Yucky Food

There's a new Hong Kong style restaurant at Whitesands Shopping Centre... Hubs and I decided to try it out since the exterior looked quite posh.

There's a lot on the menu and we ordered: Roast Duck Noodles, Century Egg Porridge, Lotus Leaf Glutinous Rice and Siew Mai.
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Verdict: YUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Let me tell you why:

Duck Noodles: The noodles were too sweet (dessert-like sweet) while the roast duck was too salty (preserved duck during CNY kind of salty). What a conflicting combination! And to add on to the bad experience, the green vegetables were filled with sand. Angry!

Century Egg Porridge: It was lukewarm! And bland, and watery. Not like they had a ready set of condiments for you like soya sauce and pepper. What they had on the table was a bottle of chilli sauce! And the kind used for western food!!!!

Lotus Rice: One word. Bad. The rice does not even have the fragrance of the lotus leaf! It's just normal glutinous rice with chicken and mushroom. The chicken, not marinated properly, was tough and tasteless.

Siew Mai: It was our last hope.... dashed. It tasted just like the siew mais we get in school canteens. Full of fatty pieces and more fatty pieces.

We just fell short of flipping the table over in our angst. Throughout the meal, Hubs and I were daydreaming about how we'd come back in the middle of the night to vandalize the place. Haha! Anyway, we decided that without us doing anything, this place should fold soon. It's not even an authentic Hong Kong restaurant! We tried speaking cantonese to the staff and all turned out to speak either mainland mandarin or english. Cheh! At least the Hong Kong Tea Place on the 2nd level have managers from Hong Kong. We paid $27+ for the miserable meal and decided we could have eaten to our fill with much better food at a kopitiam stall with that money!

And to make sure we were not the only ones grousing, we scanned the restaurant and saw many furrowed brows. In fact, we couldn't even see a smiling face! Aiyo!

Just call it a lesson learnt for us. Since then, I've been telling all my family members and friends not to patronize the place unless they are really desperate. It's just not worth it to have them spoil your day....

I'll leave you with a picture of our almost-eaten yucky meal. Jaa!















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熱がある

I was running a fever last night.... No wonder I was shivering and feeling so weak... Hubs came in and promptly took the steps to make me better. Cold compresses, force-feeding of water ;P, and warm gentle company... I was feeling a little lightheaded but very very consoled...

The Liverpool vs Tottenham Spurs came on and not being able to sleep, I wrapped myself in my blanket and went out to watch the match with him. Yep, the cold compress was tied around my head unglamorously.

I had an apple to bring down the temperature and also to replenish the fluids. I was feeling better by half-time.

Liverpool did not play well... but they won in the end... 1-0. Yay!

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It was Saturday and Hubs wanted to go down to Funan to buy some stuff. I went with him though I was already feeling quite unwell and cold. It was alright. I planted myself at this huge stationary store on the 2nd floor. Most of the stuff there comes from Japan... It feels like I was in a ultra-mini Tokyu Hands. I walked around slowly, examining every shelf so I could last one hour there...

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Made Hubs bring me to Tampopo for dinner. This was what we had.















White Fish Tempura with Nori flakes ($4.80) - very yummy. The fish is tasteless though, as with all whitefish... but the little sprinkling of salt brings out the taste of the tempura and the nori... yum.















Hubs wanted the Shabu Ramen but it was out. So I made him order this Unagi Claypot Rice ($14.80). It comes with miso soup and a very very generous serving of sweet unagi! Apart from the piece you see covering the rice, there were chunks hidden within the rice too. The rice was also pearly and sweet... Ichiban!! Our only question is.... why isn't it a clay bowl? ;)















I had the Deluxe Miso Ramen ($13.80) - I ordered it mainly for the veges. It was really good!!!! It tasted more like tonkotsu to us then miso. The pork was heavenly, melting with every bite. There were huge servings of sweet crunchy corn, spring onions, bamboo shoots, nori, wakame, beansprouts, and of course, the slab of butter you see there... It was very filling for sure but we slurped up every single drop of the soup.

Ahhhhh...........

Note: The service is not very good though... when we called for the bill, the waiter simply slapped the bill on the desk and walked off. We had no idea whether to go to the counter or to wait for further instructions. Turned out that he came back a while later to 'collect' that slip of paper and our credit card. Weird... I don't remember it being like this the last time.

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Anyway, if you're interested, Tampopo is located at Liang Court Basement, within Meidi-ya.

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I went to Kino as usual but only had 10 mins. So I skipped towards the bargain alley and found this beautiful embroidery book (Wild Flowers Embroidery by Ondori). It was going at close to $40 originally and guess how much I got it for? $8!!!! It's rare to find craft books in the bargain alley though... so I got lucky. Inuyasha book 47 was also out. So I got to enjoy the 20% off before the deadline! Yippee!

Leaving you with two pictures from the book...




















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26 Degrees Celcius

I'm always in long pants and wraps at home these days.....

I can't stand the cold... Cool to Hubs = shivering for me. I need to get some warm homey slippers soon.

Went to register for my Advanced I Japanese class yesterday... $200 for the first term...

Wanted to stock up on my flag erasers at Bras Basah but they were out of the yellow-backed ones. They only had the blue and green which were way too dark. Decided on these instead...















They are also at 10 cents each but are 1 mm shorter than the flag ones... But I find it real funny how each piece is named... I think little boys can play war games with them. :D

I bought 19 pieces from them... less than $2!

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Had to wait for Hubs to get off work... so I went to Macau Crystal Jade to have a snack. I never knew that Hong Kong French Toast was so yummy!!!!! Loved every bite of the thick soft bread that was dripping with sinful butter and honey.... The egg coating was done to perfection too, giving a slightly crispy bite to the bread.... *Drooooooooool* $3 for one.




















Went to Kinokuniya to stock up on some books today. Ngee Ann City was so crowded!! Actually wanted to save money but couldn't find a decent place to sit at the fast food restaurants and food court... so I went to the 4th floor... Guess what... Crystal Jade again! But this time it's a Korean restaurant. Had this huge huge craving for vegetables.... so I ordered the Spicy Korean Beef Soup and Ginger tea. The soup comes with an assortment of veges and side dishes.















It was yummy! The soup was not too spicy and it came bubbling in a stone pot. The veges inside satisfied whatever craving I had.... A truly comforting meal for a cold day! If you want to know, the side dishes are sugared peanuts, french beans with squid, tofu, kimchi and spinach with beansprouts. They are all cold dishes. The beef soup is $14.90 while the tea is $4.

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I am so going to live on bread for the rest of the year. ;P

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Ok... I have one final cross to make for Jeannette. Her housewarming gift... this is the thickest so far at 0.8 cm. I figured it has to be thick in order to stand out on the front door... Hope it turns out fine.

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The sky looks perfect for a before-dinner nap..... the soup is still swishing in my stomach though...

zzzzz
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I'm sooo bloated...!

Managed to wake up for church today! Yay! ;P

After church, we went to Curry Favor at Stamford House for lunch. It was simply divine!!! The curry was really very good and the rice was cooked to perfection.















The menu is very extensive but being our first time there, we stuck with katsu curry, which can't really go wrong. I ordered the Hire Katsu Curry ($19.90) while he ordered the Ebi Fry and Rosu Katsu Curry ($18.50). We had a choice of mild or spicy with our curry. I went with the mild while he took the spicy (uncommon).

We were pleasantly surprised that our orders came with different curries. Mine was sweeter and smoother while his was thick and had a nice tang of seafood flavour. The spiciness in his curry came from the 7 spices powder that the Japanese love to use and was actually quite hot! And I liked how the curry came in aladdin-lamp-like holders.

We totally enjoyed our meal though about three quarter way through, we were stuffed and had to struggle with the last few pieces of meat... I'd rather eat the curry and rice than meat! That was how good the curry was... Yum!

We'll definitely go back to try the other items and maybe the appetizers as well.

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As usual, after lunch on Sundays, the two of us came back and snooooozed................ Plus it was raining heavily too... ah.... happiness.....

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Ending note: I did not get to cut the paper strips last night... procrastination at its finest.... ;)

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