The Fantastic Differences

I love how as I spend more and more time in Brisbane, I discover more and more differences between our two countries. Whether it be food, education or just culture, both countries have their strengths and weaknesses, and I'm glad I've been so blessed to have the opportunities to see these differences and be thankful about what I have in both/either country.

Since I haven't been blogging much due to the lack of a camera (poor excuse, I know), I decided that furture blog posts shall share some of these differences between Motherland (aka Singapore), and my second home (Brisbane, Queensland Australia).

Here's my pick for today:

The stereotype Western and Asian meals you find in each respective country.

 Exhibit A: Typical hawker centre/kopitiam Western Meal from Singapore

Must haves of a typical western meal:

- Meat chop of some kind, poorly pan-grilled or deep fried
- unsalted, possibly soggy, under-deep-fried crinkle cut fries
- fried egg (commonly called a 'bullseye' in my family)
- baked beans
- occasional poor attempt at coleslaw or stale, soggy, grass tasting salad


(photo courtesy of a real meal someone had on FB)


I'm sure any person from the a westernised culture will be thinking in their minds 'WTH IS THAT CRAP?!WHAT AN INSULT/POOR REPRESENTATION!!'

Well... let's look at some of the attempts at Asian food then..

Exhibit B: Common menu from pseudo-asian takeaways here in Brisbane  


I don't know how Singapore managed to have it's own noodle (I certainly have never had it in Singapore), nor have I heard of a 'pud' thai (though there is the pad thai, which might possibly sound a bit offensive and therefore renamed to pud thai). And don't you just love how the ingredients have been spelled out? Trust me, the food from this particular takeaway was pretty generic.. It tasted like they threw all the asian sauces they had on their shelves into the wok.

However, needless to say, both countries have their fair share of AMAZING representations of western and asian food places. While Singapore has a fantastic array of high-end restaurants serving up various cuisines, Brisbane has the beauty of many emigrants who have set up their own quaint restaurants and eateries which serve up really authentic food as well. I must say that Brisbane is where I'd go for the most authentic Vietnamese and Korean food due to the authenticity of the chefs!

Either ways... all that second grade food is still probably better than most of the stuff I whip up in mh kitchen (mainly the microwave) so far.. So.. no complains from me! (Besides the prices though)

Coming up next post....

Ministry of Education (MOE) vs Education Queensland (EdQueensland)!