
Thursday - Arab Street

Wedneday- Visit to China town
Hectic Tuesday

Sleepy Monday
Jurong bird park
TIP: Scrolling around the park would take more than 2-3 hours. So make sure to come earlier so that you can spend more time mingling with birds. And one can still have time to relax in one of their huts while watching the birds and listening to their symphony. Personally, seen different kinds of birds only in pictures and books. It really awakens our childhood desires. My son enjoyed a lot. We had to carry stroller up and down the stairs many a times. Although it was bit tiring but MUCH better on foot, at our own pace. Overall, spent fabulous day with birds of different species from different countries at one place. Best part is the whole area is very green and serene.
Day-3 Sentosa visit
Friday - Black Peper Crab
First day @ Singapore
Cost cutting Travel and more
I ensured to share the same feedback to SIA website and hope for the better service next time.
Fresh Tomato Soup

Till far only soup ever tried to make was carrot soup in Paris that too in bleak winter. Big thanks to my French Teacher for sharing the recipe en Français. Recently, went to local vegetable market; seeing tomato got so tempted that without thinking bought two kilos. Then I brainstormed a bit to think and idea of soup came as an escape. Here is my 2 cents recipe. If craving for something sweet and sour at the same time just have a bowl of creamy tomato soup to satisfy your desire as an appetizer.
- One kilo Tomato – boiled, peeled and deseeded.
- Two/three carrots – chopped to tiny pieces.
- One big Onion finely chopped
- Few cloves of garlic
- One red chili
- One Bay leaf
- ½ tsp cumin seeds
- Black pepper
- Nutmeg
- 2 tbsp Olive oil / ½ tbsp butter
- Juice from one fresh Orange
- Low fat cream or thick yoghurt
- Dried Basil / Parsley leaves - optional
- Salt to taste
Heat the oil/ butter and fry cumin seeds, bay leaf, garlic and onion with pinch of salt. When onion turns golden, add carrots and continue frying at low flame. Once carrot is tender add tomato and fry for few minutes
Make puree in a grinder (remove bay leaf before). Add water according to thickness required. Put the blended soup back in the pan. Bring to boil and cook for 5 minutes on medium heat. Now add freshly squeezed orange juice and cream after removing from heat. Season it with nutmeg and fresh black pepper. Garnish with a couple of parsley or basil sprigs if any and serve hot with either croutons or bread slice.

Best news is “Bread-Talk” boutique has recently opened at Vashi. It is a famous bakery chain from Singapore and they do cater good quality of various breads as well as desserts. But sadly, the dessert I got from there was too creamy, spongy and sugary. I will say tasteless to my taste buds as these kinds of pastries are very popular throughout India. After tasting European pastries, I find these one as - concept of western baked goods mixed with Asian ingenuity makes cool looking pastries that are hit-and-miss at certain point. While multi-cereal bread which I got was awesome.
Back from trip

Well, I am back to Bombay from my official visit after four weeks stay in Singapore. There are lots of pictures from the trip, but as I did not visit any vista-points or sight-seeing points as tourist rather which ever crossed my path got snapped. Will post them soon. Note: this picture is not from Mumbai Airport but from Kolkata(Calcutta)
Exploring…bits n bites II

Continuing from my last post I like to share a great experience I had. It was a sudden plan and I was tagged along with my instructor who in-turn was invited by a local Singaporean colleague after work for dinner. It was buffet for a fixed price at Marina Bay Shopping Mall. The crowd was very young far-eastern or North-Asians. Sorry guys, I could not figure out who is Chinese, Japanese, Koreans or just Singaporeans…as they all looked alike and age-wise they looked like high school or college students to me. Thankfully, our local guy made a reservation otherwise we might had to wait in long queue.
I started with some sea foods; I tried Oysterr for the first time. It was OK but did not found the delicacy as it is said in France - a key component of fruit-de-la-mer (fruits of the sea or sea food - in this except shrimps and prawns rest all like oysters, clams, mussels, whelks, and periwinkles come raw). If I am not wrong the concept is same in Kerala (south-most state in India) where any fish is treated almost the same. Being a Bong- I am a lover offresh river fish.

In the second round, I opted for Japanese sushi and sashimi which I love and can have a lot. For many, it is raw fish (actually firm but melt-in-your-mouth when you bite it). To me it tastes delicious when dipped in Shoyu (Soya sauce), speck of Wasabi (very strong, hot flavoured green mustard) and with gari (thin-sliced sweet pickeled ginger). Ocassionally at end it is accompanied by sake-japanese liquor.
While I was enjoying the same my colleague’s girlfriend had turtle skin soup. It seems that it is very good for female skin according to Chinese belief. Well well… all big cats of Asia are almost extinct due to high demand from such Chinese myth. But I kept my WWF conservation “fundas” with me while my colleague enjoyed fish-head which has same realm of myth.

To conclude, I think I beat every one when it comes to desserts which were really yum. Unfortunately, I did not had enough room left for ice-creams which they had so many varieties to choose from. But, indeed it was a great dinner.
Exploring…Bits n Bites
Singapore has so many ethnic cuisines to offer for its natives that you have to stay long to explore all the corners. Food is highly influenced by Malaysian, Chinese, Indonesian and none other but South Indian too. Even annually Singapore government organizes “Singapore Food Festival” in month of July. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of it. When it is a matter of food I consider myself to be “not a typical desi” sticking only to one variety of food. I love to explore as much as I can. But of course at same time I try to avoid certain meat other then duck, chicken, turkey,lamb or goat. So, after that only sausages or bacons can make way to my plate with choice rest I do not like to taste due to various personal reasons. Well, please do not be surprised as I went very specific with meat. As, according to French there are so many delicious delicacies to taste ; that do not think only about Chinese or Korean if you are a vegetarian.
Recently, I had Red chilli chicken from a western wok at my lunch. For lunch, we have a food court opposite to our Singapore office. It is not specific to any company; it seems there are few others nearby as well. Variation ranges from Indian to Japanese to even cross-cultural fusion. So a lot to choose from if you can figure out. I am not sure sometime what they have as main-ingredients. But this dish was simple to order as it said red chili chicken with rice. But, astonishing part was the numbers of chilies it had. At first, I was bit skeptical about its spiciness with so many chillies in plate but later I took a bite of one of those and found they are not as hot as they looked. A Good experience indeed:D.

The second picture of Fish curry is from a food court eatery; the curry was excellent… very close to Indian kind but then the down hill journey started for me. They said - you can choose two veggies as side dish and I opted for Spinach and peanut sauce. I specifically asked about the Peanut one as they mentioned it will be melange of sweet and sour savour. When I was ordering my plate it looked like that sauce had some sprouts but thank god I am not a vegetarian - infact it had some dry fish. But, as a whole this side-dish was a big thumbs down which changed my taste-buds …yuck!!! :.(
Sale

A four letter word of our modern consumerism; like all other 4 letters words this is very commonly used.
The first time I was introduced to this was back in USA on Labor Day weekend (1st week of September-’98). In US, every long weekend brings a SALE. Size of weekend supplement of news-paper increases with advertisement from cars to toys. Not only that even you get constant reminder from Macy’s to Wal-mart on your radio while you drive your car.
In France or continental Europe, it is different; the retail store only has two sales in a year normally for cloths. In July, it is to clear spring and summer collections and get ready for autumn and winter while in February to make room for summer. But never happen to notice for car or computer; may be I was not looking for car.
Now, when I reached Singapore, two weeks before big summer sale was going on. One such place is Orchard Road which is known for its retail and entertainment centre. This Orchard Road is flanked by malls (houses brand boutiques), restaurants, cafe, nightclubs and hotels This picture was taken inside of Takashimaya -the famous Japanese super store.

Reading the article in Wikipedia it became clear why there are so many sign on the side-walk with fruits it seems it used to be fruit orchards in 1800s. Well, people say the same about bay area where there was Orchard once -around 1960ies before it became Silicon Valley.
Shop till you drop

I took this picture last Sunday; when I tried to kill my boring rainy afternoon with a cup of coffee at Starbucks. There is a big project to make Singapore full with Hot-Spots; currently it is in BETA testing mode and all you need to do is sign-up with Sing-Tel or StarHub or M1(not sure) the three main Wireless provider ; the back-end services is provided by iCell and Qmax networks.
As Singapore is famous for its shopping center. This picture I took to capture shopping weariness of this guy as he drops on sofa at Starbucks after shopping at Mustafa Centre. It is a shopping paradise open for 24hrs. in Little-India area of Singapore which is very famous among locals as well Indian tourists alike. They even claim at weekend the store is packed with more then 15,000 customers of all nationalities. Well, while his lady partner was quite busy on her mobile phone, it allowed me to take this picture (invasion of sleep if not privacy). Personally, I do always complain about my feet hurting and headache whenever I am in a shopping mall but never dropped yet this way.
Arrived Singapore

Reached Singapore on a business trip for about 26 days. Will try to post more often as I explore Singapore from my angle.
Bombay International Airport

Bombay International Airport is always under construction as far as my International travels are concerned. Good news is that it is getting better and the completion date is getting closer. Here, are the pictures for the same as I waited for my flight to Singapore.Though the pictures looks quite world class construction work; but on the ground it may be not …quality wise.

