Customer Reviews

Shiok!: Exciting Tropical Asian Flavors

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the best book that I have come across on Singaporean cuisine. My wife and I are from Singapore and we have been away from the country for about 7 years. She is a Chinese and I am an Indian. So between us we know what most of the dishes are supposed to taste like and our favourites put together covers quite a list of dishes. Recently, we started to cook more than we ever used to and started to look for books that would help us cook the food we missed most. We chanced upon this book and we have tried a number of dishes. For novices like us, what we churned out were very impressive indeed. The book is well organised and easy to read and follow. The pictures are fantastic. If you have enjoyed Singaporean/Malaysian cuisine and you would like to try a couple of dishes at home, you can't go wrong with this book. If you are a serious Singaporean cuisine fan and you want to cook up entire menus, you can't go wrong with this either. By the way, I must say the the binding of the book is not very good. I hope the publishers will do a bood job with that the next time around. But despite that, I would give this 5 stars. Buy it and cook up a storm...!

I have two minor complaints about this otherwise excellent book:

1) The quality of the binding leaves something to be desired. The entire cover detached from the book only the second or third time I used it. Thankfully the stitching is good.
2) The prep times indicated assume you're a pro. While you can whip up the beef hor fun right quick, give yourself plenty of time when you're tackling the Hainanese Chicken Rice.

It's scarcely worth making these complaints, though. This has quickly become one of the most frequently used cookbooks in my collection (the photos may make this look like culinary porn, but the recipes are achievable by mortals). One taste of the beef hor fun and you will be hooked. The Hainanese chicken rice is a solid couple hours of work that will turn your entire kitchen into a war zone, but the end result is absolutely worth it (it's worth making for the chili sauce alone). The dressing for the jaganan is almost unbearably spicy, but impossible to stop eating. Recipes are easy to make in an American kitchen provided you have a well-stocked Asian market nearby, but there's no arguing with the authenticity--if you've traveled to Singapore and find that your most vivid memories are of the food, this is the book for you.

Glad that there is finally a book that will preserve our unique food culture for our future generations. The only negative thing about this book would be the way the food is presented.

The food presentation is just too nice and classy looking. Growing up eating street (hawker) food, presentation is the last thing on my mind.

For someone who has never resided in Singapore, it will be hard to truly appreciate Singaporean food to its fullest. The recipes for Roti prata evoked late night memories of driving to Jalan Kayu, Buona Vista South (Next to NUS) or Al Ameen's at Woodlands for a late night fix of cheese, mushroom and egg prata washed down with several mugs of Teh Cino less sugar (as we say in classic Singlish).

How bout driving across the island from Choa Chu Kang to Changi Village just to eat Nasi Lemak or Kuay Chap (not in the book!). Just for a quick fact....here in Melbourne, I live on Latrobe street, and interestingly enough, the Changi Village Nasi Lemak store is just 2 doors away. I've never had worst malay food in my life..though they claim to be the Aussie arm of the original.

The recipe for Beef Hor Fun brings back memories of the endless circling of Geylang to find a parking space and finishing dinner off with Tau Huay with yaw cha kwai (Sweet bean curd with deep fried chinese pastry).

Again, here in Melbourne's Chinatown, I've never had worst Beef Hor Fun. Even the WORST Beef Hor Fun in Singapore still tastes better than what Melbourne has.

The reason?

In Singapore, our hawkers specialise only on a very limited menu of say.....3 to 5 dishes? For example, my friend, Junjie who runs a Hainanese Chicken Rice store in Kallang, sells only roast or boiled chicken rice, char siew rice or roast pork rice.

China Bar in Melbourne has like 30 different items on the menu...all of them tasting similar. That is...similarly like crap. Most of the cooks coming from Hong Kong, I expected MUCH MORE. They ain't doing their country's food reputation any good.

In Singapore, at 2 in the morning, I walk 5 mins to the 24 hour hawker centre (S11) in Choa Chu Kang's HDB heartlands and can find at least 20 of the recipes found under 'Hawker Favourites', all available at around US$2 a plate.

Here in Melbourne, nothing starts under US$6 a plate...and I get a plate of tasteless food overseasoned with salt or soy sauce, lacking the essential "wok hei" or "Wok's breath". So what is this elusive "wok hei?"

Lets take the simple fried rice. Firstly....there are many types of fried rice, so if New York City only has one type seasoned with salt, here is how you can differentiate a good one from a bad one.

If you just taste oil, garlic, rice and soy/salt and the other various ingredients....you have a crap plate of fried rice. If you taste a plate with "wok hei", you can smell it. It has a deeper flavour that will remind you of slightly charred food. Its hard to explain how it tastes.....as its not the charred taste that you are imaging right now. It is a subtle taste.

I can guarantee you it is not charred, but instead, been imbued with this delicately delectable flavour through the hawker's skillful manipulation of the most basic of elements, metal and fire.

Even in Singapore, not all hawkers possess this skill. Not all foods require 'Wok hei', but for those that need it, it makes a world of difference.

For us Singaporeans overseas, all we can do is to try the recipes in these books and tweak them as everyone should. We do this all the time, so we can share with our Thai, Laos and Vietnamese friends in Melbourne the taste of Bukit Batok Bak Kut Teh or Balestier Road's Hainanese Chicken Rice. They do the same for us with their country's recipes and everyone has been enriched ever more by our shared experiences.

Thank god I'm returning home in December.

I'm originally from Penang and have been living in the US for over 10 years. There are restausants all over the US called "Penang"...trying to brand themselves with this city. Definitely a place where the food culture is intense, flavorful and demanding...a port city with a fusion of Portuguese, Dutch, Indian, Malay and Chinese influence.
I do a lot of cooking and have a wide collection of books. And I must say this is an awesome book to add to your collection. A must have for all who appreciate and enjoy Thai/South East Asian cuisine.
I have tried the mutton soup and Pandan chiffon and they bring back memories of childhood. Some of the ingredients are tough to get but as long as you are near a Thai Grocer...it can be accomplished. Authenthic? Yes definitely. For Beginners? If you have extra time on hand, yes. For Malaysian/Singaporean natives and collectors. Beautifully illustrated and well put together. Enjoy.

This book has the authentic recipes (from someone who grew up in Hong Kong- Singapore is a close neighbour and a very mighty economic competitor, we are reasonably familiar with their food) from Hawkers fares to restaurant menus, and they are laced with background information and good coffee-table grade illustrations. Indeed, the Singapore Tourism Board rrecommends this book along with Mrs Lee Chin Koon (who is the late mother of Lee Kwan Yew, the first Prime Minister of Singapore) "The New Mrs Lee's Cookbook" and Sylvia Tan's "Singapore Heritage Food" as good references to Singapore's food.

But as the others mentioned, the only drawback is binding - it doesn't quite withstand tear. I am confident the publisher will fix this in their next batch though as I also own a couple of other cookbooks from them and the bindings are still strong after 4 years.

Bought this to widen my selection of dishes I know. Living overseas in a western country made it harder to get some of the ingredients but seeing the beautiful pictures and using replacement flavours allowed me to cook up nice little dishes for the family. Great way to ease the homesickness too! My only problem is the 'bone' of the book, it came apart on the first attempt of me looking through the pages, and I was being very gentle too! Overall neat little book to have.

IT TOOK ME MONTHS TO ACTUALLY BUY THIS BOOK.I WASN'T SURE IF THE RECIPE IS ANY GOOD OR UP TO MY EXPECTATION.I AM A SINGAPOREAN LIVING IN JAPAN FOR A LONG TIME N THEN IN OKLAHOMA TILL RECENTLY.I WAS WAITING EXCITEDLY FOR THE ARRIVAL N RECEIVED THEM ONLY YESTERDAY.AND WOW!!!!!THE PHOTOS ITSELF SPEAK A THOUSAND WORD.IT MAKES ME SO HOMESICK THINKING OF THE HAWKER FOOD /KWAY TEOW GORENG/CHICKEN RICE/MAMAK MEE GORENG OR ROTI PRATA/OR THE EARLY MORNING MALAY KUEH (i can keep going and going).THIS IS ONE OF MY BESTEST COOKBOOK FOR SINGAPOREAN FOOD.REAL SHIOK-LAH!!!!!!!!!.SINGAPOREAN WHO LIVES OVERSEAS LIKE I DO,NEED TO GET THIS COOKBOOK N TRY MAKE IT AT HOME WHEREVER U ARE.ITS THE CLOSEST U CAN GET TO BE TASTING YOUR OWN HOME SINGAPOREAN COOKING.

Sadly,the binding is poor and doubt it will last the distance if one were to use it often, minor corrections on the proof reading is also required. I still have Terry Tan's first publication of the Her World cookbook of Singapore recipes and sincerely believe this is still the best publication produced, certainly worth every dime.

As for the "Shiok" cook book,nice glossy pictures but deserve a rating of 3 star.

This is a visually beautiful cookbook worthy of coffee table status thanks to the photography.

However, the recipes and narrative are another story. The sentences are awkward and grammatically incorrect (for a big budget cookbook, this is unforgivable), and the recipes themselves are suspect (for example, soy sauce in fried rice is a common but amateurish mistake that the authors perpetuate in this book).

Buy this book to see how the dishes should turn out, but look for the recipes somewhere else.