Internal Kongbustion - A Love Note To Noodles

Our new columnist is a physician who is also a certified petrolhead and one of the Torque team’s core contributors.

- Dr Kong Yongyao

HI. My name is Yongyao and I’m a vehiculoholic. For my first column in Singapore’s No. 1 automotive magazine, I shall talk about… wanton mee.

This delightfully simple dish is a monument to hawker cuisine. A pure, unpretentious concoction of yellow noodles, succulent dumplings and just a hint of tangy spice. Not a single ingredient in there has a fancy-schmancy pronunciation unrelated to the way its name is spelt. It’s usually pretty cheap, too.

Sure, a three-star Robuchon degustation at someone else’s expense is fantastic once in a while. Mostly though, there is no meal more satisfying, nor one as soothing to a frazzled constitution, than the elemental goodness of wanton mee, enjoyed in an unassuming corner of Chomp Chomp Food Centre in your slippers.

Unparalleled beauty in simplicity, I say.

Speaking of frazzled constitutions, I love being a physician. But occasionally, when patients do badly, work gets to me.

Our cars are nestled in the dim flicker of a dungeon, and the exit to the hospital carpark is quite literally a hole in the ground.

Sometimes, ejecting oneself from that orifice like a phoenix bursting from rancid bowels can be one of life’s most liberating, consoling feelings.

That euphoria is anticipated and relished, for delivering me to my wanton mee escape is the perfect vehicular metaphor for the dish itself.

My engine-at-the-front, power-to-the-back, analogue, manual-transmission, delightfully simple, little Mazda MX-5.