Three food lovers fighting to improve Singapore’s scene

Leon Chua is mindful that a discussion about fried carrot cake in Singapore can “start a civil war”.

Chua, or uncle_lim_chiak on Instagram, has encountered impassioned defences of the best version of the dish, as well as other hawker fare like prawn noodles and mee pok.

“Food evokes a lot of emotions,” he told Yahoo Southeast Asia. “Singaporeans are passionate about their food and have opinions about where or which is better. These emotions stem from your upbringing, are shaped by your formative years and are experienced-based.

“From chicken rice to chai tow kuay, everyone has their own opinion on what’s the best one.”

Although food is personal and subjective, Chua has written candid Instagram posts since he joined the social media platform in September 2017.

He has since amassed 18,300 Instagram followers and has somewhat become an accidental food influencer, even if he does not identify as one.

“I don’t do this for a living, I don’t do this full-time,” said the self-employed 49-year-old, who does not post sponsored content.

“I’ve been told that what I’ve shared has provoked certain thoughts and helped connect emotions in people. People tell me I influence their choices about food, whether a hawker morning or a date night.

“I write to connect myself with food. I don’t write to get more followers.”

Chua is also not afraid to write scathing reviews, calling out bad experiences at hawker centres, restaurants, and residencies featuring Michelin-starred restaurants and chefs.

Q: Describe your best food experience in Singapore.

A: The best experience is when you understand and have context to the food and the person who makes it. It could be the sushi chef who bothers to explain the way of his doing, the provenance and even the challenges. It could be a chef who remembers preferences and makes it a point to omit certain ingredients. Like if you don’t like uni, uni is taken off the menu without you having to say anything. It’s the same at a hawker stall. When I go to Ah Hua Teochew Fishball Noodles, I’m able to speak Teochew with Uncle Ah Hua behind the counter and we can relate experiences. That’s very unforgettable.

What was the best meal you had during your last overseas trip?

I was in Seoul recently and visited a restaurant called Onjium. It does a modern interpretation of royal court cuisine. The chef is a middle-aged woman who has been practising royal court cuisine for the longest time. She’s a legend trained in traditional royal court cuisine. In an effort to evangelise this aged cuisine, she adds modernity to help diners relate without compromising the core identity. I was able to experience heritage and culture, at the same time, enjoy modern deliciousness. She helped me understand how people enjoyed Korean food many decades ago during a dynasty, and how Korean food has evolved over time. It was like sharing her calling to keep royal court cuisine accessible and relevant.

If you only ate with your eyes, which restaurant would be your favourite?

This is a tough one. Beautiful food can be found everywhere but I like how Odette presents “fine”, how Meta keeps to simple-beautiful, how Burnt Ends is beast-mode handsome.

Where would you bring a visitor to eat?

Seroja and Born. Two restaurants that champion Malaysian-Singaporean-Archipelagic cuisine - something Singaporeans can call its own. For the longest time in the fine-dining space, we haven’t had something very representative of us. We always had very good restaurants, Michelin-starred restaurants, but they were mostly mainstream cuisines. We never had a restaurant like Seroja or Born that pushes local flavours and the use of indigenous herbs and spices. They are unapologetic about making fine foods out of these ingredients. As a Singaporean, I feel it is about time we introduce our cuisine to the fine-dining world.

Seeking to create positive change

For those who care deeply about food in Singapore, honest opinions and different perspectives are just some of the ingredients needed to effect change they hope to see.

Pamelia Chia has been advocating for wet markets as well as persuading Singaporeans to reconsider the balance on their plate and cook local food.

She launched her second cookbook "Plantasia" on 21 October, after authoring "Wet Market to Table", because she wanted to encourage Singaporeans to eat more vegetables.

Many topics close to her heart are interconnected, with roots in heritage, culture, and community.

“Wet market culture is dying,” said Chia, the face of the Singaporean food newsletter Singapore Noodles and host of The Singapore Noodles podcast.

“These places are not just places for people to shop for ingredients. They also protect our biodiversity in the region as you’ll find vegetables and fruits that are not commonly found in supermarkets.

“If wet markets were to be gone, we would not only be losing these ingredients but also the dishes that come with them, leading to an erosion of culture.

“Wet markets also function as a great hub for people to connect with one another as they allow for interactions to organically occur.”

Food is a big part of her life as it has helped Chia to explore her identity as a Singaporean Chinese.

She moved to the Netherlands in May after spending five years in Australia, and food plays a role in keeping her connected to Singapore.

“Food transports me back home,” said the 32-year-old. “It is the fastest route to quelling homesickness.”

Yet, the distance between her and Singapore has its advantages. She believes it allows her to have a clearer perspective and raise issues like how relatively little Singaporeans pay for hawker food and how little vegetables Singaporeans consume.

Q: If you’ve been away from Singapore for a year, what would be your first meal when you return?

A: It’ll be chicken rice - it’s my favourite national dish. Having grown up eating Cantonese food, I’m always veering towards dishes that are all about the purity of ingredients. Chicken rice really hits the spot because it’s so simple and comforting.

If you were to recommend one dish to a visitor, what would it be?

I’d recommend bak chor mee. I feel it’s so underrated. People always talk about nasi lemak, chicken rice and laksa but hardly any Westerner knows about bak chor mee. Maybe because the premise of it is not so sexy, it’s so pedestrian. I wish more people knew about it. It represents such a big part of Singaporean food culture in that one of the beauties of going to a hawker centre or kopitiam is that you are able to customise your bowl. With bak chor mee, you can choose your noodles, how much vinegar, how spicy you want it.

If you could ensure one dish is preserved, what would it be?

Glutinous rice dumplings, which are ba zhang. This was something I only started making when I moved abroad. There are so many technicalities to it and you need so much experience to master the dish. It’s not something that you can read off the pages of a cookbook and be a master at. You can’t just follow a recipe and expect your first attempt to be perfect because there’s so much that can’t be conveyed. And it’s something that families used to do together. My in-laws or my friends who have very traditional Chinese families come together as a whole family and every sibling has a different role. That’s a very beautiful part of our culture. A lot of dishes are designed to be cooked as a community.

What is Singapore’s best kept secret?

Coin prata. Even though roti prata has become quite popular in the West, people don’t really know that we have different kinds of prata and there’s a whole lexicon when it comes to ordering prata. Coin prata is not that common because it’s a lot of work to make and very few stalls make it well. My favourite one is Sin Ming Roti Prata. It’s this tiny shop in a small kopitiam and they always sell out.

Championing a niche cuisine

Creating, maintaining, shifting and broadening conversations in a space that is crowded can be challenging.

Vasunthara Ramasamy, who finished eighth in the second season of MasterChef Singapore, wants to be a voice for South Indian cuisine and bring regionality into the conversation.

“Indian food” does not even exist in her lexicon because there is no food that is representative of the whole subcontinent. She recognises that it is complex being an Indian from a diaspora and that the subject is better suited for long-form writing.

The former teacher has a blog and newsletter but also conducts thosai classes and private dining sessions. She feels the best way to demystify the cuisine is to offer people a chance to taste it.

“Eat the food. There is no better way to understand it than to experience it yourself,” said the 42-year-old behind Cutlery Optional, her home private dining establishment. “That’s why I need to be out there cooking the food.

“I’m challenging preconceived notions of what people think the cuisine is.

“It’s not cheap. It’s not unhealthy. There’s a lot more out there than what people give it space for.”

Q: What is the one dish every Singaporean should know how to cook?

A: One food that everyone should learn how to make is one food that you have very strong memories of as a child growing up. You connect to the food, you will make it well. Because you already have the context, because food is personal.

If you could recommend one place to someone visiting Singapore, what would it be?

Tekka Market. When you step into these spaces, they are very close to the ground, the community. They are not tampered with, they are very grassroots. It’s really how you feel Singaporeans are. You will hear the accents, you will see how people interact with each other in a very Singaporean way. The interactions, the food, the smells, the experience of being in a market. And Tekka Market because when you go in, you will see a lot of Chinese and Indians and the vendors, and they have been there for at least two generations. The Chinese existed side by side with Indians and they do the trade. This happens less now but when you went many years ago, a lot of the Chinese vendors spoke Tamil. It’s a very interesting wet market, and of course, because of the different produce.

If you had to eat one dish every day for perpetuity, what would it be?

Thosai. I didn’t realise how Singaporean I was until I lived abroad for one year. I missed everything. There was a lack of thosai because it’s very difficult to make. It’s like bread for people in the West. It’s simple and complex. It’s the memories I had growing up because my grandma made thosai, I ate it every day. It’s so simple, it’s not strongly flavoured, yet I feel satisfied eating it - of course only the ones I make! I can eat it plain, I don’t need the chutney because it’s complex when I make it.

What is the most underrated dish in Singapore?

All vegetable dishes. It’s not that it’s underrated, but it’s poorly represented outside. The restaurants focus more on the meats. In Singapore, people give more importance when something is prized higher - they think it’s more tasty. They don’t think much about vegetables. Maybe it’s the way the dining scene is - a focus on high-value products. Vegetables get relegated to the back end and they are more like side dishes. The effort that goes into making vegetable dishes is a lot more than throwing a steak on the grill. People don’t think of the complexities of vegetables.

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