Shashlik

Shashlik is a wonderful place with really good food and a great dose of "olde Singapore nostalgia". Run by Hainanese, the restaurant is tucked away on the 6th floor of Far East Shopping Centre, outside Borders, and is a veritable institution amongst many generations of food-loving Singaporeans. It is superbly crowded on weekends so make your reservations early. They are known for their "shashliks" which are basically meat fillets served on hotplate with accompaniment of salad vegetables, as well as other western dishes. My beef shashlik was close to perfect - tender, juicy and so tasty.

Our dining experience there was also pretty hilarious since our friend Peter is British and he found a strange familiarity with the food... and asked where did the Hainanese learn their Russian cooking from....the answer was the British!

I was inspired enough to dream up this cheaterbugs' version of Shashlik's well-known Baked Alaska dessert, which I intend to try out some day:
- Buy an Arctic Roll (cake-wrapped ice cream)
- Make some meringue by whisking egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks are formed
- Pipe the meringue to fully cover the sides and top of the Arctic Roll
- In a separate bowl, pour out some brandy and set fire to it. Doesn't work with wine as the alcohol content is too low.
- Pour your "bowl of fire" onto the Meringue-covered Arctic Roll. It should burn for a while more and impress your guests greatly.
- Eat after the fire has gone out and the meringue is nicely caramelised.

N.B. (1): Strangely, I've always thought that Baked Alaska was called Alaska Bomb (!).
N.B. (2): Sorry, no photos available as Shashlik is so dark that pictures will come out extremely grainy.