Having much deliberation and devious ways of teasing the tastebuds of our Hawker Food Hopefuls, we have finally found the Hawker Food Champion!
Ok, I have to admit that the person having the most fun was probably me. I took my job of chief interrogator quite seriously as it was my job to create the sweat beads on the foreheads of our would be food critic. So before the taste test began we scoured Old Airport Road Food Centre looking for stuff that would make our contestants gag, grimace or choke. Whatever it took to get a nice photo and a laugh.
Let me tell you what we had. (I am sure you want to know right?). Well we started with white fungas with dried longan soup which all our contestants got wrong. All of them said Cheng Tng. But that was only for the start. We then had cockles, crocodile meat, bittergourd juice (grimace inducing), green apple with sour plum juice (nobody got green apple), durian puff (they had to identify it was D24 in choux pastry) and last, literally the last part of the pig’s alimentary canal, a slice of pig rectum which everyone identified as large intestine. Hmmmmm….. our contestants had no inkling of pig anatomy! Time for Kway Chap appreciation class!
In Round 2, we tested their ability to differentiate between a bowl of Prawn Noodles from a famous stall vs one from an unknown stall. The contestants were grilled on their knowledge on the difference between sea prawn and farmed prawns and whether they can tell if the soup base was sweet because of rock sugar or from hours of boiling pork bones and prawn shells.
Next we moved on to the interview stage where there was a no holds barred interrogation of their knowledge of food! Which famous Hokkien Mee was in Old Airport Road Food Centre? What kind is it? Thick or thin bee hoon? What is the difference between thick and thin bee hoon…. the afternoon wore on. What seems to me like five minutes must be an eternity for the contestants.
Finally it was over. My two other judges retreated to their homes to have a drink and play with the kids before deliberating over the three contestants for three solid days. (It probably only took them ten minutes, but I guess they were busy with other things.) Now…. the results. Is it Daniel, Joel or Nicole? Find out at the insing.com website!
