islandhippy

We were fortunate to have the use of a friend's car for the national day long weekend so we packed maps, compass and survival gear and planned several long road trips. OK, Singapore is only 23 km north to south and 42 km east to west so we ain't talkin' USA coast to coast here. On Sunday we drove up to Bollywood Veggies for lunch, then on to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve for some birdwatching before checking out a new restaurant, Firestation Hillside Gastrobar in Upper Bukit Timah, for dinner. Olive was a star and lasted seven hours without complaining. She was of course completely knackered by the time we got home, but then so were mummy and daddy.

Bollywood Veggies, a fruit and vegetable farm with restaurant, is a favourite lunch spot for us when we have wheels. On this occasion we tried the banana curry (delicious), spicy sweet potato leaves (very good) and papaya chicken (a glorified soup, not really to my liking). Owner Ivy was in her usual poisonous form, slagging off real estate agents, lawyers and doctors for no apparent reason. Ivy then encouraged Sandy to enter the restaurant's lucky draw claiming the prize was a weekend in Bangkok for the winner's husband together with Ivy ... er, no thanks. Olive was pretty freaked out by Ivy's pack of Great Danes but otherwise had fun walking around the farm chasing butterflies and collecting pebbles.

A Sunday afternoon in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve is more about taking some exercise rather than looking for any birds. The concept of keeping quiet in a bird reserve hasn't reached Singapore yet. No problem, it was good to see so many people out and about. And we were able to pick up their trash after them. The only bird of interest we saw was an Ashy Tailorbird, common enough in mangroves but not something we would see at home. We tried to get Olive interested in birdwatching but she preferred to work on her pebble collection.

We stayed up north (at most 15 km away from home, how sad) for dinner and tried Firestation Hillside Gastrobar in Upper Bukit Timah. The 50-year-old fire station is now home to a creative arts and new-media school and the three-storey flats that once housed the firemen and their families are in the process of being transformed into bars, restaurants, kid's activity centres, pet hotels and more. The Firestation Hillside Gastrobar is a sprawling mismatch of wicker furniture that was probably picked up from the huge Salvation Army depot up the road. The menu offers neither cheap nor cheerful tapas, grilled items, pizza and pasta. Sandy had a fairly decent Hoegaarden-battered fish and chips, I opted for comfort food pizza but was not impressed. In fact, the best thing to come out of our visit here was the discovery of a far more interesting bar next door: the Raw Kitchen Bar. Perhaps not a place we could take Olive to so we'll check it out another time.