Singapore is a fabulous destination for food-lovers. Residents in the city-state border on the obsessive when it comes to finding the 'best' of each of their many delicious specialities. Singaporeans are happy to share their opinions on their favourite places, whether it's hawker food, a restaurant that cooks only a few dishes but does them perfectly, or a noodle place tucked away in one of the monolithic shopping centres.
For those who can't get to Singapore as often as they would like, they can satisfy their cravings for Singaporean delicacies with a new recipe book, Shiok! The expression is usually described as Singaporean slang for 'delicious' but the authors translate it rather more passionately as 'sublime, unutterably wonderful, greatly more than satisfactory in all ways, unsurpassably good'. The authors are Terry Tan, who has written several books on Singaporean, Nonya and Chinese cooking, and his son, Christopher Tan, who writes for various food and wine magazines. This book has all the favourites - Hainanese chicken rice, chilli crabs, char kway teow and satay. The Tans write briefly about the origins and influences of most of the dishes, because Singaporean food has absorbed the cuisines of many other countries.
com) for $195.