TAN TENG NIAH HOUSE – This house in Singapore’s Little India belonged to a Chinese businessman and incorporated an unusual style mixing Chinese and European influences with wild colors. It's appearance, history, and location make it a pretty good symbol for how multicultural Singapore really is.
Singapore’s Little India had all these little sweet shops open and around. They reminded me of the Bengali Sweet Stand in Kolkata where I discovered this little goodie called ice cream sandesh–a candied milk dessert that somehow tasted like a chilled cube of pistachio ice cream.
I had no luck finding it, and it seemed like a lot of items I saw listed or that I asked about were unavailable. The vendor often told me they were out of ingredients I didn’t even think were necessary in those items. But eventually I picked out something that was clearly in the case…
Mango Burfi.
Burfi is also a milk-based treat… a bit like fudge. The word -barf- in Hindi actually means snow. And the mango flavoring added something extra nice. This was real good, especially while walking around on a hot day.
SUPERTREE GARDEN – Never realized that the Supertree Garden in Singapore was like, an actual garden. I just thought they were replica baobabs. These structures have vertical gardens of ferns, orchids, and vines going all the way up, plus structures to collect rainwater and generate solar energy, so they mimic a lot of tree behaviors.
