Chinatown

Having just published my Laos post a couple of days ago, I thought I would wait a little before offering up this next one.  My mind was changed for me by a mosquito that decided to dive-bomb me in bed at 6 am on Saturday and the alternative to hunkering down under the sheet and toughing it out was to get up and do something.  It's a funny thing about mosquitoes.  I've been bitten many times and it's itchy and annoying, but no more than that really, so why is it that the high pitched-drone of a mosquito intent on its next meal at my expense should engender such horror?  I'd be happy to come to an arrangement whereby I stick out an arm, have it snack on that, rub on some anti-histamine ointment and get back to sleep, but oh no, that's not how Ms Mosquito works.  Small digression here: did you know that it's the females (bitches!) who do the bloodsucking?  Apparently the male mosquito typically feeds on nectar and plant juices, but the wifie mosquito needs a blood meal in order to produce eggs.  Perhaps the answer is to keep a stash of black pudding by the bed? 


Moving on to the original subject of this post, the lovely AnnMarie (my fish spa partner) and I hadn't seen each other for a while so we decided to meet up for lunch and fit in a walk beforehand.  Singapore is full of jungle walks, but we agreed on an urban adventure this time and headed for Chinatown.  The Chinatown of today has evolved from the area that was set up as part of Sir Stamford Raffles' master plan in the early 19th century and, although it is bounded on one side by the skyscrapers of the CBD, its character and appeal remain, as do the wonderful street names like Sago street, Pagoda street and Nankin street.  Chinatown is crazy busy and wonderfully decorated in the run-up to Lunar New Year as  Singaporeans  shop till they drop for all the New Year goodies, and strangely dead at the weekend.  Our outing was on a Friday, so it was quiet when we started out but busied up for the lunchtime rush.

Dried goji berries

We had no real master plan in mind, apart from looking up a couple of things in our guidebook, so it was a very pleasant wander that brought us first of all to a traditional Chinese medicine shop.  AnnMarie was in the market for some Goji berries, aka wolfberries, which are supposed to do wonders for - among other things - the liver and the eyes.  I'm always up for trying new alternative therapies in the quest for physical perfection (no giggling please), so I bought some too and off we trotted.  Our next stopping off point was the Yixing Xuan Teahouse, the first visit to a teahouse for both of us.  Of course I couldn't wait to sample the goji berries and thought they would go nicely with my lovely cup of white tea.  I sampled one, liked the initial sweet taste and offered one to my trusting companion.   Unfortunately, as she popped hers into her mouth, I got the aftertaste - not sweet at all, in fact very bitter.   It reminded me of the time I bit into an unripe persimmon, without peeling it (the first time I'd ever tried said fruit, so how was I to know?) To be fair, the persimmon incident was much worse - it dried up all my saliva and felt like I had eaten a mouthful of bitter-tasting, heavy duty underarm deodorant which stayed in my mouth and wouldn't go away.  Yukky.  So AnnMarie and I are sitting there, wondering how we are ever going to be able to eat these blessed things.  We're both Scottish, so perhaps the answer is to coat them in a nice sweet batter and deep fry them?  Maybe not.  All alternative ideas welcome.


Continuing with the food theme, our next stop was The Screening Room - "where food meets film".  Despite having lived in Singapore for almost 4 years, I have not visited here for either food or film, never mind the two in combination, but that's about to change.  The Screening Room is a great concept.  There are 5 separate floors, with a bistro on the bottom and a rooftop bar on the top and a malt vault, studio and film theatre in between.  Heaven!  

I tasted a bit of heaven earlier this week in The French Kitchen  restaurant.  If you live in Singapore, or come for a visit, this place is most definitely worth a try.  The set lunch is a steal, in my view - one of the best to be had in Singapore.  The room itself is beautiful and there is proper linen on the table and beautiful glassware.  The chef, the lovely Jean-Charles, came out to welcome me and we had a wee chat in French before my dining companion arrived.  We were served with home-made bread and salmon rillettes, then an amuse-bouche before the first course arrived.  We had both chosen the same dishes - fromage de chèvre chaud with spinach salad and walnut bread, confit de canard with truffled mash and marinated cherries and dark chocolate crème brûlée.     It was all delicious, although if I was being picky I would have liked the duck to be more willing to fall off the bone, rather than having to be persuaded to leave it behind.  

And finally, a movie review of London Boulevard, which  I saw at the weekend.  This is not a film that the lovely Chris would have wanted to see, so I took advantage of his temporary absence to go on my own.  The film stars Keira Knightley as a reclusive film star and Colin Farrell as a recently released  criminal.  Colin plays a blinder, and David Thewlis is fantastic as Keira's manager.  It's not for the squeamish, especially in the final scenes, and I did have to put my fingers in my ears a couple of times, so be warned.  Here the haiku:


London gangsters tale
No good deed goes unpunished
Colin Farrell rocks