Makan

Makan is the Malay word for eat and food. And boy do they love to eat over there at Singapore. All my waking hours I saw people eating noodles and breads and weird-looking stuff at food courts that seem to be situated everywhere! They say this is a 24-hour thing for them. Forget chewing gum! Hehe...

Armed with the list ChineseMafia gave me and the brochure I got from the airport, I set out on a single-minded attempt to sample everything on the list. I was nearly victorious, except for the really expensive stuff. I was able to try about a dozen different dishes, this not including the usual fastfood and the pastries.

A lot of it was good; the Seafood Laksa, which is a curried noodle with seafoods, the Yam Cakes (something not dissimilar from our radish cakes) and the peanut soups. My favorite however was the Rojak which is a mixture of vegetables and fruits with a dark-colored dressing with peanuts on top, and Satay, barbecued meat with choices of mutton, chicken or pork with peanut sauce on the side. And of course who can forget their Hainanese Chicken, the best in the world according to JC, and right he is! To the untrained tongue, it might seem like a simple dish of steamed chicken, but the addition of ginger and the excellent combination of fragrant rice gives the tastebud a subtle yet remarkable gustatory experience.

I tried the pastries as well, the Roti Prata, the Roti Boy and how can I resist a trip to Bread Talk? Curiously, while I was roaming around looking for an outlet, I came across at least 4 other bakeshops with the same type of presentation and the same type of breads. I also tried Kaya, an oddly-colored jam made of cocomilk and egg, but essentially good nonetheless.

I didn't get to try the crabs though; they were much too expensive for my budget. I had to sacrifice a lot of food on my list just to get that. Anybody know if Rasa offers Chilli or Black Pepper Crab?

I did learn something from this experience. I always thought that I had an Iron Stomach. I used to eat a lot of things all the time and drink straight from rivers back in my boy scout days. So when my stomach was barraged by a huge amount of chili and coconut milk, I thought I could handle it. Apparently I just had strong sphincter control.

All in all, I'd say I'll have to go back and eat some more. Makan anybody?