Tong Shui Cafe, Aji-Tei Japanese Cuisine and dessert house

It's been some time since the last foodie post, so here are two for good measure! Before I begin, though, here's a shoutout to celebrate my colleague Melvin's recent 'tagging'! Ok, now, onto the food!!!

First up, Tong Shui Cafe, which serves Hong Kong themed food. The first thing you notice about this restaurant is its overwhelmingly red decor. From the door to the menus, just about everything's clad in CNY-red and mahogany. Add in the re-runs of old hk film classics like The God Of Gamble (not a spelling error) and assorted Jiang Shi (Chinese Vampire) shows, and you've got an interesting theme for a cafe.

Then again, ambience is but one of the criteria here, so on to the food...

Hong Kong Iced Milk Tea ($1 something)

MSG-laden noodles

Wah. They sure were liberal with the MSG here. No attempt at stock or alternative natural flavouring. Just pour the bee cheng only. Yuck. Had to keep drinking water after half a bowl of this.

Wolfberry tea ($3)

Thick toast with peanut butter and condensed milk ($2.88)

In most mid-priced cafes here, there is usually one killer dish that keeps me going back for more. St Louis pork ribs at Cafe Cartel, New York Pizza at The Pizza Place, etc. This, my friends, is it: Thick toast generously slabbed with smooth PB and drizzled with condensed milk.

The toast is crisp on the outside and oh-so-soft on the inside. And it's as thick as it looks; you have to literally work your knife. At close to $3 it's not the most value for money snack you can buy, but boy, is it worth it. Awesomely sinful.

We found out later that toast is one-for-one on Tuesdays all day. -.-

Tong Shui Cafe
Liang Seah Street, next to Ah Chew Desserts
Taste: 1/5 (The PB toast on it's own is 4/5, so technically the rest of the food is -3/5, haha)
Value: 2.5/5
Ambience: 3/5

Update: The 1-for-1 toast is CHEAT one!! They will only give you a voucher for your next visit to claim 1-for-1 toast. Blardy cheats. - ireallylovedanny

For dinner, we had intended to go to our usual pasta place at Taka basement, where they make really good Aglio Olio, but they were really crowded and we couldn't wait, so we headed for this promisingly-named restaurant...

Haha, lit words look funny...

Salmon Dragon Maki ($5.80)

Agedashi Tofu ($3.80)

Lotus Chips ($2.80)

Wow, I must relate this incident man. After taking our orders, the waitress then repeated them back to us.

Waitress: In accented English "One Griwl Saba Shio, One Loti Cheese..."

Me: "Huh, what's that again?"

Waitress: "One griwl Saba Shio..." *blank look*

Me: "After that"

Waitress: "Loti Cheese"

- Long Pause -

Waitress takes menu and flips to page with lotus chips and points to it and says very confidently in an I-told-you-how-many-times-already-you-dumb-prick look: "Loti Cheese. Yes?"

Me: Stunned silence. Nods.

Afterwards, when she placed the bowl of chips in front of us she also said somewhat smugly "Loti Cheese". Gah.

Chilled tofu with nutty dressing (Came with the bento)

Loti Cheese aside, the chilled tofu was pretty good, the best thing, in fact, of the whole bento. It's texture reminds you of cream cheese and the peanut/salad dressing complements it perfectly. Nothing else to distract from the fusion of both tastes, which is just as well, because anything else would've sullied the experience.

I'm really not one for fusion food, but this is an exception. Surely the dressing is west-inspired, the salad sauce tastes somewhat like thousand island. I'm not kidding you though, it really is good.

Oh, another thing, we realised after the meal that it's part of the Ajisen Ramen chain! Oh well.
Oh, oh, and we didn't have dessert because no room for it. :)

Aji-Tei Japanese Cuisine and Dessert House
Takashimaya Basement 1
Taste: 3.5/5 (hits and misses)
Value: 3/5 (total bill came up to $43)
Ambience: 4/5

***

Note: Please ignore the recent comments on the tagboard, they were made on the back of a rough day and weren't intended to mean anything other than me letting off some steam.

To slack, or not to slack?

How to spend one and a half months from June 16 - August 1? Should I apply for a stint at the papers? Or should I just take a break from working? Sigh... Wow, shortest post ever. and... I'm going to sleep now. Earliest ever. A day of records, woo...

Emo TMNT

Just saw the new Ninja Turtles movie, and...mmm....not very impressed. Ok, first the good stuff: The animation was pretty awesome. Especially the turtles (ok this sounds quite dumb, seeing as this is a show about them after all). As in, compared to the humans in the show, the turtles were pretty awesomely animated. The texture, the perpetual raindrops pattering on their greenish skin, made for awesome viewing. Kudos to Imagi Studios.

Now, the bad:

1) The voice-overs of Splinter and April. Ok, so Splinter is supposed to have some Jap blood or some shit like that, but MAN. Did they have to make him sound so incredibly weird?!?! The first scene you hear him speak you'll be wondering if that's his real voice or if he's sick/mid-cough/impersonating someone. It's THAT weird.

2) Ziyi Zhang also does a turn as the leader of the foot soldiers, with her horrible English. Ew.

3) The overly emo Raphael. Ok, without giving too much of the plot away, let's just say he comes off like a green version of some angsty punk band like...(oh heck) Greenday? Man. You can see the issues he's grappling with all over his green plasticky face. Why make the turtles emo?

So, let me just conclude by saying this movie is pretty enjoyable, especially if you've seen the cartoon in your youth. It's rather campy and has its moments, but also tries a bit too hard at times, making it cringe-worthy.

Jusba absolutely loves it... so some of you may like it... I'll just say that I'm thankful I paid 7 bucks for my ticket.

Somewhere past the halfway mark

So it's gonna be April, or, 2.5 months to the end of PI and I am feeling... ambivalent about the whole thing. It's been a good experience so far, and I'm thankful for the people I work with, who've made work that can be trivial at times, bearable. Ok, more than bearable.

Don't get me wrong, I do look forward to going back to school and hanging with you guys at the benches, doing projects that matter to people, etc etc. It's just... gah. It's just one more year left before work starts for real. And there's no more room for stupid mistakes (mistakes yes, but not stupid mistakes) or excuses and holidays and me-time.

The boss asked me today if I wanted to do PR when I grad (loaded question). And I said that I was still considering. Was I? I don't know. Perhaps it's just a reflex action I've developed to people asking me what I want to do when I graduate. Have I already made up my mind? Can I commit do doing work that probably won't mean anything to the average person? Wouldn't I really rather write for a living?

Truth be told, I love reporting. I love the feeling of being in the newsroom, so close to the buzz, with interesting and articulate colleagues. I love putting pen to paper and coming up with stories I know I can write. I love being good at what I do. I love having a job that affects the average Singaporean in the way high-handed gahmen agencies can only hope to emulate, using poorly thought out schemes and campaigns.

A scribe was what I decided I wanted to be when I was 15, and thought how cool a reporter's job would be. That never changed till early last year, and I'm not sure that part of me will ever go away.

PR's not bad, but it's not great. Can I still make a difference? Perhaps the only way to tell is to do a stint at a paper. Hmm. Maybe. Sigh.

The case for perspective

Because I like reading valedictorian speeches, but am unlikely to ever be called upon to give one, I decided to write my valedictorian speech right now, haha.

So here goes... To the graduating class of WKWSCI 2008, the kickass valedictorian speech you will never get to hear because of my string of C's in Yr 1, haha.

***

For inspiration.

***

Perspective. If there was one word I learned in four years at SCI, which embodied the difference between good and great in communications, this is it. More accurately, the ability to understand the person you are communicating with; to put yourself in his/her shoes.

In short, perspective.

Indeed, the truly great in our fields of Journalism, PR, Advertising, Research and Broadcast, all have the ability to distance themselves from the mediocre because they have the ability to empathize with their interviewee; client; public; audience; sample population; vox pop participant.

In no other field will this ability to feel for your fellow man be more prized than ours. How do you place a price tag on EQ? Perhaps that is why we tend not to be paid very much at all (or insert other random joke here).

How will we as journalists write stories about people if we can't put ourselves in their shoes?

How will we as PR professionals deal with unreasonable clients if we can't see for ourselves the pressure they themselves mus be feeling?

How will we as advertising creatives continue to produce work of outstanding creativity if we do not have a perspective which is unique?

How will we as directors and producers be able to grasp what the average Singaporean wants to see if we cannot take our turn on the couch?

My friends, for four short years I have had the pleasure of being in your company. Through the many projects, exams, time spent catching up at the benches, I have come to realise how truly diverse we are; and how incredible it is that, despite that, we have become more than just schoolmates.

I will always remember the parties, the mass study groups we had late into the night, the passionate discussions in Cenite's Modern History class, where we had to come face to face with why we behave the way we behave, and it wasn't always pretty. I will remember Hedwig's advice to always use "said" instead of "quipped", Mr. Duffy's groovy car, and how to quote people in APA style.

So thank you teachers, for helping us gain a deeper appreciation of the world we live in. To the class of 2008, I wish you good luck in all your future endeavours.

Thank you.

On the crest of a new wave

No other industry is going to see as much revolutionary change as that of public relations in the coming years. And it's all because of you. Yes, you. Mr Blogger. Mr Blog Reader. Mr Anti-establishment-who-doesn't-trust-newspapers-anymore.

It's no longer going to be enough to stick five PR people in a media monitoring room every morning, flipping through major newspapers for news concerning their clients. Because the nature of news is that it deliberately excludes the personal voice, values conciseness and treasures timeliness.

Now, they are waking up to the fact that people want to hear the personal voice and not that of the establishment; that people want to read what they want to read; that people want to be more involved in the news than ever before.

And I'm glad that where I am, people are taking the initiative to remain on top of this wave. Because they can see beyond an extra hour of work or research today that will be invaluable tomorrow. Because they're curious. Because they like being on top. (or maybe because its the geek's default mentality to question)

What PR firms can do to stay ahead of the Web 2.0 wave, which has already claimed some victims, is to begin spreading their tentacles online, as well as off. Begin by monitoring sites with a direct influence on your client's audience. Follow up by making contact with these bloggers and influentials. Profile them. Treat them like journalists.

Because, like it or not (this is also for all the journos reading), the requirement to be a scribe fell astronomically when Web 2.0 came along. MrBrown is a better journalist than many ST journos, I reckon, because he gives his audience exactly what they want.

And what do they want? They want not only to be told the news, but for the journalist to make sense of the news for them. Critically, they want to be told the news, the unvarnished news. Non-edited, save for grammar, written as it is spoken, off-the-cuff and full of heart, the anti-thesis of news-writing, in summary.

Most of all, they crave for truth. Truth they now don't trust the major papers to report. Can it sometimes get out of hand? Yes. It can. But that is not the point of this entry.

The point is, that the job of a PR executive just got harder. Or, from a positive (some might say PR) perspective, challenging. It's no longer enough to understand the journalist. To think like a journalist. What goes into a story? How do I help him with his pitch? How can I help the client make his event more newsworthy? What is the return on investment for the client?

These are questions that have to be answered with the blogger in mind. Because blogging is here to stay. For us, it means re-interpreting what it means to be in PR. and at the top of the game.

The winds of change are blowing. Will you fly?

*******

Yes, I know that was a complete 180degree (thanks M.) deviation from the usual, but I was thinking while I was running. Yes. Two things you can't imagine me doing. Together.

At B*M, Everybody's on the table...

So it's a bluesy Monday at work in a PR agency. You've just heard the most infectious song to hit your eardrums in years. What do you do? Create a campaign to promote the song of course!

Before that, here's the view from my own little (ok, not so little) spot, which is next to a hugeass window.

Yep, if you look hard enough, you can see the merlion.

Cosy corners make work much more fun!

A view of the rest of the office people hard at work.

Cam-whoring in our corner.

And again.

And again. EH! Wah lao I just realised Jolene macam become
office tourist attraction! How come we all take with her?? Strange.

And now, the long-awaited campaign for the techno song The Book Is On The Table by DJ MP4. I kid you not. It's helluva catchy song.

Yup, so that's how I spent my half-hour break today. How did you spend yours?

Oh. before I forget, this machine wasted two dollars and 5 mins of my life:

Wah lao. Damn addictive sia. Simple concept, attractive prizes (PSP, iPod), one dowlar per try. Damn. But Jolene says cheat money one. Aiyah, just try lor. Again.

Teaching has it's perks

You know how last time in primary and secondary school you had to go for these weird festivals and heritage tours they made you go for? The ones that broadly fell under "social studies"?

Well, the missus got one such assignment: To showcase Egyptian FOOD to her students!

Woo!

So, after consulting the Arab St. Guru XF, we went to Amira's Grill and were greeted with...

Took our breath away.

We showed up at 5:10pm, so the place was deserted. Perfect.

Moroccan Mint Tea ($3)

Lebanese Hummus dip and Pita Bread (inc. in set meal)

Hummus up close

Coleslaw (included in set)

Mixed Kebab with Arabic rice (12.90)

This was really good, considering the price. The rice deserves special mention. It's flavourful without feeling too heavy on the spice, and the raisins go perfectly.

She had the Mixed Seafood Platter (20.00 inc. set meal)

Caramel Cream (inc. in set)

And now, ladies and gents, allow me to show you the next step in the evolutionary process of ireallylovedanny.blogspot.com....

BEHIND THE SCENES FOOTAGE!!!!

Chef Amirah himself flippin' some kebabs

Yep. Egyptians do a mean flambe as well.

Adding the final touches...

And voila! Mixed kebab with Arabic rice.

Yes, yes, I know the place might seem a little contrived from the pictures, but who cares? Fantastic atmosphere, great service, above average food, great value, it's a perfect place to meet friends in town, but not at town prices.

I'll be back.

Amirah's Grill
Somewhere in Arab Street
Taste: 3.5/5
Value: 5/5
Ambience: 4.5/5

Fantastic Friday

Warning: Many Many pictures ahead.

This day was so good, I'll let the pictures (and captions) do the talking. Just...one thing before we start: I could've been at work today, but instead... *Cue Sentosa song*

View from the deck chair

The afore-mentioned deck chair

I heart Movenpick

There was a peahen strolling around like nobody's business!!!

The sign said "Swim here", so we did.

Ingredients for a work-day getaway (pair of legs included, heh.)

Ended the day with dinner at Ubin Seafood

Their Mee Goreng is quite power.

And so are their fried man-tous...which go super well with...

Ta-da!

And that's how we spent the day off. Shioooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooook!

Rested, happy and looking forward to monday.

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NOT! haha...