How Atas Restaurants Would Describe Hawker Dishes With Pretentious Terms

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Good food is what it is, but throw a few fancy words and overly exaggerated expressions into the mix and what do you get? Food that automatically sounds luxurious, extravagant and expensive.

Just for giggles, here are 8 local dishes that you would think costed a bomb if you didn’t know what they were before, based on corny expressions, overly pretentious descriptions and bombastic words.

Taiwanese Porridge


Chinese risotto using short-grain Jasmine rice. Served with pickled vegetables, foraged nuts, cured hen’s egg and crispy, hand-rolled dough fritters.

Lets Go Jalan Jalan Satay 2


Skewers spice-marinated bovine, seared over roaring hot coals and accompanied with a viscous, tangy sauce of foraged nuts, garden-grown aromatics, spices and tropical pineapple.

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh


Pork Rib, White Pepper & Pork Bone Consommé, Whole Garlic.

(Because nowadays it’s cooler to list down the ingredients of a dish rather than to give it a name.)

Chwee Kueh


Upside-down, savoury pannacotta made of rice served with a dollop of braised radish, chilli paste and artfully stacked on wax paper.

10 at Claymore Char Kway Teow


Smoky and savoury wok-fried flat rice noodles with sweetened dark sauce, hand-cracked farmed eggs, bean sprouts and sweet Chinese sausages.

Roti John


Seared French baguette topped with your choice of mutton or chicken, farmed eggs and delicately diced onions, served meat-side up and finished elegantly with lashings of artisanal tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

Yuan Kee China Square Chicken Rice


Gloriously robust slivers of free-range chickens, topped with a savoury sesame-accented brown sauce. Served with a trifecta of sauces and a bowl of fragrant steamed rice imbued with chicken fat and aromatics.

Malaysia Rojak


Handcrafted salad of cut-up fried dough fritters, prematurely-foraged mango, lashings of ginger flower, young turnip, green cucumber, pungent prawn paste and granulated peanuts.