Week Three: fish balls and durian

I begin the week feeling generally lackadaisical and unenthusiastic about everything, and the challenge is no exception. I'm nearing the mid-way hump and it is beginning to feel like a self-imposed gastronomic prison sentence.  I just can't find any enthusiasm for it, and the knowledge that there are still a number of the most feared items yet to be ticked off, and almost three more weeks to get through, feels like an axe hanging over me.  With that in mind, almost zombie-like on Monday I head to the food court and get number 4 on the Top Ten out of the way, fish ball soup.

Day 8: Fish ball soup, calamansi juice

The thing that I most dread about fish ball soup is not actually the eating of it, I think, but the smell.  It stinks.  The thought of sitting for 20 minutes inhaling the aroma of a bowl of it is not a pleasant one.  But when I sit down, I am surprised.  It doesn't smell.  It doesn't smell at all!

Or does it?  I am reminded of the wonderful Tim Gunn's comment when looking at a Project Runway contestant's catwalk collection of garments gruesomely embellished with real human hair:  "I have this refrain about the monkey house at the zoo. When you first enter the monkey house, you think, ‘Oh my god this place stinks!’ And then after you’re there for 20 minutes you think, ‘it’s not so bad’ and after you’re there for an hour it doesn’t smell at all. And anyone entering the monkey house freshly thinks, ‘this stinks!’".  I realise that I have become so acclimatised to this place that I don't even notice it any more - with a few limited exceptions (see Day 9 below), I barely register the olfactory overload that so overwhelmed me when I first came here.  Is that a good thing?  I'm not sure.

Anyway, monkey house or no, the fact that I can't smell the soup sure makes it easier to eat.  Broth: OK.  Noodles: OK.  Pointless token vegetation: OK.  Fish balls: ... urgh.  What even IS this stuff?!  The texture is like nothing I have ever experienced.  It is rubbery, reconstituted, resistant - kind of how I imagine the inside of a squash ball to be.  It bears no resemblance whatsoever to fish, not even in taste.  It is the spam of the sea.  It is horrible.  I spit it out and as it plops heavily into the bowl of stock, sending up a spray of fishy droplets, I question the wisdom of ordering noodle soup on a day when I have a full afternoon of meetings.

I eye the chicken rice on my neighbours' trays with ill-disguised envy, and push down my food-thieving murderous thoughts.

The dessert shop is still shut.

I spend Monday afternoon and all of Tuesday in meetings.  My reward is to have lunch on Tuesday  with the same people I have been locked in a room with for the last two days.  On the plus side, it's not chicken feet.

Day 9: chicken rice, durian smoothie

Mr Hooker makes the journey over from the CBD today for his weekly dose of the Chinatown Complex, which means it's Asia Lite Day again.  Yay!  We order the chicken rice that I was eyeing up yesterday, which is probably the least adventurous thing it is possible to encounter in a Singapore hawker centre.  Although the stall does feature this on display, which should be sufficient to make even the strongest of stomach feel queasy:

To restore equilibrium to the gastronomic universe, I order a durian smoothie.  Not for the first time this month, the stall owner does a double take.  "Not for you?" she asks.  I confirm that it is indeed for me - that everyone should try it, after all.  She looks doubtful, frowning as she scoops frozen durian puree into a blender.  "You won't like it.  It's really horrible."  Quite the sales pitch!  As it turns out, though, she is entirely correct: it is absolutely revolting.  Even from a couple of feet away it stinks, and the taste, when I summon up the courage to try it, is the taste of decay, falling somewhere between rotten banana and rotten mango.  It really is awful, and I can't bring myself to drink more than a couple of fingers of it. 

There is a chain of durian shops in Singapore called 'Durian Lingers'.  I've always thought it was an odd choice of name (though that would not be unusual - there is a clothing chain here called 'Wanko', after all) but it turns out to be poor, but undeniably accurate, advertising: five hours later, I can still taste the rank overripe sweetness of the fruit.  It is deeply unpleasant.  Durian, there can be no doubt, is another one to add to the 'never again' list.

Will the dessert shop ever open again???

Day 10: black carrot cake

I have a physio session scheduled across my lunch hour today, and at 4pm I am still sitting lunchless at my desk, weighing up whether it's better to go hungry or man up and take myself off for some more hawker centre magic.  Eventually I acknowledge that even black carrot cake is better than taking a bite out of my recycling pile, which my hunger-addled brain is beginning to contemplate as a viable food option.

The food court is strangely still at this time of day, and many places are closed.  I find an open one selling carrot cake and oyster omelette, and order a plate of the black stuff.  It appears to be the white carrot cake chopped up and fried with various local ingredients, mainly egg and sticky black soy.   There is a toxic-looking oily heap of chilli sauce on the side, which I make a mental note to avoid at all costs.  It looks rather like a plate of dog food garnished with spring onion. It is not appealing.

But once again, I am pleasantly surprised.  It is absolutely fine.  In fact, it is probably better than fine.  The texture of the carrot cake is much more acceptable when it's chopped up small, and let's face it there's hardly anything that isn't improved by being fried.  I eat nearly all of it, avoiding a semicircle around the chilli sauce, but failing to observe that there is a slick of chilli oil that has escaped and oozed further than I have bargained for.  And it is explosive, a weapon of mouth destruction.  I practically have steam coming out of my ears.  Who eats this stuff - seriously?!?!

It seems the dessert man has run away with the circus.  I am going to have to find a new dessert shop.

Day 11: Mystery Queue Roulette

I'm feeling a bit uninspired today.  A very minor league hangover from a wine dinner last night plus an all-over ache from my body getting used to marathon training means that other than a nice cold glass of sugar cane juice I have no idea what I want to eat.  Every day that I've been to the Chinatown Complex, though, I've noticed a long, long queue of people snaking over a walkway and around a corner, and have wondered what was at the end of it.  So, without any idea of what I am in for, I join it.  And I wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  The line moves painfully slowly and I wonder what can possibly be so time consuming that so few people can be served in such a long time.  Dim sum maybe?  Spring rolls?  Something yummily calorific, deep-fried to order?  My imagination is working overtime as I wait, and when I turn the corner, almost 30 minutes later, I am starving.  And what do I see?

Fucksticks.  It's tofu.  You couldn't make this up!  Not only is it tofu, in fact, it's tofu and fish balls.  I order three bucks' worth of noodles, tofu and fish ball soup, add a sprinking of ikan bilis, and dump a slimy slice of aubergine on the top.  Then I slump at my table for one, feeling a bit sorry for myself, being surveyed by a dozen shiny disembodied dried anchovy eyeballs, and cursing not having taken on board the lesson I learned on day one of this challenge that the size of the queue has no relevance to the quality of the food on offer at the end of it.

It's while sitting here morosely shovelling vermicelli noodles into my mouth and trying to ignore the glassy gaze of the ikan bilis that I notice an intriguing-looking claypot stall.  The signboard is written only in Chinese, and I wonder idly whether they serve frog.  My knowledge of Mandarin extends only to the absolutely essential: hello/goodbye, yes/no, thank you (not please, for some reason), and "I want 1/2/3.../10 beers", so I pull out my phone and bring up the Google Translate app.  And the results are GOLD.  So entertaining, in fact, that I forget how horrible my lunch is, for a moment at least.

For the uninitiated, to use the app to translate Chinese you simply snap a picture of the text and the app will translate the characters for you in little boxes - for example, as you can see below, if you order the second item from the top on the left you will receive a portion of "The old one".  Whatever that might be.  One to be avoided, probably.

So here are a selection of my favourites:

Not satisfied with these gems, though, I persist with my translation exercise, and am richly rewarded.  Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!  I give you:

So, kung pow chicken sesame penis is on the menu for next week, obviously.  I also noticed that the next door stall was offering pigs trotters with red bean sauce, so I think that has to go on the list too.  Sheep stomach soup will make an appearance (quite possibly twice in rapid succession, if the picture advertising it is an accurate representation of the dish itself).  And I must, finally, find a dessert stall that is open, although I can't promise that I will try durian again.  In fact, I think I can probably promise that I won't.  For now, though, there's a chocolate muffin on my desk, a weekend of Formula 1 excess in store, and hopefully no tofu in sight for a few days.  See you next week!