Yes, that’s him in the video. He is Paul Ong, aka Don Juan de Porko, aka Man of Steel Stomach and Palate.

Okay, start loading up this video before you read on because it will take a while.

I purposely wrote a long long post and included a lot of rubbish photos so you can be somewhat entertained while waiting for the video to finish loading.

Now.

Remember how my friends and I almost died eating level 10 spicy buffalo wings?

Paul wasn’t with us that night, so we missed the chance of getting upstaged by him.

Paul is our club’s resident daredevil.

Paul and Cindy

That night, Erwin had laid this challenge out to the table, “If any of you can finish a whole plate of level 30 (six wings), I’ll buy you dinner every time we go out for the rest of your life.”

Nobody took up the dare. None of us could even finish eating a single level 10 wing, let alone six level 30s.

We all agreed that Paul was the only one among us who would do it. Some in our group doubted that he could actually complete the task, but we were all convinced that he would die trying. Yes, he’s that kind of guy.

When we related this to him, he, who once ate an entire bowl of wet chilli padi, scoffed at us. “Huh! How spicy can it be? I’ll eat three plates for you!!”

Yes, such is his bravado.

So, we planned our second trip to Sunset Grill & Pub. We made sure Paul was free that night. We made sure we had still cameras and video cameras fully-charged and ready. We made sure Paul had bought life insurance.

We also arranged a birthday celebration.

The first time at Sunset Grill, we were supposed to celebrate Joey’s birthday but we didn’t manage to do the song-singing-cake-cutting routine because, remember, we were all dying from the level 10 wings.

Here’s an archived photo of Joey (and me):

Well, this time, we had another birthday to celebrate.

Minou’s!

Minou is 10 years old!

In fact, all of us in the group are 10 years old, if you go by the candleage on our birthday cakes.

I’m turning 10 on July 23 this year. Remember that!

By the way, I wonder if anyone else feels vaguely embarrassed about having a whole restaurant gawk at you while your friends make the admirable (but unsuccessful) attempt to sing the birthday song to you in key.

The cake is really good. It’s a strawberry cheesecake from Bakerzin. I hate the top strawberry layer because it tastes like cough syrup, but the cheesecake beneath it is sooooo amazing.

I gave all the strawberry gunk to the Goonfather because he loves cough syrup. (I swear. He’s ecstatic whenever he gets a cough and has to go to the doctor.)

But the cheesecake is so good~! Even this photo of the cake all messed up after slicing is giving me a monstrous craving.

I ate so much that night!!! I had:

• 2 level 2 buffalo wings
• 1 level 5 buffalo wing
• 1 level 30 buffalo wing tip
• 1 mini burger
• 2 slices of cheesecake
• 3 deep fried button mushrooms
• Half a lamp chop
• Test bites of rib-eye steak, lasagne and waldorf salad

I have no food photos because my photographer broke his right hand a few days before this dinner and I thought it would be wicked of me to make him work.

But I have one overexposed photo of the level 30 buffalo wings:

And a photo of the Goonfather smelling it.

It smells damn horrible lah. You don’t want to eat it unless you’re Paul Ong, or his evil twin brother.

In case you’re interested to know, the buffalo wings start tasting horrible from level 5 onwards.

Really. I’ve said this once and I will say it again. For normal eating, stick to level 3 and below. (I haven’t tried level 4 so I can’t tell for sure.)

For showing off to easily-impressed friends, level 5 will do.

For showing off to skeptical friends, the minimum is level 10.

For showing off to (and possibly meeting) your maker, level 30.

I was able to manage the level 5, so all you easily-impressed peeps, please be very impressed.

Otherwise, go watch the video above.

Kell could also polish off the level 5 with not much of a problem, but he turned red. ROFLMAO.

Okay, the truth is, Kell turns red at everything. Alcohol, seafood, pretty girls.

(That last one is not entirely truthful. I just thought it would be fun to make him get into trouble with his fiance, although he doesn’t really need help in that department because one of his favourite hobbies is to Find Die (literal translation from the Chinese 找死), which just means that he enjoys dicing with the devil.)

It’s fun to make fun of my friends. Perhaps I should do that more often!

My friends

Right now, though, I have to go back to talking about buffalo wings.

The last record held at Sunset Grill was three people to one plate (two wings each).

Paul freaking ate the whole damn plate all by himself, effectively breaking the record twice over.

I don’t know if there’ll be anyone crazy enough to try and beat his record.

It’s truly an expensive torture. Each level 30 plate costs $33 (or thereabouts). That means each wing costs about $5.50. That’s an insane price for chicken wings, even for the big, chunky variety served at Sunset Grill. (The price goes up by 50 cents for every level.)

This plate of chicken wings never thought it would become a celebrity

We had all thought that the wings would be on the house if we could match the three-to-a-plate record. But we learnt that that was either an expired offer or an urban myth.

Apart from bragging rights, the only things you’d get for your trouble are a stupid paper certificate and two days’ worth of diarrhea.

Maybe that’s why nobody has broken the record till now. All the same, I DOUBT ANYONE CAN EVEN COME CLOSE TO MATCHING PAUL’S RECORD.

If you want to prove me wrong, let me know. I’ll be down with my video camera.

I’m currently addicted to the buffalo wings (level 3). I’m going there again tonight!!! Whee!

You can find directions to the place in my previous post.

Now, go watch the video and turn your audio up so you can hear all the corny lame conversations among the guys through the night.

Categories: Food Files
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My friends and I did a really crazy thing last Saturday. We went to Sunset Grill & Pub and ordered the level 10 buffalo wings.

If you’ve never heard of the famous spicy buffalo wings at Sunset Grill, you really need to do some soul searching!!

Okay, I’m kidding. I’ve actually never heard of it myself until a few months back. But it’s apparently quite famous even though it’s situated in the most ulu part of Singapore.

If you’ve tried it yourself, then you understand the magnitude of our daredevilry that night!

Sunset Grill is famous for its buffalo wings. And it’s actually very tasty. Sour, tangy, spicy, very appetite-inducing. It comes in different levels of spiciness, going up to such high levels that you’d have to be crazy to try to beat the record (level 30).

According to our waitress, if you can finish a plate of level 30, they will put your photo on their wall of fame and pay for your wings. (You can recruit up to two other people to help you finish all six wings.)

We played safe at first and tried the level 1.

The level 1 is very yummy and just nice in spiciness.

Then we tried the level 3.

I decided that level 3 was as high as I ever wanted to go.

But the guys started daring each other.

“If you can finish a whole plate of level 10, I’ll pay for everyone’s dinner tonight.”

“If you can finish a whole plate of level 30, I’ll buy you Rock Band.”

“If YOU can finish a whole plate of level 30, I’ll buy you dinner every time we go out for the rest of your life.”

After two hours of wimping out, we finally decided to share a level 10 plate.

LOOK AT HOW RED AND COATED WITH CHILLI FLAKES IT IS!!

I swear to you, it’s 10 times worse than it looks.

Here’s a photo of it taken without flash.

Looks so deceptively friendly and delicious, doesn’t it??!!

Wang Wang was unanimously voted to be the first guinea pig.

I decided to take a picture with her first… for remembrance.

She takes a bite…

And…

It’s so horrible that she drops her cutlery!

Bwahahahaha!

I was up next. I volunteered, cos I’m crazy.

First, a photo for remembrance.

Cut a piece and sniff it cautiously.

Oooh… nasty.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!

The torturous spiciness kicks in slowly.

After the first bite, you will feel a warmth spread over you. You might start perspiring mildly.

After the second bite, you will feel your eyes start to sting as tears threaten to embarrass you.

After the third bite, every pore you own will start raining liquid.

You take a drink or ten to put out the fire on your burning tongue.

Then you take a rest.

AND THEN IT HITS YOU.

Your tongue feels like it’s being barbequed alive and ten thousand little men are pricking it with ten thousand little pins.

You keep drinking and drinking and drinking till you’re bursting but the pain keeps coming back. You feel like disowning your tongue! Chop it off!

After eating three bite-size pieces, it took me about 20 minutes to sufficiently recover and feel ready to take more bites.

And then I only ate the inside and tried to avoid the skin.

But even the inside was spicy!!

After a few more bites, I gave up altogether and left the chicken wing half uneaten.

NOBODY FINISHED THEIR WING. Hahahahaha!!

And then the guys started daring each other again.

“Finish your wing and I’ll pay for your dinner.”

“Finish your wing and I’ll buy you a PSP.”

Hahaha. Crazy buggers. Nobody took up any dares. It’s that bad.

They started asking each other stupid hypothetical questions.

“Would you rather finish your wing or drink a cup of smelly longkang (drain) water?”

“Would you rather finish your wing or eat a 10-day-old dead rotten fish?”

“Would you rather finish your wing or [censored]?”

Most of the time, the other alternative won.

I think the level 10 chicken wing isn’t for eating. The spice is so strong that all you can taste is the bitterness of the spice, which makes the wing not tasty anymore. It’s more for the novelty of trying something crazy and watching your friends suffer horribly. That’s kinda fun.

I don’t regret trying it, even if I did suffer horribly and the lvl 10 wings cost $3.80 each.

For normal people, I’d recommend level 1.

For people who love spicy food, I’d recommend level 3.

For people who like spicy but not too spicy, I’d say go for level 2.

If you’re suicidal, go for level 30.

Our waiter told us that level 4 onwards is horrible.

And now you’ll want to know how to get there.

The address:

Sunset Grill and Pub
140B Piccadilly, Seletar Airbase

You probably won’t be able to find it, so I found a nice map for you. Check out this page. Uncle Takumi reviews the place as well as provides directions and a map!

How nice of him!

Categories: Food Files
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The best time to write a food post is when you’re hungry.

Drool over your own photos, salivate at your words, die of hunger at your own hands.

Totally evil and masochistic.

So, today, I’m drooling over something which was already famous before I was born. (Really.)

It’s the Clementi Road Paper-Wrapped Chicken!

It doesn’t look very appetising in the picture but I assure you it tastes great. The bite-size chicken pieces are all tender and juicy as hell.

This delicacy can be found at a place called Union Farm Eating House, which serves a wide range of Chinese food. But everyone goes there mainly to eat the paper-wrapped chicken.

You’ll love the surroundings. It’s an old, rickety building sitting on a piece of kampong land boasting overgrown grass and granite pebbles that threaten to trip high-heeled ladies.

As you sit at your table waiting for your meal, you’ll be entertained by a neverending series of disturbing noises that sound like a cross between a baby crying and pigs in heat.

It is the sound of chickens getting slaughtered for your meal. Apparently.

That’s a bit sick but you’ll learn to tune out the sound and look forward to having a very, very fresh meal.

We also ordered this:

Super must-try sotong balls.

Very solid, very juicy, very tasty. But you must eat it while its hot before it loses its oomph.

I didn’t eat it right away, you see. While my friends were oohing and aahing and omg-ing about how the juice spurts out when you bite into each ball, I was busy photographing my food.

When I finally had time to take a bite, my response was, “So nice meh? Siao lah, you all. Normal only wat.”

And then they all started throwing peanuts and napkins at me.

“YOU MUST EAT IT WHILE IT’S HOT YOU DODO!!!”

Tsk tsk. Such violent friends have I.

Union Farm Eating House is at 435A Clementi Road. (It’s just beside the Singapore Institute of Management and very easy to find.)

Categories: Food Files
18 Comments »

I’m suffering from Monday blues (yes, even people without day jobs get Monday blues if they party too hard over the weekend) and I’m feeling hungry, so I’ve decided to talk about food today.

The Goonfather and I discovered a Korean eatery in Suntec City (at the Fountain of Wealth food area) which we normally would have passed by without a second thought, especially since the signboard proclaims it as a fake Korean cafe.

See, it says Ya Zhou Cafe, which translates to “Asia Cafe”. And then, on the side, you see “Korean Cuisine”.

I mean, like, if you’re about authentic Korean cuisine, then drop the word “Asia”. If you’re a fusion cafe, then drop the “Korean” or add a few more adjectives. The way it is now, it confuses people and reduces your appeal.

(I’m not an expert on branding or signboarding, so don’t take my word for it. It’s probably just my own pickiness.)

Anyway, we chose this place because we were between events yesterday and in a hurry, and the pictures actually attracted the Goonfaher’s attention. He loves Korean food and he’s not as picky as me over signboards.

Yes, the place has nice photographs but we are usually wary of nice photographs. All the food courts in Singapore have nice photographs but the food is almost always horrible. (For cheap food, hawker centres are the way to go.)

We really only stopped here because we wanted something cheap and quick and this looked like the most appealing cheap and quick in that immediate area.

I only ordered fried guo tie (pan fried dumplings) beacuse we were going to have a picnic right after this (ballet under the stars).

The moment my order arrived and I bit into it, I wish I had ordered more items.

That was arguably the best guo tie I’ve tasted. Very crispy on the outside, juicy and flavourful on the inside.

It comes with the usual vinegar with ginger complement but you can grab some wasabi mayonnaise (or normal mayonnaise) because it tastes great with that, too.

My favourite sauce, though, is the Korean chilli sauce, which is kinda sweet and tangy and not really spicy.

The chilli sauce came with the Goonfather’s noodles.

Interesting looking, huh?

That big white chunk is a boiled pear. I didn’t try it but the Goonfather liked it. The little ice chips you’ll find in the noodles are not your regular ice chips. They’re soup-flavoured ice chips!

This dish is really very good for hot days because it’s super thirst quenching.

The taste is a little weird and I’m not even sure I know how to describe it. It’s mainly sour, but also salty and sweet and bitter. Haha.

I liked it on the first taste. But after a few more spoonfuls, I started not liking it very much anymore because of a strange taste in the soup I can’t identify right now. The Goonfather slurped it all down while I was enjoying my guo tie.

I stole all his chilli sauce (which was meant for the beef slices in his noodles) but I really love the chilli!

The cold noodles also comes with kimchi and anchovies. The kimchi is also one of the best I’ve tasted because the distribution of taste is just nice. I mean, like, a lot of kimchi is either too bitter or too spicy or something like that.

Our meal cost us about $15, including two sodas, which is more than reasonable, considering the quality of food.

I’m definitely going back for seconds!

And now, I have to scoot because the Goonfather is on leave today and I have to follow him around to do errands. Maybe I can talk him into taking me back to Ya Zhou Cafe again! Heh.

Categories: Food Files
10 Comments »

This is seriously crazy.

One night, the Goonfather had a sudden craving for french fries with ketchup, and he kept talking about it until I was dying to eat french fries with ketchup, too.

Idiot.

So we went to Billy Bombers for dinner. (Mr B doesn’t have the best fries, but he has killer onion rings and killer burgers and killer milk shakes.)

We ordered a basket of fries and a bowl of onion rings to start off with. We considered sharing a burger or a plate of honey stung fried chicken (my favourite), but we remembered that the fries and onion rings are huge, so we told our waitress we’d think about the main course later.

The onion rings came first.

Beautiful, succulent, golden brown onion rings!

And then the fries.

Thick, crunchy, steamy hot french fries!

With a huge glob of tangy tomato ketchup.

What more could you possibly need at your dinner table??

Maybe a tall glass of creamy vanilla milkshake

Maybe I should stop doing that because I’m sounding like a TV commercial.

But that was some dinner.

The french fries in Billy Bombers are very long and thick. It takes so many bites to finish a stick, especially when its steaming hot.

I prefer smaller ones.

Not like the gimpy McDonald’s type, but something in between, I guess.

We started feeling full halfway through our meal.

Which is ridiculous considering that these were only sides and normal people are expected to finish these and have a main course.

As a side note, while french fries taste sublime with ketchup, onion rings must go with chilli sauce. The Goonfather didn’t believe me until he tried it for himself.

At nearly the end of our meal, when we had a single fry and two onion rings left, the Goonfather made this.

Don’t look at me. I had no part in this.

I asked him to stop playing with our food, then I ate up the leftovers.

And then we were too full to eat anything else. What a super unhealthy dinner!! (Like we care.)

Here’s the bill, receipt, whatever you wanna call it.

Freaking expensive for a fries and onion rings dinner!!

LOL.

I think the Goonfather and I are really bad influences on each other.

Survey: What sauce do you like your fries with? I think ketchup is great, but I also like fries with chilli sauce or vanilla ice cream. They’re all so good it’s always so hard to decide!

Damn, now I’m craving fries again.

Categories: Food Files
34 Comments »