Red letter day

As the lovely Chris has pointed out to me several times, it's been a while since I last put finger to keyboard, but I'm back now.  Cue trumpet fanfare and cries of "Hurrah" all round.  I thought I'd better return as he was threatening a takeover.  Well, I say threatening a takeover, but to be fair, he just wrote a post filling in the blanks since I last blogged.  TLC has been a guest contributor in the past, and will be again, I'm sure, but his actions were sufficient to galvanise me into action.

So what can you expect from this post?  Well, there will be food commentary of course - how could there not - as well as some observations on Singapore's version of the MOT and a film review.

Let's start with the film, in this case Jan Dara, a Thai film, probably fairly unlikely to come to a cinema near you any time soon, unless of course you live in Singapore or Thailand.  TLC and I chose this one out of a list of 10 possibles yesterday, largely because it was showing at our local cinema and it was near a chicken rice place that we wanted to try - more of which later.  The film is based on a famous Thai novel - erotic fiction as it turns out - and features a great deal of lusty sex in 1930s Bangkok (never was the location of a film more apt!).  I don't think it will ever win any prizes in Cannes or at Sundance, but it was a pleasant enough way to pass a couple of hours. 

We passed another pleasant hour over lunch at the chicken rice restaurant just along the road from the cinema.  Hainanese chicken rice, to give it its proper name, is Chinese in  origin, and is a staple of "local" food in Singapore.  You will find it food courts and hawker centres and in many restaurants specialising in chicken rice.  A well as the chicken and rice, served separately, it comes with a stock to flavour the rice and some accompanying sauces - chili, garlic and ginger.  When the waitress came to take our drinks order, I asked if they had any wine - fully expecting the answer to be no, as this was a wee neighbourhood restaurant serving local food.  However, a bottle was produced - the only bottle in the restaurant as it turned out.  The lassie poured and a brown liquid came out, the colour of stewed tea.  It didn't take much in the way of expertise to know that this was not what a glass of Jacob's Creek Shiraz should look like and as for the bouquet, well, it was not so much blueberries, spice and dark plums,  as stewed cabbage and damp dog.  The waitress called for the manager, who proudly proclaimed that "This wine is more than 10 years old" and indeed it was - vintage Jacob's Creek, bottled in 2001!  As most Singaporeans do not drink wine, we spent an entertaining few minutes explaining that old was not necessarily a good thing, particularly when the wine has been kept in tropical temperatures.  I ordered a glass of water instead.

While Singaporeans may not major in wine, they are pretty spot on when it comes to the Singapore equivalent of the MOT.  There is no need to book, you just arrive at the inspection centre and queue up, a bit like at a channel ferry terminal.  We queued for about five minutes, which gave me time to pay for the inspection at the cashier's window - about 30 quid, I think - and then we were beckoned forward.  We took a seat and watched the car proceed through four testing stations, where various things were examined from above and below over the course of 15 minutes, the car was pronounced to be in fine fettle and we were given our certificate.  Simples!