Feb 20 - Singapore

I woke up fairly early and once again what I assume is the little temple down the street was playing the drums and a trumpet for about 20 minutes.

This was before 7:00am which was a little early, but I was awake so it didn't really matter.  I think perhaps they are confused and think they are 

in New Orleans on Bourbin Street?

Anyway, the restaurant downstairs at the hotel was still closed but they were offering some boxed breakfasts.  I declined as I wanted to go out

and have Dim Sum for breakfast.   I also got some tips from the front desk as to other hawker stand areas that should be open today.

Unfortunately, even though the signage on the Dim Sum place I have found said they'd be opening at 7:00am, by 8:00a they were just opening the

metal garage doors that lock the place up.   The staff was just arriving and nothing was ready to serve!   So instead I figured I would take the MRT and

check out the hawker stands that the front desk had talked about.

This was about 20 minutes away by MRT at the "Newton" MRT station.    I made it there easily enough, but unfortunately other than a tea/coffee place 

everything else was closed and I don't think they were going to open up until lunch time!

So I headed back one station to the "Orchid" station, which I correctly guessed was Orchid Street mall area.    I checked out the food level of the mall,

but very little was open there either, and none of it was "interesting".

So back on the MRT -- I headed off to "Arab Street" as I'd planned on doing that area for lunch and figured it would be a good breakfast bet as well.

I had also done some research on the Internet and had the names of several places in the Arab Street area and suggested dishes to try.

Third time was the charm and I was able to find the area without a problem and there were several different places open.   The first one on my list

was not only open, but about half of the outdoor tables were already full and people were lining up at the counter to order.   All of which is a good

sign -- longest line tends to be the best food!

The place was called the Kampong Glam Cafe, and here are some photos taken from across the street facing the cafe.

I got an order of the "Lasi lemak" which ended up being a huge scoop of rice, some sweet and spicy red sauce, some cucumber,

a poached egg, a fried small boned fish, and several pieces of either fried or perhaps tandori'ed chicken.    I also got a glass of 

fresh lime juice (yes, I know -- risky to get local water and fruit that has been cut up -- but it was a good choice and I didn't lose on this

gamble!)

I finished this off and walked back a block towards the historic mosque in the area.   Here are some photos down the main street facing the

mosque and up towards the spires.    Unfortunately there is some major renovation going on and some of the other "angles" to take more pictures 

would not have been very interesting -- unless you like big blue construction tarps!

I found another place that had a big dessert counter and picked out three desserts and some tea to finish off my breakfast meal.

The Jin Doi (seasame ball) was very much like the normal Chinese version on the outside but the inside was more of a sweet rice 

paste or maybe date paste instead of the traditional chinese sweet azuki/black beans.   The rice based two layer dessert in the upper left

was almost custard like in texture and was both soft and slightly sweet.   The right hand dessert was rice with brown sugar.

The tea was a tea with milk drink that was a slightly sweet tea that was all "milked and frothy"     A dessert unto itself which was

an unexpected surprise that I very much enjoyed.

I walked around little more before heading back to the MRT station.   On the way this cat found me.   It was actually very friendly, rubbing on my 

leg and accepting some petting, but it also kept hissing (but not in an angry way).   Odd behavior, but maybe not in this part of the world?  

Anyway, picture and little video below--

Made it back to the MRT and got back to Chinatown MRT and my hotel.   Entered this in and am taking a nap before heading out to my postponed Dim Sum 

later for lunch...

Woke up and headed towards the Dim Sum place.  Alas, while the doors were open they were not!   I guess they really are just closed for the whole day!

So I walked up and down the food street to see what might be of interest.   It was pretty hot and humid so I bought another small Thai coconut drink:

Here are a number of the stands I saw, but none of them really "lept out at me" as food I really wanted to stop for:

I went down into the subway and then "up" across the street to see if there was anything else over there.  Sure enough it was a huge hawker stand

area!    Found some really good stuff there!

just around the corner inside the courtyard portion of the building or parking area for the building I found this!

Which had lots of cool stands.   I found a duck and wonton stand!

I ate my fill and then headed back to the hotel to enter this onto the web and to take another nap.

Headed out for dinner around 6:30pm.   Dim Sum place still shutdown until tomorrow so went back to Little India.   Walked around for a while and found an

indian sweets shop and got a 'pre dinner" treat.

Moved onto hawker area, but ended up going into a "permanent" restaurant attached to that same garage like building.

Got a chicken dish, some grilled bread (thinner than naan, but yet another variety), some veggie items to dip that bread into or

put onto that bread and another lime juice drink.

After dinner I picked up a few more indian dessert treats from another shop and headed back to the  MRT.

I actually stopped at Harborpoint Station (past my station) to look for some frozen dessert food, but it was a mistake -- the crowd from

that mall was too much for me and I couldn't even find the shop I ate at before!     So I headed back to the hotel, ate the above indian desserts, 

entered this info onto the web, and  went to sleep.