It’s a bigger space, with some fantastic new brands—Established & Sons, Semigood, Mattiazzi, Emma Gardner—in addition to Modernica and Blu Dot.

Currently also available are Bold & Noble prints from the UK and WeWOOD watches.

In the coming months, we’ll be adding stuff to our store as we go along; so for (more) regular updates, news, new additions and arrivals, please add us to your Facebook “Likes”:

Come by the showroom! We’re open:

Tuesday–Friday 11:00am–7:00pm
Saturday–Sunday 11:00am–4:00pm

Phone: 6226-HOME (6226-4663)

In the late afternoons, food sellers set up shop along the soi to feed the resident community—noodle stalls, stalls selling BBQ skewers, papaya salad carts, the usual street fare. Returning to the hotel one evening, a cart  caught my eye, its glass case filled to the brim with all manner of mushrooms. I asked the stall owner if it was “larb hed,” a mushroom “larb,” the Northern Thai salad from the Isaan region. He shook his head  and pointed towards his dented, well-seasoned aluminum saucepan, saying something I couldn’t decipher.

I had no idea what it was, but since I’d eat  pretty much anything that has mushrooms in it,  I ordered a serving of whatever it was he was selling.

It turned out to be a mushroom soup, made with handfuls  of fresh herbs, a medley of mushrooms, and a thick green soup base which he ladled out of a large plastic jar (visible in first photo above).

The soup was  utterly delicious; earthy and pungent, bright, with a spicy muay thai  kick  to the throat. And for only 20 baht.

None of my Thai friends has been able to tell me what the soup is made from, only that “it’s some Isaan soup” or “tom hed” (mushroom soup).

We had the soup every day from then on, often having it for late-night supper in our hotel room. Mushroom soup to-go-go.

Click to view larger-than-lifesize!

On one visit, I noticed  a steel bowl of pale white, um, things on the worktop. Scooping up a spoonful,you could see that they were larvae of some sort: albino maggot- or grub-like creatures. “Aroi mai?” I asked the stall owner, to which he nodded and said it would cost an extra 10 baht. (Asking stall owners if something is tasty is just plain dumb, I know. As Warren Buffet would say, “never ask a barber if he thinks you need a haircut.”)

Since I was in the mood to splurge, I asked for the alien grubs. He obliged by plonking a heaping spoonful into the soup towards the end of the cooking process. The boiling soup then goes straight into a plastic bag—free BPA with every order!

Walking back to the hotel, I inspected the bag, raising  to eye level like a 2-year-old inspecting a bagged funfair goldfish. And it became clear what  the larvae were—wasps. There they were, little soup fairies—wings, cinched abdomen and all—floating in suspended animation throughout the grassy green liquid.

The wasp larvae  didn’t contribute anything extra to the flavour of the soup; but they had a nice, soft crunch, not unlike the bite feel you get when chewing on the heads of enoki mushrooms. And I’m sure that they’re also rich in protein.

And ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. The tastiest treat on Soi Cowboy.

(Wasp larvae are a treat in the North-eastern parts of Thailand, as well as parts of Indochina and China/Burma (huge image at bottom of linked page). I remember there being a documentary  where they show how villagers tie a feather to a wasp and follow it through the jungle back to its nest, but I can’t find it anywhere. But this is also pretty good.)

Soi Cowboy Spicy Mushroom Soup

Address: Soi Cowboy, towards the Sukhumvit 23 end, on the left-hand side if you’re entering from there.

Nearest BTS: Asoke

From about 4pm–7pm

Mango season is in full-swing, right now, so it struck me, “How about ‘Yellow Garnets’! Mangoes instead of tapioca flour! It’ll be like mango sticky rice, with the tapioca flour replace the rice as the starch! And it comes with coconut milk as well!”

I imagined the surprise and delight of my guests’ first bite. I set to work on a test batch, camera at hand to document my genius:

Cube mango, and toss gently in tapioca flour...

...until evenly coated

Place in boiling water until they float; remove and dunk in ice water.

Glistening yellow garnets. Success!

I fished a cube out of the ice water and popped it into my mouth. It tasted like luscious mango… covered in snot.

One essential element had slipped my mind: the ‘grob’ in ‘tub tim grob.’ ‘Tub tim’ means “red ruby” in Thai, and ‘grob’ means “crunchy.” Leave out the crunchy part, and the mouthfeel is just slime on goop. It tasted fine, just that the texture combination was all wrong.

Well then, I guess I won’t be demonstrating this on Good Morning Singapore, after all.

But since I’d taken the photos, I thought I’d post this disaster anyway. If anyone knows a pickling method, or some other technique to put crunch in mangoes, please leave a comment! (Ferran Adria is in town right now. Someone point him to this page!)

Postscript: Went out and got coconut milk, made the cream, and finished all the “garnets.” It actually wasn’t that bad as a completed dish. At least Xander seemed to enjoy it too.

The ones in our home/showroom don’t require much cleaning at all, to be perfectly honest, but you can give them an occasional dusting just to keep them radiant.

Because they’re made of a polymer, and not of paper, you can use a lightly damp cloth and mild soap to clean them, but we’ve found that those static cling sheets used for Kao Magic Mops  (“Swiffer” sheets for US readers) do a fantastic job.

If you can’t get your hands on those, a gentle vacuuming using the LOWEST setting and the brush attachment works too, especially if your lamps are hanging slightly out of reach.

Modernica has the care instructions buried in their website, but you can download it here.

Happy cleaning!

Emeco, unveiled the “Nine-0”, a new collection of chairs and stools by the Italian designer Ettore Sottsass on 16 April, at the 2008 Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

I love how the arms on the armchair are formed by the extension of  the leg piece. A simple, elegant solution.

Three versions of the chair/stool are available. (From left to right) 3-Bar Back (shown without arms), Open Back, and Soft Back.

From the press release:

Gregg Buchbinder, Emeco’s Chariman, met Mr. Sotsass eight years ago at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. “The minute we met, Ettore told me he was an admirer of the Navy chair and in fact wished he had designed it. And we agreed, why not re-design it,” remembers Mr. Buchbinder. “I had seen Sottsass’ projects in which he had used our chair. Ettore was the first designer who took our chairs out of their typical environments—navy ships prisons, hospitals—and to use them in contemporary interior design projects. Through him Sir Terence Conran, Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck discovered the Emeco chair creating resurgence in the 1990’s.”

“A chair must be really important as an object, because my mother always told me to offer my chair to a lady,” Mr. Sottsass told the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 1976.

Chris Redfern, the British architect who worked alongside Mr. Sottsass for the past 12 years recalls, “Ettore always had orange cushions fixed onto his navy chairs at home in Milan and our idea started there. We wanted to make the new chair soft, friendly and of course colorful.” Mixing Emeco’s expertise in aluminium construction with European technologies in polyurethane sculpting, the new designs feature a soft polyurethane seat and a wider base for a “growing population.”

A bit on Mr Sottsass:

Ettore Sottsass was born in 1917 in Innsbruck. Like his father, Mr. Sottsass studied architecture. He served in the Italian army, and after the war, established a practice in Turin, designing interiors, and domestic objects. He later moved to Milan as Italy embarked on post war reconstruction and collaborated with his father on social housing projects, as well as designing small craftsman-made domestic objects.

Mr. Sottsass spent a brief period in America, working for George Nelson, which gave his work a transatlantic dimension unusual in Italy.

In 1981, he helped establish the Memphis movement with a group of like minded designers who questioned the comfortable definitions of contemporary design. Memphis represented the most coherent attempt to apply post modernism to design. It created an alternative to the aesthetic of functionalism by exploring the emotional potential of design.

At the same time that Memphis exploded, Mr. Sottsass’ partnership, Sottsass Associati expanded rapidly to become Italy’s best-known design consultancy, working in architecture, graphics, interiors, products, and furniture all around the world.

These are the last chairs designed by Mr. Sottsass, who died on December 31, 2007 at the age of 90.

“LA BELLEZZA CI SALVERRÀ.” (BEAUTY WILL SAVE US.)

ETTORE SOTTSASS

Seats: Integrally-coloured, soft polyurethane seat and back.

Colours available: green, blue, yellow, orange, red, and grey.

And he finally has a name! We received over a hundred entries to our little contest, from as far away as Orlando, Florida and Ireland. Many thanks to everyone who entered, and for all your kind wishes.

Some of the more unique and interesting names include “Sjalrome” (pronounced ‘shalom,’ I believe) and “Yassin” (of Moroccan origin), but as things would have it, we came across his English name on the internet one day. So, please say “selamat datang*” to:

Xander Quah Jinn Kye

His Chinese name is (surprise, surprise) 柯 敬 凯, the original Chinese characters we liked—I guess we did a Malcolm Gladwell on it, and went with our first instincts. Jinn Kye, or ”Jing Kai” means “honourable victory” or “respected victory”.

The clincher, I think was the ‘X’. It’s a letter that’s unique, memorable, and visually outstanding. Plus, anything with an ‘X’ in it makes it instantly cool. XBox, X-Men, X Games. (‘Xander’ is an abbreviated version of ‘Alexander’ which means ‘defender’ or ‘warrior.’)

We’re actually kind of glad we didn’t name him before he was born, because in the one week we’ve spent with him, his personality just didn’t fit many of the names on the final list.

And here’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Congratulations to Vanessa, who on May 6, suggested the name “Quah Jin Khai” and coming closest to the final name, wins the Blu Dot Couchoid Sofa!

Here’s his birth announcement:

(If you’re a non-Singaporean reader, and the above image makes no sense whatsoever, enlightenment available here.)

Once again, many heartfelt ‘thank-you’s to everyone!

Since this is supposed to be a blog about “food and furniture” I guess I should get back to that soon. Perhaps a post on confinement cuisine and baby cots.

*Selamat Datang = “Welcome” in the Malay language 

Our shortlist consists of exactly ONE English name, and ONE character for his Chinese name. Oh, yeah, it’s a boy!

Some people have no such problems. Angelina and Brad are great at naming kids: Maddox, Pax Thien, Shiloh, Zahara! But they probably have eight full-time staff coming up with them.

So, we’re enlisting the help of you, our friends, family, and readers to help us choose a name. Imagine, you get to name our son! But even better than bragging rights, if the name you propose is picked, we’ll give you a brand-new, Blu Dot Couchoid Studio sofa. (Download a pdf spec sheet here.)

(If this sounds like some thinly-veiled publicity stunt for our store, that exploits an innocent, unborn child, I say to you, “Yes, it is!” But at least it’s better than naming your child “Brooklyn” just to get free pizza.)

Seriously, though, we just figured it might be nice if others could share in our big event. You know, the wisdom of crowds and all that. So here goes:

Our surname is “Quah” (“柯” in Mandarin). The one English name we like is “Kyle”.

The Chinese name we like is a lot “King” (“敬”) which means “respect”. Preferably, it would be used as the second name, i.e. “Quah King Something.” “King Kong” has already been thought of and rejected, thank you very much.

We also like “Khai” (“凯”) which means “triumphant” or “victorious.” But the problem with “Kyle Quah King Khai” is the alliteration—it’s just too much of a tongue-twister.

Some guidelines:

• You can offer a Chinese name, or an alternate English name, or both.
• One to five carefully considered names is plenty. We prefer not having to read a list of 300 names lifted off the internet.
• We don’t mind if the name’s uncommon. We’re not keen on Michael, John, David or Andrew. (Apologies to readers with those names.) I personally like cowboy names. Cody, Jake, Wyatt, but the wife will have none of it, as according to her, they’re “too American.”
• Chinese names can be in any dialect. Hokkien if at all possible, otherwise we’re not too fussed about it. The Chinese character should, naturally, be something meaningful.

Send your entry to:pomelobaby (at) gmail (dot) com

Good luck!

Raymond & Karina

The fine print: Contest closing date: 15 April 2008. Please include your name and a contact number in your entry. Prize eligible for readers residing in Singapore only, sorry. Sofa is not exchangeable for cash, currypuffs or anything else. If more than one person suggests the same name, the first person who emailed it in, wins. In the event that we go with a completely different name than any suggested, we will award the sofa to one person chosen at random. Winner will be announced on this blog soon after the delivery date.

Anyway, the wife and I were in Paris last week, and we managed to have some really fabulous food. One of the things we had the pleasure of tasting, was Berthillon ice cream.

On Ile Saint Louis, down a small street about five minutes’ walk from Notre Dame, three generations of ice cream artisans have been making ice cream and fruit sorbets since 1954. (Isn’t it strangely appropriate that “artisanal” has the word “anal” in it?)

They serve/sell Berthillon at numerous cafés and bistros, but this is where it’s made, and where they have all the flavours, including special seasonal ones. Everything’s made from scratch with all-natural ingredients, and nothing contains preservatives. At 2€ a scoop, this is definitely one of the best bargains in Paris.

I’m usually not a huge fan of ice cream (my biggest complaint that it’s always too sweet). And the only other time I absolutely LOVED it was when we had “Fifty Bean Vanilla Ice Cream” at Spago in Beverly Hills, made with—no prizes for guessing, FIFTY vanilla beans. I have not tasted ice cream—in any flavour—like it since. Nor am I likely to.

But Berthillon comes pretty darn close. Especially my scoop of “Caramel au beurre salé” or Caramel with Salted Butter. I can’t tell you how delicious it was. If ever you needed proof that the human palate enjoys the taste of fat, this is it.

Had the queue not been so long, I would’ve gone right to the back of the line to get another scoop. Or gone inside for one of these:

Flickr photo by MomentstoShare

The scoop of “Framboise à la rose” (Pink Raspberry?) that Karina had was delicious too, or so she said. I was too busy enjoying the sweet, smoky, creamy, salty taste of cold, liquid butter.

Berthillon Glacier
Address: 31, Rue St. Louis en L’Ile, 75004 Paris
Phone: 01 43 54 31 61

http://www.berthillon-glacier.fr

Yong Tau Foo (which is the Cantonese pronunciation, Mandarin “niang dou fu”—thanks, Van!) literally means “stuffed tofu,” with the stuffing made out of fish paste, although sometimes, it’s mixed with pork. Somewhere along the line, someone must’ve figured out that you can stuff pretty much anything with the mixture; and now, you have stuffed brinjal/eggplant, chillies, bean curd ‘puffs’ (tau pok), lady’s fingers (okra), bittergourd, mushrooms, etc. There are also deep-fried items like wantons and bean curd skin, as well as meatballs, cuttlefish and sausage-like things. Finally, you can also add vegetables, together with noodles of your choice.

One of my favourite stalls in Singapore is at the corner of Syed Alwi Road and Jalan Besar. I’ve been eating here for about 12 years now. I don’t remember exactly how I came across this place, but I’m guessing it was on my first visit to Deskar Road to do research on red light districts. (I think there’s an idea here. “Eating Your Way through Singapore’s Red Light Districts” sounds like something a lot of tourists will enjoy. I’ll pitch it to the Singapore Tourism Board if the opportunity arises.)

Order pegs with table numbers on them. Clipped to your bowl after you choose your items.

Although this is supposed to be Hakka YTF, it neither comes with yellow noodles, nor does it come as a fixed selection of items. Here, you can pick any number of items, and you can have it dry, in a clear broth, or with laksa soup.

Take a bowl, fill ‘er up, and enjoy!

My order will almost always have two pieces of brinjal (Best brinjal you’ll ever taste in YTF. Deep fried and delicious.), two lady’s fingers, and two slices of bittergourd. The other four pieces depends on my mood. But the soup choice is pretty much a given: clear broth, with watercress. The flavour of the watercress permeates the soup, making it richer and more complex. Full-bodied. With hints of arugula. It’s good, trust me.

My seven-year-old niece, who’s a finicky eater, had some tonight and proclaimed, “it’s tasty!” Praise doesn’t come any higher than that.

If you get ten pieces or more, it’ll come to the table in a bowl the size of a small basin.

Oh, just one last thing. If you go late at night, and happen to be at a table next to the old man with one full, and 11 empty bottles of Tiger Beer, and he’s calling out to you really loudly in goodness-only-knows what dialect, don’t worry. He’s a harmless fixture there. Just wave and smile. And tell him I sent you.

Hakka Yong Tou Foo
Fu San He Coffeeshop
Corner of Syed Alwi Road and Jalan Besar
Open 3:30p.m. to 3:30a.m. daily, closed on Sundays

The satay here is also worth trying, in particular the pork satay. They give you the old-style Chinese peanut sauce that’s pretty rare these days, with minced pineapple in it.