The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, Fish and Co Express

Second day of Ortho was an early one - actually not that bad now, minus rounds - with 9am by leehc, neck injury/hall valg/the subtle foot drop for me/amp and the 3 requisites for prothesis by jeremy. We had breakie at qiji (lontong cheecheongfan is the first for me) and tried to hunt for the spine cases, and ended up seeing cvs stuff.

Kels and I decided the east was just making us too tired, so we decided to take a break to go even further east to Downtown East.

She was paying bill so we were longingly eyeing WWW =P

We zoomed down to watch the 445pm, and just made it in time to The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus.

The movie has enchanting escapades with equally beautiful people, with the extremely lovely Lily Cole. Diving into the mirror brings you into your wildest dreams, and this always comes with a price. A lil disjointed segments (esp the character morphing from Heath to Jude to Colin!) but nonetheless it is like an amusement theme park ride. I enjoyed the ride =)

And for such a suburban cinema, the thickly coated sweet popcorn was of extremely high standards!!

We explored Downtown East after the movie, and spied on Mr Chicken Rice and the yam fries at Old Chang Kee but decided to head to Fish and Co Express (Downtown East) to try the burgers.

Fish Chowder is one of the yummiest cheaper soups I've had, and you'll like it if you like chunky creamy soups.

Sambal fish burger is very delicious and is one of the most ingenious burgers I've eaten. Its everything in a nasi lemak with out the rice. The sambal chilli has ikan bilis within, laden in between sliced cucumber and a fried fish fillet. With a forewarning from the server that it is gonna be hot, this is a very enjoyable burger for those who like spicy food.

The Teriyaki Salmon burger is what Kelly had and its a piece of grilled Salmon between buns, made more delicious with my sambal chilli, the free flow chilli, and the mayonaise!

Calamari was extremely thickly coated with seasoned batter and I realise the grilled pepper ones I'm used to in the Seafood Platter is very different from these.
Extremely skinny fries to share, upsized =) It was a set with hot milo for each of us.

Had an interesting ride to Kels', and the 70kmh KPE channel lol.

Arnold's Chicken

TGIF second last wk before closure of wards, morning pep talk by low and long lunch at canteen (tempura fish set from qiji) before heading to see some surg (red herring for kels and wm, fishbone-abscess for d and me haha) and went to read some scans, before our tut on AS.

We then went to see UL/LL/ball-cage before we left. Kels and I were lingering around the lounge wondering about Percy (but misst the timing!!) but we decided to head to Arnold's Chicken (City Plaza), with the secondary intention of shopping for new clothes.

The queue here is INSANE by the way, we were queue number 65, and we were to order when we took the queue number. What a crowded place in an uncrowded mall !! This place has a very communal feeling about the passion for fried chicken. Everyone's spring chicken or bucket of fried chicken gives me a sense of camaraderie, a feeling Kels and I only got in the chachantengs of Hong Kong.

And btw, the parking here is very cheap in the evening - its $1.20 per entry...tho....hehe...

City Plaza reminds me alot of Shenzhen, with wholesalers and bizzare clothing galore, and just a very old school feeling about the whole mall.Even the snacks stall is wholesale too.

2 piece Chicken set - with fries and coleslaw. Well, this is a decent well fried chicken. The ribs piece was especially good. Bonchon on the other hand blows me away with the insane marinated crisp skin.

The amazing Potato Basket - trio of Waffle Crisps (my favourite with excellent texture), Sliced Potato Chips (Kels favourite), Potato Wedges (good too) and its very yummy help yourself to the cheese sauce dip. And of cos, the thing that pleases best friend is the FREE FLOW BOTTLED CHILLI SAUCE!
Onion rings with a thick coating of batter.
Miss the clear plastic gloves in HK! Fried chicken is lickin good.

We drove thru Geylang and found XiaoFeiYang right at the end, and then thru Chinatown and then to town for a febile attempt at Percy's again, but of cos, it was not meant to be. Knee thereafter.....HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR! =)

House

Day 1 of Derm - We had long admin talk and post walkaround orientation before we promptly went for breakfast and then started clearing the treatment room and phototherapy, before going for the intro lectures..We zoomed out to Hong Kong Kitchen to have a quick lunch (the chicken rice place was full ++) so I had fish head beehoon there.

We came back to attend clinics (super good at the start of the posting), and thereafter Kels and I proceeded to House (Dempsey Road) for early dinner, over some nephrotic synd discussion.

Spot Priscilla!

We ordered the American Sliders - Mushroom Cheese burgers (had the Truffle Aioli with Chongs the other time) . They very nicely divided the full portion into 2!! We upsized the AMAZING TRUFFLE FRIES. Never quite tasted the truffle in this before( had it with Michelle/Fly/Cel once, and another time with Chongs) but somehow the full glory was only discovered today. lol as Kels say maybe its the company. Actually the very intention was the sweet potato fries which I had loved when I was with Chong cos its sugar dusted but somehow it was overshadowed by its cousin!!

Salted Caramel Banana Cake - this is an amazing contrast of textures - from the soft chewy Coffee popcorn, to the sweet banana pudding like cake, with the bits of salty caramel right in the middle. Its really gotta be the most ambitious cake I've had.

As night fell, we left - and the place started waking up with more people streaming in. We were the only ones as the sun was setting! But we loved the homeliness of this place, with the PS-like ambience, right by the forest and the green house alfresco sitting right beside us. Love this place, and will be back for more of those giant cakes.

Old Airport Road Food Centre

Today's the first day of the last posting ever (hopefully), and after the nus lectures on spine/LL/hand, we zoomed down to Old Airport Road Food Centre; cos D didnt drive he and weeming didnt join us for lunch as they hitched a ride from enming.

Initial confusion but after pickin Marc and Jeremy from the bstop we left for the East. The multistorey carpark is less crazy than the ground level one, though i momentarily forgot where i parked =P

When I came, eveyone split up to buy food for everyone, and it seemed rather like a picnic, with chinese music in the background to add to the atmosphere. At least here, the queues are not crazy and no one rushes for tables.

I finally got to try Nam Sing Hokkien Mee - the first time I am trying this cos this stall uses veg oil. It tastes similar to what my grandma cooks at home - but my gran's stock of prawn heads gives much more aroma to the noodles. It reminds me of comfort home cooked food, and is good for me since I am just recovering.. Its divine on the Makan Sutra meter btw..

Toa Payoh Rojak never fails to impress, and the sauce always seems to accumulate right at the end, even though it seems quite dry at the start...Wanted to buy youtiao to dip into the huge amount of sauce left but K and D couldnt find..
And the repeat order of the Freshly Made Chee Cheong Fan .. Mushrooms and Prawn - this is one of the best (or maybe it IS the best) chee cheong fan I tried, simply cos the silky sheets of rice flour are just melt in your mouth smoothilicious!

We headed back to cgh, with trouble with parkin( in more ways than one), and congregated at the lounge for admin. Many false alarms, before heading for skc's revision at ncc after that - our day ended at 830pm, 12 hour days are just insane.

Singapore Polytechnic Canteen

What seems like everyday canteen food can look quite good, captured on camera:

It was the second last day of surg at nuh, and while we were scrambling to submit our log book, and Kels to return the last bit of the paeds notes to me, we decided to take the shuttle to Singapore Poly for their canteen food.

We were directed to canteen 4 by this girl we met, and later by another group to canteen 6 (up a hill, which we chickened out) so eventually we headed here where we were greeted by a kopitiam like setting. There was some major renovations going on so it was a little obstacle course getting there and the canteen was really really stuffy (though not with students, like the nus one can be...)

I had the salmon omelette rice from the Japanese stall, which tasted every bit like you imagine it to be..

Kels' Chicken cutlet rice with black pepper sauce - this is from the Malay stall and was strongly recommended by a student for the different sauces. Towards the end, when I asked K to ask for more sauce to eat with my rice, we discovered the most interesting Bandung sauce ! It has this spicy tinge to it. Most delicious with my rice and even the fries.
We shared the cheese fries from the Western Food stall. We got excited at first cos I thought the waffle shop sold zidanzai but it turned out to be sausage waffle =P

We adjourned to the fast food complex (which has Subway, Pizza Hut, and KFC, btw!) which also houses Popular and is right next to the half filled swimming pool. Within the 1/2 hour till 315pm (when it rained!) we zoomed through colorectal osses before I managed to get back for the feedback session with d low, and then the uro tut. rushed day!

Coffee Bean

Today was a crash course on shorts - cardio/respi/neuro/abdo and subsequently porridge lunch at kpt before short cases around all the different stations around nni/clinics - saw p neuro, optic atrophy (visual acuity+rapd!), spastic gait, pes cavus sec to polio, it was a really enlightening session, which I wished they had organised for us earlier.

Marc and I went to see more after that, but it was not high yield (esp after what we saw earlier!), and subsequently the SN told us about the incident and discouraged us from further seeing...

I was totally craving eggs so I went to Coffee Bean (Velocity) to get this smoked salmon scrambled eggs breakfast set (comes with an iced tea) . This is super yummz esp if you like your eggs creamy, and today there was lotsa smoked salmon chunks. Even the bread was toasty and warm, it was really delicious to eat with the laden mayonaise and cream seeping out from the scrambled eggs. Now I feel like eating this everyday (along with Macs' Eggs McMuffin). I totally love the idea of all day breakfasts at Coffee Bean.

I had to linger around here longer before picking mom and sis from ps...this is prob the most exposed Coffee Beans around I think.

What we eat when we're studying. Check out those DARK CHOCOLATE Kit Kat Bites and Maltesers!! Thal down.

Your Woul

Keeping a diary now is like penning down my countdown to mbbs, and as I write this I'm imagining myself reading this in time to come, pondering about all my extremely succint summaries of those horrible times on the way to the finals..

Anyways, this would be an account of Thursday week one of derm, after the 8 am lecture on exo psoriasis, I was in clinic with Wei Yan - in which the doctor took the fingering legs hint to leave (poor him with a uber packed clinic), I found Daryl Dedrick Kels and Jeremy in the library, with D and J having a huge discussion, before we finally adjourned for lunch.

D drove us to Your Woul (Goldhill Plaza) where we all had the lunch specials - D had the steamed pau (which turned out to be Gyoza stuffed with Kimchi), J had the pork, Kels had the kimichi fried rice, and D had the bibimbap.We were dying waiting for the side dishes to come, and the favourite of the day has gotta be the Fried Lotus Root. I liked the ikan bilis too.

We shared the seafood pancake - which had lotsa squid, and crispy batter. It's sliced like pizza!

My raw fish rice.

Udders thereafter of cos (it was next door), with Jeremy going back to join Marc at his clinic first- Orange Chocolate Bitters (arent u bored of reading my ULTIMATE FAVOURITE all the time) and Kels' Gila Melaka. We still havent managed to figure out what those bits inside her icecream were. They were not attap chee as clarified by Daryl. The dear girl is missing her salty mr brown too much. Dedrick had Cookies and Cream and Daryl her Mao Shan Wang which she says costs as much as a Macs Meal lol.

We lingered around to draw money, and for me to take my passport photos for employment lol, before we went to tt where James brought us through a double pathology pt, and another cardio, before we went for derm lect. Kels' stamina finally fizzled out and she went back thereafter =P

Adam Road Food Centre

Tuesday of week 2 at derm saw us going back to nuh for some card clinic with dr C Hia and dr Fr and it was rather uneventful save for 2 mvps back to back and getting echo tuts from the expert herself. Its amazing, the grace of paediatricians.

We attended C Ning's stroke tut too, with a grand total of 7 students turning up, im still pretty tickled about the way he teaches.

Ate lunch with Kels and Dedrick at Adam Road Food Centre - I had the Full House set from Selera Nasi Lemak. Love the texture of the rice. Swopped half the wing for a bergedil from Kelly's Otah set. The rice, as always is the bomb!! And the yummilicious sweet chilli.

Always have the cheng tng from round the corner. Kels' Ice Jelly and mine cheng tng, which I just had during dinner with Jacob just the other night.

We hurried back for the fungal derm lecture, and then back to tt to see many many effusions, and a gentleman who was so nice to let us see his hands, legs, and chest with different pathologies in each. Very very gracious person..

We adjourned to Mos Burger (Velocity) - there are 2 new burgers - I had the Triple Prawn Burger - lol, which I went back to the counter, cos i thought they gave me the wrong burger, cos i didnt see the tails - its actually a 3 prawns in a patty and it tastes really similar to a fish burger. The other new burger is the scallops in rice burger, which may be for another time. Kels had the Fish burger (cos scallops ran out) and Jacob had the spicy cheeseburger and his HUGE peach tea.

Dragged them to Udders for ICECREAM!! We had Ballsy Mint (new flavour) - mint with chocoballs with Orange Chocolate, Kopi C (which really really tasted like what I just drank during teatime with J) and Baileys (its flavour being drowned out by the rest, as usual!)

Finishing up with paeds cvs in 3-7, with soft peanuts and M&ms and soft drink-milo...and my third icecream of the day at Mr Bean..no wonder down with sore throat now...

Adam Road Food Centre

Friday of Week 1 in derm, I picked Kels from nsc and we headed to KK for Macs brekkie - timed it, so that we reached right on time for the interval between breakfast and lunch, so I managed to have my usual egg mcmuffin with fries !! =)

The afternoon lecture got pushed forward - it was a rush back for endogenous ecz for 1/2 hr before I attended a clinic and rushed to lch's revision surg lecture. His catered food are beginning to be super similar, but not like we're complaining..

J and I had dinner at Adam Road Food Centre and I had Satay Beehoon (which gave him an allergic reaction....=P). This tasted super similar to the one I had at Whampoa Food Centre.

The rojak was also from the same stall. I wished it was drowned in more peanut sauce!

Ice kachang for him, and cheng tng from me. Loved this stall first introed to me by James, and it opens till late at night!

Rushed to a petrol station for some chocs before off to L to discuss...weekends no longer exist...

Toast, Burger Bench and Bar

It was the eopt slideshow for surg and after the dreadful test we went to engine Macs for a yummy breakfast on a wet wet Friday morning. Engine is a maze of stairs and it was an arduous long flight of stairs to the toilet (and everywhere else). We first headed back to NUH for C Ning's but it got cancelled (second time pangseh, in time to come.....). Decided to bus to town whilst Marc and WM and J stayed on at nuh. At employment clinic - it was a long long queue for - urine/blds/xray. Off to Toast (#02-11 Ngee Ann City )- only groups of ladies within. No breakfast available, didnt wanna pay for peanut butter banana toasties, but there were interesting cupcakes we'd try on another occasion - green tea and apple cinammon.

Smoked Salmon for Kels and Smoked Turkey for me. These are perfectly healthy sandwiches, no messiness of sauces whatsoever... Somehow after those sandwiches at the Bank of China place, healthy sandwiches still evoke Pavlov's reflex...

And cos of this getaway, when we went back- all the ppl who came in the golden time (after us) finished and left! We rushed for LCH's - wanted to cab and in the end trained, met Kels across gantry ande eventually at the train. We went down with the very nice lect always catering stuff for us... there was soon kueh and carrot cake, and cake. Crumbs was all over J at a jostle, irritating him ++. That night's entertainment was courtesy of Yh and Steph, Lyn, Yansheng, Charanya, Ryan (ex's).
Kels and I met Chongs at basement before going to Orchard - where we ate at Burger Bench and Bar (Cathy Cineleisure Orchard, Basement 1). Must intro to Chongs the queen of fries to the wonderful burgers here, and so I can satisfy my curiosity about the other non-beef burgers. I had the Butterfish with Wasabi Mayo. I LOVE the tender, fried battered fish here but the wasabi mayo adds a real interesting nose crawling tinge to it, and it tastes rather herby, necessiting some getting used to. Kels had the Japanese Curry Chicken Cutlet,and it tastes every bit the way you imagine it to be, with bread, sans rice.
And of cos Chongs had her Mushrooms cheese burger which I had and absolutely loved, the previous time.

And the absolutely yummz Dark Chocolate Icecream !!! The 2 girls were too full, but I can never get enough of ice cream. This was my third scoop of the day - after Mr Bean at nuh, the yummilicious mixed $1 icecream from the icecream man (he's stationed right outside Taka) with real peanuts all over the mixed flavours icecream.

We had not much luck for shows though, so much for the aspiration to consume and vegetate. There were no tickets for Invictus, New York I love you. We rested at 313 (whom Chongs was foreign too!) where we vegetated at the Food Republic, getting amused at all the reserved tables, and decided to Up and Go to Cathy, but with no luck.. tickets sold out everywhere!! Last straw went to Marina Square where she got REAlly tempted with My ex, but also no luck , no bowling either (cos we're old ladies and no energy anymore, sadness) so we just caught up at the Starbucks (Marina Square)! It closes at midnight, and it was quite interesting hanging out at a thriving starbucks, in a deserted mall in the dead of the night. Whatever happened to our energetic souls, Chongs!