Mayim Chinese Cuisine

This is a very special Chinese Cuisine restaurant called "MAYIM - 天乐里" which is going to open soon in Northpoint (义顺纳福坊) at the 2nd story. They have a nice window view which is directly facing the Yishun MRT track and I also love their interior decoration and food varieties which consists a mixture food fusion.

Here is a preview of their menu outside the restaurant. From the look of it you will be looking forward to give a try on their actual dish in no time. The price range of the dishes are reasonable and affordable too. If you can't wait for the branch at Northpoint to open, you can also visit their main branch at 1 Bukit Batok Central Link,#02-04, West Mall, Singapore 658713 Tel: 6794 1590

I will update more on their cuisine after I get to try out their cuisine in the Northpoint branch which is going to open soon.

Banana Leaf Delights - Chicken Briyani

This is one of the famous Indian cuisine store located in the North area, inside Northpoint Shopping Center. It had being there for about almost 10 years I guess, I have started eating their Chicken Briyani since my secondary school day and only until today then I realise that they have actually changed their store name. I wonder is it still under the same management as before.........

They have a lot of variety choices such as mutton, chicken, fish, big tiger prawns and etc at a affordable price range from $5.50 to $8.00. And if you are a vegetarians, don't worry they cater for vegetarian sets too! So far, I still prefer their Chicken Briyani set and it's really a huge serving which you can't probably finished it alone.

For us, usually we will order 1 set and add one some side dishes like fishcake, potato cake, sambal egg or extra vegetables so that we can share between two person.

Personally I loved their Briyani chicken which is tender, juice and the gravy is full of fragrant and brusting favour. It goes really well with their Briyani rice which is cook to the right texture. So if you are staying in the North area, do give this stall a try. You will sure come back for more....... but you have to beware of the long queue during lunch and dinner hours.

Bento #29 - Macar Garden

Thank God for his blessing that today is Sunday again. As usual after our early church service, Rey and I will go to the market and pick up some goodies that he wants me to prepare for him as lunch and dinner. Along at the fruit stall, Rey prompted me that he would like to have some cherries in his bento box to accompany the rest of the berries at home.

Today we are having cheesy macaroni with some blanched broccoli and Komoboko cut into small dual colour flowers using the tools shown. So after showing Rey with an example of how to use the cutter to assemble the flower, I leave the rest of the task to him while I start to work on the macaroni and packing of the bento.

Tata.... so after about 30 minutes of work in the kitchen, we finally come out with Today's lunch bento. We called this Macar Garden because of the flowers, cheese rabbits and colourful fruits. Overall, Rey do enjoy making and eating this bento but he is a bit upset when one of his favourite "Cheese Rabbit" melt while during my photo taking session :p

Err... sorry darling, mummy should have wait for the Macaroni to cool down a bit first before putting the "rabbit" on top of it.

Herbal Fish Mee Suah

After a day of hectic work in the office, what would you prefer to have as a comfort food for dinner? Some home cooked soup or simple home cooked dishes? Or what about having a bowl of hearty Herbal Fish Mee Suah that top with some fish slices, soft-boiled Egg and fried shredded ginger to go with?

Mee Suah, which is usually sold in dried form, is made from rice flour and is very brittle in uncooked form as the strands are really thin. We hardly have Mee Suah at home as I always thought that it is more for confinement food cooking or elder people. But on request today, I prepared this light herbal pork ribs soup to serve with the Fish Mee Suah with an additional Soft-boiled egg.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)
150g of ShengYu Slices (生鱼片)
3 Bundles of Mee Suah (面线)
4 Pieces of Spare Ribs
2 Big Red Dates (红枣)
2 Slices of Dried Huai Shan(淮山)
5 Slices of Yuzhu (玉竹)
3 – 4 Slices of Dang Gui(当归)
1 Tablespoon Wolfberries (枸杞子)
600ml - 750ml Water
2 Soft Boiled Eggs
10g of Shredded Ginger
Chopped Coriander & Spring Onion for garnish

Method:
1. Clean and wash the spare ribs then blanched in boiling water for about 5 minutes, rinse, clean and set aside for later use.
2. Marinate the fish slices with some shredded ginger and a few drops of sesame oil and light soy sauce then set aside in the fridge.
3. Bring water to boil in a stockpot, add in spare ribs, rinse herbs and half of the wolfberries.
4. Lower the heat and let it simmer over low heat for about 20 – 30 minutes until the spare ribs are tender.
5. While boiling the soup base, pre-heat a small frying pan with about 1 tablespoon of boil, sauté the shredded ginger till fragrant and golden brown, removed and set aside for garnish.
6. Blanched the marinated fish slices in boiling water for about 1 minutes till cooked, remove and set aside.
7. Using the same saucepan, bring some fresh water to boil then cooked about 1½ bundle of the mee suah for about 30 seconds or so, stir occasionally.
8. Remove and place it in a big soup bowl top with some of the remaining wolfberries, 2 spare ribs and some blanched fish slices.
9. Scoop the hot herbal soup over it and serves with some extra garnish of shredded ginger, coriander, spring onion and soft-boiled egg.
10. If you prefer, you can drizzle a few drops of sesame oil over it for extra fragrant.


Methods For Soft-Boiled Egg:
1. To prepare a soft-boiled egg, bring egg and water to boil in a saucepan then low the heat to medium low and continue to boil for about 4 minutes(for runny egg yolk) or 6 minutes(for soft and moist yolk).
2. Remove the heat from heat, peel the shell and set aside.

Em... in order to get that brownish effect for my soft-boiled egg. I actually soaked the cooked egg without shell in a bowl of dark soy sauce water for about 30 minutes or so, but the effect is still not as good as cooking it in dark soy water. And even though this soft-boiled egg is to one of my preference, I still prefer to have it under cooked for maybe another 1 minutes or so less in order to achieve that slightly runny yolk effect. I will try cooking this soft-boiled egg again for 4 minutes instead of the 6 minutes that I have done.