No viva la comida :(

I cannot say that I am not fussy about food. There are very few foods that I will refuse to eat, true, but I do have a "no waste of calories" policy - I am so greedy that I will normally reserve my calories for things I think are worth eating, so rarely junk food, and god knows how I survived in with British lunchtimes and the preferences for sandwiches.

Which meant that even 4 days in Havana was a bit of a struggle food-wise. During the economic struggles of the "special period", it seems that the country managed to survive by creating carb-heavy food monstrosities, to the extent that Cuban food culture is pretty dead. Walking around central Havana, and all that is on offer in local places appears to be ham and cheese sandwiches, cheese and ham sandwiches, or pizza, the dodgy thick base kind. Although given that most of these offerings around between US$0.50-2.00 a pop, you can't really argue. I tried the pizza at this place in Habana Viejo, got a pizza bigger than my face for about a dollar served on a piece of A4 paper, and it was fun eating on the street corner with the local bici-taxi drivers.

The other common offering in these local peso restaurants was chuleta de cerdo, basically a pork chop served with rice and beans, deep fried plaintains and salad. This was the only sign of fresh vegetables in the entire time I was in Havana!! Enormous portion for about US$1.50, probably one of the better meals I ate, but it was pretty hard to find in the centre of town. I also tried to find "ropa vieja", a traditional dish literally translating as "old rope", or strips of beef on rice and plaintains, but couldn't find whilst I was there :(

Unfortunately as a tourist, you are normally shepherded towards the tourist restaurants in town, where you pay with CUCs, and then suddenly the price of a meal goes up by 20-25x. Although the service at these places is pretty good, and there are normally more than 2 things on the menu, you do wonder at spending US$25 on a meal when you can buy an ice cream for about US$0.04 on the street.

One of the more famous places is El Aljibe in Miramar, which was walking distance to where I was staying. Apparently the bitter orange sauce that comes with their roast chicken is a state secret, but as soon as I saw the tour buses parked outside I should have known to go elsewhere. It's probably quite popular with the Western tour groups as it is essentially all you can eat chicken with unlimited rice and beans, chips, plaintains, and salad, but the roast chicken itself was really dry and pretty disappointing. Then I find out that it's actually owned by the government, so kudos for them doing such great marketing to make money out of us tourists!!

It was also at El Aljibe that I realised that mojitos in Cuba are not all that! I think the fundamental thing is that no one seems to wash their mint very well, and so there is always a bit of soil floating around in your drink. Even in "posh" places like these... and somehow my blackberry camera thinks mojitos are pink also...


The paladar is a private run, normally family restaurant, that was invented during the special period to let normal families have some kind of additional income other than their government work. Nowadays in Havana, some of these have become big tourist traps, a refuge for those who want something other than their usual ham and cheese sandwich. The paladar again very near my place called Vista del Mar was in a very nice setting, with seaviews and a swimming pool, and an exclusively white Western clientele. Although paladares are not strictly allowed to serve prawns or lobster (there is a government monopoly), it is what everyone has. A side of rice and beans (part of a meal that is US$1.50 on a street) is a rip-off US$3.50 as a side dish. The daiquiri was pretty good though...


But again, you get to thinking that families who run these sorts of paladares must be just rolling in it nowadays. The obviously benefit from the earning in CUCs, spend in pesos practice, not really in keeping with my socialist ideals!

On my last evening in Havana, I had to try the most famous paladar of all. La Guarida was where the Oscar nominated Fresa y Chocolat was filmed, and multiple international newspapers have mounted a lot of praise on their new take on Cuban food. It is so famous that apparently they have hosted Matt Damon, Uma Thurman, and they even have a blog on their website. I must say, the atmosphere of the place is wonderful - you go through a suitably dilapidated entrance to arrive at the top floor of a townhouse, and the restaurant is spread across 2-3 cosy rooms, with tables on the balcony also.

The menu would also not be out of place in a trendy Soho restaurant either. They even served an amuse bouche (!) - some kind of deep fried carrot creation:

I had a lot of difficulty choosing particularly my starter, with items such as papaya lasagne and tuna ceviche. I ended up with a watermelon gazpacho with prawns:

It turned out to be a basic tomato gazpacho with a small scoop of watermelon sorbet and a few little deep fried prawns, so not quite as wow as I thought the description implied, but after a hot day of walking around the city, it was refreshing and just what I wanted.

The mains are a little less exciting, and I settled on a fillet of grouper served with a sauce that is traditionally from Guantanamo - can't remember the Spanish name, but basically a lemony white wine reduction with onions. More amusing was I asked for some simple vegetables on the side, and all they could offer me was either sweet potatoes or yuca - no wonder I put on nearly half a stone during my holidays!

I guess people love this place because again, it is a refuge from the monotony of normal Cuban food offerings, but I wouldn't say it is *that* amazing. It's not that cheap either as this meal came to around US$40 with a glass of slightly dodgy tasting cabernet sauvignon.

Somewhat ironic also that when I had my overnight layover in Miami, all the restaurants outside my hotel were Cuban. All the good Cuban food now is probably in the US. Food does seem to be the big casualty of the communist era, but I also wonder how important food is to Cubans in general. They seem far too busy dancing and drinking Havana Club!

Viva La Habana!

I'm notoriously bad at keeping up this blog, but my trip to Cuba was probably one of the most amazing in a long long time, it moved me to write!

My friends have always joked about my left-wing leanings, and I've been talking about going to Cuba for the longest time. It is a funny holiday destination: it is a refuge for frozen Canadians looking for winter sun, and there are plenty of beach resorts like anywhere else in the Caribbean. Such a shame as these tour groups generally stay out of Havana, which I found to be one of the most intellectually stimulating, fascinating places I've ever been to.

Culturally, Cuba does not feel like a communist country. Cinema, dance, visual arts, sports, these all not only strive but the Cubans appear to be amazing at being creative all round. My favourite area in the city was Vedado, where there is the Institute of Film and what felt like a cinema or art gallery on every street corner. My favourite museum was by far the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, where there is an entire building devoted to Cuban art. Castro's version of communism greatly encourages the arts, but I think it is also in people's blood to appreciate these finer things in life.

The architecture of Havana is also gorgeous. There has been a conscious government programme to improve the areas around Habana Viejo, and most of the old town looks amazing, with some of the loveliest squares to walk around. I also loved all the Art Deco that has survived - there are absolute monstrosities of pink and green to be found, but also lovely places such as the Bacardi building and random street signs:




The family that I stayed with were also thoroughly comfortable and middle class. Mauricio and his second wife Diana lived in Miramar, about 15 minutes car ride from the centre, in the penthouse apartment in one of the nicest suburbs. This was the view from their balcony, overlooking the Malecon and Caribbean Sea:


Mauricio's father used to be relatively well off before the Revolution, and as a result they were left with a rather big house, which meant they could trade it for this amazing penthouse apartment. The remnants of this has meant that Mauricio quit his government job about 10 years ago, and his sole income now comes from renting out his two spare rooms to tourists like me. His family is the model Cuban family: his daughter is in Brussels, sponsored by the government to study Art History abroad; his step-daughter is doing a degree in Graphic Design, and step-son is a rock band (very good taste in music and loves Radiohead!) and wants to be a sound engineer in TV production. Mauricio and Diana seem to spend their days chilling on the balcony and watching Brazilian soap operas at night.

The only slightly dodgy thing in his house was the shower, which only has hot water through an electric shower head, something I haven't seen since I was in Tanzania!! Hmmm, who's great idea was it to have exposed wire so close to water...

Of course, life is not this rosy for everyone in Cuba, even Mauricio acknowledges that in Havana, he is a rich man. The most fascinating conundrum for me stems from the dual economy in Cuba. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, with subsidies for Cuba disappearing overnight, tightened by the US trade embargo, Cuba's economy was plunged into darkness, and very briefly, the country experimented with legalising the US dollar, before settling in the current system of having two currencies both active in the economy. The government allowed limited private enterprise in small businesses such as family restaurants and apartment rentals, and these private enterprises earn in Cuban Convertibles, or CUCs. On the other hand, all government employees are paid in the national currency, the Cuban Peso, where the exchange rate for CUCs to Peso is currently 1:25.

I understand why this came about, but I remain extremely confused by how this system works on a practical level in the present day. In reality, most things tourists have in contact with, such as the nicer restaurants, taxis, supermarkets, all work in CUCs, whereas 95% of the population trade in Pesos. But at the same time, CUCs and Pesos can be exchanged very freely on street corners, no passports or documents required. This means that for fortunate Cubans such as Mauricio, he can earn in CUCs and spend in Pesos, making him an extremely rich man indeed. How sustainable this is, I really do question, as there is an obvious financial apartheid for those who can benefit from being in the middle of these two economies.

I really only scratched the surface I felt in the very short time I was in Cuba, to the extent that I now joke that I have to go back to write my PhD. I also met someone randomly in a bar who extolled to me exactly what he thought was wrong with Cuba. This Ghanian born 30-something man was probably trying to pick me up and earn a few free Cuba Libres off this obvious tourist, but turned out to be the offspring of idealistic communists who took him to Cuba when he was very small. Now apparently working as an English and music teacher (his English really wasn't good enough to be teaching!!), his big plan in life is to get out of Cuba.

It was interesting to speak to him, but he got thoroughly irritating after a while. According to him, the biggest problem with Cuba is the lack of freedom, not necessarily in terms of your expression, but he felt he was being watched at every turn, and you cannot do anything due to the number of police roaming the streets. I have to admit that I noticed this - I never felt so safe walking around a major city in the middle of the night, especially as street lighting is less than reliable - but his paranoia was quite extreme. He was also clutching a copy of Catcher in the Rye, which apparently is banned along with many other books including 1984, Brave New World... I'm trying to verify whether this is true: one of the other things I noticed in Havana is the number of bookshops absolutely everywhere (not to mention the huge second hand book markets in the city squares), but you also notice that there are a LOT of political writings dominating these bookshelves: the usual Marx, Castro, Jose Marti... Lastly, he complained that Cuba is an extremely racist country, with the blacks concentrated in ghettos in Central Havana whilst whites live middle class lives out in the suburbs. I was not in Havana long enough to truly understand this, but when I got up to leave after refusing to buy him another round, and he complained that I was being racist, I did feel like this guy had a huge chip on his shoulder.

A city of mass contradictions? Certainly. Something I want to find out more about? Absolutely. Ultimately, currently living in the uber-materialistic world of Hong Kong, simply walking around a city where recycling is a necessity not a fashion, where there are not even corner shops, where supermarket shelves are not in abundance, I found Cuba to be an absolutely refreshing experience. A shame then that food culture is indeed an oxymoron in this country, because otherwise I would be back there in a shot.

Crisis Christmas 2010

There was change in the air this year at Crisis Christmas, which all took a bit of getting used to. I have volunteered at the Quiet Centre for the last three years now, and had much enjoyed the challenge of the tiny and ill-equipped kitchen, avoiding where all the cold spots were in the centre, and the karaoke led by Lloyd on the last day. This year, however, the Quiet Centre was replaced with a new project targeting really entrenched homeless people, who would never normally search out these types of services.

It was a challenge in the initial few days. Apparently we only had 2 guests on the first night we were opened, and although we got this up to a healthy 25-30 guests towards the end, this was not really up to what we were used to at Quiet, where sometimes we had to churn out up to 120-150 meals for both guests and volunteers.

In some ways this was a welcomed change, as the kitchen was much more relaxed, to the extent that we kept having little sit downs with teacakes at 5:30pm. It was also lovely to be with the same volunteers from the Quiet crew, peeps like Ed, Mo, Dom, J, Evelyn, James, Lisa, Darren, Andy, Tat, and of course special mention to Sue, all of whom ensured we had no custard left by Day 6. And it was even more lovely that we felt we really got to know some of the guests. I know you're not supposed to have favourites at these things, but I loved loved the Polish guy who loved tomatoes, the guy who never speaks (except for when he wants to be cheeky and ask for an extra large portion), and the lovely lady with the dog who never failed to come back to the kitchen after the dinner to say how nice it was.

In the kitchen, we were extremely relaxed in the first two days, mainly because the kitchen was huge in comparison to what we were used to, and everything seemed to work! Also making 60 portions as opposed to 120 portions makes a big difference. Here was our bread & butter pudding effort from the first night:

As ever, we did suffer from a lack of fresh ingredients, particularly as we were getting to the after Christmas period. Our freezer was flooded with airline meals from Qatar Airways, and we struggled to think of something creative to do with the Malai Kofte meal, which I still don't really know what it was:

Mmmm... looks appetising, doesn't it (!)

Even more appetising were a box of Linda McCartney 'roasts' that we discovered in the freezer. They came with no cooking instructions, just frozen blocks of bland:

This was probably the most Ready Steady Cook moment I've been faced with at Crisis, when Norman asked me to try and create something with this. We were so so low on fresh ingredients at this point, I really did struggle, but this was what I ended up making:

Connie's vegetable stew surprise (serves about 30)

4 tins of French onion soup (we had no onions left at this point)

3 bags of carrots, peeled and chopped small

8 vegetable Oxo cubes, made into a stock

2 bulbs of garlic, chopped finely

10 suspect looking Linda McCartney 'roasts', pinged in the microwave for 15 mins to defrost, then chopped small

Several handfuls of mixed herbs, including Norman's lovely lovage

1. Fry about a quarter of the garlic in a little oil, careful not to burn.

2. Add in about a quarter of the carrots, frying until starts to shorten.

3. Add in about a quarter of the Linda McCartney, try your best to get some colour on the things.

4. Add in a tin of French onion soup, and about a quarter of the vegetable stock.

5. Add in a handful of herbs, stir stir stir.

6. Let it all bubble for a while to cook through.

7. Transfer to a huge catering size tray, and cook in the oven until it is time to serve dinner.

8. Repeat as many times as you can without making a huge mess in the kitchen (which I failed and got told off for)

Obviously I made too little even with this recipe, and ended up doing a spicy tomatoey version because we'd run out of French onion soup at this point, and still desperately needed to get some flavour into the Linda McCartneys. It actually tasted alright in the end, the man who doesn't speak even came back for seconds! But then anything tastes alright covered in grated cheese and chips:

We made this on the last day I was there, and because we'd had such a relaxed time of it, we decided to really stress ourselves out by making chips. Norman has been doing Crisis Christmas for 15 years now, and has never made chips. After this Christmas, he swears he will never make chips at Crisis ever again. Imagine doing chips from frozen for 60 people, without a deep fat fryer, and only having about 2 spare catering trays at your disposal, and with no way to store them once they were cooked. Somehow we managed to do it with a combination of frying pans and dancing around the ovens and panic and a little stress, and I must say we were sooooo popular with the guests that evening. But never again!!! We are ordering McDonald's in next time if they want chips!!!

And here is my lovely crack team in the kitchen, sporting the sexy hairnets are Synthia, Dave and Norman (and also Helen on the first day!). Can't wait to see you guys again next year! X

Green brunch

Singapore as a whole really surprised me. I was I guess expecting this anonymous, big city, full of tall buildings, very clean, and not a lot else. I certainly did get all of this, but it was so much greener and comfortable and full of air than I had expected. I'm definitely going back again. And another great surprise was when Eunice took us out for brunch, it was to a place that would not have been out of place in London.

One of the big frustrations with living in Hong Kong is that I feel that cafes and restaurants here are all so identikit, it's almost like there is a manual for making nice, shiny, anonymous places with absolutely no character or design about them. When I went back to London for Christmas, the thing I loved most was walking around Soho, seeing little cafes like Flat White, the fact that Banksy had just done a pop up gallery next to a bunch of sex shops, still spotting new graffiti by Invader, getting annoyed that Koya was closed... How surprised I was then when something in Singapore really embodied the spirit of this, albeit in somewhere that looks like a strip mall on first site.

House on Dempsey Hill is an ambitious project that seems to encompass a restaurant, a spa, a retail shop, and a corporate conference centre in some space by the trees. You could call the place completely design over function, as the dining room features an over-sized table that patrons eat under, arm chairs which are too low to sit in and eat, drinks served in jam jars, but the place really won me over. It also helps that their house slogan/poem made me wonder whether they had stolen lyrics from the Manics, but that's another story...

I read in their funky over-designed newspaper menu that one of the chefs is a graduate from Peter Gordon, and the fusion influences are clear to see, although in some ways the menu is play-it-safe with more brunch classics like eggs, asparagus and hollandaise and French toast. What is innovative though is their presentation. I did love their choice of crockery, all so deliberately mismatched and shabby chic. Although I still think any chef putting sauce in a shot glass should just be shot:

After our massive amounts of pigging out, I went for their Ahi Taki Salad, which was really very good. We were all debating on how to recreate this at home, the tuna having been marinated in what we guess is soy, chilli, fish sauce, tamarind, peppercorns.

They are also very famous for their thin crust pizzas, which are enormous. This is a English breakfast version of it, easily would have fed a family of four:

Their dessert and cakes menu allows their strength in food design to shine. Everything is again impeccably presented, but potentially at the expense of flavour. For example, their grapefruit tart with green tea pastry was stunning visually, but the actual taste was way too tart, with both grapefruit and lemon, and the huge blob of solid meringue didn't really belong.

The spa and retail shop upstairs has equally the same amounts of attitude, with a browbar, someone making cakes live, and lots of too expensive toiletries. They also managed to steal $2 from me for a Sylvia Plath pencil, but I loved the fact that they sell Sylvia Plath pencils! Oh what I would give for a place like this in Hong Kong!

Singaporean street food

Despite our excesses in fine dining in Singapore, the thing I had looked forward to most about our little trip was the street food. In fact, when Eugene and Eunice asked me what I wanted to eat, I said the only thing that was compulsory was laksa. Only we never quite managed it, nor did we eat any chicken rice!!! I think this is just their attempt to lure me back to their country, my friends are super cunning you know.

We landed into Singapore at nearly half past midnight, but Eugene knew us too well, and immediately whisked us off for some 宵夜. Roti prata is a classic showing of the mixed-up-goodness of Singapore. I'd actually never eaten it before, and Eugene took us to reputedly the best place, conveniently close to his house.

It wasn't quite what I expected actually, basically a thin pancake stuffed with whatever you want, served with a big bowl of curry sauce. Mine was stuffed with onions and mushrooms:

Although I preferred the paper thin version with a small sprinkling of sugar. For some reason I get a bit sugar addicted in Asia, they do the savoury/sweet thing so well after all:

All washed down with my first genuine teh tarik. In fact, I just looked up teh tarik on wiki, and the picture looks suspiciously like the place we went to! Subtlely different to the Hong Kong milk tea, this tasted maltier to my taste buds, although I'm still not 100% certain where the difference lies (apparently teh tarik is condensed milk, and HK milk tea is evaporated milk, again, not that I really understand what the difference is!):

We somehow also managed a bowl of tofu pudding each after this! And the morning after, the feeding only continued. We went to one of the hawker markets near Eunice's place, and I was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was (then I remembered I was in Singapore!). Apparently this one has just been rebuilt, and this was just so civilised!

E&E soon disappeared off to buy a selection of the best goodies in the market, but honestly I think you can come here more than 10 times and still find interesting new things to eat. The best thing we had was something called shui kueh in Singlish, or 水粿 in Chinese. It's hard to described really, a kind of soft rice cake, which reminded me of cheung fun and 粉粿. But the thing you are really eating is the preserved radish mix which goes on top. This stuff is dangerous!! So morish!! In fact, we made Eugene return to the same stall the next day to smuggle two pots of the stuff back to Hong Kong.

This is where it's from!!

Upon getting the radish back to Hong Kong, we put it into our mega-cold fridge, and it is so congealed that it only leads me to conclude that the major ingredient in the thing is pork fat. No wonder if it's so good. I also smuggled some back to the UK for my parents to have a try, thankfully I just look too innocent for those customs officers.

Some other interesting stuff we ate included a variety of steamed 糕 type stuff, with savoury and sweet fillings. All these were reminiscent of something Chinese, but with a bit of a Singaporean twist. The red ones were filled with peanut or red bean, and the pink and white ones were savoury iirc.

And we also indulged in some fish cakes, Asia's favourite street snack of all time! So F.A.T.!

You will also see that there is a blue plastic bag in the corner of some of the photos. Eugene also bought something else, but just could not fit it in, so we never even opened that bag, and instead just carried it around with us for the rest of the day. Yes, we are bad people. I blame Eugene's influence, he always manages to convince me to do things I don't want to do :p

18 courses in a day - yes, it has to be Singapore

As grumpy as I have been about moving back to Asia, one of the best things is to be nearer to two of my dearest friends. Eugene in particular has been a very big part of my foodie life in recent years, and probably the person who talked me into switching jobs to work in the industry (with many many subtle hints of 'hire me! hire me!'). It is a small crime that I have never been to his home country of Singapore. And I start my Singaporean posts with a tribute to my dear friend Eugene, showing him doing what he does best :D

Now, I knew I would need to bring an extra stomach or two if I was going to go visit Eugene in Singapore, especially as Eunice was also in town, but I certainly did not expect the AVALANCHE of food that was coming my way. They had kindly booked us a kaiseki lunch at Goto on Ann Siang Road , which has a tremendously good value 6-course set lunch at around £30 iirc. However, quite unexpectedly half way through the afternoon, Eunice received a call that Iggy's, apparently the 28th best restaurant in the world, had a last minute cancellation, and asking would we want to come? It was rude to say no, but that did mean we were on for 18 courses in one day. And this is not including the street food we had for breakfast that morning!

I won't bore you with my narrative and will mainly let you enjoy the food porn of this post. All I will say about Goto is that the only thing that niggled me was the unnecessary kimonos that they make all the waitresses wear, including the Filipino waitress who just looks plainly odd. The food and the surroudings were clean, great quality, and you are wondering how they do it for so little money. My favourites was the salmon roe with yuzu and sake in the first course, and the matcha swiss roll in the dessert.

My other dear friend Sen managed to join us for our tremendous meal at Iggy's. Situated inside the Hilton hotel on Orchard Road, there was a noisy wedding party next door, and the whole decor is just a little hotel for me. It reminded me of how bland the room at Hibiscus is. Nevertheless, the food and the company soon made me forgot all of this, and this was genuinely one of the best meals I ate in 2010, and probably in the noughties. Each course was unfailingly interesting, with many highlights including the scallop with bacon foam (the only time I have ever understood the use of foam), the deep fried quinoa, and the combination of strawberry and gorgonzola.

Also a special mention on the butter, so good that I scoffed two pieces of mini baguette on top of my 12 courses!! Whipped butter with a little shaving of parmesan on top, oh my god, work of genius:

And I will end with this ominous picture - someone has already mentioned that it looks like a pile of cocaine on a bag of malteasers:

This was 'Winter', a combination of coconut, coffee, lemon, and chestnut, and probably the best dessert I have ever tasted. Sneaking chestnuts into desserts generally gets my vote, but it was light, it was Christmassy, it was clever, it was well balanced, and it was snow! Also helped by the fact that the dishy pastry chef kept coming out and talking to Eunice :) Genius, genius, very much worth the 10lbs I probably gained in that one day.