I’m super late in sharing these images taken of some of our favorite fruits in Singapore. That trip jumpstarted something in Ben, it made him obsessed with rare and exotic fruits. His obsession has only gotten worse since he’s part of the California Rare Fruit Grower’s Association, and a viewing of The Fruit Hunters just continued to magnify his craze. Since our visit to Singapore last June, he’s been researching and filling our yard with some of the fruits we first tried in there. We can’t grow all the ones we loved because of our climate (to include a lack of humidity needed for some), but for the ones we can grow, he’s working on it!

Visiting the wet market was probably his favorite thing to do there. When I was teaching workshops, he loved walking around the markets. He would come back with bags full of fruit for us to try. Now that I think about it, when we honeymooned in Fiji, he loved walking around the markets there too!

Top photo (clockwise, from top left): Wax Jambu (we’re growing it!), but not growing the rest (Rambutan, Lychee, and Mangosteen – oh, but how we WISH we could grow Mangosteen!)

Next four photos: (1) Passionfruit (on left – we’re growing it!); Custard Apple (on right); (2 & 3) Dragon Fruit (not growing it, but it’s very drought resistant); (4) clockwise, from top – Passionfruit, Dragon Fruit, and Custard Apple

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel deserves its own post. It’s an impressive building and currently the most expensive in the world. You get near it and your jaw drops at how expansive it is. There are three (tall!) towers and what looks like a ship on the top. On our last day, Ben, Abby, and I ventured all the way up. When I say venture, it means we paid a nice fee to have an elevator quickly take us to their Sky Park.

Once you get to the top, you have to pause to catch your breath, especially if you’re afraid of heights. You’re just in awe of the gorgeous view and how extremely high up you are. Then you get close to the glass ledge, and you get a little freaked out when you look down. If your imagination starts going wild, like mine was, you slowly inch your way back to the center. Ben couldn’t even get himself to the ledge, and I needed to coax him for the pictures. We planned our trip to the top right around sunset, so we could we enjoy our last evening in Singapore by having a bird’s eye view of this special country. The view was absolutely breathtaking and it was the best way to spend our last evening there. We didn’t ride the Singapore Flyer in favor of spending our money to go to the top of the MBS, and I’m glad we made that decision.

One thing we really wanted to do was to go to the infinity pool of the hotel, but you have to be a guest at the hotel to go. We looked up what one night might be, and yeah… not in the budget. We didn’t want to go that badly.

The hotel also puts on an impressive light show in the evenings. While we were on the Sky Park deck, people were just waiting on the around for it. I’m sure the view from the top would have been beautiful, but we wanted to spend our last few hours in the city eating, so we skipped out watching the light show. Plus, we already saw it a few days prior from the Esplanade Plaza. I’m sure the view from the top was better, but we were still awed by the spectacular light show from where we were.

If you want to read more of our adventures is Singapore, check out the hawker food culture, all the food we ate, around town, their plant nurseries, more around town, and their wet markets.

Warning: this is the longest food post of life. Seriously. When we went to Singapore, we wanted to dive into as much of the culture as possible, and one of the best ways is through food, right?! So we tried everything and anything! Stingray, cockles, mutton (you’re probably saying, “Say what?!”), and the list goes on and on. I’m going to share with you what we tried and some of what we thought. I couldn’t remember what I thought exactly about every dish, but if I didn’t like it, it sticks out, and I mention it below. Otherwise, I liked it! If you ever happen to find yourself on that sunny little island, this should help you navigate what to fill your tummy with, but like we tell our girls, don’t ever knock it until you’ve tried it.

Masala Thosai (Dosai) from the Tekka Market in Little India.

Wonton Noodle Soup from the Golden Mile Food Centre.

Bak Chor Mee from People’s Park Food Centre.

Clay Pot Chicken Rice from Golden Mile Food Centre.

Wanton Mee from Golden Mile Food Centre. Another delicious noodle dish.

Chwee Kueh from Tiong Bahru Market. This was the one dish we weren’t fond of. We had a bite and that was all we needed.

Soon Kueh from Tiong Bahru Market. My friend Abby brought us some for breakfast and I devoured it!

Chendol Cupcake from 40 Hands Cafe. It was different, not moist, but still tasty. There aren’t many desserts I don’t like though.

Tom Yum Seafood Soup from Golden Mile Food Centre.

Carrot Cake from People’s Park Food Centre. It’s not your American carrot cake, this is a vegetable dish, not a dessert. Ben and I both liked it and I’d like to try and recreate it at home, probably with a little less oil though.

Durian Ice Kachang, Cheng Tng, and Bo Bo Cha Cha from People’s Park Food Centre. They all tasted good, but my favorite might have been the durian one. Durian is strong, but after the initial taste, you get used to it. The burps that ensue afterwards isn’t as nice though, fair warning.

Teh Halia and Teh Masala from Tekka Market in Little India. It was hot as heck, but it didn’t stop of us from having these warm drinks. I loved the spices in them!

Otak Otak from Katong Laksa. Yes, this was delicious! It has a little bit of spice, and yes it looks a bit like spam; it is made from fish (a sort of fish cake) and has a totally different flavor from spam.

Roti John from People’s Park Food Centre.

Halwa from Tekka Market in Little India. Interesting flavor and texture, but I found it a little too sweet, and I love sweet, so this tells you this was really sweet.

Mee Goreng from Tekka Market in Little India. I pretty much loved all the noodle dishes we had in Singapore. This wasn’t saucy, but it was very flavorful.

Fish Nasi Briyani from Tekka Market in Little India.

Kambing Soup from Tekka Market in Little India.

Pulut Hitam from Island Creamery. Even ice cream in Singapore is so good!

Satay from People’s Park Food Centre. I love satay! But I guess you can already tell from this post, that I love a lot of food.

Laksa from Katong Laksa. We actually had this twice, so I can’t remember if this was from the first place or second, but both were so good. This was by far my favorite dish in Singapore. Well, it was tied with the Singaporean Ramen from Noodle Story. I have a couple packets of boxed laksa, so I can try to recreate it at home.

Ondeh Ondeh from Maxwell Centre. I wish I could have brought boxes of this dessert home with me! It’s type of a rice flour cake (I think) covered in coconut flakes.  I just love how Asian desserts aren’t overwhelmingly sweet like American desserts tend to be.

Fresh Coconut from Chinatown. This was so refreshing to drink while walking around in the sweltering heat.

Ah Balling Soup from Golden Mile Food Centre. This was so good! I loved it so much that I now go to the local Asian market to stock up on frozen peanut balls to have it when I get the craving. My friend Abby shared a recipe here and I want to try it!

Chili Crab from Jumbo Seafood in the East Coast Lagoon (I think). I love crab. Give me crab, rice, and butter, and I’m in the zone, so this dish hit the right spot.

Singaporean Ramen from A Noodle Story at the Amoy Food Centre. The presentation and the flavors totally won me. I really miss this dish so much. If I ever find myself in Singapore again, I would head to the Amoy Centre as soon as I was able and get another bowl of this delicious dish. We wanted to go back on our last day there, but they were closed that day.

Dim Sum from Tim Ho Wan. We went to Tim Ho Wan for lunch this day after walking all over the place, and we were starving. I texted my friend Abby our location to see what would be the best place to eat, and this is what she suggested. I love dim sum and this did not disappoint!

Chicken Rice from Maxwell Food Centre. This was Ben’s favorite dish. I think he had it two more times when he went off by himself as I taught classes.

Sambal Sting Ray from Makansutra Gluttons by Bay. It’s similar to fish, but denser, and we love the flavors of the paste on top.

Hokkien Mee from Makansutra Gluttons by Bay. I thought it was good, but Ben didn’t like this so much.

Roti Prata from Chinatown. I would love to try and make this at home.

Fresh Coconut Ice Cream from Co Nut Ink outside of Esplanade. I enjoyed this treat as we watched the light show from Marina Bay Sands.

Obviously, we ate a lot. Looking at the pictures again, I notice there were some other dishes we ate that I didn’t get pictures of. We had 7 full days in Singapore and we enjoyed every bit of it. Ben, who is really picky with food because he likes to make sure he eats healthy (all the time), was totally game for anything, and he tried everything too! There’s only one dish above that we really didn’t like, but everything else was pretty good. We came home craving some of the food, so I immediately started recreating some of the dishes (with a healthier slant of course).

We were lucky enough to have the Bloesem team to get us started on our food quests, and our friend, Abby, was our personal tour guide 90% of the time, and she took us all over the place. When we did venture off on our own, this blog helped guide us (along with some tips a few of you shared too!). Oh Singapore, how we miss your diverse and delicious dishes! 

Dear Singaporean friends,
If I got any of the dishes wrong (or spelled wrong), please correct me.
Love, Ruby

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We ate so much in Singapore! There are hawker centers all over the city, which are outdoor food courts of sorts, and they are filled with a wide array of food. Singapore’s cuisine is very diverse, a good mirror of the people and culture in Singapore. There’s a lot of Malay, Chinese, Indian influences (and plenty more cultural influences) in the cuisine and out of all the food we tried, there was just one dish we couldn’t go past one bite.

Each day in Singapore was basically a food tour of the various hawker centers. For one of our lunches there, we even hit up two different hawker centers! Of course, we did other tourist things (see here and here), but the highlight of it all was the food (and the people we became friends with). We went to hawker center after hawker center, and even within one hawker center, we would try a few dishes from one aisle, then move over and try more from the next aisle. I’m thankful that the ladies at Bloesem gave us good tips, and my friend Abby took us to all the best places to experience all the delicious dishes Singapore has to offer.

We learned about “chopping” that would happen at the food centers. “Chopping” is when people would leave a tissue (or a pack of tissue), and I’ve even seen someone leave their work badge, on the table to signify that the seat was taken, and people would respect that. It looked like this… you would enter the food center, find an open table or spot, place your tissue, then walk away to go order your food, and once you have your food, you come back to your tissue and sit down. Everyone knew that seat was spoken for and it was respected. By day 2 of our time at the food centers, we were participating in the seat “chopping” too.

Another thing we learned are meals are more of a community thing among friends. We’re used to each ordering our own dish, and eating our own dish, and maybe sharing a bite or two with each other if we ask. In Singapore, if you’re there with a group of friends, it’s more common to put the food in the middle and just share everything, no asking necessary. It’s not a “this is mine that is yours” kind of deal, but we all share the dishes together. Again, by day 2, we were totally participating in community meals with our friend Abby.

I have so much more to share about the food there, so there will be an entire post (and it will be really long!) dedicated to all the foods we ate there. Seriously, ever since Singapore, I’ve had a deeper appreciation and love for Asian food.

This is more of us roaming around Singapore, and you get a one picture of us with our bowls of food (we ate so much there!). There will probably be two more posts just of all the different food we tried; we wanted to try as many new dishes as we could! Ben and I seriously walked everywhere, as well as the MRT (their subway system), and my friend, Abby (pictured above), was the best tour guide. Not only did she take us all over the place, she knew so much about Singaporean history and we loved hearing all her stories. All her stories made this country come alive for us even more, and it deepened our appreciation for this city/country.

Pictured above is Haji Lane, Chinatown, Botanic Gardens, Fountain of Wealth, and more bits of Singapore.

Of course, besides the plant nursery, Ben would love the place where you can buy all sorts of fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats! He went by himself the first time (I was prepping for my classes), and he came back with $15 worth of fruits that we had never tried before! We also pretty much ate all the fruit in one sitting. We had rambutan, lychees, custard apple, mangosteen (my fave!), dragon fruit, and water apple. We didn’t venture to try durian (though I did have a durian dessert!). He took me back to the Tiong Bahru wet market a few days later and I loved looking at all the different things they were selling. Totally different from our farmers markets for sure!

It was so humid and steamy that once I took my camera out snap some pictures, my lens was completely covered in fog. That’s why that first picture looks somewhat cloudy, and I had to keep wiping the fog away to take more pictures!