Tastes of Singapore

After enjoying the cable car ride, we alighted at Imbiah Lookout. We were an hour earlier for the Songs of the Sea show and decided to have dinner first at Tastes of Singapore.



The restaurant is spacious and cozy. We chose a corner table with the beautiful garden outside as the back draft. Don't be deceived by the bright daylight. It was actually getting near 7pm. I know, here in our country dinner means already dark night sky. There at Sg, the sun sets so much later.



This resto is in Sentosa. Nothing's cheap in a tourist destination. Although the menu serves familiar hawker's dishes, the place is definitely of higher class and touristy pricey. I noticed most of the customers on other tables were whites.

It was bittersweet that this dinner  was packaged with the ride and the show, cos it was an "eat all you can" and we weren't even that hungry.

we got this huge bowl of noodles, plus another huge bowl of seafood soup, plus another bowl of dimsums. .

two plates of this chicken rice. .

a big plate of fish and chips. .

and we had to finish everything then order another set!!! Are you kidding me?

In the end, we hardly finished each plate. Therefore didn't make it to another set of this "eat all you can". tsk.tsk. We left the table feeling guilty for the wasted food.

Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice

At last I was able to try the famous Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice during my most recent  (last week)  S'pore trip. At Maxwell Food Centre, I chanced upon a tolerable queue in front of Tian Tian and took it as a sign that it was about time. The reason for the doable queue was the holiday, some stalls were even closed for business. The rare times ( I think this was only the 3rd) that I got to eat at this hawkers center, Tian Tian always got the box office hit queue of customers. As a tourist, of course I don't usually have spare time to linger in a place.

The first photo was actually the queue for placing/paying your order. After which you have to go through another queue to claim your order. That's why there are two stalls occupied by Tian Tian. The two are actually inter connected. Can you spot that girl in the queue with a bowl, scooping iced dessert?

That's my daughter. she had to replace me in the queue cos I had to buy her other meal plate. She had enough of white chicken rice for this trip. The huge white man? We didn't know him, haha. He might be as curious as I was about Anthony Bourdain's claim that this particular chicken rice is the best.

No, this is not the one. It's a duck rice plate. I got it from another stall (forgot the name). This was for daughter. She hadn't tasted duck meat yet so I got it for her. The vendor suggested to add the egg for 50 cents. I did. I bought this meal set for less than sg$4, I think same price as the meal plate at Tian Tian.

This is the one! Compare it to above's duck rice plate. See how fresher and neater it looked. You can also notice the rice obviously of more expensive variant than the other plate above. Both came with soup.



Now we taste!  Compare to the past chicken rice I had tried ( here, here, here, here, here, and in many other eateries at Sg I had been too lazy to shoot) around Singapore, I thought Tian Tian's chicken was meaty, tender and especially fresh. The rice was definitely of quality rising above the others. I couldn't tell much about the chili cos daughter didn't get any. She took the sweet black sauce instead, which when you dip the chicken, it takes away the genuine taste of the dish. Overall, yes so far_ I would prefer Tian Tian's chicken rice than the others.

Rumah Makan Padang

Before this Indonesia trip, I gathered somewhere that one of the most largest franchise restaurants in the world (?) is Rumah Makan Padang. In Jakarta alone, there are about 20,000 Padang restos. It said also that almost in every street in the cities of Indonesia, you could find one. Our challenge then was to find one in the small island Bintan in Indonesia. During our mini tour of North Bintan , I actually totally forgotten about it cos I wasn't supposed to look for places to eat cos a certain restaurant was already included in our packaged tour.

A food window display had reminded me thu' of this resto. We passed by a local town in Bintan and saw  the window set-up ( photo above) looked familiar. .



It was a Rumah Makan Padang. I was just not sure if this one was a franchise of the original. But I bet from the window display it surely looked like an authentic one.

This kind of restaurant is actually famous for its various dishes with a combination of coconut milk and chilies. The cuisine had originated from the capital city of West Sumatera which is Padang. I had watched this franchise resto being featured in an Asian food channel. Saw how a table was served with massive small plates and bowls of dishes. The customer paid only for the ones he consumed. That's the way they do ala carte there. How convenient! Everything is just right on your table and no worry about the rest of the plates you haven't touched. The dishes were also mouth watering, the likes of rendang, sambal, sate pandang, etc..

Yet, I failed to experience one. Our time was limited and in the course of this trip, we ate either in the hotel resto or in the resort_ no Rumah Makan Padang. But ofcourse I had the region's specialties like beef rendang and sate. Maybe next time.