Back in Singapore for chicken rice

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This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on Instagram

I was here was in January. Then February I was in Hong Kong. Then the following month I was in Bangkok. I will be writing and uploading photos from those trips in the suceeding entries in the next few days.

I just came back from Singapore on 22 June after a week-long team meet-up/training.

Anyway, whenever I am in Singapore, the first thing I look for is chicken rice.

Tong Fong Fatt Chicken Rice. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

The best one, so far, is Tong Fong Fatt, which can be found in Maxwell and Amoy hawkers centre. And I’ve eaten a number of chicken rice around Singapore since 2014 so that says something.

I find Tian Tian overrated. It’s supposedly the best that Singapore has to offer and it was praised by the late Anthony Bourdain. Boon Tong Kee is blah. Wee Nam Kee in United Square is good but not as good as Tong Fong Fatt.

Wee Nam Kee chicken rice at United Square. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram

Tong Fong Fatt is heaven 💕 for less than SGD 5 (PHP 189). I always make the trek to the aforementioned hawkers centers just to have my chicken rice fix.

What makes it magical? It’s supposedly just poached chicken but its meat is not bland. The skin melts in you mouth; it’s so good that you no longer care about the gazillion of calories it will deposit to your hips. I don’t know what they do to make it juicy and savory at the same time… Its umami taste cannot be succintly described by my mere words. There must be some kind of witchcraft going on there. Because I tried steaming, poaching, and cooking the whole chicken in a rice cooker (and all the heresy that comes with it), but it has never come out this way. However I cooked it, the meat comes out dry and tasteless.

And the rice 😋—the Tong Fong Fatt rice can hold on its own. Traditionally, the rice is cooked using the broth from the steamed chicken. I’ve been doing that whenever I cook chicken rice at home but I couldn’t bring out the umami taste that Tong Fong Fatt has. It’s already kanin-ulam rolled into one. There must be some kind of witchcraft, alright.

Tip: Go there at 2 pm-ish to avoid the lunch crowd. It can get really hot at the hawkers centre. That’s why I have late lunch breaks when I work in Singapore.

Warning: You can easily gain weight if you eat this regularly. I don’t have empirical evidence to support my claim but at the end of the week of bingeing on that thing, my pants have gotten tighter.

Because of my love for chicken rice, I’ve spent countless hours experimenting how to cook it best. My chicken rice is very far from Tong Fong Fatt level but can help me get a quick fix.

My homemade chicken rice. This photo is owned by callmecreation.com and can be found on @callmecreation on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/Beeqa7Zl3SC/?igshid=1r4mqfei8gta0

I think I need to be an apprentice at Tong Fong Fatt because the NTUC chicken rice method of cooking that I followed but continue to tweak is… Still so wrong. 🤣

UPDATE: I found Adam Liaw’s version of this dish and I think this is much better and makes a lot more sense. I will try it this weeekend. I gotta get myself those poultry hooks 🐔

Back from the dead again

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Maricaban, Batangas, Philippines. This photo is a property of callmecreation.com and is on @callmecreation on Instagram

A colleague and I were talking about making our own side hustles to 1) earn extra bucks and/or 2) break from the soul-sucking work that we have. Editing always reduced me to tears but it seems like I am destined to do this job. I have been doing this since 2008. I need some kind of release.

And also some way to earn some extra dough. Some years ago, a friend offered me a writing gig, which is a weekly column for one of the local business dailies here. I wasn’t sure about it since I may run out of things to write about.

I am going to rectify this by practicing on this blog. When I’m confident and brave enough (as I will be a target of criticisms and whatnot) I will take that offer.

Getting it together

It has almost been a year since that tumultuous event that rocked my world 💔. I don’t know how I was able to get through it all but I did. Thanks to the special people 💕 in my life that kept me afloat.

The last few months were better; I was able to pull myself together and had fallen into a steady rhythm. My household is coming together as well.

I love coming home to my home. I don’t own it but it’s mine. My girls have settled down as well.

Money may be tight but we’re getting by.

God has not forsaken me, inspite of it all. ❤️

Raison d’ etre

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Angono, Rizal. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

There are reasons why you have people in your life, even though they may have just lingered for just a bit and flew away. Once you have realized what those reasons are, maybe it’s a bit easier to let them go.

As my friend said:

Someone once told me to try to just leave it to fate. If magkikita kayo, then magkikita. If hindi na, hindi na…itapon sa langit.

(Someone once told me to try to just leave it to fate. If you will meet again, then you will meet again somehow. If not, then…you throw it back to heaven)

So itapon na lang sa langit (so will I just throw it back to heaven)?

All wrong

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Everything about this set-up on my staircase landing is all wrong. The shelf is off-center and it’s sloping (shoddy work from a carpenter). But it doesn’t matter, my Totoro collection is still cute anyway.

Virtual Reality games at The Garage

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I brought my girls to City of Dreams Manila this week to try the new virtual reality (VR) games by Bandai Namco at The Garage.

Because they are already bored to death at home.

But this adventure was not cheap. For PHP 450 per person/game. What was I thinking?!

The girls were allowed to play Mario Kart since they could already reach the pedals. Much to their dismay, they couldn’t play the ski VR game as they were too short to reach the ski handles and too light to turn the skis using their body weight.

I tried all games, including that horrrible Hospital Escape Terror VR game. 😭 More of that later.

Mario Kart was fun but was too short. 😣 You can play as Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and another character that sounded like Japanese. The goal there is to be the first player to reach the finish line through fire, water, cliffs, and what-have-you. You have King Koopa to foil your attempts at winning first place.

With the help of VR sensors strapped on your hands and wrists, you can grab bananas, hammers, and turtles to throw or hit your competitors with to slow them down.

I got disoriented with the foot pedals because I am a stick shift driver, ergo, I use my right foot to slam on the accelerator and brakes. My brain is wired to use my left foot for the clutch and NOT the brake.

Or I’m just making excuses because I sucked at Mario Kart. (who fails Mario Kart???)

The most fun part of this game is when I jumped off cliffs and needed to use a hang glider. It really felt like I was flying (or I may just be whoozy due to lack of sleep and hunger that time😜).

As for the ski game, all I can say is I am a terrible skier. If it was in real life, I would have ended up dead within a few minutes after strapping myself onto the skis. I keep flying off cliffs, ravines, and down into abysses.

Now for the Hospital Escape Terror…

I will never ever try that game again in my entire life. Ever. 🤬

Only a minute into the game I was already having panic attacks and I could feel vomit coming up to my throat. That game is so claustrophobic and felt real that my heart was palpitating like crazy.

The goal of the game is to get out of the hospital alive within 9 minutes (and it seemed like forever), which was impossible given that hospital is filled with crazy creatures thirsty for blood while you are strapped to a wheelchair. And you only have a flashlight on your hand.

I really couldn’t go through it. Screw PHP 450, I would rather not risk having a full-blown panic attack. Judging from the screams of terror from the other players before me, my decision to quit the game was wise or else I would have died of a heart attack. For real.