Total Miles Traveled: 31,618
Singapore is a city, state, and country, all rolled in to one island at the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia. I also call it the “land of Lah” – the Singaporeans (and Malaysians, too) seem to add “lah” to the end of every sentence. Much like the Canadians do, eh?
Like Hong Kong, it’s built up and packed in, but it’s very clean, organized, and easy to get around. Everything is well manicured – some people say almost antiseptic. But there are good views and nice buildings (like the Singapore riverfront above and the Fullerton Hotel below).
But, the things I remember the most are how there are tons of malls – we stayed on Orchard Road, the shopping district of Singapore (see how there are 6 ATMs lined up here?) …
What did we enjoy most in Singapore — the food lah!
First, let’s start with the famous drink from Singapore, the Singapore Sling.
Ahhh, the Singapore Sling at the Long Bar at Raffles Hotel – it’s another one of those “checklist” travel things where people say you have to go and do the X in Y city. And this is one of those things. Here’s the history and recipe (http://www.drinkboy.com/Cocktails/Recipe.aspx?itemid=151); roughly, gin, brandy, grenadine, Cointreau, dom benedictine, pineapple and lime juice.
There’s a unique historical vibe to the Raffles Hotel and the Long Bar. But to be frank, after you suck down your fruity, $20 (YES TWENTY US DOLLARS LAH!) drink in 2 minutes, and look up to see a bunch of other tourists doing the same, you ask yourself – OK, now what? We ended up skipping the Afternoon Tea at Raffles, which is also supposedly a must-do, but after hearing several people say it’s way overrated and expensive, we bailed.
Fortunately, that was the only (and very small) disappointing part of our trip to Singapore.
Elsewhere – where the locals go – the food is amazing! From Little India, to food courts, to the upper-end restaurants. Here it is folks, food porn:
Murtabak – minced mutton, garlic, egg, onion, wrapped in a delicious soft dough, with curry sauce on the side.
I love this photo because it reminds me of how the cultures mix in Singapore:
The following dishes were from the Indochine restaurant along the Singapore river. Beautiful setting and the food was good. Here’s the stir-fried spicy soft shell crab.
And a dessert we couldn’t resist – red bean filled pancake with passion fruit ice cream.
We also took a trip to Little India on our friend Seema’s recommendation.
This is our meal at Famous A-1, a dive that serves you food on a banana leaf… eco-friendly indeed. We had the spicy chili crab with accompaniments, with the latter being better than the former:
This Andhara masala dosa at Sri Lukshmi Narasimhan blew me away. I think it had a super spicy potato/pea mixture inside the crepe. Never had anything like it!
Well, that’s it for Singapore. We were only in town for 36 hours and looking back, we probably could have spent more time in the city just eating since we weren’t interested in shopping. We look forward to being back! Here’s the full set of photos:
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