Food review: La Petite Cuisine

It's been quite awhile since I last penned a review, so you know this is gonna be good. =)

Serene Centre used to mean just one thing to me - Island Creamery ice cream. After last night, it now includes affordable French food!

La Petite Cuisine is a casual, family-friendly French joint at Serene Centre that's pretty hard to miss if you follow your nose. (but seriously, the ventilation is pretty horrendous. Long-haired ladies take heed!)

I've been meaning to try this place out for the longest time, but only got around to it yesterday. Anyways, here goes:

The staff recommended the duck confit, which I had, while she had the salmon filet.

Duck confit - $15

Crisp to the bite and tender on the inside, the duck went perfectly with the rather sharp sauce. The only complaint that I have would be that the meat could've been even more tender - it didn't fall off the bone. Nonetheless, it is pretty decent considering what you're paying.

Filet of Salmon with spinach - $14

According to her, the salmon was seared really, really well. She remarked that the cook somehow made spinach taste good, something I'm sure parents with finicky kids will appreciate. (Don't know what happens to the vitamins/minerals in the process though)

Again, the reduced cream sauce with bits of spinach and lemon accents went beautifully with the fish.

Dessert-wise, we opted to have the upside-down apple tart. You should know, however, that it takes a good 20 mins from the time you order, before it arrives at your table.

Upside-down apple tart - $6

Although I maintain that serving pastry straight from the over is never really fair (the puff/tart/cake needs to sit at least for a few minutes as it keeps cooking) as you don't get the full flavour or "done-ness" for want of a better word, it's always impressive to see your food arrive "piping hot" - which was the case with the tart.

Apples are naturally tangy, almost sharp, when they're cooked without copious amounts of sugar. That's why bakers always add a layer of glaze to your apple pie, or soak the fruit in syrup before baking.

In this case, the chef opted to use the apples more or less au natural, with a dash of icing sugar on the top and something similar to evaporated milk on the side, finished with a reduction of applesauce.

If you're used to how Americans serve their apple pie - with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream - you probably would find it a little too tangy for your liking. Though if you're in the mood for something a little (and I mean just a little) healthier, this is a pretty good choice.

On the whole, this hole-in-the-wall-turned-proper-al-fresco serves up pretty decent French cuisine in tiny portions, at cheap prices. It costs probably 30 - 40% less than what other French restaurants do here, but then most other French restaurants do not ask you to fetch your own drinking water; so you decide.

I liked the somewhat schizophrenic ambience of LPC; family-friendly with crayons and boardgames exist next to al-fresco tables for dating couples.

But that is what makes this place irresistable.

La Petite Cuisine
Serene Centre

Taste: 7.5/10
Value: 9/10 (oh, btw, it's important to note that the portions, like the name suggest, are pretty small. So you may want to get an entree to share in addition to the mains/dessert)
Ambience: 8/10

And....random food shot from Cedele's all-day breakfast! (What a fantastic idea, the all-day breakfast. No excuses for skipping those pancakes!)

Wild blueberry pancakes with bacon

Book review: Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

Ever since the Missus got the Borders preferred card, we've been buying books like there's no tomorrow (unless tomorrow got further discount).

A friend once calculated that since the card costs $20 bucks per year and entitles you to a 10% discount, you'd have to spend more than $200 a year on books to "earn" back the cost of the card.

Well, I think I've hit it in the first two months of 2009.

Among the many books I've picked up at half price is a really interesting one from Malcom Gladwell. If you find his name somewhat familiar, it's because he also wrote "The Tipping Point" and "Blink", both best sellers on the NYT list (the only book list I reference).

Here's what it looks like:


If you liked books such as The Tipping Point, Freakonomics, The Undercover Economist, etc. You'll definitely find Outliers fascinating. I love how these authors put on their psuedo social-scientist hats and explain social phenomena.

That's the common thread among all these books: they see that something's different (phenomena), that it happens fairly frequently (trend), and they ask why?

We don't ask why enough.

Before I get too deep into that, here's a quick look at the book:

What I learnt from the book:

• The system is not a fair deck - e.g. In professional sports, where players get spotted when they're really young, the odds are stacked against you if you're born in the later half of the year. Reason given by Gladwell is that physical difference is magnified at that young age.
  

My take: Listen with a pinch of salt. Sometimes, these authors pick out the stats that best support their case. Look at the England U-21 team, that's a pretty good gauge don't you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_national_under-21_football_team

Let's break the first team's birth dates down:

Number born in first half: 7/19

pffffffffffft.

On a whim, I also checked out Singapore's football team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_national_football_team

Number born in first half: 13/22

So, either Singapore's scouts are doing such an excellent job that they're snapping up talent once they hit the age-groups and grooming them for national glory...

or the theory's slightly wonky. (Granted, it's probably not representative, but still...)

• Your lot in life has been cast before (or more accurately, when) you were born. Being exceptionally talented means nothing if you are in a roomfull of exceptionally talented people. Take for example someone like Bill Gates in 1980 vs. the same dude in 2009 - he'd have to be waaaaay smarter to have the kind of success he did. Essentially, he was an expert when the revolution was just beginning.
  

My take: From a comms perspective, isn't it obvious that we should be stockpiling our digital arsenal now? Even the Singapore Government has gotten into the act of engaging its audience online - so what if it's just for show right now - and the demand for digital is only going to grow.

Having a solid 5 - 7 years of digital PR experience in a couple of year's time is gonna make some people very rich.

• 10,000 hours to master a skill/area of expertise. No way around it, he's just saying what we knew all along: the champions are those who wanted it more.

My take: If I work 8 hours a day, I'd have spent 8hours X 5working days X 48 working weeks = 1920 hours per year.

That means we need to spend at least 5 plus years in the industry - any industry with regular office hours - to even come close to being an "expert". That's not even discounting the days where you kinda zone out through the day. Damn.

Well, either that or spend way more time per day cramming those extra hours, haha.

• You only need to be smart enough. That's right. Gladwell points out that smarts/talents/aptitude/any other term for God-given gifts basically qualify you to be put in the elite brackets; having the highest IQ points does not make you the most successful or sought-after person around...though you could be, if you also had the good fortune of being born at the right time and the passion to spend 10,000 hours at it.

My take: In IQ/exam-crazy Singapore, it's hard to be a kid and not compare PSLE scores and feel kinda stupider if you have a lower score than your neighbour. So what if you scored 240 and your friend scored 241? Does that mean that he is 1/300 times smarter than you are? More successful than you're gonna be? Of course not. Right on, Gladwell.

----

Obviously, I enjoyed the book tremendously. So let me know if you'd like to borrow it, I'll be happy to loan it to you. :)

Product review: Blurb Photobook (Large Format Landscape)

After three weeks - and many months of procastinating - of twiddling with the layout of the Blurb photobook, it arrived a couple of days ago by Fedex. I have to say that the first time I set my eyes on the book, I absolutely loved it.

You can't see it clearly cos of the light, but the spine says "Danny, Zheng, Vanessa Summer '08"

Yes, it cost $110 SGD, but believe me, it's worth every cent. So here's what I liked about my overall Blurb experience:

Likes
1. Software downloaded was intuitive and comprehensive, compared with the others I tried; giving you enough control without forcing you to create from zero.

2. Loophole that allowed to exploit the depreciating sterling pound. (Eh, I saved almost 40+ SGD by ordering in pounds ok!)

3. Excellent print quality of finished product. Each image was perfectly reproduced and I loved the full bleed option, which means you can print right to the edge of the page.

Dislikes
1. I chose the imagewrap option for the cover, as opposed to the dust jacket option, which I thought meant that the image would be "scanned" onto the cover, rather that being "pasted" (like it turned out to be). As a result, there are small crease marks at the edges of the the cover.

2. Edges of the pages were cut with a rather rough paper cutter, IMO, resulting in it feeling rather rough on the edges.

3. Ok, if I really wanted to nitpick, I'd point out that it's not possible to share the book in its entirity before printing, with someone else. It's ok if it's like a family project, so everyone just needs to physically sit in front of the same screen to vet the project; I wanted to share it with my friends to get their opinions - and the preview option only allowed them to see the first 15 pages of my 50 page book.

4. Last thing, after ordering your book, the "after-sales" email you receive to give you the details of what you've ordered, book tracking, etc, makes it really hard for you to contact them. I mean, I've just paid over 50 pounds to order something from you for the first time; is it really too much to ask for an email address I can send any queries I have to?

The bottomline
This is an awesome product that not only allows you to crystallise your memories, it also lets you have a ball of a time doing so. The flaws I pointed out are really minor and disappear the moment you first see your creation, fresh out of the Fedex package, and I really encourage you to try it for yourself.

The high price is a deterrent, but you should note that I chose the highest grade options for everything, and chose the largest size. Smaller books should be a lot cheaper to make.

Now if they would just open a branch here, like TheDigibook and iPhoto so that shipping is free...