Food

If you’ve travelled to the USA before, chances are that you’ve come across Baja Fresh before as it’s a popular American Mexican chain store. Now Baja Fresh has opened a store in Singapore at the Rendezvous Hotel Gallery. I noticed it when I attended the Watsons Beauty Day out at the Full House last year but it wasn’t until recently that I managed to check out the offerings.

The setting feels really casual, a lot more fast food styled rather than restaurant even though it is sitting in front of the Rendezvous Hotel. I’ll be first to admit that I don’t know much about mexican food can can’t differentiate my burritos from my Fajitas but thankfully, the staff at Baja Fresh were very friendly and patient at explaining the different dishes to me.

As you can tell I had a whole lot of mexican food that day which is less sinful than most fast foods as Baja Fresh serves the freshest and high quality food with lots of vegetables.  Baja Fresh focuses on ‘Fresh Living’ which means that all their food is handmade and not processed. The meat used are all natural and their ingredients are farm fresh, not tin-canned. I also love the bright, clean environment with their contemporary, intimate décor.

We ordered from an array of tacos, burritos, salads and fajitas all featuring fresh and flavorful ingredients. Although burritos, fajitas and tacos are all basically wraps with different ingredients, the biggest difference is in the combination of ingredients and textures that give each one a totally different feel. I’ll try my best to put them in words but the best way to understand the difference is actually to taste them.

Burrito consists of a wheat flour or corn flour tortilla, but in cylindrical shaped with completely wrapped form. The filling in fully wrapped tortilla may be different like Baja rice, beans, meat,  Monterey Jack cheese and guacamole. In different combination of ingredients and styles, Baja Fresh offers about 20 different choices ranging from S$12.95 to $15.95.

Fajita is the name of a Tex-Mex dish recipe that is equally famous in Mexico and Texan. Fajita is a form of Mexican Taco, but essentially consists of grilled meats or seafood as a fillings and lots of fresh vegetables are added as well. Baja Fresh offers 6 variety of Fajitas and you have a choice of ordering it in 2 sizes – regular or grande.

Taco also consists of wheat or corn flour tortilla, but in half wrapped form with different filling materials. At Baja fresh you have a choice of ordering taco platters or single tacos. You can further specify if you like it Baja (corn) style or Americano style so the choices are endless for mexican food lovers.

The salads are gorgeous and must try. Offered in 3 styles - Caesar, Baja Ensalada, Tostada and in 5 different choice of main fillings – Chicken, Char Siew (pork), Veggies, Shrimp, Mahi Mah. This gives you a total of 15 different possible combinations. That’s a wide range of salad choice that is rarely found anywhere else.

Quesadilla is probably the Mexican dish that I recognized the easiest.  Baja Fresh quesadilla is made by using grilled flour tortilla as a wrapping material and Monterey Jack cheese guacamole, sour cream and your choice of meat as filling materials. The specialty of quesadilla is its half moon-like shape that is made by half wrapping the tortilla around the filling. This also comes in two sizes.

As you can tell, the portions of the food are really generous and I highly recommend sharing when coming to Baja Fresh.

In their simplest form, nachos are tortilla chips covered in cheese, sour cream, guacamole and/or salsa.  At Baja Fresh, they have 4 different salsas which is free flow and you can use them on any of your orders.

Surprisingly, despite it’s fast food feel, this place serves alcoholic drinks and their cocktails are pretty good.

Another surprise was that this place actually serves one of my favorite snacks – churros. I don’t normally associate churros with Mexican food but since they are one of my favorite food, I really can’t complain.

Overall, I would say that the food here is really delicious and very fresh. I don’t take mexican food very often but this is probably one of the better ones I’ve tried in Singapore.

Baja Fresh

9 Bras Basah Rd

Singapore 189559

Tel: 6337 7300

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Outfit of the day

I went for a swim before heading to Baja Fresh that day which explains my rather casual outfit. I felt a little underdressed that day especially since I went for coffee with the always immaculate Elaine at Rendezvous Hotel Cafe after the tasting session.

Top: Ginger Snaps

Shorts: China (super comfy and a great holiday purchase)

Earrings: Chanel

Bracelet: Hermes

Bag: Alexander Wang

Crystal flats: Singapore

Singaporeans love food and one of our favorite cuisine is Japanese food. There are countless of Japanese restaurants in Singapore with different specialties and price ranges so how does Kinsa Sushi differentiate themselves?  Kinsa Sushi is born from the idea of bringing Japanese fine dining in a affordable way to the heartlands. Situated in Ang Mo Kio, Jubilee Square, they aim to develop their restaurant so that everyone can enjoy an authentic Japanese dining experience.

Upon walking into the restaurant, you can see that Kinsa Sushi has segregated their dining areas into different types. There is the sushi bar counters where you can interact with the chefs and make your orders directly or the “bird cage” area for a more formal dining feel.

If you prefer a little more privacy, then hop into one of the cosy booths.

And if it is a special event with a couple of friends, you can also book the VIP rooms that have beautiful gold shimmering wall papers. It has a minimum spending amount of S$150 to book this room but since it can seat up to 6 pax, that amount is quite easily achievable.

Even though it is Japanese styled, you don’t have to worry about kneeling throughout your meal because you can sit normally with you legs hidden in the hole under the table. They even provide back rests for you so it’s pretty comfy.

One of the most important elements in a good Japanese restaurant is the freshness  of their seafood. One of the owners of the restaurant, Shannon, explained to me that although they don’t have fish tanks for live fishes, they bring in the freshest unfrozen seafood that they ice on display at the counter so that everyone can see what are their selection for the day.

If you have any special seafood or food requests (eg. Alaskan King Crab), just ring them up a week in advance and they can arrange it for you. Their menu is perfectly customizable.

I couldn’t wait to start my 8 Course お任せ omakase meal as well as 2 additional ala carte dishes. Omakase means ”I’ll leave it to you” and it’s a common Japanese dinner option at many Japanese fine dining restaurant. You basically set aside an amount per person and entrust the chef to come up with innovative dishes to surprise your tastes buds. The dishes offered in omakase is not available on the menu and the chef will use what he thinks are the best and freshest catch of the day to impress you by offering a value worth more than what you’ve forked out.

I had informed the chef that I’m allergic to shellfish but my dining partner isn’t so the chef said he would serve less shellfish items and focus on fishes and meat dishes that I can consume. While waiting for the chef to prepare my meal, I explored their vast sake choices and learnt that other then bringing in brands, they also make their own plum liquor from plums imported from Japan. Their home brewed plum wine is so popular that there was hardly any left in their last barrel but they are waiting for this year’s plum festival before they import the next batch of plums for brewing.

Soon, our zensai (appetizer) arrived.

 The Umaki was really tasty and I found the Nikogori to be most unique. It was like having fish soup in a solid form.

Next, we were served a bowl of beautiful and well plated sashimi.

- Akami (Tuna)

- Shake harasu (Salmon belly)

- Tai (Sea bream)

- Amaebi (Sweet shrimp)

- Tsubuga (Whelk)

By about this time, I was pretty stuffed already but Shannon recommended that we must try the a la carte Gyu Don (Pan fried beef on rice) and we gamely agreed.

This is the Soo Gyu Don that is made with Soho Gyu (Grade 4, Wagyu beef) which is specially imported from Kagoshima, Japan.

Even though we were stuffed, the beef was tasty enough to encourage us to finish it up.

Our last course was naturally, desserts. Chef specially formulated these homemade cheese ice cream to accompany the ever popular Mochi (Seseme/green tea and red bean) balls.

Thank you Shannon for the invite and for bringing fine dining to experience to heartlanders. (Of course, you can also just choose to dine in casually and order direct from their menu. *wink*)

If you want a taste of Japanese fine dining you should visit Kinsa Sushi soon and a good time to do so is this weekend. Kinsa Sushi is celebrating their 1st Anniversary on the 25th May 2013 and you can be a part of their celebrations too.

 

Do make a reservation with them as they are expecting higher traffic on that day.

There will be 3 dinner slots:

- 5.00pm to 6.30pm

- 6.30pm to 8.00pm

- 8.00pm to close

For more info, check out Kinsa Sushi on Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/KinsaSushi

 

Similar to sample package subscriptions like Vanity Trove, Greedy Chimp is the newest player in town that also delivers a surprise bag of goodies to your doorstep every month. But instead of beauty products, they source and bring you surprise snacks for less than $15 a month!

Remember how I mentioned not to long ago in my Bali adventure cycling post that I wanted to buy a bicycle? Well I did!

I love snacking and this new surprise Greedy Chimp loot bag came just in time for to take my bicycle and dog out for a day in a park.

So what did I find in my loot bag and on my picnic mat that day?

Ta dah! The first thing I spotted was the Mamee Rice Sticks because the Mamee’s blue monster brings back fond memories of the snacks I had in my childhood.

There were the new Cadbury Marvellous Creations too! Very popular and definitely very trendy you can read more about these chocolates in my previous post about Cadbury.

This was the first time I’ve seen of KIWA Plantain Chips. This one lets you snack healthy! It’s a brownish chip with a sweet flavor that is produced after the green banana becomes ripe. Hence, it is also high in potassium and vitamins. This chip has no artificial sweetener.

The American corn snack looks like it was picked out of a Thailand supermarket. But when you have corn chips and cheese flavoring, that’s an international taste that hardly goes wrong.

For popcorn lover or indoor movie nights, try Planet popcorn. It comes in so many different flavors such  as caramel, cheese, seaweed, wasabi or Kimchi. Even the orignal on I had is already pretty good and crunchy. Interestingly, these are hand made and not machine made!

Lastly was a fun set of Impact mints. I threw the various mints in different hand bags and in my car so I can grab a mint whenever I need a fresh taste.

This is the first loot bag that Greedy Chimp had come up with and I’m looking forward to what other surprises they have in store!

If you’ve ever been to Bali or researched about what foods to eat in Bali, you will definitely have heard of Babi Guiling.  I love Babi Guling and will have it almost every other day whenever I’m in Bali but this is the first time I will be attempting (with the help from the villagers in Bali) to cook this famed traditional roast pig dish. And yes, I will do it from scratch!

I start my day bright and early in the morning market picking up the ingredients and spices needed for my dish.

There is no minimum purchase required so I could just buy whatever amount I needed to make my Babi Guling dish. Unfortunately, prices are not written out like how we are used to in supermarkets so a lot of haggling is involved. Thankfully, I  already brushed up on some basic indonesian and balinese with my driver in the car on my way to the market.

I sought and picked my ingredients with as much care, trying to remember all the tips that my mother and grandmother usually tell me whenever I do (which is rarely) visit the wet market with them.

I had my list written out both in English as well as in Indonesian so I won’t forget the words when I need to ask the shopkeepers. Some of the items I bought are bawang merah (shallots), cabai (chilli), jahe (ginger), sereh (lemongrass), merica putih (white pepper), terasi (shrimp paste), bawang putih (garlic), kunir (tumeric), kemiri (candlenut), merica hitam (black pepper) and tomat (tomato). As you can see, there is a whole lot of spices in this wondrous dish.

I tried my best haggling and conversing in indonesian and balinese. Luckily, the shop keeper was so impressed with my sincerity that she gave me a good discount! Yay! Mission successful.

After another couple of hours of traveling, I’m finally back to the village again.

The local farmer delivered the suckling pig I ordered earlier. With help from the village women, the rumpah (paste) is prepared with all the ingredients I bought from the market. The pig is then removed of its innards and then stuffed & infused with the spicy concoction. Meanwhile, some of the village men helped me to set up the traditional spit fire to roast it. Cooking this dish involved a lot more muscle then I expected!

I’m just really glad that everyone was so willing and to help and offer suggestions and tips.

Roasting the pig is a long and grueling process that takes hours! Just preparing this dish would take one entire day. Most of the stores selling Babi Guling in Bali (including that one famous Babi Guling store) would normally use whole hogs instead of suckling pig so as to maximise the amount of meat and skin they can get from the long roasting hours, thus maximizing their profit.

But the villagers told me that the best and most tender tasting babi guling is made from suckling pigs which is why I chose to do it with a suckling pig.

I started off well, learning to constantly rotate the pig so that it would roast evenly. But it wasn’t so simple. Other than constantly rotating the pig, you also needed to shift the stick up and down the roasting pit because the heat from the fire is not even at different parts of the pit. I needed to learn how to control  the heat from each portion of the spit to get an evenly roasted pig without burning it.  It was hot and tough and my arm muscles were sore after the first hour. Since roasting takes about 3-4 hours, I was quite happy when the villages offered to swap places with me every 2o mins.

Even little kids came to help with the roasting process!

The weather is unpredictable and soon it started to rain. While the spit is protected under a shelter, it’s too small for everyone to squeeze in there.

As I ventured out into the rain, one of the villagers help pluck “an umbrella” for me. I seriously love how ingenious these people are at living harmoniously with nature.

The stem was thick and the leaf was huge so it worked perfectly as a natural umbrella and I didn’t have to worry much about getting wet as I moved between the kitchen and checking on the roasting pig.

At about the half-way point of the roasting, you could smell the mouthwatering fragrance of spices and roasted suckling pig in the air. I could distinctively smell the turmeric, coriander seeds, lemongrass, black pepper and garlic wafting through the smoky air and my tummy kept rumbling. I couldn’t wait for it to be done!

Meanwhile, the sun was setting and the ladies in the kitchen were busy preparing other dishes for my dinner. They told me that Babi Guling should be eaten with other dishes as accompaniments to make it well-balanced meal. The village ladies were more than happy to cook some extra dishes for me.

The whole dinner preparation was completed right after the sunset.

My roasted suckling pig was removed from the stick and served on banana leaves as they proceeded to carve it up for me.

Once they remove the crispy skin, you can see the infused spices they have merged with the cooked meat.

Although I was highly anticipating tasting my Babi Guling, I started off with some soup while they were still carving the roast suckling pig because I was really famished by then.

The server so expertly carved up the entire suckling pig! Really an artist at work. He put all the different areas of meat in different serving dishes.

The first thing I tried was the skin. This is the best part and it was so so so very good! My mouth waters even as I think back on it. It was extremely crispy and definitely beats the famous Babi Guling store in Ubud. I think the key reason why it was nicer is because this is a suckling pig and not a full grown hog.

The meat is very tender and the spiciness of the mixture was excellent!

The two above photos are also meat from the suckling pig but these are shredded from the parts nearer to the core of the pig and contain a lot more spices in them then the meats found near the surface area of the pig.

The pig inners that were removed pior to the roasting were deep fried and served. I gave these a miss cause I’m not a big fan of innards prepared by anyone else other than my own grandmother.

The village ladies cooked some rice and vegetables for me so as to complete the meal and they were pretty good though I have no idea what those dishes are called.

Here’s a look at my dinner plate.

Last but not least, I’m glad we brought along a bottle of white wine to celebrate a whole day of hard work!

While this is one of the best Babi Guling meal I’ve ever had, I doubt I’ll ever embark cooking it again because of all the effort and time it took. It does however, makes me a lot more appreciative of the stalls selling this yummy dish in Bali.

I first tried Mookata or what I’ve come to call it, Thai UFO steamboat in 2011 when my girlfriend arranged dinner at Golden Mile Complex. While I loved the concept, I didn’t like the rowdy atmosphere at Golden Mile and haven’t gone back since. Thus, it was with much excitement that I was able to try mookata in a much better ambience at MooJaa.

Recently, in the last 2 years, Mookata has been gaining popularity and one of the places friends kept telling me to try was MooJaa at Keong Saik Road. I invited some girls along with me for the food tasting as I believe anything BBQ or steamboat needs a crowd for it to taste even better.

We started of with some drinks and I tried both the ice lemongrass tea as well as the Thai ice tea. Both were good but I’ll recommend the Thai ice tea because of its authentic rich flavor.

For a mookata to be good, it must be cooked with charcoal!

Throngs of food selection can be found at MooJaa and other than just mookata, they also serve individual Thai dishes so there are lots of choices for everyone.

Here’s our mookata. The dome part of the UFO is where you are able to grill your meats. Pork lard is used to grease the area and that helps to make the grilled meats even tastier than usual. The indent around the bottom of the dome is where you cook your steamboat and there is kettle for you to add stock anytime you feel that the soup is running low. I think it’s brillant how the thai managed to think of this design that could give you the best of both grilled and soup dishes.

The food is slowly cooked over the charcoal and everyone had fun trying their hand to grill the perfect meat even though the waitress offered to help us. I love the pork belly slices best!

Other than the mokata, we also ordered their Thai fried omelete and basil minced chicken. Both dishes were pretty delicious and we would have loved to try their green curry chicken as well if we only had extra spaces in our stomach. We had so much fun eating and cooking. Mookata at MooJaa is a great venue for socializing and nothing brings people together like good food and drinks.

If you want to check them out, you can head over to their Facebook (www.facebook.com/MooJaa.sg) or Instagram (#moojaa, #moojaa_mookata) them.

Here’s one last group short with all our happy and satisfied faces.

MooJaa

25 Keong Saik Road,

Singapore 089132

Tel: 6536 4780

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Outfit of the day

I transited my outfit from day to night with a little change of accessories.

Day wear -

Earrings: Chanel

Hair clip : Korea

Cardi: Korea

Dress: Hong Kong

Bracelet: Hermes

Bag: Celine

Shoes: Tory Burch

After running around doing errands for a whole day, I figured the weather was just too hot for my original outfit so I did some modifications.

I tied my hair up into a bun, removed my cardi and changed my bag.

Bag: Honey Mi Honey X ViVi bag

I actually much prefer my 2nd casual look better (maybe because it was better suited for the hot weather). Which look do you prefer?