A Singaporean, Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, is currently visiting London for a few days.

He visited the Old Truman Brewery off Bricklane, which is an area that was formerly occupied by derelict, vacant buildings that have since been revitalised to host a hive of creative businesses, shops, galleries and eating places.

On Oct. 16, he ran into a stall supposedly selling Singaporean food.

You would think that the stall would be stocked with familiar favourites such as chicken rice, laksa, and nasi lemak, or any other hawker dish that would delight a Singaporean far from home.

Well, Sudhir was in for a big surprise. The food didn't look Singaporean at all.

Lemongrass chicken does sound plausibly like a food item in some hawker stalls, but asparagus and sprout... spinach and potato? Sounds like fusion food to us.

Also, we don't quite recall anything like Crispy Bang Bang Chicken being sold anywhere, or anything remotely like an uniquely Singaporean dish.

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Is it really Singaporean?

Speaking to Mothership.sg, Sudhir gave us more photos of the stall, which had a big banner with fairy lights, promoting the "Singaporean" food they were selling.

Of course, with the strangely unfamiliar-looking "Singaporean" food, it would definitely pique the interest (or shock) of a true-blue Singaporean, and Sudhir decided to find out more about the background of the food stall.

I asked the lady "Are you from Singapore?" She replied No. But our partner is. Not sure if this partner is a Bangladeshi who lived in Singapore. Didn't feel like pursuing it anymore cos I didn't want to potentially embarrass her in front of others.

This explains muchly; perhaps it was inspired cuisine, though it's hard to even see where the Singaporean connection lies in the food.

Did it taste Singaporean?

If it doesn't look nice, maybe it'll taste nice, right?

Unfortunately, the food stall fell short of those expectations as well.

Sudhir said that he didn't eat anything from the stall, but his friend got a bowl of noodles and lemongrass chicken for her daughter. The verdict? It was bad, with the food tasting like it was made out of a pre-packaged mix.

Rather than a stall that brings Singaporeans a flavour of home, it reminded Sudhir more of the old Chinese places in the US, with the food being excessively fried and sweet.

Or a fusion of everything under the sun.

Sudhir said:

[The food from the stall] looked like a hodge-podge really. Some things looked Indian. some things looked Thai. The asparagus and sprout.... could have been Western.

Fusion Mixed Rice?

Perhaps the reason why it was called Singaporean food lies in how the food was displayed and sold.

Someone pointed out that perhaps they were taking after the style of an economic mixed rice stall, but even the price of this is beyond your average cai png rate.

So there you go. If you see this stall next time you're in London, you probably wouldn't find yourself identifying this as necessarily Singaporean.

Then again, perhaps the way we name some of our food should allow us to cut others some slack.

Whoops.

Top image courtesy of Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh

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