SilkAir meets the Press at Tim Fu

A select group of media personalities was invited by SilkAir, the Regional Wings of Singapore Airlines at Tim Fu Seafood House last Thursday, April 12, for a uniquely Singapore experience. Voted 7-time Best Regional Airline by the Travel Trade Gazette (TTG) Asia, 2006, SilkAir flies daily to Singapore and onward to 88 destinations.

Singapore always brings back memories about a three-hour drive from Kuala Lampur, passing through the length of Malaysia, the mountains green with vegetation of palm, cacao and rubber trees. Compare this to a drive through the Trans Central Highway in Cebu, the trees that have survived in our mountains are as many as the hairs on top of my, ahem, head!

After crossing a short bridge, passports presented, and then, there was Singapore. An independent city-state since 1965, the Republic of Singapore has a population of nearly five million citizens, consisting of three ethnic groups: 77 percent Chinese, 14 percent Malay and seven percent Indian.

Such ethnic diversity is reflected in the Island State''s cuisine and my ever-loyal followers know that food is definitely my passion.

We ate fish head curry in a nearby kampong (village) served on top of banana leaves. The grouper head was huge, dressed in a gold and reddish sauce effectively concealing the pockets of delicious gelatinous meats. This was my initiation to authentic Singapore cuisine and in the next few days, I hopped from one hawker''s center to the next one.

The food had such incredible variety like Indian, Malaysian, and the ethnic dishes of the regional Chinese cuisine like Fujian, Cantonese, Teochow, Szechuan, Hakka, and Nonya (blend of Chinese and Malay cuisine). This diversity led the Singaporeans to coin a new word, makan, for this gastronomic promiscuity. After savouring the bah kut teh (spiced pork rib soup), I developed a taste of fried hokkien mee (noodles, spiced by sharp smelling shrimp paste, blacan),"carrot cake" (dish of soft radish fried with egg and garlic), yong tau foo (steamed bean curd stuffed with fish cake), Teochow braised goose and Amoy popiah (fresh lumpia), Sate ayam (chicken barbecue with satay or peanut sauce) is best paired with a glass of really cold beer.

Back to Tim Fu Seafood House (phone 231-0988, 231-0998), located in F. Cabahug St. (near Castle Peak Hotel), 10-course Media Lunch began with the Stone Fish Soup. This stonefish has a poisonous dorsal spine and since it looks like a rock underneath shallow waters when stationary, the results can be disastrous. Remember the movie, Blue Lagoon, starring Brooke Shields? But when the fish is cooked in soup stock, the results can be pleasurable.

Then the following dishes were served in rapid succession: Oat Meal Shrimps, Tim Fu Native Chicken, Fried Sea Bass, Mango Chicken, Sea Cucumber Hot Pot and Kangkong, Malaysian Style.

If you think lunch was done after all that, then you have failed to understand that this is a ten-course lunch! This is Singaporean style and they served Chili Crab. They also like to end a meal with noodles (long life and friendship), then desserts (this time a large platter of fresh fruits). Indeed, your favorite food columnist real works very hard to taste all those delicious food! But I have my preferences and the Oat Meal Shrimps followed by the Sea Cucumber Hot Pot were exceptional.

SilkAir flies to Balikpapan (Borneo), Chengdu, Chiang Mai, Chonqing, Da Nang, Kochi, Kota Kinabalau, Kutching, Kunming, Langkawi, Lombok, Manado, Medan, Palembang, Phnom Penh, Phuket, Shenzen, Siem Reap, Solo, Surabaya, Thiruvananthapuram, Xiamen, Yangon, Cebu, Davao and, of course, Singapore.

Whew! So many flights and I have travelled to only five destinations, including Cebu, Davao and Singapore. Next month, SilkAir will include Kaohsiung in their destinations. You can contact Cynthia Militante, Senior Sales Executive (phone 232-621, mobile 0919-5203358), for your travel needs. My bags are packed, always ready to travel and all I need is that ever-elusive paper. It is sometimes called money; I call it a plane ticket!