Posts from the ‘Singapore’ Category

Aug 16

Kopitiam

I'm not sure that where we ate was actually Kopitiam. I'd heard there was a
24-hour hawker center in the basement of the Meridian Hotel, and this was
the food court in the basement of the Meridian Hotel, but nowhere did it say
Kopitiam. It was a rainy Sunday morning, our last day in Asia. The place was
pretty dead, but we had fun wandering, nonetheless. James tried the chicken
rice because it was crime that we hadn't had it yet, and I got rojak because
I hadn't tried it yet either. I was told rojak loosely translates as crazy
salad, and that would make sense. There are a ton of different variations,
Nonya rojak, Indian rojak, and more. I think this was a pretty standard
version, from an Indonesian stall (where everything was fried and tempting).
If I'm correct, the rojak contained pineapple, cucumber, turnip, bits of
fried crueler, topped with a thick, sweet and spicy, dark kecap manis-like
sauce and crushed peanuts. I'm just guessing, I've seen recipes containing
jackfruit, papaya, mango and other things, so who knows. Oh, I also got
fried Vietnamese spring rolls because it's just not right to eat a meal in
Singapore without one item having been dipped in oil.

Kopitiam * 100 Orchard Rd., Singapore

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Aug 15

Jumbo

Chili crabs in Singapore? Of course it must be done (despite pepper crabs
seeming tastier in appearance and by description). We decided to head out to
the East Coast Seafood complex on a Friday night. I'd actually made
reservations, but it didn't really matter because you were still given a
number scrawled on a yellow plastic square (which I still have) and made to
wait like everyone else. They just kept adding more tables and chairs as
more people showed up. We were practically at the water's edge, the furthest
table, until a group of Germans (I don't actually know that they were
Germans, but I like to scapegoat them for all the annoying tourist behavior
in S.E. Asia) insisted on having their table put between ours and the river.
Whatever.

The funniest part was how immediately a woman came up and asked if we
wanted satay with our meal. James was irked, thinking it was a pushy
waitress and said he wanted to look at the menu first, which we hadn't
received yet. I didn't think they even served satay, and it turned out they
didn't. She was just a renegade satay hawker, which seemed way more like a
Thailand move than a Singapore one where everything's so darn orderly and
regulated. Being semi-clueless we ordered a large chili crab for the two of
us and were told that we really wanted a medium one. Ok, fine enough. And we
ordered a female because I think the roe is supposed to a selling point. We
also got a side of green vegetable (Chinese broccoli, I think). Yes, the
crab was big and swimming in sauce. A huge red, sticky, eggy mess, in the
best way possible, of course. Yes, I know that's how chili crab is, but I'm
weird about getting my hands dirty so had to just dig in and worry about
napkins later (they give handy wipes, but you burn through them in no time
flat). I did know enough that you're supposed to order mantou, little fried
buns to daub up the sauce, which we did. But apparently not to our
waitresses liking who told us we needed to eat the sauce (I was totally
bursting at the seams by this point) and that she'd bring out mantou (she
didn't realized we'd already gone the mantou dipping route). After the
second bun sopping routine there was still tons of sauce, so we tried to
scoop it into a pool and hide it under the crab shell. I've never had to do
something like that before, but I don't think I could stomach another course
of fried buns, and I love fried buns. Next time I'll try the pepper crab
(it's not so saucy).

Jumbo * East Coast
Seafood Centre, Singapore

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Aug 15

Katong Laksa

My first Singpore laksa in Singapore. So not like the crazy
Portland-style I initially got hooked on. Though Taste of Bali (clearly
wrong by using a touristy Indonesian city in their name) prepared the dish
non-traditionally, they did set my preference for the rich, coconut milk
based Singapore style. I'm totally ruined for the sour assam version you'll
find in Malaysia. My laksa love started as a near novelty, who knew that
half a decade later I'd have a full blown Malaysian/Singaporean food
addiction.

I heard talk of, or at least had read of the "laksa wars of 1999."
Seriously. They're serious about this stuff and I don't blame them. And East
Coast Rd. is home to a row of laksa shops. But that's not where I went.
Accompanied by someone in the know, James's coworker Alvin, and short on
time (though he was low on workload due to the NYC blackout and subsequent
shortage of email directives) we tried the Katong Laksa, not in Katong, but
in cute, suburbanesque Holland Village. Alvin claimed it reminded him of New
Jersey where he grew up. If only I could just skip across the Hudson for
food like this.

Overly-vigilant, Alvin ordered the soup without the cockles. My stomach
could've handled it, I swear. The laksa "gravy" (it weirds me out that they
call the broth gravy) is thick, curryish, spicy, yellow, with rice noodles,
hard-boiled egg, bean sprouts, shrimp and bean curd. I was told this stall's
trademark was that the noodles are cut up for easy eating. For a chopstick
bungler, that was a selling point. We also had otak otak, and fresh lime
juice, most likely from those adorable mini limes everyone seems to use over
there.

The nice thing about Singapore stalls is that almost always you can
choose from a variety of sizes. Unlike NYC where everything is huge and you
want more for your money, in Singapore it's actually wise to order small
(which are never actually small) to save room for "second lunch" or "second
dinner" (as James and I took to calling our many food courses that didn't
fit into a traditional three square meals) This isn't an actual tradition
(that I'm aware of), we just invented the double meal on the fly.

Katong Laksa * Holland Village, Singapore

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Aug 14

Killiney Kopitiam

My first meal in Asia, and appropriately traditional. Coffee filled with
condensed milk, kaya toast and soft-boiled eggs, of course. It was one of
those protocol experiences, like how do you eat the eggs without making a
mess (it seemed like everyone else was eating them from a bowl with soy
sauce)? Do you dip the toast in the eggs? Do you sit and wait for service or
order at the counter-and when do you pay? I was quickly initiated into the
fact that napkins are not provided at most restaurants in Singapore. Mini
tissue packs were purchased rapidly thereafter. The toasted bread filled
with thick, melting butter and coconut jam was a near obscene treat. I've
since taken to eating kaya and peanut butter sandwiches.

Killiney Kopitiam * 67 Killiney Road, Singapore

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Aug 14

Coriander Leaf

Honest to goodness I can barely remember the food. And oddly enough, James
claims it was one of the highest credit card charges from our two-week S.E.
Asian excursion. It wasn't that the food was unremarkable, we were just
overwhelmed and tired. It was our first proper, sit-down meal on the
continent. I recall there being some naan and some prawns…heck, the
restaurant was in our hotel and we were beat. I started to feel
self-conscious when we asked for a shared dessert, neglected the two extra
plates provided and shared the treat on the plate it came on. Perhaps that's
not the thing to do? It was the first, though hardly the last, time we'd get
odd stares for eating off the same plate. Are these folks germ freaks or
just plain particular?

CorianderLeaf * 76
Robertson Quay, Singapore

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