Malay Satay - Singapore in Seattle

In serious withdrawals from the amazing food we enjoyed in Singapore, we were super excited to re-discover Malay Satay in the ID off of Jackson. Emi's parents had taken us there a few times in the past, but we had completely forgotten about the place until some of the Singapore hunger pangs started to kick in.

We went out to celebrate Emi's mom's birthday. Her favorite drink there is the Avocado Shake. We also ordered "lime juice", but unfortunately they tasted more like normal limes instead of Kalamassi limes. A little too sour for my liking.

Malay Satay's version of roti prata. A little too thick and bready. It was good, but not the same as the flaky, thin, buttery roti from Singapore.

Emi's curry chicken. Similar to the dish she enjoyed for our last meal in Singapore, but not as sweet and of course, like most of the other dishes at Malay Satay not as authentic as the real thing.

I didn't find this dish in Singapore, but man oh man I love it here in Seattle; Singapore Rice Noodles. I love the thin noodles, with the spicy, curry sauce, vegetables and prawns. I could eat these noodles until I passed out. Love them, but again I didn't see them in Singapore.

Belachan string beans, with sauteed onions and prawns.

Malay Satay's version of chili crab, not the same as Long Beach Seafood in Singapore, but Emi said it was still pretty good. Sweeter and made with Dungeness crab, instead of the bigger Malaysian crabs.

All in all a decent meal and something different. If you want Malaysian, Indonesian, Singaporean food, there is no where else to go in the whole state of Washington. So if you want a taste of Singapore make sure to go check out Malay Satay and if you enjoy the meal, just keep in mind you'll love the food in Singapore by a multiple of at least ten.

- Kyle

Singapore - Chili CRAB!

On we go with our culinary journey through the food-fantastic land of Singapore!

Cheers! We found a quaint wine bar in Dempsey Hill, which houses British Army barracks that have been converted into restaurants and bars. We had to warm up our tummies for the life-changing meal that was to come later in the evening...

Chili crab is the unofficial (or maybe official?) national dish of Singapore. There are many restaurants and hawker stands that serve chili crab, but Carmen and Jamie's favorite is Long Beach in Dempsey (not to be confused with the other restaurants in the chain that are located throughout Singapore).

Kyle's favorite staple to Chinese meals: salted fish fried rice

These are the house special prawns, which we had to order for Kyle who happens to be allergic to one of my favorite foods, crab. Don't feel too sorry for him, these were delicious. The Singaporean people sure know how to cook prawns, and these were fabulous.

Crispy duck. How they managed to keep that duck so moist and tender, while achieving the most crisp and flavorful crust, is a great mystery that I will spend the rest of my life working to uncover.

Here we go with the star of the show: Chili Crab! I kept a food journal while I was in Singapore (and not the Biggest Loser kind that tracks calories. No, this was quite the opposite--a journal that captured all my food thoughts in the moment!) I will share the journal entry I wrote as I woke the next day, still in a daze from the previous night's meal.

"Chili crab and crispy duck at Long Beach in Dempsey last night will stick with me in my food dreams for years to come. The chili crab was more like lobster. The Sri Lanka crab was thick and meaty, with claws that store juicy hunks of meat. Carmen and Jamie let me have one of the prized claws and I accepted, gratefully devouring it and using the meat to slop up the thick, spicy sweet sauce. There was a savory donut like pastry they serve on the side that you can also use to soak up the sauce. I wanted to take home the sauce and ship it home, but thought it would be tacky to ask. This morning, I woke up at 6AM laughing, remembering that after that delicious meal, Kyle and I passed out in the cab ride home--officially in a food coma."

I realize I sound overly dramatic when talking about the food in Singapore! I admit that the natural high of being on vacation and seeing old friends for the first time in a long time might have added an extra kick of flavor to these meals. However, it is undeniable that Singapore will be one of my top food vacations of all time.

Thank you, Carmen and Jamie, for hosting us and giving us the grand tour of your fabulous new city! While it is hard to see your friends leave for far off lands, I am grateful for the opportunity to have new vacation destinations and excuses to explore our world.

Happy Eating,
Emi

Singapore - Eating in with the Booths

Even though we ate out for almost every meal of the trip to Singapore, one of our favorite meals was the one we ate in. Our hosts had an amazing condo in Singapore and being great cooks themselves wanted to treat us to a night in. It was the perfect change of pace and the meal was amazing and something we wanted to share with all of you.

Almost all of the recipes were from their favorite chef, Jamie Oliver. We've dabbled in his cookbooks before, but definitely want to try to recreate these dishes moving forward. We started off with a nice salad, which was definitely needed after days of fried rice and pork belly. It was probably time for healthy eating.

Really good green beans and asparagus with crispy garlic and cheese. I love garlic and cheese and the asparagus and green beans were great too. Definitely a recipe I need to find.

Smashed veggies, this was one of the highlights of the meal. I think it consisted of a lot of root vegetables and went really well with the main course. Emi found the recipe and made it for her parents and added truffle butter to it. This is the perfect side dish for any meat dish like a beef roast, lamb, etc. I'll make sure the recipe is posted in the near future.

A nice refreshing drink they made for us. Water with lemons, raspberries, cucumber, and mint. Just what we needed after a long day exploring the city.

Jamie and his $50 lamb shoulder. It was well worth the money which was also delivered to the door by the butcher shop. The lamb came marinated in olive oil, I need to do this. I guess lamb was expensive at the time because it came from New Zealand which had been hit by the earthquakes and floods so lamb was a little scarce.

Delicious, tender, juicy, garlic, mint lamb. I love me some lamb, not so much mutton, but lamb is amazing and this was amazing. I couldn't stop eating it.

Emi and me excited for our meal.

The house also smelled delicious from the aroma of the cooking lamb that wafted throughout the apartment. We had it in the oven for about 3 or 4 hours so my mouth was watering by the time we were ready to dig in.

Me picking at the last bits, soo good.

For dessert we picked up some macaroons. Macaroons are really popular it seems right now and after eating these I could see why! These were melt in your mouth, delicate, and sweet cookies. I've never had a proper macaroon before, but am looking forward to our trip to Paris this summer so that I can get more!

Great meal, great company, and it was nice to stay in a night yet keep up with the good eats. Thank you Carmen and Jamie!!

- Kyle

Singapore - Street Vendor Food Part 2: Singapore Food Trail, La Pa Sat, Amoy Street Food Centre

It's actually painful to write this blog post because I know the only way I can get another amazing meal like the ones described below would be to hop on a plane for 24 hours... So sad, but at least I have my photos, a few extra pounds of chub, and the memories to reflect upon.

One food center we went to on multiple occasions was the Singapore Food Trail which is at the base of the Singapore Flyer (giant ferris wheel that gives tourists a view of the whole city). Being that it's located next to a highly frequented tourist stop, the food is a little pricier, but still affordable while maintaining authenticity.

The idea behind the Singapore Food Trail is to recreate famous street vendor locations around the country.

Satay one of my favorite snacks of the trip. However I quickly learned they only serve satay for dinner and with dinner plans most nights this usually impeded my satay consumption time. I could eat satay for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Luckily on this day, we were there later in the evening, so they had the smokey, juicy satay all bbq'd up and ready for me to consume and the spicy peanut sauce on the side was great too.

We went back the last day before our flight to order more food which included fried rice and satay again. We also took ten satay to go for our flight back. They even packaged the peanut sauce in a to go bag for us that we ripped open sometime between Hong Kong and SF.

Katong Keah Kee Fried Oyster. Fried oyster omelet. This is the only dish the guy made and I read he took ten years as an apprentice to learn how to make it. If someone is making the same thing all day night in and night out with a long line in front of it, I'm eating it. Don't care what it is, I have to try it.

The finished product served with a little hot sauce. This was very rich, but really good and I enjoyed the oysters.

One of the more unique dishes, Emi and I have ever tried was the BBQ stingray and it was really good. One might assume it would be a little tough, but it was very tender and flaky. Also on the side were these giant weird looking crawfish, it was more giant prawn like texture over lobster and very good.

Me capturing for you.

One of my favorite drinks was the fresh sugar cane juice. Here's a guy making it. He would grab stalks of sugar cane and stuff it through this juicer that would crush it all up and squeeze the pulp and juice out for the sweet and refreshing drinks.

The very refreshing finished product, almost as good as lime juice. This is probably why I enjoy Mexican cokes made from sugar cane over a normal Coke.

Emi's Ice Kachong dessert. It wasn't like a Hawaiian shaved ice at all. Not melt in your mouth shaved ice, but more like an ice cone. We weren't sure what all the flavors were, probably melon, sugar cane, and random flavor? Also they had red beans in the bottom. Didn't compare to the sweetness of an authentic Hawaiian shaved ice, but something we wanted to try.

The Amoy Street Food Centre during the lunch hour. This place is located a quick walk away from our hosts office. This would be bad news for me... I would probably need to pack a change of clothes after eating the delicious spicy food in this hot humid weather. Otherwise I would head back sweaty and sticky. We had the amazing spicy fried chicken rice here.

The famous and even more packed La Pa Sat located next to the financial district. This place again was packed with business people. Probably a little overwhelming if you're not prepared for such a large mass of people, however with all of the food options and how fast everyone cycles through you never have to wait in line all that long.

This place had all sorts of soups and was very popular for lunch, but I also noticed they had Xiao Long Bao or the soup dumplings that have become the rage of Seattle with the introduction of Din Tai Fung.

I thought this was cool, I've seen people make fresh noodles by hand on TV, but never in person. What a freaking master, he's holding a block of dough and slicing off noodles into the soup. Very cool.

The hot, flavorful soup balls and they were perfect. They took a little while to make, but were well worth the wait and they murdered Din Tai Fung, they need to start up a chain out here in the States too!

Chicken murtabak which is roti prata filled with a cheesy, chicken, and onion mixture. A very delicious greasy snack. Almost like a flaky, greasy Indian quesadilla.

I wanted more food, so of course picked up some more pork belly. I can never have enough pork belly and this was a great way to end our amazing meal at La Pa Sat.

We had an amazing time in Singapore and obviously ate a lot of delicious food. Hopefully our posts will inspire others to take the plunge into Singapore because you won't regret it.

- Kyle

Singapore - Street Vendor Food Part 1

I apologize for the delay in our remaining Singapore posts. Emi has been traveling and she was supposed to write these posts, so I'm stepping in to "save the day". And these posts outline some of the most amazing food from the trip.

If you ask anyone familiar with Singapore, they'll rave on and on about the food and specifically food from the street vendors or hawker centres. Walking into my first hawker centre/food market was like dying and going to heaven. My eyes and the room in my stomach couldn't take it all in because I wanted to try everything.

Tekka Market in Little India is where our hosts do some of their shopping. Since grocery stores are sort of expensive and not on every corner like here in the US, people buy their fresh produce, fish, and meats from these markets. Only problem with this market is that the smell of mutton wafts throughout the area. Mutton is old sheep and it smells exactly how it sounds. Old and rotten, yet Indians love it, and if cooked right I'm sure it can taste just fine, but it smells horrible.

Already on our first day is Emi haggling with the produce guy. She bought us the best honey mangoes I've ever had, soft, juicy, and sweet. Honey mangoes is a good name for them. We also bought some apple pears from Malaysia, but those don't compare with the ones we can get in Eastern Washington.

For breakfast we went to the hawker centre on Old Airport Way which is within walking distance from our hosts condo. This place was teeming with locals, which was exactly what we were looking for and the perfect way to start off our first morning in Singapore. With the affordable prices and multitude of offerings, I told our friend, the issue isn't running out of money, but running out of room in my stomach!

The place above specialized in fresh fruit drinks.

So of course Emi needed a lime juice.

hmm pork belly and charsiu, delicious and look at those prices! Take off about 25% and that's the US equivalent.

This hawker centre had everything, I didn't eat at this place, but thought it was interesting because they specialized in all things crocodile.

This was a dish we had never tried before called fish otah. Basically it's fish paste wrapped in a banana leaf and barbecued. Not amazing, but something different and unique.

My pork belly and charssssuhhh over rice.

Our first chicken rice, which if Singapore had a national dish, this would be it. Anthony Bourdain has been to Singapore multiple times, but the story goes he was booed at a public event after the interviewer got him to admit he had never tried chicken rice. Singapore loves their chicken rice and BOOM on our first morning we had it.

Basically they cook the rice in chicken fat to give it a delicious, salty, fatty, rich flavor and then they pour a sauce over it.

One of our favorites of the trip, Roti Prata and the first of many on the trip. This thin, crepe like, buttery, greasy bread was delicious and awesome in the spicy dipping sauce. My friend who had lived in Singapore, said this is an ideal late night, after drinking meal.

Emi and her friend, Muhammed Ali, "like the boxer" he said while putting up his dukes. Emi saw a witch's cauldron of soup stewing and started up a conversation with Muhammed to see what he was brewing. She learned that he had mutton soup, which wasn't exactly what Emi was looking for, but not wanting to be rude she bought some. He also had the delicious roti prata.

Emi with her mutton soup. This ended up being really, really good. The broth was amazing and completely unexpected. After smelling the old mutton in Tekka Market, we thought the soup would taste like the smell, but were pleasantly surprised. The meat was sort of tough and not that great, so we mainly enjoyed the broth.

We were stuffed after this meal, but understood why the street vendor food in Singapore is famous across the world. Also what might come as a surprise to some is that all of the stands are super clean and are even graded from A down to C based off of cleanliness. People avoid the C stands, so you really want to get marked an A or B and you wear it for good or bad like a scarlet letter because it's posted as a sign on your stand.

More to come tomorrow on some other amazing street vendor food we enjoyed in Singapore.

- Kyle