ALL THINGS BIG AND SMALL 2.0

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...

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...