Food, Friends and Sting Ray

I have been remiss in posting over the last few days, partly because I have been busy, but partly because I have been busy eating, and eating and eating. It seems that good food in always just around the corner in Singapore. Although the first few days in the office, I think the team were trying to be gentle on us foreigners and ordered Sandwiches for lunch, I soon laid down the law - No More Sandwiches. No KFC. No Pizza.
Tuesday night I headed out to a little Mexican restaurant I have previously mentioned - Piedra Negra. Seriously some of the most authentic, best Mexican I have had outside of Mexico. After a round of reposado, the margarita was cold and refreshing and perfect. We ordered "for the table" though through no explicit agreement, and it was just right. We served each other albondigas, papas, aranchera, flautas and chile rellenos all the while chatting about Mexico and Peru and vacations and beaches. A perfect evening.
At breakfast every morning the Sri Lankan cook makes me hot roti. There is quite a method to roti, the pulling and stretching of a sticky dough, the flattening of the small patti onto the hot grill. He enjoys ensuring I have hot roti in the morning, to the point where he had a hot one sent to my table yesterday so I did not have to stand and wait for it. He makes sure he has an egg fresh off the grill for me, and tomorrow he wants me to try a roti with cheese. I am already looking forward to breakfast. Maybe I am a little in love with Mr. Roti.
Last night after work, Sharon organized our dinner outing to Glutton's Bay. Glutton's Bay has some of the best Hawker food in Singapore. Hawker food ranges in price from between $3 and $6, and is usually Chinese, Thai, Korean, Malay or IndianThey have a stand quality rating system (based on cleanliness) that ranges from A to D, A being the highest quality. Hawker stands generally post their ratings where they are easily visible, and last night we had a feast at A and B rated stands! Fried chicken, noodles, "cereal" shrimp, king crab, calamari that tasted like candy, and the highlight was sting ray, which was nicely BBQed and then topped with a chili paste. It was a feast, and Chad got us dessert - shaved ice with various fruit puree and jellies and red beans. Mmmm!

Tonight Garrick and I stopped at a hawker stall across from the hotel on our way back from a way-cool outdoor bar on the 17th floor of a hotel, pictured here. The bar is called Fabric and the service was "interesting", but they had a ladies night promotion so if I gave them my buisness card, I got three coupons for Lycee Martinis for Tuesday nights. Whooo Hooo! Sorry, back to the food. After eating great veggies and liver and sliced BBQ Pork over rice, we tried Honey Cake, which tasted a bit like a date or raisin christmas cake. Garrick suggested that a few seconds in the microwave and a bit of warm custard would really make it just perfect. How am I to disagree with such sound logic?