Singapore (CNN) – Nobody wants to be trapped in a foreign country during a global pandemic.
But, as he himself admitted, Jon Lu, a 25-year-old American software engineer, chose to remain in Singapore when the world’s borders began to close last year.
“I arrived in Singapore for the first time in August 2019, although my time was spent mainly abroad to work,” says the New York native. “I didn’t really start living in Singapore until March 2020.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate said he had the option to choose where he wanted to stay during his one-year project in Asia.
Fluent in English and Mandarin, Lu – a recreational figure skater who used to participate in intercollegiate competitions – ended up opting for Singapore.
He worked hard most of the time, practicing figure skating about four to five times a week. But he also did what Singaporeans do best – eat.
To date, the American has visited a total of 255 food and beverage outlets, including cafes and street vendors’ stalls, covering 30 Michelin-rated restaurants with 37 Michelin stars collectively (55 Michelin stars including repeated visits).
An impressive feat, considering that the city’s restaurants have been closed for face-to-face meals for more than two months, not to mention the fact that he has been temporarily removed due to ill health.
When the city entered a partial national blockade – also known as Breaker – from April 7 to June 1, 2020, restaurants were forced to offer only take-out food. This did not stop Lu, who continued to eat well, asking for food deliveries, not once, but twice a day, during the first half of the period.
But these were no ordinary meals. He chose to focus on the city’s many gastronomic offerings, including Michelin starred locations that often take weeks, if not months, to secure tables.
“It was such a difficult time for the food and beverage industry – I wanted to do everything I could to help support local businesses,” said Lu, adding that some of his most memorable meals at the breaker were designed tasting menus. to the home where he would have to put the finishing touches on the dishes himself.
“One of those meals was from Odette at Home,” says Lu, who even managed to get a table cloth and a small plant pot from the hotel staff he was staying in for a month to recreate the stand of the famous French restaurant. inside his room.
Jon Lu, American software engineer
But in early May, Lu started having problems with his vision.
Doctors diagnosed him with retinal vein occlusion, caused by extremely high LDL cholesterol levels – probably a result of the foodie’s eating habits during the previous seven-month period of intensive travel and eating before the blockage.
It didn’t help that gyms and ice rinks were closed.
“I worked with local experts to treat the symptoms of vision and started running every day,” said Lu. “I also ate a heart-healthy, low-cholesterol diet for two months, during which time I avoided moderate to high added sugar.”
After two months of dieting and running, Lu’s health problems were resolved. In July, just a few weeks after dinner was allowed in the second phase of the city’s reopening, he started filling his schedule with reservations again.
Lu’s main dining options
American software engineer Jon Lu had dinner four times at the Michelin-starred Odette restaurant, run by chef Julien Royer.
Jon Lu
Having experienced the cream of Singapore’s best restaurants, a feat that even food critics would take a year or two to accomplish, Lu is well positioned to offer advice on where to find the best restaurants in the city.
Joining his list of favorite Michelin-awarded restaurants is Chef Julien Royer’s Odette, with three Michelin stars, where Lu had dinner four times. He highly appreciates the contemporary French restaurant for its “incredibly refined and technically well executed” cuisine, spearheaded by Royer’s Pigeon course “Beak the Tail”, which “tastes incredible”.
In the Japanese category, Lu highlights the Michelin-starred Sushi Kimura, which he has already visited twice. He says that chef-owner Tomo-o Kimura offers “thicker” and “more exotic” cuts of fish – like sujiko (salmon roe bag), oki aji (wild boar fish) and usubu hagi ( unicorn fish leather jacket). Not to mention Kimura’s shari (sushi rice), which is “incredibly firm and airy” and served at “perfect temperature”.
When it comes to Singaporean cuisine, it’s Chef Han Li Guang’s Michelin-starred Labyrinth that pulls Lu’s heart strings.
The restaurant is famous for presenting sophisticated versions of local dishes – such as the Chili Signature Crab – that are unmistakably of Singapore origin, with ingredients mainly of local origin. Lu declares his November trip to the Labyrinth, his second, as one of his favorite meals after the breaker.
Among Lu’s top Japanese choices in Singapore is Sushi Kimura.
Jon Lu
Highlights on the menu include Ang Moh Chicken Rice and An Ode to Cairnhill Steakhouse, both honoring Han’s grandmother and grandfather, respectively.
Apart from Michelin-rated restaurants, Lu also makes a point of checking out new restaurants. His new favorite opening, Euphoria, serves “gastro-botanical” cuisine created by Singapore chef-owner Jason Tan during his time at the Corner House with a star.
“At the heart of Euphoria are four botanical essences made exclusively from vegetables,” says Lu. “I was extremely impressed with how tasty each dish was and, particularly, the complexity of the flavor of the vegetable components.”
Despite his impressive coverage of renowned restaurants, Lu says he does not believe in “star hunting” – that is, dining at a restaurant just because he received Michelin stars. There are 13 starred restaurants in Singapore left that he hasn’t visited.
Its most visited location in Singapore, the two-year-old Preludio avant-garde restaurant has no stars.
Managed by Colombian chef Fernando Arevalo, Preludio serves “author cuisine” that revolves around a theme that changes each year called “chapter”. Since his debut chapter Monochrome, Lu has praised the Pata Negra course with “surprising” flavors, featuring breaded pork shoulder breaded with a “distinct” blend of spices – cumin, cayenne and paprika – accompanied by soaked tomatoes in a two-day marinade.
“As someone who does not like to repeat dishes in fine restaurants, the fact that he has already dined at Preludio nine times (in 2020) is proof of his inventiveness”, says Lu.
Inspired by the “Chef’s Table”
Lu says eating out and exploring restaurants has been a hobby since 2015, when he interned in downtown Chicago and was surrounded by a myriad of food options within walking distance of his office.
Since then, the avid food lover says he has visited at least 300 different restaurants every year, starting with casual cafes and outlets, before moving on to the best places in 2019.
Attributing his interest in fine dining to the Netflix series “Mesa do Chef”, Lu says he was fascinated by how the show portrayed food as an apparently limitless art form, limited only by the chef’s skill and imagination.
The American says that Singapore has certainly been the “most impressive” gastronomic city so far and that it is “entirely possible” to eat out every day in a quality place without repeating meals for years.
“The variety of cuisines, as well as the variety of ingredients available (which really cover all corners of the world) in Singapore is incredible,” says Lu.