Braised Pork in Soy Sauce Bun - 扣肉包

Braised Pork in Soy Sauce,扣肉 is one of many Mr's favourite dish. Every time Mr is back in Singapore, Mummy will definitely cooks this dish for him. When I found the recipe in the late Mrs Leong Yee Soon cookbook, I was happy and determined to give the recipe a try.

 
Bought a few cookbooks from Kinokuniya during our stay in Singapore. Because our baggage was so over-weighted. I hand carried all of them home to Melbourne. Am I crazy or what? Bought the whole collection (box of 6) of Mrs Leong cookbook.


Bought a beautiful piece of pork belly from Victoria market few weeks ago. Just perfect for this dish.I started cooking the night before having the dish. I tried sticking to the recipe as close as possible to accurately test the recipe. 

 Following it step by step. Pounding garlic and shallots as finely as possible.

 After slow cooking on the stove for more than 2 hours. 


 The next day after cooled. 


The instruction didn't state to sliced the pork and continue to cook in the sauce again but I did it as that's what Mummy always does. Letting the pork to soak in more of the amazing gravy. As I had left the dish over night to cool, a pretty thick layer of oil had formed and harden. I couldn't help to scrap and dump it away. I'm just trying to be more healthy :P

 Sliced pork ready to be place back into the pot of gravy. I continue to let it cook for at least another hour since I need to get busy with the bun.


As for the bun, I started mixing the ingredient and let the dough raise 1st thing in the morning. But it wasn't looking good after proofing for 2 hours. It doesn't seem to have raise double in size. In fact I don't think it had raised at all. :( I was disappointed. No idea what went wrong but I always don't have much luck when it has to deal with yeast.

That didn't stop me from continuing the next step which was splitting the big dough into hen egg size and roll them flat before brushing some oil and fold it into 2. After steaming for 15-20 minutes, it looked pretty good for a 1st timer if I may say so myself.

 Hot steamed handmade bun

  
The final product

Separate the bun, place a slice of pork in between and drizzle a bit of gravy on top of the meat. All ready to be enjoy :)

I'm very happy with the flavour of the pork. Initially I was afraid the end product will be too salty as the recipe required a few tablespoons of dark soy sauce. Although it's dark soy and not light soy, there's still quite a bit of saltiness in it. I also did add a tablespoon of dark caramel sauce to sweeten the pork. This recipe is definitely a keeper and most important Mr loved it.

Wedding Banquet

The purpose of popping into Singapore during our recent vacation was not only to visit the family, it's also to attend my BIL's wedding.  It's the "1st" wedding event for Minister's family. Although we got married way before my BIL, we had a totally opposite wedding.  I  We wanted something totally different. Without family members, without customary, without grand wedding banquet, just a small wedding ceremony with 10 friends at Treasury Garden follow by a lunch at Windsor Hotel. 

I haven't attend a Grand Chinese Wedding for ages! I almost forgot what it's like. After the day ceremony, the night dinner banquet was held at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. As expected(the usual), the dinner didn't manage to start on time. While every family member were busy being a host, Minister and me decided to start the night with Pre-Dinner drink at the bar downstair. I know it seem very rude but we need a break from all the happening. Plus there's no alcohol being served during cocktail session! So just got to dig into our pockets and get some ourself.

Minister had the usual Lemon, Lime Bitter and I went for my favourite Lychee Martini. I ended sharing mine with Daddy that totally changed his initial thought of Lychee Martini. He tried creating t the comfort of his own home few days later.

Including my parents, we were assigned to be seated at the VIP table. As VIP table, the setting was different from the rest. We also had the luxury of having all dishes being divided and served instead of a whole. Actually Minister and me preferred to help ourselves to the dish but guess coz of the centre piece, they can't actually do that. 

In the past, the banquet consist of 10 dishes! These days it's only 8. After spending half the night waiting for all the guests to turn up, the dinner finally started at 2045!

Dinner started with Appetiser as the 1st Dish. Deluxe Chinese and Japanese Combination Platter which made up of Roast Duck, Water Chestnut Shrimp Roll, Salmon Toast, Squid and California Maki.

Next was a Soup : Braised Shark's Fin with Assorted Seafood

Sorry I didn't manage to capture a photo of this dish. Not because I'm too hungry or it's too delicious. It's because I didn't try this dish. I had stopped eating shark's fin for more than 5 years now. Ever since I started diving and learned live finless sharks being dump back to sea to die slowly, I swear not to touch shark's fin ever again! Plus it's tasteless!!! Still no idea why it's considered a chinese delicacy???

A Poultry dish was next : Steamed Chicken with Whole Garlic, Quail Egg, Button Mushroom in Brown Sauce. 

4th was seafood : Deep Fried Crispy Filo Prawn Roll served with Passion Fruit Sauce. This dish left the most impression on me. Initial though the crispy strip was vermicelli but coz it's not in white so I ruled that out. Only realised it's filo after I checked the menu. As this is a deep-fried dish, the sauce really helped to remove the greasy feeling.

Vegetable was 5th : Braised Duet Mushroom and Conpoy with Seasonal Vegetables. Opps just realised I forgotten to take a shot of this dish as well. Oh well, I don't even remember how it looks like now. Must be a very ordinary dish.

Fish was 6th : Steamed Fresh Seabass in Preserved Yellow Bean.

7th was Rice : Fried Glutinous Rice wrapped in Beancurd Skin served with Mixed Salad. Felt this dish was pretty special coz it was individually wrapped. Bit strange to be served with salad but I still eat it though. I need my fibre.

To complete the dinner was definitely dessert : Sweetened Yam Paste with Gingko Nuts and Pumpkin Syrup. This is my favourite banquet dessert! It's not a easy dessert to make. Heard the old traditional way of preparing was to cook whole peeled yam (taro) in the pot. Constant stirring till the whole yam cooked and melted in the pot. How long will that take??? Don't asked me! Not sure which restaurant still cooks it that way.

By the time we finished dinner, it was closed to 2300. It was end of night for us. Daddy, Mummy, Minister and me cabbed to The Fullerton Hotel to have a post dinner drink at Post Bar. They have a huge variety of sling to chose from. 

I went for the Peach Sling. Daddy chosen Singapore Sling. Minister from memory is Pineapple Sling. Mummy went for cocktail instead. It's great ending the night with a drink, rest and relax catching up with my parents and de-briefing for the night.

Food I Tried/Eaten During My Trip

I actually started this post few weeks ago but didn't manage to finish it at all *sigh*. Reason being I'm too busy or am I too disorganised or I'm too lazy??? Too lengthy???

Well all the photos posted on this entry all taken during my latest trip to Singapore. Spending more than 2 weeks, I in fact didn't satisfy a lot of my craving! I can't believe I didn't eat much at all.....not much appetite. Mostly due to the extreme heat and humidity and also without CL :P. Note: I didn't manage to take all the food I eaten during the whole duration of the trip.

I spend the 1st 3 days hiding at home eating my favourite chef homecook food, spending quality time with my family members and doing a lot of catching up with them.

My 1st outing was to CityLink, Marina Square and Millennia Walk with my best friend,her hubby and godson. We had lunch at a Japanese place at MS. Honestly I don't remember the quality of the noodle because I was busy talking...hehe. The dessert was pretty nice though, a good mixture of red bean paste with two different types of rice balls. But the service was shocking! The place was almost empty as it was early and a lot of families were still doing their house visiting instead of shopping. The waiter who served us can't even hold a basic english conversation. I had difficulties conveying my order to him. I never expect that in a restaurant in the city with a high chance of tourist walking in.

The next day, I met up with my best friend again and this time she bought me to the newly open Ion at Orchard. We had an early lunch before starting to shop. I had a short tour around on the million dollar renovation food court at the basement (is it really necessary??? food taste nicer??) before we decided to try the Katsudon which 8-days magazine recommended. The tonkatsu was very well done, not dry inside and super crispy outside. Plus it's not soak with oil even though it's deep fried. As for the curry, nothing to shout about.

Basement of Ion has a lot of food stalls selling quite a huge range of food. 50% are japanese style food. We shared some Takoyaki. They were definitely different from those I used to have. These were huge, filled with ingredients, not tough inside. I also bought some japanese steamed rice cake for my Godson and also nephew. Mum told me Truman loved them.

Cai Fan(vegetable rice) for lunch, Dad and me went to get takeaway before we popped into Sis's place. This is CL's favourite, a huge choices of vegetable, meat, seafood, tofu, curry, eggs etc for you to chose. We packed 4 packets of rice each with 3 different combination of vegetable and meat. In total it cost less than S$10. Good budget!

Daddy also bought me and Mum to Zion Road market to have the famous Char Kway Teow. I also ordered some Satay to share because I had craving for Kueh Tupat. I also ordered a huge glass of freshly squeeze sugar cane juice with lemon. I had so many glasses of sugar cane juice during that 2 weeks.

I never fail to have my Gui Ling Jao and herbal tea after my visit to Guan Yin Ma Temple at Bugis. I'm a strange creature because the more bitter the herbal tea is, the more I enjoy. 

Chinese style pancake (Mi Jian Kueh) is another favourite snack/breakfast of mine. I did tried making them, passable but a lot of room for improvement.

Daddy and me also went to have Nasi Briyani and Indian Rojak at Little India Hawker Center. I loved Indian Rojak and so far have no luck getting them in Melbourne. It's a hassle to make as it consist of too many different ingredients plus I feel that the sauce is the most critical.

I walked past the hawker center and I couldn't resist to pack a packet of Chicken Rice even though I'm meeting my ex-colleague for dinner later that evening. It's a popular store and there wasn't any queue. Fantastic! Bought 2 packet, 1 for myself and 1 for daddy. It only took me 5 mins to finish it.

Golden Dragon Palace 2

During Dad and Mum's visit, we bought them to Golden Dragon Palace for dinner. Yes I had already blogged about this restaurant before but since I did manage to take some nice photos, why not have a short entry about it. Right?

It seem the restaurant had either updated/changed their menu or changed of chef. We couldn't find the dishes which we tried before in the menu. It took us extremely long this time to decide what to order.

1st we had San Chow Bao. It was Mum and Dad 1st time having this dish. They love it!

Yong Tau Fu
This dish turn out to be slightly different version from the previous time we had. On the 1st time, the tofu seem to be steamed follow by pan fry to crisp the base up a bit. But this time, the tofu is deep fried. I actually prefer it steamed rather than deep fried.

Fried Pork Ribs in Peking Sauce
This dish is nice but a bit too saltish for our tastebud. Would be nice to eat with white rice which we didn't have that night coz of the last dish.

Sweet and Sour Fish Fillet
Initially we wanted to steam a whole fish but they didn't have the kind of fish we wanted.

Singapore Style Chilli Crab with Egg Noodles
They were having special promotion on crabs that night. Looking around the restaurant, most customers came for the crabs. So we decided to order some too.
It's really nice, not too spicy. The crab meat is really firm + the chef mixed the crab egg into the gravy.

We ordered too much food that we had to take away the pork ribs for next day lunch.

Green Bean Soup
I love their FOC dessert. Dessert of the night is Green Bean Soup instead of the usual Red Bean Soup.

Golden Dragon Palace

Golden Dragon Palace Restaurant is one of our favourite chinese restaurant. It's not a budget restaurant but the food served is really delicious and service is good. It's near our place and no problem getting a car park. I had never blogged about this restaurant despite of being there quite a few time now. That's partly because I always tends to forget having my camera with me.

They also served Yum Cha daily starting from late morning to late afternoon. I had bought my guests from Singapore (parents, my best friend) for Yum Cha and all of them enjoyed it a lot.

Last month, after a long day at work we decided to pamper ourselves. Spend some time together and have a good meal. Golden Dragon Palace Restaurant immediately came to our mind because we knew it will not disappoint us.

We started the meal with San Choy Bow (chicken). Loved the sweet sauce which comes with it and pines nuts which is used to garnish the dish.

CL had his usual Hot and Sour Seafood Soup.

Another of our favourite dish is their Peking Duck. The wrap is soft, duck is meaty and with together with the sauce it's one of the best Peking Duck dish we had in Melbourne so far.

Stir fry chicken, duck, prawn with cream& egg. This dish is under the chef recommendation section on the menu. We had tried quite a few dishes under the chef recommendation and it always impressed us. Same for this dish. It has a very unique taste, not traditional chinese food style.

Yong Tau Fu (Bean Curd stuff with Seafood paste). Although this is a very ordinary dish, they manage to do it really nice. The seafood paste is firm, not saltish and it didn't get separated with the bean curd when we use our chopstick to pick it up. We didn't manage to finish all the dishes so we had half of it take away for lunch the next day.

As for dessert, we had red bean soup which is complementary. Red bean soup is a dessert which I don't really eat but I actually loved this a lot. I always end my meal at Golden Dragon Palace with this regardless how full my tummy is.

Yum Cha Ending Without Dessert

Belated Post
19th April 2009

Kam Fook restaurants in Sydney are very famous, well known. During our (me & CL) uni days, we only manage to Yum Cha at Kum Fook during special occasion like after our exam or someone birthday as we were so tight on budget. As for dinner at Kam Fook was totally out of question. I love their yum cha. Last time I had yum cha there was 2 years ago at Bondi Junction,Sydney with my parents.

When I found out Kam Fook is coming to Melbourne, I got excited. It was supposed to be opened end of 2008. But we ended up waiting for months till April 2009. Why the long delay? Who knows. But it only proved they definitely earning a lot/at least enough to cover their lose from the restaurants in Sydney.

We planned to do some shopping at Westfield on Sunday morning and at the same time try the newly open Kam Fook Yum Cha if we manage to get a table. We were happy when we had no trouble getting a table, in fact the place was pretty empty. Bet their opening news has not really spread.

1st impression was actually pretty good. Tea was served fast and trolleys of food came fast too.

First we had Char Siew Bao, Chicken Feet and Pork Spare Ribs.

Chicken Feet was good. Full of flavour and not over cooked. It doesn't break into parts when I lifted it up using my chopstick. As for the spare ribs, nothing fantastic, the usual.

Char Siew Bao was disappointing. The filling was nice, not too sweet, not too dry nor wet. BUT the dough was not soft and fluffy enough. It was quite compressed and dense. :( I admit, when it comes to Char Siew Bao, I super picky!!!

Next was Congee (pork and century egg). The serving was HUGE! BUTTTT another disappointment!!!! It look thick but it wasn't! After a few stir, it all became super watery. Plus it was bland, tasteless. *faint* 1st time we adding soya sauce to our cooked food.

Follow up was Siew Mai and Har Gao. *shake head* I don't really remember what the siew mai taste like except it was dry. Definitely didn't leave good/ bad impression on me. As for the har gao, it was definitely dry! The skin was dry the filling was dry. Both oversteam???

After 6 dishes, we conclude the food wasn't as good as Tai Pan nor Golden Dragon Palace which were only 5 mins drive away from Kam Fook. So food wasn't their selling point.

As for their service, it all went downhill after we were seated within 15mins. Patrons started coming in, more tables were filled. We were being ignored! Trolleys stopped coming our area after they saw us stopped eating. What's there for us to eat when we had finished all the food we ordered and waiting for more????

Noticed we aren't being served, we decided to skip everything and go for the dessert. Saw the trolley, spend 15mins waiting but it never made it to our table/area. In the end, I had to asked a waiter who was topping up hot water for our tea what desserts were available. His answer was " I call the gal to push the trolley over". (For those who aren't familiar, only waitress served food/push trolleys/take order. Waiter job scope is set up table/clear table/ top up hot water for tea.) We spend another 15mins waiting for the trolley (can see we desperate for our usual dessert) and I finally told CL that forget it, we should just leave. I was sick of waiting!

That was our 1st time of Yum Cha ending without mango pudding for him and taofu fa for me. Ending our Yum Char after 6 dishes and adding soya sauce to my congee. *shake head* :(

I won't be going back there again unless someone who I can trust tell me they had experience a enjoyable Yum Cha there.

At the end of the day, we bought 2 slices of cakes as dessert which we had at the comfort of our own home. Btw, the cakes were delicious!!!! Tried their cakes before and knew it will not disappoint me at all. Sorry don't remember what's the stall named but it was just beside the Westfield Food Court. It also served pretty cute little cupcakes.