Restraint is...

...something I have yet to learn. Especially when it comes to food, and especially when I'm back home where more often than not, people spoil you silly by feeding you. My day began with two cups of kopi-O and half a packet of nasi lemak. Right, you might say, it's half a packet, no biggie, but when it's half a packet of rice cooked in rich coconut milk, accompanied by fried egg, fried fish, ikan bilis (dried anchovies) & peanuts, and an otak which is a spicy coconut-based fish paste, all before 10am, you'll understand how indulgent it was... (and how delicious...)

Lunch was at Crystal Jade with my mum and Sam. I clearly have lost the ability to order proportionately when it comes to being back home in Singapore. Between the three of us, we had a bowl of smooth rice porridge, a plate of roast duck noodles, a portion of stewed trotters in black vinegar (I know this sounds almost nauseating, but honestly, there are few things which marry sweet, sour, and savory to such an ambrosiacal level...), and tim-sum which consisted of panfried carrot cake, shrimp dumplings, steamed pork ribs, steamed chicken feet, and baked pork buns. (I can just imagine Melanie squirming already.... Jonas, help.) Oh, and there was a plate of soy-sauce chicken too. Told you I no longer have control over my sense of perspective...

I think my greatest weakness are the desserts, and to make things worst, they're not even local desserts which I can excuse myself for having on the pretext that I don't get them in Ann Arbor. It's those tea-time treats and after-dinner indulgences that simply kill me. Was out with my cousins Jill & Terri and both my sisters and what do we do apart from voluntarily hurling ourselves at the constantly maruading crowds in Orchard Road? Have coffee and Bakerz Inn. We had a warm apple pie ala mode and an evil waist-busting, self control-crippling miscreant disguised as an innocent and oh-so-delectable warm oozing chocolate pudding with ice-cream. Pure evil I say, pure evil!! Oh the horror...

And dinner, don't even get me started... My lovely uncle and aunt brought us all out for Japanese steamboat (shabu shabu). After a trio of exquisitely crafted appetizers, we were presented with freshly sliced Wagyu beef to be cooked gently in a light broth (when I say freshly sliced, I mean it- the chef literally took out the frozen hunk of beef and sliced it wafer-thin right before us). It was the first time Jude & I have had Wagyu beef, and it was delicious. Immensely tender without being greasy at all. And the fresh veggies were a great accompaniment together with what we suspect to be hand-made noodles. But the piece de resistance was the rice porridge that the chef then made right before us using the intensely tasty leftover broth after we were done eating. With just that pot of broth, he transformed a bowl of rice, a beaten egg, some seasoning, a slice of cheese cut up, and some seaweed into what can only be described as the ultimate comfort food to satiate even the most demanding of palates. Nothing fancy here folks, just simple carbohydrates and proteins, but put together in a way that really warmed the deepest cockles of this girl's gut.

So you see, I was not exaggerating when I said I so need to work on fortifying my walls of self-control and restraint- I am not kidding. I need help. I'm contemplating clinical assistance... Like stapling my mouth perhaps.

By the way, we're having a buffet lunch tomorrow with Jude's parents.