I sat on a plastic stool along East Coast Road, the afternoon heat pressing against my back. In front of me was a bowl of Katong Laksa, the familiar orange broth dotted with chopped thick bee hoon, pale fishcake, and a spoonful of sambal. I picked up the porcelain spoon, no chopsticks needed here, mixed the chili into the coconut milk, and took a sip.
It was rich. It was spicy. It was comforting.
And yet, almost instantly, a quiet thought echoed in the back of my mind: It tasted better years ago.
If you live in Singapore long enough, you have said this. We all have that one hawker stall, that one specific plate of char kway teow or bowl of fishball noodles that we swear has lost its magic. We blame the passing of the torch to the next generation. We blame the rising cost of ingredients. We shake our heads and declare that the wok hei just isn’t what it used to be.
But as I scooped up another bite of laksa, I wondered if the recipe had actually changed, or if the change was simply me.
Food in this city is never just sustenance. It is a timeline. When we bite into a dish we grew up eating, our tastebuds are not just searching for salt, fat, and umami. They are searching for the past. I realized I wasn’t just looking for the flavor of toasted belacan; I was looking for the feeling of being seventeen again, sitting at this exact same table after a grueling day of school exams, feeling like the whole world was still unwritten.
We bring our memories to the table, and memories are incredibly heavy seasoning.
The auntie behind the counter might be following the exact same steps she did two decades ago. She might be using the same dried shrimp, stirring the pot with the same rhythmic patience. But she cannot serve me the carefree joy of my youth. She cannot replicate the laughter of friends who have since drifted away, or the comforting presence of family members who used to buy me this very meal.
We unfairly ask our food to be a time machine.
When a broth doesn’t magically transport us back to a simpler decade, we assume the kitchen has slipped. But perhaps the dish is exactly as it always was. Perhaps it is our palates that have become crowded with age, routine, and the inevitable complexity of growing up.
I looked down at my half-empty bowl. The steam was still rising, catching the slanted afternoon light. I took another spoonful, this time forcing myself to stay entirely in the present. I focused on the sweet crunch of the cockles, the gentle slide of the noodles, and the fragrant heat of the laksa leaf.
It was a beautifully comforting bowl of food. And maybe, years from now, I will look back at this exact afternoon and tell someone that it tasted better today.
