Let’s Visit Asia

Japanese cuisine is more than just sushi and sashimi. If you’re headed to Tokyo anytime soon and fancy a degustation of local flavors, check out this ABC article for some ideas on what to expect.

Once the menu is presented, the strange and often thrilling journey outside the comfort zone begins. Though Japanese cuisine is based on the familiar — rice, noodles, soups, tofu, fish, livestock — it also appears to embrace most of the other creatures that inhabit the region, with the exception of Hello Kitty. About 450 types of seafood are sold at the city’s Tsukiji fish market, the …read more

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Much as I love food and trying out new tastes, I must admit I am quite wary of trying out dishes that are totally unfamiliar to me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve ordered (more like pointed out to) something on the menu, imagining how it tastes like, and ending up quite frustrated cause it was nothing like what I expected. I’ve had so many bloopers of blindly ordering something I don’t know, and I just end up wasting money and sometimes disappointing the cook or wait staff.
If you’re headed to Korea, make sure you read Matt’s experience …read more

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Singaporean cuisine, being a fusion of Indian, Malay and Chinese cooking, is possibly the most diverse in flavors among Asian cuisines. If you’re in the island over the weekend, it’s the perfect time to sample local cuisine as the Singapore Food Festival comes to a close.

Here are the Top 10 Must-Try Dishes:
1. Chili Crab
2. Rojak
3. Hainanese Chicken Rice
4. Bak Kut Teh
5. Satay
6. Char Kway Teow
7. Fried Carrot Cake (no, there’s no carrots in there at all)
8. Fish Head Curry
9. Roti Prata
10. Laksa
For tourists, just present your passport to any of the Singapore Visitors’ Centres (located at the airport, Orchard Road, …read more

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Image used with permission from JetCombo
I received an email reporting that JetCombo, an online airline booking services specializing in chartered flights, has just released its list of the top 10 international summer destinations, based on itineraries booked through the website for leisure airline travel. Here’s where most are off to this summer:
1. France
2. United Kingdom
3. Germany
4. Italy
5. Israel
6. China
7. South Korea
8. Greece
9. Poland
10. United States
China make sense, what with the hordes headed for the Olympic games. But South Korea? I would never have guessed. One more interesting tidbit: Guess which destination is at position #11? The Philippines!
I would have …read more

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One thing I don’t like with flying budget airlines is that you have to pay for your meals. But because budget airlines usually fly short routes, it’s tolerable. Afterall, the savings you get from the airfare more than covers the cost of the meal. However, if you find yourself really hungry onboard, most budget airlines won’t have much to offer anyway to fill your grumbling stomach. Perhaps the most filling you can get is a sandwich, which can a little bit unsatisfying for the duration of say, a 3-hour flight.
Well, not with Air Asia, which just announced that they are …read more

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When traveling in a foreign country, how do you know which restaurant serves the best local cuisine? Your travel guidebook might have some recommendations, but often I find that those digs are less authentic, probably because most of these establishments cater to tourists, and the flavors are already adjusted according to the targeted clientele’s tastes.
One trick I’ve found is to scan the patrons. If the resto is popular with the locals, then it’s a good indication that what you’ll get is what the dishes are supposed to taste like. Of course, it’s not a fool-proof plan. The best strategy is …read more

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Have a taste of Southeast Asian cuisine without leaving Singapore! In addition to the ongoing Singapore Food Festival, you can have a sampling of delectable Asian dishes from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam at the ASEAN Food Trail. This sumptuous event is held as part of the ASEAN 40th anniversary celebrations, and will run from July 9 to 22, 2007 at Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel’s Café Brio.
A Taste of Solidarity, a dish created by the award-winning culinary team of Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel specially for the celebration of ASEAN’s 40th anniversary, will be …read more

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Have a taste of Singapore’s culinary delights this coming month of July during the Singapore Food Festival!
Comprising of weekly core events, themed celebrations, culinary workshops and competitions organised island-wide, this month-long festival celebrates the local perennial food favourites that have given Singapore an international reputation of a diverse food Mecca.
If you’re visiting Singapore anytime next month, don’t forget to collect your Chilli Crab Chase! vouchers before you leave the airport (look for the Singapore Visitors Centres), and get a FREE portion of Chilli Crab -a must-try for anyone visiting Singapore- in any of this year’s 21 participating outlets.
And when you’ve …read more

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Ah, there’s almost just as many varieties of coffee and tea in Singapore as there is in your regular Starbucks menu. Here’s a basic phrasebook to help you choose:
kopi/teh: coffee/tea with sugar and condensed milk
kopi/teh C: coffee/tea with sugar and evaporated milk
kopi/teh kosong: coffee/tea with milk, without sugar
kopi/teh O: coffee/tea with sugar only
kopi/teh O kosong: straight and bitter
kopi/teh peng: coffee/tea with sugar, milk and ice
kopicinno/tehcinno: milk at the bottom, coffee/tea in the middle, froth on top, just like your cappucino
Source and Photo: Uniquely Singapore

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Dining options for vegans are difficult to find. No eggs, no milk, absolutely no traces of animal product at any point in the cooking or serving process.
In the Tokyo’s Omotesando, there’s Pure Cafe, featured on a recent article in the International Herald Tribune. Am not sure what a macrobiotic diet is. But I know that the Japanese are known for leading long healthy lives, and diet must play a big role in it. Metropolis Magazine gave Pure Cafe a stellar review:
We’ll spare you the old sob story about how Tokyo is hell for people who don’t eat meat—even worse for …read more

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