June 22, 2010
Where we have the Crystal Jade, we also have the Peony Jade. Hold them in your palms to compare. There is no Peony Jade in the map. Its new branch is behind the Labrador Nature Reserve. A figment for you to own your own car, so you don't have to share the Dubai Palm Islands-scenery with the taxi driver; or simply to chauffeur someone else away.
To cure some of that is Keppel Club opening to the public; extravagance extorting you at only SGD 18.00 per head for dim sum buffet.
While Crystal Jade is a see-through stone, Peony Jade attacks with a two-pronged fork- polished brand of marbled green and black. Since green is a symbol of Jade, black is the idol of Peony. Peony- a black(!) flower.
Seen here with its logo, Peony Jade does not go easy on the over- extravagance; its Jade(玉) raised in one complete brushstroke.
And a walk to remember with Peony Jade is, playing both the Hong Kong and Taiwan's 90s hits and the coming-of-age Mandarin Pop in sweet ballad renditions. Popular music/ballads that make you want to rip the cds!
Steamed Scallop Dumpling (SGD 4.80) (3pc)
Foods, exclusively something to be consumed in our body, eminent is the 点心; something to end up flowing through our hearts. Therefore menus are an uphill and elaborate task; nuggets of words to suggest the sight, sense, and texture of the foods. It becomes an outrage when the suggestion is incomplete; siew mai, in black roe presentation, siew mai, in har kaus' stuffing; rendering a second skin even- scallop dumpling(har kau) that is green in colour? However, such an unexpected appearance (to the incompleteness of the suggestion)is naturally effortless compared to the expectation of creaming A, creaming B, adding the mixtures together and repeating the process to get your own coloured foods!
Green stained on carbohydrate mains, we notice that the skins are made from rice. Rice; the bowl we scout for in steakhouses and tv dinners with studying in europe, not letting-off on our snack foods even. Hence we eat our way into the 点心, using staple as an excuse. More advanced than a mexican spinach tortilla, these greens had a lower opacity; making the fillings green too.
However on the other hand, the peony jade dumpling did not have skin black like the peonies, the rainbow fish dumpling did not have a fruits-and-vegetable pureed skin. Therefore a tad too many carbohydrate steams ended up on the table, equivalent to eating white bread, white bread and white bread; 3 mornings in a row! (Thats why the history of bread dates back to the New Stone Age; centuries for us to deal with the ways of grilling this carbohydrate.) Regretful for my dining acquaintances having trudged all the way from Mainland to Keppel Island, yet this emerald-turned jade skinned dumpling had whole stock-infused scallop stuffing. A condensed bouillon cube!
Cream of avocado with ice cream served in young coconut (SGD 12.00)
Nurturing and inebriating, these are the roles given to white, yellow and orange when ladled in a bowl of thick, heaving liquid. Now that it is green, its the-whites of the coconut to bolster the greens of the avocado; there is nothing left to inject affections and armour. This green soup made it look like split pea soup, totally forgetting that it was paired with a coconut's bowl.
Cream of avocado. That malformed alligator pear with a tea tree oil bite; even when its whipped to a mass. To dispatch the abhorrence a little, we need the white. Mellow vanilla to neutralize the spruceness of the avocado; arctic chill shearing the fattiness of the avocado. Yet as someone who adores spruceness, this vanilla ice cream was a meticulously created batter- freshly squeezed milk! This dessert is not to be complete without its gummy sago pearls.
Mr Penguin (SGD 4.20) (3 pc)
And the most unsuggestive name ever, it is actually deep fried lotus bun. Which leads to more ambiguities. Deep fried; it is is pan-fried for the chinese, not breaded and deep fried the western way. (Just like pastries are steamed for the chinese, not necessarily oiled and pan-fried the western way.) And the lotus? That caught me. Distinctly 'animal' and not plant on the outside.
A stang hit me when I decided to rupture the animal's body- the 90s, roll over, the autumn 90s; yes, mooncake. It had an intense flavour of jasmine- the flowering of lotus paste mooncakes; highly elevated, sugar having no stand here. Lotus and almond flakes so powering it has got to be a green-bellied penguin.
P.S. It came to me as a blow when Mr Penguin's body is the same as the commonplace pau(bao). Lian rong bao, to be exact. All the while; the other bao beside red bean bao yellow bean bao, nai huang, custard or whatever, I did not make out lian rong as lotus seed paste! Because it tastes a too watered-down-tea compared to the lotus seed paste mooncake; or Mr Penguin here, together with the obfuscation on terminology: traditional!Penguin!Lotus seed paste!Shuang huang bai liang rong; instead of lian rong bao. Browned a three-quarters to resemble a penguin's darker black plumage, (I wonder how the pan fries so evenly on the rotund surface); and black sesame seed devicefully decorating as eyes, I got the repercussion of a baby-bento box: No facial features, No character-design; No green. It will only lead to apathy(amongst the kids) with incising little creatures/heads.
