Bean sprouts, otherwise known as taugeh in my native language, always reminds me of Science class in school. Back in the days, we had to use only damp cotton pads to grow our taugehs using green beans as part of our Science experiment. Those grew by others thrived well, but mine always died prematurely – I never have green thumbs!
Taugehs make for very good condiments with noodles and they also make for a very nutritious stir fry. Thanks to the early training from my mom, I am anal about my taugehs – they have to be cleaned. By cleaning I mean to pluck off the roots of the back-end, one by one. A pain in the ass to do and I have always hated doing that. These days, I’ve got Silver Bullet or my Nanny to do the dirty work! :p
I have always loved my taugehs. One of my all-time favourite is a simple stir fry with Chinese chives and scallions (otherwise known as spring onions). A simple, humble veg dish!
Heat up pan with olive oil. Add the soya sauce into the oil
When the oil is hot enough, press garlic and saute. Add in the sliced onions
Once the onions have turned translucent, add in the chicken stock. Stir well
Add the bean sprouts, chives and spring onions. Mix well
Cover for 3-5 minutes until you see some water at the bottom of your pan.
Turn off the fire and serve hot as a side dish to be eaten with rice.
Notes
Fuss-free, and apart from spending time plucking off the roots (you can choose to leave it, but I’m OCD), you’ll be done with cooking in no more than 10 minutes. Guaranteed!
Wondering what to do with less than 48 hours in Singapore when you have restless, energetic, young toddlers in tow and you are wrecking your brains to keep them busy as going shopping is out of the question?
Here’s 3 of our must-go kid-friendly places with our 2 little imps. 2 of them have been our latest discovery from our trip back home last week:
Enjoy the up-close and personal interaction with the park’s friendliest birds in the world’s largest Lori Flight Aviary and get enthralled with the birds of prey! Spud’s been obsessed with Snowy Owls of late and she’s so fascinated by them that she HAD to go see the Snowy Owls several times before leaving the park.
Doable in half a day. Buggy (or otherwise known as Radio Flyer) is available for rent if your little tots get tired of walking. (Sorry, you parents don’t get to rest here)
Explore the 1-hectare garden that combines both nature and adventure at the Gardens by the Bay. Let the kids go wild and get wet with the interactive water tunnels. Tons of fun, with plenty of places to run around and tire them out!
Bounce about in an indoor trampoline park and play dodgeball if you can get the kids to understand the rules of the game. Let them climb up the 17-m lateral rock wall or simply let them go trampolining, bouncing their hearts out. Guaranteed to tire the parents out within 15 minutes.
Yes. I said the parents. You cannot just be sitting on the sidelines as you would not want to miss all the trampolining fun. The kids lasted forever bouncing from wall to wall.
The best time to go with little kids is in the morning as I was told that the place would be opened exclusively to them from 10 am to 12 pm (weekdays) and 9 am to 12 pm (weekends).
My verdict: The kids slept really well at night. Well worth the time!
A unique enclave located in the heart of Singapore’s Central Business District, Far East Square is a delightful, vibrant place filled with an eclectic mix of restaurants, cafes, pubs and shops within an alfresco environment.
Within it are also cool, cosy and nicely decorated offices and my then-Singapore office is located a mere 5 minutes walk away on the other side of the road. It was a place we occasionally go to for lunches, and, in my younger days, it also happened to be my after-work playground.
This place,as far as I remember, is always, always crowded. It also brought back a lot of fond memories where inane office-related conversations happened, personal stories were being shared in a one-on-one conversation and friendships were forged over food and drinks into the wee hours of the night; with pretty much no care in the world, except for having the ultimate responsibility of being back in the office the next day.
Those were the days. They were fun times.
It has been ages, and I do mean close to almost-a-decade-AGES since I last stepped foot in Far East Square. And if there is one thing I still remember till today is the Japanese noodle restaurant called Beppu Menkan. It was one of the best Japanese noodles around in my opinion, and my all-time favourite was the Chicken Karage Ramen.
One of the cool feature of the menu in this restaurant is that you can choose the spicyness of the soup ranging from a scale of 1 chilli, which I do think is quite hot enough (and I do have some good tolerance to chillies!) to the maximum 7 (insane!). I remembered going gung-ho with 3 on my very first visit – I could barely take more than 4-5 spoonful of noodles!
From then on, I just went with 1, and the occasional 2 chillies when I feel a little crazy. I learnt my lesson with anything more than 2, and for some weird reason, the chillies can be quite addictive!
We had a tame night after we shipped the kids off to my parents and decided to go for those ramen for dinner, hoping that the restaurant would still be there because we remembered how good the noodles were. Without remembering its exact location, we stumbled upon it again, but at a new location across the street at China Square Central instead of Far East Square. They apparently moved more than 7 years ago!
This place was a little less crowded, but the noodles were still as good as I remembered it. Mission accomplished!
A hot bowl of Chicken Karage Ramen
We then took a brief stroll around China Square Central and Far East Square as we attempted to navigate our way to the nearest MRT station before meeting up with a friend.
The entire place is still buzzing with energy, crowded and full of life – just the way I remembered it. Yet…it feels different; perhaps it was because I was just passing through rather than being the active participant like I used to years ago.
“Stars” along the walkwayAn iron sculpture of a rickshaw man and a lady gives a little history of Singapore and its immigrantsA typical Friday night scene in SingaporeSingapore, the city of lights!
I still see some of the familiar places which I used to hang out, but I thought that the noise was a little bit too much for me. The crowd, overwhelming. It was, nevertheless, some sights to behold, pegged by memories flooding in and pivoted by a bowl of hot, spicy ramen.
Somehow, in between gawking at people and taking in the sights and sound while trying to find the nearest train station, I feel like a tourist in my own country!
Needless to say, this makes for another befitting post for Tiny Expat’s Show Your World Blog Event with the following main guidelines:
tell us about an interesting place – it can be somewhere in your home country or a destination that you visited
instead of just giving us facts about this location, use your words to show it to us as well – the way it looks, sounds, smells, conveying its atmosphere
