Since you cannot travel to Singapore right now, the world’s highly anticipated event on every foodie’s calendar, The Singapore Food Festival (SFF) — now in its 28th edition — has evolved into a hybrid format of virtual and live events. The Singapore Tourism Board in India has partnered with Foodhall for a month-and-a-half-long campaign to showcase Singaporean cuisine via fun and engaging consumer activities, pop-ups, a limited-edition menu at their in-house café and recipe ingredient boxes curated by chef Anahita Dhondy (available on Zomato and Swiggy). There will also be  virtual masterclasses with Singaporean chef Haikal Johari, executive chef at Michelin Star restaurant Alma by Juan Amador, for a select few.

Before the event this week, we caught up with chef Johari for an exclusive e-mail interview. He explains how Indian cuisine has become a significant part of the Singaporean food culture. “Besides Indian restaurants in Singapore serving authentic South and North Indian dishes, fusion recipes are the norm now. The rich, robust flavours, unique to Indian cuisine are altered to cater to the Singaporean palate. For example, the masala chai is made with lesser masala while  aloo gobi is cooked in butter or cheese instead of oil. Several Indian restaurants here also serve Chinese, Thai and Malay food with their own spin to it.”