It's all about the coffee

Last night we had dinner over in the East Coast road area on Joo Chiat Road. A very very trendy part of town that in Australian terms would be like a cross between Sydney’s Surry Hills and Queensland’s Burleigh Heads. Some fantastic food options and beachy nick nack shops. We had dinner at a Caribbean style restaurant, food was awesome but forgot to take pics of the food !

I’ve been complaining about the lack of breakfast caffès, this is one area of Singapore that isn’t lacking options. Next time I’m here in S’pore I’ll be checking it out in more detail

On Tuesday night we headed over to the “Night Safari”, which is part of the Singapore Mandai Zoo complex. It’s specifically set up only as a night zoo and opens at 6:30pm

There is a normal zoo next door, so in theory you could do the zoo in the morning and night zoo in the evening. The setup is excellent, I would recommend getting there before 7, then head straight for the show and register for that (it starts at 7:30pm). Once the show is over most people head for the tram, but don’t do that, it’s a long queue.

Instead, after the show head for the cafe and have some dinner. The food is next level. I was expecting basic “event / attraction” style quality but the food was excellent. I had an Indian chicken tikka curry.

Once you have had dinner, take the tram around the park, then do some of the walks. It’s still quite humid but at least at night it’s a little cooler.

The worst part of the experience is getting there. It’s to the north (closer to Malaysia), whereas most people will be staying closer to the city. There is public transport but it involves a train and a bus. It would be much better if there was an MTR station there. It will take over an hour each way from downtown

I’m not really a fan of any trip that involves a bus, so we just took a taxi, direct, took 45 minutes and cost about $50. Return was a little cheaper and quicker.

The displays are excellent and the animals were very active. If you are in Singapore and have a spare evening this is really worth doing. One of the best Zoo experiences I’ve had.

Breakfast is something I’ve struggled with here in Singapore, early breakfast just really isn’t a thing. Sure there are a few places that do a proper breakfast, but they are not everywhere. You have to hunt them down. There is a particular lack of them around Marina Bay Sands (about my only gripe with the area). Of course decent breakfast can be had directly in the hotel for a price.

A quick search found this place called “ToastBox” which is part of some chain store and in the “Shoppes” mall. The food was decidedly average with very little choice. I had a ham and cheese toasted sandwich, which back home would have been sent straight back, cheese wasn’t melted and toast was cold. I tried a Pandan cake which was ok. The coffee was traditional Singaporean Kopi (filter/drip coffee with sweetened condensed milk).

Most interesting thing is you can get the coffee served in what looks like a goon bag

We spent a while looking around the Kampong Glam area, which incidentally is a bit more glamours than the little India area we did the day before. This is more as I imagined it would be, not with Bollywood dancers of course but lots more colour and shops selling more than basic wares and vegetables. Haji lane is probably the most interesting street, I found a place called “Donkey Coffee”, much better than most of the coffee I’ve been having here. Served in very interesting and colourful cups.

After checking out the gardens, we had a booking down at the Tanjong beach club for the afternoon. The way this place works is they have a pool, a bar, a restaurant and some daybeds, tables and cabanas. You can have the space for free for a few hours as long as you spend a minimum of $100 ($200 on weekends). Being Singapore, you will hit that with a couple of drinks easily.

We were lucky our seating was mostly in the shade as at midday the sun was punishing. Not all the cabanas had shade that was working. Go later in the afternoon or evening to avoid the sun.

Interesting place, looking out over Singapore straight you can see all the ships queued into the port. It’s a bit like visiting a beach club at Kurnell. We spent most of the time in the pool. I had expected the club to have showers but unfortunately only had change rooms. Towels could be hired for $8 for the day.

The simplest way to the club would have been a taxi, but we decided to take the cable car across to Sentosa. To do that we took a cab up to mount Faber, got the cable car and then once across got a cab to the club. Cable car isn’t exactly cheap, $35 for a ticket but you can use it all day. Great views, it’s worth doing at least once.

I think the best part of the club was the Pina Colada in a frozen pineapple. My theory is you are not on a beach holiday until someone hands you a drink in a pineapple.