Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

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New Ubin Seafood (Singapore): Eating The Dream

New Ubin SeafoodFor months now, I’ve been tortured by Instagram.

Specifically, a seemingly endless stream of Instagram photos from a place called New Ubin Seafood in Singapore. In the middle of the night in Brooklyn, I’d find myself scrolling through photo after photo of gigantic crabs, split open and doused with gravy, wooden platters piled with glistening chunks of steak — and I would think, why have I never been to this restaurant?

Thankfully, I have good friends who wanted to fix this right away. So on a humid Saturday night, I found myself wending the desolate night streets of an industrial estate in Singapore’s Sin Ming neighborhood …

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Xing Ji Rou Cuo Mian (Singapore): The Taste of Home

photo 2My mother and I have a ritual each time I land in Singapore.

The moment I’ve cleared customs, we hug, rev up the car and head over to a little hawker center in nearby Bedok. At 1 in the morning — my usual landing time, coming from New York — the streets are quiet and dark. As we near Fengshan Food Centre, the beacons of fluorescent light from the rows of still bustling hawker stalls beckon.

The Teochew-style oyster omelettes (orh luak) here are terrific, as are the barbecue chicken wings. But on these nights, only one thing calls to me, a dish I’ve usually spent the entire plane ride back (and often weeks before that) thinking about: bak chor mee (minced meat noodles) at a little stall called Xing Ji Rou Cuo Mian …

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Xin Lu Teochew Fishball Noodles (Singapore): Sampling An Old Favorite

Fishball noodlesSunday afternoon at Meiling Market in Singapore and the hawker center is bustling. Amid the hubbub and the action-packed food stalls, there is an alluring energy: The place is simply brimming with possibilities for the brunch ahead of us.

There’s the shredded chicken noodle shop round the corner, or perhaps a spot of hearty duck rice. I’m sometimes at a loss when I come here — it’s not a market I know well (yet) and my first response is often bewilderment. I can’t decide because I simply want to eat everything.

Well, the sampling of every dish here could possibly be accomplished, but that’s got to start somewhere. Today, my father has a few wise words: Go to the fishball noodle stall with the long queue, he says. It’s very good.

And so, I do …

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Chen Ji Wanton Noodles (Singapore): Getting In Line

Wanton MeeA truth about many Singaporeans: If they see a long line anywhere, they’ll get in it. The idea is that if there are that many people in a queue, there must be something good at the front of it.

As much as I think this is silly (and enjoy mocking it), this urge does strike me — but only when it comes to food lines. So when I spotted a long line snaking out from a Singapore hawker stall this morning, that was it. I stopped walking, turned around — and immediately joined the queue.

Peering around the bodies ahead of me, I figured out the breakfast that lay ahead of me: Wanton noodles, one of my favorite Singaporean dishes …

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Char Bee Hoon: The Real Singapore Noodles

Char Bee HoonChoosing a favorite summer memory from my girlhood in Singapore can be difficult — since the country is right by the equator, it’s summer all year round.

Yes, that means all my childhood memories are summer ones.

But when Karen over at GeoFooding asked me to choose a favorite childhood food memory to write about for this month’s Let’s Lunch virtual lunchdate (which happens to be on Julia Childs’ birthday — happy birthday, Julia!), one dish instantly came to mind.

In fact the thought of it was so intense I almost felt I could taste it right there and then — my mother’s char bee hoon …

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