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

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!

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

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!

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

Lao Di Fang

It's BFF's birthday and coincidentally, she chose Lao Di Fang for her birthday meal without knowing of my surprise attendance (BFF is omnivore). I heard good things about it and being my first visit, I was pretty excited.


It looks like a classic Taiwanese teahouse. Kinda cosy and comfortable. I'm a little surprise the place is not bigger though.

Anyway, with 5 of us, there's definitely plenty of space in the stomach, so we ordered....alot.

Asparagus with Matsutake Mushrooms (Small) $13.80

Their appetisers are simple, peanuts and pickled papaya with carrots added. From the taste of it, the papaya pickles were freshly made.









A clean and simple dish, crunchy asparagus with a good serving of cashews, mushrooms and carrots.

Pumpkin with Doumiao  (Small) $9.80

This is really good. What's good about it was the pumpkin puree. It's sweet and goes well with the green tasting Dou Miao. I love that hardly any seasoning was used in this dish.

Classic Luo Han Zhai $15.80

Another simple yet pleasant dish. We all liked the beancurd skin (tau kee). I also like the variety of ingredients in this dish. There's capsicum, radish, tau kee, mushrooms, broccoli, white fungi and 1 more that I can't identify.

Carrot cake $3.80

Oh till I tried this, I didn't realised I missed carrot cake so much! I usually don't like the stuff, even prior to going green. But this really reminds me of the traditional carrot cake one used to find in Chinatown. Minimum oil was used and it was light and fluffy with mushroom bits.

Stir Fried Chili Fish $15.80

Any vegetarian who misses Sambal stingray definitely gotta order this. It's even better than the real thing......

The 'sambal chili' is amazingly good and so is the mock fish used. We learned that it's actually beancurd skin with seaweed. It taste pretty close to your actually fish and is of a better standard than the usual mock fish sold in vegetarian groceries.

Hakka Zeoadary Beancurd Hotpot $10.80

This is an interesting dish. It looks incredibly salty, but is actually the least salty of them all. I like how it's actually a stew of mock meat (taste very much like lean mincemeat), mushrooms and tofu. The tofu taste very light, very pleasant on its own.

Curry Hotpot (chicken) $10.80

 If you look very closer at the picture, you might notice that there's no oil layer on top of the curry. Definite win for this health freak.

What I appreciate about this curry is that the potatoes were baked, lady's finger and brinjal were blanched, and none of the ingredients were fried. The coconut milk was also lightened thus the end result is a curry that is fairly well flavoured and non oily.

Though, the curry can be stronger and just a tad spicier for that extra kick. Mutton curry might be a better option as mock mutton somehow taste better with curry than mock chicken. The curry hotpot is tasty enough on its own, but compared to the other dishes, it comes across as a little bland.

Si Chuan Style Brinjal Hotpot $10.80

 This is another of my favourite for tonight. Despite its hailing from Sichuan, there's no layer of ominous chili oil on top.

It was stewed brinjal with mock wu hua rou (5 flower pork), the leaner cut. I'm blown away by the mock meat. It tasted better than the original. Little need to be said, this is a spendid dish. The brinjal, mushrooms and mock meat were give time to stew in the claypot, so the end product was really awesome.

Sambal Vegetarian fish $15.80

We loved the Stir Fried Chili fish so much that we decided to give its sambal counterpart a try. But it turned out to be quite different.

The sambal is not at all spicy (or just a hint or so). But the mock fish reminded me of grilled pompret. The beancurd skin although fried, remain moist and tender inside while crisp outside. After trying it, I understood why the sambal wasn't made spicier - so that the taste of the mock fish can be appreciated.

From this dish and the earlier Stir Fried Chili fish, we tried to guess the ingredients for a good vegetarian Spicy sambal. First one can start with this base, a less salty (or watered) bean paste with moderately hot chili oil added as your basic sambal. To spice it up, chopped 2-4 'Zitianjiao' (hot, tiny chili) with a dash of spicy chili oil, and give it a good fry in the wok. It might work. Will blog when I get around to trying it out :D

HongKong Fried Noodles (Large) $10.80

The HongKong Fried noodles is nicely stir fried. The strange part about it was its scent. It smells of strongly of pepper and a little of mock ham. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just unusual. I like the noodles. It tasted like egg noodles,delicious, chewy and cooked just right. It also tasted fairly light and doesn't leave oil traces. Ingredients were also fairly portioned

Yam paste with gingko nuts $4.50

I love Orh-nee, yet I'm scared of putting on excessive weight. This one however is quite reassuring. There isn't as much oil mixed into the Yam paste, so it's a little on the dry side. Which is the reason for a thick layer of diluted coconut milk added to moisten the yam paste. The portion is bigger than it seems though. The entire three quarter of the cup was filled with yam.

Taste wise, it definitely doesn't match up to the usual dessert standard with less oil and sugar. But all the better for a guilt free dessert and less stress on my kidneys.

Conclusion. The food at Lao Di Fang is really good. I love that they decided on using authentic ingredients to bring out the flavour of the dishes and cutting down on the oil, salt and sugar used. It is noticeable that serious consideration had gone into creating a remarkable yet healthy vegan dish without onions or garlic. A side note, I didn't have water retention after such a huge dinner, so my body's really happy with that.

Oh this is definitely the place if you wana impress the socks off your carnivorous friends. :)


Lao Di Fang
http://www.classicldf.sg/menu.html

9 Penang Road, #B1-12 Park Mall Singapore 238459
Tel: 65338959

Opening Hours: 11.30am - 3.00pm
                         5.00pm - 10.00pm