World Gourmet Summit 2019
As May draws to a close, I must admit, I sure ate a lot, mostly due to events surrounding World Gourmet Summit.
Female Foodies at #WGS2019
When WGS2019 kicked off at the tail end of April, I was so happy to run into female leaders in a mainly male-dominated arena. One of them was the founder of World Food Future For Women herself, Ms Trina Liang. I was also thrilled to catch up with Chef Petrina Loh, who owns Morsels, and was nominated Female Chef Of The Year. Morsels is one of my favourite restaurants in Singapore where meals are made with so much love. I also ran into another nominee in the same category, Chef Li Si from Bam!, a cool Spanish restaurant. We all milled around and ate the delicious offerings that were prepared at live cooking stations. By the end of the evening, I wish I had worn a dress with a more forgiving waistline.
New Restaurants: The 1925 Brewing Co
One of the fun things about World Gourmet Summit is being introduced to new restaurants. I enjoyed meeting several local & international chefs and sampling their best dishes over the space of A Day In The Life When Night Duty Calls.
Impressive Teochew Cuisine
By chance, I actually revisited one of them, The 1925 Brewing Co. My good friends, Carrie & Chong, hosted some friends and Chef Ivan Yeo cooked up a storm. At the official World Gourmet Summit Sunday Brunch event, I had tried the opulent lobster porridge. On this night, many new dishes impressed me. Other than the fact that I miss good Teochew food, I was also impressed by the very moreish prawns. In fact, I didn’t just have more & more; I believe I had the most!
Lasting Impressions
In return, I think I impressed Chef with my incredible appetite. An enormous tureen filled with herbal chicken soup & vermicelli placed was placed before us amidst much ooh-ing & aah-ing. It was so delicious that Chef topped that tureen up twice with hot soup. When they presented not one but two Tomahawks, I whittled it down to the bone long after the others had thrown down their napkins. And then I had some more herbal chicken soup.
Backstage Tour
After dinner, Chef Ivan invited us to the kitchen for a little tour. We ambled over, me more slowly the others on account of how much I had eaten.
Firstly, he animatedly explained how they concoct their own vinegar. It turns out the recipe for exquisite vinegar comically came about by accident on the back of a beer experiment.
Subsequently he took us to his traditional stove where he was smoking a medley of various types of salted fish over charcoal and wood. These would then be ground into powder to enhance flavours. As he likened the process to creating a blended whisky, I immediately understood the analogy, as did the other whisky aficionados.
1925 Differentiates Herself
The 1925 Brewing Co prides herself on remembering culinary secrets of the past and putting a modern twist on it to create something wonderful. Their coaster reads: It’s good to be a little different. I would agree!
Old Neighbourhoods: Tiong Bahru
This Used To Be My Playground
The final World Gourmet Summit event that I attended was in an old neighbourhood where we lived in when the kids were little. This traditional neighbourhood is so charming. In fact my kids love it so much we keep going back to eat in our favourite haunts and caper around in the playgrounds.
Bakalaki
However I had never been to http://bakalaki.com until now. This Greek tavern is surprisingly calm, despite it being a host venue of the incredibly popular World Gourmet Summit. In fact, I remember that day as being sweltering, and most of us hurried in frazzled from the traffic. Regardless, when stepped into the cool tavern with her inviting décor & wonderful service, we all settled into a lovely experience.
The food was overwhelmingly fantastic. After a series of appetisers, we had fish, beef & lamb, all of which were cooked to perfection. Although we were stuffed, we kept going because that’s what people who attend the World Gourmet Summit do. And when we thought we could eat no more, dessert arrived and we resumed the feeding frenzy. Throughout the meal, our wine glasses were never empty. By the time the lunch party came to a close, everyone was on an elevated plane of happiness.
Neighbourly Love
To think it took the World Gourmet Summit to introduce this lovely restaurant in my old home! Before we left, I discovered what Bakalaki means. It represents two words: Bakaliko & Meraki. The former refers to a traditional neighbourhood store full of flavours and colours. The latter signifies the love in everything we do. I can’t think of a better restaurant to be in my favourite old neighbourhood.
