..okay, so it’s not really a food scandal - but I think that got your attention, didn’t it?
For now, I have decided to be kinda “guai” (or rather, leaning towards the more docile side) - and instead of posting geeky stuff, followed by kinky stuff with innuendos, and well, vulgarities, I’ll post er, food.
No, really. Food in the literal sense - as in those that you eat for dinner and all. REALLY!
That said, allow me to introduce to you some rather fine, well-cooked delicacies in which my school, RP, (well, technically they subcontracted the food to ISS Catering - the Cafe 155 guys, who then subcontracted it to the China vendors - but what the hell). If nobody files anything, I’m gonna file it.
Since this is a story about Chinese food, I shall use “Chinese synonyms” to describe it - because, if I remember correctly, my command of chinese was kinda, well, bad.
Here goes:
On one wind and day sunny morning (which literally means - “yi ge feng he ri li de zao chen“), I decided to take Fish (yes - you mean you don’t know who’s Fish? go Google the word, “fish” then ;)) to the good ol’ Cafe 155 located in RP.
Well, yes, we all heard the scandal whereby nose was and cockroaches and feelers and flies were found in food from various stores, but well, no, I’m not so lucky to taste such tainted delicacies served by our dilligent canteen vendors.
(This makes me think, er, if we were only capable of spotting foreign entities inside our food at THIS age, damn, what have I been eating for the past 10+ years of government education?)
The queue was kinda long everywhere, so of course, we opted for shorter queues: Fish actually went to the fishball noodles store, which typically had undersized portions of noodles for $2 - think of it as noodles in which you had at Secondary School - not the coffee shop portions.
I, of course, decided to be more adventureous (Read: “Kay Kiang“) and went for the only China-ran, I mean, er, China-national ran food store in the school, the one which had stickers all over for a name like “Liu Da Ma”.
Man, I must tell you - they serve the finest China-Chinese cuisine I’ve ever tasted!
Having ordered Fried Dumplings and Fried Rice from them, I was amazed at the cashier’s impeccable service - he flashed me that look which told me that he was deep-in-thought about food, so much that he was in a daze at times. Of course, cannot blame him for that, he must be a dedicated cashier at heart, so thoughtful about his food.
I do believe that due to the cashier cum chef’s enthusiasm, he apparently applied secret ancient Chinese methodology (which is non-existent by *any* local eatery or chef) to simmer these dumplings in oil.
Look how the base forms a delicious black crisp.
Of course, the dumplings had very nicely mixed feelings, which tasted like “jiu chai” mixed with raw pork (meat?). I see that the chef had found a way to make Medium-rare Pork, which of course adds to the juiciness of the whole thing. The versatility of the chef’s skills never fails to impress a layman like me!
Such amazing cooking style which due to Singapore’s cultural advancement, can only be uncovered by native chefs like this. It is exceptionally rare to find perfectly friend dumplings, I tell you.
Though I must say, due to a lack of cultural clashes (in turns of taste), I gleefully contributed these dumplings to the “Return Tray” counter, hoping some other hungry soul could appreciate them.
The next dish, the fried rice, was also tastefully fried.
Each mouthful had the distinct taste of recycled vegetable oil - which, during this global oil crisis, is a commendable effort on the chef’s part to probably re-use the oil which fried the dumplings to re-fry the rice.
One could easily feel the mouth being doubly coated with oil after the very first spoon - and I must say, it’s an amazing taste, so much that I had to compliment it with my milk tea which effectively musked it’s taste. Such added recycled oil brings great flavour to the rice.
Don’t you notice how the oil seems to make the rice just GLOW in the morning (well, actually, artificial) lights of the cafe/canteen? Notice how the rich colours seem to highlight the generous spread of ingredients used! Wow!
With that said, I shall leave you guys to drool over these amazing dumplings which, honestly, was beyond me, and I do believe it would be beyond anyone of you with “standard” taste buds.
The China-Chinese people in the food and milk industry have their tradition deeply set within melamine, the pride and joy of their produce, and this is way superior than what we have in Singapore’s culture, man!
