dinner at dawson place

had dinner with lay bee's siblings at dawson place, along alexandria road. there were twelve of us crammed at a table that is meant for eight persons. the food court is on the second level. ate at one of the hong kong street outlets. either this place is new or the food is good because the place was packed and one of the channel 8 media corp actors was seen patronising the place.

hong kong street has outlets at ang mo kio avenue 10, bedok north street 3, boon lay shopping centre, bukit merah central and dawson place. this outlet is open between 11.00 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. and between 5.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. daily. some outlets close a bit later, at 11.00 p.m.

we had steamed fish head with black bean sauce, sweet and sour pork, fried rice, yam basket, dried sliced fish hor fun and spinach. we also ordered some dishes from the dim sum section. we had chee cheong fun and xiao long pau.

the sweet and sour pork and the dried sliced fish hor fun were finished very quickly. the steamed fish was nice but you had to be careful because of the many bones. restaurant food at hawker centre prices; it was worth the money.

the newly reopened
s'pore botanic gardens


you can pay $5.00 to re-discover the singapore botanic gardens. you get to tour the newly re-opened and re-developed gardens in this one-hour walk through the tanglin/heritage core. highlights of this tour include the new main gate, the heritage trees, the saraca stream walk and the new public reference centre.

i was at the botanic gardens this morning to do my own self-discovery tour. parking for the 1st hour, between 11.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m., is free. after the complimentary one hour, you pay two cents for every minute your car is parked there.

saw more tourists than locals around the gardens but at the food court, it was the other way round: more locals than visitors. the 19th century tembusu tree, not far from the swan pond, is still hanging in there. people, especially children, still climb onto its overhanging branch.

in the vicinity is a huge kapok tree with its spreading buttress roots. this reminds me of the kapok tree near the old monk's hill secondary school. when it was in bloom, the kapok would fly all over the place.

2 sri bistari's ayam penyet
outlets at changi village


having tried the ayam penyet at joo chiat road and at the malay village at geylang serai, i decided to check out the one at changi village.

found out that sri bistari actually has two stalls at changi village - one within the food centre, not far from the very popular international nasi lemak stall and another among a row of stalls in the wet market, which is just next to the food centre.

tried both the fish and the chicken. the chicken was quite ordinary but the fish was truly crispy and nice. if you order the item 'solo', which means the fish or chicken without the rice, the price is $3.00.

if you are at changi village food centre, you should try the hor fun wanton mee. the wanton is really good. after eating there with me, diana decided to take her parents there to try that dish. apart from the famous changi nasi lemak, there are a few stalls selling bbq food which is also popular. the beef kway teow and the prawn mee stalls are also well rated.

for actions at changi village, you have to go there after 11.00 p.m. that is when the beautiful woman-men make their appearance.

eurasian xmas lunch
@ jalan mak'mor


every year, without fail, for the past two decades or so, we have been attending this christmas lunch hosted by magdalene and michael. magdalene is a eurasian and michael is chinese. magdalene's sister, mary gomes, is the author of 'the eurasian cookbook'. she - mary - prepares some of the dishes for the christmas lunch.

there is always a good spread of mouth-watering food which includes the eurasian chicken pie, chicken chilli garam, fried chicken wing, meat ball, stewed beef, prawns, turkey, ham, sausages, salad, cakes, tarts and agar-agar.

eurasian food is an exotic blend of east and west. eurasian have spiced up much of their food with both fresh and dried chillies, and given many of their dishes a typical piquancy by adding tamarind or vinegar.

the crowd comprises friends and colleagues of michael, magdalene and another of her sister, doris. i am with the group from the former may primary school. this group includes people like mdm huang, lilian, kay poh, christmas, mary and mrs yanis.

at this party, i always meet one of my former students and his sister margaret who was, until her retirement this year, with qihua primary school. i used to meet another of my former students, lian seng, but i have not seen him for quite sometime. another person i have missed seeing at this gathering is a former neighbour of mine, eng tuan.

yin yang hotpot @
furama city centre





last night, my friend chan jim kee had a big bang at furama city centre. he had steamboat dinner for about fifty of his friends, colleagues and relatives to celebrate his fifty-fifth birthday. at age 55, you can withdraw part of your money in the cpf (central provident fund).

normally, he would celebrate with a home dinner at his place in sembawang. however, for the past two years, he had been hosting it at the seletar base golf club. at seletar, we were treated to buffet style dinner.

the steamboat at furama dinner features a yin-yang style wok. this means that you can savour two kinds of soup bases at the same time. on one side is the mild, milky soup while the other side is the spicy, mala soup.

what was special was the ingredients for the steamboat. we started with lobster and geoduck clam. it was the first time i was eating this clam. you could have it in two ways: raw or dipped in the hotpot soup. most of us chose to eat it the shasimi style, dipped in wasabi sauce. likewise, for the lobster. (the geoduck is the obscene looking thing on top right)

we had fried salmon skin, tau kee, shui kau, yam, raw salmon, canadian oyster and turkey. for desert, there was ang koo kueh, kueh salat and orh nee.

among the guests were his ccab colleagues mc wong, lam, ismail and hshieh; members of his outdoor education team; victoria school colleagues like harry, elango, kiat chong and santokh singh; his rangoon road secondary school classmates; and friends like myself, harry tan (of nie) and virabhak.

express bus service to kuala lumpur





ivy called me early in the morning and asked me to help her get a bus ticket for one of her melbourne friends who was returning to kuching, sarawak. but, first he had to get to kuala lumpur to get his connecting flight.

found out there are at least ten bus or tour companies offering this service and prices for a one-way ticket range from about $28 to $56. the cheapest ticket is called the economy in which he passengers travel in a standard forty-seater bus. however, the cheapest tickets are usually sold out very fast.

if you are willing to pay more, you travel in comfort, in a 16-seater or 25-seater, with more leg room and airplane kind of seat. the travel time is also shorter and you are more likely to reach your destination at the appointed time.

most of the buses depart from golden mile along beach road and the end point is usually pudu bus interchange in k.l. however, some terminate at the old ktm railway station and some, the imbi bus terminal.

i managed to get a 8.00 p.m ticket at the cost of $55.00 on nice2. it departed from orchid copthorne hotel along dunearn road and was expected to arrive at the old ktm station at 1.00 a.m.

if you fail to get any seat on a bus from here, the alternative is to go to larkin in johor bahru to catch an inter-state bus. the fare is a fraction of what you have to pay in singapore.

not knowing that i was eating in the
famous beef kway teow coffeeshop



if you go to geylang, you will come across more than one food stall selling frog porridge. one is eminent frog porridge at lorong 19 and the other is the original claypot frog porridge at lorong 9. you cannot miss the one at lorong 9 as it is the first shop on the left as you turn - if you are driving - into lorong 9.

at this junction of lorong 9 and geylang road, there are two coffeeshops. the one on your right - again, if you drive - is the famous beef kway teow (fried chinese, flat, rice noodles served with tender slices of beef in black bean sauce).

as it was raining heavily and there were no more dry seats at the frog porridge shop, i asked one of the stall attendants where i could get a seat. she directed me to the shop opposite. she told me that it was no problem for me to be at the other shop as she would send the food over, to the other side of the road. there seems to be an understanding between the two shops that their patrons may sit at either shop.

i was totally ignorant of the fact that i was in the shop which i had heard so much about. the famous geylang beef kway teow at lorong 9. as i was all focussed on trying the frog porridge, i did not order any food from the shop except a hot drink (milo).

i find the balestier road's frog porridge better than the original at geylang. the sauce was more and thicker at the balestier shop and the porridge was more gluey; the porridge at geylang was comparatively more watery. the prices are the same, at geylang and at balestier.

cooking spaghetti
for a xmas party


ida's church small group held a christmas masquerade party on 17 december from 6.00 p.m. at 28 leonie hill, the home of one of the group's members .

expectedly, ida handled the creative part of the party, designing the invitation cards and looking into the decoration for the party.

i think the food part was organised on a pot luck basis, each of them was supposed to contribute a dish. so, when one of them could not fulfilled her part of cooking spaghetti for the merry-makers, i was roped in to help out.

actually, it is one of the easier dishes to prepare and cook. the ingredients are few: minced beef, button mushrooms, sliced sausages and spaghetti. of course, you need the spaghetti sauce.

i follow the directions on the pack - boil a pot of water, add two teaspoons of salt and one teaspoon of olive oil. add the pasta (spaghetti) and boil for six minutes, stir frequently. drain and soak pasta in tap water twice.

after that i fry the chopped onions and finely chopped garlic in olive oil before adding the ingredients. finally, i add the spaghetti and then the spaghetti sauce. add one scoup of water.

anyway, they had so much food at the party that the spaghetti was only half finished.

mud crabs from
ntuc supermarket



when i cook black or white pepper crabs, i normally buy the crabs from ntuc supermarket. i find the meat of the crabs fresher, firmer and bulkier than the ones that i buy from sheng siong. each time, i would buy two $13.90/kg mud crabs. you can call them mud crabs, swamp crabs or mangrove crabs. they are all land crabs as opposed to flower crabs.

choose crabs that are lively and move about. they should smell fresh and salty, without any smell of fish and especially not ammonia. never buy crabs that are dead, as the meat goes off really quickly and will most definitely be bad when you cook it.

if you are planning on preparing a crab dish following a recipe, check to see whether it specifies a male or female crab, as some recipes do. it is quite simple to differentiate between a male and female crab. the female crab has a triangle shaped area on the underneath part of the shell.

you are advised to kill the crabs by placing them in the freezer compartment of your fridge or soak them in ice cold water; i do not do that. i murder the crabs. i turn each over and plunge the knife into its body. i will ascertain that they are really dead before i clean the crabs. after cleaning it, i will remove the shell and cut the crab into two parts.

i will smash the pincers before deep frying the crabs in very hot oil.

to cook the sauce, i use oyster sauce, light soya sauce, black soya sauce, sugar, chopped chilli, garlic and ginger. the black pepper is added last.

scorpions and centipedes
in urban singapore

children these days do not have the kind of encounter with these fearsome creatures in our urban environment. those days when we were living in kampongs or when we camped at rural areas, the centipede was not an uncommon sight unlike the scorpion. we hardly saw scorpions.

some days, when it rained heavily, the centipede - about 15cm long - would drop fom the roof of our attap hut. when we had camps at pulau tekong, we would always remind the campers to check before putting on their shoes. a few of them had been stung by centipedes which had crawled into their shoes during the night.

centipedes may be found in a variety of habitats but prefer moist, protected places such as under stones, rotted logs, leaves or bark. centipedes feed on live insects and other small animals. they do not damage plants.

scorpions are carnivores. they eat insects, spiders, lizards and small rodents. most scorpions are nocturnal, resting under rocks, in crevices or in burrows during the day.

in all my years living in a kampong, i had never come across a scorpion. have seen centipedes, poisonous coral snakes, pythons and an ant-eater but not the scorpion.

hsbc tree top walk at macritchie


finally made it across the tree top walk today. surprisingly, quite a few hikers are solo hikers like myself. i suppose those of us who enjoy being close to nature also tend to be loners. met a family of five, with their maid in tow, who acceded to my request to take this picture.

i started from the car park at venus drive. you walk along a well marked track which follows a stream for part of the way. then you come to what remains of a former village house with concrete steps. after that you will be walking along a path running next to a service road within the singapore island country club.

about 100m from the ranger station, i met this family of five. they were studying something on the damp ground closely. the little girl then volunteered the information that there was a scorpion among the dead leaves. the maid used a stick to prod the scorpion, which raised its curved tail as it started moving off. this is not the first time i have seen a scorpion in our nature reserve. i saw one crossing the road at upper peirce nature park a few years ago and another time, one in the undergrowth at labrador nature park.

the hsbc tree top walk is a 250-metre suspension walkway between the two highest points at macritchie. at its highest, the walkway is about 25m above the forest floor. for one who has a fear of height, it was an achievement to walk across it. the flow on the tree-top trail is one direction only. you enter from the ranger post via peirce track and exit through the gate at the end of the walkway to continue your hike on the petaling trail.

the tree top walk is closed on mondays. the opening hours for tueday to friday are 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on saturday, sunday and public holiday, it opens half an hour earlier, at 8.30 a.m.

the hike from venus drive to the tree top walk and back is a distance of about 7 km and can be covered within 2 hours.

frog porridge at balestier road




went with ida to wan lee food court at 567 balestier road for frog porridge. this stall is a branch of the one at lorong 9, geylang. the food court is located at the base of balestier hill, nearer to the balestier hill primary school, not far from the popular bak chor mee stall at jalan datoh.

i had actually cooked chap chye curry for dinner. as she had been clamouring to try the frog porridge, i decided on this place in balestier. this stall is next to the chicken rice stall operated by the cook who used to prepare the same dish at mandarin's chatter box.

there are three versions to choose from: one is non-spicy, one comes with dried chilli and the third is cooked with spring onion. we opted for the spicy version. it gets progressively cheaper if you order more: one frog costs $8, two cost $16 and three cost $22. we went for the medium portion - 2 frogs for $16.

ida liked the frog porridge so much that she was thinking of eating it again the following day. told her not to have too much of a good thing at one go. she finds the frog meat more tender and tastier than chicken meat. although the porridge is plain, when you add the sauce used for cooking the frogs to it, it tasted very good.

blk 127 toa payoh lorong 1
food centre above market


the food centre that sits above the lorong 1 toa payoh market houses a few good food stalls. a number of these stalls used to be located at blk 135 before the upgrading.

the teochew hand-made pau is one of them. the paus are bite-size and each costs fifty cents. i like the char siew and the kong bak paus. other varieties they have include the pork pau, the lotus paste pau, the chicken pau and the red bean pau. they also sell siew mai and lo mai kai.
on sunday when i was there, the paus were sold out before noon. the stall is closed on mondays.

the teochew hand-made pau stall also take orders for shou tao - chinese birthday pau - with a minimum order of 30 pieces at 50 cents each.

nowadays, it helps when stall holders display their culinary awards. did not know that the noodle was good but based on the awards on display, decided to give the food a try. it turned out that the fishball noodles from 135 fishball noodles were very delicious.

another stall from blk 135 is the come daily fried hokkien prawn mee stall. this stall has a long history; it has been in existence for more than thirty years. if the order is a large one, the noodles will be placed on nipah bark, which is believed to retain the flavour of the food. this stall also garnered the largest number of awards - twelve.

another well-rated stall is at #02-29, the congee stall. it sells hong kong style porridge, mee suah and raw fish.

rojak @ dunman food centre




did not know that joo chiat has become so colourful after sunset. the neon lights, the many food shops and the restored building that is now hotel 81 make it an interesting place. discovered a number of good eating places, like canton wok, teck's teochew porridge, emperor's soup and more than one vietnamese restaurants. the ria ayam penyet had only about four customers on a saturday night.

but did not eat at any of these places. instead, went to have rojak at dunman food centre. those who live in the east, especially those in siglap, joo chiat and telok kurau will know that the dunman food centre abounds in good food. there is a small car park which is grossly inadequate for the kind of crowd that it attracts. i was told you could park at certain lots at the police station across the road.

apart from makan legend's lau hong ser rojak, there are the two popular wanton mee stalls - eng & seng, heng heng prawn mee stall, a frog porridge stall and the stall that sells soon kueh. these are the more popular stalls at dunman food centre. tekong stall sells beancurd at 80 cents a bowl but if you have tasted beancurd city's, you know that this one is not its match.

to order the rojak, you have to go right up to the owner and give him your order. he will then let you know how long the wait will be. if you order the crunchy tau pok, the wait is usually shorter. you can actually call up to place your order. while i was there, i saw him take two calls.

found it as good as the hoover's rojak at whampoa food centre. have not tried the one at old airport road and the clementi brother's.

kota tinggi waterfalls


the admission charges for kota tinggi waterfalls were rm$2.50 for an adult and rm$1.00 for a child in 2004. it has since been raised to rm$9.00 for an adult and rm$5.00 for a child. you also need to pay rm3.00 parking charges if you drive.

located about 60km north-east of johor baru, kota tinggi waterfalls is a favourite destination for both local and singaporeans. there are facilities like chalets, restaurants, food stalls and camping sites. on weekends, it can get quite crowded.

you can actually stay overnight at the kota tinggi waterfall resort. after day-trippers have packed up and gone, darkness falls and the waterfalls take on an ethereal feel. the night comes alive with the soothing symphony of rushing waters accompanied by the singing of crickets and beetles, the tapping of woodpeckers and the occasional hooting of owls.

frothy white water cascading 34 metres down gunung muntahak into three natural pools is the main attraction of the kota tinggi waterfalls.

get under the falls and let refreshing jets of hydro massage you as you relax in the natural spa. concrete slides and water steps have been creatively incorporated into the landscape to produce more ways that visitors can enjoy the water.

in addition, a tower slide has been built at the lower pool for a thrilling swirl and slide down to a splashing finale. a steep climb up a flight of concrete steps will take you to the top of the waterfalls where you can stand on a viewing platform to observe the magnificent upper falls. however, this will incur extra spending as you will have to rent a tube to ride down the slide.

diamond earring
in 3-seater sofa



we had these 2 pieces of sofa - one is a two seater and the other, a three seater - bought from casa italy more than 8 years ago. recently, we decided to replace them. but before we discarded the two items, i had to strip the sofas of the cloth at the base because my wife had dropped one of her diamond earrings into it.

you would not know what could have slipped inside the sofa over the years. anyway, apart from the diamond, i found a one-dollar coin.

the lesson to be learnt is: do not throw away your sofa set before strippping the base to check if precious items have slipped into the sofa knowingly or unknowingly.

golfing @ desaru


drove up to desaru on 5 dec with three of my golf kakis and stayed at pulai desaru resort. paid rm$125 for a garden view room. worth the money as it was a big room on the fifth level and it came with complimentary breakfast for two persons.

had lunch at jade garden restaurant at sungai rengit. seemed to be the most popular eating place in that coastal township. of course, we had lobsters. we also had buttered prawns and chicken. the last time i was at sungai rengit, i ate at the other restaurant, the one across the road from jade garden.

on the road to sungai rengit, we came across a big group of about thirty cyclists. they appear to be singaporeans. they also ended up at the same restaurant for their lunch. reminded me of the time when we cycled from the pier at tanjong pengileh to sungai rengit. then, there were only four of us.

for our dinner, we drove to telok sangat, which is about 28km from desaru. telok sangat is a quaint and quiet village beside the johor river. i have been to telok sengat several times in the past and i have always liked the place. it has the 'kampong feel of the days gone by'. life goes on at a leisurely pace.

the next day, on our way home, we stopped at the desaru fruit farm to pick up some fruit. a tour of the farm would cost about rm$15. we bought a bunch of bananas for rm$1.30.

the almost great search




in our own house, we do stash things or cache small but valuable items in secret places. sometimes, this stashing or hiding is not made known to the others in the family and sometimes, even the whereabout of it is kept from the other members of the household.

i have heard of an old lady who kept a bundle of money (notes) in a shoe box. the rest of the family members only came to know about it after the box had been thrown away. some people do not keep their money in the house; they hide it under the floor mat of their car. a colleague of mine who bought a used car found about $600 under the floor mat.

this is my own story. my wife used my brown civil defence uniform to safe-keep her diamond ring. i was totally in the dark about it. after ten years of volunteer service, i was told that my unit was being disbanded and that i had to return my uniform, including my belt and beret. in fact, the whole cohort, which numbered a few hundred, had to do it.

you can guess what happened. after i had surrended my uniform to the store, my wife suddenly realised that the ring was still in the shirt pocket. when we went to the store that same night, a mountain of brown shirts met our eyes. daunting as the task seemed, we had to face the fact that we might have to search the whole night for the treasured item.

fortunately for us, i had returned the uniform only the night before. so, 'my shirt' should be somewhere at the beginning of the pile. as luck would have it, we struck pay dirt with the first lot of shirts. we found it in the first pile of about ten shirts.

ida's prom nite - 30 nov (thu)

family store at praisehaven




although i am aware that the salvation army operates thrift stores all over the island, i have not stepped into one until yesterday. i went to the family store at praisehaven which is located at upper bukit timah road, next to the methodist trinity centre.

it is like one of those second-hand stores you find in australia where foreign students, especially, go and hunt for furniture, appliances, pots and pans for use during their two or three year stay in the country. after that, they sell back the useable ones to the same store or similar store. i went with ivy to buy a heater from one such store.

the family store at praisehaven is located on two levels. the furniture and some electrical appliances are found on the ground level. there is even a section for books on this level. clothing, kitchen utensils, crockery, art pieces, musical instruments, compact disc and toys are available on the second level. you can even find used wedding gowns on level 2.

there is the possibility of uncovering some great bargains and even one-of-a-kind stuff, never mind that most things you purchase probably need a good wash and scrub and there is absolutely no after-sales service, let alone a 7-day refund guarantee on the product.

the family store at upper serangoon boasts of a larger range of merchandise. there's one whole level of furniture. they even offer discount on the items on sale. when i was there this afternoon, at around 4.00 p.m., there was even free food and refreshment for browsers and shoppers.