Food – Page 3 – Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog

The Antipolo Wet Market

June 7, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

In the Philippines, most sizeable towns have a wet market, which is known locally as a palengke. When you want to go to the market, you can tell the driver of your transportation of choice that you simply want to go to the palengke and they’ll know what you’re talking about.

The wet market in Antipolo is pretty big. It actually has two floors, but the second floor is mostly dry goods and household items. The real wet market is on the lower level. It reminded me of the wet market in Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia except bigger. We saw plenty of sea food, from shrimp to huge fish, as well as pork, chicken, and veggies.

The prices at the wet market are usually the best you can find in town. We got a kilo of pork for what would be about 4 USD. I guess it’s because there’s very little mark-up for land rental and employee compensation. The sanitary conditions are a bit questionable by my American standards, but if all the people I saw in the market are any indication, no one dies eating food they bought there. Or at least, not any more than at any other place.

If you plan on living in the Philippines for any length of time and you’re interested in getting good deals on food, you should make it a point to visit the wet markets. I don’t know if there are any in Manila, but I assume there would be.

Here are some photos of the place so you can get a feel for what to expect if you ever visit a wet market in the Philippines:

(Note: I’m testing a new format for uploading a lot of pictures. Hopefully the watermark doesn’t show up huge on the blown-up image after clicking the thumbnail!)

Singapore in Manila

May 21, 2010 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Having recently left Singapore I thought it was cool to see Singaporean restaurants in Manila, specifically in Megamall. I suppose it makes sense that there would be Singaporean restaurants here, in Manila. A large amount of Singapore’s foreign labor force comes from the Philippines and while Filipinos may eventually go home, they might still crave some Singaporean dishes like I do.

So, here’s Singapore in Manila:

We took a brief look at the menu for ‘Orchard Road’ and saw Hainanese Chicken Rice listed prominently. It’s nice to know that I’ll still be able to satisfy that craving. I hope they serve the red chili sauce with it though, or it just won’t be the same. If you’re wondering, the chicken rice is priced at roughly 6 SGD there.

The second restaurant will hopefully help me satisfy my craving for kopi, though I didn’t think about it at the time and didn’t check the menu.

They say not to drink the water but…

May 13, 2010 Bradley Farless6 Comments

… I must have messed up, because I had some serious problems over the last two days.

We’ve had a lot of work going on around the house, including work we’ve been doing ourselves. I’ve been pretty exhausted and getting sick on top of it really wore me out.

All of these things combined to create a disaster that ruined a bag full of noodles. If you’re eating, you should save this for later.

So, it was early morning and there I was, sitting on the toilet having a problem. After I was done, I had another problem. The pipes are kinda screwy here so the toilet clogged. There’s no running water right now because of a drought so dumping water into the bowl is the only option. I couldn’t get it right so I just left it that way and passed out again. That evening, I was in there trying to wash up and mess with the toilet at the same time when I felt an urge.

A serious urge.

With no toilet available (due to the damn thing still being clogged) I made a mad dash through the house, naked and covered with soap mind you, and grabbed the first plastic shopping bag I saw, which I assumed was hanging on a doorknob for placing garbage in.

I then ran back to the toilet and handled business. It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve done. I’ve utilized empty boxes in the middle of the desert in Iraq before, so why not? Better than the other alternative.

So anyway, the next day my wife came and asked me if I’d seen the noodles she bought at the grocery store. I said I hadn’t so we looked around quite a bit. I’m pretty sure no one stole the noodles, though she does have hungry brothers that roam the house occasionally.

Then it dawned on me.

After I finished laughing like a hyena I felt bad because I had really wanted to try some of those noodles. Not to mention my wife was pissed. But you know… shit happens.

The Soup Spoon @ Bugis Junction

May 5, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

My wife and I are constantly finding and trying new restaurants and I’m kinda sad that this one slipped our notice until just two days before I leave Singapore. The Soup Spoon has some GREAT food.

My wife ordered the Simon & Garfunkel Ragout (pronounced ‘ra-goo’). I had a little taste of it and it was delicious. I don’t know how close to original the ragout recipe is, but it was great on its own.

I had the Velvety Mushroom Stroganoff. Ever since I got to experience the mushroom soup at Say Cheeze in Tampines 1 I’m always on the lookout for a chance to try a new recipe. I never realized mushroom soup could be so good, because in the US plain ‘cream of’ soups aren’t that popular and the ones that come in the cans are really bland. The mushroom soup at The Soup Spoon is really excellent. It’s thick and the chunks of mushroom are big enough to sink your teeth into.

The soups could be a meal by themselves, especially with the bread roll that comes with it, but they had a set meal offer that we took advantage of.

My wife tried their Garden Green salad. She said it was nice.

I had the Chicken Tikka half-wrap. It was ok. I think I’d have enjoyed it more but it didn’t really go well with the soup I chose. The taste was tart and sour, which was an abrupt change after the smooth, mellow tastes of the soup. Oh, and the stuff on the side that you can see in the picture above? It tasted just a bit south of foul. I left that alone.

Overall, the meal was very satisfying and very filling and, surprisingly, very affordable at only 22 bucks for both of us.

I’m just sad that I’ll probably never eat at this place again. It would’ve been a regular stop for me if I’d known about it earlier.

Review: Hei Sushi @ Downtown East

April 3, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless4 Comments

After having a great time watching Clash of the Titans my wife and I walked down to the lower level of Downtown East to look around and decide on dinner. We hadn’t eaten at Hei Sushi before and the conveyor belt full of sushi looked pretty appealing, so we got in line and waited to be seated.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Hei Sushi but the entire experience was more than a little under-whelming. There’s a restaurant by the pool and gym in Tampines (that I can’t remember the name of) that sells sushi off a conveyor belt and their selection is impressive. The taste and quality is impressive as well. I’d expected the same thing from Hei Sushi. We’d eaten a heavy lunch and we weren’t that hungry so the idea of just getting a few items from the conveyor belt is what roped us in. The place also has an interesting method for ordering items: an interactive computer screen complete with an optical mouse on your table. I was excited to play with it!

The table we were seated at was near the front of one of the conveyor belts, so I was sure we’d get the best pick from the items coming out of the kitchen. That would have been true, I’m sure, but no items were actually being added to the conveyor belt the entire 30 minutes we sat there. Not that I could tell anyway. Plates with the same, six or seven varieties, of sad looking pieces of sushi with wilted fish kept going round and round.

We initially took a few plates to try them, but after sitting for 30 minutes and realizing that they weren’t going to add anything new, we turned to the menu in disappointment. After looking through the menu for a while we settled on an item we could both enjoy, the ika teriyaki (squid). So, my wife took the mouse and tried to place the order. She couldn’t get it to work, so I tried it. The screen was frozen. Left click, right click, it all resulted in no click.

At this point we were both disappointed with the place and decided to leave. A meal is supposed to be a relaxing experience. I shouldn’t have to face technical difficulties after already being disappointed by the small selection of choices on the conveyor belt, which, by the way, were barely a fraction of what their menu said was supposed to be available. We were supposed to call for our bill by clicking a button on the computer screen, but that didn’t work so I had to flag down a waitress who seemed rather surprised that we were leaving after only eating 6 plates from the conveyor belt.

Speaking of those plates, they’re also overpriced. That restaurant by the pool (wish I knew it’s name) had set the price at 1 dollar for two pieces of sushi on a plate. Hei Sushi had the price set at 2.18 per plate, not including GST.

Now for my final complaint. We were charged a 10% service fee. 10%! And for what? Being shown to a table? Being presented with our bill? We were never given any service to have to pay for it. We picked up everything ourselves off of the conveyor belt. I understand the concept behind a service fee, and I’m willing to pay it, but only when I’ve received service, and good service at that. Hei Sushi’s service staff were pleasant, but they didn’t actually do anything for us to warrant a 10% service charge.

Hei Sushi isn’t a terrible place by any means, but we won’t be returning simply because there are better options where we can get better food at a better value.

Discovering What Halal Really Means

March 12, 2010 Bradley Farless24 Comments

I recently came across an article about an ongoing problem in a town called Colne in the UK. According to the article, the KFC there has switched to serving halal foods as part of a trial. A KFC representative said this was done because there have been quite a few requests in the UK for halal restaurants.

So… what does that mean? The article explained that halal meat is meat that has been prayed over and blessed by a Muslim cleric at the point of slaughter. Also, for a restaurant to have a halal rating, all food products served in the establishment must be halal, and the establishment can also no longer serve pork products, which were on KFC’s menu previous to this trial.

This has angered a lot of non-Muslim local residents who don’t appreciate having food blessed by another religion forced on them.

The first time I ever ate something that was ‘halal’ was at a Hardee’s on a US military installation in Kuwait. When I saw the phrase ‘halal certified’ on the outside of the restaurant I thought it was amusing, but didn’t give it a lot of thought. I assumed that it just had something to do with how the food was prepared but I had no idea that it was being blessed by a Muslim cleric. Thinking about it now, I suppose that was set up to cater to the Muslim foreign workers that were employed on the camp.

I’ve been living in Singapore for almost two years now and I’ve never given much thought to halal food at all. I always figured that hey… halal, kosher, whatever. It’s just prepared a special way and not mixed with what those people find ‘unclean’ right?

Now that I understand the true significance behind the meaning of food being halal… I suppose I still don’t really care all that much. It does bother me a bit that the food is being blessed by another religion, because it reminds me so much of the rite of Communion, which is considered holy and something only Christians should take part in. On the other hand, if I’m right and they’re wrong then the blessing isn’t going to amount to anything in the long run, is it? Besides, halal or not it’s still just a piece of chicken. A fried chicken leg isn’t going to jump off my plate and try to convert me.

I feel bad for the people in Colne, though, because in switching over the restaurant to halal to suit the needs of the Muslim minority, they’ve effectively alienated the Christian (minority?) who may not want to bend their religious principles to eat food blessed by another religion. Depending on the size of the town, those people may have just lost their only KFC. I also feel bad for them because people are labeling them as bigots just for standing up for their religious beliefs. People from one religion not wanting to eat food blessed or ritually killed by another religion is nothing new. According to AsianCook.co.uk, sikhs will not eat kosher or halal foods either.

What’s most interesting about the situation to me, though, is KFC’s religious insensitivity in the matter. When confronted about the issue, they replied that the food they’re serving is “still made from the same great ingredients”, effectively dodging the primary issue.

[Note: Keep in mind that I don’t personally know the people in Colne that are protesting this. All I know is what’s in the article I read. They may certainly be bigots that are using this as a platform for grandstanding. Regardless, I believe in letting people believe in whatever they want, without putting undue restrictions on their religious rights, insomuch that it doesn’t cause harm to others.]

Pastamania at Downtown East – GREAT Service

February 16, 2010September 4, 2021 Bradley Farless2 Comments

This is just a short note I wanted to write to praise the customer service at Pastamania at Downtown East.

Tonight, we went up there to have dinner and there was a problem with the pizza I ordered. Within a few minutes the manager came out, addressed the situation, apologized for the inconvenience and made sure that a replacement dish was made.

To follow up on that, he came back to let me know the pizza would be out in a few minutes and apologized again for the problem.

I was happy and impressed with the level of attention that was given to our problem.

When the replacement pizza came we finished our meal and then got up and walked out of the restaurant.

Surprisingly, we hadn’t gone more than five feet out the door when I heard the manager calling after us and running to catch up with us. He said the problem with the food shouldn’t have happened, apologized for the extra time we had to wait, and that he hoped we’d be coming back in the future. Additionally, he gave us a voucher for a free pizza.

That’s what I’m talking about! This manager has a great personality and does his job well. Pastamania in general has always had a great attitude in regard to customer service. You can see it in how every cashier, waiter / waitress, and manager handles themselves. Well, at the Tampines and Pasir Ris branch at least.

Despite there being something wrong with the dish I ordered, I’ll definitely be going back to the same location again. Good service is worth repeat business.

Our February Trip To Kuala Lumpur

February 16, 2010April 9, 2023 Bradley Farless4 Comments

Last weekend (the weekend of the 5th – 7th), we went to Kuala Lumpur and over the last week I’ve been posting about stuff that we saw while we were up there. We weren’t in KL for very long and we’d intended to try to make the most of our time to go see Putrajaya and the museums and art galleries if possible.

We got there on Friday afternoon and dropped our bags at the hostel. We stayed at Hostel Cosmopolitan again. It’s by no means fancy, but it’s cozy, it’s got cats (which my wife enjoys) and it’s close to the monorail and good food. Thankfully, that weird smell was gone from the air conditioner this time!

The first thing we had to take care of was stuffing our faces. We’ve been keeping an eye on what we eat lately but since we were sort of on vacation we decided to pig out. We went to an eatery in Kampung Baru that we enjoyed the last time we were in Kuala Lumpur. It didn’t disappoint!

Another thing I really love about this place is that all that food in the photos, plus two large soft drinks, only cost 19.40 RM, which is 8.00 SGD or 5.65 USD. That’s a real deal! The same meal in Singapore would’ve cost about 14 SGD I think.

Friday night was spent being lazy, watching TV and reading. We went to bed at a decent hour though because we’d planned on getting some sightseeing done on Saturday.

Well, as Saturday morning rolled around, dragging ourselves out of bed was very, very difficult. And after eating breakfast we sat down in the common room area to watch TV, read and surf the net. Well, my wife got distracted with a John Grisham book she found on the shelf and I was absorbed in Google Reader until I dozed off for about an hour. Ya, the couch was pretty comfortable!

Anyway, by the time we managed to get washed up and get out of the hostel the only thing we could think about was getting something to eat, and that’s when we went to KLCC and California Pizza Kitchen. We sat around in Kinokuniya bookstore until around 8 PM, took some night photos of the Petronas Towers, and then headed back to the hostel.

We continued being lazy, enjoying the TV until the wee hours of the morning. Heck, we even watched one of the audition episodes of the latest American Idol season. It was really fun watching people get up there and embarrass themselves!

Our last day was short. It wasn’t really a day since we spent most of it sleeping in and then traveling to the airport. Everything went smoothly though with no problems so I’m glad about that.

All in all, we didn’t really do much of anything at all except eat. That’s fine by me. Sometimes you have to just relax and let your body and mind rest. Besides, we’ve seen quite a bit of Kuala Lumpur in previous trips.

Anyhow, it was nice to get back home in Singapore. There’s really no place like home, regardless of how much you enjoy the place you go to visit.

The Truth About The McDonald’s Prosperity Burger

February 10, 2010 Bradley Farless2 Comments

When we went to the airport over the weekend we left the house kinda late, but our flight was delayed so we had time to get something to eat. There’s a McDonald’s in the Budget Terminal, so we took a look at the menu and decided to try the Prosperity Burger. I’ve never seen it anywhere else and it’s only put on the menu around Chinese New Year. This will be our last CNY in Singapore so it made sense to try it at least once.

Well, it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped but it had a nice taste to it. I think I enjoyed the curly fries more than the burger though.

The “truth” I mentioned about this burger is that they do in fact sell it in the US. Well, they sell the patty anyway. The Prosperity Burger is nothing but a McRib sandwich with black pepper sauce instead of barbecue sauce. So… good job at marketing, but bad job at creating a unique product.

The other “truth” about this burger meal is that it’s a serious gut bomb. It felt like I had a lead weight in my stomach for the rest of the day. Maybe we just weren’t prepared for the amount of grease involved in that kind of meal anymore.

I’ve heard some of my family and friends say they wouldn’t mind seeing those curly fries at McDonald’s in the US. They make me miss Arby’s.

Photos From The Kitchen

January 31, 2010 Bradley Farless1 Comment

It’s amazing what you can manage with a simple, handheld camera sometimes. My wife was in the kitchen preparing a Filipino dish called sinigang and I happened to have my camera out, taking photos of the Chinese New Year decorations around the house, so I snapped some photos of some of the ingredients:

A leafy green. I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s not bad tasting. It seems like there are a lot of leafy green vegetables in the supermarkets here with a lot of different names that all taste more or less the same. I like them, so my wife usually adds plenty.

This is radish. In the US I always associated the word radish with the small veggie that has a red tinted skin and a powerful bite, that go on salad. Here, radishes also come in large, root looking form and have a blander taste. I love it when it’s cooked in sinigang so my wife adds extra.

An onion. I’m not sure where the blue tint on the wood came from, but it looks nice right?

The same onion along with fresh garlic.

After taking those photos I filled a cup with ice. We’ve had an ice tray that we bought at Ikea for about two years. It makes ice in the shape of hearts. I realized I’d never taken a photo of it, so here’s an icy heart:

And here’s an icy heart melting in Grass Power, a local wheat grass drink: