The exhaustive myriad of authentic, dirt-cheap (my crappy army pay can’t support posh nosh everyday) Chinese food at the
Yam Cake and Chee Cheong Fun ($2) are carbohydrate-laden breakfast mainstays that spell doom for any Atkin’s diet. It is an exercise in futility to resist the intoxicating fragrance of sesame oil wafting out of the grease-proof packet. Two unique and distinct pleasures are present between the rich, creamy steamed yam pudding and the silky smooth flat rice noodles; both slathered in a savoury, viscous sauce. The sublime experience is completed by a thick sambal belacan, a potent chilli sauce animated by the pungent magic of fermented shrimp.
Cantonese Mung Bean Rice Dumplings ($3) are proof that a God exists, and that He enjoys His food. These sinful but oh-so-delicious parcels are a simple concoction of mung beans and well marbled pork. Magic happens as the pork fat melts when steamed and – liberated from the delicate folds of meat – are free to ooze and flow, impregnating and saturating the fragrant glutinous rice grains and mealy bean mash with buttery richness and porky flavour.
Economical Bee Hoon ($1) is fuel, plain and simple. The impressionable rice vermicelli soaks up character from quality soy and vegetable stock while a punchy chilli sauce adds depth and pizzazz. This simple dish has given generations of blue-collar workers the raw energy required to eke out a living; many of whom still queue up at the same stalls as white-coiffed retirees by force of habit. Long line of old people = good food.
Fish and Peanut Porridge ($1) is not one of my favourite breakfast staples for the nutty accents from the boiled peanuts combined with the strong scent of salted fish make my eyes water and head spin unpleasantly. That said; the 10 or so people seated around me slurping up the stuff with gusto obviously disagree.
Pork Porridge ($2) is more to my taste with the thick, creamy gruel chock full of various porky treasures. From the coppery tang of perfectly semi-cooked liver to chewy intestine segments and clumps of coarsely minced pork, one develops a deliciously intimate understanding of porcine anatomy.
A porridge breakfast is never complete without a Raw Fish Salad ($3). The meaty, gelatinous and slightly sticky fish is extremely fresh, swimming amidst the vibrant tones of fragrant sesame oil, salty soy, astringent ginger and herby cilantro.
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