During our Diwali break, Priam and I went to Singapore for four days. We checked into the Quincy hotel, which had a complimentary mini-bar among other perks:
We drank the soy bean milk, coconut water, H-Two-O (tasted like Gatorade), and water (not shown here because the bottles of water and beer were on the bottom shelf). The soy bean milk and coconut water tasted pretty good, although not as good as fresh squeezed soy bean milk or coconut water straight out of a coconut. Still, they tasted better than plain water and were more than adequate for our stay.
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Near the Quincy hotel is Orchard Road, which is a huge tourist attraction for shopping and entertainment. This road has 22 malls within 2.2 kilometers (about 1.4 miles); I did my research online beforehand and decided that we’ll just go to ION Orchard mall. The entrance to ION Orchard’s food court is very colorful:
This basement food court is called the ION Orchard Food Opera, and it has a huge variety of food. Since the place was packed, Priam told me that he’ll hold a spot while I choose what we’ll eat. After wandering around for five minutes, I decided to order from two different food stalls.
I went to an Indonesian cuisine stall and ordered an Ayam Panggang (BBQ grilled chicken set):
This chicken was incredibly delicious. It was very tender, and the sauce was slightly sweet, smoky and spicy. The curry that was poured over the rice was really delicious too. The cabbage was standard, similar to the sides that you’d get in an average Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles, and the slice of egg pancake was nothing to write home about.
I ordered a BBQ stingray from a stall selling primarily seafood:
Priam did not like this dish because it was too fishy for him, but I liked it. The texture of the stingray is similar to the texture of a skate, which I had once at a French restaurant called Rendezvous in Boston. The stingray meat was flaky, slightly chewy, and juicy. The BBQ sauce was quite spicy, and it complemented the stingray perfectly. I washed down my lunch with a dragon fruit and mango smoothie.
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I had a sore throat on my first day in Singapore, so I wanted to find Pei Pa Koa, a childhood favorite of mine. When I was a kid, I wanted to drink Pei Pa Koa all the time because it is sweet and minty, but my mother refrained me from doing so because it should only be taken in small doses. Everyone at ION Orchard knew what I was talking about when I asked for Pei Pa Koa, and they directed me to Watsons, which is a health and beauty store (like CVS in Boston and California). Pei Pa Koa literally means “loquat syrup” in Mandarin:
After I got my Pei Pa Koa, we went to a Japanese food boutique called Nippon-Ya. All the packaging is so cute in there that I would buy out the whole store if I could. After narrowing down my choices to green tea and pudding (not necessarily in the cutest packaging but they’re my favorite flavors), I displayed them on the bed back at the hotel:
The first box contained Japanese green tea and brown rice, the second box contained pudding-flavored cookies, and the third box contained green tea wafers. Once I opened up the latter two boxes, I saw that each cookie and wafer were individually wrapped as well:
These cookies and wafers were really good, although I couldn’t help thinking that it’s not environmentally friendly to wrap each one individually (I suppose it keeps them extra fresh).
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In the Gardens by the Bay, Priam and I went to the Supertree Dining, which is a food court that contains the Peach Garden Noodle House. Priam ordered a tender coconut:
It didn’t occur to me to order tender coconut because we can get coconut water in Mumbai as well. However, this coconut proved to be superior because the coconut water was sweeter and the coconut flesh was incredibly tender. I regretted ordering only water, but I decided not to order a second coconut. For dinner, we had the deep-fried prawns with wasabi mayo:
This was good, not excellent (the wasabi mayo had a good flavor and was not too spicy, but it kind of overpowered the prawns and made them soggy).
We also ordered the fried carrot cake with XO sauce:
Normally when I think of carrot cakes, I think of American carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting and carrot frosting decor on top. I think that carrot cake in this instance is a misnomer because this dish does not contain any carrots. In Mandarin, carrot is “hong luo buo” (literally “red radish”), while this dish in Mandarin would be called “luo buo gao” (literally “radish cake”). In America, this dish is called radish cake or turnip cake; I have never heard it called “carrot cake” until I visited Singapore. The carrot cake consisted of shredded Chinese radish and rice flour cut into cubes, fried on the outside and soft on the inside. Bean sprouts were added to this dish. I’ve always loved radish cakes in dim sum, and while I liked this dish, it was no different from the radish cakes in Los Angeles.
For dessert, we had mango juice, sago (tiny clear tapioca balls), and grapefruit pieces inside a young coconut:
We had forgotten to specifically ask for tender coconut, so this young coconut had a harder flesh that was more difficult to scoop out. Nevertheless it was still good (Priam thought that the grapefruit pieces were a little off-putting but overall he liked it too).
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The complimentary breakfast at the Quincy hotel tasted like any average American breakfast with the exception of congee (which tasted like any average congee in Los Angeles). What is distinctly Singaporean was the kaya jam:
The green paste on the bottom left is kaya jam, which is made from coconut milk, eggs, and sugar. “Kaya” means “rich” in Malay, and I found the kaya jam very creamy and tasty. It tasted good with the toasted croissant.
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Priam and I went to Kampong Glam, which is primarily a Malay and Muslim neighborhood. Here, we visited a colorful cafe called La Marelle Cafe:
Priam ordered an orange and kiwi drink, which was carbonated with basil seeds:
It was colorful and tasted good, though not memorable.
I ordered an iced expresso:
This expresso tasted quite nice with a fruity aftertaste.
We ate lunch at the Kampong Glam Cafe, which according to the Internet has authentic Malay food. I ordered the mee rebus, which is yellow egg noodles in spicy sweet curry:
According to Wikipedia, mee rebus’s curry is made from sweet potatoes, curry powder, salted soybeans, dried shrimps, and peanuts. Priam thought that this dish was too fishy, while I liked it. The noodles had the perfect chewy texture, what my mother would call “kyoo” in Mandarin or Taiwanese (I never figured it out).
I also ordered the nasi lemak, which is considered Malaysia’s national dish:
Unfortunately this dish was a big disappointment for me. The chicken, fish, and egg were all very dry and unappetizing. Only the sweet chili sauce was good, but that wasn’t enough to save this dish. Since nasi lemak is supposedly a very popular dish, I would like to try it again some other time, just not at Kampong Glam Cafe.
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Priam and I visited Bugis Junction, which is part traditional mall and part open-air shopping. At Bugis Junction’s food court, Priam saw fried fish at a stall and wanted to order it. Little did he know that it came in a noodle soup (Priam had informed me on our first day in Singapore that he would prefer not to have noodle soups):
When I asked him how it tasted, he said that it tasted very Chinese. I tried it and thought that it tasted similar to a Korean noodle soup I had at Woojeon in H Mart (a Korean supermarket in Burlington, MA). I think the noodles would best be described as having a healthy, light taste. Condiments that were available at the stall gave this dish a slightly heavier flavor (basically chili sauce and sweet soy sauce). The fish itself was not very tender nor tasty, while the bitter melon was very bitter (Priam likes bitter melon while I don’t).
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The highlight of all the meals in Singapore for me was the chili crab. We went to Jumbo Seafood at The Riverwalk (there are several locations):
We ordered two chili crabs and fried mantou (literally “steamed buns” in Mandarin). The crab was huge, juicy and meaty, and the chili sauce had just the right amount of sugar and spice. The fried mantou tasted really good dipped in the leftover chili sauce. This outlet was near Clarke Quay and had quite a few foreigners, so Priam initially thought that it was a tourist trap; ultimately it proved to be a delicious tourist trap. I’d be happy if I can find a restaurant serving chili crab in Mumbai or Los Angeles.
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Singapore also has non-Asian food. After visiting the Singapore Zoo, Priam and I went to Tiong Bahru, a hipster neighborhood with quirky bookstores, shops, and cafes. One coffee shop called Forty Hands looked pretty popular, so we went in:
Hardly anyone was sitting in the room pictured above because there was no air conditioning there; I just thought that this room looked trendier than the air-conditioned room we were in.
Priam ordered a hot dog:
I had only one bite out of this hot dog, and that one bite was good. This hot dog tasted like a gourmet hot dog.
I ordered poached eggs with truffle mushrooms and toast:
My dish was a bit on the bland side, although I do like the flavor of truffles. We ordered truffle fries as well.
In the afternoon, Priam and I decided to take advantage of the complimentary snacks and drinks in the Quincy hotel. Generally the food was average, although I did like the look of the cake on offer:
This cake was created by Dean & Deluca, an international gourmet food store. It was a soft vanilla cake. For drinks, we had a Singapore Sling:
The Singapore Sling tasted similar to the Scorpion Bowl at a restaurant called Hong Kong in Harvard Square. Basically it tasted like spiked fruit punch.
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I had read online that no trip to Singapore is complete without eating at a hawker center, so I decided to take Priam to two of them. A hawker center is basically an open-air food court; it is different from a mall food court, which is air-conditioned. The first hawker center we went to is Makansutra Gluttons Bay (“makan” means “to eat” in Malay):
This hawker center is located next to the Esplanade, which is Singapore’s theater on the waterfront. It was very hard to find a seat, so Priam offered to claim a table while I looked for food to order. I went to one food stall called Soon Lee Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee and ordered just that:
According to a fish spa owner in Singapore, 70% of Singaporeans are Chinese, and of those Chinese, 70% are Hokkien. Hokkien people migrated from Fujian (a southern province in China) to places like Taiwan and Singapore, which explains why the Hokkien dialect sounds the same as Taiwanese. I had noticed that the Singaporeans speak Mandarin with an accent similar to the Taiwanese, and I had heard a sprinkling of Taiwanese (Hokkien) as well. “Mee” literally means “noodles” in Mandarin. I liked the Hokkien mee, while Priam found it fishy (Priam thinks that Asians love the fishy taste). The noodles were just as “kyoo” (chewy) as the noodles in the Malaysian mee rebus dish at Kampong Glam Cafe.
I also went to a stall called Thai Yummy Food and ordered Gai Hoi Bai Tay (pandan wrapped chicken):
The chicken was incredibly tender, juicy, and flavorful. It didn’t even need the condiment on the side, although I dipped the chicken in there anyway. Unwrapping each chicken piece was like unwrapping a present for me. According to the Internet, the chicken is marinated in coconut milk, then aromatic pandan leaves are wrapped around them and deep-fried to impart to the chicken its nutty flavor.
For dessert, I went to a dessert stall serving primarily shaved ice:
I’ve had shaved ice in Los Angeles before, but this dessert tasted very different. I prefer shaved snow from Class 302 (a Taiwanese cafe in Los Angeles) because it is softer in texture and creamier than shaved ice. The shaved ice pictured here is durian ice kachang (kachang means “beans” in Malay, as there were red beans in this dessert). When I gave it to Priam to try, he initially thought that the yellow puree was pineapple. When I told him that it was durian, he said that it tasted similar to jackfruit. He liked the durian ice kachang, while for me the durian flavor overpowered everything in it. Generally durian is known for its horrible smell, but in puree form it does not smell bad. I don’t like the flavor of durian though because it has a very strong aftertaste similar to what I imagine rotten onions to taste like.
The second hawker center we went to is called the Maxwell Food Centre (British spelling of “center”), and it is located in Chinatown:
This hawker center is famous for certain stalls, but unfortunately those stalls had huge lines that looked quite formidable. Because it was our last day in Singapore, we decided to go for stalls with smaller lines:
Singapore is known for its Hainanese chicken rice, so I decided to order one:
The chicken was very tender and the rice was very flavorful. I don’t normally like rice because it is bland, but I liked the rice in this dish. I have had similar chicken though somewhere in a Chinese restaurant in the United States, so I wouldn’t say that this dish was extraordinary. Perhaps the stall with the snaking line had exceptional Hainanese chicken, though I wouldn’t know since we didn’t want to deal with the wait.
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Priam wanted to shop for electronics on our last day, so we went to one of several malls that exclusively sells electronics. We went to Funan DigiLife Mall, where I spotted a restaurant that served bak kut teh:
I had read a lot of good things about bak kut teh (pork ribs simmered in herbs and spices) on blogs about Singapore, and I was determined to try it even though I already had the Hainanese chicken for lunch. The ordering process was interesting:
I ordered from an iPad that could be pulled out from the table, while forks and spoons were available on the side. The waitress informed me that I could get condiments from their bar, which I did. My meal looked like this:
My bak kut teh is on the bottom left, the condiments are in the center, and the chicken broth is on the right. I liked the chicken broth and intended to finish it, but every time I drank it, the waiter came to refill. The bak kut teh was good, although it did not taste any different from pork ribs that I’ve had in Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles. Now that I think of it, Los Angeles offers very good Chinese food.
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Overall I liked Singapore; my most favorite dishes were the Indonesian BBQ chicken, the Thai pandan wrapped chicken, and the Singaporean chili crab. I got to practice my very rusty Mandarin and Taiwanese (Hokkien), and I had delicious food and entertainment to boot.
American Foodie in Mumbai 