Celebrity Chow with MediaCorp host-actress Kym Ng

To date, nobody knows what Kym Ng's husband of five years looks like.

The MediaCorp host-actress, sporting bright pink hair, is fiercely private about her personal life.

Yet, over lunch at Chinese seafood restaurant Yu Cuisine at Marina Bay Sands, Ng, who's in her 40s, debunked my presumption that she and her spouse, a man known only as Mr Yang, must be perennial hermits given how low-profile she is off-camera.

"Of course we go out to eat," she said.

"We'd go to hawker joints as well as places like Dempsey. We don't deliberately avoid crowds. It's just that people aren't really interested in him.

"When they see me, they'd go, 'Who's that man beside you? Aren't you supposed to be with Bryan Wong?'"

Wong, 43, is Ng's long-time hosting partner on TV. They became household names after helming popular variety show City Beat in the late 1990s.

Ng, who has no children, said: "Most of the time, I'd respond jokingly, 'Oh, Bryan is doing my laundry at home!'"

Oh, and don't be fooled by her petite frame. The host of infotainment programme The Best of Love on a Plate - airing every Tuesday at 8pm on Channel 8 - has a hearty appetite.

Ng loves dim sum dishes like mango shrimp roll and Dinosaur cheong fun. "Everyone raves about dim sum in Hong Kong, but I prefer Singapore's dim sum," she said.

Then there's the barbecued pork. "I love fatty meat, I'd work it off later by running and playing table tennis."

And chilli crab. "If my hubby were here, he'd be the one peeling the shells. I won't have to get my hands dirty."

What are the foods you'll never get sick of?

Seafood hor fun is at the top of my list. I like the gravy and it's a comforting dish on rainy days. I don't like my hor fun with fish, but it must have shrimp and sotong.

I also like fried rice vermicelli with seafood gravy. It's extremely crispy on the outside.

Are you a big fan of hawker fare? Do you have a favourite stall?

I used to think I love Chinese food best.

It wasn't till I had to do a three-month location shoot in China that I realised what I really love was Singapore hawker fare. My favourites are putu mayam, wonton mee, char kway teow, fried carrot cake and laksa.

I'm not so huge a foodie that I would travel from one end of the island to the other just for food. But if I happen to be in the area, I'd head to Zion Road Food Centre for kway chap or Tiong Bahru Market for chwee kuay.

How about a favourite restaurant?

I like the Imperial Treasure chain of restaurants.

I'm Teochew and I find their Teochew cuisine very delicious. All their outlets serve great dishes, from Peking duck at the Paragon outlet to steamboat at the Ion Orchard outlet.

For Western food, I like RedDot Brewhouse at Dempsey. I'd have Parma ham with Monster Green Lager Beer. Shiok!

Do you and your husband cook?

Yes, I picked up my cooking skills from my mother. I can do soya chicken with shredded ginger and sesame oil pretty well. My steamed fish and har lok (stir-fried prawns) are not bad, too.

While I'm good with Chinese dishes, my husband is better at whipping up Western stuff like pasta.

He's the romantic sort. Sometimes, he'd prepare ricotta cheese, meatloaf and sausages, and we'd drink red wine.

If I could master one dish, it'd be the milky fish soup. My husband is Cantonese and loves soups. Unfortunately, I'm not so good at making them, so if given the chance, I'd love to learn and make soup for him.

Any memorable overseas food encounters?

It was a long time ago, when I was a flight stewardess.

I was alone in Vienna and I went for a meal in a small restaurant. No one could speak English and the menu had not a single English word!

I gambled and randomly ordered one dish by pointing at it. It turned out to be a plate of raw, bloodied steak with a half-cooked egg on top.

I couldn't eat it!

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