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Black Sesame Almond Blizzard

By jeni | July 16, 2008

John’s always been the experimental type when it comes to trying new foods, and of course living in Singapore is absolutely no exception. I’m more, hmmm, how do I say it? I’m more timid, I guess, when it comes to trying new things. For one thing I have a bit of an aversion to meat, don’t eat red meat and usually don’t eat pork, although the occasional piece of bacon does somehow sneak it’s way in my mouth. That doesn’t count though right? 

Anyway, that aversion to meat makes it kind of hard to get excited about trying a lot of the local food here – somehow seeing the duck hanging in the window of the food stall just doesn’t do it for me. Call me crazy. There will be no fish head soup in my future. Sorry. 

After a lengthy discussion in which John made me feel like a stupid close-minded American, it was decided that while he would try all of the savory local dishes, the ones with fishballs and pork dumplings and what not, I would try all of the sweet dishes. First on the list, the trio of almond blizzards from Dairy Queen. Now Dairy Queen should of course be a treat, but it was the weekend and it was hot (shocker) so we decided to give the black sesame almond blizzard a go the other day. 

 

I was apprehensive, but the time was right. There weren’t many people in the line, and John needed a break from walking because his new sandals were rubbing his feet raw. The order was placed – of course John totally chickened out and got a brownie blizzard. I was disappointed because I couldn’t see any blackness anywhere around the guy making the blizzard.

I was even more disappointed when I got the blizzard and it wasn’t black at all. In fact, all it really looked like was a kind of “off” brownie blizzard. Oh well, I was ready to give it a shot. 

I know I look surprised and maybe a little freaked out in this picture, but in reality, I quite liked the black sesame almond blizzard. The sesame flavor wasn’t overpowering, just nice and nutty, like you would expect a sesame seed to be I guess. And of course almonds are always good, and so is ice cream, so all in all, it was a decent experience.

John was not impressed.

We were both however, impressed by the small size of the Dairy Queen blizzard, and no, they didn’t have the option to get a huge ginormous one either. In the end, I only ate about a third of it, because while I liked the taste, I wasn’t in love with it and I didn’t want to eat it just because it was there. John liked his brownie blizzard, but I don’t think it was quite the same as at home. Such is life when halfway around the world though eh? 

There’s still the green tea almond and mango almond blizzards to try, but those may have to wait a while because I’m not really a fan of mango honestly, those don’t seem quite as outrageous as the black sesame did. 

Topics: food | 3 Comments »

This past Saturday night

By John | July 15, 2008

Yeah, okay, I know that Saturday was, like, a while ago. Gimme a break 😛

After our big day at Vivo City we decided to go out for a nice meal. We wanted to go somewhere close by, though, so we ended up going to One-Ninety restaurant in the Four Seasons.  The atmosphere was perfect, definitely what you’d expect at Four Seasons – upscale but not glitzy. The food was good, too, and Jeni and I both ordered the buffet so I think we can offer a fair assessment. This is not your ordinary buffet, of course. Everything is made-to-order but you basically get tiny portions of each item so you can try a bunch. A tasting menu, if you will.

We also met a really nice guy named Hamond who just moved to Singapore from Washington DC. Hamond’s the bar manager in the restaurant and Jeni and I fully plan on visiting him/the bar later this week. Hamond requested to be transferred the Singapore Four Seasons. His request was approved and he just up and left DC. That’s pretty slick.

I know Jeni’s going to yell at me for the short length of this post but so what. I’m just gonna go ahead and wrap things up by listing some of my fave foods from One-Ninety and leaving you all with some pictures. Peace out all! I miss everyone.

Fave foods from One-Ninety:

Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Peranakan Adventure

By jeni | July 15, 2008

I went on a tour today and learned lots – I’m so excited to tell you all. Just a disclaimer first, everything here I learned from my tour guide, so I assume it’s true but if it’s not, you’ll probably never know. Here goes.

A long, long time ago, in a far away place – wait, actually not far at all from me, but far from most of you I guess, a new culture began to blossom as Chinese immigrants began to settle into Singapore, Penang and Malacca and marry Malays, thus adopting many Malay customs and cultures. These people are now known as the Peranakans – also called Straits Chinese. Of course my version is seriously dumbed-down, but you can learn a lot more here.

Peranakans now make up a very small part of Singapore’s culture, and you can also find them in neighboring Malaysia and even all the way to Vietnam and Australia. In Singapore most Peranakans live on the Eastern part of the island, considered by many to be a desirable area to live. The land in the east has been reclaimed three times now (another story, very interesting), so many of the original Peranakan mansions and estates used to be along the ocean side, but they’re now further inland now.

Peranakans have adopted much of the Malay culture, but they have also retained much of their original Chinese culture – and displays of wealth are all around. These houses are painted with bright colors to encourage wealth and prosperity and also to display it – white paint was made from limestone and it was the cheapest, while colorful paint was more expensive. Ornate tiles and lanterns displayed wealth all around the family.


As you can see, the brown house above is being renovated, most likely because the children of the elders who live there demand it. Peranakans are also known for being very particular about their wealth, passing it on from generation to generation is very important. That said, in the days before investment bankers and mutual funds, wealth was wealth and would tend to run out after three or so generations, so the Peranakans came up with strange ways to maintain their wealth, including implementing rules in their wills about the selling of houses or family heirlooms

For instance: a Peranakan might leave his estate to his children, but say stipulate that the house may not be sold until after 50 years after his last grandson has died. If it is written in the will it is law, and even today you can see a house in disrepair because a family cannot afford to maintain it, yet they are not allowed to sell it either.

One key feature of Peranakan cuisine is dumplings, so off we went to visit a dumpling shop. Every year there is a dumpling festival in Singapore, and the shops (and old Peranakan nonyas) make dumpling after dumpling after dumpling. The dumplings are made of sticky rice, minced meat or soya beans, and tons of herbs and spices. The picture below shows a Peranakan girl making dumplings. She starts by wrapping a banana leaf into a pyrimad shape, adds some rice, then the filling (this one is pork) and finally more rice on top. The brown bags in front of her are displaying the different spices used in the filling: black pepper, white pepper, chilis, cardamom, cinnamon, and a bunch of others that I forget. After the dumpling is made, the banana leaf is tied closed with a ribbon (this isn’t traditional, it used to be a bamboo I think) and then cooked. All those little green things there hanging off of the pink strings are dumplings.

After watching the dumplings be made we all got to try them, along with some traditional sweet cakes, and I must say, they were fantastic. I tried the vegetarian offering, it was so good. You can tell the filling has been cooked and simmered all day with all of those herbs and spices and the rice is sticky but it works. And it’s so filling. I can see why they make an entire festival out of celebrating these little guys.

Here’s a shot of the dumplings (in the back there) and the other treats we got to try during tea. On the far left, a coconut pastry made of rice with some kind of liquid sugar concoction on the inside and rolled shaved coconut on the outside (probably shredded fresh that day). The green thing is also some sort of rice wrap on the outside, with what looks like shredded carrots but tastes sweet and delicious on the inside. Might be more coconut. In the front was some sort of eggy pastry – I didn’t like this one much – maybe because it didn’t have any coconut? Who knows. And of course we all got our mugs of tea. I know it looks like beer, but I guess they decided we should save that until after lunch.

After tea we headed over to a shop where they make traditional Peranakan dress – sarongs and long tunics and beaded shoes for the women. In order to display their wealth, the tunics didn’t traditionally have buttons. That way, the Peranakan women could make their husbands buy them fancy brooches to hold the tunics shut. Each tunic should have a brooch to close it at the breast, the waist, and then down toward the legs. The shop also made beaded shoes by hand. One pair of shoes takes one month of working 8 hours a day to bead. This is becoming a lost art because of the time commitment involved, but it’s still alive in Singapore today.

This is a one-of-a-kind design, it’s going to be some monkeys in the jungle. The woman who owns the shop and was doing the beading will sell the shoes for about 900, which means there is no way for her to make a living doing that kind of thing given the hours she puts into it. Instead, she does it to retain the knowledge and for the therapeutic effect of the beading. Here she is doing some work.

I know I would go crazy sitting around beading like that, not to mention my eyes would probably pop out of my head after looking at that kind of detail all day, but she truly seemed to enjoy her work.

It’s kind of funny, I still haven’t been to Chinatown or Little India yet, but I’ve already learned so much about this tiny little group of people still living in Singapore. There is still a LOT to learn and try and see and do, but we’ll get there. In the meantime, I really enjoyed my Peranakan adventure today.

Topics: east coast, food, neighborhoods, sightseeing | 2 Comments »

Our Saturday at Vivo City

By John | July 13, 2008

Saturday Jeni and I woke up and decided to get an early start for our trip to Vivo City (Wikipedia entry here). We had some shopping to get done (wireless router, umbrella, etc) and thought we may as well do it at the biggest mall in Singapore.

Let me just say that this mall is H-U-G-E! I mean gi-normous, people. There are some seriously cool stores out of the 335 that are in there. One of my favorites, though, is a cool store called Pedro’s. If there’s a certain stylish half-Filipino, half-Irish guy reading this post, I highly suggest you check out their website. I think you’d like it.

When we first arrived on the main floor of Vivo City, we saw a large group of tables and chairs setup with people sitting at each. Turns out that this was a Sudoku challenge organized by Brand’s Essence of Chicken (company is Brand’s, and Essence of Chicken is a wildly popular product of theirs). It was really funny because the announcer below plugged the Essence of Chicken and asked each competitor to open the bottles of essence on their tables and join him in a toast to their success. You could tell that some of the competitors weren’t necessarily down with drinking the stuff.

Brands Essence of Chicken Sudoku Challenge

Brands Essence of Chicken Sudoku Challenge

After walking around and buying some items (Jeni can tell you about her super-cute umbrella), we decided to take a break and pop outside the mall for some fresh air. You can see some pics below of the area outside of the mall and this funny kids play area with mechanical horses and stuff.

Water area on top of Vivo City

Swinging Boy Sculpture at Vivo City

After getting our feet wet for a bit we watched these kids playing on toy horses in a kids area. The horses are completely mechanical and there was just something about it that I thought was old-timey and nostalgic. Anyway, it also looked pretty funny, check it out:

And to cap off our big day at the mall, Jeni and I both got a great 20 minute shoulder and back massage. That was the greatest thing ever, and for $1 SGD per minute, well worth the money.

Topics: shopping | 3 Comments »

Which one is your favorite?

By jeni | July 11, 2008


I will try them all and report back

Posted by ShoZu

Topics: food | No Comments »

Botanic Gardens

By jeni | July 11, 2008

I went to the Singapore Botanic Gardens today. One word: incredible. Sorry Denver, but your botanic gardens look pretty wimpy next to Singapore’s. I could probably go to the Botanic Gardens once a week for the entire time I’m here and still not see everything, but that’s okay because it’s only a $4 (SIN) taxi ride away.


I’m sure there’s a way to rotate this photo so you can see it better but John isn’t here so I’m just going to have to to with it for now.

Anyway, I was there for about 2.5 hours, and most of that time I spent in the National Orchid Garden. Getting in to the Botanic Gardens is free, but you have to pay to get in to see the Orchids. It’s only $5 though, and I’m sure they could charge much more than that and people would go to see. I spent the afternoon walking around with what seemed like mostly Japanese tourists. One thing I’ve noticed about Japanese tourists, they literally record everything. With both video and still pictures. It’s hilarious. But I bet they’ll all be glad to have a record of the things they saw in their lives.

These are just a few of the orchids in the outside portion of the Orchid Garden, but where the fun really starts is the Mist House. The Mist House is where they keep the rare, fancy, expensive crazy cool orchids. There’s a dude in there that just walks around lovingly caressing each orchid and whispering sweet nothings in their ears. Okay not really but that’s how it seems. I took some pics in the Mist House, and I also met a nurse from Pennsylvania (visiting for a big nursing convention) and she took a shot of me standing by some of the orchids. She didn’t give me the “one-two-three” countdown so I wasn’t ready at all, but oh well.

Again we have the rotation issue. Sorry about that. Anyone know WordPress well enough to tell me what to do?

I walked out with her and took a few more shots and chatted a bit, but then she went into the gift shop and I decided to go back to the mist house to spend some more time there. And shoot you guys this video. I put it up on YouTube but since I took it with my phone the quality is terrible, so I decided it would be better if you just watched it this way. All you have to do is click on the link below (be patient, it might take a second to load.)

I realize I turned the camera sideways a couple of times and it’s kind of hard to follow, but give me some time and I will master this video thing, I swear. Hope you enjoyed your tour through the Singapore Botanic Gardens!

mist-house

Topics: hot, sightseeing | No Comments »

Making Friends and the Walk Home

By jeni | July 9, 2008

How long will it take Jeni to make friends? I’m not sure, but I know one thing – no one can resist my sparkling personality once they meet me. 😉

Today I ventured out to a pilates class in an effort to actually meet some people (oh yeah and exercise too) and I’m pleased to say – it worked! I actually tried to go to this class yesterday and it was canceled, but luckily enough, a British woman also had the same idea, and she introduced herself and asked me if I wanted to go for coffee. Then today when I went, I was chatting with a few of the women in the class, and they invited me to lunch. Lo and behold, two social events in ONE DAY. I am a veritable social butterfly.

My coffee date this afternoon was at Tanglin Mall, about a 10-15 minute walk from our place, so I took a few pictures during my walk home. Below you’ll find a few pictures of the nicest furniture store I’ve ever seen, with lines from Versace home and Fendi casa. I didn’t even know Versace and Fendi made furniture. I am dying to know how much a couch from one of these lines cost, but I wasn’t about to step foot inside wearing a t-shirt and flip flops. Sorry about the reflection in the window, I know it makes the furniture sort of hard to see.

The fancy furniture

Fendi Casa white leather couch

Across the street, the Tanglin Shopping Center. This is not a mall. No no, just a center with a few shops. The malls are enormous. We’ll see those later. Notice the construction signs – that’s just because they are working on the landscaping. They are working on landscaping everywhere to make sure the city is beautiful. It’s really nice.

And of course on the way home, Jackie Chan’s Cafe. I don’t know if he actually owns it, but it looks really nice inside. And the outside isn’t too shabby either.

See that little yellow truck? All the construction workers ride around in the back of those. They all have little signs on the back that say their maximum speed and how many people they can carry.

And finally, some shots of the corner and the walk up to Treetops on my way home. I couldn’t resist getting the tour bus. Maybe I should take one of those? I do want to be hip. 🙂

Topics: friends, sightseeing | 2 Comments »

Really expensive cordyceps

By John | July 7, 2008


These are crazy expensive. Will explain later.

Update: Ok, so I said I would explain this cordyceps stuff. From answers.com:

Cordyceps sinensis, also called Chinese caterpillar fungus, Cs-4, Dong Chong Xia Caoor, or semitake, is a fungus native to the Tibetan plateau in China. The fungus is parasitic, and grows in the moth caterpillar. Spores enter the host, germinate, and ultimately kill the larva. Although species of cordyceps are seen in Europe and the Americas, only the Chinese form has been used medically.

Pretty cool, yeah? I went looking for some more info on cordyceps and I came across this interesting little page. Among other things, there’s a picture on that page which finally showed me what I was really looking at – half caterpillar, half fungus fruiting body:

Cordyceps Picture

Posted by ShoZu

Topics: food | 1 Comment »

Expat Life at Treetops

By jeni | July 7, 2008

With John gone at work all day today, I’m starting to settle in to life at Treetops. It’s so nice that they serve breakfast in the Sunbird Cafe every morning – John and I are able to go down and have a nice brekkie with coffee before he leaves for work. I’ve been sticking to the muesli for the most part, but of course John likes to be all experimental and eat the weird things they have. This morning I believe he had some pineapple and watermelon, some baked beans and a few potatoes that were basically french fries. Delicious. Anyway, here’s a far off shot of the cafe so you can get an idea:

I know John posted a picture of the view from our balcony, but I thought I’d include a few other shots just to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here. When we walk out the door – after a short walk down the hall and down the lift (elevator) – we are immediately greeted with the heat and humidity. Today in fact, it poured rain for about an hour. All the heat and rain make this a truly tropical environment though, even in the midst of such a big city. Here’s another shot of the view from our balcony, and of course the beautiful swimming pool (which we haven’t gone too yet, mostly because the sun is actually only out early in the morning or later in the evening and it just hasn’t worked out. Don’t worry though, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to lounge about.*wink*)

Our room (well two rooms I guess) is just as nice as the outside. We’ve got a living area and a bedroom, a total of about 500 sq. feet. It is small, but so far we’ve been able to manage quite well. Since John and I both tend to live in some sort of organized chaos or another, we’re so lucky to have the housekeeping service come in and pick up, change the linens, etc. every other day. It’s basically like living in a Hampton Inn or something.

The guest relations manager, Catherine, has become my new buddy. She’s Singaporean, born and bred here. Her first language is Mandarin but she speaks the Queen’s English very well. I spent about an hour talking with her this afternoon while it rained. She recommended a couple of places for me to go check out in case I wanted to take yoga/pilates/kickboxing, and she also recommended about a billion tours and sights for us to see while we’re in Singapore. Oh yeah, and she pretty much laughed in my face when I told her I was thinking about checking out language lessons. She said six months is not even close to enough time to pick up any Mandarin Chinese (one of the official languages here) but she’s going to look into it for me. Ha ha, I guess maybe I was optimistic thinking I might be able to learn something while I’m here?

In the meantime, I’m reading Twilight – said to be the next Harry Potter, but about Vampires. I love it and can’t get my nose out of it.

Topics: books, food, hot | 1 Comment »

Mexican food, Holland Village and Chimps

By John | July 6, 2008

So last night I put on jeans for the first time since arriving in Singapore (seriously). It actually wasn’t too bad. I think the key is to simply not walk far distances while outdoors. We’ve certainly been told as much by some of the locals.

Anyway, I put jeans on as part of an overall effort from the two of us to dress up a bit (not formal, just “going out” dressing up). After getting ready, we headed out to Holland Village for some dinner and ended up eating at Cha Cha Cha mexican restaurant.

The lure of eating a burrito was just too great for me to resist and I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food. The chips and salsa were right on, as was the guacamole. And since it was followed by an all white meat chicken burrito and a pitcher of Carslberg, I was feeling pretty good.

After filling our bellies we explored some other bars in Holland V and ended up doing a sort of mini pub crawl. We had a great time but our heads are hurting a bit this morning. I think we’re going to head out to brunch in a few — we’ll check back in later 🙂

Topics: food, Holland V, neighborhoods, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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