Today's Walkabout

Today’s wanderings took me to a great little Middle Eastern area near Bugis. It’s a small area but packed with great shops and food outlets. There are Turkish restaurants, Lebanese restaurants, fabric stores, kitchy stores, and more. It has a unique combination of old and new, from Persian carpet stores to a fixie bike shop.

I stumbled on a shop that had a display case full of different dates and then in the back he had all kinds of needful things. But back to those dates — I picked up 250g of Ajwa dates from Saudi Arabia and they are delicious.

From AbdurRahman.org:

Ajwa (عجوة) is a soft dry variety of date fruit from Saudi Arabia. It is cultivated at Madina Monawara. A delightfully soft and fruity date with fine texture. The Messenger (Sallallaahu Álayhi Wasallam) said, “Whoever has seven Ajwa dates every morning he will not be harmed on that day by poison or magic.”

Packed with nutrients, these bad-boys are a wonder food:

From Organicfacts.net

The benefits of dates include relief from constipation, intestinal disorders, heart problems, anemia, sexual dysfunction, diarrhea, abdominal cancer, and many other conditions. Dates are good for gaining weight also. Dates are rich in several vitamins, minerals and fiber too. These delicious fruits contain oil, calcium, sulfur, iron, potassium, phosphorous, manganese, copper and magnesium which are all beneficial for health.

Here are some pictures from the many short streets in this neighborhood: