Meal at Little India

We were recently at Little India & chatting (rather animatedly I suppose) about going to Komala Villas when the assistant in the shop we had just past, stopped us & said we should try New Madras Woodlands instead. Every single one in the shop bobbed their head in agreement so that was how we found ourselves trying out a new restaurant one Saturday morning.

These steel trays may look sterile & prison like but I like it. What's an Indian meal in a restaurant without these trays. That's the idly set, by the way.

Forgot what these doughnut things are called

but we loved them so much, we had seconds & thirds

Cheese thosai

Mango lassi, yum

Playing with food ?

The entire meal for 4 adults & 2 children with drinks came up to $34.

Good & inexpensive

Walking the train tracks

If you live in Singapore, you can't miss all the excitement over the currently unused railway tracks. As of July 1st 2011, Tanjong Pagar station ceased operations & the Singapore-Malaysia railway terminal has relocated to Woodlands. That means there will only be 1 km of railway line in Singapore versus the 26km before.

The government has already announced that on July 18, dismantling of the tracks will begin so for now until then the railway line is open for the public to experience it one last time. Last weekend, we decided to walk the tracks, along with half of Singapore & their cameras.

Not kidding about the hordes of people

There were some who undertook to walk the entire way. We weren't that crazy. I thought Bukit Timah Station at King Albert Park would be a good start & from there, we headed in the direction of Tanjong Pagar.

I didn't see this until now but The Green Corridor just put up an excellent post with the map of the railway tracks breaking it down in sections, access points, highlighting photo op etc. Last Saturday's Straits Times had a good write up.

My advice is to start early, bring lots of water & wear a hat. The tracks are obviously not sheltered so it can get very hot. Make sure you wear track shoes.

The old station master's house

The platform @ Bukit Timah Station

Where possible, walk on the pathway that runs alongside

The novelty of walking on the tracks wore off very quickly

Looking at this, I realised how rare it is to see a monsoon drain

The children at play

Love the greenery along the way

Going pass housing estates

Beautiful homes

This has become a part of Singapore's heritage & a pity to remove it. I hope the government will come up with a plan to find some way of preserving this.

Graffiti in the underpass where we exit near Buona Vista station

What a great way to end a walk, with food

Art Garden @ SAM

Meet Walther

The huge bunny who decided to lie down in front of SAM

The Art Garden on till end of August

An entire gallery completely covered with train tracks,

even on the walls

Tree of love

filled with lots of papier mache animals & figures

Make your own paper fruits

Choose from 6 different designs with different degree of difficulty

It's a lot harder than it looks

All it requires is a little bit of patience

Take your time with it

I folded while the Girl added the glue

Here's the Girl's favorite fruit

Yup, she loves mangosteens

Once you're done, you get to keep it or exchange it for a real fruit

We kept ours

Pasting stickers on the elephant

Dancing solar flowers

Such a happy wall

Mummy Dearest

Bigger version of the paper dolls

Lightning Action

Are these white empty boxes ?

Or Toy boxes ?

A special video effect slowly adding images to the boxes making them sort of come alive

Since you are there for the Art Garden,

Do check out the Video Art Series

SAM website has activity books for children of different age groups

Here's the one for 5 & above

Chiu Chow food in HK

When I'm in Hong Kong, my friends know not to bring me to chi chi restaurants. Actually more specifically no Western food. I love my wanton noodles, beef brisket noodles, claypot rice, century egg porridge.....& chiu chow (teochew) food.

In HK, they call them "chiu chow da lang" restaurants - the usual braised goose but these are my favorites

Minced pork & oyster porridge

(my all time favorite supper food)

I will never forget one supper in an unnamed da lang restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui where the next table was occupied by some mafia characters. And how would I know ? Well one minute they were having supper, then they left only to return half an hour later with blood drenched shirts to continue their meal. I kid you not. I almost freaked out.

Cold crabs !