Soto Ayam
Greetings from Singapore! I am en route home from Brunei—a tiny country on the island of Borneo in the South China Sea. I was in Brunei for work and decided to have an extended layover in Singapore on the way home to visit a friend who lives here. My friend’s parents are also visiting and it’s always nice to see familiar faces.
Singaporeis the city of the future, they say. High rise buildings, Wi-Fi on the busses,a financial hub…it’s incredible. The city-state, formally The Republic ofSingapore, is teeming with people and you can hear every languageimaginable—and even some you can’t recognize—on the street. It is cosmopolitan,people come from all over the world to work and create a life for themselves.As you walk on the streets you see a wide range of people dressed in a varietyof outfits: stilettos and chic dresses, cargo shorts and Birkenstocks, hijabs,saris, you name it.
Despitebeing a heavily populated metropole, it is impeccably clean and crime rates arevery low. Singapore has strict laws that are seriously enforced againstlittering, spitting on the street, vandalism, etc. You may recall the Americanteenager, Michael Fay, who in 1994 was sentenced to four months in prison, aS$3,5000 fine, and six strokes of the cane for vandalism. Chewing gum isforbidden. You won’t find street food, either, as they are banned. Instead youwill find hawker centers—open-air markets with many stalls selling inexpensivefood. It is fascinating.
WhileI have been indulging in my fair share of food from the hawkers, my favoritedish by far has been soto ayam madeby Yati, my friend Emilie’s Indonesian housekeeper. Soto ayam is an Indonesian spicy chicken noodle soup. I was drawnto the kitchen by the smell of sautéed coriander only to find a huge tray withall of the ingredients neatly spread out and Yati hard at work behind a mortarand pestle. I asked her what the yellow paste was that she was pounding and shetold me it was the marinade for the chicken: garlic, ginger, shallot, andturmeric. There may have been other ingredients, too. I watched fascinated; Ihave no experience with Indonesian cuisine. When it was dinner time, we wereeach served a soup bowl and on the surface there was sautéed celery and celerygreens; a hard-boiled egg, cut in half; chicken sausage; fried chicken; friedtofu; a quarter of a tomato; and fried onions. Underneath this was freshnoodles, bean sprouts, and fried peanuts swimming in chicken broth. I watchedYati mix the contents of her bowl, add lime and chili sauce, and start eatingwith chopsticks in one hand and a Chinese spoon in the other. I followed suit.
Thefirst bite was overwhelming. Overwhelming in the best possible way, it isincredibly rich and fragrant. Although I had never had this or anything like itbefore it was comforting. It was warm, sour, spicy, and flavorful. The crunchof the cool bean sprouts in the warm broth was delightful. The fried peanuts wereso unusual to me in a soup and I loved it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring Yatiback with me although I asked her if she would come and she loved the idea. Andthere are no Indonesian restaurants in the area but I found a few online in theBay Area. I haven’t been so I can’t vouch for their tastiness but I do plan totry one the next time I find myself up north.
They say when in Rome, do as the Romans, so if you go to Singapore, be sure to eat the hawkers’ food, find soto ayam—although it’s Indonesian, and look up the laws and be sure to abide by them.