My Love Hate Relationship With Bacon

After 2 years on a fitness journey, I now lead a more health and fitness conscious lifestyle and consequently lost about 24kg in weight after 11/2 years.  It was not an easy journey as I had learnt to be more disciplined by embracing a no-sugar, no wheat, no processed food diet combined with 6 days a week of training at the gym alternating between strength training, boxing, muay thai and sprints.

 

However, I do have a weakness for bacon, cake, ice cream, pasta and bread.  Amongst these, I have a love-hate relationship with bacon and cake. I tried to talk myself into this “sustainable diet” storyline, by allowing myself 1 cheat day a week.  However, my coaches and trainers wouldn’t have it, simply because after a cheat day on Sunday, I would return to training on Monday extremely sluggish, with the smug trainer barking in my ear, “Get a grip, Jo.”  After slapping me with a lot more reps of high knee sprints, extra minutes on the skipping rope, a hundred more burpees and more rounds of that dreaded bear crawl, I was asked to detail my meals every single day and post them, complete with photos, on a private Facebook group so that the rest of my skinnier, pallid and malnourished gym buddies can critique what I had eaten.  For a while, I returned to my sensible ways, though from time to time, I pined for cake and bacon.

 

I mulled about the “sustainable diet” storyline again.  I wanted to revisit the credibility of that storyline because that love part of my love-hate relationship had gradually grew to become a burning passion which manifested itself as sleepless nights, sudden and erratic angry outbursts and cold sweats when I walked past a cake shop or scanned the brunch menu at some of my favorite restaurants. From time to time, I would give myself a treat after a more intense week of training at the gym.  While I could not afford a weekly cheat day, I thought a rare treat once in a while would still allow me to get right back on track without too much of a dent on my coach and trainers’ efforts.

 

So last week, I dropped in at a new restaurant that had just opened about a month ago, called OMB or Oh My Bacon at 7 Dunlop Street.

 

This bacon-themed restaurant, a first in Singapore, was a haven for bacon lovers like my husband and I.  To him, bacon was “MAN FOOD”.  To me, being a PR professional, bacon was a “nutritious strip of protein filled with the goodness of choline which helped support brain health, and comes complete with vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12 and minerals like Selenium, Phosphorus, Iron and Zinc – all good stuff.” 

 

Moreover, I learnt that the good folks at OMB were so smart, knowing that there were at least thousands of other people out there with the same love-hate relationship with cake and bacon, that they had decided to invent the Bacon Brownie.  It did sound weird initially when we were recommended Bacon Brownie on the menu.  However, I did not question the oddity because I thought God had answered my prayers by combining the 2 together to stoke that flame in my heart for cake and bacon.  My man on the other hand, was looking at the dish quite suspiciously and whispered, “This is not right.  It is like having dessert and main course together.  It reminds me of the Singaporeans I have seen at the buffet tables who stacked their plates with noodles, jello and cake all at once.”    I finally urged him to be more adventurous and take a bite. He loved it.  The salty sweetness of that Bacon Brownie reminded me of salted caramel ice-cream.  In fact, speaking of ice cream, there was even bacon ice cream and you could ask for a scoop of that on the brownie!  I have to say, the Bacon Brownie was one of the best desserts I have ever had. It was moist and not too sweet.  I did get a taste of the bacon in it, though I must say, with or without the bacon, that delicious brownie was a winner.  The portion was definitely shareable so I did not feel an ounce of guilt. For the record, because we visited the restaurant on Fathers’ Day, they served all fathers a Bacon Brownie on the house, and even gifted my man a beautifully packaged jar of chamomile tea.  That thoughtful gesture really made his day.

 

David Tan, the Bacon Ambassador, and his Lady Bacon, Yenni Ng were the faces of OMB.  Beyond running the restaurant, they were earnest about getting to know their customers better.  When we got talking, David found out about the fitness journey that I had embarked on these two years and started scrutinizing his menu for items that I could eat. He suggested the Bacon and Egg Cups and proudly declared, “No gluten.”  So we ordered that, and polished the plate in 10 minutes. The plate of tiny Bacon and Egg Cups which came on a bed of crispy rosti was an appetizer portion, so one need not feel guilty about having a cholesterol-laden meal.  As the portion was small, I felt even less guilt.   The Bacon and Egg Cups were delicious. I managed to convince myself that they earned the right to be its own food group and with so much protein on that plate, my trainers surely had to approve it.

 

Next, my Bacon Ambassador suggested that I try the Bacon Bomb. Again he proudly declared, “Definitely shareable too and also no gluten.” The Bacon Bomb was like a meatloaf wrapped in strips of bacon. As I was on a low-carbohydrate diet, he opted to remove the side of mashed potatoes and laid my Bacon Bomb on a thick bed of rocket leaves and cherry tomatoes.  “The trainers will be proud of me for eating my vegetables.” I thought.

 

Although the Bacon Bomb did not look like too large a portion as it measured about 3 inches by 5 inches, I thought the dish could be shared amongst a group of 3 or 4 persons.  Now, the Bacon Bomb is heavenly. It was moist, well-baked and definitely paradise on the tongue for Bacon lovers. So this dish should be on the “must order” list.  I would suggest that if you paid OMB a visit, this should be the first dish you should try because there is a lot of meat in it hence it was very filling.  

 

Like most outstanding restaurants in Singapore, the winning formula for OMB was not that it was a bacon-themed restaurant.  OMB is bold and brazen and unashamed of what it is passionate about, and it was passionate about people. David Tan and Yenni Ng took time out to get to know their customers better.  They were passionate about making them comfortable and catering to their needs.   No matter where one stands when it comes to individual quirks about health, or whether you do eat pork or are vegan, they would creatively think of ways to customize the items on the menu to suit one’s needs.  My no wheat, low carbohydrate demands were satiated because they did not take the easy way out by suggesting that I just munched on a strip of bacon, or worse, point to the exit.  They made suggestions with every dish as to what they could remove and replace just so I would not miss out on their fabulous bacon concoction.

They understood that Bacon was a natural mood-enhancer for considerably stressed executives like us (According to Visual.ly, the umami in bacon is an addictive substance that has a neurological impact on the brain - http://www.baconismagic.ca/guest-posts/bacon-is-healthy/ ). So, they tapped into a market where diners just wanted “a whiff of that aroma and a moment of heaven”. It was like Starbucks when it first landed on our shores.  Who knew that Starbucks’  purpose was not to sell coffee? It sold a moment, the Starbucks Moment. And God knows, how many moments I had bought when I just wanted an escape from the pile of workload in my in-tray at the office or when the boss cheerfully declared a month of no-travel so he could give us some loving attention.

 

So I would highly recommend a visit to OMB for that much-needed bacon fix. Bacon is happy food and guaranteed to ensure your spouse does not walk around you on egg shells when you are on a diet and need a temporary “happy food fix” from time to time.

 

More information about OMB can be found at https://www.facebook.com/OMBsg

Note: I was not paid to write this review.  It was written objectively and all opinions expressed are solely mine.

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

 

Bacon And Egg Cups

Bacon Bomb

Bacon Brownie And Ice Cream

Dark And White Chocolate Dipped Bacon

We Survived Three Weeks Without The Housekeeper

The Dustpan Fairy

We survived 3 weeks without Evelyn when she went on her vacation back to her hometown in Baguio, in the Philippines.  The 3 of us, David, Joel and I had established who was to be in charge of what chores.  I kept to my end of the bargain with the daily mopping of the entire home and cleaning of the toilets.    Without help, and already suffering from knee injury that never got healed properly, I injured my back in the process.  Yes, that was my opportunity to whip out my “sympathy-seeking” violin.

Joel and David took turns to walk the dogs.  Joel cleaned his room up and cleared it off old clothes, books and other old junk.  He also helped with the mopping when he saw me struggling with it.   David was supposed to be in charge of the laundry.  Yes,  he did do the laundry.  What he forgot was that LAUNDRY encompassed not only putting the clothes into the washing machine and the dryer thereafter, but also the IRONING.   

When Evelyn returned home last week, she almost fainted at the sight of 2 mountain load of un-ironed clothes left in her room.  Each pile was about 3meters high.  When I ran out of knickers and t-shirts, he waved his hand cursorily at me and said,” Go and buy some at Marks and Spencer’s!”  For most of those 8 years when Evelyn became part of our family, the men in my household assumed there was a dustpan fairy and ironing fairy that kept our home clean and spotless and their shirts ironed, folded or hung nicely in the wardrobes.

The Kitchen Fairy

Evelyn always took care of our diet.  For the 8 years that she had worked with us, she rode through my erratic diet fads from vegetarian, to vegan, to south beach and now, Paleo.  She took pains to do her research on what she could cook and what she could not, no matter which diet fad I was on at that particular moment.  With Joel, she was “nanny from hell” because she force-fed vegetables and anything green down his throat so that he could grow up strong and healthy.  He is 21 years old now, and is still being force-fed with vegetables and anything green.

David adopted all the diets that I went through apart from anything that contained alcohol.  So when our diet-du-jour was Paleo, he was happy to have steak and salad for dinner but washed them all down with a beer.  That was the only thing he would not compromise.  Evelyn supported his effort to get healthier by stocking the fridge and larder with fruits, salads, low-fat yoghurt, roast chicken breast and nuts.  This meant that when David felt the urge to snack in the middle of the night, he would not have the desire the open that larder door when all he could find in there was a musty tin of teabags and a pack of nuts.  When I asked for a vegetarian dinner, she would whip up a beautiful chicken pie for dinner without telling David and Joel that she had put broccoli and other forms of veggie goodness into the pie – and there was no chicken in it.

So Evelyn was also our nutritionist-cum-dietitican-cum-experimental chef in our home.  However when she was away,  we survived on M&Ms for breakfast, a chocolate bar gifted to us at Christmas for lunch, and a truck-load of egg mayo sandwiches for dinner.  We figured, that the egg was protein and the beetroot in the red velvet cake bought from the store was a vegetable.  And we got our fair amount of nutritious wheat from the beers.  

Needless to say, she was mortified when she heard about how the home became a mismanaged summer camp for errant kids.  The look of dismay registered on her face when she opened the fridge and saw pet bottles of diet coke, chocolate, half-eaten cake and biscuits of every variety lined up in the larder.

The Dog-Walking Fairy

The dogs missed Evelyn as much as we did.  In fact, Bailey had separation anxiety and slept in her room every night when she was away.  During the day, he sat by the door in anticipation that Evelyn would return to tickle his belly.  When we went out, Bailey threw tantrums by overturning his food bowl and creating a mess in the kitchen. 

When Evelyn got back and saw how unkempt the dogs were, as David did not put in the effort to give them their weekly bath, she was truly upset and considered it animal cruelty.  She very quickly bundled all 3  mutts under her arms and promptly had them bathed and brushed the very hour she stepped into the home right after arriving from the airport.

We Have Been Spoilt

Yes we have truly been spoilt by Evelyn.  She was like an elder sister to me,  an aunt to Joel, a  mum to the dogs….and…. nanny to David.   I have to admit it was a difficult 3 weeks without her because we had to juggle extremely busy schedules at work or school, my Dad’s health, the year-end festivities and the housework.  We often took her for granted because she was  the dustpan fairy and the kitchen fairy.  We always came home from work to a clean and neat home, happy dogs, and hot and healthy meals.

We are very grateful for Evelyn's presence in our lives.  She is like Mrs Doubtfire...big, burly and with hairy legs, but we love her all the same and cannot do without her.  


About the writer:

The writer of this blog post is a 44 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketing professional at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 20 year old son and 3 dogs with personality disorders.  She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".   Together, we create a home made up with more nuts than a fruitcake but filled with plenty of love.