Singapore Meals - Part Two

Continuing off my last post about the food I ate during my week-long trip to Singapore, here's part two with the rest of my meals!

The picture above is a Singapore Sling, which I drank in Raffles Hotel. If you're not familiar with the story (which I'll admit that I wasn't before I went), the Singapore Sling was invented in Raffles Hotel, so lots of tourists now go to the original hotel to enjoy the drink in the place where it was first made. It's ridiculously expensive there (25 Singapore dollars, or about 20 Canadian), but was really good and worth it for the experience!

The picture below is from a Japanese restaurant that we went to in Clarke Quay, an area with lots of bars and restaurants down by the water:

I ordered a bowl of edamame (good, but not nearly as salty as I'm used to!) and some California maki which was also delicious.

As odd as it may seem, one of my favourite things about travelling is looking at the different flavours of chips that are available in each country! I'm always amazed at some of the flavours that exist out there, especially in Europe - I remember a trip to Ireland where there was a voting contest on a new set of chip flavours which included Chili & Chocolate, Crispy Duck & Hoisin, and even Cajun Squirrel - I didn't want to know what was in that last one!

For a snack by the pool one day, I grabbed this bag of baked seaweed chips. They had little green flakes all over them which stuck all to my teeth, but they were quite tasty!

I only had one Chinese meal while in Singapore, mostly because I'm not really a big fan of Chinese food (and yes I've tried the real Chinese food in China, I'm not referring to Western chicken balls, although I don't like those either!). But one night a group was going to a Chinese restaurant on the roof of our hotel so I went along for the view!

I ordered what was probably the only vegetarian item on the menu: a stir-fried asparagus with deep fried enoki mushrooms and chilis. The mushrooms were not what I was expecting, but they added a nice crunch, and the whole dish was actually quite tasty, though really spicy!

On a night that we went to a night safari, I only had time to grab a quick meal from the food court - but the food courts are amazing in Singapore, so that's not a bad thing!

I got three items from three different stalls in the food court: Indian paratha filled with cheese and mushrooms (loved the paratha part but not the filling), some sort of pastry filled with coffee paste (so good!), and a banana milk shake (not the type we're used to, but just banana blended with some milk and ice). It made for a quick and tasty meal in my hotel room!

I drank a lot of Tiger beer in Singapore, which as I mentioned before, is a beer brewed in Singapore. This picture was from another night with friends in Clarke Quay (though that was the only beer I drank - alcohol is ridiculously expensive in Singapore!)

And this was the dinner I had that night at a Thai restaurant:

I actually can't remember the name of it now, but it was a type of glass noodle dish with chicken and vegetables. I've learned here that I'm not too crazy about glass noodles because they're a lot mushier than other noodles, but this dish was still really good!

I thought I should include a picture of the lunches we got during the conference, because they were really great for conference food:

Each day there was a choice of Western food, Chinese or local food, and Indian vegetarian. I chose the latter each day, and it was always delicious. The meal above included rice with raisins and cashews, paneer, cabbage, and potato (along with a mango pudding and juice). Each lunch dish I had during the conference included paneer and I never knew how much I loved it until now - I'll definitely be trying to find some when I get home!

On our third night at Clarke Quay, we chose an IndoChine restaurant, which had Cambodian, Thai, and Vietnamese food. For my appetizer I chose fresh rolls:

Sorry for the horrible pictures of these dishes, but when you're eating outside at night, the lighting is not that kind to photo-taking! The fresh rolls were okay, but had a bit too much mint for my taste.

My main course, however, was the best thing I ate during my whole time in Singapore:

It was a green curry with vegetables and a spicy coconut broth that was just amazing! I was so impressed by how much flavour was in the broth alone, but the vegetables were delicious too. I especially loved that they used grapes in the curry - I would have never thought of that myself, but they added a really pleasant burst of sweetness.

And here's one more picture of a Tiger beer from that night, just because I love the glowing drink in the background!

I only ordered a half pint that night because it was still about ten dollars just for that!

After the conference ended, we went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch, where I had a ton of food!

For what I thought was an appetizer, I ordered a soba noodle salad, but it was huge! The noodles and lettuce alone were obviously pretty plain, but they were served with a sesame peanut dressing that was probably the best salad dressing I've ever tasted - I wish I could have asked for a bottle to take home! Of all the dishes I tried in Singapore, this is probably the easiest one to replicate at home, so I think I'll be trying it soon after I return!

For my second dish I ordered more sushi, this time an avocado tempura roll:

It was good, but had a bit too much mayonnaise sauce at the bottom which was pretty overpowering. I wish I'd just ordered a bigger soba noodle salad instead!

On my last day in Singapore I ordered a fresh fruit juice from a stand near our hotel, because fruit juice is so popular here and is so, so good! They have such a wide variety of fruits available that juice stalls will just blend/juice right in front of you. This was an apple aloe drink:

The lady in the stand threw what looked like four apples into a juicer, then mixed it with some ice and chunks of aloe. Aloe is really popular here - I'd never really thought of using it for anything other than sunburns before, but it's in a lot of drinks and even yogurt, which I had for breakfast many mornings and quite enjoyed!

For my last dinner in Singapore, I actually didn't even eat Asian food! We went to a market-type restaurant nearby which had stations from multiple countries like France, Italy, Turkey, and Morocco, and you could choose whichever country you wanted (or multiple ones) to order food from. I chose Morocco because the head chef of that station is actually from Morocco, so I knew it'd be good!

The big juice in the picture was an "antioxidant juice" they made at the juice bar for me, which included a lot of fruits that I can't remember now! All I remember is that it had beets, which is what attracted me to it .. I don't know if I could taste the beets in the drink, but it was really good regardless!

Here's a (dark and blurry) close-up of my Moroccan meal, which was a vegetable tagine with couscous:

It was amazing! The vegetables were cooked to perfection and served with a really tasty broth, to which I added a bit of chili paste to spice it up a bit. It was such a great last dinner and definitely filled me up for the plane ride to Thailand that night!

I haven't shared a lot about the activities I did in Singapore, mostly because this is a food blog and I assume people don't come here to read about travel, but if you're interested, here's a brief summary! Singapore is a great city that's clean and safe, with a mix of cultures that are reflected in the wide variety of food available there. I enjoyed many activities and sightseeing experiences there, including exploring China town and Little India, strolling through the Botanic Gardens, watching a light show at night, doing a reverse bungee (crazy!), and eating lots of great food .. oh yeah, and I attended a conference, but I'm sure you don't care about that! I'd highly recommend a visit here, though you should be sure to visit at least one other country in Asia while you're over there, as there's so much else to see and do here! I'm currently enjoying my last night in Thailand before I begin the long trek home, but I'll do another post of the even more delicious food I've been eating in Chiang Mai soon, before finally being back to regular posting!