Sunday mornings in Singapore

Food from hawker stands (the Singaporean equivalent to food courts) is super cheap. You can get a very tasty lunch that will fill you up for $3. On the flip side, food from the grocery stores is not cheap. Singapore as a country is pretty small in land mass and most of it is filled up by the city. This results in very little space to farm anything locally so almost all food is imported.

I'm happy to say that I can get most of my American products here. Salad dressing for a mere $10/bottle, sliced Swiss cheese for a mere $9.50/package, pretzels for a mere $4.50/package... It's nice to be able to buy familiar things but I'd go broke if I spent all of my money on this. It's also extremely pricey to buy produce from the grocery store. A head of lettuce will run you about $3.oo and bell peppers around $4 each.

Enter my Sunday morning routine...
Visiting one of many of the local wet markets. They are called wet markets because they sell all sorts of produce, fish, chicken, and meat and at the end of the day, to clean up they simply pull the product away and spray the area down with a hose and some bleach. I also think there is a hidden meaning for the wet market... you get so sweaty inside because it's so crammed with people and things that you end up being wet as well.

My first activity on Sunday mornings is to head to Little India to visit the Tekka Market. The market is split into three sections. One has clothing and other merchandise, the second is a food court, and the third is where the produce and fish/meat market is located. (At some point in the future I'll take photos and post them - it was miserably hot this morning so decided not to.) My first stop is always to the veggie guy. He has a huge selection and for $15 SNG I can get broccoli, cabbage, romaine lettuce, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, sugar snap peas, portobello mushrooms, and yellow and red bell peppers. I then head to the fruit stand and buy a cantaloupe. The nice man running this stand always tries to get me to buy mango or grapes or some other type of fruit. He's convinced I'll do it some week and we laugh each time I say "no thanks - just the melon."
My next stop is to the chicken stand. It took me 2-3 weeks to get the courage to buy chicken from the wet market. They are whole chickens (heads and all) and they are just on ice. But, the beauty of buying from there is that you can purchase an entire chicken and they'll de-bone, de-skin, and cut it however you ask. It costs the same price as just buying it head, skin and all. This week I just bought a single chicken breast - at the market that means the entire breast - not just one side like we would think in the US. I stand there and talk to the nice Indian guy as his helpers promptly de-bone and de-skin it for me. Total cost $3 SNG.
My final stop is to the fishmonger. He along with the veggie guy recognize me now. I walked up this morning and he said "hello, salmon the same as last week?" I nodded and he started work on it. The fish stand is a thing of beauty to me. Imagine the meat section at your local grocery store, it's about that long - and this is just one of many fishstands. However, instead of meat it has a huge selection of fish and seafood. The fish are all whole fish (head, fins, and all) just hanging out on ice waiting to be purchased. And again, they will sell you the fish as is or cut and clean it to your liking. I like just watching the different people buy things in various formats. The nice older lady next to me today bought fish that she asked to be cleaned and chopped into quarters. I noticed when he handed her the bag it included the fishheads. When he was done with my salmon he handed it to his helper who puts it on ice, wraps it in newspaper and collects my money. The fishmongers always refer to the ladies they recognize as "sister" - so the helper hands me my bag and said "$10 please, sister". The fishmonger then said "see you next week sister", smiled, and got on to his next customer.