after spending the night mostly awake and upright in my airplane seat, i stood in the red lane for about an hour as the one xray machine available was put to work (slowly) keeping australia’s borders safe. as it turned out, my booty of dried mushrooms, dried scallops — oh how i have missed you! –, chocolate, tea, biscuits and antihistamines was waved cheerily through.
ah… tea. a good cup of tea is hard to find, in singapore. no, wait. a great cup of tea can be found if you want a local teh c: a puddle of condensed milk in a thick china cup, topped with hot tea and swirled into a sweet caramely beverage. or a marsala chai pungent with spices, at the dosai place. but if you want a nice cup of normal tea, say for breakfast, you will pay $5 for a twinings english breakfast teabag swimming in a pot of hot water. the amount of water will be too much for a single measly tea bag, and you will spend all of breakfast time wondering why the hell tasteless brown water costs so much, eh? rivercafe? “modern australian style” indeed.
when i got home, i brewed a cup of toby’s estate’s strong and delicious australian breakfast tea, tempered with a good slosh of full-fat milk. it was perfect with the valrhona chocolate biscotti that i found (and which was bought for me, thanks frenchie!) at da paolo gastronomia, the deli arm of my new favourite place to eat (western food) in singapore: da paolo pizza bar.
the biscotti give a solid crunch of unexpected buttery saltiness. the plain version is served with your chocolate gelato in the restaurant. the chocolate chip (i use the word “chip” loosely; they are really just large chunks carved off the block, i’m sure) version is all sweet-salty mind-boggly good.
9 Comments
eeeyur, bloody frenchie, where is *my* biscotti? ch.
hallaaaa my cc!! sorry no sleep on the plane! did you watch movies??
hello! and welcome back…
i must congratulate you on your fine blogging skills while on holiday! did you also have an ice cream sammich?
nellicent. for someone who can just walk down the street and a bit, and have any number of hand-rolled apple cider truffles and the like, you sure can complaing. in other news, i watched the first hour of “casino royale” without the sound. does that count?
deborah: hello! the ice cream sammich, one of the first things on my list of things to do, um, eat, ended up not happening. nor the two local ice cream cafes whose addresses and opening times i bothered to google before i left. ch. i am very disappointed in myself.
Wonderful news! You’re back! Now we must catch up as you suggested. That chocolate chunk (hunk?) treat sounds AWESOME! Where will I find one in Sydney? And I haven’t forgotten that intriguing notion of chocolate soy…
oh no need to be dissapointed. i think you have done well.
you know i still have some of that swirly bread from bread top in the freezer from months ago … reckon it’ll be ok?
wanna fly nice ? fly klm.
and happy for that biscotti thing, i forgot about it. everything vanished as soon as i sat *very not comfortably* on that shitplane
and the whinning sister had ratatouille and beef stew in the first week, she shan’t complain
heh welcome back! seriously you cldnt find the icecream sandwich guy on orchard rd in singapore? there was like 5 of them when we went!
simonarama: well. the last biscotto is by my bedside, ready to fuel my next (when o when) impromptu recreational reading session… so alas (for you!) it is MINE ALL MINE. BWAHAHA.
deb: you are kind. and here is my advice (or confession). because i forgot to buy bread last night, this morning i unearthed half a loaf of caraway sourdough that had been in deepfreeze for who knows how long. a year? more? toasted up and slathered with butter and vegemite and cherry jam (separately; i am still not up to your crazy sweet savoury combo
), it was all fine. you probably won’t be toasting the swirly bread though, hey? maybe if you put enough ice cream in between slices, you won’t notice the frostbite. 
oleev: i think they should definitely put you one the KLM passenger feedback panel. did the beef stew have a nice skin on top from sitting around in the hold for three weeks?
suze: oh, i did see all the ice cream uncles; there is now even one outside the train station near my home. it’s just, i never had the chance to stop and buy anything. on the other hand, i went to ben and jerry’s twice, at the zoo no less, for their delicious delicious cherry garcia. mmm.
the lack of normal breakfast tea in seoul really upset me!! i feel your pain. they had ‘fist’ tea but no earl grey and certainly not english breakfast unless you wanted to pay $16 for a box or $5 a cup at starbucks!
welcome back!