joo chiat

Tried, today, an approximation of the Makansutra Joo Chiat/Katong Jalan Jalan, all by my lonesome because people were either busy or did not pick up my calls. Booo. Fei Fei Wantan noodles were not as superlative as the description suggests - my mom and I (correct me if I'm wrong) like our wantan mee gravy to be fairly sweet, which is why the Farrer market stall has long been one of our favourites. (Jiahao's Sunshine Plaza one is not half-bad either). For $2, though, one really can't complain. Chased away pesky drink-stall owner and high-tailed it down to East Coast Road in search of kaya buns, admiring, along the way, some very architecurally interesting (and enormous) semi-ds. Where the bun shop should have been was a large and rather sketchy beer garden, which was disappointing. Fortunately enough, there was one of those old, Hainanese(?) confectioneries nearby, packed to the rafters despite it being 3 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. Crowds in Singapore usually indicate quality, so I perused the grubby display case and selected a Swiss roll and a yellow, custardy tart thing, sixty cents apiece. The Swiss roll was very sugary and jammy, and I polished it off before I had gotten ten paces from the store. The custard thing was less exciting, and made me wish I had gone with something else - one of the creamhorns, maybe, or the chocolate pastries.

Heading back towards Katong Mall, I located Makansutra's famous tau kwa bao, which was as good as promised, the tau kwa exceedingly fresh and its texture perfect both outside and in. It came stuffed with everything you would usually expect in tau kwa bao, plus many unidentifiable bits, and, (this is the kicker) everything was cooked in remorseless amounts of garlic. The chili sauce was superb as well.

I then took a little break to explore Katong Mall, which was almost a waste of time, because just about everything was shut. 'Almost' because I got to peek into a tuition centre upstairs, where, written on the whiteboard, was this:

BODY LOCI (LOCATIONS)
1. eye
2. nose
3. mouth
4. neck

etc.

-- which wins the WTF Singapore strangeness award for the day, and an overall WTF quotient of 7.5 out of 10.

Downstairs was a fascinating bakery named Awfully Chocolate. Enticed immediately by the name and its strangely minimalist layout (it has no display case, and is very white, sort of like an Apple store), I went to explore - it has but three kinds of cake (chocolate fudge, chocolate banana, and something else I forget) and a few flavors of ice cream. I make a call to the Goddess of Chocolate who, of course, has heard about the place, and tells me that yes, their cakes are indeed as mouthwateringly scrumptious as one might expect from a bakery that deigns to call itself Awfully Chocolate (Sidebar: does anyone remember the miniature golf course along the ECP, since closed, that was called "Lilliputt"? An actual pun! In Singapore!) The problem being that they don't sell slices, only whole cakes, so now I have to either wait for my family to return, or have, as the GoC suggested, an Awfully Chocolate cake party (anyone?). Or, I told the GoC before hanging up, starve myself for 2 days and do a Bruce Bogtrotter.

After that, went in pursuit of durian puffs, only to find that they are only sold in boxes of 20. That, and the fact the shop smelled rather horrid, made me pass, and decide to call it a day in terms of eating. Walked through Marine Parade to the shore, and sat for a while watching the rollerbladers and reading Minz's "irresistibly-titled" Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan, which I thought might be good seaside reading, what with it involving, you know, fish. I got neither land breezes, nor sea breezes, which Minz had promised me in an IM conversation earlier in the morning:

(lamotte: what abt
lamotte: east coast
lamotte: becos it's really v nice to sit under a tree and read
TryptophanCakes: true
lamotte: and there's a japnese restaurant there i'm v fond of
TryptophanCakes: it is sort of hot today though
lamotte: seabreeze!
lamotte: and land breeze!
lamotte: and whatever other breeze!)

-- but it had cooled down somewhat, so it was not all bad. Decided, since I was in the vicinity, to take another of her suggestions and check out the Fort Road excavation, where her mother (she said) used to play as a kid

(lamotte: i said, how come you so lousy and not inquisitive
lamotte: you could have been famous for it)

They haven't uncovered very much yet, about a hundred square meters, maybe, but there is still a ways to go, and it is, I suppose, kind of exciting. (Somehow, don't have much else to say about that)

And now I'm home, drinking Vanilla Coke and succumbing to Singapore Idol because I am bored, and The Amazing Race has been pre-empted.