Singapore Food Trek (Part 2)

My gastronomic adventures continue in Part 2 of my Singapore Trek!

BAK KUT TEH
On the Friday I was there, I tried something new after little prodding from my Singapore friend Peng, who took me to Arab Street.

The dish he was letting me sample is called Bak Kut Teh, an aromatic soup brewed from pork ribs, spices, pepper and garlic, served with a bowl of piping hot rice and sliced red chilies in dark soya sauce.

We met up at the Bugis MRT station, then proceeded toward Beach Road, where a small little corner place with the name "Leong Lee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh" offers one of the tastiest versions of the dish.

This is what is called as the Klang version, where the pork ribs are simmered in a broth enriched with dark soy and various Chinese herbs like dang gui, anise, ginseng and cinnamon. Swimming in the broth would be the pig skin, with a minimum of fat, along with beancurd skin, giving it its aroma. Mushrooms and fresh lettuce are added for garnishing. Overall it looked like really tasty dish that's balanced and a lot more complex than the usual bowl of soup and bones ala bulalo style in Batangas.

The side dishes were braised peanuts, dough fritters and pickled vegetables. The hot broth was very tasty and the meat was perfectly stewed to a lovely tenderness! We didn't mind the heat and humidity even if our table was located outside near the curb. The whole ambiance of the place (or lack of it) was excusable once you start focusing on your meal.

Peng says he comes here often, maybe a couple of times a month, for lunch. Its also a cheap way to get a hot filling meal. I must say it was one of the most interesting dishes I've tried in a long time! Thanks to Peng for taking me to this place!

HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE
When you talk about Singapore cuisine, you can never fail to mention the very popular Hainanese Chicken Rice, a real good, authentic version of which has been hard to come by in Manila.

But this dish can be found everywhere in Singapore, and most people have said one of the best places to try this is at Wee Nam Kee. Since this information came to me too late, I had to settle for someplace else, nearest to where we were at the time of our craving -- outside Raffle City Mall right after the F1 Friday Practice Session.

We had just come out of the Marina Bay Circuit and found ourselves following the crowd through the MRT tunnel and out to Raffles Place. I quickly texted Mai on where we can find Hainanese Chicken Rice for a quick late dinner nearby and she directed me to a small place near Purvis Street and along Seah St., within the proximity of the Raffles Hotel.

We easily found the place which was called (Zheng) Swee Kee Hainanese Chicken Rice, and it had a full menu of chicken and pork dishes cooked the Hainanese way.



We ordered two dishes of roast chicken and one order of the regular white chicken rice. The accompanying ginger, soy and chili sauce were pretty good, too. I guess we were just too hungry to decide whether it was the best or not. It was good enough for us! We also got a couple of dishes of Pechay veggies, pretty good and fresh tasting!

After we finished off our plates, we met up with Anmar at Clark Quay, a popular nightspot in Singapore. Clark Quay was alive and kicking, it being a Friday night. The bars and pubs were all full of people unwinding after a long workday. Most of the people were expats, a smattering of locals, and some tourists (like us).

Instead of heading to a bar to drink, we just had coffee and dessert at a coffeeshop called TCC. Like everyplace else, this cafe was packed, and it was just pure luck that we found a table just vacated.

BREAKFAST AT WILD HONEY
The next morning, Mai took me out for breakfast at Wild Honey, a place she raved about as having some of the most scrumptious breakfast offerings ever! And all the place only has breakfast dishes throughout the day! Me being a "Breakfast Guy," I couldn't pass it up! Since the place didn't accept reservations, we decided to head on out as soon as we got ourselves ready.

So, we took the cab to the Mandarin Gallery, went up to the third floor and got in line outside the door of Wild Honey. I didn't know what to expect, which was good, coz it meant i can easily be satisfied! Surprisingly, the line wasn't very long and we easily got a table for two.

"Inspired by the vast array of ingredients, recipes and breakfast traditions you can now travel to a different destination everyday. From Tunisia to Mexico to New York to Calfornia," it says on Wild Honey website. The style here is you go up to the counter to give your order, then they'll take it to your table as soon as its ready.

We looked at the list of breakfast dishes from different parts of the world on a blackboard style menuboard mounted on the wall. It also helped that there was an iPad on the counter containing photos of the dishes, making it that much easier to make a choice!

The sweet and entertaining counter guy helped us make our choices: Mai chose her all-time favorite Canadian Breakfast of pancakes and bacon, and I chose the Tunisian, "a sizzling pan of red pepper, onion and tomato concise (stew) studded with sliced chorizo sausage and crowned with two fried eggs." A real killer of a breakfast, if you ask me!



The food came and we didn't waste any time digging in. My order would fall under the category of "Breakfast of Champions" - quite filling, but tasty all the way through. I was hoping this would last me the whole day, although I had another lunch get-together planned out with some SG-based friends.

Thanks to Mai for taking me to Wild Honey! We definitely need to go back and finish everything listed on that menu board!

MEGAMAC
That same night, we stayed up late for the F1 Qualifying Sessions that started at 1opm. Nappy and I decided to meet at the Gate 3 entrance of Marina Bay Circuit by 9pm.

Earlier, I spent the afternoon visiting the Mint Museum of Toys http://www.emint.com/, located right beside the Swee Kee restaurant we had dinner in the other night. I spent about an hour there, looking at the vintage toys and stuff, then did a little bit more shopping at ION Orchard, then went back to the flat to rest and change into more comfy gear.

By the time I got to our meeting place, we just had less than an hour left before start of Qualifying Sessions! Nappy texted me to say they'll wait for me at the McDonald's right outside the mall near Gate 3. When I arrived there, I was surprised by what I saw: a burger meal appropriately called MegaMac, consisting of four all-beef patties sandwiched amid three soft buns! It was paired with a giant cup of soda and a large box of french fries!


This burger is probably one of the heaviest, by virtue of the four patties. But when you really look at it, the single patty isn't really a big deal. But its the fact that you get the four instead of the usual two in a Big Mac meal means you're doubling your chances for a major infusion of meat!

Well, that didn't deter me as I slowly and methodically picked thru the MegaMac until nothing was left. And we had just about enough time to go into the Gate 3, and find our seats before Qualifying started!

LAU PA SAT
The Qualifying Sessions ended late, almost midnight, and it left us hungry again. Our friend Anmar said he was on his way to where we were and he would bring us to Lau Pa Sat, a popular food center with various food stalls of different cuisine.

A quick search in the Internet brought me to a website that said, "Lau Pa Sat in the Hokkien dialect is 'old market,' and it was Singapore's first wet market that dates back to over 150 years ago to the time of Sir Stamford Rafffles, the founder of Singapore. It was converted to a gourmet paradise and has been gazetted as a national monument since 1973."

Inside were stalls of various food hawkers, offering an eclectic mix of cuisine from Singapore and neighboring countries. We even saw the Tapa King stall from the Philippines, and one named Happy V that had a menu closely resembling that of a popular fast-food using a bee as its image.

Since it was already past midnight by this time, the place was almost empty, save for a few tables with customers here and there. As soon as we found our table, a guy with a laminated menu board approached us. We ordered pork and chicken satay, roti prata, nasi goreng, kallang with garlic, a clam dish which I forget the name of, and the various dipping sauces that came along with the dishes.

The nasi goreng was pretty good, just rightly cooked and enfused with a great harmony of flavors. The roti was perfectly toasted, and on its own it was already tasty; with the peanut-chili sauce, it blew our minds! The satay, of course, was top-notch, and this was the best place to sample this dish!

We finished off everything that we ordered! How's that for a midnight snack!



CHILI CRABS
What would a trip to Singapore be without sampling the famous chili crabs? This prompted us to have our last lunch at a place that served the best chili crabs in Singapore!

It was our last day in Singapore, and the F1 Singapore Grand Prix was happening on this last night. So a lunch of chili crabs would be a most ideal final hurrah for our gustatory adventure. And for this, I decided to book a table at the No Signboard Seafood for the best chili crabs in town.

The branch we went to was in Geylang, which wasn't very far from where I was staying and quite near to Nappy's hotel in the Geylang area.

We ordered White Pepper Crab and Chili Crab (S$45/kilo), Drunken Prawn, Sambal Kangkong, then some Hokkien Mie noodles and steamed rice. The crabs were just as advertised: really juicy and perfectly cooked! It was really fresh coz it didn't stick to any of the hard parts. My companions loved the chili crab but I found the white pepper crab much to my liking!


For three people, this was a huge feast! But we got down to business and consumed almost all of it, especially the crabs. No Signboard has been in business since 1981, and they've got several branches all over Singapore! Good thing we went to the Geylang branch coz they say the prices here were much lower than other branches!

We felt good after this meal, a fitting exclamation point to our crazy food trip in Singapore!

I'll be back for more of the same next time!