Saturday, October 6, 2012

All these in less than 5 hours - Tiong Bahru and Chinatown

Kengyang and I made a spontaneous decision to visit Tiong Bahru early in the morning for the legendary porridge that was located right next to Tiong Bahru Bakery. It was quite a day - or perhaps a really unlucky one. 

#1 We were caught in a jam (it was 7+am so whatever, can't really complain)

#2 Once we reached our destination, it started pouring rain. Within minutes, roads were filled with puddles due to really small drains, and I had the pleasure of getting splashed by passing cars who had no better sense to drive slower given such a downpour. 

#3 We arrived at the location, wet and fatigued, only to realise the shop is freaking closed. 

I was really pissed off, not because of the rain or the closed stall, but more of because of my really wet pair of shoes. I was literally walking on water. 

Nevertheless, we proceeded to Tiong Bahru Market, in hope of some good food finds, and fortunately there were some gems. 


This set of chicken porridge and chee chong fun was only S$3.50, and it was honestly quite good. Not the usual grainy porridge - I think it's Cantonese style porridge, those that have the consistency of thick glue. It was really quite delicious. 


No breakfast is complete with chwee kueh (do correct my spelling if I'm wrong, haha). I used to detest this food item because it really looks visually unappealing. However, after my mom forced me to eat them years ago, I fell in love with this dish! So ugly but SO YUMMY! 


Since there have been a lot of positive reviews on Tiong Bahru Bakery, I decided to drop by and pick up a few items. It looks traditional outside, but inside is extremely modern. The cafe was swarmed with caucasians and almost all of them had croissants on their plates. If so many caucasians are eating the croissant, then IT MUST BE GOOD, right? A little generalisation here, but you know things like these occur when you are torn between too many varieties of bread. 



I bought the croissant and it was simply the best croissant of my life. I'm not even ashamed of saying such an extreme statement. I didn't eat it straight away, i kept it till around 4 hours later before I started to devour it down. It was such a pleasant surprise when I bit into a crispy outer layer and extremely fluffy inner filling. This is not easy to do because bread (especially croissant) tend to get soggy after a while. 

I tried googling how this is even possible, and actually it's quite simple. Before you insert the tray of unbaked goodness into the oven, you spray the dough with some water. This is how you get the crispy outer layer. 

PURE GENIUS BY MOTHER NATURE. Amazing croissant. I can't wait to eat another one, but Tiong Bahru is so far! 

After that, Kengyang and I decided to walk off our calories and we walked all the way to Chinatown. Ideal location because I have been wanting to take photos of the lanterns and yay they were still there! I love Chinatown when there are Chinese events and celebrations like these, everything just look pretty and traditional. Orchard Road is pretty during Christmas period, but neon lights kind of bore me sometimes. 




Trying out the iphone 5 camera. Quite clear! iPhone 5 camera is amazing during daytime. However, night photography is terrible. 


Major fail on our burning-calories mission because we ended off our Chinatown trip with some traditional Chinese deserts. 

Crazy morning for both of us, but it was a fulfilling one, especially for the tummy! :) 

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