Category: Singapore

Entries detailing the two years that I lived in Singapore, and any future trips to visit friends.

Excuse Me Sir, But You Have Soup On Your Shirt

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I saw this set up at Bossini a few days ago in some mall or another.  I don’t remember where.  At first I was like, hey that’s pretty neat.  I looked at the shirts and I was even thinking it was pretty cool.  Then I realized that it was a move to pull in suckers.

I understand the desire people have to wear branded clothes, and that’s cool.  I don’t mind having Levi’s on my shirt, or Esprit, or whatever.  If you’re paying top dollar for a branded item, why not let people know it?

Where this effort by Bossini goes wrong is that the logos aren’t the Bossini logo. It’s Campbell’s.  So, if you wear this shirt you’re not really showing that you’re wearing Bossini.  You’re endorsing Campbell’s soup.

If you buy one of these shirts, you’re paying good money to be a walking advertisement for a soup company.  You’re not sporting a label.  You’re sporting an ad.  On top of that, I doubt Bossini is illegally using the Campbell’s trademarked logos, so this has to be a deal, meaning that Bossini probably got paid to market the shirts already.  On top of that you’re paying to wear them.

In the end you’re being made to look like a fool to have the opportunity to advertise for a soup company.  Oh, and Bossini makes lots of money.

Coconut Cakes

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I’ve posted about these before but it was a long time ago. These are treats you can get from a small push-cart vendor in Food Republic at Vivocity.

They’re incredibly delicious but the reason I felt it was worth posting about again is that I found out that they’re Indonesian treats. The maid where we live is from Indonesia and when I offered one to her she got really excited and asked me where I found them. Apparently she’s been searching for them since she got here. I doubt she goes to Vivocity very often though.

So the next time we go I’ll bring a bag of them back for her.

Cool Tree Sculpture at Vivocity Mall in Singapore

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My wife and I were at Harbourfront to meet a friend for dinner. She is visiting from the US on a business trip. She spent the day at Sentosa and while we were waiting for her we took a look around Harbourfront Mall. We’ve been all around Vivocity but we didn’t realize there was another mall attached the port where you get on the ferries and cruise ships. It’s nothing too special, though there are some nice shops down there.

When we left it to cross over to Vivocity there was this really cool tree sculpture placed between them. I took the following photos on my iPhone. Not bad for a 2 megapixel camera with no flash, huh? I think I’m getting the hang of this thing finally.

I wish I knew the backstory on this sculpture but I didn’t see any plaques or informational signs about it posted anywhere. If anyone knows and can fill me in through the comments section that would be great!

Singapore Wedding Dinners Kick Ass

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So, a guy where my wife works got married in May.  Tonight he had his celebration dinner.  I was thinking it would be a small thing.  A get together of a few friends and office colleagues.  I thought wrong.

This celebration was held at the Furama Hotel in Chinatown here in Singapore.  They really went all out.  There was music.  There were slideshows.  There were speeches, toasts, and tributes.  It was a lot of fun!  There was wine, beer, soda and tea, with free refills even.  The food was definitely great.

The food was served in a large serving platter in the center of the table and everyone at the table helped themselves to a portion.  I was impressed with how fast they managed to change out the dishes and keep the food coming considering how many tables there were in the banquet hall.

The meal came as 8 courses:

Furama Cold Dish Combination

Braised Shark’s Fin Soup with Crabmeat

Steamed Live Prawns With Chinese Herbs

Braised Black Mushrooms With Sea Cucumbers and Broccoli

Steamed Live Tiger Garoupa In Hong Kong Style

Deep-Fried Crispy Chicken With Prawn Crackers

Braised Ee-Fu Noodles With Golden Mushrooms

Hot Red Bean Paste with Dumpling

The menu.

This fruit dish wasn’t served to every table.  Only a few were brought out after the meal.  I’m not sure where they came from and it wasn’t on the menu.  Someone mentioned that there were finger foods outside the banquet hall though, so perhaps it was a leftover from that.
The food came slowly, over the course of about two hours, and the portions were moderate, but even still it was a very filling meal.  I think the last dish that got cleaned was the chicken.  The server took away half of the ee-fu noodles because most everyone was full by that time.
The red bean past with the dumplings was really good!  I’m not sure what was in the dumpling but it tasted almost like cookie dough.  Our table was one guest short, so I snagged the dumpling from the extra bowl.  No one else seemed to be making a move for it so I didn’t hesitate.  Strike first!  And eat!
The only dish on here that I found a bit odd was the sea cucumber.  I actually ate a piece of it before I found out what it was.  The last time I had sea cucumber was about 20 years ago and it made me vomit instantly.  I was able to keep it down this time, and it wasn’t that bad at all.  I was told that it’s a delicacy that can take up to five days to prepare and that it is very expensive.  I was told that a small bushel of these sea cucumbers can cost up to 200 SGD.
As for the other dishes, they were all fantastic.  The chicken was just right too.  It wasn’t dry at all and the skin was very crispy!
Furama sure knows how to put on a dinner party, and this was definitely a fantastic wedding celebration!
Congratulations, and best of luck to Raymond and Anna in their marriage!

MSG By The Bag

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Well, I was pretty busy today and I’m getting ready to leave for a wedding, so instead of along post, I’ll just post this:

MSG, which has known negative health effects, can be bought by the bag here.  I always thought the stuff was illegal in the US, but I can’t seem to find any info on it right now.  Maybe later when I get back I’ll do a little more digging.

Update:  Information from MSGTruth.org:

  • MSG tricks your tongue into making you think a certain food is high in protein and thus nutritious. It is not a “meat tenderizer”. It is not a “preservative”. The food industry is trying to confuse the issue by focusing on the “fifth” taste sense they call umami. Free glutamic acid is detected by the taste buds as a simple way to signal the presence of protein in a food, just as there are fat receptors to detect fats and receptors that sense carbohydrate or sweet flavors. The purpose is to help us discern real food from inedible matter. It changes your perception of not simply taste but the nutritious qualities of what you put into your mouth. However, and here is the main problem with free glutamic acid – It is the very same neurotransmitter that your brain and many organs including your ears, eyes, nervous system and pancreas in your body use to initiate certain processes in your body.
  • MSG stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. So many diets these days are concerned about the Glycemic Index of foods and yet none of them address the fact that MSG and free glutamic acid stimulate the pancreas to release insulin when there doesn’t even have to be carbohydrates in the food for that insulin to act on. The food industry has found their own “anti-appetite suppressant”. It’s a convenient way to keep consumers coming back for more. The blood sugar drops because of the insulin flood. And you are hungry an hour later. Sound familiar?

Hey, that does sound familiar. There’s a common saying in the US that when you’re hungry you shouldn’t eat Chinese food because you’ll be hungry a few hours later. I guess that saying is based on the truth of what MSG does to you.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there. MSG is in a lot of foods that you wouldn’t have guessed. Check out the MSG Truth site and see for yourself!

Delicious Mooncakes!

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Ok, so before I came to Singapore, if you’d asked me if I wanted a Moon Cake, I would’ve thought you were joking.  It sounds like something out of a fairy tale.  Moon Cakes, fairies, magic mushrooms… you get the point.

But, lo and behold, there are in fact moon cakes and they are… very good!  Well, I suppose it depends on where you get them, but the ones I’ve had are good.

Here are pictures and descriptions of the two types I’ve tried so far:

This moon cake was given to me by the people I stay with here in Singapore.  I’m not sure where it’s from or what the flavor name is exactly, but I was told it’s supposed to be champagne.  It certainly tasted like it had some sort of alcohol in it. It was rather soft, but not squishy.  The texture is thick and almost creamy.  That white thing in the middle was an edible capsule that contained a thick brown cream that carried a heavy taste of alcohol.  Overall, it was an interesting and satisfying treat.

This next one is Jade Custard flavored.  It didn’t taste like any custard I’ve had before, but it was pleasant.  The flavor is mild and again it had a thick, almost creamy consistency to it, though you can see from the pictures that the filling in both was more solid than fluid.  This one had a white center.  Not really sure what it was, but it was good too.

I’m not really aware of any special observances that go along with eating moon cakes, or if you’re supposed to do it in a particular way.  I heard from a friend though that if you’re looking for the best moon cakes in Singapore you should go to Raffles Hotel.  I guess they make them in the kitchen there.

So Much For A Clean Singapore

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One of the things that Singapore is known for is its cleanliness, so why is it being treated so badly? Look at this mess! This is a sitting area below an HDB block. It’s regularly like this as well.

I’m sure the first thing someone will want to say is, “There are lots of foreigners! It must be the foreigners!” I don’ think so though. I think it’s kids that aren’t being properly disciplined and taught to take care of their surroundings. I see kids sitting there all the time, hanging out smoking and listening to music with their friends.

Of course there’s going to be a some litter, regardless of where you are. Even the cleanest parts of Singapore are a tad dirty, but this is just excessive. There’s really no excuse for it. It’s simple laziness and a lack of caring. Or perhaps they just don’t give a shit, because they know that some poor foreign worker will come along and clean it up?

Posted via email from Bradley’s Posterous

Cream Cheese and Monkeys

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This is just a funny conversation I had this morning that I thought I’d share.

I went downstairs to make a small breakfast and the house maid was washing some dishes.

I dug around in the fridge a bit, looking for the Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  I held up a cup and said, what’s this?  “Bangus juice”, she replied.  I paused.  I knew I had misheard her, because bangus is a fish and whatever was in the cup smelled slightly tangy.  I set it on the counter.  I’d put it away when I packed the cream choose cheese back into its corner.

So, we started talking about Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  She’d never had any before I let her try some a few weeks ago.  The stuff is delicious!  I need to go search around for some bagels.  It’s great on bread, but it’s not really complete with the bagels!

As I put things back in the fridge I asked her again what was in the cup and this time it sounded like she said ‘burt juice‘.

“Butt juice?”  I asked.  She started laughing and went out on the balcony and came back with a can.  Finally I understood.  The can had a depiction of birds on it.  What she had been trying to tell me was ‘bird juice‘.

So, she said “You know of the bird spit?”

“Uh, what?”

“Yes, the spit from the mouth of the bird.  Chinese think is very delicacy, and it is very expensive and rare.”

I started imagining how many birds would have to be milked for saliva to fill a can that size and then I realized how disgusting the whole thing was.

“I think I’d rather eat chilled monkey brains than drink bird spit.”

“Oh!  You’ve tasted of the monkey!?” she asked.

I pretended I wasn’t surprised at all.

She went to the fridge and came back with a tupperware which she opened.  I peered in and there were four little cakes inside.

“This is the monkey?” I asked.

“No… this is mooncake.” she replied.  So, I pretended I was only kidding, because I seriously thought it was monkey cake or some other weird thing.  When you’ve got a cup full of bird spit in the fridge, why not?

She insisted I try one, and it’s sitting here on a plate next to me.  I hope it’s good!

Acting Like A Fool In Public

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Today while we were standing in line waiting for a taxi at Tampines Mall, we saw a guy make a complete fool out of himself.  We were having a conversation about cat toys when I heard a guy yell something at the top of his lungs.  He sounded angry.  When he yelled a second time people started turning to look.  I’m not sure what he was saying.  It sounded like ‘ha’, ‘hwa’, or maybe ‘huwa’.  He was speaking half in Chinese and half in English.

When I turned to look I saw a woman sitting in one of the McDonald’s chairs with a guy standing above her, speaking angrily.  He kept yelling at her and then she got up out of the chair and stood in line.  Most people started minding their own business again but I kept watching until they got in line.  You don’t see people go nuts like that in public here very often, so it really did make my evening.  Probably wasn’t so fun for her though.

After that things sort of settled down but I could still hear them bickering behind me.  I could hear him asking her, “What’s wrong with you?  Why won’t you…”  Then I heard her reply, “I just want to go home.”  Then he started telling her she should just walk.  I’m just guessing that the girl was tired and wanted to take the cab, and the guy wanted to walk home.

After a few minutes (the line was really long) the guy got loud again and I turned to see what was going on.  He was gripping her arm and wrist and dragged her out of the line.  He was telling her, “Come on!  Just come on!  Will you come on!?”  She kept trying to pull away from him but he dragged her out of the line and forward a few feet until they were standing even with my wife and I.  She started complaining that he was hurting her by gripping her so tightly and I believe her.  His knuckles and fingers were white from gripping down on her arm.  Despite her protests that he was physically hurting her, he dragged her past the taxi queueing area towards the street, presumably to walk home instead of take the cab.

I was entertained by the whole event, but in a sick, witnessing-a-car-accident kind of way.  I see nothing but trouble for those two.  She may have even gotten beaten up tonight for all I know.  I thought about helping, for a brief moment.  This isn’t my country though, so I’m not about to stick my neck out and risk legal proceedings for someone I don’t even know.  Not here.

So, did it cross the line?  Should someone have done something to stop him?  Was it no one else’s business?  And what if something ‘happens’ to her tonight?

At least one thing’s for certain, that guy made himself look like a complete douche.

(Arguing people image source: Running With Quills)