J.Panicker

Most people have churches or temples. I have Mother Dough, a beloved bakery-café I visit at least once a month, especially when I need to restore faith in humanity. And who better to do that than the very special human beings who bake bread?

Located in the nostalgic Kampong Glam in Singapore, the two-storey shophouse is a magical place where you can taste the world through its weekly menu of sandwiches and bakes, from Greece, with spanakopita reimagined between focaccia, to Rome, via cacio e pepe in baguettes and much, much more. The moment I heard my favourite Morcheeba song, World Looking In, on their playlist at the store, I was overcome by a very big feeling: something close to falling in love with the world again, a small opening in the heart, probably adjacent to a spiritual experience. Ecstasy. Joy. Equanimity. I don’t have the best word for it, but in that fleeting moment, I think I might even have loved my ugliest enemy very briefly.

Last weekend, I made my way down to Mother Dough to try their collaboration with Jungle Kitchen, arriving, as any good devotee would, with an open mind and an empty belly. Jungle Kitchen has cruised through my algorithm from time to time, though I had never properly explored their offerings until now. What specifically caught my attention was their pop-up exclusive, the Jungle Chilli Soda: Mother Dough’s homemade ginger beer spiked with Aleppo chilli and a chilli syrup with an incendiary dose of Jungle Kitchen’s Nai Miris/Cobra Chilli hot sauce. Last year, I tried a tomato soda at Bricolage and enjoyed it so much! I have kept my feelers out for interesting flavour combos in soda since. I had once been absolutely defeated by the Nai Miris at a Sri Lankan friend’s dinner table and wondered whether I might fare better encountering it in soda.

Turns out, I could handle the heat this time. The chilli soda bites in a delicious way! The fiery Nai Miris paired really well with the warmth of the ginger, both lingering on and waking up the palate at once. Chilli can, and absolutely should, soda! Calibrate the spice per your tolerance for the Scoville scale. Growing up, I hated how spice tolerance in my family was sometimes treated like a badge of superiority, how those unable to “handle the heat” were mocked or made to feel lesser for it. Never at my table!

The lovely lady manning the Jungle booth told me she especially enjoyed the hot sauce drizzled over vanilla ice cream. I am mildly sceptical, though I suppose the next question is: will it ice cream?