Up Close with Rita

Today, I'm just gonna post a few photos from the session with Rita.

Dinner at the Jumbo Seafood Restaurant

During my trip to Singapore in August, I deliberately made a visit to the National University of Singapore to meet up with the technicians at the Structures Lab who helped me a lot in the experiment for my Ph.D. degree. It was certainly obliging for me to meet up with my Ph.D. supervisor and long-term mentor Prof. Tan who insisted to host a dinner for me. Unfortunately the cheerful Mrs. Tan was unable to join us for the dinner that day.

Prof. Tan drove me to the East Coast Park where the East Coast Seafood Centre is located. It was quite early when we arrived, so we watched the people playing water skiing on the artificial lake. When we finally sat down at a table by the coast, I got myself a fresh coconut drink.

The waitress recommended us the house speciality, Scallop Wrapped in Yam Ring. This was something new to me but tasted really good. The crunchy outer crust of the yam ring textured the soft yam paste surrounding the flaky scallop.

The vegetable dish that we had was Kangkong Belachan (water spinach in spicy shrimp paste) which is a well-known local dish of Singapore and Malaysia. I liked the spiciness of the sauce and the crunchiness of the vegetable.

The waitress also recommended us something new on the menu, Fried Mee Pok in XO Sauce and Seafood. Mee pok is the linguine of South East Asia. It tasted quite good when it was hot but we didn't manage to savour up everything when the food temperature was just right.

Chilli crab is a signature dish of Singapore, so it is obliging for us to have a JUMBO Chilli Crab. The delightful savoury chilli gravy did not overwhelm the aroma of the crab meat. The giant Sri Lankan crab was filled with a lot of meat.

The deep-fried bun was a complementary dish to the chilli crab. Dipping the bun in the savoury chilli gravy and let the bun melt in the mouth was a top-notch gastronomic journey!

Thanks very much to Prof. Tan for the meal that let me sampled most of the signature dishes of Singapore.