spize, river valley road, singapore

Did I mention that after that chicken rice meal Therese and I were hankering for something sweet? Well we were. We ended up at the coffee shop next door that sold loads of different prata.

It’s banana cheese prata served with curry. I’m not sure what possessed us to order this particular combination.

It was good and we ate it.

the next great singapore food tour

Before I left Singapore we had another Singapore Food Tour (seriously, you could probably have an infinite amount of these in Singapore – there are so many places to eat).

Actually, wait. I have a few, unrelated things to purge from my brain.

– Yesterday I found a dead frog on the table in one of the conference rooms at work. Dis.gust.ing. How did it get there? No one knows.

– I am totally obsessed with watching Top Chef All Stars. I DVR each episode and then watch it about 5 million times. No, not just because of Dale Talde. (Although it’s a nice bonus.) The challenges are freakin’ crazy this season and you got some pretty badass chefs on the show. Except for Jamie who keeps flying under the radar…

– My brother got me the Momofuku book for Christmas and now I really, really want to try the cereal milk custard and the ramen.

– I’m leaving for a trip to Asia in a few days and I’m not packed at all.

– I wore boots over my jeans for the first time 2 days ago. I’m still recovering.

– I hate this laptop.

Okay, I feel better. Where were we?

Singapore. Food Tours. Let’s talk about it.

portobello road market, london

I love me a good market and London has LOADS of good ones. After my brother and I had parted ways in London, I trekked back to the city with my cousin (who has been living in London for a few years now) to spend some quality girl time.

I had two objectives on this lovely London day: 1) find an old map of Singapore/Southeast Asia and 2) eat something good.

penang hawker fare, york hotel

Hanging out at home on this Sunday taking care of life things (starting on my taxes, calling the credit card company) and, of course, catching up on the blog. Yesterday was epic in terms of Singapore eating. I went to the Penang Hawker Fare at the York Hotel with Pui and Nags. For SGD28++ you can gorge yourself on some of the goodies that Penang has to offer.

Read the rest of this post if you want to learn about the peanut pancake that changed my life.

playing nice with chicken rice

Look it rhymes. It never rhymes so that’s kind of  big deal.

You know what else is a big deal (in Singapore, anyway)? Chicken rice. Most everyone is a fan of chicken rice. My last few run ins have been just eh. I mean steamed/boiled chicken and some rice. How good could it be.

Apparently, pretty darn good if you get lucky.

one bánh for the road

Have you ever been more confused by a plate of food in your entire life? There is a lot going on here. This food is a speciality of Hue in central Vietnam.

This is the last of the HCMC series. Bánh, bánh and more bánh!

tân hoàng ty, hcmc

I wrote this post awhile back and scheduled it for delivery tonight but wanted to put a plug in for folks who want to help the people of the Philippines. To find ways to help or track down more information visit Google’s Typhoon Ondoy page.

Hooray! More Vietnamese food in Vietnam!

My last meal in Vietnam was bánh canh (erm I think that’s what it was called) at Tân Hoàng Ty. Plates of boiled pork, pickled veggies, cucumber, crepes, and crazy heaping piles of unknown herbs.

Heaping piles. No lie. So heaping that for the first time ever I’m gonna show my face up on this blog just so you have some context.

al ameen eating house, bukit timah

This is the second Saturday in a row where I’ve rolled outta bed at a too early hour. This time it was because of Isaac and Pui and their love of hiking and because of Jade Garden and my love of eating (btw, the Jade Garden at Plaza Singapore = not worth yer time).

Since dinner on Friday including Peking duck. Saturday included a hikety hike hike to burn that overzealous duckie off.

And then afterwards we had some roti.

the great singapore food tour

I’m supposed to be in Bangkok right now relaxing with some iberry after a long day of ziplining in the rainforests of Chonburi. Instead, I’m chillin on the couch watching the first season of The OC with the brothers. What are the odds that my brother would develop a 101F fever, sore throat, and nausea 8 hours before our flight? Sigh. Grounded.

This does mean I have lots of time on my hands and thus have fewer excuses to drag my feet on the ol’ blog. In truth I’ve been feeling wishy washy about it. To blog or not to blog? I’ve been taking the camera out less and less, feeling less impressed and less intrigued by the yum yums to be had all over the island. Too lazy to document any culinary magic happening in my humble kitchen. In short my friends I’m feeling all blogged out. I’m trying to get revved up about it again so let’s begin by a post that needs, nay aches, to see the light of day.

Nags and I with the leadership of some of our favorite true blue Singaporeans, Melina and Isaac, put together an office food tour to visit 4 of the island’s tastiest hawker stalls. Please make way for the gluttony of 1 rainy Saturday in Singapore, 17 hungry tummies, and 4 hours of num nums in the tum tum.

The fun started in Tiong Bahru which I have to say has a pretty nice, modern hawker center. Very spacious, adequately clean, and lots of variety.

uncle leong’s seafood, ang mo kio

One of the many mini mountains of crab shells left over from our bingefest tonight.

CrazyVinny (you’ll recall the one that goes left when we always go right) invited me, Steph, and Jay to join him, Rachel and his friend, Anand, at Uncle Leong’s Seafood. Uncle Leong’s is inside the vast Ang Mo Kio (AMK) estate in the northern part of the island (and I mean NORTH – check out the map to see how far this is from my usual haunts). The AMK HDB area is HUGE. Like, impressively gigantic but somehow still neighborhoody. I like to call it the ‘burbs. If you visit, I recommend taking the MRT to Ang Mo Kio and then taking a taxi to the restaurant. We taxied from Tangong Pagar and the trip cost almost SGD20.

Per the blogosphere there’s another well known seafood place in AMK called Melben which is apparently owned by Uncle Leong’s brother (and is just across the way). CrazyVinny’s friend Anand used to produce a food show on TV and he says Uncle’s is better. I’ve never tried Melben before but after our meal tonight, Uncle Leong’s is gonna be hard to beat.