Had lunch today with K.C. Low of Avia Capital Partners at Lao Beijing Dining Hall (238 Thomson Road, #02-11 Novena Square). We had the drunken chicken, sliced pork in garlic sauce, fried Beijing noodles, and guo tie (pot stickers). The food and service are both average.
Had dinner tonight with family at Teochew Restaurant Huat Kee (76 Amoy Street, Singapore 069895). This restaurant serves some interesting dishes. We ordered cold black fish (the only other restaurant I know that serves this Teochew delicacy is East Ocean Teochew Restaurant), prawn roll, braised fish maw, sauteed prawns with white chives (the only other restaurant I know that serves this dish is Hung Kang Restaurant), braised duck with chestnuts, and sweetened yam, sweet potato, and ginko nuts.
The food is quite good in general, and beats Hung Kang Restaurant in terms of both value and quality. However, we find the food a little too salty, and the dessert too sweet. This restaurant does not charge corkage fees if you bring your own wine.
Had dinner on 20 December with Harianto, his girlfriend, and my engineers Mahesh and Chen Hui at Red Bean (Puri Mall, Puri Indah, Jakarta). This is a new Chinese restaurant on the 3rd Floor of Puri Mal. The food quality is average and the portion a little small, but the price is cheap. For example, a small crab and asparagus soup enough for four costs about Rp20,000 (S$4). All dishes costs around Rp20,000 or less.
This year, we had our annual family Christmas Eve dinner at Coffee Garden, Shangri-La Hotel (22 Orange Grove Road, Singapore 258350). Coffee Garden's Christmas Eve buffet has been a favourite of my family. This year, the seating extended to the pool area, with additional food stations outdoors. The spread is good, as usual, with a BBQ station serving BBQ lobsters, crabs, prawns, scallops, and squids. There's also roast whole lamb, veal, venison, steak, sashimi, oysters, tandoori quail, and of course turkey and ham. The appetizers were also interesting: goose liver mousse, venison dumpling with pumpkin puree, oyster shooters, smoked salmon with salmon roe, and cold seafood leek soup.
I would have eaten much more, if not for a sad incident that morning that occupied my mind.
Had dim sum lunch on Christmas day at Teahouse (51 Telok Ayer Street, #03-01/03 China Square Food Centre) with Teck Sin & Dorris, Seow Hiong & Siew Siew, which I haven't met for a long time. The food was quite good, the company excellent, and it was great being able to catch up with old friends. But my mind was on something else. This Christmas sucks for me. But that's another story for another time.
Had dinner at Palm Beach Seafood Restaurant (Wisma 46, Kota BNI, Jl. Sudirman Kav. 1, Jakarta) with my colleagues two days ago. The restaurant was very quiet, with few diners. We ordered the oyster omelette, fried baby squids, and crunchy tangy beef, all of which were ordinary in taste. Unmemorable dinner.
Had dinner at Imperial Herbal Restaurant (Metropole Hotel, Singapore) with my family last night. We had the duck in haw sauce, sauteed prawns with jasmine, garlic scallops, fish with chinese yam, and braised tofu. I like this restaurant for its unique food. Their other items such as the soup, eggwhite in yam basket, and cod fish, are also very good.
Had chocolate buffet at The Courtyard, The Fullerton, Singapore last Saturday with family. The Courtyard is located in the lobby of the hotel and has quite nice ambience. The chocolate buffet comprises a good selection of chocolate-based cakes, chocolate fondue (with fruits), and your choice of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. They used to serve a wide variety of hot chocolates, which are made before your eyes. But they have since stopped that service. The hot chocolates are now made in the kitchen and brought to you, and with no choice of the type of chocolate. Without question, the hot chocolate now is not as good as they used to be, being thinner, milkier, and lukewarm. The cakes, however, remained very good.
The chocolate buffet is available from 8:30pm to 11:30pm, at S$22 per person. It is a relaxing and decadent way to spend a Saturday evening, if you have the calories to spare!