Singapore and my friend Michelle

My friend Michelle is Singaporean.  She's about 5'1, can't weigh more than 95 pounds, and can eat like someone twice her size.  It's amazing.  I've known her since she was about 21, and I was just waiting for it to catch up to her one day, and about 10 years later, she's still eating and I just don't know where she puts it.

Michelle and I spend a lot of time talking about food, and used to spend a lot of time eating food.  I had her and her husband Ben over for a Spaniard-style hamfest, where we gouged ourselves on all this Spanish charcuterie I smuggled home (I joke that I brought it home in my ass.)  All the while, Michelle and Ben are arguing about how to make the pan con tomate (Michelle only calls it by its Catalan name "pa amb tomaquet," which tickles me.) 

I am admittedly a foodie, a moniker which I begrudgingly accept, even though it, like "hipster," has a negative connotation.  Anthony Bourdain, ex-chef of Les Halles restaurant, travel writer and tv star, is my favorite celebrity.  I have read all of his books, watched all of his tv shows, and would totally lose my shit if I saw him in person.  It was from him that I learned that if you really want to eat well, you go to Singapore.

This all made sense, knowing Michelle.  For as much of a foodie as I am, Michelle puts me to shame.  So when I knew I was coming to Asia, I knew that Singapore had to be on the list, and I knew Michelle would be the one to talk to.  

So I send Michelle an email, and ask her what I should do and where I should go in Singapore, and she gives me a list of food stalls in hawker centers (food courts.)  No sights, no museums, just food.  

"Anything I should SEE?" I ask.

"OH!  I don't know, let me ask my dad," she replies.

Singapore is a tiny country, expensive with a high standard of living.  Cleanliness is paramount; gum is not sold in the country nor can be chewed.  Littering carries a large fine, and they mean it.  Drug trafficking is punishable by death, and years back an American student was caned after getting caught tagging a wall (graffiti). 

Seemingly, All they do is work, and eat.

I told Timeka and Lisa when we started this trip that two things were important to me: keeping accommodation costs down to about $30 a night, and that I want to eat mostly at food stalls rather than restaurants.  A lot of Americans feel very comfortable eating on the street, or from a food cart, and in NY it makes sense but in much of Asia, this is what people do.  And in Singapore, a country with such high standards for cleanliness, I knew they would have a good experience.

We went to Maxwell Food Center, which was close to our Chinatown hostel.  Lisa got the hainanese chicken rice, a dish that IS Singapore, from the vendor Tian Tian that Bourdain recommends.  It's just plain boiled chicken, but they cook it and the accompanying rice in broth and chicken fat and sprinkle it with some magic and it's the best tasting chicken you've ever had.  I "chicken"ed out, as I wanted the fried noodle dish char Kway teow,  but I thought maybe my body couldn't handle it so early in the morning with a full day of zoo ahead, so I had an egg omelet with shrimp.  

When we found Timeka at her table, she was sitting with a 60 year old Singaporean man named David.  David had already let Timeka try his lunch, and he offered me some of his melon pancake that tasted like fried sweet potatoes.  He asked what we already did In singapore- we said that we arrived, ate, slept and now are here to eat and David replied "yes, it sounds like you are acting like a Singaporean already."  David asks if we had ever had sugarcane Juice, and immediately runs off to buy us all a huge glass of it.  He says "I travel a lot, and I treat tourists how I would like to be treated when I am somewhere."  He was adorable.  I trusted him instantly; Timeka and Lisa waited until he sipped his juice for theme on drink theirs, in case we were getting roofied.  I guess I should've thought of that, too.

David offers to take us on a little tour of the city on our way to the zoo, and we accept.  I get into the front seat of his brand-new Jaguar while Lisa and Timeka surreptitiously snap a photo of his license plate, you know, in case he tries to murder us or something.  

He doesn't, and he gives us a delightful tour of the city before he drops us off.  He doesn't want to take a picture with us, because we'd "put it on Facebook" but he finally agrees.

The zoo was a delight, and we ended the day with a trip to another hawker center at the marina where we met up with a former coworker of Lisa's.  The place is packed, and we successfully scout out a table, and Timeka holds our spot so the rest of us could order the food, and, I hope this is becoming a trend, Timeka is sitting with a drop-dead gorgeous Dutch guy.  "I made a new friend," she says, and we feast on sambal stingray, noodles and rice, and satay while Lisa, me, and Timeka secretly figure out a way to dispose of our Dutch companion's girlfriend.