Singapore: Day Three

Awoke to a thundery rainstorm which put me off going out for breakfast. Ended up raiding my brother's fridge for eggs on toast.

FINALLY made it out of the house around noon and headed directly for Little India and the Arab Quarter. So far, these have been the coolest places I've been to in Singapore. I kept taking photos. I couldn't stop. There were explosions of colours everywhere. It was dizzying and simply awesome.

Drawn by some yummy incense mixed in with what was probably wafts of freshly made kulfi coming from a nearby store, I almost made my first purchase at the Little India Arcade. Instead, I veered left and ended up in front of "Singapore's Best Biryani" shop. It was indeed very delicious. A giant chicken leg was buried under an equally enormous amount of aromatic biryani rice. The chicken was cooked just right, with the meat falling off the bone. It was served with a small bowl of curry and this interesting sauce that was slightly limey, slightly spicy, and.. green. I liked it. I like it a lot.

Determined to make it to Arab Quarter (which SEEMED easy to get to according to my map), I started wandering the streets again, my mouth a little on fire from the biryani. I took a wrong turn, but ended up in front of Singapore's largest street market. "Hell yeah!" I thought, and checked it out. Despite still being quite full, the appearance of freshly made soy bean milk and fried banana brought out the Lard Arse in me and I bought one of each. The goreng pisang was OK, but the soy bean milk was yum. Not too sweet and grossly processed like the store bought variety. There were stalls selling all kinds of nostalgic snacks like a crunchy peanut thing whose name I forget.

After a few more delays involving a toilet stop, a stray cat and a very fancy building with a giant gold-coloured crane in the entrance, I made it to Arab Quarter. Wandering up and down its streets, I came across some very cool graffiti at number 56 Haji Lane. The style reminded a bit of both a Korean and Japanese pop style of illustration. It was cute and a little creepy. I liked it immediately. I went up the stairs of this shop, and found a little gold mine of quirky, cool street fashion. A place called Soon Lee had just opened a month ago, and its owner was more than happy to give me details of the artist of the murals downstairs and outside her shop. So happens the artist, Ang Gee, is holding an exhibition on Friday for the grand opening of a new bar/gallery. I'll definitely be checking it out.

For Arab Quarter, you'll just have to check out the photos. I wandered around and took photos until my feet hurt. Then I found a wee Turkish cafe and had a strong, STRONG teeny tiny cup of Turkish coffee. There were guys smoking from hookahs, the furious bubbling of the water making everything so magical. There was the guy wanting to get me to come into his roti chanai restaurant, but I ended up taking photos of the chief roti maker instead.

The latter part of the afternoon consisted of me finding a spot to sit along Orchard Road (having got too tired to do any actual shopping) and read my book.

Dinner consisted of heading to Clarke Quay, a nice harbour-y sort of place with lots of overpriced restaurants and bars. We went to Satay Club, which I would rate a 5 out of 10. The service was slow, they ran out of fresh coconut, and although the food was tasty, it was over spiced. And probably overpriced. The satay, however, was pretty good.

Next stop on the train of Form Over Function, was Clinic Bar -- a medically themed bar. I paid S$50 for 6 servings of a rather potent cassis/vodka concoction served in large syringes that you squirt into your mouth. 3 of these syringes equalled 2 drinks, according to our waitress.

While waiting for the bus, we spotted a Starbucks, and my brother wanted to try their gross sounding parmesan vanilla truffle macadamia mooncake. We picked at it with trepidation, wondering how anyone could think of combining all these yummy foods into one gross dish. The actual mooncake, with its lotus seed paste, was quite nice.

It look us forever to figure out where the parmesan came in. They had put it WITH THE VANILLA TRUFFLE CHOCOLATE THING!! OMG, what a way to ruin chocolate and cheese -- with each other. I like the occasional chocolate cheesecake, but PARMESAN is a strong cheese.. It tasted OK.. kinda like cream cheese, but still very weird.

In summary, Day Three's food:

• Breakfast: scrambled eggs on toast, Earl Grey tea
• Lunch: chicken biryani with curry and yum green sauce
• Snacks: goreng pisang, soy bean milk, green chiffon cake, mini durian pikelets, macadamia mooncake with parmesan infused vanilla truffle from Starbucks
• Dinner: Black pepper crab, sugar cane water, lime juice, kang kong with belachan, beef and chicken satay, vodka/cassis drinks