Good food is what it is, but throw a few fancy words and overly exaggerated expressions into the mix and what do you get? Food that automatically sounds luxurious, extravagant and expensive.

Just for giggles, here are 8 local dishes that you would think costed a bomb if you didn’t know what they were before, based on corny expressions, overly pretentious descriptions and bombastic words.

PORRIDGE

Chinese risotto using short-grain Jasmine rice. Served with pickled vegetables, foraged nuts, cured hen’s egg and crispy, hand-rolled dough fritters.

SATAY

Skewers spice-marinated bovine, seared over roaring hot coals and accompanied with a viscous, tangy sauce of foraged nuts, garden-grown aromatics, spices and tropical pineapple.

BAK KUT TEH

Pork Rib, White Pepper & Pork Bone Consommé, Whole Garlic.

(Because nowadays it’s cooler to list down the ingredients of a dish rather than to give it a name.)

CHWEE KUEH

Upside-down, savoury pannacotta made of rice served with a dollop of braised radish, chilli paste and artfully stacked on wax paper.

CHAR KWAY TEOW

Smoky and savoury wok-fried flat rice noodles with sweetened dark sauce, hand-cracked farmed eggs, bean sprouts and sweet Chinese sausages.

ROTI JOHN

Seared French baguette topped with your choice of mutton or chicken, farmed eggs and delicately diced onions, served meat-side up and finished elegantly with lashings of artisanal tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE

Gloriously robust slivers of free-range chickens, topped with a savoury sesame-accented brown sauce. Served with a trifecta of sauces and a bowl of fragrant steamed rice imbued with chicken fat and aromatics.

ROJAK

Handcrafted salad of cut-up fried dough fritters, prematurely-foraged mango, lashings of ginger flower, young turnip, green cucumber, pungent prawn paste and granulated peanuts.