Singapore's Must Eat Food: from fish head curry to seasonal delights like pineapple tarts

INDIAN
Local fruits and fruit juices:
Fruits/Durian: Any hawker centre /food court (durian in season)

What to eat?
Chinese: Fish - seafood restaurants on the east coast such as Jumbo (must book).
Choose your fish from the menu and/or from the aquariums around the restaurant.
If you don't like fish, try lemon chicken, or chicken with cashew nuts.

Indian Fish: Fish Head Curry
Fish head curry is a large fish head served in sauce in a casserole dish with a cover.

Vegetable curry as a main or side dish and boiled white rice or fried rice are served on a green banana leaf cut into oblongs like a place mat but serving as a disposable plate. In more basic places the green banana leaf is laid directly onto the table. Here in Muthu's Curry restaurant the banana leaf is on a try.

Where to try it?
M u t h u ' s Curry. (I had to insert spaces. Autocorrect changed the spelling to mouth.)
www.muthuscurry.com

Banana Leaf Apolo,
54 Race Course Road, Singapore 218564.
Tel:6293 8682.
48 Serangoon Road, 01-32 Little India Arcade, Singapore 217959.
Tel:6297 1595.
www.thebananaleafapolo.com

CHINESE
What to eat?
Lo Hei - Chinese New Year national dish for Spring (Chinese New Year)

Durian cakes, crisps or ice creams

Durianmpire has several branches. I went to Bukit Panjang Plaza, near Bukit Panjang MRT train station at the northern end of the Downtown line. In the same area, to the northwest, is a branch at Jurong West Shopping Centre.
Other branches are at Changi airport, terminals 2 and 3 in the departure halls.

Pineapple pastries
Pineapple tarts are tiny but so delicious.

Red Bean paste dumplings (fast food served hot from glass-sided revolving heated dispenser on the counter at a 7-11 or similar newsagent and corner shop)

Red Bean paste sweets

Moon cakes (autumn / harvest/ moon festival) - food courts in shopping malls and department stores, seasonal pop-up shops and kiosks, even ice cream parlours, supermarkets. The cakes may be sold singly, as sets of two or four. Some sets including elaborate gift boxes at prices from about £5-10 for one to £25-£100 for a box of four. The most expensive are in a tin with origami sections or a colourful container with four drawers, with gold ribbons and booklets.

Why so expensive? They are little works of art with embossed designs, bought as gifts to VIPs and business associates.

Although they are only muffin or fist size, they are hugely calorific and rich, and usually cut into four or eight pieces, or smaller slices, served to a group of people.

(See earlier post on moon cakes.)

MALAY
What to eat?
Peranakan food
Where to try it:
(Check local papers or hotel concierge)

Cheap eats:
Any hawker centre or food court in the basement/ground level or top floor or a department store or shopping mall.
Indian: Any clean looking corner shop or restaurant in Little India.

Luxury and Expensive Food:
Glamorous and typically Singaporean:
1 Raffles Hotel
2 Marina Bay Sands (rooftop skyscraper restaurants on T shape skyscraper with triple towers - must book)
3 Revolving restaurant, circular, above skyscraper (keeps changing hands and brands - has been a Westin, Swiss hotel, Compass Rose).

Chicken Rice and Duck Rice
If you prefer to stick to conventional European style food, chicken rice or duck rice are available cheaply in the hawker centres or food courts.

Cheesecake and Rainbow Cake
For a dessert with visual appeal, try rainbow cakes. For the familiar, find New York style cheesecake in the usual worldwide coffee bar chains such as Starbucks, and the local version, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. (See my previous posts on Rainbow cake in Singapore.)

More information from hungrygowhere.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer 

Watch out for pickpockets during Chinese New Year in Chinatown

If you were thinking of going to watch events and mingling with the crowds in Chinatown in Singapore during Chinese New Year, leave your credit cards, money and valuable at home, warns a long-term resident. She says Chinese New Year brings out the pickpockets. Just carry enough cash to buy some food and get a taxi home and keep your money in a hidden inside pocket.

The police do their best but they can't be everywhere and the crowding means you can't see what's going on or who has taken your valuables or when. In the centre along the malls in Orchard Road you can expect to be on CCTV. (All the same, I've had friends lose a bag in a shop in a shopping mall, or in a queue at the airport.

'In Orchard Road,' she told me, 'if you scream, a Policeman will come running.' But in a crowd in Chinatown, no chance.

(Orchard Road is the main shopping area in the centre of the city, reached by Orchard MRT or station stop. Chinatown is a station further down the line.)

I remember seeing a video, repeating the message: Low crime doesn't mean no crime.

I had my entire bag snatched from my shoulder as I got off a bus outside a hawker centre. I lost my British passport, my money and my mobile phone.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Muthu's Curry restaurant, Little India, Singapore

Fish head curry is Singapore's signature dish and although you can eat it in Indian restaurants all over Singapore, the area which springs to mind is Little India.

The Little India MRT (mass transit railway) station has several exits. We took exit D but found E would have been nearer. You walk along Race Course road, passing several other restaurants and a Methodist church.

Mouth's Curry has a sign over the entrance recalling how it dates back to 1969. i remember going there when you had to take a taxi or a bus, before the railway station made the area more accessible and no doubt the prices higher.

You still get big green oblong living place mat banana leaf on your tray, ready to receive a dollop of curry.

Cutlery, poppadum, green banana leaf.

The toilets are upgraded and the decor, all very civilised, clean and comfortable.

We ordered mango lassi. The fish head curry in a great sauce was the best feature of the meal. I must admit the chicken in a so-called cashew nut sauce did not taste particular like cashew nuts, not like chicken with cashew nuts in a Chinese restaurant. I'll bypass the dish next time.

Our desert was glulub jamun, very good. We could have had it with kulfi. Service is not fast, nor rushed. If you are in a hurry or impatient or want everything served together, perhaps an Indian restaurant is not for you.

But if you want fish head curry, this is the place. The fish head is large. I don't know what happens to the rest of the fish. It is too large to be swimming live in an aquarium like the ones at the Chinese restaurants down on the coast.

If you want wine, they have a wine list of wine by the glass or bottle, and a display of bottles.

We were at M u t h u ' s Curry, 138 Race Course Road, 01-10, Singapore 218591.
Tel:6392 1722.

Other branches are at Blk 7 Dempsey Road, 01-01 Singapore 249671,
tel: 64745128;
and Suntec City: 3 Temasek Boulevard, B1-109/177, Suntec City Mall, Singapore 038983,
tel:6835 7707.

www.muthuscurry.com
M u t h u 's as you see is a brightly lit, large restaurant, with big glass windows.

Banana Leaf Apolo is slightly nearer the station and slightly smaller and more secluded, but still large. Take your pick, or alternate between Mu t h u's and Banana Leaf Apollo:
The Banana Leaf Apolo, 54 Race Course Road, Singapore 218564,
tel: 218564.
48 Serangoon Road, 01-32 Little India Arcade, Singapore 217959.
tel :6297 1595.
thebananaleafapolo.com
 
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Chinese New Year Decorations: Toa Payoh Indoor Shopping Mall in Singapore

In Popular book and stationery store Chinese New Year gifts are displayed.

This lady seems to be selling a mechanical toy lion which runs about making a noise, no doubt to the amusement of children and adults alike.

Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer.

Photos by Angela Lansbury copyright 2016.

Joy - magic lantern festival in London

What a joy, the magic lantern festival in London, celebrating Chinese New Year.

The festival starts with decorations in the days before. Spring festival is another name or aspect, with pink cherry blossoms.

Then on the eve and other days you see The Lion Dance. The noise is to frighten away the evil spirit.

At a Toastmasters International club in Singapore, I heard a speech (given by an Indian woman) about the joys of the Chinese Festival and the pleasure of learning about other cultures.

http://www.magicallantern.uk/?gclid=CPjrtMy_08oCFdiOaAodPkwHIQ

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/12131433/The-Magical-Lantern-Festival-comes-to-London-for-Chinese-New-Year-in-pictures.html

For brightly coloured pictures see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oqGF16x2aY

For pictures of lanterns in Singapore see my next post.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Where to buy bargains in Singapore

Food
Watch out for prices of food which are not what you expect. For example, spinach in January, courgettes were marked at a couple for dollars per 100g but when you get to the checkout your half dozen courgettes are costing you S $10! (£5). (S$ is Singaporean dollars, currently about two to £1, not necessarily the same as US dollars.)

Even allowing for the fact that Marketplace is an upmarket supermarket chain brand, if you opt for familiar vegetables they can be dearer than the local ones.

You can buy in the local 'wet markets' (open air stalls which are open air and used to have wet floors from rain and spillage - now kept much cleaner). However, you may need to adapt to local vegetables. In ethnic areas such as little India you will also find unwrapped vegetables at cheaper prices. The seller has lower overheads. Possibly the wobbly shapes of the vegetables are just as tasty but not looking nor fitting into the evenly shaped packaging trays.

It helps to know the local names for the vegetables if buying specific items for a recipe. However, if you just want to buy what it is available, you can simple point, and look up recipes for whatever you bought after you get home - or put small items such as bean sprouts into a large basin shape wok for a stir -fry, or chop the sold vegetables to go into a slow-cooker or casserole. (You can buy slow cookers locally at all sizes in the department stores as well as on offer in drug stores and all sorts of shops.

Looking for cheaper shops? Locals will buy in the suburbs, not in Orchard Road. For example, take the MRT to Toa Payoh.

Here are some of the cheaper stores:

NTUC FairPrice

A supermarket with small sections on stationery and home wares.

Valu stores
Tiny shops like corner shops with shelving like warehouses with floor to ceiling shelving. Crammed space between shelves, scarcely
room for one person. You have step over boxes and to back out to
let somebody through. Looking for Nutella or cleaning materials like Jif/Cif/local brands bleach or a pack of ten pens or three toothbrushes in a pack, this is the place.

Japan Home
Cheap plastic everything with pictures of princesses and Teddy bears. Loads of stuff such as toys for toddlers and for Mum there's frying pans with colourful bases. Er  - not $2 for a frying pan, it might be $20 or $30, still cheap for what it is but sorry, no good if you've only $S10-20 or $50 maximum cash, aren't carrying a credit card for fear of pickpockets.

Popular Bookstore
Huge shop like the UK's W H Smith. I found three varieties of watercolour pencils. I wanted a box files. I was shown plastic box files, half the size of the cardboard ones posting about £4 each in the UK but twice width and twice the price of the slim A$ files for S$2 in Daeso.

A Diary
At last I found a diary in Singapore's Popular stationery and book shop in Toa Payoh (end of January). Fairprice supermarket in Toa Payoh no longer stocked the diaries. In the UK you can buy diaries all year, at assorted reduced prices depending on when the diary dates are running out. For example in the huge department store size Tesco which is on one of two floors and open 24 hours (one in Watford - others in most major cities - but you might need a car to get there), diaries from January to January and also 18 month diaries and school year diaries starting September.

Daiso - spaciously laid out. Staff very helpful. Wide central aisle - looks like a cross between the UK's Marks and Spencer and British Home Stores and Homebase.

Basement market stalls:
The basement area of major malls will be filled with stalls selling tote bags, pillows and sheets and curtains sets. Some are stalls from the building's major retailers. You buy from the stall seller, then are escorted by her/him to the cashier who acts for the whole area and can take credit cards.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Dengue Fever: what you can and should do to prevent it

A poster is placed in the glassed display noticeboards in the lobbies of areas affected by dengue fever. Advice given verbally or by signs includes:

If you have vases or saucers under plants empty them regularly. Turn plant pots and buckets upside down to prevent them catching pools of water. Vases of flowers are forbidden in Singapore cemeteries.

Replace toilet seats horizontally when leaving your flat empty for several days, weeks, months.

Inspectors are likely to check your balconies, water pipes and gutters (even in new houses), outside areas, and bathrooms and kitchens.

Remove plastic bags from balconies and outside areas. Plastic bags left flat or crumpled on the floor or ground can act as bowls for rainwater, even the crumpled surfaces can attract shallow pools of water in which mosquitos can breed.

Cover your arms with long sleeves, and your legs with long trousers. Do not walk into long grass around a golf course looking for lost balls when your skin is uncovered. Wear long socks, trousers, hats. (My Japanese friend Yumi caught dengue fever from looking for a ball in long grass.)

Long swimsuits which protect your arms and legs from the sun can also keep off insects.

Remember to re-apply insect repellent after swimming.

Carry insect repellent to re-apply after washing your arms and face in rest rooms. The same applies if you are swimming or going to saunas in a gym and having showers or washes when out for the day or evening. The same applies or overnight when travelling by plane, or car or train.

If you run out of insect repellent, and cannot buy any, natural remedies include lavender soup, lemon or grapefruit.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Why read local papers? Dengue Fever and Mosquitos.

Why read local papers - to find out about fun activities but also about safeguarding your health. I just heard from a relative in Singapore that the health inspectors called this morning to check any vases, saucers or items on the balcony or in the house with standing water.

I had read in the local paper that there were 500 cases of dengue fever which is carried by mosquitos which breed. One case had recently happened in the next block to where my relative was renting a flat.

You usually hear the droning of the the machines spraying mosquito killing vapour over the ground floor level once a week. You may see mist rising.

The first time it happened when I was in a block in Singapore I thought it was a fire. I phoned the concierge and they told me it was 'fogging'.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Chinese New Year Fireworks in Singapore

If you are in Singapore (and many others cities with Chinese populations) the night before, eve of, Chinese New Year, you may be able to see and hear the official fireworks display. Entry tickets are sold.

If you or a friend are lucky enough to live in a high level flat in a high block, such as on the thirteenth floor, (which might be called floor 12b or 14) and have a balcony facing in the right direction, you may be able to see over the city to the fireworks.

Check local papers. Now is a good time to make friends with other people in your block and discuss fireworks with them. You might meet potential friends in the lift, by the swimming pool, in the shop, at the AGM, by the communal postboxes, at aqua lessons or in the lobby or by the outdoor fences waiting for a taxi.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Station Decoration in Singapore

This seat looks like a four leaf clover with a green spike in the middle.

This attractive mural shows a tree and leaves.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Chinese New Year pictures

From the Bishan station area.

Photographs by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Red earth in Singapore, Australia and the UK

Red earth in Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Red earth like this could be sandy or clay. Clay is the particle size, the finest grind like flour which is cool and holds water. 

Singapore

In Singapore two station names are Redhill (English) and Tanah Merah (Malay). 

USA

The most beautiful orange pinnacles are Bryce Canyon.

UK

In the UK the area of Devon on the South West Coast, next to Cornwall, (which is the toe) has beautiful red earth and red rock cliffs. (Contrast with the White Cliffs of Dover, on the South East coast of England, which are chalky.)

Australia

Parts of Australia have Terra Rossa, a particular type of red earth.

Looking at the landscape, you can be an earth detective. What is the soil? What can you grow? 

What can you photograph? Is it typical of the country, or region, or unusual?

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Sherlock Holmes' Statue to Historic Harrow and Pretty Pinner

Along the Metropolitan line are three places of interest. Let's start in the centre of London at Baker Street station. Outside, the station, facing the exit on the way to Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium on the next corner is the statue of Sherlock Holmes. You could continue to Madame Tussaud's and the Planetarium, or go back to the other exit of the station within sight of the Sherlock Holmes Museum and shop.

Take the train to Harrow. Walk up the hill to Harrow on the Hill, narrow streets, old pubs such as The Castle. At the top is the famous Harrow School. Byron sat writing poetry near the church where his daughter was buried.

In summer you might see the boys in their boaters (straw hats). At the top of the Hill is the school where you can take a tour (must book), or visit one of the upmarket restaurants such as Incanto.

Down at the bottom of the hill near the station are two shopping malls, St George's and St Ann's and the usual range of pubs and coffee shops and eating at all prices.

Pinner
Continue along the train line to Pinner.  The Old Victory pub named after Nelson's victory is an ancient building now a restaurant. Another pub is still a pub. At the bottom of the sloping High Street near the station exit is Pinner Park housing the Heath Robinson museums where you can see cartoons. For free amusement walk around the park.

Also walk uphill to the church of St John's and stare in wonder at the coffin in the sky. The story goes that a man wanting to cut relatives out of his will said that they should not inherit whilst he was in the ground. So the buried him in a coffin in midair. Walk all the way round. A plaque explaining the story is on the side.

The above ground coffin projecting, in front of St John's church, Pinner.

Photos copyright Angela Lansbury.

If you are travelling by car and pass through Hatch End, look for the plaque to Mrs Beeton, famed cookery writer.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

Chinese New Year, Singapore Style

Next year will be the Year of the Monkey.

Chinese New Year decorations are up in advance in malls and major buildings.

Lanterns.

A lantern made from the paper red packets used to present gifts of money to singletons.

Spring flowers and fans decorating light fittings.

Colourful displays on light fittings, flowers on lobby displays and decorations up staircases.

Gifts you can buy including mahjong sets.

A colourful display stand selling gifts.

Wall decoration.

Lanterns hung from a light fitting.

All photos by and copyright of Angela Lansbury.

Celebrate in Singapore with a Lo Hei dinner. Or buy sweetmeats from the stalls.


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Chinese New Year pictures from Singapore

I showed the pictures on my phone to some Chinese students who were sitting next to me on a train. I asked them to translate the words on images I had taken of little comical characters which I had photographed in a CC (Community Centre). 

I wondered whether the greetings were saying Happy Chinese New Year or whether they applied to a different festival. 

The three illustrated personalities I had photographed were labelled in Chinese characters which were:

Wishing success in all you do.

Wishing you prosperity.

Wishing you health and longevity.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. 

Italian colourful words

English:
red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, violet.
Black white.

Italian words:
nero - black
grigio - grey as in pinot grigio
red - rosso
Italian words.

Use Google translate.

Facebook has a translation button if you see text in a foreign language post.

A quick way to pick up intonation is by listening to a foreign language film which has subtitles.

Go to an Italian restaurant, listen to the waiters, read the food menu and the wine menu. While waiting for service, check the back of wine bottle labels.

My favourite colour translation pages are those which show the colour with the words printed in the middle. You could print one off and stick it on the wall above your desk. Glance at it throughout the day.

Learning Plan
Learn ten words a day. That's 3650 in a year, a pretty good working language. Each weekend revise the week's words. The last weekend, revise the month's words. Learn one sentence a day. Or use Earworms, the Berlitz system of repetition of phrases, and play the disc it during breakfast.

See my previous posts on other languages. (Come back for more later - I am revising and adding to the language posts throughout today.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, language teacher, author and speaker.

Learn Languages - German colourful words

Two quick ways to learn new words in any language are to pick words you already know from place names or people names and use these a a reminder.

English colours: red orange, yellow green blue, indigo violet.
White and black.

Family Names
German - notice family names.
Elizabeth Schwartzkopf the singer, black head, meaning black hair.
Weissman - white man.
Rothschild - red shield, the symbol outside a house.

You can use recognize and use German in German, Austria and Switzerland.

Angela Lansbury, language teacher, author, speaker. travel writer.

Learn languages - French colourful words - cordon bleu at the moulin rouge

The colours of the rainbow in English which children learn at school are:
Red orange yellow green blue indigo violet.

The mnemonic (memory aid) is
Read Out Your Green Book In Verse.

French colours
rouge orange jaune vert bleu violette
(Nobody ever says indigo in any language, unless they work in printing, dyeing, clothes marketing or paint matching.)

The French colours are easy to remember.
Rouge, the red colour women put on their cheeks. Moulin rouge is the red windmill, a landmark entertainment centre in London in the old days. Vin rouge is red wine.

Orange is the same in French. The Spanish is naranja. Originally we said a naranja and eventually the n moved and it became not a  n o r a n g e but an orange.

Un is French for one or an.

Jaune is easy to remember as yellow if you see J and Y as being similar in shape when  hand written.

Vert - as in the name of the designer of women's clothes, Jacques Vert, in English Jack Green. Green grass grows vertically - upwards. The verge (edge of the lawn or grassy area) is green.

Bleu is almost the same spelling as blue. Just reverse the last two letters. Cordon bleu is awarded to good cooking, a fine French cookery school. A cordon is a ribbon or line. (A police cordon ropes off or goes around a crime scene.)

Violet or Violette is the name of a flower and a girl's name.

If you are reading wine labels, blanc is white. Blanc de blanc is white wine from white grapes. Blanche is a girl's name used in English as well. Notice the e on the end, a feminine word ending.

Angela Lansbury, English teacher and tutor, writer and speaker.

Coconut Palms and Other Palm Trees In Singapore

Singapore's Changi airport has delightful palm trees.











But there's more than one type of palm tree.














My favourite is the colourful Lipstick or Red Palm tree.











If you see a coconut tree, don't sit underneath.  I was sitting by the swimming pool in Singapore when one of the staff rushed over to tell me not to sit under the coconut palm in case it dropped a coconut. Every now and then you read in the Singapore or Malaysian newspapers or online about a fatality. The staff at condominiums carefully move the loungers and tables and chairs out from under the trees into the sunshine. Along come the expat visitors and move the chairs back into the shade.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Mangoes, Growing Fruit, Bottling Figs: plus orchids and more

Mangoes

I am getting more and more interested in growing fruit, rather than flowers, in gardens. I also like to see fruit trees in public streets. In Singapore you see huge mango trees along the East Coast road.

I saw one mango on the ground but it was crawling with insects. A family, probably the maid or nanny or amah and two or three children with a fruit picker, came out of a nearby house and took the whole crop off the nearest tree.

I felt like going up and asking for one of the mangoes. Would they have shared?

In another part of Singapore I saw a tiny mango tree, about my size. An officious threatening label warned you not to pick the fruit.

Does the baby tree need its fruit? In the UK we planted six vines. The first year or two you pick off the small, sour, bunches of grapes, to make the plant divert its energy to the roots.

Orchids
Now I'm wondering about pinching off the roots growing out of my potted  orchids in the UK. Would that encourage the plant to grow more flowers? (You can buy orchids year round in British supermarkets such as Tesco or Marks and Spencer plus Morrisons, as well as Homebase DIY/garden/furniture store.)

We had a tree full of hard green, small figs. A hunt on the internet revealed people all over the USA giving recipes for cooking and bottling figs.

Did it work? Yes. A great success. Here's a commercial one.

Figs In Syrup
Figs, too hard to eat, however, are great when cooked tender and bottled in syrup. They come up like chestnuts, soft and sticky and flavourful.

I tried putting the hard figs in little r a m e k i n s on the kitchen windowsill. The figs never softened. They shrivelled and dried out and were twice as hard. Add water and they grow mouldy.

No, you need to pick the whole lot at the end of the season, enough to make it worthwhile to spend an hour or two, or waste a whole afternoon or day, boiling away the nasty white sap, cooking them soft, washing out your saved jam jars or marmalade jars, sterilising the jars.  (Or buying fresh jars, only worthwhile if you are buying a dozen or more wholesale, otherwise you are not economising.

Although, it is satisfying to cook your own fruit, for fun, as an experiment, or to control what you are eating. But, of course, all that syrup is full of sugar, hardly good for your teeth.

Bottling is a long-winded caper. First you must use a jar sterilised in boiling water - another hazard. Maybe you can use sterilising tablets which are used for baby's milk bottles?

Labels
Finally, the fun part, yet another cost of this supposedly 'free' food, is labelling. You can buy labels with framed coloured edges and write on them by hand using a felt tip pen. Draw a faint pencil mark or frame your writing with two rulers, or make a letterbox shape for the writing. Write slowly.

Alternatively, if you have a printer, print off the word FIGS, adding a border. Or save labels from supermarket food, or cut out titles from the advertisement and recipes in the free newspaper from your supermarket.

You might like to add the date of bottling, even a best by date.

Family Teamwork
I didn't do the figs bottling. I just researched the recipe and did the jar labelling. I got the family 'chef' to make the figs in syrup. He thought it was a lot of work. He made a batch of two or more jars.

Portion Control
By dividing each fig into two and adding it to fruit or ice cream as a treat about once a month, we managed to make our jars last more than a year, enough to keep us going until the next crop.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.

What does a cashew nut tree look like? Are cashew nuts more work than figs?

I went and looked at a cashew nut tree a few days ago. It did not look like the neat tree you see in Wikipedia.

The leaves were moth-eaten, literally, I expect. More holes than a crochet jumper, and more untidy.

It is on a private housing estate. Many of the trees have a sticker saying prune. At first I thought they must be p r u n u s which is Latin for plum tree. Then I realised they were all different trees. The word meant the estate gardeners or contractors had to prune or cut the tree.

However, the tree trunks and branches often grow at odd angles.

'My' or 'our' cashew nut tree, the one I was shown by a new friend and fellow tree enthusiast, Mr Lau,  has 'spring' flowers as well as a very small number of cashew nuts, one bunch on a whole tree.

Figs Which Last Two Years
I wonder whether the cashew is like the fig tree in the garden of a house where I stay in London. The figs hang around from one year to the next. Small green figs, not yet ripe, I am assured, will grow into larger brown soft figs next year.

Like the description of cashews, which have a dangerously acidic 'sap' around the nutty part you want to eat, the little green figs have a nasty white' sap' which has to be boiled out and makes a horrible mess of your saucepan.


Having braved the bothersome figs, we might consider cashew nuts next. But, if we can manage to grow proper soft figs, before the birds grab the crop, we'll be very happy.

Bird Protection Netting
We covered the fig tree with a green netting resembling tennis netting. We bought in a hurry from a London DIY store's garden section. (Probably Homebase.)

I looked at the roll of green netting suspiciously. Were the large holes the right size? The holes looked large enough to let in light?

But could the holes keep birds out? Surely a bird could perch and push with its beak and knock the fruit to the ground? But our family's buyer assured me he had bought the proper stuff, labelled 'bird-proof netting' or 'fruit tree protection from birds' or some such wording.

I sneakily hunted through the bins looking for the label. (I braved risking the accusation - 'You don't trust me! I told you I bought the right netting!')

The netting was tied at one side but soon slipped off. So we re-tied it.

Dear little birds. Cute little birds. "That damned bird's on our fruit tree. It's on the apple tree, Now it's on the fig tree. It's eating out figs. Hey, birdie - get off!"

Not much gets me up from my computer. Running. But a bird eating my fruit can easily turn me into a human scarecrow.

Now I know why a scarecrow is called a scarecrow. Those black crows are twice the size of robins -and must have twice the appetite. Two big black crows to every single, lonely, friendly little robin.

Gangs of greedy crows and munching magpies. And waddling wood pigeons, shutting about the lawn. Where's a cat when you want one?

The big birds grab the fruit and fly onto the top of the conservatory. I hear them patter about, louder and louder, towards me, like ominous elephants, away, back again. Then bonk, bonk, bonk! They tap the fruit to break it by banging it on the roof.

Now I know how much effort goes into harvesting a crop of cashew nuts and figs, I will no longer complain about the price.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Cashew Road and Cashew Trees and Nuts

In case you are wondering, as I was, what a Cashew tree looks like and whether it would be fun to grow one, here's a picture from Wikipedia by L Shyamal. Singapore has Orchard Road in the middle, and mango trees on the main Upper East Coast road. But according to one of the websites about the history of Singapore place names, often roads in an area were on a theme such as fruits, or nut trees, not relating to the local vegetation. 

Going uphill from Cashew station on Upper Bukit Timah Road, along Cashew Road you will also find Chestnut Drive, Almond Street, Hazel Park, and Walnut.

The cashew nut grows under the edible cashew apple, but the nut is encased in a dangerously acidic liquid. So I was not surprised they don't risk growing little cashew nut trees in Cashew Road outside the schools.

Photo of cashew apple and nut: from Wikipedia by Abhishek Jacob.

Then I spoke to Mr Lau who is writing a book for his own satisfaction on the trees on the Cashew Heights estate. He assured me that Cashew Heights had and still has cashew nut trees, although the estate's symbol is a Raintree.

http://remembersingapore.org/2011/04/04/old-names-of-places/

http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-cashews.html

Octagonal Gazebo in Botanic Gardens

Singapore's Botanic Gardens contains an octagonal bandstand dating back to 1930 which is now an historical landmark. This white structure was once used for bands to play but nowadays it is popular for wedding ceremonies.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Free Singapore Tour

If you want a free tour of Singapore, arrive or transit in the daytime. You queue up in Changi airport to book your ticket. You will need to have at least an hour or two free to allow for the tour and to be back in time for your check in if you have an ongoing flight.

Cashew Station artwork shows clean Singapore; what about cashew trees?

If you try the new Downtown line in Singapore which opened after Xmas in late December 2015 ready for the new year, you will have the chance to see some new artwork.

Cashew station at first disappointed me because I was hoping for something bigger and more colourful. But when I had time to stop and read the caption and look closely I appreciated that it was not an old style 2D painting but a rather original artwork, more like a collage of found objects.

I would be tempted to call it multi-media, but my son insists that multi-media would be at least two different types of media, such as sound and light. So a collage of feathers and buttons is still a collage. In this artwork we have a collage of everyday cleaning materials such as toilet brushes used to convey the theme of clean, green Singapore, the vision of Singapore as a Garden City.

I would have liked more greenery. But you can see that elsewhere. The Botanic Gardens station has a tree (see later post).

For news about cashew nut trees in the area, see later post.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

French words of the day: en bloc

bloc - block
en - in
en bloc - in a block or as a group
en passant - in passing
passé - out of date, from the past

Angela Lansbury, researcher, teacher and author.

Chinese New Year Meals, Flights, Lion Dances, Lanterns, Orange and Oranges

Whilst Christmas is over, the snow has been falling in the UK and USA, but it's warm in Singapore, where the city is preparing for the warmth and jollity of Chinese New Year.

The red lights and lanterns are already out for Chinese New Year in some places, like Christmas, commercial organizations are advertising their festive meals.

If you are planning a change of flight plan in the week starting Feb 6th and 7th you had better get on the waiting list now. Expect delays at airports, check ins, because of the increased numbers of travellers going home for the annual family get together.

If you are first though the door of a shop on the first day of Chinese New Year you might get given two oranges or a discount (which may or may not continue all day). You might need to have two 'oranges' - not oranges but the easy peel variety which you can buy in bulk. You might even be given rather sad looking oranges. You simply pass them on at the next opportunity.

Red packets are offered free by many organisations such as banks, because the Chinese like to give money to unmarried young relatives. Not only banks, who will benefit from transactions if you take out or pay in money, but fast food outlets might also give you a free red packet, sometimes with a discount voucher inside or printed on the cover, or at very least a good will message with their company logo.

If you like the bright jolly colours of orange and red you will enjoy the Chinese New Year decorations. A great time to visit any area with a Chinese community.

Lion Dances
You might also hear groups practising the music for the lion dances.

When the time comes, you will see parades or trucks carrying groups to and from the venues where they will perform lion dances. Large restaurants, department stores, malls, all sorts of venues have lion dances.

I find them rather noisy, but if you are Chinese or like spectacles and noise you will enjoy them. Certainly mesmerising to watch.

Where can you see Chinese New Year celebrations?

Singapore Restaurants & Events
In Singapore a special local dish is served, a colourful communal dish of mixed noodles and usually fish and vegetables. Diners stand around raising the food in the air with their chopsticks. Expect to be offered this (more expensive) dish at many restaurants. Wear washable clothes! Singapore newspapers will run articles on the origin of the dish, which restaurant or hotel claims to have originated it. Lo Hei. Learn the greeting you shout.

Look in supermarkets for Chinese New Year specials, foods, gifts, wrapping, cards. Send a Chinese New Year card to your Chinese business associates or friends and family. Practice the New year greeting which will have a local version, usually either Mandarin or Cantonese, only four syllables, and you will see it on banners everywhere. Gong Shi Fa Choy or something similar. Learn both versions so you can echo it appropriately.

If you visit friends who are local or expats, the public housing estates  and private housing condominiums are likely to have strings of red lanterns and red lights which they store and bring out every year.

If somebody tells you they are away or can't see you because of CNY, that means Chinese New Year. Watch out for signs: not valid PH; PH means Public Holiday.

Ice Skating performances
The most unusual advertisement I have seen is for pre Chinese New Year ice skating.
See the website. www.therink.sg
On Saturday 13 Feb they are offering acrobatic lion dance performance and balloon sculptured lion dance costume 1-4 pm Cube level 1; Snowfall, acrobatic lion dance performances and photo opportunity with balloon sculptured lion 5.15-7.15, The Rink, Cube level 3.

A pre-Valentine's Day Disco on ice on 12 and 13 Feb 2016.

Skating Costs
What will it cost? You can buy tickets online from www.therink.sg or at their self-ticketing kiosk.
2 hour admission adult $14, child $12; skate boots rental $3.50 skating aid rental $10/15 per 2 hours.
Party package is $35 per person including 2-hour admission with skate boots rental, 30 min dedicated party host on ice and 2-hr usage of party room.

Bumper Car On Ice
Another skating idea: Bumper car on ice: every Saturday 5.15-10.15, $8 per 10 minute ride Sate and Bump $4 per 10 minute rides, this excludes admission and skate boots rental. You can also get student passes for three months from date of purchase (from age 6 to 22, costing $100 for age 6-17 and $135 for age 18-22) but you must show a Student pass or IC (identity card) - I am not sure if this is only for locals or also for visitors.

You can't skate? Learn-to-skate weekly classes are available, at $171.20 per participant.
See www.therink.sg for the latest on public skating sessions.
Cube, 2 Jurong East
Central 1
Singapore 609731
tel:6684 2153
www.jcube.sg  That should be j c u b e without spaces. Spell auto correct wants to drop the j and change it to cub or cut.
www.javenue.sg

Where To Go
China
Hong Kong
Singapore - major malls and Chinatown (easily reached via the MRT or mass transit railway line).
Taiwan
Malaysia - Malaysian Chinese shopping areas and restaurants.
UK Chinatown in London, England, as well as Manchester and other cities. Look for Chinese restaurants and advertisements in local newspapers. Almost every major high street has a Chinese restaurant and they can tell you the nearest place to see celebrations.
USA Chinatowns in New York, San Francisco and other major cities.
Canada: Chinatown areas of Vancouver and other cities.

(Pictures being added shortly.)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.