Sugar cane juice in plastic bag

Sugar cane juice, random hawker centre

Retrospection. I remember it took me a while to find this rare way of having an ice cold sugar cane juice in Singapore. This carry-and-go drink prepared in a few minutes, the time it takes to squeeze out the liquid from sugar cane, is definitely an experience that in many ways exceeds that of having a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel. Maybe it's the quirkiness of drinking from a bag rather from a glass with the "Singapore Sling" print that could be bought for 22 SGD that makes it more real.

Singapore Sling, Long Bar @ Raffles Hotel

Chai Tea

Chai tea is a heavily spiced tea. It's flavoured to the degree that it's more about spices than tea in my opinion. Nevertheless it's nice to have a cold day with milk and honey. 

The mix I bought shown in the photo contains: black tea, cinnamon, aniseed, ginger pieces, black pepper grains, cloves, cardamom seeds and whole cardamom.

Steamed egg with blue mussels

For this dinner we planned to serve blue mussels raw. They didn't look very appetizing after taking them out of the shells. What we came up with was to steam it with egg. I have once before steamed egg with dried shrimps which was a nice combination, so a different seafood ingredient like blue mussel couldn't be too wrong. Other than blue mussels, chives and dashi stock was added to the egg before putting it into the steamer. The result was far better than imagined. More water or stock could have been added for more tender texture though.

Finished, steamed egg with blue mussels

Langoustine sashimi

Langoustine tails

Sashimi is a good solution if you don't know how to prepare a certain dish. It save a lot of time preparing. The original fresh flavour is preserved as well. Unless it's a tried recipe expensive seafood is wasted if not done properly. Langoustine sashimi has a light round flavour. For this meal we dipped it with soy sauce and wasabi, simple and good.

Langoustine sashimi

The shells were used to cook soup base for udon noodles and the claw meat.

Powder wasabi

 Powder wasabi mixed with water

Kusmi Tea

This is an interesting tea brand I recently discovered. With roots from Russia the company is now based in Paris. I bought the green tea blend with ginger and lemon flavour. Though I rarely drink flavoured tea this was quite good. Light taste with hints of ginger and lemon. The strong fragrant scent is probably what makes it a Kusmi tea. This is a tea I will try more of. Next time I will buy one of the original blends.

Whole tea leaves.