The Bizarre Truth (18 page)

So there I am, the American sober guy, surrounded by beautiful Indian A-listers, downing booze like frat boys on spring break. I was nervous. I mean, I didn’t know anybody at the party, and everybody looked so fabulous. Within no time, the Kashmiri knack for hospitality kicked in, and I started getting into the groove. The evening ended up being a real learning experience in Indian high society. I didn’t just learn about food, I learned how to pose for a picture. Rohit, who regards events as an art form, hired a photographer to document everything. Apparently, a great photo involves leaning out over your waist slightly and tilting your head down just enough to hide a double chin. And you must stare down the camera, looking very severe. It’s quite something.

After about an hour and a half, we finally sat down for dinner. Rohit cleared out his entire living room, outfitted with bright lights and a Cashmerian silk carpet. Everyone was seated on the
floor, in groups of three or four, on top of gorgeous pillows in a semicircle, where we began with the first ritual of the evening. A Tash-t-Nari, an ornate silver basin, is passed by the attendants for guests to wash their hands. This ritual is less about hygiene than it is about symbolizing the cleansing of the soul and ridding yourself of negative energies.

Next, large serving dishes are piled high with heaps of rice, then divided into four quadrants with seekh kebabs, which are made up of ground, tubular meat sausages that have been skewered and grilled. It’s perfect for this kind of shared meal—four guests get to eat off the same plate, but everyone has their own personal zone. Four pieces of different types of purees and yogurt sauces and sides of barbecued lamb ribs sit in the platter as well. The meal is accompanied by yogurt that is garnished with Kashmiri saffron and different salads and pickles and dips, and you just kind of start eating the moment the food arrives.

One of the cornerstones of the wazwan is making a whole lamb part of the process, ensuring that every piece of the lamb is utilized. The most notable ingredients in Kashmiri cuisine are lamb and mutton. More than thirty varieties of lamb are raised in that part of the world, and this multicourse meal makes use of the animal in nearly every dish. It’s even considered a sacrilege in some serious Kashmir homes to serve any dishes that are based around lentils or grains during the feast. We were offered handfuls of fried lamb ribs dusted in turmeric, chilies, and lime. It was deliciously fatty and rich, which from a flavor standpoint I absolutely love. However, and I kid you not, after two or three of these mini racks of ribs I was almost full. At that point, it was almost midnight; I’m ready to go to sleep. But the next thing you know, the food starts pouring in.

Every time you finished a course, more food would arrive. Fried lotus stems. Cottage cheese squares. Bowls of chilies and radishes and walnut chutneys. A parade of four or five different stewed lamb dishes, one after another after another. Lamb curry cooked
in milk. Jellied bouillon made from the meat and bones. Eggplant and apple stew. Rogan josh, a very spicy lamb stew. Another lamb stew made with tree resin. Mustard oil-based roast lamb. Cockscombs. Saffron-infused lamb. But the highlight was
gushtab
. I know this doesn’t sound very luxurious, but I think of this hallmark dish as lamb bologna balls. Food books describe them as balls of chopped lamb with spices, and cooked in oil, milk, and curds. That doesn’t even begin to describe the process. The chefs take raw lamb, a bit of garlic, and some mild spices and begin to pound it with a mortar and pestle, adding handfuls of minced fat as they go. I spoke to one of the wazas, who explained how they literally pound this stuff for hours, basically fluffing it up, then demolishing it into a paste. They don’t pass it through a sieve, but it literally takes on the texture of a hot dog. It sounds almost like I’m denigrating it to say it tastes like bologna, but it tastes like the best lamb bologna you ever ate. So light, with so much fat beaten into it. It holds a ball shape so you can cut it with a knife, and even though it has a hot dog-like chew to it, it also has this melting, unctuous quality—it disappears down your throat as quickly as you’re chewing it. It’s one of the most glorious dishes that I have ever tasted.

We had thirty-six courses, and finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I needed to be thrown in a wheelbarrow and rolled back to the hotel. I was the first to arrive and I was also the first to leave. Despite the warnings to slow down and not eat it all at once, I pushed the pedal to the metal. You have to pace yourself. But of course, how can you pace yourself when the first thing you taste is lamb braised in chutney, with fresh plums, lime juice, and spices. It tasted unlike anything I’ve had before, and I probably will never experience it again. Holding back is way too tall an order for someone like me.

I can also have a hard time when people are drinking all night long and I don’t drink at all. I’m okay after the first round of stories, and I’m just fine when the voice volume increases. Usually, I’m good for the second go-round of the same stories, but when
you’ve heard the story so many times you could tell it yourself, it’s time to head home. And so I wandered out to the streets of Delhi looking for a cab, desperate for a few hours to lie down to try and digest this amazing meal. Nobody loves lamb more than I do, but the next day, sort of like a tequila hangover, I swore to myself,
I am never eating lamb again
. I had lamb fat coming out of my pores for days. Of course, with such an amazing array of lamb dishes available in that city, it was only a matter of time before I caved on that one.

ew Yorkers, Chicagoans, let’s face it, really most Americans, think that they know what characteristics make for the best hot dog. Some say it’s all about the sauerkraut or relish. Others think it’s Heinz ketchup and yellow mustard. And then there is that group of people who believe one drop of the fancy red or yellow stuff completely ruins a tube steak. But at least we can all agree that encased ground meat served on a bun is the foundation for a basic hot dog.

Well, Laksa is to parts of Southeast Asia what hot dogs are to America. This dish is one of the most popular soups served in that region, especially Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. There are many different styles of preparation, and everyone has an opinion about what makes one bowl better than another. Laksa is a spicy noodle soup that originates from the Peranakan culture, a heritage often referred to as Baba or Nonya. As a group, the Peranakans formed when the Malay Indians merged with the Chinese in the eighteenth century. Many different dishes symbolize Peranakan culture, most notably
otak-otak
, a sausage made of ground and seasoned forcemeat and steamed in thin portions in bamboo, banana, or other edible leaves. It can also be grilled or baked. To some people this is the most popular and iconic of all the traditional Peranakan foods, but my favorite regional dish is Laksa.

To understand this dish is to understand two things: One, it’s an easy, cheap meal in a bowl, with lots of noodles and shellfish in the broth. Malays, the Singaporeans, and Southeast Asian food
freaks argue about what makes for authentic and honest Laksa. To me, that sort of culinary dialogue often misses the point. You can argue about whether or not crispy shallots belong on top, or whether little strings of cold omelet should be julienned and stirred in, or how thick the broth should be, whether it should be thin and sour (as it often is in Thailand), or thick, rich, and creamy with a sturdy foundation of coconut milk. And let’s not even get started on noodle options. To me, these are all specious arguments. Who cares? All those soups belong in the Laksa family. It’s like arguing over pizza. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s from a grocer’s freezer or a neighborhood wood-fired-oven joint, it’s all pizza as long as it tastes good to someone. I’ve often thought that what propelled Laksa to such incredible heights can largely be attributed to the jump in American tourism over the last forty or fifty years, where gobs of foreign visitors came back to their hometowns raving about the best meal-in-a-bowl. The obsession with this high-energy, big-flavor dish reached staggering proportions because the combination of flavors is just simply off the charts. When it intersected with a large enough group of new diners-well, let’s just say that a tipping point was an understatement. Any traveler who goes to Singapore and doesn’t have a bowl of Laksa might as well call the trip a waste of time. Once you have tried it, you become consumed with it, scouring foodie chat rooms and Web sites to discover who has the best Laksa in town, and not just the one where you live. We all have our opinions. I certainly have mine, but we’ll get to that later.

I’ve been dying to get to Singapore for as long as I can remember, and finally had my chance in 2008. On most trips, the first glimpse of a country comes as your plane prepares for landing. Sometimes it’s what you see through the window; other times it’s what you hear over the intercom. This is especially pertinent when landing in Singapore. It’s not your polite “Please fasten your seat belt. Thank you for flying Delta Airlines.” Instead, it’s a kindly auditory welcome mat stating, “It is 98 degrees Fahrenheit, 34
degrees Celsius this morning in Singapore. Please mind overhead compartments, as luggage items may have shifted during flight. And please remember that swearing, spitting on the ground, or the use or importation of illegal drugs, even for personal consumption, is punishable by death.” It’s the kind of thing that makes you gasp the first time you hear it.

The city-state of Singapore is certainly a unique place. It’s a very small island, roughly four times the size of Washington, D.C., with about four million inhabitants. Singapore is one of few city-states in the world. There is Monaco and the Vatican City, which is certainly rarefied company. Singapore, which boasts a gorgeous natural harbor with very deep water, is strategically positioned in the Pacific Ocean among the low-hanging Southeast Asian countries. Take a look at a map and you can see why this was the perfect place for the British East India Company to send one of their most aggressive agents, a gentleman named Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles. He set foot on the island in 1819 to create a British trade port, intending to compete with the Dutch, who were Europe’s big trading force in the region. It was founded as a British Colony in 1819, but joined what’s called the Malaysian Federation of States in 1963. Currently, Singapore is predominantly populated by people of Chinese extraction, who make up 76 percent of the total population. About 15 percent are the indigenous Malay people, and about 8 percent are Indian. I was shocked to discover Indians made up such a small percentage of the Singaporean population, given that Indian culture is so vibrant in Singapore and quite predominant when it comes to the local zeitgeist. You can’t turn around in the street without seeing the wide swath of Indian influence in Singapore. Considering the country’s diverse cultural makeup, it’s easy to see how—and I admit, I hate this term—one of the world’s most famously original fusion cuisines was born here. English, Dutch, and European influence on a Chinese and Malay culture, with free-flowing Indian exposure, spices, food styles, curries—this is the stuff that creates the ultimate hybrid food palette.

Eating has become a national pastime in this modern, bustling country. People eat all day long, and so my first job was to find out where most people do their chowing down. My priority was to check out the hawker centers, and I do love me some street food. I think it’s the best way to eat, because you have so many options. Some stalls are more like restaurants, offering five or six dishes, while others specialize in one dish, like barbecued ribs, stewed mutton, or otak-otak.

I was ecstatic to visit People’s Park, which boasts hundreds of stalls. I also checked out the Zion River Food Side Center and Adam’s Road Food Center, which is in a Muslim neighborhood, so all the food there is Halal. People’s Park is the one that I returned to on several occasions, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s right in the center of town. Many Americans get flustered in hawker stall environments in foreign countries, freaking out about whether or not they’ll be hovering over a toilet for hours after having a few bites of street food. I wouldn’t stress too much about that in Singapore. These hawker centers are spotless. Singapore has a deservedly well-earned reputation for strict laws (I mean, they outlaw
gum
, for Pete’s sake), so the extreme cleanliness of the country is not surprising. This is a country in pursuit of excellence. They want to be the best when it comes to a hybrid food culture. They want to be the most crime-free country on the planet. They want to be the cleanest city in the world. Given some of the places I visit and the things I eat on
Bizarre Foods
, it might surprise you that cleanliness around food is extremely important to me. Not just from a visual standpoint—I actually get concerned about my well-being when I see a lot of filth and degradation. That’s no environment to be preparing food in. Sadly, that’s how much of the world operates—including the United States, which is ironically one of the filthiest food countries with respect to kitchens. Everybody hems and haws about what to eat while traveling, but I’d be more concerned about picking up a bug from something at a giant American chain restaurant than at a Singaporean hawker stall.