It Can Be Good and Still Not Be Bak Kut Teh
My friend could concede the taste without conceding the name.
Both can be good. That was never really the disagreement. My Malaysian friend could accept that Singapore’s peppery soup tasted good. He just wouldn’t accept that it was bak kut teh.
It was pepper soup.
What he considered essential was the dark soy sauce and the deep, medicinal-herb flavor of the herbal version. The Singaporean style he was talking about had a clear, peppery broth. To him, those were different preparations, and giving one the same name didn’t make it the same dish.
He even showed me pictures. See, this is real bak kut teh. This color. Not that clear color.
I thought that was so funny. Usually, when people argue about food, you expect them to be arguing about which one tastes better. Here, even agreeing that both were good left the disagreement intact. One of them could be a perfectly good soup and still, as far as he was concerned, have the wrong name.