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 🙂
stlcopruth 