River City Food and Wine: A Visit to Singapore

Wow. I can't believe I actually visited Singapore and survived both the long flight times and the humidity. I'm so glad I put aside my objections. Singapore is vibrant, orderly, and architecturally intriguing. English is the official language. A good way for a Westerner to get a glimpse of Asia without totally going into culture shock. Based on the dozens of multi-story malls along Orchard Road, shopping and eating seem to be the major past times. But we also visited Little India and Chinatown as well. We loved the Botanic Gardens, especially the National Orchid Gardens. And the Gardens by the Bay, especially the Supertree Grove at night.

So, a few random observations before the photo show. Alcohol is EXPENSIVE in Singapore. A lot of restaurants do not even offer wine by the bottle. The wine by the glass prices would be bottle prices here in the US. And the US dollar to Singapore dollar ratio is not too far off the mark. So, we imbibed less, which was probably a good thing since the air is so humid one gets wringing wet after about a couple of hours. Our hotel did have a cool bar called Manhattan, however. They specialized in barrel-aged cocktails and had a glassed-in barrel room of concoctions waiting their turn. We indulged once, but at ~$21 a pop, we only went the one time.

Yes, it's that humid, even at night. Our friends who live in Singapore said it took them about 6 months to get acclimatized. Thus, the dilemma: do we eat outside at some lovely places along the river or the outdoor food stalls in Chinatown or do we head inside for air conditioning? We chose air conditioning. It was a way for us to recover before going back outside. Our hotel was kind enough to provide us two bottles of water each day and changed our towels twice a day since we usually took two showers every day. Since I am not a fan of heat and humidity and make a point of never going to the beach in the summer, I impressed myself at being able to survive. Shopping centers, the subway (MRT), and taxis all have excellent air conditioning, thank goodness.

The MRT is super easy to use and cheap. One-way fares are less that one Singaporean dollar. Taxis are fairly inexpensive, too. This is a good thing since owning a car is outrageously expensive. A Subaru costs upwards of $150,000 (yes, this is not a typo). We were also told that if one owned a car, the government required one to pay for the right to drive it for 10 years.

Singapore offers a huge variety of restaurants, from traditional Asian fare to familiar American fast food places to chain eateries that were new to us. It allows us as Americans to be adventurous one day and then return to our version of comfort food the next day. Reputable hotels and restaurants have good water and ice, so no real worries from that perspective. There is one fast food place in Singapore called Toast Box. They do toast with salted butter and jam (traditionally coconut jam), but what I became addicted to was the milk tea - extremely strong tea with sweetened condensed milk. OMG. They also have egg tarts. We need a Toast Box here.

Enough comments. Please enjoy some of my snaps.

Bumboats along the Singapore River

Christmas Decorating Comes Early in Singapore

Christmas decorations were being put in in mid-Oct. These along Orchard Road are brought to you by Hitachi

Barrel-Aged Manhattan at Manhattan

We met some friends for lunch one day. They took us to a local food court and ordered all manner of items. This is chicken and rice. The rice is cooked in a concentrated chicken broth.

Rojak contains fruit and cucumber and mixed with shrimp paste

Noodles with Shrimp

To drink we had sugar cane juice flavored with lemon juice

Malaysian Shaved Ice Dessert (Ice Kacang)

Malaysian Shaved Ice - Shaved ice with coconut milk, syrup, sweet beans, and "green twizzlers"

Yummy milk tea at Toast Box

Little India

While we were in Singapore, they celebrated the Deepavali holiday, a Hindu holiday (we know it as Diwali). This is a "bank holiday." Singapore has 10 holidays and honor Hindu, Muslim, Chinese, and Western cultures.