Serangoon road in Singapore is a main area of shopping for thousands of Singapore Indian residents and expatriates. The Chinese and the Indian societies in Singapore, patronizes each other’s culture. One such aspect is the Chinese’s instant love for the Indian food. Just for a simple reason that Indian food is hot and spicy, contrast to their bland flavor. It is a norm for the Chinese to eat most of their meals at the hawker centers, and they cook seldom at home.
Usually, Chinese diet include soups, fresh vegetables blended with sauce and vinegar, boiled chicken, fish, duck-egg, chicken-egg, different kinds of noodles, chicken rice, porridge and others. Tomato sauce, oyster sauce, soya sauce are their must ingredients. Unlike Indians, tamarind is not an ingredient for Chinese. Indian restaurants abound the serangoon road area. Among the many, the Chinese abound ‘Muthu’s curry’ restaurant. What is the reason behind? It is for a single reason – Muthu’s curry’s head steamboat fish entices the Chinese with its indelible flavor. The Chinese flock Muthu’s curry to savor the taste of this hot and unique flavored ‘Head steamboat fish curry’.
Muthu’s curry restaurant situated in the Race course road is an ornate. Prawns, fish, chicken, egg and others were neatly displayed, which was a clear sign of a prominent non-vegetarian restaurant.
I thought of visiting Muthu’s curry to catch up in person with the Chinese customers to find the reasons for their likings to Indian food. The common ideology is that, the Chinese food varies largely in all aspects like the looks, flavor, taste etc.., to the Indian food. That compels the majority of the Chinese to explore the Indian food.
I happened to talk with an Insurance agent, Mr.Jackie Hong and he said that, the hot spicy flavor that most attracts him to the Indian food. He says, “The Chinese refrain completely from cooking chilies. Alternatively, they include pepper to cook spicy items”. Hence he frequently visits Muthu’s curry to savor its spicy fish curry.
Another Chinese patron of Indian food, Mr. Loh Hong, eats at Muthu’s curry every week. He treats his friends from Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia at Muthu’s curry, and undoubtedly those people too have enjoyed the unique flavor.
Upon the unanimous response to the enticing steamboat fish curry, we approached Muthu’s Curry owner, Mr. Kasi to share the secret behind the preparation, of this outstanding curry.
He attributes the success of the restaurant to his late father Mr. Iyyakannu’s innovative ideas to cater to other races. In 1969, where there were a handful of restaurants that served the fish curry. At that time, Mr. Iyyakannu came up with his own ideas of an exclusive recipe, which would appeal to the Chinese taste. When this idea was formulized, as expected it was well received among the Chinese. From that day to today for about thirty five years, Muthu’s curry has been catering the ‘Steamboat fish curry’ to its customers, who 75% are Chinese.
