Miscellaneous Food: Luxury Kitchen Items

I know this is the most ridiculous list because (a) Christmas is over and (b) some of the items are a bit like asking if we'd all like a Pagani Zonda- well, yes but it's a moot point given (c) most of us really can't afford to spend more or at all but hey, that's what the internet is for, isn't it?

If you don't know what a Pagani Zonda is, give yourself a pat on the back and stay that way! Suffice to say it is incredibly expensive, rather rare, highly impactical and entirely unnecessary- which may characterise some if not all, of the items on this list.

I did think really hard about what items should make this list. It may not include everything that you think of as a luxury, certainly, that list may differ greatly between people. Write me and tell about what makes your luxury list!

1. Le Crueset 2 3/4 quart Dutch Oven.

This pot is the standard, with a history dating back to 1925 when two Belgium industrailists met at the Brussels World Fair and decided to create a foundry, at the transportation crossroads for coke, iron, and sand in Europe, that would enamel various cookware items. It is also a sentimental memory.

Back in graduate school, I had a housemate who had one Le Crueset dutch oven and a flat omellete pan. Even though we had to share kitchens by the floor, she would painstakingly carry these to the communal stove for us to use. These pans would double up, sturdy enough to grill steaks, delicate enough to fry thin Japanese crepes. My memory of them is irrevocably locked into the fumes of good food and warm company in the midst of a very lonely and cold Boston winter season.

I fell in love with their bright flame colours and used to think, one day, when I have the money and the ability, I will have a collection of Le Crueset, enough to fill my cupboards in their coordinated colours.

Guess what, till this day, I have never bought a single of their pots. I would look at them longingly, everytime there was a sale at Woodbury Common (an outlet mall). Even then, they were never cheap enough to warrant picking up a purchase.

Made of enameled cast iron, which distributes heat slowly and evenly, these pots are very versatile and go straight from the stove to the oven. They are superb for roasting poultry and meats as well as for preparing slow-cooked specialties and even bread. I've chosen the most common size signature cocotte or Dutch Oven of their range and there are other famous and excellent brands, like Staub and Mario Batali but none as sexy as this original.

2. Footed Cakestand and by Two's Company



Cakestands are like.... wedding dresses. There's traditional white and then there's everything else. Some are patterned in black damask print, some stunning in crystal or white porcelain with a trim of grosgain ribbon or delicate raised beading. There are vintage ones, red bordello ones, faux china ones, painted, scalloped and tiered ones. Even Vera Wang is making cake stands these days (but then, doesn't she make everything these days).

The good thing is that unlike wedding dresses, you don't have to pick one. Depending on how luxurious you feel, you could have five if you chose to and all at the same time! After all, it's a universal truth that people buy with their eyes and presenting your layered cakes or iced cupcakes on a cake stand makes it much more a sight to behold.

I confess I've been tempted toward two more cake plates which I don't need but these are the original two that I thought most stylish.


3. Cuisineart GR-4 Griddler ($129USD from Amazon)

I love a good sandwich and there are grills and there are grills and this, I had to admit, was possibly the king of panini grills. Functioning as a 4-in-1 unit of contact grill, panini press, open grill, or griddle and with a brushed stainless-steel housing that adjusts to the thickness of the food and indicator lights for its temperature control system, this baby definitely deserves it's #1 ranking in Amazon's Griddles category.

We all know Americans know their grills and 360 reviews can't be wrong! This has been praised for everything from crispy bread, melted cheese and sizzling steaks to an easy wash-up of the grill plates. Sound like the equivalent of a Harley or Ducati on an open highway...Enough said!

4. Hammacher Schlemmer Kitchen Counter Herb Garden ($149.95USD from Amazon)


Just because you’re strapped for soil or tight on time doesn’t mean you can’t exercise your green thumb. This top-of-the-range herb garden saves time and agricultural real estate by bringing the garden right to your countertop.

I figure this gear crave actually does improve your health by allowing fresh basil, oregano, thyme and mint to flourish in your diet. It's also important to find a gadget that actually works because if not, you'll only wind up spending all your time weeding and singing to some dead plants.

5. Cuisinart ICE-50BC Supreme Ice Cream Maker ($299USD on Amazon)

Personally, I have a hard time imagining that this will Not be the white elephant of the house. It's nice though, to imagine the places you will go if you could tempt colleagues and family with home-made creamy ice-cream, healthy fresh fruit frozen yoghurt and classic sherbets. The happy, smiling children who would worship you as a domestic supermom. Not the place for all of us and not something that I could consider an investment but I know of people who have and say that this is the truest form of art and a blank canvas.

Indeed, perhaps, compared to buying high priced art, this is similarly worthwhile, artistic and fulfilling. After all, the possibilities of salted caramel, dark chocolate, coconut pineapple pinacolada and rum, basil, mint apple, are endless. You might even discover your hidden genius and go on to become the next big thing in Singapore's local ice-cream parlours!

6. Kitchenaid Mixer ($688 SGD on sale at Shermay's Cooking School)


I've written an ode to this already but the unique Planetary Mixing Action, (the attachments spin independently while making continual rotations around the bowl), blends ingredients all the way to the edges without rotating the bowl to give a thorough, consistent batter. This stand mixer is designed with enough power and capacity to prepare large batches of cake batter or cookie dough and comes with 10 speed settings.

The head is fitted with a power hub for use with optional attachments. A smaller version of commercial-size models, KitchenAid mixers come with a lifetime guarantee and were first introduced to home bakers in the 1920s. They are still manufactured in Ohio, USA.

Of course, no matter how many planery actions it has, this is an extravagance and I couldn't bring myself to buy one for many, many years until Santa brought me one last Christmas! Having used it for a year though, I think it is fair to say it's probably the least indulgent of the different equipment I've put up on this list.

7. Joko Teppanyaki Grill (price upon request from www.joko.it)

The portable teppan yaki griddle from joko is a thing of beauty and my fascination with it has lasted longer than most others in my life! The griddle reaches maximum temperature in about 8 minutes and you can cook and fry on it without additional fat, allowing for a very natural taste of food, especially meat.

This Italian company, which is still run by its two founders, manufactures the most drool-worthy, streamline and semi-professional kitchen culture products, under their two lines joko domus and joko professional. As you notice, it is so high-end, it doesn't even have a price on it and I would just prefer to dream rather than ask!

8. Water Carafe by Design Within Reach (USD$80 from DWR.com)


A night carafe is one of my favourite non-cash presents to give newly-weds. The reason is that when I was a kid, I broke my parents' heavy crystal water carafe, dropping the cup portion during one of those restless nights when I needed a sip of water. My dad wasn't even angry, he seemed vaguely resigned that it would have happened one day.

And this is the truth, isn't it, that life is a natural progression? One part of that progression is that when you are grown, you come into your own and a time of life when you are old enough, sophisticated enough and independant enough to have a thing of beauty on your nightstand.

Apart and above it being practical to have a fitted cup-jug and convenient to have water nearby, it is elegant, to symbolise your ability to take care of your own needs and afford your own aesthetics.

And then life rolls on, you have children and then your life isn't your own, neither is your water carafe and your illusion goes out the window, along with all that designer furniture. Out with the crystal and in my parents' case, in with the hideous melamite (with, I might add, asian-style non-matching plastic cup lids). So you could say that I give couples night carafes for them to enjoy and their children to destroy.

This set, including Carafe and Glass, is the work of a Japanese family-owned business that’s been producing glassware for generations and it has a great streamlined sensibility. I should add though, that reformschoolrules.com and vivaterra.com make environmentally-friendly water carafes out of recycled glass ($18-24).

9. NordicWare Heritage Bundt Pan (USD$34 from William-Sonoma online)


Nothing says texture and crumb like a bundt and it takes a proper bundt pan, which features a center tube that ensures even baking and which is neccesary to handle a softer and more liquid batter, to make a good one.

NordicWare is a unique company that specializes in cast-alumnium bakeware and pioneered the science of the decorated bundt with holly motifs, cathedrals, roses and other designs moulded into their pans. These days we have silicon versions of their weigh-a-ton moulds but the originals are more durable, dependable and decadent.

It’s not until you see the finished product from Nordicware’s Heritage Bunt pan that you realize how gorgeous it really is. The pan itself is nice, but not that impressive, it's the finished cake that comes out buzzing with its sharp lines, forming a dramatic interlocking swirl that is reminiscent of a very geometric flower bud.

This vintage style is reminiscent of the 1950s bundt pans and NordicWare based its design on an old German stoneware mold for baking the ring-shaped kugelhopf, similar to the American coffee cake. Most importantly for Obama's new campaign, this all-American product is proudly made in the USA.

10. Chroma Type 301 Chef's Knife


The tenth item, as usual, was a toss-up. I considered, amongst other things, double-walled insulated mouth-blown Bodum glasses, which I do covet but these FA Porsche-designed knives, like one reviewer said, are sex with a honed edge.

On a random aside, if you feel this is what is missing from your life, you should go find and read the recent NYT article on the charismatic preacher making waves by prescribing daily sex for married couples as a way to have a more Godly relationship (who knew?! Of course in the US, not here where you're not even meant to be writing about going to Cordon Bleu).

The handle of the Chroma Type 301 by F.A. Porsche is constructed of 18/10 stainless steel and was designed by F.A. Porsche and Jörg Wörther to give better control when cutting and a seamless transition from the handle, to the blade, which is made of high-quality Japanese 301 steel and then hand-ground to sharpness. In the end, this knife made the tenth-splurge cut.

Recipe: Chinese New Year Lo Hei

The answer is, Hua Ting at Orchard Hotel makes the best yu sheng. Why? Because they put in parma ham with the cantouloupe, crispy fish skin and candied preserved papaya with smoked salmon and salmon roe. It is yu sheng worth crying for and it retails from the price of $56 onward.

That important question out of the way, there are three very key (personal) principles to remember about yu sheng. The first is, I love it very much and I have eaten a lot of s*** over the years that passed as yu sheng. No more. Proud modern Chinese should not eat greying salmon and over-oiled dry carrots any more than they do newts and monkey brains, so I am resolved to no longer bother wasting those calories.

Second, the best surity of love and heart, is to take charge of situations and put something of yourself in them and maybe even walk away with a deeper appreciation of our traditions and food. Third, with the economy the way it is, we may need all the prosperity we can save, so what better way to save your pocketbook and waistband, then by trying your hand at making this dish for your reunion dinner.

To make it less horrifying a thought, this DIY idea, I thought I would do a little research into what the experts say and to increase the value add of this post, I've even researched what you are meant to say, when you mimic the lady in the cheongsum. This will impress all your relatives and really, we should all learn these phrases so that the practice doesn't die out, like our cultural language heritage, like our good government always says.

I have a good idea- to include this as a chapter of the primary school chinese textbook or hao gong min. In our identity-starved society, we really should tailor our learning more around our nuances, pragmatism and creations, rather than forever idolising historical Chinese iconography, half of which the kids don't remember nor practice anyway.

Before I get shot off the air for being politically incorrect, let me just speed through the one minute history of this very local but seasonal dish. Four chefs in Singapore, Messrs Sin Leong, Hooi Kok Wai, Lau Yoke Pui and Than Mui Kai invented this dish using raw fish slices used in simple fish porridge and combining it with a variety of ingredients like shredded lettuce, carrots, turnips, red and yellow ginger, pickled onions, jellyfish and sun dried plums with a sweet-sour sauce.

Each food would to symbolise particular significant well wishes because each wish had a pronounciation approximating the Chinese name of the food. Fishermen from the cost of Guangzhou province in southern China celebrated the seventh day of the new year by feasting on fish, which symbolised wealth. Yu sheng is traditionally eaten on Ren-ri, which is the common birthday to all mankind.

The elaborate family-sized platter and the attendant ritual of standing around the dinner table has been re-exported back to China, where it can be found in some major cities. I've sized this to feed 20 people, which is surprise, surprise, what the size of my own reunion dinner will likely be.

1. According to tradition, the fish is laid onto the plate first. At the table, you offer New Year greetings. Say Say Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财 (getting rich) and Wan Shi Ru Yi (to be smooth sailing) when putting down the Yu Sheng on the table. However, according to another text I read, you don't add the fish till later and in fact that text assumes the carrot part is on the plate first. Irritatingly, there are seperate phrases for the fish, the carrot, the daikon and the green radish, which I guess means that to get the full impact of impressing your grandmother, you have to start with the lettuce first.

2. Oh well. Write to me if you have a good idea on which ingredient goes first. I shall just put that the lettuce goes first. The base of the salad is in fact 1/2 a lettuce, thinly sliced. For all the veggies, you want to use a mandolin to slice them up very finely and then keep them in ice cold water, till you are ready to toss the salad. This is important, or your veggies will dry out nastily.

3. Add 500g of sashimi grade salmon, sliced against the grain and marinated with a little sesame oil and even soy-wasabi if you feel like. You can also use trout or sea bass or if you want to be fancy, use abalone or Japanese swordfish, tuna or horse mackeral. You can buy these from the wet market and clean them yourself but I think the more sanitary way would probably be to go to a Japanese supermarket sushi counter and get blocks of sashimi. The salmon is a large 20cm by 5 cm block for about $15 . Say Nian Nian You Yu 年年有余 (to have a surplus every year) and Long Ma Jing Shen (to enjoy great health).

4. Squeeze 3 small limes. Add this, then follow with 6 segments of pomelo (you have to deskin the pomelo and flake out the 6 segments). Say Da Ji Da Li 大吉大利 (to be very auspicious) when adding limejuice/pomelo.

5. Add 2 tsp five spice/cinnamon powder and 2 tsp white pepper. Say Yi Ben Wan Li 一本万利 (business to be flourishing) or 鸿运当头 Hong Yun Dang Tou or 五福临门 Wu Fu Lin Men when putting pepper and five-spice powder to the Yu Sheng

6. You then add oil, to circle the ingredients, increasing all profits 10,000 times and encouraging money to flow in all directions. This sounds like a good thing. What is not good, is to use nasty cooking oil, which when injested, probably makes your heart valves look like the interior of your kitchen sink pipe. What I would recommend using is grapeseed oil or walnut oil or even flaxseed oil. These are largely tasteless oils that are very light and high in omega-3, which improves mental and brain function. Walnut oil in particular, has a slightly nutty flavour, a beautiful oil to use for salads. Say You Shui Duo Duo 油水多多 (business to be flourishing) when adding oil and sauces.

7. This is the second part that confuses me, most texts say you should add oil before the carrots, radish and all the other ingredients but don't we add oil right at the very end, in Singapore? Oh well. Add 2 shredded carrots and say Hong Yun Dang Tou. Again, you want to use a mandolin to slice this up very finely yet neatly (not in shards and pieces) and then keep it cold water, till you are ready to toss the salad. Add 2 shredded green radishes, symbolising eternal youth say Qing Chun Chang Zhu. Wish especially those older aunties who give generous hong bao. Add 1.5 white daikon, shredded and say Feng sheng shui qi and bu bu gao sheng- prosperity in business and promotion at work.

8. Then add the condiments. First, 5 Tbsp sesame seeds- toast these and rattle them around the tray for 10 minutes earlier in the day so that they are roasted and crispy. Say Sheng Yi Xing Long 生意兴隆 (business to be flourishing) when sprinkling the sesame powder.

9. Then add 3/4 cup chopped roasted peanuts Say Jin Yin Man Wu 金银满屋 or 金沙满堂 (hallways of golden sands) when sprinkling the golden peanut powder

10. If you haven't added the oil, drizzle the oil at the end, with the plum sauce. I would recommend a mix of 150 ml walnut oil, 30 ml sesame oil and 150ml plum sauce. Say You Shui Duo Duo 油水多多 (business to be flourishing) when adding oil and sauces to the Yu Sheng. You can also say Rong Hua Fu Gui (May you enjoy prosperity) and Tian Tian Mi Mi 甜甜蜜蜜 (May sweetness enter your life) for the plum sauce.

11. Add the Pok Choy crispy crackers- does anyone know where to buy these? You can also make your own home-alternatives by deep frying sliced up wanton skins. Say Man Di Huang Jin 满地黄金 (Full Floor of Gold) when adding the crackers.

12. When tossing the Yu Sheng, toss 7 times with loud shouts of Lo Hei and say 身体建康 shen ti jian kang (good health)，万事如意 (success in all tasks), 生意兴隆 sheng yi xing long (business prosperity), 捞个风升水起 Lao Ge Feng Shen Shui Qi (Toss higher and higher, till the wind and oceans rise up for a good year ahead)

13. Additional ingredients to add include: a bowl of ikura, a bowl of crispy dried flat fish or crispy Japenese eel, or even jellyfish. You can also add 1/2 cup preserved melon or candied citrus strips (these are the sweet ingredients, so slice finely!), 1/2 cup preserved leek strips or sweetened ginger strips (this is the bright green stuff, which I prefer to skip). You can replace the latter items with 1/2 cup of finely shredded yam.

Recipe: Steamed Beets with Truffle Oil and Feta Cheese

This has become one of my favourite recipes, inspired by a meal from long-ago at Robochon in IFC Hong Kong. They served it as a beet carpaccio.

The thing about beets, is that I find a lot of Singaporeans don't eat them. Are they really such a quintessentially Western thing? My dad just assumed beet carpaccio was beef carpaccio and was quite crestfallen when they turned up, thin, red, yet distinctly un-meat-like.

When I made this version of beet carpaccio, he rather sniffed at it as "not particularly", which equals in Dad-speak that "he won't eat it", although I sold my mother on how it was so very healthy. It is, too. Healthy, full of texture, colour and essential vitamins. It has become one of my favourite things to serve at dinner parties, or bring along to pot lucks, it's easy to prepare and stores beautifully overnight.

First you have to scrape the beets free of their skin- most beets that you buy, especially at the wet market in Singapore, tend to come caked with mud so make sure you give it a through wash and scrub. Then, you want to slice them very thin (the thinner the better) and into rounds. Hehe, the thinner the beeter.

Steam them until they are floppy and soft. This can take quite awhile, especially if your steamer is like ours, huge and inefficient. Then arrange them prettily on the plate, drizzle with truffle oil, cube some feta cheese and dot with kalamata olives.

Finely shred some basil or parsley and halve a few cherry tomatoes and sprikle with broken pistachio nuts, over the beets. The basil and cheese really help to bring out the subtle taste of the beets. Refrigerate until ready to serve. If you allow this to macerate overnight, the taste becomes more concentrated.

Recipe: Mentaiko pasta

Mentaiko (spicy cod roe) pasta seems to be the blogger obsession. I am guilty of always being tempted to order it on the menu when I see it and the thing is, no one really does know what mentaiko pasta is supposed to taste like, do they? Thus, it's kind of a blank canvas on which you can paint your own taste.

Of course, this means that most mentaiko pasta will be out of your taste, which to me, is a dry, cheesy pasta, spicy and taut with mentaiko roe. I had yet to find one in Singapore that I was happy to eat, I vaguely remember one from Macaron which was just way too creamy. That was until I met the one at Raw Kitchen Bar.

Over the weekend, I had a second craving and decided to make my own mentaiko pasta, having searched out Chubby Hubby's version and Joone's version. In the end, I adapted it from the pasta carbonara recipe and it was yummy.

Usually I make four regular helpings so this is the approximate amounts for that size. What you need are:

1. Linguini pasta for four helpings (I usually prefer to use thinner pasta, which is less starchy)
2. 3 eggs
3. 1/2 Cup cream (regular whipping cream, rather than double heavy cream)
4. 200g shaved parmesan
5. 6 shitake mushrooms, sliced into long strips
6. 2 or 3 slices of bacon, diced up into small bits
7. 1 onion diced and I like to add several white stems of spring onions, chopped
8. A handful of Italian parsley, chopped
9. 2 or 3 sacs of mentaiko (in the jap supermarket at the sushi counters in the back, they sell 4 sacs for 12 dollars). So either I make mentaiko pasta twice, or I put all 4 in for a spicier pasta which is also nice.
10. 1 Tbsp of japanese mayonnaise
11. 1 Tbsp of rice vinegar
12. 3 Tbsp of Kenko sesame garlic sauce (optional, I found it wasn't that necessary in the end)
14. Tobiko roe and sliced crispy seawed and seasame seeds, for garnishing.


The first thing to do is slit the sac of the mentaiko and scrape all the roe out.
Mix it with the mayo and vinegar. Cook the pasta, while it is boiling, fry the bacon and onions with a bit of garlic and olive oil in a deep pan. Crack and mix eggs with cheese, cream and parsley. When cooked, transfer the pasta, drained, into the onions and bacon. You want to slightly undercook the pasta, because it will continue to cook with the onions/bacon.

Turn the heat, count to 8, then empty the egg mixture and the mentaiko mixture over the pasta. The heat from the pan and pasta will cook the egg etc onto the pasta. Serve hot with shaved chese, fresh parsley or tobiko roe, sesame seeds and strips of seaweed.

Review: Viva Mexico

I had the most delightful experience recently. You may have heard me say before that I am not a fan of Mexican food. I put this down to my dislike of bell peppers, paprika, mushy beans and paste-y textures in general. Well, I had a dinner that surprised my taste buds and made me feel that perhaps, I could be converted after all.

I've procrastinated putting up pictures and a review for a few weeks now. I had a couple of work trips to Australia (fantastic produce, not as good eating) and to go diving and I'm still watching the computer screen sway, wave-like, in front of my eyes. I've kept it too long though and so I finally got to uploading the photos.

The photos are bad, the lighting was awful. I was also suspicious for, the restaurant was in Cuppage Terrace, proclaimed "the latest lifestyle and dining enclave" but really more like, well, an enclave. It's a stone's throw from the obscenely expatish Diagon Alley hangout of Emerald Hill, except perhaps it's poorer and somewhat more Japanese cousin. The servers and greeters were in flamenco bright and tight lurex maracas sleeves and they looked just a little ridiculous. Not the best start to a meal.


I had been invited by the Sixth Sense PR group and part of the reason I accepted, was to have dinner with one of their lovely partners, who proved as warm and charming in person as she had over our email correspondance. When we arrived, she was sitting with a welcome platter of nachos and sauces. She had picked a selection of dishes for tasting, beginning with an Acapulco cocktail ($14) which was shrimp, fish, octopus and squid, in a tomato-ed mix of lemon, coriander and onion.


It tasted of fresh seafood, or tobasco and onion and it was at once soothing and sharp. It was brilliantly executed and was a more than pleasant surprise to the beginning of the meal. Funny, I thought, that was really rather good.


The next two dishes where the Chile relleno de jaiba ($16) or jalapeno chillies filled with seasoned crab meat and the Tamales larranzair ($12), corn dough steamed and filled with chicken, raisins and mole. The first I sampled delicately with the tip of my fork. They looked mildly threatening, a gourmet version of penalty foods served to unfortunate bridesgrooms. They weren't that spicy and the combination of the chilli (skins only, really) and crab, was very palattable.


The tameles were good too, if a somewhat corny version of chinese ba-zhang (steamed glutinous rice dumplings with pork). These dishes weren't blow-my-socks off good but they were tasty and quite refined in their preparation. I was finally getting why my American friends insist that Mexican food tastes like Asian cuisine.

The next dish was a Chilli poblano soup ($8), a wedding delicacy made of Chile Poblano and cream. A Chilli soup? Uh-oh. I don't even eat chilli with most of my food (I eat curry, but that's a seperate kind of heat), preferring to taste the nuances of my food rather than burn my palatte beyond recognition. I sipped at a spoonful of the pea-green soup gingerly and waited for the worst.

The soup taste more of cream than chilli, to be honest, but the chilli had imparted a kind of latent heat to the soup, while the cream picked up and created a long, smooth nuanced arc of spice from the back of my mouth to the tip of my throat. It was the most enjoyable experience and woke and tickled my senses in a way that I hadn't felt for ages. I think this was the turning point of the meal and the dish that convinced me that I needed to look at Mexican food with a more open engagement- my, my my...


The next two dishes, or traditional mains, were more comfort food, foods that I remembered from the US and probably from their inferior Tex-Mex cousins. The first was Tacos Doradosde Pollo ($18) or fried chicken Tacos, filled with the usual accompaniments of lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and cream. The tacos were still crispy, a good sign. The beans were not sweet (unlike in a certain competitor's house at Dempsey), another good sign.


The second main was a beef filet filled with Cuitlacoche ($26), which is a difficult to harvest mushroom that grows between the corn ear and husk. Although it disturbed me to think human hands had pushed these little critters right into my meat, the Brazilian rib-eye was of a really good quality, marbled to rich and tender smoothess.

Out of all the dishes, the dessert was the one that hit it truly out of the ballpark-the Pumpkin en tacha ($9) was a fresh pumpkin slice baked with piloncillo (a sweet Mexican concentrate- a bit like the Asian gula melaka palm sugar), cinnamon, cloves, pepper and guava, then soaked in a bowl of cream. It contrasted cold with hot, fibrous with smooth, savoury with sweet.


It was enormously good. Enormously. It was reminiscent of the Afghanistani Kaddo Borwani, an appetizer of pan-fried then baked baby pumpkin seasoned with sugar and served on yogurt garlic sauce, topped with ground beef sauce and traditional caramelized pumpkin pie. I could have eaten more than two servings and licked up all the pumpkin infused cream, when my host had politely looked away.

The meal reminded me of the basics- good ingredients, good food and good company. I liked that it was casual, indeed, liked it a lot better than eateries that were trying to be upscale or worse, just being upscale by being pretentious. I didn't particularly care than each piece of decor had been painstakingly sourced for and imported from Mexico but I thought it was very commendable that the Palate Vine group (an F&B group that also runs The Tent Mongolian Fresh Grill and Bar and Vintage India) had managed to source and find three Mexican chefs, headed by Chef Mario Galan, to showcase the Mexican cooking and menu.

I did return to Viva Mexico, about two weeks later. I found the menu much the same as I had the first time, comforting, tasty and unpretentious. A couple of things struck me the second time, firstly, that it was actually fairly well populated, despite the relative quiet of Cuppage Terrace. Secondly, the food is relatively affordable but the drinks prices are quite exhorbitant. A jug of sangria cost (in my rough memory) about $40+, which seemed a bit pricey and given the number of drinks that the group ordered, the alcohol bill almost approximated the food bill.

Viva Mexico
23 Cuppage Road
Cuppage Terrace
Tel: 6235 0440