Starting the day in Singapore
by prudence on 12-Jan-2010
I'm going to start my new blog with breakfast, a very good place to start.
Our little apartment way out in the west of Singapore provides us with a fridge, a microwave, and an electric jug - perfectly adequate equipment with which to prepare your own breakfast. But why would you do that, when there is a food court just a few paces away? So in the mornings, we trot down the stairs, say hello to the guy on the gate (the same gate that states that all arrivals should have their temperatures taken as an H1N1 precaution - but no-one actually gets you to do that), skirt the parking area where small lorries spend the night before setting off on their adventures in the morning, and climb the short flight of steps to the stalls beyond.
Possibly our top favourite breakfast can be procured from the chicken man. He does the most delicious chicken and rice, or duck and rice. His pork and noodles is pretty neat, too. Round the corner, there's a stall that does hand-made fishballs, excellent in soup with fat noodles. If you're feeling vegetarian, you can get a yummy tofu and noodle soup from another stall. A Malay stall will do you mee siam (noodles in a kind of tomato sauce), and an Indian stall does a brisk morning trade in roti, served with a nice little sauce for dipping. Rice porridge with peanuts (the ultimate comfort food) is sometimes an option, but the rice porridge lady seems to work on a later schedule than we do, so we sometimes don't coincide for breakfast. If you want a convenient take-away breakfast, the pau man is ready to oblige. Pau are like steamed buns with savoury fillings of pork or chicken. To make sure they don't go soggy on you, the pau man sets about the polystyrene box with a knife in order to create some texture-preserving airholes.
Now to all of you who are going, "Ugh, how can you eat that stuff for BREAKFAST!!", I can only express my sincere condolences. You don't know what you are missing...
Our little apartment way out in the west of Singapore provides us with a fridge, a microwave, and an electric jug - perfectly adequate equipment with which to prepare your own breakfast. But why would you do that, when there is a food court just a few paces away? So in the mornings, we trot down the stairs, say hello to the guy on the gate (the same gate that states that all arrivals should have their temperatures taken as an H1N1 precaution - but no-one actually gets you to do that), skirt the parking area where small lorries spend the night before setting off on their adventures in the morning, and climb the short flight of steps to the stalls beyond.
Possibly our top favourite breakfast can be procured from the chicken man. He does the most delicious chicken and rice, or duck and rice. His pork and noodles is pretty neat, too. Round the corner, there's a stall that does hand-made fishballs, excellent in soup with fat noodles. If you're feeling vegetarian, you can get a yummy tofu and noodle soup from another stall. A Malay stall will do you mee siam (noodles in a kind of tomato sauce), and an Indian stall does a brisk morning trade in roti, served with a nice little sauce for dipping. Rice porridge with peanuts (the ultimate comfort food) is sometimes an option, but the rice porridge lady seems to work on a later schedule than we do, so we sometimes don't coincide for breakfast. If you want a convenient take-away breakfast, the pau man is ready to oblige. Pau are like steamed buns with savoury fillings of pork or chicken. To make sure they don't go soggy on you, the pau man sets about the polystyrene box with a knife in order to create some texture-preserving airholes.
Now to all of you who are going, "Ugh, how can you eat that stuff for BREAKFAST!!", I can only express my sincere condolences. You don't know what you are missing...