Singaporeans in their element
The new Amara Bangkok boasts a restaurant where the genuine flavours of our neighbouring city-state finally come to the fore
SINGAPORE HAS been generous in sharing its dining concepts with Thailand and other countries – in Bangkok there’s Food Republic with its pan-Asian cuisine and Ku De Ta with its classy nightclub vibe. But its latest export, Element at the recently opened Amara Bangkok Hotel, seems to be the only one actually offering genuine Singaporean food.
Veteran executive chef Colin Liang toils in an open kitchen for all 150 diners to see as they loiter in anticipation around curvy wooden tables in leather chairs and banquettes.
Element is open all day, meaning there are early birds chattering over the international breakfast buffet and office workers and then, through the afternoon, tourists grazing from platters of easy-to-eat Western and Thai dishes (pizza, spaghetti, tom yum kung). The best time to be there, though, is in the evening, when the true Singaporean food comes out to play.
Liang – who does all the menus – got his start at a Japanese hotel in 1985 and by the following year was already well known thanks to winning third place in the “hot seafood” category at the Food & Hotel Asia competition. He’s since cooked at luxury hotels in Guilin and Beijing in China as well as Singapore, arriving in Bangkok three months ago.
On Thai farms he’s found ingredients to match the original home recipes on which he bases his Singaporean dishes, importing only sauces and some herbs to maintain his strict personal standards in quality and flavour. “Singaporean cuisine is a combination of Malaysian and Chinese, using Hainanese, Diojiu and Hokkian cooking styles,” Liang says. “We’re only offering the most
popular Singaporean specialities, the ones any traveller must try when they go there. This is the real flavour.”
Kueh Pie Tee resembles the traditional Thai snack kratong thong – bite-size tarts of crispy pastry filled with bean sprouts, shaved carrot, dried shrimp, egg and jicama (the “Mexican potato” or, more fittingly, the “Chinese potato”). Here the tarts are fried with Singaporean sauce and topped with shrimp.
Popiah is a soft Fujian spring roll, the pastry rolled from wheat flour. The filling is mainly turnip and jicama stir-fried with bean sprouts, garlic, fishmeal, mashed beans and Chinese sausage. It’s served with chilli paste.
Hainanese Chicken Rice (Bt270) is tender aromatic rice cooked in chicken broth and pandan leaves. You have a choice of three sauces – chilli mixed with vinegar, sweet soy and ginger.
“Chicken rice is one of our national dishes,” Liang says. “I have no idea who first came up with the idea, but it’s adapted from a soup made by Chinese immigrants from Hainan. We use chicken from a local farm and, after it’s boiled, we plunge it in cold water immediately to keep it tender and sweet. The rice is cooked in the chicken broth with ginger, shallots and chicken fat to add fragrance and it’s not oily at all.”
Prawn Mee Soup (Bt330 for a big bowl) is Hokkian-style yellow noodles in clear soup that come with bean sprouts, fresh prawns and pork ribs. This dish also has a long history, arriving in Singapore in the 1880s with immigrants from Xiamen. Residents of all nationalities would make regular treks to Hokkian Street in the years after World War II to get their fill of “boiled mee”.
Laksa (Bt380) is white vermicelli noodles in a spicy, coconut-based curry soup with prawns, fishcakes and a hard-boiled egg. The dish is garnished with sambal chilli paste and coriander.
Bak Kut The (Bt230) is peppery soup simmered with pork bones and served with steamed rice and a stick of deep-fried dough.
Nasi Lemak, the Malaysian entree, is rice cooked in coconut milk with pandan leaves served with fried chicken, sliced-cucumber salad, fried fish mixed with beans, fish cakes and sweet chilli paste. “This is a traditional Malaysian dish,” the chef explains. “Malaysians don’t like streamed food, so the favourites there are fried with herbs.”
TRUE TO THE TASTE
>>Element is on Floor B1 at the Amara Bangkok Hotel on Surawong Road.
>>It’s open daily from 6am to 10pm.
>>Book a table at (02) 021 8888 or http://AmaraHotels.com.
