Loads to Eat at Pin Xiang Kitchen

The friends were traveling loads. Waited for them to come back for a makan! We stopped by Pin Xiang Kitchen at Tai Thong Crescent for a casual zi char dinner. The parking at this area is insane, so we simply parked across the shophouses at The Venue Shoppes. 

The easy venue meant that they didn't mind our floofs at all at the outdoor high tables. The overhead fans make it bearable on a humid evening. Sit at the table away from the motorcycles, and it's pretty okay! Space is limited, so the floofs have to be mindful not to block up the entire five-foot way. 

The range of dishes offered in their menu ensures that everyone had something to eat, something easy and tasty, but not to have to stuff our faces silly. Needed low-carb options and such too. 

Our one dish meals were seafood vermicelli, sambal seafood kway teow, and really decent wonton noodles. Added on hometown tofu with minced pork. Couldn't resist the daily soup of the day — pork ribs with old cucumber. There were also loads of protein by way of a whole steamed chicken for the husband.

At the end of the night, the restaurant gave us a complimentary pack of prawn fritter and sardine puff to-go. So nice! The friends said that this restaurant usually does that at the end of the night and give them to the last few diners. The husband liked the sardine puff — he said that it was chockful of sardines, the most he has ever had. 

Protein! Oven-Baked Fillets of Chicken Breast!

I quite like the oven as a default 'cooker' at home. It doesn't involve crazy cleaning like when I cook on the stove. Since Choya was feeling poorly, I decided to do a fillet of oven-baked chimken breast for her. Choya's fillet always the tender version with a bit of water for the 'broth', and sprinkled with simple herbs, and just like six salt flakes. 

I'm wary of feeding Choya raw pork and chicken. I'd really prefer them cooked. I don't mind her chomping on raw chicken feet though. Choya loves her sous vide and grilled chicken breast. A whole fillet would be added to her food for the week. It should help settle and bind things in her gastrointestinal tract. 

Since the oven would be hot, chicken breast fillets were prepped for the husband too. Marinated his fillets in a tandoori sort of paste. They sat for about 25 minutes, and then they went into the oven for another ~25 minutes. The fillets were beautifully done, and still tender and juicy. You know how much of a challenge it is to have chicken breast fillets not turn out to be like rubber.

I still had the last bits of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes left from the friends' gifts. It was enough for two servings. So I added asparagus and roasted them together as a side to the chicken fillets for the husband. I had parmesan sourdough crotons sprinkled atop upon serving. Extra cheese is optional. Heh. #ImpieCooks2026

The husband was absolutely pleased with lunch. He husband has gone on a low-carb tracking diet thing again. He's trying out a new app to track his macros and protein intake, so prepping food to keep in the fridge this way at home would be great. He could have these for lunch, as an add-on to lunch the next two days or simply chomp on them as a snack. 

A Midnight Pastry Shop

Against my better judgment, I borrowed 'A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang' (January 2026) by Lee Onhwa, translated from Korean by Slin Jung. I understand that this author's name is a pseudonym. It's a pen name belonging to suspense and sci-fi writer Cheong Ye, and she has been notable in the recent years at major literary awards.

I'm rarely into these books, but I'm in anxiety mode (because of the dog's IBD+SIBO+stress colitis issues), and I've just cleared a heavy workload with heavy topics, so I didn't mind this 'here we go again, this feel-good tearjerker genre'.

Protagonist twenty-seven-year-old Yeon-hwa inherits her grandmother's bakery Hwawoldang. She is in her late twenties, and strapped for cash too. She doesn't know anything about this bakery either. This bakery was in debt of a hundred million won and supposed to eventually close, but in accordance to her grandmother's strict wishes, Yeon-hwa kept it open for one last month. One odd staff, Sa-wol remains present to help. He’s a shaman by trade and absolutely mysterious about what he does at the shop. We only see him delivering specially-treated common baking ingredients infused with spiritual power. 

Hwawoldang opens from 10pm to midnight to serve spirits. Traditional sweets are served to deceased spirits help them resolve regrets in order to move on and be reincarnated. These spirits are all different, and they need different solutions to move on. This can only be done if Yeon-hwa is able to prepare a specific traditional Korean sweet or snack. She can only do this if she understands each soul’s story. And oddly she seems to be able to bake everything they ask for.

Six chapters and an epilogue. Every chapter is a story, and each story corresponds to a type of Korean sweet or pastry. There are five spirit customers served and she made five sweets. There were chocolate jeonbyeon crackers, plum blossom manju buns, green tea dango, strawberry chapssal-tteok and chestnut yanggaeng.

Obviously I'm not into Korean sweets. I don't know anything about them either. So if there are any deeper meaning about the choice of sweets, it’s lost on me. There is also a black cat who hangs around the shop, of course. There’s always a cat. This one even delivers orders. It’s a very special black cat, and we get to know why and how in ‘Chapter 6: Sa-wol’s Story, and the Chestnut Yanggaeng of Goodbye’.

Importantly, this type of books remind readers to try to live without regrets, so that we die in peace. In ‘Chapter 5: The Fourth Customer and the Strawberry Chapssal-tteok’, it ended with these words, and foreshadowing how Yeon-hwa would resolve her issues with her deceased grandmother and find strength to move on too.

Then she was wailing, held tight in the arms of two strangers. Each tear was filled with guilt, sorrow, and an indelible wistfulness. Her emotions were piled together like the layers of a well-baked pastry, but the only word we had for those complicated feelings was love. That was what she wanted to express to her new little brother; and now she would never get that chance.

The dead had granted their forgiveness, and the living were left to long for the lost. What more vould anyone do but to move past the regrets? 

At the end, the final request of red chestnut yanggaeng was for Yeon-hwa’s grandmother. She finally understood her grandmother’s regrets, who Sa-wol is and how they are intertwined with her parents death. In the end, there is no blame or resentment, only acceptance and moving on. The spirit customers trickled off because the magic in the shop is gone. Yeon-hwa doesn’t quite possess spiritual powers. 

In the epilogue, Yeon-hwa kept the store open, but in the day, making the chestnut yanggaeng a hit on Instagram, and bringing in paying customers who are alive. She also made enough to pay Sa-wol a salary. She was finally happy to be doing this, and feeling like a real adult, motivated to “make Hwawoldang the biggest name in traditional sweets.”

This feel-good genre does zilch to relieve my anxiety. It offers little comfort. I do get to have read about the experiences of each family or human in each chapter. Right now, I'm not in empathy mode, so I can't empathize and I don't find these stories touching. It's fiction, yet it isn't exactly fiction in the sense that these stories are real to someone else in the world.