Text 1929, 96 rader
Skriven 2008-02-06 11:08:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: travelogue 813
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My friend Lori likes boutiquey, perhaps even funky hotels,
so she booked us into the Perak Hotel at the edge of Little
India. The room we got wasn't so good, but after a day of
flying I didn't feel like fussing. At least it had free wireless
and a nice firm bed. The deal was I'd use the room one night,
and then she would take it over, thus saving me the trouble of
figuring out where to stow my luggage during the day while I
wandered around, as for the next days I was to share a suite
with my colleague Steve at the Inter-Continental.

After breakfast (ramen with succotash, strange; fruit cup,
good) I wandered off poking into neighborhoods I hadn't been
before; decided to go to the American Embassy to have extra
pages put into my passport. Took a wrong turn on Grange Road
from somewhere or another and found myself back near the
Meritus Mandarin; decided not to leave things to my clearly
compromised sense of direction and took the bus out.

There was no citizen line but a fair queue of hopefuls at
the foreigners door. After two rounds of security I was in
the fortresslike building, which has a little area for
visas and such and an even smaller area for Citizen Services
- I wonder what the rest of that enormous facility houses.
Citizen Services was efficient, and in half an hour I had
an ample supply of new pages sewn into the middle of my
passport.

Wandered randomly back to town and decided to give a much
touted in foodie circles restaurant a try - Bayang, which
serves Bali-style food. It's in the newly fancified Clarke
Quay area and turns out to be quite pricy.

Being sort of brain-dead but not brain-dead enough to
realize there wasn't any smell of spices in the air, I
didn't get anything like the rendang that I had craved but
instead ordered the set meal with crispy duck, jackfruit
curry, and a sort of deconstructed gado-gado - crudites
(green beans, tomatoes, lettuce, red cabbage, carrots,
white cabbage slaw, and parsley) presented Western-style
with a bowl of dark brown and not spicy enough peanut sauce
on the side. The duck was crispy and overdone but, I wonder
why, not dry at all. One wing, a breast half, and part of
the back, hacked into random pieces. The curry was very
tasty but a bit thin. I had avocado cendol for dessert:
odd as the avocado was quite ripe but became hard in
contact with the bed of ice. Other usual suspects: sago
noodles in red, green, and yellow; beans (big red kidneys
this time, instead of the lovely little adzukis); kernel
corn; coconut milk. A 300 mL draft Tiger was $10.50++,
which I thought excessive.

Back to the hotel for some e-mail and rest, and then to
the Meridien bar to meet friends for Happy Hour beers.
Luckily on the way I met my buddy Boris and the lovely
Alexa and got to store my traps in their top-floor
suite. After which it was down for the lobby debauch
(eventually a dozen or so of us congregated there),
which was made more interesting by the fact that despite
the advertised 2-for-1 happy hour special we were charged
full boat (S$10 for beer).

I retired for a few hours and then rejoined everyone (except
I think one or two) at Lau Pa Sat. Or more accurately, I
showed up at midnight to find nobody, nada, zilcho. Wandered
around clockwise for a half hour (the pavilion is round of
course) and then saw a couple of my companions from the
Meridien; gradually people coalesced, and dinner commenced:

satays - the guy who had collared us worked for the satay
stall at number 3 and 4 or something, and I don't care for
their satay, so I had none of this;

lots of beer - goes without saying. I bought the first three
pitchers (a couple folks chipped in later) and figured that
everyone was on his own;

the other end of the table had a whole bunch of things; I
didn't see any of what was going on.

At length my friends Steve and Lori arrived to round out the
party. I was especially glad as Lori was my virtual roommate
for the past night and Steve my real roommate for the succeeding
nights. It was good to connect with both of them.

Our end of the table had just some crispy squid and chicken
wings, so we got off fairly easy. Lori wanted noodles, so
someone ordered Hokkien mee (wheat and rice noodles mixed,
shrimp buried in the mess) for her - what came was rather
sloppy and distinctly below average, though still quite edible.
Steve and I reflected on how much better the food was elsewhere.
I reminded him that this was 1 or 2 in the morning, and what can
one expect?

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