rainy days and mondays...

yesterday (monday) i wanted to take John, my sydney client to Hajjah Maimunah Restaurant. They have 2 outlets, the original in Jalan Pisang (one of the streets near Arab Street, between Bugis and Lavender MRT), and the newer outlet in Joo Chiat Road, closer to Geylang Serai.

In my opinion, they serve one of the best Nasi Padang/Kandar in Singapore. Huge variety, loads of yummy unusual dishes.. I love their Ulam (raw veges to be eaten with rice).. hmm.. actually I don't like that definition.. it's not your typical garden variety of veges.. many of these veges are from the jungle and not commonly eaten by non-malay non-village people.. my favourite? kacang botol (winged bean or goa bean) with sambal belachan and prawns.. yumm..



and also pucuk ubi masak lemak (young sweet potato leaves in rich coconut-tumeric gravy).. man i'm finding it hard to translate the names to english..

anyways, John has been to the one at Jalan Pisang thought it was fantastic, and even tho he doesn't eat much spicy stuff, he still enjoyed the meal.

anyways, back to the story... got there, and the restaurant was closed!!.. so, we decided to go further down the road, to try the popular bak-kut-teh (claypot pork ribs in a herbal soup) stall which opens 24 hours.. EXCEPT on mondays.. sigh.. this wasn't turning out good at all.

then i remembered.. it's monday!!! there's no pork in the market on mondays.. sigh..

ended up at a corner coffeeshop and i had dry prawn noodles, while John went for the Wanton Noodles.. it was quite nice actually.. the prawn noodle soup was dense and full of flavour.. they gave me 2 big prawns sliced in halves .. and we also ordered a prawn roll.. (pork and prawn fillings wrapped in bean curd skin, and then deep fried)..

John said in Sydney, he would think the total cost would be AU$30-40 (SG$36-48).. in the end, with 2 iced home made barley drinks, it was only SG$15...

anyways, didn't end up doing much.. John went back to his hotel to sleep becos it was really hot at the time and he was starting to get a headache, and i decided to go to Ikea Tampines to shop for Christmas..

oh yah.. John had commented several times in the last 2-3 days, "WHAT MONSOON?? Who says it's monsoon season?? I have never seen it rain in Singapore except for once in all my visits!!"

and he's been here 5 times this year.

and guess what?.. the skies opened and it rained like mad!! i didnt realise it until i was walking out of Ikea.. in the taxi, we couldnt even see 20m in front of us..

I smsed John.. "yeah.. and you said WHAT MONSOON?? you spoke too soon mate!"

he called back and laughed.. he was running back to his hotel from the antique shop at chinatown becos it had started raining..

funny guy..