Michaela’s lunch: chinese combination. I forgot to ask her what dishes she had, but I can see sweet and sour something, satay, omelette, mixed vegetables, egg noodles, fried rice, black bean beef, spring roll, prawn cracker…

Jac’s lunch: Salmon sashimi deluxe set: salad (with that really lovely sesame oil Japanese salad dressing), tempura (prawn, green bean, sweet potato and eggplant), california roll and salmon sashimi. Sashimi is something I never eat. I’m not squeamish about raw fish – I just don’t like the taste or texture of it. Jac also had a big glass of cendol to wash it all down.

My lunch: char kway teow. It was a choice between my Favourite Three: char kway teow, wantan mee dry style, or hainan chicken rice.

After we’d stuffed ourselves, we went to the asian supermarket next door and bought a bottle of oyster sauce (we’ve run out – must always have oyster sauce in the pantry!), more pickled green chillies in a jar for Jac, and some of my favourite sausage buns – each bun has a frankfurter in soft, chewy, oily asian bread. I just love these and would eat them just about every day, but I’ve only ever found them in this one shop, even though the information on the back of the packaging says they are made locally in Mt Pleasant. I got three sausage buns (for breakfast/snacks -whatever!), and a red bean paste bun, which are yummy too. They have all sorts of flavours – minced beef, chocolate, cheese, peanut, kaya…