Had a drink at Phin's Steakhouse (1 Liang Seah Street, #01-15/16 Liang Seah Place, Singapore) with colleagues A and LS couple of days ago. Food is ordinary and the service rather inattentive. After 10pm, there's a surcharge of S$1 on alcoholic drinks, which is beyond my comprehension!

Celebrated my Mom's birthday with my family some two weeks back at Jade (The Fullerton, 1 Fullerton Square, Singapore 049178). Jade is a contemporary Chinese restaurant that serves interesting fusion Chinese cuisine. Each of us created our own course of 4 dishes. I had a suckling pig with foie gras as appetizer, followed by grilled lamp chop, chocolate ribs, and glutinous rice. These are my all time favourite items at Jade. The foie gras is not quite what you would get in a French restaurant. The Jade version of foie gras is spiced with five-spice. The lamp chop with its burnt fat is especially fragrant. The chocolate ribs has an interesting flavour which I like (I'm a chocolate lover). Actually, I first invented chocolate ribs many years ago, long before it appeared on the menu of Jade. I was having buffet at Breek's and they had ribs. On their dessert table was chocolate source. Adventurous as I was, I poured chocolate sauce on the ribs and the rest is history.

Had dinner with friends at Just Greens Vegetarian Food (283 New Bridge Road, Singapore 088754) last week. We ordered spinach soup, la-mian (hand-pulled noodles), and oat-meal prawns, which all turned out to be quite nice. They also have an interesting variety of Chinese herbal teas. The ambience and service is good.