A friend waxes lyrical: "You absolutely must try this stall's char kuay teow, it's absolute heaven."

All I can see is the lard. "The hawker is using a lot of it," I say.

She: "That's why it's so tasty."

"It's a heart attack waiting to happen." I'm such a wet blanket.

"Aiyah, one time won't kill you, lah." And so she places her order, while I cannot find a table.

"What's wrong with this table over here?" she asks.

"It's beside the drain."

"So?"

"There could be rats scurrying through it."

"Good food is like that. The atmosphere is part of it."

"Yeah, right. The backlane." I try to bring her down to earth. "And the swill pot is a mere arm's length from the stool where you want me to sit."

"Good food is where we can find it."

Will nothing shake her faith in the char kuay teow?

* * * * *

I once had fish-head curry. The group that was hosting me had nominated this outdoor restaurant said to be famous for this dish. Since I was the guest, I diplomatically kept my views to myself. A few minutes later, the huge bowl came, and there was a large decapitated head in it, bug-eyed and pouty-lipped.

The folks at the table went at it with gusto. "Oh, this one looks great," they said. "Very fresh."

It wasn't long before they noticed me holding back. Perhaps thinking that I was just being polite, one of the guys soon started serving me sections of that decapitated head.

"I'm giving you the best parts," he said. "The silkiest and smoothest bits of the cheek."

"Thank you," I said. "But enough, enough. Really."

I looked carefully and suspiciously at what he placed on my plate -- a pile of translucent white bones, with slivers of meat admixed, all sloshed over with a jaundiced curry. I picked and picked at it, petrified that I'd have a sharp bone stuck in my throat, should I put anything in my mouth.

Still, we should give recognition to these compatriots, for they are the ones who form the demand base that gives life to a food culture. Unlike me, they care about flavours, authenticity and inventiveness. They are the reason why traditions can be sustained and new cuisines can find a foothold in our city, helping to keep alive the boast that Singapore is one of the food capitals of the world, at least in terms of variety.

Or is it? Is there anything so unique about the variety we see here? Most great capitals today are cosmopolitan cities, more so than Singapore. They have people from Lithuania, Egypt, Peru, Korea and Vietnam, for instance. Melbourne, I am told, has 40% of its population foreign-born. Why do we imagine that we are any more cosmopolitan than numerous other cities? And if we're not, what's the basis of the boast that we have an enviable diversity in our food scene?

I'm even more doubtful about quality despite the lavish praises we hear now and then about this or that place. At the high end of the market, I admit I am no judge; I don't know how our best Lebanese, Japanese or Hungarian (is there any?) restaurants compare with true native cooking for example, but based on what I hear, I have a faint suspicion that they don't compare well at all.

At the level of the mass market, things are actually quite bad. Putting aside the inroads made by fast food -- a plague on food culture, if ever there was one -- there is an ongoing commoditisation of food court and hawker centre fare, as reported in the newspapers not long ago. Almost everywhere one goes, one gets the same range, with similarly indifferent quality.

But more than that, I think it is absolutely shocking that at least half of these stalls use monosodium glutamate (MSG) as a flavour enhancer. I'm quite sensitive to it, so it's something I never fail to notice. That they resort to MSG tells you a lot about whether their cooking is any good. Frankly, it's a national disgrace that MSG is used so frequently.

And still, many Singaporeans believe we're a food paradise. What blind faith we have!

I wonder whether it is a reaction to the increasing sameness of what's on offer that our food scene can get quite faddish. Every once in a while, people rave about something new.

I'm sure we all remember the bubble-tea craze of 6 to 8 years ago -- various tea blends with colourful starch and gelatine balls bouncing around in the liquid. The saner ones among us couldn't believe the madness we saw. Every 100 metres, there'd be a bubble-tea counter, but despite their number and ubiquity, people, particularly teenage girls, were queuing up to buy.

You might also remember the "Portuguese tarts" that was said to have originated from Macau. They looked more like an accident than any deliberate creation to me.

Then there was the apple-strudel affair, followed by the short tryst with "rotiboy" -- coffee-flavoured buns.

The pattern seems to be that it's the sweet offering that is susceptible to passing fads. Perhaps we're more conservative about the staple dishes?

Too conservative, I sometimes think, with the result that Singaporeans are also susceptible to what I call nostalgia fads.

For example, after a disappearance of maybe 20 - 30 years, the opeh leaf has made a comeback. It's a broad leaf that was used as a food wrapper in the days when paper or plastic film were too costly for use as disposable food wrappers.

Now we see some noodle stalls boasting that they serve up their products on a opeh leaf, just like in days of old. The claim is made that the leaf adds a taste note to the dish after the gravy has been in contact with the leaf for a while. I can't vouch for that, but it seems to me that even if so, that would only be possible if the opeh leaf is used as a take-away wrapper with the gravy staying in contact with the leaf for a period of time. Just like in days of old.

However, in the places where the opeh leaf has reappeared, it is currently used almost as decoration, and I do wonder whether people are just imagining that the dish tastes different, when gobbling it down mere minutes after it's been served.

But the opeh leaf's following doesn't compare at all with the kaya toast's following. To me, that's a classic nostalgia fad.

Led by the Ya Kun chain, we now see numerous such cafes around, all deliberately recreating the breakfast set that was familiar to our grandparents, except that the menu is now served all day. Most of these cafes get a steady stream of customers too.

The problem with a sceptic like me is that I just don't get it. What's so great about this all-day breakfast set? In fact, I would think it a very unhealthy combination.

Look at the picture, on the right, of a typical set: there's a cup of coffee or tea (care taken to use the type of cup and saucer from 50 years ago), some toast with kaya filling and 2 half-boiled eggs.

Kaya is a jam made from coconut cream and eggs. Between the sugar and the saturated fat of coconut cream, it's no friend of the heart and arteries. Nor is the cholesterol in the 2 egg yolks.

But there's more. In the next picture, I have flipped one of the slices of toast over. Do you see the slab of butter?

For heaven's sake, unless you're a growing child, you don't need so much fat and cholesterol. Yet, Singaporeans by the tens or hundreds of thousands think it's a great snack anytime during the day; it delights the tastebuds, warms our hearts with nostalgia and perhaps feeds the national identity too. 

They're the true Singaporeans. The naysayers must be those who ain't got the religion. 

© Yawning Bread