Frannywanny

When you mention Singapore to a traveling foodie, I can probably bet a million dollars that the word hawker  will surely come up. Not quite convinced? Okay then, think about your favourite Singaporean dish. Ready? Well, whatever it is, I can confidently say that you can get all  of them from a hawker center. You see, hawkers and hawker centers play a very important part in Singapore's heritage. I can still remember my first hawker meal was back in the late 90s, I was about 8 years old then and my parents brought me to Newton Circus for dinner. Back then, there weren't a lot of hawker centers, I can still remember visiting the ones in Newton as well as People's Park in Chinatown. Sanitation was still a big problem then as we would watch in horror whenever the "uncle" would just "wipe" our table with a piece of chopsticks, pushing all morsels of food down to the floor. The tables would be sticky, sometimes oily, the floor extremely dirty. I have a number...

Following our Saturdate hawker challenge at Tiong Bahru Food Market , Paul and I ventured out again the next Saturday this time to Chinatown . We really enjoy being able to challenge ourselves to a try a different set of hawker specialties given a set budget of S$15. Will we be successful again this time? Chinatown is such a fun place to be. There's this old world meets modern city feel that I really love. Growing up, our trips to Singapore would never be complete without visiting this area. Mommy totally loves this store called Yue Hwa which, believe it or not, still exists at present. The store must have been around for more than 20 years! Here, she would buy our super soft and fluffy comforters, beddings and all sorts of Chinese-style linens and products that you can think of. I think it was also here where I bought my chongsam blouse, once upon a time, when I was crazy enough to think I wanted to channel Mulan. Anyway, so one Saturday night in Chinatown, Paul and I walked...

A food lover will always be a food lover. No matter where we go, Paul and I make it a point that we get to have a wonderful gastronomic adventure in our trips here and abroad. Luck must have been on our side as we just recently found out that the Singapore Food Festival will happen just around the same time that we're there. Of course, this was immediately included in our itinerary. It has been drizzling all day but it didn't stop us from taking the MRT all the way to Clarke Quay in order to check the festival out. From the station, it was a short walk crossing Swissotel Merchant Court and soon you'll see the Singapore River with lots of small stalls selling shirts and other retail items. The Clarke Quay Food Street was located along the Read Bridge. It wasn't difficult to locate this as all we had to do was to follow the steady stream of people going in one direction. After going around each and every stall, we decided to buy our very own Kopi Tiam card ...

I guess I've mentioned a dozen times before how much I love Singapore ... both the country and their food. Nothing beats enjoy a plate of Hainanese Chicken Rice, some Char Kuay Teow and drinking a glass of cool Barley Juice. It was another meatless Friday for me again and after attending two events today, I thought of stopping by the newly opened Orchard Road located at the Bridgeway of SM Megamall for a quick afternoon snack. A couple of blogger friends have warned me about it... the food was not that good, they say. Still I wanted to try it out to see for myself. Going around the open-kitchen area, I finally decided to get a plate of Carrot Cake, a roll of Popiah and a glass of Barley Juice. The Barley Juice (Php. 45) came first and immediately on my first sip, I felt that it was very sweet. Not just a little more than the tolerable sweetness but this one could literally send kids bouncing off the walls all night with too much sugar and/or syrup. I pushed my glass aside and ask...