Food, glorious Food...

I was asked by a friend to post some photos of the wonderful food around here - I would have posted about food anyway, but it's definitely nice to be asked. Makes me look less like a glutton... ;-)

Just to make it clear from the start: Singapore is a foodie's paradise!

First, you have all the different cultures and people offering there traditional food - chinese, malay, indian, japanese, indonesian - and of course any fusion out of these. Singapore is a rich country, so many Singaporeans travel (often to Europe or Australia) and are looking for the 'exotic' food at home as well. And then there are also many Expats living in Singapore, so you'll find just about every kind of cuisine you could imagine here. I've walked by several German Breweries and 'Biergärten', and also a food stall that sells Würstel and Sauerkraut -  right in the middle of Chinatown!

The second thing that makes Singapore such a food heaven is the fact that the people here usually eat out and don't cook at home - so you need a lot of restaurants. I had lunch today with a colleague from work and she said she doesn't cook at all. Doesn't know how to. She's married and a mother of two teenagers. Not what you'd see in my neck of the world.

But that's probably also due to the third point - you can get great food for small money. I every shopping mall, shopping street, convention center and even underground station you will find a very nice and good quality 'food court' (and you already know that there are lots of shopping malls around).

Here are some pictures of one those 'food courts'. It's in the basement of my office building, so I often go there for lunch.

One stall next to the other...

... choose your 'flavor of the day'...

Yong Tau Foo - pick your food to go into the soup

Hainanese Chicken Rice - see the chicken?

My lunch - Biryani, Daal, Mango juice

And hopefully this video works... Preparing Paratha:

A paratha/parantha/parauntha is an Indian flat-bread. It is one of the most popular unleavened flat-breads in Indian cuisine, Pakistani cuisine and Bengali cuisine and is made by pan frying dough on a hot plate. Parathas are usually stuffed with vegetables and/or paneer (South Asian cheese).

I've tried the vegetable version (very good), but I definitely have to taste the Banana Paratha as well..

Sooo... anybody hungry???

I guess that was only the first of many food-posts for me...