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Food & Beverage
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1=SGD 0.0587
Was DSLR-hunting, and went into the sony shop to enquire on the sony alpha series model. The salesman uncle was quite polite to explain about the alpha 200. and the different pricing for diff lens.
I think there's a sony promotion going on right now, and if you buy the alpha series, it comes with free original battery. But then wasn't pretty much interested in sony dslr anyway, so the deal doesn't attract me.
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De-Luxe Cameras and Cathay Photos are two of the authorized Nikon dealers, looking for a nikon dslr, i went in to take a look.
They have two shops (i only realise later). The first shop i went in was tended by an old uncle, he was quite all right i guess, as in altitude wise.
He quoted me $890 (before GST) for the Nikon D60. After GSt its somewhere in the region of $970, and with no free SD card, the deal wasn't cheap. So i move on to the other shops.
I went to the back, and saw this shop, its also call De-Luxe, only then i realise they have two shops in the same place. So i went in and there was this younger man tending the shop.
He's a little eccentric, for every question i asked him, he only gave a very short reply, and wasn't very friendly and doesn't seem bother to talk to the customer.
He quoted me $880 (AFTER GST). If really the price of Nikon D60 is $880 after gst, then its really a great deal since for so many shops i asked around there's no one that quote so low.
However i was pretty much skeptical, and from the double-standards in quoting, i figure there's no such good deal in the world, must been a catch somewhere. Please try asking them for a quote to prove me wrong.
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Alan Photo (or more commonly known as AP on the online forums), is one of the more reputable and bigger camera shops in the local scenes. With the others being Cathay Photo, MS Colour and so on.
Stepping into the shop at its store in Funan, it was crowded with customers shopping for their cameras, lens, DSLR and equipments.
There was a mix of ang moh and local customers. Inside the shop was also quite a number of staff attending to them. I went in for the first time but it was too crowded and couldn't talk to any of the staff. After half an hour i went back again, this time there were less people there.
The impressions i got from the staff there were haughty, proud, snobbish. The i-don't-give-a-damn attitude was obvious for all to see.
I got the apparent feeling that they preferred ang moh customers more, maybe they're easier to be "carrot-head chops". There was this ang moh beside haggling the price with another staff though.
The price quotes that i got from the bigger reputable shops were all of less the same, but for the same price and poor poor services, i rather go elsewhere to buy.
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I was excited when a friend asked me along to the new Persimmon opened by the same people from Epicurious. We had such a nice time at Epi that I was pretty sure that Persimmon would be good too! So despite my busy schedule I went down with my friend for the food-tasting session.
Armed with a street directory and a good navigator (moi) we managed to find the carpark behind the Link Hotel. By the way, I found Link Hotel quite interesting and am really thinking of giving it a try. But the parking was $4 per entry in an open air carpark which I found quite a rip-off. But this is the nearest carpark so there isn't much of a choice.
One wouldn't be able to miss Persimmon with its bright orange lights standing tall just outside of it.
After much discussion on how to take a good photo of the front of the restaurant, we finally stepped into the place, greeted by Helena, one of the owners. She introduced us to the rest of the crowd for the evening who were all very friendly people and got us some wine before seating us at this long table meant for large groups.
The black and white tiled flooring and the coffeeshop table and chairs gave it a local feel. But the modern white finishings of the counter and the sides complemented it nicely. I loved the antique-looking sofa sets and the live orchids which gave the place an artsy touch. Old Chinese tunes and jazz helped me relax here.
Food we had:
Mushroom and Sesame Shooter
First up was this warm soup in a little glass. I loved the taste and thickness of it. We were told that there was some alcohol in it... but honestly? I couldn't taste it and was happy with that.
Tunghoon Salad with Crabcake
This was served with scallop and the presentation was very nice. The Tunghoon had a sourish-spicy taste to it and I liked it very very much! I think it would be better with some cashew bits in it but then that would be very common in Thai salad dishes I guess. As for the crabcake, I would have liked it with more flavour as it was a little bland next to the salad.
Fried Kwayteow served with Wagyu Beef
I wanted to write Char Kuay Teow... but then, it wasn't quite that either. I generally try not to eat both CKT and Beef actually. But I did like this version of CKT. It was still oily nonetheless (what is CKT without oil?!) but it did seem healthier somewhat. The noodles were not flimsy and drenched in oil like the hawker centre types but they still have some bite in them. But it was a little too salty but not over the top. I did enjoy the beef though, despite trying to stay away from it. But it was really good, very flavourful and the beansprouts that came with it gave the dish some crunch.
Fisherman's Pie
This version had laksa swimming below the puff pastry. The puff pastry is nice but it would have been better with some butter as my friend suggested. I think it would have made it softer and more "fluffy". I wasn't really too concerned that it didn't puff up but I think some softness was missing. I liked the gravy mostly but not quite for drinking though. The ingredients were pretty much what you would expect and they tasted ok. But the potato had probably been floating inside for sometime and its texture was a little too soft.
Pineapple Tart
For the first time, I had a giant pineapple tart for dessert. The top has your usual pineapple ring which I wasn't a fan of as it was a little sourish and hard to chew. Beneath it was sweet caramelised pineapple which was very tasty, especially when eaten with the crust! I loved the crust and tried to finish everything but I couldn't as I was too full.
I can't give a pricing for the items I had as I was there for food-tasting. But I took a glance at the menu and the prices are more or less like those in a cafe with mains going in the $20 range.
Not to mention, we took a surprise visit into THE KITCHEN! Helena was so nice to bring us around and show us different sections of the place and we soon realised how much effort was put into planning and designing a place like this! She also showed us a speciall little room that can seat 8 people. It's very cosy and there isn't a minimum spending amount before you can use the room!
Definitely worth another visit!
For more pictures, go to my blog
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Caught a late night show at the new Cathay cineplex at Downtown East. Arriving at the cinema level, I knew it's not going to be as good as the original The Cathay at orchard. Obviously this is one of the smallest Cathay around their cineplexes.
The cinema I went to was no. 3. It was relatively small but leg room was sufficient but not as wide as those at GV vivo. I've to disagree with genesis with the seats. After 100 mins of watching the show, my partner and I both suffered from neck ache and strain. We were seated on Row E, which's still considered among the back rows. The seats were uncomfortable and we were blocked by the couples in front of us. (Not alot thou, but still we can see their heads popping above the seats.)
Unlike GV cinemas, cathay still only provides "couple seats" with reclining arm rest at the 2 back rows. So if you're looking at getting some cuddling, especially for horror shows with your girlfriends, you might want to book the tickets in advance.
Another inconvenient thing about this Cathay is the toilet. It's located outside of the cinema and boy it was wet and dirty! Although the place is still pretty new, but the toilets were badly maintained. Guess the crowd overpowered the frequency of toilet maintenances.
Although the place is not up to our standard as compared to other Cathay and GV cinemas, we'll probably still go back for movies at nights. Reasons? Well, it's nearby our homes and the open space public parking outside is free after 10pm!
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Pine Valley Restaurant at Laguna National Golf & country club. Lunch is courtesy on Yebber. We had our first Yebber Ambassador lunch (for the record i’m one of the six, the other five is Bobo, Claudia, Lucardia, Polarbear & Trumpat).
The interior of the restaurant is your typical Chinese restaurant settings. Most of the tables accommodate large crowd and with a few smaller tables around. Before we went into the restaurant, we were given a mini-tour of the golf club by Steward. The entrance to the restaurant is by the side of the main hall, quite different to miss out if you didn’t see the sign carefully.
The staff busy cutting away slices of the Peking duck skin. But before they served, of course is photo-taking time!!
As this was the first dish, the staff didn’t know there was this group of crazy Yebbers at this table. We demanded the dish to be displayed on the table for photo-taking before they can sliced the duck. Well they learned their lessons pretty fast, and from this onwards, every dish was placed on the table before they need to serve us.
Peking Duck
The Peking duck was nice, i always love this dish, but the only complain i had for this dish was the duck skin too little, not “shiok” enough!
Well as they only used the duck skin, we couldn’t throw away the meat right? The duck meat was stir-fried and served. Not very sure about the method of cooking, but the taste was awesome!
Shark-fin
Next up was shark-fin. Yes i know the animal-lovers out there are going to complain about this, but the shark fin was good nevertheless. I’m not really a big fan of shark-fin, usually i ate it because its there, and not that i liked it.
Wasabi Prawn Balls
This was no doubt the star of the show. Tagged as Pine Valley signature dish, the wasabi prawn balls live up to its name indeed. The prawn balls were springy, and although the wasabi flavoring wasn’t strong enough, i liked it that way.
Fish
The steamed fish was pretty decent, nothing to shout about.
Cereal Prawn
This was the other prawn dish that we had. I wasn’t too sure whether it was cereal prawn, but the rendition seems pretty close to it. I still preferred the wasabi prawn roll to this.
Veggies
Spinach with mushrooms. Another ordinary dish.
Fried Noodles
The fried noodles is served with eggs and lar-cheong (chinese sausages). We agreed that the lar-cheong flavor was too strong for the noodles.
Desserts
tofu with long-gan fruits assortments.
Overall, the lunch was pretty nice, with the wasabi prawn roll my particular favorite. Sorry, no total bill shown because its a treat and we didn’t know the prices. But with shark-fin, peking ducks, prawns, fish, or commonly known as da-yu-da-rou (big fish and big meat), the bill is likely to be quite heavy.
Thanks to Yebber for the treat, and my fellow Yebber-mates for their company on this enjoyable lunch. Like i always said, its the company that makes the food taste nice.
And as always, i’m looking to the next Yebber outing already!
You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written above are my genuine feelings expressed in words that may be subjected to my personal distortion or biasness. Please do not feel emotional or distress should you have any violent objections. Kindly click the little X at the upper, extreme right of your screen if negative adjectives would be derived. Otherwise, feel free to furnish me with comments, may it be positive or negative : )
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The crayfish hor fun was recommended to me by some former-colleagues. Located at Hong Lim food centre 2nd floor, the store is at the corner area, but food lovers still can find the area with ease.
Coming in sizes of $3.5, $4, and $5, I had the smallest version which offers a small crayfish and some small prawns. My pals had the bigger price tags one, which definitely comes with bigger crayfish and more prawns.
I found the hor fun to be quite all right, then again i'm not really a big fan of hor fun. The crayfish was quite good given the price, if you wanna the real taste i guess the $5 portion is the one to go for.
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Decided to dropped in at Cathay Cineplex @Downtown East to catch the movie "The Forbidden Kingdom". Being a brand new cinema, there were many plus points.
(1) The seats are very comfortable and you would have no "heads" blocking your view no matter how the person in front of you sat. It did not seem like there was anyone seating infront of us until the end of the show when the person stood up. haha. So that is how great the view was.
(2) The legroom is superb in Hall 4 (one of the bigger halls). You can easily stretch, fold and make all sorts of movements with your legs (limited by your bone structure and ligaments) and you will hardly ever hit the chair in front of you. Perhaps we were too engrossed with the show, but the legroom really was not a problem.
(3) The sound system was clear and there were no audible cracking or sizzing sounds.
(4) Being new, there was practically no one in the cinema. haha. execpt for the people infront of us.
The only strange point is the design of the exits. After the show, we walked down to the exit, entered the door and the whole group nearly got lost. There were no visible signs so we just had to find our way out. We ended up in an enclosed and barricaded section and had to move over pylons and barriers in order to get out to the escalator. The workers were staring at us wondering where did this crowd come from as the area was barricaded.
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First tried out Ms Clarity way back in 2005/2006 when it first opened and was relatively unknown back then. Used to have their chicken cordon bleu which is essentially chicken stuffed with cheese and ham. There was no crowd then and prices were kept before $10 for a main course. With the publicity generated over the years and the opening of 2 new branches, the standard of food has dipped, prices have increased and the queues are quite insane. Oh did I mention that service is slow as well?
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After a short wait, our dishes arrived and we tucked in. First impressions, the beef I had was very well done and the meat was tender and a little juicy. (I had ordered it medium well)The sides were nothing to shout about though. The hog tail fries tasted like the curly fries from MacDonalds and the salad looked like it could use some sprucing up. I managed to try some of my gf's chicken and it tasted kinda weird with peachy-mangoey sauce on top of the chicken. The sauce tasted like those you would find in puddings.
My take on this one? The beef is good, but only the beef. Didn't get to try the dessert as we had plans to head on to Haagan Dazs after that. The waitresses were friendly, but a little lacking in service. I ordered a refillable glass of Coke and I had to wait for quite some time to even see a waitress to get it filled up. Nice laid back atmostphere though.
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