The Sugar Bar

Vampires like cool, dark sun-forsaken places. So do I. But dark shadowy areas can sometimes be such a bore (without the right props); this one isn’t. KHA, tucked away in Martin Road No. 38, is a very cleverly lit space. It’s sheltered from the scorching sun, with a basement feel about it. Its shadowy interiors and dark wooden furniture are brought to life, contrasted with beautiful conversation pieces and enamel vases. The only windows in this restaurant provides a view of bamboo plants and nothing else, locking out the rest of the world and leaving you only a tranquility and quiet restfulness. Something about the textures of Kha’s interior makes you feel like you’ve been instantly transported to a fancy schmanshy restaurant of a private resort and yet as welcome and at home as you would be in the living room of a close friend. I really appreciated the menus which were printed as an archived Thai newspaper on browned paper. The design, typography and uniqueness of such an idea surely wasn’t lost on me.

And of course, neither was the food – which was beautiful, immaculate, an exotic explosion of colours and flavours, a real spectacular display of Thai cuisine. It helped that the inviting interiors of Kha were cloaked in a seductive shadow creating a romantic candlelight ambience whilst the plates on your table were slyly shone a spotlight from the snazzy lights above. The food took centrestage really, and everything else appeared but an effortless afterthought. It was a thoroughly delicious and satisfying meal, which left me a little breathless but dessert picked me right up and obviously hit the g-spot well and good. Instantly, I had favourites. The tom yum soup was just gorgeous and extremely comforting for me (I wasn’t feeling that up to scratch in fact I felt as though I was on the verge of destruction with only myself to blame); the prawn & crab cakes were light, refreshing, citrusy and had a lovely crunch against the melting softness of its insides; the desserts were to-die-for and prettily presented (and flavoured – I mean there were FLOWERS in the red ruby). Even the regular mineral still water was delicately flavoured with lemongrass. That’s beaute, dedication and everything which makes a real foodist’s heart flutter!

But lemme really talk about the food (with pictures to show for it).

I was sipping a watermelon juice quite happily waiting for the real queen of drinks to turn up – the pomegranate mocktail – known quite glamorously by the name Ruby Starlet (now you mustn’t mind that it has a real burlesque dancer feel to it). This is Kha’s maroony red signature mocktail with pomegranate, fresh mint leaves, lychee juice and fresh lime juice. It’s a little on the sweet side, but if you’ve a sweet tooth then you’re sorted. Thoroughly refreshing.

Then came the appetizers, hefty, delicious and a force to be reckoned with.

Appetizers

Papa Adun’s Phad Tow Hu – a crispy fried tofu with crispy basil and three flavoured sauce. Light and creamy tofu encased in a paper thin crispy crust which had a sweet savoury flavour quite similar to that of Indonesian fried chicken.

Tod Man Poo – Thai Crab & Prawn Cakes served with green mango salad, yoghurt and sweet chili. This was a real favourite of mine since crab cakes are something I really adore and it was interesting to taste a Thai rendition of this classic. The sweet chili went really well with the smooth sweet taste of crab and prawn. Nice touch on the yoghurt as I’m not a fan of mayonnaise which restaurants so love to pair with crab cakes.

Yam Nua Wagyu – grilled red curry rubbed wagyu beef with papaya salad, yoghurt & chili jam. Like red curry? You’ll love this which goes terribly well with the richness of the wagyu. So tender the whole thing just melts in your mouth once you bite into it. They’re extremely generous with the yoghurt and chili jam here but it isn’t too spicy. The jam would go so well in a salad or just on a cracker.

Crispy Whole Green Chili stuffed with Pork & Herbs with Malibu Chili Soy, Tom Yum, Honey Mustard dipping sauces – In all honesty, I was a real pussy with this one. My reaction when the plate was placed before us, ‘Oh, I don’t eat chilis really and definitely not whole green ones.’ My fear was for naught. The chili seeds have been removed and replaced with a fragrant herbed pork. The chefs obviously do a little surgery thingy on the chilis, seal ‘em back up and then deep fry them in a deliciously flavoured batter. Light like tempura. The three dipping sauces were quite something and so very creative. I liked the tom yum dip. The Malibu chili soy had a real impact in every sense of the word. Careful, it’s bleedin’ hot, like a lady in a red dress.

Tom Yum Goong – soup is always comforting but even within the world of soups there is a hierarchy with my mumma’s herbal soups being at the top, carrot coriander and anything with churned butternut coming way close at second, homemade miso varieties at third, kimchi jjigae kinda tied actually, fish steamboat soups or hotpots coming close after…I mean there’s lots. And of course Vietnamese pho broth. And then I forget that somewhere out there, a tom yum soup is demanding to be acknowledged. I acknowledged, and bowed down. This is one humbling experience. A cacophony of flavours all captured within a bowl – sweet, savoury, citrusy, spicy, sour, taste of the sea, zing of lemongrass. There’s so much going on in here with different bits shrieking for attention, shouting and pulling at your tastebuds but at the same time the warmth and spice of the soup tugs at my heartstrings and breathes life (or fire) into the hearth of my chest. It wouldn’t go away even after I was done with this soup, like a clingy girlfriend or a burning tattoo freshly inked onto tender skin. Yea. It was soooo sick I wanted more.

Main Courses

Gaem Sam Yang – 3 Signature Curries: Penang Beef Curry, Green Chicken Curry, Red Vegetable Curry – The penang beef curry was quite chicly presented. Red vegetable curry very rich and creamy but maybe not so much my kind of thing. The Thai Green Curry? Winner. Enough said.

Red Vegetable Curry

Green Thai Chicken

Penang Beef Curry

Pha Yang Bai Tong – Chargrilled Seabass with Lemongrass in Banana Leaf and Dill Chili Sauce This was a real stunning dish. Maybe it’s cause my poppa loves fish and I am a pescetarian myself but this was really good and had the soft flake-away melt-in-your-mouth texture as steamed fish dishes normally do (and this wasn’t even steamed!). The lemongrass marinade on the fish skin was a nice touch although I couldn’t quite grab any banana leaf fragrance from this. Nonetheless, the dill chili dip was amazing in a violent way. Think wasabi. Wasabi’s perfect with raw fish. Dill is perfect with fish, whichever way. So really…this is >> Genius, fiery and so unexpected. (If you’re thinking of a steamed seabass with Thai flavours quite similar to this, Westlake Restaurant does a pretty snazzy one too)

Pad Thai Noodles – Delicious of course (tasted similar to mee goreng noodles) but not quite what I was expecting. This was a little too sweet for my liking not that it was bad at all but not the pad thai I have usually eaten at other restaurants. But to be fair, I’ve never had pad thai in Singapore so this was fun.

Desserts

Thap Thim Krwap aka Red Ruby – red rubies, coconut jasmine syrup, shaved ice and real jasmine flowers to boot (don’t eat them though!). A childhood favourite of mine because I used to think I was eating real rubies but they’re red coloured starch-covered bits of water chestnuts.

Khao Neaw Ma Muang – Mango with Sticky Rice and Pandan Coconut Cream A Thai favourite and classic, jazzed up with a minty green coloured pandan flavoured coconut cream. Love that coconut cream has a vanilla-y, almost savoury flavour and gives this dish real depth. Hmm, rephrase? Yea, coconut cream can expand your horizons people. Take that.

Sang Kha Ya Pug Thong – Pumpkin Custard with Coconut Ice Cream, shredded apples & strawberries and mango purée Blew.me.away. Really. I wasn’t expecting this pumpkin funny-looking thing to taste so good and rich like a cake, yet pretty light and wobbly in the mouth. Press a bite of it gently between tongue and roof of your mouth and all sorts of wonderful begin. The coconut ice cream impressed my dining partner. It was true to its taste, kinda like a real coconut bashed up into an ice cream maker with lots of coconut milk, a bit of sugar and nothing else. Nice. Simple, raw, uncomplicated food. In a sense. I really liked what I saw (and ate) on this plate.

So, after all that I was nearly reaching a state of food coma. Had to have tea to wash it all down and soothe a rapidly expanding stomach. This helped: Lemongrass Tea from Gryphon Teas. Fragrant and soothing, and it certainly helped bring on a wave of sleepiness.

Meal concluded. I was such a satisfied fat cat. All I wanted to do was lie down to die.

Anyway, remember I was banging on about the ambience and light in Kha? Well that’s not the only clever thing about Kha (and its food), its space is inspired by the industrial warehouse lofts in the big NYC and the big smoke (London) and it kinda does feel like that judging from my repertoire of warehouse partays (Shhh.A lot more civilised, sophisticated and less grunge and grimey of course). What’s more awesome, however, is that Kha is just a humble child of boisterous triplets – No. 38 Martin Road is where a 3-in-1 dining concept has been born. Here, you’ll find Kha, Provisions (all decked out with royal blue Smeg fridges and gourmet food for takeaway) and Graze which is apparently the shiz for brunches housed in the same block. Kha’s siblings interestingly are well-lit and decked out in lots of white walls and furniture. Bright, cheerful yet cheekily rustic. I’ll be visiting soon – the two chirpy siblings and the black sheep of the lot.

Curious? And curioser? Go check it out yourself.

Kha
No. 38 Martin Road
Singapore 239059
Tel. 6476 9000
Web. http://www.kha.sg

I’m beginning to feel the Christmas season. Yes I’ve finally stepped out of my bubble of denial and have acknowledged that it is December already (which would pass by in a flash). Soon, I’ll be whizzing along in a panicky flurry baking things, shopping for ingredients, storing and packing it all away before that important Christmas dinner. I haven’t had time to start filling the house with mince pies and fruit cake. In fact, I find myself baking in the middle of the night when I’m tired and half-asleep, snapping pictures hurriedly in the early morning before I leave for work, uploading them onto the laptop in the evening after dinner and then (usually) falling asleep whilst trying to edit them. I’m knackered yes! And feeling very guilty that I’m not doing the usual baking (or shopping if things get dire) to get the house in a Christmasy mood.

But things aren’t all that bad. I am still soaking up the flavour of local delights. And one of that, of course, is prawn mee (or prawn noodles)! This dish comes as a choice of yellow egg noodles or a mix of egg noodles and rice vermicelli, and fresh juicy sweet prawns served dry with a mix of condiments and fried shallots. Or, you can have it noodle soup with that signature dark brown murky broth so rich with the flavour of prawns you’d be hard pressed not to down the whole bowl!

Singaporean dishes are flavour-packed. I admit that some don’t look like much and I agree that some border on being just a plate of grease. There’s the bad, and then there’s the good (well, I’m actually learning that as I go along). So we look towards the brighter side of life right? Flavour is something the locals here do not discount on and truly, it is the pride of local cuisine. You can taste it almost before you put it in your mouth. An explosion of flavours, a symphony of it – all of them trying to get your attention all at once. Local flavours aren’t subtle and I doubt they’ll ever be.

Prawn mee is all about flavour! Minimal ingredients, fantastic condiments and an out-of-this-world broth. Most people will choose the noodle soup option to slurp it up with all that wonderful broth. A noodle dry option, panic you not, is no way inferior to the former though. The noodles aren’t at all dry but served with a mix of savoury and spicy condiments. A bowl of broth is also served together with the noodles lest the customer starts up a riot (who eats prawn mee without the broth yea?). I especially love to add a few spoons of broth to my dry noodles and mess it all up soup, noodles and condiments so everything is well coated. Messy. But absolutely delicious.

This place we ate at is a local favourite. Hungry yuppies from wherever they huddle flock to the East side for this. We’re lucky our office sits just above this place, well sorta. Getting a table here ain’t difficult as they’re well prepared for a big lunch crowd. To get your food though, expect to queue.

One interesting thing about this eating house is that they outsource one particular dish – ngoh hiang or 五香. Ngoh hiang is a Hokkien dish of fried fatty pork or prawns flavoured with soy, Chinese five spice and mixed with ingredients like crunchy water chestnuts, spring onions, etc. It is wrapped in a thin beancurd skin then deep fried. It is absolutely delicious and the varieties are many. I’ve always eaten the usual pork rolls but the stall here offered varieties like sweet potato filling and even pork liver roll. I shuddered at the latter, having ordered that by mistake but surprise surprise, I loved it. The fried prawn biscuits 虾餅, the flat white cracker-like things at the bottom of the plate, were crispy and wonderfully light as well. A great side dish or appetizer I suppose. These can be eaten on its own or with a variety of condiments such as a sweet and tangy plum sauce, a thick spicy chili paste and even this surprisingly sweet but strangely coloured pink gooey sauce.

So there, a slice of my eating life and a few snaps of some local cuisine.

Beach Road Prawn Mee Eating House • East Coast Ngoh Hiang
370 East Coast Road
S(428981)
Singapore
Closed on Tuesdays

Singaporean cuisine has much to do with hawker food. In the past few years in which I’ve been away from home and rather sheltered from the F&B industry being unable to stay put in one place due to travelling, I’ve been told that many new modern, chic, trendy and sophisticated cafés, restaurants and patisseries have sprung up catering to a discerning, young and forward-looking crowd. With a crowd desiring for the new and the different (which hardly surprises me in a postmodern age), the F&B industry has also resorted to ever funkier names (sometimes bordering on the cliché) like Ministry of Food, Once Upon a Milkshake and the real alternative restaurant The Clinic which certainly ruffles quite a few feathers amongst the superstitious older generation (why should you dine at a hospital-themed restaurant…do you want to eat to your death or eat dead people?). Apparently, you’re served by waiters dressed in scrubs, drink from a blood-drip thing, sit in wheelchairs and dine off a hospital examination table. Swanky. Each to their own (fetish) eh?

City-state Singapore, a nation not wanting to be left behind, has surely caught on the obsession with molecular gastronomy and no doubt, at one point of time (or maybe still is) was invaded by the macaron craze. The prices in general have gone up considerably too and I find myself completely at a lost when people ask me where and what’s good. I cop out and often say, ‘No idea. Mum’s cooking is best.’ Ok that’s a lie. It’s not a cop out because Mum’s cooking will always be the best and most comforting but we don’t eat out that often except on the weekends. I’m only beginning to settle back home so picking up the food reigns where I once left it will be a rather slow process. Nevertheless, in my humble opinion, the heart of Singaporean food lies in the streets, in the heartlands, in people’s homes and definitely in the hawker centres (of course, you need to know which ones the good stores congregate at). My sis A and the Pops have been very helpful in pointing out the good chows about town.

I’ve had a childhood favourite revival recently. It’s a Chinese dish from the Teochew dialect group (of which I belong. I’m 3/4 Teochew and 1/4 Cantonese) known as chee kwueh (romanized from a Chinese dialect) or 水粿 (in Mandarin). It is a kind of steamed rice cake and literally means water rice cake. A rice flour and water mixture is prepared, then poured into little metal bowl tins the size of one’s palm, steamed in bulk in large bamboo steamers. They are then dug out from their bowls by a wooden spoon and served hot with a generous amount of preserved salted radish known as chye poh (in dialect) and a powerful fried chili sauce. The chye poh is the best bit and I could often just eat jars of it on its own. It’s crunchy, salty, sweet and slightly piquant.

When it comes to chee kwueh, a darling dish to all Singaporeans who know their hawker food, the famous stores to visit (I hear on the foodie grapevine) are the ones in Bedok Interchange Food Centre or Ghim Moh Market which are all highly raved. The latter store was one we visited quite frequently back in the days. The Siang Siang store, although less raved about, has won awards and recognition by the locals in Bedok North. I liked the creaminess of these rice cakes and that they weren’t terribly greasy and stodgy. The chee kwueh man, whom I am very fond of, is always dignifiedly dressed and friendly to all his customers. He is generous with the preserved radish and serves you with a smile. Ace! For more information on chee kwueh and the stores in Singapore (this I found very helpful for a home-returning foodie), jump to ieatishootipost blog which features all the best local haunts in Singapore here.

Ok, so enough and whatever with my chatting. I give you: moist chee kwueh with melt-in-your-mouth texture and softness and that isn’t overly starchy; generous portions of chye poh and a chili sauce that can stand for its own. I like this! Can you not tell???

Siang Siang Chee Kwueh
Fengshan Market and Food Centre
Blk 85 Bedok North Street 4
#01-247
S(460085)
Singapore