Sing 3. Nick's Food Tour of Asia, Parts 2-4

Part II:

I'm a big believer in exploring all the local flavours in foreign countries. So, being in Singapore, and out with a bunch of poms in the boonies, it seemed only natural to go the pizza. But not any old pizza. One I've only seen in Singapore: Norwegian pizza. This is basically a cheese pizza with a hint of smoked salmon. Not bad, but not more than 2/5 on a good day.

Part III: Fish head curry.

Ben, my main man at Standard Chartered, offered to take me and Rob out for a fish-head curry. I'm game for anything, but Rob, being a typical conservative Englishman, was having none of it. "There is no way I'm eating fish head. I'll have to tell Ben a story. I've thought about it and can't do it." Luckily for him, he left before the Big Day.

The Big Day was actually pretty good. Three guys from the bank and I went up to the Civil Service Club and ate off banana leaves. The fish head was pretty sizeable and included a fair chunk of what would be the neck, if fish had necks. Basically all the flesh falls off and it's just like eating any other fish curry. Except any other fish curry doesn't have an over cooked eye staring up at you.

So of course Ben points out that eyes are a delicacy. What he actually said was "Nick, the eyes are a real delicacy here" but what he meant was "Nick, we want to see what you're made of. Eat the eyes or lose a lot of face."

I dropped the first one on the table.

The second one came with a great bit of cartilage, so I had to suck it down and couldn't savour the texture. Not that that was a major problem.

The brain is the other delicacy. Luckily I'd gained my share of face and didn't want to look greedy. Navith was more than keen to get his teeth into the skull, though, so we all let him.

All up, I give the fish head curry at the Civil Service Club a big 4 out of 5. Apparently it's peculiar to Singapore, so I guess you have to come here to have it. Just don't try it for dinner because the curry can go off during the day.

Part IV:

Saturday's plan was to wander down to Boat Quay for dinner, but I took a turn through Chijmes on the way. Well, there was a Philippino Mariachi band playing outside the Spanish restaurant. And I'm just a sucker for Philippino Mariachi bands, so that was that: dinner at Octo. I'd always wondered how many flamenco songs there were, and when the band started cranking out Up Town Girl, I found out: not that many.

The food, for the record, was vegetable paella. Pretty good, but nothing to write home about, even though I am. 3/5.

(Note: Chijmes is a big complex of bars and restaurants in an old convent, and everyone pronounces it "chimes", ie, with a silent J. But I reckon this is a cop-out. Adding mysterious silent letters make Hangman and Scrabble wholy different games, and seems a little pretentious. "It's spelt 'Sir Raymond Luxury Yacht' but it's pronounced 'stoat gobbler throat warbler'." But it's a good place. If you come to Sxingapore, make sure you ask the cabbie to take you to Chidgmees.)

Happy eating. Stay tuned for further gastronomic tales.