Udders Ice Cream

Do you remember my ice cream making days back in France ? Do you remember much fun I had experimenting with new flavors ? I had obviously forgotten cos I didn't pack my ice cream maker when we moved. Silly me. Anyway, back in those days I love adding alcohol to my ice cream - my favorite then was peach & rose wine. Doesn't that spells summer ?

Given my bias towards alcohol laced ice cream, it's no wonder that I'm in love with this charming little ice cream shop next to United Square called Udders that serves flavors like baileys & bourbon, rum rum raisin (double shot rum) & lychee martini (Adelyne I'm thinking of you).

A huge blackboard fills up an entire wall. A wide range of flavors are listed & customers are encouraged to vote for their favorite flavors to be considered for R&D. As you can see, there is a whole section devoted to liqueur flavors - now you know why I love this place. Reading the board has stirred up my ice cream making mojo - I need to get X to bring over my ice cream maker.

I love everything about this place. They even have cute names for their flavors like gila melaka, green tea-rrific & tira-miss-u

You can be sure they'll be seeing a lot of us.

Udders
155 Thomson Road
(next to United Square)

Yum yum dim sum

When we were kids, we used to have dim sum every weekend. I remember eagerly looking out for our favorite trolley to come by. Pity these trolleys are becoming a rarity at dim sum restaurants. Nowadays they are more efficient. Just tick your choices on a list & they'll bring them to your table.

I did attempt to make my own in France - remember my not so successful attempt at char siew bao, slightly more successful lor bak go and the tedious but oh so satisfying chee cheong fun. But no way are my efforts close to what the dim sum shifus churn out.

Here are my favorites & we wouldn't walk out of a dim sum restaurant without ordering these.

Har Gows / Shrimp dumplings

Char Siew Bao / Roast Pork Bun

What's dim sum without the Chilli Oil

Lor Bak Go / Fried radish cake

Fu Pei Keun / Dried Bean Curd Wraps

Hor Yip Fan / Lotus leaf chicken

In case you're wondering where we usually have dim sum, we always go to the same few places - Crystal Jade, Shang Palace & East Ocean. But we've recently discovered Old Hong Kong @ Novena. The food & service is excellent. If you do go, don't forget to order the longan & red date date (as shown above). We just went there last weekend & a meal for 4A & 1C came up to S$70.

Yeah to free concerts

Since we had so much fun at the Singapore River Festival, I thought it was time to see what else was available. I remember reading somewhere that the Esplanade has an outdoor theatre that is often used as a venue for concerts.

Currently the programme is Beats & Breaks II featuring local hip hop bands - wouldn't be my first choice but hey you can't say I don't expose my daughter to a variety of music genres. Besides, I'm all for supporting local bands.

Last Friday, after I picked The Girl up from school, we headed over there for dinner first. I didn't know there were so many dining options at the Esplanade. Unfortunately the one we went to was not very good so I will not even mention it here. Don't you hate having a bad meal - life is too short to be wasted on bad meals.

After dinner, we made our way to the outdoor theatre which already had quite a crowd gathered by then. These local hip hop bands have quite a following. Of course, I have no idea who they are. However what they may lack in finesse is totally make up for in energy. It didn't take long for the crowd to be singing, rapping, dancing & moving along with them. Even I found myself tapping to the beat. The little one had a ball.

Meanwhile, as they were performing, the NDP rehearsals were also going on full force at Marina Bay which meant we got excellent view of the boats (see top picture of the "paper boat") as they paraded past.

As we were heading back, we chanced upon another concert at the concourse. Jazz with Rachma & friends. It couldn't have been more different than the outdoor concert we had just been. The setting was cozy & felt more like sitting in someone's living room & enjoying an impromptu jamming session.

The concert before was clearly The Girl's favorite but this one was for me.

After an evening of hip hop & jazz, I left knowing that we are going to have a great time in Singapore.

Back to nature

I can't believe it took us so long before we visited the Botanical Gardens. You would have thought that since we lived in the countryside for 5 years, we would have been there sooner. Well at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I'm going to blame it on the humidity again.

So last Sunday, I thought enough's enough. I really have to brave the heat & bring The Girl there. I believe it was SIG (thank you) who recommended that we go to the Jacob Ballas Children's Garden.

Walking to the Children's Garden, we came across a foot reflexology path. After explaining what it was, The Girl, without any hesitation, took off her shoes & started running up & down barefooted. That's my girl, alright.




She was extremely curious and would stop me often to ask what the trees & plants were. Thank god the Botanical Garden is great about naming everything. I'd forgotten that they also have many fruit trees. It has been ages since I last saw a jackfruit tree.

The Girl gingerly walking across the suspension bridge

The Jacob Ballas Children's Garden is the outdoor equivalent of the Science Centre. Lots of interactive stuff for kids to play with - like cranking the dial to generate mist

The Girl is all wet not because she was perspiring but because she had just been to the Water area. I didn't pack a swim suit & I couldn't say no to her especially since it was hot so I just let her play in her panties (therefore no pictures).

I wasn't entirely ill equipped, I did pack a picnic lunch & mat. We found a nice spot to have a picnic amongst the trees. As we're munching our lunch, I was thinking to myself why had it taken us so long to come here.

I had gone there thinking that we would be there for an hour, max 2 hours. We were there for 5 hours. She wanted to touch, feel & try everything.

The tree house was a big hit. She generally doesn't like to participate in any activity if there are too many kids around. But we went there just after a passing shower so it was empty. She could run around to her heart's content well at least until the other kids started to show up.



Then after that, she insisted on going to feed the swans. So we made our way across the Botanical Gardens again, looking for Swan Lake. Now you know why we were there for 5 hours, that & the ice cream break.

There I was feeling pretty proud of myself for having the foresight to bring a loaf of bread to feed the fishes. Until I met a family who not only brought loaves (plural) of bread but also bags of vegetables. Remember the swans in Geneva who loves bread, their Singaporean cousins would have none of that, they only eat leafy vegetables. The family has another little girl too. It wasn't long before they became friends & they very kindly offered The Girl bread & veggies for the marathon feeding session.

We had so much fun that we exchanged numbers & promised to have another play date there soon.

Mad about dinosaurs

One particular show stood out amongst the offerings for the recent Children's Season. Dinosaurs in the Garden by Erth Visual & Physical. You might have read in the papers about how dinosaurs were let loose on the streets of Singapore as a publicity stunt, well that's them.

This is an Australian group & together with their dinosaurs, travel all over the world. The dinosaurs are very well made life sized puppets, of course. The stage was filled with inflatable plant life that existed in the jurassic age. The presenter (I forgot his name) was very entertaining but not only that, gave lots of snippets of dinosaur facts.

Almost every kid I know is mad about dinosaurs. Maybe because they don't exist anymore ? I've never seen a more enthusiastic bunch at a show. There were no shortage of kids wanting to go on stage to pet the dinosaurs, to tell jokes or even to put their head inside one (scary even if it's just a puppet).

I close this post by sharing a joke told by one of the kids

Question : What do you call a sleeping dinosaur ?
Answer : A dino-snore

abalone noodles

Since returning, I've been eating noodles as if they were going out of fashion. Fishball noodles, beef noodles, wanton mee, bak chor mee, laksa, mee siam, fish head noodles - I don't crave for rice the way I do for noodles.

My current fave are these abalone noodles that my friend Ian brought back from Hong Kong. I've always loved the HK har tse meen (prawn flavored noodles) but abalone noodles is new to me. They come individually packed with a small seasoning packet that has bits of abalone in them.

Just throw in some wontons (I don't make them myself anymore, I buy them fresh or frozen), veggies and serve them Hong Kong style with red vinegar & lee kum kee chilli sauce.

River fun

Who knew Singapore could be so much fun ? Sorry but I did leave 18 years ago & way back then, there weren't outdoor concerts, late nights at the museums nor river festivals. I like that organisers here are trying to replicate what is very common in Europe - the summer festivals.

Randomly trawling the internet brought me to the Singapore River Festival website. Free ice cream. Great. Free entrance to the museum. Great. Free cuban jazz concert. Wow. Free mojitos. I'm so going there.


As we made our way there, there were street performers trying to entice people to the events. The Girl enjoyed watching them but was too shy to have a picture taken with them.

The lawn in front of the Asian Civilisations Museum was transformed into a big lounge area with picnic mats & cushions. I thought it was also pretty cool with the skyscrappers in the background. So we made ourselves comfortable as we watched dance performances by local dance groups. Pity I didn't have the foresight to prepare a picnic basket. There were stands selling food but nothing seemed interesting so we headed over to Indochine for a bowl of pho bo.

As part of the festivities, the Asian Civilisations Museum is offering free entry from 5 pm to midnight on Friday evenings. A good reason to check out the Kangxi exhibit which has been extended (probably because of this). Want more reasons to go there ? Free ice cream & free mojitos (you have to collect the stickers & tags when you enter the gallery).

Since Singaporeans can always sniff out freebies, be sure to go early cos it can get really crowded & then they start controlling the numbers going into the gallery.

Throughout the night, the museum would be lighted up & the walls outside become the canvas for an amazing light show.


Bacardi, the sponsor of the free mojitos, is launching their 1st Mojito Fiesta. We were lucky we got our mojitos early cos by 9.30, they were already out of mojitos. The free mojitos were limited to 1 per person but you could still buy them at $10 a pop & we were quite willing to do so cos they were yummy. Not quite like the ones we make but still yummy. After dinner when we asked, they had already run out (bad planning) & they were only serving rum & coke.

With our cuba libres, we sat outside on the lawn as beautifully lighted bum boats sail by & enjoy the music of the Cuban band. The Girl was dancing away to the salsa beats & I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

That was a great sundown party. If only I could end the work week like that every Friday.