Satay Night, Sunday Morning

Last Friday we went down to Lau Pa Sat (mentioned here a few blog posts ago), this time for the famous satay. Lau Pa Sat is a food court full to the brim of foodie treats, all jostling for your attention, but on Friday night there's only one place to be, and that's a ring-side seat next to one of the charcoal grills cooking up a storm of satay. We got ourselves a jug of beer and then assumed position adjacent to the alluring smoky wafts emanating from Best Satay.

Wherever I lay my satay, that's my home

The poor guy manning the grill was cooking a constant stream of miniature meat kebabs to the hungry throng; there seemed no danger of him getting a break anytime soon, that was for sure. We started with the $12 plate of 10 of each of chicken and beef. The chicken satay were good but the beef satay beat them hands down; the deep, wood-smoke flavour really complementing the succulent meat.

Don't worry - everthing's under control

Next, I ordered some prawn satay - essentially a massive prawn on a skewer with a salty, lightly spiced dusting on the outside of the shell. Meanwhile, Caroline went in search of some other goodies and I ordered some more beer. It would be rude not to. I de-shelled and devoured the juicy prawns, keeping back a couple for Caroline, hoping that she wouldn't want any. She brought back some chapatis and dips and so I finished off the finger-licking prawns...result! The great thing about these places is that you can try anything, from any of the stalls, and have as much or as little as you like. I usually have too much - it's too tempting.

Saturday was an Ikea-based write off as we were searching for furniture for the new apartment. The real highlight was, and will always be, the chance of scoffing a couple of $1 hot dogs and downing as much Pepsi as you can before circumnavigating the maze that is Ikea. By the end of the assault course you are sooo glad you prepared yourself with fast food sustenance as there is a real chance you will not make it out alive.

Another great tradition, along with Friday Satay and going to Ikea on the busiest day of the week is Sunday Dim Sum. Our destination was not Chinatown, but the Fullerton Hotel, a handsome building overlooking the Singapore river offering an unbeatable $30 per head Dim Sum buffet in their Jade restaurant. What were the idiots thinking? Surely they hadn't planned on the likes of me, scoffing 'til I pop? It turned out they had. Everyone else had the same idea. I've never seen people eat so much in my life, all with the thinnest veil of etiquette. There was certainly no shame in ordering absolutely everything on the menu. And people were.

Photo: http://mocha-mochi.blogspot.com

The astounding thing was that the quality was also very high; each morsel was light and brimming with flavour. The Jade menu consists of 22 Dim Sum, 5 Soups, 7 Appetizers, 8 Main Courses and 8 Noodle/Rice/Congee/Dessert dishes. It was over half way through the meal that we realised that we could also order non-Dim Sum items! We managed 18 dishes out of a total 50 on offer. Pretty good going for beginners. To whet your appetite, here are the 18 we tried:

Golden cheese dumpling (cheesy)
Deep-fried taro paste wrapped with truffle & mushroom (truffley!)
Pan-fried radish cake (bubble & squeak?)
Pan-fried minced pork & chives (moist and delicious)
Baked BBQ pork pie (not a Melton Mowbray but all the better for it)
Steamed glutinous rice with chicken & mushroom wrapped in a lotus leaf (nice enough...)
Oven-baked egg tart (saved til pudding-time - warm, light as a feather pastry)
Steamed crystal shrimp dumpling (luxurious)
Steamed abalone siew mai (sea snail - a new experience - not unpleasant - a local delicacy)
Steamed squid & coriander dumpling (silky)
Steamed char siew pau (big bready dumpling with sweet meaty sauce - great)
Braised shark's fin soup with crabmeat, truffle, egg white in a chicken broth (a stand-out dish - Michelin-tastic) PS. hoping that this was mock-shark's fin not the real thing
Hot & sour soup with chicken (good but boring after the shark's fin soup)
Roasted pork belly with 5-spice (tasty)
Honey glazed BBQ pork (nice but on the dry side)
Deep fried prawn coated with wasabi mayo (yum)
Stir-fried prawn with celery (much more inspiring than it sounds)
Stewed beef brisket with bean sauce (soft slow cooked beef, melt in your mouth)

I think there might have been more.... but I can't remember!

This was all complemented by lashings of jasmine tea and a rather lovely glass of Moet et Chandon NV. The Moet went really well with the Dim Sum; there were flavours of baked apple, almond and tangerine. Moet is a great food Champagne it seems.