Cafe Swiss

{overdue post} While the GF is away in HK for the weekend doing some serious damage to her wallet & mine; I am stuck in our sunny island writing this 4-month overdue post. Seems like I tend to have a LIFO system when it comes to blogging these days. Nevertheless, better late than never.

Meet up with dear FMQ for our usual bag-talk over her latest acquistion @ Cafe Swiss. The guys - Leecher & Kenneth - were invited, so that we can qualify for the promotion :P

The usual bull (or cow) mascot outside Swiss restaurants, akin to Marche.

The place was 10% filled on a Wednesday night.

Table setting in red, paying tribute to the Swiss Flag.

Interesting salt & pepper shakers.

Orange & apple juices to start the ball rolling :)

Great disappointment on the complimentary bread basket. The bread was cold & hard, as if it had been left overnight. Posed for the picture before I sank my teeth into the bread.

1st appetiser - Pan seared Goose liver with Calvados Apple and toasted brioche.

Leecher had the honour of distributing the food for us. The goose liver wasn't that fantastic though; 2nd disappointment of the meal.

2nd appetiser - Capellini with pan-seared Prawns, tomato concasse and saffron foam. This dish managed to turn the tables round with the juicy prawns. Capellini tasted delicious on its own, or soaked in foam.

The waiting time between each course is about 20 mins; counting from the time your plates got cleared. Cam-whoring while waiting for the next dish to be served...

FMQ with her newly permed curls VS me with my natural curls, haha

With dear Kenneth :)

Leecher trying to act "tall" beside FMQ

Back to our food; 1st main course - Oven Roasted Beef Tenderloin on Rosemary Jus with Root Vegetables. We were pretty much starved after the long wait. The meat was tender & juicy; can't comment much abt the vegetables as the rest of the gang helped themselves to it knowing that I am not a great fan of greens.

2nd main course - Roasted Lamb Rack on Rich Barolo Jus, grilled vegetables and potato gratin. I didn't know that you can order your lamb like steak until this very meal. Medium rare lamb rack, coupled with potato gratin = satisfying. And I am not even a potato fan, though I adore french fries.

Desserts - Chocolate cake with apricot compote & Carrot cake with sour cream ice-cream.You can never go wrong with chocolate, but I think something seriously went wrong here.

A group pic - minus FMQ(cos she left earlier) - to end the night ~

Tailoring Day

Took leave today with Yaozu to tailor some shirts for work.

Just take a look at the selection of fabrics for the shirts.

Too busy browsing through the catalogs than pay attention to the camera.

Wa ha ha ha, can't wait for the final products, but since the boss is so busy, we got to wait a whopping 3 weeks before we can collect ours.

Fish Soup Place

A totally random post. Just to highlight a nice eating place for our readers. This one is located just opposite Bugis Junction (opposite the open field which used to house the DHL Balloon?).

See the reason why it's good?

Some numbers for the 4D hopefuls, but no guarantees hah... ... (invest at ur own risk)

Their famous XO fish soup noodles

And we ordered a side dish, prawn paste fried chicken, which according to Blamer, tastes nicer than the ones she ate at Holland V.

Hee hee hee... .. Hungry me is going to dig in!

Zhong dian of this pic is not Blamer though. The pic is just to show u guys how jam packed the eatery was.

And on our way back, guess who did we bumped into? Cheapo Blamer and me didn't buy any of his CDs though (guffaw.. ..) No lah, we are not his fans anyways... ....

Zambuca

Leecher 难得 brought me to a nice restaurant for dinner but I have to call & make reservation myself -___-

Zambuca Italian Restaurant & Bar, located at Pan Pacific, is part of the Michelangelos' chain of restaurant. Wa, looks like I am in for a treat :P

Black leather-bound menu; classy!

Swirls of butter + warm bread = perfect combination to whet your appetite!

Complimentary appetizer; didn't really catch the name of this. Dices of salmon & cucumber soaked in oil-and-dunno-what-substance. You are strongly encouraged to polish this off in one gulp!

Time to start our 4 course meal proper :)

1st course: Cappesante - Pan seared diver scallops smothered with orange hollandaise, lightly gratinated. What a course to start the meal! Scallops were fresh & the juice oozed into your mouth with every bite. Barley was crunchy, didn't know that barley can be cooked in such a manner. Zambuca has wow-ed me for now.

Happily posting for pictures before we proceed to polish off the scallops in record-time. Yummy!

2nd course: Tortellini - Home made tortellini filled with smoked duck and duck liver in foie gras sauce.

According to Wiki, Tortellini is a variety of ring-shaped pasta. They are typically stuffed with a mix of meat. We were fooled by the words "foie gras" and ordered this dish, only to realise that it was the only foie gras we got was the sauce :(

The tortellini was quite filling, despite there were only 3 of them. Not my cup of tea and Leecher had to polish off the remaining, haha.

Leecher happily posting with the last Tortellini (think he ate 5 out of 6).

3rd course: Barramundi - oven roasted Australian barramundi with asparagus puree, grilled baby vegetables and balsamic foam.

Leecher claimed that the vegetables were crunchy though the barramundi tasted so-so, lacked the WOW factor.

3rd course: Manzo alla Grigli - Beef tenderloin grilled and served with kipler potatoes draped with foie gras jus and truffles.

Roller coaster ride so far; we started the meal on a high note with pan-fried scallops. Tortellini brought down our expectations and the 3rd courses lacked the punch. The tenderloin were overcooked though I asked for medium well; beef was kinda dry.

4th course: Warm Chocolate Cake - warm chocolate cake topped with vanilla bean creamsidedwith fig and honey ice cream. You can never go wrong with chocolate. Love how to chocolate oozed out from the cake, cheap thrill.

4th course: Crème Brûlée - Infused with Amaretto served with a scoop of forest berry sorbet.

Wiki to the rescue again: Amaretto is a sweet almond-flavoured liqueur of Italian origin. It is made from a base of apricot or almond pits, or sometimes both.

The desserts saved the day, after tasting less-than-expectations courses. Service was attentive initially, until the group of 20 odd diners came along for some company dinner. Can't really fault the waiters though, since the huge company ordered lots of wine while we asked for water :) However, we always had our plates cleared on time & had our glasses being refilled. No complaints on that.

Till the next meal @ Zambuca :)

Missing ~

Seems like there's something with our blogger account.

The toolbar used to edit fonts/post pictures etc has gone missing in our browser

Anyone knows what is happening?

Pri School Times

Recently, I met up with a long-lost friend of 13 years! We lost contact since p6 graduation. It's amazing that though we lost contact for so long, yet all thanks to FB & MJ, we were able to meet up for a meal :)

Yuxin, Qihan and me gathered @ home ground - Sakae Sushi (special request from Qihan).

The guys ordered the Premium Bento set while I decided to try out their teppanyaki set. Gosh, turned out to be quite a lllloooooonnnnnnggggg wait.

The guys getting ready to tuck into their food while I was still waiting for my dinner to be cooked :( *so hungry*

After 1/2 hr wait, my food finally arrived! The food was certainly not worth the wait; beef was hard (though it was medium rare) and the mushrooms were too salty for my liking. My take: stick to the premium bento set as it's cheaper, tastier and more value for money.

Long-lost friend of 13 years ~ he has changed a lot! He used to be the skinny bespectacled guy who likes to buy lots of CDs - which used to be the HIP thing to do in the past :p

Glenn & Dan - still can't get used to addressing them by their English names.

We spent the rest of the evening reminiscing about the past, our dare-devil attitude in primary schools, qihan's strange-hatred towards all the chinese teachers. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we were chased out by Sakae :P Oh, congrats to Yuxin for embarking on his next journey in life :) The next dinner will be on him, yippee!

On a separate note, I meet up with Yuxin & Ivan back in May for a simple meal @ Delifrance.

All 3 of us ordered the $7.90 set dinner; that comes with soup, main course, dessert and coffee/tea.

Soup was ok, not bad for a starter. Bread was slightly soggy, but the fragrant taste of garlic made up for it.

Plain-looking chicken ham spaghetti that tastes like how it looks. We had to request for some chilli powder as "garnish"

Looks more appetisiting now?

The best course of the meal :)

Nice catching up, guys! We should be able to have a 4 pple catch-up next time round, when everyone is back :)