Postcards From Our Backyard

Whether you’ve got guests in town, or are just looking for a new hidden gem, travel writer Anna Chittenden has you covered.

Dear CLEO,

Start your morning in Singapore at Mr and Mrs Mohgan’s Super Crispy Roti Prata in the Joo Chiat neighbourhood. Regarded by some as the most perfect prata in Singapore, this place is well worth a visit for an authentic, old school, and great value breakfast.

To burn off breakfast, rent a bike and go cycling along East Coast Beach. A 15-km stretch of beach, it’s a perfect choice for a long Saturday cycle session. Push on for 12 or so kilometers and you will go along the Marina Barrage (keep your eyes open for otters – I’ve seen them walk out of the water and hang out on the bank), and end up at Marina Bay.

Next, you’ll need a caffeine fix. There are plenty of cool, trendy coffee shops in Singapore, but none is as unique and unusual as Nylon Coffee Roasters. More than simply a coffee shop, its founders Dennis Tang and Jia Min Lee make regular sourcing trips to meet their farmers in far flung destinations such as Nicaragua or El Salvador for their espresso blend or fruity aroma coffee from Rwanda.

A stone’s throw away from Nylon is Blair Road, where you’ll find a collection of colourful, well-preserved 1920s Chinese shophouses. It’s a street I dream of living in.

To have a look inside one of these beautiful heritage homes, take a tour of Baba House, a museum showcasing what a traditional pre-war terrace house was like in the 19th Century. Standing out from the crowd with its bright blue exterior, this was once the ancestral home of a Peranakan Chinese family. Visitors to Baba House can see a snapshot of how these wealthy trading families lived.

So what are you waiting for?

Anna.

Anna is the founder of Lost Guides, a series of off-beat travel guides for Asia and beyond. Having spent months researching the little red dot, she’s now crowdfunding for the release of its travel guide in January 2017.