Chinatown Food Complex - Dessert Station

I believe that our food is medicine. Given that our cells die and renew within every few months, the food we eat, the air we breathe and water we drink, thoughts we think affect how the next generation of cells, how they are formed and their inherent DNA. In lesser words, our DNA is changeable and we actions and choices impact our DNA.

Thus the rationale for my picky food choices. I'm trying to steer clear of processed food, cooking oils, MSG, any form of chemicals in our food. Trying to cut down on sugar too, wish me luck on that. But still, I do eat junk food. Just that with all this new gained knowledge, I enjoy them less.

Right. But in every case, it has become a habit to selective choose healthier versions, including desserts. I love desserts, all the hot desserts, especially bean soups, sesame pastes, peanut pastes, yam pastes, gingko nut and beancurd, etc. I think you get the idea. But they usually contain too much sugar for my preference. So I prefer to cook my own sometimes. Except for Sesame paste. Far too much work.

And today a dessert stall in particular really won my heart.

 Dessert Station is at the red zone in Chinatown Complex and by 2pm, their yam paste was sold out. That was probably my first clue.

So I ordered my favourite Sesame paste instead.

Most sesame paste are made using pre-made black sesame flour, some starch and water. The black sesame flour might have had sugar already added. Thus they taste pretty much the same everywhere.

Except for this one.

Black Sesame paste - $1.80

 One the first try I found it grittier and stronger tasting than most black sesame paste. And on closer look, I can see oil from the black sesame coating spoon.

This is probably one of the rare stalls which grind and mill their own sesame flour, from roasted black sesame seeds. Thus their black sesame taste far less of sugar and starch but very much of the real stuff.

Oh my................it's really really good!  I'll definitely try to have some whenever I'm in the area. If I'm lucky, perhaps I'll get to try the yam paste next time!

Updated - Apparently, they have branches. One of which is located at Albert Centre Food market at bugis!


Dessert Station

Chinatown Food Complex - 2nd Floor Red zone #02-132
Opening hours - 10plus am till 8plus pm

Chinatown Food Complex - Thousand Vegie

 Chinatown complex is one of the favourite haunts of many a foodie. Gems of good creations are buried within this myriad of a food centre and once upon a time during my meat eating days, I can be found here with best bud, sharing a grilled or steamed fish among other dishes.

But that was the past. So with my non meat agenda, I ventured this place again.

 The layout of this food centre can be daunting. Divided into red, yellow, blue and green zones, each with its maze of hawkers, it simply felt like walking into rubric cube, especially when I'm simply exploring and have little idea where I'm heading.

When I'm almost but give up after 2 rounds, I finally see a vegetarian stall. Having never saw it before, I assume it's new.

Spinach Noodles - $4

BBQ 'Fis' - $7

There's  two aunties manning the stall. The variety was pretty interesting but most of which involves mock meat in fried or grilled form. Despite my love for chlorophyll in my food, I gave it a try in the name of vegan spirit.

Waiting time was a bit long, around 15 minutes. From my observation, the aunties seems abit new at hawkering, thus they are climbing the steep learning hawker curve of multi-tasking.

The spinach noodle are alright. It tasted home cooked which is nice and in its favour, I don't taste much MSG. What I do lament is the lack of ingredients. Which were capsicums, carrots, mushrooms and strips of mock chicken. With some spinach and stewed mushroom, it might live up to its cost.

The BBQ 'Fis' arrived when I'm almost done with the noodles. I was slightly taken back by its appearance. But that aside, the sizing was a reasonably satisfying chunk. It was grilled in chili oil and sambal chili. Very much resembling the sambal stingray. It's quite spicy which I very much enjoyed.

It could been better if served sizzling hot in a hotplate instead.

Thousand Vegie would be where I might headed when I'm in the area and the mood for some vegan junk food (fried chiken, fis etc). I found it a little pricy for its standard though.

A sidenote, I found all 3 vegetarian stalls in Chinatown complex in the red zone.They are laid out in a triangle with the stairs in the centre.




Thousand Vegie
Chinatown Food Complex 2nd level #02-122
Opening hours: Everyday 11am - 930pm

Amoy Food Centre - 2nd Floor

Having left the crowd at Sophie Bakery, I continued to explore Amoy Food centre for lunch - having summoned just enough self restrain to save the Chocolate Chip Bun for dessert.

So up to the 2nd floor this time to see what's in store and lo and behold, 'Cha Dian Xiao Chi' greeted my growling stomach.

 I have a fondness for Teochew kuehs, partially cos of my nostalgia of growing up on them and also they mashed in my memories as part of Singapore's unique food culture.

And with this stall I spot a new kueh I have never seen - Black Bean Kueh. So it's a definitely try for this bean lover.

Soon Kueh on top and Black Bean Kueh below - $1 each.

I really like the smooth fresh skin and filling of the Soon kueh. The skin was just nice, not too thick and the freshness of the Kueh was a delight. However there's bits of hay-bee in it, so its definitely not vegetarian friendly

Black Bean Kueh - $1

The black bean kueh was not bad. The kueh itself was saltish, and the texture was smooth and embedded with black beans, cooked sufficiently to be chewed easily with a bit of crunch. More black beans throughout the kueh would be nice. No hay bee this time, so it's a okay for not-too-strict-vegetarians.

Yam Kueh - $1

 The Yam kueh however was a little unexpected. The kueh was a little sweet with bits of yam in it. The traditional saltish and hay-bee (dried shrimp) taste was missing from this version. More bits of yam would be good too.  I would say it's possible to vegetarians to try it, but I forgot to confirm it with the vendor.

Overall this is a pretty good Kueh stall with a surprising number of variety for handmade kuehs. I won't argue on the price as they are handmade, a spoonful more indgredients to the kuehs would bring it to the Wow level.

Cha Dian Xiao Chi (Teatime snacks)
Amoy Food Centre - 2nd Floor (just walk up the stairs and it's right there)

Opening Hours: Mon - Fri 7am - 3.30pm (Alterate Saturdays)

Sophie Bakery

Finished my yoga session in the mid noon heat on a Thursday, and had some time to explore Telok Ayer with it's lunchtime crowd and goodies. Just a couple of shops down, I chanced upon Sophie's Bakery.

Picture from Thursday. Maddeningly hot afternoon.

It was apparent on first sight this is not going to be your standard Singapore bread shop. The decor is so very quaint and europeanish. What lured me however was the crowd in and outside during Thursday lunch hour. The last time I 'd seen such a bread horde was probably during Breadtalk's $1 bread hour. Of course I have to join the crowd and find out!

 

Picture taken on a Saturday when
it's decidedly less crowded and I love the floor tiles!

I was surprised by  the single one item sold throughout the shop. I was pretty much surrounded by Chocolate Chip Buns - together with their cousins, White Chocolate Chip Buns. Seriously, chocolate chip buns are pretty much 80% of all the baking goods in the shop. I think there a couple of other minority breads like the baguette, and a few exotic macaroons in the cooler shelf. But most people exit with bags of chocolate chip buns. Compared to the usual bakery, this is a rarity. Most would produce at least 15 different types of various bake items in principle of chance. Higher the variety, the more likely the customer will find something to his or her liking. But usually I'd walk pass these, they're are dime a dozen such in bread crazed Singapore. So Sophie Bakery is interesting, a complete opposite of its industry norm.

 I had wanted to take more pictures - clearer ones, but I was deterred by the staff. So I put my phone away and took a tray instead.

And obviously I can't leave without one of these buns.

And the verdict; a really good tasting fresh bread evenly filled and covered with chocolate chips.

It tasted soft yet solid enough not to be fluffy. Not too moist that the flour clump together but not dry either.

It tasted of freshly leavened dough made with excellent butter and flour with a pinch of salt. Which is in short; excellent bread with bits of chocolate in every bite.


Don't be fooled by its look. It's seriously heavy on the stomach. I had one after a light lunch and it stuffed me for the next 3 hours.

A understated fact about cooking and life that Sophie's Bakery highlighted. You don't need to be Jack of all trade to succeed, you just need to be par excellent at one.






Sophie Bakery
http://www.sophiebakery.sg/

Telok Ayer Street 197 - 169 (diagonally opposite Amoy Food Centre)

Opening hours: Mon - Fri 8am - 7.30pm
                        Sat - 10am - 4pm

Sun Warrior Brown Rice Protein

I have decided to up my protein intake since 1) I'm almost vegan, - so no milk or cheese for me, no eggs either. Unless they are camouflage in cakes and I'm too excited to pay attention. 2) The nice TCM lady doctor informs me my water retention might be due to a accumulated shortness of protein; and my blood circulation becoming slow.

And on an impulse, I bought SunWarrior Protein - in chocolate flavour.

Price around $90 at Four Seasons Organic Market (Silly blogger here threw receipt away before mum found out, so hence the close estimation.)

I'm not so keen on the Xanthan Gum and Pectin but they don't hurt I guess.

 I can smell cocoa already upon opening up the packet and it looks safe enough.

Although the label suggested mixing with a favourite beverage I gave it a try on its own first.

So I mixed 1 scoop with half a cup of hot water, and it's not too bad tasting, given that it's chocolate flavour. But what I realised is that I don't like Stevia. Never had it before and having tried it now, don't like it. It reminds me too much of artificial sweeteners. I missed the actual glucose behind the taste!

In the end, I added 2 spoons of Milo and topped up with more water. But a good thing happened. I feel satisfied and full after half a cup (no Milo usually don't have that effect), so the protein is working.

Verdict: I'm liking it, but it's far better in a smoothie than beverage.

Update: Morning smoothie goodness the next day with a banana, a spoon of cocoa and half a cup of soy milk. Delicious!

New horizons

Hallo!

I hadn't update this space for a looong time. Mostly because the water diet has since made me a very poor food blogger. I rarely eat out now and even when I do, it's highly selective.

But just to share more in the meantime about my own biological changes.

I had been cooking for myself 5 out of 7 days, and it's basically stir-fried 5 - 7 different vegetables in a non-stick pan. No seasoning, no oil, just black pepper for taste. And it's pretty great. Perhap cos I don't add water, so the veg pretty much cook in their own steam (just cover the pan) and are slightly charred at the bottom. Which, is actually pretty nice.

My stir-fried salad, consisting of Shitake mushrooms, brown mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot and yam.
Takes 30 minutes to wash, cut, and cook. 

Beside both hot or cool salads, I would have a banana with almond butter for brekkie, and nuts/seeds/fruits inbetween. Or bean soups.

So it's been quite a clean diet, with lots of healthy oils and fats coming from nuts or seeds.

I have a friend, who since I had known for awhile back, hardly eats at foodcourt or kopitiam. I thought he was just picky but recently, I realised why. After a while on homecooked food, I met a friend at the food court for supper and ordered some dishes from a vegetarian stall. After which, I felt uncomfortable. Why? I can feel the cooking oil coating my stomach in grease, and the sharpness of msg and salt on my tongue.  And that my body really would prefer to remove the effects of these chemical foods.

It was an interestingly experience on the effects of cooking oil, which I ate growing up and hardly felt a thing then.

In conclusion, I have now officially gained my place in the picky eaters' club.

More on cooking oil and their effects on the body here; http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/06/28/vegetable-oils.aspx
http://blog.sejalvora.com/2010/10/25/the-truth-about-refined-cooking-oil/

Amoy Street Food Centre 1st Floor - Battle of the Salads

Lo and behold, right after my shiok curry puff and not so sexy lor mee, just right in the centre I see a stall serving up salads, ala Saladstop.

Great! The health freak in me got excited.

 It's quite a hit with the local office crowd, given the perpetual queue. And it's prices are fairly modest as well.

The stall carries a nice array and variety of salad ingredients. The salad leaves and ingredients are quite fresh.

The servings are decent and there's sufficient variety to choose from. Although I found the  pickled items quite saltish.

Basic salad on bed of  Lettuce  - $5.00

My choice of ingredients were the pickled beets, olives, semi dried tomatoes, blanched zucchini and portobellos mushrooms with japanese wafu dressing. It's was pretty yum.

Abit heavy handed with the salt for the beets tho.

 For someone who's rarely in the area at lunchtime, I was tickled to see another stall selling salads just right behind Salad Kitchen. Obviously salads are doing well in the CBD. If only the trend cascades to other hawker centres as well.

The Salad Corner, right behind Salad Kitchen. Untried .

Salad Kitchen

Amoy Street Food Centre #01-37

Opening Days and hours: Mon - Fri, 9 plus in the morning till 8pm

Amoy Street Food Centre 1st floor - Healthy Vegetarian Food

On Thursday, I went for a morning yoga and finally got to explore Amoy Street food centre in all its glory - lunch time on a weekday.

1st stop: Healthy Vegetarian Food

 This stall has a steady stream of customers mostly nearby office peeps during lunch time. I was very impressed by auntie, who single handedly manned the store whipped up various dishes ordered.








For a tiny stall, it offers around 14 different rice and noodle dishes plus an assortment of vegetables to go with plain rice. I decided to go with Lor Mee.

Lor  Mee $2.30

Ooooooookay! Blogger decided to unrotate my photo, so my apologies for a horizontal Lor Mee. I didn't pick a winner from the 14 choices. I might had picked the worst of the 14. It was too salty for me and the gravy taste more like starchy dark sauce than lor mee. The ingredients were crispy taukee, mock duck meat and a sprinkling of beansprouts. Far too little variety and poor quality to justify a good Lor mee as well.


The salt level was waaay too much for me (but to be fair I had been eating saltless for almost a week) so I had to leave it after picking at  the taukee and beansprouts.

What I adore though, were the snacks that are also available there. I had a curry puff and I'm glad to say it was fairly shiok. 

Good Ole plain Potate curry puff  - $0.80

No onions and garlic were present. The filling was just good old potatoes with curry. I like how creamy the texture is and the uncomplicated taste of curried potatoes. I find it just salty enough and the curry puff pastry not oily (as compared to other puffs) either. It satiated my craving for curry puffs and it made up for the lor mee.

I must say I love people with a sense of humour. Despite being in the midst of rotating 360 degrees serving up orders for the lunchtime horde, auntie cheerfully replied my questions on her opening hours and reminded me that she do take the unofficial leave once in a while. 

Healthy Vegetarian Food

Amoy Street Food Centre #01-14

Opening days and hours: Mon - Fri, 7am - 3pm (except when auntie takes leave)

Cashew Roasted Pumpkin

Happy 2013! It's been a busy week with Christmas, New year and catching up with returning friends, that I have left off blogging for abit. So here's some update on the past week.

So in love I am with Skinny Pizza's Macademia Roasted Pumpkin that I had to make my own variation for X'mas eve dinner. Turns out they are incredibly fast and easy to make. Best of all, wholesome and tasty.

Cashew Roasted Pumpkin by Yours truly

First oven bake wedges of pumpkin at 100 deg for 10 to 15 minutes. Use a fork to test if they are baked to desired softness. Any type of pumpkin should be fine. If an oven is not available, Happycall would be able to do it with a slight difference in the taste and texture of grilled pumpkins.

Next, spread cashew nut butter generously onto the warm pumpkins. I made my own cashew nut butter, They can be bought from most supermarkets or organic food stores as well. And squeeze lemon juice over the cashew nut butter for an extra zing.

Lastly, sprinkle chopped cashew or almond, add some sundried tomatoes, and serve.

Warning for nut/pumpkin lovers; they are addictive!

Skinny Pizza

I just recently did a fat test which also calculate my metabolic rate. Unsurprisingly, my metabolic rate is around 1300kcal a day. Which means my body doesn't require much food intake to function.

Excellent if my body were a car, but not so cool in food obsessed Singapore. But it made me pay more attention to stuff I eat, how they're cooked and if they benefit my body and health. (Or in unwise cases, became baggage instead.)

Which is why, I love Skinny Pizza.

Wild Truffled Mushroom $24 (Vegetarian)

 It's the ideal pizza for someone like me, who generally eats pizza only for its toppings and not the crust. The crust is as thin as you can imagine, and taste quite nice in its oven baked crispiness. I love that it's feels dry and biscuit like to my taste and touch.

Truffled mushrooms taste good with anything. Yet this really takes the crown. The base was a generous lather of blended mushrooms (portobello, my guess) and it was topped with more mushroom chunks, rocket leaves, onions, parmesan cheese, garlic and truffle oil. It's the ultimately low carb dream food.

It did cross my mind to ask the nice people to leave out the parmesan cheese, but I didn't have the heart to derive my makan kaki (eating mate) of enjoying the pizza with all its ingredients intact.

Macademia Roasted Pumpkin $20 (Vegetarian)

While waiting for the pizza, we had the Macademia roasted pumpkin. It was a beautiful dish - if you like pumpkins. The macademia nut topping and honey mustard dressing went so well with the roasted butternut pumpkin, and felt so satisfying. One wedge was enough to fill my tummy.

It's simplicity also inspired me to attempt something similar in the kitchen in the following weeks.

Green Salad $9 (Vegetarian)

Yet I still need my greens! So we had the green salad. I requested for the feta cheese to be replaced by tomatoes instead and they were indeed generous with the fruit.

Lovely to look at, nice to eat. I like their serving, it's quite sizeable and ample for two.

I definitely a fan of Skinny Pizza, and I like the simplicity and lightness in their food. I didn't get bloated or feel overstuffed after a meal which is really great. And an additional thumb up for a local franchise!



Skinny Pizza
http://www.skinnypizza.com.sg/

Location and Contact: http://www.skinnypizza.com.sg/locate-us-contact-us/

Almond Butter

I'm crazy about almond butter. I first tasted them in the raw veggie sushi at Yes Natural at Aljunied and I'm hooked. Having bought a few jars of almond butter of various brands and from different places, I had almond butter for breakfast with bananas, as a spread for raw sushi lunch, or sometimes just eat it on its own as a snack or a spread. Within a week I found my skin looking tauter and plumper, and my complexion improved (it's all that Vitamin E). I also ate less as my brain was deliriously happy with amount of fats it was getting. Thus my sweet tooth went away too.

Interestingly, eating almonds (together with other food) elevates our mood as well. Almonds contain huge amount of manganese, Vitamin E and B2, magnesium, trytophan, copper and phosphorus. Trytophan trigger release of serotonin, and Vitamin B2 is necessary for folic acid and serotonin production while magnesium is a muscle relaxant. No wonder I feel happy eating it!

I ate so much of the stuff I decided to make my own instead as a jar of 280g only last me a week or less.

A sidenote; all the different brands of almond butter tasted good yet variate with brands. It got to do with the almonds used and their duration of roasting and grinding time. Also, the cheapest jar of almond butter ($9.90) found in Sg is the Merdien brand available at Meiya Supermarket at Liang Court.

Making almond butter is seriously easy.

First get a decent food processor.
Next, you'd need some almonds. I usually purchase them from at Albert Centre Market (3rd storey) at 龍馬 at $10 a kg. Usually 1 kg give you half a kg of almond butter.

I experimented with raw and baked and now I prefer baking almonds at 50 deg for around 5 minutes, so they taste better and yet the vitamins and minerals are retained.

Within a minute, I'd have almond flour. This stage is ideal for bakes and if you're making almond milk (put the flour in a cloth sack and pour hot water over, like making kopi (coffee) at kopitiams (coffeeshops) )

But grind on for almond butter.

This is the toughest part, when oil is released and the almond flour start to clump together and stick to the side of the processor. Continuous scraping is needed.

At this point it gets easier. More oil is released and the almond flour now has a dough like texture and is creamier. Whew, no more scraping is required.

At this point, the texture of the almond butter depends on the duration of processing from this point. For a nuttier, crunchier taste, lessen the time duration.

But I prefer my almond butter smooth and easy to spread. Thus I usually continue for a few more minutes.

Ta-dah! The finished product. It stores in room temperature for at least 2 weeks. And it taste best when its freshly made, when it's warm and buttery from the processing!

It's the same process for most nut butter, cashews, peanut, walnuts or even pecan.

Raw Vegetable Sushi

Hallo, Merry X'mas!

For the past two days I had been busy with potluck dinners with friends. Thus, it also called for some preparing of my favourite snacks and goodies.

When I first had vegetarian food, one of my favourite is the raw vegetable sushi. I would try it wherever it's on the menu and there's definitely no identical raw veg sushi in two places. The dressing, ingredients, all differ from place to place. It's a marvellously tasty, simple and healthy snack to make. And to my surprise, my vegetarian and omnivorous friends like it.

Even my mum, who don't quite fancy raw vegetables much. o_O

 I usually use beetroot, carrots, pea sprouts, red capsicum, zucchini (optional), and cucumbers. The roots are shredded while the other vegetables are cut into fine strips. And because it's Christmas, I added some almond flour.


I buy my nori sheets from Albert Centre market (third storey), where it's sold at 龍馬  at 50 sheets a pack for $5.50. To have a nice crisp nori, toast it for a few seconds in the oven, or over a gas flame.  But were the sushi to be served beyond 10 minutes later, it wouldn't make much difference.

First spread the dressing. I looooooove almond butter, so it's pretty much what I use most of the time. Especially since I make my own, I get quite generous with the stuff.  And the best thing is that it tastes and smells so good, no seasoning is needed. So the sushi is holistically healthily made from whole food sources.

Next layer on the veggies, with roots first.

The zucchini, cucumbers and capsicums next. The finer rheir strips, the neater the sushi will be.









Last of all, the pea sprouts. Pea sprouts are loose and it's hard to put anything else on top of them so they have to go on last.

And with firm fingers, push the vegetables inwards and roll it up!










This was a good attempt. Yay!

And the finished sushi roll. :)

My friends commented this is less crunchy than the one I made last year. That's due to the zucchini added and less cucumbers. To have a crunchier sushi with higher water content, just swap the zucchini for cucumbers. Or try substituting zucchini with chinese pears for a sweeter sushi.

Other possible ingredients are daikon, chinese pear, lettuce,  kale, spinach. avocado. Or for fruit sushi, with apples, pears, mangoes, dragonfruit, kiwi, strawberries.

Different combination of vegetables or fruit might call for different dressing. Alternate dressings are vegan mayo, plum sauce, cashew butter.

Have a healthy, lovely and wonderful Christmas!

New Green Pasture Cafe

This is one of my favourite vegetarian places. It's organic and I love the cooking there.

Just ride the escalator to the top level (4th) of Fortune Centre

I was introduced to it by my vegetarian buddy when I first switched to vegetarian. It was a little piece for heaven for my taste buds   Now that I'm more aware of my body, I noticed that I actually feel better inside out after a meal there.

It also has an interesting history.

Sophia (the owner and marvellous cook) was actually a seamstress in the 70s and 80s. But with her love for cooking, she decided to make a switch towards running an organic vegan eatery in the 90s and her passion had kept her running for 19 years. In our conversation with her, she mentioned that while creating each dish, she would consider the health benefits of the ingredients she uses and how they complement each other and balance the body. Definitely no MSG nor artificial flavouring used and no egg, garlic, onion or dairy products. I'm bowled over by her wealth of knowledge about food and their restorative abilities. And very glad to be able to enjoy my meals there! (Sophia is the spunky lady usually in two pigtails and a cap. Just say hi to her and she may chat with you and impart some wisdom too!)

Seaweed roll $6.50

I am a veggie fanatic. And good raw vegetable dishes are a bonus for me. The seaweed roll taste as light and clean as they look. There's a blend of sweet and tart in their dressing and there's just a little bit of preserved ginger which is added minimally and gives a interesting twist on the taste of raw root vegetables.

Sri Lankan roll $7.00

This is da bomb! It's a mix of potatoes, mock meat (soy variety) capsicums, roasted peas and dunno what else in a lovely curry mix, topped with very good vegan cheese dressing, wrapped in a chapati lookalike. It doesn't weigh me down as heavily as indian food sometimes do and it's so damn good!

Hai Nan noodles $8.00

Previously I had blogged about vegan beef noodles near my home and this is the healthier and lighter version. It's chock full of vegetable, with a good serving of beehoon (thick rice vermicelli). The gravy, while a little sticky, wasn't starchy, nor oily (there's almost no trace of oil to be found) and it smells heavenly. According to Sophia, it was supposed to be a beef noodles tastealike, but I found it a bit lighter than the standard beef noodles with more complexity of flavours.

Yong Tau Foo noodles $11.30

This is one of the most unusual and kickass Yong Tau Foo noodles I had. The vegetables and tofu/tou pok items in the dish were stuffed with a filling of tofu, mushroom and nut/seed (?) mix. So overall it's pretty high in protein, not to mention yummy to boot. This dish is lovely to order as a side dish to share with a couple of other persons without the noodles.

Charcoal noodles $9.00

I gravitate towards dishes with generous  servings of vegetables. The Charcoal noodles taste like a sizeable summer salad. I can't identify all the ingredients but some of those not as visible in the picture are passion fruit, pomelo pips and plum powder. Overall, the dish is sweet/tart and fruity. Really nice for a hot day.


This is what it looks like when you mix it all up. Squid ink much no? Today I learned that the noodles are aptly named charcoal noodles simply because there's activated charcoal powder in the noodles. Apparently activated charcoal helps in removing toxins from our intestinal tract. But of course, everything in moderation. More on activated charcoal here.


And no, the noodles don't taste funny, they tasted like really good noodles, silky smooth and chewy.

Korean Bi-Bim-Bap $9.50

The Korean Bi-Bim-Bap does not taste Korean. More like a Singified version of Bi-Bim Bap. But no doubt delicious. It has quite a nice variety of ingredients in it. (some of which I name offhand, yam, xiao bai cai, brussel sprouts, daikon, carrot, mock floss, soy based mock fish, nori strips) topped with vegetarian sambal. The selfmade Kim Chi wasn't too bad either.

I really really like the sambal! It went pretty well with the sizzling hot claypot rice, just don't call it Korean. While not at my desired level of spiciness, but very good nevertheless.

Coral Jelly with Attap seed $3.00

This is one of the desserts my friend would order every single time and I can taste why. A nice serving of coral jelly swimming in soymilk with 3 attap seeds. It is sweet but not overly so and pretty yummy.

Yogurt with passion fruit $4.80

However I lost my sweet tooth in the course of water fast and I now prefer the yogurt, with its passion fruit, pomelo pips, mint leaves and cherry. It's nicely sourish like most yogurt (the actual vegan yogurt is actually less sour, the bulk of the sourness comes from the passion fruit) with just a hint of sweetness from the pomelo.

Charity soup Free!

A special mention goes to the free soup. Just right to the counter, there's a Halloween looking pot of charity soup. It's free for all, if one feels inclined to pay for the soup, the amount goes into the charity box for donation. This is no ordinary soup, it's chock full of good stuff!

After I broke my water fast, I was having some severe water retention after I started eating out again. I only realised it was water retention when I had a couple of bowls at dinner and peed like mad that night. My water retention went off the next day.

Of course from then on, for a week I went strictly saltless, ensured constant hydration and had multiple attempts to make similar soup (which I couldn't because I lack knowing what nuts, seeds and herbs to put together in said soup, and I can't recognise many of the ingredients in said soup.)

3 years ago when I first came here I thought the pricing was a little steep. But in the course of  time as my taste buds got more sensitive and my body became more aware of how it feels, I have come to appreciate it more. Now, when I understand the intentions and thought that went into each dish, I'd say it's really worth it. Especially after the water fast, I could now taste how toxic MSG is, and how it affects my physical and emotional balance, I'm really glad there are places serving delightful meals from the natural taste of vegetables, nuts, seed and fruit. And people who made triple effort into creating these meals without resorting to artificial means.

The unfortunate change might be in the coming switch of ownership as Sophia wants to retire for abit. But then again, perhaps she will continue to her passion in another part of Singapore, and also New Green Nature Cafe will continue as it is. We'll just have to wait and see.


Sidenote: Sophia conducts cooking classes from 3 - 6pm on weekdays at her shop. Check with her or her helpers to know her schedule.



New Green Pasture Cafe

190 Middle Road #04-22
Fortune Centre Singapore 188979

Tel: 63368755

Opening hours: 11am - 8pm
                        Closes on Monday