INDONESIA TRIP: SINGAPORE PART I - OLD AIRPORT ROAD HAWKER CENTRE AND THE SINGAPORE NATIONAL GALLERY

 June 30, 2023

Because it was raining as it can only rain in tropical areas--like water from a firehose--we needed to go somewhere indoors. We rearranged our plans and headed to the Old Airport Road Hawker Centre. "Hawker Centres" are basically huge food courts, and they are very popular in Singapore. Opened in 1973, the one on Old Airport Road is supposed to be the biggest (over 160 food stalls) and the best.

The stalls were just beginning to open when we arrived, and there were already quite a few people scouting out the many options.

We learned right away that we needed to bus our own table.

Racks for dirty dishes are placed strategically throughout the hall. Multiple signs remind customers that "This is a self tray return hawker centre."

Quite a few of the stalls were selling Singapore's national dish, Hainanese Chicken Rice, which was adapted from Chinese immigrants from Hainan province in southern China. I've read that even McDonald's has a Hainanese Chicken Burger. If we had known that before the trip, we may have tried to stop at a McD's to try one. CNN listed this dish as one of the "World's 50 Best Foods."

At the stall we chose, we could have the chicken with its skin on (baked? fried?), or the colorless poached chicken you see on the right. I chose the chicken on the left, only to learn later that the traditional version is poached. (I ate a poached version in the Singapore airport on our return trip.) I also added one of the soy eggs to my order.

I wasn't wowed like I thought I would be. It was good, but not spectacular. The main plate cost $4.00 Singapore dollars with the egg adding about .60 Singapore, so about $3.50 USD. Very cheap.

You'd think we would know better, but we ended up eating at five or six more places.

I can't remember what we had here . . .

. . . but we were reeled in by the sign in the window . . . 

. . .and the posted newspaper reviews. (They might say, "Don't eat here!" How would we know?)

The whole roasted birds at another stall looked too much like flamingoes, and we kept moving on.

I enjoyed some "Lor Mee," or braised noodles. Our food actually looked like the photo on the menu.

We stopped at the next place because there was a long line of locals, always a good indication that the food is good. Contrary to what the sign says, this place is called To-Ricos Kway Chap.

Did you know a food stall can get a Michelin award? The "Michelin Bib Gourmand" is awarded to restaurants that offer a high-quality three-course meal at a reasonable price. We saw at least one other stall that had one of these Michelin awards.

The  menu looked pretty good (perhaps with the exception of the Pig's Large Intestine).

The kitchen is right in front of you at hawker centres.

We shared an order of three kinds of pork: trotters (rump), skin, and belly. It was all really good, and it cost less that $10 US.

Of course I couldn't pass up a double chocolate muffin at Ah Tas Muffins.

They also had a variety of raving news reviews on display.

And I couldn't pass up this unique dessert, Nyonya Chendol, "The first chendol stall in Singpore with a Michelin rating." Chendol is a bowl of shaved ice drizzled with strands of rice flour jelly and sweetened coconut milk. CNN has named Chendol one of the "50 Best Desserts in the World."

We ordered the red bean Chendol, pictured above. It looked exactly like the photo and cost $1.85 USD. I thought it was delicious, but we were so full by this point that we had a hard time finishing it.

We were ready to roll out the door, and we noticed that the centre was starting to get more crowded, although there were a few stalls that still weren't open.

We had hoped the rain would be over, but no such luck. We needed another indoor venue, so we called a Grab to take us to the Singapore National Gallery. Its collection of 9,000 items of Singaporean and art of the Eastern region is the largest such collection in the world. 

The huge museum (690,000 square feet) was opened in 2015 and consists of two buildings: the former Supreme Court and the former City Hall buildings.

The two buildings are joined with glass panels that are being held up by concrete trees.

The first thing we did was find a bathroom.  I don't usually give bathroom tours in my posts, but the bathrooms in Singapore are special. They come with inspirational quotes and child-sized sinks. On our return trip I also noticed child-sized toilets.

The museum building is quite striking and, as noted earlier, very large. We didn't have time (and Bob didn't have interest) to spend hours there, so we made a quick tour of the galleries that were most interesting to us.

The Animal in You by Mohammad Din Mohammad (2007) has a description board that reads: "This work consists of an old tree trunk, heads of Javanese rod puppets and tiger skin. The puppet heads represent mankind, which is depicted here as going through life on the back of carnal desires and emotions such as power and anger."

Dalam [Deep] by Mohamed Abdul Kadir (1975) and The Wise One by Tan Kian Por (2001):

Horizontals I by Choy Weng Yang (1977):

Black and White by Anthony Poon (1970s):

Mother and Child by Aw Eng Kwang (1978):

Conversation by Ho Kok Hoe (1977):

Hokkien Street by Leng Joon Wong (1978):

Vanishing Scene by Leng Joon Wong (1982):

Life by the River by Liu Kang (1975):

Epiphany by Richard Walker (1942) was one of my favorites. The info board says it "is an allegorical dreamlike painting produced during the Japanese Occupation when the artist [a Brit] . . . was interned in a prisoner of war camp in Changi. A complex composition, this painted wooden panel depicts a scene of the nativity of Jesus, but with angels sporting contemporary hairstyles and one of the Wise Men wearing Chinese attire."

I love this title: Sturdy Grass in High Wind by Liu Kuo-sung (1967):

Raw Canvas by Jane Lee (2008):

Detail:

Almost as interesting as the interior of the National Gallery is what can be seen through the windows. On the left is the five-star Swissotel. When it opened in 1986, it was the tallest hotel in the world (73 stories), and today it is still one of the tallest hotels in all of Southeast Asia.  On the right is a futuristic ship balanced on top of three skyscrapers.

Wait. What?

When it was opened in 2010, the Marina Bay Sands Resort (owned by Las Vegas Sands) was the world's most expensive standalone casino property in the world. It cost $6.88 billion USD to build. That thing on top is a skypark that connects the resort's three towers. 

In the foreground is some kind of a stadium. We couldn't figure out what it was used for, and none of our drivers spoke good enough English to explain it to us. I have learned that NDP23 refers to the National Day Parade, 2023. This huge annual parade commemorates Singapore's independence from Malaysia on August 9, 1965. 

The National Gallery has TWELVE restaurants, including Odette, a three-Michelin star establishment, and the National Kitchen, which showcases Singapore's culinary achievements.

Those two restaurants would have appealed on another day, but we were still stuffed from our lunch at the Hawker Centre, so we opted for these two sodas instead, served in a little café across from the museum gift shop.

Finally, let it be known that Frida has made it to Singapore . . .

. . . along with quite a few of her friends.