Call it a longing for nostalgic flavours or a greater recognition for home-grown talents, modern Southeast Asian cuisine looks set to be more than a flash in the pan.
A fascination with our diverse cultures and how this has stirred our cuisines, as well as our food definitions and preparations are just some of the starting points for the bevy of inquisitive chefs who are driving an evolution of Southeast Asian cuisines. Their aim for thrusting new representations of Singaporean, Filipino, Malaysian or Thai fare to the aces is not so much about shunning their respective native cookery, but rather a way of trickling down respect to its very roots.
To set themselves apart, there are many restaurants that offer deconstructed classics and reimagined staples done "differently" occasionally with mixed results. It’s difficult to strike a balance between the homespun and the out-of-the-box. But it takes places at the establishments profiled in this story, run by people who dare to be inventive with their traditional food without losing sight of the familiar flavours we crave.
These chefs take the conventional and make it confounding, achieving a fine balance that can so easily tip to campy. In their clever hands, they have successfully spun a neo-cuisine that has international foodies talking.
Sin(ful) Appeal
Restaurateur and self-taught chef Shen Tan is a true trailblazer and paragon of following your passion. Ditching her career in marketing during the global financial crisis of 2008, she turned to her love for cooking and opened up a hawker food stall at Maxwell Centre despite not having a real clue about the food business. But Tan was set on a mission— to update Singaporean cuisine for the 21st century.
Esta historia es de la edición September 2016 de WINE&DINE.
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Esta historia es de la edición September 2016 de WINE&DINE.
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New Blood
The next-generation is breathing new life into the forgotten art of spice-mixing, peppering the traditional trade with renewed ideas and fresh perspectives.
Sharing Is Caring
Compared to its flagship at Serene Centre, Fat Belly Social at Boon Tat Street is a classier and bolder affair, in more than one sense.
Nutmeg's Role In Singapore's History
From tales of it being used to ward off the plague in mid-1300s Europe to one of the ingredients in dessert, we have all known, tasted, or at least heard of nutmeg. But not many know of the spice’s role in Singapore’s history.
New And Improved
The ever-profound chef-owner Kenjiro ‘Hatch’ Hashida finds more room, three to be exact, to express a Ha Ri philosophy at Hashida Singapore’s new location at Amoy Street.
Pairing Spice-Driven Cuisines With Wine
Pairing spice-driven cuisines with wine has long been a challenge but with a little imagination, it doesn’t have to be.
Let Land Grow Wild
Niew Tai-Ran has worn many hats: aeronautical engineering major, investment banker, avid surfer, and, for the last 14 years, winemaker. Discover how this Malaysia-born, Singapore-native is championing the “do-nothing farming” philosophy at his vineyard in Oregon.
The South Asian Misnomer
Incredibly diverse and varied than most know, Indian food is far more intriguing than butter chicken or thosai. Here is a crash course on the extensive cuisine from region to region, recognisable for the seemingly infinite ways of using spices.
Keepers Of The Spice Trade
From its glory days along trade routes to pantry staples all over the world, spices have become so commonplace that we’ve taken them for granted. For these three trailblazers, however, spice is their livelihood and motivation: Langit Collective working with indigenous rural farming communities in Malaysia; IDH’s Sustainable Spice Initiative; and chef Nak’s one-woman mission to share forgotten Khmer cuisine.
Sugar, Spice And Everything Nice
Like food, spices bring vibrancy and variety to alcoholic beverages. Surfacing in unexpected ways on the palate, find everything from cumin to tamarind, cloves to cardamom enriching these drinks.
Building Blocks From The Archipelago
For the smorgasbord of dishes found in Indonesian cuisine, it is a little known secret that the modest bumbu, in all its variants, is the bedrock of such flavourful fare.
