Chinese New Year Makanathon

Over the course of the Chinese New Year period, I had the opportunity to eat and eat and eat. From super expensive to totally forgettable food, from Chinese to Western, set meal to buffet I tried them all. Luckily in the lead up to my race next week, I had lost some weight and so after all these foods, I put back what I lost without any gain.

Here are highlight of some of the nice food

White Pepper Alaska Crab - This was definitely the highlight of the season and also the most expensive. This single crab alone cost $370.00! Usually Alaska crab is served steamed and chilled but this one at Long Beach Seafood was cooked in white pepper and I must say this is real yummy! The mix of the white pepper and the sweetness of the crab goes so well. This has to be the highlight of the period!

There was this day when a few of us went to Edge at Pan Pacific Hotel. I was totally bowled over by the variety of food available at the buffet spread. Too bad my stomach couldn't take in everything. They had everything from Chinese to India to Italian to Japanese. And all the food are cooked in small amount at the open concept kitchen but my favourite was definitely the dessert corner especially the chocolates and pralines.

 

Another place that I went to and have always enjoyed the food was Sze Chuan Dou Hua. They have this special section called the Tian Fu Tea Room where they serve dim sum and tea. During the Chinese New Year period, they have this wonderful tea set menu at $32.00 per head. Except for the roasted chicken which I felt didn't go well with the tea theme, the rest of the food were good. Unfortunately, I was dining with friends and I didn't think it was nice to take photos.  But here is a very nice review of the food with wonderfully taken photo.

And last but not least, another place that had good food was an old favourite Rama Thai Shark fin Restaurant. Unfortunately I am trying to reduce my liking for shark fin as I felt rather guilty about eating shark fin but hey how to go to a shark fin restaurant and not eat shark fin? Even though we had the most basic (read cheapest) set on the menu, the shark fin still impress. Poor shark though. The only other thing that spoilt the dinner was the pushy waitress who tried to first get us to take the more expensive set and when that failed, every time she walked by our table, she tried to get us to "upsize". First it was the shark fin from a shared portion to individual bowl, then it was to change the crab in the crab vermicelli from the small Indonesian crab to a Sri Lankan Crab and finally asking us to get the Yu Sheng! Again no pictures for this food session. 

There were a few other places that I went to during this period but the food ranges from average to forgettable so I shall not mention them here. But here is a photo of a giant size pizza that we had on one of these occasion:

Vistaprint.com

Somewhere late last year I ordered a calendar from Vistaprint.com, an online printing company.

Subsequently, according to the delivery note, the item has been shipped and was expected to reach me on 7 January 2014 via Singpost. When I saw the name, Singpost, I was like "uh-oh" and true enough, by the 10 January, I had still not receive it. So I duly wrote an email to Vistaprint to inform them that I had not receive the calendar. I received the usual standard acknowledgement  and that was that or so I thought.

The next day, the calendar came. In my excitement at looking at the calendar, I forgot about the email that I had sent out. 

That night, I got a notification from Paypal informing of a credit to my account. That was odd. What was that for? Before I can delve further, I got an email from Vistaprint informing me that they had refunded my postage and on top of that - sent me another new calendar! Feeling embarrased by now, I quickly sent another email to them to inform that I had the calendar and there was no need to send me a new one. But it was too late. Seems like they had already shipped it out.

I am truly impressed! I had when I sent out the first email expected them to tell me to wait a few more days for the item to be delivered.but instead what I got was superb service with no question ask. And so now for the price of 1, I got 2 calendars.

This is the 2nd time I ordered items from Vistaprint. Unlike other online photo book sites, they have a wide variety of products. I am happy with the pricing, the quality and most of all the service and I will certainly order from them again.

Muffet's Room Cafe

An ex-colleague took over this place from its previous owner a few months ago. Even though it was near my work place I could not find time to go down and give my support until recently. Initially I read the name as Muffin's Room and wonder why they didn't sell muffin and I was going to title this post as the Muffin's Place that don't sell muffin until I realised it was actually Muffet and not muffins.

This is a very very small outlet at the Icon but it boast a pretty impressive menu. 

Its main speciality is beer battered fish and chips. My colleague ordered this.

On the day of my visit, there was also a special set menu of salmon and dory fish which I ordered. It cost $16.00 and I topped up another $3 for a Cream of Carrot soup and an ice lemon tea.

The outlet at the Icon Village at Tanjong Pagar serves mainly the lunch crowd and deliveries to the nearby offices and apartments. 

Check it out if you work or are in the area.

Botanic Garden

We held a small fun event at Botanic Garden. The event had the participants competing to reach several  places within the Garden. Each team were given 5 photos of some places in the garden and they had to navigate their way to these places. The first 3 teams to successfully complete the quest and return gets to go on to part 2.

Here are some of the places. See if you can recognise where they are. (All photos by Mah Win Hong)