Monthly Archives: April 2017

Singapore adventures – land of the green, humid and beautifully predictable rain patterns

Okay. Now that I’ve settled down a bit, I’m going to do my best to recount my Singapore, Japan and Sydney adventures.

This will be a very long post I think, considering it’s the first time I’ve been, and because there’s 72 pictures without coffee and stuff. Here goes nothing!

I’ve wanted to go to Singapore for a while, and what better reason to go than a stopover while on the way to Japan. I wasn’t sure exactly how many days I’d need there – all I knew was that I wanted more than an 8 hour overnight stopover. It turns out 4 days is about right, one more day would have been good too. The main reason being, there’s only so much you can eat in a single day!

The first thing I noticed as soon as I entered the airport was that it was green. There were plants in the airport! And it turns out there are plants outside the airport too! It’s such a green place! The humidity wasn’t too much of a shock to the system considering Sydney was stupidly humid earlier. In fact, I ended up really likingĀ how the humidity changed throughout the day because it made the rain predictable. I think that was one of my favourite things about Singapore! Does that make me weird?

For day one, I’d already marked a cafe to go to – Common Man Coffee. What I hadn’t realised was that cafes here open late. By late, I mean that Common Man opened at 7:30am. I’m so used to cafes in Sydney opening anytime between 5am – 6:30am that this actually made me deliberately shift my waking hours. The coffee stuff will be in a separate post, so I won’t elaborate too much more on it here.

Instead, let’s talk about the streets!

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Waku Ghin

Finally. Just under 6 years after my first fine dining experience at Tetsuya’s, I finally made it to Waku Ghin. Technically that makes it the restaurant I’ve had on my wishlist for the longest! I almost didn’t go ahead with the booking though. I knew that it was potentially expensive, but I didn’t expect it to be Noma level expensive! At 450SGD plus tax and service charges, it would be my second most expensive meal to date. But, I had to go, because it closes my Tetsuya loop.

First of all, the booking process was essentially the same as that of Tetsuya’s. I emailed them, they emailed me back, I filled in my credit card details, they secured me a table. Now it was just a matter of waiting.

Then on the 28th of March, it was finally time to trek to Marina Bay Sands and check out the amazing complex. It turns out even with instructions, I’m bad at navigating indoors. It took me a few goes to finally get to the elevator that went up to the restaurant floor. Then, I was somewhat baffled because Waku Ghin’s door wasn’t open so I didn’t see that there was a door! I walked all the way around and back before realising there was a handle and that all I had to do was push.

As I walked in, they greeted me by name. I was a little suprised by this, but then figured they were able to deduce this by the fact I was dining solo, and because I booked the earliest time. I was lead into a small room that seated about 5-6 people, in front of a shiny, super clean hot plate which looked a lot like we were going to experience a teppanyaki style dinner. Being alone, I decided it was a good idea to ask if I could take pictures. They said yes, just no flash photography or filming. They also brought a bag hook over so that I could place my bag somewhere.

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Cirrus

There are two seafood restaurants that are quite noteworthy at the moment – Cirrus, and Saint Peter. For me, I’d read more about Cirrus, but Saint Peter seemed to be the more interesting restaurant even though I didn’t know much about the history of the chef. In my Sydney visit, I wanted to go to Saint Peter more, but the location wasn’t ideal for a dinner due to limited public transport options. In the end, I settled for a brunch visit to Saint Peter, and chose dinner at Cirrus.

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Firedoor

Ok, finally time to start posting about all my fantastic adventures! I really hope I haven’t forgotten too much. I’ve decided I should do all the restaurants first, then Singapore, then Japan, and Sydney last. Maybe. Only because Sydney is already so familiar.

Firedoor. The story with Firedoor is that when it opened, I added it to my list. Communal tables, cooking with fire, what more could you want? But then it never really made the top of the list for some reason. A year or so later, I got linked an article which claims Firedoor has one of the world’s best steaks and was expensive, and aged in its own kidney fat. That didn’t really get my curiosity going enough to bump it up either. It wasn’t until I was looking at the cost of booking Burnt Ends in Singapore that I realised, I don’t need to fork out three times as much for an expensive restaurant there, when I could get the “same” thing here for much less! And that’s how I finally went to Firedoor.

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