Boots in the Oven

Singaporean Pepper Crab! In Singapore!

Today here in Austin it's sunny and cool, a perfect Southern winter day. But I would chuck this glorious day and its eye-piercing brightness in a moment for Singapore's humidity and heat, if it meant I could stuff my face with crab.

Perhaps Singapore's most famous dish, chili crab (or pepper crab) can be found at any number of outlets around town, from the down and divey to the fancy shmancy. We tried the crab at Eng Seng, a metro ride and short walk away from where we were staying.

Eng Seng is famous, and we had to wait a bit before seating. It's also an early dinner kind of place; if you get there much after 7, don't expect there to necessarily be any crab left! So eat a light lunch and getcher butt down there.

You'll want some starch to go with that crab (the Singaporean version of "fries with that shake", perhaps?), at least if you're us. Enter the Mee Goreng. Hello there, fried noodles! And yes, those are greens in the back. Have I ever mentioned how much I love a quick wok-tossed Chinese-style green veg?

And then the star of the show, the pepper crab. Eng Seng, like many places, has a minimum order of two crabs, and these mud-crabs are quite large, almost ridiculously meaty, and not exactly cheap. Thus, we had to make the heart-wrenching decision between chili or pepper. After a bit of a wait, during which we covertly eyed nearby tables to familiarize ourselves with local crab-eating customs, this fantastic platter was set down before us.

Luckily, the crab comes efficiently and thoroughly cracked for you, but still be prepared to stickify your hands and face trying to get at the choicest bits.

The crab itself is plumply sweet and salty. The sauce is a sugar and spice amalgam that plays up the nose-tingling floral notes in the pepper; like crushed violets, nettles, and pine. It took us awhile to eat because we found ourselves licking the little bits of shell clean after hollowing out all the non-crunchy bits. It was time well spent. 

(Logan with the crab platter, for scale.)

We left Eng Seng just as they ran out of crabs. Dodged a bullet!

Across the street from Eng Seng, there was a little durian joint. We wandered in, because I'm always interested to learn more about this, well, polarizing fruit.

They had a selection of durian sorted by sweetness level, something I'd not seen before! We had to try one, so we got a medium-sweet. They cracked it open for us right there and handed us plastic forks.

So, I'm still not completely sold on durian (though I think Logan is!), but places like this could change my mind. The flavor is mild, but the scent can be overpowering and not immediately appealing to people who aren't used to it. I think of the flavor and texture as being much closer to a strong cheese than any kind of fruit I grew up with. 

Too bad neither of these places deliver. Of course, I'm pretty sure the 9800-mile journey wouldn't do either of them any favors!

Eng Seng is at 241 Joo Chiat Pl, Singapore 427932. Phone +65 6440 5560.

More Singa-Pore!

Man.  I'm dropping the ball here... Sorry, guys.  There are only a few more trip posts to write up, and there's definitely a part of me that just doesn't want to DO them, because then it'll be like real actual life has started back up!  

We've had a good September.  Been to Colorado to get my cousin married off, and then to Boston to be in my college friend Megan's wedding.  Good times, good food, good friends... and family!

But for now, back to Singapore!

Singapore is pretty much what you'd have thought.  It's very clean and modern.

Public transit seemed good and was quite efficient.

It's also the home of Ling, a blog-friend who finally became an IRL friend after years of bloggy corresponding!

We spent a day hanging out with Ling, who showed us around some of Singapore's tony neighborhoods and glittering seafront.

She was very surprised to hear that we hadn't heard of the Merlion, the symbol of Singapore.  Our cultural education is clearly lacking, because the Merlion is amazing and EVERYONE should know about it.  It's a mermaid lion!  It seems like a merlion would have a lot of trouble swimming and, well, existing, but mobility problems aside I would still be pretty scared to encounter one on a beach.

Ling also took us to the world-famous Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel, which is an interesting mix of fancy and down-market - mostly fancy.

The fans are languid and tropical, the vibe is colonial, and the thing to drink is a Singapore Sling.  Well, except we really don't like Singapore Slings, so we explored other parts of the drinks menu.  Which is how Logan ended up with a giant drink served in a bowl of smoking red dry ice.

There are also peanuts if you're hungry, and just like a Texas Roadhouse, the shells go on the floor.

Definitely go to the Long Bar, is all I'm saying. 

Under our own power, we went to the Singapore Art Museum (I know, huge surprise, Logan and Rachel in an art museum), housed in an old Catholic boys' school.  Great building!

Much of the museum had been devoted to an exhibition of works by Lee Wen.  I, er, didn't really get his aesthetic.  He likes to paint himself yellow.  

(Logan reminds me that the most amazing and wonderful thing about this room was that there was a remote-controlled rubber durian in it.  We played with it for several minutes.  Say hello - it's sitting in the middle of the floor.)

He also made this ping-pong table, which was easier for me to "get".  

While we were there, the Singapore Art Museum also had an exhibition called Panorama - "recent art from contemporary Asia".  Many of the pieces blended old and new, like these traditional Chinese ladies holding modern consumer objects - "East and West" by Justin Lee.

Or these fancied-up tuktuks by Nasrun.

Yay arting and city-seeing and Ling-meeting!

I know we haven't talked much about food, and I will rectify that in the next post - chili crab!  

Singapore - Post the First!

Oh, man.  Singapore.  (Yes, Singapore!  Can you believe it?)  Such good food, but I feel full just LOOKING at it.

We were really lucky; a childhood friend of Logan's opened his house to us for the week we were in the city-state.  He lives right near a metro stop, and it was so nice to have a home base while we were there!  ...and then we completely failed to take any pictures of Kevin and Logan together.  Way to go, us.

A short walk from Kevin's house: Wee Nam Kee Chicken Rice.  Gotta get the chicken rice when you're in S'pore.

Crowded, popular.  Does great takeout.

Analog ordering system.  There are only so many options when it comes to chicken rice; white chicken (poached) or brown chicken (roasted).  The rice here is cooked with the chicken stock, so nice and rich, and the dish comes with three sauces; a soy/vinegar, a chile sauce, and grated ginger.

Logan brought this home to me.

THANK YOU.

We went to the Golden Mile Food Centre (I love you, British spelling!), one of Singapore's many hawker centres. Basically, pretty much all of the street food in Singapore has moved into these buildings. Some are air conditioned and quite fancy.

We wanted the sup tulang from Haji Kadir. Sup tulang means bone soup, and it's a rich red stew of lamb bones. They'll give you gloves if you ask for them, because the best way to eat sup tulang is with your hands; that red will stay with you if you aren't careful!

The lamb bones in the sup tulang do have some meat left on them; it's tender and powerfully flavored and so, so delicious. But the most bestest thing about sup tulang? Getting in the bones for the marrow.  

Heaven, I'm in heaven... until I get gout. Unless that's just from liver?

We also ordered a roti john from Haji Kandar. It's an egg sandwich with shredded meat (mutton here, I think), pan-fried. "What's the sauce?" we asked... "Roti John sauce." Tangy.

K.

Fish-head curry, from the famed Samy's.

Was nice, but really made me miss actual India. Eating off a banana leaf is lots of fun, though.

A fancier lunch out, at Peramakan, with Ling (more about Ling later - Hi Ling!):

Ayam Buah Keluak, or chicken with buah keluak sauce - it's a nut, sort of like a water chestnut in size, but with a mild tannic flavor kind of like a pecan but not as sweet. They're apparently really difficult to crack and get into, so we were happy to try them!

Light, refreshing jelly dessert; calamansi (little orange lime-like fruits) with coconut meat. Calamansi drinks were some of my favorites in Singapore.

Old-school Hainanese style dinner at Chin Chin Eating House. I love fried noodles, and greens with shrimp paste...

Onward!  More feeding - surprise - and culture!

Old School Bali

Before we leave Bali behind for the shiny pristinity that is Singapore I wanted to share a little bit about the older side of the island that we found so enchanting.

Tradionally these ladies would be topless.

One thing that stood out immediatey about Bali was the focus on family and community. All of the classic houses are built as little compounds carefully aligned with the cardinal directions and intended for habitation by multiple generations.

Most of them are built on a long established layout and are intricately detailed.

Another piece of Bali that is impossible to miss is the abundance of offerings. In practically every home and business, little woven baskets of flowers are put out four or five times a day to honor gods and ancestors alike.

With multiple offerings a day, those suckers can really build up.

They appear on doorsteps, statues, and altars everywhere you look and we often saw little toddling bambinas working with their moms and grandmothers to craft the vibrant little bouquets.

This lady was awesome- she used her toes as much as her hands when she was weaving the tiny baskets.

I know I've already talked about the temples that cover the island but I mean come on-

look at how amazing these things are!

And as a bonus you get to see this ferocious lion wearing a traditional skirt/diaper.

Other sights we encountered frequently were arrays of cool masks,

baskets housing individual roosters,

and egg covered cacti. Ok. This may have been the only egg covered cactus we saw. Whatever.

Historically on Bali, turtles are symbols of good fortune and fertility. The same is true with phalluses. So what's better than a turtle or a phallus.

Why a turtle with a phallus for a head of course.

This poor guy must have terrible aquadynamics.

I really enjoyed all the older parts of the island. It was easy to forget the constant conflict that's happening every day there between the traditional ways of life and the fast paced modernization/tourist trade.

One local land owner spelled out his thoughts on the issue out quite literally. Rock on sir.

Eatin' It Up Bali Style

The food on Bali is interesting for Indonesia because it's the only major island out of the 18,000 or so that isn't Muslim dominated. Over 90% of the population of Bali are practicing Hindus.

And that means pork.

Probably the most hyped dish on the island is babi guling. It started out as a real special occasion dish where a whole pig was slowly spit roasted for a wedding or bris or end of season blow out sale or whatever. But these days it a full time food.

It starts with a young pig, gutted and cleaned, then stuffed with cassava leaves and other random spices and aromatics. It's spitted and slowly rotisseried for most of the day until the skin is a deep caramel with a super thick crispy crust. Different warungs use different heat sources ranging from mixed hard woods, to coconut husks, to well dried coffee wood.

If you get the full b.g. experience they'll serve it with a light soup made from the stewed bones, a side of steamed rice, puffy fried pork crackers, and slices of moist meat with that ridiculous skin served over lawar. Lawar is a sweet/savory/spicy blend of various vegetables, grated coconut, chili, and fresh herbs.

On the side of all this comes a little scoop of fiery sambal to cut through the rich fatty pork and brighten things up a bit.

I highly recommend smiling a lot and being friendly to the owners. See if they'll show you the kitchens. Our tour of the back of Warung Pak Dobiel was one of the highlights of the whole Bali trip.

If you're not looking for a full meal commitment, the Bali street food scene is dominated by two options: satay and bakso.

We found some fairly good satay while cruising around, but the best part was meeting all the cool, friendly little vendors who set up shop wherever they could wedge in a narrow charcoal grill.

This friendly proprietor was set up next to a very atomsperic pool hall where I saw one guy run the table while wearing full traditional dress and a fanny pack. It was pretty bad ass.

Bakso is working man's food. It's a sweet and sour meatball and noodle soup usually served off of motorcycles tricked out as fully self contained kitchens. The ingredients vary but the meatballs always have an interesting spring to them because they're made with a lot of tapioca flour. It was a great soup for the hot weather.

Other foods that stood out were the tempeh, a lightly fermented soy cake almost always served fried with a side of sambal and raw cucumber and cabbage-

and this much less common nasi bakar.

Nasi Bakar is kind of hard to track down but worth it. It's partially steamed rice mixed with fried galangal, lemongrass, garlic, fresh red chili, salt fish, and daun salam leaf, a sweet herb. Then it's wrapped in banana leaf and baked until it has the texture of a perfect pilaf. It's a little oily, spicy, salty, and fragrant. It goes great with chicken but it totally stands up on its own.

Of course if you're sick of hunting all over the island in the tropical heat, there are plenty of guesthouses in Bali that'll hook you up even sans pants.

What? You didn't think we were hardcore all the time did you…

Warung Babi Guling Pak Dobiel
Jalan Srikandi 9
Nusa Dua

We found a good version of nasi bakar at:

Nasi Hot!
RAYA KUTA 77 X (30 METERS from PLAZA BALI to the north)
+62 361 803 7575