Small pieces of chicken are placed into a coconut with its water (not coconut milk) and steamed for several hours to make this clear aromatic soup with slightly nutty flavor.
A splash of black vingegar and Shaoxing wine are mixed together with Hairy/Mitten crab roe, then poured into a bowl of cooked dry noodles. Pickled zucchini and wood ear fungus are side dishes.
Pao fan, literally “submerged rice,” is the ultimate Singaporean-Teochew comfort food in a bowl. Unlike traditional porridge, where the grains are softened into a mush, this dish features firm, distinct grains of rice drowned in a luscious, umami-rich broth simmered from prawn, fish, or pork bones. This textural contrast is its signature.
In the last few years, pao fan has undergone a massive “soul food” revival across Singapore, with an explosion of specialized hawker stalls offering gourmet versions topped with fresh seafood and crispy rice puffs.
This pot above was eaten at an eatery along Havelock Road, whose staff attitude sucks balls.
This stall is operated by a cook walking around barefoot.
He uses duck eggs for his char koay teow. The numbers on the eggs also serve as queue numbers.
I waited 40 minutes for this.
Good luck finding this next year!
First, they came for my kopi. Now, they’re marching straight for my soy sauce.
In September 2023, Singapore launched its grand crusade against sugar, politely “encouraging” food and beverage outlets to make less-sweet drinks the default. This was stacked on top of the Nutri-Grade labelling scheme rolled out in late 2022 for pre-packaged beverages, later expanded to freshly prepared ones.
Nutri-Grade works like a school report card for your drinks: A and B if you behave (low sugar, low saturated fat), C if you’re naughty, and D if you’re downright sinful. Grade D drinks aren’t just frowned upon – they’re banned from advertising, because nothing screams consumer freedom like a giant government-issued scarlet letter on your favorite bubble tea.
Naturally, the government is patting itself on the back. Sales of “healthier” pre-packaged drinks doubled by 2024, and the WHO even handed Singapore an award. Bravo. Because who doesn’t love being congratulated for having their choices shrink faster than a Grade D marketing budget?
But wait – this health crusade isn’t stopping at sugar. By mid-2027, Nutri-Grade will expand to salt, sauces, and instant noodles. Translation: soy sauce, fish sauce, and even your beloved instant ramen are next in line for reformulation. Imagine ramen that tastes like cardboard, “for your own protection.” The bureaucrats behind this masterpiece clearly skipped the chapter on fermentation, but hey – why let centuries of culinary tradition get in the way of a good spreadsheet?
So here we are, staring down a future where kopi is bland, soy sauce is neutered, and instant noodles are a joyless husk. All in the name of health. Fuck!
What’s next? A government official under my bed with a spreadsheet, checking if I’m hitting my state-mandated quota of sex? (Singapore’s birthrate is down, you know.)
Meanwhile, alcohol gets a free pass. The state-backed media even has weekly pages dedicated to booze, despite a recent US study in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs showing that just two drinks a day jumps your risk of premature death to 1 in 25. But hey, let’s focus on the real threat to society: a normal amount of salt in my chicken rice.
Look, I get it. Government intervention gave us seatbelts and shatterproof windshields. Bravo. Gold star. Truly, humanity would’ve perished without Daddy State reminding us not to launch ourselves through the windshield.
But here’s the thing: those were supposed to be exceptions. Not a permanent roommate squatting in my grocery cart, lecturing me about sodium content like a sanctimonious dietician with a badge.
Call me old-fashioned, but unless we’re talking defense, law and order, or foreign affairs, maybe – just maybe – bugger off and let me drown my arteries in peace. I don’t need a bureaucrat holding my hand while I buy soy sauce. I need them to stop pretending they’re the culinary Avengers saving me from myself.
Because nothing screams “progress” like ramen that tastes like damp cardboard, all thanks to a committee that thinks fermentation is a crime against humanity.
Tried Mee Jawa in Penang.
It’s like mee rebus but the noodle is thinner. In the starchy gravy are lumps of fried flour like that found in lor mee, but much smaller; also a couple slices of tow kua and half a boiled egg. Served covered with two thin slices of crunchy crackers made also from fried flour batter.
Once tried, never again.
Total waste of time.
Can’t understand why it’s such a popular dish in Penang.
At the New World Park food court, lots of people seen tucking into that dish.
Oh, fantastic. Another week in Singapore, another series of masterclasses in how to completely lack basic human decency. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to eat dinner inside a jet engine, let me take you on a culinary tour of my recent nightmares.
Picture this: a small, cozy, intimate restaurant. Perfect for a quiet family dinner, right? Wrong. We were trapped next to a table of ten fully grown adults who apparently never learned the concept of an “inside voice.” They were shrieking so violently that I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, and watched in real-time as sane customers walked in, took one look at the acoustic horror show, and immediately noped right out the door.
If you want to know what hell sounds like, I went there one Thursday evening and found out. A table of women were cackling and guffawing so loudly you’d think they owned the lease on the building. Zero self-awareness. My dad has a word for this: kurang ajar (completely devoid of upbringing). Cue the over-ear headphones.
The very next day, I was blessed to sit near a couple where the man’s voice wasn’t just earsplitting – it was broadcasting his medical problems in full, unsolicited Dolby Digital Surround Sound to the entire dining room.
Hello, Uncle? I don’t actually want to know the exact dimensions of your enlarged prostate while I’m trying to eat.
As if that wasn’t enough, a woman at the next table decided to enter a non-existent competition for Most Obnoxious Diner by screeching the entire menu out loud to her friends. Her voice was so shrill and grating it could shatter glass. The headphones stayed on, my Peking Duck lost all flavor, and my appetite officially died.
Exhibit D: NUSS Kent Ridge Guild House & The Japanese Association
The hits just kept on coming. A week prior, at the NUSS lobby, a woman was holding court right behind me, screaming about her vacation: “Wow, Japan – everything cheap, and the Japs, they very polite!” Oh, the irony. Someone should probably gently inform her that the Japanese are just polite enough to tolerate boorish and cheapskate Neanderthals like her.
Days later, at the Japanese Association lounge – a place that was otherwise peaceful and empty – a local woman decided to ruin the atmosphere by bellowing property investment advice at the absolute top of her lungs. I was just trying to nurse a Sapporo in peace. Headphones on. Again.
It’s truly remarkable, isn’t it? We built world-class airports, flawless MRT lines, and a stunning skyline in a single generation. Globally celebrated! Our ancestors fled poverty and famine, and that desperate, existential hunger built this nation.
But survival mode leaves scars, and clearly, we’ve passed them down. We’ve upgraded all of our hardware, but we are running some seriously corrupted, third-world software. We love to look down our noses and criticize mainland Chinese tourists for spitting on the streets, but honestly? Look in the mirror. Are we any better?
The national Courtesy Campaign started 47 years ago. Forty. Seven. Years. How’s that working out for us? By the way, Singa has quit already.
It’s time to make graciousness education real in schools, instead of slapping another useless slogan on a poster. Put children in structured situations where they are forced to practice patience, defer to others, and actually experience the profound discomfort of not being first. Then, debrief them. What we rehearse in childhood, we carry into adulthood.
Singapore taught the world how to leap from the third world to the first economically. Imagine if we applied that same rigid, systematic, Singaporean-style efficiency to basic social grace. Now that would be a legacy worth leaving – and maybe, just maybe, I could finally eat a meal without needing noise-canceling technology.
This stall claims to be operating since 1941, selling mee goreng (Indian fried noodles).
It operates in the New World Park food court at Burma Road, George Town, Penang.
Bought a plate of mee goreng sotong. It is basically mee goreng with cuttlefish – the stall calls it “SQUID FRIED NOODLE.” The prices listed on the poster says it comes in two sizes and costs 8 or 10 Malaysian Ringgit but we were charged 15 because “you all sharing what.”
What a scammer!
But was it tasty? There were very few pieces of cuttlefish but lots of potato cubes and the noodle was sticky and clumpy.
Unagi donburi – prepared kabayaki-style, where the eel is split, gutted, butterflied, skewered, and grilled with a sweet soy sauce glaze.