Croissants are wonderful. Salmon is great, but there comes a point where a little spice would be nice, and then, we landed in Singapore and Malaysia. The long history of ship traffic though this areas has brought together spices and culinary influences from around the world. This combined with an almost exclusive eat out culture has resulted in staggering food choices. If you walk if any direction you can buy food within a few feet. Spiced curries, rice bowls, fruit stands, grilled fish, soups, chicken feet, you name it. The newest find was a stand up hot pot stand. The stand had a pot of boiling seasoning and sticks of meat and vegetables all on the stick to cook yourself and eat as you stand. The indulgence over the last few days has been a fun change and about as different as I could imagine to the food culture of Norway and Croatia.
Loving both the food and presentation of this Thai dish.
The theme of our last few days for sure.
This fun collection of veggies, tofu, eggs, rice and peanut sauce was a great cool dish to balance the heat of the day.
Coffee, Water and Orange Juice have been our drinks for months now, so landing in Singapore and getting to choose from this sort of collection was overwhelming and wonderful.
Little one loving dinner at a Singapore Hawker stand. This famous one near downtown was a blast. It is like a food court on steroids and all independent little local shops.
One of the hundreds of cooks in a Singapore Hawker stand. Each specializing in their own food, selling 3-4 items each.
Any one need a banana. You always can tell when you are getting close to one of these stands because of the strong durian fruit smell.
Little India’s version of “to go” food. Motorbikes would pull up, stay on the bike and ride away, Samosas in hand, freshly fried.
An instant favorite - fresh fruit on top of a bowel of fresh smoothie.
Checking out the daily options.
The Hot pot stand where you get to choose your food, cook it there and be on your way.
The propane stove, the fry pan, the one dish: Granny’s oyster omelette: this is Penang food - at every conner (these were super good by the way).
Huge vats of spices ready to go. If you have not watched Trevor Noah’s Son of Patricia show (https://www.netflix.com/title/80239932) you should. I keep thinking about it with all the spices. There is a line where he talks about how much we gain form the diversity. He says “don’t ever forget, a life without spice was so hard, so hard that it made white people sail around the world to find it. This wasn’t regular sailing. It wasn’t a Disney cruise. These people lived at a time when they believed that if you went that way you would fall off the edge of the earth and die. And still, some man was eating some white lady’s cooking and was like, “I can’t do this %!# anymore!”. Here in the land of where these spices came from and passed through, I keep thinking about that human need for spice, both literally and figuratively.