Cavalock and The Ice Cold Dessert Dilemma

Being a caregiver can be pretty damn stressful as well as depressing, but there are a couple ways for me to de-stress. They don't always work cos my mind is constantly on my family but the alternative is going nuts in front of everyone, and that's not gonna help anyone.

Eating works for me! Got a message that chef Garry that his new place Hakumai at International Plaza is up and ready for hungry masses. I kinda enjoyed his unique take on Japanese cuisine when he was at Hinoki so it's really a no-brainer that I'll be checking his new joint out.

Told Gary to lay off the truffle oil on the sushi and off we go! Had the omakase (again) and we started off with the above left fish sperm, followed by that gorgeous bouquet of fresh sashimi up there. Then came the nicely grilled and meaty trout (that is I think he said it was trout ;P).

I really liked the clams cooked in sake that came next. I dare say, not unlike something I did before. The selection of sushi was what (IMHO) set Chef Gary apart from your traditional Japanese joints. In addition to raw fish, we got other 'sushi' like one that's topped with a thinly sliced of beef and another  with foie gras.

Ended dinner with a cool green tea ice cream and yuzu jello dessert. Now here we got ourselves a little dessert dilemma, which do you eat first? Eat the ice cream first and the overwhelming green tea flavor will completely mask the zesty yuzu jello. Eat that first and your ice cream would have almost melted away by the time you get to it. Other food bloggers may give you (press release) reviews, but I give you puzzles!!!

Jerry: "I can't decide should I eat the jello first or the ice cream?"

Kramer: "It's a riddle wrapped in a CONUNDRUM, Jerry!"

Here's something else I do to de-stress. It's a little more unusual than eating, to say the least. If you read some of my previous posts, you would know that I love gaming, from boardgames to card games to video games. I'm also a big Call of Cthulhu fan. Put them together and you got what you see below. Here's how I scored them if anyone's interested.

The cool thing about the Arkham Horror boardgame is that if your friends are busy, you can choose to play solo with it. You play a team of investigators from the 1920s trying to stop a monstrous Elder One from driving the world insane. But when you are playing the solo version, you are also playing all the roles, good guys and monsters included. It's like playing a computer game except that you are the computer too.

How it helps me de-stress is I gotta really concentrate on the game as I'm usually taking the roles of at least four investigators, each with his or her own set of stats or numbers, as well as all the different creatures they encounter. And there's also a lot of number crunching and dice rolling. Now becos of all these details that I need to keep track of, I get to switch off to almost everything else for up to two to three hours. My mind shuts out the outside world during the game and that sort of helps me de-stress.

The above is another Call of Cthulhu boardgame Elder Sign,  a lite version of the immense Arkham Horror boardgame. Same premise and it can be played solo too, and needs only about an hour and a half a game. Great game and much easier than Arkham Horror. Guess what! While writing this post, just found out that there's an Elder Sign expansion, Unseen Forces, coming out this year!