Going dark, just temporarily...

Dearest blog readers and posterity itself:

The good news is that I've made it safely to China, first stop Shanghai. The bad news is that my connection to my blog is, well, nonexistent. So, we will be going dark here at What's That? I Want To Eat It! for the next couple of weeks until I get to Turkey and an unfiltered internet connection.

Some things you have to look forward to:

-- The final 13 posts from Singapore, including some more tremendous eating!

-- Some guaranteed good eating posts from Shanghai!

-- Some good-as-guaranteed stories of culinary and non-culinary exploits in Beijing, Ha'erbin, and places to be named later!

In the meantime, how about some friendly creative competition? Should you have some inspiration, feel free to leave a poem in comments, on any topic. When I can connect back to my blog in Turkey, I'll read them through and laugh, and cry, and be moved. I'll also pick the one that stands out to me (Apples To Apples rules, meaning, I may make the call very idiosyncratically) and that person will get a trip-related commendation.

Of course, I can be reached via email in the intervening weeks.

Until June 9th!

Your traveling correspondent

Hawker centre #7: Maxwell Food Centre

After all the walking around Chinatown, I was getting peckish, so I headed to the famous Maxwell Food Centre for a late lunch.

It turned out that I was simply following Anthony Bourdain's footsteps once again. From roast pig in Ubud to chicken rice in Singapore, he is everywhere!

And this was some great chicken rice. From the vaunted Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice stall, it only set me back S$3.30. And the flavors of each component were distinct and perfect. The rice was more al dente than normal, and also was infused with chicken flavor. The steamed chicken was incredibly tender and juicy, with the skin adding flavor and not detracting from the texture. And the chilli-garlic sauce and the thick soy were wonderful, strong and vibrant yet balanced when mixed with the rice. This was serious chicken rice. I ate my portion and took a fresh batch home to my sister.

Maxwell's was also home to some other good eats, but no photos are available. One was goreng pisang (banana fritter), which was somehow perfectly fried. Even after being transported hot in a bag on the bus for 45 minutes, it was not soggy and still had contrasting texture inside with melty banana and outside with the crisp crust. The other were sweet potato dumplings that similarly survived the journey home. Delectable to the end!

Look behind the tackiness and Chinatown has something to offer

Sandwiched in between my Chinatown eating was some walking and some exploration of the area. At first, I was surrounded by crap. All the same junk that you can find in Chinatowns in major cities all around the world, all available for sale in nameless stores. Boo. But, scratching a little bit deeper, I found some neat things.

The first was the Chinatown Heritage Centre. The front is confusing because it looks like a crappy store and has the same awning as a crappy store, but actually contains a interesting three-story museum detailing what life was like for poor Chinese in the early part of the 20th century. The first two thirds of the museum walked through various aspects of Chinese life in those times, presenting artifacts and sharing first-person perspectives. Fairly well done, and I particularly liked the food wall where they showed local dishes.

The last third, however, was impressive. As shown in the map above, they have recreated, to full scale, two floors of a typical Chinese tenement house. Oh boy, was it tight living. On one floor, there would be 8 cubicles (one room each) for 8 different tenants, most of whom were whole families. This would lead to about 40 people on one floor. They would share one kitchen and one bathroom. Moreover, the bathroom was simply a hole and a bucket, with the bucket exchanged for a fresh one each morning via the soil truck. Wow. Hopefully these photos can convey some sense of the cramped quarters.

The second was the new Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. This large temple was not hard to find, it practically glowed with red, gold, and newness. It even has a two story carpark underneath! The first two floors contained the temple hall, with some large golden Buddhas at the end of the sanctuary.

The top floor had the actual tooth relic. It was housed in a very shiny golden room (no photos allowed). Below that was a museum of the story of Buddha's transcendence. Interesting and also given new life as the story was told in the first-person on a series of storyboards. Finally, throughout there were two to three foot statues, many of which had been adopted for fairly large sums of money. My guess is this was the funding mechanism for building this very large and very new temple.

The final stop on my Chinatown walk was over the hill to the Thian Hock Keng temple. Check out this backstory. A girl named Ma Zu Po had a father and a brother who were fisherman. One time when they were out on the sea, she sensed trouble and concentrated her efforts to bring them home safely. But her mother distracted her, and she lost some concentration, and her brother ended up drowning, but her father made it home miraculously. After this event, more fisherman started coming to her asking for protection on the seas. Eventually, the house where she lived was built into a temple and she is now the Protector of Sojourners. Fisherman and immigrants alike come to pray to her here for safe travels. In addition to this cool story, the temple had architecture and characters to boot.

So, it turned out that Chinatown was more than a schlock-fest, with discoveries of culture hidden amongst the stores.

Hawker centre #6: Chinatown Complex

The final ethnic neighborhood for me to hit was Chinatown and, frankly, I was going there for the food. This journey would happen solo, as my poor sister had been struck ill by the same bug that got me the week prior.

My first stop was the enormous hawker centre located in the Chinatown Complex. This place was huge, there must have been 250+ hawker food stalls, and that was just on the second floor. Moreover, they were laid out as if they were supposed to be a maze, with stall number 212 near stall number 56. So my first 30 minutes were spent wandering around, taking it in, and looking for the money spots.

The first place I settled was at a conjoined double stall. It was a very popular lunchtime spot, with groups of three or four all tucking into whole fish steamed and served in nice-looking curries. As just one, I opted for the sang mee, a tower of crispy fried noodles bathing in a dark sweet vinegar sauce and with a handful of fish slices on top. This dish was excellent. The first bite was mostly noodle, but then it started to mix. As the noodle would hit the sauce, it would soften without getting mushy. The fish held up as well, and had the consistency of chicken yet a clear fish flavor. I slurped my way through this one quickly. A green apple and celery juice washed it down satisfactorily.

I then relocated to my second spot, for dessert. Ever since I had spotted the entry in Makansutra, I desperately wanted to try ah boiling, or peanut dumplings in soup. This place was the jackpot. The small stall was run by one gentleman who had been at it for at least 30 years. He meticulously hand rolls each dumpling, which gives them a lovely oblong shape and ensures that the dumpling skin is chewy without being sticky. One bowl came with five dumplings. I started with the soup, and one spoonful told me I was in for a treat. A mixture of pandan and ginger, this hot soup was heaven on the palate. My first bite into the first dumpling and I was double-wowed. The dumpling skin had the perfect texture and the filling was a lovely mix of peanut and sesame. As I made my way through the dish, I found a little surprise: the third dumpling I ate was not peanut and sesame, but rather durian paste! Very different than sesame, I still found the taste too overwhelming for my liking. Fortunately, I had two more dumplings left. This was magnificent. I also liked the style of the guy's stall.

Hawker centre #5: Adam Road Food Centre

The next hawker centre on the list was the closest to home, just one major intersection away at Adam Road and Bukit Timah.

The required dish at this centre is nasi lemak, a Malay dish that has coconut milk rice at the center combined with a selection of small sides around. Ours had fried chicken, fried egg, chilli sauce, and otak, which is a mashed fish dish steamed in banana leaves. The rice was tasty and balanced the coconut milk nicely. The rest of the dish just lacked oomph, leaving little to say about it.

The other savory dish we had was chilli prawn noodle. This came from an I Eat I Shoot I Post recommendation. We got it dry, with the noodle separated from the broth. The noodles were delightful and so darn spicy. After each bite, I needed some rice from the nasi lemak, some water, and some fruit juice just to quell the firestorm in my mouth. They must have had at least three different kinds of chilli because it seemed to attack all parts of my tongue at the same time.

For dessert we went a little wild. Dessert one was ice kacang, shaved ice with toppings. With the "c" being a hard "ch" in the local tongue, this dish is delightful to say - ice ka-CHANG! Sahana mastered this pronunciation, with significant egging on from me and her mom. It was also tasty. Underneath the ice is a collection of items: chendol (green jelly), black grass jelly, red beans, plum seeds, and sometimes corn. Poured on top are rose water syrup, brown coconut syrup, and coconut milk. It is cooling to the palate with lots of surprises in each bite. My only complaint would be with the beans - they seem unnecessary and are definitely too mushy in this dish. The dish itself, and especially the preparation, reminded me of the amazing sno-bliz at Hansen's in New Orleans, which takes a bean-free approach to the whole affair. Shaved ice and really hot places must go together.

The second dessert was tau suan. It was a bowl of, according to the menu, green beans that have been stewed for a good long while. Then, a handful of fried dough fritters are added to the mix. It's quite simple yet turned into a compelling dessert. It was fantastic at beating back the chilli in my mouth from the noodles, and the combo of dough and beans hit the right balance on texture and taste, if not color.

Finally, there was one dish that we didn't have the temerity to try, at least not yet. Right next to our table was a mutton soup stall. The choice seemed to be which part of the mutton you wanted in your soup. There was basic meat, and ribs too, but it didn't stop there. The most fascinating were the tongue and the brains - with the tongues out on the counter for you to see before purchasing.

A walk down Arab St.

Continuing our cruise through Singapore's ethnic neighborhoods, we explored Arab St. The first order of business was lunch and so we found ourselves at Singapore Zam Zam, purveyors of fine food since 1906.

Everything we read said stick to the murtabak and so we did just that.

We ordered two kinds, the first a mutton murtabak. This roti had been fried, then filled with mutton and egg, then fried some more. The oil was not in short supply. There was a huge bowl of dipping sauce that tasted a bit of meat gravy. This was really nice to eat, with the mutton not turning tough or gristly.

The second kind was a chicken murtabak. This fell a little short, though it perhaps aimed a bit higher. The roti was dipped in a flavorful red chilli paste and some point during the frying process. This added a nice taste but also rendered the resulting murtabak quite soggy and limp. All the nice texture from the fry had disappeared.

We did have two more glasses of delicious pulled tea with our lunch.

The main attraction of the area was the Masjid Sultan (Sultan Mosque), a center of Muslim life in Singapore. It was quite a site, with impressive architectural features jutting into the sky.

Finally, no walk on Arab St. would be complete without a stroll to look through the myriad textile shops that populate the area. Inside, they have rows and rows of fabric in all colors and prints, great eye candy.

Hawker centre #4: Ayer Rajah Food Centre

Heading all the way out to the BirdPark provided a nice excuse to get to a hawker centre that seemed to have a plethora of dishes worth trying. Ayer Rajah Food Centre was mostly halal and largely caters to Indian Muslims. Unfortunately, two of the dishes I was most excited about weren't available that day. One was soup kambing, a mutton-based soup. The other was soup tulang, an even more exotic mutton soup that largely used mutton bones and in which the bone marrow played a central role; this version is also highly spicy. But we still had to eat.

For our first dish I trekked over to Habib's Rojak. According to Makansutra, they serve a mean version of indian rojak. This dish is a user-created amalgamation. At the stand, there are a variety of ingredients available for selection; these include fried dough, fish balls, sausage, cuttlefish, and more. The eater puts about five of these on a plate and hands it to the stall owner. The chef then coarsely shops these up, stir fries them with a bit of oil and some green chillies, and puts it on a plate with some dipping sauce, usually composed of peanuts, chilli, and shrimp paste.

And this was my version. I was a bit perplexed by some of the ingredients and, as it turned out, overly adventurous. Among my choices were fried dough, chicken patties, sausage, fried battered egg, bright red jellied squid, and a bizarre dark red fish-like thing.

This is worth an aside. You can barely make it out in the photo, but there is a small piece of it near the top just to the right of the cup of chilli. This was awful. It wasn't bad, it wasn't hard to eat, it was worse than inedible. I took one bite, forced myself to take another, and then knew that the only option that would cause things not to get a whole lot worse would be to spit it out immediately and flush my mouth with fruit juice. I still have no idea what it was, but it tasted like a combination of really old fish (tuna, perhaps) and really old blood pudding, left out sitting on a counter for a couple of days. This is, easily, the worst bite of the whole trip so far, surpassing those shells in Japan.

Moving back to the whole dish, the rest of it was ok. I was hoping for more flavor and more peanut in the dipping sauce, which was more or less just chilli sauce. The other bites were certainly edible, but not that memorable.

The second dish was mee siam. Though it has the word for Thailand in it, it is not a Thai dish. It does borrow some of the basic flavors of that cuisine and combines them with some of the fishier flavors of China. With a lot of vermicelli on the bottom, it had cuttlefish, greens, and more bathing in a dark sauce and sprinkled with peanuts. Middle of the road fare, could fill the belly but not much more.

The final dish was roti john. This dish had a fascinating history, Western expats apparently ordered egg, onion, and meat omelettes and would also by some bread to eat along with the dish. Classic brunch food, right? Well, in Singapore, a creative hawker turned this into the roti john, a panini where the filling is egg and meat and onion, which is then covered in mayo and chilli sauce. It wasn't half bad, either, after we scraped as much mayo off as we could.

And then there were the beverages. There was the requisite fruit juice, of course, kiwi lemon for me and orange for Jenika and Sahana. Paired with that was some delightful teh halia, or ginger pulled milk tea. This was served in big steaming mugs that look like they're normally used for beer. Thumbs way up on the tea!

Color and feathers, all mixed up

Birds! It wasn't really as scary as the movie. Ok, it wasn't really scary at all. Our location: Jurong BirdPark, way out in western Singapore.

The whole thing is a big zoo for birds. It being in the tropics, the number of species and the coloration on display was fairly astounding.

There were parrots...

...toucans...

...lories...

...the tropical ostrich, otherwise known as the cassowary...

...and even a black swan. Fortunately, no once-in-a-lifetime events befell us this fine day.

Accompanying our fine feathered friends was a better-than-average live show called Birds 'n' Buddies. The birds on display were pretty fantastical, or performing fantastical acts. For example, there was this bird, who looked like he had a yellow laser attached to his head.

And also these two small parrots racing to play basketball.

The animals were extraordinarily well trained. The main trick was letting them fly over the seated heads of all of us in the crowd, which they did again and again to ohs and ahs. Sahana sat there, mouthed gaped, in amazement. Her mother and her uncle weren't too different.

A crab feast for the ages

Quick, name a local food dish in Singapore.

I bet pepper crab (or its cousin, chilli crab) is dancing in your head right now. And for good reason, it is a delicious delicacy. It is such a must-have that the sole recommendation from a friend upon hearing I would be in Singapore: "eat crab". Our destination for this superb dish: Long Beach Seafood Restaurant, the branch in Dempsey. This place has been around for almost 50 years, so they must have figured out something about how to make this dish.

We grabbed a large-ish outdoor table, and went to work understanding the menu. Essentially, each page is a different type of seafood with many preparations. You pick the seafood and the style, and eat up. Unhelpfully, the price of some of the dishes is "market price". Even more unhelpfully, the price of other dishes is listed as the S$ / 100g, when the actual dish is of variable weight depending on the seafood chosen. But through these travails we persevered.

First up was eu fu noodles topped with crab. A nice, basic dish to get the palate going. The crab was tasty, still firm to the bite. The noodles turned out to be a great chaser to some of the dishes to come.

As our only non-seafood dish, we got braised matrimony vine. I'm not sure if it actually was matrimony vine, or what matrimony vine is, but so said the English menu. It was a fine green with a slight bitter note as aftertaste, done in a chicken stock braise.

And the main event: black pepper crab. Using the extra-jumbo Sri Lankan crabs, this dish serves one whole, large crab that has been completely smothered in black pepper sauce. It was delectable, it was divine. The pepper first hit my nose, luring me in closer. a quick struggle for some meat revealed a large section in a claw. One bite, and the pepper was an accent to the slightly sweet crab. As the bites continued, intermixed with finger licking, the pepper built and built and built. So lovely. It oddly reminded me of eating an In'n'Out burger in the particular style where a whole packet of pepper is placed on the burger before each bite. This crab was heavenly, and it went fast.

As a lark, the final dish was golden phoenix river fish steamed a la Penang. Penang is a island town in northern Malaysia known for its excellent cuisine. This fish more than represented the town. The whole fish was splayed on the plate, with one fillet to the left and one to the right. It was literally bathing in rich sauce of tomatoes, chillies, scallions, and spices. The fish was perfectly cooked: one touch of chopsticks and chunks of flesh removed themselves from the bone. The cheek meat was so tender and so rich. The sauce, well, it was addictive. After each bite the first thought running through my mind was "when can I get some more sauce". It was so good that we had to order some steamed buns to soak it all up. It surprises me to say this, but it was even better than the pepper crab. A+ for flavor.

The perfect Singaporean cap on the evening was dessert: durian and mango puddings. These were delightfully served atop a bowl of water with dry ice, keeping the pudding cold and bringing some clouds to the table. A nice reminder of home, too: at a recent dinner party we had experimented with dry ice and gazpacho and this looked pretty similar. The durian pudding was proper durian, very rich and a mix between fruit and trash. A bit overwhelming for me, so I made sure to end with a bite of mango pudding.

In retrospect, what a meal, what a meal. Definitely on the list for "best of" of the trip, as they managed to do an awesome pepper crab and then top that with the steamed fish. As recommended as they come.