Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

Postscript: The entries to my little ‘blanja’ contest in this column have been pouring in! Wah lau! Such yao kwees, all of you! Last few days to enter… I still haven’t chosen the winning entry, so you still have time.  The results will be in this coming Sunday’s column, and the winner will be notified directly by email.
The following was published in the Sunday Times on 5 October 2008, with the title changed to ‘Call me an alley-cat foodie’…

Sunday Times 5 October 2008
High Steaks, Low Palate
by Colin Goh in New York

Makansutra master K.F. Seetoh was in New York last week to promote Singapore cuisine, and asked me to book a steak dinner.

I got to know Seetoh during the Singapore Day event last year, when, like an idiot, I chose to drive to the event, only to be unable to find a parking space. Fuming, I dropped the Wife off first.  An hour later, I was still circling and cursing my stupidity. But what mitigated everything was the Wife returning with a packet of Adam Road nasi lemak. Apparently, she’d told Seetoh of my predicament, and he personally saved some makan for me.  That packet of nasi lemak – scarfed down while parked illegally next to a fire hydrant encircled by dog poop – was the best I’ve ever eaten.

In return for his kindness, I treated him to lunch at one of my favourite eateries: Peter Luger’s steakhouse in Brooklyn (a scruffy place that reminds me of old-school Hainanese western food joints in Singapore, replete with grumpy waiters), which only serves USDA Prime dry-aged porterhouse, dripping with clarified butter and animal fat. “T-bone?” Seetoh exclaimed, wide-eyed, as he surveyed its size. “This is more like T.Rex!”

Now, every time he’s back in New York, he demands we return to Luger’s for another artery-clogging session. But this time round, the night before our reservation, he phoned to say, “Eh, buddy, let it go. My friends choped a new steakhouse which they say is better than Luger’s.”

And so the Wife and I found ourselves at Primehouse, a sleek Park Avenue restaurant. But that wasn’t what stunned us – the friends of Seetoh’s who were joining us were two of New York’s top food critics: Ed Levine, the “overlord” of foodie website SeriousEats.com, and Jeffrey Steingarten, the legendary food critic of Vogue magazine. I didn’t know whether to shake their hands or fall on my knees, wailing, Wayne’s World-style, “We’re not worthy!”

I guess I was especially star-struck because when I was growing up, I thought the coolest job in the world was to be a food critic.  I mean, get paid to eat and opine on the experience? What career could be more pleasurable for a Singaporean?

In fact, before heading to university, I did some freelance cartooning and writing for Violet Oon’s groundbreaking (and sorely missed) Food Paper.  My stint with Violet taught me two things – how to cook (very useful when studying in Thatcherite England) and that I would never cut it as a food critic.

This was because I learned I possessed an extremely low-class palate. The places I raved about weren’t the posh, fine-dining restaurants, but the déclassé zhi cha joints, preferably with seating in an alleyway next to a longkang. Meanwhile, in America, I’ve also been consistently underwhelmed by eateries many consider top notch, including those run by superstar chefs like Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse. In fact, two years ago, we had the opportunity to dine at one of Europe’s top restaurants, whose molecular gastronomy menu had earned it three Michelin stars.  But after consuming dishes of asparagus foam, crab vapor and whatnot, I told the Wife, “Clever lah, but give me the claypot rice at Geylang Lorong 33 anytime.”

My shortcoming was to play out again in front of these three gourmet grandmasters, as we sampled steaks dry-aged in a climate-controlled room with Himalayan rock salt for 65 days, 45 days and 30 days respectively. They were very tasty, but somehow I wasn’t as wowed as I thought I should be, so I asked Mr. Steingarten, “So how does Luger’s stack up against these?”

“Well,” came his professorial answer, “you can taste the real flavour of the beef here.  In Luger’s the butter tends to mask things.” I nodded, but thought to myself, die lah: I prefer the butter! Why are my tastebuds so handicapped? I could appreciate the merits of the elite meat, but only at an intellectual level.

Is it because the higher bills at these restaurants also raise my expectations disproportionately? Or does the less pretentious ambience at cheaper eateries make the dining experience more enjoyable? I don’t know – I’ve experienced exceptions to both propositions.

Am I alone in suffering from this malady? If you share my plebeian palate, email me at colin@singaporedreaming.com with your explanation of how anyone could possibly enjoy eating cold nasi lemak next to a pile of doggy do more than prime cuts of purebred beef at a swanky steakhouse.  I’ll blanja the person with the best answer to a meal if they ever visit New York.

Just don’t expect it to be at a high-class restaurant, hor.

Some snaps from my shaky handphone camera:

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