Don Quijote

Don Quijote is a little gem of a Spanish place tucked in a little corner in the far flung west side of the island. It’s hard to get to because it’s not really near to a MRT station and parking is practically impossible here. The food here is pretty decent. We started with bellota ham at the request of the jamon-loving DC. It was fairly cheap for bellota ham and I guess you pay for the quality. While it certainly was very tasty and good ham, it was too greasy from being left at (hot, humid) room temperature. In the world of bellota ham, this was but a pretender.

The ravening pack then moved on to the clam special. They normally have a clam tapas on the menu but that night, they had a special clam dish. Presumably they managed to get their hands on a good batch of imported clams and boy were these good! They were sweet and briny, full of the sea and picked up the wine, herbs and garlic in the sauce very nicely. These were swiftly mopped up with plenty of bread.

Finally, the ravening pack of two came to a standstill with the squid ink paella. The good stuff came al dente just as we requested and was enveloped in a black and almost solid sauce. The flavour was somehow of intense savoriness, though not overwhelmingly salty. It was crammed with squid and prawns and with a squirt of the lemon, came together to give a very comforting yet not quite stodgy dish.

The food here was really decent. Just don’t bother with the sangria if you’re like me and not fond of syrupy and very mildly alcoholic drinks.

[P.S. Pardon the poor lighting, it’s one of those places with dim yellow lighting. Almost impossible for food shots.]

Don Quijote
17 Lorong Kilat
Tel: 6465 1811

Advertisement

June in Thailand: Doing Good the Muddy Way

My computer is finally fixed and I bring you yet another instalment of my Southeast Asian jaunt, now a good two years ago. This time, I spent a month in Thailand doing only land activities. I started in Bangkok and bunked in with Dee. The weekend I arrived, she had a company charity activity to which she very kindly invited me. It was a trip to the swampy river delta south of Bangkok to replant mangroves.

It started off with a briefing that went right over my head since it was in Thai, but there was a sign in English that basically said don’t stand up in the longtail boat or you’ll fall over.

We headed down the very muddy distributory of the Chao Phraya with the offboard motor chugging away.

Soon we pulled out of the hamlet of shacks lining the muddy stream and ended up in the mangrove area. The prop roots stuck out from the mud, forming a rather odd sort of undergrowth.

We soon spied the monkeys emerging from the mangrove trees.

They were all rather bedraggled from the mud and were lured out by the combs of bananas brought by the boatman. Odd, because I thought we were there to regrow the mangroves, not feed the monkeys living in them!

The monkeys were quite aggressive, baring their teeth and fighting each other for the fruit. I was quite glad that we kept our distance. Sometimes the bananas fell into the edge of the stream, but this hardly deterred the monkeys at all. One of them simply washed off the excess mud and then gobbled up the delicacy.

Soon we ran out of bananas and headed out into the delta proper. Here, the stream disappeared. It merged into the mud and we were doing nothing but float over it.

It wasn’t until we saw the other boat in the distance that we realised exactly how much mud we were into. The propeller spattered mud high in the air as it travelled across the area.

It wasn’t quite your usual seaside scenery, but was nonetheless rather impressive.

The beautiful clouds and vast expanse of mud-sea was surprisingly lovely.

We passed by some mussel farms. Now I know why bad mussels are full of muddy grit.

There were also oyster farms, which I’m glad to report supplied mainly to oyster sauce factories and weren’t meant for direct consumption.

Before long, we stopped at an attap house and retired there from the heat of the day.

We hadn’t done any work yet but were treated to a very sumptuous local meal, featuring plenty of fish and yes, mussels. The food was as amazing as expected…

… and we soon fell asleep in anticipation of our hard labour ahead.

After the siesta, it was time to get muddy.

Don’t ask me why everyone else got right into the mud and started flinging the stuff everywhere. It wasn’t that we really were required to get into the mud. What we did was to get shuttled out to the nursery of mangrove saplings out here and tie each sapling to a little bamboo support. Each person got about 20 bits of string and was shuttled out by one of the locals on a little wooden board.

It was quite amusing that we came this far just to tie a few pieces of string round some saplings, but I guess we brought some money to the local economy and encouraged them to conserve their mangroves. The subsequent mudskiing (it’s exactly what it sounds like) was a lot more fun. Too bad that for obvious reasons I have no pictures to show for it.

It was a lovely day out just hanging with Dee and her colleagues. While not a particular authentic experience, it was nice to see what Bangkokites got up to when they wanted to make a little difference to their part of the world.

Oomphatico’s

I was at the Tanglin area and thought I’d have some long sought-after time with myself. It’s not often that I get time alone so I treated myself to a good lunch at Oomphatico’s.

The decor is whimsical pink and gold with soft-cushioned, slightly fussy Victorian style chairs. It’s obviously geared towards trendy young mummies with designer prams: family friendly yet not overtly so.

I started with the watermelon, pomegranate and mint juice. It was a refreshing and imaginative blend that came in a fairly generous portion. It was a bit more smoothie than juice because of the watermelon pulp, sometimes I had to chew a bit. Not bad nonetheless.

My side salad came next and I was surprised by how generous the portion was. It wasn’t your typical run-of-the-mill mesclun. Rather than just limp lettuce, it also had various yummies like ripe avocado, sweet cherry toms and crunchy cucumber. The service was pretty attentive too because they asked if I wanted my main served immediately. Most places just plonk the main down whether you’re ready or not.

I asked for my linguine vongole with mussels and anchovy to come when I was done with the salad. It still came piping hot yet not overcooked, very well done on the service. At first I found it slightly tasteless but soon realised that the anchovies weren’t mixed in properly.  It was a very pleasing combination of fresh clams and fresh mussels too, not the usual tough frozen New Zealand greenlip stuff. I liked how they were generous with the flat leaf parsley too. A winner.

I ended off the meal with a latte. Too bad it was tiny, watered down and the only overpriced thing I had here. A let down to an otherwise excellent meal.

Singapore-Style Farmer’s Market

There’s this place in Choa Chu Kang called Farmart that bills itself as a farmer’s showcase of sorts. DC and I went there to check out the fresh produce as I was going to cook Sunday lunch for the usual suspects. It wasn’t quite the fruit and veg bonanza I expected as only one measly store sold sweet potato leaves and another one sold two types of fruit. The rest of the stores sold eggs, fresh fish, honey, quail and quail eggs, local pastries and wheat grass juice. There wasn’t a huge selection but the offerings were all very fresh, particularly the live fish on sale.

We stumbled across a small stand selling incredibly sweet Silver Valley pineapple and excellent mangosteen. The pineapple came from the same man selling pineapple at the goat farm in Lim Chu Kang and it’s sweet and aromatic, better than the Sarawak varietal. The mangosteen came in large net bags with the dark purple skin glistening brightly at us, beckoning us to buy. These were very good too. The seller claimed that they were so good only one in a hundred were bad. True enough, all of the ones I had were excellent, just the right balance of sweet and sour.

We then proceeded to Cheng’s Seafood Village within the same compound for lunch. DC’s idea of a simple lunch was horfun, stir-fried vegetables and a large heap of butter prawns. The cooking here is good. They use good stock liberally in the food. The vegetables were fragrant with lots of yummy stock and the horfun noodles were pre-fried so that each ribbon of noodle was slightly charred. Very well done. I also quite liked how there were  some little surprises such as the mussel in the horfun. What DC didn’t like was a mushy prawn. You win some you lose some I guess.

DC claimed that it was good enough that he ordered butter prawns as the unhealthy alternative would be the oat prawns. I think I can safely say that DC is rather insatiable, perhaps more so than me. The moreish prawns were coated in an almost sweet butter crisp and were fried till just right. They were excellent even eaten shell on.

Cheng’s Seafood Village
67 Sungei Tengah Road Unit 43
Tel 6892 5590