I'm a web editor from Singapore living in Tokyo. I'm building websites for a living as a writer on the go. I worked in print media for six years until I moved countries and used the Internet as a way to have a viable, mobile career. The Internet is a fascinating space and I never thought I would ever morph into a web chick - but here I am.
...The ups and downs of expat life, trailing partner issues, food, travel, and Japanese culture. It's a way to keep in touch with friends back home and all over the world, plus it's a corner for me to showcase my work. But really, I'm just a restless spirit looking for great adventures and fabulous food.
Just a short pictorial of what has been brewing in my kitchen. Sometimes I go through periods where I struggle to think of what to whip up, but there are days where I feel inspired to be a cooking demon…
Here are a couple of non-Japanese dishes I have been making:
Last night wasn’t my first time trying chicken sashimi. In fact, a Japanese friend who lives in Singapore invited the kangaroo and I out to dinner and ordered a tiny plate of six delicate chicken sashimi slices. I thought it was fish because it didn’t have that butcher’s meat taste in the least. I even I had a second piece and relished the tangy sauce that came with it.
Although I am a cooking monster most days, Friday nights are about taking a break from a busy work week. So if the kangaroo is around, we would have a casual dinner out with a couple of drinks.
The kangaroo’s favourite food is a hearty steak with a side of fries and salad. We always go to the Hobgoblin, an English pub, in Akasaka where we live. Unfortunately, the quality keeps changing as they often switch chefs. Sometimes you get peas and mash with a mediocre char-grilled sirloin, or a sickly sweet salad with a tough cut and burnt bits, or a pile of French fries and a perfectly juicy piece of beef.
When I first got to Tokyo, I slurped on ramen indiscriminately. I would have it for breakfast, lunch, or supper. High in calories and low in nutritional value, ramen is a popular one-person dish that is deliciously addictive with its savoury broth and slippery noodles — a taste of heaven but your waistline will go to hell.
Then I became more discerning, like most foreigners who hang around for a while longer, and found there are hugely varying degrees in terms of types and quality.
Nugget potato (minced chicken nuggets and potato wedges) with hot sauce.
Sometimes it’s easy to just focus on the bad and the weird in Japan. For instance, there was a guy who for no reason cut up his female neighbour into pieces and flushed them down the loo, or the guy who screamed at me in the Tokyo Met pool, or quirks like the popularity of maid cafes.
Japan is the fifth safest nation in the world and it has one of the nicest and most honest people on the planet.
Just when I am running out of culinary ideas, my sensei saves the day. During our lesson today, we were learning new vocabulary related to hobbies (hikingu, joggingu, snowboardo…) and we came to ryori, which is cooking. We were also doing frequency words, so she was surprised to find out that I cook everyday.
We had a fun discussion on what types of dishes I can make, where I shop, how often I shop, and my schedule that manages to fit in working and cooking up a storm.
Even more pleasing to her was I made an effort to cook a few Japanese dishes (oyako don, asari miso soup, zaru soba, yaki udon) sometimes. She recommended a delicious and easy-to-make Japanese favourite: chicken thigh in mirin (sweet rice wine) and soy sauce.
What struck me today is how chepalang (mixed up, or “anyhow anyway” in Singlish) my eating habits and cooking are of late. I think I have been like this for a while, since I moved to Tokyo. Back home, I used to make all sorts of different cuisines for meals but they tend to be pretty straight, like Thai curry will be accompanied by tom yum soup, or spaghetti bolognese was paired with garlic bread, or bok choy in oyster sauce went together with kung pow chicken.
Why am I waxing lyrical over daily feeding patterns? Well, I’ll get to it.
I am a huge fan of hot pot, so when Ambien and her hubby were going to visit my new pad as part of their Tokyo itinerary, I knew I had to make my Japanese hotpot debut.
To get started, I bought a portable gas stove from Biccamera (JPY2,400), a funky green nabe pot (it’s actually a claypot, which is similar to the Chinese version), and sake.
Itching to try an authentic Japanese recipe, I went online in search for an easy, delicious one. Like many gaijins who look for recipes in English, I was a little disappointed and what I found were on Western sites that looked quite dubious in their authenticity. A British blogger who used to live in Japan came up with his modified version — a lot of white wine with salt and pepper. The search results threw up Youtube videos, too, and I only found a Japanese stew hot pot demo, and to my amusement, a Japanese recipe for Western-style nabe. What could be in this hybrid? Carrots and sausages! Gross…
I finally came across another gaijin blog who had a Japanese friend prepare a nabe for a party he threw — so that’s where I got this recipe to serve four people:
Just when I thought I was cooling towards Singaporean cuisine in Tokyo — they are not that great, honestly — a pretty good one pops up on my radar. I have been trying not to be so hard up about laksa and hokkien mee and all those yummy dishes from home. Japanese nosh can be a bit bland with its ubiquitous soy taste in almost every dish.
Instead, I satisfy my cravings with a comfy mix of my own “fusion” dishes, like stir-fried udon noodles with oyster sauce chicken and veggies, or cod fish porridge (yes, it’s cheap in these parts), or jalapeno sauce and sesame oil grilled chicken wings.
A Singaporean friend suggested a dinner there after an Indian friend introduced it to her. The lunch was fabulous, so a week later, she wanted to go again and she raved to me, “It’s so authentic that I can go anytime!”
Well, I couldn’t refuse. Apparently, this restaurant was started by a Singaporean, who invited all the famous seafood restaurants (Jumbo, Palm Beach and International) to a joint venture. The original chefs were flown down to train the Japanese cooks and so the recipes are authentic. The exterior of the restaurant recalls Seah Street Deli in a way, said one of the Singaporeans in our group. If there’s posh Singaporean fare, this is it.
This squid fish cake and fried fritter (or you tiao in Mandarin) dish was a delectable appetizer, so much so that we ordered three plates of six, to dip into a bowl of chilli crab sauce we couldn’t finish.
The black pepper crab was the star of the show with the Singaporeans. It was seriously succulent and this “dry” version is a pleasant alternative to the ones at home drizzled in very salty black pepper sauce. We were licking our fingers after this one…
I have always liked chilli crab but I don’t dream about it. Honestly I am so used to my mum’s (she cooks this dish every weekend or every other weekend — so decadent, I know) sambal version. For those not familiar with Singapore cuisine, the sauce above is a sticky, non-spicy version mixed with egg. My mum’s recipe is a droolicious mélange of red chilli, lemon grass, peanuts, egg, crab roe and other secret spices. We were all stuffed so one little crab leg was left. Gleefully, I asked for it to be doggie-bagged (or da bao in Singlish) for the kangaroo.
Dessert was a fruit platter but it was entirely in the vein of modern Japanese cuisine — we each had a morsel of very expensive pineapple, papaya, and passion fruit (huh?). The bill was JPY5,500 (SGD74) each which is reasonable considering the food we had was quite exotic and had ingredients that were hard to get. Well, mainly sambal. I would go back again, especially to try the lunch menu, which includes mee goreng and hokkien mee.
