well read - Singapore Food Festival 2011
Written by Kevin F. Cox
The Singapore Food Festival 2011 promises to set your taste buds ablaze with curries and spicy delights from the best cooks on the island. And these excellent books will tell you about what you’re eating.
From July 15 to 24 more than 60 stalls are cooking up this island city/state’s greatest natural resource: food!
This year’s theme is all about curry and spices – a common theme across most ethnic groups in Singapore – with fiery classics that have helped define this foodie nation. And even if heat is not your favourite condiment there’s plenty here for any palate, reflecting Singapore’s diverse culinary offerings. You can take a cruise up the Singapore River while being served an authentic tiffin meal – in those round steel stacked bowls, held in place by a handle, and each containing savoury lunches just like those encountered daily in Mumbai and Delhi.
Or follow Little India’s Heritage Trail through the most authentic Indian community this side of the subcontinent; only cleaner and where you can drink the water wherever you go. Plan the journey so you can join in the longest table of dinner guests ever – more than 1,200 – and be a part of history as you dine on authentic Indian cuisine.
Makansutra (Singapore) 2011
Edited by K. F. Seetoh
If ever there was ‘the bible’ of local food in Singapore this is it. Edited by undisputed ‘Makan Guru’ Seetoh, this is the go-to [eating] guide for what to eat in Singapore’s world-famous hawker centres, down its narrow streets, and in its shopping malls. Covering every kind of local food on the island, Seetoh explains – and shows in excellent photographs – what each dish is and where to get it. If you want to eat well here, don’t leave home without it.
MAKANSUTRA
The End of Char Kway Teow and Other Hawker Mysteries
By Dr. Leslie Tay
Over 90,000 monthly visitors click on Dr. Tay’s site, ieatishootipost. Now Tay has brought the blog to print, with a collection of essays on 40 classic Singaporean dishes. Reworking and compiling countless postings into dish-specific chapters, Tay presents culinary, cultural, and sensory descriptions of the food and where to find the best of it. With spectacular food photographs, this is a gorgeous reference or coffee-table book.
EPIGRAM
Singapore Chic
By Adrianna Tan
In Singapore’s ever-evolving landscape it’s necessary to keep up with the chic places to shop, drop, and, of course, eat. This colourful tri-annual guide captures the essence of where to see and be seen in Singapore, with a heavy focus on the coolest restaurants, ‘boutiqueiest’ shops and hotels, and grooviest clubs and bars. Organised by neighbourhoods, it is packed with tips on food and culture and loaded with dazzling photographs of Asia’s most cutting-edge metropolis.
EDITIONS DIDIER
Curry
Edited by Jeni Wright
Think you know about curry? Think again. Ranging from simple to sophisticated, ancient to modern, curry is a singular name for a global food. This compilation of curry recipes and techniques is like no other before it. Organised by geographic prominence, it describes in words – by a masala mix of authors – and beautiful photographs the endless journey curry has taken and gives many concise, easy-to-follow recipes of this amazingly diverse cuisine.
DORLING KINDERSLEY
In The Footsteps of Stamford Raffles
By Nigel Barley
In Singapore the name Raffles – symbolic of strength, ambition, and discovery – defines the nation’s early heritage. Barley traces the founding father’s journey to places most important to him, seeing from a modern traveller’s perspective what Raffles saw in the beginning. Barley’s account of his own journey shows the path Raffles forged in establishing Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia as nerve centres of the region.
MONSOON BOOKS
Singapore
Distance: 6,196 km
Flight Time: 7 hours, 50 minutes
Frequency: 2 flights a day
