The water floweth once more...

Yes! The new pipes are in and the water is running again at home!

The family has been living like quasi-refugees for the past, what? 3 weeks now I guess, since ma discovered one fine Friday afternoon that the PUB bill has been off the charts and a leaking pipe had sprouted somewhere. Off went the main tap everyday except mornings and evenings; and out came the pots and pails and whatever receptacle I never even knew we owned to store water through the day.

Until today. Five plumbers came in a flurry of tile-hacking, pipe-fixing, swing-moving (not that the swing had anything to do with the leak situation, but we decided to donate a swing to the kindergarten across the street instead of hacking it into a hundred pieces of scrap metal, and it helps having the plumbing folks to carry it over), and voila! My first shower with decent water pressure in weeks. I'm going to have to remember not to sleepwalk out the house tomorrow morning to turn the tap on under the mango tree.

Anyway. Had 炸酱面, fish bee hoon soup and the queue-worthy Riverside Indo grilled fish with rice from Tampines Mall Kopitiam to celebrate. Well, not really. Everyone was so tired at the end of the day there was no leftover energy to prepare dinner, so I da-paoed food home. Felt like some kind of celebration.

Never appreciated water more in my life. Really, I think this tops any water-saving campaign PUB comes up with. Maybe they should cut the water supply of every household a day each year to remind us how precious it is.

Hm. Or maybe not.

Uniqlo - Day 1 in Singapore

Ya, I admit it. Was one of those suckers queuing up outside Uniqlo this evening. That was my 2rd time at the store. The first time, I saw that people were actually queuing just to get in, and instinctively walked away. Decided to have dinner at Mac's first. Came back an hour later. The queue had gotten longer; it snaked around the storefront to the corridor next to it, out the door to the lifts, then out to the stairwell. Nearly walked away again, but then the queue started moving, and I joined it when it ended at the door leading to the lifts.

It was ridiculous. I snapped two photos of the queues, and would post them if I could, but they're stuck in my handphone, and I don't know how to transfer them to the computer.

Anyway. Pandemonium inside. There weren't a lot of people. Well not really. Compared to food fare crowds at Expo, I'd say this was nothing, they controlled the human volume pretty well. But whoever were there or had been there certainly knew how to work up a mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Labels were blocked. Interminable lines stood in front of the fitting rooms and cashiers. I was so lost I had to ask one of the staff where the ladies t-shirt section was. But when I'd found it, I saw that the battle was lost. All the T-shirts in my size had been snapped up. I spent probably half an hour sifting through the heaps of clothes, but only M, L and XL pieces remained. Those pro shoppers had strategies. They'd grab a bunch of clothes in their basket, take their time to try on everything, then throw out stuff they don't want.

I was ready to give up and leave with the black tunic I'd picked up right at the beginning, until I found out it wasn't a discounted item. Which was probably the whole reason I managed to pick it up in the first place. ARGH. Absolutely refused to go to a grand opening sale and leave with one non-sale thing. So plunged into the mayhem again, and ended up an hour later buying a black linen shirt. Ya, Uniqlo's famous for those. But at least it's $10 cheaper than usual.

Overheard during my 1+ hour in Uniqlo:

Middle-aged fashionista to husband, barely 5 minutes after entering store. "走了啦，我很乱."

Annoyed male shopper A to annoyed male shopper B. "Do you know I walked around the store 10 times?" "Ya, I also walked around the store many times." "Then how come I never see you?" Ah, the perils of shopping in a packed store where there's no handphone signal.

Singaporean employee to Jap store supervisor (I assume). "Do you mean clean it [the clothes] up by folding them?" The Jap employees there must've been aghast at the state of things.

Female shopper A to female shopper B while sifting through "Love for UT" T-shirt pile. "Do you see Give Peace the chance?"

Sunset Way Dinner

Hi gals, I have ventured to Sunset Way for dinner today.

Took bus 61 from Holland V to this tiny fine-dining enclave tucked away among HDB blocks along Clementi St 12.

One interesting observation to note is a cluster of jackfruit trees found near the basketball court there. Something I never find at my estate...

There are many mini restaurants to choose from. Japanese, seafood, yuan-yang steamboat, Thai, western. I had my eyes on the western Grill-Out place.

Many other bloggers have been there, tasted that.

I intended to try the Kurobuta (black hog) and Kobe beef steak. Tad pricey. We settled for mussels with wild garlic, a yellowtail cheek with wasabi and kurobuta patty instead.

Before the main dish is served, we got a portion of salad. Usually, I'd be thrilled with a healthy spread of greens. Unfortunately, the lettuce was rather soggy. Not crunchy. Depressing. However, there was surprise in it. Raisins and corn were added, giving sweetness and redeemed the salad.

Next was the mussels. Loved it!

Here's Gavin's fist-sized pork patty. Meat's good. With potatoes, asparagus and wild herbs. Sauce goes well with the patty. Just that the portion could be less stingy. Maybe change it into a hamburger? Reminds me of 'Oh Carol' at Biopolis...
My yellowtail cheek was delicious. Fresh fish - cos the flesh's snow-white. Seared on the skin while the flesh is soft and tender. I didn't like the tough and slightly bitter skin (a little charred). The mild wasabi kills the fishy-ness of the dish.


We ate till the late evening. Cosy ambience was created with the lighted tea-lights and coloured lightings.

Good place for a quiet dinner with warm and prompt service (they do charge 10% service and 7% GST in the bill).

Folks around the block do like to walk their prized dogs in the evening. Fingers-crossed that a humongous golden retriever does not sit snugly behind you... yikes!!!

Lunch at Su Korean BBQ restaurant (and Gelare)

This Far East Plaza restaurant came courtesy of HX's recommendation. We went there 3+pm, so it was quite empty. Not a bad thing, service and food were prompt and good. Love the complimentary sides, so pretty, like six mini bowls of art.

Ordered just three items. Chicken fillet, bacon and fried vermicelli. The chicken looks a bit gross just thrown together in a messy heap on a plate, but the bacon was nicely presented in circular layers and a thick slice of onion crowning the heap. Not sure what exactly we were supposed to do with the onion. Don't think any of us ate it, but we grilled slices with the meat for flavour. Not that extra flavour was especially needed. I thought the chicken and bacon were already marinated quite well.

They had this yummy fermented bean paste too, that Dawn found too salty, but which I grew to like and added to everything. Didn't try much of the other two sauces they provided.






























Turned out to be quite a filling meal, and reasonably priced too, exceeded my expectations (not usually a fan of restaurants that make you cook your own food). Our bill came up to a $55.55 (which reminds me, gotta tell ma to go buy 4D).

Moved on to dessert at Gelare. Ordered a Cookies 'n Cream sundae and a Chocolate Chip Waffles (or "waffu" as HX likes to call it) with a scoop each of Chocolate Overload and Tiramisu ice cream. Shared among the 4 of us, so the amount was just right. Heaven in a sundae glass and a plate.

Geylang Friday Dinner with Work-Friends

Hi gals, I went to settle food cravings at Geylang with work-friends today.

[Warning: The menu that follows is not for the weak-stomached... Read (...and gag) at your own risk!]

First stop: "Sweet chicken porridge"

We ordered 宫宝田鸡. I was expecting a big pot of porridge with the good stuff mixed in it. Pleasantly surprised when the food came. There's a pot of plain porridge (topped with diced spring onion). The froggie torso and limbs were served in a separate pot. Spicy~ The porridge is very smooth. Gravy from the froggie pot adds flavour to the dish.

We also ordered a beef hor fun. The beef is really tender and does not have the 牛臊(sao1)味.. Interesting..

Moving on, we wanted to get 豆浆 from the famous 油条大王 stall. We know the stall was relocated. But where to? Unsure, we walked along the stretch of Geylang road. High hopes that it'll be around somewhere. A helpful uncle directed us to continue down the road for another 5mins or so. We did so but could not find the stall. Gave up and head for the next stop...

WONDERFUL durian stall is Janice's recommendation. We had 4 D24 durians to share among us 5. That's a lot! After feasting, we packed back a box-fill for Steven. (Photo of Janice, Steven and Mariati posing with D24)

Before leaving, Steven bought 2 musang-kings for his family (that's his mom's orders~).

We got to taste the musang-king. oh my goodness! So sweet and fragrant! The yellow flesh is very bright and 'appetising to the eyes'. 15/kg is a tad bit pricey but it's really much better than the usual fare. D24 just loses its appeal.. Mental note: To value quality (against quantity) when it comes to durians. :)

Yipuo's Birthday Lunch at Shangri-la Hotel

Greed, and the petty thirst for good bargains, can make people do ugly things.

Today is my grand-aunt's birthday, and we were all geared up for the meal-of-a-lifetime (well I exaggerate, but at the Shangri-la Flash Your Age 82% discount we were getting, I was making sure we have a damn good lunch), but before we even left the house, my mother had had an argument with a friend, gotten the phone slammed at her, I had been accused of being "unflexible" and "not willing to open up", and despite our greatest efforts, nobody was in the best of moods when we arrived at the restaurant. Long story short, friend asked mother to crash grandaunt's birthday lunch 'cos friend couldn't get table, mother said no, friend threw a hissy fit at mother, everybody angry.

Anyway, I digress. Happy things corresponding to post title now.

We were four at the lunch. Grandaunt, mother, mother's cousin and I. I wanted to get the most expensive signature items on the set. Unfortunately they were mostly seafood and/or beef dishes, which I/my mother and grandaunt, weren't fans of. So in the end we took the easy way out with a set. According to the menu, the one we chose was the "Rain Flower" set. Comprised of:

Peking Duck. On the must-try list of almost every blog I researched before going to Shang. The skin was crispy, the cucumber stick was crunchy, and the sauce was just the right amount of sweet. Hit all the marks. We were each given only 2 rolls, and the Peking Duck course was over. It must have been a really small duck. I wonder what happened to the rest of it. The waitress was slicing it to the side and I never actually saw the duck itself. I must commend the waitress here. When we were on our first roll, my mum took out the spring onion in it, and our observant waitress here removed all the onions in the next round.

Double-boiled Shark's fin Soup. This I wouldn't ordinarily have ordered. The whole animal cruelty and wastage of resources thing. But anyway it was part of the set and I ate it. At least the cabbage and soup part of it. Sea cucumber, fish maw and most of the fin I gave to ma and yipuo. The soup was actually quite nice and light. But I scalded my tongue on the first sip, which left a not-so-nice memory.





Sauteed Egg White and Crab Claw. Everyone oohed at the texture of the egg white and the freshness of the crabmeat. It was a bit like scrambled eggs, except only with the whites, and much more velvety. I don't think they added any seasoning to the crab, so it tasted very pure, I guess this must be what people mean when they say something has the taste of the sea. I asked a stupid question when I asked the waitress if the crepe under the bowl was meant for wrapping the things in the bowl. Oh well. Hey they might come up with a new dish like that.


Baked Cod Fish in Miso Sauce. I thought this looked really pretty, and based on past experiences with cod, I had quite high expectations with this. Points deducted once I sank (or tried sinking) my chopsticks into the meat though. It was tough and tasted chewy. I don't know if it was overcooked, but it definitely wasn't the flaky, melt-in-the-mouth softness I was anticipating. Redeemed by the miso sauce though. It was quite thick, almost cheese-y, which I liked because it was different from the thin soy sauce-type I'd tried.


Pork Belly, Golden Mantou. If I had seen this in a photo, I would've salivated, thinking it's chocolate mousse with breadsticks. As it was, knowing it was a slab of belly cellulite from a pig, my first reaction was to push the bowl towards the middle of the table and asked the rest to help themselves. But everyone was a little full at this point and ma told me to "just eat lah", so I did. Good thing. 'Cos it was only half a slab of pig cellulite. The other half was lean meat. And I liked the gravy. It was quite rich, herby, and made a great dip for the mantou sticks, probably my favourite part of this dish.

Hot Stone Fried 'Five' Rice. This I would really like to have noted what it was called in Chinese. It's just fried rice, really. But it had that claypot taste (with guo1 ba1) and they threw in some brown rice and maize and made it a really healthy dish. Yipuo and I couldn't finish our shares, so we got a bowl's worth of rice da-paoed. They even packed it in one of those little CNY bags for mandarin oranges. We re-steamed the rice for dinner and it was still yummy.





Cream of Avocado, with Vanilla Ice Cream. Ma loved this. I like it more for its novelty than its actual taste. The ice cream was normal vanilla, with little slivers of ice in it, not a good thing for me. The avocado cream was somewhat milky, so the small chunks of strawberry was a good idea to break up the thickness. I thought the cream was too much though, got a bit nauseated towards the end. This was the last dish of the set, but I felt we weren't making use of our 82% discount enough, so we got a couple more items...


Fried tofu with pork floss. Some blog I read recommended it. Maybe I remembered wrong. The tofu was soft, but I thought the salt was a bit much, and the floss was ordinary. And it cost a whopping $10. Nobody liked it. I would have been super pissed if we hadn't ordered it at a discount.







Green Tea Dumplings. Also came recommended by a blog, and a signature item on the menu. But this I liked, as did ma, who was inspired to order more desserts (but didn't) after tucking into one of these babies. It's the dumpling equivalent of the chocolate lava cake. It was served warm, the green tea-flavoured skin was marshmellow-soft, and sesame paste oozed out when you bit into it. One for each person is just the right serving. It's delicious the first two bites or so, needs a few sips of tea between the following bites, and the last bite leaves you just satisfied. Anymore and I would've found it cloying.

And that was the end of our birthday lunch. By the second last dish, one of the waiters was already asking us if we were ready for the bill. I think the boss probably breathed a huge sigh of relief when we walked out of the restaurant without ordering any of their hundred-dollar abalone or buddha-jumps-over-the-wall or shark's fin or lobster. We did wonder afterwards if we'd under-ordered. After all the bill only came up to $80. We could've ordered up to $500 worth of stuff and it would still only have been $100+. Ahh greed and its ugly little head again.

Ooh there's an epilogue. What's a birthday without a birthday cake? This one (probably looked better before ma dropped it when putting it into the fridge) comes with compliments from the chef:

Lunch at Ichiban Boshi

OK I am not going to make silly new year resolutions anymore like, "post monthly on the blog", where it's recorded for all to see that I'm not living up to my resolution. But for once, here I am, logged into Blogger just the day after I've eaten at a place, with the photos all uploaded, so I'm just gonna put them here.

Place: Iciban Boshi, Suntec City
Date: Sat 16 Aug 08
People: Dawn (birthday guest of honour), HX, Jen, moi

Food:

I had unagi with scrambled eggs. It had 3 major problems for me. 1) Rice was too hard. 2) Came with spring onion garnish (which I had to pick out). 3) Eel skin was too thick and oily, which I also sliced out, leaving me with not a whole lot of unagi to eat. Well lesson to me is I really shouldn't order unagi next time. But the scrambled eggs was yummy, especially with the savoury sauce it was doused in.





Dawn had the cold soba. Didn't hear any complaints from her, so it couldn't have been too bad. Plus the presentation looked really pretty. We thought it looked quite korean actually. Would've wanted to try that myself, but didn't think cold food would go down too well on a completely empty stomach.







Jen and HX went for an assortment of sushi, which turned out to be a really good plan. I shall try that next time when I'm less ravenous.











And finally, the piece de resistance. Rather, the pieces de resistance. 2 desserts which the four of us shared. Tempura ice-cream, and something else whose name I forget, but which essentially is peach ice-cream (with a hint of mint - as HX pointed out in her 2nd-to-last spoonful of the ice-cream) encased in a white chocolate shell so whole thing looks like a pretty little ripe peach. I definitely prefer the tempura, for its novelty if not its actual texture - the tempura part of it was quite soggy by the time it reached us. But the peach thingy just looked pretty, and was a little too sweet for my liking.

Not too shabby a dining experience, all in all. But next time, I'm just going for the sushi.