Following training and working in the family business, Norman launched Dancing Crab in April this year, adding to TungLok Group’s list of over 40 restaurants in Asia. Together with his uncle, the group’s executive chairman Andrew Tjioe, the 26-year-old looks to elevate the eating-out scene with robust, country-style Cajun seafood and Creole cuisine. A self-proclaimed food snob and slob, Norman picks flavour over presentation any day. He says, “Presentation does help the diner visualise the time and effort put into a dish, but ultimately, as long as you give it your best and really care for the dish you are making, presentation techniques are a side product of such care and concern.” 

The street food haunt I frequent is… the Singapore Ampang Yong Tau Fu stall at Beng Cheng Restaurant at Upper Thomson Road. This is a recent discovery, but has quickly becoming my top favourite among all my go-to local food places. I was quite a picky eater as a kid. But during dinner time, I’d always go for the fried bean curd and tofu items first. The texture and the taste of crispy fried tofu drenched in oyster gravy never fail to have me swooning. Unfortunately during the past decade, for some reason, I rarely came across this, until recently when a colleague brought me there. 

Food… stimulates different senses of taste, smell and touch. It is often a nostalgic affair that brings back memories of a simpler time and familiar feelings of joy. At the same time, new flavours and dishes create new memories that build on the old ones, making it a more profound dining experience. 

Even though local street or hawker food… bears no single ethnic history, it is a result of the racial melting pot that is Singapore. One cannot not deny that there is such a thing as “Singaporean food”. With ingredients and cooking methods coming from all sorts of ethnicities, the food, like its people has developed its own identity. 

My other food haunts are… bak kut teh prawn mee at Adam Road Food Centre, and lor mee and wanton noodles at Tiong Bahru Market.