Singapore has always been a place to go for good food, with all our delicious local food like chilli crab, chicken rice, hokkien mee, mee goreng, prata, etc. But in the last decade or so, the food scene has really exploded, all kinds of cafes have sprung up all over our island and we now have restaurants serving food from all places and even one or two places do molecular gastronomy. Food festivals have also become a familiar entry in our food diary and something to look forward to. In March this year, we had Savour 2015 and for the past 3 days (last day today!), the World Street Food Congress 2015 has been going on. This year, I managed to go for both and while good food is a common theme, both experiences were pretty different.

Savour prides itself as Singapore’s first gourmet food festival and the participants are mostly restaurants on the higher end of the price scale with a couple of restaurants with michelin stars thrown in. There you have your truffles, lobsters, wine and foie gras, all available at decent prices in sample sizes. Many of the participants are local restaurants, so it is a really good way to find out which restaurants you like enough to splash out on a full meal, because these places don’t come cheap. You also get treated to food brought in by restaurants from other countries that you may not have the chance to visit. This year, Savour brought in 4 restaurants from Hong Kong, the UK, Denmark and Australia!

The food at Savour was mostly very good and the sights and smells were such a delight.

Foie Gras Magnum – strangely delicious chocolate and peanut coated foie gras

Gorgeous displays at the gourmet market

Sucking Pig from UNA@Rochester

Nitronita from Saint Pierre, delicious!

Molecular Buns from Bo Innovation, this was just strange to me, from texture to taste

Beef Short Rib from Osia was melt-in-your-mouth amazing

Preparing the Nitronita

Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, brilliant Churros from UNA@Rochester

Veloute of Pea, Sauteed Tiger Prawns and Lemon Jelly from Midsummer House was honestly pretty disappointing to me

Beautiful cheeses

Foie Gras, Smoked Pancetta Chilli, Potato Mousse & Truffle Linguine with Crab, Nduja Lobster Mac & Cheese from &Sons – Nice

Chef Emmanuel Stroobant from Saint Pierre

Beautifuly cooked paella from UNA@Rochester

Japanese Hida Wagyu Burger from Stellar@1-Altitude – yuuum

The World Streetfood Congress 2015 is all about food without the frills, street food from many countries (would love it even more if they could bring in food from more places), what more could you want? To be honest, when I saw the lineup for this year, I was quite disappointed because it features way more local food and while I love my local food, I was hoping to taste food that I won’t be able to easily get. That said, it was the har cheong gai burger that brought me down to Bugis yesterday. I like the setup better than the one in 2013 in that it was much more bustling and more like a jamboree. Again, to much food to possibly try in a sitting, but we tried our best.

Chicken Inasal Taco with Fried Chicken Skin from East Side King – an explosion of flavours, delicious

Truffle lechon diva, (pork with truffle rice) from Pepita’s Kitchen – ok, this? this was a disappointment, we queued 45minutes for this because the pig is freshly roasted but the taste was just normal. Pretty much the disappointment of the day

East Side King brought in their own truck! authencity!

Anticucho from Gustu Melting Pot Bolivia – flavours were good but a little too subtle

Har Cheong Gai Burger!!! Hong Kong Street Chun Kee Loved this

Kinislaw from East Side King – refreshing, spicy, just amazing

Delicious churros sundae from Churros Locos

Currywurst from Bratworks – nice, but the accompanying potato salad was better

Sisig in wonton cups from Bale Dutung – not for the faint-hearted, this is topped with bits from a pig’s head

There’s something about a whole roasting pig

Food Festivals are not the cheapest, but definitely not an experience not to be missed if you love food. Good food, cold beer, nothing beats that.