Singapore - Frog Porridge

Last August RJ and I visited Singapore for my friends' wedding. It was way before I had ever even set eyes upon a food blog. But because food is one of my favourite things about Singapore, I ended up taking some photos of things we ate.

We spent this particular day with my Singaporean friend D, who I had met during my exchange student days in 1999 at Nanyang Technological University. After a long day spent eating our way around the island, D took us for dinner in Geylang, Singapore's notorious red light district. It's also known for its fantastic food.

D wanted us to try one of his favourites, frog porridge. Last time D had talked about eating frogs (way back when I was an exchange student) I'd tried not to rule out the idea. That was until we reached the hawker centre and saw huge fish tanks full of frogs hopping around, croaking happily, unaware that they were about to, well, croak! At the hands of a hawker armed only with a grotty old pair of scissors, no less. So D's frog porridge plan was vetoed. And - it appears - he had waited five years to try to convince me again.

This time, he knew better than to let us see the frogs! He ordered us to sit down at the table out on the footpath and said he would go and place the order. We could hear a bit of croaking, but as our table was next to the road there was enough other noise to disguise it. RJ was keen - he is very brave - but I told Derek that he had better order me some chicken satay sticks, or else!

I was happily munching away at my satays when the frog porridge was delivered in two clay pots: one containing the rice porridge and the other holding the frog pieces. These were to be mixed together in each person's bowl. It smelled delicious! D had neglected to tell me that the frogs would be cooked in ginger and shallot sauce, one of my very favourites!

I still couldn't quite get my head around eating frog, but in the end I psyched myself up and tried a bit! I felt super adventurous! It had the texture of chicken, I guess, and the strong ginger and shallot flavour seemed to overpower any flavour that the frog might actually have had.


Frog porridge

So with that scary adventure over, D suggested that we could go across the road after dinner and eat some "Taiwanese snakes"! I began to protest strenuously until I realised a couple of moments later the my Australian-accented ears had misheard... We were, in fact, about to enjoy some Taiwanese snacks! Phew!



food and drink Singapore frogs ginger travel