Singapore Expats

I remember when we first moved here from the US my wife really missed Vitamin Water (it's since arrived in SG). I still miss certain products that I used to be able to walk into a 7-11 or a supermarket in New York and pick up. What are some items you used to take for granted that you can't find in Singapore?

Cracker Jack!

Liquorice.

Deodorant or shaving gel that doesn't suck.

A limitless choice of extraordinary craft beer at max. e1.00/500ml. My local bottle shop stocked maybe 500 kinds of beer.? I'd go once a week, and randomly choose 'c5 beers I've never had before'. Then I'd enjoy them and consider them, and then I'd visit BeerAdvocate and see how others found them. I did that every week for three years.... yes, maybe almost all 500 beers

Lidl/Aldi.

250gm tubes of mustard/mayo/tartare that cost e0.29 each

Smoked salmon as a staple, not a luxury. Ditto fresh mussels.

20 kinds of cured ham

Hot fresh sliced and loaded roast joint of pork kebabs (down the local market, the stall was called 'Carnivore' lol)

29 cent deodorant. (we brought, I don't know, maybe 30, wedged in a box we knew would stay upright whilst in transit).

M+S ready meals. In the UK there are maybe 1000 options. I can eat a different gourmet meal every night for three years (though I really miss the curries (Indian, Malay, Thai, VNese... they really have it covered).



This could become a veeeeery long list

I don't really miss anything, just the ability to shop online properly, not on retarded webpages that are written by children (or not at all)

Bread! My god how I miss good bread.

Good one. Bread, white or brown, or wha'ever, that actually has flavour.

Indeed. The only halfway decent bread you can find here is the baguette/batard style, in ridiculously overpriced shops like Kaiser and the Tiong Bahru bakery. Any other types of bread are either totally absent, or are this powdery, insubstantial, rubbery material that is absolutely vile.

The swiss bakery, with all it's promise, is the worse offender.

kookaburrah wrote:Bread! My god how I miss good bread.

I make it myself at home

I should do that!

Steve1960 wrote:

kookaburrah wrote:Bread! My god how I miss good bread.

I make it myself at home

FYI, there's this recipe going around for making bread that just needs ice cream and flour:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ice-Cream-Bread-ka-POW/

I don't own but have used a bread-maker. The results were flavoursome but, er, dense, rather like a German loaf of rye.

p.s. When you make your own bread (either in a kiln or bread-maker), the surprise is that, it has flavour, it's bloody solid, a slice of bread is half a meal, and, you have maybe 2 days to eat it.

I have been racking my brains and don't think there is anything I really miss.

Sometimes it takes a little searching (or asking on this forum) and sometimes (more often than not) its a bit expensive but I have found everything I like in the end. Maybe I am just not that adventurous!

The things I thought would be a problem are easily found in Cold Storage. Piccalilli, HP brown sauce, cheese sauce (for cauliflower cheese), OXO cubes.

In fact now that I have a 'UK TV Anywhere' box installed and a large free standing bath tub I would go as far as to say the only thing I miss from the UK is family.

Doner Kebab on a Saturday night after a long stint in the pub watching football..................maybe but my health must be better without it and the six pints of wife beater beforehand.

Can't think of anything else.

PNGMK wrote:Liquorice.

+1