this is the third orange madeleine recipe here on andmorefood - and the best one. now my go-to recipe, it creates humps for me every single time, and stands up to any sort of citrus – and is always highly requested at home. not too sweet, tender, with a deeply-caramelized edge, I can’t say enough good things about it.
good, better-than-average bistro food at this branch of the yummy-mummy chain in the ion shopping mall. this is a long post, because I came here twice in barely a week – and I’ll tell you why: the food is pretty decent, the prices competitive for the area, and there aren’t much better options around for a place to sit down and have some cake and tea.
it’s pretty flabbergasting to realize that though the orchard road precinct is hangout-de-rigueur for most people on the weekends, and so ought to (and does) have a slew of eateries, there really isn’t much to eat around there, just a whole lot of overly expensive sit-down places or trendy takeaway options. this place remains my fall-back option when I’m out with the girlfriends, and has been since I first visited their palais renaissance outlet nearly five years ago.
good thai-indian-europeanish food at this hidden open-air cafe in serangoon. I’ve heard of this place quite a bit – but I never knew it was quite this close to me – and it’s now become a regular friday-dinner haunt (especially since there’s the prospect of dessert just a few doors down).
it’s a baffling prospect to go to a place that serves up three cuisine options all at once – and rather a relief to find that this isn’t some madcap venture, and that the food is genuinely all good. I put this down to the fact that it’s done up food-court-style, with the cafe basically serving as a communal dining area for three different stalls (and therefore three kitchens): thai yai, masala mantra and the french onion.
decent european-american-westernish food in the hipster part of chinatown. I say western in the colloquial way it’s used in singapore to refer to any sort of food belonging to those regions – fusion just doesn’t nearly have the same ring – the menu is rather typical of a modern bistro. I was drawn to this restaurant by their rather lovely graphic logo – and the way the place was done up, all retroesque (obviously) and bistro-like.
it’s pretty decent food, and I’ll give it a lukewarm recommendation if you’re in the area – but given the other offerings there, and the fact that chinatown is a veritable treasure box of food findings, I don’t think I’ll return anytime soon.
unimpressive food at very high prices in this tiny, lonely corner of the also rather forlorn orchard hotel. this restaurant was gaining widespread hype from singaporean bloggers when it first opened, what with its celebrity chef (hadn’t heard of him before visiting) and supposedly innovative dishes – so I kept it on my list and yanked it out in time for a valentine’s-as-excuse-for-expensive-meal, by which time the blogosphere was nearly silent on it – and I think rather deservedly so.
that first photo is of the most impressive dish we had – and their most famous: an egg wrapped in crispy ciabatta and topped with ham. a modernesque blumenthalesque rendition of a ham-and-egg-sammie with unctous yolk and proper ham, served over truffled jus and spinach: terrifically good. if the rest of the meal had followed in this vein, it would have been amazing – but it didn’t.
there is something poignant in a dark night spent beach-side, with the wind roaring through and a lonely spotlight going out toward the sea. even the trash on the beach looks like speckles of glitter.
pretty decent food at a quiet corner in seminyak, bali. we past this place on the way to the potato head the night before, and ended up at this place when hungry for a spot of dinner. a mix of an air-conditioned cafe with a deli and cake counter, as well as an open-air pizza place, this place was great for a quiet dinner, and had a pretty extensive menu spanning indonesian food to pizzas and grills.
generally good food – and better atmosphere – at this sprawl of a beach club in the seminyak area of bali. I’m not one for drinking – almost a complete teetotaler – but I do like a nice place to lounge about and have a bite, and this place fits the bill. the food came in rather large portions – certainly larger than you’d expect at places like this, which casts aspersions on options in singapore – and though our orders spanned the spectrum of terrible to really good, I wholeheartedly recommend visiting this place at least once if you’re in the area. the prices were fair, the menu sufficiently extensive, and service very friendly. an accessible and enjoyable sort of chilled-luxe.
located at 37 nguyen trai.
we were drawn to this store by the smell of delicious grilled meat on charcoal – vietnamese grilled meats almost always have a touch of sweetness in their marinades, so they caramelize very nicely and make it known to you by way of the maillard effect.
this lady was grilling tiny patties of meat – slider-style, if you’re being hipster – on a tiny grill next to her store, forming them as she went along from a large bowl of mince. we ordered a banh mi – which is a vietnamese sandwich made with pickles, fresh vegetables and certain meat options – and it came with four gorgeous patties slid between a crusty french loaf atop pickled radish and carrot, as well as some crisp lettuce.
street food at its best, and cheapest.
p.s. meds noticed the google results on the side of the store – which led me to find out that this might be saigon’s best banh mi at 37 nguyen trai! what a good find, and so brilliant that she noticed – really made this foodie’s day!
aren’t those beautiful humps? I feel like such a proud mama – I watched these grow while standing by the door of my oven and couldn’t get over myself when that tiny bit of a hump broke through the smooth surface of batter.
if you don’t know what I mean, please go cry yourself into a corner then perhaps I should explain that madeleines (depending on which school of thought you belong too) are deemed to be successful when they have a little hump on their undersides – this is caused by the temperature difference between cold batter and hot oven. I’ve read somewhere that french people actually prefer a flatter madeleine, and that the hump is an american preference – but I belong to neither of those cultures and so getting a hump (if the recipe says it will) just proves to me that I’m doing something right!
these are a recipe I adapted from la tartine gourmande, and I also rested the (otherwise easy) batter in the fridge overnight – it feels to me like flavours meld better after resting. be sure to butter your molds very well, and serve these with a sprinkle of powdered sugar over the top! the white gilds the indents of the madeleines very prettily. the biggest change I did was to brown the butter before baking – this gives it a very subtly nutty flavour, which goes brilliantly with the orange zest and honey – and my mum absolutely loved this.
orange and honey madeleines (adapted from la tartine gourmande)
3 eggs, room temperature
148g all purpose flour + barely 0.5 tsp salt
113g unsalted butter
127g sugar
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp honey
