Singapore - Day 6

The heat and amount of food is finally get to me! I am starting to experience a bit of soreness in my throat, and I always feel that I am so full! Well, my parents DO NOT think so...they still feel I am too skinny. So for breakfast, they thought I needed a whole bowl of "lo mee". Lo mee is a dish with a mix of egg noodles, eggs, meat, vegetables cooked in a thick, sweet sauce. Usually it is eaten with a touch of vinegar to enhance the flavor.

Lo mee

My sister and I brought my two nephews to their creative writing class. While they were in class, we took the opportunity to talk about family affairs etc. I am really proud of my sister for doing such a good job with my nephews. It is definitely an accomplishment to raise two naughty boys as a single parent.

I decided I need to give my digestive system a chance to recuperate. Therefore, I only have "tim sum" for lunch. Tim sum is a famous way of eating in the Cantonese society. There are numerous dishes such as chicken feet (again!?... see how popular this dish is!), dumpling, chee-chong-fun, bao from. These dishes are usually served in bamboo containers. I chose chee-chong-fun and dumplings. Chee-chong-fun is made of small pieces of meat and vegetables wrap is rice sheets, and steamed to tenderness. Tim sum dumplings are slightly different from the won tong dumplings. Tim sum dumplings are made of a mix of minced pork , vegetable, and various spices and held together by egg wraps. Again, it is steamed to ensure the final dish is tender and tasty.

Tim sum - dumplings
and chee-chong -fun

H&M opened a new branch in Singapore today. I stumbled upon the opening while I went to town to look for Linda. It would be an understatement to say that Singaporeans are crazy about opening events! There was not one queue but two queues trying to get into the H&M store! The queues not only double but tripled around. There were even rumours that some people started joining the queue as early as the previous night! And there wasn't even an opening sale!

Long queues at H&M opening day 

We had dinner at Linda and Francis's place. I had heard rumors that Francis is an excellent cook. Dinner was great and I can confirmed the rumours were true. The dishes for the night started with a medium-raw steak cooked in rosemary sauce, vegetable pasta and pear salad marinated in orange juice. Francis is a vegetarian and I am really grateful that he spend the time to cook steak for me! Dessert was strawberry cupcake, dark chocolate cake, and chocolate-caramel cake from another newly opened store - Antoinette. And as all Asian traditions, dinner is not complete without the final serving of the king of fruits - Durian! According to a lot of "ang mo" (Caucasian), durian smells like seweage, and taste like custard! Well, Asians knows best...thus making durians the king of fruits! The smell is so strong that durains are not allowed in hotels, subways and airlines! We spend the rest of the night drinking red wine (which is from NZ!), talking about meditation, and life in general. It was a great way to wind down the night.... (Hannah, you will love their house! There is even a walk-in closet for shoes and clothes!... We have a chinese-style bed for us to stay overnight when we visit during Chinese New Year)

Durian!

Singapore - Day 5

The morning started with breakfast at the market we have been going to for the past 5 days. There are so many stores at the market that it is impossible to sample all the food in just 2 weeks. Breakfast is INTERESTING! We had "wan tong" (dumplings) noodles. However, since I only visit Singapore once in a blue moon, mom thought that I should try the wan tong noodle "special" It is dumplings noodles with an extra twist - chicken feet. This is DEFINITELY NOT Hannah's favorite from what I can recall. She just couldn't bare the thought of eating feet! In Singapore, chicken feet, which is commonly call the "Phoenix claw" is a local delicacy.

Wan tong noodles

Phoenix claws aka chicken feet

After breakfast, I was in charge of supervising the nephews - Kevin and Jared for their weekly piano lesson. I had lunch with my youngest sister after that. It was in Chinatown, and just mentioning the word "Chinatown" made Singapore temperature raise another 2 degree Celsius! It is VERY WARM in Chinatown due to the way the buildings are built around each other, and of course, due to the number of people packed in a small hawker center. It is the Lunar Mooncake festival next week, and Chinatown is even more crowded now.

If you can withstand the heat from the hawker center, it is definitely worth it. Food at the Chinatown hawker center are well-known to be cheap and delicious. We had Ipoh crayfish hor fun (white broad noodle) for lunch. There is really no word to describe this heavenly dish! The queue at this store was a 30-minutes wait! The Ipoh hor fun taste great with crystanmum tea in a can :)

Ipoh crayfish hor fun
with crystanmum tea in a can

After lunch, we decided to go for coffee so that we can talk in a quiet and comfortable environment. We found a modern-traditional coffee shop. It is a modern cafe which is renovated to look like a traditional coffee shop serving coffee, tea and other light snacks in traditional ways.

Traditional coffee

Dinner was a huge event with Alfred and Cheryl (his wife). We went to Whampoa hawker center. We ordered a couple of local dishes to sample - fried Hokkien noodle, satay bee hoon, rojak, wu-xiang (fried sausages and tofu) and again, sugar cane juice! Rojak is my favorite local food which is made of century-egg, tofu, cuttlefish, cucumber, pineapple and various other fruits and vegetables mixed in a sweet, spicy prawn sauce. Sesame seeds are then sprinkled on top of the mix to make this dish explode with tons of different tastes in your mouth! This rojak in Whampoa hawker center is so good that the international movie star, Chow Yun-fat frequent this store when he is in town.

Alfred and Cheryl

Wu xiang

Rojak

Satay bee hoon

Ended the night with my good friend, Jeffery with a beer at the local pub. We spend a great time recapturing the good, old memories, discussing the present and looking forward to the future...

Jeffery and I

Singapore - Day 4

(Hannah, this is specially for you!) Since my dad had an accident 2 years ago, he is experiencing difficulties in normal daily activities such as walking up and down the stairs, walking swiftly across the road etc. One of the activities that he is experiencing most difficulty was the use of our toilet. It used to be a squatting toilet instead of a seated toilet. Not many people (including Hannah :)  ) like the use of squatting toilets! Hannah even broke the flushing system the last time she was here in Singapore.... I think it was a traumatic experience for her! Anyway, we have "upgraded" the toilet and now we have a spanking, seating, easy-to-flush toilet! Yay!

New improved toilet 

Toady, I decided to stay at home and spend time with my parents and the nephews. Of course, when I stayed at home, most of the time was spend listening to complaints from mom and dad. My dad was complaining that I looked too skinny (nothing new!) and I have forgotten the Teochew language. Thus, he took upon his mission to re-teach me the lost-mother-tongue-of-Teochew. He tested me on Teochew language on every single items, from food to daily items.

I had fried carrot-cake with mom for breakfast. If you are drooling over it - it is NOT the type of carrot cake you are thinking about! It is actually a "cake" that is made of tulips, eggs and flour. It is then mix together and fried to taste good! It can be fried with dark, sweet sauce (dark carrot cake) or with the sweet sauce (white carrot cake).

Fried carrot cake

Lunch was with my dad, and we had "Kuay Chap". It is a dish with is made of parts of the pig such as intestine, skin, meat etc, and serve with broad, white noodles.The whole dish is cooked in soya sauce until it taste really good. The "spare-parts" of the pigs do not taste raw since they were cooked in soya sauce. However, care must be taken to ensure they are not over-cooked, or they will not be chewy.

Kuay Chap

Finally, dinner was at home. Mom cooked two of my favorite dishes - "Ba Kut Teh" and steamed pomfret. Ba Kut Teh is a soup which pork ribs were boiled with a various spices. It was left to slow-cooked on the stove for a whole day, making the meat from the ribs soft and full of flavor. The soup is a bit spicy but not over tongue burning. On the other hand, steamed fish is a very simple dish... pomfret fish steamed with tomatoes, ginger, soya sauce. Light and tasty.

Ba  Kut Teh and steam pomfret

 The evening was spend at home watching tv programs. The numerous new chinese-kung-fu-fighting-serial-drama-shows was a favourite with Hannah when she was her in Singapore the last time.