Madeleine Chapman reflects on the week that was.
It’s almost too predictable that I would travel to Singapore for the first time, spend a week eating incredible Malaysian, Chinese and Indian cuisine and only want to write about the buttered toast. But if nothing else, my surprisingly extensive food writing portfolio has revealed my palate to be that of a healthy, developing three-year-old.
So let me talk about this toast. I never thought I’d pay for toast (bread, of course, but not toast) until I kept reading recommendations for Ya Kun Kaya Toast, the Singapore breakfast chain that began as a hawker cart 80 years ago. Supposedly this place could make toast better than anywhere else in Singapore, maybe even the world.
I went in with low expectations because how much better can a piece of plain buttered toast be compared to the one you make at home? I may have a basic palate but I avoid places that offer things I think I’d enjoy more at home – I love that cereal cafes exist, I’ll never eat at one. Well colour me humbled because the Ya Kun Kaya Toast was by far the best buttered toast I’ve ever had, and for all the wrong reasons.
Have you ever tried to describe why toast is delicious? It’s quite hard, but here’s my attempt to explain why this particular toast was so good.
- The bread was thin. A piece of thin toast is really underrated.
- It wasn’t hot. Sounds bad but this toast was just warm, and somehow stayed just warm, which meant…
- The butter had texture. Buttering hot toast means the butter disappears and you’re left experiencing just one texture (the slightly soggy, crunchy bread). If you butter like an aunty, you’ll get the soggy bread and some extra butter on top. But because the toast wasn’t too hot, the butter sat inside like a piece of cheese, resulting in the soft butter texture alongside the dry crunch of the toast. Delightful.
- The kaya. Kaya is a coconut jam, sweet and subtle. Ya Kun includes it in the toast but very, very sparingly. I’d say the kaya-butter ratio was 1:4. Rather than tasting like coconut, the buttered toast instead tasted just a little bit sweeter, like it had a sprinkle of sugar added (I think they do add an extra sprinkle actually).
- The portion was small. I could eat a truly shocking amount of white toast with butter and yet the single serving (four pieces of bread with crusts cut off) felt just right. The classic “kit” came with veeery soft boiled eggs – barely seasoned, just my style – which worked surprisingly well as a dip, and a cup of tea or coffee (I got tea). A perfect light breakfast. I also got some buttered crackers, another island aunty staple, but they weren’t needed.
I went back two more times at different times of the day, and the toast remained the best I’ve eaten. I am bringing a jar of Ya Kun Kaya back with me but I suspect it won’t be near as nice when I’m in my own kitchen.
I love it when people take something that everyone can, and does, do, and finds a way to make it perfect. Ya Kun Kaya makes the perfect toast.
The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week
Feedback of the week
“Hatch, Match and Despatch is right up there as a memorable institutional name; in my book it ranks alongside a pre-earthquakes Chch women’s clothing shop called Get Frocked.”
“Ursula Le Guin: ‘The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes … They exist. But they are not your Masters. They never were.’”
Discussion about this post