Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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Breakfast Tacos: Lunch of Champions

Breakfast has always been my favorite meal of the day. In Singapore, where I grew up, this first meal is not taken lightly — plates of spicy noodles and dishes of coconut rice paired with fried chicken or fish, eggs and flaming hot sambal sauce are common ways to start your morning.

So it’s no surprise, then, that I’m all about the hearty, savory breakfast that works just as well for lunch. When my Let’s Lunch bunch suggested tackling “breakfast for lunch” for our April lunch date, I jumped on board right away.

Leafing through my friend Joe Yonan‘s new cookbook “Serve Yourself: Nightly Adventures in Cooking for One,” I had spied several delectable-looking recipes in his chapter on tacos. One called out to me more than the others: Austin-Style Breakfast Tacos, which Joe began whipping together as a college student in Austin years ago.

With some eggs, chorizo and cheese in hand, I was ready to give this a whirl…

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Jones Wood Foundry: Easy Peasy Comfort Food

It has been said that I am something of an Anglophile.

Which is probably unsurprising given that I grew up in Singapore, a former British colony that still prizes its high teas and bangers and mash despite having developed its own formidable — and unique — cuisine in the centuries since the Brits first landed.

So when I was dragged to the new Jones Wood Foundry on the Upper East Side recently — a little reluctantly, I have to admit, given its distance from where I live — things started looked better the moment menus appeared. Haddock and chips, hearty pork pie, steak and kidney pie and, of course, bangers and mash — this gastropub had it all.

A round of drinks was immediately ordered. Dinner was suddenly in the cards …

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Yemen Cuisine: A Lovely Taste of Yemen in Brooklyn

It’s highly likely that if you were to look up mentions of Yemen Cuisine online, you might just end up never going to this little Brooklyn eatery.

“This place is a total dump,” reads one Yelp review. “Dingy” and “food all over the table and floors” pop up in other accounts.

Many of the best meals I’ve had have taken place in locales of questionable hygiene, however.  In fact, in Singapore, where I’m originally from, if you’re dining at a hawker center (essentially an outdoor food court) the spiffier the place, the more you should be suspicious. Anyone who has to rely on such bells and whistles as unsticky seats and clean tables, after all, clearly is making up for his lackluster food.

So when a friend who’s an intrepid traveler and eater suggested meeting at Yemen Cuisine for lunch, I was undeterred …

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Popiah: Singaporean Summer Rolls, Just Like Grandma Made

I’ve been thinking a lot about popiah, a Singaporean-style summer roll, recently — not just because temperatures have been creeping up in New York City and the foods of my tropical native country are starting to beckon once again.

As you may know, I’ve been on a bit of a book publicity blitz with the February publication of “A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family.” And in all the interviews and signings I’ve done, popiah — a roll filled with ingredients such as julienned jicama, shrimp, shallots, tofu — has been a recipe that has come up frequently.

It’s a roll my grandmother used to make when I was growing up in Singapore — and it’s one that I crave in the U.S. as you don’t see it often on restaurant menus. Because it’s light, a little spicy and the filling has a nice crunch to it, it’s the perfect snack food or appetizer for warm weather — in Singapore, people often have popiah parties in which the filling, summer roll skins and various condiments are set out and guests mill about, casually making their own rolls whenever they feel like eating one.

During my research for the book, however, I made sure to learn how my grandmother and chef Simpson (of Cafe Asean in New York) make theirs — so when my Let’s Lunch group of virtual lunch buddies decided on small spring bites for our March date, popiah immediately sprang to mind …

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Taqueria Las Comadres (Oakland, Calif.): Our Little Secret

There are several things that set my stomach aflutter whenever I step off a plane in San Francisco: a simmering hot bowl of pho topped with bright pink thin slices of steak still gradually turning brown at Pho Tan Hoa in Union Square, the roast chicken at the always lovely Zuni Cafe.

Once these items have been checked off the eating list, however, a new craving inevitably sets in: Mexican. While New York does have any number of decent Mexican places, the tacos and enchiladas at California’s ubiquitous taquerias always seem — to me — far superior.

So, when a break in book events and book store visits recently led me to Oakland, where my friend Ann casually mentioned an excellent little Mexican joint nearby, I immediately said, Let’s Go …

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