Celebrated brother-in-law's birthday over dinner at the Bar & Billiard Room (Raffles Hotel, Singapore). Dinner was buffet style, with an international spread. The food is of high quality, serving Alaskan crabs, foie gras, oysters, prawns, and sashimi, among others. Dessert is also excellent. I like the food quite a bit. The only dissappointment came from missing labels on the food items, which makes it sometimes rather misleading and confusing. For example, I couldn't tell if some dishes were beef or lamb or pork. What one chef told me was turkey turned out to be chicken!

Service was friendly and very prompt.

The price per person is S$50.

AR and his wife invited XQ and myself to dinner at Nadaman (Shangri-La Hotel, 22 Orange Grove Road, Singapore 258350). This is a Japanese restaurant that is part of a renowned chain of fine restaurants with 150 years of culinary tradition.

CR and XQ had the Kobe beef sukiyaki and AR and I had Kobe beef teppanyaki. We also had lobster sashimi to share. The lobster sashimi was a little too coarse in cut. We would have preferred them to slice the lobster tail into smaller pieces. The Kobe beef sukiyaki was quite tasty but AR and I realized through our teppanyaki that the beef didn't seem to be Kobe. The marbling just wasn't right. It was later when we questioned the captain that he admitted that it wasn't Kobe beef, but Australian beef. He explained that Nadaman had stopped importing Kobe beef due to the recent episode of mad cow disease in Japan. I felt cheated since the price they charge was at the Kobe beef level and not at the Australian beef level. Otherwise, it was a perfect evening. The company was excellent with fine food and wine (I brought along a 95-pointer 1997 Italian Brunello di Montalcino). We enjoyed our evening tremendously.

This is an expensive restaurant, without questioned. Our dinner for four cost more than S$900.

Had dinner with family at Imperial Treasure Nan Bei Resautrant (391 Orchard Rd, #05-12 Ngee Ann City, Singapore) last night. This restaurant serves Shanghainese and Catonese cuisine. We had charcoal grilled pork neck, sliced fish steamed in chinese wine, braised sea cucumber, eggplant and tofu claypot, prawns in two flavours, crispy roast chicken, grass carp and radish soup, and seafood fried rice. I find the food not as nice compared to Hu Cui.

We were also dissapointed in that we were informed that two of the items we wanted were not available after some 15 minutes.

Cost per person is about S$30.

Had dinner with family at My Choice Chinese Cuisine (419 River Valley Road, Singapore 248318) last Saturday. YM had told me he liked this restaurant and asked me to try it. So we made a last minute reservation and showed up.

The menu at My Choice reminded me of Crystal Jade but with a more refined touch. We ordered the following items:

1) Spinach beancurd
2) Roast Chicken
3) Braised whole sea cucumber
4) Grilled soft rib bone
5) Seafood noodles
6) Crab bee hoon
7) Deep fried prawns with wasabi sauce

All the dishes we ordered were above average. The only disappointment came from the grilled soft rib bone which my sister found to be too "porky" in flavour. I especially like the crab bee hoon. Accompanying our dinner is a bottle of Mt Billy 2000 Antiquity Shiraz (reviewed here). Wonderful!