www.Go To The Mountain - Musings of a Potential Guru

When I started writing on my blog long ago, one of the first things I often wrote about was on food. It was also a lamentation about losing our food culture especially our hawker fare. K F Seetoh and Professor Tommy Koh also mentioned it later. Our hawker food begin even before I was born but as a young child, I saw how it has evolved. We were poor, people need to feed their family and those who could cook started peddling food as hawkers. Some set up push cart stalls with a few wooden tables and chairs, others peddle from door to door and there were some who would carry their stoves for hot water, gravy with their condiments, plates and bowls in two crates balancing them on a wooden pole and walked around the neighbourhood.  All hawkers prepared everything for their food - from gravy to shallots and their chilli sauce, etc. They do not buy them ready-made as there was no such things those days. The tik-tok noodle seller was the original Deliveroo or Food Panda as he...

Long ago when I once lived in Toa Payoh, it felt almost like the centre of the universe even though we are in a little red dot. It is convenient to go almost anywhere. Bus stops are all within short walking distance and provisions and food from the market stalls, coffee shops and hawker centres surrounded us. When it is really late, some hawkers opened till way late too. I used to work till way too late those days and got home by 10 pm to 12 am. There is a popular Tze Char stall at the next block, so on the way home I would order my food first, took a shower and then went back to collect my ''wat tan hor fun''. Incredible convenience. If you reside in Australia or New Zealand, you get beautiful houses, big and cheap cars, your own apple trees in the backyard, scenic landscape and perhaps a river or stream behind the house but you could never have this super convenience.  These days the new neighbourhood that is getting old has not much to offer unless you do no...

Madam Kwan's is a famous and highly popular restaurant in KL (Kuala Lumpur). Named after its founder, it is known for nonya food, fried chicken, beef rendang, nasi lemak and a host of man others. When Singaporeans do not go to KL then bring KL to Singapore. This is very good as I heard that Singaporeans just love to eat at Madam's when they are in KL. This was what happened when they opened their first restaurant outside of Malaysia at Vivo City, Singapore. This is a very popular restaurant in KL. Some people swear by it. I can't compare anything as I have never been to this place even when I was in KL. Besides the various dishes to go with rice, they have others like noodles, etc. The Rendang is on the dry side. I like mine wetter with more gravy. The sambal kangkong was not as spicy as some of our local version. We did fish head curry too. Lots of tau pok. The chicken was fabulous. I think of all the dishes ordered, this was my favourit...

I have fond memories of living in HDB estates. I remember that some neighbourhood Malay children would carry a basket of food and walk along the corridors shouting "epok epok". Epok epok kentang is the best!  When I was even younger, there was an old man who would carry two pots hung on both ends of a stick slung across his broad shoulders. The pots were placed in wooden casings on top of charcoal stoves,  one with hot water to cook the yellow noodles and bean sprout and the other heated gravy. His mee rebus was one of the best. There was another push cart stall at Jalan Besar. My friends and I would patronise after band practice. There was not just mee rebus but very good satay too. Near where I stayed in my youth, there were many hawkers and not all were legalised. One put their mee siam in a plastic bag and all placed in a basket and she had bottles containing the mee siam gravy. So when you wanted one, she would pour some gravy into that plastic bag. There are st...