Lim Chu Kang Vegetable Farm Visit - WW

A friend brought a group of us to a mung bean sprout farm in Lim Chu Kang one late afternoon. Owner Uncle Chiam was very hospitable and brought us round the farm to look at his vegetables and fruit trees.

I saw breadfruit (牛奶果) for the first time. Breadfruit is also found in Indonesia and Malaysia where it is called sukun. As the fruits weren't ripe, I could not have a taste of them.

山龙眼 or Helicia reticulata W. T. Wang

We came across two trees which were laden with fruits. They are the wild longans (山龙眼) or Helicia reticulata W. T. Wang (Family : Proteaceae). The tree is commonly found in forest of Guangxi, Hainan, Taiwan and Laos, and there are only 5 trees in Singapore. Uncle Chiam plucked some ripe ones for us to try.

The skin is extremely hard and needs a hammer to break it up before eating. The flesh tastes like young coconut. It is sweet.

As these are rare fruits, we took many pictures of them, much to the amusement of Uncle Chiam. Together with his son, they watched the city folks made fools of themselves :D

It started raining before we could visit his bean sprout factory. So we sat in his living room and chatted. Aunty Chiam served us drinks and snacks.

Throughout our conversation, Uncle Chiam went out 3 times in the rain to cut some farm fresh veggies for us.

I went home with bags of fresh green vegetables and 3 kg of mung bean sprouts! :D