One of the “secret” amenities of Singapore Changi Airport are the Hawker Centres hidden away in each terminal; in the basement of Terminal 1 and on a secret mezzanine level between 3 and 4 in Terminal 2. Went to Terminal 1’s today.
Except it’s not a “hawker centre” but rather a “staff canteen”. Doesn’t sound as cool, does it? I guess it’s not a true “hawker centre” because they’re open only to 2100 on the weekends and 2000 on weeknights so it won’t become a hangout? It’s impeccably clean AND has great air-con.
Did I mention that’s it really big AND they sell magazines and convenience items too?
I found an outpost of my favourite beehoon beef noodle place that I found at Harbourfront Food Centre on my last visit, so I had to have a bowl!
All “beefed” up and halal too!
The pictures don’t adequately show how big this place is. There are two walls full of food stalls and there’s patio seating outside too. It’s not listed on the Changi Airport website but if you ask any of the staff, they can point you in the right direction. Or you can take the lift and get off where it says “Food Center Level 1”. Apparently, I was told that Terminal 2 has better food! Will find out on Monday next week…
Here’s the view from my seat
Terminal 1 Staff Canteen
First Floor
Singapore Changi Airport
now that’s a tasty burger!
In Pulp Fiction, one of my favourite movies of all time, there’s an extended scene with the devil’s helpers, a mysterious case, lots of guns (but no shotguns) and a miracle. There’s also a burger from Big Kahuna Burger, “that haw-aii-aan burger joint”. All of those other things aside, Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) was very impressed with the tastiness of the Big Kahuna Burger.
Now that’s a tasty burger!
Of course, there are others who like tasty burgers too! Like certain hotel empire heiresses (yum!)…
There’s a video that goes with this pic. Click here.
But an aside…we’re not here to talk about heiress socialites and their cutting edge adverts/PR stunts. You DID notice they were advertising a burger in that last video, right? Let’s look at Goodburger, a restaurant I literally found waiting for me after I left the MOMA around lunchtime.
I like to think Jules (or even Paris) would approve.
Goodburger
636 Lexington Ave (54th & Lex)
New York NY 10022
212-838-6000
www.goodburgerny.com
All about Bia Hoi
Where are all these people going, quick quick?
Why they’re heading to Bia Hoi Corner, a part of the Old Quarter where three streets converge and there’s a bia hoi stand on each point.
Now what is bia hoi? Well, it’s a locally produced brew that gets distributed daily to the various bia hoi stands in Hanoi. It’s a local tipple, costing the grand sum of 2000 dong (that’s 12 cents US). That’s right, 12 measly cents! Cinguliar charges that much to receive an SMS! You can find that much in your car underneath the seats. You can find that on the street back home (cuz 12 cents dun buy much). But in Hanoi, it can purchase one cuppa bia hoi!
So how does one try? You approach, grab a chair to sit on and motion for “one”. Whoever’s on duty will pour you one and charge you. If you sit for a while and fit in, you can easily run up a tab of 10,000 dong! 5 beers at 2000 dong each. Break the bank can! It seemed on my visit (twice in one day) that bia hoi stands are the centerpoint of the neighbourhood.
Besides seeing more close calls that any other intersection in Hanoi (maybe they’re thirsty and thinking about getting a drink?), there’s street theatre. 7 times I was approached to buy overpriced bootleg Lonely Planet guides. Twice, I was approached to purchase some fried donuts.
And once, the Hawker Control unit (AKA shakedown squad) came by and made a LOT of people scatter.
The man who owned the stand I was drinking at motioned me to move my bike from in front to the sidewalk across the way. Good customer service! Try finding that in San Francisco where some places seem in cahoots with the parking nazis! In the end, I spent a total of 5 hours that day at the bia hoi stand. The first 3 hours, I stumbled upon it and enjoyed. Then a few hours later, I wound up there AGAIN with a couple of blokes from the hostel. How much did I spend? 26000 dong. That’s a buck sixty four! What a deal!
First Meal in Hanoi. Lunch!
Hey y’all! I’m having pho for a late lunch.
Here’s the pho:
It wasn’t too bad. The broth was a bit more “beefy” than what I’m used to. Not as “zingy”. The noodles were the flat vermicelli type. The beef was well done compared to the self cooking rare beef strips that come with the steaming hot broth. Not bad for a first meal.
Special Occasion!
I’ve got four frens that all turned 40 within the month of March. Typically, for most people, that’s a cause for self-reflection and the beginning of the mid-life crisis (for any wisecrackers out there, there’s no Porsche in my future). Here in the reality-distortion field that is San Francisco, it’s just another special occasion, to rally the troops and to eat and drink well!
The pre-party began on Friday night where six of us assembled at the party venue for wine and steak. Bone in Rib-Eye! And some very fine reds. And last minute party-planning.
Hellboy cuts return! MMMMMMMEAT
After a salt and pepper rub and a thin coat of olive oil, off it goes into the All-Clad!
This is where wine, mushrooms and jus go. Reduction!
Dinner!
The next night’s highlights (besides the attendees) included a BV Tapestry Flight. Bottles from 1996-2003 were to be opened and tasted. We opened. And tasted.
Part of Saturday’s flight
The wine flowed…
…and was drank
Good wine and happy people
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea about these parties, they ARE family friendly. For the first two hours.
Jeon and Son, Solicitors
Christine and a new fren (so shy lah)
This is more par for the course!
Kawaii ne? She wants to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Good for her!
From the left, David, Garren, Wal, Mark. March brats.
Typically, you knew the evening was winding down when karaoke began.
I’m singing i’m singing
Actually, our parties end like this, in a mugging!
When the evening started, this was empty
Unlike the previous parties, this was quite tame. Only about 2/3 of the usual suspects showed up, there was actually more wine at the end of the party than at the beginning and no one wound up barfing in front of the house. Also, there was no X-rated kissing and cleanup was almost Japanese in efficiency. Hopefully, since cleanup was easy this time, there’ll be another party here soon!
Filler, nope. Good food, yes!
Definitely! This was the meal this evening at the California Culinary Academy. They have a restaurant where you can dine while the chefs in training “practice” on you. When I say “practice”, I mean cook for you. Look out! Food ahead!
This was so good, I forgot to take a pic of it before I started eating!
It was a medium/medium rare NY steak and lobster tail with a hunka smashed potatoes in the middle. Looks pretty too.
Dessert was a combo plate. Looks good and devoured quickly.
Oh yeah, there was rabbit food at the beginning, but since I wanted to rave about how good the meal was, I left this first part for last.
Rabbit food, how exciting…I mean HOW EXCITING!!
California Culinary Academy
625 Polk Street
San Francisco CA 94102
Mark’s 40th, wine and snacky food
In event planning, the devil’s in the details. Such as it was with my friend’s 40th Birthday Party. Mark’s not one to do things on a small scale. And his party (planned by his wife, Angie) was planned very well. How?
First, there was a pre-party.
About 20 of use met at his house and proceeded to down 9 bottles of wine in three hours along with hoity-toity snacks to go with the wine including:
Totino’s Pizza Rolls
Jalapeno Cheese Poppers
Meatballs
Blondies (the evil version of brownies)
Spicy sausage wrapped in bacon
Mashed potatoes (?)
Perfect snacks to complement a 2001 Whitehall Lane…
Next, we all carpooled (except for the birthday couple and 10 select guests) to dinner in Palo Alto where we proceeded to be loud, silly and downing 11 more bottles of wine which was brought from the house.
As the evening went on, the crowd got sillier.
Even the birthday “cake” wasn’t free of silliness!
After dinner, we continued our festivities at Blue Chalk and then ended with a nightcap back at the house. That was fine, until the karaoke was fired up. I endured k-tv until 0330 when I declared it was time to leave. And that’s why I got home at 0430 this AM!
Napa Valley Overload
I’ve recently realized that the Napa Valley, for all of its greatness (great wine, great food), CAN be overdone.
Two weekends ago, I did my annual pilgrimage to Silver Oak and surrounding wineries. This past Friday and Saturday (CNY eve, yes I know…) I did Napa all over again with my visiting from overseas friend. I can truthfully say that’s I’m knackered. Too much good wine, too much good food, too much CHOCKY (yes, S-A, it IS possible) that I’m actually craving something more ghetto, something more common.
Maybe like a chef salad? Or a Chicken McNugget? No, not THAT tired of good food yet…
Friday was a great day of wine and food. It started with Domaine Chandon. Champagne, whoops I mean “sparkling wine” and salmon. Not bad for the first snack of the day…
Lunch was at the Rutherford Grill along with a visit to BV. These two always go together. For over three hours!!
By the time we finished lunch, there was only time to hit one more winery before closing time. And that was V. Sattui again. Remember the adult ho-ho? Well, we bought one and mostly split it.
It was SOOO rich and filling that there was no dinner! That was a lot of chocolate…
Saturday we went to Copia for their annual “Death by Chocolate” event.
And yes, the title of the event was an accurate description. Besides the very long demonstration events where dessert cooks were making desserts (takes a very long time to do that), there was a tasting event from 1300-1500 on both floors. Every form of gourmet chocky and wine to complement it. So much that I’m actually swearing off sweets.
For a week.
Copia also has a fancy restaurant named after Julia Child. We had a small lunch.
Things in Napa usually shut down by 17:00 so it was back to SFO to wind up this visit. And if you live in The City, you know that traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge is crap going inbound. So we wound up watching the traffic roll in from the Headlands instead.
Mouse House (the original)…
After 20+ years, I visited the Magic Kingdom AKA Disneyland with an out of town friend. Even though a lot of things have changed here (where’s Fort Wilderness?), much of the charm is still there.
As far back as I can remember, people have always complained about the high price of food and beverage at Disneyland. The stalls scattered all around the park are pricey but the sit down restaurants are strangely reasonable, considering what you get.
And naturally, the day ends at Disneyland with fireworks.
I realized during this trip that my interest in transportation began with a visit to Disneyland when I was very young. A LOT of the rides and attractions here revolve around transportation.
Space Mountain
Autopia
Matterhorn
Big Thunder Railroad
Monorail
All are things that society needs to get around (or will get soon). That explains my facination with transportation maybe?? Some things here are more recent necessities…
Silver Oak 2007 Release Party
One of the advantages of living in San Francisco (The City) is that the Napa Valley is close by. VERY close by. 45 minutes (with no traffic) close by. That means that Wine Country events are within striking range from home. Which means, I wind up going to a lot of release parties…
Silver Oak had its 2002 Cabernet release party today. This will be the last release party at the current facility in Oakville as it was damaged just before last year’s release party and it was decided to build a new facility instead of rebuilding the old one. So my frens and I headed out at 0830 to Oakville.
A Silver Oak release party is when the winery releases a vintage for sale to the general public. Its also an excuse for food, autographs and US$20 bottomless glasses of the vintage being offered from 0900 to 1500.
Since the event runs from 0900 to 1500, there’s a small window of time to actually get here and enjoy yourself before the unkempt hordes arrive around 1200. You can also get free, close by parking if you get here early. We got here around 1000 and immediately began sampling the wine and provided snacks.
Prior to last year’s winery fire, the main building used to be open for viewing with food vendors inside, in addition to the ones outside. This year, there was just a handful of food vendors outside hawking chili, mini roast beef sandwiches and fruit cocktail along with the usual gift vendors.
A very interesting crowd gets here before 1100.
After the event, most people who are already here continue their Napa day by visiting other wineries. We visited Plumpjack, Heitz and ended the day at V. Sattui for a late lunch.
Plumpjack is down the street from Silver Oak and they were offering tastings of two wines and you keep the glass for US$10.00. The red was a 2004 cab that seemed pleasant enough for an everyday wine but had a strange aftertaste. It was a nice place for camwhoring tho.
New this year was a visit to the Heitz Winery. It has a swish tasting room that was recently built and they had a full FREE tasting of two cabs, a chardonnay and a kick ass port.
The nice thing about small wineries like Heitz is that you can discover some neat wines that you normally wouldn’t be able to try because they aren’t widely distributed. Also, the vineyard is usually behind the visitor’s center. Like so.
The end of the tasting day came at V. Sattui which is our traditional pit stop for food and still more wine.
You go inside and buy picnic sets and then you buy cheese and bread and wine and desserts. Then you go outside to the picnic area. Mind the signs and don’t stay that late because…
Then we went back in and bought more wine. I got two bottles of the Gamay Rouge and one of the Muscat. One of my frens bought a cases’ worth so we got the 10% discount! Cool!
As the day ended and the sun went down, it was a painful slog to get back to the City. Traffic. It took so long that I passed out when we left and sobered up by the time we hit Berkeley. Still 40 minutes away! It took a while to get home, but I wasn’t driving!
Silver Oak
915 Oakville Cross Rd
Oakville, CA 94562
Plumpjack Winery
620 Oakville Cross Rd
Napa, CA 94558
Heitz Cellar Tasting Salon
436 St. Helena Hwy
St. Helena, CA 94574
V. Sattui Winery
1111 White Lane (@ CA-29)
St. Helena, CA 94574
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