Stopover in Singapore

Singapore 22/8/10 10pm.

I have just had the most amazing meal of my life but I shudder at the bill. I am staying at Swissotel on Stamford and the chef Jonas Lundgren has prepared a Menu Degaustation. Jonas is Swedish and not Swiss as I had expected. The cost for 7 courses which I would have love to have done was $160 plus tax per person. I knew that wasn’t going to fly so I went with the 5 course – which actually turned out to be 8 I think. Add in some water and a beer an 2 glasses of wine service charge and GST and the bill comes to S$257.17.

My room is on the 63rd floor with extraordinary views. I don’t think I have ever been this high in a building before. The restaurant is on the 70th floor with just slightly better views. They apologized that as I hadn’t booked they couldn’t give me a window seat but I still spent most of the evening staring out at the view. The hotel directly overlooks Esplanade Park where the social events associated with the Youth Olympic Games are being held. Right now a fairly good rock band is playing an I have opened the door of my room onto it’s balcony so that I can here the music properly rather than only half here it with the door closed.

The dinner started with canapés. There were 5 of these but I can only remember the pate de fois grosse, eel and crispy salmon skin. There were 4 entrees on the list and I skipped the Oyster Cauliflower and Champagne. I ordered a Tiger beer to help wash down the entrees which were
• Green Vegetable Salad, Hebrs from our Organic Gagen, Summer Truffles
• Buttered Cod “Tongue”, Smoked Mayonnaise
• Salmon Leek and “Ashes”., Spiced Lobster Bisque
These were followed by a cardoman sorbet. I’ve had herb chocolate from Shoc but I had never thought of a herb sorbet. It was really good.

Just before the main course, Ricky my waiter who did a very good job pointed out to me there was a fire works display over the bay between The Fullerton and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. From 70 floors up you look down on much of the fireworks display that was huge. Equally good was the reflection off the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Another fireworks display has just taken place while I was writing this.

Next came the main course – Pepper Braised Lamb Neck and Cep Mushrooms. I’m sure this had truffles as well and was accompanied by something creamy that I think was potatoes. I washed this down with a glass of 2008 Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir – I have to keep supporting the New Zealand wine industry.

Desert was described as Stawberries and Tapioca. The tapioca was in tiny really sweet balls. The ish was also accompanied by meringue and I think frozen yogurt rather than ice cream. Ricky suggested a Spanish red desert wine Dulce Tintoralba to accompany the desert. It has a much fuller nose and mouth to it than the botyritis desert wines from New Zealand I am used to.
The 8th course was a selection of mini muffins, pralines and a couple of sweets that accompanied my espresso – nice to see it wasn’t charged for. I guess you have to get something thrown in for $250.

The other course I skipped was another sweet “Salted Caramel with “Walnut Snow” and Elderflower.

I arrived at the hotel I think before 6am. Clearly Singapore doesn’t have a biosecurity issue as going to the nothing to declare queue I was just waived through by a woman who was busy xraying someone else’s bags. I was in the carpark waiting for a taxi in less than 10 minutes from getting my bags. A slight delay there as only one taxi company takes credit cards.
After dropping my bags I went for a walk around the park where the music is coming from now and then up Singapore River to Fort Canning. Next I found a coffee place open that did breakfast – pancakes, eggs, chicken sausages (all very much what I could get in India) and BACON. I really missed bacon in India. The one time I ordered it I was told that the kitchen was out of stock – that was the only time I saw bacon on an Indian menu.
Halfway through breakfast I realized it was Sunday. There was an Presbyterian and a Methodist church near by an I thought I could whip off for a 10am service before going to Sentosa Island.The Presbyterian service began at 9am and had finished, the Methodist at 9:30am and while people were still going in I wasn’t sure the preaching as distinct from the singing would be in English and it was described as a praise service so I thought it might be inordinately long. As it was I was really late getting back from Sentosa Island so it was just as well I didn’t go later. I took a safe package – with Images of Singapore, Butterfly Park, Fort Siloso and the short Segway ride. I enjoyed the Segway ride so much I decided to splurge out $S38 on the half hour Segway experience. I managed to fall off twice in the free time after the initial instruction and then a single file ride to the beach where we were let loose. The first was when having got the hang of short backing up spells I tried a long one and corrected the wrong way when the scooter started to go crooked. The second was trying to turn to fast. After that I was more restrained for most of the time and stayed on.
Singapore’s metro is very good but a lot dearer than Delhi. Rather than fares of Rs10 or Rs20 (less than $NZ1) the fares were about $3.50 with a dollar refunded when you returned the ticket card to the vending machine. So all up I have managed to spend $400 today. Yes Singapore is expensive.