TRAVELING IN STYLE : FRESH-AIR FARE : Whether It’s a Good Humor Bar or a Fricassee of Eels, Everything Tastes Better Out of Doors

HERE IN THE LAND OF THE ENDLESS BARBECUE, NOBODY APPRECIATES OUTDOOR dining. It’s too easy, too commonplace. Throughout the rest of the world, though, where most of the year it’s either too hot or too cold or too wet to eat (or drink) alfresco, people will go to ridiculous extremes for the pleasure. In Paris, you find them huddled in sidewalk cafes on icy days, gloved hands wrapped around steaming cups of expresso , pretending that the weather’s fine. New Yorkers like to dine out in postage-stamp-sized “gardens,” pretending that they see stars in the sky and trying to ignore the malevolent stares of the hungry cats perched on surrounding fire escapes. In Hong Kong, people who’d be much more comfortable in the refrigerated atmosphere of any fancy Chinese restaurant travel long distances to sit outside and be hot.

Why do they do it? Because you can always eat indoors. Because eating outside is a reminder that there really are perfect days, even if this doesn’t happen to be one of them. And because if you are lucky enough to hit on one of those perfect days, everything really does taste better outdoors.

An East Coast kid comes to this realization early in life. At 4, I was old enough to know that when the snow melted, the Good Humor man would come back to Washington Square Park. Our Good Humor man wore a sign on his coat that said his name was Tippy; his cart sometimes wore a sign that said it contained Raspberry-Peach Humorettes. These were slabs of peach ice cream wrapped in coats of raspberry ice, and I thought they were the most delicious things on earth.

When I was 6, my mother bought a deep freezer. Now, she said, we could have Good Humors at home. I could hardly believe our good fortune. Mom even managed to get Raspberry-Peach Humorettes. I remember stripping off the paper, sitting down at the table, taking the first bite. And then I remember my deep disappointment. A Humorette at the dinner table just wasn’t the same.

I feel the same way about hot dogs. Nothing could persuade me to eat a hot dog indoors. But I find it almost impossible to walk past a hot dog cart in New York; I can’t resist the seductive smell of mustard and onions. There’s one cart I especially like, stationed at Madison Avenue and 58th Street. The proprietor works with an extraordinary economy of motion: Scooping the dog into the bun with one hand, he picks up a knife with the other and slides it across the meat, leaving a stripe of mustard in its wake. Then, with a deft twist of the wrist, he decorates the dog with onion sauce and hands it over. Madison Avenue is an intimidating street that can make even the best-dressed person feel shabby. But a stop at the cart changes everything; hot dog in hand, you can walk past all those stores that are stuffed with objects you can’t afford, feeling nothing but the smugness of the very well-fed.

THE WORLD’S BEST STREET FOOD, OF COURSE, IS NOT IN NEW YORK BUT IN SINGAPORE, a city-state that has turned outdoor eating into an art. Life is highly regulated in Singapore. The government has been busily sanitizing the city, pulling down everything old or dirty and replacing it with faceless, gleaming new ticky-tackys. There are laws for everything here--when you can drive your car (rarely), when you can swear or chew gum (never in public), how much to tip (nothing). How do people respond to all this civic pressure? By eating.

People do it all night long here, taking refuge in the carnival atmosphere of the city’s “hawker centers.” These are simply outdoor areas filled with food stands. My favorite is Newton Circus, where at midnight you find men in three-piece suits and Gucci shoes slurping noodles out of gaily colored bowls and devouring stick after stick of satay, while around them other outdoor diners stand in the thick tropical air arguing over who has the best banana fritters and discussing with passionate intensity which stall sells the best chile crab.

The menu at these hawker centers is entirely visual: You stroll from stall to stall, admiring an array of exotic food. The fare reflects the multiculturalism of Singapore society and the fertile abundance of its geography. There are Chinese noodles, Indian curries, Indonesian satays, seafood cooked in every imaginable manner and much more. And don’t miss the chile crabs, which are spectacular. Take your time deciding what you want and then take a table. (Don’t worry: Hygiene standards are high.) And then, because it’s still too early to go to bed, have an ice kachang-- shaved ice with condensed milk, sugar and red beans, improbably good.

IN HONG KONG, WHERE PEOPLE SPEND THEIR LIVES IN A CONCRETE JUNGLE endlessly surrounded by hordes of people, there is a special appreciation for getting away from it all. Ask a Hong Kong resident to name his favorite restaurant, and he will invariably name some place where you can eat outside, usually out of the city itself.

More often than not, in fact, he will tell you about Lamma Island, about a 40-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong. And then he will inevitably add: “Tourists don’t go there.” Lamma, famous for its fishing village, its Tibetan monastery and the fact that cars are prohibited on the island, has only recently gained a reputation for good cooking. Not long ago, the local fishermen decided to stop sending all their best wares to the city and instead set up their own stands and started their own restaurants. In Hong Kong, seafood is the ultimate luxury. On Lamma Island, the fishermen can offer absolute freshness, an outdoor atmosphere and the additional inducement of bargain prices: Fish here costs about one-third what it does in the big Hong Kong restaurants.

Boats to Lamma leave from the Central Ferry terminal every couple of hours. During the first half of the trip, the boat plies the river between the two sides of Hong Kong. Gradually, the high-rises begin to thin out and the boat passes waterside resorts, with people playing on the beaches in daylight hours. Then the landscape changes as the ferry cruises past what look like deserted islands. Eventually, the boat turns in toward the fish farms of Lamma Island, coming to dock in the midst of them. Here you find the waterfront filled with awnings shading a vast number of tables; it looks like one big restaurant, but as you stroll down the waterfront you discover that this is actually a multitude of small establishments, and it is your job to choose among them.

People like various restaurants for various reasons. I’m particularly taken with a place called Rainbow, which offers an amazing variety of seafood cooked with a subtle hand. Although it helps to be with a Cantonese-speaker, you can do very well by walking up to the tanks and pointing at what you want. You definitely want some of the live shrimp, simply steamed and served with dishes of soy, ginger and chiles. You also want some of what are called “pissing shrimp” (they exude a lot of moisture when cooked), which look like holdovers from some prehistoric era, with no claws and no feelers. You want crabs, simply sauteed with ginger and scallions, and long scallops, which look like nothing you’ve seen on this side of the world, cooked with black beans. You want a tropical parrot fish, its rainbow hues hiding flesh that is extremely delicate when steamed. And you want some of the house special squid, a surprising combination of salty squid wrapped in a sweet egg batter and served with chile sauce.

And then what you want, more than anything, is a walk.

EATING OUTDOORS, OF COURSE, NEED NOT BE A CASUAL AFFAIR. SOME OF THE the world’s best restaurants have outdoor tables. Consider Jean Bardet in Tours, in the Loire Valley of France.

The Loire may be known as one of the most beautiful regions of France, but Tours is not a pretty city. It is surrounded not by old stone walls but by fast-food joints--McDonald’s among them--and even the center of town is more remarkable for its gas stations than its museums. Thus it is a shock to arrive at the two-star Bardet to discover that it is plunked down in the middle of a walled park, like some chateau from an 18th-Century novel.

There’s a large dining room, of course. But on fine summer nights, tables are set up outside, next to the garden plot where most of the vegetables are grown. It’s rural enough so that when the stars come out, you can see them. Sometimes there are even musicians, which makes it all seem so elegant and romantic that you find yourself wondering if you actually deserve this sort of luxury.

Jean Bardet’s cooking is a combination of sophisticated elegance and rustic earthiness. He makes a point of using local ingredients, and serves local wines. No dish here is ever very far from its roots. The strength of this food lies in Bardet’s ability to hold onto what vintners call le gout du terroir --the taste of the land--while giving it an exotic edge. A civet of lobster is cooked in old Vouvray and spiced with ginger and lime. A fricassee of local eels is cooked in vinegar made from the red wine of Bourgueil. Local pigeon is spiced and served with an onion compote.

The final fillip comes at the end of the meal. Sitting next to a plate of local cheeses is fruit so fresh you imagine it still holds the warmth of the sun. It’s sort of a picnic in reverse: Instead of taking the food along, you go right to the source for a feast at the edge of a garden.

GUIDEBOOK

Exterior Eating

PRICES: All prices are approximate and are for dinner for two, food only.

WHERE TO EAT: In Singapore: Newton Circus hawker center, Newton Circus near Orchard Road (“about five minutes by cab,” according to the Singapore Tourist Assn.). No telephones. Prices range from a few dollars to $100 or more, depending on what and how much you eat. In Hong Kong: Rainbow Restaurant, 17 First St., Sok Kwu Wan, Lamma Island, local telephone 982-8100; $40-$100. In Tours: Restaurant Jean Bardet, 57 Rue Groison, local tel. 4741-4111, fax 4751-6872; $150-$200. (Note: There is a 21-room luxury hotel attached to Jean Bardet, with rates for two from $160 to $360 a night. Same telephone and fax numbers as above.)