We arrived in Singapore at the ungodly hour of 3am.

Though J and I were both on the verge of being crabby and exhausted, by the time we checked into our hotel the one thing on our minds was food, and soon.

After asking our helpful hotel staff for suggestions, they told us there was a local coffee tiam (coffee shop) down the street, a few minutes away.

We’re staying in Singapore’s ‘Little India’ which has lots of interesting places to eat that I plan to explore later today.

We found Al-Jilani, a 24 hour restaurant serving up some crowd pleasing food (a crowd of around 30 people – inside and out – which at 4am, seemed to be travellers like us, club kids and locals who must spend a lot of time there).

Ordering is just like riding a bicycle (sort of). I remembered about 90% of the Malay names for the dishes, and I think I remember eating some of them when I was last in Malaysia and Singapore as a kid.

We started with Roti egg, and the standard accompaniment – curry sauce (this one was chicken curry sauce).

The roti was soft and fluffy, with a thick layer of egg between layers of the delicious flaky-elasticy outside. The curry side dish was mopped up quickly – it was zingy and had a nice kick from coriander (seed), tumeric, cumin and something else I can’t put my finger on. It was great, and quite different from the typical curries I make at home.

The Nasi Goreng Ayam was like nothing I’ve ever tried before. It was very spicy, and laden with chunky bits of spicy roasted chicken, a few bean sprouts, ginger, lemongrass and some egg mixed in for good measure.

It was such a huge serving we couldn’t finish it, especially as we had filled our bellies with frothy cold Coffee Ice.

All this cost us a mere S$9.60. A bargain by anyone’s standards, I think! So glad I didn’t suggest McDonalds or something else instead…

The perfect opening night to what I hope will be 4 (and a bit) days of foodie fun in Singapore!