Dio Asahi
I’ve been eating sushi in this city for years now, from S$1.50 plates rolling past on a belt to omakase counters where the bill made me sit up straight. Somewhere along the way I stopped chasing “the best” and started noticing something else — that good sushi answers a mood, not a ranking. Some nights…
By Dio Asahi for Eat Drink Asia. The lid comes off, and the steam rises first. It’s a warm afternoon in Chiang Mai, and on the table sits a small woven bamboo basket, still holding the heat of the pot it came from. Someone’s grandmother lifts the top and sets it aside without looking. Inside,…
I used to add the rice too early. The oil would be hot, the sambal barely a minute in, and I’d tip in the cold rice because I was hungry and impatient. Every time, the same result: rice stained red but tasting of nothing much. Sharp. Raw. Flat where it should have been deep. It…
By Dio Asahi for Eat Drink Asia. The lift opens onto a corridor leading to the famed and hidden Cuppage Plaza food, and the building’s age shows in the flickering fluorescent light and the smell of old carpet. Then a sliding door pulls back, and Keria Japanese Restaurant asks you to slow down. Inside, it…
The first time I made Pad Thai, I ruined it before the wok was even hot. I’d left the noodles soaking while I answered a phone call. Ten minutes turned into forty. By the time I drained them, they were already soft, already surrendered. Everything I did in the pan after that was damage control.…
By Dio Asahi for Eat Drink Asia. The lift opens on the third floor of Orchard Plaza, and for a second I don’t know which way to turn. The corridor is dim and still, the kind of quiet that feels almost accidental in this part of town. A few doors down, an unmarked entrance. Inside,…
There’s a container of rice at the back of my fridge most weeks. Cold, a little hard, forgotten from a dinner two nights ago. Some people see that and think of waste. I see the start of something better. Because leftover rice doesn’t want to be reheated. It wants to be fried. And when it…
By Dio Asahi for Eat Drink Asia. The shop is barely wider than a hallway. Seven stools, a counter worn smooth, and behind it a woman ladling soup into small ceramic bowls before anyone has ordered it. Steam lifts off the surface and fogs the window against the cold morning. The bowl reaches me warm…
It was close to nine on a Friday when I finally found the door. Tanjong Pagar was doing its usual thing, full tables spilling onto five-foot ways, soju bottles catching the light, someone laughing too loudly two doors down. I almost walked past Todamgol. Then the smell reached me. Fermented, smoky, a little sharp. The…
By Dio Asahi for Eat Drink Asia. The lift opens on the fourth floor of Cuppage Plaza and the smoke finds me before the door does. Charcoal, dark and earthy, threaded through with something richer — fat meeting fire. I follow it down a narrow corridor, past shuttered shops and flickering signage, until I reach…