Being so far from home sweet home which is good old Singapore 新加坡, I can only salivate 流口水 when I see this pic of mee siam 米暹, lontong and curry puff 咖喱卜 ... drool drool. KT and I tried the lontong at one of the NY chinatown's malaysian restaurant and trust me we were NOT impressed at all.
Mee Siam 米暹 - which means "Siamese noodle", is a dish of thin rice noodles (vermicelli) in spicy, sweet and sour light gravy. It is one of the popular one-dish meal in Singapore. A "dry" version, which is essentially stir-frying the rice noodles with the same spices used in the "gravy" version, are also popular among the Chinese in Singapore.
Originally a Thai dish, it became a Nyonya specialty that is now prepared by Indians, Malays as well as Chinese stalls in Singapore with slight variation in ingredients. It is served with salted soy beans, dried bean curd 豆干, boiled egg鸡蛋and tamarind, garnished with spring onions and Chinese chives.
Lontong - Traditionally, the rice is rolled and compressed in banana leaves, as seen above. It is also known as Nasi Impit [also spelt Nasi Himpit]. In certain places, Lontong is a dish itself - where the rice roll is cut up into bite-sized pieces and served in a coconut vegetable stew [similar to Sayur Lodeh], and topped with sambal and toasted coconut [kerisik]. However, Lontong is the term most familiar internationally referring the Rice Roll only.
Curry puff 咖喱卜 - Malaysian, Thai, and Singaporean snack which is of Malay origin. It is a small pie consisting of specialised curry with chicken and potatoes in a deep-fried pastry shell. The curry is especially thick and rich to prevent itself from running.
This snack is found at many stores, especially at Malay food stalls. The Malay version of this snack is known as epok-epok which is smaller than the curry puff. Other varies of the epok epok that is filled without chicken and half a boiled egg and an alternative is canned sardines. Curry puffs are also sold by Chinese stalls throughout the island.
Some of the more renowned curry puff includes A1 Curry Puff and Old Chang Kee. Polar Puffs and Cakes introduced the curry puff with western puff pastry, which has a different taste and shape. This version of the curry puff can be found also at Delifrance in Singapore as Curry Chicken Feuillette. Other puff snacks modelled on the curry puff concept have also been introduced. For example, A1 Curry Puff also sells puffs with sardine, yam, durian, corn and even custard filling.
