the wacky wombat weblog

We both love food. When we both head out for a meal, we eat a lot. Everyone’s always horrified that such a small person like me can eat so much all day long. I’m like lil’ gojira, chomping on food all the way.

That being the case, living in Singapore thus becomes sort of a daily struggle when it comes to food. I never know what to eat even after living here for 7 years. Not because there’s “so much great food” like all the lying coniving TV food shows always say, but that there isn’t anything nice to eat here!

I’m serious. For us, food here has only two classification: Edible & Not Edible. And this problem exists perhaps only for people like us who grew up eating food Malaysian style - oily, more flavours, less starchy, and less sweet. Which is entirely not the style here in Singapore.

You see, the problem is, Singapore and Malaysia share similar cuisine in that you can find wan tan mee, curry mee and char kuey teow in both countries, but they taste totally different! Which brings us to a childhood memory of mine.

Gastronomy trauma

When I was 6, all I ate everyday was wan tan mee. I never ate anything else when we’re out at hawker places. So when I came to Singapore on a trip, naturally I asked for wan tan mee when my dad brought us out to eat. Usually, I’d devour the noodles and polish the plate even of all its sauce. But when I tasted my Singapore wan tan mee, I couldn’t eat. To my 6-year-old mind, it looked like wan tan mee, but it did not taste like wan tan mee! There was tomato sauce in it and it was sweet! *horrors* So I broke my record finally, and did not finish my wan tan mee for the very first time.

Coincidentally, Au Yong had a similar experience as a kid with the same wan tan mee. Now every time we return to KL, we’d head straight for the following things:

• wan tan mee (no tomato or chilli pls)
• char kuey teow (dry and fried with lots of egg, not dripping wet with sweet black sauce)
• hokkien mee (KL style, not the limp yellowy-white ones)
• Bak kut teh (thick soup cooked with herbs, not pepper soup)
• Curry mee (with a cube of pig’s blood)
• Penang prawn mee (the spicy sort, not the clear soup ones)
• roti canai

Porkylicious

So on our last last trip in Aug, we had a pork fest. We usually have bak kut teh at this shop that’s situated in the middle of nowhere between 2 storage warehouses off the highway near Subang Village. It’s super cheap and really delicious. With bak kut teh in Singapore, you get a soup that’s peppery and light. While it’s okay, it’s not really what I want when I eat bak kut teh. Bak kut teh is meant to be oily, unhealthy and flavourful! Pepper soup is something I can make on my own. The thick herbal soup? That’s something only the best bak kut teh shops know how to cook up, so that when you first walk in to the shop, you can smell it and you’re already drooling for it.

Also, you haven’t tasted pork heaven until you’ve been to this place - Elcerdo, at Changkat Bukit Bintang in KL. Promising “nose to tail” dining, this little restaurant serves nothing but pork. There’s even real bacon bits in your potato or vegetable salad. It’s a little costly, but both the food and service is fantastic. They even gave us ladies little stools to put our handbags so that we can sit comfortably and enjoy our food!

For the main course, we shared a bacon-wrapped pork knuckle, stuffed with herbs and served with watercress. Needless to say, we really pigged out at that dinner!

The real McCoy

Besides going to mamaks for a nice supper of teh special and roti canai, we sometimes head out to a coffee shop near Jln 222 for hokkien mee. The KL style hokkien mee is basically thick fried noodles in salty black sauce and tons of pork lard. Every night, this coffee shop is filled with patrons, and nobody orders anything else except hokkien mee. Again, the pork lard probably isn’t the healthiest, but it’s what makes it taste sooo yummy and you only live once.

People who haven’t smelt or eaten it might say it doesn’t look nice, but seriously, this is hawker food, and hawker food is the kind of thing where you gotta be able to smell it and eat it. Aesthetics is secondary because you’re paying the fella only a few bucks for a delicious plate of food.

Wan ton, two ton?

Of course, my perenial favourite wan tan mee is a must have on my trips back to KL. The thing with KL hawker food is, it doesn’t matter where or which coffee shop you’re at. Just pick anything, and chances are it’ll taste good. Not great, but definitely way beyond merely the Edible classification that I give to most hawker food in SG.

On that trip back, we also drove to Ipoh to visit Au Yong’s grandparents. And there, I had the cheapest wan tan mee ever for only RM2.40! Heck, even in KL it’s almost double of that price. The cost of living in that town is insanely cheap!

Ipoh is also famous for its Ipoh Hor Funn, which you can also find anywhere else in M’sia but Ipoh’s version tastes the best. And to my horror, stalls selling “Ipoh” hor fun in Singapore, serve it “dry” with starchy black sauce. omg. Ipoh hor fun is supposed to be in a light flavourful clear soup, not thick sweet and starchy black sauce. If it has to be eaten that way, then just call it ’something-else’ hor fun, not Ipoh hor fun. X_X The stalls would also have the soup option, but clearly it isn’t a popular option as most people order the starchy black sauce, and with valid reason — the soup option is served clear, with no flavours except pepper!

*choke* *explodes*

Anyway yes, this blog post is the culmination of my seven years of eating local food in Singapore. X_X

Of course, I gotta give credit where it’s due. When it comes to international cuisine and fine dining, Singapore is a great place for it. Café Le Caire @Al-Majlis at Arab Street offers good Middle Eastern fare (mmmm lamb) at a decent price, while Sage at Mohd Sultan Rd serves up the most delicate french-inspired cuisine in a non-pretentious setting. And I have come across a great place serving good hawker style food - the yong tau fu shop at the end of Amoy Street. I used to go there every week, because it tastes almost like home.

p/s: I’ve also uploaded some shots of that August food trip: Go to Gallery, and click on Fooding in KL to view.

The 2008 F1 season has just concluded with Lewis Hamilton winning the championship title by the slimmest margin and what was possibly the most gripping 30 seconds of a race at the final leg at Brazil.

But the best part of this year’s GP season has got to be the first night race in Singapore. Thanks to a friend, we got free walkabout tickets for all 3 days, and I gotta say, the whole thing was pretty impressive!

Electrifying atmosphere

On Friday Practice, we went with the intention to recce the place to find out which are the best spots to catch the action. Being poor and without seats, we had to consider vantage points and look for slow corners so that we could at least have more than one second look at passing cars.

The first thing that struck me was the atmosphere. Thanks to me not getting off work at 6, the practice session was already under way when we got there. But the moment we got out of City Hall MRT, we could already hear the cars V8 engine roaring past. I knew the race is loud but having never attended one before, the first time you hear the cars roar past, it was quite an unexpected volume. Of course, many years back it would have sounded even better (less screechy) when the cars were running on V10 engines.

The whole place was lit up so much so it was practically daylight, and for that reason I could actually capture pictures outdoors at night with my tiny digital camera. And the sheer size of the circuit - needless to say, my feet ached from just walking around.

We also rented the Kangaroo TV - a portable TV that streams the live cast, scores, statistics and also team radio. That’s how we kept up with the race without being seated in front of the big screen. In fact, some others were freeloading off us from behind us but hey, it’s ok, because they were sorely disappointed when Massa drove down the pit lane with the fuel rig still stuck in his car. harharhar. nyehnyehnyeh.

The crowd was also huge, a full turnout from the sold out tickets I’d say. And surprisingly, it wasn’t too hard to get in or out of the venue despite the large crowd, which is commendable.

A tourism winner

But it’s really more than just selling all that tickets. The idea to bring F1 to Singapore is a very smart move by the government. It’s not really just about bringing in an expensive sport. The whole event is really another way to sell/promote the country.

Unlike normal circuits, street circuits, like Monaco and now Singapore, have a different feel. Situated in the very heart of cities, street circuits have a very celebratory and almost carnival-like feel. Roads are diverted so that a race could take place, and the whole city is geared up for it. And more than anything else, it always looks good.

It’s very smart that the Marina Bay circuit passes by some of the nicest landmarks and city views on the island. Heck, the entire race was practically a Singapore Tourism ad! It looked real good on TV, but on location, it’s even better. Everything’s up close, and there’s constant pulsing activity everywhere: Street performers before the races, food vendors hawking local fare, people at Suntec or Marina Square trying to catch a glimpse into the circuit, and as the race got under way, fans and crowds packed the place full. For some other normal race circuits, e.g. Sepang, you’re better off watching at home on the TV because on location, there’s nothing to see. But on a street circuit, it’s entirely different. Which is why we’re paying for seats next year (hopefully). And that is exactly what the organisers are hoping people will be thinking next year and returning for more.

Hopes for the F1 year ahead

Of course, we all heard that hotels, especially high end ones, lost out, possibly out of confidence that they would be overbooked so they hiked their price, and NOBODY wanted to pay for that. And I noticed that despite the crowds, many locals were not actually fans who follow the race but merely went to check it out for the experience. Many did not really understand the race, and the sporting feel just wasn’t really there yet. Which is why I think Mediacorp has to get the rights to telecast F1 races next year instead of featuring only the one Singapore one.

The whole island is mad about football, yet there isn’t any truly great football teams here. People just watch the English kick the ball on the pitch all year round and they are passionate about it. Now F1 is here, but nobody knows anything about the motorsport! So definitely the awareness is lacking, but it’s something that could have the potential to become a national ‘obsession’ if only people can get to watch it on free-to-air TV! Can also learn a thing or two from this little fan here:

So hey, Ch5 or something, please pick up the programme and air it. The broadcast will change hands next year from ITV to BBC, but at least it’ll be better than listening to the tormentingly stupid commentary on StarSports every race (and I still have to pay for it!!) That guy commentates every year and still gets the facts wrong. wtf.

And of course, my not-so-secret wishes for next year’s F1 season are:

• FIA to stop being the running dog of Ferrari and jumping on every little thing the McLaren team does and siding with Ferrari all the freaking time.
• Kimi to kick Massa’s ass and show him who’s the real pro.
• Renault to improve their car so that Alonso can have a proper comeback, kick Massa to the back and we can watch the big players race
• More exciting performances from Lewis
• Kovy to do better next year in McLaren
• For us to save enough money to splash on seated grandstand tickets for the SG race. :p

Take a look at the sights around the SG F1 circuit: go to Gallery, and click on the album Singapore F1 Grand Prix 2008. There’re not many pictures of the cars since they’re all a blur, but there’re some interesting sights, and of course, hot babes.

If this picture doesn’t make you feel like wanting to click and view the album, then I don’t know what will. LOL!