SINGAPORE has many homegrown brands that are worth looking into, as Singaporeans are known to bring their brand of excellence and perfectionism into everything they do.
One of these brands is Awfully Chocolate, a shop that started with just one product and has since evolved into having several cafés and restaurants which all highlight dark chocolate. Its bestselling melt-in-your-mouth Dark Chocolate Truffles are made using the finest 70 percent dark Belgian chocolate. We tried the chocolate chip cookies and they were also really good.
One of the most interesting places we visited was the Intan Peranakan Heritage Museum, a designated Heritage Home owned by Alvin Yapp who has filled it with Peranakan artifacts and antiques. From the outside, the house looks like a typical two-story house in an affluent district but the spacious interior houses Yapp’s extensive collection of intricate wood furniture, jars, Tiffin carriers, beaded slippers, Peranakan Chinese porcelain, Nyonya sarong batik and many other priceless objects.
There are so many things to see in the museum. Let me tell you that even the restroom is Instagram-worthy and Yap is such an engaging storyteller. He has a story for every object in his house. For instance, the jars lining the staircase were used as spittoons and chamber pots back in the day.
Because of Covid-19 restrictions, tours at the Intan have to be pre-scheduled. The museum can house up to 40 guests comfortably and the place can be booked for special events, such as engagements, dinners, birthdays and even small weddings.
Dinner that night was at Potato Head located inside a heritage building in Chinatown. The place has several restaurants but we went to the rooftop bar where we enjoyed burgers and fries.
For after-dinner drinks, we went to Native Bar on Amoy Street where we had interesting cocktails and nonalcoholic drinks. The theme here is foraging so we had a lot of fermented drinks with local ingredients. We were seated at the loft, which is a cool spot to hang out in.
On the third day of our trip, we did the famous Sidecar Tour of Kampong Glam. You’ll enjoy the one-hour tour seated on a sidecar of a vintage Vespa by Singapore Sidecars. They will provide the helmet and a protective plastic for your head. Kampong Glam is formerly the seat of Malay royalty and best known for its two major landmarks: Sultan Mosque, Singapore’s oldest and largest mosque, and the Istana Kampong Gelam, the former Sultan’s palace (now known as the Malay Heritage Centre). This is a tour that’s quite expensive at around P7,000 upward but worth every peso if money is no object. It’s an experience that you can only find in Singapore. This is a tour that will allow you to look at Singapore from a totally different perspective.
The next stop was the Vintage Cameras Museum, which is shaped like a camera and has about 1,000 cameras (most of them vintage) on display. These include spy cameras, a walking stick camera, pigeon cameras, 3D camera, and pistol cameras. The short tour is quite interesting especially if you’re into photography.
Lunch was at the Coconut Club on Arab Street, where all of us had the Nasi Lemak, a dish of fried chicken and rice cooked in coconut milk and served with sunny side-up egg, peanuts, spicy fried anchovies and sambal (chili sauce). I’m not usually a fan of this dish but Coconut Club’s version is really really good and the serving is generous that no one in the group could finish their food. This is a restaurant I would definitely come back to. The restaurant also has beautiful and airy interiors, and there’s an al fresco area outside if you don’t mind the heat.
We took a short walk to SIFR Aromatics for the Perfume Discovery Workshop. The store specializes in customized perfume blends, small-batch perfumes, scented soy-wax candles, natural essential oil blends, and home fragrances. The workshop gives you the chance to create your own fragrance by learning about the different notes. As a fragrance enthusiast, I love this concept. I saw one more perfume place by the corner so if this is your thing, you know where to go.
The following day, we went to the new Museum of Ice Cream on Dempsey Hill. If you have little kids, they will definitely love this. There are lots of free ice cream in the different rooms. My friend told me that the best time to go is at night when there are lights outside, so I will keep that in mind.
We had an unforgettable lunch at Open Farm Community in Dempsey Hill, which has an open kitchen concept and is pet-friendly. Everything they served us tasted exquisite. The restaurant also grows its own vegetables, and I believe the menu changes according to what is in season and what is available. They also suggest wine pairings for the dishes. For my main course, I had the Seared Akaroa Salmon with Curry, which was really good, but what I enjoyed the most was the Cauliflower Wings, which tasted like Korean chicken. It was a starter meant for sharing but I finished a bowl by myself. It was that good.
Our next stop before dinner was Design Orchard, a local brand showcase on Orchard Road. The place is expansive and houses different brands offering fashion, skin care, jewelry and even fragrances. I wish I had more time to explore it (Design Orchard is across 313@Somerset) because so many of the brands are really worth talking about. There was clothing by designer Sabrina Goh, and handbags by Cocoonese. What I really loved are the fragrances from local brands. I wish I had taken down notes because some of the scents I sampled really smelled good.
Dinner was at Chatterbox in Hilton Singapore Orchard. I will never forget Chatterbox because this is where I had my first meal on my very first visit to Singapore decades ago. Their specialty is, of course, Chicken Rice and I know that you can get good Chicken Rice in many other places but for me, this is the best for sentimental reasons. Chatterbox, by the way, is a 51-year-old restaurant.
On our last day, we did a Chinatown tour and we were given some free time. I will share my beauty and food finds in my column soon. If you want to know what Singapore requires as far as entry is concerned, I already wrote about it here (bit.ly/3pq8mmL).