Dead Sea Scrolls in Singapore

A scroll made of animal skin

Some 60 years ago, fragments of the what is now known as Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 11 caves off the Dead Sea. Scholars have pieced them together to make up some 900 documents - some of which are text from the Bible.

I suppose if I were more of a history buff or more religious, I might have been more interested in the exhibition. Given all the hype, I was a little disappointed.

For one, there were only 4 small fragments of the actual Dead Sea Scrolls that were on display. Having said that, it does give you an idea of the ardous task of piecing all these fragments together to form even one manuscript.


When we arrived, we were the only ones there so I was surprised to learn that they were selling tickets by time slots to control the crowd. I heard the exhibition was popular, I just didn't realise how popular.

After we bought our tickets, we were ushered into a screening room for a short video providing us with some background info.

The exhibition was divided into 3 rooms & once enough people has gathered in one, a guide would come forward to give a commentary.


After my initial disappointment with the 4 fragments, the rest of the exhibits were quite interesting. Think of it as the evolution of the bible. There were many ancient copies written in Hebrew, French, German, English etc.

The activity room

Icewine

I was surprised to find out that X has never heard of ice wine before. I suppose that's because there aren't any in France.

Ice wine is so named because this is wine that is made with grapes that have been frozen whilst still on the vine. Since the water content in the grapes are frozen, it produces a more concentrated wine & therefore sweeter. I've always associated Canada with ice wine but apparently Germany is a big producer too.

Generally served as a dessert wine. We enjoyed our bottle, courtesy of my sister in law, after a very hearty meal.

we love crabs

I know I know. It has been 2 weeks since I last updated but we were in Bali. It's hard to think about blogging when you are in the Island of the Gods. Until I sort out the pictures & can gather my thoughts together, here are some posts from before the trip.

Do you think I've mentioned often enough how much we love crabs ?

At this point, I should tell you a little story. About 5 years ago, a french man & a pregnant woman decided to prepare a crab meal for the woman's brother's birthday dinner. They proceeded to Tekka market to buy the crabs (live of course), kept them in the sink until it was time to prepare them. In the meantime, the woman started to go into labour & had to be rushed off to the hospital.

The next day, after giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, the couple remembered the abandoned crabs. The man promptly went back to find them crawling all over the apartment, caught them & prepared a wonderful meal of black pepper crabs which he then brought to the hospital to be shared with woman who had just given birth (yup I broke the confinement rule book big time as well as caused several raised eyebrows at the hospital) & her brother (it was afterall his birthday). Need I mention again, how crab crazy we are. Case closed.

Once again he sourced the crabs from Tekka market. Although they look huge & meaty, you have to be careful to buy the live ones.

I used to always get the stall owner to kill them for me & then I just clean them with a toothbrush when I get home. Now I have X.

I know he is a French chef but boy, does he make a mean mee goreng.

We can't seem to get enough of black pepper crabs, chilli crabs & mee goreng

Yummy

Satay by the Bay

All thanks to my BFF, I found out about this event last weekend, Satay by the Bay.

The email flyer sounded really interesting. Gourmet satays, movie screening, live bands & with proceeds going to charity. So we made a date to head over to the Fullerton area last Sunday.

A mini break @ Jing for a martini & a cuba libre

There weren't many stalls. I searched high & low but couldn't find the stalls selling wagyu beef nor Kurobuta & the only seafood on skewers were prawns. Hmm..

My mother knows my soft spot for otahs & whenever I was home, she would stock on these. I eat them with rice, with bread, for breakfast, lunch, dinner or as a snack.

This was our favorite. A platter of prata wrap, onion fritters & samosas which came with a delicious mint sauce.

We had to sample the satays, of course

We later found out that the Indian food that we had enjoyed came from Shalimar Palace, making a mental note to check out the restaurant another time.

Nijumaru Izakaya

When I googled Izakaya restaurant in Singapore, this was the one that came up on top of the search.

For the uninitiated, izakayas are the Japanese equivalent of the beer pubs that serve food. In Japan, I always make it a point to go to 1 or 2 of them cos I really enjoy the intimate atmosphere but truth be told, I'm a sucker for "drinks" food - snacks or food that go well with alcohol - ikan bilis, mini pizzas....

I made a reservation for Friday evening even though there were several reviews on hungrygowhere about the bad service. Our table was ready when we arrived & the Chinese ladies there were friendly & we had no complaints with the service.

What's an izakaya without skewers. We ordered the usual yakitori, bacon (picture above) & of course chicken gizzards. Sadly they didn't have chicken skin or beef tongue.

X ordered a portion of soba. It must be good cos I didn't even get a chance to try it out - he had finished the whole thing in the blink of an eye.

I order this everytime I see it on the menu - chazuke. A simple dish of green tea poured over rice & topped with seaweed & in this case, mentaiko. They added a little too much spring onions as you can tell in the picture. But this dish always brings back memories of our late night drinking sessions in New York.

The menu is in Japanese (with English translation of the words) so unless you are familiar with the name of the dishes, it might be a little tricky. Just have to ask. So this dish was one of those I randomly selected from the specials of the day - a sort of egg soup with spring onions (no idea what it was called in Japanese).

This was the Nijumaru special bento with sashimi, tempura, grilled fish & braised pork with mustard (top left) which was very good.

What's Japanese food without some sake

Our all time favorite - grilled eggplant with miso paste
The eggplant melts in your mouth

Nijumaru Izakaya
#02-10 Cuppage Plaza
6235 6693

Great Singapore Pass

As they say, nothing in life is free but some things do come at a discount.

I came across this recently and thought I'd share it with you guys.

Association of Singapore attractions has put together the Great Singapore Pass. All you need to do is to download the coupon & present it at a list of attractions to get either 20% discount or $2 off per head off entry fee.

Download & print the coupon here (I printed several copies & kept them in my wallet)
http://www.singapore-attractions.com/meetings.htm

Just to give you an idea, you can get $2 off at Singapore Zoo, Jurong Bird Park, River Cruises, Singapore Flyer. 20% off Wild Wild Wet, Mint Museum (if only I had known about this coupon before), Discovery Centre and many many others.

The offer is valid until end of the year so take advantage of it while it lasts. I fully intend to. In fact I just used it last week for our trip to the Night Safari.

A majestic meal

I haven't been this excited about a restaurant in a long time. I loved it so much I went there twice in a week, couldn't wait to blog about it & already planning my next trip there.

New Majestic hotel probably needs no introduction. The last few times I was back in Singapore, friends have been raving about the restaurant but I never had a chance to check it out. You know how it is, trips were always too short & never enough time to try everything.

It wasn't until a week ago when my best friend organised a get together with an old friend & suggested the New Majestic that I finally get to go there. After that, I was so sure X would like it that I brought him there 3 days after he arrived (& I was right ! ).

You see the potholes in the ceiling. Well that's because the restaurant is directly underneath the swimming pool. If you're lucky, you could catch of a glimpse of someone swimming above or vice verse, swimmers can look at the diners below.

The dining room is not very big - just the way I like it. We ordered the $50 set lunch & here's what we had.

Salad with fruits & roast pork
We both loved it - the dressing was great & the roast pork was a nice mix with the fruits & salad

Shark's fin
Not politically correct but I love shark's fin. Has always & will always be my favorite. But I love it consomme, I'm not a fan of this thick broth even though it was very tasty

Sea perch which I 'd mistakenly thought was cod
Fish really doesn't need to be fussy
Simple is best & they've shown how it should be done

Noodles with baby abalone & slivers of beef
One of my favorites. Love the sauce

Mango pudding with black glutinous rice
Mango pudding was creamy & flavorful but we were missing the rice

Sorbet with cut fruits

The pictures were taken the second time I was there. I prefer my first meal - the $40 set lunch especially given that the additional $10 was for the shark's fin that I wasn't enamoured with. Nevertheless, we both loved the food & we will be going back there again. They have a special set menu in conjunction with the Miele guide - sounds very interesting.

New Majestic Hotel
31-37 Bukit Pasoh Rd
6511 4718