of oz food

y'know the aftertaste you get all over in your mouth when you say HAAA.... after eating particular types of foods? i've just consumed about half a dozen plump, juicy, creamy, sweet tassie oysters. with a few drops of lemon for each. am enjoying going HAAA and savouring that delightful aftertaste of fresh seafood on my tongue. i don't remember enjoying fresh oysters much in singapore, besides at buffets over at the mandarin hotel at orchard road. wonder why that is, though. i mean, being an island, you'd assume there's all sorts of seafood in abundance.

over in melbs, it's possible to wander into a fresh seafood store and purchase a dozen freshly shucked oysters (and get a free lemon or two!) and bring it to the nearest park (or bench, if i can't wait) to eat at leisure. the shopowners are friendly and i get a joke or odd mention about 'singapore girls'. maybe it's the angmohs who seem to enjoy raw oysters more than the asians.

vegetarian food is good over here, too. being the meatasaurus i [still] am, it was surprisingly easy to overcome the initial disdain for a veggie meal. but there it was! a highly nutricious pumpkin+rocket+whateverhaveyou pizza over at the organic cafe had me won over in an instant. having been brought up a finicky eater - with a penchant for macdonald's and other fast foods, i certainly felt a great deal healthier since that first organic-vegan meal. yes, yes... i have watched Supersize Me, and found myself somehow craving a maccas meal toward the end of the movie-experiment.

the small, independently-owned cafes here are most encouraging. i'll open an organic cafe yet when i return to singapore. perchance. someday. these alfesco cafes - quite a signature elsewhere of singapore (which is not much other than chains or cafe-franchises at present), serve the best coffees and desserts and focaccia sandwiches and gourmet pizzas. even in winter, there are heaters situated outdoors catering for the die-die-must-dine-outside angmoh customers.

i promise myself not to hanker for second-rate western food at the chain-cafes when i return. the only western food i'll permit myself is the weirdo ones served up by middle-aged chinese uncles at the hawker centres. 'cheap western food' is comfort food. other than that, it will be an incessant gorging of kopitiam and hawker centre fare. cheap, oily and sinful is the way to go.

sometimes i wonder about the manner in which asians tend to nibble on various foods and snacks all day long. the overtly health-conscious angmohs over here like to snack on fruit or cereal bars (high energy rabbit food! yucks!). true, there is a vicious cycle of cheaper, oilier, less healthy foods that are being sold to the less well-off, perpetuating generations of obese not-so-well-off citizens; while the more affluent watch their diet like hawks and supplement it with pills, vitamins and gym memberships. another vicious (bi)cycle there.

go HAAAA after eating chocolate and you get this soothing, rich, taste of luxury. but if you HAAA after consuming the fat, yellow prawn noodles, there's a taste of bad breath that leaves my tongue feeling rather furry. will avoid those fat yellow noodles when i return, and eat everything else. it's a strange feeling to have 2 homes, to have my heart split between 2 lands. it will be fascinating to see where this all leads in the future, though.