Hello! It has been a week since I got back from Singapore, lots to settle, hence 2 weeks of missing posts :\. I’m still feeling the adrenaline of the city life. Throughout my few days there, I was just running up and down all day through stations and meeting friends every night, it was such a joy. I actually feel a lot younger and energetic there. The life and environment is such a major difference from Kuching (my sleepy little city) that it’s still leaving an impact on my mind and heart. Can’t help but wonder why I’m not trying out a couple of years there. It didn’t help that I watched “Me Before You†with the girls right before leaving the country (I cried buckets 3/4 way of the movie till the end – Probably write about why in another post). It makes one want to #liveboldly ya know? I love Singapore. I feel that every time I am there and every time after I leave. Maybe it’s a tourist / short-term feeling thing, but, who knows till you’ve tried it right?
Hulk’s mad cos he’s dirty
So there are a lot of things I enjoyed about the trip. Apart from the environment, energy and my best friends who are living there, there’s the FOOD. I also ate supper and drank beer 3 nights straight that my belly started to protrude. D:
Not this, this is airplane food.
Here’s the list of places I ate and drank at, how much I liked them.
Fika – Traditional Halal Swedish Cuisine, Beach Road (Food 3/5)
Standing Sushi Bar, Bras Basah (Food 5/5)
Prive at Chijmes, Victoria Street (Environment 4/5)
Some Si Chuan Restaurant on Jalan Tampang, Sembawang (couldn’t find the name of the restaurant because Google Streetview shows July 2015 lol) (Yummy + Bonus History of some of their dishes’ quirky names)
Red Dot Brewery, Dempsey Hill (Green Monster Lager: fresh!)
Wild Honey – All day breakfast, Mandarin Gallery, Orchard Road (4.5/5)
Ilao Ilao Frozen Yoghurt (found almost everywhere) (Good)
Omakase Burger, Wisma Atria, Orchard Road (YUM – Medium rare for the beef!)
Paris Baguette Cafe, Wisma Atria, Orchard Road (Pudding!)
Acid Bar, Orchard Road
Marche Movenpick, Somerset (Food 4.5/5)
And here are the details of my trip and tons of pictures:
1. Fika – Traditional Halal Swedish Cuisine
Day 1, I just arrived at Singapore and stayed along Beach Road. It was 1pm and I was starving as I haven’t had a meal since 7am. I had no sim card then so couldn’t Google anywhere to eat, so I simply went into this pretty Scandinavian designed cafe along the way.
I love white interiors. Bright and comfy.
I had something similar to a chicken chop because, you can’t go wrong with chicken right? That’s how I normally test a restaurant out – start with the most basic dish and see if we can advance from there. For this place, the dish was set up nicely with huge broccolis which was great, but the chicken was a wee bit overcooked – and I’m a little fussy about overdone or undercooked meat. So, didn’t really enjoy that for around SG$23 (That’s more than RM60).
After lunch, I headed out to scout around the area, which so happened to be a pretty artsy place! Earlier that morning I actually met my boss at the airport and he mentioned that Haji Lane and Kampung Glam were like the new hipster places in SG. I thought, “cool, I could go check them out.” Little did I know that these lanes were just around the corner from my accommodation along Beach Road, lol. Great! Saved me time!
Pros of having a little gorilla pod with you: You get to take pictures like the above. Just have to hook the pod to the skinniest tree. After taking this picture, I was clumsily fiddling with my gorilla pod when a girl spotted me and said carefully, “Daphne?…”
Omg. Just when I thought I was in a foreign place where I could do weird vain things and get away with it, I was wrong.
This pretty lady caught me, Vann! What are the odds. I only met her once at an event in Kuching before (friend of a friend), she lives in KL and we were to meet again in Kuching in July. Such a coincidence to have bumped into each other of all places on my first day there. Wonder if she’d notice me if I wasn’t awkwardly fiddling with my gorilla pod by the road side then.
Anyway, the area was pretty cool. There were large murals everywhere. Wonder how I could get myself a wall to paint, maybe?…
Adrian! Not a food picture or a very special food place, but it’s a moment worth remembering! We walked to quite a few places along Bugis but couldn’t find a nice food/drink place that was non-alcoholic and not packed with people, so we ended up at Starbucks! My friend here was very nice to drop by on the way to Changi before his 2 freggin’ am flight to Perth.  I’ve never had a Starbucks cake back home (just cause I didn’t really like their pastries), but we had the cheese cake here this time, and I’ve got to say, it was pretty good (but bad and fatty for the belly at 11pm lol).
2. Standing Sushi Bar, Bras Basah
This is the building beside the Standing Sushi Bar restaurant.
That place on the right, where there’s a queue – That’s the restaurant. I didn’t know where it was at first as I got there before Xian. I was just wandering around the Bras Basah Station because I like the area. It was neat and filled with art as well as the Singapore Art Museum was scattered there.
Even the benches were pretty.
I was admiring this installation made of white chocolate by an artist called Janice Wong, wondering if the airconditioning was enough to keep the ants out. Later I realised that this room is actually on the same building as the sushi bar. SG felt a little small then lol.
We were lucky we booked. It was a Thursday night and there was a queue but we got in on time. Above is the plum wine. Yum.
There was a promo that day. One plate (5 pieces) of sashimi was only SG$3! And it was fresh and thick! love!
The avacado sashimi salad had a delicious savoury sauce.
Tried the wagyu rolls. It was alright.
These sushis are to die for! They literally melt in your mouth! There’s a slight burnt taste with a hint of a special flavor that I couldn’t make out, making it my best sushi experience ever! (Will compare with Japan later this year, can’t wait!)
3. Prive at Chimes, Victoria Road
Chijmes was within walking distance from the Standing Sushi Bar at Bras Basah, so off we went after dinner.
It was really beautiful. It’s a church / hall apparently and known as a #weddinggoals location here.
Inside, there’s this large carpet grass platform with huge trees, and fairy lights. Really makes it a very photogenic place. Prive is the restaurant / bar behind me. We didn’t eat there, just had a couple of cocktails. It’s a really nice relaxing place to chill. Our seats were a little wet though as it was raining earlier. Don’t mind to come here to relax after work at all. This could be doable in Kuching ey?
4. Sichuan Food at Jalan Tampang, Sembawang
Our very nice friend brought us for Sichuan food at an area with a few shophouses in Sembawang very near the famous mihun (thin noodle) place there. I got to learn about some interesting names of Sichuan food with backstories but I can barely remember them now.
This is the Chinese version of Wintermelon Tea in a can.
This is a must try! It’s called 夫妻肺片 which literally translates to “husband-wife lung slices”. But of course nothing in the dish has lung pieces (I think they are actually beef slices). Apparently the story goes something like this:
Long time ago, there was a man who sold beef at his beef shop. By the end of the day after all the meat has been sold, there would be leftovers which consists of the organs and other less consumed parts of the cow. The husband would then bring those parts home and he and his wife would clean, slice and marinate the spare parts for street hawking. Seeing how the husband and wife were so dependent on each other, they called the snacks they sold “夫妻废片 (husband-wife waste slices)”. However, the word “废 (waste – pronounced as: fèi)” was not a nice word to use, so they changed it to “肺 (lung – also pronounced as: fèi)”
These are regular beans with green chillies.
This is 鱼香茄å (Fish Fragrance Eggplant) – with no fish inside! (Aren’t they creative?)
And this is 啤酒炖é¸è‚‰ (beer duck).
All the dishes were quite spicy, our hosts were nice enough to ask for less spicy for my sake lol.
Finally, we washed it all down with their Chinese beer. It was really easy to drink as like most Chinese beer, they aren’t as ‘bitter’.
5. RedDot Brewhouse
Our friend told us about RedDot Brewhouse in Dempsey Hill, so we decided to go check it out as they’re known for their in-house brewing and Monster Green Lager!
It was a nice refreshing beer to down. I had 2 of them while chatting with great company and listening to unplugged performances:
6. Wild Honey – All Day Breakfast
I haven’t had a single drop of coffee since I got to Singapore as I was trying to recover from a weak immune system. When I was finally strong enough, we went to Wild Honey at Mandarin Gallery, Orchard Road for a big yummy western breakfast. When we got there, we had to queue! They took our name and number and said to call back in approximately 30 minutes! As they say – Singapore is all about queueing.
Cappuccino!!! I missed yoooo
My rich English/French (omg can’t remember which) Breakfast! Love the balance of flavors!
Samuel Toh & Samuel Wong, my two guides of the day (whom I’ve known since I was 7, that’s 20 years now, isn’t that crazy?!) ordered the European breakfast.
It was afternoon and it was a constant full-house!
The place was so packed that we had to sit at the bar.
Which was not a bad thing since we got the nice bartender to take this picture of us.
7. Ilao Ilao Frozen Yoghurt
I saw many people holding this everywhere, Samuel said it’s supposed to be good. So off I went and got myself a medium cup with 3 toppings. I’ve only had a couple of frozen yoghurts back in Malaysia, Heilo being my favorite for it’s fresh ingredients (but has sadly closed down due to little marketing and a small Kuching population). I don’t like Tutti Frutti at all even though it’s so big, sorry. So I wasn’t very excited to try others after I had my heart broken by Heilo. But this was alright. It’s more creamy than heilo. Tastes right. Loved that they have a wide range of fresh fruit cubes to choose from, and.. ALMONDS! Win.
8. Omakase Burger, Wisma Atria, Orchard Road
My bestie insisted on taking me to try Omakase burger. It’s really good. We had the tender medium rare beef patty which was juicy, tender buns, with cheese and mustard drooping everywhere – perfect!
9. Paris Baguette Cafe, Wisma Atria, Orchard Road
This is supposedly quite a famous bakery here. It reminds me of Tous Les Jours – French but from South Korea (?!). I didn’t get the breads but I got this!:
The Original Royal Pudding! It was a nice dessert, soft with just the right amount of sweet at the bottom.
10. Acid Bar, Orchard Road
This is just a charming place to be on a weekend night in the city. City lights, modern and colonial building mix… *content sigh*.  Didn’t have alcohol that night, so no pretty cocktail pictures to show. We had JUICE at Acid Bar while chatting over the movie “Me Before You”. Some of us felt Will did the best and noble thing, some of us thought he was selfish and could still live on doing his daily tasks. I loved everything about the movie including the ending, and it haunted me for an entire week! Okay, going off topic. One thing I like about Acid bar is it’s creative little menu with delightful sketches of drink ingredients. That is how I’m going to draw my recipes next time! *inspired*
11. Marche Movenpick, Swiss Food – Somerset, Orchard
This was an interesting place to eat (to me). 1. It’s underground – like we’re little bunnies in a burrow.
2. You go to the little stalls and order what you want and swipe it on your in-store credit-card.
3. You queue up (again) while they cook and pick them up when they’re done.
This is the pork knuckle, so so so so so nice and tender I want some now!
Rösti! I love it. The potatoes are cooked so well with just the right amount of flavor. Need to Google how to cook this.
And the duck pizza! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Okay, so that’s it for all the food I’ve stuffed myself with. I had fries and alcohol almost every other night that I need my monkey bars, pronto! I try to comfort myself with all the walking I’ve been doing, since almost every morning, I had to brisk walk to the MRT for about 15 minutes because I was always late. But that’s not enough to flatten the belly so, time to ninja.
Have you met my trainer, Mikey?
I was lucky to meet the Great Singapore Sale that weekend so did a wee bit of purchasing. This place is really heaven if you have money that you don’t have to divide three times lol.
I’m going to miss the art, architecture, energy, and bustle of this beautiful, clean and safe city. Till next time. Hearts~!
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