to Singapore's take on Michelin's first Singapore rankings.
     You can examine the full results, priced from cheapest on up, here.
     Friday, Saturday and Sunday papers were filled with news and analysis. The best summary of these was Straits Times Food Editor Tan Hsueh Yun's essay, which began "Michelin is counting on your outrage." Reasons for outrage?

• Four restaurants at the Resorts World Sentosa, host of the ceremonies, got stars.
• A sushi restaurant open only a few months, got two stars.
• Fine dining places and a hawker stall both got one star.
• International celebrity chefs were chosen over both young and old Singaporean masters; there were no Singaporeans on the roster of inspectors.

She hopes that the buzz created by the awards will inspire both hawker and classically trained chefs, publicists and the front of the house to do better. 

     Another winning essay appeared in The Business Times.  Stefanie Yuen Theo penned a spoof, "A Failed bid to keep cult eateries from Michelin." She imagines a secretive meeting of government, banking, listed company, media, and legal executives who fear that Michelin awards could ruin life as they know it. They have plotted to plant misinformation among the inspectors. 

     I could almost believe that such a meeting took place.  The magic of Hawker Stall food goes beyond low prices.  You have to understand that complex dishes are prepared a la minute by a chef and perhaps another family member, just for you.  That is a level of service unheard of in American fast food. You must also realise that forming a queue for something extraordinary seems second nature to Singaporeans.  No matter your wealth or social rank, you will stand in line for a bowl of comfort.  

     Payback is a dish that can be served hot. On Saturday, the Straits Times announced the first Singapore Food Masters contest.  Sponsored by Knife Brand Cooking oil, the Lam Soon Group, SFM 2016 is a people's choice affair, putting the specialities of 124 hawker stalls and restaurants up for votes. 

     Meanwhile, the Accompanying Spouse is doing very little cooking, no need when $2 to $6 Singaporean dollars buys dinner!

     

1,2,3 Star Announcements in Saturday and Sunday's Paper

First Breakfast, then Java

   

   

Char Kway Teoh at Resident's Lounge Breakfast. Good not great.

     Always a wide choice in the breakfast buffet: mee, kway teoh, sometimes dim sum, as well as fruit, eggs, breakfast meat, toast and pastries. Best of all: a tossed green salad to keep me honest. The above bowl of dry Char Kway Teoh illustrates the basics of the classic Hawker dish: wide noodles soaking up dark gravy with some vegetables.  Not a four star example, but a place to start.

     Fortified for the day, I'm off to the Malay Heritage Center with a stop at the Lavender MRT for 10ses:

My first Curry Puff in Singapore, with lime juice refresher.

    Then off to the Malay Heritage Center, which I've described here.  The Javanese Community in Singapore was being featured in a temporary exhibit. Of special interest to me was the section on food. Two dishes were of special interest:

 

   
    Nasi Tumpeng takes its place in my work-in-progress,  "Landscape and Cuisine in Singapore" for next July's Oxford Society conference.  It reminds me of the Japanese washoku tradition with its reverence for mountains.  The Singaporean version adds rice cake and noodles to Soto soup.  Can't wait to try some!
   

Disentangling the Noodles of Singapore

     As culinary historian Ken Albala predicted before my departure, noodles play star roles in Singapore food.  I'm a noodle novice, and not familiar with dialects other than Mandarin, so I've worked out a taxonomy of the Merlion city's noodles. Dr. Leslie Tay's The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries is my trusty guide.

     The Chinese who immigrated to Singapore came from the coastal regions of southern China and a rice rather than wheat based agriculture. Rice noodles are used in many of the Hainan, Teochew and Hokkien dishes found in the famous Hawker Centers. These noodles range from thin, vermicelli like bee hoon to thicker kway teow. Kway teow are actually wide strips of rice cake.

     Nowadays in Singapore, wheat based egg noodles are also used in thin, mee kia, and thick, mee poh or me pok, width.

Wet Noodles with Broth.

     Another noodle choices is dry or in broth.  These were our dinner choices for dinner in a Clementi Mall restaurant.

Dry Noodles with Pork Sauce.

 

     

Noodles for breakfast with Kaya Toast and chive omelette.

   














     A fellow diner informed me that the breakfast noodles are mee, the best for soaking up the flavor of the sauce.  These indeed were well infused.  (Kaya toast is the fusion of British toast with coconut jam reminiscent of apple butter.  I'm already addicted, but must ration it.)

     Next up: sorting out the specialties of the Teochew, Hokkien and Malay Hawker Center chefs and their customers' preferences.  Here's a teaser:

Noodles frying, gravy, wooden cover added for c. 10 seconds.