My parents used to take my sister and me there quite often when we were young. We would stop by after going to Mass at the nearby Catholic Church of the Holy Family, or en route to visiting my cousins who lived in Marine Parade.

These days there are as many as three or four different Katong laksa stalls there, serving slightly different versions of the local dish and identified only by numbers.

Being the sentimentalist that I am, I always choose '49 Katong Laksa', simply because it is the stall that sits in the exact same spot as the original Katong laksa stall - never mind that it has changed owners.

Despite rapid urban development elsewhere in Singapore, the overall experience of eating Katong laksa in Katong has remained pretty much the same.

There is always no parking, so you have to parallel park next to the nearby terrace houses and walk past the smelly drain along Ceylon Road (still smelly after 25 years!) to get to the place.

When you get there, you either sit outside and watch the cars blare their horns at one another along the choked-up main road, or battle the stifling heat of the crowded and dark interior of the corner coffee shop.

My '49 Katong Laksa' arrived in a familiar white porcelain bowl and I quickly tucked into it.

The texture of the noodles and the taste of the laksa gravy were distinctive as usual, but something was missing.

'Not hiam enough,' I remarked to my friend, as I reached for the little bottle of sambal chilli on the table. ('Hiam' is the Hokkien word for hot, not temperature-hot but spicy-hot.)

One giant dollop of chilli later, the gravy became tastier but it still wasn't that much hotter.

'Singapore food these days just isn't

hiam anymore,' I sighed.

As a Peranakan boy, I grew up eating spicy food.

In fact, being able to eat extremely spicy food was something of a badge of honour, a skill that takes years to hone.

I am not at all a foodie and I don't have a sophisticated palate. I judge how spicy something is simply by what it does to my body.

There is of course the lovely burning sensation of your mouth and lips being on fire. So you guzzle water or stupidly use your fingers to fan your lips.

For me, when food gets really spicy, my scalp starts to itch. And I perspire so much I worry the sweat droplets will fall into my food when I'm not looking.

It's torture for the moment, but afterwards you are flush with a sense of accomplishment and a 'shiokness' that words cannot describe.

I could be wrong, but I remember that when I was younger, I used to get that sensation every two weeks or so. Now, I barely experience it twice a year.

In fact, I have to search my memory to think back to my last suicidally spicy meal (it was nasi ayam penyet in Tampines).

What happened, I wonder? Why is food here losing the kick it used to have?

Asking people for their studied opinion proved maddening. I was absolutely flabbergasted to find that a lot of Singaporeans don't know or don't care, simply because they don't like their food spicy to start with.

'How can you call yourself Asian?' I asked them all.

The few who had noticed the change offered their own folk theories.

One said that it was because people have stopped using dried chillies, which are hotter. But the best one I heard was the one about the chilli fruit itself becoming less hot over the years.

'The big red chillies - I swear they did something to them genetically,' said one colleague. 'They're still red and have seeds and all, but they're not spicy anymore!'

Another colleague dug into the realm of development economics to proffer a more serious explanation.

'Chilli curbs the appetite, and this is why people in poorer countries make their food very hot - so they don't get hungry so soon,' she said.

This would explain why South Indian food is spicier than North Indian food, for example, she added. And also why our parents seem more 'chilli-tolerant' than us.

Me? I blame globalisation.

As I ate my non-spicy Katong laksa the other day, I couldn't help but notice that there was a group of Caucasians at the next table. And across the road, the rival '328 Katong Laksa' sported Japanese language signs for tourists.

As Singapore continues to develop as an international business and tourism hub, restauraters and hawkers will need to cater to an increasingly diverse array of customers.

And no matter how well-travelled people are, there are limits to what they will subject their palate to. So it follows that Singapore food must also adjust over time to become more universally acceptable.

The trend is most apparent, I feel, in the food courts found in shopping malls and office buildings. When was the last time you tasted food there that gave you a real kick?

Of course, it's not just that Singapore is changing. Local Singaporeans themselves are also changing.

I am perhaps one of a dying breed of locals who still like their food to be deathly spicy, but I also find that my own tolerance for hot food has dropped.

And it's not just the result of less spicy food being served to me. It's also because I've travelled more than, say my parents, and have grown to appreciate more styles, flavours and tastes from all around the world. So my palate is more 'global'.

All this is slightly horrifying, though. In another 25 years, will there be no more extra chilli on the table at the Katong laksa stall?

Or will it just be a red, oily paste masquerading as chilli?

I hope someone starts a hot food movement in Singapore to keep the chilli junkie in us alive. Let's work to save the auntie who carries a bottle of belacan on her travels to Europe.

For great food, I agree, is mostly about tantalising our taste buds.

But sometimes, just sometimes, we just want to kill them.

ignatius@sph.com.sg

Do you agree that Singapore food has become bland? Why? Send your views to suntimes@sph.com.sg