Restaurant Review - KPO

Better than meeting up with friends I really enjoy is meeting them in a cool place like KPO, where the slate coloured walls, muted lighting and cosy low sofas made for great conversation.

It helped that for the first hour or so, we were just about the only ones there, the PH crowd only picking up after 1:30pm. Sad for the outlet, but yay for us.

After all the mixed reviews I read about the place on www.hungrygowhere.com, I knew that checking it out myself would be the only thing to do. So with two willing(or not) victims, that's just what we did.

KPO is right where that "philatelic" place is, the Killney Post Office, hence its moniker. I guess it must get pretty crowded at night with the yuppie crowd, but today is was a family brunch sorta vibe.

I had the all day breakfast aka the works. Scrambled eggs on ultra thick toast, nice fat sausage, generous side of bacon, hash browned potatoes for $15 was a pretty good deal to me. What was NOT a good deal was the miserable tiny cup of Earl Grey for $9 bucks. C'mon guys, if you are gonna charge that much, at least give us a pot, will ya?

R's Steak and eggs were pretty good too. The red wine reduction for the sauce was really yummy, flavoured with rosemary and delightfully fruity.

PKH's spring chicken was hardly more than chick sized. Served on mash, it was tasty enough, but the portion would hardly feed a bird.. ha ha. A little poultry cannibal humour there.

Nothing on the dessert side really appealed, so we went to TCC for some dark devotion instead.

On the whole, I liked KPO, next time might try some of the local fare. Someone at the next table was having Hokkien Mee and it smelt heavenly.

Chin comes to visit

Yeo Chin Yee, my goondu friend from CJ, changed her name, her place of residence and her hairstyle and I now only see her once a year, if that.

She is home for Chinese New Year and yesterday, we got together with a few other goondu friends for dinner, dessert and a lot of laughs and talking.

We decided to take her to Dempsey, because its the most non-Singapore place in Singapore right now. And they have a Ben and Jerry's, which for most of us, is reason enough.



But first, dinner at Dome. We wanted somewhere quiet, relatively cheap and quiet.



Here she is, studying the menu. She used to have the same expression her face when we were 18 and studying for exams.



And here are Chin and Craig, her lovely husband, clowning for the camera.



And here is everyone. From left, Sinclair Ang, Rhordan Wicks, Me, Chin, Craig.
Missing from picture, but supposed to be there: Joel and Kok Hong. We missed you guys!!!

Frenching

It's been a landmine of a week and am I glad that it's almost over. Murphy had a field day with his law, and yet, I can't help but feel that God's law has triumphed.

"Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart."
Ps 119:34

I understand a little bit better God's heart and the concept of being constantly refined and renewed. Next week, there will be a better me, as a result of the me last week. Yes!!

On a lighter note, I want to talk about dinner last night.

After work, I headed happily towards Adam Road Hawker Centre, looking forward to a fiery mee-beehoon goreng, washed down with icy cold, sickeningly-sweet bandung. But alas, it was not to be.

My first clue was the the dearth of cars in the parking lot. As I neared the famed establishment, i saw a plain white banner stetched across the entrance, informing me that Adam Road Hawker Centre was closed for renovation till 30 March 2008!

As loose ends for a place to have my desired repast, I head aimlessly towards Serene Centre. I surveyed the options available - Macdonalds, Some Fusion Japanese place, Island Creamery, and La Petite Cuisine - and my heart sank further. MacD's was a good last option. The people at the pseudo Jap place didn't even pause in the busy standing-at-the-counter they were doing, although I loitered outside a good 10 mins perusing the menu. Island Creamery only served ice cream, and had a 20-person queue.
That left La Petite Cuisine.

As I walked into the establisment, I was greeted by a good looking Filipina waitress and a rough-looking Filipino with a tattoo of a snake on his neck! Her warm smile and his strangeness drew me in to take a closer look. Then a huge Frenchman with a white handlebar moustache came out of nowhere and greeted me with a hearty "Bon Soir" and I knew I had to try this joint out. If not for anything but because the chef looked like Einstein's deranged brother.

To say the place was small is an understatement. The kitchen was the size of two bathroom stalls and the chef and his two assistants stood in it. A five foot counter served as the waiters' station, order counter and cash register. The rest of the place was seating, spilling over to the terrace outside. We could hear every word they said, although the chef seemed to be the only one talking. "Where is the steak?! I am waiting for the steak and I don't like to wait!"

When asked for recommedations, the waitress without hesitation said "Duck Confit with potato gratin" and I didn't argue. I am glad I didn't. The duck was flavourful although some bits were not as tender as I would have liked. The potato gratin was swimming in heavy cream and butter. In all, not the meal for a weight watcher, but since I am not one, it was great. In a posh restaurant, it may have cost $30 easily; here is was $15.

As I was putting the last deletable morsel in my mouth, a lady came in and asked if they were open in the morning, for coffee and chocolate croissants. The chef, who was idling by the counter, said, in a loud booming voice, "No. In the morning, I sleep. With my girlfriend." The lady beat a hasty retreat.

La Petite Cuisine totally lives up to its name. It's the size of a postage stamp and the food is truly cuisine. Please try it if you can. Like the French Stall in Tekka, it's unpretentious French food at its best.

Hanging with Hanan

There is nothing like eating large ice cream sundaes, looking at the one you love, and giggling over smears of fudge on each other's noses.

That's what I got to do yesterday. We went to Swensen's at Park Hotel and had a wonderful afternoon eating, talking and laughing over the strange things that happened to us during the week.

His classmate who had an "accident" in his pants.
My colleague's unfortunate heel caught in grate story.
His extremely pregnant teacher's propensity to drop her load at any time.

Later, as we walked hand in hand towards the train station, bellies full and hearts conjoined, we enjoyed a rousing game of "I spy". I like that I can be as serious, as silly, as young or as matured as I wanted to be with this young man I was walking next to.

It was good.

Epiphany at Carl's Jr

I was not really searching, but there it was, on my special order burger. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.




It's time to get my NOINO on! Shake my groove thing! Get on the scene! Be the MAN!

Heh heh.

A little slice of pleasure

On a day when work was boring, the weather was dismal and my mood was low, there was this.

Served with a smile, some friendly banter and a beautiful message at the West Coast Park MacDonald's.

A simple Oreo Cheescake at a fast food joint can add so much happiness to my day. Am I just easy to please, or would it have done it for you too?

Mega Sunday

Yesterday was one of those Sundays where you cannot believe you squeeze so many things into one day.

After a long, long time, too long than I care to admit, we made it for Sunday Service yesterday. It felt a little strange making that familiar, yet long-lost trek down to Suntec and mingling with the ever-present crowds.

And of course no trip to Suntec is complete without a mind blowing lunch in one of the gazillion restaurants they have there. Our pick this week was Swensen’s, purveyor of fine ice creams and barely passable food. But this time, they really did a good job. Note Exhibit 1, the Mega Burger.


For a measly $12.90, you get a large tasty meat patty, bacon, ham, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, grilled veggies, all topped of with a fried egg! Otrie with his relatively large chompers could hardly get his lips around it. It was an amazing burger and super value for money, man!

Something weird about wait staff in this Swensen’s, though. Or maybe it’s just the insufficient training they received. The guy came over and asked us how our food was. Which was all well and good. So, we told him the burger was great, but the fries were stale, recooked and nasty. At which he SMILED and said “OK, THANK YOU!” and WALKED AWAY!!!

*looks outraged and incredulous*

If you were sincere about the question, why didn’t you do something about the fries?
If you didn’t care, why bother to ask?
If you didn’t understand what we were saying, why didn’t you ask again?

Please people, if the customer complains about something, try to fix it. Do the right thing! Be a man! (Ok, channeling a little Russell Peters there.) It’s customer service 101. It’s also common sense 101.

Fortunately my chicken salad was perfect, as was Hanan’s mini burger, so we left more satisfied then unhappy. By the way, check out the mega fork they gave me to eat my salad with.


After an amazing sermon by Pastor Lian, we went to pick Hanan up from Sunday School. He always looks as if he had been a participating in a triathlon after Sunday school. It must be the influx of the spiritual feeding. And the adrenalin rush of all those like minded 7 year olds tearing around. So while we are waiting for the bus the child is jumping all over the place. But the minute we get on the bus, and he finds a warm body to curl up to, the boy is out like a light.


It’s a good 45 min journey up north to where we live, so that’s a pretty good nap. Of course this also means that Otrie and I get home tired and Hanan is ready to start new, involved activities.


Last night, it was Monopoly. We just bought Monopoly- Star Wars Edition, and he was excited about playing it.

Ok lah, we all were.

And it was really fun too, because it somehow became a Star Wars Trivia cum role play session. And Hanan beat us both, man! He was collecting rent on starships (utilities), building hotels and what not. He played with the reckless abandon of a child and totally owned us.

And so ended Mega-Sunday. I hope we have another one next week. Have to break the finding-excuses-to-skip-church cycle.

Pepper Lunch - Restaurant Review

For some reason, I keep being convinced to eat at restaurants that go again everything that I beleive a restaurant should be.

People go out to eat because 1) They want to enjoy the luxury of someone else cooking for them and 2) because they want to eat something they cannot reproduce themselves. Among other reasons.

So places whose "concept" is food that you cook yourself just does not compute. What is so thrilling about stirring around some raw meat on a hot plate, adding your own sauce and getting a facial steaming from the result of said stirring? All the things you tried to avoid my going out to eat!

Ok, enough of a rant, this post was supposed to be about Pepper Lunch, the newest range of cook it yourself places to come to Singapore. A Japanese franchise, Pepper Lunch is a small fast food concept where u order at the counter, they served u your dish, which you then proceed to cook through, season and eat.


Yawn. Been there, done that. It's nice that its steak, good steak at that, juicy and as rare or as cooked as you want it. And its nice that they have a few differentiators like their brown sauce (like Hp Sauce meets BBQ) and a garlic soya sauce which adds a nice kick.


What I really liked though was the ice cream. Yes, it was regular soft serve. But what made it extra special was thick molassy syrup that not only laced the top but thickly coated the bottom of the cup. This "gula melaka" like syrup was the perfect way to finish a meal, any meal, even one as mediocre as the ones at Pepper Lunch.

Go for the ice cream. It's good!

Restaurant Review - Zingdo

Everytime I walk through Jurong Entertainement Centre, I notice this fiery, hot corner that looked like it was on well, fire.

Yesterday, hanging around with Hui Min, we decided to check it out. Turns out it was Zingdo, a Korean fast food restaurant, managed by the same people who run Seoul Garden.

Basically I think any restuarant that requires you to cook your own food is a rip off. So usually steamboat and such is not on my food shortlist. But this place had other cooked options as well, like bimibap and noodles, so went in at sat down.

Their decor is strange. Orange floor. Orange ceiling. Orange walls.Orange chairs and tables. ALL in the same shade. My guess is, they got the paint free and lots of it. All in all, its like sitting in an oven. espcially with the wisps of steam rising from your meal.

The service, however, is exceptional and fast. Not only do they bring you your food within 10 mins of order, but they also give you detailed instructions on how to cook your meal on the hot plate. (I still think since they are the experts, they should have just done it for us in the kitchen, but again, that's just me.)


The food was - ok lah, as we say here. Nothing to write home about. Bulgogi chicken/ beef cooked in a mainly soya sauce marinade, served with veggies and short grained rice. They also had this thing called kimchi soup, which was basically soup with chilli oil floating on top and unidentfied cabbagy things at the bottom.

Was it good? No.
Was it edible? Yes.
Worth $8.90? No, I rather go to the Food Horizon food court and eat the Teppanyaki Black Pepper Chicken" for $4.50.

Go only if you are stuck in the area and will DIE if you don't have Korean food.