Singtel Hawker Heroes

It has been decided. After eight days and more than 2.5 million votes (let's try to think that there aren't any duplicates), Gordon Ramsay, the flamboyant character of cooking shows like Hell's Kitchen, will be whipping up chili crab, chicken rice and laksa.

The television personality will be up against three of Singapore's finest hawkers. The owners of Jumbo Seafood, Tian Tian Chicken Rice and 328 Katong Laksa have received the highest number of votes to earn the right to face the Michelin-starred Ramsay in the Singtel Hawker Heroes cook-off.

Ramsay will be spending time with his three opponents on Friday and Saturday to learn the dishes. The grand battle will take place at Newton Food Centre on Sunday at 6pm. The event is open to public but only 1000 servings are available on a first-come-first-makan basis.

Most of us would disagree that Ramsay is able to fend off the challenge of his Singaporean opponents. However, given his experience and skills, beating one of the three hawkers is still on the cards.

From my point of view, the dish which Ramsay has the highest chance of winning is chili crab. Ironically, chili crab garnered the most amount of votes, a thousand more than second-placed chicken rice. It's not difficult to see why.

Chicken rice is a specialized food where the rice is arguably the main star. Despite all the years of experience he possesses, it is impossible for Ramsay to master the art of cooking the rice of chicken rice in a span of two days. He can come up with a juicy chicken but making fragrant and savoury rice takes time to learn.

Laksa is even harder. Ramsay admitted that he doesn't really have much knowledge of our local food. Since he dared to confess, I dare to say 328 Katong Laksa will crush him in this part of the competition.

Laksa gravy consists of a variety of ingredients but let's not elaborate on them. Instead, the blanching of rice noodles and ensuring that it is of the right texture to be soaked in laksa gravy is something that all ang moh chefs like Ramsay have to sweat about.

Chef Ramsay can cook up some tantalizing laksa gravy but if the rice noodles are not fine enough to match it, then all efforts will go down the drain. That leaves us with chili crab.

Is chili crab essentially chili plus crab? I would say yes. However, there is more to it than just slabbing some spicy sauce on a cooked crustacean. The sauce of chili crab should less challenging for a chef like Ramsay. He can play around by using alternative chilies or narrow the gap between spiciness and sourness. Heck, he can even swap the usual Dungeness crab for an Alaskan one.

Crabs, compared to flavoured rice and Peranakan food, would be more comfortable for a Western chef to work with. Don't be surprised if Ramsay decides to add some Chilean red to enhance the appearance and taste of his chili crab.

It is puzzling why Singtel chose to organize such an event. It is none of the telecommunications giant's business (pun intended) to deal with restaurants and cooking. A Singapore hotel or the Singapore Tourism Board being the organizer would certainly make more sense. Singtel has better things to do at the moment, like the three-sided Premier League war it's having with MDA and Starbub.