The Sugar Bar

Who knew that I’d actually come back here to put up a post. I’d sort of decided to drop the blog (for a while or forever I was not too sure) because work was too hectic for me to have much of a virtual life beyond Facebook and Twitter. I haven’t even had time to sort through photographs from Kyoto and post up all those lovely desserts I so wanted to share with all of you. Lots of the snacks I brought home have been gobbled up without a photograph being taken which means a valuable post lost but more sleep time for me. I’ve been so overworked my Friday nights are highly treasured, weekends are magical (well really I don’t have much of it since there’s work to take home as well), sleep is never 100% recovery time and people tell me I’ve lost weight.

Anyway, today’s my Mama Diva’s birthday and luckily enough, I have a day off! On a day off, the irony, however, is that I’m still as busy as ever running around searching for flowers, arranging them into a nice vase, buying groceries, taking my lil sister to lunch, preparing the ingredients etc. for the dinner menu I’ve planned tonight. Well you can definitely say I’m keeping busy.

And, my ol’ Canon Powershot is still sitting on my shelf covered in soddingly thick layer of dust. Shame on me. Let me just update you on my resolution for 2012 though. I intend to purchase a d-slr. A cheap one. FINALLY. Right, talk about dear ol’ Dave (me) finally going ahead to invest in something worthwhile. For now, this busy bee is resorting to lazy but well-trusted methods via the BLACKBERRY BOLD camera. All photos in this post have been taken on my little mobile. And I’m impressed.

I’m also very impressed with this recipe. It doesn’t look like much and almost seems to pale in comparison to the moroccan couscous which I so adore (and those recipes always look a heck lot more complicated). A spoonful of this, however, shocked me. It is full-flavoured. A little savoury from the chicken stock, a little sweet from the apricot but warm and soothing altogether. I used red onions as well instead of white to get a caramelized taste and give it a little more colour. I’m glad I did. This is what I wanted to share with you really – just a really good and simple quick recipe from the most-loved Ottolenghi.

Enjoy.

Ottolenghi’s Couscous with Dried Apricots and Butternut Squash
Ingredients

1 large (red) onion, thinly sliced
6 tbs olive oil
50g dried apricots
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 2 cm dice
250g couscous
400ml chicken or vegetable stock
a pinch of saffron strands
3 tbs roughly chopped tarragon
3 tbs roughly chopped mint
3 tbs roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
grated zest of 1 lemon
coarse sea salt and black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180d Celsius.

Place onion in a large frying pan with 2 tbs oil and a pinch of salt. Sauté over high heat, stirring constantly for about 10 mins (I used less time), until golden brown. Set aside.

Pour hot water from the tap over the apricots just to cover them. Soak for 5 mins then drain and cut them into 5mm dice.

Mix the diced squash in 1 tbs olive oil and spread out on a baking tray to roast. Place in oven for 25 mins, until lightly coloured and quite soft.

While waiting for the butternut squash to cook, cook the couscous. Bring the stock to the boil with the saffron. Place the couscous in a large heatproof bowl and pour the boiling stock over it, plus the remaining olive oil (3 tbs). Cover with clingfilm and leave for about 10 mins for all of the liquid to be absorbed. When done, fluff with up with a fork. Then add the onions, squash, apricots, herbs, cinnamon and lemon zest. Mix well with hands, trying not to mash the squash to bits.

Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary. Serve warmish of cold.

I think I have completely mastered the art of indulgence. It involves zero baking of my own, merely getting up at a fairly late hour mid-morning, throwing some roomy clothes on, slapping on a decent amount of concealer and makeup, a taxi ride and voila. It is the Life of Brunching. Maybe it’s the change of lifestyle ever since I moved which is a little more hectic and fast-paced now, but such indulgences (trust me they don’t happen that often) feel utterly well-deserved and I’d equate the relaxing qualities of good brunches and quality time spent with girlfriends to that of a holiday. The works. Enough said.

Just last weekend, I discovered something so glorious it had to be shared. Or rather, everyone had to have a mug each because it was ironically too good to share. Graze mocha – refer to photo above. Thick, creamy and rich; more chocolatey than most, this was so decadently good an opening to brunch. It was hard to stop after 3 gulps and put this mug down. I know I shall be craving mugs of these on cold rainy nights.

As soon as conversation started flowing (no doubt lubricated by mocha), the dishes started arriving. I loved that they all looked so simple, honest and homemade, exactly how breakfast food should be! Clean, fresh and sort of understated on medium-sized white plates.

Spanish Omelette

This was by far my favourite dish of the day. The Spanish omelette was delicious with bits of chorizo and mushrooms, topped with fresh rocket and seasoned new potatoes that gave a little sweet citrusy tinge to it all. Those little spuds really made my day, whatever they were seasoned with!

Signature Cast Iron Pan – two scrambled free-range eggs, hash browns, bacon, chipolata, baked beans, roast vine tomatoes and mushrooms

A beautiful dish to behold with that rustic feel to it. I think we girls were a sucker for the cast iron dish anyhow, considering one of us had a little cocotte (imported from France) in her handbag. I hate to admit that this resembled dirty fry-ups with my housemates on Sunday morn. It wouldn’t be fair (to Graze) to do a comparison because I mean the latter had a real variety of ingredients, better execution of the dish, baked beans that did not come out of a can and it tasted delicious. But there were similarities for sure – the whole concept of a fry-up. Graze had just upped their game, polished their shoes you know.

Eggs Benedict – two poached eggs served on brioche toast with hollandaise and two slices of mortadella

This probably wasn’t as good as the eggs I had in a recent brunch trip. The eggs were slightly over-poached and it lacked that impressive oozing waterfall of molten yolk when attacked with a knife though the mortadella was quite scrummy. It didn’t have that swollen body poached eggs tend to have, a slight wobbliness and inability to contain its insides not unlike a huge badass blister under your skin, angrily threatening to explode (wow that’s a gross analogy but you get the idea right that sort of precarious balance between a whole egg and a poached egg come undone). I wasn’t sure why the hollandaise had been browned on the top as though it had been set under a grill for a few seconds.

Scottish Smoked Salmon Bagel with Cream Cheese, Dill and Rocket

Toasted seeded bagel – now that’s something hard to find in Singapore. This was lovely and the smoked salmon has to be mentioned. WONDERFUL! Very flavourful and not at all bland like some smoked salmon can be.

Savoury aside, we come to what we saved our tastebuds for.

Old Fashioned Pancakes Stack – with berries, honeycomb ice cream and maple syrup

The pancakes were as expected, fluffy and delicious although a little thinner than we’d hoped for. But they were delightful and well paired with berries and maple syrup (hard to go wrong with such a classic combination). What we really liked was that fat ball of melting honeycomb ice cream. If we didn’t have quite so many girls around the table and I was mindful of etiquette, I’d have grabbed that soup spoon of ice cream and dunked it into my mug of Graze mocha. Bet that would’ve tasted sublime.

Orange and Vanilla Waffles – with chocolate sauce and cut strawberries

Mmmm. Need I say more? And ahm, REALLY GOOD vanillla ice cream. My heart melted just a little at the sight of those specks of vanilla seeds. The ice cream was so rich I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d snuck some clotted cream into the mix.

And to end it all on a rosey-hued note, a glass of Libalis Rose Maetierra wine which was of a lovely shade I wanted it as a nail polish colour. Happy smiles all around, food bellies nicely concealed under roomy dresses or blouses and a slight reluctance to leave this beautifully light restaurant. As we stepped out into the street and hailed more taxis to take us to our next destination (yea a crew of fat ladies who lunch), I couldn’t help noticing this slightly lethargic but warm feeling in my belly. I realised that that was the sensation of peaceful contentment and a stomach goblin finally satiated.

Graze
No. 38 Martin Road
Singapore

http://www.graze.com.sg

School’s out. Well, sorta. Other than a few projects that have gotta be done and leftover bits of housekeeping matters, it’s all been folded up and chucked into boxes to be forgotten over the short summer break we’ve got. I am thrilled that we’ve finally got a bit of time to put our feet up, let down our hair and for me, be absolutely lazy lousy hungry like I don’t give a shit.

And that also means lots of brunches and lunches. One thing about being in Singapore is that it’s too hot to walk. I mean it. I love walking to places. It saves bus/train money, its good exercise and it’s always healthy to have some ‘me-time’, get some fresh air whilst you catch up on some of your favourite iPod playlists. But in this humidity and oppressive heat, it’s a one-way ticket to skin cancer, heat exhaustion (for me at least) and fainting spells. So it’s kinda great when people offer rides to those hard-to-get cafés and all that. When they invite you along, ride included, you do the right thing and say yes, and then, BRING THE BANTER (and the appropriate appetite).

So finally I got whisked to the Singapore Turf area where the fortunate few ponce around on beautiful horses on the race course and all that. I had a right mind to turn up in riding trousers and a Ralph Lauren polo. Tucked deep into Fairways Drive situated in Bukit Timah Saddle Club is this lovely, charming colonial house Riders Cafe. The name is simple, direct, speaks for itself and hence, exudes that individuality no other can replicate simply because. It had a nice ring to it as well.

I’d heard quite a bit about their poached eggs here (I rave about eggs benedict so I suppose it’s only natural people recommend the spots where real awesome goods can be found). That was ordered, of course. Two comely ballooned, slightly wobbly, bulbous and comely cloyingly thick molten yolks tenderly shrouded in delicate clouds of milky egg whites, precariously (I mean it) balanced atop two halves of herbed grilled tomatoes, streaks of fried bacon lazying on a bed of sourdough. [pause] And then the whole thing is just ridiculously and generously doused with hollandaise and bits of chopped parsley. Kill me now. I want to relive that again.

But before this was all sat down very elegantly before me — my eyes all this while are eagerly following every gradual fated movement of that plate’s advancement towards the space directly in front of me — one of me poached eggs decided to make a run for it before it got devoured without a care for finesse. Not so much a run, more like a suicidal backflip. But a poor attempt at that.

It went … flop, SPLAT –…–squelch…a puncture somewhere; yolk bleeding. A pool of runny yellowy orange yolk gets bigger and bigger with each millisecond that passes. ABSOLUTE SILENCE. Shock on one end, amusement on the other. The pool of warm yolk is getting to the size of my palm now and threatens to make its way close to my glass of ice water. I’m willing someone to move or say something. I think I see a bit of billowy egg white shudder. THERE’S A CRIME SCENE ON MY TABLE. Somebody do sumfing! Finally, the waitress moves. She apologises. Someone else comes to clean it up. Too late. By then, my whole table’s quaking with giggles all around and I’m doubled over, howling with laughter and grabbing my sides to stop the stitches. I’ve laughed so hard tears have actually sprung into my eyes. Hilarious! Laughter’s so infectious at this point, even the willowy dude cleaning up that murdered mess of egg can’t stop a grin from forming. Accident #1.

A fresh plate of eggs benedict arrive soon after. We wonder if both eggs got replaced or merely one. That thought doesn’t even last a second as I move in onto my plate and gently pierce the fattest part of poached egg with the tip of my knife. Like a surgeon I carefully make a small incision, then move the knife around to spread the waterfall of yoke that floods all of the bacon beneath it. The sourdough slowly soaks up the thick orange yoke. I can’t help thinking, at this point, that the act of eating a poached egg is quite so sensual; I am glad it requires an undivided attention that my focus doesn’t deviate away to check if anyone is observing me. I would not have been able to stop a blush otherwise.

Across the table, the same thing’s happening with a plate of eggs royale: the make-up of which is pretty much the same except for a substitution of bacon and tomatoes for smoked salmon, avocado and sour cream, all with a side of rocket and asparagus salad. The smoked salmon is soft, creamy and lightly smoked. A mouthful of the eggs royale (although this wasn’t my plate) I could imagine would’ve been flavourful, richly enveloped in runny yoke and reinforced with a comfortingly fluffy bite of brown sourdough. Gorgeous.

Next to me, a boy with a hearty appetite and naturally of good cheer is tucking into a plate of golden hued brioche french toast with smoked bacon, grilled bananas, strawberries and maple syrup. It smells amazing from where I’m sat, buttery, sweet and savoury with that scent of strawberries lightly hanging in the air. I want a bite of that. And I do get offered one. The brioche is so tall and nicely browned, buttered and yes, soaked with maple syrup. The bananas look gloriously caramelised although that still doesn’t convince me to like bananas. The whole dish is a plate of fireworks, its beauty is intense – the colours implore you to take a bite and he seems utterly in his own world when he tucks into it. Oh yea, he washed down this handsome breakfast with a tall glass of peanut butter & jelly smoothie…yea, you heard me right – PBJ smoothie. Intense.

Really intense.

The plates are getting cleared as I slurp up the last bits of my iced cappuccino and it appears the disaster magnet I have somewhere in my aura is still going strong. The same willowly dude picks up my plate which is pretty much wiped clean save some strands of rocket. And like a strong force of attraction between myself and anti-rust metals, the knife comes sliding off it. I could see it just aiming for my lap and my hands were too busy rubbing my food baby so I was just about to surrender my black trousers to grease and hollandaise, when this fine young man with a deft flick of a wrist caught that knife and saved me from Accident #2. What a load of drama, and all for poached eggs.

It’s like it was the damn Rape of the Lock going on or sumfing like that today. Anyhow.

We gotta go back for seconds, and dessert. There’s yet more to be explored.