I tend to get mini food obsessions. I’ll become completely fixated on one type of food and could happily eat it — and only it — for the longest time. No variety, no apologies, no shame.
In Singapore, I was fixated on nasi lemak for breakfast when I worked in the Katong area. Then later, as the office moved to Beach Road, it became a daily breakfast of Mr Bean mini chocolate pancakes and cold soy milk with grass jelly. On Saturday mornings, it was Mallu from Sankaranti, but on bender weekends, chicken rice.
Then I moved to Melbourne.
Hot pot came first. There’s something almost meditative about cooking your own food at the table, piece by piece, dipping and dunking into a bubbling broth. I ate hot pot with the kind of dedication most people reserve for a gym routine.
Then came dainty Sichuan food in South Yarra. I was deep in it for a while, though that particular obsession wound down when I moved to the West and was promptly replaced by Indonesian Nasi Goreng from Kaki Lima.
Place and price: the two great killers of a good food obsession.
After that, Buddha bowls took over. Clean, colourful, endlessly customisable — I was convinced I could live off them forever. Spoiler: I could not. But I gave it a solid run.
And most recently — until literally yesterday — my obsession belonged entirely to martabak Pecenongan. That crispy, eggy, gloriously indulgent martabak that I could justify eating at almost any hour. Which, apparently, I am no longer obsessed with. Just like that. One day you’re devoted, the next you’re done.
That’s the funny thing about food obsessions: they don’t fade gradually. They just… stop. No warning, no farewell meal. You simply move on.
Right now, I’m rotating between Buddha bowls and hot pot, which feels less like a phase and more like a lifestyle at this point.
But through every obsession, one constant remains: rice. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever stop being obsessed with rice. God, I hope not. Never. Not ever. Some loves are simply forever.
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