Porn's, Honeymoon Dessert

After that very full team meal at Putien, I was due to meet S around Cityhall area. Picked up Fb effect from nat lib, and then headed to meet him at the taxi stand of Raffles City. We initially wanted to try Artichoke (after the fantastic review by M, about the lamb ribs) but unfortunately, it didnt happen cos the place was full and there was a thirty min waiting time!! And having walked all the way there (he parked at Odeon Towers) I was a little indignant, but anyway we headed back to Shaw Towers, then decided on Liang Seah Street. Then, I was in between a Korean BBQ place and Porn's (28 Liang Seah Street) and eventually, the hot smokey korean place drove (mainly S) us to Porn's. Its much cleaner, air smells better, super white and new. Decor is kept simple and modern.

Mango Salad

Loved the fried fish layers atop, and the fact that we can add our own condiments to the dish (provided on the table). We added lotsa peanuts to it, but still the sweet sauce soaked the crunchiness up.

Drunken mama noodles

We asked what this was, and when the waitress told us it was maggi noodles I immediately said no, until she appeased me by saying it was a thicker version of it - not very much thicker, in actual fact. She was trying to sell it by saying it was much spicier and had more kick than the very delicious looking phad thai in egg pictured in the menu. Obviously S fell for it, while I was hoping it'd taste very much like the Thai Express extremely spicy drunken noodles (which I'd hope to get Kels to eventually try one day).

When it came it was indeed very tasty but not as spicy as we hoped it might be. I mean, how bad can oily spicy maggi mee be?

Tom Yum Soup

Oh this was potent clear soup that had a residual kick to it after the initial storm. Love love it, though i could do with a greater volume of straw mushrooms like the one in First Thai.

Much convos revolved around him trying to revolutionise secondary prevention and trying to fill in the gaps that people like me following daily orders don't have the luxury to forsee. The creativity and buzz of ideas is quite infectious, though I'm obviously still very immune to it.. What I'm working with is a mix of bad lifestyle plus whacked genes, but obviously at the tertiary stage much complications have resulted from that potent combination. When you pay for is proprotional to how sick you are, and not inversely proportional to how well you are, you take for granted your well being and the secondary prevention. Money talks, and preventing that money roll is not gonna get any talk.

We headed to Honeymoon Dessert (Level One, Bugis Junction) just opposite. He was really gian to drink coffee - but obviously I was game for dessert anytime (and we walked past ah chew's and jidechi -_-) so i finally persuaded him to try Honeymoon Dessert. Last had this in HK and Kels and I have been dying to try the Vivocity branch (which we havent).

We started with the Durian dumpling - which is laden with cream!! Do you remember it being so creamy, Kels? And do you remember more pieces, than one?? I really got a shock when I saw just one medium sized one, and got a bigger shock when I digged into the innards of fresh cream! Its so different from the one I had in HK!!
I had the Snow white sago, which is laden with fruits on a bed of sago and vanilla cream. Very fruity, sweet and refreshing. Just that your tastebuds'll get confused with the fruits - there's banana, mango, longan, atap chee. All that fruit's gonna seep into the vanilla cream, which makes it a real fruity combination.

I thoroughly recommended this dessert to S, who had the Durian and Black Gluitinous rice, in vanilla cream. This dessert is extremely creamy and rich - scoop a bit of durian, and a bit of the gritty rice, then dip into the vanilla, and its an amazing combination!

On the way back to Loof, S got reminded of perhaps it was too little too late, but what was comforting was that it was a departure in joy. You living it up for him now, and thats what matters most. It's the first dinner, and the first that I wont be at h during the annual visit! See you soon, before next year's cny beckons. Artichoke, when we do get a booking.

Tawadang Microbrewery, PS Cafe

Met Kels and either we drown ourselves in icecream (my bad) or fries (hers), so we did both today courtesy of Mr Bean and Carls' Junior at PS. After settling the eye drops for mummy off to satisfy our cravings. Cos of crowded MOS/KFC/ Macs we landed here. The onion rings are huge, and are slightly spicy. Am a fan of the potato skinned fries. We flipped the birthday pic book at Toast Box, witnessing what we only see in clubs, between ah peks =/ Best friend, I've the greatest confidence in you....so chin up!
WALKED (dropped at earlier bstop SIGH) to Tawadang Microbrewery - luckily not a minute later cos it started raining dogs. Like suddenly, and before we knew it, it was dark.

Morning Glory was full of stems and was yummilicious drenched in fish sauce.

Fluffy egg omelette with crabmeat - its sprinkled atop not doused in, unfortunately.

Spicy Tom Yumg Goong, with coconut milk. Plenty of mushrooms and prawns. Fat juicy prawns.

Fried fish with sauce - this was a favourite of all the others. It tastes too much like Gran's - crisp, jucily oily, cant go way wrong.. the dip was a spicy tangy sauce.

Phad Thai was drenched in fish sauce but really eggy and fragrant.

Grilled squid was the last to arrive and by the time it came, the lights darkened for the band. I'm not a fan of squid, but it was soft enough - and I shrieked when the waiter wanted to clear, so I could polish off the last pieces =D

We were wondering about drinks/coffee/desserts - so 3inch sin/taste matters/klee/oriole (yeah love it tho it was just yest) came up but of cos being the lazy folks we were we just trudged to the nearby PS Cafe (Dempsey) for cakes. The Blackout Chocolate Cake needs no introduction and is as big a chocolate bomb as it looks. Real moist and fudgy, altho it'd be great if there were free flow chocolate sauce and ice cream. I was the last survivor left to eat the cake and there was much too little liquid. Fudge had solidified by the last inch of the cake.

Ginger Pudding with Earl Grey Sauce. I must say I'm not a fan of Ginger (after a bad experience with ginger steamed milk at ah chews -_-) but the ginger taste in this is minimal. The cake itself was really delicious esp if submerged in Earl Grey sauce - there was so much of sauce left I just used the rest for the chocolate cake.

Surprisingly I got most of the criteria for the misters wrong. Hmms, will be on a lookout for sure =D We were on every topic BUT the intention of meeting!! We were supposed to be in BKK now. Damn those riots.

Thanks Qian for the lift back - I was a goner at the backseat and was def worse off than drunk. Maybe calories do as much damage.

Joe's Kitchen, Love Confectionary

After Prof Thamb's excellent lecture on approach to joints, and squeezed in a b palsy exam (with the most amazing coned shaped pupils!) in between and renal god's amazing sle tutorial, we scurried off to have lunch before another excellent stroke lecture at tt. many many excellents and amazings in that sentence, but yes. We had an excellent excellent lunch in between those too.

We initially thought of Donut Factory's amazingly cheap lunch set meal deal but cos of the u-turn we had to make at Bukit Merah we headed straight on to Alexandra Village, and because of the crazy parking (lady who misled us, with her dementia like signs!!!) and parking attendent, we ate at Joe's Kitchen at Alexandra Village. And somehow the owner is vaguely related to Marc, which he told us the day after (always like that!! =P). And the first thing that strikes you is the huge printout of ieatishootipost's blogpost on this place (which I recalled and hence brought my friends here in the first place!)

The service by the lady boss here was excellent, attentive and approachable. Could tell it was a family run place, and extremely homely and earnest. Plus they don't charge gst and service charge, with water and napkins provided.

When we were there - the other patrons was the huge corporate like group with boisterous laughter (with one distinctive male one =!) and another really cute unlikelys of oldish couple. Really really sweet and I really wondered how they chanced upon the place! They were trying to find their way back after the meal...and were tucking into a very tempting crab tanghoon !

Anyway, we started off our meal with what I must say the best dish at this place - it has gotta be the mango salad - the mango was really fresh and finely shredded and was a fantastic contrast with the salty white bait atop. A great symphony of sour, sweet (sauce) and salty in one.

Green curry had many baby eggplants which I thought was peas. Green curry was quite creamy but I wish it was laden with more baby green tomatoes and eggplants.
Kang Kong was also super super tasty. I hardly photograph vegetables but this was worth the space cos it was really very good - and the lady boss said her secret was the fire strength, and some fish sauce. Home cooked food can be so simple yet so tasty.

The phad thai was not as wet or had as much wok hei as we wished..in fact it seemed almost healthy.

We ordered a Tom Yam soup with fried fish, and another small with seafood. The fried fish one came separately from the soup, and on its own the fried fish was super tasty anyway. The soup should pack more kick!

Mango sticky rice - we misst the ones in First Thai where there were some crunchy bits of barley grains atop.
I was determined to find the old school bakery around Alexandra Village- despite the lurking parking attendent and my groups pereserverance paid off! Thank you guys !

Its amazing how traditional Love Confectionary (Alexandra Village) is - freshly baked cakes displayed without any refridgeration (true testament to the freshness of it!), and wafers and other biscuits in packets. The chiffon cake was plastic wrapped.
Peanut cake - the left one. Notice that it had pandan layers as well? Coconut cake.

Lotus cake - kept thinking the lotus seeds atop was almonds. We also bought a custard puff. The top and bottom - Steamed kaya cake and honey cake was bought from a nameless bakery along the same row of shops as a bird shop (Kels was most startled haha). Steamed Kaya cake tastes like a butter pound cake, and Bengawan Solo has better honey cake actually. But we loved the simple fluffy cakes - it was a lovely tea though in a most likely location at the kopitiam at tt.
I found my new love at Star bucks - Apple Crumble Cheese cake at Star bucks Liat Towers. This is prob the quietest Starbucks at the Orchard stretch. The cinammon apple chunks fills half the cheese cake and there was so much crumble right atop. Oh my!! I love it.

Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, Aroy-Dee

Met Pam for the 3 D movie, Cloudy with a chance of meatballs at Cathy (where she watched 2 or 3 other movies cos it was the French Festival). it was friggin $13.50 to watch a 3D show on a weekend! And our dreams of having meatballs and icecream cones raining on us was totally dashed cos the screen still seemed far away, very unlike the 3 D effects in the shows you get in Disneyland, where its a true treat for the senses - I remember one of the A Bug's Life rides in the Magic Tree, you could actually feel the scurrying off the ends and the flatus of the bug..awesome possum.

Met Carol at Plaza Sing where she left her car and in our search for food around that area I always seem to land up in the Bencoolen area, and eventually at Sunshine Plaza (where I've tried Victor's Kitchen, O Divino and the Thai Cafe) - Aroy-Dee 91 Bencoolen Street #01-12 Sunshine Plaza. This is the second Thai place in Sunshine Plaza - for Thai food. Recognise it by its super green signboard. But anyway, we almost wanted to walk all the way to First Thai behind Raffles Hotel.

Mango salad topped up with crisp fried garlic.

Clear Tom yum soup but with a layer of chilli oil..

Basil leaf beef. A tad salty but the minced beef was great with rice
I particularly loved the pandan aroma from the green curry..creamy and delicious. Shall return to this place to try the Phad Thai with Kelly sometime!

Magic Wok, Udders

It was a super long day - void of changes cos the entire afternoon was occupied by ho teaching (with pizza, no less), V's tutorial on jaundice, then J Tan's feedback (with again, free tea time snacks of scones and cakes) and lastly the lumps and bumps which killed us all ending at 7pm. Took along Jacob who was just nua-ing with me in the kopitiam with kevin,jiabin and lynn...so us three, Kels, Jacob and I went around Novena to search for dinner.

Was deciding between the Hong Kong restaurant, the Peranakan place, or chicken rice when we stumbled into Magic Wok (275 Thomson Road #01-08 Novena Ville) - this place is along the eateries just at the turnoff from Newton. So far I've tried the chicken rice at Wee Nam Kee and the steamboat buffet with my rj class. I always see the branch of Magic Wok at Stamford House next to the City Hall bus stop but never got a chance to try it there.

Mango salad was yums but drenched in sweet sauce.

Tom Yum Seafood was quite milky looking unlike the usual clear/oily soups we are accustomed to. Chunks of fish and squid to go around.

Another super milky green curry which had plenty of eggplant and green tomatoes in it.
The red chilli chicken was good too, though it could do with a greater spicy kick.
What was best was the pineapple rice with plenty of wok hei and a dose of chicken floss to top it all.

Sadly the noodle dishes were not as flavourful - Phad Thai. This was most bland even after vigorous mixing of the chilli powder and the peanuts.

another thicker Phad thai (which tasted almost similar)

At first we were considering the Nasi Padang at Gold hill Plaza (cos Udders was next door to it) but then we went in the opposite direction instead, towards the Hong Kong kitchen. But we still ended up here ! Met Geri whilst we were at Udders (Goldhill Plaza). The flavour I never fail to get: Chocolate Whiskey Java, and Tiramisu.

Kelly's favourite in the other cup - lime umeshu and Mao shan wang. Uber sour!

Ion, Tokyo Sonata, First Thai

It was a startling short day - morning being the invisible beings (as much as possible) we are again but a keep the ball rolling tutorial and after that we rolled out off sgh cos all the tutors seem to be busy with the aus visitors (?) so early day = outside lunch.

Went to Ion Orchard (cos Kiliney was full - no chance with Freshly Baked) so we ended up in Food Opera - tried the Scotts Beef Noodles. This is comfort food from secondary school days - i ate it almost every time I was in town in the old Scotts Picnic Food Court that Kelly remembers it. My mom and I can eat 3 bowls of beef noodles collectively last time.

I always took the set previously - dry beef noodles with beef ball soup - and in the good old days it was under $5 - tough luck now, a similar set cost $6.50. I thought I'll try something different today so I took the beef noodle soup ($5) and indeed the soup is still as good as previously - but its abit hard to douse your noodles in the chilli and chinchalok like you can normally do with the dry noodles (I just dump the whole lot in and mix it around) as the the chilli just dissolves away into the soup. Kelly enjoyed the dry version tremendously, cos she likes her noodles in thick gravy. She thinks its a little like lor mee.

Went to hunt around for dessert but after spying the tiny mountain of ice kachang on one of the tables we decided to go to Mei Heong Yuen (Ion Orchard, Basement 1) for the durian ice. Tried this before at the Chinatown branch and liked it enough to recommend it to Kelly again - but she prefers if they use a more authentic puree (the durian paste was bright yellow, really artificial looking, though its supposed to be made from D24). Well, I thought it was perfused enough with the durian flavour - the milk ice and the durian paste. Probably one of the better durian milk ice imho.

On the way out we passed by Wisma's Food Republic and we just couldnt resist Rojak there! We had the biggest version there before and it was $5 - there was only $4 and $5 to choose from and a whole range of add-ons - cuttlefish, mango, stuffed taupok. But since we already had a full lunch we decided to just go for the $4 one...though I was thinking $1 difference might as well...but of cos I listened to the more rational Kels...

Anyway, she thinks this version is a little too healthy tasting cos each ingredient taste distinct from another - Rojak to her must be a little messier lol. Whats missing for me is the beansprouts, though I'm a big fan of the sauce and the generous peanuts here.

We found a Mr Ten Thousand Year shirt and found a new nick already (hahaha) and we tried to inhale as much popcorn as possible for we couldnt bring any popcorn into The Picturehouse!

Proceeded onto watch the movie, Tokyo Sonata. It is a family drama about a typical Japanese family - parents and 2 sons who were all trying to run away from their 'home' where normalcy and sanity was stretched when circumstances outside home were perturbed. It was as if they were trying to seek an equilibrium at home, but it was not a place where they sought solace and comfort in each other. You must have plenty of tolerance to sit through the entire movie (or alternatively just read the synopsis off Wikipedia) for you to understand what I'll be talking about in the following paras (or you can just skip it, just for Kelly and my reference)

This movie brought me back to the days when I read Japanese novels (Haruki Murakami, Kazuo Ishigaro, Natsuo Kirino) - it explains the isolation one feels even as globalisation happens, and civilisation seemingly enforces the density of the population - the more urban you are, the chances of you being in a dense population, being close to other humans, being in an artificial man made city, being far from nature (which reminds me,the director of Moon is directing a show dealing with this isolation too). But, physical distance is definitely not drawing us closer, technology and technical convenience is not bridging that distance either. In the movie, I kept questioning - who is the most isolated in the family? Who is trying the hardest to run away from reality and home, and what is repelling them from the most seemingly stable and orderly unit of society, the family when an open conflict doesnt even exist?


It makes you think - is the facade you maintain within and outside your home different? How is it you can regress to being strangers despite history? - in the context of divorce, meeting family in the outside context - running into them and discovering their secrets

Then you question how important is the family unit if it is there for the sake of being there? With the age of multitasking - is the fundamental unit of the society, the family still efficient or viable? Life is mostly incentive driven - we seek love cos we fear loneliness, we seek wealth because we fear poverty and hunger. Taken in this context, a family was practical in the olden days of agriculture and farming, because it meant a consolidation of manpower, and a organised delegation of duties and manpower. Laughter is multiplied and sorrow is divided, simple needs attained - but in the modern fast paced, incentive-driven world - can we truly share joy and laughter, sorrow and woe at the same frequency, at the same level of intellect and emotion?

Truly, in a human's quest for what he wants, realises what he needs ultimately. Question your motive for your thought, behaviour, and action frequently - and you realise you might be chasing the wind, doing everything but carpe diem ;D

For in the movie, I wondered if individual family members be better off alone - for being in the family is keeping them FROM being sane, and restricting their freedom. The movie describes a savage vision of family life as a charade that’s long since stopped meaning anything to its participants - the participants act as independent entities, simply being physically present in the household cos they function as part of a regime, an unspeakable, unquestionable routine. What drives us to maintain this status quo, and the hum and drum of daily living, daily routine? Do we all crave for a form of order in our lives, or do we delight and thrive in chaos, encouraging change?

What subjects humans to authority, and willingness to submit to them? What controls us from stepping across the line? Respect to me, is when someone exceeds the moral threshold and expectation we formed of the person, and that is when - to put it simply, someone's behaviour, action or thought impresses me. But we are human after all, and this expectation we have of people, is often biased and might not be even taken in the right context. The circumstantial meeting of the wife and the husband in the shopping centre when neither comprehended each other's situation (and hence misunderstood) is a clear illustration of this point. We saw the breaking down of barriers - father-son (questioning the protection of country vs the protection of the family) and teacher-student - how far does a role model have to practise what he preaches? Should a doctor too, practise what he preach?
Wanted to eat at the vegeterian place at Fortune Centre but we couldnt find it (we made an effort, went to the fifth floor where this equally lost student asked us about night classes) so we went straight to First Thai at Purvis Street, my second time here after Matt and Chiara and I ate here, last year.

The service was much better today, and there werent so many people (F1 phobia?). Maybe you can try again, Michelle!

I remembered liking the mango salad ($8) very much. Tangy, with a good dallop of prawn paste sauce. One of the rare sour dishes I like (I can do Thai anytime, for that matter)
Tom Yam (Prawn) here ($7 for a one person rice bowl portion) is clear, and deceptively spicy. When I was here previously and had the $15 one, there were +++ straw mushrooms.

The phad thai ($8) was wonderful. Plenty of wok hei, and there was alot of fish sauce in the eggy parts, with the greasy noodles going well with the fresh shredded carrots and peanuts.

Green curry ($8) was okay, though it was murky in colour and not as creamy as I like it to be.

Kelly's green bandung and my iced coffee . Pandan flavoured bandung which she liked and I absolutely liked my thick coffee.

Mango sticky rice - salty glutinous rice, with saltier barley bits atop and coconut. Kelly's favourite

Wanted the mixed ruby (looks like mix of chendol jelly and jackfruit) but had to order this red ruby. Not impressive, the ice came in chunks and was a little difficult to much on. Otherwise it was red ruby and coconut milk. Just go for the mango sticky rice and stop there. (or go to Tom's!)

Brings us back to the days of admiring the city skyline in Hong Kong, except we're in aircon comfort (not in Starbucks overlooking the waterfront of Tsim Tsha Tsui!) and looking at the brightly lit F1 tracks, far away from the toxicity of burnt rubber and crazyloud engines =)