Singapore's TidbiTs

Barbequed marinated or seasoned meat on stick that some may likened like kebab. Meat is usually mutton, beef or chicken. Less common ones are babat (beef tripe) or prawn. Satay dipped in peanut sauce. Eaten with ketupat or rice cubes and slices of cucumbers and onions. The ketupat rice cubes (shaped like squarish cubes as can be seen in the below photo) are not glutinous rice but rice cakes packed traditionally in diamond-shaped woven palm leaf pouch then cut into rice cubes. The ketupat taste is similar to rice cakes in gado-gado, soto ayam or lontong . Thought to be originally from Indonesia, satay is commonly found in South-East countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and of course Singapore. You can find satay in most hawker or food centres and they are usually sold by the Malays. (L-R) Beef, chicken, mutton and babat (tripe) satay My favourite satay meat is mutton. Some may not like the smell of mutton, but I love mutton satay! When you put the meat, rice cube, cucumber an...

Lontong is a popular traditional malay dish, which can be eaten anytime, during breakfast, lunch, even dinner. The dish comprised of compressed rice cakes with vegetable curry-ish gravy (sayur lemak or lodeh) whose ingredients include cabbage (lots of it), long beans, fried tofu, carrots, and egg. The rice cakes or boiled compressed rice are similar to soto ayam or ketupat found in satay dish, except lontong is roundish due to the shape of the banana-leaf wrapped rice inside the metal mould, though these one can find the pre-cooked version in supermarkets and sundry stores. Sambal chilli or chilli paste is optional too for those who wants the added zest. But what is lontong without the sambal right? The sambal tend to be of the sweeter type, not the spicy sambal belacan type. Do you notice the serunding? Lontong would not be complete without the serunding! Serunding is the golden brown fried coconut flakes. You can get lontong like the one shown here for about $4.50. Egg is optional ...