Tau Huay @ Old Airport Road Hawker Centre

This is sometimes a food blog. 

This is my first food post but there will definitely be more in the future. Simply because I like food and I like to eat so its pretty safe to say food is something I get excited about. 

So today's foodventures brings me to the revamped Hawker Centre at Old Airport Road in the Kallang area. My mom had been talking about going to try the Tau Huay there for quite some time now and finally, we found a window to go there today. 

I love Tau Huay. It's everything that a health-nut-with-a-bit-of-wiggle-room, like myself  can ask for. Main ingredient being soy (Protein!) but served with a sweetened broth (Sugar! Satisfies my sweet tooth). 

Okay, its not that healthy after all the sugar but hey, there are worse chinese desserts. 

This particular place has garnered much attention after being featured in a Sunday Times article and true enough, when we got there you could see this permeating from all aspects of the business: 

• We got there at 10.45am and we couldn't buy anything because they were still setting up the store for the day's business. Basically putting stock into the fridges, setting up the cash register etc. Its 10.45am. That's pretty late in the day if you ask me. 
• The queue (ahh the famous queue) had already started to become substantial but lady boss and boss were still taking their time to set up. 
• Lady boss clearly used to big orders. I asked for 5 bowls of Tau Huay, splitting up my order 4:1 original and almond flavour. She thought I asked for 20. No, original 四个 almond一个！Then she looked at me funny. What, you're only buying 5?! Ha. I would've loved to see her expression if I had stuck with my original order of 1. 

Conclusion? Like most things that are hyped, they rarely meet expectations. This one was certainly no different. When I opened it, the texture on the surface looked like the soy was semi gelatinized and I didn't find anything outstanding about the taste: sweet in a boring sort of way and creamy? No, not really. 

Another thing important to me - while I stood in line reading the newspaper article plastered on their store front, I discovered: they use Coffeemate in their recipe. Oh hell no. Coffeemate?! That stuff is toxic. Coffeemate is a non-dairy creamer and is known to have partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, or, trans fats in its ingredients. Trans fat is quite simply put, the most harmful type of fat. It clogs your arteries and causes heart problems, among doing other stuff to your body. For a more comprehensive explanation, go here. You do not want to put this stuff in your body. 

While waiting, my mom decided to try another store selling tau huay just next door to 老伴 called Happy Boy. 

HAPPY BOY TAU HUAY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE? 

First, it is not as sweet as 老伴's. In fact, it is the least sweet tau huay I have ever had. And this is a good thing, which leads me to my second point; you can actually taste what the tau huay is made of: Soy beans. This scored the biggest points with me because usually you taste the sweetness first and then if you're lucky, a hint of the soy. But for this, the instant you put a spoonful in your mouth, you know what you're eating. I like my food to taste as close as possible to what it is in its rawest form. Third, the texture. Now this is what I call smooth. 'Glides' is the word I'd use. Glides on your spoon, off your spoon, into your mouth and down your throat. Truly. 

Happy Boy was the discovery of the day for me. I'm not exaggerating when I say this is probably the best Tau Huay I have ever had. If you need a scale, I just came back from a 2 week long trip in Taiwan where there's tons of must try Tau Huay everywhere you go. None of it was as memorable as Happy Boy. 

So, if you ever find yourself getting impatient in the queue for the famous store, try Happy Boy instead. Their store will be in your line of sight and you will probably be queueing past their store anyway (They are only two stores to the right of 老伴's ) so..summon all your willpower and resist the herd mentality, check out of that queue and go to Happy Boy's.  

Healthier, better tasting, more interesting flavours (they have milo flavoured tau huay!)..I'm glad I did. 

In which I play host at a place I loathe.

April 8th, Easter Sunday. Our last day in Toronto before we headed off to Orlando the next morning. I can't remember whether I grudgingly suggested going to CN tower or it was A who brought it up. 

Oh right. My aunt brought it up while she was talking to A on the phone. -_-' And there I was thinking I could get away with it. As I told A, I really hate this place. 

This place is CN Tower in downtown Toronto. I can't pinpoint exactly why I loathe this place so much. It could be the monotone concrete surroundings, it could be that there is absolutely nothing stimulating around the area where the tower is located, it could be the fact that the whole place just screams TOURIST MUST SEE and features screaming children of tourists. 

It could be that I don't get the point of this. I have never been up on one of these super tall towers and seen shit that they say we can see. I have never seen Niagara Falls or the state of New York the 5 times I've been up there so screw your false advertisements.  

Or maybe its just one of those things where the amount of enjoyment gained decreases exponentially over time. I know the first time I had been on these super tall structures was in Auckland and I fucking loved it, naive kid that I was. Subsequent times in Toronto and Taipei..not so much. 

But it is one of the major sites in the city so I suppose I couldn't avoid it if I had a new visitor in town. But I wanted so badly to, goddammit! 

Anyway. 

All i can say is A got some pretty cool photos. And I had an awesome hot dog.

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My enemy. 

Some shots of downtown Toronto: 

Under the highway, heading into the CBD area. 

Air Canada Centre! This is where most big concert events take place. It is also the home ground of the Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL) and the Toronto Raptors (NBA)

Rogers Centre is the home ground of the Toronto Blue Jays (MLB) and the Toronto Argonauts (CFL). I've been in there once to watch a Red Sox game, it has a pretty cool retractable roof. 

Blue Jays Way, outside the Rogers Centre. 

I have come to meet my doom. 

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Before that, food! 

Mine is the one on the right. Heaven in my mouth. 

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Interior shots of CN Tower

And finally, what we all came to see *grumble* 

This was a cool sight though, what you see here is a runway. Toronto has a small airport downtown and its located on an island off the mainland. Ha, I make it sound so epic. It's a 2 minute ferry ride away. It's a fantastic airport. 

A's camera has this effect function which makes your photos look cool. See? Not boring anymore! 

Niagara..the actual Falls.

We left the town at around 4.15pm. Ample time to spare. At least I thought so. All I knew was we had to reach Niagara Falls before 5.30pm because that's when the last boat leaves to bring you up close to the Falls (knowledge gained from the 4 hour luncheon episode) and we had to drive half an hour from the town to get there. 

First hiccup of the day, I drove in the wrong direction heading out of town. 

BUT! It was a pretty awesome detour if I may say so. Look at this piece of heaven we found: 

Looks more heavenly than usual (*cough* saturated *cough*) because of the setting on A's camera but whatever, it was AMAZING. It was a pretty deserted beach and I'm guessing its a private beach seeing as the houses around it seemed rather exclusive in a small town sort of way. Plus, we had drove pretty inwards past residential housing. 

While we rectified our bearings, A and I got into a discussion about getting vacation homes in this part of the world in the future. Haa, when will that be? Oh well, people can dream. 

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Another point on geography and driving: There are two routes to get to the Falls from the town. One way is back through the town and past the vineyard estates and commercial buildings. The other is along the lake's coast, which I had never taken before. I knew it would be risky seeing as we were in a hurry and I had no idea how long it was going to take. Our little detour had already cost us a bit of time so conventional wisdom suggests we go the boring ass old route. 

I'm glad we didn't. So what if we didn't get to see *much* of the coast because of a thick line of trees but it was a fabulous drive: very few cars, and lots of green and blue. 

Not to mention we found this breathtaking lookout point over the Niagara river. 

I look weird -> straining my hand to capture both of us and the scene behind us -> a rather fail picture

Ah yes, remember the scenic drive to the most hilarious Hokkien Song I have ever listened to mentioned in a previous post? (To be honest, the sample size is minute = 2 and the other one was about only knowing true pain from love so uh..) 

This is A setting the stage for the video. Here she has already prepared the camera and is now waiting for the right scenery to come around. Plus I think she is also looking for said Hokkien song in her iTunes library. And I can't remember whether I was driving while taking this picture. Huh. 

Tremendous LOLs were had as we put the song on repeat the entire drive to Niagara Falls and we winded down the windows and blasted it proper! It was the most fun I ever had on a drive.  

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I was relieved when we saw this. We could *still* make that last boat! 

Once we parked I ran towards to the ticketing counter while A lingered slightly behind to take some pictures. And guess what? All that rushing for NOUGHT. The lady behind the counter told me The Maid of the Mist (name of the boat) rides don't open till April 12th. It was still Winter season. Well, fuck. 

I guess we'll just have this then: 

That was an actual rainbow. It was perfect. 

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You're meant to see the Falls as the background but the guy who took the picture cocked it up big time. 

The quality sucks and we look a hot mess but I *love* it unabashedly. I feel like this would be one of those pictures we'll be looking back on 10, 20 years down the road. Me and my oldest bestie! :D 

Niagara-on-the-Lake Part Deux

After Picard's Peanuts, I wanted to bring A to Peller Wine Estates to sample the region's iconic ice wine and to chill out because although that place might seem super atas, it has beautiful scenery. Unfortunately, we were running behind schedule so we headed straight towards the town to start shopping. I had specific shops to go to and things to buy (items to add to JY's birthday hamper) so it was pretty straightforward from there. 

Before we started shopping, A decided that she wanted to walk the whole street first before shopping. When I say 'street', the shopping in this town is quite literally only on that one street. Very convenient.

We parked at the Court House theatre..

The view of Queen Street from the side road we came out from. 

The Bell tower in Town square 

 The entrance to the Town Hall 

What's a small town without the quintessential horse drawn carriage rides?

A proud Canadian Institution - Niagara On the Lake edition.  

As you can see, excessively sugary treats were available almost everywhere. 

Fudge is cool to look at and we got to see a stage of it being made. Not a fan of it unfortunately, it is just a monotone of texture and sweetness. 

This was pretty good though, the ice wine gave it something extra. 

Candied Apples. 

It is exactly what its name means. Now, you might be staring at this wondering who could possibly finish eating one of these. I mean, I have a pretty mean sweet tooth but even I get a little nauseous looking at this. (I have actually attempted to eat one in the past and I didn't make it past four bites. Fail.) Of course, right after I made this comment, two girls walked past happily munching on these. One each. HOW? /Barf 

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The Pièce de résistance was this store called The Sixth Sense which sells all kinds of fruity vinegars and hot sauce. A foodie's haven I would imagine. This was the store I really wanted to bring A as you will see. 

This sweet selection of fruit and herb infused vinegars and oils. Alas, too heavy an purchase for me to carry back. I was banking on the fact that my Dad had bought some when he visited last September. 

They also have a pretty hilarious collection of novelty hot sauces. 

 This was my favourite. 

An aptly named coffee. 

This is their infamous sauce. If you try it, they make you sign a disclaimer stating that they were not to be held responsible for any mishaps or after effects that might happen to you as a result of the sauce. 

A holding up the disclaimer. Despite the fact that she is covering her face, I can conclude that the sauce didn't really make an impact. I mean, she grew up on a chilli heavy diet. And she was my chilli tolerance coach. I should've known better.  "I'm buying for novelty's sake." - A. Indeed. 

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After the sauce tasting, I vaguely remembered that Peller Wine Estates had a store in town. I figured if we couldn't go to the Vineyard itself, we could still buy stuff that was made there. True enough, asking around led us to the Peller Store. 

This was the discovery of the day. If you've tried ice wine before you'll know that it is very sweet and heavy and the taste can become overpowering after a while. I like ice wine but this is so much better. Late Harvest Ice Wine is basically made from the last batch of grapes harvested before the season ends. It has the most wonderful light and refreshing taste. Its sweetness is also subtler. I don't think I can go back to normal ice wine but unfortunately for me, I don't think they'll sell these outside of Canada. Or even outside of Niagara region.

 I shall just have to savour the one bottle I *had* to buy. 

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So this was beautiful Niagara-on-the-Lake! I really wished we stayed for lunch but we just didn't have the time do that. Plus, the fact that the previous time I had lunch there our party sat there for 4 hours and missed everything else we wanted to do was weighing rather heavily on my mind. It's the food and the wine and the scenery that makes you...not want to move.