Cavalock and The Bank Run Recurrence

Every couple of months, I'll spend a Saturday morning running around the various banks in the CBD with my errands. First stop was breakfast and this time, decided to go for Coffee Club instead of Coffee Bean. Well, Club's breakfast menu looked pretty good and reasonably priced. Had the mushroom bruschetta set which if you look at the pix, it's exactly that. Cheesy mushroom on toast for only S$6.80, can't really go wrong with that so I'm satisfied.

Anyway I thought it's kinda strange that a coffee joint here doesn't have flat white. Settled for the regular coffee that came with the set instead.

Well, was at Takashimaya in the afternoon and I bet, by the end of the year, the Nespresso coffee machine is gonna be the like the new iPhone. As in almost every other household is gonna have one. Cos they were selling them like crazy at Takashimaya, the machines were all wrapped up and all over the counter. Yah I know it's the Great Singapore Sake but wow, almost everyone's getting one.

Speaking of the Sale, I always say the best thing to buy during the Sale is furniture! Bought most of mine like six years ago, lotsa savings. <^;^>

Gonna end on a cautionary public service note here. Be real careful bout hooking up with people you meet on the Internet. Just found out that an ex-colleague who met her future husband on the Internet, got married and migrated to his country a few years ago. About a week ago when she's like 8 1/2 months pregnant, he punched her in the face. I'm not gonna go into details but really, what else is there to say?

Cavalock and The World War II Legacy

Someone once asked me why am I such a WWII history buff, I told them maybe it's because it's the last real war between good and evil. It was truly the biggest turning point in the history of the world. Nothing was ever the same after that. When I was younger, I could remember names of WWII operations, codes, tactics, datelines etc. Well, these days I don't recall all those details anymore but I still watch almost every WWII documentary on the cable and I still got a ton of WWII stories to tell.

But no, I don't HBO so I'm not watching The Pacific. I am watching WWII: Lost Films right now.

Anyway time for a little more pleasant food talk. Something for all Nespresso owners. Dunno if these brochures are available here at our local outlets but a friend got them in London recently.

It's a small little brochure with coffee recipes in it. I think it's only a London thing cos on the back cover it's a list of outlets in the UK.

According to the brochure, you can find the recipes online over here.

Finally made it to the now famous Nando's at Bugis for lunch. As expected, there was a Q but it moved pretty fast. Chicken was nice and tender, picked the herb and lemon sauce which was the mildest one on the list. They were out of a lot of potato sides that day, so had the coleslaw and corn.

My colleague had the Extra Hot sauce, that's the max level of hotness. Didn't even flinch, he even had to 'enhance' the flavor by splashing extra hot sauce on it. Would I go there again? Yah the price is ok but it ain't worth standing in long Q for it.

Cavalock and The Eternal Quest

Well, the little Japanese restaurant near the office has closed down for good and the Chinese coffee shop next door has taken over it. That's not really a big shock cos the restaurant was selling stuff pretty cheap and a colleague said, “Of cos, they closed down! How could they manage to survive selling S$10 set lunches?” Granted, the food was just a little above average but it was cheap and I would head there sometimes on Friday nites, for a solo meal.

So I started looking for a nice quiet Japanese joint to maybe hang out on a Friday nite. Still searching and open to suggestions.

Anyway spotted this at the new NTUC Finest at Somerset the other day, tempted to try it but not sure if you need some kinda milkshaking machine to begin with. I mean, milk doesn't shake itself rite?

And after all these years, I finally say good-bye to my old passport and hello to the new biometric one.

Cavalock and The London Pub Resurgence

I could never understand the appeal of Vivo City, yah, I know it's like the biggest mall in the country but still, just about everything in there, you could also find in Orchard. Now I'm not talking about the restaurants and food joints there. That's different. Well, there's the cinema but I only caught one show there and that was a pretty sucky experience. Bad enough the movie was Transformers but the toilet was like outside the theatre and somewhere in the next continent. Took me 10 minutes at least to make the hike and return trip.

Anyway, so there I was on a Saturday afternoon, trying to figure out what to have for lunch and I came across The Queen and Mangosteen. It sounded kinda familiar, guess I must have read bout them somewhere. And since I was still missing them English pub food since last year, I figured why not.

Unfortunately they don't serve 'real' English pub grub. Had the onion rings and chilled tiger prawns for appetizers. The onion rings were great, they were kinda like beer battered although I know it wasn't beer but they were battered if you know what I mean. Geez I think I suck at writing food. Oh, and the Thai chili dip was good too.

As for the chilled tiger prawns (were they really TIGER prawns? cos they looked like regular prawns or shrimps to me, sizewise I mean), they were nice but nothing really special. Came with some salad dressing dip but otherwise they remind me of the regular prawns you find in Chinese restaurants.

My main was a delicious mushroom risotto with asparagus and tomatoes. Just the right amount of mushrooms and the asparagus (pity it wasn't white) tasted fresh and crisp.

Now for the best part of an already good meal, the oak sweet cider. A wee bit pricy at S$16 a 500ml bottle but definitely worth it. Light with only a slight hint of apple cider.

Cavalock and The Curse of The Mother Tongue

With all the mother tongue monkey crap controversy going on, I just gotta throw in my two cents worth. Let me start by saying I was one of those who got screwed by that single education policy. Cos I flunked my second language, I was denied something that in some countries was a basic right. And now the people behind that policy finally admitted that they might have made a mistake.

Well, I'm not as eloquent as a friend of mine was when she wrote this on Facebook, "it's amazing how, with globalisation etc, some people still want to retreat to tiny villages of their own making. it's about communication, not language. and language is a constantly evolving creature anyway....i think people should learn languages for the love of it. or for purely economic reasons (cos they want to do business in china, for example). but it's BS to think that speaking chinese makes one more chinese. and to call it mother tongue, as you pointed out, is nonsense too."

Hell, all I'm gonna say is they screwed me big time and well, ....... we'll just leave it at that for now cos you never know who's gonna be reading this.

Anyway, look what I got at Daiso for only S$2 each. Finally found matching ones too. Yah, I bought extra cups in case of company but er ... that's very unlikely. You looking at S$10 right there, to go with this.

The other day during lunch I finally caved in and got this. A double quarter pounder and you know what would really make it better? Olives! Just drop a bunch of them between the meat and bun and I bet it'll be perfect!

Cavalock and The Lunchbox Chase

During every single one of my trips to Japan, I would always head to Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku and gawk at the Bento lunch boxes on sale. You got your classic Japanese designs as well as everybody's favorite Hello Kitty ones too. I always thought it would be cool to bring a sleek black one to work and well, enjoy a hot home-cooked meal kinda like the ones you get at Ootoya at Orchard Central. But do I buy one? Nope, cos it's too expensive and I know no one's gonna use it. I mean, why buy something expensive and then not use it, rite?

So how did this arrive in the office a couple of months ago?

Well, a month before that I took part in an online contest organized by a Japanese website. The site's in English and all I gotta do is send in food pix about Tokyo! And I got a ton of those from my trips to the city. Did a short write-up about my food experience there and uploaded a bunch of food pix from my last trip.

Next thing I know, they told me I was one of three winners. Each of us could choose a lunch box from a pretty long list. I picked this black and rather manly-looking one.

It comes with a big black pouch to put your lunch box in. On the web page, it says it's mirco-wavable but when it arrived, there's note that said otherwise (in Japanese).

Comes in two layers as in an upper and lower compartment, with a elastic band too! I guess you would place the rice below.

As you peel the lid off the top compartment, you'll see a small tray for those little appetizers I think.

They even slipped in a free pack of tissues!

So there you go, after all these years I finally got my Japanese lunch box for free. Now I just have to learn how to prepare a meal to go in it.