Some Thoughts on Singapore Food Halls

You can't go to Singapore and not eat at food halls. This is both because it's a cultural touchpoint and a Quintessential Experience, and because it is practical: Singapore is an expensive-ass place and food hall meals tend to be at least cheapish.

There are a lot of them, and some are renowned for a certain speciality, some are beloved by tourists, and some you stumble across in little back-alley neighborhoods. I am of the opinion that you can get pretty good food in all of them if you've got a nose - Chowhound.com and a cursory Google hunt are all you need to find the good stuff.

Further, as insofar as I can determine Singaporeans don't actually cook, food halls are usually great spots for people watching, as people of every imaginable ethnicity chat, bicker, and pontificate over large portions of....just about everything. You can get anything from Mexican food to Bengali food to New York cheesecake at the largest of these institutions, but it's the street dishes you should be looking out for.

We paid a visit to the Lau Pau Sat Festival Market nearish to Raffles Quay, which is set in a gracious old building and is a big favorite with power-lunchers from nearby high-rises and office buildings who are the mood to slum it. I was looking for a couple specific Singapore dishes and zeroed in on the Char Kway Teow hawker stand roughly in the middle of the hall, which had a couple of classics on tap....



I would like to disabuse the general public of the notion that Singapore carrot cake has anything to do with carrots or cake, or cupcakes, or dessert. This curiously named street food dish par-excellence is in fact sliced radish cake, stir-fried with sweet soy sauce, egg, and onions, in the "black" variant - a soy-sauce free variant exists that is called, shockingly enough, "white." It's a bit odd at first to the Western palate, but I've developed a real liking for the stuff and consider it a first-rate breakfast meal.



This is a Singapore-style oyster omelet with a bit of onion, and it's a nice greasy, salty, slightly funky bite - perhaps best avoided if you're not already the kind of person who goes nuts for oysters (me) and to be sought out if you are (me). Singapore has a way with grease for a place with such an at times noxiously squeaky-clean reputation.

Oysters have a dodgy reputation just about everywhere in Asia - my family had to stare me down from eating one the other day in Cambodia, but I like to live dangerously. However, Singapore is a place with food safety standards, and, even more pleasingly, graded ratings placed in prominent positions behind every food stalls counter, which makes your choices easier.



Then there's Singapore chicken rice, a classic breakfast in these parts, and really quite fiendishly simple: rice cooked in chicken stock served with boneless chicken (boiled or fried, most often boiled), a sweet soy sauce of some type and a hot chili sauce of another, and a bowl of chicken stock soup. It's just about the best thing possible for a weird stomach (and it will happen to you in Southeast Asia) and is available just about everywhere, usually at reasonable prices.

I like to get fresh fruit juices or sliced fruit for snacks on ridiculously hot days in Singapore. Thankfully, food halls are fully aware of how goddamn hot their homeland is, and getting a nice fresh electrolyte-loaded beverage is an easy matter. They'll mix your fruits for you or blend in some ice if you ask nicely. I also have a real thing for sweet fresh lime juice - they call it nimbupani in India, which is a delightful word - and it is easy to obtain here. Sugar cane juice is a bit cloying for my taste, but someone will happily press you some for a buck or two at the stalls: look for the guy with the sugar cane stalks. (I know, I give such useful, specific advice).

Finding out what is good and what is not at food halls is easy: who is being mobbed by hungry Singaporeans, and who is not? Rocket science, it isn't.

Mike's Burger House: Inn and Out Knockoff in Phnom Penh, or Why Globalization Is Awesome

Mike's Burger House
Russian Boulevard, in the Sokimex gas station, Tuol Kork
Phnom Penh, Cambodia




An Inn and Out knock-off in the dark heart of Phnom Penh? Believe it. Cambodian owner "Mike" spent much of his adult life in Los Angeles and developed a taste for the indisputably tasty stylings of Inn and Out Burger in California. Upon returning home to Cambodia, he opened Mike's way out of town, on the way to the airport. Globalization is awesome sometimes.



The restaurant's been moved a little closer to the thick of things, into a Sokimex gas station on Russian Boulevard, but the basic concept - cheap, large unapologetically American cheeseburgers alongside a few other US stalwarts - is unchanged. And man, do my boyfriend and I appreciate it.



Sometimes a cheeseburger with fake cheese, fries, and no weird Asian interpretations of such is what our little expat hearts most desire in the world, and that is what Mike's delivers. Even better, we can actually afford it. Cheeseburgers start at $2.50, a plate of fries so big that me and my comically oversized boyfriend can't finish it is $3.99, and you can finish off with an A&W rootbeer float. Man, I'm almost tearing up over ground meat. There's also a counter of US candy, some US grocery products, and a few other random things on offer.



I find these the best, or at least the most intrinsically comforting burgers in Phnom Penh, for a couple of simple reasons.

1. Fake cheese. Most places serving burgers here use real cheese and that is totally off-point. Fake, melty cheese makes a good fast-food burger. So sue me

2. Real sesame buns. Not sure where Mike sources these wonderful things as I haven't seen them elsewhere in town, but they're good. Also, toasted.

3. Special sauce. I don't care if it's actually ketchup, mayo, and mustard with some pickle juice, or whatever, it is of vast and all-encompassing import.

4. Size. Burgers that are actually American-sized are a true rarity here. Actually, I'm pretty sure these burgers are bigger than Inn and Out's stuff. Also, thick, non-frozen beef patties are always nice, especially in The Country of Suspicious Cow Meat.

5. Plenty of crisp iceberg lettuce and, if you ask for them, grilled onions. Grilled onions always make a cheeseburger better. I can actually show you a scientific equation to prove this if you give me an hour notice.



If you're some kind of Hindu or something, you can get a chicken sandwich, though it is by no means any better for you than a cheeseburger. Cheese, chicken breast, special sauce, grilled onions, green grilled chili and lots of lettuce. Pretty good and simple.



It's pretty damn hard to take a sexy photo of a chili burger without some serious cosmetic alterations, but I tried. The chili burger is a very LA sort of thing (well, according to Californians) and this is a worthy effort, though I will and always shall be kind of a chili snob.



Excellent fries, the finishing touch. Some places have good burgers and distinctly mediocre fries, but you'll still eat there - fries are sort of the finishing touch. I think he hand-makes em', which is all the better. They're salty, crispy, and thin-cut, and Jesus Christ there are a lot of them.

It's a hike out here, which means the clientele is mostly expats, Cambodians with a taste for American food, and a whole bunch of missionaries post-church on Sundays. Sometimes crowded, but seats always open up fast, as is the way of fast food giants. There's even serve-your-own condiments. Man, be still my heart. I love you, Mike's Burger House.

Shawarma: One of Lebanon's Better Innovations

Shawarma
Sisowath Quay, near Mao's bar and the Night Market
023 720 011 for delivery
Phnom Penh, Cambodia




Shawarma are a staple of late-night drinking life throughout much of the world - though curious enough, not the USA - and Phnom Penh's barhoppers have taken to these Lebanese pita bread sandwiches in a big way.

Which explains the two PP outposts of Shawarma, specializing in various riffs on the theme, along with a variety of Lebanese snack items, all at delightfully cheap prices. There's chicken, beef, kafta, shish taouk, kebbe, and lamb varieties on offer, as well as whatever specials strike their fancy. There's also hummus, feta cheese salad, falafel, and some phyllo-dough Lebanese pastries on the menu. They also deliver for a buck, which is convenient when you want to eat something incredibly messy at work.



Chicken shawarma with garlic sauce ($3.00) is pretty much my simple-and-good standby, and, as the place is apparently owned by Genuine Lebanese People, it really is good. Fresh pita bread warmed on a griddle with marinated chicken, fried onions, creamy garlic sauce, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and mint. Yum. Shawarmas fall apart within about five seconds of being bitten into in my experience, especially when you're drunk, but they provide plates.



Shawarma also offers excellent fresh hummus, served with pita bread. A drizzle of olive oil and some kalamata olives on top. Definitely satisfies my occasional, profound hummus cravings. Very smooth and not grainy like some efforts around here.



Vegetarians will be happy to know they are adequately provided for here in the Lebanese junk food department. The falafel, as is to be expected, is excellent.

It's a little restaurant with overly bright lighting and some cool paintings on the wall, and you can watch the cheery waitresses make your sandwiches while sipping on an Orangina. Music wise, there's always either Akon singing about how he wants to fucckkk you fucckkk yooouuu in autotune, or sentimental 70's music on in the dining area. It's almost to the Pavlovian point where listening to Akon makes my boyfriend and I really want to eat shawarma.

There's one outlet on Sisowath Quay, open all day and until around 9:00 PM, and another outlet on Street 51, across the street from the Heart of the Darkness, that opens around 9:30 and closes at - sometime really, really late, as I've seen them still putting shawarmas together in the vicnity of 5:00 am. (Admitting freely I have spent time wandering the skeezy environs of Street 51 at unholy hours of night here, but I think that's a rite of passage for new Phnom Penh expats....right?

PHNOM PENH: Chiang Mai Thai Restuarant, Sisowath

Chiang Mai Thai Restaurant
227 Sisowath Boulevard
+855 11 81 1456
7 days a week, 10:00 AM until 10:00 PM. Upstairs seating available.
Vegetarian friendly: Extremely.
Price: $$

Thai food can be surprisingly difficult to get in Phnom Penh. European food of many varieties is easy to get around here, Korean food is rife, sushi is eminently possible and you can't swing a cat without hitting a place serving some bizarre take on French food - but Thai? Like, that country right next door? Harder. (Don't get me started on the curious paucity of Vietnamese food). This can, of course, be chalked up to ancient and historically relevant ethnic tensions, but it doesn't help when I just want some larb-gai.

Ethnic tensions aside, there is a pretty good Thai restaurant smack dab in the tourist hell of Sisowath Quay. It's called Chiang Mai Thai because it is indeed Northern Thai food - there's northern style dips on the menu, an inordinate variety of larb-type dishes (and the real thing) and you can even get an honest-to-god bowl of God's chosen food, Burma's khao-soi.

I eat here a lot because it is one of the cheaper options on Sisowath, the management is nice, and the food is reliably tasty. I also like the Bible-length and decently photographed menu. The dining room is simple and functional, and closed off enough that you won't get too much beggar-harassment unless you are sitting right up against the entrance.



They do fish amok here, but they stir-fry it instead of baking it. Personally, I love Chiang Mai's take on the Eternal Khmer Dish. It's fresher, firmer, and less custardy then some variants on the theme. If you can tear yourself away from a psychological reliance on the cute little banana leaf package, this is good stuff. You can also get it made with chicken or shrimp if you're feeling irreverent.



I usually pair this with mixed vegetables or stir-fried waterspinach. Nothing particularly special though I like the nutrients. Water spinach is delightful and something that makes up the bulk of my diet, like many Cambodians. A tasty, nutrient rich vegetable that can be grown in pretty much any scummy pond is a gift of nature. (Don't think about the scummy part, actually. I mean. They cook it with high heat).



This is a dry, Khmer style red-curry with a large quantity of local vegetables. A really tasty dish that is aggressively healthy without entirely seeming so. I am very fond of Cambodia's tiny, globular eggplants and these are used to good effect here. There is a dash of coconut milk for flavor, and a whole lot of dry, intense spices.

I have also sampled the larb-gai here, which, as previously mentioned, is quite good. As spicy as you can take it, extremely tangy, and plenty of rice powder to give it that nutty and slightly crunchy finish. They do pretty good curry crabs, using Cambodia's particular and stripy crab variety—these are best eaten with a mess of morning glory and a philosophical attitude about getting one's hands messy.

I have not tried the khao soi yet - I got spoiled for choice in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and am a bit wary - but I will eventually once the need for coconut-egg noodle-chicken-pickle soup gets too strong, and it will, it always will.

DELIVERY FOR THE DESK BOUND:

The guys at Chiang Mai deliver and they do it quickly. No screwed up orders to date, and they always bring change. The guy on the phone speaks actual English.

Quan Nem Ninh Hoa: Make Your Own Springrolls! In a Boat!

Quan Nem Ninh Hoa
6450 Stockton Blvd
Sacramento, CA 95823
(916) 428-3748



Quan Nem Ninh Hoa is one of Stockton Boulevard's small army of Vietnamese restaurants. This neat, simple little place specializes in regional menu items ranging beyond the standard chicken pho-and-noodle-bowl selections of most area restaurants and to excellent effect. The restaurant specializes in food from Ninh Hoa, a district in Southern Vietnam's Khanh Hoa province, and it's a delight to see regional Vietnamese cooking transmuted to Sacramento's neighborhoods. And tasty, did I mention that?

We ordered what everyone orders here: the Dac Biet Nem Nuong or the make-your-own-spring-rolls with ground pork skewers. This dish is usually massive and usually delicious, and Quan Nem Ninh Hoa's presentation definitely didn't disappoint. A variety of tasty things are brought out in a large boat-shaped bowl, and one order was more then enough to happily satiate my mother and I.



You take the hard spring-roll wrappers, dip them in warm water, then spread them out on a plate to fill with the ingredients - this requires entirely more expertise then I possess, and I glanced with envy at the Vietnamese folks the next table over who appeared to have been executing the maneuver since birth. There's a variety of different ways to combine the sweet, slightly smoke pork skewers, crispy shrimp rolls (great for texture), vegetables and sweet, slightly gelatinous peanut-chili sauce. Interactive food never really gets old. The very lazy can of course order pre-assembled spring rolls, but really, now?

For dessert, there's a foil-wrapped nugget of pickled pork with a nice, astringent little hit of jalapeno: very nice, in my estimation.

Besides the spring roll special, the restaurant also offers banh beo - tiny rice cakes with shredded shrimp and onion ont op - and a distinctive seafood noodle soup with pork, poached shrimp, sauteed ground pork, a quail egg, rice noodles, calamari strips, and a small crab claw. There are also bun (noodle) bowls with various toppings if you're not feeling inclined to branch out.

There ain't no pho here. Be warned. Man up.

La Macarena Pupusas Round Two: Mmm Beef

La Macarena Pupuseria & Latin Café
8120 Hampson Street
504-862-5252
New Orleans, LA

Pupusas, a Colombian corn patty stuffed with meat or cheese fillings, are a rather new quantity to me. I first sampled a pupusa nearly a year ago, the very day I returned from four months in India, arrived in the gleaming terminals of San Francisco International Airport. We picked up our car and drove through the Mission to get something to eat, and I remember being struck by how few people were around - and I also remember being extremely happy to be somewhere where such as thing as Latino culture existed, back in a land that actually had Mexican food and Colombian food and everything in between. We stopped in at one of the neighborhood's many pupuserias and enjoyed a cheese and beef pupusa: as a life-time corn cake lover, I thought it was delicious. (I enjoyed the Colombian style garlic chicken just as much.)

In any case, I was happy when La Macarena opened up: what a convenient way to learn a little more about Central and South American cuisine. The owners also made an excellent tactical choice in serving corn-and-cheese filled concotions very close to two major universities. Well played.


These sun dried tomato and spinach pupusas were pretty tasty, although rather shrimpy compared to the specimens I've encountered in California. They're hand-made and griddled to order here, which means an order can take a while out. The melty texture and nice cornmeal flavor make a little extra time worth it. I also like the clear Colombian (?) slaw and spicy, slightly salty salsa served alongside.


This salad came with pulled beef brisket and plenty of slaw, along with olives, romaine hearts, and a variety of mixed vegetables. The brisket was definitely tasty and meaty, and had been cooked just long enough to fall apart but before toughness set in. I used the Colombian salsa instead of the provided garlic dressing and rather regretted my decision: things got pretty salty by the time I finished this not-inconsiderably sized beast. Still will order again.

The menu features a variety of entrees as well as pupusas: the garlic shrimp are humongo and looked very tasty indeed. This is a family run place and it shows, as service can be a bit uneven (if earnest) and food takes a healthy amount of time to come out. Brunch is offered on weekends with some interesting looking egg dishes. BE FOREWARNED: this place is cash only. Don't say I didn't warn you.

cafe granada: spanish tapas, mild saline overdose excluded

Cafe Granada
1506 S Carrollton Ave
New Orleans, LA 70118
(504) 865-1612

Cafe Granada is a small and open Spanish cafe on South Carrollton, near the restaurant cluster of Cafe Lebanon and Fellini's Italian. Granada specializes in tapas - those Spanish small bites that seem to have infested the menu pretty much everywhere in the known world - but also features Spanish standbys like paella, pollo a la basque, and a tasty sounding Moroccan lamb tagine. If you're one of New Orleans long-suffering vegetarians, the veggie menu is startlingly extensive and really is free of pork fat (gasp!)

Enough description, how's the dang food?



This is a cooked garbanzo bean casserole with aromatic herbs and cumin - $5. Tasted pretty much like Indian garbanzos with less kick. Not heinous, but way too much oil and salt ( a recurring problem here.)



Next we tried the Eggplant Granada, which I will let them describe: Grilled Layers of Eggplant Stuffed with Mushroom Duxelle and Crispy Onions, Placed on Pomegranate and Romesco Sauce, $6.


I liked the sweet and savory combination of flavors and it's a nice looking dish, but the oil content and salt was again too high. It's rich: took a few bites, was satisfied, didn't need too much more. Which may be the point of sharing anyhow.



Being a total clam lover, I sampled the clams Catalan, sauteed with sun dried tomatoes, almonds, spinach, and white wine ($6.00.) These had a good garlicky flavor but again, tone down on the salt, guys. I like the tender clam meat and the sun-dried tomatoes, but where, oh where, was my beloved spinach? Beyond a stray leaf or two?



This is Fabada, composed of fresh fava beans, artichokes, and sun dried tomatoes in veggie broth and Sherry vinegar. See, these, now THESE were smashing: the slow cooked favas ended up tasting rich and savory, almost like cheese. The combo with the artichoke and sun dried tomato flavor was great. I'd definitely order these again.

Verdict? Granada has a healthy selection of inexpensive tapas that, despite good flavor, definitely need to be turned down on the oil n' salt-o-meter. Nonetheless, I imagine I'll be returning to sample that lamb - and it's a great place to hang out and nosh when the weather is good.

Jazmine Cafe: Meh Vietnamese in New Orleans

Jazmine Cafe
614 S Carrollton Ave
New Orleans, LA 70118
(504) 866-9301


Ah, the Jazmine Cafe. As a Vietnamese food junkie - hardcore - and a Californian, I get a little squirrely when I go more then a couple days without an infusion of fish sauce. The Jazmine Cafe, mediocre as it may be, is located right at Riverbend, inexpensive, and does have fish sauce (if little else.) Thus I'll keep on going despite my vague feeling of disappointment each visit. Yeah, I should probably learn to make my own pho.



Vegetarian spring rolls. These had fried tofu, avocado, rice noodles, cucumber, basil and cilantro, and carrots. Simply okay, and a bit padded out with noodles for my liking. Okay, I know the Traditional Real Way to do spring rolls involves noodles but it's not the way I like them and my preferences obviously override a few gazillion years of Vietnamese history. Duh.



These banh mi were called vegetarian "po boys" on the menu in an attempt to sell a NOLA audience on these luscious Vietnamese sandwiches. Banh mi and po-boys DO have a thing or two in common - I can see it. These veg renditions had carrots, Vietnamese slaw, mayo, fried tofu, and herbs, along with a whole lotta butter. Personally I rather like large quantities of butter but my friend Amanda did not agree.



Tamarind fish soup with tilapia and okra. This was just okay, if plentiful - big old chunks of tilapia were in there, that's for sure. Flavor was good and a bit sweet and sourish, with chunks of fresh pineapple and bean sprouts. I was rather irritated by the fact that the okra were just chucked in there raw - raw is not a good way to eat okra, although the heat of the soup did soften em' up a bit. Hrmph.

My friends ordered the vegetarian sweet heat noodles - sorta like pad thai. Big old portions and a decent spicy-sweet flavor, with tofu, broccoli, and whatnot. The non-veg version has chicken and shrimp and is rather tasty.

The Jazmine Cafe is a decent option for inexpensive and Vietnamese-esque eats near the Tulane campus, but it definitely is not the real-deal or even particularly good. (Except for the grilled tuna salad. Dig that.) However it'll suffice til' I can get up against some REAL pho. *sniffle*

Crawdad Pizza: Well Okay I Guess

Rocky's Gourmet Pizza
3222 Magazine St
New Orleans, LA 70115
(504) 891-5152




Rocky's Gourmet Pizza is one of many pizza joints on Magazine. Far as I can tell, they owe their continuing existence to the seemingly insatiable appetites of my fellow college students, who naturally require pizza, cheap beer, and a plentiful supply of illegal drugs to survive.

And so we have Rocky's. It's your typical pizza joint on the inside: a bit smoky and dark, with a big old pizza oven heating up the interior and amusing 50's adverts plastered all over the bathrooms.



How's the food? Decent, but nothing special. I went with a crawfish salad with artichoke hearts, roma tomatoes, feta cheese and balsamic dressing for around ten bucks. The crawfish were plentiful, but cooked in way too much salt for my taste - though I did appreciate the freshness of the vegetables. My dad went with the very NOLA craw-dad and tasso pizza, which arrived with a thin and crispy crust, plenty of crawfish, and not quite enough tasso for my pork-loving tastes.

Take note: a "small" here translates into "ginormous," which is great if you're in college and not so great if you are not. Leftover pizza is always awesome, but I am not sure how good crawfish pizza would taste cold.

Thai-Lao Restaurant

Thai-Lao Restaurant
1120 Fulton Ave
Sacramento, CA 95835
(916) 485-8424

I've never had Laotian food before, so when I saw a intriguing new crop of Lao restaurants appear on Fulton Avenue, I had a new Dining Objective, which is one of those lame excuses I make for eating out. Thus, we stopped into this unassuming strip mall restaurant one rainy night in an effort to try something new. Decorated with a vague Tiki-bar theme, it was nearly empty on our visit, other then one other family that appeared to be banqueting. This was not nearly as creepy as I had anticipated. The place, however, was very cold, although admittedly I am a sissy whiny bitch in that regard.

Surprise: Laotian food is a lot like Thai food. The long menu featured a variety of the usual Thai standbys, along with a few more interesting dishes, mostly involving variants on seafood (yum.) There's a wide variety of noodle dishes and some interesting looking curries as well. Since this was a new restaurant to us, we opted to order all the dishes at a medium spiciness level, since in our experience, Thai restaurants will on occasion decide that ordering food "spicy" means "I want you to kill me." In this circumstance, this proved to be a bit of a mistake, since I for one could have stood for them wounding me a little more.



We began with my perennial favorite, the papaya salad. This was a good enough version, although I remembered the Lao variant I'd had at the State Fair as involving more fish sauce. It was certainly spicy, although the papaya wasn't quite as crunchy as I like it. (Or maybe that's because they used more tomato then usual.)



Our other three dishes arrived quickly, which was good, since I was so hungry I was beginning to hallucinate. My favorite was the seafood hot plate, which featured a considerable variety of innocent sea creatures doused in red curry sauce and served with vegetables. It was a beautiful dish, and I enjoyed picking out the tasty bits of crab, mussels, and shrimp from the pungent sauce. Next time I'll order it extra spicy so I can salivate and suffer like a happy, happy fool.



The pad prik king with chicken was also delicious, with a soulful, spicy flavor. The crunchy green beans juxtaposed with the tender and spicy ground chicken made for a wonderful combination, and I appreciated the fresh, intense flavor of all the ingredients. The fried basil garnish really made it - I love that flavor.



I'm not exactly a carbohydrate addict, but the basil fried rice was quite good, with a nice texture and a subtle but present basil flavor. There were ample veggies interspersed with the rice as well, though I could have gone for a little bit more of that rich, carmelized flavor I associate with truly killer fried rice. I'll try their seafood version next time.

Thai-Lao restaurant is a nice (and economical!) choice for tasty and fresh food if you're in the area. Although I couldn't detect much about it that was truly different from a purely Thai place, the menus variety and the pleasant, fresh taste of the food will definitely see a return visit from me. Just ask them to step on the heat a little bit if you're a spicy-food masochist like myself, and you should be in food-heaven.