Taiwan Food Street, Singapore

How's our luck? We arrive in Singapore in July and the Singapore Food Festival is going on all around us.... our second morning we head to Bugis Junction, with intentions of continuing on to Chinatown to find Kaya Toast. We stumble across a vast array of stalls just starting to set up and notice all the signs: "Taiwan Food Street - 21st-27th July". So, there goes the whole morning wandering around grazing on Taiwanese delicacies .....

First stop, Smoked Duck Crepes with Peking Sauce. The plump slices of duck breast, still pink are so smokey with a nice lick of sweet peking sauce. There is a chilled baton of cucumber and it's all wrapped in a paper thin crepe, a welcome change from the regular pancake, with a little more texture and a nice salty flavour. Yum Yum! A box of 6 almost wasn't enough .... but there was so much more to try!

Next we spot a lady making Chee Choeng Fun. These little rice noodle parcels are a staple favorite at yum-cha, usually filled with roast pork or prawn.

What has us fascinated was how she was making them .... First a ladle full of the rice mixture is placed onto an oiled, flat baking like tray

then a little chopped roast pork and shredded lettuce are added. This tray then slides into a massive steamer and cooked for about 2-3 minutes, which almost seems like an eternity as we have been here drooling and watching her make a few already.

The noodle sheet is then cut in half, and with a giant plastic scraper, she then carefully folds the noodle down over itself and you're left with 2 giant rolls of squidgy rice noodle parcels filled with the roast pork.

It's then cut into little bite sized pieces, topped with a splash of soy and a thick, nutty brown sauce and toasted sesame seeds. Divine!

Then for our first steamed bun ... a little taco-like-envelope of snow white bun dough grabbed a sticky caramel piece of braised pork belly and a leaf of crunchy iceberg. These little sandwich like buns are just too good!

The pork belly just came apart in shreds with each bite, like it had been braised in the rich caramel for hours..

Steamed bun number 2 was a chili chicken and crab. There were plump little chicken patties sitting in a chili and crab sauce, which was nice and spicy with the lumps of crab a nice sweet explosion. This again in the envelope like bun, with a leaf of crunchy iceberg. Mmmm

Then there was a little Frank shop that was churning out all sort of funny sausage .... but there were loads of people ordering the chicken and spring onion cake. This was to finish off our adventure down Taiwan Food Street. Little dumpling like parcels filled with spring onion, garlic chive & chicken mince, pan-fried for a golden exterior and steaming hot centre.

They were so plump and juicy and rather hot!, so we let them cool a little ... then we noticed everyone was squirting loads of chili sauce and mayonnaise over them, so we joined in! A little unusual but extremely tasty none-the-less. A great way to spend the morning....

Taiwan Food Street was part of Singapore Food Festival 2008

Held July 21st-27th

Hylam St wing, Bugis Junction