Friday, 07AUG98

 At the end of June, Greg made a quick 3-day business trip to Bangkok (Thailand). Arriving late and somewhat dehydrated from the trip, Greg drank a glass of water from the sink. Only later, while exploring the mini-bar did he find two large bottles of "Complementary Drinking Water". Given the rarity of "free" items in hotel mini-bars, Greg was overcome with a sense of dread. Sure enough, a little research found that the hotel "did NOT recommend drinking the tap water". Of course, they hid that information in their general information booklet and didn't bother posting signs near the sink. Greg spent the rest of the trip awaiting the onset of cholera, dysentery, hepatitis or maybe, if he got lucky, only traveler's diarrhea. Greg awoke the last day to find the whole room spinning uncontrollably. While Bangkok offers a very wide variety of entertainment and indulgences, many of which could lead to a spinning hotel room, Greg had not indulged in any of them. After a long while of trying the usual American male cure for illness (close you eyes and hope it all goes away), Greg eventually had to call for the hotel doctor. A short while later, a Thai gentleman claiming to be a doctor gave Greg two injections in the butt, a large number of pills and asked for 3,000 baht, in cash, please. (Please note that the room was spinning BEFORE the injections, not after!) And with that, Dr. Ratt was off to his motorbike (the only way of overcoming Bangkok's legendary bad traffic) to assist some other poor traveler who woke up ill that morning. By the way, in spite of the absence of anyone resembling Kim Novak, the diagnosis was Vertigo. The medication seemed to work right away, but Greg kept taking them for the next few days as we flew back to the USA for some friends' wedding, just in case. The wedding was great and Greg avoided the temptation to include any jokes about the irony of a wedding on Independence Day in his wedding toast. And the "tainted" Thai tap water caused no ill effects (as far as we know).

July was also the time of Singapore's International Food Festival. Unfortunately, we didn't take part in too many of the events. The dinner ride on the Orient Express sounded nice but was a little too pricey for us (~US$180/person). We did take part in the B.U.R.P.Fest. Which turned out to stand for "Buffet at UnReasonable low Prices" and was an all you can eat smorgasbord of food from a local chain of shopping center food courts. Unlike the American foodcourts, Singapore's offer a large number of Mom-and-Pop type outlets selling local and international favorites. It is kind of nice to NOT see the usual Yogurt place, large burger chains, etc. While Singaporeans love good food, they don't necessarily care about the ambiance. Consequently, some of the country's best food is found in foodcourts and hawker centers. Hawker centers, or "the stalls", are located all over Singapore, often near markets, housing estates (large complexes of government built/privately owned apartments) and factories. Imagine a foodcourt, remove the walls (keep the floor, but make it tile; keep the roof, but make it tin); replace all of the American franchise chains with small Mom-and-Pop, 10ft by 10ft outlets selling noodles, rice and all sorts of local food (a huge variety of Chinese, Indian and Malay foods, plus mixtures of all of the above). They don't look like much but the food is great! All of the food in Singapore is safe to eat; well, safe in the way that most American restaurants are "safe", i.e. the food is handled and prepared in a hygienic manner. One popular item is Pig Organ Soup and whether it is ever "safe" to eat Pig Organ Soup is debatable. Actually, the government recently surveyed all of the local food establishments (it must have been a huge effort) and graded them on their food handling/preparation hygiene. Grades were from "A" through "D" with "D" indicating that the stalls efforts were below average (although still safe to eat; they closed down the ones that weren't safe). Many Singaporeans say they don't care what the grade is, if they've been going to the same stall for years, they won't switch because of the grade. We, on the other hand, have been keeping our eyes open and have, generally, avoided the places with "D"s. The food in the stalls is very (ridiculously) cheap, most dishes are S$2.00-S$3.00 (less than US$2.00) a piece.

Eating here in Singapore does present some surprises. Those establishments that don't provide chopsticks to eat, generally provide a fork and spoon, not a fork and knife (they're only provided at "western" restaurants). With a little practice, it actually works out real well the spoon's edge serves as a cutting tool and it is easier to load stuff on a spoon than on a knife. In addition to Pig Organ Soup (or, as one "fancy" stall listed it "Pig Viscera Soup"), you can get some exotic dishes (although nothing quite as exotic as the American imagination can dream up upon hearing of exotic Asian dishes). A little known fact (to us, at least) is that there are black chickens. No, not their feathers, but their skin. It's a bit of a shock the first time you see it in the grocery, but it is supposed to have medicinal value. We've seen a few places selling frog, chicken feet and pig's tail (which wasn't curly, as Greg has always believed). All in all, it should be fun to take Veronica's parents out to eat when they visit next month. ;) Of course, they're from Louisiana, so…

Many of the local dessert favorites center around shaved ice, coconut milk and gelatinous things. These are mixed together and served with multi-color syrups poured on them and a variety of toppings (including the ever-popular corn and red beans). Greg has maintained his rule of not eating Asian desserts. Unfortunately, home baked cookies and cakes are rare (especially since we only have a microwave/convection oven). Veronica seems to have found one or two she likes. Other than the creamed-corn and red beans ,another odd dessert we've seen was "ice-cream sandwiches". Now, I'm sure you're saying - we have those here in the States… not really. These are made with slices of white bread (not chocolate cookies) and ice cream in the middle.

There is a lot of fresh fruit around so we eat a good bit of it. There are a huge number of strange fruits that we haven't really tasted but look kind of neat. One popular favorite is the Durian. Possession of this is a fruit is banned from the subways and airplanes. Why? Because it smells truly, truly horrible. It is supposed to taste great, but we've stuck to our belief that if we were supposed to eat it, it wouldn't smell so bad. The smell travels huge distances and once it has "stuck" somewhere, you can't get rid of it. The smell is a sharp, thick, overpowering stench that causes a gagging reflex. Maybe we'll try it after the Pig Organ Soup.

We'll close with some random, food-related items:

Napkins are very, very expensive here; they must be because you can't get them except in the fancy restaurants. Those little packets of Kleenex are a big selling item here.

Veronica has completed her Cooking Class, she enjoyed it but hasn't really tried to implement any of that learning yet. Eating out is so cheap (or, it can be, at least) that is much easier to go out for a bite than cook. Especially, if it is hot.

For some reason, Singaporeans find it amazing that we like spicy food. The stereotype is that Americans and other "westerners" can't take the heat and only eat boring bland food. We tried to explain that many types of "American-food" are spicy, especially the food of New Orleans (Veronica's hometown). Even so, people still seem surprised when we ask for things "with chili (peppers)".

Finally, for those more literal minded of our readers: there's a little bakery across the street from us that makes really good French bread and other things. Brownies were a little disappointing but the rest of the stuff is very good.