Best Rice Dumplings

This is an overdue post since rice dumplings are typically eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival, which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar. And for 2010, that meant 16 June.

This festival is to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Miluo river, after hearing that his country has fallen into the hands of the enemy. Legend has it that rice dumplings are thrown into the river so that the fishes will eat those instead of his body.

Nowadays, rice dumplings can be found in restaurants and food stalls throughout the year.. so it doesn't really matter when you eat them. But I think that the best rice dumplings are those made by my maternal grandmother.. and she still only makes them once a year, during the dragon boat festival.

Homemade rice dumpling

My grandmother usually makes 2 kinds of rice dumplings - "ba-cang" (meat rice dumplings) and "tao-cang" (bean rice dumplings). The meat rice dumplings are made with stewed pork, chestnuts and glutinous rice. The bean rice dumplings, which are my personal favourites, are made with pork, chestnuts, lots and lots of "hei-bi-hiam" (dried shrimps with chilli) and glutinous rice with red beans.

These are the best rice dumplings that money can't buy.

 Meat rice dumpling (left) and bean dumpling (right)

Saizeriya - A Japanese Italian Eatery

A Japanese Italian eatery

As a poor student in Tokyo, Saizeriya was one of the restaurant I frequented.

For a few reasons.

Firstly, it was conveniently located on the way back to the hostel from the Waseda campus. Secondly, they had this drink bar for something like 200yen which allowed you to have as many drinks as you like and that was a good thing because it meant we could hang around for practically the entire afternoon. Thirdly, the food wasn't so bad - the pizzas were decent and I really quite like the doria.

So, it came as a pleasant surprise to me, after more than 10 years, to see a Saizeriya restaurant in Singapore. The prices are still extremely reasonable and the doria still as good. But this is not a place I would travel all the way across town for.

We decided to do some supermarketing today at the Japanese supermarket, Mediya at Liang Court today. We couldn't really decide what to have for dinner and I was a little too unwell to walk over for my favourite ramen at Gallery Hotel.. so we decided to have our dinner at Saizeriya.

As usual, the food is decent for the price you pay. There is one new thing on the menu I like apart from doria - the foccacia garlic bread. It came fresh out of the oven - very hot, buttery and garlicky. Yum!

The foccacia garlic bread is pretty good

Hamburg steak with cheese is a very Japanese dish because they serve it with Japanese rice

In general, the pastas at Saizeriya are very normal.. nothing to rave about

Saizeriya Italian Restaurant

177 River Valley Road #02-22

Ikameshi

Ikameshi is a dish originating from Hokkaido. "Ikameshi" means squid rice. And that's what it is - simmered squid with glutinous rice inside.

The squid is simmered with soy sauce, mirin and sugar and sake until tender and the rice is perfumed lightly with the taste of the squid.

We bought a couple of these for lunch today from the Hokkaido fair at Tampines Mall. This is the first time I've seen ikameshi on sale in Singapore.