Culinary Cusp of 2011 and 2012

When the Buchanans meet the Rainbow Band, they always travel on their stomachs.  We were informed of Singaporeans'  three major interests;  eating, shopping and surfing on the net.  And during that week in Singapore we put the first  SIN into action.

On our last trip into Singapore, our foray for mee rebus turned out to be a failure.   The gravy was either too stodgy or too insipid.

But Lely compensated for that distress.  With  her own hands, the hands that rocked the camera for  fantastic nature photographs...... 
(http://www.photoblog.com/pickledherring )
she cooked us two fabulous meals.  There was asam pedas ikan merah, crunchy fried French beans, crispy fried ikan selar kuning and her oommphy  sambal blacan.  On another day the menu consisted of  curry ikan tenggiri, a repeat hot favourite of sambal blacan and French beans and a special succulent omelette padded with lots of onions and red/green chillies.  I always knew this maknyonya had brains  ....... where food is concerned.  There was one snag.  First thing in the morning she made us take a health drink of cider vinegar and honey - yecchh!

Ruqxana brought with her to Lely's flat, three durians. She was diddled into paying too much for the 'king of fruits' by a couple of rogue durian traders from Johor.  After a solid meal ( cooked by Ruq) of homemade roti canai, dhal and fish curry,  we decided to call it a night, especially Irene who was ready to get  home to her bed.  As for the durians: oh no, the stomachs could not handle it, especially at 2200 hours!
It ended this way:

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Saturday  New Year's Eve 

Lely, the health-conscious one, who demolished almost a whole durian the night before, had arranged a visit to her acupuncturist .......

.....to help the spouse with his back problem and her own arthriticky right arm.  It worked for both of them - as usual - because Mr Lim Tong Hong is a a competent acupuncturist.  With that kind of backup they had sufficiently strong (and hungry) guts to attend Oi Bek's special New Year's Eve  belanja   of lunch.

This was our reply to her gracious invitation from 12 December


Dear Miss Soh,

Mr and Mrs D.I. Buchanan thank you for the very kind invitation.  Now that our ticket to Singapore from Kuala Lumpur has been confirmed we do not envisage any problem in getting to Royal Plaza Hotel at Scotts.   Certainly we shall try our best to look presentable.  Uncle shall have a haircut and I'll buy him a new sarong.  Teech shall dig up her slinky black dress in the suitcase under the bed.

There'a a little query - do you have to invite all the others?  They might misbehave and hence tarnish our reputation?

Love from us both.


P.S Thank you Bek for everything.  

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Bek Soh wrote:


Hi Everyone,

You are invited to lunch on New Year’s eve at Royal Plaza Hotel at Scotts – Carousel coffee shop (Former Holiday Inn Hotel at Scotts – Halal certified)

We were all very well-behaved, ate only what we could handle - just a teeny-weeny bit of most of the delicacies and left with a happy tummy and a grateful thank you  to Oi Bek and her Rishad.


Sunday January 1, 2012

Jai picked us up at 0900 hours for a tosay breakfast at  Pasar Tek Kah next to Kandang Kerbau Hospital.

The spouse looked a little ragged - just a bit too much of la dolce vita. The other three are beaming with smiles.  They get that way when lovely food is placed in front of them.

But there was an attempt at a little scam prior to this.

What are they up to in front of that quadrilingual pawn shop and who is Lely pointing at?  I was on the other side of the road.  Were they scheming to pawn my little gold ring or Jai's VW Golf?  But they backed off when I threatened  to post some of their nerdy photos on my blog.

That was a great 2011/2012 celebration. 

Thank goodness we found this at Jai's block - a fitness corner for the elderly.

However there's still the search for the best mee rebus south of the Causeway.  That will be another story.