Singapore: the one you envied in high school
Fanatically clean, ultra modern and easy to navigate; Singapore is what many cities aspire to be. Strong economy, low crime and an extremely polite and highly educated population, Singapore is the valedictorian and the homecoming queen (who doesn’t chew gum). She’s even friends with all the cliques (religious groups) and manages to get The Stoners and The Preps to hang out in peace.
Everyone we met in Singapore spoke perfect english. There’s frankly nothing better than being able to ask any average Joe where the nearest McDonalds is in my native tongue. (I’m kidding. We don’t go to places like that, ahem) But traveling in a city who speaks your language allows a much greater dialogue to transpire, which greatly contributed to our four day stay.
Aside from a few museums and a movie at the Singapore Film Festival, the majority of our time was spent roaming the streets in pursuit of a shared hobby: eating. If your idea of culinary adventure is dipping your nuggets in BBQ mixed with sweet & sour, you may not be a candidate for this city. Singapore eats, and eats and eats. These people eat so much that I was suspicious of a national habit of bulimia.
Asian cities are known for their street food stalls, but Mr. Clean Singapore moved his inside a few years back. Now dotted around the city are complexes of 2-3 story strip-mall style food stalls with seating filling the aisles. Basically stand alone mall food courts. We ate every single meal at these stalls, partly because they’re fun and partly to keep us away from the incredible posh expensivo restaurants that kept whispering sweet nothings in our ears and taunting our stomachs.
We dove in headfirst, starting with a particular swine dish involving pig bones with meat & fat on the ends cooked in a spicy red jelly sauce. Being the only Westerners at the place, the locals lead by example and we followed like puppies: sucking the sauce out of the hollowed out bones. I thought, hmm..strange but I like the sauce so lets go for it. A few moments later I had a mouthfull of bone marrow. It was disgusting, much like the tripe I was forced to consume in Mexico once. If anyone out there has also dabbled in b. marrow, please let me know. Perhaps we could start an exclusive club and have matching tshirts.
We took a day to recover from the marrow incident, and took cover in Little India and a certain American chain that has possibley already been mentioned. Before long we were ready to hit the stalls again.
Our taxi driver was Billy Graham in the body of a 50-year old Singaporean woman. “Oh love God! Praise Jesus! God loves Singapore, that is why everyone had tsunami…but oh no, no tsunami for Singapore cause God love!” (The concept of God and his preference of certain countries to others sounded strangely familiar. Billy are you reading this?) She even gave a shout out for the father son & holy ghost as we passed a Catholic church. Jesus must be on her side, because her driving skills required divine intervention and we made it safely.
The nun dropped us off at Kampung Makanan East Coast Lagoon. Food stalls arranged in a U-shape facing the harbor, where 20 or so freightliners defined the horizon patiently waiting to hit open water enroute to a Wal-Mart near you. Plates crashing, babies crying, woks sizzling, families and couples and businessmen and prepubscent soccer teams chatting as the sun gave one last wink before it’s daily retirement. The scene was set for serious eating to reconvene.
Our first indulgence was a Singapore classic, laksa. Laksa is a noodle soup with a rich coconut cream broth, and ours was served with shrimp, fishcake and green onions. Delicious. We washed it all down with an A&W Root Beer, which was such a gem of a find that we photographed the moment.
After patrolling the stalls, we noticed a long line snaking from a stall called Meng Kee Satay Bee Hoon. Thirty minutes later, we had our very own steaming hot plate of the cult-status dish. Vermicelli noodles, shrimp, fishcake, clams & cockles drenched in Meng Kee’s own secret peanut sauce (rumored to have over 30 ingredients). The peanut sauce was incredible, smooth and spicy…but frankly I wouldn’t get back in line for another 30 minutes to relive the experience.
Despite the fact we could feel ourselves getting fatter, we headed to a mall for some more. If American malls had food courts like Singapore’s, its possible that our nation would be obeser that it already is. (yes, I said obeser) After intense deliberations we decided to sample the black carrot cake. Erase your mental picture of carrot cake, this was diced daikon radish stir fried with green onions, egg, mushrooms and a sweet but spicy soy based sauce. Perhaps the daikon is the orange carrot’s cousin from an interracial carrot marriage, I haven’t done the research. Regardless it was tasty as hell and I feel slighted that I was forced to share with JR.
After the first bite of the alleged carrot cake, an old man sat down next to us. He was a 77-year old Singaporean who migrated to China in the mid-1940s and lives in Shanghai. An hour went by as we discussed everything from Singapore’s cuisine to his tips on aging to good ol’ GW Bush. (whom of course the old man hates, just like everyone else we’ve met on every single day of this trip) He reminded me of my grandfather, but Asian. Much to JR’s chagrin I asked the old man (he said his name was Mark. ?) if I could take his picture, and he kindly obliged “You want to take picture of me? I’m just an ugly old man.” We complimented his looks like a distressed teenage girl, and I snapped a picture.
We’ve now left Singapore and are back in our beloved Bangkok, which is a balmy 165 degrees. Stay tuned for further documentation of our weight gain.
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Tags: Food, Singapore, Travel
brooke.pearson8
Dude,
What happened to the bearded wonder?