Dear Delifrance,

Last week, your Egg D’vine sandwich declared war on me. The sandwich suffered severe casualties with its innards splattered everywhere - the table, the wall and even on my face. This war could have been easily avoided, if only you had a better understanding of knife politics.

I ordered a baguette with egg mayo topping; and I was served with the usual utensils - a soup spoon, a fork and a table knife. I hope you already see the problem in my first sentence. I said, baguette and then a table knife.

That’s right. A table knife. Table knives aren’t meant to cut breads like baguettes. That’s the reason why the bread knife was invented in the first place.

I know eating sandwiches with tableware is your idea of having your customers look more posh and well-mannered - as opposed to the casual American burger dining etiquette. However, proper utensils should be used, lest your customer would end up looking like a 5 year old with the table manners of a canine.

Despite my hardships in battle, I have emerged the victor and have successfully annihilated my opponent. As such, I now have the right to demand for reparation and restoration costs. Until they are honored, I am officially calling a truce with you.

• Change Your Knives - I have no qualms with eating sandwiches the posh way. I just prefer to have my food subjugate to me without waging war - as most humans would expect today.
• Offer an Egg D’vine Croissant - All this wouldn’t have occurred, if your bistro had croissants available in the first place, as it was my original order. So I demand a free croissant for my hardship.
• Change Your Pronunciation - Also, croissant is pronounced as “kru-wah-sont” not “croy-zend”. You should teach your staff to pronounce some basic French words, lest they sound unlearned, which I am sure, is not what a French bistro is trying to achieve.

I sincerely await your response.

Yours truly,
Ivy “I just wanted to have a good dinner with Delifrance’s awesome egg mayo sandwich, must it be that difficult?” T.

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Readers, have you ever had food wage war on you?

NB: Although this entry is expressed with satire, the experience is very real. Please do not overlook that, Delifrance.

In an effort to get to know Singapore’s blogosphere, I went to a ping.sg (singaporean blogger community) dinner at a ritzy izakaya-style Japanese restaurant called En (えん). Met some pretty cool people like Brainy Bimbo, Claudia, Leonard and HisFoodBlog; and had some pretty fresh sashimi! For those unfamiliar with Japanese food, go eat some now! sashimi (刺身) is specially prepared raw seafood - and less commonly raw red meat. The seafood sashimi is traditionally eaten with wasabi, a bacteria-killing agent. Meat sashimi is usually marinated.

On a side note, it’s a shame I didn’t bring my camera since my clutch was too small. I had to rely on my 5MP LG phone instead. Sorry if it doesn’t look as appetizing as it was.

Beef Sashimi

This is beef sashimi marinated in soy sauce. I’m not a fan of red meat (yes, I actually don’t like steak), but this was just exquisite. It tastes a lot like seafood sashimi, but has more bite to it.

Sake Sashimi Salad

The salmon was fresh, and complemented well with the salad. It was very unfortunate that it was simply too salty for my taste.

Sashimi Platter

Here we have salmon (鮭; sake), tuna (まぐろ; maguro), yellowtail (魬, hamachi), amongst others. My favorite is, was and always be salmon - probably because it was the very type of sashimi I tasted as a kid.

Yakitori 焼き鳥

This is yakitori. It literally means ‘grilled bird’. With the exception of the grilled shiitake mushroom, everything was made from chicken. What I found most interesting is the grilled chicken cartilage (軟骨; nankotsu). For those who fell asleep in middle school science, cartilage is the crunchy, white-ish soft bone of which your ear is comprised. I’ve always loved cartilage; I just never thought of grilling it.

Whilst in Canada, I met many people who have never tasted (never wanted to taste, perhaps?) sushi - let alone sashimi. I can understand the fear in eating raw foods. I was pretty hesitant when I first saw my dad eating some reddish raw fish. And it didn’t help that I hate fish. But after a lot of persuasion, I had my first bite.

And I haven’t stopped ever since.

Even though I still hate fish.

Have you had sashimi? Do you like it? Why or why not?