Lai Lai Beef Noodle

Today's gastrect took forever and it turned out to include a splenect (plus, re-went for for hemostas at midnight); hence resulting a really late dinner at 9pm-ish. This was the day that C and i were craving for durians the entire day, and having cravings for random things in Geylang (claypot, porridge, dim sum, etc etc etc) but in the end when Matt scooped us from shaggh we passed by Chinatown and was on the way to Liang Seah instead cos Geylang was just too far away. We ended up at Lai Lai Beef Noodle (Liang Seah Street) cos I had a really good beef bowl here the other time I was here with Xue and Nat( even C remembers Nat raving about it). Its time for a revisit.

We each chose sets so that we could share all the sides. A set included a stewed beef noodle, a side dish and a drink - we all took the red tea bubble tea.

Century Egg Cold Tofu was Matt's favourite. Lovely combination of comfort food.Salt and pepper fried chicken - batter a tad thick for the fried chicken but this will make you crave insanely for the KFC popcorn chicken or the ji pai at Shihlin.
Fried Beancurd - again comfort food.
Chye Poh with omelette: this was my favourite!! Never knew Chye poh tasted SOO good with fried egg. Bit of salty goodness with the chye poh is heavenly.
Stewed beef noodle with noodles- this is their signature noodles in a stewed beef soup, which has quite a unique taste- much like the ox tail soup that my grandma/dad cooks. Its got a herby taste that you've gotta get used to, but other wise the chunks of stewed beef within was marvellous.

Things always taste best the first time round, and I guess thats why I always like surprises ; totally not a creature of habit. Thanks M for the ride home and for the CD too - 60 tracks which my radio unfortunately couldnt play. Miss my food club tremendously ;P till our next durian dinner!!

Golden Mile Food Market, The Cove

It was an early day after RM's tut on Communication with elderly (which turned out to be osces revision on ng tubes, falls which were really useful) and no grand ward rounds meant no insane sweating and inching to hear the mumblings of the tortured, hurrah!

After reading ieat and sistablog reviews about Bugis (Long House) Lim Kee Beef Noodle (B1-27) at Golden Mile Food Centre- and extremely enticed by the peanut topping atop - we decided to go to Golden Mile to try.

Actually we were there cos we ended up at Beach Road cos we took the AYE and ended up exiting at Rochor - at first we were thinking of exiting at Alexandra to try the Lengkok Baru's dim sum and beef dan dan mian - then somehow we seemed to have scarily drifted off to Beach Road to find the kaya toast place (on our minds the entire time) - but failure to locate 37 Beach Road (we were in the hundreds, lingering outside CBD), so ended up second time round at Golden Mile after a difficult wait.

This beef noodle turned out to be too watery for us still and the peanut seemed to have vanished, dissolving into the black gravy- the best part of it is probably the tender beef balls.

Kelly had a case of one too many beef balls.

Couldn't resist the Zhao An Granny Grass Jelly. Crushed ice instead, please. We were totally amused by the pair of old ladies selling grass jelly and for awhile, imagined us selling grass jelly all day long. Our bubble burst when we realised we would be quite grumpy too.

This is the best find of the day. Yam, Tapioca, ONDEH ONDEH, CHEESE TOAST! This fried food heaven can be found next to the 91 Fried Kway Teow Stall (the one with no pork no lard and a huge serving of veg) -its on your left when you climb up to the upper level.

The latter 2 was the best - the batter of the cheese toast seemed merged with the bread of the toast, and inside laid melty cheddar cheese. The ondeh ondeh had such an ingenious contrast of textures- the gelatinious kueh with shreds of coconut all in a pillow of crisp batter. Pwhoah this is fried food PARADISE. Even though it was kept in the warmer and not straight out of the pan. I must go and try the fried cheesecake at Fromage. Fried, frozen cheese blocks. Fried frozen Patisiere Glace's Rin Rin cheese tarts. MMmmm. Idea.

Reality check when this totally blocked my car. Warning, gluttony to be kept in check.
Watched The Cove - this had fantastic 4 star reviews but Kelly and I decided that documentaries are not for us. (like Mad for English). Not in a cinema, anyway. The whole controversy of this film was that it was shrouded in secrecy as the scientists-activist group were trying to expose the atrocities committed by the J fishermen in Taiji, and the means they'd exort to, for their prize - of a dolphin, alive as a show specimen or dead meat to be distributed as school lunches. I don't know which fate is worse for the dolphins. Show dolphins are subject to massive noise pollution (for they've an astute sense of hearing, and get extremely stressed by the noise of the filtration system in their tanks), and the sheer stress of living in a fixed place, not speeding through waters in their natural habitat and eco system causes depression and shortens their life span. Yet the manner in which their other peers get killed (if not selected) is savage, stabbing amidst the hemorrhagic red sea of a cove.

To me, the show chronicled how life comes full circle, and how the dolphin trainer tried to redeem himself eventually after a turning point. The trainer of Flipper, the show which popularised dolphins and the cuteness and humane side of the animal, dolphin and seaworld shows and attractions started gaining popularity. But the turning point was when his own dolphin died in his arms, when it stopped breathing spontaenously. Dolphins are in full conscious control of their breathing, and it was depressed enough to want to go to a better place, a heart breaking, turning point of the trainer's life.

Got very excited about the freshly popping popcorn which came in clusters - if you take it straight off the popper. Anyway, wanted to watch Away from Her with Kelly but Marc and Jason couldnt loan us their houses so away we went (got Kels a little hopeful when I called her back thinking I lost my car key.)

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 =)

Seng Hong Coffeeshop, Moon, Thaksin Beef Noodles

Today was an extremely long day - starting from the prophylactically please-cover-my-ass-i'm-running late (I was late instead sigh) and the long morning ward round about everything under the sun (or without, haha) about osteoporosis. Had a Nasi Padang lunch at KR (its not bad ! everything from the firms eggplant to the sambal goreng and sayur doleh was good) and to Kelly's astonishment the Prima Deli has become swallowed by my past obsession. iSymphony saved me mid-day, the cancellation of the HO teaching double saved me, and the unsaving grace was the grand round when poor Raphael got totally fired by an incidental massive BILATERAL PE.

Its midweek and the need to get away was immense, we took off to Seng Hong Coffeeshop
(Blk 58 Lengkok Bahru). Kelly is fantastic with her sense of GPS as always and getting there was a breeze - and so was sitting in the coffeeshop to leem kopi. This coffeeshop is so old school, it had a signboard of Chinese characters (that we didnt recognise and had to go in and double check it was the right place.)

Seng Hong only serves beverages (notably, their coffee), steamed bread and toast and is the only stall open within the extremely tiny coffeeshop, right in the heart of the neighbourhood. We felt like we were entering a village when we turned into the carpark to search for block 58 - we passed by barbers and grocery shops, and it was a really old neighbourhood. To our surprise, there were many middle-aged and old men sitting and chatting, enjoying a leisurely afternoon. I was joking with Kelly we could just turn up in our pyjamas and not denied our kaya toast and sure enough there was this funky grandlady walked in in her floral (it may not be though) pjs. Funky ah mah, we aspire to be like you!

Being in this place reminds me of this coffeeshop which served fantastic Chicken shredded noodles Andrew brought me to in KL - subsequently I brought my family there - the aunties there speak Queens english, and the coffeshop setting, old staircases, wooden chairs were all so familiar. We love such rustic places.

Here, we were also speaking English! But it was to a mid-aged uncle who recommended nicely the breads and spreads, and even gave us directions to town! Kels said that this place is run by relatives of the folks at Tong Ah Coffeeshop (where we also had steamed bread before), explaining the exemplary standards of simple fare.

Started off the leisurely afternoon (learning from the ah peks to enjoy life already) with coffee need all the energy we can get after the lethary infecting us from GRM. Extremely thick and quite acidic.

The steamed bread with creamy overflowing peanut butter was awesome possum. Extremely soft pillowy bread reminds us tremendously of our Hong Kong days where it was mandatory to have steamed bread in all the chachantengs when you order a sandwich. This is like eating an airy mantou in the form of a sandwich - with sandwich fillings too. Extremely spongy.

Kels is used to steaming her own Gardenia bread in her modified steamer and hence used to piping hot bread. The fantastic ventilation here meant the breads cooled down super quick before we could sink out teeth into it!
Steamed bread with Kaya and butter - the bread was the star still.
This is kaya toast (really mini and cute! too used to see +++bread in Ya Kun) and is like toasted steamed bread? We wanted to order the thick bread but we had to order the whole loaf and that would be an overkill so we'll come back for that another time.

We hurried over to Cathy the Picturehouse for the movie, Moon - which Dedrick recommended and is exclusive to the Cathy only (not Cineleisure even). I highly recommend it, it is probably one of the best movies I've caught - wrought with thought provoking scenes, a twist which set you thinking of the plot, people (in the broader sense, mankind) and drawing analogies to philosopy, ethics and human behaviour. Scrowl to the next picture if you don't wanna read spoilers or my ten thousand word take on the movie (for Kelly and my reference cos we were debating alot after the show).

And before I start, I must complain about the policy of no food and drinks allowed in the Picturehouse?! WTH! We not only brought in popcorn, we also had Sweet Onion Kettle Chips (love the texture of these, almost like eating real onion rings). I suppose art flicks require you to be more....civilised? ummmpzummpz crunchcrunch unaccepted.


Anyway I just found out from Dedrick that its cos the couches in the Picturehouse are really friggin expensive. People have wrote in to complain before (whats new) so I guess I'm not that much of a movie buff to be in the know.

Moon starts with an astronaut who was supposed to go home in 2 weeks. But he ends up in a crash, next moment he wakes up back in the OT, and the robot-butler tells him they rescued him. He wakes up but decides to go back to the crash site and there he discovers his own self, still trapped in the destroyed vehicle. At first, just before he entered the wreckage – Kelly was postulating that he was gonna hallucinate (especially since he was hallucinating his daughter in the opening scene) and I postulated that he might see himself in the wrecked vehicle. True enough, to his horror, he realises its his clone (Lets name this Clone 2). Questions started popping in our head from then on - Why is he the ONLY clone to realise that he needs to exit the rocket to go back to the accident site to recover his original self (Clone 1)? – K realised its cos Clone 2 was wondering why two out of the four videos weren’t screening material and hence he wanted to find out more.

I was wondering if the crash was orchestrated by mankind as an excuse for the clones to start life afresh, but we realised it was purely unintentional and an accident cos the ELIZA team was arriving on the moon to salvage the wreckage. But how long has the clone who was the actual one involved in the accident been there and how long has it been since the crash?

Eventually the clones realised that they were part of mankinds’ plan – their shelf life was 3 years (why not longer??) and after that they expire, told that they’re to return to Earth and is instead combusted in a coffin and reduced to ash. Both the clones stumble across the archives of the many many clones last words and getting in to the spaceship coffin, thinking they were returning to Earth, to his family, when the hypocritical Boss on Earth dispenses words of gratitude for their unyielding service towards Mankind on the moon. They only discovered these after entering the forbidden room - when Clone 1 realised he had recorded hundreds of videos that were not being transmitted back to Earth and the robot butler eventually entered the password to discover the grand plan of Mankind.

The most tragic part of the movie was when Clone 1 was close to expiry and was haemorrhaging everywhere – and in his live real-time communication with his daughter, he realised that it has been 16 years (since the first original human left Earth) and his wife has since died – AND that the original human has already returned to Earth to reunite with his family. This stunned Clone 1 and I believed it was a downturn on his health from then on – there was no motivation to return to Earth - he was an unwanted being. Clone 2 watched the same video – but the last part got cut off and he did not realise that his original form had returned to Earth already, and thought that there was a place on Earth still, for him.

Clone 2 then planned to return back to Earth, and place Clone 1 in the wrecked spaceship for the ELIZA team to rescue him. We were wondering what is his intention, really? Isn’t it likely that the ELIZA team might rid Clone 1 since he was of no use? – but we realised it was because Clone 1 was already close to expiry and had volunteerily decided to stay in the wreckage (I think the fight for survival in him died because he realise he was no longer the man his family needed). Clone 2 then had to fight against time because another new clone (this will then be Clone 3) was being regenerated and he had to launch himself quickly back to Earth, cos no more than 1 clone is supposed to be alive at any one point (excluding the one in the wreckage).

And we were wondering, why is there a part of the spaceship that can be transported back to Earth if mankind didn’t want the clones back on Earth? We only figured its cos that detachable part of the spaceship is to ship back materials that is the source of energy back on Earth.

He succeeded in returning to Earth – but during the entire journey, the conversation between the scientists on Earth about these clones and its ethics was most compelling. They didn’t reveal his life back on Earth – I would imagine it would be very much District 9 like – only Humans allowed.

This show is extremely thought provoking because so many questions popped in our head – and we were trying to recall parts of the movie to piece everything together. This is probably the only movie I’ve watched with only 1 lead character (the robot-butler and images of his wife and daughter doesn’t really count) and yet, absolutely brilliant in the portrayal of the loneliness of man, the innate sense of survival and need to seek solace in companionship and familiarity. Men work in order to feed their families – this need drives them in their workforce, drives them to strive and succeed. Does competition within mankind drive man to commit sins (greed, envy thy neighbour) or does it drive the human race to stand in consolidation to better the progress of mankind? Aren’t we all of the same species, of the same DNA and very broadly speaking – clones of a species?


Are humans inately unkind? Has evolution produced a human race where civilisation and society can function purely because it is limited by law and religion? What is the threshold of one's conscience and how is it governed? Some philosophers have argued that the very open -endedness of human appetite is responsible for both our savagery and civility, since a creature that could conceive of eating anything (including other humans) stands in particular need of ethical rules, manners and rituals.

Moreover, the analogy for this for humans and the ultimate end point of death – isn’t it similar? We all do have an expiry date, some of us do believe in the after-world when we’ll be surrounded with our loved Ones, and some of us do believe in the higher Being, placing our destiny in the hands of Fate and the powers of the higher Being. How real are we?

It was a friggin hot day - and by sunset we decided to head to Marina Barrage to chill. Went round a wild goose chase (cos my GPS not prepared hehe) so rely on Julie's instinct = waste petrol - no lar, only went one round, found our way almost effortlessly, not like the first time I was with Mountains. Spotted this Rover convertibles in the carpark and Kels was thinking about the demise of this species of this once popular car...

And a super cute kid and his dad spotted on our way back in the car park. Love to see Dads go solo with their kids, exudes so much paternal charm!

Fantasizing about swanky offices, we got even more mesmerised by this kite flyer whom we eventually chatted with and showed us the ropes (no pun intended) in kite flying. It was a lighted kite (100 bucks! sold by an uncle in Sengkang in a white car remember yar, Kelly) and flew pretty easily without much effort. Feels abit like reverse fishing - we were lamenting how guys love fishing, and reeling in their catch. Mmmms.

Has light clips attached to the string and hasnt dropped off thus far. He said he was thinking of flying his Snake - a 60 metre long monster. We wished he did! probably interesting, disappearing into the night -now we know the importance of the light. He was educating us that from the speed in which the light spins, you know if the wind is flying it in the right direction and if any resistance was present.

Then talked about nice flying grounds in Sengkang and Punggol and the possible sad outcome if the place is to be developed. He flies near his workplace, and goes out to fly when he senses the wind. Abit like windsurfers being able to guesstimate the wind ! I find it amazing how some people have the intuition for certain elements - like a certain someone for Sun and Water *AHEM*

Was throwing up many possibities for dinner - Geylang and Old Airport road but for convenience sakes we took the ECP-AYE to Seah Im Food Centre and had dinner at Thaksin Beef Noodles. This is my second try here (heard that the Blanco Fish Soup here is good but couldnt find it) but I realised what is great is the Phad Thai! We found a fantastic Phad Thai for $3!! It is $4 with beef. It has plenty of wok hei, sufficiently oily, and has generous bits of egg and taukuar, crunchy peanuts and beansprouts. Divine with that chilli powder.

Kelly and I shared the Phad Thai and each of us had a bowl of beef noodles (value $4). You get a mix of tripe, beef chunks and is all darn pretty good in a robust soup. The noodles were slightly too hard though, but went well with the soup and minty vegetables. Kelly, however, (for the first time in a looooong time) got her tastebuds massacred by the potent vinegar chilli so I suggest you exercise caution (espcially with the +++ chilli flakes in the Phad Thai). She was so badly scalded (for lack of adjectives) she had shallow breathing and hoarseness ++ with incomplete sentences. She still has PTSD as of this morning..

So we rushed over to Vivocity B1 for dessert - and stumbled upon this fruit juice and vegetable juice (Kelly's favourite!! My enemy=P) called Tracy's (Vivocity B1)selling interesting Paus with Pumpkin Kaya filling - but they were sold out by closing time. We settled for Aloe vera seaweed dessert ($4) instead. Actually Kelly was super skeptical but I made her try it! It is chokeful of ingredients and is like what Kelly has at home (she has the seaweed in bulk) except with the unique addition of the aloe vera jelly. This is like premium cheng tng.

Wednesdays will soon become the designated pseudo weekend for us =)

Hong Kong: The 3 (number, not stars) Michelin Star Restaurants we went to

Hong Kong has its own Michelin Guide restaurants and whilst the following are famous, we didn't know they were places featured in the Guide until we were inside the restaurant itself (where there're many *ahem* subtle hints) or when I actually re read the Guide in a bookshop back home.

No tourist leaves Hong Kong without trying Yung Kee Restaurant (Central, Hongkong) 's famous roast goose. The skin is crackingly thin and crisp and the plum sauce insanely good. This portion is the smallest - and it costs a whooping 20 SGD. Yung Kee occupies 3 levels and apparently, the higher you are, the better the service gets, according to the Michelin Guide.

Chiara recommended the double boil mushroom soup - the clear soup has an earthy, wholesome taste to it, and the mushrooms fresh - the gills bloom and fluff as I was scooping it out of the soup, really big mushrooms they were!
We ordered the sliced fish congee to share - smooth fresh slices of fish amidst equally smooth congee. Perfect with either the mushroom soup or the goose.

The next place, Mak's Noodle (Central, Hongkong) holds the record for the smallest bowl of noodles I have eaten - its like the primary school portion of the infamous mee pok I used to have in SCGS (the 50 cents portion, not the 70 cents portion). Can be downed in a second, no joke.

But of cos good food has to be savoured slowly, and this is the beef brisket noodle I had. Noodles in Hongkong tends to have the crunch and bite to it, and the soup was bursting with the beef flavour. Tender bits of beef brisket falls out of the bone..into my mouth!

Kelly had the wanton noodles here...

The next place we checked out was Cigei (Causeway Bay, Hongkong). This place is near Times Square.

I had the beef brisket noodles again - this portion of noodles is of cos, much bigger than Mak's. Meat wise, it was less generous though. This tastes rather similar to Mak's.

Kelly had the wanton noodles - what was different here was that the wanton was made entirely of prawn without the addition of pork.

We had the crab porridge as well - an entire small crab in congee, and the congee was really tasty mainly cos of the orange bits of crab roe.

Closed the meal with red bean beancurd - unimpressionable, compared to the mains we had !

Lai Lai Family Restaurant, Tom's Palette, Ah Chew Desserts

Beef Brisket Noodles

It was a rather impromptu meeting that brought Nat, Xueling, and I to Lai Lai Family Restaurant (20 Liang Seah St, 11.30am-3am). I picked the girls up from the Clementi area and we were deciding between Big D's at Holland Drive (no luck with the parking there) and Cityhall area to eat burgers or this, and we ended up with this.

The first page of the menu has a HUGE picture of the beef brisket noodles so we all had this. You can choose between Small ($7.80) Medium ($8.80), or Large ($9.80), and if you want a special order for your beef (like brisket, or all tendon) you'd pay extra. You can choose between Taiwanese ramen, kuayteow, or potato noodles - soup or dry. Yup, many permutations and combinations to try.

The first picture on top was my Medium sized Beef Brisket noodles - I chose the Taiwanese ramen in soup. The soup was super beefy, and to the point of being very herbs- tasting. It's really very tasty though, and the chewy thick noodle (its thickness is in between that of a ramen and an udon) was extremely delicious with the super potent broth. And the beef brisket pieces were really chunky and succulent! Extremely beefy bowl of noodles- its almost like an oxtail soup. I'd prefer the soup version over the dry versions (that both my friends chose below) cos the noodles really soaks up the beefiness from the broth.

This is Nat's Small Beef Brisket Noodles - Taiwanese Ramen, dry.

This is Xueling's Medium Beef Brisket Noodles - Potato noodles, dry.

Notice how the noodles look like tang hoon? transparent and slimy, Chong couldn't stomach it..but I liked it that its very slippery!

They serve the dry noodles with a bowl of soup. And all of us had a small plate of white radish.

Lai Lai also serves other kinds of rice and noodles dishes but we just zoomed into the beef noodles, which they are famous for.

Egg Beancurd with Red Bean

Nat ordered this instead of a drink and this was a really smooth and soft beancurd! Quite eggy - more so than the steamed milk egg from Ah Chew's. Its sweetness is enhanced by the red bean and I like this.

After a late dinner we then strolled over to Tom's Palette (Shaw Leisure Gallery, Level One). I've lost count of how many times I've conveniently ate around here so I can have an excuse to eat the icecream here!

Pistachio, Chocolate Banana

Mine! I LOVE the chcocolate banana! This is my first time trying this flavour and I love it! I almost never repeat my flavours at Tom's Palette cos everytime there are new flavours I fall in love with but this might be an exception.

I ate the Pistachio before, but this time's one particularly packs a punch. Maybe the other time I ate the Pistachio, it was among the 6 scoops shared by 3 girls so I was rather overwhelmed.

Lavender, Pistachio

This was Xueling's. The sniffing runny-nose girl couldnt taste anything and she could taste the Pistachio so you can figure how strong the Pistachio was that day. Even the Lavender couldnt be detected on the poor girl's radar - and I always thought Tom's Lavender was super strong. And I don't like Lavender! It's prob the only flavour I don't like at Tom's but thats cos I'm biased against it - the only time I'd eat Lavender is in the Bakerzin cake - Lavande or drinking it in teas.

Cherry almond, White Chocolate with Cranberry

This was Nat's. She wished she had a whole scoop of white chocolate with cranberry instead - she was a new fan of it. The cranberries were plentiful and its fruity sweetness acccentuated the subtle white chocolate.

Other new flavours I tried that day was Lime and Spice (way too whacky for me) and peanut butter. I like the peanut butter here too!

*Michelle I saw your brother here (nat called out to him and we talked) and even he wasnt gonna buy ice cream for you, buying for himself only! If I was zooming home I'd deliver it to you but I knew we werent gonna stop at Tom's so its too bad! Eat with us the next time!

One round of desserts is never enough for 3 girls so off we went for a second round! Yes I'm always having multiple courses of desserts with my fellow sweet-toothers...

Steamed Milk Egg

Xue had her own (so she won't spread the germs to us) and Nat and I shared one and the dessert below. Xue and I had this just a week ago and she found her new found favourite Chinese dessert. Nat found hers too today =) Extremely smooth custard with the nice egg-milk balance, it is as in Nat's words, a Chinese version of Creme Brulee (though its a world of a difference)

Durian with Yam and Sago

Usually I'd go for a warm paste (like sesame/almond with Kelly the first time round and sesame/red bean with Xueling the second time round) but today I decided to be adventurous and.....it didn't pay off!! Hai the durian paste was totally diluted in the coconut milk (which seemed diluted as well) and there were thick chunks of bland yam inside this sweet soup..only saving grace was the numerous sago that was quite nice to munch on as we slurped up the dessert...and to think we ordered a large portion! It was their daily special - their other special for the day was also another durian dessert. Nat saw in the back of the kitchen that they weigh exactly the amount of durian puree to add into the dessert..how very mechanical!

We then adjourned to Cineleisure intending to catch He's not that into you but no luck with the timings so we ended up catching up till the wee hours of the morning munching on the Cheese fries from KFC (no pictures for you to drool all over). Comfort junk food, interesting eclectic mix of young punks (there was totally attitude punkish girl in a long skirt super interesting) and sweet old couples suppering at KFC - totally unabashed about hanging out at Cineleisure at their age! Okay I'm not ageist - I'd wanna still do that at that ripe old age, wiping out whatever arteries I've left =)