The Hungry Bunny

Now that Adee works in the same building as Jal, he's joined in our monthly lunch meet-ups. Adee was a fellow classmate of ours back in VJC, and like Jal, is now a father of a precocious 5 (or is it 4?) year-old boy. It's still difficult to picture him as a father though (Methinks his wife, also a fellow classmate of ours, has got to be the disciplinarian of the 2 coz he's one of the most playful, rubber-faced guys I know). Next to Jal, he's the funniest and wittiest guy in my class. Even though Jal is away in the USA and thus, unable to join us, Adee and I still met up for lunch anyway. We took to Adee's suggestion of A-Roy Thai at Funan , just beside his office. This place is perpetually filled during lunch time. It's easy to see why. The eatery serves up value-for-money Thai-Chinese food that's familiar and comforting. You'd think I'll be sick of Thai food, after having been in Bangkok for a week and indulging non-stop i...

This month's fast shaping up into a whirlwind of meet-ups with friends. We had lunch with Ernie and Thom, who are bunkmates at our Phuket wedding, to catch up. Ernie's on a 3 month leave so he's got loads of time to meet up. And Thom, being the sweetheart that he is, will always make time to meet up. My friendship with both guys go such a long way back I can't even remember how we met! I think I met Ernie through another friend at a party (though I cannot, for the life of me, remember which friend or which party or when), and Thom, I think I also met him through a friend (though I also cannot remember which friend and when). As mentioned earlier, because we've got so little time for meet-ups this month, we've decided to combine our meet-ups so we get to see all of our friends. We all felt like dim sum, and Lei Garden at Chijmes is the one place we know will always have availability at the last minute without reservations. We started off with a portion of th...

We had dinner with Kang and Long, 2 of our best men, for our once-a-month meet-ups. We usually meet up with each of them individually, but this month's been really hectic for us, what with our trip to Bangkok and the appeal papers all being due this month, and so, we had them both for a joint-dinner. We brought Kang and Long to Siang Hee , one of our favourite choices for a cheap and good meal. The plus point about Siang Hee is its centralised location at Zion Road, which is going to be a thing of the past, as the entire estate has been en-bloc-ed. We've been informed that they will be moving to the second floor of the Commonwealth Crescent Food Centre. As usual, we had an amazing time, munching and chatting slowly through the delicious dinner (we've now made them both fans of Siang Hee), and then over drinks at the nearby Great World City. There's a reason why these guys make up one half of my best men. They've been my lifeline through the years and really, the b...

Being on a low-carb, low-fat and high protein diet (the Fiance is trying to get his 6-pack in time for the wedding) means that meal options are generally limited. Italian's a big no-no, so you won't be seeing any Italian food posts for a while. So is Japanese (sushi and maki all contain rice), Indian (curries are only great with plain white rice), oh, pretty much any Asian cuisine because we're so rice-centric. But, Japanese BBQ is perfect for us now because it's really all about meat. We brought a couple of our friends, Ray & Pat, who'd just settled in Singapore after having lived in London for the last decade or so, for dinner at Gyu-Kaku , one of 2 main Japanese BBQ chains here (the other being Aburiya ). Apparently, Japanese BBQ isn't quite as well known or received as Korean table BBQ in London. In fact, according to Pat, she'd never heard of Japanese BBQ before! I suppose that in Singapore, we really do get just about any type of cuisine because we...

This was our last meal in Bangkok at the airport before flying off back to Singapore. As we didn't have much time before boarding, we stopped by the first casual Thai eatery we saw and promptly made our orders. Their set meals are quite value-for-money, with 2 dishes and a drink, so we got the Set B (450 Baht). The Tom Yum Goong (220 Baht for ala carte) had a humongous freshwater prawn and loads of straw mushrooms. This was spicy but was too saturated with prawn stock. The concentrated broth got cloying after a while. The Pad Ka Pao Kai (180 Baht), chicken sauteed with basil and cashew nuts, was good, with tender chicken chunks flavoured with chilli and peppery basil, but a little tiny in portion. Then again, this is a set meal after all, and still worth the value. Asian Corner Suvarnabhumi Airport 3rd floor Thailand

We had dinner again at Somboon Seafood . It opens till late, which was great, as we finished late at the gym that night. One thing about Somboon was the speed in which the dishes were churned out. We didn't quite notice it on the first night, but it certainly didn't escape our attention the second night we had dinner there. Barely 2 minutes after our orders were taken, the dishes were all out on our table. No way the dishes were made fresh upon order. They were probably pre-cooked, chilled, then re-heated after orders. Except the lobster, because the Fiance picked it right out of the tank. Another thing to note is that they don't accept credit cards here, so if you're planning to spend a bomb here, make sure you have enough cash on you. The Fiance was craving lobster, and opted for the Grilled Lobster with Garlic (5700 Baht). On hindsight, we shouldn't have ordered this. It was obscenely expensive, costing about S$250. Then again, we can't say we got ripped...

Thai Peppery is another casual Thai eatery at the food basement of Siam Paragon. ( Ging Kalpapruek being the other one)  This stall is part of Asian Cuisine, which looks like a food court, but is really just a single restaurant with 3 different asian concepts selling Indian, Chinese and Thai food. We were a little worried because we saw so many Caucasians dining here, but the food turned out to be fairly authentic.  The Thai Glass Noodle (130 baht) stir-fried with egg, prawns and mixed vegetables was our carb dish of the day (we indulged a little and allowed ourselves a carb dish a day) and well worth the calories. This was choc-a-bloc with vegetables, prawns and eggs, and the clear vermicelli was simmered with enough stock to be tasty and soft, but with a little bite. The Sliced Charcoal Grilled Pork (180 Baht) served with Thai E-Sarn style northeastern sauce was very very VERY good. An absolute must-try here. It was flavoursome, it was tender, it was juicy and it...

Siam Paragon is my favourite shopping malls to eat at whenever I'm in Bangkok. This mall is like our Ngee Ann City, but 3 times the size of our most popular mall. The food basement is choc-a-bloc with a mind-boggling array of food courts, casual eateries, standalone food stalls and fine dining options. One of the 2 casual Thai eateries in Paragon's food basement is Ging Kalpapruek. Kalpapruek is a chain of contemporary Thai bistros that's usually frequented by the local hi-sos (Thai slang for high society types). They have about 3 branches in Thailand, all located in the more upmarket areas in Bangkok. The pretty and quaint French bistro-styled restaurant oozes a casual but elegant vibe and serves up a wide range of modern Thai cuisine.  Although I've heard rave reviews about the food and service here, I wasn't quite so impressed when I ate here. The staff that day were surprisingly surly and sour-faced, with nary a sign of the Thai hospitality that I've grow...

Krispy Kreme has hit the Thai capital. Now, you may wonder why I'm talking about Krispy Kreme when this post is titled "Cinnabon". Well,we chanced upon Krispy Kreme while shopping at Siam Paragon and were ecstatically queuing up for a sugary glazed donut (to share between ourselves so we wouldn't throw off our entire pre-wedding diet-and-exercise regime), but then we googled the calorie count of this sweet treat, and changed our minds. You know, if not for the wedding, we would have gone all out and stuffed ourselves silly on this trip to Bangkok. But, as with any other couple on the planet, we want to look our best for the wedding, and so, we've embarked on a year-long diet-and-exercise regime to get into shape. No shortcuts or crash diets for us. It's all about consistency and discipline. Then, we came upon Cinnabon . Okay, we didn't see it as much as we smelt it. And then gravitated towards it. The sweet smell of baked cinnamon and fresh warm pastry...

Holidays needn't be fattening. I know this may be surprising, but I find that I generally get fitter and consequently, lose weight, every time I go on holiday. Work, on the other hand, makes me fat, because after a long hard day racking my brains at my desk in front of the computer, there's just no motivation to exercise after that. Plus, I'm just too tired after work to work up a sweat. But it's different when I'm on holiday. I get to sleep in, and only when I'm truly refreshed, slowly make my way to the gym and work out at my own leisure.  Of course, it helps when the hotel gym is gorgeous and brilliantly comprehensive to work out in. Perched on the 36th floor of the 5-star hotel and right smack in the middle of the Siam shopping belt, the floor-to-ceiling windows boast a stunning view of the city. You just get inspired to keep running on the treadmill when your voyeuristic tendencies come out to play, looking out at the bu...