Foodcations with Annalisa Burgos
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VIDEO: Forget PSL, The New Trend is Coffee With a Cause

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I don’t understand why people get so crazy about Starbucks’ pumpkin spice lattes (or PSLs, according to hardcore fans). Add pumpkin puree and some spices to regular coffee and you’ll get that same taste (without the 300 or so calories).

With the holidays around the corner, Singapore coffee lovers can get into the giving spirit early and buy coffee that literally changes people’s lives. How amazing is that! Local coffee company Bettr Barista sells great coffee and runs a social program that improves the lives of disadvantaged women and at-risk youth. Learn more about the social enterprise in this video I produced for Yahoo.

The intensive 6-month program provides professional barista training and emotion management sessions with psychologists.

In addition to  roasting and selling gourmet coffee beans through its online shop, Bettr Barista offers certified training and workshops at its coffee academy in Tai Seng. It also organizes events, like Bettr Week, an annual coffee appreciation festival going on this week, Oct. 5-13, featuring craft workshops, a coffee bar crawl and a pop-up gourmet street food fundraiser.

Better yet, rather than your regular stop at Starbucks or Coffee Bean, make the extra effort to visit Bettr Barista at Scape in Orchard or Saybons at Aljunied and meet some of the people whose lives have been changed.

Bettr Barista @ Saybons at Aljunied
Blk 115 Aljunied Avenue 2
#01-53B
Singapore 380115

Bettr Barista @ *SCAPE
2 Orchard Link
#04-01 (The Colony)
Singapore 237978

 

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Singapore

VIDEO: Romantic Dining in Nature: Tamarind Hill and Halia

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Singapore’s natural beauty makes the perfect backdrop for a romantic dinner, and fine dining establishments like Tamarind Hill in the Labrador Nature Reserve offer couples a unique experience away from the concrete jungle.

I visited the modern Thai restaurant to do a story for the American Association of Singapore and had the pleasure of meeting Executive Chef Thiti Thammanatr, a Thai-Canadian who has worked with top chefs in Canada. In this video, he invites us into his kitchen to demonstrate a few of his signature dishes.

The restaurant’s remote location in the southern part of the island is part of its charm. With nothing around except lush forest and the South China Sea, Tamarind Hill is a destination restaurant that encourages guests to linger over a nice meal and ambiance.

Another restaurant designed for romantic dining in nature is Halia in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Halia — Malay for “ginger” — serves Asian-inspired European cuisine in the Ginger Garden in the middle of the park. You’re surrounded by greenery, making it a peaceful alternative to the cluster of upscale restaurants in Dempsey Hill or the CBD (Central Business District).

Many of the dishes and cocktails incorporate ginger, in line with the restaurant’s theme and the fact that the garden has more than 250 species of gingers.

My husband and I had dinner there with another couple and opted for the five-course Garden Journey Tasting Menu. I especially enjoyed the frog leg porridge of oats with ginger, spring onion and coriander and Hiramasa Kingfish with parmesan and almond crust, curried cauliflower and potato leaves.

We created a Tastemade video (see below), but as you can see, lighting is by candlelight, which is great for ambience… bad for filming.

Adding to the intimate setting, a man proposed to his girlfriend at the next table, and the restaurant applauded the special occasion.

As for the meal, the portions were small, but the dishes were tasty so we left feeling satisfied. When you eat dinner at a place like this, you’re really paying for the experience and service, not the amount of food you get.

So if you’re looking for a unique dining experience away from the typical haunts in the CBD or any of the crowded Quays, look to nature for a romantic retreat.

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VIDEO: Eating Frog for Your Health

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frog legs and soup

I tried frog legs in a French restaurant many years ago when I first visited Paris as a college student. If I was going to try frog, there’s no better place than in France. I wasn’t a fan, but maybe it’s because I couldn’t get the image of eating a slimy croaking creature out of my head. Purely psychological.

Frogologist Chelsea Wan says that’s a common barrier for non-frog eaters. But once you get over it, you can reap many health benefits from eating frog, she says. She explains in the video below.

Chelsea’s family owns the Jurong Frog Farm in Singapore, which raises and harvests American bullfrogs for local consumption. The farm sells frog products to restaurants, grocery stores and residents.

Incidentally, I had frog porridge at Halia Restaurant in the Singapore Botanic Gardens a few days later as part of the dinner tasting menu. The menu said it was sourced from Jurong Frog Farm so I was eager to try it. As Chelsea said, the meat melted in my mouth and the dish was delicious. I wonder if it improved my lung function or blood pressure.

If you’re in Singapore, visiting Jurong Frog Farm offers a unique learning experience, especially for the kids. They can feed and touch live frogs. And if you’ve never had frog, you can sample frog meat there.

The farm is located in the Kranji countryside, a rural area in northwest Singapore where you’ll find the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and several sustainable farms that specialize in vegetables, flowers, goat’s milk, fireflies, fish and koi. Many farms are open to the public and you can watch a goat milking session or visit the city-state’s largest banana grower.

Jurong Frog Farm
51 (Plot 56)
Lim Chu Kang Lane 6
Singapore 718864
+65 6791 7229

Tuesday-Friday (by appointment only)
Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays (9.00am-5.30pm)

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D’Bun in Singapore: Mid-Autumn Festival Mooncakes

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Mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival from D'Bun in Singapore

Mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival from D'Bun in Singapore

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a huge harvest celebration in Chinese, Vietnamese and other Asian cultures. Also known as the Mooncake Festival, the holiday is marked with the gathering of family and friends, giving thanks, praying for more blessings, and sharing and eating mooncakes. And yes, it occurs during a full moon.

The bakeries in Singapore have been promoting mooncakes since July, even though the holiday this year isn’t until Sept. 19. I have never had a mooncake, so I was eager to try these savory pastries made with lotus seed paste and assorted fillings.

I had read about the handmade baos at D’Bun in Singapore and made the trek to the east side of the island to the up-and-coming Joo Chiat neighborhood in search of the bakery’s popular mooncakes.

Unlike the mooncakes shared by families, these were mini cakes perfect for one person. I chose a savory one filled with egg and bak kwa and a sweet one filled with honey and nuts. I’m not a big fan of durian, but I heard their durian mooncakes are delicious.

Mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival from D'Bun in Singapore

Both were so rich I could only have a couple of bites. Good thing they can last for a couple weeks in the refrigerator!

Honestly, I didn’t find them particularly special, but I’m guessing it’s more of a “sentimental tradition” thing for those who celebrate the holiday. But they were tasty!

D’Bun
358 Joo Chiat Road
Singapore 427603
Tel: 6345-8220

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Brunch at Grub in Singapore

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Every once in while, I come across a hidden gem that reminds me of my former home — New York City. Grub is a small shack-like restaurant in the middle of Bishan Park, in the heartland of Singapore. It had just opened so my husband and I decided to head there for brunch.

The place was a little hard to find at first, but once we got there, the place was filled with Singaporeans with no expats in sight (a great sign!). There was a short wait for a table, but nothing unbearable compared to the one to two hour waits I’ve endured for Manhattan brunch spots.

We ordered the breakfast set, cheeseburger with fried egg, and belgian waffle. For drinks, we had the iced lemon tea and iced honey lime juice. It took a while to get our food, but I let that slide considering the crowd.

Once our food arrived, we found everything surprisingly delicious. A surprise — given the many misses we’ve had in Singapore despite friends’ recommendations.

The best part? The burger and the overall ambience brought back fond memories of having burgers and frozen custards at Shake Shack in Bryant Park.

We enjoyed our meal, but were slapped back into the reality of Singapore, when the servers took forever to give us the bill so we could leave. I guess you can’t win on every front.

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VIDEO: An Exclusive Look Inside Restaurant Andre

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Restaurant Andre in Singapore is so hot right now, you have to reserve a table several weeks in advance. After all, they only serve 30 people each night.

Thanks to my video for The Wall Street Journal, you can get an exclusive look inside the popular fine dining establishment, ranked no. 38 on S. Pellegrino’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2013. Chef Andre Chiang demonstrates one of his unique dishes based on Salt, one of eight elements in his “Octaphilosphy.” His food seriously looks like art!

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The split personalities of Chef Andre Chiang

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I don’t cook at home at all. …. I don’t even boil water.

This is just one of the fascinating things I learned about Andre Chiang, chef/owner of the award-winning Restaurant Andre in Singapore.

He also opens up about the dish that changed his life, what’s in his refrigerator at home and what kitchen gadget he finds sexy.

Read my full article in The Wall Street Journal this weekend and online here: http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2013/06/27/in-my-kitchen-andre-chiang

Photo courtesy of Restaurant Andre
Chef Andre Chiang with the Restaurant Andre brigade (Photo courtesy of Restaurant Andre)
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Anthony Bourdain: Giving Street Food Off-Street Cred

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Street food, once thought of as poverty food, has reached cult status, thanks to a value-minded public coping with a global economic downtown and an empowered chef class that has made celebrities out of food enthusiasts like Anthony Bourdain.

Singapore, for one, has positioned itself as the poster child for affordable gastro-tourism, successfully promoting its street food and hawker center culture and drawing millions of tourism dollars each year.

Case in point, local street food ambassador KF Seetoh is hosting the inaugural World Street Food Congress in Singapore now through June 9, featuring a street food carnival, 2-day summit with speakers like Bourdain and China’s Johnny Chan, and master chef classes from renowned chefs like NY’s Anthony Ricco of Spice Market and LA’s Bryant Ng of The Spice Table.

While chefs in culinary capitals like France struggle with high food costs, hawkers in Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia with vibrant street food cultures have begun capitalizing on this increased awareness and demand for cheap hawker fare, building brands around family recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation.

On the flip side of that is what Bourdain calls the “hipster hawker,” young entrepreneurial chefs serving affordable gourmet dishes from a food cart or truck, a way of breaking into the food business with flexibility and minimal costs.

But experts say street food culture is dying. As more governments try to regulate the industry and move the vendors indoors into hawker centers or food courts, the challenge is preserving a culture that has made its name on the streets.

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