Singapore Dec 2011-2

Orchard Rd was busy and merry as usual. Two new malls have sprung up since my last visit. Ion and 313@Somerset. I found Ion more pleasant. A couple of restaurants looked really tempting. One of them, Ippudo Ramen, had people queuing even at 3 pm.


This was the end of the queue at Starbucks in one of the Orchard malls and we were incredulous that Singaporeans were so crazy about Starbucks coffee. A couple from Finland stood near us and wondered at the same thing too. Starbucks is kaput in Australia I heard but Singaporeans can't get enough of it.


I was with a friend in the Isetan Supermarket when she spotted this pretty young thing and made me take a photo with her. Turned out that she's Fiona Xie, a Singaporean actress. I was so unnerved I forgot to take a shot of her mile-long legs. Remember AngelaBaby whom I saw in Hong Kong?




A resting place for tired shoppers somewhere in Gallery Mandarin. Apparently tired shoppers not only eat and nap, they pet too. 


Abercrombie & Fitch had a week-long promotion of their about-to-open store on Orchard
Rd and flew in some dishy hunks who stood outside the store half-naked. The women bystanders went crazy, their bfs or hubs fidgeting and sucking their bellies in. Someone pushed me forward and I ended up looking stupid with a bunch of hunks half my age. 


These boys kept their shirts on but I bet they have abs too.


The cakes at Antoinette looked SO good but we just had a big lunch and my guys didn't want any dessert. I tell myself that next time, I will make a trip to Singapore with my girlfriends and we will sit down for tea.


At Tangs, I met up with my son Ming who had flown in from Melbourne via KL and Hub who had flown in from Penang and the first thing Ming ate was chicken rice and choy sum. This was in one of the food courts on Orchard and Ming said it was 6/10.




If you've never been to Marina Bay Sands the casino, go. From far the buildings look
ridiculous, like a ship is marooned on top of two buildings but close up the grandeur of the whole project is just awing. The casino is HUGE and classy and there are lots of restaurants and shops if gambling is not your thing. 

We were wearing jeans, so we chose to eat dinner at Mario Batali's Osteria Mozza (2 Bayfront Ave, Tel: 65.6688.8522). The dang thing about the place is you have to decide whether you want pizza or pasta at the entrance. Pizza diners go right, pasta lovers go left. You can't have both, isn't that silly. Hard decision but I chose pizza.


House salad, about S$10++. Boring and the dressing was pH 4 maybe, so acidic I couldn't finish it.


An appetiser of calamari with beans, S$10++. Not a bit impressive. 


The main course of the day was braised lamb shank, S$36++. It was good, tender yet still attached to the bone. Yum with the thin pieces of crisp bread.


This was worth the wait (they said 45 minutes but this came in 20 minutes). Fennel and sausage pizza, about S$28++ I think. I've never tasted a similar pizza, not even in Italy. The crust was thin, puffed and crisp and the fennel and sausage were so good together.  I  would surmise that the oven temperature was over 400 C? Awesome.


3-mushroom pizza, another awesome creation.


The pizza crust was made even more crispy by a coating of semolina.


The caramel ice cream with peanuts, about S$15++, was a disappointment because it was too sweet and ordinary. Really those pizzas were a hard act to follow. I wished I had ordered the ice cream with olive oil. Next time.

We stepped out of the building and faced the Louis Vuitton store with the Singapore river and city skyline as back drop. People were dining al fresco and the cool night air blew through giant palms, making the place seem so laid back and beautiful. This part of Singapore reminded me of Sydney Harbour but Sydney Harbor seems so tired and old in comparison.