I spent the afternoon studying, can you believe it? It was nice though to have a hot latte at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Holland Village and reviewing some material for Joyce’s tutorial this coming week. Sometimes I miss studying… as long as it’s not for an exam.

In the evening we decided to check out Geylang for some good eats. My co-worker recommended some specialties such as frog porridge, beef hor fun, soy bean (dao cheung) with peanut dumplings and fried dough stick (you tiao). She recommend Lorong 9 as a place with all the good stuff.

If you didn’t know, Geylang is known as the “Red Light District” of Singapore. But even though it is that, I heard the food is very very nice.

We tried the beef kuay teow (aka beef hor fun). It was tasty but greasy.

We didn’t have a chance to try the fish porridge so we’ll have to go back another time. We wandered around for a while trying to find dessert but with no luck so I’ll have to ask my co-worker the specific stall for next time.

With all the wandering, we got to see some interesting things… there are many different types of women, lots of different betting games going on, bootleg DVDs being sold, and a lot of people just wandering around… It was a bit weird to see all this in Singapore… but it’s here. I think it’s one of Singapore’s well-known best-kept secrets (if that makes sense…).

But I do look forward to going back there to eat again…

We were originally planning on going to Sunset Grill & Bar at Seletar Base but decided it was a bit too far for us to go. We ended up instead at Clarke Quay at Central on the 3rd level. There are quite a few Japanese restaurants on that level, looks like some good ramen too. But the ramen places had really long lines so we went to the restaurant with the shortest wait, which was Kyomomoyama, it’s quite close to one set of escalators.

We ordered the following:

Tuna sashimi with fermented soy beans. The soy beans were a bit strange, kind of tasteless but very very sticky. When you picked up some with your chopsticks, it ran a long sticky thread from the bowl to your mouth. Quite messy.

Salmon cheese fries. Basically cheese folded in between thin slices of salmon and deep fried. It was fried, so of course it was good.

Agedashi tofu. The tofu was really smooth but the skin was a bit soft and mushy. The ginger was a bit overpowering for me too.

Yakitori-like items: okra (lady fingers), shitake mushrooms, meatballs, and chicken. They were all equally good, lightly seasoned.

Nigiri platter.

We had some nice sake to top off the night. We tried to get dessert at a place on level one, Japanese dessert of some sort… but the queue was really REALLY long… oh well, next time!

Again another evening feeling stuffed… I really am eating a lot since I’ve arrived in Singapore… but I can’t help it, there are so many places to try and there are people all around me who enjoy eating.

Tonight we were celebrating nothing, just out to enjoy the evening. Joyce and I had a craving for chocolate so I thought going to have chocolate fondue would be a good choice. I did a little searching on the internet and found a few places but one was really far away (Pasir Ris), one sounded really expensive (Dempsey Road), another was at a hawker center and was having their birthday so it’d be really packed… so instead, Swiss Culture at Suntec City seemed the best option.

They take reservations and corkage is SGD$20 FYI.

We had the cheese fondue (~SGD$40) served with bread and an extra side of vegetables (SGD$8).

YUM!!

We also ordered the seafood fondue (SGD$45) although it’s not really fondue… they give you a hot pot of olive oil and you basically fry the seafood inside. It splatters quite a bit so you have a napkin to cover the top so it doesn’t splatter all over you. It was served with crinkle frieds and 8 types of sauce!

Squid, salmon, shrimp, and mussels

Top (L to R): horseradish, BBQ, hoisin, tartar
Bottom (L to R): thai chili, mayo, cocktail, pesto

Joyce and I enjoying our cooking experience.

We also had the famous cheese and mushroom pasta (SGD$20) because we didn’t think the fondue was enough. It was really really creamy. Be prepared.

Plus they threw in a free chocolate fondue (U.P. SGD$20 or they had a special of 50% off if order a main fondue selection – cheese, seafood, beef, chicken, etc) for paying with a UOB credit card! It was served with banana, strawberries, marshmallows, and apples. The server was very kind to ask us if we were going to pay for UOB so that the chocolate fondue was free… they had no signs for this special so we thought it very nice of them to mention it instead of us paying for it.

Recommend waiting a bit for the chocolate to really heat up… this little candle took a while.

Alex enjoying the FREE chocolate fondue (because of him it was free, he’s the only one with a UOB credit card).

We ended up paying about SGD$40 per person. I think it was a very simple meal but worth it for the experience. My face is feeling a bit oily though from sitting in front of the olive oil pot.

Tomorrow is Friday Foody so will have more to report on another restaurant soon. Just got to survive tomorrow’s work… plus also have to work half-day on Saturday…

This evening we went to eat steamboat… originally we had planned to go this place at Lucky Plaza on Orchard but when we got there, we found out it has closed. So instead we headed over to Seoul Garden on the 5th floor of Takashimaya. It was the birthday of one of Ron’s classmates so there was a group of us to celebrate.

The place is an all you can eat with BBQ and a small pot for steamboat. On weeknights it’s SGD$17.99 for adults and additional SGD$2.99 for free flow soft drinks. It ended up being SGD$25 per person.

The place had lots of variety of marinated meat, chicken especially… available as Tom Yam, Curry, Teriyaki, Cha Siu, etc. They also have cooked food (which I wouldn’t eat), vegetables, and dessert (fruits, ice cream, shaved iced with ingredients).

The ventilation is quite bad inside so we totally smell like BBQ now. The floor and tables were also wet and sticky, not sure why it was all wet… but be careful when you walk.

We ate very very quickly…

I guess this is a good alternative for BBQ steamboat considering Marina South is closed and East Coast is too far to go for BBQ steamboat.

My favorite was the Tom Yam chicken. Very unique.

Now I’m spending some time searching for good flight deals for our weekend trips… not having any luck right now…