ilike ilight

You have till Nov 7th to catch ilight, a sustainable light art festival. It's free, it's beautiful & what better way to enjoy the lights of the marina bay area. We had dinner at One Fullerton & then made our way around.

Check out the website to see where the 24 installations are located. If you have an iphone, download the app. We didn't even get to see all of them. Here's a look at what we did manage.

The beautiful city that I call home
It takes my breath away

CBD has never looked more beautiful

The beautiful Helix bridge that links Marina Bay Sands

The *surf board* - Skypark, Ku De Tah & the infinity pool

Our favorite Japanese restaurant

In a city where Japanese restaurants abound, everybody will have their own favorite.

Ours is Akashi. We have been going to them at Tanglin Shopping Centre for years. Even though they now have several branches, the original outlet is still our favorite.

Since moving back, we actually haven't been there at all. So imagine our surprise when we found the original branch closed & that they are now in swanky new location at Orchard Parade Hotel (does anyone still call it the old Ming Court Hotel ?)

The chefs & the servers are still the same. The food is still good.
What are our favorites ? Sushi/sashimi, Spider maki, salmon skin hand roll, grilled eggplant, chazuke, cha soba, tonkatsu...in fact there is nothing on the menu that we don't like.

Akashi
1 Tanglin Road
#01-01A Orchard Parade Hotel

The little straw house revisited

Remember my friends who were building their little straw house. It's done (well almost) & they moved in last winter. It's also a lot sturdier than the house the little pigs built (for those who had commented in my previous post :)

Love their little garden

Mathieu who is extremely talented, built this tree house for his kids.
That's what happens when you are sitting on a bit of land

Remember the little stream that runs right in front of their house

I had to take a photo of this
A toadstool that just grew out of nowhere

Another rope adventure thingy
they put together for the kids

It was great catching up with Katia & seeing her settled into the home they built. Just so you know the *build* is not done. They are about to embark on a bigger project - a bigger house. Stay tuned for more updates.

La Villa Tartary Revistied

For reason I can only attribute to fluke, when you do a search on La Villa Tartary on google, my blog entry in Feb 09 is the first entry just above the restaurant's official website.

With all that good food churned out by X's mum & family, we don't need to eat out. In fact this meal was only one of 2 that we did.

I managed to get more pictures of the outdoor area since we went there for lunch. The ambience is still as before, modern & friendly. Sylvie is full of smiles & ever the accommodating hostess. The food is even better than what I remembered it to be. No wonder the restaurant was packed for a Thursday lunch. Not bad for a 26 Euro menu.

Pieds et Jarrets de Porc Panés, Crème aux Herbes, Salades Mêlées.

This was my favorite item on the menu the last time & was glad to see that they have brought it back again. Breaded pork feet & shoulder (well here's the proof when I said it looks better than it sounds)

Flan de Fenouil, Pomme de Terre, Chair de Crabes, Emulsion aux Olives
Flan of fennel with sliced potatoes & crab meat

This was the favorite of the table
Entre Terre et Mer, embeurée de Choux vert au lard.
"Between Land & Sea"
It's a delicious combination of mushrooms & seafood
Well seasoned, well paired ingredients
Absolutely delicious

X had this as his main course
Cabillaud, Bouillon Crémeux, Encornets et Morilles
Cod in a cream sauce with mushroom

Sablé, Poires, Sauce Caramel aux Noix, Sorbet Citron

The Girl had her ice cream

Pots de Crème à la Châtaigne, Badiane, Sésame

If you do make it to Ardeche one day, please drop by & say hi to Sylvie & Francke and taste their delicious food.

My favorite things in France

I know I haven't updated my blog in a while. We were back in France last month & for me, it was a vacation & yet not a vacation. We were doing domestic stuff like cleaning the house, cooking, doing all my favorite things, lunches with the family but it felt comforting & made me really missed France.

So what are my favorite things ? If you've been reading my blog from when I was in France, you should be familiar with these....

Picking figs from the tree at the entrance of our village

Going for walks

Picking blackberries

Fresh fruits & vegetables from Papy's garden
Tomatoes just never taste the same as those you find in Singapore
Potato Crique (shredded potato pancakes)

Ahh my personal favorite
Picking mushrooms
Unfortunately it was too dry for cepes
but we did find some coulemelle in the garden
& cooked them the way the French like their wild mushrooms,
in an omelette

We were lucky to still get some raspberries
almost the end of the season

Saucisson
Guess what we lugged back to Singapore by the dozens

X's parents had just come back from Périgord,
land of foie gras & truffles
Duck leg stuffed with foie gras

The Girl who stopped eating cheese in Singapore
couldn't get enough of it when we were in France

We went to Barcelona for 5 days & left her with her grandparents. Not a single protest was heard. She was happy to feed the rabbits (they run free in the garden), pick eggs from the coup, play with the dogs & basically got spoilt rotten.

I miss France.