Sunday, June 8, 2008

Dining With The Jews


Singapore is a cosmopolitan city with a wide array of food for various community. I've lived in this melting pot of cultures all of my life.

The more common food that you can find in nearly all food courts are Chinese chicken rice and fried kuey teow, the Malay nasi lemak and mee rebus, the Indian roti prata and murtabak. You might also find Japanese bento set and asian-ised version of the speghetti.

But what I've not tried all my life until recently was kosher food. So what is kosher? Well, it's food prepared in a traditional Jewish way according to the biblical old testament. Meat such as pork and pigeon will never find their way on the dining table. Also, seafood that do not have scales and fins are not to be consumed.

So when I made my way to Awalfi, Singapore's only Kosher restaurant, I was filled with excitement over the thought of having a kosher meal.

Located at 24 Waterloo Street,within the Jacob Ballas Centre, this restaurant is totally out of view of the general public. First, you have to go through a secure-looking gate. Then you have to take a lift up to the seventh storey before you arriveat this small but amply decorated restaurant. They seem to keep everything under a veil as they don't even publicise about their restaurant online.

Well, the food that they serve is a spread of asian, greek, middle eastern and even western.

Pita bread, humus (ground chickpea spread), falafel (deep fried mashed chickpea), together with a variety of fried appetisers really got me going for more.

I ordered fried fish with rice and thought that it would be served differently, but lo and behold, the fish looked like what any fried fish and chips would look like. Now I understand that it's the way they cook their food, and not that it'll taste anything different. Also, don't expect the waiters to be Jews. The one that waited upon us was a Sikh, while those in the kitchen looked either middle eastern or indians.

As for the food, it does not cost you a bomb to have a taste of a kosher meal (About S$16-$30 depending on what you are having). But for me, it's priceless to have a meal among the practising Jews and Rabbis.

Address:
24, Waterloo Street

Tel:
6336 5166

1 comment:

Unknown said...

HOW DID YOU GET INTO AWALFI WE AS FULLY ORTHODOX JEWS ARRIVED IN SINGAPORE 48 HRS AGO MADE OUR WAY TO AWALFI AND WERE PROMPTLY TURNED AWAY AS OUR PASSPORTS WERE LOCKED IN THE SAFE AT HOTEL AND NOT WITH US
THERE IS NITHING POSTED ANYWHERE STATING THAT ONE HAS TO PRODUCE PASSPORT TO GAIN ENTRY TO THIS PLACE.
DISAPPOINTING IS JUST ONE OF MANY OTHER NOT SO CHOICE WORDS WE WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE OUR NON AWALFI MEAL!