Day 1 in Singapore, Eating Our Way Through the City

Day one in Singapore found us waking up to a rainy day. Of course, since this is monsoon season in Singapore, we were glad it was only drizzling. And since it was 87 degrees and super humid, the lack of direct sun wasn’t an issue (until we got to the Marina Bay Sands, but more on that later).

Eric explored the hotel a bit while Karen got ready. By the time Eric returned to the room he had pumped the staff for food suggestions and we were on our way to Ion Orchard. Karen always travels with an umbrella, and the St. Regis was kind enough to ply all guests with them upon leaving the hotel, so the drizzle didn’t present an issue.

Rainy day view outside the St. Regis

The prime shopping and tourist area in Singapore is Orchard Road. The St. Regis was only two blocks off of Orchard Road so we were a brief walk from our destination – Ion Orchard. Much like Hong Kong, Singapore has dumped billions of dollars into mass transit, and, as part of that investment, developed underground connections between buildings that go for 10 blocks or more. And, much like HK, the connections under streets and buildings aren’t so much tunnels as meccas of high end malls and shopping. Ion Orchard is a high end mall (Gucci, Celine, Luis Vuitton, etc.) But it mixes the Singapore mall culture with the Singapore food culture. In Singapore, mall food courts are the next generation of the street markets (more on those later). Mall food in Singapore bears no resemblance to mall food in the U.S.  Singapore is at the avant garde of the world's trendiest dining movements. Ion Orchard has four different food areas. We chose to dine at an area called the Food Opera (located on B-4; four floors below ground), and it does sing a lovely tune. The Food Opera is filled with 40 or 50 different stalls selling a variety of food choices. We split up to search out our own ways and here’s where we ended up: 

Eric had the Bee Hoon Mee Soup, a yummy broth with pork balls, pork filled wantons, noodles and assorted veggies and spicy peppers ($5 Singapore)

Karen had the Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee. Short noodles stir fried in a seafood and garlic broth with giant prawns ($5.50 Singapore Dollars). 

Singapore is a melting pot of lots of regional cultures and ethnicities. If all you know of the country is that they cane obnoxious American tourists, then forget what you know. It tolerates a variety of cultures and seems to embrace them all. However, you cannot chew gum (recent exceptions have been made for Nicorette) and you cannot carry a gun. In Singapore, the penalty for possessing an unlawful gun is death. Seriously, they have zero tolerance in a way that really gets your attention. 

After late breakfast we hopped a cab to a section of town called Little India. 

Little India is exactly what you expect; shops of all sorts selling wares from India and Hindu temples. 

 

We weaved through some stalls and happened on Little India Footwear. Unlike Temple Street in HK, this time we both hit paydirt, as Karen bought some jeweled strappy sandals and Eric scored a pair of leather sandals. The purveyor genuinely liked us and, as such agreed to “make us good price”. We were quite sure that we were the only shoppers ever to receive such a discount. No seriously…

At this point we split up. Karen visited one stall and purchased some Indian peasant blouses, while Eric meandered into a fabric store and had some shyster woman try and sell him a handmade suit for more than it would cost to buy one at Brooks Brothers. We guess Eric just looks like a sucker.

Fresh off our shopping success (Karen more than Eric), we walked about 10 minutes away to Arab Road. 

Arab Road is the Muslim section of town, with some great Malay and Middle Eastern food and beautiful mosques. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Englishman who founded modern Singapore in 1819, “generously” allocated the area in 1824 to Sultan Hussein, the Malay king who had been in charge previously. We tried to visit the Sultan Mosque, where Sultan Hussein had built his original mosque in 1824 (the current one was built in 1924) but the nice gentleman outside explained that it was currently the call to prayer and asked us to return in a bit. It having been hours since our last meal, we headed down the street in search of lunch. The Insight Guide (no Eyewitness was available) directed us to Alaturka, a Turkish restaurant in the heart of Arab Road. Here’s what we ate for lunch: 

Borek: Phyllo pastry stuffed with feta cheese

Moussaka: Sauteed sliced eggplant and potatoes, layered with lamb, topped with melted cheese

Turkish black tea

Tavuk Sis: Grilled chicken on skewers with rice and vegetables

Our tummies filled with Turkish goodness, we walked back down the street towards the mosque.

View from the Alaturka towards the mosque

We weren’t really sure what to expect from the mosque. The structure is HUGE, taking up virtually an entire city block. It is the largest mosque in Singapore, and the prayer hall accommodates 5,000 people. There are 8 or 9 entrances, with visitors welcome at Gate 5. We entered and removed our shoes and a gentleman helped both of us into green robes (since we were both wearing shorts and our upper arms were exposed, that was expected). It was at this point that a most welcome thing occurred. A gentleman who we can best describe as a docent approached us and guided us into the hallway towards (but not into) the prayer hall and started explaining not just about the mosque, but about the religion in general. He encouraged questions and genuinely took a “no question is too dumb” approach. He then took our picture and encouraged us to walk around (again, not inside the prayer room). It was a wonderfully warm experience.

Next on our tour of Singapore was a stop at the Raffles Hotel (named for the aforementioned Sir Stamford). The Raffles is world famous as the place of birth of the Singapore Sling. The hotel is a wonderful example of British Colonial architecture and decor, similar to the Moana Surfrider on Waikiki where we had the pleasure of visiting in August

The Singapore Slings, however, were kind of nasty. They tasted either like cough syrup (Karen’s description) or Bubbalicious bubble gum (Eric’s somewhat ironic description in light of Singapore’s position on gum chewing). To top it off, they were CRAZY expensive. The two Singapore slings cost us almost $60 USD. That is more expensive than drinks in NYC clubs! On the bright side, they do give you free peanuts at the Long Bar at Raffles and allow you to throw the peanut shells on the floor, which in crazy clean Singapore is a freeing feeling. We also made a new friend - Canadian Dave who works for Fairmont Hotels.

From there we were off on a walking tour of Singapore sights in the Historic District, including St. Andrew’s Cathedral and the civic buildings: Parliament, the Supreme Court and City Hall.

Then it was off to find the newest Singapore landmark, the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino. The building has redefined Singapore’s architecture and skyline. It casts an imposing figure from just about anywhere.

When we finally reached it (we won’t bore you, but next time we’d just take a darn cab) we were actually underwhelmed. Maybe it was because we expected so much, or maybe the building is not as impressive as it should have been, but it was…nice.

The casino was odd and the hotel…nice, but just so. Eric thought the hotel atrium looked like one of the Disney World hotels he visited as a child, 20+ years ago. We were very interested to visit the Sky Park, but it was unfortunately closed due to the bad weather. We wondered how it could be any more dangerous in the rain than on a clear day. Surely there’s a guardrail. We may never find out. At this point we were super tired and needed a rest before dinner at Newton Circus, so we headed back via taxi to the St. Regis and had the butler prepare some more tea.

At around 8, we jumped in a taxi to the Newton Circus Hawker Center. Frommer’s defines a hawker center as a grouping of informal, open-air food stalls, and the best way to sample every kind of Singaporean cuisine. Newton Circus is the largest and most famous hawker center in Singapore, and has hundreds of stalls selling seafood and rice and noodles and all other kinds of local food. We did a full lap before picking a seat at one of the numbered picnic tables, and starting the ordering process.

We had been well-prepped on the hawker center process by a few guide books, the most important lesson of which was not to be snookered by stalls selling seafood by the grams and not being precise about exactly how much you intend to buy. This proved an important lesson, as Eric soon began a negotiation session with a fishmonger selling giant prawns. The price was per 100kg. Eric asked how much they weighed, and the monger suggested we start with 4 each. Eric insisted on an answer to his question, and after a bit more persistence it was determined that each prawn weighed more than 100kg. The 8 suggested prawns would have cost near $200USD. In that moment the guidebooks more than paid for themselves. We settled on two prawns and were soon beginning our meal.

Having wet our feet, we followed that effort with beer and water and:

Satay sticks (chicken and beef)

Beef fried noodles with seafood

We finished dinner and by this point it was raining pretty hard. Much like NYC or DC, it was near impossible to catch a cab in the rain. Fortunately Newton Circus is around the corner from an MRT station so we trained it back to Orchard Road and walked the few blocks to the hotel, with brief stop at DQ (yes, that DQ) for a Blizzard and some soft serve. Don’t judge us- we don’t have DQ in DC.

And then we slept, very, very, very well.