my SG itinerary centres around food (part 1)

Before I left Sydney, I did up a list of food I wanna eat in SG on top of the other lists - friends to meet, things to do and stuff to buy. Quite unknowingly, I had planned the itinerary around the food. Below are some photos of the food I managed to capture in the past one week. There were many others I forgot to take shots of because I couldn't wait to devour them.

On the night of my arrival into Singapore, I dropped my luggage off at home and headed to the hawker centre at Blk 85, Bedok North Street 4 with Bro and Mr P for some super unhealthy oily food. We (actually I was the only one eating most of the night) had chicken wings, orh lua (fried omelette with oysters), fried carrot cake in dark sauce and sugarcane juice. I had to skip the bah chor mee (egg noodles with minced pork and mushrooms) and minced pork with century egg porridge because my stomach just couldn't take too much food all at once. They were all yumz. Thanks to Bro for picking up the bill this time.



Fast forward to two days later because I failed to take any photos of the CNY feasts we had for reunion lunch at home and for reunion dinner at Grandpa's place. I met Tudi and we shared an apple crumble and chocolate ice cream at Swensens at Bishan Junction 8. We enjoyed the ice cream but found that the apple crumble tasted kinda weird, probably due to the ice cream topping being an overpowering mango flavour. Vanilla flavoured ice cream would have been more suitable for this dessert. We also shared a seafood platter for two at Manhattan Fish Market about two hours later which wasn't fantastic.



The following day, I met Tudi again to go purchase a much-needed portable hard disk drive with at least 320GB (I got a 500GB one in the end) at Sim Lim Square. We had to drop by Bugis Junction to get my Ya Kun fix (Set A with Kopi C for me as usual). I also got a curry puff from Old Chang Kee too before hitting Sim Lim.



For dinner, we had simple homecooked fare that tasted full of love (as the Helper was taught to prepare meals that way) at Rae's house: chicken curry, steamed cod fish, a cabbage dish with dried beancurd skin and carrots and a green vege dish (not sure of the vege name). I also snacked on the CNY goodies while we chatted late into the night - almost 8 hours of non-stop bitching! Thanks to Rae and Tudi for the enjoyable evening.



The next day, Sunshine23 brought me to the Food Republic in Vivo City for lunch. She treated me (thanks!) to some Hokkien Mee (this was quite disappointing), Char Kway Teow, Pu Tien dumpling, ngoh hiang platter and cheng teng drink. Dinner was at Sushi Tei in Vivo where we had the sashimi salad (omg I loved it), salmon and swordfish sashimi, chawanmushi and yosenabe (seafood hotpot).



It's so difficult to find good chawanmushi in Sydney. They are everywhere in Singapore. I wonder why. Below you see Sunshine23 gulping down chunks of wasabi, she's mad I tell you.



Sunshine23 was my guide for the second day running and brought me to the revamped Kallang Leisure Park. We saw this Wang (旺) Cafe that had the Ya Kun kaya toast concept and decided to give it a try. The mee rebus on the big banner at its entrance caught my eye and I ordered that but had to settle for mee siam because they ran out of mee rebus. The soft boiled eggs tasted okay but I was a bit turned off by having to de-shell them myself. The mee siam was the worst I ever had and Sunshine23 gave it a 2 on a scale to 10. The kaya toast (not shown in pics) was quite crispy but wasn't hot (despite it being freshly toasted) and the kaya wasn't anywhere near Ya Kun's standard. In short, I don't think we will ever eat at this cafe again. Nevertheless, I still must thank Sunshine23 for buying me lunch.



Since my mee rebus craving wasn't satisfied earlier in the day, Sunshine23 brought me to the famous mee rebus stall in the food court in Parkway Parade. She threw in the mee siam for comparison with the earlier version we had and a grass jelly dessert to neutralise all the hot and spicy stuff we'd consumed so far. Check out the very generous servings below.



Here you see Sunshine23 mixing the noodles / vermicelli with the gravy for me. I love love love love the mee rebus! And though I heart the mee rebus more, the mee siam was definitely way better than the Wang Cafe's. Thanks to Sunshine23 again for the treat. I had the yummylicious frog's leg porridge and beef hor fun at Geylang Lorong 9 that same night courtesy of Bro but didn't take any pics.



And today was dim sum day with Tudi. Alas, our favourite yum cha place at Wah Lok Restaurant in Carlton Hotel only served CNY set meals for this period and so we had to make do with the nearest alternative - Royal China at Raffles Hotel. We had 5 dishes at S$6.80 each - pan fried carrot cake, prawn dumplings with scallops, siew mai, char siew pastry and this interesting dish of deep fried springroll with mushrooms and cheese. I find the portions measly, the food tasted average and severely overpriced. We should perhaps stick to Carlton Hotel. Thanks to Tudi for getting this super expensive bill.



Two more weeks of gluttony to come. Watch this space for more gastronomical updates.