Home Studio for Food Photography

Folks, from my previous post, you all knew that I was searching for the "secret ingredient" for my home studio. I found it and these are my outputs from my studio.

Getting Hooked!

Hooked!, Singapore

11 September 2010

What happened nine years ago on the exact day? Everyone would think of the World Trade Center in US. On the same day itself, a young lad was working hard for his future. He dreamt to go to a local university to further his study. He worked hard everyday and saved up every month for his tuition fee. A year later, his dream came true. He managed to study in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), one of the universities in Singapore. His Chinese friends told him that Singapore universities only accepted the best regardless they were from rich or poor families. He was proud to be a graduate of NTU. Four years later after he graduated from NTU, He returned to NTU to further his study again. The day before this post was written, the news reported NTU ranking had dropped from 73^rd to 174^th. No matter what ranking NTU deserved, talents born from the university all this time. One of them is the young lad. He finally found his niche area in photography and it was food photography. By combining his passion in dining and photography, he transformed his passion to Sound of Colours and Allez Cuisine. Allez Cuisine has never been a popular blog. His intention is not making Allez Cuisine a popular blog. His intention is to share his dining experience and some culinary knowledge to all his friends and fans. The young lad is me.

Mrs break-her-promise’s appearance in Singapore somehow disrupted my plans. I was planning to bring a good friend to Chez Papa, a French restaurant, in the weekend. The plan was cancelled because me the young, fine gentleman wanted to spend good quality time with her. This restaurant was located in JB and near to my home. Chez Papa was awarded the best western restaurant in Malaysia a few years back. A certain food gourmet in JB and my father told me about this restaurant. The restaurant does justice to French cuisine, so I must tasted the artistic creation from the restaurant one day.

On the day itself, I woke up at the noon and I discovered that Mrs break-her-promise, my naughty niece and lovely young sister disappeared in my apartment. They left me a note saying: “ Dear Mr Hippo, We are going to visit our relatives. I see you sleeping so soundly and I decided not to wake you up. I guess you have your brunch with some lovely Japanese twin sisters in dreamland and that is why you slept so well. So I decided not to cook brunch for you or you will get fat. Bye and see you in dinner!” I was so disappointed that I could not taste her creation after I woke up. How could I disappointed in her, she did not disturb my beauty sleep at least. Love her! At the same time I receive calls from my good friends, HC and XH, asked me out for lunch. HC thought that there was a certain restaurant did justice in seafood and asked me to verify with him and XH together. As a food lover, how could I missed the opportunity to enjoy yummy food with my good friends. I decided to meet them up and we went to Hooked!

Hooked! is located at the Rail Mall. The setting of the restaurant is simple.  It is definitely not a choice for fine dining. But it is a restaurant that does justice to seafood using western culinary technique in my humble opinion.

We ordered three dishes. The first one was Tuna Salmon “Tapas”, salmon rolls in basilayo on wafer crackers. The second dish was Pacific Bonanza, a platter of grilled succulent Garoupa surrounded by grilled scallops, crayfish, baked squid rings, grilled prawns and baked oysters. The last dish was the Scallop with Liver Sausage on taro.

Tuna Salmon “Tapas” was tasty. It was melt-in-mouth tender. In my humble opinion, the tuna and the mayonnaise harmonized to each other and the flavour of both ingredients were slightly overpowering the flavour of the salmon. I still could taste the salmon but I had to play a hide-and-seek game with it. This dish was quite exciting in fact.

Pacific Bonanza consisted of grilled succulent Garoupa with Italian tomato sauce, grilled scallops, grilled crayfish, baked squid rings, grilled prawns with bean paste and baked cheese oysters. The taste was good. All the flavour was straightforward. The only thing I did not like is the prawns were not that fresh as compared with other ingredients. They were frozen prawns. My definition of fresh is capture the ingredient before less than three days and it must be alive just before the dish is going to be prepared.

Scallop with Liver Sausage on taro (yam) was good too; it was better than Tuna Salmon “Tapas” in fact. The scallop was fresh and full with marine sweetness. The liver sausage was a bit of salty. Liver has a unique flavour that is not enjoyed by everyone. It is smoked with bacon to mask off the flavour of the liver. This is how the saltiness of liver sausage came from. The bowled-shape taro, which held the scallop and liver sausage together, added a bit of sweetness to the dish to balance the saltiness of the liver sausage and this brought out the sweetness of the scallop. The three ingredients harmonized together.

Folks, get ready to be hooked by this restaurant. Tasty seafood with affordable price!

Address: 390 Upper Bukit Timah Road, The Rail Mall

Opening Hours: Daily: 12noon – 10pm

Flavours of the Ocean

AFC, Singapore

5 September 2010

“Oysters may or may not cause people to fall in love with each other, but there are a good many folks who have fallen in love with oysters themselves.” – Kate Heyhoe, Editor, The Global Gourmet.

Once again I participated AFC Studio course. It was oyster-appreciating session this time. In this session I learnt to differentiate oysters, prepare sauces that did justice to them and the ways to enjoy the oysters. Chef Lino Sauro, the executive chef of Gattopardo, conducted the course. He specializes in Sicilian cuisine for more than 10 years and he is one of the best chefs in Singapore in authentic Sicilian cuisine.

Chef Sauro introduced four types of oyster to the young, fine, charming and extremely smart Mr Glutton, and that is me. There were La Gillardeau, Belon, Irish and Fine de Calries. He suggested the best way to enjoy oysters is to eat them raw. I had to taste them once the shells were opened, otherwise the oyster meats would shrink in size and the oyster flavour would reduced. Chef Sauro would rinse the oysters in the ice water after he opened the shells. This was to remove the shell particles from the meats. He tried not to do this because the ice water would reduce the flavour of the oysters.

La Gillardeau is sweet but salty, that curious junction of sweetness and marine flavours. It is also meaty and juicy too.

Belon is small and flat. The taste is salty, so the best way to eat Belon is use lemon juice to reduce salinity This also adds in sour flavour to the oyster.

Fine de Claries is slightly bigger than Belon and is less meaty. The best way to enjoy it is to add in sauce which consisted of apple, rum, lemon, ice and the juice of the oyster blended together. The juice of the oysters is collected when Chef Sauro opened the oyster. He mixed the juice together with the other ingredients to reduce the flavour of the blended sauce from overpowering the flavour of the oysters. Simply speaking, he ”returned” the oyster flavour to the sauce.

Irish is small but meaty with crisp texture. It supposed to be one of the best varieties of oysters.

I think oysters are generally quite salty if you eat them raw without adding sauces. My personal preference is to add in sauce consist of green, red, yellow bell peppers dices with olive oil, lemon and oyster juice. This will definitely make the taste of the oyster more exciting. I prefer La Gillardeau because it is meaty and sweet in taste. I fall in love with La Gillardeau.

One day I will go to Gattopardo and enjoy Chef Sauro’s artistic creation. I guess this will happen right after I complete my master course and celebrate Christmas at the same time.

Prego, Singapore

4 September 2010

I had a wish, and it was to setup a studio for food photography. My wish was 90% fulfill. This was because I bought my strobe light that day. I have my light tent, strobe light and props for Japanese cuisine.  Now I left the last secret “ingredient”, and it is Japanese cuisine. I will buy some sushi one day and try to do some experiment with my strobe light to get the best effect on my image. Folks stay tune to my Flickr album, Sound of Colours.

My Flickr album was called Hikaru Photography previously. Every artist has a pen name. Hikaru is my pen name. The feminine term for Hikaru is Hikari. Hikari is a Japanese term and it is light in English. I called myself Hikaru because I hope to give light of hope to people surround me. I am not too sure I can give hope to others. But what I can do to them is to make them happy chaps and ladies when they see their works.

A blind girl plucks out her courage to explore this world by taking the subway without any destination in mind. She fantasized this world from what she heard. This is originated from Jimmy’s Subway – Sound of Colours. A lady likes my works and she takes the same subway as I do every morning. We never have a chance to meet because the subway is crowded. One day the subway is less crowded and we sit beside each other. She is enjoying my works through her Iphone. I notice her and I tell her I am the photographer and I introduce myself her. She introduces herself to me. We have a conversation and we discover that we are actually neighbours all along. Before we depart, we exchange mobile phone number and a new friendship begins. This is my own version of Sound of Colours. Hope this will happen one day and the lady will become Mrs. Chin. So my Flickr album currently is called Sound of Colours.

After I purchased my strobe, I bypassed Prego, an Italian restaurant in the Raffles City. If my memory served me right, Prego was one of the restaurant listed in Singapore’s Best Restaurants 2010. The guide gave 8 of 10 to its setting, food, wine and service. Prego was introduced to me by a certain Scottish food gourmet and photographer from Scotland. The pizza from Prego earned his respect. My wobbly legs stopped at the main entrance of the restaurant because I was too hungry to return home. At the same time I wanted to see myself whether this Italian restaurant did justice to Italian cuisine. So I decided to drag myself to Prego and dine in there.

I brought bulky equipment with me for dinner. I thought that the restaurant manager would chase me out for two reasons. First my attires were too casual for such as high-class restaurant. Second my strobe light and tripod are so bulky, and I probably gave others the impression that I was from the wet market, selling fishes, meats and vegetables. I was wrong. The restaurant manager offered his help to carry my purchase into the restaurant. Great Service. I entered the restaurant and I saw warm wood interior and the jovial furnishes. This would definitely provide a casual Italian dining experience for me. There was also a large selection of wines. I was so impressed. The young and well-manner restaurant manager leaded me to my table with a menu in his hand. I looked through menu and I decided to order a dinner set instead of pizza.  This was because I wanted to try the Italian cuisine, other than pizza. Later on a waiter was walking towards me with a newspaper and asked me whether I would like to read them while I waited for my dish. I smiled at him and I told him: “I have this” while I pointed my finger to my Iphone.

My appetizer came finally. It was Home Smoked Tuna Carpaciota served with kalamata olive, organic mint, cherry tomatoes and apples salad in raspberry vinaigrettes. I was not a favourite for cold food but this dish was definitely appetizing and refreshing. The taste of the olive was slightly overpowering. I guessed Italians love this dish that way. Someone joked with me about Italy flag which the three colours of the flags represented three main ingredients which Italian could not live without. Red represented tomatoes, white represented garlic and green represented olive. I guessed he maybe right. Maybe.

The second dish was pumpkin soup. The soup was creamy, tasty, and full of pumpkin flavour. It was a must for pumpkin lovers to taste. I was not a fan of pumpkins but I really enjoyed the soup very much.

The main dish was Pan Seared Farmed Gold Snapper with Organic Pumpkin Mousseline served with green asparagus and smoked tomato salsa. The snapper was fresh. I could taste the natural sweetness of the snapper. I glad that the chef did not manipulated the taste of the snapper. The snapper was awesome. I enjoyed eating the snapper with asparagus, pumpkin mousseline and tomato salsa. They were prefect combination, I admitted. Flavours were introduced by eating the snapper with the side dish and this added more excitement to the dish. I must also admitted the snapper was just slightly overcooked. And I thought I might know the answer. Folks, the chef wanted to remove the fishy smell of the snapper by flaming it. Thus some parts of the snapper would be cooked. Then the chef pan seared the snapper. Thus more degree of cooking process was introduced. Most parts of the snapper was cooked  perfectly but there was also minorities that were overcooked because of the flaming process. For my personal preference, I wished a tiny bit of salt could be added to enhance the sweetness and flavour of the snapper. Nevertheless the snapper was awesome!

The dessert was "Zuccotto" Vanilla Rice Pudding with ruby peach ice cream. The chefs of Prego made the ice cream. It was fresh. None of the item was too sweet. The vanilla rice pudding was delicious. I guessed it was the prefect way to end the meal.

After my dinner, I hate to say but I still have to carry my equipment back home. I was too filled up to walk!

Address: 80 Bras Basah Road 1F Fairmont Singapore

Operating Hours
Breakfast: Daily - 6:00 am - 11:00 am
Deli: Daily - 6:00 am to 10:30 pm
Lunch: Mon - Sat - 11:30 am to 2:30 pm
Pizzeria: Mon - Sat - 11:30 am to 12:30 am
Dinner: Daily - 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm

Brunch Buffet*
Every Sunday and selected public holidays - 12:00 noon to 2:30 pm

*Standard à la carte menu is also available after 2:00 pm.

Sound of Colours

A lady likes my works and she takes the same subway as I do every morning. We never have a chance to meet because the subway is crowded. One day the subway is less crowded and we sit beside each other. She is enjoying my works through her Iphone. I notice her and I tell her I am the photographer and I introduce myself her. She introduces herself to me. We have a conversation and we discover that we are actually neighbours all along. Before we depart, we exchange mobile phone number and a new friendship begins from that very moment.

Sound of Colours: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinjinnliong/