Gim Poh catering - for fabulous food - and yam dessert

 

Gim Poh delivery vehicle. 

What did we like? The lamb. 

The potato casseroles.

 The rice. 

Tasty meat balls.

The dessert yam in coconut milk sauce, with ginko nuts.

Catering for birthdays, Chinese New Year, weddings.

Gim Poh Catering

Block 15, Woodlands Loop, 

Singapore 738323

Useful Websites

https://gimpoh.com.sg/

Cashew nuts in Cashew Road, Singapore

Where can you see Cashews growing? Cashew MRT station is on the recently completed Downtown line in Singapore. Unfortunately the station doesn't show Cashew nuts or Cashew trees.
I wish they would come to me for designs. 

Cashew nuts, fallen from a cashew tree in Cashew Heights, Cashew Road, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

How Do I Make A Lo Hei Dog for Chinese New Year In Singapore or anywhere?

Problem
The advantage of travelling and being an ex-pat is that I have lived all over the world. I now have lots of Chinese friends in Singapore who celebrate Chinese New Year with the Singaporean Lo Hei, a dish of many colours which bring prosperity. The name means prosperity toss, or raw fish, in assorted dialects.

You all use chopsticks to mix the food around and toss the food in the air as high as you can - which is supposed to bring you higher levels of prosperity and health. I want to be able to make a Lo Hei dog for the year of the dog with a dog face. How do I do it?

This version has cashew nuts, lower right edge of the plate. They have been adventurous with the colours of the dog which has shaggy carrot orange hair or ears and arched green eyebrows. I like the neat little birds' nests of shredded vegetables are around the outside. The fancy plate is white with an embossed design.

This dog has more realistic colours. The plate is a jolly orange. Orange or red are the colours of New Year and the lanterns which hang everywhere in Singapore in front of and inside restaurants in shopping malls, hotel lobbies and atriums and streets and even around swimming pools.

Answers
The first requirement is the ingredients.

For the
green, shredded cucumber. Parsely. For the
orange, shredded carrot. Mandarin or clementine segments. For the
yellow, maybe grated cheese, cooked parsnip
white - pickled onions, radish
Red - tomato
Black eyes, Two olives or one sliced in two. Or black grape.
For the nose, brown glacé cherry or sultanas.
For the collar, sliced dates.
For the ears shredded brown vegetable, hash browns or rosti.
For the mouth, red cherry.

You also need smoked salmon or other fish.

A few people have suggestions for DIY lo hei:
http://www.ladyironchef.com/2016/01/yusheng-diy-recipe/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer

Chinese restaurant Tang Yun at The Tanglin Club in Singapore

Problem
Which restaurant to choose at the Tanglin Club? For lunch with friends, no booking, just walk in early, I like the
Tanglin Club's lovely food in The Tavern. The jolly bar is where people gather for a drink.

Coffee In The Lounge
Afterwards at lunch time you could have coffee in the ground floor coffee lounge overlooking the pool, almost next door as the lounge and Tavern are both on the ground floor. They serve cakes and scones and macaroons. In the evening after about 8 pm the prices are halved if you want to take home some leftovers but you have to be quick.

Story
The Chinese are very kiasu (which means one-upmanship, getting ahead, first in the queue, beating rivals. If you see ten pieces of chocolate cake and there are ten people in the queue (Americans say line up), chances are the first, Chinese, customer will take all ten pieces of chocolate cake. If you want chocolate cake you'll feel a bit peeved.

However, that's fine if what you wanted was the cheese cake. I recall standing, watch a Chiense lady emptying the entire shelf. She took all the chocolate cake, the all the scones. By some miracle she left the last lonely piece of cheese cake for me.

The Churchill
Across the spacious hall is the grand rather pricey restaurant called The Churchill.
Look closely and you'll find a picture of Churchill.

Peak in and its off-puttingly large and formal although they now allow people to dress down and admit children on Sundays.
It delivers great food on themes for special occasions, sometimes with music from a live band on stage, but is too big to be cosy. There is a bar at one end.

Tang Yun Chinese
Tang Yun the Chinese restaurant upstairs is just right. The decor is perfect, original and colourful. Flowing lines on the ceiling. Whites and flower patterns. Table cloth in white or cream and napkins keep the noise level down, as does the jolly red carpet with curling pattern.

Nuts on the table whilst we are waiting to order. Water comes up straight away, fast.
Every dish a delight.

My starter was something fishy, salmon with truffle. Not a strong flavour but very pleasant. For my main course I chose chicken with cashew nuts. Enough for me to have it wrapped up to go. I'm told the crab was good.

Dessert a surprise.

Reasonably priced sparkling wine. However, nowhere in the building has yet got a sweet dessert wine because they claim there's no call for it. I can't understand why a place this size with four restaurants can't manage what almost any pub and restaurant in the UK can provide in terms of range of drinks.

What else did I miss? Some special ending to the meal, delight for the eyes and tastebuds, such as a chocolate or tiny chocolate and almond biscuit.

Toilets are elegant, specious, with good gel for washing and big mirrors, all spotless.

Photo by Trevor Sharot.

Please shae links to your favourite posts.

Top Desserts and Drinks To Try In Siem Reap, Cambodia - cashew nut shake

Problems
How to find the best foods, try new foods, not end up with anything too spicy?

Answers
My favourite restaurants include:
Malis (upmarket)

Desserts
George's Restaurant. I had the gateau dessert made from banana and another fruit. I added half a portion of the passionfruit ice cream which my dining companion chose. Divine.

Drinks
Cashew shake at Kmer Kitchen overlooking the lake. I asked how they made it. Shakes are a favourite in Cambodia. Cooling juices with fine ice - hopefully made from bottled water to be safe.

Apparently the Cambodians are nuts, if you'll excuse the term, about making juices and shakes using a juicing or liquidising machine. I looked at it and thought, this must be made from ready-made cashew nut ice cream. No. It's home made. They throw in their shake ingredients and then add cashew nuts. (Any restaurant which has chicken and cashew nuts on the menu in theory has the ingredients.)

You can get a card giving 10 per cent off your bill if you are staying at the Lemongrass and Ginger hotel, same owners, Australian Eddie and his Cambodian business partner Lyn (like the English girl's name Lynn the popular Vietnamese surname Linh). As the menu explains, service can be slow.


PorCuisine, Siem Reap, Cambodia (dinner and dancing show), two set menus.
Malis
Siem Reap, Cambodia
faceboook.com/MalisRestaurantSiemReap
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share my posts.

Cashew Road and Cashew Trees and Nuts

In case you are wondering, as I was, what a Cashew tree looks like and whether it would be fun to grow one, here's a picture from Wikipedia by L Shyamal. Singapore has Orchard Road in the middle, and mango trees on the main Upper East Coast road. But according to one of the websites about the history of Singapore place names, often roads in an area were on a theme such as fruits, or nut trees, not relating to the local vegetation. 

Going uphill from Cashew station on Upper Bukit Timah Road, along Cashew Road you will also find Chestnut Drive, Almond Street, Hazel Park, and Walnut.

The cashew nut grows under the edible cashew apple, but the nut is encased in a dangerously acidic liquid. So I was not surprised they don't risk growing little cashew nut trees in Cashew Road outside the schools.

Photo of cashew apple and nut: from Wikipedia by Abhishek Jacob.

Then I spoke to Mr Lau who is writing a book for his own satisfaction on the trees on the Cashew Heights estate. He assured me that Cashew Heights had and still has cashew nut trees, although the estate's symbol is a Raintree.

http://remembersingapore.org/2011/04/04/old-names-of-places/

http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-cashews.html