pepperknit

orchids @ the Singapore Botanic Gardens

If you recall my last skirt, the Snapping Turtle, well, it was hugging my then-minimal curves. My curves have gotten a bit bigger now that I’m in Singapore—you have been reading about all my food adventures, after all. Yes, in Singapore I need a swishy, hide-all-evils skirt.

Skirt #12 (they can’t come up with real names for the patterns in that magazine?)
Knit.1 Magazine
Size: Medium (36 1/2″ hip; I wanted it to sit on my hips so I went with that measurement)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton
Skeins: 10
Needles: Addi Turbo US 5 (and 3)
Started: Sunday, June 29
Finished: Blocked and dry Sunday, July 13

I cast on all 455 stitches for this skirt the day before I left to come to Singapore, and worked on the bulk of it on my 30-hour trip (and during lots of in-flight movies). The Friday before, my friend Julia and I had been poking through a pile of old Vogue company knitting magazines I have. This skirt from knit.1 caught my eye. I trust Norah Gaughan, so another knitted skirt made me intrigued rather than nervous. Plus I could see that the stitches were going in different directions due to the bias; I figured that would combat any butt sag.

So I went stash-diving and found the burgundy Debbie Bliss Wool Cotton. I knit Pam out of it, in blue, years back, and I’d bought the yarn in bulk at Stitches back when Stitches was still in King of Prussia, PA.

The skirt is held up with a long twisted cord woven into a ribbed waistband. I have plenty of room to make this bigger or smaller. And the drape of the skirt allows for any amount of gathering—I think it would hang nicely no matter what!

The eyelet feature is dead-easy to remember (it’s only 2 rows of eyelet—though the pattern is written in such a way that you might think it was more complicated). The pattern itself is also so straightforward, it made for excellent plane knitting. I’ll admit to major impatience to have it DONE already. It felt like it was taking forever, and I was also afraid I was going to run out of yarn. I have more at home, so it was going to irritate me greatly if I’d not brought enough. But I had just enough, so this was blocked and dried last weekend! The skirt barely touches your skin, so the 50% wool wasn’t too hot in the Singapore humidity. I swear! I’ve also grown really used to the heat here, so maybe I’m delusional. But if you get too hot, you can swish around and create your own breeze!

Eat! And eat at hole-in-the-wall joints, no less. So of course that’s what we did when we took a short overnight trip to Melaka, Malaysia.

Melaka (Malacca) is a state of Malaysia on the western coast, and it’s been occupied by nearly everyone (now it’s just part of Malaysia)—the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Japanese, and the British. The Portuguese came in the 1500s, so the historical sites go back really far.

And others just feel like anachronisms, like this windmill in honor of the Dutch occupation, which is opposite an old Dutch church (still extant) and the former home of the Dutch Governors (now a museum full of creepy human figurines).

The area is dominated by Peranakan people, the Chinese Malay, with their own particular cuisine. Laksa has been top of my list ever since that episode of Top Chef when Anthony Bourdain was the guest judge and Lisa made a too-smoky laksa hated by everyone. If Tony Bourdain says real laksa is one of his favorites, well, I had to give it a go.

I was not disappointed. This tiny Peranakan restaurant, Restoran Nancy’s Kitchen, with its unflattering fluorescent lights and dated Christmas decorations on the walls, seemed the perfect place to try laksa. It’s essentially a curry soup—great coconut flavor but a smoky spicy kick that had my nose running (I love spicy food). It has noodles, small shimp, some cucumber, and other vegetables. It also had a mystery substance (thin, kinda spongy sheets), which I hope is a vegetable (it’s always weird to me when I can’t identify a food, as I am pretty knowledgeable), and rice balls, which are like pounded rice formed into a rubbery little ball. They don’t absorb the flavor so they serve to put out the fire in your mouth a bit. I plan on trying more laksa—I hear it’s one of those local foods where there are a zillion variations—and there are plenty of places to get it in Singapore, too.

The Portuguese influence has created a “local Portuguese cuisine,” but it seemed to be the same as the food everywhere else. In the Portuguese Square (nothing more than a structure with restaurants), Restoran Lisbon, essentially a kitchen with some tables and plastic chairs outside, was advertised as, you know, Portuguese food, but it really seemed just like other Peranakan spots.

This fish dish, ikan bakar, was noted as a traditional food, and it was amazing. Those two green things on top are limes—the tiny kinds are common here. The red sauce was spicy and smoky—”warm” was the first word that came to mind when I took a bite—and it mushed up nicely with the perfectly cooked fish. In the lower left-hand corner are lightly pickled onions, which contrasted with the warmth of the fish. This was my favorite entree of our meal.

Chicken curry debal and ginger squid were our other two meat dishes from Restoran Lisbon (we also got greens). The chicken was a bit dry, but the sauce was tasty over rice. The squid was tender and flavorful—I didn’t think the ginger flavor was strong enough, though.

Another curry soup I got, at the Geographer Cafe (not as fancy as the name might imply), featured lontong, compressed rice cut into small pieces.

Not as spicy as laksa, but gosh-darn tasty.

The rest of Melaka was okay—there’s some pretty temples, which I’ll show some pictures of soon. There was shopping, but there’s only so much plastic crap I need, and the antiques aren’t my style. The night market was pretty good—with food and shopping and karaoke and line dancing!–but jet lag hit me so hard before we headed out that I was in a total fog and didn’t take a single picture; I actually hit a point where I just stopped and stood to the side while my parents are our family friend walked the rest of it. I’m sure my mom will blog about that, so I’ll link to her post.

The Singapore Food Festival is going on all month (yay!) so we have plans to check it out this afternoon.

When my parents lived in Columbia, the Chicken #1 sandwich at Clyde’s was one of those things I just had to have upon returning for a visit. Now that they live in Singapore, my tastes are a bit different—Din Tai Fung, for soup dumplings, is requirement #1.

Din Tai Fung is actually a chain, with several restaurants in Singapore and others around the world (Australia, and even LA!). I first had it in Taipei about 4 years ago. The dumplings are hand-made behind a glass wall, so you can see the guys hard at work (I was waved off from taking photos the last time I was there, so I didn’t try this time. I have shots of the guys in Taipei, but those are on my external hard drive, back in NYC). There the wait is always so long, they give you a tiny clipboard with the menu printed on it, and you indicate how many of each item you want. When you’re eventually led to a table, you hand over your order on the walk over. Here, if there’s a wait, they employ the same system, but I have had it be empty enough that we were seated before asked to order (I think you always fill it out yourself).

Soup dumplings exist in the States—Joe’s Shanghai is the place to go in NYC. But there’s something much better about them here. Joe’s Shanghai’s dumplings have a really strong pork flavor—the soup is almost gamey, it’s so porky. Here, the liquid housed in each dumpling, along with the meatball, are impeccably subtle. The wrappers are supple but don’t break open and spill soup everywhere when you lift them out of the steamer, like they do at Joe’s. In other words, they’re perfect.

Shao loong bao, what these are called, actually means “little steamer dumpling,” but the “soup” quality is what makes them unique. I’ve read that the stock is frozen and placed in the dumpling along with the meatball, so that when steamed the ice melts and you end up with soup encased in a wrapper. It means that eating them requires some careful work—and definitely needs a spoon. You set it down in the spoon and tear it open slightly, either with your teeth or a chopstick, and let the bowl of the spoon fill up. I slurp it out separately, because the next step is dunking the dumpling into the bowl of soy sauce, black vinegar, and shreds of fresh ginger that you’ve mixed up. The fresh ginger is key—we always ask for extra.

Other dumplings, such as these, aren’t shao loong bao, they’re just dumplings (bao), but they’re so pretty I can’t resist them. I love the way the little shrimp is poised atop the wrapper like that!

My favorite greens are these, dou miao. They’re pea shoots (shoots of the snowpea plant), and they’re consistently tender and tasty. Sauteed with plenty of garlic and oil, they are only beat by kung xin cai (water spinach), a hollow-stalked green that isn’t super common but is super tender and tasty.

The other dish we got surprised me. My mom asked me if I remembered the shiao tsai we used to get before meals when we lived in Taiwan—little plates of snacky things, like a seaweed salad or a tofu “noodle” salad. It turns out they combine it all into one dish here! There was also some cellophane noodle in there, too.

Day 1’s main meal was a success. Not sure what’s on tap for tomorrow!