curry or dhal?

There is a wide variety of food available for breakfast in Singapore.

Two of the more popular types of breakfast food are roti prata and thosai.

Thosai is a crepe made from rice and black lentils. It is a typical South Indian food, usually eaten at breakfast or dinner. The batter is ladled onto a big round hotplate where it is spread out into a thin circle and pan fried. The thosai is usually folded into half or rolled as in a wrap.

My favourite type of thosai is masala thosai. It is essentially thosai stuffed with filling inside. The filling consists of cooked potatoes, fried onions and spices. Although the masala thosai is not spicy, some of the side dishes that accompanythe masala thosai are spicy.

As you can see from the photograph below, thosai are served with side dishes. The type of side dishes varies from stall to stall. Common side dishes include:-

(a) sambar (that is, a vegetable stew made from broth, tamarind and dhal)

(b) coconut chutney

(c) Indian pickles

(d) chicken or mutton curry

Roti prata looks like a flat bread and it is made of dough comprising fat (eg. ghee), egg, flour and water. There are two types of roti prata - roti prata kosong (that is, without egg) or roti prata telur (that is, with egg). In Malaysia, roti prata is known as roti canai (that is, roti prata without egg) or roti telur (that is, roti prata with egg).

This is a popular breakfast or supper dish although locals eat it at any time of the day.

Roti prata is traditionally served with chicken curry. For those who do not eat spicy food, the stallholders would usually not mind accommodating requests for sugar or condensed milk instead of curry.

Sometimes, the stallholder will serve you roti prata with fish curry instead. Da prefers the fish curry as it is more tangy.

Naturally, no thosai or roti prata would be complete without a teh tarik or a kopi tarik. My favourite teh tarik and kopi tarik stall in Singapore is located at the Marine Parade hawker centre. The stall holder is accommodating and will willingly accept our order of "cham tarik" (that is, teh tarik mixed with kopi tarik).

Source: Wikipedia