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.

By the River

One of my favorite places to eat @ Robertson Quay is Aburiya. It's in my opinion, one of the best places in town for Japanese/Korean BBQ. Any BBQ lover will tell you that it's all about the meats & they do theirs the old fashioned way with charcoal. Hmm I love table BBQ.

You can order your meats marinated in several ways - pepper, tare (sweet sauce) or miso. The wagyu rib eye is reason enough to go there.

Shoju
Korean rice wine

Wagyu rib eye
Meat that melts in your mouth

Pork Belly with black pepper

I didn't take a picture but The Girl loves beef tongue & so do I

On top of the meats, we would also order a platter of vegetables - corn, green pepper, mushrooms & onions. Kim Chee soup. Bibimbap.

Foie Gras

Onigiri
What it's burnt ?!....well that's the best part
Yummy burnt rice

We enjoy taking a stroll after dinner

or make another stop at Wine Connection

for wine & cheese

There is a very good selection of cheeses

& gourmet food items

Seafood Paradise @ Singapore Flyer

The story of Seafood Paradise & the chain of Paradise restaurants in Singapore started as a zhi char star in Defu Lane (where is that ?). Doesn't matter that the location is out of the way, Singaporeans will know how to sniff out good food.

I still don't know where Defu Lane is which meant we had gone to the Seafood Paradise @ Singapore Flyer. These are just some of my favorite classic Chinese dishes.

The cold platter
so chinese wedding

Jellyfish
The Girl inherited my love for this

My favorite way to prepare fish - Steamed
The best part - the fish cheek
My family will fight for that

Steamed prawns
Deshelled & then eaten with cut chillies & dark soy sauce

Abalone & Sea Cucumber

Chilli Crab
(not exactly their best dish)

This is apparently their signature dish
Seafood Paradise Fried Rice
maybe I'm just not a big fan of fried rice
I don't see the fuss

Emily of Emerald Hill

I wrote this a few months back but forgot to post - just found it in my draft box. Oops.

For the first time, I watched Emily of Emerald Hill & I was in love.

A play written by Stella Kon & 25 years after her first performance, Margaret Chan took the stage again playing the role of Emily Gan. I can't even begin to describe what I love about it. It's a monologue of a Nonya matriarch - her thoughts, her feelings, the life of a nonya lady in 1950s. A timeless story - issues that resonate even in 2010.

More importantly, watching Margaret Chan is a delight. I'm so lucky to have caught this performance esp since it was done on the last night before the Vic would be closed for renovations. Throughout the play & in between laughter, you will be wondering if you like Emily, hate her or just feel sorry for her. Just imagine bearing the weight of the play on your shoulders for the entire 2 hours (or however long it is). But never once did she miss a beat. You are with her all the way.

Even though I'm not from a Peranakan family & couldn't understand some of the Malay phrases, I thoroughly enjoyed the play & just loved Margaret Chan's performance. Apparently the play is studied in schools & we should be proud of it - something truly Singaporean.

YOG

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games that was held in Singapore just came to a close. I know the organising committee has gotten a lot of flack for the poor turnout at events, availability or rather unavailability of tickets, bad quality of food for volunteers etc. But overall we had a very good experience.

I had only myself to blame for booking tickets at the last minute so needless to say, by the time I checked all the popular events like gymnastics, badminton & swimming were sold out. My one suggestion is that they should have a way of letting you know which tickets were still available on a summary level instead of having to click into each sport & each date to find out if the event was sold out or not. Anyway I did manage to secure tickets for handball which I figured The Girl would find interesting as well.

Oh & each ticket for the Games came with a transit link card for 4 free rides on the MRT which I thought was quite cool.

Handball was one of 3 sports held at Suntec Convention Centre. Just before we entered the venue, we were given a little brochure explaining the rules of the game, which I thought was a very nice touch. I've never been to a sports event where they did that - they always kind of assume that you already know what you will be watching. I wonder if they do that for the Olympics as well.

What makes every sporting event interesting are the fans. There's nothing quite like sports to bring out the patriotic spirit in us. We didn't get to catch the Singapore team in action & when I asked The Girl which team she wanted to support, she said "Of course yellow, their clothes (I guess she meant jerseys) look nice" - you can't argue with that logic.

We caught 2 games - the first Angola 27 vs Brazil 30. It was an exciting game. Both teams were quite closely matched & the yellow team (Brazil) won. The second was between Australia & Kazakhstan with the latter being clearly a much stronger team. In case you are wondering, Denmark's the champion for Women's Handball.

I was quite impressed with the half time performances. They had MCs to get the crowd riled up, threw prizes into the stands & gave our students opportunities to perform.

Not exactly the Cheerios but they put up a very credible show

Maybe because it was Suntec, just outside the halls there were lots of activities

Art exhibition

Games

Performances

Not bad for $10. Where else can you get all these entertainment at that price ?