Din Tai Fung Taiwanese Restaurant at Bishan Junction 8, Singapore

Din Tai Fung (鼎泰丰) Taiwanese Restaurant (N1 21.039 E103 50.943) is located at Bishan Junction 8 Shopping Complex, Singapore. I love to taste their Xiaolongpao 小笼包 (Little Dumpling) since the first time I had it at Taipei 2004. Let me start with their History...

History
"The founder of DinTaiFung was Bingyi Yang, born 1927 in China’s Shanxi Province. In the summer of 1948, Bingyi Yang decided at the age of 21 to leave the KMT-CCP Civil War in China behind. He boarded the ferry “Hualien” and decided to seek his fortune in Taiwan with an uncle there. With the help of his uncle’s wife, Yang found his first job in Taiwan – as a deliveryman with “HengTaiFung”....“DinTaiFung” soon stopped selling oil entirely and became a full-fledged restaurant. This was also where the legend of how “DinTaiFung” became an international brand began." Source from Here.

We were invited by my brother in-law in one of the Sunday afternoon to take our lunch at Din Tai Fung Restaurant. I will definitely won't miss this chance because it's been more than 6 years that I never have a chance to taste the Delicious Xiaolongpao (little dumpling) again! :)

Nice and tidy Taiwanese style in the restaurant

Once we ready, my sister in-law did the order. I'm anxiously waiting for the dumplings to serve on the table...
The first dish that served on the table was the Famous Din Tai Fung Appetizer.

Appetizer

Follow by the Steamed Cold Chicken (Forgive me, I don't know what they called it in English). It was really as cold as just took out from the fridge! And...the chicken was gentle and succulent! 

Steamed Cold Chicken

One of the Din Tai Fung Signature Dish : Special Recipe Noodle.

And my Favorite!! Xiaolongpao 小笼包 (Little Dumpling) !!

Famous Xiao-long-pao 小笼包 from Din Tai Fung

Accolades
Din Tai Fung is known internationally for its xiaolongbao. Din Tai Fung was ranked as one of the world's top 10 restaurants in 1993 by The New York Times.

You gotta be careful when you bite on the dumplings, because the juices might just spill everywhere!! Haha!

We also ordered their Famous Fired Rice with Pork Chop. It was also one of the Best dish of that day! I never taste it before at Taipei, first time in Din Tai Fung of Singapore.

Signature Fried Rice with Pork Chop

Even I cannot really remember 100% of the taste of Din Tai Fung at Taipei, but I can assure that the dishes serve in this restaurant are as good as the Main shop in Taipei!
Delicious!

Rated : 4.5/5

We will definitely come back for more!!

Operation hour :-
Week day and Saturday : 11am - 10pm
Sunday : 10.30am - 10pm
Public Holiday : 10am - 10pm
Official website : http://www.dintaifung.com.tw/en/index.asp

Location map of Din Tai Fung, Singapore

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Antonin Kratochvil : Moscow Nights

Here's an audio slideshow of photographs by Antonin Kratochvil titled "Moscow Nights" that takes us to Moscow's decadent underworld, which is the latest feature on VII Magazine. The images themselves are vintage Kratochvil; some of which are tilted to impart uncomfortable tension (and also to be different). Although he's known for his black and white documentary photography, a few here are in color, and all show the dissolute circus-like atmosphere of this other dimension. The accompanying soundtrack is of a popular Russian music played on the accordion.

The blurb that accompanies Moscow Nights suggests that it's hard not to feel "the raw edge and danger" that exists in that underworld.

I may be mistaken, but I haven't felt that at all. All I felt was disdain tinged with pity for the characters who live such an empty existence, and watching the slideshow reminded me of the decadent characters and atmosphere in Cabaret, the 1972 movie with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey.

Moscow Nights is also a book soon to be available, and is described as "a voyeuristic tour through the decadence and hedonism of the new "Golden Youth" as they enjoy their spoils."

Books: The Complete Photographer

My work will appear in The Complete Photographer by Tom Ang, which is being published by Dorling Kindersley Limited. According to Amazon, the book will be released on July 19, 2010.

I"ll be featured as a Master of Travel Photography, with a profile and work resume.

The Complete Photographer encourages photographers to explore every discipline and experiment with different approaches, and is based around tutorials on ten different genres-Portraits, Landscape and Nature, Fashion, Wildlife, Sport, Documentary, Events, Travel, Architecture, and Fine Art.

WTF Department: Ridiculous Bling

Here's a piece of ridiculous bling which ought to be filed in The Travel Photographer's WTF Department's compost heap, along with the Leica Hermes.

Found in this week's The New York Time's T-Magazine is a Yves Saint-Laurent travel adapter, which will cost $450 whoever is silly enough to buy it.

Mind you, the blurb tells us that fashion has come to the rescue of the stylish travelers who have had to use the "less-than-beautiful electrical doohickeys", especially since these come in cute fuchsia, black and violet leather bags.

A suggestion for the "stylish travelers": why don't you buy this doohickey from Kensington for $29 instead, and give the difference to a worthwhile charity? It does exactly the same thing and even looks the same. I realize it'll be tough without a colored leather case, but try all the same.

I have this Kensington adapter which I use everywhere I travel. Along with a locally-bought power strip, it's priceless. And if I need a pouch for it, I'll find one at the nearest Army Surplus store...it ain't gonna be in fuchsia though.

My Work: Vedic Gurukul

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
During my Theyyams of Malabar Photo~Expedition™ in early 2009, I had arranged for a photo shoot at an ancient Vedic 'gurukul' (or training/boarding school very similar to the Buddhist monasteries for novitiates, or a Muslim madrasa) in Thrissur, where we were treated to a demonstration of this way of teaching the sacred Vedic scriptures.

The Vedas are the earliest literary record of the Indo-Aryan civilization, and the most sacred books of India. These are the original scriptures of Hindu teachings. The oral tradition of the Vedas consists of several rhythmic recitations and ways of chanting the Vedic mantras. The traditions of Vedic chant are often considered the oldest unbroken oral tradition in existence.

While photographing and watching the hypnotic chanting by the young boys, I was reminded of the similar recitation styles used by the Buddhist novices and the Muslim children at madrasas, who sway their torsos in time with the cadence of their chant. Moreover, many Jews also sway their bodies during prayer; a practice called shokeling in Yiddish.

Sulawesi Surprise!: A Romantic Tale

Our guide told a rather vague story of the erotic mountains but somehow it reminded me of the Chinese folktale of the cowherd and the weaver girl. While in the Sulawesi tale, a deva married a girl from the human race, in the Chinese tale, it was the other way round - it was a fairy from heaven who married a man from earth. In the former, the lovers were both turned to mountains that looked like human genitals and both were separated forever by a river but in the latter, the lovers stayed in the sky as stars only to be separated by the Milky way. They could however meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month when magpies fly to form a bridge so that the lovers could cross to meet each other. Now, if you are waiting to catch a glimpse of the Most Sacred Holy Penis of the Celebes Highland in this post, you'd be dissapointed. It is not that the mountain is not there in the highlands. It was raining when we were traveling to Tana Toraja and just when we were passing the said mountain, there was a mist that covered it. The same thing happened when we were on our journey back to Makassar and now, I am wondering if the mountain is one long structure that juts into the sky or is it like the Penis rock in Koh Samui, Thailand (inset). It would be interesting to note that there is a Grandfather and a Grandmother rock there that look like a penis and a vagina in Koh Samui. God really knows how to make this world tick, don't you think?

Traveling Tip: Listen to local stories.

The Travel Photographer's Statistics

For some reason, my earlier post on this got deleted...

So here it is again:

I thought a little trumpet blowing would be appropriate this Sunday morning...so here goes.

The Travel Photographer blog is ranked 1st when searching using Google for "The Travel Photographer" (it's sort of obvious, but it's still cool)...

Using Google, it ranks 2nd when searching for "Travel Photographer" which is really phenomenal.

And it ranks 4th when searching for "Travel Photography" which is really really phenomenal.

I also found out that the blog has over 1300 feed subscribers!