Eat and be merry

About a month after checking out Osaka and Kyoto with Miles, I was back in the air for another work trip to Singapore. It had been about six months since my last time there, and I had one goal in mind (outside of my work responsibilities): eat everything I wasn’t able to earlier in the year.

Back in February I did a full body physical, and the results were not great – in fact my doctor said I needed to make “drastic” changes to my lifestyle. This included sweeping changes to my diet that basically excluded everything tasty and delicious about Singaporean food. This obviously put a damper on not only my two work outings to Singapore in March and May, but also our family holidays in Seoul and Shanghai during that period as well (I have a pretty good list of salad spots in the Singapore CBD now though).

Subsequent visits to my doctor showed I had made quite good progress on all my key indicators, however, such that I was basically able to get everything back down to normal and even optimal levels. This didn’t quite give me carte blanche to go hog wild again with my meals, but it did give me a little more flexibility to stray outside of my diet once in a while. I decided this Singapore trip was that once in a while.

Loo’s Hainanese Curry Rice at Tiong Bahru Market has haunted my dreams for the last couple years, and it was one of my first stops once I had a break in between meetings. Another day I went out to Serangoon Garden Market Hawker Centre to eat lunch at Garden Street Kway Chap – a recommendation from an SGX executive I had just finished interviewing. Kway chap, which is essentially a plate of pork innards and duck meat served with flat rice noodles in a rich, herbal broth, is definitely not good for those watching their cholesterol, but it’s my number one guilty pleasure whenever I’m in town. On my last night, after I had already had dinner at a friend’s place, I went over to Tekka Centre in Little India to get a hearty murtabak from AR Rahman Royal Prata. I almost regretted it when I saw the actual size of the dish, but no, no regrets.

I’m too old to eat like I did in my 20s and 30s, and I’m glad I’m finally at a reasonable level of health for my age, but eschewing all the good stuff in a city like Singapore is just too much for me. I already endured through a few stints in town without being able to indulge in all the amazing hawker centre goodies, and that’s really not how I want to experience Singapore anymore. So I’ll continue to watch what I eat and run my 25-30 km a week along Hong Kong’s beautiful harbourfront because I do care about being healthy for myself and for my family, but also because I want to be able to enjoy the bounty of Asia’s food hubs whenever I can too.