Makan, makan

Thought I’d share Neil’s birthday dinner menu with the Internets. In the spirit of foodiness, I tried something a little different and organised a meal for ten at Garden City Cafe, a restaurant owned and cheffed (?) by Singaporeans. We had eleven people at the table, so Neil has friends after all (private joke).

Barbecued sambal stingray is a favourite among late-night clubbers in Singapore who get peckish. We had ‘a guy’ at Newton Circus who was most accommodating (probably because we were usually so pissed he could charge us anything). Best combined with a plate of baby kai lan stir-fried with garlic, but they couldn’t get any, so we settled for kang kong instead. We also ordered ourselves a large plate of fried carrot cake (the Singaporean version of ‘bubble and squeak’, according to Wayne), which I had to explain several times (”No, it’s not carrot, it’s turnip or radish, white carrot”) and fried oyster omelete (Singapore style is apparently the same as Taiwan style). I never appreciated oyster omelette until fairly recently, so I was quite happy they could do it. And we got more eggs, another omelette with preserved turnip, or chye poh nng — bloody hell, egg in Hokkien is hard to spell phonetically. I’m not such a fan, but Neil likes it.

(Aside: I’m a big fan of that steamed egg with minced pork, anyone know the name of the dish?)

Jeff’s girlfriend Via loved the har cheong gai (fried chicken with prawn paste) , chicken and pork satays were welcomed by everyone (but the ketupat — rice cakes — weren’t cooked enough). The first attention-getter was really the popiah, unfried spring rolls, basically. They came on individual plates and it was all quite posh-looking. I reckoned that since I was the only Singaporean in the bunch, they wouldn’t quite get into the nostalgia of rolling their own popiah (”What? It’s a restaurant, isn’t the food supposed to come ready to eat?”).

One of Neil’s requests was beef kway teow, but we ended up with beef hor fun, the egg-y type. Those were leftovers I brought home, but Neil managed to drench the (paper) container it came in when he bounced home at 6am and was looking for something to eat (or perhaps wash).

The least popular thing, and I ordered it only because I was afraid there wasn’t enough food, was coffee-flavoured ribs. People found the combination of flavours a little… odd. I vaguely remember Singapore doing a chocolate-flavoured version, but I could be imagining things.

Now I wish I’d taken photos of all the food, but I never even think of my camera when food is put in front of me. It was pretty authentic, so I don’t need to make such a long ‘to eat’ list next time I go to Singapore. Bagus, man.

• 14 Apr 2005

• Thinking