Tuck into tingkat feast at Singapore Food Fest

Tuck into tingkat feast at Singapore Food Fest

TAKE a relaxing cruise down the Singapore River while enjoying piping hot food with authentic flavours from five Chinese dialect groups from a tingkat (tiffin carrier).

Think Teochew carrot cake, Hainanese chicken-rice balls, fried Hokkien noodles, Cantonese dessert fu chok tong shui (sweet bean-curd skin) and Hakka soon kueh (steamed rice- flour dumplings stuffed with vegetables).

The 45-minute, $35 "tingkat cruise" is part of the Singapore Food Festival, now in its 17th year, which will be held from next Friday to July 25. This year, the theme for the festival is focused on authentic specialities from the Cantonese, Hainanese, Hakka, Hokkien and Teochew communities.

Besides the tingkat cruise, foodies can expect a gastronomical stroll down a food street along Clarke Quay's Read Bridge. Famous restaurants and hawkers, such as Yeh Lai Siang Gourmet, which is famed for its Hainanese chicken-rice balls, will hawk their wares along the food street.

Said Yeh Lai Siang Gourmet owner Tan Hwee, 51: "Many have never tried authentic Hainanese food before. We hope to make use of this opportunity to showcase the real taste and flavours of the Hainanese."

The stalls will be open from 4pm to 11pm daily. The festival will also get chefs skilled in preparing dishes from their dialect groups to conduct culinary master classes for those who are interested in learning how to whip up these morsels.

These classes, which will be held during the festival at various locations, will cost $55 to $208 per participant. To end the festival with a big bang, a buffet-style Heritage Feast will be held on the last night, where customers can dig in to more than 100 dishes from the five Chinese dialect groups. Last year, 354,000 visitors attended the festival. Twenty per cent of the visitors were tourists.

Singapore Tourism Board, which is supporting the event, is confident of achieving a similar response this year, given the programme and the record number of tourists who have arrived here since the two integrated resorts opened, said its director of precinct development, Mr Andrew Phua.

-News courtesy of Omy-