Between A and B on Saturday, lunch was required.
Despite the many coffee shops along the way we didn't fancy any of those especially on a Saturday afternoon when flocks of teenagers congregate to do their homework. If you think homework is a youthanism for hanging out you'd be wrong, they really are doing their homework, en masse, one drink between them, using the free electricity and aircon.
"How about I take you to a little Chinese restaurant I know?" Surprised as he is not known for his love of Chinese food, I thought this place must be good and far better than the shopping center restaurant I was envisioning we eat in (I have eaten some great meals in shopping centers but the idea of being in a shopping center never conjures up a pleasent experience).
So off we go, past all sort of food possibilities, but now we have a mission, this little Chinese Restaurant situated on Purvis Street tucked behind Raffles Hotel. Purvis Street is a street full of shophouses containing mainly local restaurants but we ignore all but one of these. A restaurant which I fail to see its name as I am mesmerised by the cooked chickens hanging in the window. He can't mean in here.
We take a seat at one of the many marbled round tables. Menu's are given to us and luckily they are in English as well as Chinese, but they have no prices. We order lime juice, a Beef and Spinach type dish and Hainanese Chicken Rice.
Chicken Rice is a famous dish out here, one Singaporeans would love to call there own but actually comes from China. Its a deconstructed Chicken soup dish. You get a bowl of broth, a plate of chicken, sliced cucumber and a bowl of rice; you eat this with condiments of Dark Soy sauce, Chilli sauce and Ginger sauce. It has all the medicinal qualities one expects from Chicken soup and is comforting.
The chicken arrived and was perfect, moist, succulent and most importantly it was breast meat. The rice was perfectly steamed, it was just the broth that I felt was slightly lacking in flavour. But how to eat it? Personally - and I don't know whether this is right or not I put some rice on a spoon and dip into the broth, eat the chicken seperately with the condiments or dip into the broth or eat with the cucumber. I think basically anything goes as long as one enjoys the different tastes and textures in front of you.
The Beef dish was wonderful too with the greens fresh and crunchy. We also had a crunchy Bok Choi dish which was great but I would had prefered less garlic in the dish.
The next problem before returning to our journey to B was how to pay. It wasn't the sort of place where you wave your hand in the air as if writing your name to get the bill, but luckily it wasn't a problem. We headed through the crowded restaurant to the old guy sitting in a booth. He had paper slips, written in Chinese, in front of him clipped together. He gestured to the restaurant and said something in Manderin, we pointed to our table and hey presto our slip of paper was found. He said something else in Manderin before repeating it in English, thirty eight dollars.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
I've Got Rhythm
Picnic in hand we arrived at the Singapore Botanic Gardens uncertain whether we were going to stay long due to the rain drops that seemed to be getting more consistant the closer we got.
It was movie night beneath the stars in the Botanic Gardens - 'isn't this romantic' (thats another film) - tonight we had the Gershwin classic ' American in Paris' (irronically 'Singing in the Rain' was showing the next evening).
We were'nt the only ones undetered by the rain, groups huddled around their mats sheltering under a sea of umbrellas. We opted for a position further up the natural amphi theatre of Palm Valley and placed our mat (picnic rugs itch in this hummidity) in front of a group of palm trees, checking that there were no coconuts first and hoping for a bit of shelter from the rain. And we settled back with glasses of wine waiting for the start.
As the rain got a little bit more persistant we decided to move. A second tree was chosen to sit under. We moved a third time, better view and more protection and thought we were in the perfect position.
So as the sun set - despite the drizzle the sky turned pink - we turned our attention to the picnic and the start of the movie. As the characters introduced themselves, as they do in this movie, we tucked into home made hummus and flat bread, salad and sticky chicken and of course more wine. The rain abated and the sea of umbreallas relaxed in front of us.
As Gene Kelly started singing and dancing to 'I've got Rhythem', we got ants. And did we get ants. But did we move - no - it was just a few ants, we coped with the rain - put the food away - shake out the cloth and sit back to enjoy the rest of the movie.
'S Wonderful, s marvelous' .... and we still had the 'Ant Invasion' (different era) our hands felt as though they had pins and needles from all the ants crawling over them. Undetered we ate pudding of Banana mufin, but the tupperware box it came in was black with the infestation - I discovered this later when I was putting things away.
So all food tidied away - enclosed in plastic - put back in the ice bag. The sugar coated biscuit we put to one side to attrached the unwanted visitors somewhere else was a sea of black - as were our dirty plates. We sat back, hoping for peace, to enjoy the rest of the movie. I wish it were that easy. Every so often one of us had a mini killing spree as we wiped down our arms and legs.
The film ended rather abruptly, as it does, after a Gene Kelly and Nina Foch's excuse of a drawn out dance, dream sequence, and so we started on the tidy up. The plates had water poured over them and were wrapped up in the table cloth and put in the bag - the sugar coated biscuit - we left. And so bags and new enemies in hand we set off for the short walk home and for the real tidy up.
On arriving back at our appartments lift lobby, we discovered that my bag had an ant trail, 3 or 4 ants deep, trying to find a way down to terra firma - this was quickly dispearsed by a quick shake - phew. Luckily the clean up was quick - easy with plently of hot water - I don't think any of them escaped.
Despite the weather and the ants I still went to be bed dancing and singing ' I've got Rhythm' .............. 'who could ask for anything more'.
It was movie night beneath the stars in the Botanic Gardens - 'isn't this romantic' (thats another film) - tonight we had the Gershwin classic ' American in Paris' (irronically 'Singing in the Rain' was showing the next evening).
We were'nt the only ones undetered by the rain, groups huddled around their mats sheltering under a sea of umbrellas. We opted for a position further up the natural amphi theatre of Palm Valley and placed our mat (picnic rugs itch in this hummidity) in front of a group of palm trees, checking that there were no coconuts first and hoping for a bit of shelter from the rain. And we settled back with glasses of wine waiting for the start.
As the rain got a little bit more persistant we decided to move. A second tree was chosen to sit under. We moved a third time, better view and more protection and thought we were in the perfect position.
So as the sun set - despite the drizzle the sky turned pink - we turned our attention to the picnic and the start of the movie. As the characters introduced themselves, as they do in this movie, we tucked into home made hummus and flat bread, salad and sticky chicken and of course more wine. The rain abated and the sea of umbreallas relaxed in front of us.
As Gene Kelly started singing and dancing to 'I've got Rhythem', we got ants. And did we get ants. But did we move - no - it was just a few ants, we coped with the rain - put the food away - shake out the cloth and sit back to enjoy the rest of the movie.
'S Wonderful, s marvelous' .... and we still had the 'Ant Invasion' (different era) our hands felt as though they had pins and needles from all the ants crawling over them. Undetered we ate pudding of Banana mufin, but the tupperware box it came in was black with the infestation - I discovered this later when I was putting things away.
So all food tidied away - enclosed in plastic - put back in the ice bag. The sugar coated biscuit we put to one side to attrached the unwanted visitors somewhere else was a sea of black - as were our dirty plates. We sat back, hoping for peace, to enjoy the rest of the movie. I wish it were that easy. Every so often one of us had a mini killing spree as we wiped down our arms and legs.
The film ended rather abruptly, as it does, after a Gene Kelly and Nina Foch's excuse of a drawn out dance, dream sequence, and so we started on the tidy up. The plates had water poured over them and were wrapped up in the table cloth and put in the bag - the sugar coated biscuit - we left. And so bags and new enemies in hand we set off for the short walk home and for the real tidy up.
On arriving back at our appartments lift lobby, we discovered that my bag had an ant trail, 3 or 4 ants deep, trying to find a way down to terra firma - this was quickly dispearsed by a quick shake - phew. Luckily the clean up was quick - easy with plently of hot water - I don't think any of them escaped.
Despite the weather and the ants I still went to be bed dancing and singing ' I've got Rhythm' .............. 'who could ask for anything more'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)