Category: Food and Drink

Regular readers of Indolaysia will know that I really like bak kut teh, the porky soup whose name literally means “pork bone tea.” See here and here. I’ve decided that this is my favorite Singaporean food. On the recommendation of a friend I tried a place called Ng Ah Sio Pork Ribs Soup Eating House today for lunch. Yummy.

Unlike the Malaysian version whose recipe we tried above, this one is an assertive, peppery broth with big chunks of spare ribs in it and a pronounced garlicky note as well. The broth is rich and oily, the color of muddy water. Packs a punch.

Because I usually eat alone, hosts and hostesses will often seat me at a table with someone else. A bit awkward but I don’t really care. Today they sat me down with a real character, though. His name was Mr. Ng, although he’s no relation to Ng Ah Sio. Mr. Ng has been coming to that restaurant every day since it opened at that location in the late 1980s. The waitress confirmed this. I’m not sure what his story is, but Mr. Ng is a character. He explained to me in some detail the benefits of eating bak kut teh in a particular way, that is, combined with endless cups of strong tea. (The idea is that the astringency of the tea counteracts the fattiness of the broth.) He prepared the tea in the traditional Chinese fashion and shared it with me, which was nice.

He also, though, does something unique. As I was sitting down he was removing a little knife from his pocket. The waitress showed up with a head of garlic and a little bowl. Mr. Ng very deliberately removed a little napkin from his pants, spread it out, and then used it as a placemat as he proceeded to shave the entire head of garlic into little thin slivers. He made two piles (a big one for him, a little one for me), then separated them into two bowls, and poured over them a big slug of the dark rice vinegar that sit on the table as a condiment. He instructed me to use the garlic-vinegar mixture as a topping or addition to my soup. It was quite tasty, although I’m glad that JMP isn’t around to smell my breath.

You can see pictures of my food adventures, and of some various interesting sights around town, here.

Singapore, as I've mentioned before, is really small, but it still has to cram into its territory all of the things that a regular country has. That includes a vacation spot, which a friend and I saw today. East Coast Park is about 20 minutes from downtown, but it's definitely got a different feel to it. This is where Singaporeans go to hang out at the beach, to rollerblade and camp out and to pretend they're somewhere else. A friend and I visited it today, not so much to experience the beach life (although I did get quite a sunburn) but more importantly to try a good hawker center there.

Hawker centers, I should make clear, are a uniquely Singaporean thing. All over Asia, it's common to see little stands that spring up in heavily-trafficked areas that sell small dishes or quick meals. They are known as hawker stalls. Well, Singapore decided some years ago that a modern city doesn't have hawker stalls, but it didn't want to get rid of them altogether, so it decided to create hawker "centers" where the government provides the infrastructure and monitors the quality but the individual hawkers can still do their work.

There are probably a dozen of these centers, one of which is convenient to East Coast Park. My friend and I decided to order some specialties: sugar cane juice, grilled stingray, roast duck rice, and rujak (mixed fruit with sweet-peanuty sauce). Great way to spend the afternoon.

East Coast Park Hawker Food. Clockwise from Top-Left: Sugar Cane, Rujak, Duck Rice, Stingray