ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

The British have their bacon and eggs, the French their croissants, and the Japanese their porridge and pickles. The Americans have their McDonald's and their Dunking Donuts and the food that they serve in Diners and Truck Stops. The popular Singapore breakfast food above is fried Rice Noodles [more accurately, Vermicelli]. In the local Hokkien dialect it is called Bee Hoon which literally translates as "powdered rice". Its relative blandness goes well with the fried fish, slice of luncheon meat [what you call Spam], and fried egg. Cut red chilies, and Chinese parsley are garnishes which complete the dish. The fried fish is especially tasty because it has been marinaded in a blend of soya sauce and Tamarind, a sourish fruit. Singapore Bee Hoon is a light, healthy and tasty breakfast and costs about US$2.30 even for this Deluxe version with all the trimmings. Some people have just the plain noodles which costs 70 cents. But that's not all. My breakfast is always accomp...

A Simple Chinese Repast: Click on Images for fullsize and Details. It sure is comforting in these inflationary times to know that a nutritious dinner for two can cost only US$3.50. In Singapore, the Teochew Chinese [a dialect group from Guangdong] are famous for their Rice Gruel meal accompanied by a choice of dozens of small dishes. The accompanying dishes could be something as simple as boiled peanuts or tofu cakes, to dishes like braised duck or steamed Flower crabs. If you stick to the simple stuff, a Teochew porridge dinner for two, even in big-city Singapore costs less than the price of a Big Mac. My meal for two persons downing 3 bowls of rice gruel each @ 20 cents a bowl ( above pictures of the 3 dishes, and a bowl of rice gruel) was a delicious and healthy meal that cost me just US$3.50 at the current exchange rate. The dishes are (from second top picture): (1) Minced pork with black beans, (2)boiled Silver Fish with lime and fresh-cut red peppers (3) Salted Mustard Greens. (B...

Of all the cuisines in the world that I have experienced, my favorite is the cuisine of the Indonesian islands. Indonesia is a vast archipelago of 17000 islands stretching 2000 miles and more from New Guinea to Sumatra, from Sulawesi to Kalimantan. The great diversity in people, language, culture brings forth great diversity in cuisine. Nasi Padang is steamed white rice accompanied by a variety of meat, fish and vegetable dishes. 'Nasi' means 'rice' in Indonesian and 'Padang' is a town on the island of Sumatra where this dish is said to have originated. The people of Sumatra, being part of a culturally distinct Riau archipelago are more akin to the Malays of Singapore and Malaysia than to the Javanese and Balinese next door . So Nasi Padang is also a common dish in Singapore and Malaysia. Unfortunately, the standard of Nasi Padang in Singapore has deteriorated so much, that I find most of the stalls serving almost inedible Nasi Padang. No more only sold by smal...

Singapore is a gourmet's paradise, for everyone and not just for the well-to-do. Despite the cost of living being generally higher than in the neighboring countries, one can still eat well for US$2 if one knows where to go. One such place, frequented by the working class and older workers is in the district of Jalan Besar. This shop opens round-the-clock, every day of the year [except for 2 or 3 days off during Chinese new year]. All day and all night you can see a queue that overflows into the street outside the shop, hungrily waiting for the Curry Rice. I took these pictures before I left Singapore in 2005, and the sight of a plate of curry rice makes me long to go back. Pictures from top left clockwise: (1) The Curry Rice in all it's splendor [see description below for what's in it. (2) A working-class Singaporean tucking heartily into his curry rice. (3) The sign outside the Curry Rice shop, reminding patrons of it's proud history. It may look like a mess, but one s...

From Top Left clockwise: (1)Pockets of sheer delight, Tofu cakes sliced open like a Bagel and filled with: duck meat, belly pork, fish cakes, chopped Chinese sausage, prawn fritters, pig's tongue, pig's ear's, duck liver, cucumber, boiled squid. (2) The Chili sauce that you dip the Tau Kwa Pau into: a spicy, piquant mixture of chili, vinegar, the gravy from braising the pig and duck, garlic, onion and green chili [peppers]. (3) The stall: you can see the whole braised duck hanging, and other parts in the trays below. Many years ago, a hawker in Katong [a district on the Eastern side of Simgapore sold braised duck, belly pork, pig's tongue, fish balls, Chinese sausage, fried prawn fritters, duck eggs and tofu cakes. This was eaten with cucumbers, and a fantastic sauce made of chilli, vinegar,sliced green chilli, and the brown gravy left fom the braising. On some days he couldn't finish selling all his food. So he came up with the ingenious idea of chopping up all the...

One of the joys of living in Singapore is the wide variety of food that is readily available because of our multiracial society. It is not at all extraordinary for one to have Roti Prata for breakfast [Indian pancake eaten by dipping into a curry of lentils, vegetables and potatoes]; Nasi Padang for lunch [Malay rice with an array of many small side-dishes of meat, fish, vegetables], Chinese Claypot Chicken for dinner [ chicken, Chinese sausages, salted fish, and mushrooms cooked together in a claypot]; and Frog congee [porridge] as a late night supper. But one of the rarer cuisines of Singapore is Peranakan cuisine Peranakan is the Malay word for " descendants". Peranakan Chinese are the descendants of Chinese immigrants to the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, who came without their wives, but eventually married the local Malay women, and partially adopted their customs, cuisine and dressing. The Peranakan , also known as Baba [male] Nonya [female] or Straits Chinese deve...

More than Char Kway Teow [a messy, greasy plate of fried flat noodles garnished with squid, cockles, Chinese sausage, eggs, chive] and Roti Prata, [ a crispy Indian pancake eaten by dipping it into a Curry]; I miss the Singapore dish called Yong Tofu. Basically Yong Tofu is a dish that uses minced fish meat to be the stuffing for vegetables and items made of tofu. Above, you can see the brown triangular pieces of dried bean curd which has been stuffed with the fish paste. You can also see Chinese bitter gourd, large peppers, white pieces of soft tofu, and fish balls. There are many versions of Yong Tofu, and the number of items can be in the dozens as the newer food stalls become more inventive. Some stalls have their stuffings made of a mixture of fish and pork. Many stalls offer Convolvulus, also known as water spinach, as an item. Another common item is rehydrated cuttle-fish. But I like the simpler, purer versions of days gone by best, like this one from a shop in Telok Kurau cal...

Besides Char Kway Teow, another Singapore street food dish that I miss is Teochew Fishball Noodles. The dish has two variations: soup or dry. The photo here shows the dry version. These noodles are of the flat variety, rather like the Italian fettucini. They are cooked by dipping them into a rich stock of pork bones, and quickly taking them out of the boiling stock in less than a minute. They are then made al dente by giving them a quick rinse in cold water. The side ingredients that go with the noodles: fish balls, minced pork, mushrooms, beansprouts and fishcake are also cooked in this way. But it's the sauce that makes the dish. It's a paste made of chili, onions, dried shrimp, soya sauce and vinegar. Each noodle seller will have his own recipe for the sauce. The sauce is at the bottom of a bowl and the cooked noodles plus ingredients are deftly stirred in to blend with the sauce. A separate bowl of soup made with pork bones is given to accompany the noodles. A garnish like...

Char Kway Teow is a dish loved by all Singaporeans, and what they miss most when on prolonged stays in a foreign country. It is hard to express why we love this mess of flat noodles fried in pork lard. A simple dish actually, if you look at the recipe. First heat up a wok with some pork lard. Brown some minced garlic in it, then toss in the noodles. Stir in and mix a table spoonful of soya sauce that's black and thick and slightly sweet. Add chili paste to taste for that touch of spiciness Now comes the hard part: Use your gourmet instincts to stir-fry this mixture until you can smell the fragrance. Add in bits of shrimp, Chinese sausage, and slices of fish cake. Then throw in a handfil of bean sprouts and chives as garnish. But we are not finished yet. Next break and stir in an egg over this, and finally sprinkle a handful of cockles as a final flourish. With the cockles half-cooked, make a final stir and then take what is now called Char Kway Teow out of the wok. I think the appe...

A dinner menu is like a musical composition. Harmonious and balanced, with a theme, and if possible saying it in a special way that unerringly identifies you as the composer. Each country has it's type of cuisine that reflects the psyche of it's people. And so the sophistication of French cuisine, the 'friendliness' of American cuisine and the stodginess of the British. But in China, there is no national Chinese cuisine, as each region and it's peoples are so different. The Cantonese can be likened to the French, their sophisticated cuisine reflects an obsession with food, with elaborate sauces and concoctions using animals and parts of animals that no one else would use. The fiery people of Szechuan and Hunan need to keep themselves warm in such a frigid climate and this is reflected in their cusine. So too, the robust cuisine of the poor Fukien peasants of coastal South China with it's clumps of noodles and fatty pork dishes for people who only get to eat like...