Singapore Food Festival: Wonders of Cantonese Cuisine

If you love Cantonese food, you might like to check out the Singapore Food Festival 2010 fringe events at Kreta Ayer Square in Chinatown. There's a food expo where you can taste signature dishes from different restaurants, a family recipe cooking competition, and an attempt to make Singapore's Longest Chee Cheong Fun. All happening this weekend (24-25 July) and it's free and open to the public.

1) Cantonese Cuisine Food Expo
Date: 24th & 25th July 2010, Saturday & Sunday
Time: 11.00am to 9.00pm

Here are some of the dishes that will be available at the food expo. Most of these will be sold in individual portions. You can also try these dishes a la minute at the restaurants themselves.


From Da Dong Restaurant (By Fatty Weng) at 39 Smith Street, Singapore 058952 (tel: +65 6221-3822):
- Fatty Weng Baked Pork Ribs (above) - sweet and juicy!
- Fried Prawns with Shredded Coconut
- Da Dong Famous Chicken Bun
- Glutinous Rice with Chicken



From Moi Lum Restaurant at 38 Maxwell Road, Airview Building, #01-01/02, Singapore 069116 (tel: +65 6226-2283):
- Cashew Nut Chicken (above) - nutty crunch in the crispy batter!
- Clay pot Beef Brisket
- Crab Meat Fish Maw Soup





From Hong Kong Jin Tian at Block 58 Seng Poh Road #01-15, Singapore 160058 (tel: +65 9383 1318), the Golden Coin Chicken - a large piece of char-grilled chicken liver topped with pork belly fat and slice of onion. These are all grilled kebab style.



From Eight Treasures Vegetarian Restaurant at 282A South Bridge Road, Singapore 058831 (tel: +65 6534-7727):
- Signature Vegetarian Sharks’ Fin (above) - using needle-shaped konnyaku as a substitute for sharks' fin.
- Buddha Jumps Over the Wall
- Hong Kong Style Deep Fried Vegetarian Fish with Special Light Sauce
- Braised Vegetarian Pork Belly


Ho Kee Pau will present Cantonese “Boat” Congee (sorry I wolfed mine down before taking a photo).
- Plain Congee with Fried Dough stick
- Peanut Congee with Cuttlefish
- Egg Tart
- Char Siew Pau
- Siew Mai
- Chee Cheong Fun

Desserts are from San Gu Tong Shui - Sesame Cream, Almond Cream, Walnut Cream, Barley Gingko and Cheng Tng



Da Dong Restaurant contributed this "Whampoa Quick-boiled Prawn Noodles" for the media conference. It turned out to be one of the tastiest dishes there!



2) Singapore's Longest Chee Cheong Fun record
3pm, Sunday 25 July
Three chefs also gave a demo of jointly rolling chee cheong fun. It's actually not easy, because everyone needs to synchronise exact timing. If someone is too slow, there will immediately be a tear, because the rice flour skin is so delicate. So imagine what a feat it will be when 150 chefs come together to roll this 80m long chee cheong fun!

The chefs actually held a meeting to strategise methods of rolling. Adding to the complexity is the lack of a venue long enough to hold the cheong fun in a straight line, so the thing has to be laid out in a snaking manner. How on earth they are going to roll the "U"-turn corners, I have no idea.

After it makes history and sets a Singapore record, the completed chee cheong fun will be chopped up, pan-fried and sold for charity.


3) Family’s Cantonese Recipe Cooking Competition
This is on Saturday, 24 July 2010 from noon to 2.30pm. If you have a family recipe you're proud of and want to whip up to show everyone, do join in. The winning family stands to win S$1,000 worth of prizes (cash and hampers). Please call 6474 7909 or email chinatown@eventions.com.sg now for application and enquiries. There is a registration fee of $10.



Wonders of Cantonese Cuisine is organised by the Chinatown Business Association (CBA) and Society of Chinese Cuisine Chefs Singapore. Thanks to CBA and Evention for the invitation, and to the participating chefs (photo above) for sharing with us their dishes. TheHungryCow and I also had the pleasure of sitting next to Chris Kuang of Moi Lum, whose company we enjoyed very much.