I wrote this in 2010 when we went to Singapore to watch Belle and Sebastian.
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Eating Singapore
The first time I was in Singapore, I was
not really in Singapore. It was a
stop-over in Changi on my way to India that gave me my first taste of the first
world Asian country that punishes gumchewers.
Even then I was impressed by how such a massive structure filled with
people can be so organized and orderly.
Last week, I was in Singapore for the
first time for real. This time though,
instead of the beautiful, huge and modern airport to welcome us, we touched
down at the Budget terminal. Believe me
when I say that nothing, not even Cebu Pacific’s cramped plane and
uncomfortable seats and roving sari-sari store, can make you feel like your on
a budget trip more than landing in Singapores budget terminal with Changi only
a few hundred meters away. In fact, if
the pilot had told us that we had just landed in Cebu, we wouldn’t have had any
problems believing him. Except it was a
cleaner Cebu terminal. A much much
cleaner Cebu airport.
Clean.
If I were asked to describe Singapore in just one word, clean would
definitely be it. If I were given 100
words, I will use up 90 words to describe just how clean it is. And then somewhere in my last ten words, you
would hear “amazing architecture,”
“wonderful commuter-friendly transportation system,” and “quite
expensive,” as well. An injustice, I
know, to some very talented architects and engineers. But before anyone else, Singapore should hail
as heroes the men and women who keep the city super duper clean. “Even my booger here is white cos its so
clean,” said an utterly astonished Drach.
Perhaps because it’s a little too clean,
or maybe because I grew up in a country that is a little too dirty and
polluted, Singapore felt a little unreal to me – a little synthetic even. It felt like instead of going to a country, I
visited a movie set of a first-world country where the citizens were really
just actors following a character guide on how citizens of a first-world
country should act. Be polite. Be
accommodating. Not too friendly. Not too warm. Or else, lashings.
My friend, a Singapore resident for the
past two years, said that they are not a very imaginative people. “Cannot” (pronounced keh-nuh) is as much a
part of their vocabulary as “la”. Asking
your server if you can get mashed potatoes instead of fries with your food will
give you a very curt “keh-nuh” with a what-is-written-is-all-there-is-duh-don’t-you-know-that
look.
Anyway, all that aside, let me
categorically say that the soul of Singapore is in its cuisine. If you want to find personality in Singapore,
you will find it on your plate or in a hot kitchen or, of course, a hawker
center. To put it bluntly, a single
order of that spicy and juicy stingray dish has more personality than 10
Singaporeans put together. And ultimately,
that’s what you fall in love with when you visit Singapore. At least, that’s what I fell in love with,
absolutely crazy in love with. Their food is so good it made me want to
literally pull my hair out twice.
The first time was during dinner at
Chinatown. Again, a very clean
Chinatown. I know now that even if I
have already forgotten the name of that stall and the name of the street where
we found that stall, I will never forget that meal. My first stingray experience was nothing
short of an OH. MY. GOD. moment. This
stingray was not shy at all. It had no
problem introducing itself to my taste buds.
It was loud and dammit it was proud!
And why the hell shouldn’t it be, it was as mind-blowing as the last 10
minutes of the LOST finale for me. The
meat itself was tender and moist. Its
texture was between that of crabmeat and fish.
It was smothered with this spicy and robust paste (sambal is it?) that can drive your taste buds
delirious. It comes with calamansi and a
small serving of what looks like pickled
onions but could very well be opium.
That pickled onion was food schizophrenia at its best – spicy, sweet,
and sour, makes you sweat and refreshes you at the same time. I was never as sad as I was that night that
people only have one stomach. Lucky
cows.
My second I-wanna-pull-my-hair-out
experience came from a dish that was a little less bold than the stingray. A dish accepted as the national dish of
Singapore. The humble yet sublime, the
simple yet complex - chicken rice. More
specifically, chicken rice from Tian-tian, Maxwell food center at
Chinatown.
Several elements make up this dish,
each one needs to be perfect on its own to create that delicious orgy in your
mouth. The chicken itself has to be
juicy and savory despite its pallid color.
Each grain of rice, plump and coated with a gingery-oniony-fatty jus.
The chili sauce has to be spicy enough to make you sweat but not too spicy to
kill the delicate taste of the chicken.
The broth has to be, how do I say it without being overly dramatic,
well, it has to be the very essence of chicken in a liquid form at the perfect
temperature, not one degree hotter or colder.
Until Singapore, I was under the
impression that the ginger sauce that we normally get with our chicken rice
here in the Philippines is a major component of chicken rice. It, apparently, is not. All you really need is a good chili sauce
and you’re good to go.
So there. The two dishes that defined my Singaporean
foodfest. It has to be said though that
I was only there for 4 days. Not
enough. Too short actually. Cramming the wide buffet of Singaporean food in 4 short days is
impossible. It also didn’t help that in
those four short days, I just had to do repeats of my favorites - chicken rice
twice, stingray three times. Plus I even
wasted a meal with a stupid chicken burger at Universal. There were several places that I wasn’t able
to go to despite rave reviews like Chomp-chomp hawker center, chin-chin
restaurant, little India, and Katong
Laksa. I will get you next time I
promise.
Singapore is a small place they say,
and it is. There’s not a lot to do in
Singapore they say, and there isn’t.
Four days is enough they say, but its NOT. For people who are there to eat and pig out,
four days in Singapore is NOT enough.
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