Another newbie learning to take food photos (+ food reviews)

[wackykid]

XLB... very good...! among the best XLB i've eaten..! the skin is thin but doesn't break at all... with plenty of fragrant soup inside and the pork is very fresh... it's as good as DTF and nanxiang XLB... 4.5/5 too...


i don't eat chicken feet... cos usually i find that it's mostly bones and skin and nothing else... but this one i actually liked it...!! its skin is gluey sticky and full of flavour... for a non chicken feet eater to like this warrant this at least 4.5/5 too...!!


shen jian bao... BEST i've ever eaten..!! it's crispy on the outside... juicy on the inside... and it doesn't even feel oily eating it...! 4.75/5...


dou miao...! simple unpretentious dish... doesn't fry with anything else... how good can it be...?? well surprisingly it's the BEST dou miao i've eaten...! in fact it's better than almost ANY veg dish i've eaten in sgp...! i always felt that overseas veg tastes better than sgp because we imported our veg but others grow their veg there... so if u eat veg in countries like china... vietnam... u would find that the veg there is especially fresh and sweet...! i've never eaten such fresh and sweet veg in sgp until now...! i could have sworn that they grew their own dou miao here...! considering this simple and healthy dish... i give it 5/5 as it can't get any better than this...!


smoked duck... this dish is "off the menu" and specially prepared by the boss... u won't be able to order it normally... and wow the duck is very tender... flavourful... and has a "down to earth" feeling... plus the black pepper it's really very fragrant and yummy...! 4.75/5...



regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

another simple and great dish...! cold beancurd + century egg and pork floss.. the lady boss said got 2 kinds of pork floss used... there is one type that is crunchy and makes this dish very interesting...! very healthy tasting and yummy dish... 4.6/5...



this is the BEST spring roll i've eaten... it's very crispy on the outside... very juicy on the inside... and you don't even feel sinful eating it because it doesn't feel oily AT ALL...! 4.75/5...



regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

went to ABC brickworks market for dinner today...


wanted to try the highly acclaimed char siew here:


but ended up they only left roast pork... so only ordered this... it's nice and tender although not fantastic... 4/5...


my fren had this claypot rice...


i tried a bit... loved the sambal chilli.... but i wouldn't rate this as i don't think i've eaten enough to give a proper rating...



regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

i queued for over 30min for this HKM...!!! had to wait for 2 whole batches to fry before it's my turn...! each batch takes about 15min to fry....


in the end it's very good...! love the stock... where it has plenty of prawn taste...! only thing i don't like so much is that the beehoon used here makes the noodles having a slightly rough texture... 4.25/5...


this is one of the stalls i came to ABC for...


gangster ice... loved this dessert...!! it has 2 of my fav fruits...! durian and mango...! that durian on top is NOT ice-cream... it's a scoop of PURE durian... which is very SHIOK...!! plus all that mangos are very sweet... and for $2.50 is really value for $$...!! my fav dish for the day... 4.75/5 for this...!


fren had this... i didn't try so no ratings... but my fren said this is just ordinary chin tng only...



regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

lunch @ tatsuya @ goodwood park...



had the bento sets...

sashimi here is fresh and sweet... i eat sashimi but i'm no expert... can't tell what is what... but the red one there is the best among the three... 4.5/5...


urm... this is just fruits... so no need to give comments... it's sweet and fresh...


codfish...! i love codfish...! this one is grilled very nicely... with the inside juicy and maintains the sweetness of the cod... 4.6/5...



regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

unagi lover here... well this is as good as unagi goes... 4.5/5...


tempura... overall is not bad but got room for improvements... 4/5...



regards,
wacky

 

[ntheni]

thanks for the comments... but can point out which ones are underexposed...?? i know the bedrock bar & grill ones mostly are underexposed... cos the lighting there is not very good and it was rather hard to take clear pictures... i din bother to correct the exposure using photoshop too cos i'd leave the record of this there and watch out next time and see if there is any way my camera + lens able to do better than that...

but i tot there are many others especially those taken in good lighting should be pretty okay...??

regards,
wacky

Now I using my phone so can't see your photo. Will let you know when I get my hand on a con
I adjusted lighting on my photos but I still keep my original photos so can still check the progress

 

[ntheni]

thanks for the comments... but can point out which ones are underexposed...?? i know the bedrock bar & grill ones mostly are underexposed... cos the lighting there is not very good and it was rather hard to take clear pictures... i din bother to correct the exposure using photoshop too cos i'd leave the record of this there and watch out next time and see if there is any way my camera + lens able to do better than that...

but i tot there are many others especially those taken in good lighting should be pretty okay...??

regards,
wacky

Hihi, Good lighting is ok, the bedrock bar and grill series will be a bit under exposure due to the poor lighting. Which mode are you using? For me I will set the mode to AV and do some adjustment on the exposure.

 

[wackykid]

Hihi, Good lighting is ok, the bedrock bar and grill series will be a bit under exposure due to the poor lighting. Which mode are you using? For me I will set the mode to AV and do some adjustment on the exposure.

i'm using manual shutter + aperture nowadays... wat i do is... since my lens has focal length of 20mm... i keep my shutter speed to 20ms slowest (since any slower than that will be hard to avoid motion blur due to hand shaking)... and adjust the aperture depending on the lighting conditions... so in worst case it'll be using 20ms + F1.7.... but if lighting is more than sufficient... i would adjust aperture smaller as well as increase the shutter speed to get the right amount of exposure...

now my problem is that often i rely on the camera exposure indicator to determine if it is over-exposed or under-exposed... and i don't think that would always be so accurate...? so i'm still learning to tell whether the photo is slightly under-exposed or slightly over-exposed... which is why i asked you which of the photos besides bedrock bar & grill are underexposed... :embrass:


regards,
wacky

 

[asthio88]

i'm using manual shutter + aperture nowadays... wat i do is... since my lens has focal length of 20mm... i keep my shutter speed to 20ms slowest (since any slower than that will be hard to avoid motion blur due to hand shaking)... and adjust the aperture depending on the lighting conditions... so in worst case it'll be using 20ms + F1.7.... but if lighting is more than sufficient... i would adjust aperture smaller as well as increase the shutter speed to get the right amount of exposure...

now my problem is that often i rely on the camera exposure indicator to determine if it is over-exposed or under-exposed... and i don't think that would always be so accurate...? so i'm still learning to tell whether the photo is slightly under-exposed or slightly over-exposed... which is why i asked you which of the photos besides bedrock bar & grill are underexposed... :embrass:


regards,
wacky

You can check the histogram even it may not be accurate all the time, but it's still the best indicator. Preview after shooting and adjust from thereon. Tbh, shooting at f1.7 will yield too thin a dof. Another option is to up the ISO but of course, noise will be an issue but it's better to get a noisy picture than no picture.

On my monitor, all the pics from the bedrock bar series seem under-exposed (WB a lil off and color cast too). As comparison, your latest post of the Tatsuya series are mostly good (both exposure & WB), some kinda soft and do watch out your focusing point. The sashimi pic is enough to make me salivate though :thumbsup:

 

[ntheni]

Most of the thing bro Asthio have covered. We are all still learning hahaa I like the challenge of taking food photo in low light and no using of flash but at times I still failed

Yup the sashimi looks yummy... And very thick!!!

 

[wackykid]

You can check the histogram even it may not be accurate all the time, but it's still the best indicator. Preview after shooting and adjust from thereon. Tbh, shooting at f1.7 will yield too thin a dof. Another option is to up the ISO but of course, noise will be an issue but it's better to get a noisy picture than no picture.

On my monitor, all the pics from the bedrock bar series seem under-exposed (WB a lil off and color cast too). As comparison, your latest post of the Tatsuya series are mostly good (both exposure & WB), some kinda soft and do watch out your focusing point. The sashimi pic is enough to make me salivate though :thumbsup:

i using auto-iso but i do find that the auto-iso doesn't work so often... my camera seems to tend to like to use ISO1600 most of the time...

yeah i quite liked the tatsuya photos too...

as for softness... i admit this is something i am trying to learn also... currently i still rely on auto-focus mostly... sometimes i try to use auto+manual focus... but often i still having problems trying to figure out from the LCD whether the subject i want to focus on is really sharp or not... cos sometimes my subject appear very sharp on the LCD but when download to computer it turns out the focus on the subject i want is slightly off...

i know my camera has a mode where i can enlarge the LCD preview to take closer look on the focusing... but that's alot of work... with all that manual shutter/aperture... plus sometimes gotta style the food a little (e.g. the yi sheng hokkien mee i had to bring the prawns to the front b4 taking the photo) ... it becomes very time consuming just to take 1 photo... and being "street food photography" sometimes paiseh to take too much time taking photos especially if my guests are not so much into photography.... so speed is another skill that have to learn...

as far as softness goes... i guess my tempura photo is kinda soft...? and the fruits and codfish could do with slightly longer DOF...? my fav is the unagi photo as the focus is just where i thought would be best...

anyway for aperture... i try to watch out more about too large aperture nowadays.. i gotta learn to look at the LCD to determine the slightly blur parts so that i know that aperture needs to be reduced... but often i still like to go for larger aperture as far as composition is concerned... cos i find that food photos are often more interesting and look better if you pick a certain most yummy looking part of the food and focus on that... so the rest of the food are intentionally meant to be blur...

for instance i have this (rather overexposed) photo of the overall bento set at tatsuya.... i was trying to reduce the aperture and adjusting my angle such that i can take whole bento set to be clear... but i gave up halfway... it's very difficult to find the angle to shoot... if angle is too high... the food looks rather 2D and not as interesting... if angle is too steep i'll end up having to ramp the aperture so small that it's difficult to get sufficient lighting... but most importantly the reason why i gave up trying to improve on this shot is the composition... there are too many subjects and no primary focus here... so the bento set doesn't look as interesting or nice anymore...

Most of the thing bro Asthio have covered. We are all still learning hahaa I like the challenge of taking food photo in low light and no using of flash but at times I still failed

Yup the sashimi looks yummy... And very thick!!!

thanks...! yeah the sashimi is quite yummy...


regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

my fav tian tian lai HKM @ blk 127 toa payoh lor 1...!!







love the prawn laden stock and gluey HKM... 4.75/5...!!

tried the famous teochew handmade pau at the same hawker centre...




regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

the siew mai very ordinanot bad but kinda overhyped... and damn @#$% small...!! $60 for each of em... $2.40 for the whole plate...! ratings... 4/5 for the pau... 3/5 for the siew mai...











regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

old airport road FC...

had the prawn chee cheong fun here...


only the prawn is fresh and very Q... other than that nothing great about it... 3.5/5...


had soursop drink here...


i had the honey lemon soursop... the drink very power and shiok...!!! very refreshing to drink on a hot day...! never know soursop drink will be this nice...!! plus it has plenty of soursop flesh to munch on... definitely something i'll buy again when i'm back there...!! ratings 4.75/5...



regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

because dongji CKT wasn't opened... i tried LFZ and see wat's the long queue about despite hearing many ppl saying that it's not that nice...







well... the CKT really very ORDINARY like wat i've heard many ppl say.... nothing much else to say... 3/5...


regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

kambing soup @ bedok corner food centre...



ordered the $3.50 mutton meat only with bread ($0.50) ....




soup is pretty good... mutton is not too hard... overall not bad but not great... 3.8/5...


regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

astons express @ bedok interchange...

had the ieat super burger...


they come with these things like wat ramen champion does... it starts beeping and flashing when my burger is ready... which was almost half an hour's wait.. zzz...






cross-section of the burger...


$13.90 for the lot... which includes one side... i choose the mashed potatoes... which is very ordinary (3/5) ... as for the burger... it's definitely a sight to behold... but it has too much of those very nice and crispy fried onion rings... so after a while u start to feel like eating fried onion rings burger instead of steak burger.... so the diminishing returns set in after a while... overall rating 4/5...


regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

went back ABC again and this time managed to order the char siew + duck rice.... char siew one of the better ones i've eaten... better than the roast pork... but as i'm not fan of char siew... it didn't struck me as something i would travel all the way just to eat again... 4.25/5...


ate jin jin again... this time ordered the power cendol... it's good but the gula melaka not stand out enough and much of it got "merged" into the ice.... still prefer the cendol at malaysian food street or at old malaya cafe.... 4.25/5....


whampoa market and food centre...

had the beancurd from this stall...


i think the beancurd is the smoothest... softest and silkiest i've ever eaten...!! 4.75/5 for the beancurd itself... however too bad the syrup (3.5/5) is just ordinary syrup... if only the syrup is as good as the one used by tan soon mui beancurd @ serangoon garden FC.... hence overall 4.25/5...


anyway found the beancurd very HARD to photograph as it was hard for the autofocus to get a lock on the beancurd... cos the surface is perfectly smooth and white... free from imperfections so there wasn't much that could be used to determine if the focus is clear or not...


regards,
wacky

 

[wackykid]

still @ whampoa market...

had the hainanese chicken rice here...


overall very good chicken rice...! the chicken stands out the most here... very slippery... very tender and very smooth... and the sauce is not too salty.... every other things like chilli... minced ginger... soup and rice are good also but not outstanding... but it's hard to find a chicken rice stall where everything is good... so it's a satisfying meal...!






overall ratings: 4.5/5...


regards,
wacky