Singapore Through The Eyes (& palate) of Grace Koshida! (Part 2)

Ovidia-every other Tuesday
Thank you to Grace Koshida for sharing Part 2 of her Singapore experiences!

To recap, Grace Koshida is from Ottawa, Canada, and will be Fan Guest of Honor at Left Coast Crime 2025. An eclectic reader of all crime genres (with a soft spot for P.I., police procedurals and culinary cozies), Grace is a Netgalley reviewer with over 600 reviews to her name. Over to you, Grace!

Here are the Singapore dishes I ate during my trip to Singapore:
Duck noodles, Hainanese chicken rice (twice), bak chor mee, fishball noodles, wonton mee, satay (twice), laksa, fried carrot cake, ice kachang, BBQ stingray, char kway teow, hokkien mee, oyster omelette, chilli crab, roti prata, prawn mee, nasi lemak and kaya toast (twice) - not named kaya toast graphic is under red MAKAN-MAKAN.

April 29: Spent half a day visiting the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Free admission. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the extensive gardens cover 82 ha (200 acres) and has over 10,000 species of flora and some wild fauna. I was so excited to see my first big lizard in the wild!!

The National Orchid Garden (separate admission ticket required) was a highlight. WOW, so many beautiful hybrids, over 2,000 orchid hybrids grown on site.

It's been a great morning but I am getting hot & tired, walking outside for 3 hours in the heat & humidity. It's 34C/95F feeling like 44C/110F at noon. I went to ADAM FOOD CENTRE, which is accessed by walking on an overpass pedestrian bridge from the Singapore Botanical Gardens.
This smaller hawker centre focuses on halal food and Indonesian food.

The large steamed Hainanese chicken rice plate (6 SGD) came with fragrant rice & a small bowl of soup. Both grated ginger and chili sauce were condiments. I also had a mango soursop juice 3.5 SGD.

April 29: evening. Gardens By The Bay Supertree Grove free sound & light show was amazing. Tonight's theme was retro night. ABBA, Grease, Beatles music.

I bought a cute MAKAN-MAKAN SINGAPORE EATS melamine plate in Chinatown (see above!)

April 30: I visited Kampong Glam, another ethnic enclave easily accessible by MRT. First highlight was visiting the Sultan Mosque, built in 1824.

Then I explored the shops on Arab & Bussorah Streets. There were many fabric stores and shops selling beads, buttons as well as rugs and pashminas. As for food, there were Turkish, Lebanese and Middle Eastern restaurants. I had a tasty lamb kofta lunch with homemade lemon ice tea,

There were murals and eclectic art on Haji Lane
and dinner was a steaming hot bowl of fish lor mee for 5 SGD at Hong Lim hawker centre.

Egg noodles coated in a thick gravy, topped with 7 pieces of battered fried fish, a half boiled egg and green onions.
May 1: Labour Day in Singapore.
Was not sure what was opened on this holiday, so I spent a half day at Changi Airport's JEWEL.

The rain vortex is the world's tallest indoor waterfall, 40 m/130 ft high. There are 7 levels of shops, restaurants and attractions.
On L5, the top level, I visited the canopy park, hedge maze, mirror maze and canopy bridge!

For lunch, I had my first laksa (see plate dish!) Yummy, and not too spicy!
May 1 evening: Night hawker walking food tour
First stop at Lau Pa Sat/Satay Street.
Our group of 10 ate chicken and mutton satay, fried carrot cake, hokkien mee (seafood noodles), fresh sugarcane juice, and a peanut pancake.

We then walked to the Esplanade and caught part of the MBS Spectra light show

before heading to Gluttons by the Bay hawker centre where we ate chicken murtabak with curry sauce, and banana fritters with a pandan dip.

DELISH!! Very glad that I had a 20 minute walk to the closest MRT station back to Chinatown.
May 2.
After doing a load of laundry Thursday morning, I spotted some more murals by Yip Yeo Chong.

Then I spent several hours at the Peranakan Museum. I wanted to learn more about the melding of different ancestral cultures of Chinese, Arab, Indian, European and others in SE Asia.

There were 3 floors of exhibits focusing on ceramics and food culture, batik, beading and bridal jewelry and FUKUSA, a temporary exhibit of Japanese gift covers. I liked seeing the hairpins that were described in the Aunty Lee book that I was reading.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
I found a Michelin recommended Nasi Lemak stall near the museum and ordered a chicken wing plate with a side of mackerel otah for lunch.

Another MAKAN-MAKAN plate dish.
May 3:
Breakfast with a kopi o for only 0.90 SGD and a Michelin award-winning handmade curry puff for 2 SGD.

Then met Ovidia for a bak kuh teh lunch at Song Fa. The queue was long at 10:45 am for this Michelin-award winning place.

I was still looking for an ice kachang dessert. No luck at Chinatown so we travelled by MRT to Koufu at Commonwealth MRT.

That was a refreshing cool treat and another MAKAN-MAKAN Singapore dish.
We then traveled to Holland Village to visit iconic Thambi Magazine Store which was closing after 80 years in business.

We both bought some magazines and gave the family our best wishes.
May 4:
Thunderstorms with plenty of thunder, lightning and heavy rain from 7:00 am.
Flash flood warnings. I traveled by bus from Chinatown to Tiong Bahru Market which is supposed to popular on weekend mornings. One positive about this heavy rain was a temperature of 26C/78F.It was the coolest morning I experienced while in Singapore; Queue was in place for Michelin award winning prawn mee stall. My medium prawn mee plate (6 SGD) came with large prawns, squid, pork and 2 types of noodles.

I squeezed the calamansi juice but avoided the red chile paste. DELISH Still hungry, so I ordered a small oyster omelette for 5 SGD.

Both dishes were MAKAN-MAKAN Singapore dishes.

And I still needed a hot kopi o (1.20 SGD)!
Dishes to try on next trip: Yong tau foo, chendol, nasi briyani, thosai, char siew rice, rojak!
[Back to Ovidia: Thank you, Grace--and I hope you come back real soon!]

Foods For Thought

 Ovidia--every other Tuesday

It's been a tough couple of weeks here. The meniscus in my left knee got torn in a fall and some very effective antibiotics wiped out my gut bacteria meaning lots of loo visits... which the knee wasn't very happy about.

But all's returning to normal now and I'm looking forward to lunch with friends visiting Singapore next week. Which leads to today's question: Should I introduce these nice people (likely jet lagged and stressed from traveling halfway across the world) to the most exciting foods I know... or should we go for something simple and comforting that they're more likely to enjoy--even if it doesn't leave as striking a first impression?

Because when I was under the weather, I found I couldn't read anything challenging. You'd think having a bad knee or iffy gut has nothing to do with reading challenging books, but I'll tell you it does! There are some books in my past--good books--but books I can barely think about, let alone pick up right now...

Like one that reminds of me a fish head curry-- a great delicacy and connoisseurs love the eyeballs and the fish lips especially.  

I love it too--you have to taste that gravy before you judge it--and the okra and eggplant in there are delicious. 

But encountering it for the first time reminds me of reading I'm Thinking Of Ending Things by Iain Reid for the first time. It's especially unnerving because all the parts are familiar, from the old school to the old parents to the old security guard...

Just as you're familiar with fish of course, and with tomatoes and curry with a little spice... and if you eat fish fillets why not fish heads... but when it's all coming at you at once and your host does you the honour of dolloping the eyeball on your plate of rice it can be a bit much.

Fish head curry is delicious, I promise you. Just like it's a powerful book, but maybe not the best choice if you're not feeling well. Just remember it's all fish (spoiler: kind of like how it's all Jake).

Or there's chilli crab--another Singapore speciality that I've always found troubling because the crabs need to be kept alive until they're cooked, meaning you see the poor creatures in tanks waiting to be chosen and hauled to their deaths. 

And yes, unless you're vegan everything you eat was once alive... but you don't usually have to look them in the eye and try to figure out if they'd rather be put out of their misery quickly or left to live a little longer-- the book this reminds me of is Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door. 

That's a book that stays with you. That's the mark of a great story isn't it? That it sticks in your mind for ages after and, just to make it worse, it's supposed to be based on a true story. 

Between the two, I'd say chilli crab is the less traumatic experience. And it's truly delicious too, only to really enjoy it you've got to get involved and be willing to dig in deep and get dirty (same with reading) to get the full experience.

And then there's BBQ Sambal Stingray that reminds me of my first reading of The Orton Diaries.

Traditionally the stingray is served barbecued, smeared with sambal chilli sauce and often served with chinchalok (sauce made of fermented shrimp). 

My first experience of reading Joe Orton's diaries was flavourful, exciting and coloured everything I took in for ages. Sambal stingray is a similar experience. The taste is sensational and with every mouthful you experience anew the sensation of sliding the succulent, firm flesh off the ribs of cartilage holding it together. You keep thinking you're done--but you keep getting pulled back for just one more taste. 

These are all delicious food experiences. But when I was under the weather, I couldn't face any of these books or foods. I needed comfort eats just like I needed comfort reads. 

Confession: I'm still taking it easy and the books by my bed are currently Elizabeth Peters, Ann B Ross, Lee Harris, Vivien Chien... writers who nurture me the same way as my comfort food--Economy Rice--does. 

With these books/ dishes you know that what you get will be 'same though different' and 'different but the same'; tasty and nourishing without being too challenging. Costing between $3 and $5, they won't sear your taste buds or take up too much brain space.

Though these are the kind of dishes I found boring when I was growing up (and someone else was cooking) I appreciate them now!

Okay-- Jeff Siger's At Any Cost is on the pile too because though that's tasty and different, it's a safe 'risk' because I trust him as a writer; kind of like I'll risk the occasional laksa or roast meat rice from a familiar stall even when I'm being cautious.

Returning to a stall you know is like returning to a series you love--and like meeting with old friends to find out what's been happening in their lives. 

Which can be the best part of both eating and reading together!

Happy eating and reading everyone!