Between A and B

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.