HEY! student writer Bernadette Toh takes Ukrainian exchange student Yegor Holikov on a campus food tour to eat like a true-blue Singaporean
by Bernadette Toh
Nothing brings people together more than food. Especially in Singapore, billed as a foodie’s paradise. Whenever friends from abroad visit, I’m always ready to introduce them to my must-try local dishes. I showed Yegor, 23, some of my favourite eats in NTU and asked him to guess what they are.
CHAR KWAY TEOW
This dish is not entirely foreign to Yegor. As he is a postgraduate student in Taipei’s National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University on exchange here, he has lived in Taiwan for a few years and has come across similar dishes.
“It’s different from the noodles I have tried before, which are usually thinner and longer,” he says.
Char kway teow is a wok-fried noodle dish with roots in Teochew culture. Flat rice noodles are stir-fried over high heat with light and dark soya sauce, garlic, chilli, egg, fish cake, Chinese sausage and beansprouts.
Yegor tried the version from NIE’s canteen, which came with both fresh prawns and chicken meat.
He was pleasantly surprised by the wedge of lime served with this hawker classic, meant to be squeezed over the noodles.
“I’m a big fan of citrus. I love anything sour, so it’s definitely a plus for me,” he says.
NASI AYAM PENYET
Who would have thought that nasi ayam penyet would remind Yegor of Eastern European food?
“When I saw the fried tofu, I was wondering if it was cheese,” he says. “I thought it might be fried cottage cheese.”
Nasi ayam penyet is an Indonesian dish. The fragrant fried chicken is smashed with a pestle and mortar to make it softer. It’s typically served with rice, cucumber slices, fried tofu and sambal.
The nasi ayam penyet from the Nanyang Crescent Hall canteen came with a generous dollop of the infamous chilli paste, which hit Yegor hard.
“Oh my goodness, this is too spicy,” he says.
But he loved the tender fried chicken. The chicken leg is marinated in turmeric – which Yegor correctly guessed was kurkuma, the Ukrainian word for turmeric – among other spices, and topped with crispy crumbs. The dish reminded him of oven-roasted chicken made by his grandmother.
“That’s the taste of my childhood.”
KOPI PENG
Yegor usually gets his caffeine fix from espresso-based drinks at North Spine’s Venture Drive Coffee, so kopi peng is unfamiliar to him.
Kopi peng is local iced coffee with condensed milk. It is made from Robusta coffee beans roasted with sugar and margarine under high heat to caramelise the beans. The ground coffee is then mixed with hot water and strained through a sock.
“It’s like a mix of hot cocoa and coffee to me,” says Yegor. “I like it because it’s sweet and bitter at the same time.”
WAFFLE WITH KAYA
And last but certainly not least, dessert.
Yegor’s last meal of his NTU food tour is waffle with kaya. He tried the one at Nanyang Crescent Hall canteen that is made with pandan.
“This looks like a Belgian waffle, but it’s green,” Yegor says. “Belgian waffles are crispy. Here, they are softer.”
These old-school waffles are a popular snack for NTU students and can also be found in many neighbourhood bakeries around the island. They can come plain or filled with various classic spreads, such as peanut butter or blueberry jam.
Yegor could instantly tell that the spread in his waffle was kaya, the same coconut jam found in kaya toasts.
He added that the waffle was not too sweet and paired perfectly with his kopi peng.
“Dessert definitely won my heart,” says Yegor with a laugh. “Or you could say, won my stomach!”
A FOOD HAVEN
“I really enjoyed today’s food because I can taste the different flavours and different spices,” says Yegor, who is studying visual arts at NTU’s School of Art, Design & Media.
When it comes to food options, we’re certainly spoilt for choice.
“It never gets boring,” Yegor adds.
There are many more dishes that Yegor has yet to try on our campus, which is home to 16 food courts and 30 restaurants and F&B outlets. What would you recommend to him for his next local food adventure?
Over in Thailand, philosophy student Alistair Yap, currently on exchange in Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, tries out signature dishes from the “land of smiles”.
Since joining NTU, the final-year student has done a short summer stint in Cambodia and spent a semester at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in the United States.
Try “a meatier version of laksa”, Thai tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) and more with Alistair.
HEY! STUDENT WRITER
Bernadette loves storytelling, from books to films to documentaries. In her free time, she hunts for the best teh peng in town.
This story was published in the Sep-Oct 2023 issue of HEY!. To read it and other stories from this issue in print, click here.
