Thanks pmacbee--We were in Singapore January 15, 16 and again Febuary 1-4. I started some while ago to write our dining out experiences on a day to day basis. I had in mind to do a contiguous thread, but that idea was overly ambitious. I've just not had the time, but I'll give it another go with day 4. I should have started a new thread to make it less confusing, but I thought it better for others inquiring about restaurants in Singapore to keep everything on the same post.

Re Thaipusam--The temple was very crowded and all we could see was the procession entering and doing a trance dance to music. We could only see this from the waist up. We could also see a gigantic vat of milk.

Singapore Dining Day 4 Febuary 2

After wandering around various malls--Marina Square-Suntec, looking for men's haircut, internet, laundry--we were right at Crystal Jade LMXLB and stopped in for late breakfast-early lunch. We had opted out of 3 days of buffet breakfast as we already had 17, and 8 more to go in Vietnam. The extra calories were starting to show.

We ordered:
Xiao Long-Bao again--always verrry good

Szechuan La Mian--ditto

Carrot Pastry--warm white radish or turnips just short of a paste encased in a fabulous flaky crust--wonderful

Crispy Mushroom Beancurd Skin Roll--almost like a mushroom streudel--wonderful

Pan Fried Shanghai Pork Bun--this is the one that looks like a giant marshmallow or styrofoam ball--pan frying did not redeem it.

With a pot of tea, the total cost was S$ 29.37 = US$ 19.37
Again very good.

We had not discovered the Crystal Jade restaurants until we went to Shanghai, where we very impressed. The Kitchens & LMXLB in Singapore are all over in various malls and serve continuously all day. The more upscale are also in malls and have lunch & dinner hours, with most dim sum items, only at lunch. I rarely see them mentioned in trip reports, yet it seems Singapore locals eat at one of them at least once a week. From our brief encounters--Shanghai 3 times, Singapore 3 times, and Saigon one time-- they serve consistently very good food.

I will have to continue day 4 dinner on another post.

Singapore Dining Day 4 Feb 2 Dinner

As it was 2 weeks before Chinese New Year and a Friday night, we wanted to take in all the excitement and also visit the excellent museum, Chinatown Heritage Center, so we looked for a restaurant in Chinatown close by Pagoda, the MRT exit, and the center of shopping. After reading numerous reviews, we narrowed down to 2--Taste Paradise on Mosque St, upscale & modern Chinese, and Hometown on Smith St, the food street, down about 5 notches in ambience and decor, but supposedly excellent Szechuan.

We chose Taste Paradise, intimate, low lighting, beautiful decor, beautiful tabletop accessories, with a very much low key New York buzz. We ordered Carrot Cake in XO sauce first. This is not 1: cream cheese icing dessert, 2: Not made of carrots, 3: Not a cake. It is a hawker food, of white radish, eggs, daikon, garlic wok fried to savory goodness. All the reviews raved about this, and they were not mistaken. It topped every hawker rendition that I have had.

Unfortunately, after this our meal went downhill. For our mains, we ordered: Japanese eggplant, pork rib in honey, and venison in spicy sauce. While the quality of the ingredients was good, and also the preparation, (not over or underdone), everything was uninspiring, dull, uninteresting. It may well be that we had ordered incorrectly, as all were fairly heavy choices, but not one dish stood out on its own.

For our last course, we had a braised noodle crab dish. We had really been looking forward to this, Every review praised this dish--"braised vermicelli topped with simmered crabmeat-covered with sweet slivers of fresh crabmeat, the rice noodles soaked up the tasty gravy so well that the dish was perfect."--"the vermicelli had soaked up the sweetness of the gravy--worth waiting for". Out came a large bowl of noodle soup topped off with an egg, which was then stirred in. So there we were with an egg drop noodle soup, and if there was crab, we could not find any. The kindest I can say is--truly disappointing. I kept thinking we had ordered the wrong dish, but when I searched the web after, I found a review with a picture, "A signature will be braised vermicelli and crabmeat, braised till soft and then sprinkled with crabmeat. To give it a greater 'oomph' it was topped off with egg."

All of the above with a beer, glass of cabernet, and jasmine tea was: S$98.75 US $65.13

Taste Paradise, was listed as one of the best top 50 in Singapore. and was a restaurant that we would have loved to love, but with 1 good dish in 5, we would return if we could get away with ordering only the carrot cake.

Singapore Dining Day 5 February 3

We chose Min Jiang at 1 North, #5 Rochester Park, Szechuan, Cantonese & Peking Duck, for our last night in Singapore. There are quite a few of the old colonial black & white bungalows in Rochester Park that have been developed as restaurants & retail space--creating a green country feel, not too far from the city, close to Holland Village, but far enough to attract mostly locals & expats.

We had requested a table on the patio, and this would be the best choice, it's really lovely, but there was road work going on with flashing lights & noise, so we moved inside. The interior, designed by an Argentinian architect, Ernesto Bedmar, is modern chinoiserie style, black & bronze. There are also tables on the 2nd floor, but the ambience was not good.

We started with the xiao long bao (soup dumplings) which were excellent, as we expected, since Min Jiang's main branch in the Goodwood Hotel is known for its dim sum. Were they better than Crystal Jade? They were delicious, I'll leave the rating game to the Jeffrey Steingarten wannabes, my ratings are limited to the good or not good.

We love szechuan, but the peking ducks passing by looked great, so we compromised, 1/2 duck (prompted by our server--"enough") and eggplant szechuan style. About 1/2 of the diners were ordering the duck and it did not disappoint. Very authentic. They use the specially bred force fed duck, pump air under the skin, and roast over an applewood fire, with 4 chefs imported from Beijing to get it all right. The open oven is on the patio. My guess would be that outside of China you are probably getting a Peking duck in name only--a regular duck, air dried, and roasted in a regular oven.

The first duck course was the skin served with sugar for dipping. The second course was slices of the duck meat with skin and pancakes served with many condiments--hoison, mashed garlic, spring onion, cucumber, cabbage, radish. We ate 1/2 of this without the pancake with a dab of hoisin & mashed garlic--a taste treat. The third course was the chopped duck with a choice of noodles, rice, lettuce, and maybe 2 other methods. We chose the lettuce. This was quite a production. Between courses, we nibbled on the eggplant. This was excellent, but really did not go well wth the duck. In hindsight, we should have ordered more dim sum. The total cost with 2 glasses of cabernet and tea S$121.20 US $79.89. The 1/2 duck was S$40, whole S$80. Probably our best dining experience in Singapore.

After dinner, we walked next door to Graze, a restaurant and bar opened by the people from the trendy, hip Jia in Hong Kong. This place has gotten a tremendous amount of PR. At 10:30 on a Saturday night, the open air bar on the second floor was empty--so much for hype.

So summarizing--There are so many good restaurants in Singapore--French, Italian, and more, but we chose Chinese because the majority of Singaporeans are Chinese, and we can get the other flavors at home. We also chose stand alones rather than hotels. Last trip, we tried Jade at the Fullerton and The Summer Garden at the Ritz. Both were excellent but were only 1/2 full, a little fusty, and the other diners seemed to be hotel residents. We wanted a more local atmosphere and full bustling rooms and for the most part we were successful.

I'm going to an 8:00 p.m. performance at the Esplanade Friday night and would like some suggestions for a light meal before or after in the area.

10:30 pm on Saturday is TOO EARLY for the bar at Graze IMO...it is a very good restaurant however.

Bookmarking for upcoming trip

Moving up for Koreaprincess

Moving up for Skittle. Happy Travels!

moving it up

ttt.Happy Travels!

ttt. Happy Travels!

I'm back in Singapore for a few days and would like to update my list. Some of my favorites (like Papillon) are no longer extant but I'm sure there are plenty of new and good.

I'm primarily looking for Western restaurants, maybe expanded to include Indian. I love Chinese and Southeast Asian but am fairly covered in that category by my local friends.

So . . . What are your current favorite Western restaurants in Singapore?

>>>I'm back in Singapore for a few days and would like to update my list.<<<


Warm evening greetings, marmot! (And should your plans change and you find yourself flying SQ2 tomorrow to HKG - and on to SFO in my case - well, 'drinks on me' at a certain SIA SilverKris Lounge.)

Now, suspect you're familiar with all the dining options at my main non-residence, post-work hangout, the Four Seasons. So, propose some rather special restaurants ~ 36,000 feet up: 'Book the Cook' with those sensational Singapore Girls! (As always, can't wait.) Check it all out at sqtalk.com and singaporeair.com and just between us: have always found the food selections at those SIN SKLs to be just fine. (Then, I'm rather easy to please.)

Have fun in sweet Singapore, and if staying at the FS, don't forget ringing up my all-time cherished SIN masseuse to venture up to your softly-lit room. (Oh yes, she's still a 'working girl'.)

As always, sweet and smooth (SQ) rides to all of you in family friendly fodorland.

macintosh (robert)


... Singapore Girl, You're a Great Way to Fly ...