From One Laksa To Another? By Mike

On Saturday night, Diane and I overcame the cocooning urge this breezy, beautiful apartment has instilled in us, and headed out on the town.  Our choice was the New Asia Bar at the top of the Swisshotel.  And when I say top, I mean top.  I had to “pop” my ears three times as the high speed elevator zoomed us up to the 76^th floor.  The view was spectacular.  It was the first time we got to see such an overall perspective on our new city.  The floors are all tilted 20 degrees toward the window which made for quite an unusual sensation – especially as the drinks flowed.  And flow they did.

Needless to say, the next morning our heads (and pretty much the rest of us) weren’t in such good shape.  Diane had just the cure, thanks to a meal she had been taken out for by her staff earlier in the week.

We went to a place called Katong Laksa – a small “hole-in-the-wall” that specializes in Laksa.  If ever there was a hangover cure, this was it. 

Katong Laksa (there are many variations of this delicious dish) is a spicy, coconutty brew of heat and yumminess in which floats shrimp, cockles, and noodles that have been cut up into small portions so you can shovel the stuff in your mouth even faster than if the noodles were left whole.  The coconut flavor tends to dominate on first taste but then the heat of chilies, a slightly sour shade of citrus and lemongrass, a touch of garlic, and many other more subtle flavors shine through.  That is, if you let them.  The stuff is so good that it’s easy to just keep spooning it in. 

One of the things that does slow you down though, is the otak that the dish is served with.  This is a fishy, spicy paste served wrapped up in a banana leaf.  You unwrap the leaf and put a dash of paste on your spoon before sending it diving into the glorious soupy pool.

The counterpoint to all of this wonderful spice is a beverage made from fresh limes that’s not very sweet, but just the thing to cool the palate while bringing out the citrus and oniony notes in the dish.  Yum!

Feeling fortified, we headed out to visit one of the city’s dog runs to get a dose of canine comfort into our day.  Sadly, it was mostly empty when we arrived.  A couple who were running their cocker spaniel around told us that most people were at the Singapore Dog Show and that we should go there. 

So far Singaporeans hadn’t led us astray, so it was off to the Singapore Expo Center.

The couple was right.  There were dogs everywhere!  And not just the little mix-breed, kind of funny-looking dogs you see most places in Singapore.  These were proper dogs – Goldens, Burnese Mountain Dogs, Yellow Labs, Great Danes, Shepards and more.  Chatting with one of the owners, we asked the question that really was on the back of both our minds – were there any standard poodles around?  The guy’s eyes grew a little larger and he pointed us to the back corner of the room where he said there was quite an impressive poodle. 

We followed his lead and soon we were talking to owner David Yeo and running our hands through the poofed up hair of Jordan, his standard poodle. 

As the conversation went on (with a  break for Jordan to take third place in the “fancy dress” competition), we discovered that Jordan’s girlfriend had just had a litter of puppies – ten in all!  THAT made for some pretty interesting conversations on the ride home and over the next few days including:  how would we ever housebreak a dog in an apartment, how much would a dog bite into our budget, wouldn’t a dog kind of mess up our travel schedule, wouldn’t it be too weird to have another black standard, where’s the nearest vet, what kind of dog food should we feed it, it can’t be allowed on the couch (at least at first), maybe I should take up jogging again to get it good exercise and … should we name the dog laksa?  Stay tuned …  

Three other random thoughts …

I sometimes get the urge to burst into singing some kind of loud, heavy kind of rock song on the bus (maybe Zeppelin’s:  We come from the land of the ice and snow, From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow …with the appropriate howl) because everyone is just so quiet and polite.

My printer ran out of ink recently.  I ordered more online.  When I checked out, I thought it said your ink will be delivered in 4-6 weeks.  I hit the back button on my browser and it was actually 4-6 hours.  And that’s exactly when it came.

The urinals are all much lower here than in the US.

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