Chasing KF Seetoh

KF Seetoh is of course Singapore's reknowned street food guru and champion who founded Makansutra to celebrate Asian food, culture and lifestyles; my second favorite foodie after Anthony Boourdain, funny and serious at the same time, food photographer, and a natural at what he does (unlike Gordon Ramsay who is so trying hard with his National Geographic series).

And Singapore of course can claim to be Southeast Asia's foodie capital with 52 Michelin starred restaurants and 67 Michelin Bib Gourmand winners at the moment.

We came for the Bib Gourmands, a Michelin recognition of "friendly establishments that serve good food at moderate prices" or in other words, carinderias where regular people go to eat, and other culinary legends that made a name for themselves in offering good affordable food, like the Tong Ah Eating House that has been brewing kopi and toasting kaya bread since 1939, and Tong Heng who has been baking traditional pastries since 1935 including its famous diamond-shaped egg tarts.

Maxwell Food Center

Our goal is to sample as many past and current Bib Gourmands as possible, and our first Bib is a short 280-meter walk from our shitty room at Hotel Calmo Chinatown to the Maxwell Food Center, to a long line at the original stall of Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice that has been dubbed by Michelin as "a celebrity stall for celebrity diners" and Singapore's "most famous chicken rice stall" where we laid claim of having lunch there. 

Chinatown Complex

Our consolation for enduring 5 nights at the shitty Hotel Calmo Chinatown is it's just a 2-minute walk away to the Chinatown Complex, the beating heart of Chinatown with 260 food stalls including those who have acquired legendary status like The 1950’s Coffee where we had a "quintessential Singaporean breakfast" of toast, soft boiled eggs and Nanyang kopi; a dinner of Lian He Ben Ji Claypot Rice that is prepared from scratch and cooked with charcoal fire for almost an hour; and Stall #02-126 that earned Hawker Chan, formerly known as Liao Fan Soya Sauce Chicken Rice & Noodle, the distinction of being “The World's First Hawker Michelin-starred Meal” and “The Cheapest Michelin-starred Meal In The Word”.

Yes, we've been there and ate their famous food and sipped Nanyang Old Coffee while doing our laundry. 

Tekka Center

A 3.2-kilometer train ride away from our shitty hotel is the Tekka Center and Allauddin's Briyani, a Michelin Plate recipient that is reputed to serve one of the best biryanis in the Little India area.

A Michelin Plate is not a rating or award but an indication of “restaurants where the inspectors have discovered quality food”, and where we had the highly recommended mutton and chicken briyani for lunch.   

Lau Pa Sat

Our target Bibs at the Amoy Food Center is open only until supply lasts or up to 3 pm at most, and it was 6 pm when we came, which brought us to Lau Pa Sat (old market) as a fallback that actually is Singapore's oldest wet market and a heritage site, mainly for the satay of Stalls 7 & 8 along Boon Tat Link (AKA Satay Street) that will start grilling at 7 pm.

So we walked around and that's when we saw the Michellin sign at SHI HUI YUAN, a multiple Bib Gourmand recipient for what is reputed to be Singapore's original hor fun (wide flat rice noodles with chicken, duck and pork), our entree for a night of assorted satay (chicken, beef, mutton, prawns) that in my view deserved the 850-meter walk from our shitty hotel and should at least merit a Michelin Plate.

Hong Lim Market and Food Center

A 650-meter morning walk from shitty Hotel Calmo Chinatown is Hong Lim where we had the most Bibs in one sitting: Ah Heng Curry Chicken Bee Hon Mee (chicken with noodles in curry soup) and Ah Heng Duck Rice, Outram Park Fried Kway Teow Mee (stir-fried rice noodles), Granny's Pancake (chewy pancakes with sweet bean, peanut butter and coconut filling) and Tai Wah Pork Noodle who with Hawker Chan was the first street food location to receive a Michelin Star.

It was a delightfully heavy breakfast that was enough for us to miss a pricey lunch at the Universal Studios.   

ION Orchard

Kam's Roast's Michelin Star was actually for its Hong Kong restaurant but it was enough to make me order its signature roasted duck noodles at the food court of the ION Orchard, right after lining up for a bowl of Li Xin Teochew Fishball Noddles while contemplating how to spend the rest of the day.

These Bibs were not planned and I'm happy they came on our way before our foray to the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

On Christmas Day, the trail to KF Seetoh led us to Kuala Lumpur with the bragging rights of having sampled three Michelin Stars, 9 Bib Gourmands, one Michelin Plate and three culinary legends in Singapore, and high hopes of snaring some of KL's 15 Bibs.   

Jalan Alor

Our search for our first culinary experience in Malaysia took us to Jalan Alor, a former red light district that has become the epicenter of KL's food scene.

There are no Bibs to harvest here but there's the famous satay and barbecued chicken wings of Restoran Wong Ah Wah that we topped with the equally famous Sangkaya coconut ice cream.

Jalan Petaling

Almost at par with Jalan Alor is Jalan Petaling, KL's Chinatown where for the the third in as many visits to Malaysia, I paid homage to the Hokkien mee that is said to have been created at the Kim Lian Kee Hokkien Mee in 1927.

We also harvested a Bib in Petaling Jaya, the sublime lala bihun (rice noodles with seashells) of Lai Foong Lala Noodles, after missing it in our first attempt from our trip to Malacca.

Bukit Bintang

Tucked in a quite street corner somewhere in Bukit Bintang is Ah Hei Bak Kut Teh, a family owned restaurant whose famous braised pork ribs got a Bib that is actually our first on our last day in KL.

A Grab took us there which is the best way to find KL's Bibs but being our last day, we will try the rest in our next visit where hopefully, we will be able to catch up with KF Seetoh. 

HOPPING ON AND OFF IN KUALA LUMPUR

Apparently, you have not been to Kuala Lumpur if you have not been to the Petronas Twin Towers, once the tallest buildings in the world and now second to Taipe 101.

So we went upon arrival in the city named after the muddy confluence of two rivers.

In my view, there is not much to see to see in Kuala Lumpur and the best way to reach the "must visit" places is through the interconnected train system if you don't mind long walks, by Grab if you don't mind the cost and the traffic, or buy a 60-ringgit 24-hour ticket for the KL Hop-On Hop-Off Bus that will take you to the 19 "must sees" in the city, which we did.

One complete trip will take at least two hours from [1] Bukit Bintang if you just stay on the bus which we did at the stops for the [2] Swiss Garden (in Malaysia?), [3] Chinatown (been there), [4] Central Market and [5] Little India (later), [6] KL Sentral (will pass through when we got the the airport) before hopping off at the [7] National Museum and the [8] National Palace for a quick tour, the usual photos and an obviously piqued Balong.  

We hopped on another bus, passed through the [9] Bird Park (not interested) and stayed for some time at the [10] National Mosque where the wife was dressed in a purple robe in accordance to Islamic rules, and were treated to a demonstration of the adhan by a volunteer who also shared guidance in properly reading the Quran. 

In another bus, we hopped off at [11] Merdeka Square that we found to be a boring open air stadium.  

The next bus is crowded and apparently, the driver was told not to stop until enough passengers have been unloaded so we breezed through [12] Raja Laut, [13] Palace of Culture (in our list but missed), [14] Intercontinental, [15] Kuala Lumpur City Center (been there), [16] Matic, [17] KL Tower, [18] KL Citywalk, [19] Aquaria and back to Bukit Bintang.

We decided not to hop off until we get seated at the open second deck which we did before Chinatown where got off, had a late lunch, walked to the Central Market, decided to skip Little India, and went back to the hotel through the LRT Kelana Jaya Line.   

And that is our 1-day KL city tour. 

MALACCA

The Sultanate of Malacca was actually established by the last king of Singapura that became a strategic international trade center which attracted the interest of European colonial powers.

The Portuguese first colonized it in 1511, the Dutch wrested it from them in 1641 then ceded it to the British in 1824.

It is said that Malaysia's declaration of independence was first made in Malacca the night before the official proclamation was made in Kuala Lumpur's Merdeka Square on August 31, 1957.

Malacca is a last minute choice for the Malaysia leg of our 2022 holiday trip but since there is not really much to explore in Kuala Lumpur and it being inscribed with George Town as the Historic Cities of the Straits of Malacca in the UNESCO World Heritage list, I decided to include it in our itinerary.

The Dutch Square featuring the colonial Stadthuys, the Protestant Christ Church and Queen Victoria’s Fountain is the core of the heritage site which is 80 percent of what we came for.

There is also St. Peter's Church that was built in 1710 and the oldest functioning Roman Catholic Church in Malaysia, restored parts of the Middleburg Bastion and a smaller replica of the Flor de la Mar, a 16th century Portugues galleon.

We also climbed up the ruins of the Church of St. Paul, first built by the Portuguese in 1521 and site of St. Francis Xavier's temporary burial, reconsecrated as a Dutch High Church and later used as a powder magazine by the British.   

An there was Jack Sparrow at what remained of the Portuguese fortress of A Famosa, and the Malacca Sultanate Palace Museum that was also closed to the public like the churches of St. Peter and Christ Church. 

We shared a Peranakan meal with a Korean family then concluded our day in Malacca at Jonker Street, Malacca's Chinatown where we walked through temples and a mosque, bought two egg tarts, a kilo of gula perang or Malaysian brown sugar and spent an hour killing cold milk tea at Old Day Old Taste Kopitiam.

And that's all there is of our day in Malacca. 

FANTASY ISLAND AND THE SHITTIEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD

"What they don't have, they created".

Thus Bulan mused after Day 1 as we endured Night 2 in cramped Room 210 of Calmo Hotel Chinatown, the shittiest hotel in the world.  

Singapore did created Gardens by the Bay in 2011 so they can have their own Cloud Forest where for a hefty wee, we walked through a fake forest with artificial waterfalls while living Avatar: The Experience.

In the Flower Dome, they recreated garden ecosystems from all over the world except the Garden of Eden and our small plot in Bakal 2 where our dogs shit to forever remind us of Hotel Calmo in Chinatown as the shittiest hotel in the world.

And for another SGD 10 each, an elevator inside a giant steel tree delivered us 22 meters above ground level for a 128-meter walk through the OCBC Skyway but that is not enough for us to forget even for a moment the shit that is Hotel Calmo Chinatown.  

Also opened in 2011 is the Universal Studios that for the record is the most expensive entrance fee we've ever paid for access to four of its advertised 28 rides (the roller coaster and canopy flyer where I almost lost my glasses, a boring treasure hunt and Battlestar Galactica where the kids queued for two hours) and a fleeting experience of Disneyland, Jurassic Park, The Transformers, New York City and Hollywood.

It came with a fake snow, long lines for expensive food and the possibility that it is where we are likely to get COVID, so we left as the crowd become more thicker than Frida Kahlo's eyebrows to endure another night in our shitty hotel.    

The day before Christmas is an open date, our laundromat experience, a day we decided to spend doing "fun and free activities" in Orchard Road mainly because we don't have shopping money and we booked a shitty hotel.

What was once a plantation is now a 2.5 kilometer stretch of upscale shopping district where we sought FREE fun at the overhyped Rooftop Garden of Orchard Central, the quaint picture perfect heritage houses of Emerald Hill and ION Orchard's Opera Gallery where admission is indeed free.

But there's the Singapore Botanic Garden, a 163 years old tropical garden and a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is as real as the weekends spent there by my mother who worked for a year as a domestic helper in Singapore, crowded by trees and vegetation, serenaded by an orchestra of forest creatures and punctuated with promenadors, one of whom volunteered to take our family Christmas photo as she was walking her dog, her kindness enough for us to somehow come to terms with the shittiness of Hotel Calmo in Chinatown.

And there's the National Orchid Garden whose discounted entrance fee for Bulan and Balong convinced my wife that it's worth it and is definitely worth more than what we paid for the shit that is the Hotel Calmo in Chinatown. 

We ended Day 4 of our trip to Singapore with an early noche buena hosted by relatives from Bakal 2 and there, I steeled myself with three cans of beer and two shots of Jim Beam Bourbon for one more night in the shithole that is Hotel Calmo in Chinatown.

SINGAPORE'S DNA UNPACKED

Singapore became an independent country only in 1965 after separating from the Federation of Malaysia but it has been around since 1299 as the Kingdom of Singapura that was founded by a Buddhist prince from what is now Indonesia.

It eventually came under the control of the Malacca Sultanate then the Johor Sultanate who ceded Singapore to Sir Stamford Raffles in the 1820s for an annual stipend. 

Singapura is Sanskrit which means "Lion City" that explains part of its Merlion symbol.

Kampong Glam

The core of modern Singapore is Kampong Glam where Sultan Hussain Mohammed Shah built the first Sultan Mosque and established a Muslim community from the annual stipend he received for ceding the island.

The present mosque that we visited was inaugurated in 1928 and Bussorah Street where we played a Russian roulette of Turkish goat milk ice cream is once where pilgrims, mostly Indonesians who were circumventing Dutch restrictions on pilgrimage, prepare and wait for the pilgrim ship that would bring them to Mecca. Hence, the origins of Arab Street where traders from the Middle East settled and Haji Lane where those embarking for the Hajj stayed.

Nearby are the Malabar Mosque that was built in 1963 by Muslim immigrants from Kerala, and the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes that was built in 1888 to serve Singapore's Indian immigrants. 

Chinatown

The first Chinese junk arrived in the newly opened British port of Singapore in 1821 bringing the first of unskilled Chinese coolies in search of a better life who congregated in an overcrowded community littered with opium dens and brothels, and governed by clans.

In 1822, the Raffles Plan for Singapore allocated kampungs for the Bugis, Arabs, Indians, Malays and Chinese who settled in the island and from there, what is now Chinatown was officially estbalished in 1843.

We stayed in Chinatown where the Sri Mariamman Temple, Jamae Chulea Mosque and Buddha Tooth Relic Temple stand side by side along South Bridge Road while in nearby Telok Ayer Street, the Al-Abrar Mosque is adjacent to Thian Hock Keng that reflects the peaceful co-existence of Singapore's diverse culture.

Chinatown also has interesting stories in the brothels and death houses of old along Sago Street as well as an artistic flourish that is illustrated in the life-sized murals of its history along Mohamed Ali Lane. 

Little India

Serangoon Road is one of Singapore's earliest thoroughfares that was mainly populated by Malays and Chinese with the Indians coming later in the 1820s to work in brick production and later on cattle-related industries in the 1860s, which explains the colorful house of Tan Teng Niah, a prominent taukeh who produced candies from sugarcane juice with the resulting by-products used as cattle feed.    

The Indian presence and influence is reflected in three major Hindu temples along Serangoon Road --- the Sri Vadapathira Kaliamman, Sri Srinivasa Perumal and Sri Veeramakaliamman temples --- that peacefully co-exist with the Buddhist Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple and the Taoist Leong San See Temple along Race Course Road, and the Muslim Angullia and Abdul Gafoor mosques.

In the 1980s, the district officially became Little India and in 2022, we walked through its heritage trail.