Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [51]
A big, bustling patio market sits in the center of the residential complex. At one end, hawkers offer prepared food to eat here or take away. In the other half of the space, a variety of vendors butcher meat to order, sell live fish and seafood, display fresh produce, peddle brooms and plastic pails, and parade clothes of all kinds and sizes.
If we’ve felt like maverick cattle in other centers—Westerners gone astray from our herd—the sensation strikes us here with the force of a branding iron. Everyone else on the plaza lives in elevator distance of where they’re standing or sitting. Near to nothing of interest to other Singapore residents or visitors either, the Bedok New Town market exists for a self-contained community, all of whom seem to be eyeing us intently. No one is the least unfriendly—quite the opposite in some cases—but they clearly regard us as novelties.
Our reason for venturing this far from the heart of the city is to taste another version of char kway teow, this time from the wok of Makansutra Legend Ng Chang Siang of Hill Street Fried Kway Teow. Mom and Pop Ng are just setting up as we arrive, so Cheryl proposes getting an appetizer at another stand. One aisle over, the Yong Hua You Tiao stall fries long bread fritters called you char kueh. They look like small Mexican churros, and taste similar, but the dough contains leavening in this case. A dozen of them wash down smoothly with squeezed-to-order melon and pineapple juices from Heng Heng Fresh Fruit Juice.
Returning to Hill Street right before the opening hour, we find the Ngs eating some of the same fritters. They offer us tastes, but Cheryl declines on our behalf, explaining we just had a batch. The couple acts like they’ve never seen foreigners, at least at their stand, and they take obvious pride in presenting us with our plates of noodles. Their rendition of the dish is wonderful, on a par with yesterday’s version except for fewer bits of sausage and crunchy pork cracklings. On our way out, Bill offers our thanks. “Magnificent. Really rich and flavorful. You are very talented.”
Rather than retracing our hike back to the subway, we hail a taxi on the street to take us to Little India for lunch at Banana Leaf Apollo. The restaurant enjoys a reputation for one of Singapore’s best fish-head curries, another of the city’s many food favorites. Immigrants from south India created the dish as a way of promoting their curry to Chinese settlers, who they knew to be fond of fish-head preparations. Understanding from our advance research that the staff serves meals on banana leaves instead of tableware, we expect a basic street-front joint, but discover instead an upscale establishment, replete with welcome air-conditioning, our first experience of that in a Singapore eatery. Even so, both of us get cooling yogurt-and-fruit lassis to drink, ordering to the background tune of “The Sound of Music” as interpreted in an Indian instrumental style.
The waiter lays out our leaves, cut in large rectangular sections, in front of us, covering much of the tabletop. He spoons rice in the center of each and to the side, dollops of two vegetable relishes, a chopped summer squash with turmeric, tomatoes, and curry leaves, and another headier mixture of cabbage, curry leaves, and black mustard seeds. He brings the main course shortly, a colossal snapper head floating in an herb-and-spice-filled south Indian curry with the