Shane's Wedding 16 July 2010

This was so far the most unique and interesting wedding dinner that I have attended.  There were surprises almost every part of the dinner, and most importantly, you could see that the couple enjoyed themselves, while entertained their guest.

Melvyn and i went for a beer at No.5 before going for the dinner, because I told him that we would not get to eat til 9pm.  This is the most irriating part of any wedding dinner, it never starts on time!  The drinks were on Melvyn, as I sold him a lens at "friend friend price".  Beer was fun, as Melvyn always have funny stories to tell about he & his girlfriend. 

Famous chicken wings from No.5

We slowly made our way to the dinner at 745pm, and to our surprise, many people were still hanging outside the ballroom, and it seems like the ballroom was half filled.  We were finally seated at about 2030Hr, and waiting for the couple to march in. 

Pre wedding dinner

For all the wedding I have attended, the couple would march in, then went up to the stage together. However for Shane & Spencer, their march on were special. Before they reached the stage, the couple splitted! Spencer marched to the left side, while Shane to the right. I was shocked by Spencer marching towards me, and had to step back! And right after the marched in, they danced! Wow

The second march in was very unique too.  We heard a very rock music, and we thought it was quite special, and were looking eagerly towards the main door, waiting for the couple.  Suddenly, the side door swinged opened, and we saw Shane in her dancing dress, danced into the ballroom alone.  Hey, where's the groom?!  The next moment, Spencer appeared on the stage with a mic, and they started to sing & dance! 

The cold platter

The guys on our table.  While the couple entertained themselves and the guests, we also enteratined ourselves. 

Our table.  The 2 gentlemen on the left kept talking non stop, and we had to save some food for VK.

The ladies

The people from the next table.  Shane had 2 tables for Mercer, and ex-Mercer, and when we asked her about the seating, she said, "Oh, one young table and one old table"  I wondered which was which! Haha  I supposed mine was the "Young Table" since Callista was at my table!

Ladies in red

It was a very enjoyable night.  The couple enjoyed themselves, entertained themselves and at the same time, entertained the guests.  A lot of thoughts were put in to plan the wedding.  In addition, I had a lot of fun catching up with the Mercer, ex-Mercer folks.  We left around 2330Hr, and the dinner was still not "officially" over.  Congratulations to Shane & Spencer.

High Tea at Wild Honey

This is not a birthday celebration!  I want to catch up with Tracy, whom I have not met for a while, and Thank God that I called her this week, because she is going back to HK next week.

As she was teaching, we could only have a late lunch, and she left it to me to decide on which swanky restaurant I wanted to go, and we finally settled for Wild Honey at Mandarin Gallery.  We reached there abotu 1430Hr, and to our surprise, there was a queue!!!  I thought it was a weekday!?!  Maybe it was a Friday afternoon, and people were in the mood for high tea?

I liked the concept of Wild Honey.  There was not menu, and you had to order at the counter.  They described it on a chalk board, and they had the food photo on a ipod touch!  Cool

We settled for a European and a Salad to share.

Hazelnut Latte

European, somewhat like your Eggs Benedict

Pan Fried Goat Cheese Salad

Overall:  8/10
Wild Honey has a very relax and homly feeling.  The tag line of Wild Honey is "All about Beautiful Breakfast, All Day, Everday"  Though the breakfast was not exactly cheap, ie $18 for poach eggs, the ambience made up for it.  Definitely a nice place to have breakfast, brunch, high tea or simply catching up with friends.

Address: #03-02, Mandarin Gallery,
Orchard Road, Singapore.
Telephone: +65 62353900

Mala HotPot @ Chong Qing Hotpot - Round X of Birthday Celebration

Alright, I confessed that I was a bit overboard in celebrating my birthday! Well, since I am not going anywhere this year, might as well eat all I can here! 

I had a craving for Hotpot, so decided to check out the The Chinese Feast - Chong Qing Hot Pot @ Suntec with Cheekit.  We went to the one at Tanglin Mall some years back, and I thought that Suntec would be more convenient.  The dinner was also to celebrate CK's birthday, which was 4 days after me.  Usually I would buy a cake or even a slice of cake, but this year he requested not to buy anything, just to have dinner.  He said that he was too old to celebrate birthday, and wanted to remain low profile.  Maybe that's the mentality of a happy and contended family man with 2 kids??!!  Anyway, I was happy to proceed with our usual tradition of celebrating our birthday together, with or without cakes.  :-)

This was the Mala Hotpot.  The red side was the spicy (x 100) side.  I did not take a lot of pictures this time, as most of the food were raw (Of course they were, since it was steamboat!)

My favourite fish paste.

Overall 8/10.  One of my favourite steamboat other than Coca.  Expect very hot, hot, very very mala soup!  Service was efficient and friendly.

The Chinese Feast - Chong Qing Hot Pot @ Suntec

3 Temasek Boulevard #B1-061 Suntec City Mall Singapore

Tel: +65 6337 6921

A walk down the Memory Lane

Another birthday celebration, but this was a special one.  The theme was "A walk down the memory lane" with Lilian, nothing fanciful, nothing atas, just Lilian spending time with me.  :-)

I had 2 options for dinner:  Pagi Sore or Chiang Mai Palace.  These were the 2 places that we frequent when our offices were near to one another some years back.  We had lunch almost every other day, and the regular routine was to have lunch, followed by coffee at either Ya Kun or Mr Teh Terik.  We were such as a regular that the owner there knew us, and we named them XLG ;-))

Having coffee at Ya Kun is a different experience compared to have it at other places.  Other than you can order coffee at a wave of your hand, you can also determine uncle's mood by the coffee. It was a pity that they closed at 6pm, if not we could have go there after dinner.

I chose Chiang Mai Palace, because I thought she just had Pagi a month back on her birthday.  Chiang Mai Palace was usually packed during lunch time, but for dinner, it was quiet, and to attract crowd, they have all you can eat ala carte buffet at $18.90+++, very reasonable price.  So we went ahead with the buffet.

Lilian bought another new toy- Canon S90.  So instead of concentrating on the food, we had a lot of fun taking photography!  One signs to show that you are too addicted into photography is how you describe your food.  When the dessert mango pudding was served, she said that the colour was just right, and i said that the White Balance was correct! Haha

The toy:

Here we go for Round 1:

We started with the Green Mango Salad.  I found it a bit too sour, but Lilian liked it, she said that it was a good apertiser.

Spicy tom Yum Soup.  Not the clear type, comes with chicken and mushrooms.

Thai Green Curry

Pineapple Fried Rice.  We were deciding between the Black Olive Rice and this, so I chose this instead as this was something that we used to eat :-)

Thai Fish Cake.  One of the best dishes for tonight, crunchy and can taste the spices used in the fish cake.

Fried Kang Kong.  (No Balachan Version).  Lilian cancelled the balachan on the order list, and the chef was smart enough to understand.

Spicy Chicken Wings.  A big portion for just the 2 of us, I was expecting 4 pieces.  And we could not taste any spiciness in the wings.  Maybe they should change the name to Fried Chicken Wings.

Tofu with Thai Sauce.

This was the most disappointing dish, fried long beans.  The beans were very tough, tooo crunchy, felt like they were not cooked.  We finished the mushrooms & carrots though.

The woman playing with toy when she should be eating.  This is a bad habit!

We stressed the waitress when I asked her to take photo of us.  She looked intimidated by Tom (My Canon 450D)

Trying out with different colour.  Somehow because of the background, it looked grainy.

After round 1, we proceeded to Round 2!!! 

Round 2 was at our usual hunt, at the eateries near Kovan MRT.  We started with the Jie Bread.  It was surprising crowded, and we thought that youngster hang out in pubs, not bread place!  At first, we ordered only the white bread with jam, but someone ordered the french toast, and we could not resist the aroma of the french toast, so we added french toast too!

 Bread with Jam..This is a comfort, magical food, can bring back all your childhood memories.

Playing with toy again.  Since bread would not turn cold, we played for quite a while..heehee

Once we finished Round 2, we went for Round 3- Evil Beancurd.  We can eat, can't we?

Evil beancurd is a very interesting place.  Whenever we go there, we will grow "horns" and turn very evil.  Other times, we are such such kind and lovable people.. ;-)

Evil beancurd is also well known for its extremely slow service, and once again, there was a long queue at the Evil Beancurd place.  There were at least 8 people in front of us.  Today I had the privilege of playing with the toy while she went to queue.  I love birthday heehee :-)

And Round 4 is....No more round 4, ate so much, super duper full!  No fine dining, no expensive wine, no nice table setting, but it was a very nice evening.  There was a very nostalgic feel, brought back a lot of memory, both bitter and sweet, the good times and the bad times.  Tonight will be a night that adds to the memories of our bond through these years, and definitely will be marked as a sweet one.

Thank you Lilian, for the wonderful evening.

Absinthe Birthday Celebration

Here i go again, another round of birthday celebration, with my good friend T.  This time, the location was at Absinthe, a restaurant recommended by Lynx for its Lobster Bisque.  Absinthe is located at Bukit Pasoh, a stone away from Outram MRT.  Absinthe is historically described as a distilled, highly alcoholic (45–74% ABV) beverage.  It is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from herbs, including the flowers and leaves of the herb Artemisia absinthium, commonly referred to as "grande wormwood". Absinthe traditionally has a natural green colour and therefore it is commonly referred to the Green Fairy.  I suppose if a restaurant named itself after some spirit, it would be famous for that!

We started the night with some beer outside the restaurant.  Right after we ordered the beer, I was immediately impressed by the restaurant manager, Mr Philippe Pau, who offered to take my bag and jacket in.  The other waiter, a tall & funny malay guy, (Lets call him Funny) recommended that we have some ham to go with the beer, and he brought along some bread too.

After the beer, we proceeded into the restaurant, and we ushered to our table, where my bag was nicely palced at a small leather stool next to our table.

As usual, I left it to T to choose the wine.  He is good with that, using feeling to choose that.  However with the extensive wine list, he asked the tall waiter to recommend.  The waiter was very knowledgable, and knew his wine very well.  He recommended a wine, based on the main course that we were having.

I started the night with the Lobster Bisque with cognac, while T had the special appertiser, prawns with almond.  Funny recommended a glass of white to go with our appertiser. 

Lobster Bisque with Cognac

Prawans with almond

Complimentary Foie Gras, with pancake and raspberry.  Foie Gras was pan fried, and the pancake took away the oilness feeling.  

Close up:

T's main:  Beef Tenderloin, medium rare.

Rack of Lamb medium well.

Wine for the night.  I am not an expert in wine, and i like something that is too not dry, while T prefer something dry, full bodied.  So we gave Funny the challenge, to choose something in between, and he recommended this.  He said that this wine will go very well with the 2 red meats that we have ordered, and after breathing, it should be good to drink.  I was very impressed with how dedicated Funny was to his job.  He came back to ask if he could try some of the wine during the later part of the dinner, so that he could recommend it to his clients next time. 

According to Funny, the wine was a bit "short" such as it did not really remain long in the palate.  We assured him that we loved it :-)

I ordered a dessert to share, the Warm Valhrona Chocolate Fondant and Macadamia Nut Ice Cream.  (Those on the right of this photo).  The rest were complimentary from Absinthe, and they wrote of the plate, Happy Birthday Babe!  Hee hee, so my name was Babe! The berries (those on the left) were very very good.

T was telling me the history of Absinthe, and he wanted to verify it with Funny.  Funny asked Mr Philippe to tell us the story, as being a french, he knows his history very well.  Mr Philippe not only told us the story, he also let us try 2 different type of the Absinthe.  I was very intrigued by the set up for the Absinthe.

This was how it looked:

I had the one on the left, thought it looked more greenish and not as strong as the one on the right.

This holds water, to drip on the glass with the metal spoon, with sugar.

The Absinthe I had.

I had a great night, good food, good wine, great service and most importantly, great company.  The only slight complain that i had was that some tables with some french men were a little noisy at times, probably due to the Absinthe! 

Overall:  10/10
Absinthe

48 Bukit Pasoh Road
Singapore 089858
Tel: (65) 6222 9068