ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

Buah Keluak Chap Chye Pork Trotters in Salted Vegetable Singgang Daniel Feiler and I had lunch at Folklore, Chef Damien DaSilva's new restaurant serving a mix of Peranakan and Eurasian cuisine. Damien is a chef who won't compromise on quality of ingredients and the traditional way of cooking these rare heritage dishes. All the four dishes came out well, and it's probably the best Peranakan food in Singapore currently. Clockwise from top left corner: 1. Nonya Chap Chye. Despite a lowly name which in Chinese just means mixed vegetables, its a distinctive dish, made tasty by the pork belly, prawns, black fungus and tiger lily buds. 2. A twist on the traditional Duck in Salted Vegetable Soup, using Pork Trotters instead. And made even more delicious by a dash of Armagnac brandy, and lime juice. 3. Looking like Caviar, a paste made from the contents of the Buah Keluak a fruit with a slightly bitter, rich, black-colored flesh. An icon of Pe...

1. My Besta 636 language computer: Chinese, English, and 10 other languages. 1. A Perankan lady dressed in their traditional Sarong Kebaya 3. An early Peranakan house in Katong district preserved as a heritage building .Note the ornate tiles and motifs 4. A plate of Kueh Lapis a Peranakan cake with colors of the rainbow, each color a dye derived from natural ingredients such as flowers and leaves. The Beauty of the Chinese Language I am a Singaporean classified as being of Chinese ethnicity in the official personal documents I hold. However, the truth is, I could not speak Chinese [Mandarin] fluently until the last few months, when I did some serious self-study using a Besta language computer. [see picture above] Now, as to why I was not able to speak Chinese, part of it lies in the fact that during my schooling years, Singapore was a British colony, and of course we learned English in school. But the main reason for my poor command of the Chinese language is a confluence of histori...