At long last, I am here in Singapore, after a 16-hour journey with a short stopover at Mumbai. On my first night, I went out for dinner:
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After returning from the shops at 8pm, I decided to find out what all this street food business is all about. I had put my tiredness down to jet lag and the searing heat. It was 27 C today, but more like 37 C when you account for humidity; the air here is soggier than a Somerset farmer in April. And it can do funny things to you, like making you forget that you haven't eaten for 16 hours!
Street food is ubiquitous in Singapore, as sure as the haze itself and people in a comical state of haste. Every street is lined with stalls and open-fronted shops where people chatter into their noodles, so it is very affordable, unlike eating out back home! In the evening, a lot of the customers are smartly dressed because it is common for working people not to cook at home at all and instead call in at their "usual" for their dinner on their way home.
I found a Chinese place on the same street as my hotel and stood in the doorway for just a moment to see what they had. No sooner had I got a foot past the door than a tiny but very persistent waitress almost decapitated me with a menu and ushered me to a table. She then went away for the most fleeting moment while I attempted to make my selection. Most of the items on the menu had been translated into English, but there were several cases where the translator was obviously not familiar with the English term for that food, and had therefore simply written out the Chinese word in the English alphabet, which was useful for pronouncing it to the waitress, but I hadn't a Scooby what I was pronouncing! When the waitress returned, I asked her if she could explain what some of those dishes were. I pointed to one of them and said, "I don't know what this means", whereupon she scribbled it down on her notepad. I tried to tell her that I wasn't ordering it by pointing to something else I didn't understand, but she had no idea and just assumed I was very hungry, so she scribbled that down, too. Then she took the menu from me, turned back a few pages and recommended that the beancurd went well with whatever it was I had just ordered. Well, if you're in for a cent, you're in for a dollar, so I acquiesced.
The food was prompt and tasted delicious. The beancurd was cooked in soy sauce and came with baby sweetcorn and peppers. In one of the other dishes, I could see bits of tofu and bamboo in soy sauce, and the third dish had assorted vegetables in what I thought was a cashew-based sauce. Despite having three dishes, I did quite well and got through about three-quarters of each. I would recommend it if I had any idea what it was...
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By The Imperial Orange,
30th September 2015
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