Sentosa and 1st BBQ Springbloom

Since we like Singapore so much, find the people here really friendly and think the city itself is so clean, our outing became a choker. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the ‘paradise island’ Sentosa, but it’s probably the worst place in Singapore (minus Tanjong Beach Club, which was the only plus). We were there briefly when we were on the run from earthquakes and nuclear disasters in March, but were definitely too worked up to fully understand how much almost all of Sentosa sucks. (For the Swedes reading: basically, imagine Liseberg, Gothenburg on a salary-weekend when the weather is good, add big American-stylish-plastic-looking complexes and prices which are through the roof.) To make matters worse, we hadn’t gone there by the cable cars, which we decided would be smashing since we’re both scared of heights. Sometimes I think the joint intelligence in any marriage just becomes slightly paralyzed.

 

View from the cable car; the entire thing is made out of glass which doesn’t really help if you don’t like heights.

It was also hotter than hell and a national holiday = well beyond crowded = more or less how I picture an average purgatory.

 

Me on Palawan Beach which is seriously dirty (huge contrast to the rest of Singapore) and full of male participants who take pictures of everyone who’s in a bikini. We left after less than 5 mins.   

 

Japanese tourists seemed to be of the same understanding.

 

Entrance of the Robinson-alike island, which was not tasteful, practical nor fun.

Basically, you can go to Sentosa, but stay bloody far away from any of the beaches besides Tanjong Beach. Book a table at the beach club in advance, go directly there and only enter the ocean if you have to. Otherwise, just use the pool. Really, it’s the best option. And yes, we should have listened to our friends Claudia and David telling us just that.. 

 

Jonas at Tanjong Beach Club where fortunately the music was very good. Thank you DJ and friend Johnny!

We quite quickly took the first transportation towards the outstanding cable cars to just get us off the island. Unfortunately the only thing which came by was a parody of a too too train that merciless brawled out ‘TOOOT TOOOOT TOOOOOT’ at a volume that would make anyone not only go deaf, but both blind and mute in one go.

Since apparently the hits just had to keep on coming that day, we got on a bus to take us closer to our cable stop. That was exactly the same though that passed through the mind of the man with the largest problems with his intestines I’ve ever been unfortunate enough to have to endure. If his farts had been caught on an IR camera they’d been green. He could’ve killed a small cat with that smell. I’m not joking. THEN a man with the most foul body odor decided to enter the bus. J and I quickly threw ourselves towards the exit. Too late though, so we spent another 5 mins in the vicinity of a person smelling so strongly of sweat that my eyes were tearing when we finally got off. Jonas was almost green in the face and looked like he was gonna hurl any second. With a joint ‘Let’s just get the f*** off this island’-understanding we got on the cable cars and headed for civilization.

 

View from the cable cars; beautiful, but next time it’ll be straight to Tanjong Beach Club. 

We have now also quality tested the BBQ pits at Springbloom and they work just fine. The first round of BBQ guests were primarily Jonas colleagues; I spent the entire day before to plan and do the shopping. The menu included all kinds of salads, skewers, exotic fruits and drinks, so I started by heading to Little India.

 

Beginning of the main street Serangoon Road in Little India

 

It’s a bit tricky to find Mustafa Center where all the food is, but it’s just to follow the signs..

 

On the way one passes the absolutely gorgeous clothes section; it just goes on and on with row after row of fanatically beautiful and cheap clothes. I took a little detour here..

Well at home after a full day grocery shopping, I prepared all beans, peas and lentils for the following day. Might sound a bit out of place at a BBQ, but I had instructions there’d be a lot of Indians, and I know they are huge fans all kinds of legumes. And no one was leaving this party hungry.

The day of the BBQ I started early with boiling all the legumes; in the mean time I prepped the fruit and made grill packages.

 

 

 

Pineapples, dragon fruits, yellow and red water melons were all chopped and placed separately in the fridge to cool off

 

 

Tomatoes and mushrooms were chopped and placed in separate tin foil packages with oil, garlic, salt and white pepper 

Then it was time for one huge potato salad with creme fresh, mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, capris, salt and black pepper + one green salad with all kinds of salad leaves, green/red spinach, all colors peppers, tomatoes, cucumber and squash. I also prepared a bean salad with white/black/red beans, chick peas, celery, red onions, green peppers and red cabbage. To this I made vinaigrette (lemon juice and mustard) and herb (vinegar, oregano, basil, rosmarin, thyme) dressings, based on oil, salt and pepper. Brilliant.

 

Start of the salads

Then it was time for the shaky part: the tiger shrimp skewers. I’ve not done them before, so I was a bit nervous they’d be really bad. At least I didn’t do the obvious beginner blunder of forgetting to damp the actual skewers in water before. It’d be really unfortunate if they’d just catch fire.. I had found a great recipe online where you just soak the whole thing (tiger shrimps, all colors peppers, onions and squash already on the skewer) in a marinade of soy sauce, oil, lemon, lime, garlic, ginger, red and green chili for an hour. They became a real hit, so I'll definitely keep them in mind for next time.

 

Preps for the marinade

Kitchen duty went really well besides one episode where I over enthusiastically manages to shove the very sharp Japanese knife straight into my ring finger. Needless to say there was blood everywhere. I don’t handle blood well. At all. After flipping over an entire chopping board of tomatoes by mistake as I was reaching for the kitchen bench so I wouldn’t pass out + sitting on the floor for about 20 mins with my head between my knees, I was fine though. It was however both cold and slimy unpleasant to sit flat arsed down in a pile of chopped tomatoes, but after a shower, three plasters and ‘Moves like Jagger‘ on full volume, I was back in the game.  

 

I was actually contemplating buying this and tell Jonas dessert was under control; they’re iPhone covers ;)  

The evening was really great and thank you all for making it so!