Can't... Stop... Eating...

Singaporeans are obsessed with food. It's everywhere, it's affordable, and most importantly, it's delicious. I am consistently impressed with the quality of the food and the pride of the people who make it. A lot of it is served fast, but is nothing at all like our idea of "fast food." Rather, its well executed and fresh. I could go on and on about this; I think I will.

Here's the second installment of "What did Mike eat today"

I woke up, and of course my first order of business was finding breakfast. I walked a few blocks and found a little kopitiam (Singaporean coffee shop). It, like everywhere I try to go to, was a real locals place. It was pretty basic, open air restaurant with tables coming right up to the sidewalk. There were 2 guys working it, they come up to your table, ask what you want, and they go and make it and bring it to you. There's no menu, you have to know what there is. Fortunately, I did my research before I came or else I would be lost.
I had some coffee with sweetened condensed milk, soft boiled eggs and toast with kaya. The soft boiled eggs are very soft, closer to raw then cooked, the whole things are very runny. They give you the eggs in the shell, and you crack em with a little spoon and pour the contents into a little dish. You season with pepper and soy sauce and slurp it up. The toast with kaya is basically white toast with a spread made from coconut and egg, delicious.

I had a mid-morning drink made from aloe vera and lime juice, interesting and tasty.

Lunch was a trip to a hawker centre. I had stewed turtle and rice. It was pieces of turtle in a fragrant broth with a few cilantro leaves and a bowl of rice on the side and some VERY hot chili sauce on the side. The turtle wasn't just meat on the bone, but also consisted of unfamiliar parts. They seemed to be fat, cartilage, connective tissue, and definitely skin. All of it was awesome.

For an afternoon snack I had some fresh fruit. Had some durian (which brought smiles and thumbs up from locals), mangosteens and rambutans.

I just finished dinner. That was a bowl of noodles featuring shrimp and pork intestines, along with some pork meat and greens. It was ok, not my favorite thing. The broth was really good, not a huge fan of the noodles though. I'm sure people are curious about the intestines, they were alright, a little chewy, not a ton of flavor.

I'm stuffed.

Well, I'll wrap it up here, because the rest of my day was pretty much just spent walking around and sweating profusely (I think I overheated at one point, from walking too much, gotta be more careful). It is really hot here, and really humid. And the icy air conditioning is a mixed blessing as it freezes all the sweat.

Now I gotta figure out what I'm doing tomorrow, maybe a trip to Chinatown.

-Mike