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CRAZY & GREAT • SELLA & MOSCA • SINCE 1899
SINGAPORE 🇸🇬 PAIRINGS
YU SHENG
This Singapore must-have originates from Shunde, Guangdong, where fine slivers of raw fish are dipped or mixed with a sauce that can include peanut oil, ginger and shallot. The Shunde Yusheng is savoury, not sweet. The best Shunde Yusheng I have tasted is in Bing Sheng Restaurant, Guangzhou.
SATAY • SATE
Satay is believed to originate from Java, Indonesia, where it is written as Sate.
This is the same spelling in Malaysia and in the south of Thailand where there are Malay communities, including in Phuket.
FRIED HOKKIEN PRAWN MEE
This is a Singapore original. I have never come across Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee in Malaysia, Xiamen, Quanzhou or Hui’an, my ancestral home in Fujian Province. Two types of noodles are used. Yellow Hokkien Mee (Phuket where there is quite a lot of Hokkien Chinese, uses this type of noodle too) and Bee Hoon or Rice Vermicelli.
SOMMELIER AT HOME
FAIZAL ZAINUDIN • BUTCHER’S BLOCK • RAFFLES SINGAPORE
You can’t but envy Faizal Zainudin.
For three consecutive years – 2016, 2017 & 2018 – the Singaporean was one of four sommeliers working at the 150-capacity Mouton-Cadet Club & Wine Bar during the annual Cannes Film Festival.
Celebrities would pop in for a drink, lunch or dinner.
Faizal poured wines to – including – Will Smith, Fan Bing Bing,
REMEBERING GERARD BASSET
Judging at Decanter World Wine Awards in London or Decanter Asia Wine Awards in Hong Kong, whenever I wanted a second opinion on a wine, my go-to choice was Gerard Basset OBE, MS, MW, MBA, OIV MSc.Gerard possessed the qualities that make for the ideal wine judge.
DJESSA REYES • THE DEMPSEY COOK HOUSE & BAR
Djessa Reyes was born and raised in Ilocos Sur. The province in the north of Luzon – the largest and most populous island in the Philippines –is about 370 km from Manila.
GERALD LU • PRAELUM
Praelum has between 300 and 350 labels. And – via Coravin – 50 wines by the glass. Ninety-five percent of those 50 labels are also available by the half-bottle as Lu is more than happy to needle out the equivalent of 375 ml.
