For way too long, our local foodie Instagram landscape has been clogged with stylistic shots of atas dishes — a perfectly plated serving of dry-aged wagyu balanced atop quinoa, macarons and deconstructed steamed hams. That’s what atas folks eat right? IDK.
Just because local fare easily available to the average Joe/Joette may not look all that pretty doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the same aesthetic and esteem as their pretentious peers. We’ve been saying that for years!
Professional photographer Juliana Tan knows what’s up. The one thing she missed most during her travels abroad was neither family nor friends — it was local cuisine.
“I’d choose Teochew mui over burgers any day. Or cai fan for that matter. Or prata (Crane Road). Or kaya toast with teh-o-peng-siu-dai and two soft-boiled eggs. You get the drift,” she wrote on Facebook.
Determined to vignette Singaporean gastronomic classics when she got back home, she hit up her cook friend for a photo project that saw them capturing the likes of mee rebus, Indian rojak, carrot cake and many more in their vivid, elegant glory. Behold:
Tan then took her love for familiar fare even further by turning them into intricate tapestries made out of her food shots:
If you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a mutton briyani we need to go inhale right now.
