Friday, June 25, 2010

Sunday, the 13th: Singaporean Homestay III - Din Tai Fung & Botanics

We woke up on Sunday after our late-night sleepover and Lydia took us to one of her favorite restaurants, Din Tai Fung. This was and to this day still is, hands down, the best meal I've eaten here. If this changes, I'll be sure to let you know, but as of now, it is still uncontested. Let me try to explain everything we ate.

^^ Shrimp fried rice...but it was not anything like American fried rice, and was very eggy, moist, and delectable.
^^ The two dishes from which people are getting food are essentially like chicken noodle soup, but not as salty. The chicken tray in between those is "drunk chicken." It is cooked in wine and tastes like it. It was a very interesting flavor combination.

These delicious dumplings (I don't even know what the real name for them is) were sort of the centerpiece of the meal. They are just thin dough dumplings surrounding shredded meat and soup, but I can't even describe to you how incredible they are! You have to pick them up carefully, because if you break the dough, the soup will spill everywhere!
Our chopstick skills definitely got put to the test! And Lydia, Aaron, and Andre had a lot of fun laughing at our failed attempts!
And then there were also dumplings filled with sweet red bean paste for dessert! Abby and Lacy and I all agree that these are our single favorite dish in Singapore, and continue to crave them!

After lunch, we headed to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. *Interesting tidbit* the gardens and the malls around them are a popular hangout for maids on Sundays. Many, many middle-to-upper-class Singaporean families have a maid, and Sunday is usually their only day off. Consequently, a lot of Singaporeans try to steer clear of these "maid hotspots" on Sundays. Anyway, the gardens were lovely, but it looked like it was going to start raining and Abby and Lacy and I had a test to study for, so Aaron and Lydia drove us back to PGP around 3.

And thus concluded a fantastic homestay experience! We really hope we get to see Lydia and her family again sometime before we leave Singapore!

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