Eating in Singapore 6 & Spa

Aramsa Spa

Yesterday, Thursday, afternoon Jo-Ann and I went to the Aramsa Spa in Ang Mo Kio not far from our flat. The spa is actually in Bishan Park, a public park I used to cycle in.

It sits in a tranquil park, amidst canopied tress, foliages and acres of greenies.

The spa boasts a garden theme that blends with its rich garden surroundings and has numerous open spaces, various garden themes as well as see through floor-to-ceiling glass panels.

It was very nice, we had a "couples" treatment, 30 minutes of a body scrub and then 60 minutes massage. Both of left feeling ready to sleep.

Last night we met up with with Celeste Ong, and old collegue of JoAnn's from Cabletron, and Mei.

We met at the Vivo City shopping centre right next to the World Trade Centre and the bridge to Sentosa Island. The shopping centre is huge and we only managed to walk around about half of it.

We went to a small Thai restaurant and had another great meal.

Durian - The "King of Fruits"

The unusual flavour and odour of the fruit have prompted many people to express diverse and passionate views ranging from deep appreciation to intense disgust. Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

“ The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard, highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. ... as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed. ”

While Wallace cautions that "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable", later descriptions by westerners are more graphic. British novelist Anthony Burgess writes that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory." Chef Andrew Zimmern compares the taste to "completely rotten, mushy onions."

Eating in Singapore 5

Tonight, Wednesday April 9, we met up with Uncle Eng & Queenie again at Ang Mo Kio shopping centre.

Ang Mo Kio is where we own a flat. The shopping centre has changed beyond all recognition and is now very modern and air conditioned but has lost some of its simplicity.

We feasted, once again, on Korean and Thai food this time with plenty of Kimchi and lime. Once we had finished we went to have coffee downstairs. I had Kopi C - coffee with carnation milk. Uncle Eng went and bought some durian pancakes.

Durian is a BIG thing here in Singapore. It’s a very dangerous looking fruit – serious spikes – and smells something awful. Jo-Ann loves durian but I can’t stand the smell of it.

Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says: “... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”

Every visit of mine to Singapore has involved people telling me that I should give it a taste, well, this visit I have tried it! It’s not bad at all and I can see why people like it, but it still smells! Jo-Ann now says that I mustn’t like it too much as she would then have to share her durian with me!

Eating in Singapore 4 – Winnie, Jacqueline, Yuka, Yuki and Jo-Ann’s Mum

On Tuesday April 8, We met with Winnie for lunch at Sakae Sushi for lunch. It is a chain of Japanese restaurant found almost every shopping centre. Quite hi-Tec. There is a computer terminal on which you order your food, if you cannot find them on the conveyor belt. Winnie is her old self, very happy and jolly. We met Winnie when we first arrived in Spore 15 years ago. She and Richard went diving, whilst I was working my socks off trying to set up companies in APAC.




We are going to Penang in Malaysia on Thursday and we had to collect our bus ticket to Penang. We started walking and it was raining, but not too bad, we were a little wet. When we came out of the ticketing office, the sky was dark; it looked like an eclipse had happened. We managed to get ourselves a taxi, the rain was so hard, that all the rain water on the road actually lifted the taxi off the road.

Met up with Jacqueline, Yuka, Yuki and my Mum for dinner at Junction 8 for dinner. This time, it was a Cantonese restaurant. We had deep fried spare ribs in orange sauce, sea food noodles, chicken stew with herb, deep fried prawn dumplings, fried rice, asparagus and enoki mushroom, stew beef, and claypot spare ribs rice.

Of course, after all these yummy food, we went to Swensens to have our fill of ice cream. You can imagine how our tummies felt!

L-R Yuki, Jacqueline, Jo-Ann, Me, Jo-Ann's mum, Yuka

Have a look at Yuka’s blog at http://ping.sg/user/snowbiscuits or http://yukasuzuki.blogspot.com/

Eating in Singapore 3 - Jo-Ann and I in Bugis Street

We called upon our dentist for some clean and polish and then Jo-Ann and I went into town and wandered around. We went to the Goddess of Mercy temple on Waterloo Street where there were many people praying and getting their fortune told with fortune sticks. I hope their prayers were answered.

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple (Simplified Chinese: 观音堂佛祖庙) is a traditional Chinese temple situated at Waterloo Street in Singapore. The temple is of significance to the Chinese in Singapore, and is known to bring worshipers good luck after praying to the Kuan Yin (观音) Bodhisattva, the Goddess of Mercy.

Eating again, you might say. Yes, we went to a dumpling restaurant called South Lake. It is all dumplings!! We have cold tofu with preserved radishes, green vegetable buns, small dragon dumplings, prawn and crab dumpling deep fried with bread crumbs ( this is interesting, soup inside the dumpling oozed out when you take the first bite), and hot red bean buns.

Snow in the UK

I understand that you guys in England have had a little bit of snow whilst we've been away?


Paul Craig, in particular, seemed to be a bit peeved that he couldn't go out for a spin in his favourite toy, a Caterham 7 sports car.


I must admit I would also be peeved if I couldn't drive my caterham - if I had one that is :(


Well, just to make you feel sorry for us also, it's HOT here. About 35 degrees C hot. Hot and sticky. It also rains in the afternoon.

Eating in Singapore 2

On Saturday, we met up with our good friends Aliz Khoo and Susan Chua at Aliz’s flat. Susan brought a friend, Stephanie who we hadn’t met before. Aliz works at the Spanish Embassy while Susan and Stephanie work together at RBS Coutts Bank.

Susan drove us to a local roadside restaurant to eat mee-sua. This is a black chicken and pork liver soup with thin white noodles (mee-sua) normally served as a birthday treat with eggs – it’s supposed to be all healthy and good for you. I don’t know about that but it sure tasted great!

Afterwards we went around the corner for coffee and to eat a Malay version of Kway Tutu (small thick rice flour pancake buns with brown sugar inside)

We had fun all evening, mostly at my expense!

Eating in Singapore 1

One thing we having been doing here in Singapore is eating. And we have been doing a lot of it!

We went to the Singapore Science Centre to meet Kah Wan and Evelyn Tan as well as Uncle Eng and Queenie. We always meet up with them when we are in Singapore as they are such nice people and have always taken good care of both Jo-Ann and I.

L-R Jo-Ann, Kah Wan, Uncle Eng, Queenie, Evelyn

The restaurant is a Japanese buffet mixed up with some local favourites.

We ate sushi, sashimi, unagi (Unagi (うなぎ) is the Japanese word for freshwater eels), crab, steak. We also had fresh durian puff’s, mochi filled with cream, fruit, ice cream, and, I am sure many other goodies.