Seetoh's laksa floors Martha

SINGAPORE'S iconic dish of rice noodles in a spicy coconut gravy made it into the living rooms of millions across the United States on Tuesday - on The Martha Stewart Show.

KF Seetoh, founder of hawker food guide Makansutra, made a guest appearance on the domestic doyenne's daily show, cooking laksa from scratch.


The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in New York had been pitching for Seetoh to appear on the show since September last year, before an opportunity materialised in April.


Fuller story here:
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Singapore/Story/STIStory_376573.html

Hopefully, our Ministry of Tourism will take a page out of our Southern neighbour's book and start working towards getting Malaysia into the western media on the strength of its great food instead of its less savoury aspects.

Good catch a/m. Maybe Adly can use this piece of news to urge Malaysian Tourism Board do make similar efforts. I personally would be one hell of a proud if we can really launch ourselves on the global map for food.

Hey thanks for the heads up dude. I have to give it to the S'pore Tourism people. Although their street dishes are nowhere near ours, but they have taken the effort and time to properly market it to the rest of the world. And not only that, steal our food and call it theirs. In this area, they are always a few steps ahead of Malaysia in terms of marketing and managing perception.

I got reports from my Sporean friends that they are now saying "Come to Spore for authentic Penang Street Food!" If you've read our feature in the Edge earlier this month, you'd know that we are totally for the globalization of Malaysian street food to the rest of the world, like pizza is to Italy and sushi to Japan. But is seems that our government has got other priorities. If Singapore is promoting street food on a global basis, I am sure you know that there is a global spore strategy behind doing something like this for they think that it can seriously contribute to their economic growth. If it's not important, I wouldn't think that they'll bother.

I guess in the end, if we (i.e. collectively Malaysians and govts) are indifferent to how good our food is, and are not willing to protect it, other countries will steal it away from us, call it theirs and make a ton of money from it.....

I'm inviting comments from everyone on this matter. Anyone else cares to voice their opinion on this?

Adly, I must admit that I posted this article on the back of our discussion at Raju's about how much effective support the Singapore Government has given towards private ventures that promote Singaporean food abroad compared to what you guys have gotten from a Ministry recently more famous for being investigated by the MACC than anything else. For everyone else who wasn't at Raju's that morning and are wondering what our dear friends get, you have 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count. If I were to give full vent to my views on this sorry state of affairs, I fear that my language may lapse to a level inconsistent with my Malaysian Truly Asian Values so I wont. Instead I shall try to put a positive spin on Singapore's efforts.
*clears throat*
I think that Singapore's gastronomic efforts to raise Singapore's profile abroad have also raised the basic level of understanding and acceptance by westerners of South East Asian food in general and Malaysian food in particular. Notwithstanding the somewhat elastic view of gastronomic provenance employed and espoused by certain Singaporeans as to the origins of certain well loved Malaysian dishes, if some New Yorker is now open to the idea of having Nasi Lemak for breakfast, it is easier to convince him that our version is better. If some Midwesterners now are open to the idea of eating Singapore's version of curry laksa, it is easier for us to lead them down the righteous path. Some people must first enjoy Kenny G before they are ready to appreciate Miles Davis. I especially like Adly's example of how Singapore is using Penang's new found fame to their advantage. There is no reason why we shouldn't operate on similar lines. Most of our mamak chains already serve Singapore Rojak. We really should work with Singapore to our mutual advantage. The concept is not entirely alien to our shores. Earlier this year, Malaysia and Indonesia jointly agreed to promote tourism packages. We also need to learn how to be more proactive in singing the praises of our local food and we need to learn how to use the media more effectively. It can happen. Consider how far the image of food in Britain has come from long being considered the worst in all of Europe to now sporting the 2nd best restaurant in the world according to the San Pellegrino guide. And all this has happened within the past two decades. In this respect, there is much for us to learn from the Singaporean experience. Once we hit our stride, Im sure we can overtake them.

Well, FriedChillies have always been there to champion the Malaysian Food and Heritage. Surprisingly, we were supported by MOSTI and MDEC under the Digital Content Initiative so we have received a lot of support from that area. We were *very* surprised that they were receptive to our strategy of marketing Malaysia online and I think our grant was one of the fastest that was awarded to a company under the e-Content fund. So, these bunch of people were forward thinkers and we appreciated what they did for us. When articles came out in Wall Street Journal or New York Times featuring Malaysia, the media coverage ROI amounted to many folds more than what they gave us in terms of the grant.

Lately there has been a lot of talk about this subject. NST 5th May - Foreign tourists not so into nasi lemak.

Anyway, here's an older article in TIMES UK on what they think about Singapore Street Food ->Singapore Sizzles with The Best Street Food

I have friends coming over from overseas and they love our food. I am not talking about the fine dining places but the simple street food. They love our satay and char koay teow. Assam laksa is too fishy to some of them but curry laksa is a favourite. It's a shame if Singapore gets to claim all these dishes as 'theirs'.