Its nourishing green-ness (it’s officially a word now), its thick, fatty, buttery consistency. Yes, that’s it, it’s a healthy butter. Most people hate its slippery meatiness, its grassy and lightly sweet consistency, but to me, it’s practically life in another form. Apart from being mashed thickly on toast with a drizzle of good honey and coarse sea salt, it’s wonderful in this shake. In my opinion, a shake or smoothie should only be thick. So ridiculously thick that you might as well eat it, not drink it, with a spoon, if there were no such thing as fat stripey straws. It makes the process all the more pleasurable, and almost cheeky.
You don’t need much, I promise. And extremely glad my mother owns a Vitamix!
Avocado milkshake (for 2-3 servings)
1 ripe avocado (I used a Hass for this)
1 small or half a large frozen banana (you can use a normal banana, just increase the amount of ice to 2 cups)
1.5 cups ice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon each of salt and cinnamon
half cup milk of your choice (I used a blend of almond and whole)
Blend everything together until you get a rich, thick and delectably creamy consistency.
The look on my face when I was invited to my very first media tasting. Introducing the new meat-lovers go-to hideout, Carvers and Co at East Coast Road. These guys serve coffee at 10am and start brunch service 11am, all the way till 2 30pm. I’ve been meaning (you notice a trend here with all my blog posts now) to visit, specifically for their brunch special of peanut butter and walnut french toast. I’ve seen the pictures. I’ve wiped off the drool. It was all a little too much. So when Sarah, who also opened One Man Coffee at Upper Thomson, invited me that Monday night, you can just imagine my delight. Took the bus all the way to the East Coast, without a care in the world. Without a single care, caressing my coffee-deprived little belly. One of the first things I tried was their iced pour-over, using Brazil beans, served by an all-knowing, clearly coffee-crazed barista. The taste was clean albeit a little weak for my own preference. A refreshing start to this grand experience.
peanut butter and banana french toast, with toasted walnuts and maple syrup
And if you wanna go all-American, pile-on-the-brunch-toppings style, you can add bacon for an extra 3 bucks. This was absolutely, disgustingly, heavenly. I was once again transported to One Man with their fabulous french toast formula, though this time there’s the added pizzaz of gooey peanut butter and warmed banana, a beautiful mess in the middle. They could even try using natural peanut butter, in all its grainy, home-ground and creamy glory, to further enhance the flavours here. The sides are ridiculously crisp, so much so that the crumbs feel like airy polka dots on your tongue. The toasted walnuts were the best touch, offering a earthy roundness to the otherwise purely chimerical and traditional peanut butter and banana pairing. What makes this french toast different is how the brioche is light, soft and crusty, and not overly weighed down by eggy batter, overly-drenched in naked batter. It’s like the delicate rose of all french toasts. Lady of the lambs. Almost untouchable, but boy was I glad to cut into this.
paprika candied bacon chipstruffled egg-in-the-hole toast, with whipped grana panado and candied bacon
Firstly, those paprika bacon chips go wonderfully with a sharp, creamy beer. The man offered a gorgeous pairing of Palm beer, which made the aftertaste of sweet bakkwa-esque bacon chips linger for longer. The paprika could have been a little sharper to give a little more kick, but overall they’re rather divine, and nicely crisp on the outside.
Secondly, please take a step back to admire that bacon jam, melted cheese and truffled yolk as one golden (literally) entirety. Mostly the bacon jam though, or the single element which brought all traditional eggy behaviour of a brunch dish on its feet. It was much stickier and retained better consistency as a ‘jam’ than what I remembered the last time I tried it at One Man, and one can smear the gooey delight all over the crust of the outer edges, lending both sweet and savoury flavour to the mild, light brioche, plain melted grana panado and truffle oil. Oh, truffle. This really is taking it to the next level. One of the best bits? Sliding your knife into that fried piece of bread, or the ‘hole’, if you will. Dig into that crisp shell of crumby goodness. King of side appeal.
candied carrots and celeriac mash
The mash was edible velvet, and offered the right savoury kick without feeling too heavy or gluggy on the palate. The candied carrots could have been marinated in a little less syrup to retain more of its bite. I’m honestly quite the sucker for any candied vegetable.
truffle fries with garlic mayo and fried anchovies
As I may or may not have said before, I’m not actually the biggest fries person, but the fried anchovies here won me over. The fries were fresh, crisp and warm, just out of the fryer, its edges mellowed by the heavy wallop of garlic mayonnaise on top. You get a bit of everything on one fry, and everything was, frankly, a nice starchy and fatty mess. Reminds me of English pubs, and that in itself says a lot.
wagyu beef with caramelised onions and garlic confit
They also serve all sorts of meats, such as this wagyu with caramelised onions, which is absolutely to die for. The meat was nothing short of perfectly medium-rare and tender, yielding a rustic flavour brought out by the garlic confit and delightful mound of sweet, sticky caramelised onions. Just… Yes please. The woody meat paired excellently with the softened onions. Look at the wobbly red belly and bright sear on the outside. Communal. Big families. Full stomachs and passing of plates. This is what Carvers is all about. They also offer other brunch and breakfast specials, as well as meat platters, desserts and the whole range of coffee varieties. Their machine is enough to stump ya. It may be a little out of the way, but make an effort for just one trip. It’ll all be worth it, I promise. Once again, a special thank you to Sarah for inviting me, and I’m definitely bringing the folks over one day to try everything. I’ve got my eye on that vegetarian dish of pumpkin, eggplant and paneer on polenta!
I had been meaning to make an apple galette for quite a while now. I must be this specific– apple galette. Nothing else would have done it for me. Just… Nothing. I had to, and the urge was running wild; coursing hot through my blood. I had looked at quite a few recipes, and surprisingly most required the dough to be set in the fridge for at least an hour or so (understandably), and for the apples to go through a caramelising or some other cook-through method beforehand. Not that I would have minded so terribly… But sadly I am a creature of convenience. Stark laziness, even, sometimes. I’ll be honest. I was really pleased with how this turned out, even after making the radical adaptations. I like those burnt edges. Kill me if you wish. I do. The buttery, caramelised apples with a tender bottom crust go wonderfully with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. I paired a slice with some leftover salted caramel sauce, because I didn’t have any ice cream lying around and yes, that was enough to break my heart. The flavours are simple, wonderful, joyful.
As a student, I don’t have hours and hours to play around with recipes; words like ‘proving’ and ‘resting in the damn fridge for 40 hours’ just don’t cut it most of the time. I came across smittenkitchen’s recipe for the ‘simplest apple tart’, and thought it just perfect to play with. My own adjustments were pretty radical, so I’m going to re-type everything I changed. I swear, dough making in this bloody Singapore heat is a right pain, so I suggest only using things like butter and cold water right when you need it, and straight out of the fridge. Blast the air con and get to work!
Ingredients:
For galette dough:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 and a half tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
80g cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (I used half salted, half unsalted, just because I love a little extra)
2 tablespoons cold water
For apple filling:
3-4 small apples, sliced into thin slivers
30g melted butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar (preferably dark muscovado, if you have that sort of thing lying around)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
half teaspoon nutmeg
For glaze:
a quarter cup of your favourite jam (I used marmalade), warmed for a couple minutes in the microwave
Method:
Slice the apples and mix with the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl. Set aside. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C.
In a food processor, blend the flour, sugar, salt and butter. Pulse until the biggest pieces resemble medium-sized peas. Slowly add in the cold water, continuing to pulse at a moderate speed. I only needed around 2 tablespoons. Grab a handful of dough and squeeze to see if it holds together. If it does, then it’s fine. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gather into a round and slightly flattened ball. Wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 10 minutes (Yes! 10. Praise the Lord).
Take the dough out from fridge and using a floured rolling pin on lightly floured surface, roll out until it’s approximately 11 inches wide. Place dough onto a greased, large baking dish lined with parchment (VERY IMPORTANT STEP HERE. DO NOT be like me and do this only after painstakingly placing the apples on top. Please. Learn from my mistakes. Or I will cry for you.)
Take your beautiful cinnamon and sugar-crusted apples and layer them, one by one in a ring spiral, with the outer edges 1.5-2 inches away from the edge of the dough. Continue layering in a ring, working your way to the centre of the circle. Once you reach the centre, you can bend a few slices to fit the very middle, like a rose. If you have extra slices, place them in random nooks around the ring, so they all fit nicely.
Now, this is my favourite bit: Take the outside edges of dough and fold them over, in sections around the ring of apples. Let it be loose and rustic and messy. Enough with the neat crimping. That’s for the uppity. Now brush the melted butter over the edges you folded over and the exposed apple slices. Yum yum. Sprinkle the sugar over the whole thing. Free and easy. Footloose and fancy-free. The joy, the joy, I tell you.
Bake in preheated oven on middle rack for 40 minutes. Leave it in the oven to cool before taking out.
Warm your favourite jam in the microwave for a few minutes, and using a pastry brush, brush all over that beautiful little rustic thing. Galette. The word makes me swoon. The gazelle of all tarts. The almighty apple galette.
No, this does not need a recipe. I’d just like to revel in the glory of two of my favourite things in the world– dark chocolate and toast. Just.
I don’t think it’s right not to have this at least once in your life.
I bought a new loaf of campagne yuzu bread yesterday on impulse, because that thing looked too good to pass up. It just sat there, lonely, cold, at the display counter. How could I not?
Here is what you need:
your favourite bread, whatever that might be. Grab a white bloomer if that satisfies you!
couple squares good quality dark chocolate (70% is ideal)
sprinkle of coarse salt (I used pink Himalayan)
a toaster
I’ll stop here
too simple
I always have dark chocolate around. Somewhere. Anything less than 70% might just be child’s play, but nothing against that.
Literally take the chocolate, pop it on your favourite slice, slide into the toaster or broiler for 3 minutes until crusty and darkened. Sprinkle on pinch of coarse sea salt, before doing your business.
I kind of wish to keep this place a secret. Is that ok? Ever since I first heard about it and saw some rather moreish pictures on Instagram, I was ready to make a short visit, a hasty pop-by, and now I find myself there at least once or twice a week after school. Yeah. Just because it’s become an absurd necessity to be part of that coffee situation when my head’s reduced to mud after the constant clashing of school happenings, and this place is like my quantum of solace, a place where I can simply sit down, enjoy great coffee and some bloody good pastry, collect my thoughts, and study. And a special address to Sarah, the lovely, bubbly, and if I say so myself, supremely talented barista who works here!
But you know, evidently, I love this place, and it does deserve some publicity. I always give out an inner squeal whenever I approach its humble sign, like a little elf beckoning me to come in, pay for something, anything.
These were the first things I ever got from this baby hole-in-the-wall. Before I ramble, I should just like to say that this is a completely honest review, and in all honesty, I should like for this to be less of a typical review, because it’s so much more than a flurry of descriptive words and images. It’s utterly won me over and I daresay a ‘review’ just won’t cut it.
The piccolo was a little more on the milky side, though the beans shone through beautifully nonetheless. I took home that gorgeous salted caramel danish, and hurriedly toasted it. Unsurprisingly, and I should’ve seen it coming, the ooey belly of the danish, that rich, dripping salty, caramelly goodness started seeping out like blood from someone’s side. Oops. But messy was good, and good it was. No, spectacular. It was a little limp, with the flakes and layers not yielding a good enough crust, but only because it was not as fresh as it probably was when first baked (they get their goods from local French bakery B.A.O.). The fluffy and genuine salty character of that caramel is laudable. That is exactly what salted caramel should taste like; not the half-assed salt you usually get.
The pear crumble danish is a beauty, and was magnificent after being toasted for a minute. The pastry in both danishes is lovely and buttery, complementing the filling of either salt or sweet. The pear was soft, almost like the chunks you might find in a fruit compote.Pale, tender, with a little give. A slightly more robust texture would be more befitting, but it did my soul good. The crumble topping crisped up nicely when toasted, and went nicely with that dusting of icing sugar (which, surprisingly, held together even after my half-hour rocky trudge home).
Iced Mocha– $6.50
The glug of rich chocolate syrup. It hit my throat before the cool milk, and then everything else fell into place. Did I mention it’s worth the price. Pretty tall glass, if you ask me. I planned on getting it when I saw it at someone else’s table the first time I went and was struggling to contain the green-eyed monster. The syrup is drizzled all round the sides of the glass, and slowly starts to integrate with the frigid milk to form a refreshing chocolate drink. So it’s chocolate+milky caffeine, then an enhancement of those two separate flavours as they meld into one another. After this, I came to the ecstatic, enlightening conclusion that this is my new favourite café.
Brioche french toast with cream, berry compote and candied walnuts– $10
You ALL know. How much my love for french toast consumes all darned sense and sensibility on my part. I admit, I wrote a whole journal entry on how much I loved this. Guys, I’ve tried a LOT of french toast. And this is probably one of, if not the, best. I say it myself, right here, right now. All hail the glory of this one, thick slice of sweet brioche french toast. Dripping in sweet whipped cream, apple compote, sugar on sugar, and then you get the lightly burnt aroma of candied walnuts on top- toasted, petite, delightful little things. Ashy rainfall on this snowy bed of cream. My hands were shaking because every bite was just so exciting and mesmerising. It was hard to contain myself in public, ok. I wanted to shout the wonders of this small piece of toast, saturated, jaw-aching in the best possible way. The outside glistened with the gentle sear of a hot pan, the inside beckoned with its bouncy, foamy, eggy intensity, whilst being perfectly aerated at the same time. The butter caressed every crevice of the light-as-air brioche, enhancing the gorgeous craters locked on its surface.
The sweet cream and jam does get a tad overwhelming at times, so a few bites later the brioche goes from a light snowflake to a dense-bellied, cream-stuffed ball. I’m not complaining, though. I quite like it that way, though a slightly staler loaf or lesser cream would’ve sufficed. Those without my sweet tooth better take it easy. The amount of jam was perfect, thick and interspersed with large chunks of sweet apple. I could go on and on. Love of my life.
Scone with butter (or cream, if you wish) and apple jam– $4.50Espresso– $3
The scone is on the slightly denser side, but bore a good and heavy butter flavour, almost lightly salted, which made the additional butter (yeah, I can be a bit excessive) and the glorious apple jam perfect to spread on top. I think choosing the cream would have made it even better. Warm, English comfort. It almost brought me back to the time I first tried a scone when I was living in London and my mother gave me a chunk, which I reluctantly accepted. I think everyone can agree that carbs are quite beautiful..?
Their espresso is acidic, which is to my taste, but not so to quite a many other. Down a shot for a morning or late afternoon perk.
alexcrumb 