Review of "Foodies" (movie)

"Foodies" is a Swedish documentary on the fine dining culture and its relationship with a newly-emerging group of foodies i.e. the food bloggers. Five influential bloggers in this field who cross borders and/or go to far-flung places just to seek out the best places to eat i.e. Andy Hayler, Aiste Miseviciute, Katie Keiko, Perm Paitayawat and Steven Plotnicki are at the centre of this film as the camera follows them around on their food blogging adventures. Other than seeing them feast on the nicely-arranged fine cuisine, you will also get to see a different viewpoint of this trend e.g. how restaurant owners and chefs feel about this growing breed of food bloggers in this Internet age and the influence they exert.

I don't consider myself as a full-fledged food blogger. A J-drama/J-movie blogger would suit me better since I've been blogging about this genre for as many as nine years. Food reviews were an extension of my Facebook and Instagram posts as I wanted to write something about the food I've tried. Nonetheless, I've been less than diligent than I would have wanted to be. I procrastinate posting my reviews due to various reasons and by the time I want to get back to it, I tend to drop the idea at the end because I would have probably forgotten how I felt about the meal after some time. Besides, I didn't want to stress myself out by insisting on posting about every meal I had outside. Unlike those professional bloggers or those who are really serious about food blogging, I only post those places which are OK or good because anything nasty is probably best kept to myself. Even though I did go to a number of nice places during my Japan trips last year, I still have posted nothing about them. In short, I am just a "casual" food reviewer who is plain lazy. ^__^

As I do post food reviews from time to time, I was intrigued by this documentary and decided to catch it yesterday night. However, the overdose of food scenes seemed to have taken a toll on me as I struggled to keep awake after the 30-minute mark. Perhaps it was because I had a heavy dinner earlier or didn't sleep well the previous night. Anyway, I was glad that the movie picked up pace afterwards and the fact that it was only 90 minutes long also helped. I admit that I was quite amazed by some of these bloggers' willingness to go the distance in search of the best restaurants but honestly speaking, this is not what everyone can do due to financial and time constraints. As such, it was a bit difficult to identify with or even agree with some of the things they did. Personally, I'm not a fan of fine dining because I have this impression that fine dining is expensive, restrictive and rather not filling because of the small portions. Maybe it's just me but even after watching this documentary, it still does not spur me to explore fine dining as I'm perfectly content with my low and mid-range dining.

If there is some food for thought which I take away from this film, it would be the issue of how the self-perceptions of food bloggers tend to clash with that of the restaurant owners and chefs. Personally, I think it is fine if someone speaks ill of the food or experience at a restaurant provided that there are reasonable grounds for that opinion. Besides, it cannot be that the food can please everyone so there would definitely be people who don't like a certain restaurant even if everyone else likes it. As such, to have both positive and negative comments is natural. However, I think what is evident from the perspective of the restaurant owners and chefs is that some food bloggers may have written strongly-worded reviews despite a lack of understanding of the food, local practices or cooking methods thus giving the impression that they are ill-qualified to be dishing out such opinions. As the Japanese chef at Kikunoi in Kyoto said, if the people who say anything without having the necessary knowledge are ridiculous, those people who believe blindly what the food bloggers say are also as bad as the bloggers. On the other hand, bloggers think that they are entitled to their own views, be it positive or negative. It seems like there is still a gap to be bridged between both sides as bloggers become more knowledgeable about the topic of interest while restaurants can tap on this new group of influencers to do more for their businesses and improve in lacking areas.

If you are interested in the food blogging culture, you may wish to check out this film at Golden Village (Singapore) as it is showing since 16 July.

New kid on the block - Alt-Yard by Penny & Fluff

On the first floor of Tampines West Community Centre, Penny University and Fluff Bakery join forces to launch Alt-Yard, a cafe-cum-bakery. Usually open from Tue to Sun between 12 noon and 8pm, Alt-Yard offers coffee, churros and cupcakes. As the number of seats is limited, I observed that most customers tend to take-away their purchases but I could be wrong though since I tend to go there during the early afternoon hours. Anyway, if you are planning to laze around here, be warned that you might not have an easy time securing seats especially during meal times when those waiting for their takeaway orders are also occupying the limited spaces. In addition, as the churros are freshly made, you will need to wait for a while for the staff to prepare the orders especially when there's a long waiting list.

During the Ramadhan period now, their hours have changed to 4pm to 10pm and they have a new offering i.e. the ondeh-ondeh churros covered in shredded coconut and served with gula melaka. I haven't been able to try that yet so I hope that they'll be able to continue offering this even after Hari Raya,

I haven't tried all their products to date but my personal favourite so far is their churros. I've tasted really awful ones before which were cold, hard and tasteless so I was a bit apprehensive about Alt-Yard's version at first. However, Alt-Yard totally proved me wrong and changed my impression of churros with their freshly made version coated with coarse sugar and their three unique dips i.e. chocolate fudge, salted caramel and liquid cheesecake. Even without the dips, the churros tasted good on its own due to its cripsy exterior and soft interior. The sugar coating added to the texture and taste of the churros freshly out of the deep frying machine and there wasn't any oily residue even if the churros were left to cool. As for the dips, they need to be purchased separately from the churros. Out of the three choices, I tend to favour the chocolate fudge which is not overly sweet even with the sugar coating on the churros. As for the salted caramel, it adds a new dimension to the taste but there seems to be some variance in the consistency of the salt level because there were a few times when I found it a bit too extreme. As for the liquid cheesecake, it didn't leave much of an impression on me. A disclaimer though, these are my personal preferences so you may find yourself thinking otherwise after tasting all three dips.

As for the cupcakes supplied by Fluff Bakery, the flavours supplied tend to vary from day to day. I'm not a big fan of cupcakes generally mainly because of the cream topping which I tend to scrape off if it's too overwhelming so I've only tried two flavours so far i.e. the chocolate dome and the oreo as featured in the photo on the left. The chocolate dome was fine but was rather ordinary. On the other hand, the oreo version was much better with a more palatable cream topping. A suggestion here on the packing though, given the fact that the cafe-bakery is operating on a rather small scale, they prepared boxes which can only hold one cupcake each. This makes it rather cumbersome both for the staff and the customers because when you buy a number of cupcakes, you end up having so many boxes to carry and it takes a long time for the staff to pack them. Moreover, it is quite wasteful to throw away so many boxes after consuming the cupcakes so I hope Alt-Yard can consider bringing in more boxes of different sizes to accommodate different needs.

The CC has become a much more "happening" place since its renovation and introducing tenants such as Starbucks. With Alt-Yard's presence, it's a good thing but there needs to be some improvements made to the waiting time and product packaging so as to enhance the customer experience.