The pocket dictator

There is a dictator in my handbag.  Seriously!  As with most dictators, I voted her in thinking she would change my life for the better, and now she's taken up residence I can't get rid of her.

She is Nike Running Bitch, affectionately (or not) abbreviated to NRB, and she has been living in my iPhone and making my life miserable for eight long weeks now.

It all started when I signed up for the Angkor Wat half marathon, taking place in December.  I've done a few organised races, from 10k to 50k, since the birth of Smaller Child, and my training has always veered wildly from the dilatory to the obsessive, dropping off a cliff when I got busy, bored, or hungover. This time I was determined it would be different. This time I would follow rules set by someone who (ostensibly) actually knew what they were doing. This time I would Meet My Potential. So I signed up to a program on my Nike running app.  Little did I know at the time that what I was doing was essentially abdicating my free will for the next twelve weeks. My free will, my mornings, my evenings, my weekends, my sense of humour, my toenails...

At first, it was almost fun. "Get out there," NRB would chirp on a Monday morning.  "Get out there and make it count!"  "OK, lovely encouraging Nike app lady" I would think.  "OK, I can do this! Yay!  Running before work is FUN!!! And such a good use of time! Sleeping is for losers!!!"  And I would dutifully pull on my trainers and, as instructed, get out there and make it count.  "Boom!" she would cheer at the end of the week. "Well done for clocking more miles this week than last!". She even has a selection of guest stars to feed her hapless victim 'encouraging' soundbites. (And on that note, Ellie Goulding, what the ACTUAL fuck are you doing congratulating me on my weekly mileage?  Don't you have better things to do/enough money already/any self-respect?)

As you can probably guess from the above, the beautiful symbiotic love-in between me and NRB did not last. It was all very well when I had a newbie's enthusiasm, a pair of shiny boxfresh trainers, and had to clock up "only" 30-ish kilometers a week.  But two months later I am sitting in the middle of Peak Week (otherwise known as $%&*^@#%^&*!! Peak Week), which obliges me to run no fewer than 68 kilometers over the course of five days, and I am M I S E R A B L E.  And, to be brutally honest, I hate NRB's guts right now.  I hate her bouncy chummy enthusiasm.  I hate her mid-afternoon alerts which remind me of the distance I have to run the following day, just at the time when I'm guiltily tucking into my (ahem) "emergency" Twix bar.  I hate the little graph she produces to tell me when I've hit my targets... and of course when I haven't.  And really, there are only so many times that someone can say "Boom!" before it triggers an overwhelming desire to punch them in the (virtual) face.  I hate her. I hate her! IhateherIhateherIHATEHERIHATEHER!!!!

And, breathe.

Mr. H doesn't understand.  He says, "If you loathe it, if you don't want to do it, then just stop!"  But Mr. H is self-motivated, loves running, is miserable when he can't do it.  Mr H is, quite frankly, a freak of nature, and he knows exactly where he can stuff his sparky get-up-and-go attitude to exercise. Also, in fairness, Mr. H has to live with me, which is probably a bit of a nightmare right now, and if I were in his shoes I imagine I would also be praying for NRB to meet a sticky end. But I just can't do it. I'm sooooooooooo nearly there. And, unfortunately, I am fundamentally - and actually to a fault - not a quitter. In fact, I am mule-stubborn, and the harder I get pushed, the more I dig my heels in. So the Bitch is here to stay, at least for a few more weeks.

Also, in complete honesty, I should admit that there have been some highs as well as lows on this journey of athletic totalitarianism.  For sure, running five or six times a week has massively improved my fitness, as you would expect.  I am also skinny in a way I wasn't even in my 20s, let alone post-babies, and a serendipitous side-effect of that is that I can eat whatever the hell I like (see above re the unfortunate Twix addiction, which I will have to kick once NRB has been despatched to the big running track in the sky). But, training or no training, ending up in third place in Singapore's biggest trail run last month was still a bit of a shock, and if you'd told me before I started that that would be the result of the fundamentalist approach to race preparation, I would have gladly done it a hundred times over.

I even got a trophy, and that's sat on my dresser as a daily reminder of diligence paying off.  Who ever knew that working hard yielded results?! It is nothing short of a revolutionary concept. *Ahem*.

I've also (of course) managed to leverage the daily exercise to excuse some reasonably egregious credit-card bashing in various sportswear stores.  After all, why buy only one pair of running shoes at once when you could buy three? Yes, I really did need that new pair of Lulu Lemon leggings. (And yes, for your information, I do understand perfectly the difference between "need" and "want".)

And, when all's said and done, I will get a weekend - a weekend without kids - in Cambodia. Yes, I will have to run 21 kilometers. Yes, I probably could have done that without subjecting myself to three months of NRB and Death By Training Schedule. But at least I will know, when I cross the finish line, that I will have done my best.

And perhaps, just perhaps, that means I won't ever feel the need to do it again  .

(Almost) a month of eating dangerously, digested

A few people have asked me over the last week or so what happened to The Month of Eating Dangerously. Did I finish it? Did I find black chicken, geoduck, frogs? Did I manage to swallow a single morsel of chicken foot/sheep stomach/pig intestine/stinking tofu? And did the mysterious dessert shop ever re-open??!!

Well. Having had my ass soundly kicked by sheep's stomach soup, I spent much of the last weekend of September girding my psychological loins to get myself back into the Chinatown Complex and really man up for the final three days of the month.  My will was set, steely. Eye of the Tiger was playing in my head. I was going to eat some really, really disgusting stuff. Or at least try to eat it, gag a bit, cry a bit, try again. It was only three days. I could eat again in October.

So at noon on the last Monday of September I marched purposefully to my fate... only to find that the food court was shut.  Not just the dessert stall: the whole bloody place.  Utterly, shutly, shut - to the extent that there was what looked like police tape stretched across the foot of the escalators.  I thought for a moment that maybe someone in power had tried the sheep's intestine, but then noticed a huge sign proclaiming "CLOSED FOR CLEANING".  The thought that I probably should have waited for the (annual?! *gulp*) spring clean before I started this project briefly crossed my mind, before being swept aside by the realisation that I could now quite legitimately eat a burger. Which I then did. And that burger took away in one fell swoop all the resolve I had spent the weekend - in fact the whole of the previous month - building up. And (*hides head in shame*) I never went back.

So there remain a few items on the list that I never managed to find, let alone eat, and I am - honestly! - still intending to hunt them down at some point. I have an accomplice lined up for a frog porridge dinner, there's a place near my office that does geoduck (and thankfully doesn't limit itself to cleaning only once a year), and I can get black chicken in the supermarket. But in the meantime, there are a few valuable life lessons that I have learned from my experiences at the Chinatown Complex, which I will share with you:

(1) Do not base your decision where to eat on the length of the queue waiting to be served. If anything, the size of a queue in a hawker centre is in inverse proportion to the edibility of the product on offer at the end of it. See day 11, Mystery Queue Roulette (AKA tofu-gate).

(2) Just because something looks revolting, doesn't mean that it is. Century eggs are conceptually and visually about as repulsive as it's possible to get but actually strangely delicious. An open mind can mean a full stomach.

(3) Notwithstanding (2) above, chicken feet are not meant to be eaten.

(4) Ditto sheep stomach.

(5) There isn't any carrot in carrot cake. Nor is it a cake. It's one of life's great unsolved mysteries why they insist on calling it that. And (see (2) above), the disgusting-looking black version (think regurgitated cat food) is delicious, while the other one (well it doesn't look delicious, it kind of looks like waterlogged carpet tiles) tastes... well, like I imagine waterlogged carpet tiles would taste, actually.

(6) If you are going off piste, always, always accept the offer of rice. You will not regret it: it may be the only thing on your lunch tray capable of being eaten.

(7) There are 27 different types of durian.  Twenty-seven!!! Most of these aren't even a 'gift' from nature, but are genetically engineered hybrids with romantic names like D24, D13, and the most appropriately named D101, which just goes to show that there really is no limit to the cruelty of human invention.

(8) Desserts in Asia contravene fundamental trading standards laws. And also human rights laws. Maybe the dessert shop man was on the run from Amnesty International? It's not beyond the realms of possibility.

(9) Sugar cane juice is manna from heaven for the chronically hungover. Pig knuckle tea is not.

(10) If you are asked in a hawker centre whether you want chilli, just say no. They will put it in anyway, but maybe, just maybe, if you are very lucky, it won't be enough to administer third degree burns to your oesophagus.

So, that's it, folks. In due course, when I've got over the trauma of this experience (I still can't walk past a food court without fear gnawing in the pit of my stomach), I will wrap up the last items on the Top 10 of Doom, but for the time being, I'm back on the salads and steering clear of mystery meat, pongy fruit, eyeballs, tofu of all shapes, sizes, and consistencies, and anything else that looks even tangentially like it belongs in a bushtucker trial on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!

Meanwhile, though, another question I've been asked is "what's next?". It seems that some of you fear a void in your online lives, now that the challenge is over and you no longer have my tales of gastronomic punishment to titillate you over your toast and marmite on a Monday morning. To you I say first and foremost, thanks for reading and all, it's really lovely to know someone out there is listening... but you are all, with the best will in the world, sadistic bastards. Secondly, in all honesty the challenge has been a fun, educational, enlightening, and eye-opening experience, and a big part of that has been your participation.  I won't say that knowing you have been with me, from Singapore to London to Portugal to Hong Kong to Manila to Switzerland to the USA, has made it easier to swallow the nasties (for some of them, literally nothing would make that possible), but it has definitely made it more fun. And with that in mind, I guess I will have to don my thinking cap to try and come up with a new challenge - ideally one that doesn't involve eating feet.

So, watch this space... and of course, if you have any ideas for a follow-up challenge - at all times subject, of course, to the aforementioned foot disclaimer - do let me know.  In the meantime, I'm off for another burger.  Bon appetit!

Week Four: losing my appetite

Hi folks, and welcome to Week Four of the Chinatown Challenge.  Actually I am thinking of rebranding this whole exercise as a new and incredibly successful weight loss program, having dropped THREE KILOS in the three weeks that I have been doing it.  There's nothing like chicken feet to put you off eating, possibly permanently.  Even summoning to mind the thought that they exist, and revisiting the image of a tureen of them wallowing slackly in unidentifiable orange goo, is now more than sufficient to suppress my appetite for a good few hours.  I think I could be on to something here.

Anyway, week 4 begins with a skive as it's my birthday and I have taken a day of leave.  I get up late, I go for a run, then I take Smaller Child out to lunch and fill my face with insanely expensive sushi, every mouthful tasting all the better for being eaten in the knowledge of what I am missing out on.  But when I wake on Tuesday, I have some pangs of guilt about having abandoned my post the previous day, and at lunchtime I man up and order....

Day 12: sheep stomach soup, ice kacang

So, it turns out that I do in fact have a limit, and today is the day that The Challenge breaks me. Last week I had clocked a stall selling various unloved bits of the sheep, and today, without even giving common sense a look-in, I head straight there and order myself a bowl of their foulest-looking offering.  The vendor dips her ladle in a small vat filled with a murky brown liquid swimming with strips of something grey and spongy.  Oh.  Mygod.  I want to get a photo of it but I am paralysed, though with what I'm not sure: is it fear? disbelief? an uncontrollable urge to throw up/run as fast as possible in the opposite direction? all of the above?  It's like rubbernecking a road accident: I don't want to look, but I can't help myself.  I actually think I would rather eat chicken feet at this point.  On autopilot, I take the tray and sit down, staring blankly at the bowl and trying not to breathe through my nose.  The vendor follows me and I wonder whether she is waiting to see whether I eat it until I realise that I was in such a state of shock that I hadn't paid.  Oops!

I try the broth.  It's deeply, almost unbearably, meaty, even for a standard-bearer in the meat-eating army like me.  It has the over-ripe fleshy tang of offal, which to me often tastes like it shouldn't really be eaten.  It's just... too much of itself.  It's oddly reminiscent of durian, actually.  Taking a deep breath, I pluck a piece of the stomach from the soup.  The surface is honeycombed, glistening with a slick of broth, strangely beautiful (if you don't have to eat it, at least).  It doesn't look like food, and as it registers that thought my brain makes a one-way conceptual jump from seeing this as lunch to seeing it as what it used to be, an organ for digesting grass... and that's it.  I can't eat it.  I can't even try to eat it.  A life as a vegetarian flashes before my eyes.  I shudder and push the bowl away.

Sheep stomach soup is an epic fail.  Although it is no great surprise that it was inedible, I am nevertheless shocked at the visceral depth of my response to it: there was a moment when I thought that the whole structure of my ability to eat meat, which is (and I am really not exaggerating here) a fundamental pillar of my happiness, might be tumbling down around my ears.  That would be an interesting epitaph: sheep stomach ruined my life.  Fortunately though, it has only ruined Tuesday lunch.  I will survive to eat another sheep - just not its stomach, please.

I have somehow to make up for my pathetic lily-livered pseudo-veggie refusal at the sheep stomach fence; and those of you who have been reading this blog regularly will be thrilled to hear that after some exploring of the nether regions of the food court I have finally found a  dessert shop that is open, and so finally I get to share with you the delights of Asian afters.  I can't quite figure out whether the sheep stomach has left me more hungry (owing to near zero food intake) or less (loss of appetite caused by nausea at offal related dining disaster) but I guess that's not the point, as there's a very high likelihood that I will not make a significant dent in what I am about to order either: ice kacang.

Ice kacang is the most popular hawker centre dessert in Singapore.  I use the word "dessert" in the loosest sense here, as anything involving sweetcorn and beans is not, to me, a pudding, but rather some kind of fucked-up salad masquerading as one.  At first glance what I am looking at is a pile of ice shavings drizzled in a variety of unidentifiable technicolour syrups, and wearing a hat of seagull vomit.

But I have lived here long enough to know that there is More to ice kacang, so I delve deeper.  Oh my god.  There's grass jelly under here!  For those who missed the chicken/chilli confusion of Week One, grass jelly is firmly on the Never Try Again list, so this seems unduly cruel luck.  There's also the obligatory red beans, more sweetcorn, and attap seeds, which I haven't eaten in years but remember now that I actually don't mind, despite having a deeply weird texture.  All in all, it's not horrible.  Don't get me wrong - it's not dessert, for sure, but it's not completely horrible.  But then I guess I am comparing it to sheep's stomach so....

The menu at the dessert stand is... let's just say interesting, and it seems there is huge potential here for gastronomic disaster.  Tadpole and sea coconut anyone?  I'm going to have to try that one. Maybe, just maybe, I could even count it as eating frog (she says more in hope than expectation...).

Day 13 (is it really only Day 13????): cockle kway teow, dumplings

Yeah yeah.  I go lite today.  I have no excuse other than that I am in the middle of the second week of marathon training and I am seriously rungry, as a friend describes it (although in my case it seems to have graduated from 'rungry' to 'hangry').  I Need Carbs!  So I get myself a plate of noodles.  The queue is enormous and once again I make the automatic assumption that this is a good thing.  Surely I should know better by now? Am I learning nothing from this experience?!

Clearly not.  The noodles look unprepossessing, and taste worse.  They are an overcooked, underseasoned, mushy, gastronomic trainwreck.  Normally I love kway teow - carby, greasy, salty, meaty: what's not to like? - but this really has me questioning that love, which I had always assumed was unconditional.  The cockles don't help; for the second time this week, watching my food prepared has been actively damaging to my ability to eat it, and seeing those sad little shell-less fleshy nuggets spooned out of an ice-cream carton of opaque slime and into the giant wok of noodles was not an inspiring moment.  And for the second time this month, I am looking at something that resembles a bucket of eels rather more than I would ideally like.  It's not good.

A couple of days later, Smaller Child is flicking through the photos on my phone and comes across the picture of the kway teow. "Ooh", she says, with grim relish.  "Yucky."  I couldn't agree more.

Fortunately I have a side order of dumplings, so my hunger is abated sufficiently that I don't actually kill anyone in the afternoon.  It occurs to me that it is little short of a miracle that nobody has been harmed in the making of this blog.  Nobody except me, at least.  Yet.

Thursday is a public holiday.  On Friday I have an appointment over my lunch hour and this time, unlike last week, I can't summon up the will to drag myself to the Chinatown Complex.  Instead, I sit at my desk and go hungry.  It doesn't even occur to me to eat my recycling pile.  The Challenge has, it appears, finally killed my appetite.

Next week I will have the finish line in sight, with only three days left to eat my way through the List of Doom.  I am determined that I will use those days bravely if not wisely, but am concerned that I still have frogs, geoduck clam, and black chicken to check off the list, none of which appears to be available in the Chinatown Complex, and that I may have to spill this over into October in order to try everything I promised.  For the sharp-eyed among you, I am awarding myself a tick for pig organ soup on the basis that I tried its ovine sister this week, and have no desire to challenge further my carnivorous instincts.  So maybe, just maybe, I have learned something, at least...

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!

Week Two: crab sticks and congee

So, for those of you who missed last week's instalment and can't be bothered to read it all, in four days I managed fish head, carrot cake, pig tea, chicken feet (kind of), eel juice, and lotus root. I survived the Chinatown Complex on a hangover, almost intact.  I was not sick at any point (though there were some close calls). I was told by an old crone that I smelled like a cow.  And I discovered sugar cane juice and a truly miraculous char siu bao, so there were definitely some positives.  This week I have promised myself century egg and congee, but that's far too much to contemplate on a Monday morning so I start the week gently with with the intention of working up to it.

Day 5: nasi goreng, soursop drink, durian pastry

This can't all be about torture, can it?  Well, I suppose theoretically it can (there is, after all, more than enough choice available) but that would make for a truly miserable (though self-inflicted) month for me.  I am starving, so I plump for a plate of nasi goreng, Malaysian style fried rice, which I reluctantly admit I would be happy to order anywhere, so does feel a bit like cheating.  I ask for it medium spicy, and the cook looks disappointed.  Either she ignores my request or I am a chilli lightweight (both are completely possible) because when it arrives, the rice is volcanic.  Notwithstanding being pretty vanilla, it does still contain both one ingredient that is outside the scope of the average western diet (dried anchovies) and one which I would as a rule cross the road to avoid (crab sticks - just ugh, really), so I suppose I am not in complete dereliction of my duty.

Today's drink is soursop juice, made from a spiky fruit with big black seeds that looks like it belongs in the jurassic era.  I've never eaten soursop before (on account of its scary appearance) but the drink is a revelation - refreshing, subtly flavoured, sweet but not overpoweringly so, and iced to within an inch of its life.  Too bad about the floating matter but I guess I will have to get used to since it's pretty much ubiquitous on the Chinatown drinks scene.

I do feel slightly guilty that I haven't eaten anything adventurous today, so I spend a dollar on a durian pastry from an anomalously beautiful selection of breads and cakes.  It doesn't look too bad.  It doesn't really smell of anything, let alone a marriage of strawberry icecream and public lavatory.  I put it in my handbag for an afternoon snack.

Back in the office, the pastry sits on my desk like a bomb about to go off.  I am informed by my neighbour that the dollar I spent on it most likely only gets me durian flavouring, not durian itself.  I contemplate whether that absolves me from eating it but figure I may as well try it, on the basis that even if not actually durian, it is at least durian-ish.  I break it open and try the pastry, which is dry and crumbly, with a definite whiff of gym sock.  Emboldened, I take a bite of the filling.  It tastes of nothing.  It's almost disappointing.  I admonish myself to try harder next time.

Day six: tofu soup, fresh young coconut

I don't think I've mentioned yet that I loathe tofu.  It is tasteless, it is spongy and/or slimy, and it is emblematic of vegetarianism (which I also despise).  Unfortunately in Asia it is also ubiquitous, which is why it didn't end up in my Top Ten - you have to get used to eating it because it is bloody everywhere.

That said, I would never knowingly go to a restaurant with the word 'tofu' in its name, or one which has any obvious potential to be vegetarian, so today breaks new ground in that sense at least.  I order tofu soup, a bowl of all but colourless broth in which are suspended an array of evil-looking floaters.  Close inspection reveals that no fewer than four different types of tofu await me, which I affectionately name (clockwise from top right) slimy tofu, old shoe tofu, soggy bread tofu, and the worst-looking of the bunch, testicle tofu.  I don't want to eat any of them, so I start with the broth, which looks inoffensive.  Not for the first time in the course of this experiment, I find that appearances can be deceptive: it's a pungent fish stock, which just goes to show that vegetarianism and Chinatown are mutually incompatible.  On further exploration it also appears that old shoe and (disturbingly) testicle tofu may contain unidentifiable meat or fish products.  In order to comply with my challenge obligations, I take a bite of each one of the four different types.  They vary in texture and, to a lesser extent, taste, but are uniformly repulsive.  It is all absolutely inedible.  I am resolutely confirmed in my non-tofu-eating ways, and grateful that the coconut (mostly) takes away the fish taste.

As I leave, I walk past a stall displaying a hanging rack of very non-vegetarian and extremely delectable-looking shiny golden roasted ducks and chickens, crispy pork belly, and... what is that?... it looks like... oh lord, it's intestines.  My heart sinks.  I can't in all conscience not add that to the list, now I've seen it.  It's a disappointing moment and I wish I'd kept my eyes closed.

At 8pm I am still feeling sick to the point of throwing up.  I am never eating tofu again.

Day 6: char siu, roasted duck, fried teochew dumplings, lime juice

Today I am joined for lunch by Mr H, who graciously makes the journey from the salads and bento boxes of corporateville to the hustle and bustle of Chinatown to keep me company, so I find it in my frozen, calorie-deprived heart to be kind to him and take the opportunity to sample some of the less extreme options on offer.

We pick a stall selling roasted meats, and our selection of char siu pork, roasted duck, and crispy pork belly is to die for (rather than to die from, as has been the bulk of my experience so far).  This is a weird moment... I am sitting in Chinatown Complex... I am eating... and I don't want to vomit!  Amazing.  The meat is flavoursome and succulent, the pork belly decadently calorific, the dumplings little deep-fried golden nuggets of deliciousness.  It's so good we get seconds. 

It is only afterwards, looking at the photograph on the right, that I realise I didn't clock a variety of less attractive options - orange boiled eggs (actually everything on offer is an alarming shade of bright orange), shiny clawed feet, and, worst of all, the decapitated necks and heads of the roasted duck I so enjoyed, glazed and baked and hanging in serried rows.  I briefly contemplate why and how one would approach eating a roasted duck head, before giving it up as one of life's unanswerable questions.

I knew that I was going to go easy on the mains today so had intended to get a dessert (or what passes for dessert in these parts), but "unfortunately" the dessert stall is closed.  I am, of course, devastated - I had really been looking forward to digging into a plate of kidney beans in coloured ice.  Serendipity aside,  I feel, not for the first time this week, that I am cheating the challenge.  But don't worry - tomorrow will more than make up for it.  Gulp.

Day 7: porridge with pork and century egg

It is with some trepidation that I head to lunch today.  I've been putting this off all week but finally the evil hour has arrived: it is time to sample century egg.

Earlier in the day I had been invited out to lunch, to a fancy restaurant owned by the former head chef of Claridges.  In order to decline the invitation I had to explain what I was doing instead, which took some doing and involved a lot of being asked "why?", with increasing degrees of incredulity, to the point where even I began to question my own motivation, not to mention my sanity.  My would-be lunch companion then changed tack, informing me that century egg is soaked in horse piss (I'm sure Wikipedia made no mention of this and assume it is an underhand tactic to try and get me to change my plans), but I stay resolute, and set off with a firm tread and a weak stomach to order a bowl of porridge with sliced pork and century egg.  Fearing the worst, I get a cup of fresh pineapple juice on the side just in case I need to drown any flavours on short notice (having learned a valuable lesson from grass jelly-gate).

Unexpectedly, the porridge comes with a kind of donut - like a churro, but not sweet - which is snipped up and thrown into the bowl.  A bit of googling tells me that this is a youtiao, a traditional accompaniment to congee.  The egg is not immediately visible but I stir the viscous mess and see chunks of something dark, transparent, gelatinous, and frankly terrifying lurking beneath the surface.  The whole thing is not inspiring to look at and I am nervous about trying any of it, let alone the egg.

I start with the donut, which looks the best of a bad selection.  It's OK - kind of chewy, but starchy and filling and definitely not horrible.  It's been in the bowl so it's got some congee on it and actually the congee doesn't taste too repulsive either.  I locate a piece of meat with my chopsticks and tentatively chew it.  It's... I don't know how to say this, but it actually tastes... good!  And the porridge isn't bad at all.  I eat all the meat, most of the donut, spoon up some of the porridge, and summon up the courage to try the egg.

I'll make no bones about this, the egg looks absolutely revolting - it looks rotten, decayed, just... wrong.  Common sense tells me that if I eat this it will poison me.  But I eat it anyway - those are the rules, right?  Involuntarily my face has screwed up, my eyes are tightly shut, and I am expecting to feel the familiar wave of nausea, but it never comes.  The egg may look like a nuclear taste bomb but actually it's not strongly flavoured at all, and what flavour there is what the congee tastes of, which I have already made up my mind that I like.  Sliced pork and century egg congee, I am beyond shocked to find, is 100% a success.

The dessert stall is still closed.  "Damn it".  (Ahem).

Reflecting later in the day, I feel like the congee experience has taught me a valuable lesson.  I expected to hate everything about it, but in fact none of it was, on a pure taste test (with the best will in the world, the less said about the visuals the better), unappealing - not even the egg.  I ate it thinking that if I had been brought up and culturally conditioned to accept the ingredients, then I would almost certainly love it.  I ate it really liking the taste, before realising that that taste came from something that until this challenge I would never in a million years have willingly eaten - and that, in all probability, I will not voluntarily eat again, just because of how it's made and the way it looks. And I ate it while receiving a bizarrely conflicting set of messages from my brain, ranging from the expectation-based "oh my god this is going to kill me" to the experience-based "more, please!".  It was hands-down the most surprising and interesting culinary experience of the last two weeks, and while  I'm not saying that I am going radically to change my diet post-congee epiphany, this has definitely made me think differently about what I do and don't eat, be more critical about my inbuilt gag-ometer, and be more willing to try new things.  Just not tofu, OK?

Friday is a public holiday so I am let off the hawker centre hook.  Next week I am going to have to make an assessment of whether the Chinatown Complex can meet all the requirements of the Top Ten of Doom.  If not, I will have to schedule some adventurous evening meals incorporating frogs, geoduck, and black chicken.   I might even cook the black chicken myself.  I am sure Mr Hooker will be thrilled...

Week One: an introduction to head to foot eating

Day 1: fish head with bitter gourd, lemon barley

I figure I may as well go big or go home, so I pick a stall randomly and order the worst-looking thing on the menu: fish head with bitter gourd.  The stall holder looks at me with an expression of unmistakeable disbelief.  "$8 or $10?" she asks.  I figure smaller is probably better.  I decline the offer of rice, which will, rather predictably, prove to be a poor decision.

When the food arrives, it looks as though it has already been digested, or like a particularly nasty prop from CSI.  The gourd is slimy, the gravy is thick, and the fish.... well, the fish is like no fish I have ever seen.  Its scales are the size of my thumbnail.  Oddly, it appears to be all tail and no head (which pleases me mightily until it dawns that the absence of eyes means I will have to eat fish head again in order to meet the challenge).  It is, in fact, the Gruffalo of the fish kingdom.  I have paid eight dollars for piscatorial Gruffalo in bin juice.



Amazingly, although I almost have to close my eyes to eat it, it doesn't taste that bad.  The sauce is OK.  Identifying and excavating matter that qualifies as fish meat rather than fish skeleton or skin is labour intensive, but once done the fish is also OK.  The bitter gourd, however, completely contradicting Mr. Hooker's belief that the vegetables will be the easiest part of this challenge, is significantly harder to eat than the fish - really, really bitter (as perhaps you might expect), and nauseatingly gelatinous and slimy - and I find myself performing facial contortions in the effort of swallowing it.  I dry heave quietly.  People stare.  There is a long queue forming at the stall, and I take note that popularity of the offerings in the Chinatown Complex is not necessarily a reliable indication of their edibility.

The lemon barley water actually has barley in, which is a little disconcerting when the grains shoot up the straw and into one's epiglottis, but which is otherwise inoffensive.  Tomorrow I have promised myself the grass jelly... whatever the hell that is.

Day 2: popiah, kueh pie tie, and grass jelly

I will be drinking wine tonight, so I need to order something that I know I will be able to stomach (or have a second lunch, which I think is kind of against the rules).  I pick popiah, a fresh spring roll, and kueh pie tie, which are little filled pastry cups.  The vendor asks me if I want chicken in everything, which seems like a strange question but I figure if that's traditional, then sure I'll have it.

It's a matter of seconds before I realise she didn't say "chicken".  She said "chilli".  I am on fire.  My mouth is burning, my eyes are watering, my nose is running, my face feels like it is bright red.  I take a big gulp of grass jelly.  Mistake.  Between the conflagration in my mouth and the shock of the taste (the bastard love child of cola and herbal tea, with a dash of engine oil), it's all I can do to avoid snorting the liquid out of my nostrils.  And that's before I even see what is swirling around in the muddy depths of the cup.  What even IS that???  It looks like.... worms... or, even worse, eels.

Eels                                                              Grass jelly

On a more positive note, other than the chilli issue, the popiah is edible and came with a great view of the kitchen - making the wrappers is quite a skill!

Day 3: pork rib soup with lotus root

I have a hangover.  Thankfully it's the common-or-garden variety - banging head, dry mouth, exhaustion - and not a lying-on-the-bathroom-floor-praying-for-death-to-come-quickly humdinger, but I am nevertheless nervous that the nausea may not serve me well come lunchtime.  Mr Hooker messages me from Kuala Lumpur to tell me he is eating pad thai.  I curse him inwardly as I shuffle out of the office and towards today's culinary fate.

The brain fug means that I've already ordered when I realise that I have contravened the cardinal rule and not picked the most challenging item on the menu.  Pig's tail (vertebrae and all) may however have been a bridge too far in my delicate state so I award myself a pass for today.

When it arrives, the soup appears unthreatening.  In fact it resembles nothing so much as a giant mug of tea, with no hint given by the unruffled brown surface of the horrors that doubtless lie in its murky depths.  I stir it tentatively with a chopstick, and pinky grey lumps float into view then disappear into the vortex.  It's watery, and confusingly seems to taste more like tea than like pork, which may of course be a consequence of an impairment of my tastebuds by last night's epic wine consumption rather than an accurate reflection of its actual flavour.  The meat is an inedible tangle of gristle and fat.  The lotus root manages to taste of absolutely nothing at all - not even the soup it was boiled in, which is quite an achievement.  I eat two spoonfuls of rice, contemplate having a small sleep on the table, then go in search of Panadol.

The whole thing costs $3.  I add 'saving money' to the list of silver linings and log in to Net-a-Porter. Shopping to forget is a thing, you know.

Day 4: dim sum and sugar cane juice

Today I did not make my foray to the Chinatown Complex alone.  For company I had a colleague who had originally been scheduled to take me to lunch on Monday (31 August, therefore outside the scope of September's exercise in gastronomic torture) but had cancelled, and I had a very special revenge in store for him for rainchecking me.

I had picked a very popular dim sum stall for today.  So popular in fact that we had quite a wait before we ordered, during which my friend disappeared to pick up a drink and something to snack on. "Something to snack on" proved to be none other than the dreaded carrot cake.  It looked relatively inoffensive: three slightly charred white slabs lying in a puddle of chilli sauce.  The texture was deeply unpleasant - cloying, and oddly solid, like congealed wallpaper paste - the taste less so.  I still need to try the black variety (which looks a lot scarier) but the white one, although I wouldn't voluntarily eat it again, was not the worst thing ever.  I realise that this week I have knocked two things off my top 10 and not yet thrown up.  I am thrilled.

He also came back with sugarcane juice, which I've never had largely on the grounds that it contains a gajillion calories but which I figure today is justifiable on the basis that this meal could potentially result in a net negative calorie intake (involving parting company with both breakfast and lunch in one fell swoop).  The juice looks like bilge water but is (as you would expect) delicious.  I rejoice in having discovered what is surely the perfect restorative tonic for a hangover, and regret not having had this epiphany yesterday, when it would have been really quite useful.

We order five of the six things on the menu - working clockwise from bottom left in the picture on the right, shao mai (steamed pork dumplings), xia jiao (steamed prawn dumplings), char siu bao (barbecue pork buns), rice flour prawn rolls, and...

...drum roll...

...chickens' feet.







I'd never actually seen chicken feet up close before, and they are really, truly, horrifying.  The thought of putting one anywhere near my mouth, let alone chewing and swallowing it, makes me feel almost dizzy. I gingerly tweeze one between my chopsticks and lift it up for proper inspection.  The skin is soft and slimy, bumped and pitted, slithering gelatinously over the bones inside.  It has... claws.  How is it possible to eat such a thing?!

My companion is braver than I, immediately scooping one up and biting off a chunk.  He pulls a face, spits it out.  "Oh, that's not good.  That's really not good".  This is not encouraging, not least since he is from the Philippines, home of some of the worst food I have ever eaten (before this week, at least) and the progenitor of balut, about which the less said the better.

At this point an old Chinese woman sitting to my right butts in. "Why are you eating that?  You're not old!".  This seems a strange reason not to eat chicken feet, when there are so many more obvious and compelling possibilities to choose from, but apparently chicken feet are prescribed for the elderly and infirm, as they are believed to strengthen the legs.  My neighbour isn't done here though.  "You Europeans.  You don't eat feet.  You eat too much beef!  That's why you smell of beef.  You sweat like cows.  And it makes you fat!".  She continues,  "You shouldn't have bought those.  You won't eat them and they're very expensive.  Waste of money!" (they cost $2.30).

Almost as a distraction I marshal the courage to take a bite, and a tidal wave of nausea sweeps over me almost immediately.  I gag, my eyes water, I spit it out, coughing.  It's awful.  There's no way I can eat it.  I will be physically sick if I even try.  There is a moment when I genuinely think I will be sick anyway.

Everything else (particularly the bao, which really are fantastic) is ambrosia by comparison.  But then it would be, since the feet are comfortably the worst thing I've ever even contemplated eating.  I will try them again, but I don't have much confidence that I will ever be able to stomach this.  

So, that was week one. Next week I am going to man up for congee with century egg, with maybe a durian mooncake chaser if that doesn't take the edge off my hunger. So far I've not managed to find  frogs, geoducks, or black chicken in the Chinatown Complex so I may have to venture further afield to knock those off the list, but for the time being I'm going to cancel tonight's reservation at a Chinese restaurant and get myself a nice juicy steak.  Check in next weekend for an update and a dose of schadenfreude. Until then, bon appetit!

Yum!

A month of eating dangerously

Last Sunday was the eighth anniversary of our moving to Singapore.  We celebrated this auspicious occasion with a traditional Singapore dinner of  sausage and potato pie, washed down with a nice bottle of Valpolicella.  This was indubitably tasty, and had the benefit of being inhaled unquestioningly by the kids, but it just confirmed for me a feeling that has been growing for a while, that although we have lived in Asia a long time, we are still only really dipping our toes in the exotic waters of our adopted homeland.  And that it is time that changed.

I discussed this with Mr Hooker over another very Asian dinner of steak frites a few days later.  "I'm thinking", I said, "of experimenting on myself.  Gastronomically I mean.  I think it would be really interesting to eat in a hawker centre every day for a month.  A different food every day.  And, you know, push the boat out - try the weird stuff."  Mr H, fork suspended mid-air and wearing an expression that fell somewhere between concern and horror, diligently reminded me that (a) I am a huge control freak, particularly where culinary matters are concerned; (b) being truly omnivorous in Asia is not for the faint-hearted; and (c) when unfed, I am unsafe to approach without protective gear.  I told him that I had taken those matters into consideration (I had not), that I thought it would be funny (it may be, but probably not for me), and that in any event item (c) was other people's problem, not mine.  "Well", he said.  "You seem to have made your mind up.  But if you're going to do this, you really should do it properly.  No chickening out of the really gruesome stuff."

Well, that sure got me thinking: what are the local delights that I am most terrified of eating?  After much reflection, and in no particular order (other than noting that chicken feet cannot come anywhere other than first, and by some quite significant margin), I have honed a top ten hit parade of scariness, and I solemnly swear to do all I can to sample every one of the below over the course of the next four weeks:

Food?  Not food?

(1) Chicken feet.  I'm not sure that I need to elaborate on this.  Honestly what I'm struggling with most is the conceptual problem of how to ingest something that my brain (surely correctly) files firmly in the category of "not food".  That said, Monseiur Mangetout once ate an entire aeroplane and used to snack on lightbulbs, so I am sure I will muddle through.


(2) Frog porridge.  I've never eaten frog, and I don't like porridge.  Porridge in this context is not even the oatmeal version, but congee (rice boiled in water until it disintegrates), which would, in the absence of frogs, have its own place on this list - I have a peculiar horror of food that has no texture, and to me, anything capable of being described as "gruel" just conjures up images of Dickensian workhouses.  Apparently there are restaurants in Singapore that keep live frogs so you can pick your dinner before it goes to frog slaughter and ends up on your plate, which just goes to show that even if you think something can't get any worse, there's a good chance you are wrong.  I am willing to test my boundaries to meet this challenge but even I draw the line at having to catch my own lunch.

(3) Fish ball soup.  I know this doesn't sound that bad, but you should smell the stuff.  Seriously, it's like Oscar the Grouch's trash can filled with mackerel and left in the sun for a week.  And I have a lingering fear that the balls may be eyeballs.... or other balls.   *Shudders*.

Public bathroom floor optional

(4) Durian.  Ah, the King of Fruits, the partaking of which has been described as "like eating strawberry ice cream off the floor of a public toilet".  I ate a durian mooncake once (it was a work dinner, I didn't have a choice), and it was all I could taste for three days afterwards.  Come to think of it though, bearing in mind some of the other things I'm going to have to eat over the next four weeks, that may actually not be a bad thing.

(5) Fried carrot cake.  Don't let the name fool you.  Chai tow kway is not the carrot cake you are familiar with.  In fact, it has no carrot in it at all.  It is radish cake (I can't imagine what even that actually is, radish not jumping to mind as an optimal cake ingredient), fried with pickled radishes and turnips, eggs, and fish sauce.  Sometimes when I eat a really good piece of bread, I marvel at the fact that anyone ever had the idea to grind wheat, add yeast, and bake the result.  I have the same level of astonishment about the existence of chai tow kway, but for very different reasons.

A geoduck clam.  Scary, Mary.

(6) Geoduck clams.  This one deserves a picture.  These things are grotesque.  I could draw some comparisons but this is a family blog (kind of).  I don't think I need to go into details of why I have hitherto shrunk from eating this monstrosity.

(7) Pig organ soup.  I don't know what the organs are.  I don't want to know.  I am hoping beyond hope that they will be visually unidentifiable and I can just hold my nose, chew, swallow, and chalk this one up to experience.


(8) Century eggs.  I'm not a big fan of regular eggs, to be honest, so why anyone would bury one for several months before eating it is beyond me. Wikipedia's comment that "the yolk is a dark green to grey colour, with... an odour of sulphur and ammonia, while the white becomes a dark brown, translucent jelly with salty or little flavour" does not in any way dispel my lack of understanding, or mitigate my absolute lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of eating this.  Having looked again at the pictures, I think this one may take the silver medal for gruesomeness, behind the chicken feet.

(9) Fish head curry.  This is a big Singapore speciality which I've actually eaten before, but the difference this time round is that Mr Hooker's exhortation not to be a pussy about this exercise means that I am going to have to man up and eat the eyeballs.  Or one of them, at least.  Ick!

(10) Black chicken.  I'm sure (at least I hope) that it tastes like regular chicken, but those skinny little goosebumpy blue bodies in the chiller at the supermarket have always totally freaked me out - they look like they belong in a sci-fi movie.  Just ugh, frankly.

So, those are the stars of the show, but I'm sure there are other equivalently titillating delights to be discovered.  The venue I have chosen for this challenge, the Chinatown Complex hawker centre, is a truly terrifying place, heaving with people, cacophonous with the noise of delivering and chopping and cooking and serving and eating and living.  To the untrained eye it also looks absolutely filthy but this is Singapore, The Cleanest Place in the World (TM), so I know, by act of faith, that it cannot be.  It had better not be, or this will be a very short-lived experience.  Though on second thoughts, maybe that would not be such a bad thing.

So, it's going to be a big dinner for me tonight.  And a big breakfast tomorrow, come to that.  I will post my adventures on here on a weekly basis, and hopefully by the end of September I will have opened my eyes, tested my tastebuds (and gag reflex), and maybe even established some new local favourites. And if all else fails, bearing in mind the list above, it does at least seem possible that I will have lost a bit of weight!  Silver linings...