Night View from Esplanade Roof Terrace

With the recent and sudden job change, I only get to go gai gai on weekends, and weekends is super crowded everywhere... We wanted to eat at Astons, but the queue is loooooooooong... so we end up eating at Thai Express at City Link..

Tom Yum Fried Rice Set - $8.90

Barbeque Chicken Set - $8.90
Seafood Tom Yum Soup - $7.90

The food is quite okay, nothing much to say, I suppose almost everybody have eaten Thai Express before. One word of caution, the Tom Yum soup is extremely spicy, I drank 5-6 glasses of water because of that.

After dinner, we went to the Roof Terrace at The Esplanade. Brilliant place, very nice view, cooling and endless wind, very romantic ambiance. Literally a cool place to bring your girl to.

Art Science Museum, Marina Bay Sands

Raffles Place, Office Buildings

We missed the NDP fireworks totally. I didn't even know it was the rehearsal, as I don't care anything about the NDP, as she put it: "no sense of belonging". Well, doesn't matter, I think peace and quiet suits the place and ambiance better anyways.

Orange Tee Building - 丰味 (Flavvors)

*edit*
丰味 has closed down. Guess their food really isn't fantastic at all.

The Orange Tee building at Toa Payoh Central has opened for quite some time now, I've tried, eaten, reviewed, and stopped eating at Luvvy Curry, but I've not tried 丰味 yet, so I decided to go with my mum today.

Here's What we ordered:
(I know the english name sound stupid, it's actually from the menu)


炸明虾角 - $4.80
(Deep Fried Ming Xia Jiao)

This 明虾角 is actually very exquisite, the best 明虾角 I've eaten so far. The "skin" is extremely thin and crispy, unlike the usual ones which are thick and hard. There's actually 4 明虾角, but glutton me only remembered to take picture after already eating 2.


芒果炸春卷 - $6.80
(Deep-fried Mango & Prawn Spring Roll)

This dish looks damn nice in the menu, but it doesn't really taste like it looks. I'm not saying it's lousy, just that the picture got me expecting more, I can't really taste the mango, the spring taste like spring roll, the typical restaurant kind of spring roll. Still nice tho.


香菇滑鸡盅仔饭 - $6.80
("Zhong Zai Fun")

This is what my mum ordered. Very nice, really, one thing I notice about Flavvors is, they are very generous in their food (meat/料) portion; while dishes like this in many other restaurants have only a few pieces of chicken and mostly rice, Flavvors have a generous amount of chicken (and mushroom). The gravy/flavor is very unique, giving a very fragrant taste, makes me wonder what's in it. They also to give a generous amount of the gravy, such that all the rice is soaked with it, other restaurants have a lot of  白饭 (white rice) underneath. It's details like this that impresses your customers.


炉饭 (鸡扒白汁) - $8.80
(Baked Rice with Cheese, Chicken Chop w/ White Sauce)

This is what I ordered. This is good shit, really, makes pizza hut cry. I did mention that Flavvors is very generous in their meat, the chicken in this is really everywhere in the bowl. The taste is awesome, cheese is thick, definitely worth the $8.80. Having this kind of quality in a chinese restaurant makes many western restaurants cry.


Desert: 芒果布丁 - $3.80
(Mango Pudding with Sago)

I'm a giant sweet tooth, and I love desert. This mango pudding is pretty nice, but pretty "common tasting". I think I have yet to recover from the sweetness from Gelare on Tuesday. Well, I guess all mango pudding tastes around the same, but of course I did try some disgusting ones before.


Well, generally I'm pretty please with the ambiance, quality of food, and service of Flavvors. Tho I'd love to see less China staff, but I guess that's impossible for Singapore. Anyways, the prices are pretty good, that much food for around 30 bucks, I've been eating at restaurant a lot lately, that's actually the cheapest so far. If you ever come by Toa Payoh, give it a try.


Restaurant Details:

 http://www.flavvors.com.sg/

430 Toa Payoh Lorong 6
Level 1 - 01
Orange Tee Building
Singapore 319402

Opening Hours:
11am – 11pm daily

Reservations: 6255 2151

Gelare Tuesday Waffles Day

Today is Tuesday, Gelare Waffles Day, so I went with her and had some ice cream.

If you don't know what's Waffles day, basically they have big discounts on their waffles. We got the "Waffles + 2 scoop of ice cream" for S$9.90 each, I think the usual price is S$13.90.

*Edit 24/7/2011* i was told the waffles day is only offered till the end of july 2011

*Edit 17/8/2012* i was told the waffles day is still valid, i don't know if it's a permanent promotion

Mine: Chocolate Chip and Tiramisu

Hers: Cookies and Cream and Banana and Walnut

We suspected that there should actually be whipped cream on the waffle too, I think they forgot, and by the time we realized that, we're already half way eating.. Well it's not like the whipped cream matters much anyways.

Oh one thing I must mention is the chocolate chip ice cream. I'm a big fan of chocolate chip ice cream (and also mint chip and mocha chip from the $1 street ice cream). The chocolate chip from Gelare is awesome, it's really chocolate pieces in vanilla ice cream. It's so awesome that awesome is not enough to describe.

The waffle is really filling, not your typical waffle from the bakery, we had this for brunch (burp~) and we were still full in the afternoon. Taste wise, it's sweet, seriously sweet, so sweet that both of us got turned off by the sight of any other sweet food. And of course it's not just the ice cream which is sweet.

New train of thought

My high school teacher left me an advice regarding book reading last gathering, which changed my opinion on reading books. I used to think that reading books is just one man reading another man’s junk. But he said, the author of a book may have spent 30 years to gather the experiences, he compiled it and wrote it into a book, which would probably take you around 1 month to read it. Whether you find it beneficial is another thing, but if you do get something out of that book, you spend 1 month to absorb what the author took 30 years to experience.

While I still believe that many so-called “inspirational” books are still bullshit, I decided to act on his advice, to pick up a book and start reading. The first book which came to my mind was “The 7 habits of highly effective people”. I didn’t regret doing that. Stephen Covey is indeed an incredible author.

Well to be frank I’ve just started reading it, and I’m not going to talk about what he wrote in the book, what I want to talk about is the thought I have after reading it.

Anyone who knows me would agree, that I’m a self-proclaimed asshole that, as she put it, goes around and agitate (offend) people. Yet on the other side of the coin, there are people who see the good in me, like some of my friends, and that teacher I mentioned. He said, my nature is good, but I keep saying things which will agitate/offend people (she’d agree) and make people think that I’m an asshole. He also said that I should drop that defensive armor which I’m “wearing”, because if people wanted to attack me, they’ll still get through anyways, so there is no purpose in that “armor”.

For a very long time, I couldn’t figure out which one is the real me. Am I an asshole who tries to act nice sometimes to create a nice guy image to get some attention? Or am I a nice guy who acts tough on the surface in attempt to defend myself from harm?

Stephen’s discussion on character and personality ethics gave me an answer. In a nutshell, what I understand from his discussion is: character is like the core of a person, something which will hold true regardless the times and environment; personality is the reaction which a person develops to adapt to the situation, something which is temporary and changes according to the environment.

I have many theories of how the world is unfair, how money dominates human etc, but beneath all that, I felt a voice within me which really want to believe there is still good in this world. I realize immediately that the theories I’ve developed is really a defensive measure in reaction to deal with the world, and that small voice within is my character. I realize that I really wanted to be a good person.

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. -Albert Einstein

Never in my life have I been able to see myself so clearly; never in my life have I so strongly feel a need to change. The book was able to lift me to a higher level, and allowed me to solve the problems which I had for so long. I really hope that I’ll be able to complete the book, and that it’ll grant me even further insights.