I just got back from a 1-week reservist in-camp training. One of the welcome changes is that the camps now provide free Internet terminals in their canteens. Although bandwidth is insufficient and the terminals often occupied, I find that I could at least have access to my emails. I'm now going to catch up on some sleep!

With MY and SH for a drink at The Living Room (Marriot Hotel, Singapore) last Monday evening. This is a nice conversation place. The ambience is exquisite, like the living room of a luxurious mansion. High ceiling with dark wooden walls, large paintings, big comfortable leather sofas, and a fake fireplace. Be sure to make reservations in advance if you want those leather sofas. Otherwise, you may have to settle for some not so comfortable seats at the bar counter. Happy hour is between 4pm-8pm, when drinks are at 1/2 price.

Celebrated my mom's birthday tonite at Si Chuan Dou Hua Seafood Restaurant (Plaza Hotel, 7500A Beach Road). I haven't been to this restaurant for many years. The menu didn't change much. They still serve their speciality Eight Treasures Tea with a one-meter long nose tea kettle! Food was good. The deep fried soon-hock fish is nice but bony. The prawn dishes are all very good. The only dissapointment came from the vegetable dishes. The long beans were undercooked, resulting in them being too hard, while the egg plants look too oily. I didn't touch the egg plants at all since I'm still suffering from egg-plant-phobia, but that's another story for another time. Service was courteous and good, with frequent change of plates.

I'm trying to write up a paper on some old results of mine on the union construction for 3-designs. Saw this cafe when I was dining at Liang Kee recently so thought of going there to work on my paper and at the same time check out the place. It is The Book Cafe (20 Martin Road, #01-02 Seng Kee Building) and just at the end of Mohammed Sultan Road. It more than met my expectations. A section of it was furbished with large comfortable sofas, surrounded by book shelves. I did not check out the kind of books there though. There are two free Internet terminals if you want to surf. Drinks are slightly more expensive than the Coffee Bean chain considering the size, but service is good and courteous. Nice place to spend an afternoon.

Had dinner with family at Paulaner Brauhaus (Millenia Walk, Singapore) last Sunday. Service was terrible. There were five of us with an infant and we wanted a bigger table so that there would be space for the baby pram, but was told that the table we wanted was meant for eight people. This was when the restaurant is less than 10% occupied!

My dad, brother-in-law and I ordered a roast meat platter meant for three, and they delivered only a platter meant for two, with enough meat only for one! Never did the waiters come to check on us to see if our food is ok.

Needless to say, we left the place as quickly as we can. I vow never to go back there again. You can get much better roast pork knuckles elsewhere.

My family and I went to NYDC at Suntec City for dessert after dinner last Sunday night. We ordered 4 mudpies and a sundae. I was seated directly opposite the opening to the food preparation area (which is laid out as an island in the middle of the restaurant). What I saw shocked me!

The guy that was preparing our food as sprinkling on the almond flakes with his bare hands, without gloves. Half way through, he flipped the garbage bin with his bare hands to throw away a cling wrap and returned to the preparation of our food without washing his hands. At this point, I said enough is enough. I sprung from my chair, rushed to that guy and told him to wash his hands! He did a quick wash, as if for show. So I asked to see the manager. Apparently, the manager was having dinner but gave instructions to reprepare all our mudpies.

But they had ran out of all the Manhantten mudpies that we wanted. So we opted for the Grandma mudpies. This time, they prepared the mudpies with gloves on but screwed up our orders. They gave us Chocolate Chip mudpies instead. My dad wanted nothing but the Grandma mudpie, so we asked for a refund (we had already paid at this point, which we shouldn't have).

All in all, an unpleasant experience. The waiter and manager did try their best to applease us, but food preparation hygiene leaves much to be desired.

Had a bottle of this Fetzer wine over dinner last night. This wine has a rating of 87 points from Wine Spectator. Bought for US$6.99 from Flanagan's in Appleton, Wisconsin. Typical bold syrah (or shiraz). Full body and jammy. Value for money.

I had cellared this wine by Buena Vista for a number of years. Surprisingly still fruity, full of plums and cherries. Very enjoyable.

Dined at Liang Kee (30 Robertson Quay #01-10/11, Riverside Apartment). Food was tasty and reasonably priced. My favourites are the braised duck and chestnut chicken. Better food and better value compared to Hung Kang (read my Hung Kang experience here). You can dine al fresco near the river. Best of all, you can bring your own wine without corkage being charged.

Was at Hung Kang Restaurant (38 North Canal Road) with my parents for dinner this evening. I haven't been to this restaurant for at least 3 years. Food is still typically Teochew -- light in salt and oil. We ordered the crab rolls, fish maw with sea cucumber, prawn balls with chives, and yam paste with mandarin orange (only available during Chinese New Year period). The food was average and portions were small. The only thing item that is outstanding is the yam paste, which comes without being diluted by coconut milk, and flavoured by a whole stewed mandarin orange.

Jan K. Haugland has created a nice site on grid subgraphs with large girths.

Jan K. Haugland proved that f(4) = 3/8 recently. We also managed to show now that lim f(d+1)/f(d) = 1.

A result of Lazebnik and Ustimenko can be used to show that f(d) > Alog(d)/d.