Cafe hopping in Georgetown

Before going on about street food in Penang, my inner caffeine and cake addict would like to write a post about cafe culture in Georgetown.

I've since grown tired of Singapore's increasingly pricey and crowded cafe scene and have returned to traditional coffee shops for my caffeine fix. But I still very much enjoy experiencing the cafe culture overseas, especially when a cup of coffee and a slice of cake are much more affordable. 

Besides being a trendy and gorgeous neighbourhood, Georgetown has plenty of cafes to choose from and in our short two days there, we managed to visit three lovely coffee places. 

While looking for Behind 50 and subsequently discovering that we were way too early since it only opens from 6pm, we stumbled into a charming place, Cafe 55. The place, which would probably do well as a part time art gallery, specialises in presenting cups of coffee topped with 3D latte art. Besides the cute coffee, the cakes were amazing too. The lemon/orange cake delivered a refreshing burst of citrus goodness to our sunburnt selves.

After a short rest, we trooped on to check out the street art around Armenian Street and settled on the amazing China House. This was my favourite cafe of the lot. We were spoilt for choice at the selection of cakes and spent the most time sitting around chatting and reading its eclectic selection of available books. Before setting off to feed our hungry stomachs, we were pulled into a short film festival of sorts upstairs. 

The next day, we went in search of siphon coffee and cakes baked by the Le Cordon Bleu trained owners at Été cafe. The friendly shop assistant taught us about brewing and enjoying siphon coffee and pairing the flavour with the available cakes. While it was a charming little place, we were slowly turning into mosquito feed!

The food is better on the other side?

Ever since my first plane ride out of Singapore, I've always lamented being "stuck" in my regimented and 99% man-made country (that probably sparked my insatiable desire to see the world). Yet when I recently read a post written by a former expat who quit the country and the subsequent comments left by readers far and wide, I was left blurry eyed and burning with a fierce sense of patriotism (or maybe it was just my emo-nemo self bursting forth). But! This post is not about my struggle to keep from crying in the train (!) It is about my love and hankering for street food across the border, even when my country prides itself on its food. 

A few weekends ago, I hopped onto a plane for two days in Penang. Our main priority was eating our way through Georgetown at a leisurely pace. And boy did we have a feast! It was street food at its best and Penang quickly won my stomach over!

I stubbornly refused to eat anything at home and promptly regretted it when my stomach began churning in hunger while up in the air. Once we arrived and checked into our hotel, I herded my girlfriends out in search of the traditional charcoal toasted kaya bread with soft boiled eggs in a narrow alleyway. Tradition never tasted so good! I loved the crispy toasted bread that won our home grown Yakun just by its simplicity and authenticity.  

Greed took a firmer hold on us when the nasi lemak seller delivered a tray of piping hot packets of soft fluffy goodness to the alley. It was simple - consisting of just kickass chilli, hard boiled egg, ikan billis and rice - but done to perfection. 

Breakfast was quickly washed down with fragrant cups of coffee. This first taste of Penang street food left our stomachs wanting. 

Why we fear silence

Silence remains a rarity in a world that chatters on ceaselessly. It is wonderful when friendship progresses to the point where friends are truly comfortable resting in each other's company in silence, without the need for mindless chatter or to turn to digital distractions.

As we move swiftly and surely into the digital age, we are increasingly confronted with distractions. Indeed, it has become common to see people whipping out their phones when out with friends or loved ones when real life conversations slow momentarily. The quiet moments between friends are shattered by the constant need to fill the void by checking emails and social media, or typing texts to distant bodies. Why can't we just sit in each other's presence?

In my pursuit of a change in careers, I've signed up and attended night classes in subject matters that are related to my areas of interest. My final class was in counselling where we explored the value of silence in therapy. It seems counter-intuitive to use silence in a session that clients pay to attend. Yet I have learnt that the strategic use of silence can be immensely powerful.

Silence is not a void but a space for consolidation, reflection and growth. It allows for deep reflection, and when afforded to someone in crisis, communicates understanding, consideration, and patience - a treasure in our ongoing race for time. 

Recently, I've also came across a post about why God is silent. A friend opined that this silence could be for us to reflect and come up with our own solutions. I have moved on from being religious but can definitely see the value in such an opinion. It is like in person-centred therapy where the counsellor provides a therapeutic relationship and believes in the client's potential for growth and transformation. Isn't finding solutions when one is stuck a sign of maturity? 

As an introvert, I greatly appreciate such moments of solitude and silence. How can you know what to do and where to go, when you haven't taken time to be still and really think? 

Orange and chocolate chip scones

Breakfast is my favourite part of the day, and even if I wake up at noon on the weekends, I will still choose to have breakfast food with a steaming hot cup of tea. So imagine my disappointment when I checked the kitchen for food to bring to work for Monday's breakfast and found nothing.

Thankfully, the kitchen is well stocked with ingredients for baking due to my penchant for baked goods. So I searched for some recipes online and decided on orange chocolate chip scones. I developed a taste for scones while on a semester exchange programme in Leeds, UK and really miss having scones straight from the oven.

Ingredients
2 cups of all-purpose flour
150 ml of milk
60 g of butter (cold and in small pieces)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of baking powder
Juice and grated peel of one orange
Handful of chocolate chips

Directions
Measure butter and set it aside in the freezer then pour the grated peel and orange juice into milk. Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl. Quickly grate butter into the dry mixture using a cheese grater (this makes rubbing the butter in quicker and prevents the butter from melting). Make a well in the mixture and slowly pour the wet mixture into the well, stirring to mix it until it becomes dough-like. Stir the chocolate chips into the dough and place the dough mixture into the fridge for 5 minutes.

Use an ice cream scoop to scoop individual scone portions onto a floured tray surface. Place scones into the oven (200 degrees celcius) and bake for 15-20 minutes.

This is a quick and easy recipe and I could not help myself from gulping down one freshly baked scone despite being really bloated from dinner.

Gravity

Gravity blew me away with its amazing visual effects and the contrast of space and claustrophobia. I have an inexplicable fascination with space movies (not quite the likes of Star Wars and Star Trek, even if I do enjoy the latter, but those that are more grounded in reality) such as the films focusing on the Apollo missions, the documentary on the 2003 Colombia space shuttle accident and the more science-fi-ey Moon and Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have been equally awestruck and chilled by the immensity of space and man's efforts towards scientific progress.

Space - the final frontier, as Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles called it - is equal parts majestic and equal parts threatening. I held my breath as Sandra Bullock's character spun out of control in the vast expanse, harrowed by the loneliness evoked. Space figured as the third character in a small cast; a force that threatened survival while being a space to survive in.

The failures and catastrophic series of events in Gravity left me pondering on the insignificance of man in light of greater forces.

Of course, there was also the whole birth sequence that many made reference to. I guess it is only appropriate since people are changed when confronted with their own mortality and powerlessness.

So far, my top three movies of 2013 are Cloud Atlas, Pacific Rim and Gravity, in no particular order. What is yours?

To be a doer

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

- "The Man in the Arena", Theodore Roosevelt

Lately, I've taken to reading speeches of great men, especially those who spoke during uncertain times, like Churchill's famous WWII speeches. I have a fear of public speaking and frequently find myself tongue-tied and with jumbled thoughts when asked to give a speech or a presentation. This happens even thought I am well prepared for it. It is comforting to know that some of the greatest speech givers struggled to keep their nerves from showing.

Zen Pencils did a wonderful comic based on Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena" and that brought me back to reading the speech once again.

It is a great reminder to be a doer and to not worry about falling short. And yes, that is what I will do.

Focaccia

Garlic rosemary focaccia

I'm munching on strawberries as I type this post, waiting in anticipation for my garlic tomato focaccia to cool down.

Sundays have become my bread making days simply because I love munching on freshly baked bread. I've also learnt a lot from baking bread that can be applied to life. Like being patient and all. I think that bread takes a bit more experience and skill to get right, unlike cakes and pastries. Everything from the humidity, temperature of water added, kneading time and dough consistency can and will affect the final product. Who knew that something made up of only 4 key ingredients - flour, water, yeast, salt - could be so temperamental!

Garlic focaccia with tomatoes

After experimenting with recipes and watching some videos on kneading focaccia dough on YouTube, I've settled on the one below:

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups flour (I mixed all purpose flour with bread flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 large clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup warm water

Toppings
1 tomato, chopped, or,
1 sprinking of rosemary leaves and
1 large clove garlic, roasted in the oven for an hour

Directions
Mix flour, salt, sugar and yeast together and tip the mixture onto a large working surface. Make a hole in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in half the water and olive oil. Slowly incorporate the liquids with the flour mixture, gradually adding the remaining water and olive oil to dough.

Add the garlic and oregano to the dough and continue kneading for 5 minutes, or until elastic. Form dough into a ball and place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a wet towel. Leave to rise until doubled in size (about an hour).

Preheat oven to 220 Degrees Celsius once dough has risen. Deflate dough and spread it out onto a tray and make half indentations with fingers across the surface. Press chopped tomatoes or olives (if using) onto dough and pour olive oil over, letting some oil pool in the holes. (If using oven roasted garlic, squeeze garlic out of skin and spread over dough before pouring olive oil over). Sprinkle salt and pepper and let sit for another 10-15 minutes. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until dough sounds hollow when lightly tapped.

I enjoy eating focaccia with cherry tomatoes tossed in balsamic vinegar

Galle: Cafe Town

This will be the last of my posts on Sri Lanka. As you can tell, I've stretched it out so that I can pretend that I am still vacation-ing.

We arrived at pretty Galle after a gruelling 7 hour bus ride, which saw us standing for a vast majority of the journey. This was due to the arsehole of a fellow tourist and his family who decided that their bags and asses were more important than fellow human beings. When the lady refused to remove her bag from the chair to allow a little Sri Lankan child or her weary mother to sit down, I almost morphed into an angry bear and mauled her. Key word - almost. Thankfully, this sweet local guy offered to sit the child on his lap for a part of the journey so that she could rest her legs.  

Anyway, we were famished after that ride and headed straight to the forts for food and a place to lay our heads. We settled on Crepeology, which served what resembled wraps instead of crepes. But to-mah-to/to-may-to right, and so I proceeded to wolf mine down in record time. 

The Galle fort area was littered with cool cafes, hippie joints and expensive restaurants, and reminded me of a fellow UNESCO town, Luang Prabang in Laos. I guess that is the look and feel that UNESCO likes? *shrugs*

Nevertheless, I enjoyed strolling along the walls, taking in the salty sea breeze and the sounds of waves crashing upon the shore, with my companions at night. The next morning, we woke up to catch the sunrise, which we unfortunately discovered was in the other direction!

Our time in Sri Lanka was not enough and we didn't make it to the beautiful beaches for crab. So we made sure we got our asses down to the Ministry of Crab once we got back to Colombo for our flight home. 

Ahh, Sri Lanka. I will be back! 

Finishing off our Sri Lankan adventure at the Ministry of Crab.

Matcha chocolate swirl bread

Sundays are great days to bake bread as I can pack some for Monday breakfasts at my work desk. Bread making is tedious but rewarding when the end product turns out according to the recipe. I have struggled with getting the dough consistency right and have been getting help from all the great bakers online. So apparently my mistake was in not giving the dough enough kneading time. 

The online baking community has also exposed me to novel bread making methods. I have just tried my hands using the tang zhong (汤种) method, which makes bread soft and fluffy, on a matcha chocolate swirl loaf. 

Since I do not have a thermometer, I had to stare at the bowl of bread flour and water as I stirred it while it slowly heated up on the stove. For a moment, I was panicking because my mixture took a while to develop the "trails" and thickness that many baking gurus advised. Thankfully, the lines developed soon after and I quickly set it aside to cool to room temperature.

The other steps were easy breezy (except for the kneading! Oh boy did my arms get a good workout).

Babies set aside to rise

These guys passed the finger test after 40 minutes.

Pre-oven

I used this recipe for my bread. 

Mmm I love the smell of baked bread!

The only problem with this beautiful bread is that the matcha taste was not obvious enough as the chocolate flavour overpowered it. I may just bake matcha bread without another flavour swirl the next time.

So, I have half my original portion of tang zhong in the fridge to use up and I am already planning to bake some cheese sticks! Yum tum. 

Up high in Nuwara Eliya

Having been born and raised in a consistently warm and humid country, a change to a cooler climate has always been a welcome relief. The tea plantation area of Nuwara Eliya provided that break from the tropical weather that left us sun burnt in areas that we neglected to block from the sun.

We dropped off at drizzly Nuwara Eliya without a room booking and promptly settled down for tea and started frantically searching for a place to lay our heads. Thankfully, we found a reasonably priced and available guest house, by the name of Chez Allen, with an eccentric and welcoming owner. Allen, who looked like Bob Marley, came by to pick us up in his pick up and recommended a great driver for touring the tea plantations and the waterfalls. 

The pretty Post Office where Allen swung by to pick us up.

Cold and hungry! Food at Chez Allen.

We stopped by two factories, Labokelie and Mackwoods for a tour of the factory. It was an eye opener seeing how the humble drink had its origins, and the processes involved in getting it from plantation to the cup. We ended our tour with a pot of the finest fragrant Orange Pekoe tea. Life is good.

Single estate tea leaves ready to be shipped out.

Nuwara Eliya is known as Little England as it was a sanctuary for the British during Sri Lanka's colonial days. I'm starting to detect a trend here with the Brits and their love for hill country retreats.

The next day, we abandoned our initial plan to hike at Horton's Plains due to the crazy expensive entrance fees and went trekking around Nuwara Eliya because Allen told us that the hike to the highest village, Shantipura, would be a two hour easy hike. (An aside: entrance fees to attractions in Sri Lanka are really high as compared to that in other countries, and I could not help but feel a little underwhelmed by the places).

While the views up high were gorgeous and worth the physical exertion, the hike was definitely not easy, nor did it take us two hours! 

Hiking up above the town.

Nutella espresso rolls

It has been a long time since I unleashed my inner baker. But after lurking on countless baking and food blogs, this particular recipe gave me considerable impetus to start baking once again.

While I look to bread as a comfort food of sorts, baking bread has never been my forte since I never know how much time to leave the dough to rise. Thankfully, these rolls were rather simple to make and filled my kitchen with a delightful aroma. Ahh, coffee and chocolate. These go together like milk and cookies.

These babies don't keep well so it is best to devour on the day of baking!

And now that I managed to succeed with an easy bread, I can hardly wait to try another bread recipe this coming Sunday!

Ingredients that were readily available at home

Before the babies entered the oven

Best eaten fresh out of the oven!

Handwritten with Love

"Babyiest, see as many sunrises and sunsets as you can. Run across roads to smell fat roses. Always believe you can change the world – even if it’s only a tiny bit, because every tiny bit needed someone who changed it. Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there. Host extravagantly, love constantly, dance in comfortable shoes, talk to Daddy and Nancy about me every day and never, ever start smoking. It’s like buying a fun baby dragon that will grow and eventually burn down your f***ing house."

I love traditional hand written letters, which are sadly, a disappearing thing these days. Naturally, the wonderful site, Letters of Note, remains one of my favourite bookmarked sites.

Lately, I stumbled upon a great letter written by Caitlin Moran to her daughter via another blog that I frequent, A Cup of Jo.

It is funny and inspiring. When I decide to join the childbearing crowd, I too would love to write such tender loving letters to my kids.

Cultural Triangle

Due to its central location and proximity to Minneriya National Park, Polonnaruwa was chosen as our base to explore Sri Lanka's Cultural Triangle, which consists of the ancient cities of Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya.

The journey from Colombo to Polonnaruwa saw us on board the local bus, which was a crammed and unpleasant six to seven hour ride in the familiar tropical heat. Nevertheless, it took us to our destination for cheap.

After befriending a tuk tuk driver who won our hearts by recommending a cheap place for a big lunch, we decided to tour the ancient city with him; a rather good idea on hindsight since the oppressive heat called for minimal walking. The ruins at Polonnaruwa resembled other World Heritage Sites in Southeast Asia such as the Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar, but for a much dearer entry fee. It is crazy that we had to pay US$25 to $30 to enter each of the ancient cities! So unfortunately or fortunately, we had to give Anuradhapura a miss due to the lack of time.

Still, Polonnaruwa was enchanting and the Buddhist images brought me back to my undergraduate days sitting in a lecture on religious art. Our tuk tuk driver was as tired as we were baking under the cloudless day but pushed us on to cover a majority of the sites.

After a tiring day under the sun, we decided to look to Trip Adviser for dinner recommendations and stumbled upon Priyamali Gedara. While I usually take Trip Adviser recommendations with a pinch of scepticism, the top place to dine in Polonnaruwa was a deserving one! The farmer host and his family really showed us true Sri Lankan hospitality. That was, without a doubt, our best meal in Sri Lanka.

The spread at Priyamali Gedara

The next day, we set off to Sigiriya to climb the lion's rock, blessed with great weather that made climbing the 1200 steps to the top a little more bearable. (I am starting to realise that the weather affects my appreciation of a place). If I were to choose only one ancient site to visit in Sri Lanka, it would be Sigiriya. The view at the top was truly breathtaking and I was content to find a spot to sit and enjoy the strong winds.

Well preserved painting of nymphs.

The view at the top.

Current Read

"We wander around in search of a plausible centre. We long for a plausible crucible of significance, for somewhere, anywhere to go in order that we may touch the essence of the genius loci, but in the absence of alternatives we usually end up listlessly touring a museum, ashamed of ourselves for the strength of our desire to go back to our hotel and lie down."

- Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton

Elephants in Minneriya

I was first drawn to vacationing in Sri Lanka when I flipped open an airplane magazine on board a flight and saw pictures of leopards in the wild . Instead of heading to Africa for the famed safaris, I decided on Sri Lanka.

Instead of seeing leopards, I set my sights on the elephants of Minneriya National Park. This decision was easily reached after reading about the elephant "gathering" every August. And well, the experience really lived up to my own expectations of seeing the majestic creatures in the wild. Minneriya is such a beautiful and peaceful place. 

Our jeep driver was amazing and frequently pointed out any wildlife that he spotted to us, although we seemed only interested to witness the gathering.

And boy can these elephants eat! 

We were so engrossed in them that we decided to head to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage to spend more time with those beasts. Well, all I can say is that nothing beats seeing them in the wild and that was a disappointing detour in our trip.

Sri Lanka

I have dreamed about visiting Sri Lanka for the past two years and was lucky enough to finally do so during the National Day weekend this year. 

The country has left an indelible mark on me especially after having encountered the colourful and warm personalities - from the humble farmer and his wife from Polonnaruwa who were superb dinner hosts, our amazing safari jeep driver who brought us to the best spots to see the elephants in Minneriya, sweet dear mama Kumari from Kandy with whom we bargained to relax the guest house's curfew if only for half an hour, the friendly Chinese owner of the popular Slightly Chilled Bamboo Bar who, we like to believe, was happy to see fellow Chinese people and to speak in Mandarin with, the hilarious Bob Marley wannabe who picked us up in a pick up to his rest house, and then sent us on an easy two hour trek to Shantipura (but which saw us panting up the mountains for half a day, no nearer to the highest village in Nuwara Eliya), to our fantastic and funny tuk tuk driver who gave us a death defying ride to the airport. 

Our trip was nothing short of exhausting, with constant travel from one town to another. But my awesome travel companions made me realise that I can and will forge new travel experiences and memories with like-minded souls. 

Away for yet another National Day

We have a tendency to want to leave our mark on things. Since we can't all be moon walkers, leaving footprints on the moon, we turn to leaving thoughts and experiences behind in words. 

That's why this medium is special to me especially when far from home. It is strange to be away, by choice, during National Day when my whole family celebrates with feasting.