Buffet 1 - Merchant Court Hotel

Ellenborough Market Café of Swissotel Merchant Court, is famous for its Durian Pengat.  Durian pengat is like a mashed durian, looks ugly but is very yummy, the prerequiste is that you have to be a durian lover.  And when small Mich said go to ellenborough, I was dreaming of my durian pengat.
Here is it:  Does not look too good but it is good, you can taste real durian.

In a buffet, you can tell who is a Singaporean, a few traits include:
1.  They will be the one fighting for food, even though buffet start at 630pm, they will be afraid that the food will run out.
2. They will rush for the most expensive food, usually culprits include oysters, sashimi, seafood.  So Mich & I had strange stares from people when we were busily taking photo instead of fighting for the food.  They must be thinking that we were mad, or they were secretly happy that we did not fight with them over the oysters.

In case you are wondering why so many photo of the desserts, yes, you are right, I enjoyed the dessert more than the main courses! 

The carrot cake was very disappointing.  Chey Sua in Toa Payoh is still the best carrot cake!

Dinner buffet is $38++ per person.  With the HSBC promotion of 4 people dines, one person free, we paid $38 each.  Decent value considering the spread.  Not high quality food, but reasonable, which probably explained a full house on a Friday night!

Ellenborough Market Café

20 Merchant Road

GF Swissotel Merchant Court
Tel:  6239-1848

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Sunday! 

Ever wonder why such a holy day which marks the resurrection of Jesus after his Crucifixion on Good Friday became a day where we have the Easter Eggs and the Bunny?  Where did the bunny come from?

To me, Good Friday & Easter Sunday are days to remember what Jesus has done for us on the cross, his grace and his blood that was shed for us.  Sometimes I think that we do not deserve it, and God should let us die instead of sending His son to save us.  John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"

We had an event to conduct this Good Friday, is called Thank God is Friday (TGIF).  Each cell have to have at least 2 TGIF events.  We are to invite our prebelievers friends, to watch a DVD named "The Best Bet" which is a testimony of a compulsive gambler, and to have simple sharing and food, it will be about 2 hours, and in a house setting.  My cell had 7 members including the cell leader.  One of them is new, one of them is always missing in action, so in reality, we had 5.  And I was really pissed when one of them, supposedly the co cell leader, did not participate the event, and her reason is that she is going for a dive trip!
She claimed that in the dive trip, she can reach out to 9 pre believers, so she went for the trip.

To me, it is plain excuse and crap and simply not respecting the church's direction.  It is just another excuse to have fun, since she is new to diving, and logically diving will be a more interesting choice than to skip the trip and to stay behind to do the TGIF.  The part which I was totally perplexed is she seems totally righteous about it which made me more bewildered.

Anyway, I had the event, not very successful since my cell member who was supposed to do did not invite anyone.  Nonetheless, I am happy that I did my part, and my friends saw the DVD and heard the testimony.  A seed planted, hope to harvest it one day.

Friend in Town

I am always happy and excited to have friends in town, especially those I have not met for years.  Bo was in town for some conference, and it was really nice to catch up with her.  The last time we met was in late Nov 2006, at a company bootcamp.  It was also where I got to know her, as she was in the same project team as me.  Two of us happened to be the laid back one in the team, and while two other team mates were arguing how to present the case, we were more interested to rest and discussed where to go in Bangkok, especially it was already past midnight!  After the bootcamp, we keep in touch via emails and FB, and so it is really nice to see her again!
At first i planned to bring her to Dempsey for Samy's Curry. But she is one very interesting Thai who cannot take spicy food.  So we changed our plan, and went to Margarita for Mexican food instead.  I asked P along too, and he was at first quite confused by us, thinking that Bo is my colleague.  It was a great night of good food, mango margarita and Ben & Jerry Ice Cream.  Only then i realised that there is no B&J ice cream in Thailand!  Maybe i should get a franchise there :-)
The only regret is that i do not have my camera with me... but who cares, it is the company that counts.

Dinner @ Countryside Cafe

If someone mention Countryside Cafe, what will you be thinking of?  I will probably imagine a nice country setting cafe, tucked somewhere in a quiet countryside, surrounded with flowers, esp many sunflowers and nice green trees. 
I went to Countryside cafe again, after a big party last week.  This time, I spent more time looking at the decoration and the surrounding, and found it was really quite a contradicting name.  The cafe is located in Dunlop Street, in the heart of Little India.  There is nothing much on countryside, well, they do try to have a fireplace on the 2nd floor.  Other than that, hmmm..not sure what is country.  If you choose an outdoor seat, you can enjoy a beer and the buzzling Little India. 

Having said that, I love the food!  Fresh and crispy naan, spicy curry, tender Tandoori Chicken, with ice col beer, perfect!  They are so good that GT & I over ate!

The Tandoori Chicken is one of the best that I had, tender and soft, crispy at the bones, and you can taste the spices used to marinate the chicken.  Typiically, the chicken is marinated in a yogurt seasoned with garam masala, garlic, ginger, cumin, cayenne pepper, and probably some other spices depending on the recipe.  It is then cooked in a traditional over at high temperature, and usually in Singapore, many places did not do a good job of roastingm resulting in overbaked, tough chicken.  Here, it is perfecr!

You judge for yourself if this decoration is countryside enough :-)

Spicy Chicken.  We had the spicy chicken and spicy fish.  The spiciness is the type that you do not feel it right away, it slowly burn your lips and your throat!  By the time you realised it, you are on fire! Be careful not to eat the chilli! 

Naan leavened, oven-baked flatbread.  This is the best naan i tried.  Freshly baked, it is hot, fluffy, crispy, and with curry, it is heavenly, totally divine.  It is also the naan that make me return to the cafe.  At first, the waitress told us that there will be no naan that day, due to bad weather.  And we have to wait for 30 minutes for the naan.  (Their tandoor for cooking naan is outdoor)  I think this is the best thing you can buy for $2.50...

Total damage:  $62 for 2 person, with 2 jugs of beer.  Majority of the damage goes to the beer..
Overall:  9/10
Note:  Maybe you should check out the weather before you go, in case no naan on rainy days!  Oh yes, if you prefer to have your drinks at Prince of Wales that is a few shops away, they do deliver the food to Prince of Wales!

Countryside Cafe
71 Dunlop Street
Tel: +65 6292 0071

Jap Dinner @ Shin Kuriya

A ex colleague get together with H, S, Mr Intern.  S is in a money saving mode for her wedding, so we settle for Shin Kuriya in Vivo City.  Intern & I had beer at Queens & Mangosteen before dinner, the excuse was to wait for H&S. 

After the beer, we were ready for a feast!  We started with the skewers, Yakitori, Meatballs, Mushrooms, Pork Belly, Pork with Golden Mushrooms and Pregnanat Fish

Main Course:

H & I finished the dinner with dessert.  I had the Macha Ice cream...yum yum

It was a fun night with lots of craps.  We only realised today that H is quite an evil person!  haha

Happy Hourssssssss

I love Happy Hour.  Wiki defined Happy Hour as Happy Hour is a marketing term for a period of time in which a restaurant or bar offers discounts on alcoholic drinks, such as beer, wine, and cocktails.  Typically, it is in the late afternoon Monday through Thursday, usually taking place at some period between 4 PM and 7 PM.  The term originated in the United States Navy. In the 1920s, “Happy Hour” was slang for a scheduled entertainment period on board a ship during which boxing and wrestling bouts took place, this was a valuable opportunity for sailors to let off the steam accumulated during the long periods at sea. “Happy” in this context meant slightly drunk.
For me, Happy Hour is a nice time to catch up with your friends or colleagues, complained a bit, joked a bit, relax and drink.  When I was in one of the Telco, we used to have Happy Hour once a week, sometimes twice.  It will start at 5pm, and end about 8pm.  I would usually join them for a drink, and leave about 7pm.  It was also known as the "Horns Sharpening Session", because during these Happy Hour, we would get very evil, cracked all sort of evil jokes.  No evil intention of course, it was a very good stress reliever!

I had couple of Happy Hours past 2 weeks.  First one was in Paulaner, German beer with sausages with Polo and Demure.

The next one was with Prof at Durty Nelly's.  Pre St Patrick Day celebration, with 2 pints of Guinness, hot & spicy drumlets, crispy whitebaits and steak cubes. 

The last one was a huge party at Countryside cafe at Little India.  It was a pity that I did not have any photo as I was out for client's meeting, could not carry my bulky camera.   Anyway i totally forgot about my diet at the Countryside Cafe, had Tigers, Naan, Curry and Brownie with Ice Cream!!  I will return for the photo :-)

Lo Hei lunch @ Soup Restaurant

It seems like Soup Restaurant is a popular place to many people for Lo Hei.  I was there for Lo Hei last year, and I am back again.

We chose a weird time, 330pm, too late for lunch, and too early for dinner!  And i was starving when i reached the place, so much so that i gobbled down the spring roll which P had bought from Tiong Bahru Pau.

It was CNY period, and they did not have their usual dishes, so no Mee Suan.  :-(

Lo Hei, of course we had Yu Sheng. 

Claypot Toufu:

We also had the Lotus Root soup and fried potatoes leaves.  As usual, as soon as we finished lunch, the question was "Where are we having coffee-cake?"

Coffee cake was our code word for dessert. :-)

Coffee Banana cake from Secret Receipe.  It was soft and fluffly, stuffed with fresh bananas in between.  Well, i was scolded by L for "digging" only the bananas..heehee

Probably i should go to Carrefour to buy a brunch of bananas instead!

Cheese Cake:

 

Time flies when you are with your good friends.  I finished around 730pm, and i proceeded to my next appointment - dinner @ Golden Peony! 

Soup Restaurant:
3 Temasek Boulevard #B1-059
Suntec City Mall S(038983)
Tel: 6333 9886

Secret Recipe
Suntec City Mall

3, Temasek Boulevard, #B1-005A/006
Singapore 038983
Tel: +65 63336629