When the writing’s going nowhere fast and it’s grey outside and the sky is pissing down on humanity with raindrops of chilly contemptuousness, the only thing to do is head for a Chinatown porridge lunch with Maud. By the time the rain had transformed into a blustering icy-snowy mix of hell, we were rounding the corner on our way to Congee, where we hesitated over the snail and frog porridge before deciding on the chicken and black mushroom bowl. Maud gave me a jar of homemade bitter orange confiture, and I gave her twenty-five pages of thesis. One of us got the ass end of the deal, but I figured if I kept it on the DL she mightn’t notice.
Back in Brooklyn, I’m trading in the gym for pyjamas and a chocolate cupcake.
posted by stellou at 8:57 PM
27 Comments:
you are getting all the good ends of all the deals today, lucky! meanwhile, does "hesitating" over frog and snail porridge involve eyes darting and things catching in throats? like the word "oh-"... or... a... frog? it is chinnis! it is pronounced "frock"!
I am waiting to see if wellingtons are going to be popular in Sydney this winter, as they were in NY this winter.
What will you do with the jar of bitter orange?
I can't believe they have frog porridge in New York. If you like, we can go Geylang or Chinatown for some this summer...
cc, i like you. chinnis people unite! frogs and snails unite! "hesitating" meant saying, "oh, will we have chicken and black mushroom? or roast duck and meatball? oh, um, uhhmmm, loo-oo-ook?, it...is?...frog?...and?...snaaiil?" then maud made a face, but she is the kind of girl who makes faces at durian, so you cannot trust her non-chinnis taste. anyway, in the end, i believe, we chose...wisely.
also, correckt!, all good ends of all good deals. except for the deal where i realize i have to finish my thesis in maybe two weeks, and i don't know where it is going, and i can't write anymore, and aaaaaaaa. ah, crap.
heya, saffron ~ yah, totally, wellies, they're so hot right now. :-p i heart my boots like nobody's bizniss, and not just 'cause i scored them by dragging 'em out from the bottom shelf in the sale section of the kid's department at old navy four years ago. five-ninety-five, baby, and still going strong.
the jar of bitter orange, well, so far i've been scooping it out by the mini spoonful, shuddering at the bitterness, then smiling 'cause it's so-oo-oo good. i think it would be very nice with some sort of scone and a goodly amount of butter, but that would involve going out to get some sort of scone, and it is very, very unhappy-making outside. (rest assured i already have the goodly amount of butter.) oh, wait, i think i will be in the vicinity of a gourmet garage on friday. this means i will be able to get a bag of irish scones, maybe even the ones with currants, holy moley those are tasty.
oh, and somehow the scones are making me think of biscuits, american biscuits, which makes me think that this story must be read immediately.
tym: auntie, hello, can you tell me what we don't have in new york? cheh! oh, wait, yah, mangosteens. apparently illegal. but also apparently (according to an old issue of time out new york) still findable from secret chinnis people in queens or something. contraband mangosteens, yum yum.
also, PLEASE can we go to geylang and have porridge. tell terence i will not talk loudly about the prostitutes. ...ok, i mean, at least i will try.
also, i think we must go to the prata place, whatever it was called. maaa...maaa... sorry, the masala/mushroom-&-cheese prata thing is STILL BLOODY FUNNY.
Just to satiate your curiosity (though not your tastebuds), the roti prata place is at Casuarina. I believe it is called Casuarina Curry, though I could be wrong. You know Singapore lah: know where the shop is, but no idea what it's called.
I was going to reply to the price of your wellies - 4 years ago and all.
And how its so confusing in the U S of A with the scones vs. biscuits things... and then I read in your reply to Tym about the pratha place. And kaboom... swirly memories of a week in Singapore a year or so ago.
is THIS the same pratha place which could be called Spice Cafe... and they sell Godzilla's? And they are open at crazy times like 3am. The same pratha place where Indian boys run around in black t-shirts (and jeans I'm sure)and bring you steaming plates of a curry gravy with a pratha underneath? Say onion pratha or mushroom pratha or plain? Teamed with a drink named Godzilla? Did I already mention Godzilla's? I am sounding like a lunatic because just last week I was emailing back and forth with my friend in Singapore about the place we ate soooooooo much. Hmmmm.
I'll leave now.
lovely pic !
I'm fan.
of the boots too, I must say
but boots ain't nothin'
without that umbrella.
le gnou botté
tym: Eh! Yah! Casuarina Curry. You are cowrreckt. I had some sense that there was alliteration involved, but Pritham's Prata seemed wrong. Also, ya! cowrreckt, know where the shop is, don't know the name. Best way to find anything in Singapore. The other thing about Singapore: "meet at station control." Ah hahaha. :-D
Um, I'm also putting in a request for nasi padang.
That's it. I swear, that's it.
Please. Of course that's not it.
Don't tell my mother, recently I have been harboring fantasies of living in Singapore, like, indefinitely. I think it may be because the logic is, Oh, if I lived in Singapore I wouldn't have a thesis to write, and there would be someone else to clean my house, and I could just speak Singlish and laugh chorlorly all the time. But it could also be, Oh, if I lived in Singapore I could go and eat some carrot cake, the black kind, and have a big glass of cold soybean milk. Dunno lah!
Saffron: Oh, how often I, too, have been waylaid by the thought of prata. I don't know this place that could possibly be called Spice Cafe, but it sure sounds like I need to become acquainted with it before too long. The Indian boys and the plates of curry gravy with the prata underneath sound pretty par for the course, but, please, what is this Godzilla of which you speak? (Rarr.)
Cimer monsieur le gnou, et, dude, the idea of a gnou in pink rubber boots made me laugh DAMN HARD. Crap, I am still laughing.
Raar indeed. The Godzilla very simply is a tall glass of ice cold milk with mounds of milo and mixed very briskly to give you a that milo chocolate taste. There may have even been a baby godzilla version which consisted of the milk and milo without the scoop of icecream and sprinkles of MORE milo. Served with a straw. I also had it at one of those open air restuarants, where you order things like the special chicken pot and salted squid and fish soup. Can't recall the place though.
The place called Cafe Spice was visited after dancing at the club which gives your 360 views of the city.... ummmm.... Equinox perhaps?
Saffron --- Correct on the Equinox! And the place I was describing to Stellou isn't Spice Cafe, but Spice Cafe --- if I'm right in guessing that it's one of the late-night food places along Upper Bukit Timah Road --- is a worthy establishment in its own right. Yes, there is the Godzilla. There are also a variety of other too-sweet-for-your-own-good drinks (variations of the local coffee, tea and Horlicks mixtures), many varieties of prata and other oily delights like mee goreng and so on. I'm glad someone took you to try the place! Although I'm not sure if I'd want the kind of sugar buzz you get from a Godzilla after dancing at Equinox...
Stellou --- Seems like the list now consists of:
- Casuarina Curry
- Geylang/Chinatown frog porridge (which I've never had in my life, but sure, why the hell not try it now)
- mangosteens
- nasi padang (River Valley, opposite Great World City? Or for more of a 'heartland' feel, we can go to Hoy Fatt Road)
- carrot cake and soy bean milk
- Bumbu (my humble suggestion)
- secretly moving to Singapore
SET. Or apparently, as they now say: ONZ.
stellou and tym...can i join...?
saffron: i just, i mean, i just, i don't know what to say. it is because the only thing in my head right now is: must. find. godzilla.
rarrr. + yum.
:-)
tym: eh, don't be shy, the list now also includes godzillas. also, how come when i type "godzilla" the accompanying syllables sounding in my head are go-ji-ra?
kk: AUNTIE, DON'T BE SHY. can i louderly say? i think nowt. come lah!!!!!! werrcome!! eh, when are you going to be in singaping? can everybody just not be bloody shy, and call me???
kk --- If you, me and Stellou manage to be in the same country at the same time, I will go and buy 4D, because when was the last time that happened? After that, we'll eat our way through the aforementioned smorgasbord.
And if chinnis bowb and Saffron make it as well, we may have to go crazy and have a chilli crab fiesta to boot.
After clicking through the 15 odd emails between my friend and I I now know that it is SpiZe Cafe on River Valley Road. And the bar was the New Asia Bar which is part of the Equinox Complex at Raffels.
I am going to go and make myself a Godzilla now. Raaaa.
I've never been to SpiZe Cafe. Now I'll have to go check it out (perhaps in time to introduce Stellou to the place in July).
saffron: aaaaa!!! (or, actually, raaaa!!!) you are lucky. i have no milo in the house. but i have been telling myself that after i write for maybe an hour more, i will go take a little evening walk to the local tea lounge for a late-nite coffee treat.
tym (okay, and whoever else is keeping track, 'cause clearly we are all gonna rock a month of feasting): i have just tonight also remembered hor fun, wet style. can i just say it again so i can taste it? HOR FUN WET STYLE. mmmmm.
Honey, you make "hor fun wet style" sound so damn dirty ;)
I've never been a fan of the dry hor fun --- oh, unless it's with beef --- but it's hard to find a place that's good at that. (I'm sure we can, though.)
Eeeyur! Um, yah lah, count the minutes till someone Googles "fun wet style"... You donch know meh? My blog is rated R(A).
Eh, I know where we can go. Ah Tek's Café or whatever the hell that high-class kopi tiam at Raffles Hotel is called. Are you rolling your eyes at me? Truly I am happy to go to a hawker centre and sit with one leg up on the plastic chair. But it's just that I have a good memory of the seafood hor fun at Raffles.
Ah Teng's Cafe. You damn atas, man. I'd better start saving up now for July.
EH! i want to blame the raffles hotel thing on ren, 'cause she brought me there. actually, i will. ren! i blame you! :-)
auntie, i am HAPPY to go to a hawker centre. i sit with one leg up like no one sits with one leg up. i can gesture with my chopsticks enough to make my dear mother wince. you just say where, i go.
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