Explore Singapore #1 - Boat Quay & Clarke Quay

Relocating to a new place means every weekend can be like a vacation. It sure felt like it when we explored the downtown area by Singapore River. Arriving at the Raffles MRT Station, this place feels very different on a weekend. There are no one in their office suits rushing around to get from one place to another. Instead, the place is packed with tourists taking pictures or groups of young adults playing their favorite musical instrument. With the Christmas events in town, this place is also swarmed with people shopping from temporary stalls along the river. 

From the Raffles MRT station, we walked along Boat Quay. This area is filled to the brim with bars, seafood restaurants and spas squeezed between the restaurants. Everyone stands right outside their shop trying to lure you in with their best dishes, cheapest beer for happy hour or the most popular sports show of the season. The end of Boat Quay is an underpass that once hosted a beautiful painting depicting the politics of Singapore. The mural has been partially torn down…wonder if it is an act of vandalism or there are plans for a change in scenery. 

Stop #1 - Cafe Iguana

With so many bars in this area, there is definitely a happy hour somewhere. Cafe Iguana is a Mexican restaurant and their margarita price increases as the day gets later. Hence, it was a great place for those who like to start early. It took us a while to find this place because the blur us was looking for a place called Chameleon (this place was recommended to us as the place to go for margaritas). 

Stop #2 - Liang Court

With the day still bright, we decided to roam indoors for a bit. We came upon Liang Court, a Japanese themed shopping mall located just upstream of Clarke Quay. The highlight there for me was Uniqlo and Kinokuniya. On a previous trip, we visited Tampopo with some friends. Their fresh sushi is highly recommended. 

Stop #3 - Sque and The Central

Looking for another place to enjoy happy hour, we head back towards Riverside Point (Clarke Quay is pretty much isolated before nightfall). After window shopping at the stalls set up along the river, we stopped by the Sque Rotiserrie & Alehouse for their buy 1 get 1 happy hour deal. Their location was great for people watching and so we decided to stay for dinner…highly not recommended. Their meat dishes came out barely cooked or extremely greasy. It was quite a disappointment for a place they call Rotiserrie. As we were about to leave, we realized the Sque is actually part of another mall - The Central. This is quite a maze of a mall with each section practically hidden from another. But they have a few Christmas-themed stalls on the first floor with pretty reasonable prices. 

Stop #4 - Mad for Garlic at Clarke Quay

After all the walking and barely had any food, we walked across the river to Clarke Quay and found Mad for Garlic. I was looking for an ice-cream place but JQ convinced me to try their pizza dessert. The verdict - I wouldn't mind getting it again!

First Hike of The Year

This year is flying by way too fast! It is already April and we just went for our first hike. We have been traveling almost every month and every weekend have been either preparing for a trip or recovering from a trip. This past weekend, we decided to go somewhere different for a hike. 

McDowell Mountain Regional Park

The McDowell Mountains is located about 20 minutes north of Tempe in Fountain Hills, a little town just north of Scottsdale. To enter the park, you will have to pay $6/car. We hiked the Granite and Bluff trails, which was recommended for views of the spring wildflowers. It is definitely our favorite low intensity hiking place now! It is extremely peaceful with only sounds of nature. You can hear the bird callings, rustling in the bushes from lizards and snake (this is the first time we saw a huge snake during our hikes in AZ!) and the surrounding is very tranquil. These two trails was a total of 3 miles round-trip with no elevation. 

Desert spring wildflowers

Goldfields

Tree carcass

Poppies

Anthill

Hedgehog Cactus

Cholla cactus

Lupinus 

After the hike, we stopped by Fountain Hills on our way home. We went to a Mexican tapas place for lunch - Sofrita. It is a small family-owned restaurant with very unique and homey decorations. Their flower choice of their table decoration brought a smile to me - Cymbidium orchid, our wedding flower! 

Sofrita has a simple lunch menu with familiar ingredients. I ordered the Chilaquiles Verde - a tortilla stacks with shredded chicken and eggs. I have wanted to get one since my trip to Cuatro Ciénegas, Mexico. I ordered one from Chelsea's Kitchen when we went there sometime last year but was very disappointed at their chilaquiles. I was excited to see another menu serving chilaquiles. Sofrita's version is very delicious and flavorful. The tortilla stack was soaked with fresh salsa verde and their chicken was very juicy and tasted like it was prepared in a cooker with lots of flavorful herbs. 

After lunch, we walked around the Fountain Park, a man-made park with the fourth tallest fountain. The fountain goes off every hour. We saw it sprayed while we were hiking at the McDowell Mountains but not while we were walking around the park. The park was full of activities with lots of birthday parties and people BBQing. We were extremely surprised to see the American coots so healthy and plump compared to the ones we saw at MSU and Tempe Town Lake! They sure get lots of food here. But, the highlight of our day was watching a mating game between two dragonflies - they sure are brutal when it comes to mating! 

American Coots

Dragonflies

Planning The Wedding

12.12.12. There will not be another date in my lifetime with repeated day, month, year numbers (unless I live up to 119 years old). Fun fact aside, it is exactly a month until JQ and my wedding day!

What is the purpose of a wedding? Celebration! Getting to know our families and friends. A reason to dress up. But mostly, a fun night with family and close friends. I had wanted it to be a fusion between a Western and traditional Peranakan wedding but my parents are pretty untraditional (at least in this case) so decided to keep it simple with several important essence of our family tradition.

1. Country: Malaysia! We knew we wanted a wedding back home as soon as JQ proposed. When I think of my wedding, my ahmah is the first one who came to mind. I always wanted a wedding where I can serve tea to my grandparents. Even with only my ahmah left to witness this event, there is no way I am having my wedding without her or without my aunts, uncles and cousins. JQ's family is also excited to celebrate with us in Malaysia. It will be a great opportunity for JQ's family to meet my family, to experience Malaysian culture and simply to visit my home country. 

2. A small wedding. Growing up, dad reminds me again and again not to over spend on wedding, invite only people who matters and not the entire village. That advice was repeated over and over that it got stuck in mind. Being away from M'sia for so long, I lost touch with several friends. But there are a handful who are dear to me, who influenced my life in some way, who I would like JQ to meet. With short trips back to M'sia, I also wanted this event to be like a mini-reunion, getting to know my friends again. I wanted to be able to tell JQ a story of every person who come to the wedding instead of 'I am not exactly sure who this person is'. Definitely a small, intimate wedding. 

3. Reasonable. We dream of wedding up in the Rockies, somewhere in the middle of the Amazon forest. But realistically, we can't afford that and we won't have any guests! Our first choice was at hotel gardens but the few places we looked at had a minimum of 100 guests. While it would be easy to invite 100 people, the cost was outrageous, and comes in package where refusing some items do not make it cheaper. With both of us coming close to a change in career, we also have to prepare for moving costs and temporary unemployment in the near future. 

4. Garden wedding. There is no way we are going to have our wedding in an indoor ballroom or function room. It has to be outdoor or partially outdoor (mosquitoes or not aside). Mom suggests the garden of my uncle's apartment. That would have been a perfect location - garden wedding by the pool! Unfortunately, we could not secure any florist to help us design the location (this is another story to tell some other time). Then we found the Tropical Spice Garden. I loved it when I went there almost 5 years ago and they have a lovely eco theme wedding package. So that is how we decided to have it at the TSG.  

5. Food. This was a challenging subject for us. We wanted traditional Nyonya cuisine. My family are strict critics when it comes to Nyonya cuisine. Nothing tastes better than my gee kim's cooking. No way we are going to make gee kim cook for 80 people on my wedding day. My parents favored catered food over hotel food. So the hunt for caterers began until they found Bamboo Catering. 

The most challenging on the major planning is communications with the different vendors in Penang. From our experience so far, Penang businesses rarely reply to emails, take months to respond to our enquiries and do no like to share their prices until you agree to their service. Lucky for us, my parents are retired and can help us hunt these people down. Yet, they still had a hard time getting quotes or finding a florist. With only one month left and the plans in place, we can only hope that these places deliver as they promised. 

White-Lined Sphinx Caterpillar

When I first came to Arizona, I loved the heat...that was in late September when we went hiking at Apache Trails. After living here for a year, I realized that summer is really not meant for outdoor activities when you are in the southwest desert. The weather have been unbearably hot since I got back from Mexico in July.

This weekend, the morning temperature loom below 90^oF, at approximately 35^oC. We decided to go for a short hike at South Mountain, Phoenix. South Mountain has lots of short trails and a lovely view of the city of Phoenix. It is also only a short distance away from Tempe so we didn't have to drive too far.

We hiked the Mormon Trail this time, which is a rocky trail with several valleys and peaks along the trail. Halfway through the trail, we started seeing lots of yellow caterpillar. It became quite a creepy trail after a while when you stop to look around and these caterpillar is all around you (at least for me lah). They are about 2-3 inches long and is as fat as my index finger. The worst is climbing up a rock and looking up into a big fat one. Eeeeck!!

Why are they all over the place?? What are these yellow caterpillar?

These caterpillars are called white-lined sphinx caterpillar (Hyles lineata). They are quite pretty with bright yellow color and black lines/spots (when I don't have to be hopping around avoiding them lah). They all seems to be moving towards the same direction - North but I don't think it is an organized colony migration, rather individual migration that appears like colony migration because there are so many of them!! It is unclear why they are migrating. The two hypotheses on why they are migrating at this time are:
1) It is time for them to pupate and they need to burrow into moist soil. Desert mountain soil has high clay content and are hard to dig into for burrowing.
2) With lack of rain in the summer, they are starting to run out of their food source = desert weed plants, and so they migrate to search for food. You might find them in your backyard!

Hopefully they will find a safe place to pupate and in a few weeks, we'll see the white-lined sphinx moth!

Volcanic pumice...a potential new habitat.

In early January, I had the opportunity to participate in a research project that explores the effects of volcanic pumice on deep oligotrophic (low nutrient) lakes in Argentina. Back in June 2011, some of us might remember hearing of a volcano eruption in Chile that had affected airports in several cities in South America AND Australia. This volcano was part of the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic complex. The last time it erupted was about fifty years ago, back in 1960s. During the eruption, a large amount of pumice and ashes spurt out from the volcano landed in the small tourist town of Bariloche and various lakes in Argentina, in the Patagonian region. In addition to causing thousands of people to run for their lives during the eruption, the volcano's ash deposition on nearby parks and lakes became a major perturbation to the ecosystem. Until today, there are still ashes coming out from the volcano and occasionally, when the wind blows the 'wrong' way, Bariloche looks like it is going to drown in ashes.

The video above was taken by Dr. Esteban Balseiro at Bariloche, looking out Lago Nahuel Huapi. 

Dried volcanic pumice

Volcanic pumice looks like rocks but are extremely porous, causing it to float on water instead of sinking to the sediment. It is not very nutritious (<1% C and undetectable N) but we have found that pumice releases a large amount of phosphorus. The availability of the released phosphorus is still under investigation. A more concerning issue is that the pumice have significantly reduced the amount of light that goes through the water column for light-dependent bacteria in the water. This is especially an issue for small lakes, such as Lago Pire, where the pumice have covered almost the entire lake. The picture below was taken on February 8, 2012, nine months after the eruption. The pumice does not seem to be going anywhere...

Lago Pire, February 8, 2012

Floating pumice

In Patagonia, the larger lakes such as Lake Nahuel Huapi are very deep (> 400m) and the microbes such as ciliates and photosynthetic bacteria are found to be mostly 30-40m deep. Mind you, a lot of these are light-dependent microbes. The water is so clear that light penetrates deep with high amount of UV radiation at the surface. In fact, from the amount of light measured by our collaborators in Universidad Nacional del Comahue at Bariloche, there are more light at 30m deep in the lake than there is on his desk!! But now...the pumice have turned the lights off for the bacteria.

Lago Nahuel Huapi

My goal for this research project is to determine if bacteria takes up residence on this P releasing pumice. If it is too dark under the pumice, maybe it will be better to stay on the pumice? Or will the pumice cause the light-dependent bacteria to starve and eventually the entire microbial community to crash? (the heterotrophic bacteria, which are dependent on the phototrophs may also run out of food source). So I joined Dr. Esteban Balseiro and Dr. Beatrice Modenutti's lab in several sampling trips to collect pumice from several lakes around Bariloche, along with the water to determine if the pumice colonizers are dependent on the 'inoculum' (the community the pumice is exposed to) or only a few types of bacteria will grow on the pumice, no matter where the pumice is collected from. Dr. B and Dr. M had also collected pumice from the 2 most disturbed lakes (by the pumice) over time since the deposition in June 2010. We want to see if there is a succession of bacterial community colonizing the pumice. As for now, we know that some of the pumice are high in microbial biomass (based on amount of DNA/g pumice) while some barely have any microbes on it. In addition to that, our Argentinian colleagues (and a Chilean group) have found that diatoms community increases in abundance and are found colonizing the pumice. Why? …stay tune until I process all the samples.

Roka Akor

Roka Akor is a contemporary Japanese restaurant that uses the 'robata grill'. 'Robata grill' is basically a charcoal grill, which makes the food have more of a burnt flavor compared to the regular 'teppanyaki', also known as steel grill. We came across this restaurant on Groupon. I like that it is not a widely spread chain restaurant, making it more unique. In United States, there is one in Scottsdale, AZ and they recently opened another one in Chicago, IL.

The Scottsdale location is in a stand alone building right off N. Scottsdale Road, near the McCormick Ranch Golf Course. Upon entrance into the restaurant, we were greeted and given a choice of sitting at the bar or at the table. As we walked towards the restaurant, we saw that they had outdoor tables and given the nice weather that evening, we opt to sit outside. When we were guided to our table, I noticed that they have an open kitchen setup. It would have been fun to sit by the open kitchen to see all the cool cooking techniques they use.

Roka Akor is definitely the fanciest restaurant I have been to in the States. It is an upscale restaurant where you pay for not only the food but also the ambiance and service. We had a server who was very informative on the dishes and helpful with the recommendations. They were very alert on when we need refills for our drinks and the food came out at the appropriate timing.

The menu is definitely full of unique dishes with the Western-Japanese fusion theme. We wanted to try as many dishes as possible so we opt for a variety of their appetizer dishes rather than their entree dishes.

We started out with the Japanese Shishito Peppers. This is definitely a must try for pepper-lovers! The ponzu sauce (the Japanese version of soy sauce) enhances the juiciness of the pepper that was lightly grilled.

Robata-grilled Japanese Shishito Peppers with ponsu and bonito flakes, $7

Our server highly recommended their Salmon Nigiri for salmon-lovers. This is the first time I tried flame seared salmon and it has definitely left a mark in my taste bud. The salmon was so fresh and searing is definitely a better option because it cooked the salmon just enough, leaving it still juicy and the melt in your mouth taste. This was my favorite dish of the night.

Flamed seared sesame Salmon Nigiri, $11.50

Not getting enough of the salmon and of course, how can we pass up sashimi when we are in a Japanese restaurant, we ordered the Chef's Selection of sashimi. The selection was tuna, yellowtail and of course, salmon! The sashimi was served on ice, the proper way, unlike most Japanese restaurant.   It is very fresh and the sweetness from the fish bursts with every bite. It is definitely the best sashimi cuts I have had.

Sashimi Chef's Selection, 3-pc, $19.00

Another fish dish that we tried was the Butterfish Tataki. I don't think I tried butterfish before so this was exciting. This is the most attractive dish - the asparagus butterfish was steamed and served with yuzu, a refreshing citrus flavor sauce. Although this is an appetizer dish, the yuzu sauce was a great transition towards dessert.

Roka Akor Butterfish Tataki with white asparagus and yuzu, $11

For those who are not a big fan of seafood, they have very tasty vegetable side dishes too. We tried their signature Sweet Corn and Sweet Potato. They are definitely the most expensive corn and sweet potato I have ever ate but the robata grill definitely made a huge difference. The sweet potato is crispy on the outside and succulent on the inside. The corn is so juicy it feels like we were eating some kind of a melon instead of corn.

Roka Akor Sweet Potato with ginger teriyaki, $4.50

Roka Akor Sweet Corn with butter and soy, $4.50

We ended dinner with their Green Tea Custard for dessert. The custard is not too sweet, which is always a risk when ordering custard, and is great when eaten together with the banana-vanilla foam. I suspected that they have a tinge of pandan added to the custard but since I couldn't remember what pandan is called in English, I didn't ask about it. This combination reminded of the sweet and salty kuih talam. The chef recommended dipping the caramelized banana into the custard but I preferred eating them separately. While it is a tasty custard and definitely made with green tea (rather than flavored), I can't say it is the best dessert I have had.

Baked Green Tea Custard with caramelized banana and vanilla, $8

I would definitely go back to Roka Akor just for their seared salmon but probably not anytime soon as their pricing is on the high side. But, I do highly recommend it for a pre-dinner place to visit. It is also known to have really good shochu (unfortunately I can't vouch for their quality as we didn't get any alcoholic drinks) so for those who want to get some drinks and light snacks before dinner, it is a great place. Off to think of a special occasion or celebration to go back there…

Mexican Food Galore

When it comes to eating out, Mexican food is my choice if the real Chinese food is not available. Taco Bell, a fast food chain selling simple Mexican food like taco and burrito is one of my most visited places when I was too busy to cook. My list of ‘favorite restaurants’ also consists of several Mexican places – Qdoba, Pancheros and Los Tres Amigos. The style is very similar to Malaysian ‘chap fan’ – rice (or beans) with seasoned meat – but of course the taste is very different.

BUT, it wasn’t until the trip to Mexico that I realized how different real Mexican food tastes like. They are so fresh and full of spices. Now it is even more like Malaysian food. Four very important ingredients – cilantro (ketumbar/芫荽), lime (limau nipis), salsa (sauce) and tortilla. Onion is widely used too but I tend to ignore it since I am not a fan of onion. J Cilantro can be found in anything. Lime are cut in halves and served as a side dish. Some of us have had a halved lime served on our dishes, especially on seafood dishes. In Mexico, you get a whole bowl of it! It is served along with tortilla chips and of course, salsa! Lime is also used to make lime juice, which of course, is also a very popular drink in Malaysia (limau ais!). You can have it made with water (natural) or with soda (mineral). Hehe, yes, I learned the difference between natural and mineral pretty fast. Tortilla also comes in two choices – corn (maize) or flour (harina). The corn tortilla is really yummy when it is warm but becomes dry and hard easily. It is always served warm and wrapped in cloth. Salsa – this is the must try ingredient no matter where we go. Every place has its own style, from really spicy to mild and from watery to more chunky, almost like pico de gallo (raw, chopped up mix of vegetables).

Cuatro Cienegas is a desert. Sure, there are lots of desert springs with aquatic life but you would not expect the place to have any restaurants with good seafood. Wrong. The first week that I was there, we went to a little restaurant that served ceviche. Ceviche is a dish of raw fish seasoned with lime and peppers. However, I did not try it since it was also loaded with raw onions. Instead, I had a fish soup (caldo de pescado) that was very light and refreshing. It was not ‘chao cho’ at all. There were also a significant number of huge chunks of fish!

Calde de Pescado (Fish Soup)

 While it was fun to eat out and try all the different food at CC, it was also pretty costly to be eating out all the time. The house that the guys lived in has a small kitchen where we get to do some cooking.

Kitchen in the house

JC and JR were great cooks of Mexican food, giving me the opportunity to learn a recipe or two. We had lots of tacos and pasta (not so ulu until we can’t find pasta sauce lah). JC is a vegetarian so she made really good vegetarian tacos like the lentil taco.

JC's lentil taco

JR once made us vegetables enchilada. Enchilada is like a mini burrito but covered with some kind of chili sauce. Like in Malaysia, there are all kinds of chili sauce in Mexico. I can just snack on chips and chili sauce all day!

JR's vegetable enchilada

Another Mexican dish that looks like a mini burrito is the flautas (flute). The flautas is the crunchy version and the sauce is serve on the side. We had this at one of the local restaurant in town. Like every restaurant that I have been to in this little town, it is very casual and there are only about 4 or 5 tables. The owner of this little restaurant was the cook, the cashier and the server.

Flautas de Pollo (Chicken Flautas)

I also had the opportunity to try a very unique dish, crepas de huitlacoche, at a more upscale restaurant that we went to in town. Huitlacoche is a type of fungus that grows on corn. It is more like a paste and occasionally you bite into little black pieces with springy texture. It reminds me a lot of ‘bok nee’ but has a stronger flavor. This place also has the best salsa in town, in my opinion.

Crepas de Huitlacoche (Corn fungus crepes)

On my birthday, we went to the east side of town for dinner at a little hawker stall called Alheli. It was my favorite place of all the places we went to at Cuatro Cienegas. It reminded me so much of mamak stalls back in Malaysia. One of their specialties is a set of tacos with beef, pork and two other parts of cow (probably some kind of intestinal parts). It was lots of meat but delicious! The meat was very well marinated and cooked very ‘thiam’. They also had baked potato that was so good although you don’t want to know how much butter they put in it.

Alheli

Taco set

Butter loaded baked potato

As you can see, most of the dishes are meat dishes. It was a little ‘jelak’ after a while. The vegetables are mainly lettuce, avocado (neither of which are my favorite) and tomatoes. It is a desert with very harsh environment for growing vegetables. But, they do have very delicious mango. Since I didn’t get to go back home to dad’s garden for fresh mango this year, I got my share of it from Mexico. There is an ice-cream shop in town that also sells popsicles (paleta) and ice-cold drinks. They have a mango drink that is made out of fresh mango. It is basically mango juice with ice. No added sugar since their mango are so sweet and besides the ice, it doesn’t seem like the juice was diluted with any water because it is a thick drink. On a hot sunny day, which is everyday, the mango juice is definitely a blessing!

I also discovered a Mexican spice that tastes very much like ‘sui boi hun’ that we use for ‘jambu’ – tajin. It tastes great with mango and hijama (hong guak).

Tajin with mango

Lastly, I also got a nice surprise on my birthday. The team bought some cinnamon buns and topped it with Mexican chocolate chip cookies.

The birthday surprise

It was nice to try all the different food there but I sure miss vegetables and fruits. Unlike most Mexican food that I have had, the food in Cuatro Cienegas does not have lots of rice. I definitely missed having rice after being there for two weeks.