Thai me up, Thai me down

Cabbages & Condoms
6 Soi 12, Sukhomvit Road
Bangkok 10110, Thailand
+66 02 229 4611

In the same way that cheap Chinese food is often easy to find wherever you travel in the world – more often than not one is also likely to find decent approximations of Thai food. In DC, Regent Thai was a perennial favourite for lunch, as was Thaiphoon right by Dupont Circle. I was grateful for this global culinary colonialisation, grateful for Thai chefs exporting their native cuisine to the far corners of the earth – for from time to time these places satisfied my cravings for spice, and for my hometown flavours like coriander and tamarind.

But for the best (and certainly the cheapest) Thai food, there is no doubt that one has to go to Thailand. This is not a difficult thing to manage if you live in Singapore – it is not that far away, and weekend getaways to resort destinations like Phuket and Koh Samui are relatively affordable. This past weekend a gaggle of us made a trip to Bangkok, the nation’s capital, for a weekend of drunken debauchery, a male ritual otherwise known as the bachelor party.

Warren is getting married in January, and I have known him and his bride-to-be for a long time now. I must say that they are both wonderful people and seem like a great couple together, and I wish them nothing but the best. But before he is lost to the rest of us, there were fun times to be had over the weekend. Those times will not be retold on these pages – for what happens in Bangkok stays in Bangkok – but we did have a couple of good meals worth mentioning.

The tailor that we visited gave us a strange recommendation for dinner – and with a name like Cabbages and Condoms, we had to try it. We had absolutely no idea what to expect, and as we peeled off the main drag of Sukhomvit onto one of its darker, dustier side alleys there was a little feeling of trepidation. But there it was a little ways down, its welcoming and well-lit entryway drawing us in like moths to the fire.

The restaurant was started by former Thai senator Mechai Viravaidya, who believed that “birth control should be as cheap as vegetables”. The result is Cabbages and Condoms – part restaurant, part sex shop, and part functioning clinic for communicable diseases: wholly dedicated to raising awareness of birth control and sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS. In fact, you can get a free vasectomy from the clinic next door after your meal. All proceeds go to the Population & Community Development Association, which organises and funds these community awareness programs.

In addition to its lofty ambitions C&C is also a darned fine restaurant and an excellent showcase of traditional Thai dishes. It is certainly curious walking in and being greeted by life-size statues made entirely out of condoms, or walls draped with birth control pills. We were led to a table in the outdoor garden terrace, the pillars and trees adorned with lights that upon closer inspection turned out to be lanterns made of condoms.


There were five of us at the table, and we each chipped in with selections for a dazzling array of dishes. C&C caters to both locals and foreigners – in addition to the Thai names there were not only English translations but also pictures – and there were the globally ubiquitous dishes of pad thai, tom yum goong and green curry. Yet we eschewed all but the latter in favour of what we could only imagine to be more traditional Thai dishes.

Kevin ordered a dish of fried chicken wrapped in pandan leaves, a dish that my maidservant used to make when I was young. It was very time-consuming so she did it only when she was in the mood for it; but she also smartly used it as barter in exchange for our best behaviour. Pieces of deboned chicken are marinated in milk, with garlic, peppercorns, chillies and coriander; and then individually wrapped in pandan leaves and then pan-fried. Because the leaves seal its juices in, you get very moist and tender pieces of chicken – made impossibly aromatic by the distinctive fragrance of the pandan leaves. The version at C&C was not as aromatic or flavourful as the version I remember from my childhood, but then again, what is? It was nevertheless very, very good and definitely a standout among the other dishes we ordered.

Another standout was a dish of hor mok, familiar to Singaporeans as a Thai version of otak. Pieces of fish, squid and other seafood are ground with herbs and spices into a paste and bound by coconut milk, then wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed to doneness. The version at C&C was freshly steamed, and had a texture somewhat shy of solid, that defied chewing and which can only be described as gooey. It was just spicy enough, seasoned very well, and so nice that we ordered it twice.

Rather less satisfactory was the herbal duck in red curry, which lacked the punch I expected and also was overcooked to a point where the meat was not only falling off the bone but also falling apart. It had lost whatever texture it had had, and most of its flavour.

Despite its little missteps (the service was a little spotty, especially after all our food had been served), Cabbages and Condoms is a rather delightful place, with an atmosphere that can unequivocally be described as romantic. But what the restaurant appears to be saying is that if the mood and the moment do strike, then remember to be safe. Instead of breath mints, the hostesses press condoms into our hands as we leave; smile sincerely, and bid us goodbye.

A 29 year-old home-made recipe for 'Thank You'

by Simon Salgado

Start with an American base – influences from Upstate New York, LA, DC, Tennessee, and Texas. Pour in some French, Honduran, Thai, Indian, British and Chinese for flavor. Baste with liberal, conservative, Jew, Christian, gay, straight, and be sure to sprinkle in seasoning aged 12 to 83 years. Mix rigorously with students, bankers, economists, therapists, doctors, lawyers, house cleaners, and throw in a former playboy bunny for good measure. Let it simmer for four hours and you have the outrageously delicious and outlandish 50 guest 2008 Salgado Thanksgiving, an ongoing near 30 year tradition.

In the US, Thanksgiving is a festival to give thanks for the harvest and a time to express our gratitude… and what better way to give thanks than to share in an evening filled with good company, feasting on an elaborate spread of delightfully savory and tasty dishes. A nutritionist's worst nightmare, Thanksgiving is a meal where on average, Americans shamelessly consume over 2000 calories in one sitting… atrocious perhaps, gluttonous for sure, and food-coma-licious for certain. As far as I can tell, the only way to make the meal even more over-the-top would be to eat it with no hands…

The matriarch of a tradition that started in 1977, my spunky, energetic, and food-pushing dear Jewish mother organizes an annual Thanksgiving feast with family and mostly friends who have nowhere else to go for the celebration. The guest list has undoubtedly evolved over the years, but it is always a charming cross-section of 50 or so starkly different individuals (at least a handful of whom will share in our feast for the first time) who each bring a unique perspective and dish to the lovely affair. 2008 was no different.

(The hostess with the mostest; and evil mastermind behind the plan to take out some of America's finest with nothing but tryptophan and sugar)

The guests begin to file in at 4 o' clock in the afternoon… warm salutations and long embraces are shared and the young strapping lads and ladies lug in bountiful gourmet concoctions to the grand buffet. A hum of chatter and guffaws fill the room as folks sip on piping hot freshly made apple cider (spiked with white rum if you please!) seasoned with cinnamon, cloves, and orange zest. The aroma of perfectly carved moist turkey and tryptophan permeates the air (2 free range birds and both 30 pounders! an abomination to some animal rights activists, but splendid for this large to-do!).


Other simple, no-nonsense traditional and non-traditional comfort foods are smattered on the table – perfectly glazed cured honey baked ham; heavenly home-made deep fried Thai eggrolls; warm and flaky breaded brie brushed with black currant preserves; rich stuffing baked with grilled onions, mushrooms, peppers and apple sausage; sweet and delicate Nashville corn soufflé that melts in your mouth; bountiful tart cranberry sauce; perfectly baked sweet potato fingers that make your mouth water; and a viscous vegetarian gravy blended with grilled onions, mushrooms, and peppers seasoned in soy, sherry, salt and pepper. There is nothing fancy shmancey about it… just simple, home made and delicious.


The fifty guests make heaping plates and cram into four tables on two floors of our modest town house – impeccably decorated with autumn colored table cloths from all over the world, tasteful antique turkey-like centerpieces, majestic lighted candles, and beautiful calligraphy drawn on shaved bark name plates at each masterfully arranged setting. Fine wine flows freely as the boisterous group chows down, each heavenly bite better than the next. The room fills with pockets of rigorous debate, uproar over the failing economy, horribly bad jokes, obscure sports trivia, and countless shared laughs. Seconds are had, in some cases thirds, and somehow in the gluttony of it all, everyone still has room for dessert… and what a sight the dessert table is to see…

The grand buffet has transformed into a majestic mountain of sinful delights giving new meaning to the term "naughty": rich and creamy flan, a Spanish custard made from condensed and evaporated milk, eggs, caramelized sugar, and some secret ingredients; flaky and rich baked-from-scratch pecan pie with authentic Texas pecans; a wicked chocolate brownie cake with almost torte-like creaminess; a magnificent French Yule Log made with meringue, marzipan, and melt-in-your mouth silky butter cream; freshly baked pumpkin pie spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. When all is said and done, undoing the old belt and dozing off for a food-coma-induced cat nap is surely in order. Football is watched, hot coffee is sipped, and feet are warmed by the fire place. After some much needed digesting over pleasant conversation, the night is capped with thank you's, affectionate goodbyes, and final embraces.

A 14th century German born theologian, philosopher and mystic, Meister Eckhart, once said that "If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." Thanksgiving Day…. sharing food with friends and family… what a great way to give thanks… and what a blessing.


Simon Salgado's mother is a saint. You understand me? She is a saint!

A blast from the past

Soon Heng Curry Fish Head Restaurant
39 Kinta Rd
Singapore 219108
+65 6294 6561

Soon Heng is somewhat of a personal Mecca for me, in that one day I must make the trip there. I have eaten their food many times: my grandmother used to buy their fish head curry and curry chicken, among other dishes – and as children we would eat them on our weekly visits to her house. For the longest time I thought my grandmother made those dishes herself, and I was strangely liberated when I found out that they were store-bought and realised that I, too, could have those dishes whenever I wanted them. For a price, of course. Yet even though I am intimately familiar with their cuisine, I have never actually been there, and I consider it a missing piece of my life story puzzle.

Fish head curry is a distinctly Singaporean dish – made possible by the city-state’s unique confluence of Chinese, Malay and Indian culinary traditions. The premise of the dish is simple – the heads of large fishes such as groupers or red snappers are stewed in a mixture of curry powder, asam (tamarind) juice, chilli peppers, coconut milk and a variety of other spices. Brinjal (eggplant) and okra are also added to the curry. It is served with white rice, and true devotees eat everything they can off the head – eyeballs and all – before mopping up the curry with crusty day-old bread.

The fish head curry at Soon Heng is good, but it is far from the best representation of the dish you can find, and also not even the main draw at the restaurant it gives its name to. The standouts at Soon Heng are the curry chicken wings and a spectacular squid dish – stewed in its own ink, with asam juice and onions. I remember going on a fishing trip with Jeremy one time and trying to explain to him how amazing this dish was – saying that the squid was “so black, that it looks green”. It made sense in my head as I said it, and he burst out into uncontrollable laughter not at the absurdity of the statement, but because he knew exactly what I meant.

My mother, bless her heart, bought me dinner the other day on her way back from a mahjong session – and at my request made the trip to Soon Heng. Like I said, I have never actually been there, so I don’t quite know where it is, nor what it looks like. I know that it is off Race Course Rd, and that is the extent of my knowledge.

If the standard of Soon Heng’s curry had slipped, I did not notice. Their curry is spicy but not overly so, but what I enjoy about it is its heft and incredible greasiness. I don’t think they add coconut milk to it, so it is a thick, aqueous liquid with some small visible chunks, glistening in a sheen of oil. The asam makes it nice and sour, and it is a perfect complement to meats; though I would be happy just slathering it on white rice and eating that alone.


It was with some apprehension that I tried the squid braised in its own ink. After so many years, I wondered if it would hold the same magic for me. When I think of the foods that define my childhood, this features prominently among them. The memory of the tart squid ink is something pure and unspoiled in my mind, and with one bite I risked losing that forever.


I need not have feared. The squid ink sauce was as sweet and tangy as ever, and the squid itself still fat and firm. It rendered me unable to speak, or even think, for several blissful seconds; and my mother rolled her eyes and looked at me like I was crazy.

It occurs to me that I cannot even objectively say that this restaurant is good. My opinion is coloured too much by memories from my childhood that even now, with a more discerning palate, there is still a soft spot in my heart for this place. One day I will actually make the trip to Soon Heng, and see for myself what other options there are. Yet maybe that day I will finally find something to be disappointed by, and I don’t know if I want to risk that or not.

One man's meat

Ponggol Nasi Lemak Centre
238 Tanjong Katong Rd
+65 6348 3303

“Tous les goûts sont dans la nature.” – French proverb

Food is a sensitive subject, and one about which there is often a distinct opinion for each person at the table. In a nation where degustation is second nature, standards are high and patience for the mediocre wears thin easily. Singaporeans are the harshest critics when it comes to food, and word of mouth travels swiftly and unforgivingly in this tiny, highly-interconnected town. As a discerning eater, one must select one’s sources carefully, and take each recommendation with a pinch of salt.

I have found that taxi drivers are the best sources for where to get the truly great hawker food. They traverse the tiny island many times over in a single day, and the nature of their profession demands that they eat out often, and at a variety of locales. They exchange tips and recommendations easily amongst their kind, and that communal, ground-up approach to building a knowledge base means that any taxi driver worth his salt can tell you where to go if you want a particular dish.

Recommendations from friends, though, are more difficult to assess. One has to bear in mind how much of a foodie the friend offering the recommendation truly is, and whether he or she is operating with lesser standards than you are. I have learnt to distrust enthusiasm: true knowledge begets a considered approach. There are some among my group of friends who I have cast aside as veritable sources for food recommendations. Maybe our palates are different, maybe we care about food to different degrees.

In any case the voice of the people usually speaks the loudest – if the lines for a certain dish at a certain location are out the door, then it is probably worth a shot. Karen and I decided to follow this logic following the recommendation from one of our mutual friends, of a certain nasi lemak stall right by his house – at the corner of Tanjong Katong Rd and Parkstone Rd. Passing by the place on previous occasions, I had always seen an orderly throng of people braving the elements and waiting patiently outside to be served, and had made a mental note to try it at some point.

(If there is one thing that Singaporeans are born with an innate knowledge of and propensity for, it is waiting in line. Nobody ever complains about having to wait in line, and the line etiquette of Singaporeans is exemplary for the most part.)

Nasi lemak is a traditional Malay dish, translated literally as “rice in cream”. This refers to its cooking process – where rice is soaked in coconut cream and the mixture then steamed. Sometimes lemongrass is added, and sometimes this mixture is steamed wrapped in pandan leaves. The result is aromatic rice with a heady fragrance and comforting sweetness. This rice is usually then served with Malay staple side dishes – otak, ikan bilis, roasted peanuts, sambal belachan, fish cake, deep-fried chicken wings and others.

My go-to location for nasi lemak has historically been Changi Village, which has been around for ages but has never dipped in quality. The lines for that one are out of sight, and really pretty ridiculous considering that there are other stalls around it and in the vicinity serving other foods, yet none of them have so much as two people at any time lining up for their food. The only downsides about the Changi Village nasi lemak are that it is expensive (for a dish that is supposed to be affordable labourers’ fare) and also that it is fucking far away and a pain in the ass to get to.

So when Kevin recommended the Ponggol nasi lemak place right outside his house it only strengthened a groundswell of opinion that had included the hearty recommendations of the massage therapist I had gone to see the other day. Karen and I decided to come here after our plans to eat pepper crab were thwarted, and I really did want to like this place. It would have been a more accessible alternative to Changi Village if I had a nasi lemak fix. All said, there were some highlights, but overall this place was not extraordinary, and nowhere near worth all the hype and the long lines.

Ponggol Nasi Lemak is located along a row of small businesses on Tanjong Katong Rd, and for a roadside eatery has a remarkable level of cleanliness. It is well ventilated and brightly lit, which are qualities that are often taken for granted especially at roadside eateries. The staff move about with wordless efficiency, and the operation is – pardon the pun – very well-oiled. It brings to mind the Soup Nazi place near Columbus Circle in New York – one person scoops the rice for you at the counter, another takes your order for side dishes, and the third collects payment. The entire transaction can be completed in a matter of seconds.

There is an impressive array of side dishes to choose from, and in addition to the staples mentioned earlier there was fried okra, eggplant, French beans, luncheon meat, fish fingers, deep-fried prawn rolls, and many others I cannot remember. The selection is certainly a huge plus, but it made for much indecision on our parts as we waited in line.


It is not often that rice is the main attraction, but in this dish I suppose it is. The rice was cooked well, and had a sweet creamy taste that I thought could have been more prominent, but was delightful in and of itself. The deep-fried chicken wings and otak were also excellent, but other side dishes were less than inspiring. The French beans were underseasoned and a tad too crunchy, the sotong ball and fish cake devoid of flavour.


What truly makes or breaks any good nasi lemak is the accompanying sambal belachan. In making great sambal, there is a fine line between too sweet and too sour, between too grainy and too creamy. This version was definitely very good and hit all the right notes. I like my sambal a little smokier than the one we got here, but it was delicious nonetheless, and I lapped up almost every bit of the healthy dollop that Karen had slapped on my plate.


Perhaps it was the disappointment of not getting our first option, but we walked away from Ponggol Nasi Lemak with a slight tinge of regret. It had been good, no doubt, but not life-changing, and had perhaps been a little too hyped for us. We joked about never listening to another of Kevin’s recommendations, but I think we eventually decided to give him one more chance. If the next place he recommends is terrible, then I am afraid we shall have to strike him off the list permanently.

Hot Stuff

Thanksgiving came and went in Singapore last week without so much as a whimper, and if not for the blow-by-blow reports of extreme eating from the usual suspects back in the States, I would have been none the wiser. It is not a holiday we celebrate here, but it is a tradition I have come to appreciate having experienced it several times over the last couple of years. The practice of giving thanks, in particular, is one we all could use a little more of. I know it is not every family that is deliberate about this, but I do think that at the pace we live in these days - it is sometimes difficult remembering to express our gratitude for the small mercies that get us through the day.

Besides, it is not every day that we are permitted, even encouraged, to eat and drink to excess. I spent Thanksgiving at the Salgado household twice and both times the amount of food laid out before us was staggering. Both years we struggled manfully to even make a dent in the spread, and each time we swore never to touch turkey again. Of course, we ate nothing but turkey the next couple of days, and obviously we did it all over again the next year.

I’m not sure if I am expressing a controversial opinion here but I do believe that my favourite traditional Thanksgiving food is the stuffing. I can’t get enough of it, especially the stuffing that has been cooked in the turkey. If done right it is moist and flavoured with the juices of the turkey, yet the faint crunch of the pre-toasted bread is still present, and the aroma of the herbs fills the air. Eating turkey with stuffing elevates it to a different level, because the flavours used in stuffing – typically intense, usually herb-based – are a perfect foil for the lightness of the turkey meat.

The one year that I made stuffing for Thanksgiving, I asked Morgan’s mother to send me her recipe – for Morgan had made it for us once before and I remembered it to be delightful. She duly obliged, with the caveat that she “sounded like a mother” in the recipes. I was later very thankful for this fact, because what sounded like a mother’s words to her was in fact invaluable practical advice that is so often missing in traditional recipes.

There is an art to writing a good recipe that I believe is often overlooked. I don’t use a lot of recipes, but when I do – I don’t particularly care for the amounts and the quantities of the ingredients, or sometimes even the ingredients themselves. I add however much I want to taste, or switch out the ingredients if I want to work with something else. I don’t particularly care for the steps laid out in the recipe either, because most of it is common sense. What I am looking out for in a recipe is information on how the ingredients are going to react to being manipulated, and what to do about it. I want to know what is going to happen when I subject something to heat, with any number of heating methods; or what is going to happen when I leave something out in the open for a period of time. I want to know what to look out for to tell when something is done. In essence, when I look at a recipe I want to understand not how to create the final product, but rather how to work with the ingredients involved to get the best out of them.

I can think of a particular example. When I first started cooking I attempted to work with eggplant one night – and must have read several different recipes I found online, hoping to extract the best out of all of them. I thought I had made a decent fist of the recipes, but the eventual dish was bitter beyond belief, and had an unforgiving texture. I later found out that you were supposed to salt eggplant heavily before even working with them – drawing out their moisture and degorging them of the bitter liquid that is found within their seeds. It made me positively mad that none of the recipes I read had even mentioned this. To me, this is exactly the kind of information that you should include in a recipe.

And so it was that I was thankful for clear, concise and common-sense instructions within Morgan’s family recipe for stuffing. Understanding the recipe not as a series of steps or chronological events, but rather as a field guide to ingredients and the nature of the activities required to transform them – gives any reader a whole hell of a lot more useful information. It gave me the license and confidence to adapt the recipe and fashion it in a direction more aligned with what I wanted to make and eat.

So here it is, my adapted version of Thanksgiving stuffing. Apart from some minor tweaks to the ingredients I have also added a couple more. I put shitake mushrooms in the stuffing because firstly I like the taste, and secondly mushrooms release a lot of water when cooked, and this helps to keep the stuffing from drying out. Also, I include dried cranberries because I think they add an additional texture, and the dried fruit complements the veal very well if you are eating the stuffing by itself as a casserole.

Thanksgiving Veal Stuffing with Cranberries (inspired by Janet Lindgren)

About 10 cups of crusty, country-style white bread, cut into 1/3-inch cubes. [This will make more than you can put in the turkey. Make less or bake the rest in a casserole]
1 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon olive oil
¾ cup finely diced onions
¾ cup finely diced leeks
¾ cup finely diced carrots
¾ cup finely diced celery
1 cup diced shitake mushrooms
3 Tablespoons chopped fresh sage
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
½ cup dry white wine (or stock)
1 pound ground veal
2 slices country bacon, chopped coarsely into bits

½ cup (packed) chopped fresh parsley
1 cup dried cranberries
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup (about) canned chicken broth

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread bread on 2 large rimmed baking sheets. Bake until golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

In a roasting pan, combine onions, leeks, carrots and celery and drizzle with olive oil. Bake in the oven with the bread cubes for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally – until top layer has a golden tinge but is not yet browned.

Melt butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown veal and cook through, breaking up with the back of a fork. Remove and set aside. Add bacon and fry until fat is rendered. Add onions, leeks, carrots and celery and sauté about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms and sauté for further 4 minutes. Add sage; sauté 1 minute. Add wine. Boil until wine evaporates, about 1 minute. Add veal back in and cook further for about 2-3 minutes. Cool slightly.

(Bread and veal mixture can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover separately. Store bread at room temperature; refrigerate veal mixture.)

(Some recipes for stuffing call for the bread cubes to be further broken up into crumbs with the use of a food processor. Personally, I like the cubes better.)

Stir veal mixture, parsley and cranberries into bread cubes. Whisk eggs, salt, nutmeg and pepper in medium bowl. Mix into stuffing. If seems too dry add more broth. Will get moister in the bird. Will get drier in a casserole.

(When stuffing the turkey, do not pack it in tightly. Leave about 1/4 of the cavity unfilled; the stuffing will expand as the bird roasts.)

Pasta mia

Noodles are quite possibly my favourite starch, and if not then they are second only to bread. They are a wonderfully versatile medium, able to carry a multitude of different flavours; and are equally capable of being either the centerpiece or merely a foil for a main protein. As a dish, it is easily scalable in quantity, so you can serve however large or small a portion as an appetiser, an entrée or simply just a snack. Best of all, it is food you can play with on your plate.

It may go unnoticed by the average diner, but noodles are an integral part of Singaporean cuisine. Rice noodles, wheat noodles, egg noodles; you can get noodles in all shapes and sizes – thick or thin, long or short, wide or slender. Some of our most popular dishes are noodle dishes – hokkien mee, char kway teow, mee goreng, wonton mee. So why is it then, for the love of God, that I cannot get a decent plate of pasta in this town?

I had a plate of linguine marinara with lobster at Privé the other day, and was thoroughly unimpressed. First of all, the pasta was not house-made. There is something about fresh, homemade pasta that just tastes a thousand times better. I think it is because when pasta is made fresh, in non-industrial size quantities – the ratio of egg to flour is always higher. This is primarily to help bind the starch but it also sweetens the pasta and masks the grainy flavour of the wheat in the eventual product. Even allowing for uninspired pasta, the tomatoes in the marinara were bitter (easily overcome with the addition of milk or cream to the sauce) and the lobster tough and overcooked. It was poorly seasoned – no basil, too little oregano, and all I tasted was salt. It was a deflating experience eating that pasta, and if not for the delightful conversation I would have been thoroughly miserable.

Perhaps I have been spoiled. I think back mostly to Annie’s pumpkin ravioli in Bologna, but also I think back to my many trips up to New York City – where Italian food (and food in general) is quite excellent indeed. I had a truly great pasta with clams and spring onion pesto at Felidia, and a wonderful ricotta cannelloni at Lo Scalco, which has since closed. Our night at Babbo in October 2007 was nothing short of magical. Pasta and organ meats? There is no better life, really. Even in DC where there was no great Italian, Al Crostino on U St was always a decent time, and the chef genuine and gregarious enough to compensate for any failings in the food.

There are a couple of supposedly great Italian places in Singapore – Garibaldi on Purvis St, San Marco at One Fullerton. I have not been to these places, so perhaps it is premature to write off Italian cuisine in Singapore. I will say, though, that it is difficult for true Italian – be it modern or rustic – to succeed in Singapore. If anything, a fusion place like Buku Nero in Tanjong Pagar has more chance of success. For one, there is a lot of cheese and dairy in Italian food; and the Singaporean palate just does not skew that way. But the locally available varieties of basic herbs and spices – basil, pepper and so forth – just do not taste the same as they do in Western Europe. Cured pork products and organ meats, though, should appeal more broadly to the Singaporean diner. And if any restaurant can serve up truly transcendent pasta – made well enough to rival the local noodle dishes – then maybe, just maybe, it will do well.

Until then, however, I will stick to hokkien mee.

The Culinary Delights of Bed-Stuy

It seems like a long time ago that I moved into this neighborhood, Bedford-Stuyvesant in my adopted Brooklyn.  At the time I wrote, Coming soon: The culinary options (delights?) of Bed-Stuy.  I can say now, with authority, that there are some truly great food options around my way. 

The highlight, and my go to spot these days is Ali's Trinidad Roti Shop, near Fulton and Nostrand Aves.  This place is great, there's always a line leading up to the security glass.  On my first visit I had only a vague conception of what a roti was, much less the pholorie, the aloo pie, the bake, the doubles, the sorrel or the mauby.  I found that a good option is to ask the guy or girl in front of you what they're having and what it is, everybody loves making friends, right?  I've also found when the lady behind the glass hollers "Ya want PEPPAH?!"  The correct answer is "Yes, please."  A roti is an extremely hearty west-indian burrito-esque wrap.  The wrapper is made from lentil flour and is nice and chewy; it has the durability to hold to truly incredible amount of food that it is laden with.  They come in any number of flavahs:  Goat, chicken, beef, shrimp, oxtail, or potato with chickpeas (channa).  At $5.50 and weighing in at about a pound and a half of meat, gravy and potatoes, these things are prodigious and a prodigious bargain.  The only thing that you have to watch out for is the bones.  It may seem odd to make a sandwich with a gang of chicken or goat bones in it, but at these prices and when the food is this good, sometimes you just have to work around it.  Also, you can't just change things.  I haven't gotten to try the aloo pie (yet) but I have tried the pholourie (savory fried dough w/spicy tamarind sauce) $2, the doubles (naan-ish bread filled with spicy chickpeas and folded over to made a sandwich) $1, and my personal favorite the bake and salt fish, $3.  Imagine: savory fried dough, cut open, filled with bacalhau, cabbage, onions, tomatoes and hot pepper.  It doesn't get much better than that.  I love this place, and I love how nice the people who work there are... The prices are great and there's always something new to try.

The "Papaya Dog" is definitely as dirty as it looks.  But it's also open 24/7, which places a philly cheese steak within 2 blocks at all times.  And it is CHEAP, as dirt cheap as it is dirty.    Unfortunately their papaya drink is chalky and horrible.  As I say, you can't have it all.

I haven't tried any of the fried chicken joints in the 'hood yet.  I like fried chicken, but I only crave it a couple of times a year.  Perhaps that will be the next frontier.

Refuge of the weary soul

Summer Pavilion
7 Raffles Avenue
3/F Ritz Carlton Millenia
Singapore 039799

Stepping into Summer Pavilion is stepping into a world of calm, one with an aura of refined elegance and luxuriating grandeur. This is not the place for business lunches, nor is it particularly appropriate for large celebratory banquets. Rather, one comes here to escape. The restaurant is set within a garden, with windows on three sides to let in the wonderful midday light and to afford a view of the greenery. The interiors are designed with a touch of the Oriental, tempered by restraint and an appreciation of understatement. For years it has been one of my favourite places to visit, let alone eat - and it was with great anticipation that I revisited this Singapore culinary stalwart for brunch on Sunday.



I appreciate a good place setting. Most times it is the first portent of the organisation and the attention to detail practiced by the restaurant and its staff. The devil, as always, is in the details - and a crooked set of chopsticks or a teacup facing the wrong way is a mark of disrespect towards the small things. I have a lot of pet peeves, and I am sure everyone else is no different. It boggles my mind whenever restaurants do not provide a chopsticks rest. I don't even care what it is made of and what it looks like; in fact - at lower end restaurants where they provide disposable chopsticks that come in a wrapper - I am perfectly happy to make my own makeshift rest with the wrapper. I just need something to rest my chopsticks on. Fortunately Summer Pavilion - as befitting a restaurant within the Ritz Carlton - is the model of excellence and hospitality, and I want for nothing as I sit down at the table to wait for my family.


The restaurant has never been known for its dim sum, but to reach out to Singaporean sensibilities it has started offering a limited dim sum selection to accompany its main lunch menu. There were a couple of highlights - the pei dan chok with salted egg yolk was quite extraordinary, with generous helpings of pork strips and century egg bits. It was cooked for so long that the individual grains of rice that made up the porridge had long since broken down, and you tasted the full flavour of its slow-cooked goodness. Also, this "butter bun" - basically a buo lo bao with coconut filling - was sweet and delicate and the pastry made to buttery, airy perfection.


They did not have the standard pai guat, but both the law pak gow and the fung zao were exemplary. The former was steamed and deep-fried such that the outer skin was crisp, yet the inside still soft and starchy. The latter was marinated in a sauce that was so light that I wondered if it was there at all, and yet I felt the tang of the spice and when the aftertaste hit me I marveled at how it could be so complex, have multiple ingredients and yet retain that lightness of essence so as to almost escape detection.



We also ordered the har gao, which was yet another empirical data point that proved my Grand Dim Sum Theory (cf: my previous post). The version here had the best skin I have eaten in a while - moist and so well-made that I temporarily forgot that it had once been flour.


Also worth mentioning but not particularly praise-worthy were the lobster roll - shaped like miniature curry puffs - and the deep fried prawn dumplings with century egg.



There were, unfortunately, a couple of misses. This vegetarian dumpling was very good to look at but tasted too much of shrimp paste and plum sauce. It also had pineapple in it, which gets points for innovation but unfortunately did not work out al all.


The captain had also recommended this honey spiced spare rib to satisfy my pai guat fix, but unfortunately it was too sweet and the meat was too tough. It was neither like pai guat nor like that other Singaporean honey-spiced pork delicacy: bak gua (pork jerky) - caught somewhere in the middle and reflecting the best qualities of neither dish.


To be fair, dim sum is not the main draw at Summer Pavilion. They have several specialties - from silver cod fish with Champagne sauce, through zucchini flowers with prawn, chicken and mushroom stuffing, to sauteed sliced ostrich in satay sauce. The chef is one of the most innovative Chinese chefs in Singapore and not afraid to stray from the classics. If there were such a thing as nouveau Chinese, Summer Pavilion would be one of its foremost practitioners in Singapore. They are well known for their barbequed meats and especially their preparations of duck - the most notable being the Peking duck and the "pi-pa" duck. We could not make up our minds, and so ordered the combination platter. Indecision can sometimes have favourable results, and in this case both the roast duck and char siew were quite delicious. The duck in particular (pictured, background) was salted perfectly and tender to the bite, while the skin was roasted to the point where you could crack it and break it off with the slightest touch of your chopsticks. It crackled as I chewed down on it, and the juices of the fat beneath the skin oozed delightfully out into the sides of my mouth.


For dessert we had egg tarts (not pictured), tang yuan with sesame filling, and chilled mango and white cream rolls. I recall many Sunday afternoons spent at my grandmother's house making tang yuan, and the dish has a special sentimental significance for me. It is curious how we always hanker after the foods of our childhood, as if trying to recapture a moment in time, a taste of an era that is otherwise slowly being forgotten. My mother says that she craves the foods from her childhood because she grew up in a large family and there was never enough food to go around - so whatever she ate seemed particularly special because of its scarcity. That may be one explanation, but I defied her to explain to me how it was that I spent my childhood stuffing my face with ungodly amounts of anything I could lay my hands on - and all these years later still hankered after those foods.



I like Summer Pavilion for many reasons - the impeccable service, the restraint and sophistication in both the decor and the food, and the innovation of the kitchen. But chief among the reasons is the fact that the restaurant is a refuge from the harried world that we live in: a dining room nestled within a tranquil garden and cocooned from the hustle and bustle of the skyscrapers and malls that surround it. Upon exiting the place I was momentarily disoriented as I tried to regain my bearings and figure out which direction to head. It was as if I had left the world temporarily for some quiet sanctuary, and now that I was back out again all I wanted was to head back in.

Sunday bloody Sundays

Peach Blossoms 鸿桃轩
6 Raffles Boulevard
5F Marina Mandarin
Singapore 039594
+65 6845 1118

Out of all the great traditional Chinese regional cuisines, I think my favourite has to be Cantonese, or Yue, cooking. Originating from Guangdong Province in Southern China, it distinguishes itself from the other regional cuisines by being known for its lighter sauces, more refined palate and preparations, minimal spice and above all, a dedication towards allowing its primary ingredients to shine though. In addition, the Cantonese are adventurous eaters, incorporating a variety of meats into their cuisine (snails, snakes, and so forth) but also using all their edible parts (chicken feet, duck tongue, beef tripe, etc). Popular spices include garlic (lots of it), ginger, scallions, star anise, five spice powder; and Cantonese cooks rival French sauciers for the flavour and variety of their basic sauces - soy sauce, hoisin sauce, plum sauce, black bean sauce, XO sauce, oyster sauce, and so on.

One of my favourite parts of Cantonese cuisine is dim sum, which refers to the variety of tapas-style snack foods usually served as breakfast or brunch in many restaurants. The practice of eating dim sum originated from the teahouses of old, which started serving snacks to accompany what was originally the main attraction - Chinese tea. To this day the act of eating dim sum for brunch is called "yum cha" - literally "drinking tea" in Cantonese - and any such brunch would be incomplete without the requisite pot of freshly brewed Chinese tea.

I arranged to meet Winnie for dim sum last Sunday, and despite her not being a big eater I was determined to try one of the several dim sum all-you-can-eat buffet options around the City Hall area. There are three within just a small city block - Hai Tien Lo at the Pan Pacific, Cherry Garden at the Mandarin Oriental and Peach Blossoms at the Marina Mandarin - all at different price points. At $30 a head Peach Blossoms was the most reasonable, so we agreed to meet there at noon.

I have known Winnie for a long time, and through all the changes over the years, lapses in communication and witnessing each other at our respective worsts, she has remained one of my dearest friends. I arrived at the restaurant first, and despite my typical impatience at the tardiness of others it was hardly a chore waiting for her to show up. She is rarely late anyway, and showed up not five minutes after our agreed meeting time. It gave me time to pick a table with good light, and to admire the place setting.


Ordering food is a skill worth honing in Chinese cuisine, and there are many unwritten rules. For a typical meal, especially in a group, it does not suffice simply to order what you want to eat. First of all, you have to understand how a kitchen works and the timing of their dishes. Chinese restaurants bring you each separate dish a la minuit, as soon as it is ready. There is no such thing as having food rest on the pass and waiting for all the dishes at a certain table to be ready before sending them out. If the servers and runners are efficient, you get your food literally seconds after it has left the chef's wok. With that in mind, I like to order at least one cold dish since these are usually the quickest to arrive - and you can safeguard against having your protein arrive before all your other side dishes, or the other way around.

Second, you have to account for diversity in ordering your dishes - not only in terms of ingredients but also in flavours and textures. It is considered faux pas, or at least tremendously frowned upon when ordering family style, to pick two dishes with the same main protein. Similarly, if you already have a dish with a starchy sauce, you want to steer clear of other starchy sauces for the rest of your dishes. If you have chosen a deep-fried protein, you may want to consider a steamed side dish to complement it. What I like to do is decide on the main proteins first - meats and seafoods - then based on those choices, narrow down the side dishes to reasonable complements. It never hurts to ask the waiter, because waiters at Chinese restaurants are incapable of equivocation. They will tell you, with brutal honesty and without hesitation, what is good (or rather, popular) and what the chef's specialties are. At the good restaurants, the waitstaff consider it their divine right to suggest, critique and even reject your choices. Who can blame them? They know the food, and the unwritten rules of creating a well-balanced and diverse meal, so will not think twice about making up your mind for you. These are the best kind of waiters.

There are more of these unwritten rules, but they all get thrown out the window for dim sum because of the sheer variety of dishes available. (Also, every dish invariably has shrimp in it, so it is kind of hard to account for diversity.) In traditional dim sum places, they have servers push trolleys around stacked with various dishes - and you just point out what you want. These are getting rarer and rarer (in Singapore at least). Now you typically just order off a menu and have them bring each dish to you once it is ready.

The staples of dim sum dishes are siew mai and har gao - every self respecting dim sum place has these. The former is a dumping of seasoned ground pork wrapped in a wanton skin and garnished with an orange dot made from either roe or diced carrot; and the latter is a steamed shrimp dumpling with a wheat flour wrap. It is my theory that the quality of these two dishes are inversely related, for the best har gao necessarily has the freshest shrimp and the most delicate of skins, and you usually have to go to the higher end places for the best versions of these. However, for siew mai, the less refined the seasoning - the better it usually tastes. I remained convinced that everywhere you go - you get a place that is good at making only one of these dishes, never both at the same time.


Another staple of dim sum is cheong fun - thin strips of rice noodle wrapped around a filling of meat or seafood into the shape of a roll, usually served drizzled with sweet soy sauce. Here we had it with a filling of barbequed pork.


One of my favourite dim sum dishes is law pak gow - otherwise known as carrot cake. The name is a little misleading, since it is typically made with white radishes instead of carrots, which are shredded and made into a dough with rice flour. The dough is then shaped into square patties, or "cakes" - often with other shredded ingredients such as dried shrimp or mushrooms. The patties are steamed and then deep-fried and served with sweet sauce. Because of their shape, Hunter called these Spongebobs whenever we went to dim sum in DC, which always made me laugh. One out of every five things Hunter says always makes me laugh uncontrollably, but the other four make me want to punch him in the face. Peach Blossoms made a Singaporean version of this dish - diced into smaller squares to resemble the Singaporean dish of chye tow guay - and served with bean sprouts.


A similar dish to law pak gao and similarly misnamed is yam cake - made in the same way but with taro instead. This is much thicker and starchier than law pak gao, and is a vastly inferior substitute.


Another of my favourites and quite possibly my outright favourite is a dish of steamed pork spareribs, typically topped with red chili peppers and scallions in a black bean sauce, called pai guat (pictured below, foreground). The version here had a little twist in that it eschewed black bean sauce for a chef's creation - in which I think I tasted curry powder. It was an interesting take on a classic and I enjoyed it, yet I couldn't help but feel a little cheated.


One of the standouts at Peach Blossoms was the fung zao - or chicken feet. These are first deep fried, then boiled and marinated in a sauce made from fermented black beans, red chili peppers and sugar. They are an absolute adventure to eat because of the gelatinous texture of the meat and cartilage, and the many small bones to pick out. Yet they are absolutely worth it.


It is also standard to eat congee, or porridge as an accompanying starch to dim sum. My porridge of choice is pei dan chok (century egg porridge). Century eggs are eggs coated in a mixture of clay, wood ash and lime and preserved for weeks or months. The yolk becomes dark green and has a cream-like consistency, while the white becomes a dark brown, slightly translucent jelly. It has a strong odour and distinct flavour, and is perhaps somewhat of an acquired taste. For my part, I absolutely love it.


I could not go without mentioning perhaps the most famous of dim sum dishes - cha siew bao - steamed buns filled with barbequed pork. Nobody really orders cha siew bao at restaurants, since it is pretty standard fare and unlikely to be transcendent or a life-changing experience. The only reason it ever gets ordered is because it seems to be the dish most palatable to babies or toddlers. Considering that it is usually on the table next to chicken feet and pork spareribs, I can see how it represents the safest choice. Once you grow out of eating cha siew bao, you never go back. For one, there are so many other dishes that are much tastier, and cha siew bao happen to be very filling, taking away precious stomach space for other more deserving foods. And even if you had a hankering for the barbequed pork, there is always cha siew sou - a cousin of the dish that is made with the same filling within baked puff pastry. Yet, since it was a buffet, we ordered a serving of this just to relive the good old days.


One of the best dishes we had was a dish of deep fried tofu in fried oatmeal. Tofu, literally translated as bean curd, is made from the curds of coagulated soy milk, and nothing you can get in America is even worth eating. As much as I despise them, I do feel sorry for vegetarians in America because the options available to them are limited and terrible. You can get by far better being a vegetarian in Singapore, in that there are more options and more variety, and chances are so much higher that you will actually enjoy your meal. The deep fried tofu at Peach Blossoms was crispy on the outside, yet soft and airy on the inside, to the point of it melting on the tongue.


Another standout was the steamed bean curd skin wrapped in seaweed and served in an abalone sauce. The soy bean is one of the ever-presents in Chinese cooking, you can usually find some form of it (as well as the black bean) in any good Chinese meal.


We also had a serving of sway gao in sweet soy sauce, which won points for its presentation as well as the fresh, succulent and juicy shrimp within it.


We walked out feeling absolutely stuffed, one of the downsides of having carte blanche to order unlimited servings of some of the most delicious food known to us. Winnie and I both agreed that as we got older - by some freak nature-over-nurture circumstance - our palates were gradually gravitating towards Chinese food. Lord knows we both enjoy other cuisines (and I probably enjoy them way too much and in way too large quantities), but more and more we craved the foods of our youth and the flavours of our ethnic heritage. It was probably not a bad thing, for those foods are plenty and diverse, and more importantly - unequivocally delicious.