These days, I no longer hate Singaporean food.

On the contrary, I love it a little too much for my own good. My waistline now resembles someone who has been eating crispy Rendang for thirty years instead of the actual ten.

As for my parents? The change has been incremental rather than revolutionary. Nowadays, my Mom no longer despises Zi Char in an open-air hawker centre, even if some of the more ‘exotic’ flavors continue to daunt her.

However, what she deems ‘exotic’ seems rather arbitrary to me: She will eat Laksa but not Biryani or Bak Chor Mee. Fish soup is acceptable but Prawn mee and Bak Kut Teh are not. She enjoys Popiah, but declines to give Rojak a chance.

Recently, on a weekend, we took the bus to Springleaf together, and for the first time in her twenty-odd years of living in Singapore, we ate Prata.

Her verdict? Pretty good. Very ‘aromatic.’

I wanted to laugh. Surely she must be the first food critic to use the adjective ‘aromatic’ in a description of Prata.

One part of me took a perverse delight in forcing her to try the local foods that our family has shunned for so long. It seemed like a good thing to demolish those age-old prejudices, especially with all that mainstream media jazz about ‘social mixing’ as a miracle cure for all ailments.

Yet, another part of me wonders, “What is the point?”

My Mom might concede that Prata tastes alright and is quite ‘aromatic’, but she will never crave a prata around midnight or wake up one rainy day with a ‘feeling’ for fish soup. What is second nature for the local will always be foreign to her.

Likewise for my Dad. He will accept hawker food if the tank is empty but in his mind, the culinary hierarchy remains unaltered. There is the Suzhou cuisine of his childhood, sitting atop its high horse/pedestal, and beneath it, everything else. He will praise anything from Suzhou as Michelin-worthy even though the few places that serve it in Singapore are objectively abysmal and uniformly overpriced (trust me on this).

Swee Choon provides a good measure of how far we have come as a family. The large-ish menu, containing both China-Chinese and Singaporean-Chinese cuisine, serves as a useful test for my families’ true culinary loyalties. Every time we go to Jalan Besar, I like to observe what my parents order and in doing so, glimpse the limits of our culinary integration.

(Footnote: Yes, I know Dim Sum is Cantonese rather than properly Singaporean. The distinction is not particularly important because my parents think of any Cantonese food as Singaporean. A confusion that ought to be forgiven because a) Cantonese influences are rife in Singaporean food and b) In any case, they have never visited Hong Kong.)

Every year, I’m vaguely disappointed when I look at the ticked boxes. Left alone to follow their stomachs, my parents unfailingly veer Shanghainese with their choices. They will order the Xiao Long Bao (X2), the Guo Tie (x1) and Lamian-style noodles, with egg tarts being the only concession to Canton (or Portugal) because of my father’s sweet tooth.

No Char Siew Bao, no Har Gao, no Siew Mai. As usual, I’m the lone voice of dissent insisting that we order Mee Suah Kueh for the sake of variety.

Sitting there in Swee Choon and quietly comparing my family’s choices to those around us, I am left wondering: As a family, did we fail or succeed at integration?