1989 Classic from Swee Heng - Singapore's best pastry and buns?

I went to Frontier Toastmasters in Frontier Community Club, which contains the public library opposite the Boon Lay Bus Exchange, by the MRT station.

At the meeting break time I looked at the buns and thought, what's this, all pastry, refined flour and sugar and no protein? I selected what looked like a bun with some kind of filling on top.

Recommended - excellent
I can only describe it as a breakfast bun. It seemed to have a mixture of a slice or two of boiled egg hidden inside cream or mayonnaise with folded bits of ham, but so no salty I was not sure if it was vegetarian with the look of ham. I took another bite and another.

Choc - ok
I went back for a second, but they were all gone. I had probably had my share anyway. I tried a sponge cake with tiny spots of chocolate. Acceptable. What was left? Some green sponge cake, I presumed pandan.

Green pandan cake. Wiki.

I needed instant energy, sugar. I was about to give a ten minute presentation on vocal variety and English language. Everybody had finished. I felt I could take another piece from the leftovers. I settled for a piece of yellow dough.

Dough - oh yes!
Oh - it was delicious! More-ish. Wonderful. Who was the supplier? The see-through plastic bag had the words Swee Heng 1989 Classic.

Where? Everywhere!
I looked at the website and found they are all over Singapore including Bukit Panjang and other big shopping hubs next to the MRT stations and bus exchanges.

You are not allowed to eat nor drink on the MRT (mass rapid transit train service), but the food is great to eat before travelling or when you get off or as I did at a meeting break.

On their website I saw similar products. But they also sell seasonal foods.

Elsewhere I spotted the word halal and if you see halal it confirms what I suspected, that what looked like ham was not ham, but 'chicken ham'.

In case you were wondering, halal and kosher food ban pork or pork products such a park fat (lard). Kosher follows even more of the rules in the Bible (Levicitcus being the word for laws) and also do not have milk and meat in the same food or meal and also ban shellfish.

Fish Spice
As I am allergic to crustaceans, mollusks, although I am OK with normal fish which swim with fins such as salmon and trout. I am wary of fish paste. I have to watch out for shellfish. One of the buns I tried that evening was a very spicy shellfish.

Fortunately, I had pulled a tiny piece off each bun using my fingertips to pinch a corner though the bag, before I tried to eat the whole of it. So I was able to leave the fish bun for somebody else, without having touched it with either my teeth or fingertips.

If you are buying or eating and have an allergy to shellfish or spicy food, enquire when buying or before eating.

Yes, I approve of Swee Heng. First choice, the plain sweet bun, second choice the bun with cheese.

Would you believe, I get cream cheese out of the fridge and find the lid had an offer of a free bun from Bee Heng, a garlic bun.

Useful Websites
https://www.sweeheng.com.sg/

Travel
For deals flying into or out of Singapore
singaporeair.com
https://holidays.singaporeair.com/en-uk/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.. 

French words of the day: from finesse to renaissance

I read through the Sunday papers in England and come across a lot of French words mixed in with the English.

Some of them describe feelings or states of being. Elan, says one person is style, but I think it means a shooting up of excitement, flair. Insouciant - uncaring. Finesse - style and skill, a light touch, like creating delicate lace on a gown.


We find more words from cookery. Pain perdu, literally lost bread, is leftover bread lost under a covering of egg. In English we used to call it eggy bread. I had some for lunch. It was very good.

A grander sounding version, C r o q u e monsieur, is bread, cooked with cheese on top, Welsh Rarebit, usually accompanied by a squirt of Worcestershire sauce to make it umami, more than savoury, almost bitter or piquant. I had to separate the letters of c r o q u e because the autocorrect wanted to suggest croquet.

The word croquet is another French word, for the game of croquet, played with balls on a lawn. Didn't Alice in Wonderland play croquet with the Queen and flamingoes? That vision reminds me, is reminiscent of boules, a game of balls rolled along gravel in many town squares in France.

Piquant is another term used in cooking. Think of it as a metaphor, picking or sharp.

Add an Egg on top of the bread as well as the cheese and you have Croque Madame. You might cook your stew in a crockpot.

A pot is spelled the same way in both languages but pronounced differently. In French the word is pronounced poh, as in Edgar Allan Poe. In English restaurants we use the French term petits pots de c h o c o l a t, little pots of chocolate. I have to spell the word out in French because my English spell checker keeps changing the word to the English Chocolate. A small woman is petite, with an e on the end for the feminine.

Lastly, I shall add the a name from the news, M e d i c i n s Sans Frontiers. Literally doctors without frontiers. In English medicine is what you take, the pill or liquid such as a cough mixture. In French you visit le m e d i c i n . In English we would say a doctor.

croque
elan
finesse
frontiers
medicine
monsieur
pain
perdu
petit
pot
sans

Angela Lansbury, B A Hons, CL, ATG. Teacher of English, French, creative writing and public speaking. Travel writer, author and speaker. I might call myself a dilettante - one who dabbles in many subject. Or a Renaissance woman. The Renaissance was the rebirth, part revival but more a reinvention or flowering of new culture.