Kickin It Singapore Style

On Saturday night we met up with some friends from church who took us out to a Hawker Centre (Whampoa Market)  and exposed us to some typical Singaporean dishes that we hadn't tried before. Both Ruth and Bim grew up here eating hawker food plus Ruth even wrote a book about it so they know what they were talking about.

Here are some of the dishes we tried. I linked the names of the food to a description instead of rewriting everything.

Hokkien Mee:

This is the stale we got the Hokkien Mee from. It has a long queue, so it must be good.

Ngoh Hiang Stall:

This place basically sells fried things. It's fried and then when you order it it's fried again.

The food we got from the stall.

Rojak:

There were a few other dishes we tried that I didn't gt a picture of: an Oaster omlette and chicken wings. Needless to say we had a lot of food.

After our main dishes we had a few things for dessert.

I don't remember what these are called. The brown was like a peanut soup, made from roasted peanuts. It was like eating liquid peanut butter. The other was a sweet soup with boiled(?) peanuts and glutenous rice balls floating in it.

Chendol: (scroll down on this link to see a desciption Ice Kacang)

Here we are will out desserts and sugar cane juice:

Ruth and Bim:

After our desserts Bim convinced Toby to try some durian. I had tried durian when we first moved here and did not like it at all. Bim loves durian (Ruth not so much) and has fond memories of gathering with friends and family over a fresh cut durian; a very social fruit apparently.

Bim talked to this guy and got to taste the fruit before purchasing it- durian is like a fine wine or cheese. The guy said he would give us a mild one since Toby hadn't tried it before.

Here Bim is explaining how to eat it. You pick up a seed and suck it. He was so excited! Toby- not so much.

Once Toby tried it and said it wasn't that bad Ruth and I decided to taste it as well. It wasn't that bad. Bim explained that you need to get you durian fresh and if it's in a packet, it's probably old and won't taste good. That's what happened to me. I wouldn't go out and buy my own, but if someone offered it to me again I would eat it. Ruth, who hadn't tried durian since her collage days said it wasn't that bad either. I guess Bim picked a good fruit for us to try.

Overall, I liked most everything I tried. I would order most again. The different combinations of tastes and textures is great and truly unique to Singapore.

After the Hawker Centre we went to Mustafa which is a HUGE mall(like Super Walmart on Steroids times 2.) It has everything it it that you would want and never thought you needed. We walked on one floor and it just went on and on and on. It's like a casino in Vegas: no window, no clocks - no sense of time.

Here are a few things I saw walking through. We wound up getting bindis for our Singapore box and some Dr. Pepper.

I had so much fun and I can't wait to go out with Bim and Ruth again.