Last night I went to a restaurant with our friends, Mala and Darrin, and had a meal which I can honestly describe as surpassing the very best of Lee How Fook. And to those of you who know me and my addiction to that remarkable Philadelphia Asian Eatery well - that is one hell of a statement. The place (Sin Hoi Sai, block 55 in Tiong Bahru) was outdoors but mostly covered by a roof with dozens of slowly turning ceiling fans and florescent lights. We had to pass by tank after tank of the most exotic edible fish and sea life that I have ever seen. A dozen different types of crabs -- some very tiny; others VERY large and white like albinos. Huge fin-fish ranging from carp to snapper and parrotfish, to sharks and eels and many brightly coloreds smaller ones, each for a different recipe. Live speckled flounder rested on the bottom of a 3 meter tank; shellfish of all sizes were stacked on steel screens with cold water rushing over them, including the most amazing live scallops in their shells. And geoducks -- hundreds of them piled in a tank like armored, squirting tubers, each at least half a meter long.
The food was incredible in this super-casual place. Including Sri Lankan Chili crab, lightning hot Pepper Crabs, baby octopus dusted in panko and flash fried until their delicate purple tentacles were perfectly crisp (not a drop of grease), bamboo clams steamed in garlic and aloe vera and drizzled with thick, black soy syrup -- the list went on. But the highlights of the night for me were the coffee-soaked pork rib chunks (the coffee flavor in it was so robust I could hardly believe it) and -- BEST OF ALL -- Fried Fish Skins. These thin, grey skins were dusted in a salted powder, flash fried (again, absolutely no greasiness) and then quickly baked in like a 800 degree oven. Stacked on a platter with a scattering of tiny minced chillies and presented with a fiery sambal sauce to dip in -- they were sublime -- better than LHF's salt baked squid. I know, I know: "Impossible," you say, and I would have, too. But when that first crispy chunk of curled skin danced on my tongue a melange of emotions streaked through me. I almost cried. I mean, these things are ridiculously delicious.
Fried Fish Skins at Sin Hoi Sai
So it was a great evening of food decadence. Which, by the way, followed on the heels of my going with a new friend to the Tekka wet market in Little India in the morning -- where I bought beautiful produce and tropical fruit, ogled over a vast array of sea life which I have never before seen, pointed to the part of the hanging carcass that I wanted a butcher to cut meat from, and washed down a fabulous fresh chicken pratha with a really cold Tiger beer (at 10:00 am!) And dirt cheap prices, too. In the afternoon we took the MRT to Chinatown and I bought a 12 kg round chopping block (literrally a 3" thick cross section of some very hard wood tree). Oh yeah, I also dove into some pork dumplings with -- you guessed it -- another cold Tiger....
You may be asking yourself, "how is it that he is so able to shirk his parental duties to galavant around Singapore like that?" Well, our soon-to-be helper/maid, Ruth, watched the boys after they finished summer camp and then whipped up a wonderful chicken pot pie from scratch with a fresh chicken from the market (including heads and feet). The boys were thrilled and ate almost the entire pie. With Ruth at the range, perhaps Oliver's skinny days are coming to an end....
Just a small sampling of fresh fish at Tekka Market, Little India, Singapore.
My Muslim Lamb guy, Tekka Market.
Postscript: It was only a few nights after my epiphanic introduction to Sin Hoi Sai that I awoke to find myself siting upright in bed -- the blue lights of the clock dancing some numbers in the hour of 4 -- and chanting "must have fried fish skins" like Homer Simpson just before a Cool-aid cocktail in Jonestown. And like the warnings my sixth grade teacher gave about how "just one puff" can send you spiraling into a world of instant addiction, I knew I was in trouble. I had to have more of my new, crispy drug of choice. And that monkey clung to my back for the rest of that night and throughout the next day until the dinner hour when I could actually do something about it. It was only fair, after all, that I share my new favorite restaurant with that one and only girl of my dreams -- my wife. And after all of the quixotic raving she had been forced to endure, she was all for the experience; if for no other reason than to shut me up. So off we went with the kids. We sat outside in an open alley between the old part of the restaurant and the newly, covered area. It was between other small buildings in an almost public courtyard setting beneath the long poles laden with drying clothing extending from open windows above. The bustle of activity in Tiong Bahru filtered between the housing complexes, adding to the exotic feel of this wholly local eatery. In addition to the mandatory fish skins and coffee-infused pork chunks, we also had "boiled" baby octopus, which when they arrived, sent us both reeling with new, opiate-like reactions. Each bite was a perfect little octopus, nicely fitting in the tips of the chopsticks and presenting a perfect little package. The little morsel was purple and plump and fully intact from the head, past the tiny, crunchy beak, to the tips of its spindly tentacles. Not really boiled, they were perfectly steamed in a broth which enhanced the meat with subtle hints of garlic and ginger. Delectable in flavor and soft to the touch, each bite brought a surprise explosion of the small ink sacks within the body. I initially refrained from pointing out that little discovery for fear that the notion might turn my family away from the otherwise wonderful dish. But honest food in its most natural form doesn't deceive, and it quickly became my wife's favorite dish of the night. Enter, a monkey of her own....
Recent Comments