To-Go, please.

If you couldn’t tell by now, Singaporeans LOVE their food.  Everyone on the tiny island is a foodie in their own right, and on more than one occasion, I have been sucked into a debate about which hawker stall or restaurant makes better food.  Combine this love of food with a busy and bustling lifestyle, and what you get is a very “to-go” friendly food culture.

Now, I realize that you can get food to-go in the U.S., and you’re probably thinking that this is shaping up to be a very boring post.  Oh ye of little faith.  What makes getting food to-go in Singapore different is the way it’s packaged, and to me, Singapore has packing food down to a science.

Unlike the U.S. where we put everything into giant, bulky foam containers, many places in Singapore wrap their food in this brown paper stuff that has a thin plastic inner lining to prevent leakage.  Everything is rubber-banded, put into a plastic bag, and looks like this:

Super nifty and efficient.  And the best part is the yummy-ness on the inside:

Chicken cutlet rice with cucumbers and chili sauce.  All for $2 SGD ($1.54 USD).  Yes, please.  And did you catch a look at the really cute chili sauce packet?

For some reason the chili sauce packaging kills me.  so.  cute. 🙂

If you happen to go to a REALLY local place, you might be lucky enough to get some of your food wrapped up in a BANANA LEAF:

How totally old-school-local-island-Jungle-Book-esque is that?  I don’t get my food wrapped in a banana leaf often, but when I do, I LOVE it.

And look at how they give you drinks!  Yes, the plastic cup is nothing new, but they put this little plastic handle on it so it’s so much easier to carry around 🙂

Why don’t we do this in the U.S.?  It’s so much easier to carry a drink at your side instead of balancing it in your hand and worrying about spilling.  The simplicity of it all blows my mind.  Kaboom.

And just for kicks and giggles, here’s a picture of the giant cat that hangs out around the MRT station right outside my uncle’s place:

Ok.  Random post done.  Talk to you guys later!

Food. Again.

I told you that there would be a lot of foodie posts while I was in Singapore.

This past weekend, I was blessed to have been treated to lunch by my friends June and Huimin.  We munched on xiao long baos and noodles, and I used my puppy eyes and pleading face to convince them to be in a blog video for you guys.  😉

If you didn’t hear, June is the one on the left and Huimin is the one on the right.  Apparently “xiao long bao” means “little dragon buns.”  Props to Huimin for teaching me that. 🙂

And while photography of the kitchen wasn’t allowed, I snuck a video of the chef making noodles because handmade noodles aren’t that easy to find, and they taste a million times better than packaged noodles.

And if you were wondering (because who doesn’t wonder about good food?), the restaurant we ate at was Paradise Dynasty on the 4th floor of Ion shopping mall on Orchard Road.  Super, super good.

Breakfast of Champions

Food, food, and more food.  In Singapore, you’ll never hear anyone say “there’s nothing to eat.”  Even in the wee hours of the morning I guarantee you that you’ll be able to find something to eat.  Generally speaking, there are three types of eating venues available (in order from least formal to most formal):  hawker center, food court, and restaurants.

Food courts and restaurants are pretty straightforward… they’re all over the place in the U.S.  However, hawker centers are probably a bit more of a foreign concept.  Essentially, hawker centers are a collection of small, super local food vendors who cook out of stalls in open air markets.  Everything is really, really cheap… I can eat at a hawker center for less than $4 SGD, which is $3.22 USD.

On Saturday morning, my Uncle Joe, Aunt Karen, and cousin Sean went to the Tiong Bahru hawker center for breakfast, and I coerced them into being a part of my video 🙂

Here’s the food mentioned in the video (in order):

1)  Chwee kueh, a rice cake with preserved radish on top
2)  Png kueh, glutinous rice with peanuts wrapped in a chewy skin
3)  Soy bean milk with grass jelly (no, the jelly is not really made of grass)
4)  Youtiao, deep-fried dough sticks
5)  Mee siam, rice noodles in spicy, slightly sour gravy

Super, super delish… I love Saturday morning breakfasts out!

Downstairs from the hawker center was a small marketplace that sold everything from fruits to flowers to novelties and everyday items.

And thank GOD there were no durians at the market.  Durians are a spiky fruit that smell terrible.  They’re so notoriously foul-smelling that they’re not allowed in trains or train stations.  They’re supposedly delish, but I can’t get past the smell to even give it a try.

I watch a lot of Food Network, and it’s always funny to me when the chefs are given exotic fruits as a secret ingredient.  They always freak out and panic, while I chuckle silently knowing exactly what these fruits are.  The two fruits that I’ve seen used are lychees (left) and mangosteens (right):

But anyway, that was my leisurely Saturday morning brunch and market shopping.  Hope you guys enjoyed the food fest!  Muchos gracias to my relatives for tolerating my persistent video requests 🙂