Own Time Own Target

Day off

E and I took leave to celebrate Kiddie E's birthday in school, and then the rest of the day to celebrate my birthday, belatedly.


Lunch

E wanted to buy me a good meal, i felt like having a bloody slab of steak but thought lunch was too early for meat. So i decided to fall back on an old favourite: Turtle Soup at MacPherson. Unfortunately it was closed! Closed? But but but it is Monday! The sign board says "closed on Tuesdays" what!!! pout* pout* pout*

E then suggested Liang Seah Street since we havent really explored that area. Okay lor... pout*

We happened to park near a Ma-lah Hot Pot place and decided to try it out on a whim, despite the hot weather. We ordered a double pot with medium heat (out of Low, Medium, High and V High settings) for the ma-la hot pot soup, and a chicken soup on the other side. Then dishes of Beef Slices, Chicken Slices, Cockles, Fish Balls, Prawns, Toufu, Spinach, Tang Oh, Chinese Cabbage, Tang Hoon, Button Mushrooms and Golden Mushrooms. We were pleasantly surprised by the good portion of each dish, unlike the famous Coca...

We were each served a dip that consisted (as much as i could tell) beaten raw egg, soy sauce, vinegar and green shallots. It was a good meal! The hot pot was just about manageable, if you were careful not to bite into those fiery peppercorns, and the savory dip doused some of the heat if you had picked up too much chilli oil with the food.

Yum yum. Mark the name, 庭园, we will be back! ahhh... soon but not thaaat soon, gotta let the stomach recover. :D

We were told later that this place served a very authentic hot pot, same as what you would get from 重庆 in China. What luck!

After that we hopped opposite the road for deserts at Ah Chew's for something cooling to douse the fire in our stomachs.


Movie

Next up was Wild Hogs (because SpiderMan 3 hasnt opened yet) at Orchard Cineleisure. 12% discount with OUB credit cards! sweet!

The succint review: City Slickers on Motorbikes with 4 guys instead of 3. Funny. Funnier if you are approaching middle-age. Too close to the bone if you ARE middle-aged.


Shopping

Orchard Cineleisure is just too young for my taste, and we hopped over to Taka instead. Angie is going to USA and offered to help buy Coach/ Furla/ DKNY/ etc stuff as they may be 50% cheaper based on current exchange rate and she knows where to buy them.

I saw this first, my style and it looked alright on me, but it was also S$875...

E offered to buy it for my birthday, but nah... EIGHT HUNDRED OVER BUCKS for a BAG?

We then strolled opposite to Tods and a beige bag with red trim that looked fabulous on me was... S$1250. good grief. To his eternal credit, E offered to buy THAT for me too. but again, seriously, no lah!

I looked at a leather key chain, and THAT was $210.

ah... i think we need to go liao lor.

.....................

We finally did buy something, a lego set for Kiddie E, 20% discount from Metro birthday card some more :)


Dinner

Even though we were strolling round Paragon, we decided not to eat at Lawry's. We were just not that hungry, and it is not doing a bloody hunk of a steak justice if you are not hungry.

We spied a small alcove inside Project Shop and decided to have a light meal there. We shared a HUGE caesar salad, a roast beef sandwich (i did get my meat fix afterall!) and a banana cream pie.

Happily, we were served by a very friendly waitress who attended to our needs but was never obstrusive or patronising. Even humoring us to check with the kitchen what was that nice smell we spied, it was pan fried salmon. Nice.

The caesar salad was good, with a poached egg, huge pieces of croton and bacon pieces. The roast beef sandwich was alright though the meat was a little tough, but the potato salad that came with an interesting crunch from celeries. :)

BUT the banana cream pie was HEAVENLY! a tall pile of whipped cream (i reckon 3 inches tall) on chunky banana slices on almost a cm thick coat of caramel on top a dense biscuit. It made me happy just LOOKING at it. And it tasted like HAPPINESS! I've found my comfort food for manic-depressive days.

What a perfect end to our park-tor date.

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E was just a little apologetic about not finding me a present for my birthday, but seriously, the date was good present enough.

PLUS we decided to do this every quarterly.

I cant think of anything better. :)

Labels: to Eat Drink Party, to Shop Buy