Day 4 Sing

For lunch, we tried out Serangoon Gardens' food court which is 5 minutes from our house. So many people and so much choices! Ming and I headed for the queues, the longest of which was the 'pork organs' stall. I went for the fishball noodles stall. The only person who was cool aboout his choice was my bro Clive who sat down contentedly eating his pork congee, in mid-day heat. But in the end, I concluded that of all the food we bought, Clive's congee was the best. I think it was because we tried too many dishes, and the tastes got too mixed.


Guo tie, S$6 for 10. Quite good.


Fried sticky rice sticks. Kind of bland.

Fired oysters omelette. This was too greasy and the egg overcooked.

The most popular stall despite its disgusting name. Ming queued for mearly 30 min to get:

Stewed pig's guts of all shapes (which freaked me out, but I did eat a piece and thought it was so-so) and soup with pig's guts and stomach. I tried the soup and it was good.

I queued for this, and nobody ate it. The tossed yellow noodles were slightly off. If there's any food that restaurants don't cook as well as your mom, it's got to be fishballs. I know a lot of people love commercial fishballs for the texture but I don't. It just tastes too fake. The crunchiness is there but the taste is all flour and msg.

Singapore laksa, S$2.50. Too oily and the cockles too small. I know why I love Sing laksa. It's the polygonum leaves (daun kesom) that spikes the dish up.

Clive's pork and century egg congee was very good. One thing about Singapore's hawker food that I like is that they are very light-handed with salt, and even msg. I don't remember eating anything too salty so far.


Grass jelly with sea coconut S$1.20.

This is a teochew dessert made from taro called orh nee, which Ming and I love. Only S$1.20 in food courts but on Orchard Rd, it's twice as much. I have made this before but it didn't turn out as smooth.

Silky smooth and soft soy bean jelly, superb. S$1.20.

My bro Clive took us around to check out some houses. We always make it a point to visit some show houses whenever we are overseas, just to catch up on the latest designs and trends. I wish I had taken pics of a beautiful (private) house in Bedok (if I'm not wrong) that was being renovated. It had the biggest kitchen island I've ever seen, and beautiful teak floors. We also checked out those apartments on Amber Rd in the East Coast area and I just couldn't help but feel sorry for the next generation in Singapore as land becomes scarce and apartments are so small that a bedroom is the size of my bathroom (not exaggerating) and that includes the bay window! And for that you now have to pay S$1000 per sq ft. To make up for the cramped space, mirrors and glass were used extensively, every surface was white, and I came away feeling like I've been to the funny mirrors section of some circus while my bro said it felt like a maze.

After driving around the whole island, we came to the Bukit Timah Food Court, which, according to Clive, has the best fried radish/white carrot cake. Btw, in Sing, carrot can be white radish so don't think you are getting the western carrot cake when you see 'carrot cake' on the menu.

Fried carrot/radish cake. Clive said this stall sells the best fried carrot cake because it is crispy on the outside. And so it was, due to the egg. I found it too oily.

Popiah, a kind of spring roll that's not fried. S$1.20. Quite good, with crunchy bits.

Ming queued quite a while at this stall for the satay noodles and squid noodles:

Looks pretty good huh.

Mix it up and this is what you'll see--burgundy hoisin sauce that tastes as poisonous as it looks. It didn't help that as I ate I saw a lady seated at the next table with hair exactly this color. Tasting slightly better was the satay noodles but my pic is blur. What I conclude is either my taste is different from the average Singaporean or queues don't necessarily mean the food's good.


Good ole bbq chicken wings, very good at S$1.00 each wing.

We went back to Clive's apartment in Jurong and spent some time with his wife. It was a very muggy day and we were all tired and overfed so we skipped dinner. Around 10:30 pm, Clive took us to Robertson Quay, but the place was closed already so we went to Boat Quay. The place has changed a lot since I was last there. There are many trendy restaurants and pubs, but they were closing too. I thought Singapore would have a livelier night life but I guess we didn't know where to go.

This joint is called Clinic despite the 'Au' (gold) letters and golden chairs. Customers slouch on hospital beds and sit on wheelchairs and some lights are hospital operating room lights. I think they use scapels to eat. How stupid is that. Reminds me of the coffin thing in Korea where people pay to sleep in coffins for a day just to be reminded of how precious life is.