August was a very full month! Packed full of good things, too! For one, my family celebrated both my mom and sister’s birthdays and for another, we had family friends and my good friends from uni, visiting Singapore from Hong Kong! As a nation, Singapore also celebrated her 53rd birthday and I caught the National Day Parade on tv this year. 2018 has been a pretty great year for Singapore and I’m so proud and excited to witness it all as it happens. :)
Here’s my August diary, with the best highlights and new discoveries of the month! A lot of it is food hahaha, yummy!
Tsui Wah Singapore (翠華)
Tsui Wah (翠華) is a popular chain cha chaan teng (茶餐廳) from Hong Kong and they opened an overseas branch in Singapore in Clarke Quay in June to very long queues! I visited twice, once with my Hong Kong family to hear their verdict. We all agreed that the food is pretty good! It’s very true to the HK taste and I’m happy about that.
However, Tsui Wah SG is nothing like HK. For one, the staff are very polite (you know I love you HK, but the service in cha chaan tengs are just not something I miss) and also converse in Mandarin only. The menu is very small and only incorporates a small fraction of the ones in HK. The whole place is also more spacious and with prettier decor than HK’s more casual ones. Simply put, the vibe is more casual restaurant than cha chaan teng. Which might explain the biggest downside: the prices are unreasonably expensive! I get it, it’s Clarke Quay, it’s a popular overseas brand, but come on, this is still simple cha chaan teng food. While good, it’s just not worth the price for me.
This restaurant has been added to my favourites! I love this place! From the yummy food, to the theme, to the incredible dedication it must have taken to incorporate the DC comic and pop culture theme so well into the restaurant. I’ve only included a few photos here and won’t go into too much detail because I plan on putting together a whole post to this restaurant with all the endless photos I snapped!
Just a quick note that there are two branches (one in Takashimaya at Orchard and one in The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands), and I went to the one in Takashimaya. The prices are also pretty high here (around S$15 – S$20+ per dish) but if you have the Eatigo app, I scored some great deals through it!
Tong Ah Eating House (东亞)
I’ve been meaning to check out this well known traditional Singaporean coffee shop as I’ve heard lots about it! Last month, when I saw via Instagram and Youtube that both an Australian blogger and Korean Youtuber I follow visited Singapore and popped by Tong Ah, I was wondering to myself how have I possibly not been there? I mean, it’s easy to get to and it’s actually quite near me so I have no excuse, really.
So off I went on a quiet Sunday afternoon to wander around the Keong Saik area, including a visit to a bookstore I really like called Grassroots Book Room as well. Anyway, Tong Ah has been in business since 1939 and are best known for their kaya toasts, which is usually eaten here in Singapore as a set, with two half boiled eggs and a cup of local teh/kopi (aka tea/coffee). My toast set here cost S$4.90.
To read more about Tong Ah’s history and story, click here.
Some August Snapshots
Beautiful tree lined stretch of road I passed by (this is Arcadia Road).
Birthday dinner at Yummo Chow
Birthday dinner 2 at Philosophy Modern Fusion
The Singapore Night Festival has been an annual event for 11 years now and this year I checked out two activities, one being the World of Wearable Art exhibit. I loved it, it was a perfect showcase of creativity and fashion meeting art.
Fave Movies
I caught Crazy Rich Asians and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again in August and I loved both so much! Can you believe the first Mamma Mia movie came out 10 years ago already?! Where does the time go? I’m a huge fan of the first movie, and I went to see the live musical a few years back too and as expected, I loved Mamma Mia 2 as well! :) I thought everyone was so much fun and Lily James was great and I knew every song in the movie because ABBA’s music ranks among my favourites.
How can I not mention Crazy Rich Asians as this movie has exploded in popularity? It was funny and romantic, and set in Singapore! I’m so excited and proud to see this sunny city on a big screen in a Hollywood movie! I loved the movie and I’m a new fan of Henry Golding, Gemma Chan and Awkwafina. Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie, you should! :) Also, Henry Golding lives in Singapore, so hopefully, I get a chance to bump into him one day!
Okay, so September is at its end haha and this is only going up now. But hey, better late than never! Talk soon again in my September diary and here’s to the last quarter of 2018!
