November 17, 2008

inSingapore: The Food Safari

Posted in Musings tagged Food Fair, inSingapore, Singapore, The Food Safari at 10:38 pm by myrlinn

Last weekend, my family went to the Food Safari, a food fair held at Suntec City, organised by Singapore Press Holdings, I believe.

The verdict? Better than expected. But then maybe my expectations have been lowered a lot by a couple of food fairs we’ve been to this year that have had a high proportion of booths selling food you’d find at pasar malam stalls.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I remember most about the fair:

What I liked best about the fair: Several good restaurants were represented there, offering their food at relatively reasonable prices. My family’s faves:

• • I liked the Shish Mahal restaurant booth in particular. It had meals starting at $3.50 (for rice/naan, one meat, one veg). I enjoyed their naan (which had a much softer texture than other naan I’ve tried over the years), and was happy that I got to eat Rogan Josh again.
  • My mum loved the Pu Tien Restaurant booth – very good fried beehoon ($3) and their fried spring rolls ($1.50) had oyster added to the filling which made a great difference.
  • Pagi Sore Restaurant was selling really delicious bottled sambal belacan ($5.90). The sample of satay I tried from the restaurant tasted great as well.

Most impressive food presentation: I would definitely vote for the New Zealand Natural booth. They were selling a selection of six small scoops of ice-creams served on a water-colour palette. They looked mighty tempting when I saw people walking around with it.

Best moment: Winning a bottle of wine at the Wine Appreciation and Storage talk.

Worst booth: Probably the Food Safari Card booth. I wonder how many people actually signed up based on their vague promises of discounts at many restaurants. I didn’t see specific examples, and when I asked to see a list of merchants, the young lady there said that there are so many that it would fill a booklet. BUT they don’t have it available at the booth for you to check out. She suggested I consult their website. I wanted to roll my eyes at that. Whoever was responsible did a terrible marketing job.

Workshop experience: The Food Safari also featured a series of workshops, most of which were full by the time my mum encouraged me to sign up for them. I did manage to get a place for A Beer Affair. Well worth the $5. We got to sample six types of imported beer, and there was even sausages to go with the beer. Overall, the entire process was well-organised, with just a couple of areas that need more attention:

• When I signed up, the description for the goodie bag made it sound as if we would be getting two magazines and a bottle of something or other.  Actual contents of goodie bag: One magazine (And the magazine was Home and Decor, which has really gone downhill since it revamped its look a few years ago), a bottle of beer, a couple of sachets of coffee; and
• The noise from all the other activities in the exhibition hall made it really hard for everyone to hear the talk.  They should really have held the workshop at a quieter area.

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