Mini Family Outing - Eve of Vesak Day

It has been quite sometime since I last went back to Indonesia. Really miss home-cooked food by mum (Ma) & grandma (A-ma). Today grandpa (A-gong) came to S'pore to visit us, accompanied by auntie (Gu-gu), after having medical checkup. We went to have A-gong's all-time favourite, the Heng Hwa Cuisine (兴化料理), which is part of the food culture of his hometown, Putian (莆田). Heng Hwa is a sub-dialect of Hokkien & it sounds a bit weird to me. Erm, need a rather twistable tongue to speak it well. In the family, only A-gong can speak 兴化話 (phonetically translated to New Language^2... No wonder it's difficult to speak it properly). But luckily A-gong can also speak Teochew, Hokkien & Mandarin, so communications... no problem!

Ok, some introduction on Putian. It is a prefecture-level city in eastern Fujian province, southern China. It borders Fuzhou City to the north, Quanzhou City to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Located closely offshore of Putian, the Meizhou Island (湄洲島) is most famous for being the legendary birthplace of goddess Matsu (媽祖), the Taoist Goddess of the Sea, who protects fishermen & sailors. Haha, now comes the most exciting part, the food!

The dinner was in Ming Chung Restaurant (民众菜馆), located at 67 Maude Road (near Jalan Besar Road & Townshend Road). The noodles here was once featured in Channel 8's Food Glorious Food (大小通吃) programme.

Hmm, we ordered 5 dishes. Now briefly introducing them one by one, haha...

Heng Hwa Lor Mee

The 1st dish is Heng Hwa Lor Mee, viz. already a meal by itself. Basically, it is Heng Hwa noodle (hmm, dun really know if it's hand-made or machine-made) cooked in white gravy, filled with clams, slices of pork, veggies & squid. It was thick & chewy. It tastes good with a little black vinegar.

La La

The 2nd dish is called La La, basically a type of clam cooked in spicy sauce, which is also clam-based (by the way, it not very spicy lar). Hmm, dunno why it's called La La. Maybe it's the Heng Hwa word for this type of clam or maybe the 1st person who found this thingy was happily singing La La La & accidentally stepped on the clam?? Haha, ok coming back to the topic... I think La La would be a delicious companion to plain porridge. (Caution: La La is highly addictive & has a very short residence time on the plate! Once u start sampling it, the number of samples needed will increase steadily until nothing left on the plate). A lot of people ordered La La, so it's quite a popular dish there...

Fried Prawn Balls

The 3rd dish is Fried Prawn Balls (Oops, they dun look spherical at all). There were 3 dipping sauces to choose from. It's fresh & cooked just right, although I felt it gave a bit of powdery 口感. But, it tastes good! (Note: Similarly, this too are addictive!)

Chye Sim & Tao Ki

The 4th dish is Chye Sim & Tao Ki. As the name suggests, basically it consists of fresh & leafy chye sim cooked with tao ki, which is quite soggy. Hmm, although cooked in plain & bland style, it was a nice & healthy companion to the fried delicacies.

The 5th dish is Fried Bee Hoon (Oops, I dun have the photo here). Normal Fried Bee Hoon, with veggies, mushroom, pork slices, prawn, etc... The bee hoon was quite fine, I mean in term of thickness. Hmm, I think the 口感 is better than normal-size bee hoon.

Haha, there are many other delicacies there, e.g. Hot & Spicy Tofu Soup, Dark Fried Batang Fish, Prawn Paste Chicken, Eng Chai Jiu Hu (spicy squid with veggie), Pork Ribs with Bittergourd in hot gravy, Fried Mee Sua with Assorted Thingys (including seaweed & peanuts) & many more... Overall, I found the food there quite nice (but people's tastes differ). I recommend u to try it out once, if u have time. The price is quite reasonable, only that the place has no aircon & sometimes may need to wait for a while before u can get a seat, coz normally there is quite a crowd during dinner time. Lunch time should be ok. You must be wondering why I have time to take pictures during the meal... Hmm, actually I was quite 幸运 to accidentally discover the pics from a local blog on cuisines around the world.

Okie, after the heavy meal, the trio (me, bro & A-gong) went back to hotel for a rest, watching TV & chit chat, while Gu-gu & sis went to Bugis Street for shopping. Looking forward to going back home in about 3 weeks time. Yeah, of course with more eat-from-small-until-grown-up delicacies to come, haha! One of my dreams is to travel around the world, to try out all kinds of delicacies & cuisines, with breathtaking, picturesque natural sceneries in the background. Hmm, this sounds really far far away from now...

Dreams versus Reality

Finally can get rid of the mold and step out of home to do something useful today. I went to support Aik Leong's friend's musical play at City Hall. Hmm, initially I thought it was another play which needed great imagination to interpret what's being shown on the stage. But I was proven wrong. The play was mostly presented in a humorous and rather down-to-earth manner, with easy-to-understand language & also in a mix of styles, i.e. contemporary blended with classical. Interestingly, there's a strong component of local culture (Singlish) embedded in the play. Here's a brief description of the musical.

Paper Dreams is the latest work from NTU Hall 5 Quintsical Productions 06/07. Basically the musical involved 2 groups of people, all staying under one roof. One group passionately trying to pursue their dreams and interests, while ignoring the harsh reality of this materialistic world & another group working hard, day after day, to make ends meet to support the other group. The 1st group involved a loving couple & parents (Kok Fu & Mei Gui) & unrelated elder brother and sister (Johnny and Yan Li), whereas the 2nd group involved the son of Kok Fu and Mei Gui (viz. Ying Jun), the younger sister of Yan Li (viz. Mei Li), the childhood friends of Johnny (Lily & Ricky), who love acting, singing, dancing & painting, respectively.

The musical has a theme which revolves around "faith", which is often hoped for in times of need, but also often not seen to appear. We tend to think that future seems to be uncertain & we would be temporarily lost in direction amidst the maze of obstacles. However, this is precisely the thing that is needed most to keep us going forward. Similarly, faith is also what keeps these people to be willing to brave the ups & downs of life together.

I think this play is very a meaningful one, as it conveys an important message to us, the audience, that we should, whenever possible, pursue our passions & dreams. However, in the process of this pursuit, we must not neglect the feelings of people around us and the reality of life, which is to get a proper job and able to support ourselves, without becoming others' emotional & financial burden. As an elder brother or sister, we have the responsibility to take good care of our younger siblings and that sometimes translates to the need to relinquish our own dreams in order to allow our younger siblings to pursue theirs. To sum it up, dreams must be balanced with reality & sometimes sacrifices are necessary to a certain extent in order to achieve them.

Personally, I went through quite a bit of struggle between dreams & reality. Choosing what course to study & eventually what career to pursue was not a easy decision, considering so many constraints to satisfy, e.g. personal interests & passions, family & societal expectations, practicality of chosen field, further studies opportunities of younger siblings, financial considerations, etc. Hmm, I considered myself really lucky to have been able to come here to study Chemical Engineering, which is what I'm interested in & also practical enough as my future career.

Ok, the heavy messages & sad things aside, the humorous aspects of the play were worth mentioning. The loving couple were really the spotlight in the play! Their acting skills, the way they address & talk to each other... Mei Gui called her husband Xiao Fuuuu or Lao Goooong... They even sang "Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin"... Aiyoh, sooo mushy! Really cannot stand it, haha... They sang well too... The rest were farnie & entertaining too... Oh my goodness, sooooo talented! Then, there also also a quite-lame & somewhat a bit out-of-place scene, whereby after things took a sudden turn & became better, they had steamboat together & sang a song, also themed around "steamboat". That's farnie...

Haha, basically had a happie evening & that's really spiced up my day :)

The Drinks Dilemma

I guess many of us are frustrated when it comes to what drinks to have when we eat outside. When asked by waiter or waitress : "What drinks would u like to have, Sir or Madam?" The most likely answer is... "Err, anything" or "Hmm, whatever". But are there such drinks as "anything" or "whatever"? Haha, yes they do exist.

Heard about this thingy from YES 933. I found it quite interesting. Anything is actually not any "rojak drink, with bizarre flavours" that u might expect. It is a carbonated soft drink with a choice of 6 flavours (Cola, Cola with Lemon, Apple, Fizz Up, Cloudy Lemon and Root Beer). Similarly, Whatever is a tea-based non-carbonated drink, also comes with 6 flavours (Ice Lemon Tea, Peach Tea, Jasmine Green Tea, White Grape Tea, Apple Tea, Chrysanthemum Tea).

Haha, even though it's called "Anything" or "Whatever", it still have a few choices. Hmm, people still have to think which "Anything" or "Whatever" to order.

Then, by the way, I'm not trying to do any advertisements here nor endorsing any products nor am I associated with the company... Haha, just to share some interesting stuff. If u wanna know more, can visit the website www.anything.com.sg

Introduction by Suppie

Finally Suppie (aka H) decided to have a blog! Yup, just wanna pen down some of my thinkings, feelings and maybe some interesting stuff to share.

Haha, feel free to give any comments or suggestions for improvements...

Regards,
H :)