Bak Kut Teh / Duck Soup

As those Chinese supermarkets and pre-mixes hardly stand a chance of replacing the hawker authenticity, this bowl of Bak Kut Teh will make my younger sister question her career strategy and think twice about staying in UK after graduation.

Nah, I am just kidding. She's got standards and it would take more than a bowl of aromatic pork rib soup to make her give up a lucrative banking career. Make that two bowls of bak kut teh, plus some salted vegetables and a hulk of pig trotters braised in black sauce!



If I am not mistaken, Bak Kut Teh (loosely translated to "pork's bones tea") is well regarded as breakfast food for older generation- way before the government pushed forth the Healthy Lifestyle campaign, invented the Great Singapore Workout (which has since been superceded by the Great Singapore Sale) and fashioned sacrilegious healthy hawker food.

Bak Kut Teh is comfort food for the masses. In fact, you must have heard of the bestseller "Chicken Soup for the [insert character] Soul", well here in Singapore, they could probably rename it to "Bak Kut Teh for the Weary Must-Get-5Cs Soul"

Although this Bak Kut Teh bears Bourdain's seal of approval, I like the duck and salted vegetables soup better.



Found within the same coffee shop, I grabbed a coconut pancake for desset. Unlike the chunky doughy cuts found in most pancake chains, this floppy fellow was reassuringly-soft and crammed with dessicated coconut.



From the New York Times,

"Whole Foods Market is preparing to roll out a line of meat that will carry labels saying “animal compassionate,” indicating the animals were raised in a humane manner until they were slaughtered.

The grocery chain’s decision to use the new labels comes as a growing number of retailers are making similar animal-welfare claims on meat and egg packaging, including “free farmed,” “certified humane,” “cage free” and “free range.”"

Exuse me, while I laugh my way to the supermarket.

How pretentious can one get?

I am not taking a Mickey out of animal welfare [death to using real fur for fashion, by the way] but we are really just taking things a little too far. Since this leads to higher production cost, which we all know gets passed onto the consumers, the very same buyers would probably be those totting their sharkskin Louis Vuitton totes, clicking their python-motif Gucci stilettos down the supermarket aisle.

Come on guys, if being an omnivore feels like en route to Guilt Land, go vegan! Next thing you know, producers will be generating labels like “Mozart-Listening Cauliflowers,” “Thai-massaged Premium Jasmine Rice” and “Cushion-Rested Butter squash.” Argh, why don’t people just eat potatoes for the rest of their lives. They look incapable of voicing out their anguish. Oh wait, you mean you can hear them crying aloud when you mash them? Dang.

Be damned if you do, be damned if you don't.