Thursday, April 1, 2010

Our Johor-Singapore Trip: Day 3

It's always nice to have very good friends in very different places. That way, where ever you go, you'd be able to access the more inaccessible places, the places only the locals know, the places Lonely Planet knows nuts about.

We started our 3rd day during our Singapore-Johor trip eating roti prata for breakfast. It wasn't just any roti prata. It was roti prata on Bukit Chagar.

This was what the place looked like, sort of like a lone food shelter that popped up from the ground, in the middle of nowhere, on Bukit Chagar. And it looked like it was populated with government civil servants. If you came here often, you could get your IC, passport & police report done, all in one morning.




Bukit Chagar is just behind the new multi-million ringgit immigration building that has probably filled a lot of pockets. You can tell how close the roti place is to the massive blue buildings.


This is Roti Prata. On Bukit Chagar.

We were able to cross over to Singapore in one piece after that. This time there weren't any episodes with those Johor cowboy taxi drivers

On the other more civilised side which we call Singapore, we caught up with Sarah, Aunty Chua and family. It was a good learning experience to sit down and chat with them as they shared their life experiences in Singapore. 

If you guys have not seen them for a while, there you go. Sarah and Alex have two beautiful daughters, the other two older ones were their cousins who came by during the school holidays.


That night, Alex graciously took us to dinner at Dian Xiao Er, which is a Chinese restaurant chain at a mall somewhere at Ang Mo Kio I think. Sarah, please confirm!


No, it wasn't a drive-in restaurant. I just thought you needed to see this picture of how systematic & technologically advanced Singapore is. The red light changes to green if there's a vacant parking lot. So you can actually spot an empty lot from far away. I think Spring needs to learn a few things from here.


For a moment there I thought I was watching Little Nyonya.


The four of us shared a set meal which included these:

Dong Po Meat ~ This is one good dish here. Very moist and tender with all the fat and meat intact, which says good cooking skills.

Steamed garoupa fish, I think ~ nicely done.


Kailan with a tinge of kaffir lime. Something we have not had before. Interesting and pretty addictive actually.

Brocolli with mushrooms ~ nothing to shout about.

Dian Xiao Er soup of the day.


This is supposed to be their signature herbal duck dish. 
The herbs came out pretty strong alright.

We definitely think Dian Xioa Er is worth visiting for the few interesting dishes that they have. We of course ate and wiped our mouths while Alex graciously footed the bill. So we're not quite sure how much the food here costs. Thank you, Alex and Sarah for feeding us.

Then as we walked out of the restaurant, we spotted a Singapore kiasu line which snaked all the way to a Durian pancake stall.

Whenever there's a line at a food stall, we knew it had to be something good. So Nee got a bunch of those Durian puffs.

And those puffs were dangerous. They were pure 100% durians and they could kill.

Next post: Banyan Tree Bintan Island

5 comments:

NYMacMom w 3 said...

Confirmed, it's at the VERY happening place of ANG MO KIO HUB. Glad you guys liked the local fair...am waiting for the BANYAN experience with baited breath. May be our next time yet! keke!

terri@adailyobsession said...

we ate at dian xiao er too, good food. ah, singapore. what can they not do properly n better than us. the only thing i can think of is they too lack freedom of speech. and they speak funny chinese n english. but at least they are doing everthing else right. they don't hav many unis but 2 of the unis are world-ranked. their airline is top in the world. their $ is more than twice the value of ours. even their trees grow better than ours. but most of all, their people are not constantly reminded of their different races. lee kuan yew, despite n in spite of the lack of natural resources, brought singapore to the level n standard it is today. malaysia, with abundant resources, is like the prodigal son who squandered everything away. when will the prodigal son wake up?

Greg Wee said...

That's a pretty good perspective. You basically summed it all up. I think Sarah would definitely agree with you!

Anonymous said...

puffs... mmm... durian... mmmm...

NYMacMom w 3 said...

Okay...so when are you guys moving over?

The girls are saying, "Thanks Uncle Greg for calling us beautiful girls! keke!"

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