Musings of a Food and Travel Addict
Morning Nespresso!
The hotels I’m staying at in Singapore all have these Nespresso machines. Despite the cheesy commercials they’re running for these things in the US, the coffee that comes out of these machines is excellent. And they look cool too. May have to look at getting one of these back home. Damn subliminal advertising!
I’m currently staying at the Singapore St. Regis. It’s on the very end of Tanglin Road, right before Orchard Towers and the Hilton. Ion Orchard is a 10 minute stroll (with humidity) where Orchard MRT is in the basement.
This is my first time here and I can say the place is plush. Breakfast is good too. Since I don’t know this area too well, I decided to take a walk down to Ion, just to see what’s around. I found a Hiroshima based ramen shop called Ramen Bari Uma in the basement of a mall. Their claim to fame is a very hearty broth and thick smoked chasiu. The egg was the standard soft boiled and the bowl was just the right size. If you’re American, you may think it’s on the small side. Thin noodles and the perfect temperature from the kitchen to table.
Another thing is that this place felt very Japanese. Besides the greetings, the cleanliness and the feeling inside the place felt like Japan. Except they speak English. Kudos!
Ramen Bari Uma
19 Tanglin Road, Tanglin Shopping Centre,
Singapore
This is Joan, posing with her pal Brown. He’s bigger in real life.
Besides hanging out with bears, she’s the one who introduces me to new old sweets (see previous entry) and Peking duck places. OTOH, I drag her to legendary won ton noodle places. So it’s even, I suppose.
Early and light dinner means can have dessert! Visited an old Kyoto based dessert shop that recently opened in Hong Kong, Kyohayashia. Had some matcha ice cream. Yum! Sweet but not that sweet. Looks great too.
I’m currently in the process of getting myself to HKG and a bed that doesn’t move. It’s a multi flight process from SFO on AA. First is the change in terminals at LAX, from Terminal 4 to the Tom Bradley international terminal. They recently opened a connector between the two terminals that is after security. Nice. And since there’s a fair amount of walking, it’s clean and quiet. Definitely not hurried. Compare this to landing at Shanghai Pudong after 14 hours in a composite tube with wings. Everyone wants off at once and it seems like a long footrace to passport control. Thankfully 80% of the plane were PRC nationals so I went to the shorter foreigner line. Of course, the time I saved there was negated at baggage claim. Priority tags mean “last” here.
Last time I flew to Asia via LAX, all American Airlines flights were stuck in the claustrophobic Terminal 4. That created a problem on the return leg. Since LAX is the port of entry, what AA had to do was park the plane at Terminal 4 and force the passengers to trudge to the (very nice and very new) Tom Bradley International Terminal, clearing passport control and collecting baggage. Then, if you had an onward connection, you had to trudge BACK to Terminal 4. A lot of walking after being stuck in a metal tube for 12+ hours.
Now, NO MORE! My AA flight to PVG now leaves and arrives at the TBIT. And as befitting an international terminal, there are awesome lounges. For AA you have the Oneworld Business Lounge and the Qantas First Lounge, where they whip up a good breakfast.
If you’re still one of those UA diehards, there’s a Star Alliance lounge here too.
…which was part of a pharmacy heavy shopping list for a friend in Shanghai. Along with 5 tubes of Aveeno skin cream for babies. My friend seems to follow the Chinese shopping trends. A few years back it was prestige products. Now, it’s sundries and things for everyday life you can get at a drugstore. The news was full of stories over CNY of mainlander tour groups visiting Tokyo to clean out the drugstores. Of course many of the items sought after in Tokyo or even in the states can be purchased in mainland China. However, Chinese consumers place more faith that they’ll have genuine products at a Matsumoto Kiyoshi or Walgreens or Costco than back home. Until that changes, guess I’ll be shopping for my friend.
I’m doing another Asia run on American Airlines. Which means that I’ll have to take a connecting flight to LAX. Since the transpacific leg leaves at 1100, in order to make the two hour minimum connection time, the SFO-LAX flight I’m booked on leaves at 0700. Which means that I need to leave the house at 0500. Waking up at that hour is worse than staying up all night, which is what I guess I’ll have to do. Ugh.
At least you can get Sausage McMuffin with eggs at that awful hour…bright side!
…everywhere else but home it seems.
It’s funny. I think I’m more in tune with dining in places I visit (Tokyo, Singapore) than where I live (San Francisco).
San Francisco has lots of overpriced, “good” food. It also has a lot of mediocre and overpriced food. Why is it overpriced? A lot of it is the hipster factor, but a lot more of it is the stupid laws that restaurants have to comply with. Let’s start with the “living wage” and the city health insurance. Now add in the regulatory requirements (no formula retail) and the cost of outrageous rent. It’s amazing we have places to eat at all.
Because of these factors, the affordable gem, the fantastic hole in the wall or the latest trend skips San Francisco entirely. Ever wonder why there’s no Din Tai Fung (opening in San Jose) or Ippudo (opening in Berzerkley) in San Francisco?
And if I want to have xiaolongbao or Hakata style ramen, I have to visit Tokyo or Singapore. Which works, I guess.
Herb Caen, the columnist whose column in the Comicle was a rite of passage, would have celebrated his 100th birthday today (April 3). His column was a rite of passage because if you could get the puns and understand the players he wrote about, you graduated to the grownup table from the kid’s table. Herb was known for his witticisms that could convey so much with a few specially selected words, for being the man about town and for his martini made of Vitamin V. But he was known most for his enduring love of the City of San Francisco and it’s kookieness, especially during it’s golden age during the 40s and 50s. Reading his Sunday column was practically a history lesson when he would look back at what The City once was before. And you understood today by reading about yesterday.
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