SINGAPORE: NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

Singapore is one of those places that few people aim to spend time in for its own attractions, which are, to be honest, pretty limited if the idea of a night safari does not grab you. More, it offers a pleasing place to pass a few days on the way to somewhere else, usually Australia or New Zealand.

For me, on this leg of EAT MY GLOBE, it provided exactly that opportunity as I headed South from Malaysia and waited to work my way back North to Vietnam.

The obvious attraction is the food. Singapore has an astonishing amount to offer with contributions from its Chinese, Malay and Indian communities combining to offer one of the very best eating experiences anywhere on the planet.

Nowhere is that see to better effect than in its hawkers markets where former street sellers are banded together to provide a one stop opportunity for gorging at little or no cost. There are tons of the things dotted all over the city from the food courts in the towering shopping malls to the famous markets of Newton and Maxwell Rd.

On my first full day, I was shaken awake by a 5am call to prayer from the Sultan Mosque close to my quirky little backpacker’s accommodation in Arab St so headed off on a long walk down to Chinatown and the nearby Maxwell St Food Market for an extended breakfast.

You really are spoiled for choice and I spent half an hour wandering around the stalls being barked at by the owners until I decided to try two local specialities. The first, a plate of black carrot cake made from turnip tossed with garlic and egg and the other, curry puffs, filled with sardine and egg and served piping hot from the oven

Washed down with a long glass of sour plum juice, these snacks just took the edge of my appetite enough to head over to an Indian stall for a full breakfast of fried chicken with dahl, rice and vegetables.

A lot of the local Chinese places were still closed for New Year, but many were beginning to reopen after the festivities and the roads were filled with flatbed trucks carrying bands of men with dragon costumes for hire to local businesses performing dances to bring them luck for the Year Of the Rat. Quite off putting when you are face down in a plate of Hokkien Mee.

However much I am enjoying the trip, which I am, a great deal, there are times when I need to avoid sitting on small plastic stools while slurping noodles or spooning rice into my mouth and head somewhere a little more salubrious in search of my other great love, a decent cocktail.

In truth, so far, the mixing has gone from barely adequate to actively disgusting and I was beginning to despair of ever getting a drink that was not one of the local strong but gassy beers. A bit of research however, found me at No1 Rochester Park, a collective of high end restaurants in an old colonial mansion a few stops away on the efficient MRT.

There, a bartender with the unlikely name of “Sugarman” made me a few very passable drinks and also offered up plate after plate of some of the best bar snacks I can recall. Dried, salty fish mixed with dried garlic and chilli is the way forward in the cocktail world, I think. Bar owners in London, take note.

Of course, if you want to have a drink in Singapore, the one place you have to head to is The Long Bar at Raffles. Of course, it’s horribly over priced and touristy and of course the famous Singapore Sling is a disgusting concoction suitable only for white mini-skirted girlies out on a Saturday night in Leeds city centre. But, for all that, sitting in the panelled room on wicker chairs while nonchalantly discarding the shells of roasted peanuts piled in bowls on each table is as agreeable a way to pass the last night in Singapore as any. Particularly in the company of my new chum, Ida who rather liked the drink. But, then she is a girly

Next stop Hanoi.

THE WARRINGTON

Another Tanqueray
I'll wait 'til twenty past

There’s an entirely coincidental link between my meal at Water House and my meal at El Gordo’s new opening The Warrington: both are more or less situated on the Regent’s Canal. To my shame although I’ve lived in London for over thirty years I’d never walked along the Western section so I thought it might be a good idea to work up an appetite by attempting the trek to Maida Vale. Of course old lardy here completely underestimated the task ahead and had to return to street level and use conventional transport to get there in time.

You can’t really miss the Warrington Hotel which is situated a short hop away from Maida Vale tube station. It’s a good example of that endangered species the Victorian Gin Palace, from the ornate columns (and there’s more of them inside) which flank the entrance to the art deco stained glass and the huge marble-topped bar inside on the ground floor, it’s all delightfully OTT and has obviously been a labour of love for all involved in the project. It would be worth visiting even if you’re not going to eat in the restaurant just to gawp at the place. This would also have the added advantage of annoying the whingeing locals who take a dim view of refurbished pubs which serve decent food. They really wanted that Tesco Metro.

The light and airy restaurant on the first floor is a very pleasant place to spend a few hours over lunch. It appears that little bit more formal than GR’s other diffusion places but actually it’s much the same: straightforward modern British menu; friendly efficient staff; clean sharp lines all over the place (and heavens be praised – no musak). Classic Ramsay gastro in other words.

That menu ticks all the right boxes too – I could eat most of it given enough lunchtimes. But I only had one.

A Steak and Kidney pie was the highlight: all light crisp pastry and rich satisfying filling came with tremendous double cooked frites. However, this was bookended by three lesser dishes.

A small serving of Clams came with lardons of Gloucester Old Spot which had a great depth of flavour but which completely overpowered the shellfish. It was a touch on the salty side too – somewhat tempered by the cider used as the cooking liquor.

In homage to Jay Rayner’s new book The Man Who Ate the World (hey that sounds similar to HS’s book) I slipped in a dish of Snails in Parsley Butter. A dish like this needs to be served – or at least it does when it is the classic escargots au beurre d’ail – as hot as hades, all sizzling with little brown flecks. The first mollusc you eat should burn your tongue as it goes down. The hot buttery juices should beg to be mopped up. Unfortunately this was the Brian the Snail version: polite, reticent even, with the butter gently fizzing under the shells. Tasty but sort of missing the point.

I’d filled up on the very good bread (I’m not going to leave buttery juices whatever their temperature ) so I really didn’t need a pudding. But, you know, I don’t need to eat out all the time…but I do it anyway. The Knickerbocker Glory had just come out of the fridge and needed some serious chambreing to make it palatable.

Critics have been a bit sniffy about Ramsay’s new restaurants but the man is practising what he preaches and if the end product is consistent and of a good standard, which I think it is, then where’s the problem ? Having said that I’m going to backtrack a little - I can do that because it’s our blog and we can do what we like, so nerrrrr - I felt the food here didn’t quite come up to my expectations: the prices were a little too high and the quality a little inconsistent. It was also the first place where I felt that I actually was paying towards the £5+ million refurbishment costs (if that makes sense).

I still had a good time though, the failings weren’t disasters and having chatted to the staff and seen their enthusiasm for the venture I’m sure most kinks will be ironed out and it will become a useful dining option to have in the nabe. If not, there’s always that walk - this time Eastwards - along the Regent’s Canal which coincidentally and rather spookily finishes at Limehouse right by GR’s first baby: The Narrow.

RESTAURANT REBUNG: BACKSTAGE WITH CHEF ISMAIL

If you read my last post about Kuala Lumpur, you will have seen that I was lucky enough to be invited to join celebrity Chef Ismail and his team of cooks as they prepared the dishes for the rightly famous buffet at Restaurant Rebung.

Ismail has set his stall out as the guardian of traditional Malay cooking and has stored up a list of over 350 dishes which he rotates on a regular basis

With my trusty guide, Lex for company, we spent about four or so hours watching as over forty of these dishes were prepared in the home style open kitchen to the rear of the building.

It was a remarkable sight with the cooks busy working the traditional cast iron woks and pots with lids weighed down with stone pestles "just like my grandmother used to" . Unlike their Thai neighbours, there seems to be less stir frying in Malaysian food and more long cooking to bring out the flavours of preserved ingredients such as smoked beef and salt fish. There is plenty of fresh stuff too with large bowls of raw vegetables to crunch on, salads made of banana hearts, egg plants covered in fiery sambal, fresh fish grilled on banana leaf or rubbed with turmeric and fried in palm oil and beef and chicken cooked in fiery sauces.

After spending such a long time watching, it was obviously time to feed our faces and Chef Ismail who, unlike so many celebrity chefs spends plenty of time in the kitchen (no names no pack drill, cough “fat tongue” cough) then came out to work the room.

He really is a force of nature seemingly seeing every table at once. Making sure a watermelon juice is delivered here and popiah (spring rolls made with rice flour crepe) are kept coming. He ladles out bowls of soup to everyone and anyone and makes sure to wander around with other dishes, hot from the kitchen, for people to try. All the time he is tasting the food as it comes to the buffet and sending back a running commentary to the kitchen “it’s too spicy darlings, too spicy” to make sure they don’t rest on their laurels. It is a hugely enjoyable affair, more like a family dinner than a meal in one of the city's top restaurants

Lex, who claimed to be stuffed, managed to find stomach number two to chow down on a few plates of popiah while, I ladled sauces, from the huge variety of dishes, over rice to be eaten, of course, with the fingers of the right hand.

All great fun and the perfect way to round off my all too few days in Malaysia where I tasted some of the best food of the EAT MY GLOBE trip so far.

Definitely a place to seek out if you are ever in this part of the world and want to try the real stuff.

WATER HOUSE

Here at home we'll play in the city
Powered by the sun

There’s something about being close to water that makes people smile. Walking along the Hackney branch of the Regent’s Canal on a fine February lunchtime even an old curmudgeon like me was caught out exchanging inane pleasantries with passers-by

Me:Lovely day
Passer-by:It is, isn’t it ?
Me: Have a nice day
Passer-by: You too
etc. etc.

Better still, the walk had a purpose, to have lunch at Water House the new restaurant by the people behind the Acorn House. Now, I haven’t been to AH before but HS had and he told me good things about it. How, even though it was all ecologically sound, it still served up good food.

I have to admit after my recent experience at a new restaurant - where the commitment to sustainability seemed less than heartfelt and where they still couldn’t serve up a decent meal after all the hype – made me a bit sceptical. I needn’t have
worried.

Water House - so named because place basically runs on water – is open all day for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. The choice at lunch was a bit curtailed because some supplies hadn’t turned up but what I had was very good.

A plate of antipasti had some beautifully smoky brandade, excellent, creamy, buffalo mozzarella and a selection of fine salumi (salami, copa) from La Fromagerie – all served at the correct temperature. What the plate lacked in presentation it more than made up for in taste and generosity.

Steamed Cod (when was the last time you saw steamed fish on a menu ?) was precisely cooked so that the flesh had just turned opaque and came with more of that lovely brandade, kale and a very well judged beurre blanc.

There were only a couple of desserts on offer at lunch but the Chocolate Torte was textbook stuff: a good quality chocolate layer with a crisp pastry base. The black pepper ice cream provided an unexpected kick although maybe the hand on the grinder was a bit over-enthusiastic.

All the eco stuff is well and truly in place at Water House. So the kitchen uses Scottish hydro-electricity, restaurant temperature is controlled by mixing flows of hot water and cold water from the canal, waste from the kitchen is all recycled, vegetables are stored on shelves so negating the need for walk-in fridges, filtered tap water is available and there’s lots, lots more.

What’s great is that you’re never aware of any of this when you’re in the restaurant. There’s no great big mission statements posted up anywhere, the menus don’t hector, there’s no books to buy (although you can get the T-Shirt). One of the co-owners, Jamie, was happy to answer any questions I had but apart from that they’re just shutting up and getting on with it. Other restaurateurs, please take note: you can save the planet and still eat well.