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bove bugis food centre with our celebrity concierge audra morrice pointing out where her mum comes to collect ingredients for her homemade sambal and curry i was in the midst of musty dehydrated food heaven audra was part of masterchef in 2012 and clearly made it a lot further along the way than i did a fact which i tried not to hold against her because her love of food and all that goes along with it is compelling based in sydney with her young family now she s a singaporean through and through as evidenced in a small alley way in the covered markets of chinatown haggling over the price of some freshly cut durian with a crafty operator in short she was the perfect person to show me the sights and tastes of singapore that i d been missing now of course the rest of this post should be read with the knowledge that i was invited to come to singapore on behalf of the singapore tourism board the flights accommodation and daily activities were all paid for in fact if i didn t have a massive craving for bakkwa that needed to be satisfied with frequent nightly trips to lim chee guan i d have struggled to pay for anything i stayed at the very trendy dorsett hotel in chinatown and had a friendly mini bus driver named steven who let us bring durian puffs on board as long as we double bagged them disclaimers aside i can t think of many things on the itinerary that i wouldn t have done of my own accord the tour was designed by audra to give us an idea of what her singapore was all about and it was a feast for all the senses it was facilitated by local tour guide wee tee a lady whose innate singaporeanness is second to none and who only got funnier as the days went on she took great delight in introducing me to the wonders of foot reflexology which should actually be known as foot murder so in no specific order here are the highlights in photo form for you to peruse chin mee chin confectionery an old school bakery of much repute on east coast rd this was the spot audra chose to take us to experience the joy that can only come from a sweet cup of kopi strong coffee brewed with or without a sock and loaded with condensed milk and some kaya toast with soft boiled eggs kaya is a sweet coconut jam made with eggs and the best way to eat it is on some plain white toast with a slab of butter our group fortunately arrived early as a line started forming out the door not long after we arrived i managed to eat about 4 soft boiled eggs with liberal doses of soy sauce and white pepper sprinkled over them the kaya toast just works i could eat it anytime of the day soft white bread lightly toasted and loaded up with melty butter and thick coconut jam is a superb match chin mee chin confectionery 204 east coast rd 65 6345 0419 tiong bahru tiong bahru is an old area close to the centre of singapore it was singaporeâ s first housing estate built in the 1930s to the west of chinatown and has in recent years undergone a gentrification of sorts with all kinds of new coffee shops bars and designer stores appearing in what previously was home to kopitiams full of mahjong playing old timers we took a little of the old and a little of the new on this visit first up hitting up the hugely popular tiong bahru bakery for breakfast pastries and specialty coffee supplied by hip new roasters common man coffee a collaboration between perth locals five senses and singaporean coffee trail blazers forty hands my kouign amann was crispy on the outside soft inside sweet and perfect the coffee expertly poured by one of the most eager to please baristas i ve ever met we took a short stroll down the road and audra pointed out some pandan growing in a street front garden that i encouraged her to steal we settled for a photo in front of it then onwards to the tiong bahru food centre and a little breakfast treat called chwee kueh i discovered this on my last trip to singapore and was super happy when we made a bee line for the jian bo chwee kueh stall with aunty dutifully scooping steamed rice cakes out of their moulds onto a sheet of wax paper and lathering over a healthy dose of preserved radish and sambal i played it cool for a while but when it was obvious that the rest of the party were lacking in the power eating department i stepped up and finished most of them i can envision a future in which i eat this for breakfast everyday and am totally happy tiong bahru bakery 01 07 56 eng hoon st 65 6220 3430 tiong bahru food market hawker centre 30 seng poh road lolla now a slight divergence from the hawker stalls and local food as we headed to a little restaurant in chinatown called lolla i was all ready to not like this place with its spanish this tapas that and this is our version of what plus the distinctly not hawker customer friendly price tags on the dishes but damn if the food wasn t good chef ming is a young guy who is clearly keen to impress we arrived for a lateish lunch and he was prepping pork skin for dinner service which was slow cooked overnight then dried before being deep fried into perfect crackling the dishes i tried could not be faulted a sublime seafood custard think chawanmushi with squid ink topped with sea urchin then a slow cooked tripe that fellow offal fiend rebecca and i could not go past crispy gelatinous honeycomb then octopus clams smoked cheese washed down with a spanish albariã o i could have quite easily forgotten i was still in the heart of chinatown with ducks hanging in windows all around me lolla 22 ann siang road chinatown 65 64231228 to get us back on the local track after lunch at lolla we took a stroll around chinatown checking out the buddhist temple home to part of buddha s tooth and the wet markets where old and young guys used very large cleavers to take the heads off very large fish small cages of frogs who had lost all hope of escape sat complacently awaiting their fate and all manner of person haggled with vendors for the best prices outside the market old men played xiangqi chinese chess and we wandered through streets of covered markets til that all too familiar smell of durian filled our noses and asian food novice aleisha was given the baptism of fire into that most special of fruits it didn t go well bugis another day another market and this time it was bugis an area previously famous for lady boys during the second world war we had no adam s apples to be wary of unfortunately just more great street food from the hawker centre and market stalls wee tee our guide happily procured rojak for a snack and ice kachang and ice cendol for a snack dessert i m pretty sure it was mostly for her but she let us have a taste as well the hawker centre doesn t just stop at the food level head upstairs and you find yourself in the aforementioned dry goods section audra pointed out dried persimmon all manner of dried mushrooms and fungi giant bags of dried scallops and ikan bilis and a whole stall dedicated to dried sea cucumber a food that must surely be close to the top of the list of ugly things that are crazy expensive little india little india is an area like no other in singapore i have yet to reach india but i have a pretty good idea of how it would feel from spending a few nights in little india singapore the streets are heady with the smell of incense and dried flowers and spices road rules and the regular orderliness of singapore goes out the window and in the evenings an otherworldly noise envelopes you as the sound of thousands of voices speaking a hundred sub continental dialects fills the night air on this trip audra took us to a favourite restaurant of hers the madras new woodlands restaurant which i was somewhat shocked to find was totally vegetarian of course the health conscious need not get too excited about that as plate after plate of fried breads like poori dosai and vadai rolled out onto the table i mopped all of them up with coconut sambal and chickpea curry and washed it down with mango lassi meatless what madras new woodlands restaurant 14 upper dickson rd 65 6297 1594 adam road food centre back to the hawker centre for dinner and one i d never been to before adam road has a wide selection of classic hawker dishes we started with some excellent sambal stingray and sambal pipis dabbled with some hokkien mee satay and a little black carrot cake not actually made from white carrots but with radish and sweet soy i may also have downed a few of bottles of frosty cold tiger beer with the help of rebecca singapore is so far the only place where i will reach for a beer before anything else the humidity in singapore can feel like walking around in a warm bath sometimes and who doesn t like drinking beer in the bath am i right anyone adam road food centre 2 adam road singapore 289876 boon tong kee chicken rice you know what has been conspicuously absent during this post so far mentions of chicken rice you only need to go to singapore once to realise what a phenomenon chicken rice is and how hotly debated the best version is don t know how to break the ice with that cute girl at the hawker centre ask her where the best chicken rice is it is undeniably singapore s national dish and for good reason the perfect chicken rice is a transcendent experience perfectly steamed chicken bursting with succulent juices and umami packed rice that s been cooked in chicken stock with some fat mixed in for good measure paired with the right chilli sauce and some sweet sticky soy and a little broth if you re lucky this is about as good as food gets for 3 5 on average per serve audra chose to take us to the river valley outlet of boon tong kee chicken rice a chain that features in mostly all the best chicken rice in singapore lists despite having been eating constantly for 3 days at this point i had no issue in partaking in lusciously plump steamed chicken and flavourful rice the chilli could have gone up a notch for me which i guess means i m becoming singaporean because splitting hairs over amazing cheap food is pretty much a national pass time boon tong kee 425 river valley road singapore 248324 on the non edible side of the country we also visited the s e a aquarium which was amazing but made audra hungry for seafood and the alien landscape that is the super tree grove in the gardens by the bay the one certain thing about singapore is that it is constantly reinventing itself for an island state that turned itself from a collection of sleepy fishing villages to a global financial power player inside of one generation is astounding that it continues to morph and grow and adapt is certainly no surprise that does make it pretty tricky at times to find the real singapore which for me is tucked away in the back streets and hawker stalls on the ground floor of the not so trendy shopping centres and anywhere the smell of durian and charcoal mix together and linger in the humid night air in case it wasn t obvious at the top of the post here it is again at the bottom this trip and tour was made possible by the singapore tourism board and was a part of their celebrity concierge program where you can take part of a unique service that pairs you with a celebrity with local knowledge of singapore to help plan your trip go check out the site and see if you too can be a winner thanks again to audra and her excellent advice and to the lovely people at singapore tourism board and the fearless larissa for giving this glutton another 50 reasons to love this country if you haven t been yet i m not sure how much i can stress this go posted on april 3 2014 april 4 2014 categories photography tour travel tags hawkers photography singapore tour travel 3 comments on singapore celebrity concierge gnocchi with the papas what is wrong me seriously i have been looking back at photos on my computer this evening and it s criminal the amount of things i have taken photos of loved absorbed as part of my very being and then promptly forgotten to write about one such occasion was a couple of years ago in a small kitchen at my dear friend alex and linda s place in inglewood when linda s parents announced that they would be making gnocchi what this meant in reality was a full scale production that would take over the majority of the house and end up preparing enough food to feed a small army the menu was simple gnocchi and red sauce now i m not sure italians are necessary well known for understatement but red was by no means the defining quality of that sauce of course the people preparing the mean were no ordinary hosts italo and grazia have a love of food and hospitality engrained into their very fibre at home in adelaide italo makes his own sausages grows every kind of vegetable under the sun in his backyard and has a cellar full of wine that he s made himself i was fortunate enough to be adopted into the family that day as we fed mounds of freshly boiled potatoes through the ricer and italo methodically worked in just enough eggs and flour for the mixture to bind into a light smooth dough then the real work began as italo rolled out long thin logs of dough and swiftly flicked off bite sized pieces for alex linda and i to roll down the back of the gnocchi board all the while grazia stirred a giant pot of red sauce that constantly evolved with each thing added to it first went in chicken drumsticks then a rolled fillet of pork maybe beef then a deceptively simple rolled egg omelet then a couple of rolls of thick slices of pig skin with a layer of stuffing on top made from breadcrumbs garlic parsley and egg the sauce bubbled away for a couple of hours absorbing all the delicious flavours from the meat and then we gingerly slid the now multiple trays of pillowy gnocchi into another big pot of salty water as they slowly started to float their way to the surface grazia would scoop them out and into a large bowl ready to be mixed with spoonfuls of the sauce italo fished out the meat from the sauce and sliced it all up and onto a platter this would be the traditional style of eating with the first plate being the gnocchi and the second plate being the meat and a light salad i m going to let the photos do the rest of the work because my meager superlatives can t really do justice to just how wonderful this meal was to make this less of a gloat fest i may as well include a recipe for the gnocchi themselves italo s basic recipe for the gnocchi dough was 250 grams of flour to 1 kilo of potatoes two eggs and salt boil the potatoes and then feed them through a ricer before very gently mixing the flour eggs and salt in try not to overwork the dough as the more you activate the gluten in the flour the harder the gnocchi will become when the dough is smooth and firm roll it into small logs and cut into bite sized pieces the gnocchi board isn t essential you could just use the back of a fork if you wanted to the idea is to give the gnocchi some texture that the sauce will grip onto but i think most sauces do a pretty good job of gripping on their own most importantly invite some good f...