Click on images below to enlarge:
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| Breakfast at Boon Lay Exchange
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| Prata Wala, the restaurant/cafe at Boon Lay exchange where I bought
breakfast.
| A video of the chef making prata like mad.
| A video, from the beginning, of the guy spreading and stretching the
dough until he tosses it on the grill.
| A continuation of the previous video showing the chef adding ingredients
into the prata. It turns out this is mine! I accidentally managed to
film him making my breakfast.
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| My egg and onion prata. I was reasonably happy with it. It had a
little of the French toast fried flavor but without as much of the eggy
quality, a bit of the crepe crinkliness, and a bit of an omelette
(egg-and-and-onion) sense.
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| Balestier
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| Shophouses on Serrangoon Road a bit north of Little India.
| Note the vertical fins? Yes, they're art deco shophouses.
| I still like the old shophouses better. This example is the Sim Kwong
Ho Shophouses on Balestier Road. They are in the style known as
"Chinese Baroque" or "Singapore Eclectic", combining pastel walls with
European floral flourishes and molded columns.
| Close-up.
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| The corner unit, with lions.
| Across the street are modern examples of mixed-use development at
Balestier Point. By the way, every apartment here has its own terrace
and garden.
| Another perspective.
| A bird shop.
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| The shophouse at the corner of Balestier Road and Jalan Kemanan is
rather nice and has yet more lions. It was owned by the same folks as
the others I photographed.
| Rather than the traditional Chinese guardian figure, the gate is guarded
by sikhs!
I took this picture the following day.
| Close-up of a dragon I like.
I took this picture the following day.
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This part of the road has lots of lighting/light fixture shops.
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| I think these pre-1965 shophouses are ugly, but they're being conserved
because these are the type of functional shophouses built early in rural
districts.
| Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall, an 1880s building donated to Dr.
Sun's cause. It's quite a nice building. Note the oddity in the front
right, the lovely balustrades, and the loquat bushes (?) in the
foreground.
By the way, I didn't bother entering; I've seen enough
Dr. Sun Yat Sen museums. (They're all the same.)
| Maha Sasana Ramsi Burmese Buddhist Temple: its gate.
| Once inside the gate, it's even more obvious how much is used in this
temple's roof, the Maha Sasana Ramsi Burmese Buddhist Temple.
I took this HDR photograph with my phone.
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| Inside is a ten-ton marble sculpture (appear gold-plated) with a
hypnotic light pattern above. By the way, I didn't bother entering.
Ive seen enough temples like this and was short on time.
| Zhong Shan Park and its crazy tree .. or is it a densely packed cluster
of trees?
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| Lunch
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| We ate lunch at Peranakan Inn, in the center of this picture.
| A short panoramic video of the restaurant's interior.
| Otak otak, a fish-cake baked in a banana leaf. It smelled like burnt
grilled banana leaf.
| Inside the otak otak. The spiced fish cake was pretty good.
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| The selar fish, a fried spiced fish, "is great" said Di Yin.
| Buah keluak, a chicken stew with nuts from a particular tree. (That's
the black things in the picture.) The nuts have a hard shell are filled
with a mushroomy thing. Di Yin said the chicken was disgusting.
Meanwhile, it was my favorite dish from the meal.
| The lime juice (close) was a bit too sweet for me. The barley drink
(far) was soothing.
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We also tried a noodle dish that was ordered by our friends and mostly
gone when we arrived. I took only a bite and don't remember it.
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Di Yin wanted more food so we stopped at the famous 328 Katong Laksa for
laksa. I stole some. It was as delicious as
last time.
| We grabbed a snack at the Chin Mee Chin Coffee & Cake Shop just down the
block.
| Our kaya bun (exactly as described) had very good kaya. It's too bad we
couldn't bring any home. Their kaya comes in plastic, non-sealable
cups.
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