This month long Singapore Food Festival offers the nation’s best delicacies, making it a haven for food lovers

Offering Singapore’s diverse local street fare, Mai Bao in collaboration with the Singapore Tourism Board is hosting a month-long Singapore Food Festival and you simply can’t miss it. 

The annual festival aims to celebrate local foods that portray the nation’s rich culinary culture – a food haven. The menu curated by Chef Jeremy Nguee from Singapore enables guests to sample some of the city’s most iconic dishes along with experiencing gleeful culinary twists on contemporary picks.

The creatively crafted menu named ‘Singapore On A Plate’ includes a huge variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian signature dishes of Singapore offered under four different bento boxes (2 veg and 2 non-veg) at a set price.

Mai Bao, defines the creative quirky heart of Singapore with colourful and lively ambience. They also have a photo booth welcoming you at the entrance. 

 

We tried both the non-vegetarian options and one from their vegetarian section. Served cutely in bento boxes, we started with the Prawn Satay. We were blown away with how the flavours had seeped into the super fresh prawns. Marinated in lemongrass, galangal and chilli paste this went perfectly with the sambal sauce (chilli paste). 

 

Next we tried the Crispy Chicken Wings. Deep fried in a umami Har cheong (shrimp paste) batter, this one is a must try. Extremely crispy, the umami flavour makes it addictive. 

The Mai Laksa Prawn tasted very homely. The creamy coconut broth with rice noodles and prawns had a welcoming taste. Served with several condiments on the side, it has the right amount of spice. This was followed by the spicy Singapore Chilli Crab which had fresh mud crabs in Singapore Egg Chilli Sauce. 

The spice quotient was brought down by the Pork Char Siu. The caramelised roasted pork in Cantonese style sweet glaze was well done but too sweet for our taste. 

We finished off this box with their Mantou Bun – a soft, slightly sweet steamed bun. 

Moving on to our next bento box, we started with their chicken satay. This too like the prawn one was highly flavourful and had a gingery taste to it. This was followed by the Ayam Goreng – a Malaysian style fried chicken with spices. This was incredibly juicy, crunchy and has a distinct taste to it. 

The next one was an absolute winner – the Salted Egg Prawns. Though quite simple, we couldn’t stop ourselves from reaching out for more. The crispy jumbo prawns were extremely fresh and smelled delightful. It’s tossed in a creamy salted egg which adds to its wonderful flavour. 

We wrapped up this box with Hainanese Chicken rice, which was too plain for our taste after all their spice and flavourful offerings. It is served with jasmine rice and broth on the side. 

From the vegetarian set, we started off with the Raw Papaya Salad. The salad with a sweet and sour dressing is a welcoming change of taste. 

The Veg Laksa tasted almost the same as the prawn one. While the Mushroom Satay served with spicy peanut sauce was a miss. 

However we were in for a pleasant surprise with the Bamboo Shoot Singapore Curry. This Singapore style curry with bamboo shoots and seasonal vegetables went perfectly with the jasmine rice. 

 

We ended our meal on a sweet note with the Kuih Seri Muka. It’s a steamed coconut sticky rice layered with pandan custard. While the layer of sticky rice got too hard as it was served cold, the pandan custard tasted refreshing. 

Review on invitation

Address – Mai Bao, DLF Avenue, Saket

 

(Cover: Vegeterian bento box)