It is more or less garlic mayonnaise so gotta peel the garlic first.

Simmering the garlic in olive oil to infuse the oil with that garlicky flavour!

Egg yolks

Blend the garlic and eggs, slowly pouring in the garlic oil in a slow and thin stream.

After a while I transferred to another blender for more even mixing, and finished it off with some lemon juice.

Old Bay seasoning, essential for crab cakes! And lots of parsley too.

Besides those, there was sea salt and smoked paprika.

Next, saute diced onions and red pepper together in butter.

Combine seasonings with aioli, Worchestershire sauce and Dijon mustard.

Mix mix mix

Add crab meat!

Mix mix mix, season with salt and black pepper to taste.

Mold into cake shapes with some panko

Heat up some olive oil in a sauce pan and cook those crab cakes!

Turn them over after browning one side for about 5 mins.

Voila! Delicious crab cakes, to be served with the remaining aioli.

So why do I like food photography? Simply because I love to eat and share it with the world. And to do so, food photography is the best way of sharing because when you capture the essence of the food correctly, those who see the photo will hunger for it as well.

You know you’ve done it right when your friend looks at the photo and goes “Damn looking at that makes me hungry too!”

Now it’s so easy to snap a photo of your food, anyone can do it with the plethora of cameras available to the public now, from the “serious business” Canon 5D Mark II, to the ultra-compact Canon Powershot S100, or to the one that most people really have – the iPhone 4S. However to make your photographs stand out from the crowd, you’ll have to put in some extra effort.

I won’t be covering tips on staged/editorial food photography because I’d have to get into styling, lighting, etc, which is beyond the scope of this post. However some of the tips given here will apply if you’re shooting a staged shot.

Please note the photos in this post aren’t directly connected to the tip that they are with, as I only inserted them to break the monotony of reading a long wall of text.

However they were all taken by me outside in natural/artificial lighting but without flash. Mouseover the photos to see some simple comments about it.

1) Don’t use Auto or P mode if possible

While you may be tempted to leave your camera in the Auto or Program mode when shooting, you are pretty much leaving all the decisions to the camera.

Don’t do that as the camera has no idea what makes a good photo. Sometimes you get lucky but if you want a good shot, make sure you control the camera, not the other way around.

I would recommend using Aperture Priority mode, setting the aperture to a value (1/focal length) that gives you a reasonable handholding shutter speed.

So for example if you’re using a 50mm lens, you should set an aperture that will give you around 1/60 (FF) or 1/80 (crop) sec shutter speed.

Of course if your lens has image stabilisation, you can afford slower shutter speeds and still get a steady image.

2) Increase the ISO

This is the next option when you have set the camera to the widest aperture and the shutter speed is still too low. Increasing the ISO will help to give you a faster shutter speed.

However this is the part that sometimes justifies a better camera as the smaller sensors in lower-end cameras produce noisier photos at high ISOs, especially when you hit ISO 3200 and above.

There is however a cheaper option then upgrading your camera, which leads me to the next point.

3) Using a flash

I personally don’t believe in using a flash in a restaurant or even at the hawker centre because I would hate it if a table near me started flashing. I guess it depends on how thick-skinned you are.

Using the on-board flash of your camera is usually a bad idea because it gives a strong frontal light which will make your dish look overexposed and create lots of harsh shadows that makes the food rather unappealing.

If you really must use a on-board flash, try to diffuse it with some tissue paper in front. Not the best solution but still better than nothing.

Finally you can buy a proper flash that mounts onto your camera’s hotshoe. Since you shouldn’t point it straight at the food, point it  at the ceiling instead to create a bounce flash, which gives your food a more diffuse illumination and a softer look.

This of course has the side-effect of flashing the entire restaurant or area near you, which is why I hate it.

Learn more about using a flash here and here.

4) Optimise position for natural light

If you’re like me and don’t plan to use a flash, then you’ll have to make full use of the natural light around you. Sitting near a window or lamp is the best option but if not possible, try positioning the plate such that the light creates soft shadows which can help to highlight the textures and shape of the food.

If you only take photos of food at night or in dim restaurants, then you will finally have a good reason to upgrade your camera or lens to something that performs well in low light or with clean images at high ISOs.

5) Composition

If you’ve ever googled about composition with regards to photography, you’ll get a whole bunch of guidelines such as Rules of Thirds, Golden Ratio, etc. I’m not going to repeat all of that here but just to add that most of it applies to food photography outdoors.

Besides going in close, sometimes you’ll want to incorporate the rest of the table/tableware or even the background. Occasionally you’ll want to break the rules of composition as well but for this you’re on your own. It really depends on the subject and setting at the time.

Sometimes going in closer is better, as you don’t always need to show the entire dish because people can recognise it and fill in the rest with their imagination.

6) Shoot in RAW format

This is something that I think a lot of people don’t do because they can’t be bothered to spend time doing post-processing, don’t like the huge file sizes, or don’t want to learn how to use a photo editing software.

But shooting in RAW brings huge advantages because it contains so much data that you can make big changes to things such as white balance or exposure to save your photo without degrading it.

Read this post by Steve Huff for a more information about saving your photo by editing the RAW file.

7) Post-process your photos

As a corollary to the above point, post-process your photos. You should always do the basics like cropping, white balance adjustment, exposure adjustment, contrast tweaking.

All that can be done with the photo editing software that came with your camera such as Canon’s Digital Photo Professional.

When you get more serious, you can look into learning Lightroom or even Photoshop for advanced stuff like layer masking and output sharpening.

8) Keep on learning and shooting

Shoot a lot of food, read up a lot online or in books, process your photos, then go out again and shoot even more food. There’s no shortcut to learning and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the journey.

Visit this website for more food photography resources online. They take a lot more effort in shooting their food photos than I do, but also note that a lot of these resources are orientated around staging editorial style food shots at home, not shooting outside.

Bonus: Going all out

If you’ve ever taken a food photo and wished that you could get more of the dish in focus, or even multiple dishes in focus, then the answer is to use a tilt-shift lens.

In the early days, food photography was taken with large format view cameras, and they still are being used these days for large editorial shoots.

Of course very few of us would use a view camera since we all own 35mm DSLRs so the next closest thing is the tilt-shift lens. For food photography you’ll be using the ’tilt’ function mainly.

In a nutshell, what the ’tilt’ function does is to extend the plane of focus. So in this case, by tilting the lens downwards, usually by about 5 degrees, you can get a lot more of the table or food into focus.

As an example, here’s some soffritto that I was making, which consists of diced celery, carrots and onion. With Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 lens, this is the photo that you would get without any tilt:

And now the same shot with 5 degrees of tilt:

In both photos the same aperture of f/2.8 was used but you can see how in the 2nd photo all 3 items were in focus.

A general shortcut to using the TS lens is to focus on the nearest item and then tilt until the furthest item comes into focus. If need be, stop down the aperture to to f/4 or even f/8.

To learn more about tilt-shift photography, you can read about it on Wikipedia.

Well that’s the end of this post and I hope that my tips will be of some use to you the next time you go out and shoot some food!

Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions.

Dice up an onion

Add onions to pot and turn up the heat, stirring until onions are soft, adding in some bay leaves and thyme later on

The mussels, cleaned and debearded. Chuck them into the pot, pour in a glass of wine and cover.

After about 2-3 minutes, the mussels will be ready to eat!

Serve with a side of nice rustic warm bread

I quite liked the subtle flavours in the clear meat broth so I decided that it would be interesting to see if I could cook the dish at home for lunch. The recipe I followed was from Steamy Kitchen, which was adapted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen.

I first char-grilled an onion and some ginger to provide that charred sweetness and some heat into the broth.

Then I prepared the spices and seasonings. Here we have typical phở spices: cinnamon, star anise, fennel seeds, cloves, coriander seeds and cardamom pods.

Salt, sugar and fish sauce.

Some beef bones and brisket for making the stock

Gotta keep skimming the scum off the stock

Here’s the beef brisket after a long time of stewing in the stock and taken out for shredding

And these are the beef slices. Ideally you should slice it yourself from a slab of sirloin but I didn’t have the time so I just grabbed some shabu-shabu beef slices.

Arranging all the beef in the bowls before pouring over the hot stock

And here’s my attempt at making phở bò!

I didn’t know they moved to Ghim Moh Market until I was in the queue for my favourite Jiu Jiang Shao La and I saw them at the next stall. So the next time I visited, I ordered from them again.

Ironically even though it says Curry Fish Head, I believe most people usually order the curry chicken, which I do too. They love to give the breast meat tail part and the curry does have a different taste from most other curries around. Maybe less coconut milk? Definitely hotter but not rich in spices like Indian curries.

Li Xiang Curry Fish Head
Ghim Moh Food Centre
20 Ghim Moh Road
#01-46
Singapore 270020

No time to make my own beef stock so I used a store-bought one

Cutting up the usual carrots and potatoes that go into beef stews

I browned the sides of the shin cubes quickly, didn’t bother with the cheeks

Throw in the onions and shin parts first cos they’re smaller

Now I can layer the large slabs of cheek over them

And finally top it all off with the carrots and potatoes

Now just bring it to the boil first…

And let it reduce for a couple of hours…

Until I get a simple beef stew!

Originally I planned to try out another place besides Sushi Dai but this time when I reached, the other shops had queues and Sushi Dai didn’t have one! So I guess it was Sushi Dai yet again – which isn’t a bad thing anyway.

And I’m sitting at the exact same place I sat the last time I was here, being served by the same chef.

They keep most of the shellfish on this side of the chiller.

The same appetizer, a warm chunk of tamago. This time I remembered to snap a photo of it before I ate it!

Otoro

Shiro maguro

Tai

Uni gunkan-maki

Akami maguro

Akagai

Aji

Shiro ebi

Sawara

Maguro kappa maki

Anago

Awabi

Finishing off with a nice bowl of aka-miso soup, lots of little fish meat bits inside.

And here’s their ala-carte menu for reference

寿司大 (Sushi Dai)
5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku

Once again there was a long queue snaking around it. I didn’t join it the previous time I was here but since I was early this time, I decided to join and buy it as well.

Looking at all the raw slabs and slices of beef in the showcase while waiting in the queue.

And checking out the butchers inside working hard.

They were selling these wagyu minced beef croquettes

Very reasonable price as well.

So I bought one to try, since I don’t really want to fill up my stomach before my actual lunch.

Crispy on the outside but so moist and tender on the inside! And of course delicious! I really really want to buy a box of them just to eat but lunch beckoned as Satou just opened its doors.

Back up at the steakhouse, once again they squeeze in a bunch of chefs into the tiny kitchen.

Appetizer came straight away, a salad.

After making my order, the manager of the steakhouse came over to show me the slab of beef from which he would be cutting out my portion from. Look at the glorious marbling! Oh and somehow he also recognized I was Singaporean and talked to me a bit about their feature in our ST Life a while back.

My steak arrives!

I can only say that it’s like eating meat tofu (well not thaaaat soft). Kinda like nicely grilled fat that still has a beefy taste. Mmmmm…

サトウ吉祥寺店 (Steak House Satou)
1-1-8 Kichijoji-Honcho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo

For this visit, I decided to try their omakase menu, something that they don’t advertise at all on their website or even on the menus at the restaurant. You have to ask them about it in person.

Some of the dishes were repeated from my previous visit, but that’s because they are the house specials and crowd favourites, so I would have ordered them anyway. Once again, counter seats give you the best view of the action.

First course was one of my favourites from the previous visit, the Sengyo no carparccio (鮮魚のカルパッチョ). Quoting myself here:

This dish is one of their specialities and almost everyone orders it. It’s basically hamachi carpaccio with pesto, fried garlic bits, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sweet basil. The concoction of the above sauces literally floods your mouth with so many tastes, even the salad tastes good!

Second course was the Harumakippoi Kani Salad (春巻っぽいカニサラダ). Quoting what I said previously:

This is crabmeat springroll salad. I didn’t really like this dish too much as there was too much raw onions inside which masked the taste of the crab meat.

But luckily this time around there was more crabmeat this time so it tasted much better.

Third course was yet another of my favourites, the Ebi no Ebiniyoru Ebi-sousu (海老のえびによるエビソース).

Another popular dish. These are large fried prawns covered in a rich and creamy prawn sauce served on a ricepaper cracker. The sauce is supposed to be made from the stuff in the heads of the prawns which certainly accounts for the strong unami taste. There is so much sauce that you have to break off pieces of the “plate” to clean up.

I love this so much, I would have ordered this even if it didn’t come!

Fourth course was their sashimi mini-dish (ミニ盛 2人前) – tai, hamachi and chu-toro maguro. It tastes as good as it looks Clean and succulent.

Fifth course was another house special, Maguro no kama no supearibu (マグロのかまのスペアリブ).

This is a house special dish that the manager, Ippei-san,  likes to recommend, their tuna cheek “spare ribs”. It is supposed to imitate the pork spare ribs but it is actually the collar and cheek of a tuna. There is a huge chunk of tasty and succulent tuna meat and it is complemented by the sauce which might be red-wine based.

A bit smaller than the previous time I had it.

Sixth course was something new, Tara no shirako no Gorgonzola guratan (タラの精子のゴルゴンゾーラのグラタン). Also known as cod sperm au gorgonzola gratin. Having eaten shirako before, I think these were grilled first then baked in the cheese.

Actually it was very nice but then grilled cheese usually makes everything nice It came with bread to mop up all the corners of cheese.

The seventh course was much simpler, Zako no guriru (雑魚のグリル). This is just fresh fish caught in the Sagami Bay area, grilled with olive oil, lemon and garlic. And sometimes, that’s the way fresh fish should be cooked to bring out the natural flavours.

Eight course was some carbo to end the meal, Shimofuri Kobe-gyu no Nigiri-zushi (霜降神戸牛のにぎりずし). Kobe beef sushi, the raw beef feeling almost like fatty raw tuna because of the high fat content. It’s a fantastic finish to the omakase!

And usually to go with rice they always serve miso soup so they gave a bowl of Hama no Miso-shiru (漁師風浜の味噌汁). This is assorted seafood soup that’s normally given in a bigger bowl for sharing with 2+ people.

There was actually more ingredients than soup, and although I’m sure these are the left-over parts that don’t make it into the real soup, it’s still very tasty – look at the lobster legs sticking out!

Rounding it off is the same dessert as last time, their Sakura no Gerato to Amanatto no Wine-ni (桜のジェラートと甘納豆のワイン煮). Also known as cherry blossom gelato with wine simmered sweet beans

All in all that was a great omakase selection from Kaikaya, mostly made up of their classic favourites that most people order when they go to Kaikaya. It’s definitely much better then ordering the dishes one by one and getting the full-size versions which you won’t won’t be able to finish if you ordered so much.

開花屋 (Kaikaya)
23-7 Maruyama-cho, Shibuya-ku

They prepare all the chickens themselves fresh and whole.

There’s only 1 small grill as well, coated with all the oil of a million chickens grilled on it.

The interior is fairly small, just about 4-5 small tables and a long counter. I suspect there might be a room further in the back but I didn’t check.

The appetizer was natto with a raw quail’s egg. Not exactly what I was expecting, since I’m not a big fan of natto but I still ate it.

First up, some kawa (chicken skin). Grilled crispy to perfection, with lots of soft globules of fat underneath. Super unhealthy but super delicious! And they probably gave us like half a chicken’s worth of skin!

Then came the classic yakitori, but this time in large juicy chunks of chicken meat.

Next was their house special, the tori tataki. Once again, large chunks of thigh meat but this time with skin on, and grilled almost like the chicken skin earlier. The difference is that the meat is grilled to be medium and that makes it so much more tender and even more juicy. I really wish I had ordered a 2nd plate of this.

I tried some minced chicken meat over rice but it was pretty much a let-down because it was nothing special at all.

Next I ordered another of my favourites, the tebasaki (chicken wing). These wings were huge! Probably one of the biggest wings I’ve ever had and they are really tasty too, salted just nice.

And finally the tori sashi (chicken sashimi). Something that I’ve wanted to try since I saw it in the episode. A lot of people have told me how disgusting it is to eat raw chicken but I felt it was worth the experience of trying it. After all, I’ve already tried horse and whale sashimi, what’s chicken anyway?

Toriki gets their chicken from a country farm and as mentioned above, they kill the chickens every morning themselves to ensure the freshness and cleanliness of the meat. Look how glistening pink the meat is!

Toriki sears the outside of the chicken breasts briefly to ensure no germs remain on the surface, then serves it raw in a shoyu sauce mixed with a little bit of wasabi. The meat has no fowl taste at all, clean flavour with a texture not unlike raw tuna but firmer. I would definitely order this again!

Oh and here’s the video in which Toriki was on No Reservations:

Toriki
3-11-13 Hatanodai, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
Phone：03-3785-8472