Ma Maison stands up for stereotyped Asians

To compensate for the lack of foodie pictures on my last post, today’s post will be stacked with a whole bunch of food porn. I cannot wait to share with your the freaking delicious eats I had last night.

But first, a little introduction. Remember I said I was dining at a French-Japanese restaurant called Ma Maison yesterday? I was the one who suggested this venue to my youth group friends (Huijun, Shiya, Mei’er, and Huizhen) after hearing rave reviews about this place. I have never ever really had real French cuisine yet (French fries and croissants don’t count), so I was quite interested in how French-Japanese food would be like.

As soon as we reached the place, I was a bit surprised because the exterior just isn’t what you would expect out of a pretty high-class restaurant (in my standard’s anyway). We were greeted by this shady little wooden man:

How unglamorous! He looked like a French version of KFC’s Colonial. But I was reassured by the looooong line queued outside the restaurant. Singaporeans know their food, and you can never go wrong with a restaurant that attracts this many customers. We had to wait more than an hour to secure a seat!

But finally we were ushered in by an enthusiastic Japanese lady who exclaims “Hai, hai,” in a high, excited breath every minute.

Despite the dubious exterior, the interior decoration was warm, charming, and quaint. It was like walking into an old-fashioned English cottage house or something. Check out some of the oldie decor:

There were also shelves of old dusty books, little vintage ornaments, worn-out crockery, and dim ancient lamps and candles, all creating a very rustic, romantic yet comfortable atmosphere.

The menu was also really cool:

It came out bound in a thick, smooth leather.

But as I perused the menu, I began doubting the restaurant again. Paella? Isn’t that a Spanish dish? Stroganoff? Isn’t that Russian? Carbonara? Isn’t that Italian? So why is does this place have a French name again? But then I shrugged it off.  As long as there’s good food, who cares? Besides, them Europeans always seem to get us Asians mixed up anyways, so why can’t we do the same thing to them? I can just imagine the little Japanese giving a I-can’t-be-bothered shrug and exclaiming, “French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, they all look the same to us, so who cares?”

Anyway, back to topic. Of course we had to order the classic French dish, the escargot in garlic butter!

First, the server handed each of us a tiny plate with a tiny fork and pincher:

There were six escargots which arrived in a hot ceramic plate over a bed of flamed salt:

We each had a piece:

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the meat was so succulent and buttery and glided down my throat.

I guess I thought snails would kinda taste like mussels and clams (which I don’t really care for), but it had none of the fishy taste that I was dreading. Anyway, I was so happy I could finally declare I have officially tried and enjoyed SNAILS!

Next came all our entrees.

I ordered the specialty of the house, the hamburg steak:

It comes with a perfectly runny fried egg on top, and doused with their famous brown sauce, which they simmer for 28 days!

The sauce was worth every single day of labor. It was thick, rich, and dark, with a concentrated tangy taste that was so intense without being overwhelming. It was awesome mopped up with the hamburg steak, which was the perfect blend of lean and fatty meat. The meat was so moist that you didn’t need a knife at all, just a fork to slice each piece off like butter, put it into your mouth, and let it glide down your throat, tantalizing every taste bud…

The deep-fried potatoes that came with it, however, was lackluster. They were luke-warm and soggy! Blech.

Mei’er’s dish was similar to mine, except hers came with melted cheese on top instead of the egg:

Huijun’s dish was also a hamburg steak, but hers came in a sizzling hot plate. The sauce was also different from mine; hers was sweeter, and they burst into flames as the server poured the dark liquid all over the plate. Way cool!

Huizhen ordered another specialty of the house, the Beef Stroganoff with Omu-rice:

The beef came smothered with a very strong dark sauce. It was delicious, but I still preferred my tender hamburg steak.

The omu-rice, however, was excellent! I loved that the egg was just barely cooked, so still so rich and creamy over the small bed of rice! Yum!

Shiya ordered the fried salmon-steak:

Hm. It was good. Nice and fat and juicy, but nothing special.

Oh, check this out:

It’s the key they give you to act as a bill! Ain’t that nice!

After that we were full, but apparently with room enough for some dessert! We clambered out of Ma Maison and headed to yet another Japanese restaurant, MOF (stands for Ministry of Food).

MOF is a vibrant Japanese family-style “pub” (is that an oxymoron or what?) selling all sorts of Japanese drinks, food, and desserts, but it’s most known for its sweet stuff.

We ordered a different bunch of stuff to share. First, the Matcha Latte:

This was basically a drink made out of milk and green tea powder. The drink was very fragrant, creamy, and frothy, but the richness was too much for us. After several sips, we were done! It also came with a side dish of sweet chewy jellies, sort of like a Turkish delight:

Cute, eh?

We also got a Matcha Zen:

This came in a thick red bean paste, several sticky glutinous rice balls, and a scoop of green tea gelato. It was delicious, though the red bean paste was a bit too sweet for me. The gelato was freaking amazing, though, and I’m not much of an ice-cream lover!

Then there’s this cute bowl:

The Shiratama Kurian, which is composed of soft serve vanilla ice-cream, kanten jellies, fruits, Japanese rice dumplings, and a dollop of red bean paste.

Wait, there’s more! Three scoops of gelatos on a waffle bowl!

The flavors were cookies and cream, green tea, and hazelnut. Sorry for the shaky picture, I had to hurry as my friends were diving into it like frantic hyenas over the last scrap of meat! They were all really good, especially the hazelnut, as that flavor was a first for me.

Oh, and last but not least:

Coffee. Hey, after all that luxurious food, I needed something to perk me up from my food coma. It came with a lovely little nut-encrusted cookie, which I liked because it was barely sweet. Crunchy, brittle, nutty, just the way I like my sweets!

I thought dinner was a smashing success, not because of the yummy food and the terrific company, but the way I handled my ED. Actually, to tell you the truth, I barely even needed to handle him at all! ED was strangely quiet throughout the entire process.

After so many continuous and constant in-your-face challenges, I think ED’s been beaten down pretty bloody. I’ll say he’s in the ICU hooked up to all sort of IV drips and wires and tubes, scared shitless. Rot to hell, ED! He’ll definitely be trying to recover, but I won’t let him. I think right now, I’ve got the upper hand on him. I’m in control now, and ED has no place telling me what to do.

Instead, all I could think about was how freaking blessed and grateful I am to have the beautiful friends I have with me right now. We had the best time together, talking about all sorts of things. We managed to stay humorous and lively, and firmly pushed away all melancholy aside. Tears may come, but it can wait until I’m safely on the plane.

Anyway, I have another piece of rather exciting news to share with you: My pastor asked me to do a testimony in front of the whole church tomorrow! I was glad to be given the last opportunity to share my gratitude to these lovely, amazing brothers and sisters in church before I leave, but I’m also a bit worried. I’m not scared about the public speaking; I’ve had many experiences being on stage already. Rather, I’m worried I wouldn’t be able to say all the things I want to share! There are so much things to tell, and the perfectionist in me don’t want to miss a single detail!

I’ve done a bit of preparation for it, but hopefully tomorrow morning on stage I would have all the points I want to get across in mind and be able to relate them strongly and clearly. Wish me luck, everyone!

Question of the day: Do you get stage fright? Have you ever had to give a speech or perform in front of people? What was it, and how did you survive it? Did you enjoy it?

As I’ve said, I’ve been on the stage a lot of times. When I was young in Singapore, I was like the only Korean girl in school, and during special occasions when the school would organize performances, I always volunteered to do the traditional Korean dance on stage, complete with the several layers of brightly-colored traditional costume and hand-painted fans!