Number Fifteen Singapore Flyer
1 July 2013

We had a visit from Sarah and her fiancé over Christmas. They toured some places with Kaye and on their own; this Flyer only reports on activities where I was along.

Sarah had been to Singapore twice previously (which is one of the reasons I ended up here on my sabbatical). She wanted to visit Chinatown and the hawker centre there. It had been closed for major cleaning and renovation, but fortunately reopened by the time of her visit. After lunch we headed over to a Chinese dessert restaurant that Kaye had discovered. Amongst us we had peanut soup, ginger soup, soursop shaved ice and a white & black shaved ice of almond and black sesame. Unlike Hawaiian shave ice where the flavoring is added to plain ice, here the flavor (often in the form of actual fruit pulp) is frozen in.

We visited the National Museum, where I spent most of my time down in the exhibit on the playwright Kuo Pao Kun. I watched a video of his play "The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole", which I reported on before. I also read more of the background information on him, and learned that while in detention from 1977-80, he taught himself Malay in order to read Sejarah Melayu. (Sejarah Melayu = Malay Annals -- a history of the Malaccan sultanate that dates to the 15th or 16th century)

Right behind the museum is Fort Canning Park, which has an extensive spice garden. I got to see lots of ingredients I mostly encounter in jars or bags: nutmeg (also the source of mace), cloves, red & black peppers, laksa leaf, galangal, lemongrass, turmeric, curry leaves, torch ginger, tamarind, pandan, cinnamon, cocoa, allspice. (This last one is a bit surprising -- allspice is grown commercially only in the western hemisphere.)

Christmas evening we walked down Orchard Road, the high-end shopping street here. There were lights all along the street, which I think were designed to cover both Christmas and Chinese New Year. A lot of stores had their own decorations, too. The place was mobbed -- it seems Singaporeans like to shop Christmas afternoon and evening.

There was a trip down the hill to the wet market one morning, so Sarah could check out some local ingredients. We bought some fresh jackfruit segments, which I had only had before in dried form, or as an ingredient in drinks and desserts. Jackfruits are pretty impressive to look at. They are green and spikey on the outside like a durian, but generally much larger. A typical durian is about the size of an American football, or a bit smaller, whereas I've seen jackfruits that are bigger than watermelons. Also, the spikes are smaller and more densely packed than on a durian. The other new fruit for me was pulasam, which some people call a wild rambutan. They are larger than rambutans, a darker red on the outside, and have stubbier spines. Once you get one open (pulasam = "twist" in Malay), the fruit is much the same as a rambutan. White flesh, single seed, maybe a bit sweeter.

Near the top of Sarah's list of things she wanted to do in Singapore was the buffet in the Bar & Billiard Room at Raffles Hotel, where she had eaten on both her previous trips. We've mostly not been eating out at places with Western cuisine, but the buffet is so nicely done that we make an exception for it. I didn't actually end up eating much in the way of pasta or main course, as the cold seafood, charcuterie, appetizer and salad offerings were so extensive (plus I wanted to save room for dessert). The room itself is essentially a separate pavilion with windows all around, and an oblong bar in the middle. Since I could see out in all directions, and the bar area wasn't that big, I couldn't figure out where the kitchen was. At first I was wondering if the food might be brought in from another part of the hotel before the buffet opened, but I saw dishes being replenished without the staff leaving the room. Sarah did a little reconnoitering, and reported there is a large dumbwaiter built into one end of the bar. So apparently all the cooking happens in the basement.