FEATURED POST: CELEBRATING TIM HO WAN JAKARTA // Tim Ho Wan Singapore at Plaza Singapura

POSTED ON MAY 5TH 2014

If there's an award for the tardiest food blogger then I'm going to win it! I visited Singapore back in January but I haven't blogged even half of my trip there T__T, the thing is, I travel each and every month and the events in Jakarta are literally each and every week plus advertorial posts in order to keep this blog alive, plus lack of diligence plus whatever...

Back on my visit to Singapore, I went to this over-buzzed famous restaurant which eventually seemed like a must-visit for anybody visiting Singapore. Known as the world's cheapest one Michelin star (by the Michelin Guide), this Hong Kong's franchise restaurant known as "Tim Ho Wan" was probably not your typical Chinese restaurant...or it is? Keep reading.

I heard that people would wait hours (some even waited for three freaking hours) but lucky for me since I am smart, I came just before lunch time and waited for only around 20 minutes, still, probably the longest I've waited for a table (I've always been lucky when it comes to tables and I hope I won't run out of luck please :")), I didn't take much interior shot because the place was so crowded, but what I could tell you that it was not exactly spacious (just medium).

Let's move on straight to the food! I definitely ordered some of their famous 'stars' and I intentionally put the creme de la creme of my lunch that day on the top of this post! It's the Baked Buns with BBQ Pork (S$4.5/3 pcs), the question is, is that really THAT good? And Holy Gosh Mother of Kitchen it was freaking good. It might not look super convincing from outside but it was actually really good, I love that the bun had this crunchy crispy consistency on the surface but slowly made its way to chewy. The BBQ Pork had this perfect balance of sweet and savory, pretty much like the one you had in mind right now but you can't seem to remember where it actually came from, total must try! Best served warm so don't take too long to take pics!

To be the most frank, the others were just okay, certainly not bad but I must say nothing really special. I must say the filling of the Steamed Pork and Shrimp Dumpling or Siew May (S$5.5) was pretty generous and thick, the Prawn Dumpling or Hakao (S$5.5) had this silky fresh prawn filling and the Steamed Egg Cake (S$3.5) was another favorite of mine, it was soft and fluffy, almost like there's actually palm sugar in it.

Pan Fried Carrot Cake
S$4.5

Vermicelli Roll with Pig's Liver
S$3.5

Steamed Egg Cake
S$3.5

Overall I had a quite pleasant experience dining at Tim Ho Wan, but again, I must say that based on my personal experience I must say that the whole buzzing thing claiming it's the best Dim Sum restaurant might get a little overrated for me, but again and again and again, it's all about personal preference and the food here was not bad at all, and I'll come back to Tim Ho Wan whenever I am in Singapore just because it's Dim Sum (such a Dim Sum craze here) and their bloddy delicious Baked BBQ Pork Buns, but looking forward to try another Dim Sum places! If you have any recommendations, please drop your comments below :). Thanks!

As in for pricing, I must say it's still pretty affordable even though might be just a tad more expensive, but afterall, it's TIM HO WAN featuring its reputation and its good luck (did I mention "Tim Ho Wan" actually means "Add Good Luck", which you could clearly see from the queue! Money magnet LOL).

KINDLY WAITING FOR THE OPENING OF "TIM HO WAN JAKARTA" <3.

Tim Ho Wan
Plaza Singapura Level 01-29
68 Orchard Road
+65 6251 2000
Opening Hours: 10 AM - 10 PM
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Map for Plaza Singapura.

CHRISTMAS IN SINGAPORE (PHOTO DIARY)

MERRY EARLY CHRISTMAS FROM THE SINGAPORE!

I just came back from Singapore a couple days ago. It was a short impromptu weekend getaway. I have always wanted to see how is Singapore doing with all the Christmas thingy because a lot of my friends told me that Singapore is really giving it when it comes to the Christmas decoration.

I had mixed responds about the Christmas decoration honestly.

I love how the Christmas deco looks at Gardens by The Bay, if you've been to Gardens by The Bay then you probably know that it's this quite spacious area and along December especially for Christmas, this area is transformed to this little heartwarming city - except it was raining hard so it's kinda chily and they have air-conditioning, but I honestly liked it because cold with very Christmas for me -. I am loving everything about the decoration! They apparently did a pretty good job with it, but unfortunately, I wasn't feeling it on the Orchard Road during the day, not that it looked horrible or anywhere near bad (except the plastic looking stars), it was the weather! That day when I was surfing Orchard, it was at a point raining very hard and suddenly turning to this ultra humid spot! I was super sweaty and feeling so uncomfortable, but aside from that, Orchard looked stunning during the night :)

This won't be a post with a lot of words and saying, this is more like a photo-diary, Christmas in Singapore in colors and let the pictures do the talking. Take this as the longer version of "Postcards from..."

This is when it started to rain very hard and that's probably why the photo was a little foggy, I sort of went straight away to the Gardens by The Bay short moments after landing in Singapore.

Gorgeous light display during the night!

The famous solar-powered trees!

ORCHARD!

Loving this fake afternoon tea displayed along the road.

One of the most fascinating details!

Some of my favorites iPhone and VSCOCam edited pictures and I've posted these on my Instagram.

 Ending the post with two of my favorite photos along the trip because...it's the photos of me!!! HAHAHA taken by the amazing photographer Benny Lims! Thank you Mr. Benny for the pics. Super love them very artsy lah!

The trip was fun! I spent three days in Singapore, meeting some friends, eating some good food. It will take a while for me to post every single thing because my list is sort of full right now. I still have so many travel stories, reviews and ideas to pour. I sometimes wish there are like 5 of me but then I realize they will be burdens! LOL!

Thank you for reading! Cheers to you all!

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SINGAPORE AIRLINES WORLD GOURMET FORUM 2014

Still reminiscing my days in Singapore and I am finally it’s because I am representing eatandtreats and Indonesia at the World Gourmet Forum in Singapore just last month and on this post I am going to be sharing so many newsworthy stories for those of you who adore a little touch of class and luxury, especially those who are such big loyal fans of Singapore Airlines.

Just so you know, this is not an advertorial and I am in no way getting paid to write about this, so if you assume things you might want to tone it down darling ;).

I was complimented with business class flight and the flight was splendid as you can tell by reading THIS and trip this was quite an eye-opener for me. I learned new things and for some reasons, I wouldn’t see food catering the same way again, well at least, Singapore Airline’s.

The WGF series started with the visit to the SATC, which is the Singapore Airlines’ catering service and training centre, unfortunately there’s a NO CAMERA policy on the kitchen and that’s supposed to be the highlight, so I couldn’t take any picture, but I could visually translated my experience if you care for reading.

The kitchen area was this whole floor of the building and it was HUGE, more like GINORMOUS with separated areas with their particular stations. Turns out, the kitchen was actually quite clean and super hygienic (didn’t I tell you that before entering the kitchen area, EVERYONE should be in this air shower to make sure there’s no germ carried by you (and yes it’s THAT clean), my favorite area must be the omelette station where they actually had three people running the machine with 12 round-moving plans, and just in case you wonder why they could produce that much omelettes for the service, they’re actually robot-controlled, hence the amount of omelette should be the same, generally and I experience myself that every single thing is produced daily, no preservatives used (they used maximum freezing and reheating AS THE FORM OF) and again, it’s hygiene, yeah you ask yourself have you ever experienced any food poisoning after you eat the SQ food? Bet 100% would say no!

People fly everyday and there’s massive amount of catering produced daily and to see so many people working there (despite taking care of their duty and working purpose), I felt quite touched to see that there were so many old people (and I mean really old people) working there, dealing with the same thing everyday, they might find it boring, but there’s the art of dedication that I honor so much and from now on, everytime I look at the food I am having generally, and particularly the SQ food, I’ll remember the behind the scene, and of course, I’ll remember them.

One of the things I love about my visit to the training center was actually to experience the training process itself. This I must tell you: the trainers are very tough! It’s like getting into a school with very strict teachers, but not the one that might hit you, that would be socially unacceptable, but I mean it in a very strict but professional way, yes there were quite a few “yelling” and “shouting” but it’s the matter of learning, again, you notice that behind the scene is something that you should know and experience before you commeted, so behind all those beautiful smiles of the SQ flight attendants that you’re seeing, there was a big learning session.

The World Gourmet Forum took place at the magnificent Grand Hyatt and journalists from all over the world joined this forum and it's also the media for Singapore Airlines to release some of the interesting surpises for (back then) the journalists and soon for all of the SQ passengers! 

Mr. Tan Pee Teck, the senior vice president of product and service of Singapore Airlines.

Oz Clarke, oh I love this man! As soon as he spoke to the guests, it just feels so recharging and energizing. His confidence really sparked, well no wonder, he used to be an actor and singer so showing up in front of the public has been always a piece of cake for him.

Oz Clarke is currently the newest member of SIA's wine panel along with the Jennie Choo Lee and Michael Hill Smith! Oz is rumored to be the substitute of Steven Spurrier who is now retired but still collaborating with SQ in different approach and state.

THE IN-FLIGHT SERVICE

There's this one essential information that I manage to learn thanks to this event: the fact that when you're 35.000 feet above sea level, you'll experience humidity of around 2-3% and this will affect not only the dryness of our skin but also our taste bud. The thing is, to keep you and your system on the right track, you need to have good source for that.

Not every food and beverage travel well and that's why I personally think that SQ is genius and in a way very caring with all of this. From the many times I've flown with SQ, I have never been disappointed, there's probably only once where the food went "oh yeah just okay" but usually I'd go "this is good!" or "this is freaking good", so along with their smartness and their own logical formula that we might not understand, they managed to set everything to match most of our palate (I believe) and the wines are not the exception.

Good news! Taittinger Champagne is going to be served on the SQ's business class very soon! So when you travel in the future you might kick off your trip with somma this!

The WGF 2014 also presented the cook panel who will be in charge with all the in-flight catering service for business and first class and the chefs are very established and expert at their fields!

 The humble chef Carlos Cracco from Italy and he's a 2-Michelin star awarded chef for his restaurant, Ristorante Cracco. His motto is to have your meal filled with region and identity. Yum!

 Chef George Blanc, the amazing chef who holds a 3-Michelin star restaurant called "Vonnas" in Paris!

 Chef Albert Tan

I met some familiar faces on the WGF 2014: Matt Moran (whom I just met a few days ago on the Restaurant Australia event in Tasmania and he's actually on the same airplane with me to the Tassie LOL) and the beautiful Suzanne Goin (I love love love Suzanne I think she's my most favorite female chef at the moment), Suzanne currently runs 4 restaurants in the US and that should explain enough how successful she is at the moment.

Matt is a rough looking masculine chef but actually he's very nice and polite! When you see him smile he's actually far from that rough image hahaha!

 There's a little cooking demonstration there by the chefs and the food was served to the lucky guests (those will fast hands) and some dish really caught my attention but I vividly remember that my favorite was the Halibut served with salad by Suzanne Goin. It was just so delicious and smooth but in the same time she's still holding to the healthy concept she's developing. I also quite liked the good old Buratta cheese by Matt Moran, you know that I don't like cheese but it was just yum!

 Apparently, SQ is really child-friendly!

Before I continue with some of the food pics that I managed to capture, I just want to quickly tell you that SQ is having this program called "Book the Cook" so you basically can pre-order your main course and this program applies to the 18 departure cities like Singapore, Sydney, LA, Zurich, Amsterdam and a few more! Isn't that JUST AWESOME? You know what you want and everyone's happy! By the way, here are some of the food that you might experience when you’re flying Business or First Class with Singapore Airlines: (PS: no picture order).

Lobster with turmeric rice

 Singapore's Traditional Bak Kut Teh

 Singapore's Chicken Rice

The food will be presented in the airplane as how you're seeing it right now!

It was a sheer-joy joining the World Gourmet Forum, making new friends, connections and for the chance to know what's happening with SQ and meeting so many inspiring people I am almost inspired to aspire! I am so looking forward for more of SQ's new ventures! Hopefully they'll be YUMMIER!

This serie is not ending, will post the latest post soon!

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