The wok never stopped roaring. It was almost midnight at a zi char stall in Geylang, and the flames kept leaping up in short, angry bursts. Trays clattered. Someone shouted an order across the aisle. A cleaner dragged a bin past my chair. I sat there with my camera in my lap, waiting for a…

The first time I tried to photograph nigiri at a proper counter, I ruined the piece. I fussed. I tilted the plate. I leaned back for a better angle, checked the screen, tried again. By the time I actually ate it, the rice had cooled and the fish had warmed, and that careful balance the…

The smoke reached me before the food did. It was close to one in the morning, and I was standing at a satay stall near Lau Pa Sat, watching a man fan his coals in slow, practiced strokes. Each pass sent up a curl of grey that caught the streetlight and vanished. I had my…

I nearly walked into Cuppage Plaza by mistake. That’s the thing people get wrong about Al Capone’s. It’s not inside the plaza at all. It sits a short walk away at 37 Cuppage Terrace, along that covered open-air stretch where the tables spill almost onto the walkway. I found it by following the sound first….

The first time I lowered my camera mid-shot, I knew something had changed in me. It was past midnight at Geylang Lor 9 Fresh Frog Porridge, a kway chap stall nearby still going strong. The uncle had just ladled broth over the rice, the steam curling up into the dim light, and instead of framing…

Most people know Cuppage Plaza food during daylight hours. But I know it better after midnight. For the past two years, I’ve made a quiet habit of ending my nights here, camera slung over one shoulder, appetite following close behind. I’ve watched the building change character after 11pm, when the lifts go slow and the…

The first time I tried to photograph a bowl of noodles in the dark, I lost. I was at a supper stall past midnight, fiddling with settings, raising the brightness, fighting the shadows like they were the enemy. By the time I got a clean shot, the broth had gone tepid and the moment had…

I went looking for air, not dinner. It was late, the kind of late where Orchard Road empties out and the malls go soft and grey. I wandered up to the second floor of Orchard Plaza, located at 150 Orchard Road #02-56, and there it was, lit and open, a little Vietnamese store that doesn’t…

There is a half second at a wok stall that I have learned to live for. The flame leaps, the hand tilts, and the whole dish hangs in the air before it falls back into the pan. Miss it, and you get a flat plate of noodles. Catch it, and you get the night itself,…

Orchard Plaza after dark is a strange kind of quiet. The shiny malls down Orchard Road buzz with crowds, but up here the corridors hum under old fluorescent light, half the shutters down, the air still and slightly worn. I almost walked past Tha Siam Thai Kitchen. If not for the faint thread of Thai…