Hainanese Chicken Rice in Taipei

I used to think that Singapore had the best Hainanese chicken rice around. Singapore does a pretty good job branding their chicken rice, so you get the likes of Boon Tong Kee and 5 Star branches everywhere.  And even the single outlets like Tian Tian and the used-to-be good Chatterbox @ Mandarin Hotel generated passionate discussions and legions of loyal fans.  Then I went to Taipei.

It was the last place I'd expected to find chicken rice - a hole in the wall, literally. Big Dog had stumbled upon it during one his sojourns to Taipei.  When we first ate there, it was a hut sandwiched between 2 shops. In winter, you'd eat quickly and vamoose because you're dining alfresco freezing your toes off.  No heating, no frills.  You pay, eat and go. Chop chop.  Business must have been good because a year later, they'd upgraded to a proper shop.  Luckily for us, it was still in the vicinity when we went back for a visit and we found it easily. 

So what do you get at Ching Cheng Hoinan Chicken Rice?  The smoothest, tenderest, poached chicken with an awesomely flavoured rice.  Rice cooked to perfection with each individual grain loose and fluffy.  Not sticky or clumpy.  You can taste the chicken stock, fat and the merest hint of garlic in the rice.  The chicken is served plain - no sauce, no garnishing to distract.  Smooth, smooth, smooth - even the white meat was tender.



Smooth poached chicken with ginger-spring onion dip



Large portion served with sides

What do you not get?  Unlike Malaysian and Singaporean versions, they don't serve it with chilli or soy sauce. Instead you get the most piquant minced ginger-spring onion dip on the side.  Be prepared that the dish isn't piping hot - the rice is warm, the chicken and sides are room temperature.  The only piping hot dish is the free soup simmering away in the corner which you help yourself to.  You have a choice of small or large portions. Small (NT65) comes with just rice and chicken.  Large (NT85) gets you additional sides of omelet and stir-fried vegetables.  Oh - you are expected to clear your own tray after eating - just like in McDonald's.  There aren't any cheap foreign labour or amahs to clean up after you here.  

Hainanese chicken rice is a dish which Chinese immigrants brought across with them to Malaysia and Singapore.  When I was in Hainan island, I was hard put to find Hainanese chicken rice like the ones back home - I found wengchang chicken instead.  Just like you'll never find Hokkien Mee in Fujien or Singapore Fried Noodles in Singapore, Hainanese chicken rice is a dish which has evolved and taken on local influences over the years. 

Most Taiwanese speak the Hokkien dialect, or Min Nang hua, so conversing and ordering wasn't difficult even with our limited Mandarin.  In fact the wait staff were pretty delighted and amazed that we could speak in Hokkien (we were obviously not local and not from mainland China).

How to get there:

Take the MTR to Nanjing East Station and exit Qingcheng Street.  You will see Brother Hotel on your right.  Keep the hotel to your right.



Walk down Qingcheng Street towards McDonald's, pass Les Suite Taipei and Movenpick.  Turn right into the lane when you see Hooters. 

The shop is on the right side, opposite Friends Pharmacy.

Address :

Ching Cheng Hoinan Chicken Rice

Lane 16, Qìngchéng Street, Songshan District, Taipei,

Taiwan



Borough Market, London

I love going to markets when I'm overseas. The likes of Victoria market in Melbourne, and Borough Market in London. For some reason, these are nothing like the wet, smelly pasar that we have despite selling fresh produce, meat and seafood too.  One of my favourite markets is Borough Market and I make it a point to visit it whenever I'm in London.  It's a foodies food market haven with stalls selling almost artisanal products.  I say almost artisanal, because Borough Market has becomed more commercialised, having jumped on the toursit trail with throngs of camera totting tourists descending on it on Saturday mornings. Okay, shouldn't comment so much on that since I'm part of the throng.

When it comes to cooked food, the variety is mind-boggling.  Stalls selling Spanish, Middle eastern, vegetarian, English, German, Turkish cuisines - heck I even spotted Malaysian chicken curry in a previous visit!  This time it was Thai green curry.  Grills are popular here - burgers with exotic meats, sausages, kebabs...

Then there are all the stalls selling cheese, cheese and more cheese, breads, cakes, spices, sweets, deli meats and fat juicy sausages, salamis and large joints of ham.

Not forgetting what's a market if it doesn't have fresh fruits, vegetables, the butchers and fishmongers?  The buzz is really something else and the onslaught of colours and smell can bring about a sensory overload.



clockwise from top left - giant scallops, a butcher, a fishmonger, kangaroo meat patties



Some of my favourites ...
A must-stop each visit is Cafe Brood for the paella.  Humongous pans filled with steaming paella, piping hot stew, chorizo sizzling on the griddle greet you at the entrance.  There's a choice of plain paella, or upsized with chorizos or prawns.  The stew looked great, but after chowing down a paella, it's tough to order a stew unless you have a stomach of steel.  With Southwark Cathedral next door, you may hear church bells ringing and organ recitals while you eat.

Brindisa is a Spanish grocer next to Ginger Pig.  This is where you can stock up on spices, spanish sausages, and serrano and Iberican hams.  The hams are priced according to their age - like wine, the aged ones will cost more.  My favourite chorizo supply comes from here - semi air-cured picante chorizo.

I couldn't find the Flour Power stall that sells the brownie slices anymore.  They must have moved out.  But I did find an equally good brownie here at the Bread Ahead Bakery.  If you head down towards the late afternoon, you'll find the bakery stalls discounting their products to clear.

meringues, cakes and brownies from cake stalls

Our shopping haul from the market:
1.  air-dried pork fillet
2.  3 types of sausages - lamb, venison, wild boar
3.  2 types of cheese - Croation manchego, Italian parmigiano-reggano
4.  1 pork pie
5.  1 lamb sausage roll
6.  brownies
7.  fresh produce - asparagus spears, raspberries, assorted capsicums
Mind you, these were on top of what we had stuffed our faces with at the market - coffee & croissants, paella, soup, grilled sausages.  Suffice to say, it was a very satisfying day out at the market.  Who would have thought a market would be this fun?

Tips:
Take the Undergound and get off at London Bridge.  There are directional signs to Borough Market.
Avoid Saturdays if you want to browse peacefully and avoid the inevitable queues.
Most traders are happy to let you sample before you purchase - just ask them.
There are restaurants around the market if you want to sit down and get a cuppa - but they will be crowded.
Bring a shopping bag for your goodies and happy shopping :)

Middle-East eats

Not being very familiar with middle eastern cuisine, I did try some during my short visit to the Persian Gulf countries recently.

Arabic coffee, not to be confused with Arabica which is a coffee specie, is brewed coffee flavoured with cardamom.  When I was first served this, I thought it tasted weird until the aroma reminded me of chai - then bingo! Cardamom!  Don't expect Starbucks sizes for Arabic coffee though - it's usually served in a cup which is similar to the Chinese tea cup and meant to be sipped.  It can be an acquired taste especially if you're not used to the cardamon flavour, but being used to Indian spices I rather enjoyed drinking it.  It probably uses very light roast because the coffee has a light green tinge to it - not the usual dark brew that we're used to seeing.

A meal will normally start with mezze - Arabic mezze is what tapas is to the Spanish.  There's usually a basket of bread, hummus (chickpea dip), baba ghanoush (eggplant dip), tabbouleh (bulgur wheat salad), fatoush (green salad with pieces of pita), olives.  This is probably the most basic of mezze, and I'm told it can be as elaborate as 40 dishes or more.  Not being very partial to fatoush, I devoured the dips with gusto. 


Bread and dips at a neighbourhood restaurant



Courgette stuffed with rice

tabbouleh

A jaunt to Souq Wakif in Doha led Y and I to Tagine Restaurant - as the name suggests it serves Moroccan cuisine.  It must have been football night; it was packed and we were led to the rooftop for our table.  Being a newbie at this, I left the orders to Y.  There was complimentary olives with a chilli salsa and we ordered vegetable couscous,lamb tagine and a green salad to start.  The couscous was very fluffy, and just right to absorb all that lovely juices from the lamb tagine.  And the lamb was so tender, it was falling off the bone. 

Morrocan dinner

We wanted mint tea without sugar which shocked the waiter to no end. No sugar?! Are you sure?  Yup - the tea is served so very sweet.  I bet dentists do a roaring trade here.  Shisha is popular and you'll see local men enveloped in a haze puffing great clouds of the sweet cloying smoke.

mint tea

It wasn't all just middle-eastern food though, there are other cuisines available especially in the malls.  I just had to add this in for variety :)  croissants and capuccino at Paul's.

breakfast at Paul's @ Villagio

48 hours in Doha

48 hours in Doha - that was the extent of my layover.  Doha is a puddle-jump from Dubai (only 45 minutes by flight) but that jump comes with a 1 hour time difference. Sigh.

Being in a desert city, I've realised how I've been taking our greenery for granted.  In Doha, sidewalks
are almost always not completed - it's just dirt. Grass, shrubs and trees in public areas are almost non-existent unless you're in an upmarket suburb.  And the landscape is primarily sand coloured - sand coloured houses behind walls, scrubby brown bush, desert sand, tan coloured mosques...after 1 day, I even missed our lallang.

houses are usually built behind high walls

Doha is also a city of a gazillion roundabouts - every other intersection is a roundabout which must be a bloody nightmare during peak hours to navigate.  There's also some sort of pecking order to the vehicles there, with Land Cruisers at the top of the food chain.  I guess if an SUV came hurtling behind you with its lights flashing and with no indication that it'll slow down, it's prudent to get out of the way.

I thought these are interesting street lights

Construction work is rife here, and the landscape is dotted with the national bird - cranes (haha, get it?).

view of buildings under construction from the Pearl

Managed to make a trip to the desert this time.  We were supposed to go to the Singing Dunes, but with almost non-existent road signs and relying only on google map, this wasn't meant to be.  So we drove in the approximate direction until the road literally ran out into the desert.



end of road....literally




walking off into the desert

 If bargaining is your cup of mint tea, Souq Wakif is the place for you.  It's a fully functional traditional market and you'll find everything from spices, perfumes, clothes, carpets to kitschy souvenirs and animals ( I saw rabbits, birds, cats for sale).  Haggling is expected here, so don't jump at the seller's first offer.  You'll find tourists and locals alike here.  The sellers don't loudly push you to buy or hassle you at all and leave you in relative peace to browse. There are also a lot of restaurants and shisha cafes here.  I noticed that there weren't any Arab women at the shisha cafes, if there were females, they were Westerners.  Restaurants ranged from Indian, Lebanese, Turkish, Morrocan to Baskin-Robbins.

assorted spices for sale

handicrafts and souvenirs

shisha break at a cafe - only men and western women

Not about to be beaten by Dubai in the mall stakes, Doha has the Villagio.  Villagio is modelled after Venice, complete with a canal running along the length of the mall, gondolas and ceilings painted to look like blue skies.  If you've been to the Venetian in Macau, you'll understand what I mean.  It's stocked with major western brands you can think of - although the window displays are more modest, in line with the conservative society.  In comparison with Dubai, Qatari women are more covered up, with more than a few fully veiled.   There's also the Pearl which is super-duper upmarket.  It's so upmarket that there's hardly any pedestrian traffic there, which makes you wonder how the boutiques pay the rent. 

Learning that Doha malls practised family days, I initially thought "wow, how pro-family!"  I later learnt that this is a form of discrimination to prevent single riff-raff (read foreign workers mainly from Bangladesh, India, Nepal) from thronging the malls on weekends.  However, the family unit is important in Doha - you'll see large family sizes, hyperactive children are tolerated and McDonald's features humongous Playplaces prominently.

48 hours is more than sufficient for a visit, unless you intend to watch all 80 episodes of "Shaun the Sheep" to kill time.

Katara cultural village



giant bird houses at Katara



zig zag buildings



amphitheatre at Katara - very Gladiator-like



Tallest building in Doha - Aspire tower also known as the Torch for the 2006 Asian Games

Arabian nights in Dubai

the iconic sail-like Burj al Arab

I wonder if spending a couple of nights in the Persian Gulf region qualifies as Arabian nights?  Exotic visions of Arabian nights went up in a poof when I stepped foot in Dubai.  1st impressions? Ultra-modern city, no expense spared skyscrapers co-existing with a mosque every 500 metres.  It was remarkably like a faceless US city plonked in the middle of the dessert, albeit with shinier taller buildings and non-stop construction.

Dubai boasts of accolades - world's tallest building (Burj al Khalifa), world's best hotel (Burj al Arab), 1st indoor ski slope in the Middle-East(Ski Dubai), artificial islands of Palm Jumeirah and the World (why would you need artificial islands?!) are amongst some of them.

Whizzing along the highways, you'll see a plethora of brand new skyscrapers, and some more frenzied construction; but with a population of approximately 2 million (of which 80% are non-locals), you wonder if they are all going to be fully occupied.

Unfortunately for me, my trip agenda was packed out with meetings all day followed by dinners.  This didn't leave much time for any exploring. 

So armed with my "things to do in Dubai" list, here's how it went :

1. The nearest I got to the desert and sand was the view from the airplane window.

2. Camels? Only saw the pop kitsch statues that were scattered around the hotel.

variety of spices sold in Carrefour

3.  Spice market - sadly, the only spice market I saw was in Carrefour. Managed to make a quick dash to Mall of Emirates one evening for spice supplies. While Carrefour may not be the most exotic of places, it has an amazing range of spices, nuts and dried fruits with English labels so it's very convenient and easy.  No haggling.  No chicken-duck talk.  The MOE is where the indoor ski slope is too. 

fountain at Burj al Arab lobby area

4.  Burj al Arab, the world's first 7-star hotel -  check.  Great views from the hotel, and luckily just a 5 minute trot away too.  Managed to gawk at this opulently and lavishedly decorated hotel.  What can I say? I was blinged out. The interior is done in vibrant gem colours of fuschia, purples, blues, greens and all that gold everywhere.  It's like King Midas ran amok in there.  Good thing I had my trusty Ray-Bans with me.  It's still a gawk-worthy hotel, with the floor-to-ceiling aquariums flanking the lobby and boasting the tallest lobby atrium.

Burj al Khalifa - tallest tower in the world

5.  Burj al Khalifa -  caught this as I was being whisked to the airport.





selection of mezze





Ourzi with rice



6.  Taste of Arabian mezze - check. Lucky for me, every meal started with the ubiquitous flatbreads served with multitudes of hummous, baba ghanoush, tabouleh, olives and a vast assortment of salads.  Suffice to say, I was very happy just tucking into the mezze.  Dinner one night had a roast lamb dish served with pilaf.  It was called ourzi.  Being a sucker for anything lamb, I thought it was fab.

Dubai is a city somewhat contradictory city; ultra-modern city and ostentatious wealth flaunted coupled with a shocking lack of social responsibility ( I've seen people littering without a thought in the malls), Chanel clutching women, covered head to toe with their Loubotins peeking from under their black abayas...While I've barely scratched the surface with this visit, Dubai is probably worth a look only if you are in the region and have a day or 2 to kill.  It hasn't rated yet an entry in my bucket list.



Jumeirah Beach Hotel looks like a sail



suburb in Jumeirah area




one of many mosques dotting the city



playground for the rich



Weekend in Melaka - Unesco World Heritage Site



a heritage building along Jonker Street



It has been quite a few years since I stepped foot into Melaka - the last being a company team-building trip.  Melaka used to be a school holiday destination when I was younger, but it lost its appeal to concrete, development, traffic and a dirty smelly river. So you can imagine how 'thrilled' I was that my cousin's wedding in Melaka meant that I had to spend a weekend there.

In most countries, riverside land are prime areas; unfortunately in Malaysia it's treated as a rubbish dump. However,the smelly dirty river that I remembered was no longer the same - it's been spruced up, cleaned up and somewhat beautified. Ok, so it's quite touristy and tacky, but at least it's no longer yucks.



view from hotel - see the river?





Hokkien Huay Kuan - look at the relief work on the pillars

Attaining the Unesco World Heritage Site status in 2007 has done a lot for the town - at the very least, the heritage buildings are conserved and restored.  It also preserves Melaka's rich history from the 15th century Malacca Sultanates to the Portugese and Dutch colonisation periods.

wooden clogs for sale

With only a few hours to spare, Big Dog and I decided to wander down the Jonker Street area.  Walking along Jalan Tokong, there is an Indian temple, a mosque and a Chinese temple.  Quite a muhibbah street - mind you the places of worship date back to the 1780s.  The Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple was built in 1781 and is the oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia.  The Kampung Kling Mosque is also one of the oldest mosques in Malaysia and interestingly, doesn't have a Byzantium dome.  The Cheng Hoon Teng temple is the oldest functioning temple in Malaysia.



Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple




Cheng Hoon Teng Temple




Kampung Kling Mosque with its Oriental influenced minaret



ice shaving

A visit to Melaka isn't complete without taking in some chendol - a shaved ice dessert topped with gula melaka (palm sugar) and the green chendol.  Due to the tourist factor and hygiene awareness, it's rare to see the chendol man peddling his wares from the roadside bicycle anymore.  We found ours in a shop called Bibik House.

chendol

While it's almost impossible to get lost in Melaka, it did take us a couple of rounds to find the Portugese Settlement ( the one-way roads threw us off).  We wanted some Portugese seafood.  Lunch there was a 50/50 affair as only 2 stalls were opened for business.  We picked Joan & El Chico's because it looked cooler.  Hmm, maybe lunch isn't popular as it's murderously hot during mid-day?  Lucky for us, our 50% turned out to be a winner. Woohoo...lunch was chicken dable (devil's chicken), ladies' fingers fried with sambal, mussels in ginger and chilli padi and garlic butter scallops.  Er, we were famished.  We came, we ate and we left a pile of shells.  Total damage? RM63, which included 3 drinks (er, we were thirsty too).  Value for money! 



Portugese seafood for lunch



We are going back to Melaka.