SPICEGASM.COM My travel tales and food hunting

Whenever I eat a certain kind of food, I appraise the food mentality in my head whether the food can be accepted by the white folks. I love introducing new tastes to my Caucasian friends as our food taste totally the opposite. Sometimes what we find totally delicious might be totally gross to the Westerners.

Everybody in Singapore and Malaysia knows what Bah Kut Teh is. It’s a kind soup dish where pork ribs and spare parts like stomach and intestine are the main ingredient. The soup however has a little bit of herbal and Chinese medicine taste to it. Almost all pork lovers in Singapore love this dish but that cannot be said for Westerners.

I am guilty of being to eager to play host to a Belgium friend 1o years ago. I love introducing food to friends and I made the mistake of not understanding their taste buds. I took him to the best Bah Kut Teh joint in town and swore that he will love the food. He struggled to eat the food and I didn’t even notice. We got closer as friends and one day we were casually talking about how sometimes when people meet for the first time, the relationship is a little bit formal. You normally do not tell people what you like and dislike when you first meet.

Since we are so close now and we can utter words like “F@#K YOU” to each other in our daily conversation, he reminded me of that Bah Kut Teh incident. He almost fainted when he saw those intestine floating in the pot. He nevertheless try to eat it but hated it so much. He did not dare to say he hated it as I was being a sensitive prick and telling him how good the food is. Now that we are close, he told me the boiling tubes ( referring to the pork intestine ) are one of the worst food he ever tried. We just laughed about the incident and it made me more aware of introducing food to friends.

Now I normally introduce food to Western friends by stages.Sweet and sour pork, Egg Foo Yong, Chop Suey and many more are considered white man friendly food and after they tasted all of that, you can take some risk in trying to let them taste the more challenging stuff. Or better yet, wait till the day you can say Fuck You to your friends and only then you try to introduce them those funky food that you love so much. Oh and by the way, my  Belgian friend still doesn’t like Bah Kut Teh after all these years.

This is not Bah Kut Teh, this dish is known as Kway Chap. The soup is almost similar to Bah Kut Teh but instead of rice, Kway Teow is used and served along with almost every part of the pork. Bean curd and egg are normally used as well. The pork is normally cooked stew Chinese style.

This is the Kway Chap stall that I ordered my food in ABC food court in Jalan Bukit Merah. I need to get the habit of asking the stall owner of his address as he graciously allowed me to take his pictures while he is at work. Just look at all the varieties of food in the big pot. He can normally sell all that in a day without the help of Caucasian customers.

Close up of the Kway Chap vendor’s goodies. I am very certain that Filipino will love Kway Chap as I am quite familiar with the Pinoy taste buds.