The Geylang Serai Ramadan bazaar is back after a three year hiatus due to the Big Coof. However, the triumphant return has been severely marred by disgustingly exorbitant rents, which does distract from the fact that 2023’s Ramadan pasar malam has a mind boggling variety of food available. Despite being sorely tempted to write a rant post about the absurd rents & human greed, I’ll stick to writing about the food. For now.⠀
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Kebabs are an iconic pasar malam staple, and the Geylang Serai pasar malam has about a dozen kebab merchants. @bosphorusturkishkebab is probably the most famous of them all, as this is the same hawker stall from Golden Mile Food Center. I initially wanted a kebab, but the allure of their chicken butter rice ($8) was too charming to resist.⠀
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A copious portion of chicken sliced off the slowly rotating vertical rotisserie is loaded onto a bountiful bed of butter basmati rice. The chicken and rice are then obscured by lots of lettuce, a couple of the most beautiful tomato slices I’ve ever seen, and showered in a tangy sauce that suggests a yogurt based sauce. It’s a truly gargantuan serving, and fully worth the eight bucks on size alone.⠀
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Bosphorus’ chicken butter rice ain’t just big in size, the flavours are equally massive. The chicken is definitely the juiciest and most flavourful kebab chicken I’ve had, and each soft shred of chicken is super savoury, and jazzed up with the aromatics of cumin, nutmeg and possibly paprika. It’s the perfect combination with the brilliant butter rice, which is incredibly fragrant thanks to the butter it’s been cooked with, and it’s fluffy and so incredibly satiating to both your palette and your carb cravings.⠀
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The veggies are more than amply dressed with the yogurt(?) sauce, which is salty & subtly tangy, breathing luscious life into boring veg. I’ve always been an admirer of olives, and the single green olive in here gave me such joy. For a very reasonable eight bucks, you’re getting the healthiest and heartiest meal at the entire bazaar.