food

Rotimatic c bo (Musing)

 

Ho Sim Lang

 

Rotimatic c bo (Musing)

This is the invention that I have been waiting for all my life and it is finally here. The Rotimatic. The name in and of itself already conjures images of freshly baked unleavened breads in the comforts of your igloo. Yes, it is possible to use the Rotimatic in an igloo, that’s if you have a power-socket built in. Power-sockets aside, this is one mean unleavened bread machine. The prata man would be proud. So the machine does exactly what it says it would do, and that’s to make roti (unleavened bread).

I can’t imagine why would anyone want to create a machine like this, unless they are catering to the second most eaten food in the world next to rice. Of course the market potential in India alone would be phenomenal and more than reason enough to market and produce for. But these guys are probably eyeing a worldwide market takeover of epic proportions. They want to overtake the rice cooker. And from the looks of it, they just might be able to take up some market share and pinch the rice cooker manufacturers where it hurts.

Here’s a rather sexy video of the Rotimatic in action. Try not to drool.

If you stayed all the way to the end of the video, good for you. I gave up when the lady came on to give the pep talk. If you know where I can get my hands on one, please let me know.

Heartland Nasi Lemak (Review)

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Heartland Nasi Lemak (Review)

I thought that it wouldn’t be fair to do a review of the Qiji interpretation of the humble nasi lemak (I think they glorified it) but not do the heartland version.

So here goes. This is well and truly a more humbled version. It is so no frills I had no trouble identifying everything within the packet in a nano-glance. All I did was blink and that was the end of my meal. I saw in my mind’s eye exactly how I would chow down this plate and it was unglamorous.

My wife saw my somewhat bewildered expression and immediately offered some Belinjo crackers that she had bought earlier, just to make up the color. It sort of looked slightly better after that. But there was just too much white (rice) and not much of anything else.

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This is truly the cookie cutter version with just the ikan bilis and kacang goreng all sealed in individual packets. This nasi lemak reeks of industrial kitchen-ness. Everything seems to be commoditized, right down to the chilli. All sealed ready to be assembled in a production factory-like style.

I had to top up 50 cents for a piece of otah-otah which kind of made it a little better. The only other thing that was not from the industrial kitchen was probably the kuning fish. Interestingly this fella was even smaller than the previous one.

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I was so tempted to make my own masterpiece that I assembled the kuning fish as if like jumping out of a sea of nasi. Kids, don’t do this at home.

I guess you could say I was reasonably bored with my unflattering breakfast. Alright, to be fair what would one be expecting for $1.60 (SGD), by far it was the cheapest nasi lemak I have eaten in a long while. And it was just as delicious as the glorified version.

Qiji Nasi Lemak (Review)

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Qiji Nasi Lemak (Review)

It’s really a 奇迹 how they managed to open their doors one day and became an instant hit with everyone. With simple staples like nasi lemak, mee rebus and mee siam,  Qiji as their name in mandarin suggests has indeed become a household name and an FNB miracle.

I just had a nasi lemak, a local favorite amongst many. Steamy coconut milk infused white rice with an array of ingredients strategically positioned to maximize your dining experience. Unfortunately, their ingredients have been looking a tad tiny lately though.

Take the kuning fish for example, I couldn’t believe that it could be so small! I mean by Australian standards,  a fish of this size would never pass through the fishery authorities and onto our dinner plates. That said, perhaps it was a midget kuning fish and it had stunted growth. Hey, it’s quite possible you know.

I am just wondering if perhaps this little fellow could have had a much greater potential to co-create even more kuning for their mercenary masters. Instead here it is, on my green mock-banana leaf plate. All shriveled and parched.

The rest of the ingredients were suffering from a severe lack of color. Honestly they looked tired. It was as if they weren’t dressed up properly before they left the food counter. The paper-thin pale yellow egg was like two pieces of highly compressed cheesecakes sitting neatly on top of my nasi (rice).

The otah-otah was also a pale orangey hue of a puddle of *** amidst a setting sunset. Ok,  nuff said, after all, I am still going to eat this. I am famished.

I was fairly disappointed at the quantity of ikan bilis (tiny anchovy) and kacang goreng (fried peanuts) though. Typically the macik (aunty) at the food counter would heap a full scoop. But the dude behind the counter today must have used a teaspoon to scoop the ingredients.

And to top it off, there was this nugget looking item that I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It tasted like fish and chicken all at the same time with a pillow full of batter coating. Except that it was equally flat and off colored as its other buddies on the plate. Very mysterious nuggety item. It vaguely resembled an ingot of gold.

The chilli,  perhaps the only item that steers everyone back on the same course was sweet and spicy and just right. Very nicely done.

It was a perfect nasi lemak meal to say the least. The taste was just superb. The brains behind the business have got their hearts in the right place. The looks of the ingredients could do with a little bit more color. That said I should qualify, that I don’t just go for looks but I like good quality food – I don’t eat for color’s sake. But it is liken to buying fish at the market, color denotes freshness.

Qiji is indeed doing the basic things well. They have morphed into a somewhat conveyor belt like production house of local common foods but yet maintaining a consistent level of quality and taste in all their outlets. This just means they have a tight control on quality. I like that.

Incidentally the nasi lemak above could have been neatly arranged by an artist of Bugis origins, it reminds me of a tiny sailboat awashed against the tides of changing times, fishing amidst the setting of a crimson sunset and perhaps scouring the seas for hidden treasure.

Nice.

You can have this same experience at Qiji. Just order set number two.

 

Teppei

If you dare to, you can venture out to try Teppei. Alright, perhaps I am being vague here, but Teppei has gained popularity for their Omakase style dinners and amazingly value for money Japanese cuisine. It has become one of the most over-booked Japanese restaurants in Tanjong Pagar, possibly in Singapore.

My wife and I tried queuing for lunch once, and it was an experience in and of itself. My wife got so fed up with the inconsistent queuing system that she confronted the errant queue-cutters at the front of the store who arrived magically just minutes before the shop opened for business.

It seems Mr T himself is not really bothered by this – his policy it seems is, “if your members are all gathered by the time we are opened, we will serve you. For the rest of you in the queue, please wait your turn.”

Of course it all seemed unfair when 15 people magically appear in front of the 2 hour long queue just minutes before the petite restaurant opens its doors at noon. It also seems even more unfair when the servers do nothing but simply shrug their shoulders and point to the arbitrary service policy pasted on the glass door. I guess they get that everyday.

But unhappiness aside.

The food is amazing. My favourite being the Borachirashi (whatever that means), their signature dish. I haven’t really tried too much of their menu to be really honest. Every trip there is kind of hurried, so I don’t really get the opportunity to savour or take it all in.

I would like to do one of their dinners though, that famous Omakase – let the chef decide what goes into your mouth thing. The problem here is the rigid reservations for dinner for their tiny 20 seater restaurant is so over-booked that by the time I do get a chance to make a reservation, it might well be 4 to 5 months down the road. They seriously need to expand! Thankfully it seems, they managed to secure (or put the guy next door out of business) the unit next door. Woohoo!

So maybe I might have a chance to book for dinner between July to September 2014. That’s if I managed to get through their hotline on 29 March 2014. Alternatively I can like their Facebook page and watch out everyday for “no-shows” for dinner. I have a feeling an army of Teppei fans are already stalking their Facebook profile for these offers.

My review? 4 out of 5 thumbs-up!