Mala Xiang Guo / 麻辣香锅
The sweetheart of Singaporean Hawker food
How do you out-Chinese a Chinese?
Finish every single piece of dried Chili at the bottom of your 20-inch sharing bowl of Mala Xiang Guo. Though originally hailing from Chongqing, Sichuanese chefs have further mastered Mala Xiang Guo by introducing Sichuan peppercorns into the mix. Amidst the pick-and-mix conventional ingredients of bamboo shoots, tofu skin, enoki mushrooms, and too much meat, Mala Xiang Guo is not complete without the signature tingling-numbing mouthfeel of the peppercorns.
In all honesty, if you actually attempted that dear reader, you would out-Human most Humans. And just to make it clear, please don’t attempt that dear reader <3
(image: xiexielaoban.substack.com)
There were approximately 6 Mala Xiang Guo stalls throughout my university campus. One stall in each faculty canteen. This deliberate allocation pretty much defines what strategic planning looks like in Singapore. Much like their housing policy where a race quota is implemented to encourage racial intermingling and harmony, an ethnic cuisine quota is implemented to encourage culinary intermingling.
Generally speaking, us university students do tend to eat quite varied. My student halls would serve up roti canai with chicken curry for breakfast one day and fried beehon the next. The only ones who could not indulge in such varieties were the Muslim students who were very conscientious about eating only from halal-certified stalls. This meant most of their meals comprised of curries, ayam geprek, or mee goreng. Not too shabby still, especially as those meals were more familiar of my childhood anyway.
But Mala Xiang Guo came out on top of the food stall popularity chain. The queue for the Mala Xiang Guo stalls was always unrivaled. We could not get enough of this tongue-numbingly spicy dish! I personally associate Singapore with Mala Xiang Guo as well. All of my trips visiting Singapore back would always include me scrambling to the current ‘best’ Mala Xiang Guo spot.
Here’s a quick experiment for you: Hop onto a Chinese keyboard and type ‘mlxg’ into it and the Chinese characters for Mala Xiang Guo (麻辣香锅) will immediately pop out. Now you know how to type 麻辣香锅 easily! This sort of ‘hack’ in typing Chinese characters is reserved for commonly used words or phrases such as ‘gxfc’ for Gong Xi Fa Cai (恭喜发财) or ‘xx’ for Xie Xie (谢谢) which means ‘Happy Chinese New Year’ and ‘Thank You’ respectively. Sir, it is with a very full heart that I am pleased to announce that Mala Xiang Guo has stepped up head-to-head as a commonly used phrase.
With all that being said, MLXG is not an affordable meal, it was the splurge dish for us university students. If you wanted a hearty bowl with all the trimmings, be prepared to pay upwards of $15. As an especially broke student, this meant a once-in-a-while treat. I always looked forward to moments when I could treat myself to an indulging, giant, calorific bowl of MLXG.
(video: xieielaoban.substack.com)
It was supposed to be the perfect meal.
I went to the nicest part of my university campus, put in all my favorite ingredients for MLXG and chopped1 a seat at the air-con area of the canteen. After all, I wanted to indulge in my favorite food in my favorite spot on campus. My buzzer went off and I hurried to collect my meal. I could not believe what was waiting for me. My usual bowl of red, spicy, greasy MLXG was insipid and brown. But worst of all - no chilies in sight!
Sir - this can’t be right! (oh, how I wanted to say).
I always order 大辣 (super spicy). Always. The lady who placed my bowl in the pick-up area hurried off to work on the next order. The canteen staff on campus were predominantly Mainland Chinese (translation: did not speak English) and I, an Indonesian-Chinese (translation: did not speak Mandarin), was too shy and linguistically anxious to ask for clarification. I sauntered back to my seat dejected and finished maybe half of it. The lack of chilies made this MLXG so unlike itself. The image of MLXG was shattered right before my eyes.
I returned my tray and went to get myself a solemn drink, walking past the MLXG stall once more. I saw my bowl of MLXG (I knew it was my bowl. After all, I chose all the ingredients), red, spicy, greasy. And best of all - chilies! Alongside a confused white guy staring at the bowl, buzzer in hand.
Oh… The lady switched the order by mistake.
I laughed and pitied the guy. We were both people who ate at extremes and were given the wrong extreme for a change. I still wonder if he attempted to eat my bowl. Could he have possibly out-Chinesed me? Or even out-Humaned me?
Chope is a Singaporean-ism for reserving a spot. Typically, you would place a packet of tissue on the seat/table you would like to reserve. However, I don’t believe people abide by this standard of practice in recent times. I remember chope-ing a table at Ikea (the one in Alexandra) as they had notoriously long queues for food only to find my packet of tissue shoved to the side while a group of guys took our spot. I’ve not seen a lot of tissue packets to reserve tables either on my last trip back. It’s much easier to just leave your bags and other belongings ( don’t worry, it’s safe to do so) to rightfully claim the table.