Singapore - Chef's Delight

Well here comes a spicy blog update on my trip to Singapore. I was fortunate to be accepted on a TAFE funded trip for 8 days on a culinary adventure to see, eat, smell and cook some of the best Singapore has to offer. We joined up with our hosts at Temasek Polytechnic which is a much bigger version of our TAFE college and we stayed on campus in student accommodation. It was a huge week, chock-a-block full of activities, sightseeing and fun from morning to midnight. The weather was hot, really bloody hot and sticky humid. It was a nice break from the Canberra winter but it was tough to adjust. There were 10 students (8 culinary chefs and 2 hospitality) and 2 teachers.

We flew good ol’ Qantas to Singapore and I watched the funny movie ‘Crazy Rich Asians’. It’s based in Singapore and I thought it would give me a good warm up of things to come. The movie starts with the famous Marina Bay Sands resort – the three buildings with a surfboard on top. This landmark is quite captivating and I was excited to see it in the flesh. We arrived in Singapore late at night and it was close to midnight by the time we settled into our accommodation. We were exhausted from the long day and the heat hit us hard as soon as we stepped out of the airport. Our first day was Friday and we were introduced to our ‘buddies’ – students selected to be our buddy for our visit. My buddy, and all the young buddies, were simply brilliant. They were friendly, helpful and very eager to share everything about their food, culture and studies with us. They were like our personal tour guides for the week and I am very grateful for all they did with and for us. I learnt so much from them and I hope I can return the hospitality next year when they (hopefully) will visit us in Canberra for their culinary tour. Rather than take you on a day by day trip report, I’ll summarise the key activities.

 

We attended two food expo’s – one on the first day and another on our last day. There were food and beverage vendors from all over the world including Australian wine and truffle vendors. It was fascinating to see different foods, ingredients and flavours and of course, sampling lots of food on offer. I enjoyed the various juices and iced teas and one vendor offered plant based rice ice cream from which I tried the infamous Durian fruit ice cream. Hmmm holy smelly onion sock feet Batman, it was not appealing and this was only a diluted version in an ice cream – check me licking the spoon!!  The Durian fruit is popular across Asia and has a seriously offensive smell and taste to match – so bad that it is banned in being cut open in many confined public places. There was even a vendor from Finland with their award winning dark chocolate with salted fish and another with crickets in it!!! The Chillax food expo on our last day was exciting and I managed to buy several bottled pastes and some black sesame seed oil. We mainly use white seeds in Aust so I thought black seeds would be interesting for the work crew. The Chillax had a bake-off competition so there were some serious cakes and breads being made and displayed. 

 

We also visited quite a few food markets for lunch and dinner. The ‘hawker’ markets are ‘THE’ place to eat some of the best local food dishes and for a very inexpensive cost. Most meals will cost less than $5. The smells were amazing and there was every kind of meat and seafood on offer. Now, when I say every kind of meat, I mean everything. There was stingray, goat, mutton, insects, liver, snails, tails, hoofs, tongues and intestines….it was quite confronting to see but this is Asia afterall. Our buddies were fabulous at explaining all the different foods and would buy all the food for our lunch or dinner so that we could try all the best dishes on offer. I can’t recall all the names but there were curries, fish soups and balls, noodles, broths, rice, everything coconut and lots of bbq, fried and poached delights. The chicken and rice is famous and I had several of these on my trip – some better than others. I’m not a spicy eater but I tried to sample most of the dishes. We also visited on of the ‘wet’ markets which was a vegetable, meat and seafood market. This was like no other market I’ve ever seen. It was full of the traditional ingredients – spices, vegetables, fruit, noodles, rice, meats and every kind of seafood possible. I just wandered around in awe of all the things I’d never seen before. 

 

 

Kausmo

Possibly the highlight of the trip was eating at some fine dining restaurants. The first was Kausmo which is a small 16-seater restaurant owned by 2 young ladies, both former students from the Temasek college we were visiting. They were a chef and business manager and Kausmo provides fine dining made from products that are overstocked, discoloured, odd shaped and not wanted by restaurants. The food is perfectly good to eat and the chef uses this food to produce high quality dishes – it was simply amazing. We enjoyed a tasting menu and it was a inspiring experience for me. They have a great concept and it’s worth googling them to better understand their vision. They are on instagram and facebook so check them out if you are a foodie. I found the two ladies extremely inspiring and am now following them on Facebook. 

 

 

 

 The second highlight was dining at a Michelin Star restaurant – the very first for me. The ‘wow’ was used about 235 times throughout the night as the dishes were tasted by us. Labyrinth is where Chef LG Han treated us to a fairly big tasting menu of all kinds of delights with flavours and textures. I have never enjoyed such food and this is truly a higher level of food creation than I could ever imagine. I will not forget this experience. 

We also went to a smaller café/restaurant called Pasta Supremo where the owner and chef shared valuable knowledge on his vision and business success. This restaurant was an Italian fusion style where he fused pasta with Singaporean favourites like Chicken Rice Pasta. It was a clever concept and he has 5 food outlets which are all successful. Definitely listened to all his advice!! 

 

 

Singapore comprises several cultures – Malay, Indian, Chinese and Indonesian. We were able to attend the Little India food festival which again provided a raft of curries, breads, sweets and spices. I was drawn to a roti prata bread vendor who sold sweet, curry and egg with their pratas. I asked about the two curries – one mutton, one chicken. I asked if it was spicy. She said Nooooo and offered me a spoon to taste. Shit, the mutton had a kick and she looked at me shocked and the chicken one made me cough and squint my eyes. She said ‘Where you from?’. Inner voice said ‘clearly not bloody here, look at my little white’y face’ but outside voice said Australia and she just laughed again. It was bloody hot. I ended up getting the lesser burning mutton and ate most of it until my mouth caught fire. The rest of the students were sharing their dishes and it was great to see so much food being enjoyed and also the friendships that were being formed over wonderful food. The photo shows a man 'stretching' Indian masala chai tea. Stretching aerates the milk and adds some froth. Interesting taste, an acquired taste though.

Now, two things are famous in Sinapore – Raffles and the Singapore Sling cocktail and the Singapore Chilli Crab – I think that’s three things? On our one free day, a few of us met in the afternoon at Raffles for a Singapore Sling. Raffles is under renovation, opening soon, but the Long Bar was open. We couldn’t get in so sat in the courtyard bar area downstairs – sadly, they don’t serve the slings down there. Oh well, plenty of other refreshments were had instead. After Raffles, we headed to Momma Kong’s to check out the Chilli Crab. Now I knew it would be too hot for me so I ordered a nice grilled crab, steamed buns (Manitou) and crab rice instead. It was expensive but yummy. One lady ordered the Chilli Crab so I did soak up some chilli from her dish which was lovely – in small doses. She spent a good hour cracking and sucking every shred of that crab – it was great to see. To finish the night, we headed to the Clarke Quay area for a drink and finally have Singapore Sling. Yeah, pretty nice actually, quite refreshing and a nice way to view the Singapore lights on the river. 

 

 

And of course, the thing I looked forward to the most was 3 days of cooking in the kitchen with the Singaporean students. We were divided across several different kitchens – baking, production (for the college public café), the college public restaurant (called Top Table) and Asian kitchen. I spent my time in the Top Table restaurant kitchen which provided service at lunchtime. It was the first time the students were in this kitchen so we were all on common ground. The course the Temasek students do is combined culinary and hospitality - ours is split into two courses. So they take about 3 years to finish and their course is quite strict – the undergo uniform and hygiene (hair, nails, hands) inspection every day and punctuality is critical. We Aussies are so relaxed and we tried not to disrupt them (too much). I enjoyed working alongside the other students – they essentially do things the same but some things are different. I felt like I was at the same stage as them so my skills were on par. Service is always stressful and although it is a learning environment, we were serving to the public and still had to ensure the food was cooked well and plated properly. There were quite a few lessons being learned by everyone but this was the place to learn. The chef was fantastic and he offered heaps of good tips and advice and I liked his style. I also popped into the Asian kitchen next door to check out their cooking and they were doing some fantastic things in there. They were using the big woks and it was awesome to watch them in action. The baking students were making fantastic breads and cakes and it’s fair to say that we all thoroughly enjoyed our time in the kitchens with the students. 

I had one day of free time so I went on a half day bike tour of the city. It was great to ride a bike again and I got a good introduction to Singapore’s history and landmarks. We rode along part of the upcoming Formula 1 racetrack, saw the famous Merlion fountain, Chinatown, Little India and along the riverfront. I had my first iced coffee which I surprisingly enjoyed and continued to buy during my stay. The photo shows me tasting an ice cream sandwich - literally ice cream on a piece of bread. Apparently this helps little kids stop dripping ice cream as the bread soaks the drips. Wasn't too bad - the bread was sweet.

One last thing we did was go to a rooftop movie night to watch a food related movie made by a local film director (I think he was anyway). The plot was that the world no longer ate fresh food as it was causing people to be sick and die. So a rich-power hungry guy manufactured fake food and that’s what the world ate and he made millions of dollars on it. However, there was an underground group of people who grew fresh food and they would pass to each other to eat. Having not eaten fresh food like eggs, rice, fish and vegetables for years, they would absolutely savour the few mouthfuls of this fresh food. Before eating, they would all say ‘Eat and Remember’. The message was that food always has a memory for us – everything we do, we can associate with food. A bit like music. Anyway, movie ends with the realization that the rich guy was falsely claiming that food made people sick, and so they all return to fresh food. While this was a bit corny and funny, it the ‘Eat and Remember’ message strongly resonated with us as we were all chefs and food is our life – it’s more to our life than you think and one can only imagine if we didn’t have fresh food. So, the motto of our trip was ‘Eat and Remember’.

As a final wrap, I want to say that this was an inspiring trip for me. I am learning to look and eat food in a different way and one chef said to me to not over-think a dish, eating it was an ‘experience’. And he is right. As always I met wonderful people, dined in wonderful restaurants and ate the best and freshest Singaporean dishes with the locals. I brought home a few bottles of local treats to share with my work crew and I am enjoying a bottle of Kaya which is coconut egg jam – which is a breakfast favourite on toast. My buddy bought me a bottle as a gift. I will post a stack of food photos to hopefully share the culinary experience I was so lucky to enjoy. Eat and Remember !!