CUTE and tasty panda bao from the River Safari photo: Lea Salonga Instagram
First off… thank you, Singapore, for a wonderful two days of shows at the gorgeous concert hall of the Esplanade!
To our generous main sponsor Columbia Threadneedle, our audiences who came to watch us (you were amazing!), the production and backstage staff who took care of us, the sublime local musicians who played along with our resident Pinoy team (Gerard Salonga, Cezar Aguas, Ria Osorio, Meong Pacana, Nikko Rivera and Jorge San Jose), thanks so much for everything.
We hope for a return engagement very soon.
However, as wonderful as the work was, no visit to Singapore would be complete without a food trip. As always, whenever we travel to the Lion City, our friends make sure we have our fill of the excellent cuisine available.
For this particular trip, our hosts (our godparents sa kasal Raymundo and Nancy Yu) decided to celebrate the cuisine of my husband Rob’s ancestry.
Japan part 1
Rob is of Chinese (his father) and Japanese (his mother) descent, and his Chinese ancestry can be broken further down to Shanghainese (his paternal grandfather) and Cantonese (his paternal grandmother). So yes, we all had a hefty helping of everything.
On our first evening in Singapore, we were treated to a lovely Japanese set meal at the Kaiseki Yoshiyuki at the basement level of the Forum Shopping Mall on Orchard Road.
The chefs prepared some incredible sushi and sashimi (with hand-grated wasabi and Japanese soy sauce on the side), crispy fish, beef so tender and juicy it explodes with each bite, pieces of breaded and fried squid, silky chawanmushi (savory egg custard) and some wonderful sake to wash it all down. (I refrained from any and all alcohol as I had shows to do.)
I wasn’t able to join the fun for the Shanghainese meal, as I hadn’t gotten much sleep and needed to rest up for the first show, but I was able to sneak in a couple of pieces of smoked egg and vegetable pastry from Rob’s take-home bundle, and was happy to find out that Nic had eaten 10 xiao long bao (soup dumplings) at the meal. Wow!
Japan part 2
For lunch, we headed to Uma Uma, a ramen and rice meal restaurant also at the Forum. When we got there the place was packed, so instead of waiting for our table, Rob, Nic, Nancy and I headed upstairs to Toys R Us, just to browse.
When our table was ready, we ordered fried chicken, gyoza, different kinds of ramen soup (the Uma Uma ramen was amazing), meatballs, char siu rice, mazesoba (dry ramen, without soup), and cups of hot green tea.
The food was so delicious! The noodles were cooked a perfect al dente, nothing was too salty (Uma Uma uses no MSG in their food), and the fried food tasted fresh. I hate the flavor of stale oil, and there was none of that mistake here. The food arrived in a timely fashion; none of us had to wait.
Just so you know, Uma Uma will be opening in Manila later this year. Stay tuned to this space for more details once I have them.
Cantonese
For the other half of Rob’s Chinese heritage, we headed to Jade Palace. The food prepared for this meal wasn’t what we would normally expect, but the surprises offered were all delectable.
Steamed garoupa (but only the collagen-rich backbone area), roasted suckling pig skin and meat, roasted chicken, battered and fried frogs legs, noodles topped with raw fish, lots of green leafy vegetables, and Chinese tea.
It was very different from the normal seafood, pork, beef and rice fare that is customarily served, but that’s a good thing. We widened our palates and got to try things we haven’t tried before.
And finally… a tried-and-tested speakeasy.
I had been to The Horse’s Mouth (located directly below Uma Uma) before, but not Rob. We decided to to celebrate there after the second concert. We all had sushi of all kinds (including small bowls of chirashi, mixed rice bowls with smaller pieces of raw fish), ramen, and signature cocktails which became instant favorites. I love a good gin and tonic, and on this night it was prepared with Monkey 47 gin. It’s so good it’s legendary.
Oh, one last… on our final day in Singapore, we visited the River Safari near the Singapore Zoo. We sat down for merienda at one of the restaurants there, and tried one of the cutest dishes on the menu: a steamed panda bao. It’s available in red bean and chocolate flavors, and it’s absolutely adorable. And tasty.