More SteppyYums

We've been eating more at home the last couple of weeks, and I'm beginning to love it. 

Now, at first glance of the plates, it seems to look the same, nothing varied, nothing different. 

But look harder and you'll notice the amount of creativity, and level of versatility that goes into each and every meal.

No two plate looks the same.

No two plate tastes the same.

Maybe it is all the sauces or the marination or the pastes that the chef comes up with, but whether it be fried with basil kra pow, whether it be fried with green curry paste, or whether it be done with a mix of organic soy sauce, organic fish sauce, sesame oil, or some other concoction which I don't know, everything is different.  

We tend to have several kinds of meat- there's minced chicken, minced beef, beef patties, frozen chicken breast, and shabu shabu sliced pork (which I especially like)

We used to have a big bag of frozen foie gras but we finished it and have yet to buy more. 

In recent days we have had the addition of frozen shrimp prawns, cute little ones they are, and they are fast becoming our only contribution to seafood.

Of course we have the veggies. 

There aren't as many here- funnily enough we have never gotten tomatoes- but we've had frozen spinach, frozen broccoli, and chilled asparagus, which is what the chef usually takes whilst I have half a stalk sometimes. 

Meat and vegetables aside, there is also, of course, the eggs.

Eggs are a staple in this household. 

We never, or hardly, run out of them. 

I love eggs.

I love how versatile they are and I love how the chef makes them.

There are days when we have them fried sunny side up served with chunks of chicken breast marinated with organic soy sauce and a combination of other sauces that I now cannot remember. 

There are days where we have them done omelet style with frozen broccoli and frozen shrimp thrown into the mix. 

And there are days when the eggs are made scrambled style with spinach stirred inside. 

It is, however, the marination and the sauces that always I fancy. 

One never knows what will be going with what, so on some days I'll be getting shabu shabu style meat fried with green curry paste. 

On other days, however, I'll be having minced chicken with a huge dose of basil kra pow paste that has to be one of the spiciest pastes I have had yet to date. It looks really ordinary- this paste- but just a little bit and the entire meal transforms. 

I don't have yet a picture of the beef patty. 

Then again, I just might have.

In this picture above. 

Except that you can't really see it, distracted as it is by the little bits of youtiao we had with mayonnaise, and the very well stuffed jiaozi dumplings someone had gifted to us and I really, really, really wanted to have. 

They might be regular foods to some, but it is a very pleasant dish to me- I love how the skin is soft and smooth but the filling is solid, tasty, tender, slightly mushy yet having the crunch of water chestnut and chives both at the same time. 

I wish I had access to more of these (homemade?) dumplings, seriously.

They're so good I could just have them as a full meal and not feel dissatisfied one bit at all.  

Bus Ride Sights: Changi Airport-Pasir Ris

Three months it has been since I took this bus ride from Changi Airport to Pasir Ris. 

Tell you honestly, it was not a bus ride I wanted to take. 

Neither was it a bus ride I wanted to take all alone. 

But Hedgehog had flown overseas, there were things I needed to do, and whilst I had thought I would take the bus all the way to NEX- familiar ground and all- I soon discovered that the bus actually did go by Pasir Ris.

Straightaway that changed my plans, since it would be far nearer if I could get what I needed from White Sands Shopping Mall, then take another bus home. 

So it was that the route began from the basement of what I think is Terminal 3 of Changi Airport where there are no pictures, because there isn't much to be seen except for a lot of concrete lit by harsh white fluorescent light. 

Round the basements of the other two terminals the bus went, then out it was to Airport Boulevard where it passed by a place near the SATS Flight Kitchen. 

After that, the bus went along what I think is the ECP, or it might well have been part of the Changi Airport area- I don't know. 

See, the thing about Changi Airport, and its surrounding areas, is that it is so interconnected that you never know where it is that the Airport highway ends and the actual expressway begins. 

Maybe there's a turnabout- I can't remember- and unfortunately I don't have many pictures to look at.

All I know is that this stretch seemed like to be a highway where the bus simply coasted smoothly along. 

My mind wasn't focused on the scenery this part of the journey. 

I kept wondering about Hedgehog, what he was doing on the plane, whether he was watching the videos as he always did during these short two-hour flights, if he had enough snacks in his carry on bag, if he were still hungry...

There aren't as many pictures of this part as I would have wished.

Fortunately, much of the route this section was highway, highway, highway.

It doesn't look like a lot but it is what our highways are, and, as some tell me, they make for a very scenic drive, actually, heading from the airport down to the city. 

Being local I haven't really noticed, but perhaps there really is something charming about seeing the presence of beautifully manicured trees and shrubs along our roads. 

Perhaps it is that burst of green.

Perhaps too it is the burst of red or pink from the bougainvillea. 

Somewhere along the way I probably stoned off, because next thing I knew, the bus had turned off the highway and gone onto Loyang Way. 

Honestly I'd really like to know if this is Loyang Way. 

I am presuming it is, because noob that I am, I don't recognize the street and I have no idea which is what. There aren't many landmarks on Loyang Way itself- if there were I didn't quite recognize, or see them. 

But it's not Pasir Ris Drive 1, that much I know. 

The estate of Pasir Ris doesn't look like this- much less Drive 1, which I should know, what with all the years of cycling through there to get to Tampines and Bedok and home. 

From Loyang Way after came Drive 1, then Pasir Ris Street 11, Pasir Ris Street 12, and then back to Pasir Ris Drive 1 before Pasir Ris Central where I got down at White Sands. 

Bus Ride Sights: Pasir Ris-Jln Awang

There are more pictures of this bus ride that I took from Pasir Ris Interchange back to the bus stop outside Jalan Awang compared to the earlier ride from Changi Airport to Pasir Ris. 

It's not because there was better scenery, but because I knew exactly where I was going to get down, and so I could take as many pictures as I wanted without having to worry that I'd miss my stop. 

Bus 21 begins from Pasir Ris Bus Interchange. 

What the interchange looks like, I'm afraid, offhand, I can't remember. 

It might well have been the same one as I remembered. 

It might well have been sheltered. 

I wish I could remember how it looked like- I wish I had taken a picture- chances are I won't be returning to Pasir Ris anytime soon. 

As it was, the bus turned out from the bus interchange and onto Pasir Ris Drive 3. What's significant about this particular road isn't just the road itself, but the fact that it crossed the Sungei Tampines, and was the nearest road to Pasir Ris Park and the Pasir Ris coast. 

The bus went past the place we call Downtown East before turning into Drive 6 and then Drive 1.

It was to Street 12 after that, then Street 11, and finally back to Drive 1.

If it sounds confusing, well, actually, to a noob like me unfamiliar with Pasir Ris, yes, it is. 

What it likely was, if I'm not wrong, was that from Drive 3, it turned right into Drive 6, went down it, turned left into Drive 1, then once past the Pasir Ris East Community Club, turned right into Street 12, then left onto Street 11, back right onto Drive 1, and then Loyang Avenue. 

I'm not sure if it were turning left or right or how it were going. 

Chonkycam was busy. 

There were a lot of pictures to be taken along this entire stretch. 

Sure, they might all have been nothing other than flats, and more flats, but that's the beauty of Pasir Ris as a residential estate. You get the charm of different colored flats, you get the charm of neatly planted shrubs, and you get the sight of seemingly random, yet planned trees. 

More blocks follow after that.

I don't know which block is at where, but they're neat, they're beautifully painted and the colors are somewhat refreshing to the eye. 

I like the colors of blue and white. 

They remind me of Greece, or Israel, or somewhere in the Mediterranean. 

Add to that the (temporary) bus stop with its orange and white roof, and it becomes instinctively Singaporean.

After this I don't really know which part of Pasir Ris it were, but the blocks were now red and white, then there was a school- of which name I do not know- and then a sign telling you that the TPE and the Tampines Town Center was near.

I think it was on Loyang Avenue that the bus came up to next. 

Although I can't be really sure. 

There aren't any landmarks on Loyang Avenue that I can really recognize. 

Except maybe for this row of terrace houses that I know Bus 53 passes by too. 

I am not familiar with how this road works, but what I'm pretty sure is that it leads straight into Tampines. 

Because that's the estate that I ended up after a traffic junction. 

Again, I don't know which block is where but Bus 21 went from Loyang Avenue to Tampines Avenue 7, then Ave 4, Ave 5, then Tampines Avenue 1. 

There're a lot of blocks to be seen at Avenue 7, by the way, starting off with a couple of grey painted ones whose nearby bus stops had roofs that looked like they had little square plots of plants. Then there were blocks in red and white, followed by those in yellow and white. 

After that came others, one block in full blue, one block in full yellow. I wonder if them colors have any significance in this area. A school I'd passed by further back had had such colors too. 

Further on after at Avenue 7 came a few blocks painted in blue and white, same as I'd seen at Pasir Ris estate earlier. 

After Avenue 7 came Avenue 4, which was literally Tampines Central, with the Tampines MRT, and the Century Square shopping center. 

It's probably somewhere around here, although, I must admit, I don't know which particular Avenue this is on, and if it is right by Tampines MRT, or Tampines West MRT- which is different. 

Right after Tampines Avenue 1- the Tampines West MRT- came Bedok Reservoir Road, and this, I recognized a little. 

No doubt, I haven't come on here very much, but I have cycled here before, I recognize the area of space, and I roughly can guess where this leads to. 

That being said, Bedok Reservoir Road is a fairly long road, and so I don't know where is where, but after two bus stops by public housing, the bus passed by a couple of condos that were right opposite the reservoir. 

After that it were the flats of Bedok Reservoir Road, all of which I more or less recognized. It's not that I know which block belongs to which block but I do know- by the presence of the trees- roughly which block is around which area. There were flats close to what I call the Sheng Siong Supermarket, or rather, more appropriately, the Bedok Reservoir Village. 

Then there were those close to the Industrial Park. 

The bus passed by the industrial estate itself right after before coming on to a place where in the near future there would be SingHealth's Eastern General Hospital and Community Hospital. 

I didn't take many pictures after this place. 

The bus was coming up towards the zone known as the Bedok Reservoir Food Centre whose blocks, in fact, can be seen from the balcony of Steppyhouse, and I knew I was reaching Jalan Eunos, and the bus stop of Jalan Awang where I would alight, and walk back home.