The food of Singapore-a couple of noodle soups

When I first moved to Singapore I thought it was so strange that people ate noodles in the morning.  I started working full time 4 months after arriving here, and I would walk through the cafeteria at work, look at the noodle dishes and just figure out something else to eat, or nothing at all.  Now a couple of years into it I love noodles in the morning (or anytime)!  Like everything else here, the food is a perfect combination of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Indonesian dishes.  The day I no longer call Singapore home the food may be the thing I miss most of all.

I will describe 2 soups that are common here and that I just love: Laksa and Mee Siam.
I doubt any Singaporean would call them soups - they would say they are noodles with gravy. Trust me, they are soups.

First Mee Siam, which I think has become my favorite.  It is a Malay noodle dish served dry or in soup, or as they say in Singapore, "gravy" (soooo not gravy.  It is most definitely, for the American palate, soup).  This dish is a combination of sweet, sour and spicy.  The thin thin rice noodles are served in a tamarind broth with sprouts, hard boiled egg, fermented soy beans,  cubes of tofu, sprouts and, in the fancier versions, a couple of pieces of boiled shrimp.  The tamarind is key to the color and taste, and of course the flavors include sambal, chili, garlic  and onion and it's always accompanied by chives and half a teeny tiny lime.  The taste combo is strange at first but trust me it grows on you.  It is served any time of day but often by late afternoon when you try to order, the person behind the counter will say "finished already".  I have it for breakfast whenever I can.  Tomorrow is the day they have mee siam at my work for breakfast.  I'm beyond excited.  Here are some pix of the dish.  It's one of the flavors that I'm pretty sure I will not have once I leave southeast Asia.  so so sad.

Sunday morning breakfast out - me, my mee siam, iced tea and a kindle.  

mee siam closeup

this is a fancy one - see the shrimps?  

Now no discussion of noodle dishes in Singapore would be complete without Laksa.  This is one of the national dishes of Singapore.  It is a coconut milk-based spicy soup with rice noodles and shrimp. At first it looks like it will taste like the Thai soup tom kha kai.  Not at all - it is totally different.  It almost always has slices of fish cake and hunks of tofu, as well as half a hard boiled egg.  As with the above soup, the better versions have boiled shrimp but I have had many many respectable bowls of laksa where the shrimp is not present like the ones in the pix below.  It's seriously an amazing spicy, curry, coconutty flavor that I also doubt I will enjoy once I am not a resident of this lovely country.  

laksa

laksa

So glad tomorrow is Mee Siam day at work!!