Fire Forty Six

In a head-to-head competition between Chinese 白萝卜 and Korean 무, which radish will reign supreme?

Mt Whitney Roasters - Coffee origin countries

Blind taste test of single-origin beans from Mt Whitney Coffee Roasters

Drink

June 2, 2021February 21, 2022 Alvin Lee

Over the past few months, as I was experimenting with new equipment and different brewing variables, I’ve been asking her to score the coffee on a scale of 1 to 10. But now that the scores have been consistently 8 or more, it was time to run a new experiment on her — a blind taste test to see if she could differentiate coffee brewed from beans grown in different countries.

Ugly fruits make yummy desserts

Food

May 29, 2021February 21, 2022 Alvin Lee

Of all the fruits in the citrus family, I’d say that the kaffir lime is probably one of the ugliest. It’s lumpy, wrinkly and doesn’t look particularly appetising. The rind is quite thick and the fruit itself doesn’t yield much juice. Its redeeming quality though, is that the zest is very flavourful and makes a wonderful ingredient for desserts.

Saying hello to my book at the Singapore National Library

Others

May 26, 2021June 17, 2022 Alvin Lee

I strolled down the long aisle until I reached Shelf 34 and proceeded to narrow down the search until I saw the tag [915.113 – 915.69] on the bottom-most shelf of the rack. Because my book was less than 100 pages, there wasn’t space to print anything on the spine, which made spotting it among all the other books slightly challenging.

After playing a very short game of Where’s Wally, I managed to find it and fish it out. (Note to self: Make sure that the next book I write has at least 100 pages. Anything less feels like a fancy booklet instead of a proper book.)

Nanyang Chinese fusion cuisine done right at Famous Treasure

Food

May 22, 2021September 3, 2022 Alvin Lee

There’s an abundance of Chinese restaurants in Singapore, many of which specialise in specific regional cuisine such as Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien, Sichuan, Hakka etc. But even though Famous Treasure is also a Chinese restaurant, they don’t quite fit the mold.

Yes, they have Cantonese roast meats on their menu and serve traditional Teochew orh nee dessert, but what makes them special are their well-executed Nanyang (南洋) dishes, many of which you’d typically find at neighbourhood tze char stalls.

The plating at Brasserie Les Saveurs is just so pretty

Food

May 19, 2021March 10, 2022 Alvin Lee

Firstly, our waiter set down our bowl-shaped plates with the neatly assembled lobster, microgreens and croutons. Then, he proceeded to fill our plates with bisque from his large gravy boat, creating a viscous moat around the mini lobster island. I don’t know why, but this way of presenting soup always impresses the heck out of me. I just find it so elegant and bourgeois (an atas French word that means atas), and it tasted as good as it looked.

Tetsu Kasuya vs Tetsu Kasuya

Drink

May 15, 2021February 21, 2022 Alvin Lee

The Tetsu 4-6 is the go-to recipe that I use to brew my V60 pour over coffee every morning. But since Tetsu is now experimenting with a drastically different technique than the one he perfected in 2016, I thought it’d be interesting to conduct a head-to-head comparison between the two.

What will be the result of the Tetsu vs Tetsu competition?

Will Tetsu beat Tetsu?

Or will Tetsu beat Tetsu?

The semi-buffet at One-Ninety offers a great balance of choice and quality

Food

May 12, 2021May 5, 2024 Alvin Lee

The good thing about buffets is the large amount and variety of food on offer, ensuring that everyone gets to choose what they want to eat. The bad thing about buffets is that, for the very same reasons, the quality of food tends to be mediocre.

When you can’t fly to Japan, head to Tanoke for good food and lots of sake

Drink
Food

May 8, 2021September 28, 2022 Alvin Lee

The six bottles of sake on display were only a small sample, because once you turn around, you’re greeted with a wall of chillers packed with sake from all over Japan. It’s not a terribly large collection, but it is impressive and not a common sight in Singapore.

Brewing freshly roasted beans from Tiong Hoe Specialty Coffee

Drink

May 5, 2021February 21, 2022 Alvin Lee

I’d read about how good Ethiopian beans resulted in coffee with a prominent blueberry note, but I’ve always been skeptical. How can coffee taste like blueberry? But I finally understood after tasting it for myself. It had good balance and body, with a wonderfully floral scent and that amazingly addictive blueberry flavour.