Chipster Potato Chips

If you've known me long enough, you obviously know that I love potato chips and that my favourite potato chips are Jack N Jill Salsa Chilli flavour, which I can eat bags of, in lieu of lunch/dinner/meal whatever. In fact, one of the few lingering memories of secondary school for me was of buying a big bag of that and loudly declaring to my friend that lunch was stupid, who needs lunch when you have potato chips? They are the only potato chips that have both enough salt and spiciness for me. Jack N Jill Salsa Chilli potato chips is truly an exquisite blend of artificial flavourings, sodium and MSG. Beautiful.

When that brand is not available though, I go for Calbee Hot & Spicy potato chips, which are artificially coloured a fetching shade of crimson. Although the spiciness of Calbee surpasses Jack N Jill, there was always something missing from the flavour. It felt like it was lacking something that made junk-food fun. That twang on the tongue caused by, probably, too much sodium. As such, although I enjoyed it, it was always treated as second-class. An inferior substitute.

I have flirted with various others, having short but intense love-affairs with Lay's KC Sauce Barbecue-flavoured chips and Kettle's Honey Djion (which was, admittedly, a subset of my passion for all things Honey Mustard), but these pale in comparison to what I have just discovered. My new-found love is no schoolgirl crush.

I am referring, of course, to the new line of potato chips launched by Twisties (love their curry and tomato flavours BTW) called (inanely) Chipster. In particular, their Hot & Spicy flavour which manages to capture all my favourite notes of the Jack N Jill and Calbee versions (and add a twist of Lay's and Kettle's sweetness) and remake it into something excitingly new but wonderfully familiar. It is actually spicier than the fever-inducing Calbees but balances it with a little tomato that really goes a long way. It's so wonderful that even though a not-so-large bag costs the way-too-much price of 1.95 at 7/11, it doesn't seem a wasted purchase to me at all and will probably become the new fixture at my bedside, the essential supper-snack.

Chipster potato chips. A masterpiece of Junk Food engineering.

Unhealth VS Health! Food fight!

When I was still in Junior College, I used to have this habit of eating the same food for lunch day in and day out for a month. I think it was because the school was somewhere in, like, nowhereland, where good food was hard to find. I used to eat Nasi Lemak EVERY SINGLE DAY until one strange and fucked-up day when the Nasi Lemak woman gave me THREE ANCHOVIES with my Nasi Lemak. THREE. I counted them in front of my friend. THREE FUCKING ANCHOVIES, can you believe it?? I mean, one is supposed to get... at least... ten? At least more than it would trouble you to count anyway. I was quite offended, really. Maybe they had some kind of anchovy shortage in the stall but still, aren't I a regular? A valued customer? Apparently not.

Anyway, it was because of this that I started eating... THIS.




Uh oh. What is that? This, my friends, is the space oddity known to man as a MODANYAKI OMELETTE. It consists of chemical yellow noodles fried and wrapped inside an omelette which is then drenched with mayonnaise, Okonomiyaki sauce and fish flakes. You know, the stuff you find on Takoyaki balls. It is sold in a shop in Jurong Entertainment Center known as KOBAYASHI which specializes in terribly cheap, badly done Japanese food. And it's terribly cheap too. Four dollars will get you this plus a drink. Anyhow, it's one of the most TERRIBLY UNHEALTHY things I've ever tasted in my short life. Halfway through you start to feel... oh maybe this isn't for me... but you keep eating! You just keep eating! And you buy it again! Why?? Why?? I ate these for a week straight before I fell sick. I actually fell sick eating this. But I went back and bought it AGAIN!




WHY?? My gut instinct tells me it's because... THE PLACE IS CALLED KOBAYASHI.

Since everyone should watch Star Trek, everyone should already know about the KOBAYASHI MARU. The no-win scenario test which was made popular in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. A NO-WIN SCENARIO TEST describes this dish perfectly. Eating it makes you sick. It's not so much that it can make you full. There are other cheaper things around. BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO EAT IT because somewhere... there exists the possibility that maybe... just maybe... your stomach can best this beast.

Speaking of besting beasts... is it JUST A COINCIDENCE that the Japanese competitive eating champion's name is TAKERU KOBAYASHI?? I think NOT! Imbued with his spirit (watch him try to best a beast HERE... i'm not kidding, his opponent is a giant bear) Kobayashi draws people into itself and they all become possessed with... um... eating. Yes! EEEeevil! But good for the first five minutes. So go! Go and eat this! If only for the experience of being possessed. And it's only four dollars! So the money you save, you can use for detoxing with....





ULTIMATE HEALTH COMBATOR OF FREEDOM! HAKKA THUNDER TEA RICE!!

Feeling fucked up after eating the Modanyaki Omelette?? Then you need this! And right away! This paragon of health consists of a bowl of healthy brown rice topped by healthy vegetables, tofu and nuts (amazing isn't it) and to eat it, you pour this thick green tea all over it and mix up until it becomes like so.




And then you eat it! And feel the healthy flowing back into your toes! For about five minutes.... and then you start thinking... why am I eating rabbit food? This is a traditional Hakka dish that can be found in Suntec City's Food Empire. It's not that cheap... maybe 5 dollars? I can't really remember. Only one dollar more BUT it doesn't come with a drink. NO THE TEA IS NOT A DRINK.

It's pretty interesting because the bland natural flavours of this dish is in complete contrast to the fucked up artificial flavours of the Modanyaki Omelette. It's better to eat daily, by far, but you'll probably get sick of it sooner. Though you'll be healthier for it. Eating this dish is like walking down a nice, bright, cold lane in China. Lovely but boring. The Modanyaki, however, is like listening to Para Para music. Fun but sickening.


Anyway, what is the moral of this story?? Hmm... Unhealth VS Health, do we have a winner? I seriously cannot decide this on my own. Why don't you go and eat both and tell me?

HG steak

Excuse the bad photograph but I was too busy eating... Anyway, as they say over in Make Up Alley, I've found my HG (Holy Grail to all you make up philistines)! Only in this case, it's a steak. Yes! 200grams of good Ribeye, rare as FUCK and only FOURTEEN DOLLARS! GASP!

Actually, I had two steaks that day, in accordance with my good-cheap-steak search. The first was a crappy 120g minute steak at Delifrance (ten dollars). It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! It was honestly well cooked... like, seared. But, the quality of the meat really let me down. It was terrible. 120g is just enough meat for me though, but anyway.

My friend Eugene brought me to Botak Jones a couple of days back and I was so impressed by the Cajun Chicken (photo below) that I resolved to come back and try their steak. The Cajun Chicken was beautifully juicy and, incredibly, only seven dollars. Insanity!?



Also, the beer that you see in the photo is only fourteen dollars. Again, INSANITY!?

Ok, so where do you find this land of wonders? It's actually in nowhere-land, BRADDELL, situated right beside the Singapore Press Holdings building. Do not be deceived by the industrial-looking hawker center building! It may look dirty and yucky from the outside but inside, it is actually wonderfully clean and well ventilated.

As a smoker, however, I sat outside in the little smoking area which is much nicer than the hawker center inside. It's surrounded by lots and lots of plants and is just big enough to pretend you're in some kind of jungle. Or maybe not. Anyway, it's also full of mosquitoes but that's alright. And why??



BECAUSE OMG LOOK AT HOW MUCH MARGARITA THERE IS! And its GOOD, TASTY Margarita with proper tequila, almost as tasty as Cafe Iguana's (the salt they use is MUCH tastier than Cafe Iguana's for some weird reason) and its only.... *drumroll*... EIGHT DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS! GASP!

I am having spasms from the unbelievable prices, seriously. A jug costs only twenty, all day/night long. Which is better than waiting for the midnight 50% thing to kick in at Cafe Iguana...

So... what are you waiting for? Patronize this place!! I really think it's a true act of philanthropy to provide such great food for such amazingly low prices. Botak Jones, whoever he is, should be King Of Food.