Eat Like the Local

I’m at the end of my Seychelles vacation sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to depart for Singapore. Although it’s my 2nd trip to Seychelles, I enjoyed my stay and learned. Unlike the 1st trip that was filled up with diving, we managed to tour Seychelles capital Victoria, and also the whole island.

I found a fresh food market in Victoria, Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market also known as Victoria Market. Market has always being my favourite place to visit when I’m travelling. When there’s fresh food, there must be cooked food around as well. Where else to hunt for the most authentic local food other than the fresh food market?


Selling salted fish. Got very tempted to get some but I didn't


Homemade chilli. Don't be fooled by the colour! It's extremely spicy!



 Freshly caught fishes.

Along the stretch of street leading to the market is filled with shops. There are some small-scale provision shops that sell a tiny amount of cooked food, which are either deep-fried, or cakes and a few burger buns and pizza bread.
 







I tried an egg roll, which looks like a spring roll but filled with chunks of eggs and a bit of potato. The skin was pretty tough, took me a few minutes to chew it into pieces before swallowing.


I also tried a vegetable samosa. Though it was only filled with potato, it was tasty. Tasted very similar to curry puff in Singapore and the skin wasn’t as tough as the egg roll.

I also found a local take-away shop next to the market that we stopped and had an early lunch. It’s similar to Singapore economical rice which 1 can chose from the range of cooked food on display. We wanted to eat what the local eat and felt that’s the best way to understand their living culture. But we didn’t manage to follow them exactly. Talking to the locals, we found out they usually will take away rice or noodle plus one or two dishes. As for both of us, we went crazy and had 3 different dishes excluding rice/noodle. The lady who served me was a bit shocked. She replied the box is already full when I ordered the 3rd dish.
 Fried Noodle
 Fried Rice
 Braised Pork Belly
 Sweet and Sour Chicken
 Fish
 Vegetable with Beef
 Soya Chicken
 Vegetable with Pork
 Chicken Wings

Mr. take away box had rice with curry chicken, braised pork belly and stir fried vegetable with chicken. Curry chicken was yummy and pork belly was soft and flavoursome.

As for mine, I had fried noodle with sweet and sour chicken, soya chicken drumstick and stir fried vegetable with chicken. Soya chicken was tasty and juicy. But the fried noodle was too saltish for my tastebud.


 Lady also added some mixed salad into the box. There are a few salads for the customers to choose from.


Each lunch box costs $85 Rupees. Expensive? Absolutely not comparing the price we paying in restaurant and hotels. It’s only slightly more than $5 Euro each. It was the cheapest and most satisfying meal we had in Seychelles.

Wedding Banquet

The purpose of popping into Singapore during our recent vacation was not only to visit the family, it's also to attend my BIL's wedding.  It's the "1st" wedding event for Minister's family. Although we got married way before my BIL, we had a totally opposite wedding.  I  We wanted something totally different. Without family members, without customary, without grand wedding banquet, just a small wedding ceremony with 10 friends at Treasury Garden follow by a lunch at Windsor Hotel. 

I haven't attend a Grand Chinese Wedding for ages! I almost forgot what it's like. After the day ceremony, the night dinner banquet was held at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel. As expected(the usual), the dinner didn't manage to start on time. While every family member were busy being a host, Minister and me decided to start the night with Pre-Dinner drink at the bar downstair. I know it seem very rude but we need a break from all the happening. Plus there's no alcohol being served during cocktail session! So just got to dig into our pockets and get some ourself.

Minister had the usual Lemon, Lime Bitter and I went for my favourite Lychee Martini. I ended sharing mine with Daddy that totally changed his initial thought of Lychee Martini. He tried creating t the comfort of his own home few days later.

Including my parents, we were assigned to be seated at the VIP table. As VIP table, the setting was different from the rest. We also had the luxury of having all dishes being divided and served instead of a whole. Actually Minister and me preferred to help ourselves to the dish but guess coz of the centre piece, they can't actually do that. 

In the past, the banquet consist of 10 dishes! These days it's only 8. After spending half the night waiting for all the guests to turn up, the dinner finally started at 2045!

Dinner started with Appetiser as the 1st Dish. Deluxe Chinese and Japanese Combination Platter which made up of Roast Duck, Water Chestnut Shrimp Roll, Salmon Toast, Squid and California Maki.

Next was a Soup : Braised Shark's Fin with Assorted Seafood

Sorry I didn't manage to capture a photo of this dish. Not because I'm too hungry or it's too delicious. It's because I didn't try this dish. I had stopped eating shark's fin for more than 5 years now. Ever since I started diving and learned live finless sharks being dump back to sea to die slowly, I swear not to touch shark's fin ever again! Plus it's tasteless!!! Still no idea why it's considered a chinese delicacy???

A Poultry dish was next : Steamed Chicken with Whole Garlic, Quail Egg, Button Mushroom in Brown Sauce. 

4th was seafood : Deep Fried Crispy Filo Prawn Roll served with Passion Fruit Sauce. This dish left the most impression on me. Initial though the crispy strip was vermicelli but coz it's not in white so I ruled that out. Only realised it's filo after I checked the menu. As this is a deep-fried dish, the sauce really helped to remove the greasy feeling.

Vegetable was 5th : Braised Duet Mushroom and Conpoy with Seasonal Vegetables. Opps just realised I forgotten to take a shot of this dish as well. Oh well, I don't even remember how it looks like now. Must be a very ordinary dish.

Fish was 6th : Steamed Fresh Seabass in Preserved Yellow Bean.

7th was Rice : Fried Glutinous Rice wrapped in Beancurd Skin served with Mixed Salad. Felt this dish was pretty special coz it was individually wrapped. Bit strange to be served with salad but I still eat it though. I need my fibre.

To complete the dinner was definitely dessert : Sweetened Yam Paste with Gingko Nuts and Pumpkin Syrup. This is my favourite banquet dessert! It's not a easy dessert to make. Heard the old traditional way of preparing was to cook whole peeled yam (taro) in the pot. Constant stirring till the whole yam cooked and melted in the pot. How long will that take??? Don't asked me! Not sure which restaurant still cooks it that way.

By the time we finished dinner, it was closed to 2300. It was end of night for us. Daddy, Mummy, Minister and me cabbed to The Fullerton Hotel to have a post dinner drink at Post Bar. They have a huge variety of sling to chose from. 

I went for the Peach Sling. Daddy chosen Singapore Sling. Minister from memory is Pineapple Sling. Mummy went for cocktail instead. It's great ending the night with a drink, rest and relax catching up with my parents and de-briefing for the night.

Food I Tried/Eaten During My Trip

I actually started this post few weeks ago but didn't manage to finish it at all *sigh*. Reason being I'm too busy or am I too disorganised or I'm too lazy??? Too lengthy???

Well all the photos posted on this entry all taken during my latest trip to Singapore. Spending more than 2 weeks, I in fact didn't satisfy a lot of my craving! I can't believe I didn't eat much at all.....not much appetite. Mostly due to the extreme heat and humidity and also without CL :P. Note: I didn't manage to take all the food I eaten during the whole duration of the trip.

I spend the 1st 3 days hiding at home eating my favourite chef homecook food, spending quality time with my family members and doing a lot of catching up with them.

My 1st outing was to CityLink, Marina Square and Millennia Walk with my best friend,her hubby and godson. We had lunch at a Japanese place at MS. Honestly I don't remember the quality of the noodle because I was busy talking...hehe. The dessert was pretty nice though, a good mixture of red bean paste with two different types of rice balls. But the service was shocking! The place was almost empty as it was early and a lot of families were still doing their house visiting instead of shopping. The waiter who served us can't even hold a basic english conversation. I had difficulties conveying my order to him. I never expect that in a restaurant in the city with a high chance of tourist walking in.

The next day, I met up with my best friend again and this time she bought me to the newly open Ion at Orchard. We had an early lunch before starting to shop. I had a short tour around on the million dollar renovation food court at the basement (is it really necessary??? food taste nicer??) before we decided to try the Katsudon which 8-days magazine recommended. The tonkatsu was very well done, not dry inside and super crispy outside. Plus it's not soak with oil even though it's deep fried. As for the curry, nothing to shout about.

Basement of Ion has a lot of food stalls selling quite a huge range of food. 50% are japanese style food. We shared some Takoyaki. They were definitely different from those I used to have. These were huge, filled with ingredients, not tough inside. I also bought some japanese steamed rice cake for my Godson and also nephew. Mum told me Truman loved them.

Cai Fan(vegetable rice) for lunch, Dad and me went to get takeaway before we popped into Sis's place. This is CL's favourite, a huge choices of vegetable, meat, seafood, tofu, curry, eggs etc for you to chose. We packed 4 packets of rice each with 3 different combination of vegetable and meat. In total it cost less than S$10. Good budget!

Daddy also bought me and Mum to Zion Road market to have the famous Char Kway Teow. I also ordered some Satay to share because I had craving for Kueh Tupat. I also ordered a huge glass of freshly squeeze sugar cane juice with lemon. I had so many glasses of sugar cane juice during that 2 weeks.

I never fail to have my Gui Ling Jao and herbal tea after my visit to Guan Yin Ma Temple at Bugis. I'm a strange creature because the more bitter the herbal tea is, the more I enjoy. 

Chinese style pancake (Mi Jian Kueh) is another favourite snack/breakfast of mine. I did tried making them, passable but a lot of room for improvement.

Daddy and me also went to have Nasi Briyani and Indian Rojak at Little India Hawker Center. I loved Indian Rojak and so far have no luck getting them in Melbourne. It's a hassle to make as it consist of too many different ingredients plus I feel that the sauce is the most critical.

I walked past the hawker center and I couldn't resist to pack a packet of Chicken Rice even though I'm meeting my ex-colleague for dinner later that evening. It's a popular store and there wasn't any queue. Fantastic! Bought 2 packet, 1 for myself and 1 for daddy. It only took me 5 mins to finish it.

Greek Shortbread Bicuits,Kourabiedes

Our very lovely greek neighbour, Irene baked these Kourabiedes for Easter and she gave us some.

The first time I tried them was during Christmas period when she baked over 500 of as gifts for her family, relatives and neighbours. She told me she do it every year but the amont decreases every year too as she's finding a bit hard to produce so many biscuits alone.

This Easter she baked a small amount for her family and we were offered some because we are her family too :)

They smell great! I only need to remove the cover and I can smell it immeditaely without bringing my nose close to it! It's crunchy coz of the nuts but also extremely sweet because it's covered with icing sugar. She told me it's also very fattening so can't have too much.

I had quite a few as CL finds them too sweet. I know I will be the only 1 eating them like the batch we had during Christmas. Therefore I bought the rest in to work the next day and shared with a few colleagues. They all enjoyed it a lot!

Amazing Ice Cream

We had the most amazing ice cream at Kuranda during our trip at Cairns. We were told not to miss trying the ice cream by the bus driver and I'm so glad that we remembered!

Me buying the 1st ice cream. CL and me shared a Mint Chocolate Chip. Mummy and Daddy had errrrrr...seriously can't remember!!!
The seller was really cute! He actually asked where I am from and when he found out that I'm staying in Collingwood. He told me not to support Magpie but the team from Brisbane. Hahaha.



After the 1st cone, we went back for 2nd!

This time was CL who's in charge. We bough 2 cones of passionfruit to share.

Passionfruit Ice Cream

Although there isn't much choices to chose from but we already had a hard time deciding. The ice cream is full of favour, sweetness is just right. The amazing thing is you don't actually feel thirsty after having it. Daddy and Mummy who isn't really into ice cream because they find them too sweet and thristy after having them LOVE IT! All 4 of us just can't stop licking.