Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Singapore

I don't really have any pictures of Singapore but the food there was quite good. In fact, we indulged so much that we literally could not eat anymore by the end of our trip and could not even finish a vegetarian meal! The two best meals I had were at the Newton Circus Hawker Center (touristy I know, but one of our friends knew the owner of a hawker stand) and dim sum at Taste of Paradise. At Newton Circus, we ordered: hokkien noodles, fried carrot cake, chicken wings, sauteed river spinach, chicken satay, barbecued stingray, sauteed calamari, corn flake shrimp, and rounds of super cold Tiger beer (and iced barley tea) for 5 people. We did quite well and had very few leftovers. At Taste Paradise in the Ion Center on Orchard Road, they serve dim sum based on a menu. I like this method better than the carts because the dim sum comes out so warm and fresh. We had delicious custard buns, char siu tarts and buns, egg tarts, japanese cucumbers (i love these!), pork short ribs, xiaolong bao, and taro puffs. All of it was very good.

I have to say though that the service in Singapore is not spectacular. Maybe it's a function of not having tips? At many of the restaurants we had to ask for tea multiple times and they had difficulties with splitting our bill. Our hotel reception also adopted a stare blankly response to basically everything we asked for with the exception of the morning staff (they were extremely helpful).