Victuals

Singapore is a pretty good place to eat. There’s plenty of variety and it’s extremely cheap – it’s often cheaper to eat out than it is to go to the supermarket. Having guests here has ensured that I’ve got out a bit, and I’ve revisited a lot of my favourite places in the last three weeks.

As well as the usual curries, noodle dishes and rice dishes, I’ve had a couple of these beauties. It’s an Indian Muslim dish called the murtabak. It’s made of thin dough and contains vegetables and your choice of meat filling. It tastes like a cross between a pizza and a pancake.

I’ve also been to a steamboat restaurant a couple of times. As you can see, you get a large container of soup in the middle of your table which has a gas hob underneath it. The soup keeps bubbling away while you go off and collect your raw food. They’ve got the works there: noodles, veg, prawns, beef, pork, offal, eggs and tofu. You chuck it in the soup and leave it to cook for a couple of minutes before ladling it out. It’s $12 and it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.

That’s a mere four English pounds. Bargain.

It’s not the tastiest though, sadly. This is probably because we’re unused to the timings, so don’t always scoop everything out until it’s too late. Vegetables, for example, have been known to disappear without trace.

You also get long detached prawn antennae mixed up with your noodles if you're not careful.

The meat’s not quite A grade either, but then, what do you expect for four quid?

Looks like washing up on Scouts camp, doesn't it?