Dempsey

Once again I recently had the chance to explore an area of Singapore that I've not previously been to, this time an area called Dempsey.  I should explain that Dempsey is in an area of Singapore called Tanglin and I got taken there for a little taster of what its night life has to offer.

Dempsey (for Singapore at least) is a bit a of a trek, there is no public transport there as such so you have to rely on taxis to get you there and back again.  Tanglin is one of the most affluent suburbs of Singapore and it definitely shows with landed houses (i.e. very expensive and not the condos that most people tend to live in everywhere).  I suspect a lot of the people who live there have cars (again a very expensive purchase in Singapore) so being reliant on public transport is not such an issue.

The Dempsey area was where the English army barracks were when they had a base here but now seems to largely be devoted to bars and restaurants.  The first bar we went to had a very laid back feel with plenty of decking areas to sit out on and enjoy the balmy evening.  It was noticeable again the number of western expats there, I don't know whether this is because it is a popular place to go to or whether they live around that area.  I guess though as it isn't far away from Holland village where a lot of expats do live it is somewhere different to go to for an evening out. 

After some lovely drinks we went to an Indian restaurant which was OK but a lot of the restaurants around there I am told shut very early, soon after 10pm in some cases.  We'd arrived in Dempsey late so by the time we went to eat it was getting on for that time.  So we had to rush our choices as they really wanted to close the kitchen.  As a consequence the wine we had chosen they'd sold out of and so we had to make alternate choices from a very limited selection.  I think the food was probably also not at its best as they really wanted us out so they could close properly.  A real shame!

After this we went on to another bar which was great, totally different from the earlier bar as they had a really good live band singing covers and in between sets a really good selection of music.  The strawberry margarita's went down a treat as well! 

When we eventually left that bar to get a taxi back home we came outside to an electrical storm so the sky was alight with a spectacular lightening show.  That combined with the noisy frogs nearby couldn't help but remind me once again how lucky I was to be living here in this warm, tropical country where having to take a coat with you is never an issue!