Restaurant review: Marché, Singapore

Image Source: Marche Movenpick

Whenever I'm in the mood for some great tasting European cuisine, there is only one place that comes to my mind. Marché is one of my favourite restaurants in Singapore. The reason I like it is because everything about is so refreshingly different from the usual dining experience. This is a Swiss market restaurant with the concept of on-the-spot cooking using seasonal and fresh produce (the USP of this restaurant). 

I love the concept of customizing my food. Being able to choose from the colorful array of vibrant seasonal ingredients that go into my food, telling the chefs exactly how I like the dish cooked and picking out the interesting garnishes and condiments very much appeals to my culinary sensibilities. 

There are two Marché outlets, one in Vivocity and the other at 313@somerset. The VivoCity outlet feels larger, is definitely brighter and my preferred of the two. The one at 313@somerset has a more nighttime vibe. 

Outside the restaurant you see the Marché mascot, the statue of a cow which looks like it may have descended from Mars (that is because it is a very bright shade of green/red)                                                                                      
See what I mean?
                                                          

                         

The first thing that strikes you as soon as you enter is the ambiance. The interior has groups of market-style stations that display a range of vibrant and fresh ingredients and the seating area has been cleverly designed to mimic the Swiss-chalet style of architecture giving it a warm and cosy appearance. The exposed construction beams, decorative carving and moldings, large windows and cottage style furniture add to the charming appeal of the restaurant. 

On arrival, you are given a Marché card by the hostess which serves as a sort of food credit card. This is in keeping with the "cashless" system that the restaurant observes. I love that there is no concept of a fixed "menu" here. You have to go to individual food stations that specialize in a particular food type, hand over the card and tell the chef what you would like to have and how you want it prepared. The chefs then swipe the card to register what you have ordered and you have pay at the end of your meal as you leave the restaurant. Sometimes the food is ready and waiting, other times, you will be handed a buzzer that signals when your food is ready. When you are waiting, you go and get your own cutlery and tissues. The concept of self-service means that there are no waitresses scurrying about taking orders and you can enjoy your meal at you own pace. 

Simple tips to a healthier you!

Source: SafeHealthyEating.com

How many times have your eyes wandered to articles in the media listing out the benefits of keeping your weight in check? And how many times have you actually followed any of the advice? 

I don't know about you, but whenever I read articles which suggest that I count calories, keep a food journal, eat 5-6 small meals a day or completely eliminate refined sugar and fried food from my diet, I just roll my eyes and think "yeah right....like that's going to happen!". It just seems so impractical to me. In the hustle and bustle of daily life, managing to eat at least one healthy meal a day seems like cause for celebration (one without cake that is). 

In theory, everybody knows that consuming plant-based fibre-rich foods, a balanced diet and regular physical activity are the building blocks of good health. But in the context of real life and its unceasing demands, it can be a challenge to implement. It is all too easy to fall prey to unhealthy habits, such as leading a sedentary lifestyle, having infrequent meals and eating processed food. These habits, when consistently reinforced, can become hard to break free. Diet and physical exercise go hand in hand and are like the two oars of a boat. You ignore either one of them and reaching your destination takes much longer. Sometimes, making healthy food choices may seems less intimidating than exercise but without the exercise, weight loss results are largely underwhelming. Even though the couch does seem the most comfortable place on earth, it is important to get off it once in a while and get the heart pumping and those muscles working. 

A lot of people do not like working out in the gym (me included). The idea of putting your body through a series of repetitions on a limited range of gym equipment in a claustrophobic environment may be unappealing. I really envy those people who actually look forward to going to the gym. But there are a lot of activities that you can do without having to hit the gym. Brisk walking, running, jogging, swimming, cycling, dancing, pilates, yoga, aerobics, playing sports and trekking are great ways to get exercise and have some fun too. It is how you manage to squeeze these activities into your schedule and the consistency with which you practice it is what is important.

Recipe of the month: Vegetable Cutlets

You know how there are particular favourite foods that your mother made that you grew up eating? The kinds that you crave for when you have moved away from home and the ones you look forward to eating as soon as you arrive on your doorstep? I have several of those such as akki rotti, ragi rotti, avarekayi usli, patrode, vangi bhath, pongal, masala vada, masala tea, kaju masala and the list goes on.

This recipe post is for a snack/appetizer that traces its origins way back to my husband's childhood and is one of those foods that evokes nostalgia for him. This recipe is one I have borrowed from my atthe (MIL) and has become our go-to recipe whenever we are in the mood for a spicy Indian snack (which is quite frequently!). 

Vegetable cutlets are usually a staple on any kind of party/get-together menu in my family. They are very versatile in that they can be made in many different ways using a wide array of ingredients. 

This particular recipe uses beetroot along with potatoes and carrots which gives the cutlets a beautiful blushing pink color. You could use sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes or even a combination if you want to amp up the nutrition. If you don't care for beetroots, you can always substitute it with more potatoes or carrots. These cutlets are subtly spiced, coated in a mixture of beaten eggs (you can substitute with a slurry of plain flour and water), breaded with breadcrumbs or panko and shallow-fried until golden and crispy. You can play around with different vegetables and spices and tweak the recipe based on your preferences. These cutlets can be served with coconut chutney, a yoghurt-based mint chutney, date-tamarind chutney, tomato sauce or any other homemade or bottled sauce of your choice. 

Here is the recipe. I hope you like this version.

Is Fair the Only Kind of Lovely?

"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character".

 

                                                Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fair and lovely? Really?

Let me take you on a trip down memory lane to a time when I was still a teenager. 

It is a day like any other in a small city in India. I sit down to watch some television. I think of watching a Hindi movie or some peppy music videos for some entertainment. After a while I realize the only thing I have been able to catch on the multitude of channels are a string of daft advertisements. I get mildly annoyed but carry on channel surfing as always. Then I see it - the advertisement for a 'Fair and Lovely' fairness cream. A dusky, forlorn young girl appears on screen. There is an air of melancholy about her (am I imagining it or are there subtle tints of sepia adding to the dullness?). We see her hopes of procuring her dream job go down the drain when her application to a prestigious flight attendant training institute is curtly rejected. It seems as if she has nothing going for her. Her parents watch over her anxiously, their faces etched with worry. It is quite obvious that their thoughts can be articulated thus -  "Alas! What is to become of our dark (and therefore ugly) daughter?". And then, out of the shadows emerges a friend (the incarnation of an angel, minus the halo) and passes her a tube of fairness cream. The dusky girl looks unsure at first but then her expression changes as she is struck with the realization that her destiny is tied to this small tube of white goop. So she religiously applies it everyday....morning, noon and night. The viewers are helpfully shown a color transformation chart with a skin tone shade guide as a reference. And then, lo and behold!, in a period of few weeks, the ugly duckling has transformed into a beautiful swan (by the way, at this stage, the sepia tints have been replaced by a glowing luminescence). Her skin is ghostly white and we see a obvious (albeit unnatural) radiance emanating from her. No prizes for guessing that she also nails the interview to become a flight attendant. The interviewer looks like he has been struck by the "thunder bolt" (I'm quoting The Godfather here), so mesmerized by her "loveliness" that it seems that all she has to do is sit in front of him and flash her pearly whites (which by the way almost matches her skin tone) to qualify for the job. Her parents are predictably elated and shed copious tears of of joy. Although, the advertisement ends on a joyous note, I feel anything but that. On the contrary, I realize that I am incensed. Coming back to the present, I am pretty sure such ads are still being telecast, and it is high time we have a powerful national movement against colorism. 

In a perfect world, the color of a person's skin should be inconsequential but of course that isn't true and I find it hard to understand why it matters so much to so many people. It is the prejudice towards dark skinned individuals that gets under my skin more than anything. In a society like ours, which is obsessed by pale skin thanks to the dogged impact of the long gone British colonial era along with association of fair skin with higher caste (~class), such advertisements only reinforces superficiality. Ironically enough, our culture teaches us to be anything but superficial. The British left long ago and the significance of the caste system has diminished over time but unfortunately the color fixation still persists.

It is sad that you have celebrities irresponsibly endorsing skin whitening products. Most of these so-called icons or role models (no matter how educated they are) can easily chuck away any moral/ethical responsibility to make a quick buck. It's not as if they would ever use such misleading products themselves. Furthermore, this frivolity is not just restricted to television - there are subtle hints of it everywhere you look. The toxic fascination with fairness isn't just restricted to women by the way. There are fairness creams available in the market for men as well (case in point: Fair and Handsome fairness cream for men!). Now, that according to me is even more bizarre. Whatever happened to tall, dark and handsome?

You open the matrimonial section of any newspaper and you will see advertisements from families seeking a suitable alliance for their son. Such advertisements usually start off with 'girl should be fair, tall, good-looking and drivel like that. You drive along any major highway and you can see billboards of models with ivory hued complexions endorsing products from jewellery to cars to insurance policies. It begs the question, 'what is wrong our natural coloring?' Caramel doesn't just look good as a dessert topping. It looks pretty freaking good as a skin tone too. Isn't that something people from the Indian sub-continent are admired for in the Western world? Isn't that why white-skinned people lie roasting in the sun for hours or flock to tanning booths? I guess it all boils down to human psychology. We always go after what we don't have. 

Although it would be wrong to generalize, in my opinion, a lot of people in India (particularly the older generation) consider a fair skinned person physically attractive regardless of whether that person has a symmetrical face, good features, an attractive smile or other desirable attributes. 

Growing up, I have admittedly benefited from having a (relatively) lighter skin tone and this is something I have felt guilty about. Throughout school, pre-university and even professional college, I noted the benefits of my "fair privilege" that reflected in the way I was treated in general, chosen to participate in events and even awarded marks in exams! On more than one occasion, I have had classmates tell me this to my face which made it a bitter pill to swallow. It seems ludicrous for an individual's intelligence, abilities, talents, beauty or strength of character to be judged on the basis of lightness of skin color. It is undeniable that in our society, fair complexioned people can get away with things their darker peers cannot which paradoxically gives them an un"fair" advantage. 

On the upside, the new generation is trying hard to curb this stereotype. Today's India is a rising economic powerhouse with an ever-growing middle class who are proud of their Indian identity. There is a widespread feeling of a change in attitude towards accepting our "true color". The notion of fairness being more desirable that has been embedded deep within the Indian psyche is slowly beginning to fizzle out. Nowadays more and more young people seek out their own partners and presumably color compatibility wouldn't be high on the priority list. Life is too complicated to dwell on such superficiality right? You see bold attempts at tackling this subject on social message boards, magazines, newspapers and daily soaps telecast on Indian television. Self-esteem is becoming the new mantra of the youth today. More and more dusky models and celebrities are grabbing headlines for being appreciated for their complexion. It also helps that off late the global fashion industry is embracing south Asia's darker-skinned models. You now get to see a more accurate representation of the real "Indian" woman in the national and international media. It is a growing opinion that the dusky skin tone in fact makes a woman look more natural, sensuous and has the unique ability to give a face a certain depth of character. We are accepting and even embracing our looks which is a huge step in the right direction. With education comes a better understanding of how intelligence, integrity and good character are in no way related to how a person appears on the surface.


Here's to learning to love the skin we are in.


Cheers,
Megha