I was excited to go to Singapore as I had read and heard that it is full of restaurants. Not only can you get cuisine from all over the world there, but there is also the flavorful Peranakan Cuisine, native to Singapore. I had my first meal at True Blue for this type of cooking. The lovely manager let me choose any table I wished as the place was not crowded at lunch. And then, since I knew nothing of this way of cooking, I asked him to choose for me. I started with a salad of Jantong Pisang (banana blossoms with cucumber) which was flavorful and crunchy. I loved those blossoms. Next came a spicy dish: Ayam Buah Keluak, chicken stewed and served with black nuts and rice. The black nuts look exactly how they sound. You are to scrape the outer tough skins and mix this paste with the rice for a flavorful combination. The chicken was extremely tender and the dish just delicious. With my meal, I had Logan tea which has a natural sweetness without sugar.
The next evening, I took a taxi to one of the hawker centers that are a necessary stop for any visitor to Singapore. You can get a meal here for $3 (you even buy your napkin) or $25. I heard that pepper or curry crab are the best things to get but I was not in the mood to fight with crab shell covered with sauce that evening, so I trolled all the stands until I found some dishes that looked and sounded appealing. The hawker center is a large place full of food hawkers behind their stands. You can get all sorts of Asian food here besides the crab, and a particularly popular stop is the satay barbecue stand. It is very hot in the city and I wondered how the man behind that flaming barbecue withstood that intense heat all night. My delicious meal consisted of a dish with tender squid and crunchy celery--perfectly spiced to my taste. To go with that was a noodle dish with tofu. It was $4 Singapore dollars which is about $3.50 American.
The taxi driver overheard me talking in the taxi to my guide, who proclaimed my interest in food. The taxi driver then told us that the traffic jam was due to a big food festival being held right near my hotel. Chefs from all over the world came together to demonstrate their signature dishes. I went the next day and was surprised to find Alain Passard there with his specialty of poached egg with maple cream. Unfortunately, he was too busy to talk to me. At the festival was a store where you could find food from all over the world including La Vache Qui Rit! One man's junk food is another man's gourmet item.
My last night was a celebration. I had heard about this restaurant, Indochine, on Trip Advisor and I too give it high marks. There are several locations but I chose the one view at One Empress Palace. I had a table right next to the water and across from the Asian Civilizations Museum. What a meal! This is Thai food at its best. I was off to a great start with Tam Som Talé, a lovely papaya salad with dried shrimp. It was the best of these I have ever had--so flavorful and well balanced. My main courses were The Chefs Special Grilled Tiger Prawns with a spicy citrus sauce. This dish was almost too beautiful to eat.
No comments:
Post a Comment