Savor Singapore

It was with glee that I read the invitation - a dinner at Shangri-la Mactan's delish Cowrie Cove, to launch the Singaporean Food Festival.

Now, despite what many say, I've always had a soft spot for Singapore. This is the place where there's nothing lurid in the front pages of their newspapers except for (gasp) low test scores for their schoolchildren and, as always, its testy relationship with neighbor Malaysia.

Despite the pervasive belief that persist in this country about how tourists in Singapore gets arrested just for chewing gum, it's gotten pretty liberalized over the past few years. It's much more tourist-friendly, and it's been working hard to engender safety in its streets. So if you want to do a bit of streetwalking at night (ahem), Singapore is the place to be.

It's actually at the night market where you encounter a lot of interesting food. My Singapore-based brother Franz always makes sure that we eat at the open-air hawker's market, with its pungent smells and clanking woks, to gorge on sate slathered with peanut sauce. A million times better than the city's ubiquitous food courts, which I avoid like the plague.

So, there I was, zipping off to Shang to relive those frenzied feeding moments. Hosted by the amiable Kong Kum Hoong, head honcho for regional air fleet (and Singapore Airlines' younger sister) Silk Air, the dinner was a smash hit. As usual, I was late bordering on impolite, and the guests were midway through the appetizers when I arrived.

I grabbed a Kueh Pie Tee (carrots and turnips in a shell) before saying hello to the family of arguably the most famous Cebuano at the moment - Kenneth Cobonpue, designer of Brad Pitt's love bed and Shiloh's crib. Madame Betty Cobonpue and Kenneth's pretty sister, Yvonne, were already digging into the Singapore Rojak (some strange combination of turnips, cucumber, pineapple, peanuts and sweet chili paste), and they offered me a bit to taste. Hmmm.

Over to my other side, Jing Ramos, Editor in Chief of Zee Magazine, was devouring the famous Singapore chili crab. The huge crustaceans had been flown in from Sri Lanka, and promptly tossed into a spicy chili sauce before landing on our table. Unofficially Singapore's national dish, Jing couldn't resist tearing into the crabs with his fingers, at which point the local paparazzi inconveniently decided to show up and take pictures and videos of everybody. Jing, of course, refused to have his picture taken.

Also present was the dish we know as 'Hainanese chicken,' which is known in Sing as, simply, 'chicken rice.' To compromise on this conundrum, the hotel's press release tagged this as 'Hainanese chicken rice.' Now there can't be room for errors. This dish is just super soft boiled chicken served with rice dipped into the pork and chicken bone stock, and accompanied by various hot sauces.

My favorite was the super delicious lamb chops (and society chronicler Honey Loop agrees with me on this) but unfortunately, I was too lazy to ask for the dish's name. I had no choice but to ask the Province's First Daughter, Carissa Garcia, over at the far end of the table, to shovel a few more pieces into my plate. (If you want to take me up on the lamb, you can probably bleat at Sharon Samarista, the hotel's new Director of Communications for details on the name and maybe, even how to prepare it- although I could see that her attention wasn't on the lamb but on the Laksa, which is a coconut soup with prawn, fish cake, and bihon rice noodles.)

We ended the meal with the great desserts made ready by the two chefs imported for the occasion, and Mrs. Cobonpue ordered a cup of Teh Tarik, which is a diet-busting, butter-scotch tasting black tea sweetened with thick condensed milk.

Because of all the diverse Indian, Chinese and European influences that have poured into the tiny island state, you can expect Singaporean food to be novel and maybe, just a little bit strange. But I fervently believe that one of the best ways to get to know another culture is to dive into their food, and definitely, you could do worse than Singaporean cuisine. Shang should be a good place to eat this long weekend.