If there’s one thing that can unite Singaporeans of all creeds and cultures, it’s the misrepresentation of food. We saw how folks got triggered after seeing Time Out London ruin xiao long baos, and hell knows how many others are sick and tired of explaining why “Singapore Noodles” can’t be found here.
Welp, get ready to be triggered once more with yet another Viral Facebook Video With Overlaid Text. INSIDER food recently took a look into Chomp Chomp NYC, a restaurant in New York that claims to sell authentic Singaporean fare. And it really does — its menu consists of homegrown classics such as popiah, murtabak, nasi lemak and hokkien mee.
But for some reason, INSIDER food’s clip failed to portray this, and it got some of the facts wrong about Singapore’s hawker food while at it. Behold:
Singaporeans weren’t happy, obviously.
But what exactly went wrong? We don’t have any beef with Chomp Chomp NYC trying to cater to American tastes with fusion food — but when you try to pass these dishes off as authentic hawker food, we’d have to slam our tissue paper packets on the table and say “Nay!”. Some fact-checking is sorely needed, our fellow Singaporean food enthusiasts.
Never did we thought we’ll see the day when Roti Jala/Roti Kirai gets a hipsteriffic geometry treatment. But hey, it’s 2017, you do you.
Ok we take it back — you guys fucking ruined Roti Jala. Looks like someone used a squiggle wiggle writer to drizzle the batter. This is how the dish is supposed to look, and this is what you’re supposed to use.
Don’t know which Singaporean STREET FOOD this one’s supposed to be (roast chicken for chicken rice maybe?) but damn bruh that looks good. Bird up.
Nah, we don’t usually pile our mee onto keropok (crackers), but don’t hate on this move. Surely you guys have played around with food too; how many of us haven’t dipped our fries into vanilla soft-serve?
Not really? Singapore’s street food are served in night markets, or more commonly referred to as the pasar malam. They’re the OG pop-up markets where actual street snacks such as Ramly Burgers, roti john, octopus balls, vadai, and other savoury nightcaps are sold. Chicken rice, mee pok, etc, are proper dishes you need to sit down at tables and enjoy. Bless you if you’ve ever tried eating curry fish head while standing up.
That’s a crazy claim — you mean each hawker centre stall only sells ONE dish? Inaccurate. Vendors specializes in more than one dish — they can be amazing at both carrot cake and char kway teow, for example. They’d go out of business if they just stuck to one dish.
Chili crab cheese fries ain’t a hawker centre staple, as much as we want it to be. Even if you do want to replicate Singapore’s Western food stall experience, you need to use soggy-ass crinkle cut fries, dammit.
Nope, crab omelettes aren’t typical hawker food either — the closest thing resembling that would be oyster omelettes. Crab omelettes sound delicious though.
Blasphemy! They’re separate dishes (of differing cuisines) that are amazing on their own, but no, this fusion is nowhere close to “authentic” Singaporean hawker food.
