Penang Island, Malaysia
In post colonial Georgetown I was ridiculously delighted to find toast, butter and marmalade available at breakfast in my hotel. And cereal. Alongside many more exotic foods that I had absolutely no interest in (apart from the fruit). It was so lovely to have something familiar for breakfast at this point:
The now famous (on my Facebook page!) two flavoured ice cream at the top of Penang Hill. Sweetcorn and butterscotch flavour, allegedly. It was very tasty (and half the price of the guy standing in a more obvious place further down the hill):
I don’t seem to have eaten very much while in Penang (or at least I didn’t think it worth photographing). But this vegan salad was exactly what I was after. I remember it was unusually late finding somewhere to eat after a long day of sightseeing around the island. I was grateful they stayed open for me! The drink is a fruit smoothie, and I had salted edamame beans with the salad, and vegan fruit jelly for afters 😋:
A pint of smoothie, a hot chocolate and a bottle of water. A good opportunity to escape the rain and read my book after a museum visit:
South Indian dosa pancake with potato curry inside and various dipping sauces next to it:
Young coconuts minus the shell. I frequently saw people drinking coconut milk with a straw from these:
The pink things below are dragon fruit. I’d only ever had one of those before in the UK and it was horrible! But in Singapore, they’re riper and sweeter as well as spectacular to look at. Inside they have white flesh flecked with black seeds throughout. All of which is edible and tastes slightly sweet. They were so much nicer here. I had been so disappointed with the one I had in England years ago. It was tasteless and had a texture similar to boiled potato, which was a massive let down having admired the look of it!:
There are some really artistic cakes on sale in the malls in Singapore:
Japanese style mochi (a kind of pastry filled with a delicately sweet bean curd, I think):
You do get westernised food in Singapore, too, though it’s often more expensive. This was my smashed avocado on toast with lime, chilli flakes, toasted pine nuts and poached egg. Very hipster!:
From a traditional outdoor hawker centre this was mushroom noodle soup. They sprinkled fried anchovies on top:
The best veggie curry ever. Served on what I guess is a banana leaf. Ooooh it was gooooood:
Calamansi juice. (A type of green skinned sweet lime, that tastes more like orange to me):
The following 4 pictures were all elements of the same meal…
Chicken roasted in some very tasty way. I guess it must be a marinade? (And a little bit of pork too at the top of the picture):
“Nonya style” Achar pickles (also delicious);
Chilli sauce. Shiv said if the chilli sauce was bad, it could ruin the whole dish. This one was goooood:
Then there was the rice to go with all the above, which is the classic Singaporean dish, chicken rice. The rice tastes amazing, cooked in the juices from the chicken. But it just looks like normal rice, so I didn’t bother getting a picture.
Hawker Chan’s Michelin starred chicken rice, with seasonal green veg. And the unfeasibly small bill:
Kopi a kind of coffee made with condensed milk. Which tastes surprisingly nice:
Some more western food. This was my treat following braving the high swing bridge type thing at the super tree skywalk at Gardens by The Bay:
Veggie bento box. Including soup, green beans, chilli sauce, potato curry, rice:
Veggie gyoza (dumplings):
Here are some pictures from my last day in Switzerland today. By this evening I’ll arrive in probably a wet, dark and cold UK and I reckon I’m going to find it tricky believing that only this morning I was seeing this. What an incredible time of sharing memories, philosophising and enjoying fresh mountain air and incredible views. (And also learning some better techniques for negotiating slippy slidey snow!!)
From the train ride back to Zürich. Not great photos but you get the idea. I think my ears popped about 6 times on the way up and about 4 on the way down:
Thanks to Phil for these amazing photos:
la perle 