Been a bit busy, but here is a pretty collage of shophouses!

Hi all

Been rather busy with work and other things (though collecting various things for future blog posts) and will be busy with work for the coming 2 weeks so depending on how busy my evenings are, I may not get around to posting anything or not much.

In the mean time, here is a picture collage which previews a future post. I have been snapping pictures of the various gorgeous shophouses in Singapore. You always hear from people that there is nothing old or quaint about Singapore. That is utter nonsense. If they have even been here then they obviously didn't venture out of the CBD, and even then there are still lovely old houses around. 

I have posted about Emerald Hill before but I went back. And I also did a quick excursion around Jalan Besar and Petain Road near Little India. I previously also wandered around Little India and may include some of those pictures too. I love the old houses. It is true that they end up being torn down to build condos and that is an utter shame. I met someone whose house used to stand where my office building now is. What do you say? I hope Singapore decides to preserve as many of these as possible. Lots of people both locals and tourists would love to see them kept. Tourism isn't all about attracting people to Sentosa or Marina Bay Sands....

More to come but this is as least a start! 

New stalls at Rochor - again! This time an Indian one. Woohoo!

As you know, most of our lunches are at our local hawker centre close to work called Rochor Centre. We were getting very worried because we thought it was shutting down this year because of the Downtown line, but it turns out it's in 2 years so we have loads of time! And we think they may recently have put the rent down, so whilst 2 places shut down, 4 have opened recently! The latest one has made us all very very happy, it's an indian stall. Woohoooo!!

So 5 of us went for lunch, 4 of which went for Indian this day!

Group Dinner at Long Beach at East Coast Seafood Centre

Another seafood dinner can only mean that I had another work meal.... 

This time it is Long beach at the East Coast Seafood Centre. We had one of the set menus as one of the VPs present wanted crab and we got him 2 types! It isn't a cheap meal (I think the menu comes out at about 450$ per table of 10) but when you have visitors from Europe, they really like going to the East Coast and eating all the famous Singaporean seafood dishes. 

All the poor animals in tanks:

Some kind of deep fried fish covered partially in batter with sesame seeds. As you can imagine, I didn't have it (I don't generally eat much at these events). But the rest of the table seemed to like it enough, not mad about it but liked it enough. Don't think it was finished though.

These were more successful with the group, deep fried prawns with garlic. These were finished.

A whole deep fried fish! Scared me but everyone else liked it!

The eye hole really freaked me out, like a ghost looking at me!

The fish deconstructed (the staff take it away and cut it up after it was done freaking me out). You don't have the destroy it yourself. 

Artichoke Cafe and Bar - yes, again! But dinner this time! Tuesday Tasting Menu

I know, I know, I have been to Artichoke twice already, and blogged about it both times. But they were both brunches! And once we were alone the two of us, and once with one other couple, so everyone has heard us rave about Artichoke but most haven't been! So we decided to go on a Tuesday as a friend said that they do a tasting menu which changes each week based on whatever they fancy cooking that day. Sounded awesome so of course we were in, as were quite a few of our friends. In the end, 8 of us were at dinner on Tuesday. 

The whole gang, besides me, went for the tasting menu. I went a la carte as there wasn't enough I would eat on the tasting menu to justify me taking it. The tasting menu had 9 different things on it for $45 and I ordered 3 or 4 side dishes from the a la carte to complete a table full of food. 

Another visit to local indian hawker

You know, sometimes you don't want to go to work dos, so when you aren't invited, you might actually be happy :) Instead of polite conversation, 3 of us went to our local Indian hawker place across from City Square Mall on Kitchener road, near Serangoon.

Cheap good Indian food and cheap Tiger Beer. What else could you need on a Monday night?

So what did we have?

Well, we had the usuals and since we had someone new with us, they picked out a few new options.

So, I was craving my usual, the thing I love the most ie. dosai. Masala dosai, with the usual dal, coconut chutney and the reddish pinkish orangey one I love. And a few vadai for all of us, lovely dipped in the various sauces. $1.50 for the dosai.

And our usual chicken tikka with green stuff and veggies. $1 a piece

And with a random curry sauce. All goes wonderfully together, the depth of the curry sauce with the crisp minty chutney and crunchy veggies, with the smoky spicy chicken.