Singapore (CNN) – No one wants to be trapped in a foreign country during a global pandemic.
But by his own admission, Jon Lu, a 25-year-old American software engineer, chose to stay in Singapore when last year the world’s borders began to close.
“I first came to Singapore in August 2019, although I spent most of my time abroad working,” says the New Yorker. “I didn’t really start living in Singapore until March 2020.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate says he chose where he wanted to settle during his one-year project in Asia.
Proficiency in English and Mandarin, Lu, a recreational figure skater who used to participate in intercollegiate competitions, finally decided on Singapore.
He worked very hard practicing figure skating about four to five times a week. But he also did what Singaporeans know best: food.
To date, the American has visited a total of 255 food and beverage outlets, including cafes and street vendor stalls, covering 30 Michelin-rated restaurants with 37 Michelin stars collectively (55 Michelin stars, including visits repeated).
An impressive feat, given that the city’s restaurants remained closed to eating in person for more than two months, not to mention the fact that he was temporarily away from home due to health issues.
When the city went into a nationwide partial closure (also known as the Circuit Breaker) from April 7 to June 1, 2020, restaurants were forced to offer only takeaway food. This did not stop Lu, who continued to eat well from asking for food distributions, not one, but two a day, during the first half of the period.
But they were not regular meals. He chose to focus on the city’s many gastronomic offerings, including Michelin-starred bars, which often take weeks, if not months, to secure their tables.
“It was such a difficult time for the F&B industry: I wanted to do everything I could to help support local businesses,” says Lu, adding that some of his most memorable Circuit Breaker meals were menus. tasting designed for the home, where he should put the finishing touch on the dishes himself.
“One of those meals was from Odette at Home,” says Lu, who even managed to purchase a towel and a small potted plant from the hotel staff where he had been for a month to recreate the seat. the stand of the French restaurant. his room.
Jon Lu, American software engineer
But in early May, Lu began to have problems with his vision.
Doctors diagnosed him with retinal vein occlusion, caused by extremely high LDL cholesterol levels, presumably as a result of the dining habits of the canteens during the previous seven months of intensive travel and eating before closing.
It didn’t help that the gyms and ice rinks were closed.
“I worked with local specialists to treat the symptoms of vision and I started running every day,” Lu says. “I also followed a low-cholesterol, heart-healthy diet for two months, during which I avoided moderate to high-sugar foods.”
After two months of dieting and running, Lu’s health problems were resolved. In July, a few weeks after food could be eaten at the second phase of the city’s reopening, it began to fill the reservation calendar again.
Lu’s best dining options
American software engineer Jon Lu has eaten four times at the Michelin-starred Odette, run by chef Julien Royer.
Jon Lu
After tasting the cream of Singapore’s best restaurants, a feat that even food critics would take a year or two to complete, Lu is well positioned to offer advice on where to find the best food in town.
Michelin-starred Odette’s three Michelin-starred Odettes join chef Julien Royer, where Lu has dined four times. He highly values the contemporary French restaurant for its “incredibly refined and technically well-executed” cuisine, led by Royer’s dove’s “Pico a la cua” course, which “tastes incredible.”
In the Japanese category, Lu highlights the Michelin-starred Kimura sushi, which he has visited twice. Chef owner Tomo-o Kimura says he offers “thicker” and “more exotic” cuts of fish, such as sujiko (salmon fish), oki aji (white rooster fish) and usubu hagi (unicorn leather fish). ). Not to mention Kimura’s shari (sushi rice), which is “incredibly firm and airy” and is served at the “perfect temperature”.
As for Singapore cuisine, it’s the Michelin-starred maze of chef Han Li Guang that drags Lu’s ropes.
The restaurant is famous for showcasing elevated versions of local dishes, such as the Signature Chilli Crab, which are unmistakably of Singaporean origin, with mostly locally sourced ingredients. Lu states that his November trip to Labyrinth, the second, is one of his favorite meals after the Circuit Breaker.
Among the best Japanese selections of Lu in Singapore is Sushi Kimura.
Jon Lu
Highlights include Ang Moh Chicken Rice and An Ode to Cairnhill Steakhouse, both honoring Han’s grandmother and grandfather respectively.
In addition to Michelin-rated restaurants, Lu also intends to check out new restaurants. Her new favorite premiere, Euphoria, serves “gastro-botanical” cuisine created by Singapore chef Jason Jason Tan during his one-star stay at Corner House.
“At the center of the euphoria are four botanical essences made exclusively from vegetables,” Lu says. “I was very impressed with how tasty each dish was and, most importantly, the complexity of the flavor of the vegetable components.”
Despite his impressive coverage of renowned restaurants, Lu says he doesn’t believe in “star chase,” that is, eating at a restaurant only on the basis that Michelin has been awarded stars. There are 13 star restaurants left in Singapore that he has not visited.
Its most visited place in Singapore, the two-year-old avant-garde restaurant Preludio has no stars.
Directed by Colombian chef Fernando Arevalo, Preludio serves “signature cuisine” that revolves around an annual changing theme called “chapter.” From his first monochrome chapter, Lu explains the course Pata Negra with “amazing” flavors, with Iberian pork shoulder breaded with panko spring with a “distinctive” mixture of spices (cumin, cayenne and red pepper) paired with tomatoes soaked in a two-day fertilizer.
“As someone who doesn’t normally like to repeat dishes in fine dining restaurants, the fact that I’ve already dined at the Prelude nine times (in 2020) is a testament to his inventiveness,” Lu says.
Inspired by the “Chef’s Table”
Lu says eating out and exploring places to eat has been a hobby since 2015, when he did internships in downtown Chicago and was surrounded by many dining options within walking distance of his office.
Since then, the food aficionado claims to have visited at least 300 different restaurants each year, starting with cafes and casual establishments, before graduating to better places in 2019.
Attributing his interest in gourmet cooking to the Netflix series chef’s table, Lu says he was fascinated by how the show represented food as a seemingly limitless art form, limited only by skill and imagination. of the chef.
The American claims that Singapore has been arguably the “most impressive” dining city to date and that it is “completely possible” to eat every day in a quality venue without repeating meals for years.
“The variety of cuisines and the variety of ingredients available (which really cover every corner of the world) in Singapore is amazing,” says Lu.