Singapore's hidden gems

Singapore is a foodie’s paradise. I was there for only a few days, so I wanted to experience a range of food places.                                 

I was staying at the Amoy which is located in a very strange spot. The building housed the Fuk Tai Chi, one of Singapore’s oldest Chinese temples from 1820’s to 1994. After closure, it’s now a museum. Right behind the museum, in the same premises, is the hotel. Centrally located within Far East Square, its a heritage conservation project in the heart of the Central Business District with a vibrant mix of eateries and retail shops. Right outside on the rear side of the hotel, covering many shop house buildings including the hotel rooms, is a range of bars and fast-food eating joints. Generally quiet in the day time, by 8.00 pm, many office goers and youngsters come here to enjoy drinks, listen to music and possibly eat. Its noisy, cheerful and expensive! 

I met couple of my ex colleagues after two decades for drinks and dinner. We had drinks at the Tanglin Club (see below) and one of them found this outstanding small place called Taliwang…. So easily mistaken for the infamous Taliban!!                           Taliwang is in North west Tenggara district of the Indonesia but here it’s a small eatery. I could not find out more about the origin and the waiting staff did not speak much English. These places have to close by, if I recall, 10.00 pm and we reached just in time for last orders at 9.05 pm. There was a large family group who had occupied the rest of the place as can be seen in the photo. It was a birthday celebration and when they sang Happy Birthday, we joined in with gusto for which they thanked us by giving us a large piece of chocolate cake – it just melted in the mouth!

I am going to let the dishes speak for themselves. Each one was amazing. Whilst I have eaten Indonesian food many times, this was a totally different experience as I think it was more Lombok rather than Indonesian. Lombok is near Bali and the indigenous people are Sasak. It is famed for its spicy cuisine. 

In 2019, Lombok received a score of 70, the highest among the assessed top 10 halal tourist destinations in Indonesia in a study conducted by the Tourism Ministry. The Indonesian Government is hoping to attract some of the anticipated 230 million Muslim travellers across the world in 2026.

Naturally being a strictly Muslim place, no alcohol, not even beer, is served. The food is what it all revolves around. We think we can make an onion and egg omelette, right? Well, we ordered it here and with the other dishes, it tasted so different from what we make at home. The mushroom and broccoli dish was a simply pure veg. exquisite concoctionThe Sambal Kangkong was a thick soup with meat and corn. The Iga Bakar was the best – marinated beef which was so so soft! Delicious. The second veg dish was the greens in Sayur Assam. Finally the Tiger Prawns. …simply awesome. 

Each of us were given steamed rice bowls as much as needed, free. It was really one of the best evenings to remember as I met colleagues after nearly 20+ years and we had a super evening together. MK generously picked up the dinner tab and would not let us share it.

 We then walked across the street to the Arab Street and well-lit Sultan Mosque area where the restaurants were open and serving Lebanese and Arab food.

Whilst walking the streets around lunch time, I came across this simple place whose customers were all working class people. It had a limited menu of a few items and seating was shared across plastic tables and chairs. I ordered a Harbin or rice noodle dish with chicken and added an egg as an extra. As you see, very basic but flavourful. It cost all of S$ 7.50 

The Chinese essentially love dim sums and there are many eateries offering them all over Singapore. One highly rated one is Swee Choon. Always try and take a friend along so that you can try more varieties of food as a single person cant do justice at a dim sum place. We arrived there and found the large restaurant closed !! turned out it was under renovation so the owners had taken space right next door and opened a takeaway and a seating area in two rooms. 

   I would have been lost were it not for my friend Jimmy Lim’s friend Janet being with me.  The waiter was a dour old guy who had no interest in serving anybody. In our room, there were a few youngsters  but in the next room, there were large round table full of families gorging themselves as could be seen by the number of dishes on each table! I was surprised at the basicness of this place in that again, no table cloths and no napkins – pay for them if wanted !! 

The menu range is amazing but some of the items were only available at dinner time. We had Char Sie Bao twice – delicious pork buns, Siew Mai, steamed pork ribs – not my cup of tea as they were small pieces with a zillion bones in each piece, very messy, bean curd prawn rolls – simply awesome, fried prawn dumplings with mayo, chives pork dumpling, rice roll with prawns which were just divine and melted instantly – needed a second order, and Har kow. This gargantuan meal cost S$ 42.00 or US$ 31.50 in total.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         I saw a robot delivering food trays – first time – I was surprised as there were enough servers but they still had two robots!!   

A fascinating part was seeing the noodle chef making noodles. He was so fast in pulling, twisting and extrapolating the dough

   

 

On a Sunday morning, I went to see the Intan Museum. Its all about a totally different culture – see my blog on it. From the metro station, I had to walk 1.5 kms in 30 deg heat and full sun to the museum, spent an hour there with the owner and then walked back. On the way back, I came across this place.. Yi Zun. Full of families at Sunday lunch – the kids running about, shouting and playing, their maids (all young girls) running after them. It seems they are the first ever Muslim owned specialising in Chinese hand pulled noodles.  The owner was from Qinghai and she wanted to offer her region’s speciality which was beef noodles; a staple dish of north China. These are thin slices of fine beef with rice noodles, very finely cut radish slices and a couple of greens in a broth.  I felt that this might not be enough so I also added chives prawn dim sum….one cant go wrong there. The broth was really filling and I ate all the pieces but left some broth as I was too full.

I love desserts and pastries but did not manage to eat as much as I would love to as I had too much of the main course each time!! However, walking around a mall, I came across this Japanese patisserie – well, how could I not stop, enter, walk around and admire these creations? it had a French name – Chateraise – I began with a small portion of strawberry ice cream and then bought something unusual – fresh orange which had been crushed and frozen into a jelly like substance. I also got a few varied packets of small chocolates, ideal for gifting. I hope my friends liked them.

The Chinese New Year was a few days away on 22^nd Jan, and everybody was shopping for gifts and decorations. I went to China Town to see the festivities. Crowds and more crowds. The restaurants were full, the bars were overflowing and the shops selling decorations and various typically Chinese sweets and fruits were full of customers. Its as if Covid was not heard off. Everyone having a gala time.

I moved base after three days to experience another part of Singapore. The hotel KeSa is part of a long row of old houses lovingly repaired and maintained. I have reviewed it for Booking.com and Trip Advisor. This area also has some excellent restaurants – the French place here had a menu with rates which would beat New York – it had two customers only and I found the atmosphere very dull and gloomy. I wanted to try out the Chinese place at the end of the road but whatever time I went, there was always along queue. It was here that I tried out the Korean Bar B Q which you can read about in a separate blog. 

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