Tian Tian Chicken Rice

Happy April's Fool! I hope everyone survived their day well today without falling prey to jokes and tricks :) I enjoyed my long weekend break, feeling exhausted as I was busy keeping the house clean & tidy. That was also part of the reason why we are having lesser people @ our place now, since it was just too messy with things all over the place from my trips. I jerked out on bed on Sunday morning, thinking that I was late for work as the clock showed 8am, lol! Guess I must be too stressed out lately with all the hectic schedule .... that calls for a holiday trip soon!

After our visit to Forty Hands and Ben & Jerry's, we parted ways with the rest & headed to the hospital to visit my baby bro.

 

Walking on the roads #likeaqueen, since it was a Sunday and no cars were spotted along the way.

Taking pics with the "Reduce Speed" sign, lol!
 

Leecher with his artistic shot ~ I had to stand there for 5 mins while he tried to capture the best shot out of 20 + attempts.

 

It must be a tiring "climb" for the man who was dressed in jeans+long sleeve shirt in this weather. 

 

Dinner @ Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice. Hainanese chicken rice has always been voted as Singapore's national dish (beating the likes of char kuay tiao & hokkien mee etc). When it comes to recommendations for the best chicken rice, Tian Tian is always on the recommended list. This humble stall has even gained the approval of Anthony Bourdain, who once said that the rice here is so good that you can eat it on its own. 

 I've been to the Maxwell outlet, where there are always long queue during lunch hour. This was my first time visiting the branch @ Joo Chiat road.

Steamed chicken hanging at the display window, enough to whet your appetite just looking at them! 

 

For all food outlets, it is a must to showcast all the publicity given by the media, be it newspaper cuttings, being featured on foodie channels or taking pictures with famous celebrities. These are the standard SOPs in the F&B industry nowadays.

I've always thought that they do just chicken rice, but I was wrong. They have a full menu of not only chicken rice (their signature), but also other side dishes (zi char dishes) & porridge available too.

 

Leecher took an extremely long time with the menu ~ sometimes, guys are really more fickle-minded than girls. He even wanted to google for the recommended dishes before placing his order >,< 

 

Just as he was taking his own sweet time with ordering, the tables in the restaurant got filled up.  

I prefer my chilli with dark soy sauce while Leecher prefer his chilli plain.

Steamed 1/2 chicken for us to share. This was (deliberately) served slightly chilled. 

 

The skin was smooth & the rice was fragrant - true to the testimonial of Anthony Bourdain - you can even eat the rice on its own! As for me, I had my quick chicken rice fix and would be back to try out more from their zi char collection.  

Tian Tian Chicken Rice
443, Joo Chiat Road 
Singapore 427656
Tel: 63459443
Opening Hours: 10.30 am till 10pm
Closed on Mondays

Tian Tian Chicken Rice
Stall 10 Maxwell Food Center
Singapore 069184
Tel: 96914852
Opening Hours: 11am till 8pm
Closed on Mondays

London 2012 Part Four

A long weekend as it's Good Friday today! This week was a pretty short week, given that I was in KL for a day and Friday is a public holiday ~ only 3 working day in the office, with a farewell drinks session for the boss last night. I reckoned he should be on the flight back to LDN by now & I'll have to start getting used to the empty seat next to my desk soon. A brand new month/quarter next week, so let's all enjoy the weekend first!

 

*** You can read all about P1, P2 & P3 here.

I had a good night rest and woke up to see this straight out from my window :)

 
I wished I was here on vacation instead of a conference ... just sipping tea & eating scones out from my balcony window, basking in the warm morning sun.
 
Breakfast @ the Restaurant, which I totally enjoyed all my meals there, especially the wide range of desserts that they have!
  
Breakfast, just one of the sides that I started with :) We were really well-fed during the conference, with 2 tea-breaks on top of the 3 meals.  

We attended one full day of conference, divided into morning & afternoon session. For the morning session, we listened in to the new features of the upcoming product launch. It was also a moment of personal glory when the deal that I was working on (the 1st combi-deal signed ever) was mentioned by the big bosses during the event :)

Lunch ~ I must stressed that the cheesecake was really finger-licking good!
With some time to spare before the next session commenced, we headed up to the roof terrace. This place offered stunning picturesque view of the city. I didn't have my camera with me, so I used my iphone to capture the panaromic view.

Most of the colleges can be viewed from the roof garden. It would be nice if I had a glass of champagne in my hand, relaxing on one of the sofas and watching the world passes by *dreamy mood*

Is it me or everything just looked too wonderfully-to-be-true here? Even the flowers looked extremely picture-worthy, lol!

Sales & AM team were put to a stress test during the afternoon session, where each individual was assigned a scenario to role-play. It was nerve-wreaking, as you had to present in front of all your peers, who clearly knows the product as well as you do, perhaps even better. Scores were also given based on your presentation. It was all good-fun & we now know what are our strengths & weaknesses, so we can perform better during our clients meetings. I left the room with more insights on myself & what are the areas that I could work on.

London 2012 Part Three

 

Happy mid-week! As I'm blogging this entry, it dawned upon me that it will be the boss's last day in the office tomorrow, as he will be heading back to LDN (after staying in Asia for 2 years) to take up an extended role. Leaving drinks tml night and we planned to get him drunk, so he can sleep his way through his flight on Friday morning, lol! Hopefully, I won't have to nurse another hangover on Friday.

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Read P1 & P2 here.

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We travelled to Cambridge, around 80km north of LDN, for a 3D2N sales conference.

I love being in the countryside, away from the tall buildings and be closer to nature. This is something that you can't experience in Singapore :( 

 

We checked into a nice boutique hotel, The Varsity Hotel & Spa, located on the edge of the picturesque River Cam in the heart of Cambridge. Old school keys for the room :)

 

 When I entered the room, I was delighted to see the old English cottage charm that the hotel has retained, especially love the wall-paper!

 

They even have a chest of drawers available for you to put your clothes. I can totally imagine myself staying here for a very long time. 

 

Comes equipped with coffee & tea. 

 

Our T-shirt & Welcome note placed in each room.  

The view from my window ... I'm loving this place already :)   

They even provide complimentary walking tours every Saturday at 2pm, lead by one of their experienced guides, taking guests on a tour of the historic sites of central Cambridge. So, take advantage of this if you're heading for a trip there! 

The Varsity Hotel & Spa

Thompson's Lane (Off Bridge Street)

Cambridge CB5 8AQ

United Kingdom

Tel:+44 0 1223 30 60 30

Email: info@thevarsityhotel.co.uk 

 

A change of clothes, before heading downstairs for buffet lunch. 

Lunch consisted of sandwiches, wraps, salads and whats-not. The raspberry cheesecake dessert certainly tops my list of must-have desserts!

After a hearty lunch, we attended the first part of the conference ~ where we reviewed on our performance from the past year and the objective for the year ahead, as well as the product road-map. It was certainly good exposure for all of us, as we get first-hand information from the relevant department heads, allowing us to brainstorm on how we can introduce all these new functionalities to our clients. 

We had a private room @ St John's College, but before that, drinks/catch up session at the reception area. When it was time for dinner, we were ushered into the room & boy, it felt like having dinner @ Hogwats! 4 rows of table were placed horizontally with a long table that joined all the tables at the end. The bosses sat at the end, just like how the head-masters sat in the movie :) 

 I found my place-card at the 1st table, but we didn't have a table tagged to the table, lol! Each table consisted of a good mixture of people from the 3 teams (AM, Product & Sales) across the different offices, so as to interact better with one another.

 

Graduation hats, which we all had to wear :) 

 

Time to start off the 3-course meal that was prepared for us.