Eat

SOUND BITES

Elevate your meals with some sonic seasoning.

Portrait of Tammy Strobel

Elevate your meals with some sonic seasoning.

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Eating is a multi-sensorial experience: You see your food arriving at the table, you smell the wafting aromas as it is placed in front of you, you taste the layers of flavours as you tuck in, and you feel varied textures while you chew. Sound, however, is an often “forgotten flavour sense”, according to noted professor of experimental psychology,  Charles  Spence, whose studies show sound’s correlation to taste. Nothing says freshness quite like the crunch of a crisp garden salad, like the one at COMO Cuisine, or the crack of crusty sourdough that’s hot out of the oven.

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At Tippling Club, while your degustation menu is meant to surprise, one thing’s for sure: There will be a mouth-watering cacophony from the open-concept kitchen. Ensure you get some snap, crackle and pop by putting in a special request for cockscomb, which chef Ryan Clift dehydrates for days and deep fries to crispy, puffed-up perfection. Pair that dish—which might come with seasonal morels and black truffle if you visit by the end of the month—with Krug bubbly for maximum effect. Just as arousing as a good cork pop is a sexy sizzle, and that’s exactly what you will hear at Decker Barbecue. Cooked low and slow overnight in giant wood-fired ovens are menu staples of sweet-sticky beef brisket and fall-off-the-bone tender ribs, best savoured with coleslaw or mac and cheese—both also producers of tantalising sounds of the creamy-gooey genre.

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Then, there is the slurp, which is music to a foodie’s ears, and can evoke instant cravings for soupy noodles. A bowlful of satisfaction can be found at Ramen Keisuke at The Cannery, where silky-springy noodles come submerged in rich, creamy French lobster bisque. Not to mention the melt-in-your-mouth pork belly and bouncy shrimp wontons, which are bound to create audible expressions of delight.