Recipe: Clam Chowder and Fried Crabstick

My girlfriend totally lovesssss clam chowder. I've always known that and I have always wanted to try to make my own. But I know it is quite difficult and I was afraid it might not turn out well. I still went online, searched for the recipe and went out to buy the ingredients with her. At first, there was a lot of ingredients I could not find, like this thing called 'half and half', which was a mixture of milk and cream. And the clams itself was quite expensive and not easy to find even though it was the chinese new year period. In the end, I managed to find everything and tried out the recipe, making changes of my own here and there. The result: one of the best clam chowders I have ever tasted. Here is the revised recipe, which makes one of the best clam chowders in my opinion.

Ingredients needed

1. 2 cans of razor clams, cut into smaller pieces (cheaper than pacific clam, both are fine, about 300g)
2. 1 white onion, minced (160g)
3. 2 or 3 sticks of celery, diced (120g)
4. 3 potatoes, diced (300g)
5. 2 carrots, diced (130g)
6. 5-7 slices of bacon strips, diced
7. butter (170g)
8. plain flour (95g)
9. half and half (1000ml) (or use 1 part cream to 4 parts milk)
10. salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Throw the bacon bits into a really hot pan and fry for about 3mins, constantly stirring and mixing it.

2. Then throw in the onion, celery, potato and carrots and stir fry for about 5mins, until the ingredients are partially cooked only. Add in a bit of oil if you think it is too dry. Turn off the flame once this is done.

3. In a big pot, pour in just the juice of the 2 cans of clams, and add in another can of plain water. Turn the fire to medium heat and add in the stir fried ingredients you just prepared. Let it cook till tender.

4. In another pot, melt the butter over a medium heat, remember to stir constantly so that the butter will not burn. Then use a whisk and whisk in the flour until smooth. Then whisk in the 'half and half' or 200ml of cream and 800ml milk. Whisk constantly over a low heat and until it is very smooth.

5. Finally, over a low heat, add the creamy mixture to the ingredients which are cooking in the other pot. Mix them together and let it simmer on low heat. Add in the clams and let it simmer. The duration is up to you. If you think it is thick enough, then you can stop. If it is too salty, add more milk, if it is less salty, add a pinch of salt to your taste when serving.

DONE! Amazing clam chowder to die for!

As for the crabstick, basically strip the crabstick into smaller strips and deep fry it in good quality oil. This was something my girlfriend's mum used to make for her when she was young. Now I do it for her. Haha! And this is really much better than potato chips!!! Trust me! When frying this, make sure you stand by the side and constantly stir and watch the crabstick strips because they burn very quickly and suddenly. Make sure you fry them till golden brown, or even a slightly darker brown like this is fine. If not fried perfectly, it won't be crispy.


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Food Review: Villa Di Parma @ Serangoon Gardens

Girlfriend and I wanted to try something new. I personally have always wanted to try this Italian restaurant at Lichfield road which is near serangoon gardens. She has tried it before and said it was good but that was more than a year ago. So she went online to check out recent reviews and it seems standards have dropped, so she searched for some other restaurant for us to go to and she found Villa Di Parma.

Villa Di Parma is also an Italian restaurant and is situated at Kensington road, at serangoon gardens itself. Reviews seemed good but of course, you never know until you try it yourself. So we went ahead and walked in. We were greeted by two friendly staff. The ambience was really romantic and posh. Guys who would like to bring your girls to somewhere nice, simple and special; this is the place. The tables had candle lights and there was soft soothing music playing in the background.

We decided to order their smoked salmon pizza, carbonara pasta, tiramisu, calamari and we bought the free flow iced lemon tea. While ordering, it didn't seem a lot at all, but IT WAS REALLY TOO MUCH for both of us. First, we tried the iced lemon tea. It was fabulous! Super fresh brewed tea, with ice and lemon and they served the sugar syrup by the side to suit your taste. We loved it. I wouldn't mind paying $6 to sit there and drink like 54 cups of iced lemon tea to kill time. Next came the fried calamari. Once of the best I ever had. The cuttlefish was really fresh, and fried to perfection. Wonderful crispy layer on the outside, and the flesh of the cuttlefish was nice and not too chewy. The sauce they served with the calamari tastes abit like the tomato sauce for pastas but it complimented the calamari wonderfully. It was really good. Next up was THE BOMB. the smoked salmon pizza. This costs about $30 and it was quite big. The waiter did tell us this wasn't a hot pizza, he literally said it was I thought cold meaning fro the refrigerator, but I later realized he meant cold meaning room temperature. It was fabulousamazingwonderfulsuperboutofthisworld. I mean, you guys know I love pizza. And I love salmon. But I hate bad pizzas and bad salmon even more. This smoked salmon did not stink, it was NOT extremely salty like some other places I tried. It was just perfect. Both of us loved the pizza very very very much.

By now, we were really full but knew we had to try the carbonara pasta. It came like 5mins after we finished the pizza and we shared it. I started loving creamy pastas because of my girlfriend. But sometimes, you feel kind of sick if you eat too much of creamy pasta. This wasn't the case for the pasta served here. It was just nice and creamy to the right amount. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the bacon used wasn't very salty as well. It was really nice and I did not get sick of the pasta even though I was really really full. Next up, tiramisu. No matter how full you are, you know that you always have space for something sweet and wonderful. I loved the tiramisu so so so much! The cheesy cream and the coffee and the ladyfinger biscuits were in perfect proportions with the good quality cocoa powder dusted in top. It was heaven, at least to me. My girlfriend did not really like it because she was that the base of the tiramisu was too wet, which was not up to her liking. To me, I loved it to the core.

All in all, a wonderful experience at Villa Di Parma. The only problem I had, which was not really a problem, was that the staff did not really take the initiative to refill our drinks. But when we asked to have it refilled, they did so quickly. So if they do take the initiative to refill the empty glasses which has been sitting empty on the table for the past 5mins, it would be great. We spent about $95 for both of us. Seemed expensive, but now, while writing this post, I realized we ate SO MUCH!!! And to me, it is utterly worth it. Will definitely try it out again, and like I always say, I appreciate consistency and if they are not consistent, I will surely let you guys know.

SimpleMakan

Food Review: Din Tai Fung @ I12Katong

I have always enjoyed food at Din Tai Fung but realized I have never spoken about them in my blog. So here is my post.

Din Tai Fung serves real good chinese food and their service is really good. At times, there are very long queues outside their restaurants and you will have to wait for maybe 15-20mins but I tell you, usually the wait is worth it. The staff usually speak mandarin but I am sure there are staff who can speak english as well. And the service is fast too. If there is a queue outside, you basically take a queue number, order your food and wait. Once there is a table, you go sit down and within a few short minutes, your food is served.

This time round, we had fried rice with shrimps, xiao long bao and longan red dates drink.The fried rice was superb, with super fresh shrimps and super tasty rice. The xiao long bao was so so. I did not really like it. The texture was not as perfect and the amount of soup in it wasn't a lot. It was still fine though.And the longan red dates drink, BEST DRINK EVER! I love that drink! It is sweet and so amazingly refreshing. Both of us enjoyed the drink very much because it was quite a hot day that day.

Overall, I have eaten at many Din Tai Fung restaurants and they have not let me down so far. Good service, good food, fast in serving and affordable.

SimpleMakan

Food Review: MOF @ Ang Mo Kio Hub

I have always seen many MOF cafes around Singapore but I have not really thought of going in for a drink or food. I do not really know why but I really did not try their food until now. Girlfriend and I wanted to have a simple snack or dessert but went to the basement of Ang Mo Kio hub. We wanted to try the dessert stall just beside MOF but I remembered eating there with her a very long time ago and we didn't like it. So we took a look at the menu of MOF and decided to eat there since it was quite big and there were a lot of seats around.

The menu had a huge variety of food and desserts and we honestly did not know what to eat. We finally decided to have udon with grilled chicken and an iced cafe mocha. The cafe was not extremely crowded but I would say there was a decent crowd there. The coffee took about 10mins to arrive and the noodles about 20mins. To me, the waiting time was a little too long. I think they would need to improve on their service standards. The place was clean and simple. The coffee was good though.

What surprised me the most was the udon it self. I utterly love udon but it has to be perfect. The soup has to be extremely hot and the udon must be chewy and soft. I have tried udon dishes at some places and told myself I will never try udon in restaurants which do not specialize in Japanese cuisine. But here I am, taking a risk again to try udon. Verdict: it was really good! I liked it. The soup was flavorful. It was really hot. The noodles were chewy and almost perfect.

Overall, the food was good, drink was nice, but service was real slow.

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Food Review: Seventh Heaven @ I12Katong

Remember my post about my girlfriend and I going to the Golden Village Gold Class Theatres at I12Katong? On that day itself, we actually walked past this beautiful dessert stall called Seventh Heaven. Just that short walk past it seemed as if they has a hundred different flavors! And like I said before, I love kaya and the first flavor which caught my eye was the kaya flavor ice cream! I had no choice but to try it! She tried to stop me, but I really needed to try it. Haha! So we walked back and to my astonishment, there were so many flavors! I really wanted to try every single flavor but I know I could not. So I just tried the kaya and honestly, it was super good! I loved the ice cream. The ice cream itself had this smooth texture which was awesome. It really creamy and real sweet. I usually hate super sweet ice cream but this was good. The taste was really awesome, better than a lot of kaya I have tasted.

So one of the days, My girlfriend and I decided to go to I12Katong to have lunch and also have dessert. We chose 3 flavors, a lemon orange sorbet, hazelnut and cookies and cream. I used to like sorbet, and I thought I still do, but apparently, I think I have lost my taste for sorbet. Sorbet in places like Swensens now are no longer sour. It is really sweet and horrible. But the sorbet at Seventh Heaven was sour and icy, just the way I used to love it. As a sorbet, I would say Seventh Heaven passed with flying colors. The hazelnut ice cream was superb. Creamy, not too sweet, full of hazelnut flavor. I loved it. Cookies and cream is always a must try for both of us because she utterly loves cookies and cream ice cream. It was good too, I would not say it was better than Ben and jerry's cookies and cream but it was still really good.

All in all, the ambience was perfect, staff were extremely friendly and price was affordable. Totally loved it and I cannot wait to try ALL THE OTHER FLAVORS!

SimpleMakan

Food Review: Hot Tomato Cafe and Grill @ Causeway Point

Some time ago, went for dinner at this restaurant in Causeway Point with my mum and brother. I have eaten there once before with my family and I did like the food but I did not remember to take photos of the food. Anyway, this time, I did take some photos.

I had the lamb chop, my brother had baked rice and my mum had fish and chips. My lamb chop was really good in my opinion. I love lamb chop but it is really very difficult to find a decent lamb chop nowadays. It is always overcooked and totally not fresh at all; sometimes giving off a weird smell which I hate. Here, the meat was really tender and the pasta side was cooked to perfection. The simple greens by the side was drizzled with this awesome dressing which was slightly sour and salty at the same time. Totally enjoyed this simple dish.

My brother's baked rice was awesome too. The usual baked rice I have tried would have to be those sold in Swensens and from Pizza hut. Pizza hut's is total crap. Swensens used to serve good baked rice, but now, it sucks big time as well. The baked rice here was perfect. The cheese was fresh and good. The rice was hot and was obviously mixed with cheese as well. The amount of cheese and rice ratio was just perfect and I loved it.

My mum's fish and chips was fine. The fish was a little overcooked in my opinion; I think you will realize it from the photo as well. BUT, my mum loves it this way, super crispy yet soft in the middle. So there wasn't any problem in this case. If I was having the fish and chips, I think it might not be the way I like it.

Overall, it was good. Service was fine. Speed of serving the food was fast as well. Ambience was clean and pleasant. And the food was really tasty.

Here are some photos.

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