Singapore Tourists: Makansutra

Welcome Back!

I know I said I was going to show y'all Singapore's best night views on this post, but I think it's better to post my adventure in a chronological order. So, on this post, I would like to show y'all the food that we ate in Makansutra Gluttons Bay at the Esplanade before the sunset. I have to say it was our best meal of the trip. Big Bro can't stop smiling while eating it and kept on ordering MORE food. So here it goes, get ready to drool!

BBQ Pork with Hainanese Rice.
Big Bro said he's been looking for the perfect BBQ Pork in Singapore and this is the best one that he had so far.

Indian Mee Goreng (Fried Noodles) Combo with Chicken Wings.
I usually don't like this kind of dish, but I was surprise that I was actually satisfied and happy with this one.

Chicken Wings.
After sharing 2 pieces of chicken wings among the three of us, we wanted some more wings. It tasted really good but I have to say it's too oily.

Indonesian Sate Gado-Gado (Satay with Indonesian style peanut sauce salad).
It tasted good but a little bit too pricy for they size the served.

Roti John Mutton. It was THE BEST dish of the meal.
The texture, the taste, the size were just perfect. Big Bro doesn't eat bread, so more for KL and I.

Starfruit + Pineapple juice.
I know right, so tropical.  KL asked for no sugar, so it's a bit tasteless, but it's healthy!

Es Kachang (Shaved Ice with Peanuts).
I think the one in Marina Bay Sands is bigger and better (sadly I lost the picture). Nonetheless, this was a very satisfying dessert for the three of us.

Yeah... we ate a lot that night. Yum yum!

The best shot I have on Makansutra.

After we ate all those fattening yummy food we went to sit outside of the Esplanade to watch a free Christmas concert. It was pretty cool: the weather was perfect (meaning no rain), breezy, the sun slowly going down, the city started to light up, listening to classic love songs, and of course, two of my favorite people are there with me. It was just a perfect night! But... sorry, you'll have to stay in tune for my next post next week to see it!

Have a good weekend y'all! :D

Singapore Tourists: Asian Gastronomy

Hey all! I know class just started and most of you probably already have tons of reading to do, so I will try my best to write less than previous posts and just show you all the good stuff I ate in Singapore in pictures. Yumm Yumm!

Heart-shaped umbrella we borrowed from the hotel.

On Day 4, I had to go to see a doctor for some medical check up (Don't worry, I'm fine.). Yes, it was raining all day again. Since we couldn't enjoy Orchard Rd as much on Sunday because it was too packed, after the doctor appointment we decided to back to Orchard Rd again. It was pretty empty compared to Sunday. We didn't have to walk shoulder to shoulder with the crowds.

So what exactly did we do that day? We ate. Period. That's it. That's all we did. Our mouth didn't stop munching on food the whole day we were there. We walked for a bit, then we eat. Then we walk again for a bit, then we eat. So let me show you most of the things we ate...


For lunch, we went to Ramenplay because I've been craving for Katsudon since I got in Singapore. KL and Big Bro decided to get ramen, I'm sorry but I forgot which one (they have a lot of choices). I think the food was just okay, Tonkotsu King Ramen was better.

I want to say that this is Sanpou Double Soup Ramen.

Tonkotsu Ramen (Tonkotsu)

Katsudon - it's really good.

After lunch, we went out for a walk while the rain stopped momentarily. We passed through this old man's ice cream stand. This is definitely one of my favorite kind of ice cream, it's called Es Potong, which literaly means "cutted/chopped ice" in English. There are a lot of ways how we can it the ice cream, we can eat it on a stick, sandwiched with white/pandan bread, or with wafers like what we had below. Not only that, he was also selling a lot of Asian flavors, which I totally love, like for example: taro, red bean, mung bean, durian, etc. Also, the classics: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.

Since we didn't have anything to do other than a dinner plan with our old friend MS, we were just walking around scouting for interesting food to eat the whole day and here's what we found:

Dong Dae Mun Seoul Street Food. We got the sausage fries, it tastes like a corndog... but better.

Bakcang/Zongzi - glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings (usually meat).

Chinese Tea Egg.

Some Taiwanese street food. Not sure what they call it.

Everything fried...I want it all!!

After walking a lot the whole day, we ended up meeting MS at Takashimaya's food court. There were a lot of people, it took us a while to find seats. Interesting random fact: people in Singapore always have a small tissue pack in their purse. And when they go to food courts, they save their spot by placing their tissue pack on the table and then go to get their food. So just FYI, no, those aren't free tissue packs for us to take... So below are the food that we ate there:

Egg-coated Yakisoba from Takashimaya's food court. It doesn't taste as good as it looks.

Sticky rice with five different flavors: salmon, red bean, oyster, shrimp, some sweet pickle

.

Oyster cake. It sort of tastes like scrambled egg with oysters and different kinds of veggies.

Singaporean Wanton Mee with Duck Meat. Also one of my favorites to eat in Singapore.

Herb Chicken Soup. It tastes very good and healthy.

MS's Pepper Lunch: Wagyu Yakiniku with Egg.

Well, there you go. That was our Day 4's Asian Gastronomy Trip in Singapore! Hope y'all are drooling while reading this blog like how I am when I was writing this. Man... I wish I can all these food right now. Yumm yumm!

Singapore Tourists: Rain On Me

Our third day in Singapore went by pretty fast. Since it was Sunday, we went to a Lord's Table Meeting. KL and I went to a meeting place where DC always go every Sunday (Big Bro has his companions there so he went to another meeting place). DC gave us the address so we can get a cab to go there from our hotel. However, the cab driver dropped us off at the wrong address...and it was raining...and we didn't have any umbrella (the hotel ran out of umbrellas). We were about three blocks away from the meeting place. We didn't know what we should do. Even though we were late, we still want to go to the meeting.

In my being, I was talking to the Lord, "Lord, I really want to go to the meeting today. You are the only One that can make it happen. Give us just five minutes and we'll run to the meeting place!" (I bet KL was also praying so we can go to the meeting.) And then, ta-da! The Lord is faithful. He gave us just enough time to run and get into to the meeting. Yay! Praise the Lord. (DC was glad we made it, she was waiting for us outside the meeting place to make sure we're okay because we didn't have a phone with us for her to call.)

I really enjoyed the meeting, it was small but intimate. The Lord is really the same regardless of where we meet at. As long as we are with genuine believers, the Lord is always in our midst. The saints there are really nice and open. After the meeting, a lot of them greeted us and made us feel so welcomed. Praise the Lord for His one Body!

Percussion performance by a club to raise some funds.

After feeding on spiritual food, we went to Orchard Road to meet up with Big Bro to fill our tummies with good food. Let me tell you something, never go to Orchard Road during the weekend! I felt like everyone in Singapore was there! Most of the malls/plazas in Orchard are connected, so regardless of the crazy rain, people can still go to most of the malls/plazas without getting wet.

Some of Food Republic's choices.

We ended up in Food Republic at Wisma Atria. Food Republic is a food court (there are TONS of food courts around Singapore). Excuse the bad quality of the picture on the left. But those are some of the choices of food you can find in the food court. It definitely doesn't include all the choices available, just the ones on the Right Wing (as it says in the picture).

I don't know about y'all, but for me, the more choices available, the more confused I get. Especially here, I want all of them! I went around the food court, then a real petite Asian girl was bringing a super huge portion of Indian food on her hands. My face was literally like (O_O). Then, I found the Indian food's counter and look at their menu... The super huge portion of lunch combo is for a pretty good price. (I want to say that it was for S$6, but I'm not sure.) I quickly ran and grab KL and DC so we can get it and share. And so this is what we got:

Our lunch combo: Papadam and Chicken Briyani with Teh Tarik for our drink.
It doesn't look big here, but trust me... it's double the size of what you're thinking when you see this picture.

Roti Prata with cheese and onions + curry sauce.

Big Bro's Beef Ban Mian.

Ice Lychee and Ice Gui Ling Gao.

After we ate all these delicious food, we walked around Orchard Road. The place was way too crowded. Big Bro was tired because he hasn't been getting enough sleep and I just don't like being in a very tight space filled with people, thus the two of us decided that we want to go back to our hotel to rest for a bit while DC and KL walk around some more.

Then, for dinner, Big Bro knows a Korean BBQ buffet restaurant close by to our hotel in Novena. I would say that the food are just okay, but considering that it is a buffet, and for the price... it's not that bad, as you can see in the following pictures:

The different kinds of meat and sides we got.

We decided that we can make some Kimchi Fried Rice on the grill.

And that's the end of Day 3 in Singapore for us!

Singapore Tourists: Chinatown's Gluttons.

After we went through Chinatown’s main street, we went to eat egg tarts and curry puffs at Tong Heng. KL found it online. It was really good. The egg tarts were very soft in the middle and perfectly layered on the outside. I usually don’t like curry puffs, but this one… yummy! And a couple days after that, we KL and I just had to come back to get some more because it was too good to be missed.

Tong Heng's egg tarts, curry puff and char siew bao.

Then after we ate Tong Heng for snacks, we went to eat some Japanese ramen at Tonkotsu King Ramen for our late lunch. Interestingly, we can see the fat blobs in the soup base (pork broth). Big Bro, being the guy that he is, he said that the fat blobs made it tastes even better. I have to agree with him. We ate ramen at three different restaurants in Singapore, and this one was the best.  Plus, they give us complimentary side dishes: boiled eggs, beansprouts and some kind of pickles.

Big Bro's Tonkotsu Ramen Special with all toppings (corn, flavored eggs and Japanese seaweed).

Actually our day didn’t end there, we went to Marina Bay Sands to watch the Broadway Show Wicked. However, I somehow lost most of the pictures I took in Marina Bay Sands. I know… I was about to cry when I found out. We ate tons of good food and took a lot of nice pictures. But it’s okay… it just means that I have to go back to take more pictures! So there you have it, our Day 2 in Singapore. :)

Twining's high tea place in Marina Bay Sands.

Singapore Tourists: So, How Does Frog Meat Tastes Like?

As you have seen our hotel room on my previous post (link), obviously we couldn’t sleep well when we had to be laid like sardines on the beds. The stick figures on the picture makes it look like there’s plenty of space for us on the beds, but in reality, we could even barely move. Regardless of our sleeping situation, we still have to continue with our adventure. 

Line for taxi, didn't move an inch for 30 minutes.

Sadly, I don’t know what is up with modern transportation against me this break, but the MRT’s Red Line (the main line I had to get on) was broken that day. We had to go down at Toa Payoh. It was crazy… All of the passengers got off the MRT and queued for the free shuttle buses. It was too crazy, that KL and I think we should just get a taxi. However, there was a really long line for the taxi but no taxis on sight. All of the taxis passing by were ‘on call’ or ‘hired’. Thus, we have to think of a back plan. We called our friend DC, who was waiting for us in Chinatown already, to get on a taxi and get us from Toa Payoh. Luckily, DC got a taxi and picked us up not too long afterwards.

KL has been craving for frog porridge. So we went to Tiong Shian Claypot Frog Porridge in Chinatown to get it. We ordered a plate of raw fisg, a bowl of porridge with frog meat, a bowl with century eggs, and a bowl with (cooked) fish. I guess most of you have heard about century eggs, but frog meat? Yes, we Asians eat everything. It has been a couple of years since I ate frog meat, so I was a little bit grossed out in the beginning. DC convinced me to eat it, she told me it tastes like chicken. So how does it really tastes like? I would say that it tastes like fish and chicken combined, it's soft but not as soft as alligator meat (for you that ate it before).  So here's a few pictures of the food we ate:

I'm not sure what kind of fish it is. KL totally loved it.

Claypot Frog Porridge. Don't worry, it tastes much better than it looks.

Fish Porridge. It's pretty good, but I don't think it tastes that special.

I think I should stop here because this post is getting pretty long. So, stay tuned for my trip in Chinatown on my next post. But let me show you a preview on Chinatown with the following picture.

Chinese Snake Wine.

Singapore Tourists: "S$139 or S$199?"

Okay, by this point I still can not believe that I actually passed the immigration and I can go into Singapore!

KL actually planned our trip for the first three days in Singapore, she planned where to go, what to eat, how to get there and so on. However, Big Bro has to take care of some work stuff, thus the KL's plan didn't happen.

But it's okay, we still had a good time catching up with Big Bro. For the first time ever, I saw Big Bro talking non-stop. He was telling us about his mission trips that he had with his church companions in Indonesia. I thought his stories were pretty awesome, he went to help build houses for villagers, shepherding them etc.

So while he was telling us these stories, we were on the Red Line of MRT (Mass Rapid Transit - their subway) then the Purple Line going to VivoCity, the largest shopping mall in Singapore.

Googled. It was raining pretty hard, so I don't have a good picture of the mall.

The mall was huge. We have two main purposes going to that mall, to find Page One Bookstore and to eat seafood at the No Signboard Seafood.

Thus, we fulfilled both of our purposes. In Page One Bookstore, KL got some books for our friends back in Austin, Big Bro got some comic books that he's been collecting and I got a book on food photography (SO EXCITED!!!).

Then, we went to eat the ultimate seafood set in No Signboard Seafood Restaurant. I thought it would be one of those hawker places, but turns out to be a family restaurant. We went inside, sat down on a round table, look at the menu..... it was pretty pricy. But both KL and I have been craving for awesome seafood. After a few minutes passed, we had to decide what to order. We were stuff between two set menus....the one that costs S$139 or S$199. Hmm... Suddenly, "We'll take this one!" said Big Bro while pointing at the S$199 set menu. KL and I stared at him, and he said, "Might as well." Thus, that's how we ended up spending our money of our first day.

And the following below are the food that we ate, it was....awe-some!

Flowery-oolong tea.

Superior Braised Abalone.

Double Boiled Lobster

Chilli Crab

Crispy Cereal Shrimp

Mango Sago with Fresh Peeled Pomelo

Well, I guess this is it for now. Our day didn't end there. But please check out my next post sometime soon for the continuation of our Day 1 in Singapore!