I don’t eat pineapple short cakes that often but when i do want one, i expect it to meet certain standard. The mediocre October Fifth Bakery’s pineapple short cakes do not meet any of my standard. The pineapple short cakes are packaged in a pretty nice-looking box and they are individually-wrapped. But that, unfortunately, is where good things about the short cakes end. One problem is the short cakes are hard. A good short cake should literally melt in your mouth. If you need something to level your uneven table legs, the hard October Fifth Bakery’s pineapple short cake should do the trick. That however is not the worst thing about the short cakes. October Fifth Bakery’s pineapple short cakes have absolutely no taste of pineapple! How can they sell pineapple short cakes that does not taste like pineapple?

Fast forward to now, almost six months later. I was looking for dinner options and all of the sudden i recalled Elemental @ Gasworks. After taking Mango on his usual evening walk in Seattle Center, Smelly and i left for Elemental, arriving there a little before 2000.

Elemental @ Gasworks is “hidden” on the first floor of a condominium complex on Wallingford Ave, right across from Gasworks Park. If you are not actively searching for it, you will miss it. We didn’t have more than four hours to spare so we decided to hit Elemental Next Door (E.N.D.), appropriately named probably because it is right next door to Elemental @ Gasworks. When we stepped foot into E.N.D., we were greeted by our friendly hostess/waitress Allyss. We were told that we were free to seat anywhere we wanted so we found the smallest table available that was meant to seat four. The first thing that was unusual about E.N.D. was the lack of a wine list. Instead, Allyss pointed us to shelves full of bottles of wine and that every bottle costs $28. E.N.D. has a really good selection of wine. I estimated there were about 50 bottles of red, a dozen bottles of Rosé and 30 bottles of white. I picked the 2006 Weingut Geil Gewürtztraminer Kabinett from the Rheinhessen region of Germany.

Smelly in front of the shelves filled with bottles of wine (crappy picture taken using my iPhone).

While we were waiting for our wine to be chilled, Allyss brought us two glasses of champagne to wet our appetite. Not long after, she opened up the bottle of Gewürtztraminer. That was a great bottle of wine. It was an aromatic and fragrant light body wine with tastes of lychee and honey. I have not had such a good bottle of Gewürtztraminer for quite some time.

Elemental Next Door menu (picture taken by Nancy Leson of Seattle Times).

The only menu in the restaurant was hand-written on a board, an indication that items on the menu are changed frequently. Smelly and i decided to go for the four-course family-style dinner ($32 per person) instead of the ala carte menu. The first course was pan-fried prosciutto-wrapped squash on a bed of Vinaigrette wild greens sprinkled with toasted sunflower seeds. A bite of the pan-friend prosciutto-wrapped squash made me feel like i was in heaven. The second course was some kind of ravioli with cauliflower cooked in a cream sauce. I never knew that cauliflower could go so well with ravioli. It was simple and yet very tasty. The third course, probably Smelly’s favorite, was rice-filled Calamari with chick peas. The calamari was very tender and it matched really well with the chick peas broth. Originally, the fourth course on the menu was cheese with marmalade. I hardly ever eat cheese so to ask me to eat cheese as a dessert is a little far-fetched. Allyss was nice enough to substitute the cheese dish with a mouthwatering sake-poached Asian pear with orange sauce and some kumquat.

I cannot recall the last time i had such a great meal eating out. We spent more than two hours eating great food and drinking good wine. E.N.D. fully embodies the ideals of the slow food movement in which you take your own sweet time and pleasure in eating locally-produced food that is simple and yet mouthwatering. If you do not have more than two hours to spare, E.N.D. is not the place for you. But if you do, you will enjoy probably one of the best kept secrets in Seattle. Best of all, prices on the menu are gratuity and tax inclusive. What you see is what you pay. I love it!

One of the things that i planned to do in Singapore was to get the battery in my Tissot T-Touch watch replaced at the Swatch Service Center. The Swatch Service Center is located at the Wheelock Place building. To get to the service center, we went through a Borders bookstore. I noticed a familiar face while we were going through the bookstore. He was none other than George Lam (林子祥), a Hong Kong singer/actor who was quite popular in the 80s. I later found out from my mom that he had a concert in Singapore.

After dropping off my watch, we went to the food court on the upper floor of Wisma Atria shopping mall. I was there for some Roti Prata, one of the last remaining items on my To-Eat list in Singapore. My order came with two pieces of Roti Prata and it cost about $2 SGD (less than $1.50 USD). For an order that is halved of what i had, it would have cost me at least $4 USD in Seattle.

Two pieces of Roti Prata with a small bowl of curry dip.

Someone from the Swatch Service Center contacted me on my iPhone and told me they could not replace the battery in my watch because apparently the battery was not an “original” battery. Previously, i had the battery in my T-Touch replaced at the Ben Bridge Jeweler in downtown Seattle. Worse, they found signs of water intrusion in the watch. To fix my watch, i would have to leave it there for about three months! Since my watch appeared to be working fine (it still is), i opted to just leave it alone. I was informed that whenever the case is replaced, a pressure test is always applied to check for waterproofness. It is clear to me that this was not performed properly by the jeweler at Ben Bridge.

In the mid afternoon, three close friends from my college days in Kansas came to Singapore from KL to visit us. It was really good to meet up with them again. The last time we wet were almost a year ago in KL. I felt really glad that they were willing to spend the extra effort to travel all the way to Singapore to visit me.

At tcc (the coffee connoiseur) in Bugis Junction.

After meeting at our hotel, we took a short walk to find a restaurant among the many in Robertson Quay area for dinner. Eventually, we settled on Brasserie Wolf.

Dinner at Brasserie Wolf.

Group photo at Brasserie Wolf.

Lai and Foong Kuan at Brasserie Wolf.

Supposedly, the restaurant offered authentic classical French cuisine. I have to say that i have had much better French food elsewhere.

Killeney Kopitiam at Killeney Rd.

Other than Smelly’s hair salon appointment at Blitz in the mid-afternoon, we had nothing planned for the day. As i only have enough Starwood Preferred Guest points for two nights of stay at Sheraton Towers using Cash and Points, we checked out of Sheraton Towers and took a taxi to Copthorne King’s Hotel. Location-wise in terms of distance from the nearest MRT station, Sheraton Towers is the more convenient between the two. We discovered the following day that Copthorne King’s Hotel is actually a short walking distance away from Robertson Walk, a trendy area by a river full of restaurants.

After a short visit to the historic Raffles Hotel, Smelly and i went across the street to the food court on the upper level of City Hall shopping mall. We were at the same food court the day earlier for some dessert when we spotted a food stall selling pig organs soup. We told ourselves we had to come back for it the next day. Pig organs soup is basically a clear broth with some meat balls, tender pork, intestine, kidney and medium rare liver. Occasionally, it may contain some coagulated pig’s blood.

Pig organs soup at the food court in City Hall shopping mall.

After wondering around the surrounding area, we took a taxi to Holland Village for Smelly’s appointment at Blitz salon. Since we were early, we decided to stop by the Holland Village food court. Smelly ordered a bowl of shaved ice with sea coconut and nata de coco while i had a bowl of Chendol, as Chendol is intended to be, without a bunch of other crap.

Enjoying an icy bowl of Chendol at the Holland Village food court.

After we got back to the hotel, we tried to decide on where to go for dinner. One regret i had yesterday was not being able to eat at Tian Jin Hai restaurant. I contacted the hotel concierge but he was not able to come up with anything. Then i decided to dial the information line using the pre-paid SIM card on my iPhone. At first, i asked for the location of “Golden Wall Centre”. That went nowhere. Then i asked to search for Tian Jin Hai and surprisingly, i was told it was located in Punggol. Punggol is a neighborhood located in Northeastern part of Singapore but the hotel is situated near Chinatown, in the Southern part of the island. A phone call to Tian Jin Hai confirmed its location. After some deliberation, Smelly and i came to the conclusion that we should go just for the hack of it.

We walked to Clarke Quay MRT station from the hotel. From the station, we went got on a Northeast-bound train, arriving at Punggol MRT station, the terminal station on the NorthEast line, about 25 minutes later. When i contacted Tian Jin Hai restaurant earlier, it was not clear to me if there was any shuttle service from the MRT station. The street outside the station appeared deserted. We were the only ones waiting at the Taxi line. After what seemed like eternity, we finally were able to hail down a cab. The drive to Punggol Marina Country Club went through some of the darkest area that you can find on the island. When i first heard that the restaurant was in a country club, my first thought was some exclusive area with a golf course. The Punggol Marina Country Club is nowhere close to what i had imagined.

We ordered a bowl of clam soup, a plate of Kang Kong stir-fried with shrimp sauce, a plate of shrimp-paste marinated fried chicken (we did not realize it was deep fried until later) and a medium steamed shark head since they ran out of the smaller shark head. The chicken and the Kang Kong were quite disappointing. I could not taste any shrimp in the fried chicken and the veggie was cooked in way too much oil. The steamed shark head was as good as advertised. There was actually no flesh on the shark head. We were basically eating what appeared to be soft cartilage. According to Smelly, the shark head tasted “similar to the fatty part of pig knuckle”.

View of the steamed shark head from the top.

A more appetizing view of the steamed shark head.

After dinner, we found out that there was a hourly shuttle service between the MRT station and the country club. While we were waiting for the shuttle bus, i must have been bitten in 10 different spots by some persistent mosquitoes.

So was the food at Tian Jin Hai restaurant worth all the effort and itchiness (mosquito bites)? I personally do not think so.

Note:
Tian Jin Hai Seafood will be moving to the following location soon -
Zion Rd Hawker Centre #01-09
(Opposite of Great World City)

Ya Kun kopitiam, located at Far East Square.

Ya Kun is well known for its Kaya toast. Kaya is basically a fragrant sweet tasting spread. It is best eaten on a warm toast with several thin slices of butter. A close friend of mine in Seattle is crazy over Ya Kun’s Kaya spread. I think he’s going to be pleased with the number of jars of Kaya that he will be getting.

Our plan for the day was to visit the Singapore Zoo. I remember coming to the Zoo in the late 90s and was impressed by its exhibits. To get to the zoo, we walked to the Raffles Place station, the nearest MRT station. We got on a North-bound train and went all the way to the Woodlands station. From the Woodlands station, we were to get on a weekend-only shuttle bus to the zoo. Since the next bus would not arrive for another 45 minutes, Smelly and i decided to have a quick lunch at the shopping mall near the bus terminal, which is located right next to the MRT station. I don’t know what happened but we ended eating at MOS burger, a Japanese burger joint. The food was horrible.

It took probably close to 15 minutes before we arrived at the zoo. On arrival, i noticed a long line at the bus stop. I thought it was the line people to get on the bus. I was dead wrong. This was the line for the ticketing booths! After waiting in line for more than 45 minutes, we finally got into the zoo.

Freaking long line at the Singapore zoo.

If you like primates, then you are probably going to enjoy the Singapore zoo. However, Smelly is not too fond of monkeys. It seemed like primates took up almost half of the zoo. Everywhere we went, there was some kind of monkeys, apes or baboons.

I’ll do your back if you promise you’ll return the favor later.

I swear i left the hair clippers over there 2 years ago.

Overall, the trip to the Singapore Zoo was a complete disappointment. The Red Panda that i saw on my previous visit was longer there. Smelly was really excited about seeing the Red Panda when i told her about it. Normally a visit to any zoo will take up at least half a day for me. Smelly and i spent exactly one hour at the zoo before taking off under the hot and humid day.

Later in the afternoon, Smelly and i did a little window shopping and people watching in shopping malls along Orchard Rd, a street that is lined with shopping malls on both sides. We were eagerly waiting for our dinner at 1830.

Smelly and i are big fans of Anthony Bourdain’s travel show “No Reservations”. In one episode, he was in Singapore and he was taken to this restaurant called Tian Jin Hai. He had nothing but praise for the food at the restaurant, including the fame steamed shark head. We have been wanting to visit this restaurant ever since we watched that particular episode. I had arranged to meet up with my cousin and his wife, as well as my parents and my sis at the restaurant.

After telling the cab driver our destination, he informed us that the food court, where Tian Jin Hai restaurant was located, was being demolished. I found the address of the restaurant from the famous makansutra.com website. It was KF Seetoh, the founder of Makansutra, that took Anthony to Tian Jin Hai in the “No Reservation” episode.

The cab driver was right. On arrival, we noticed signs around the Jackson Kopitiam that it was being demolished and stalls in the Kopitiam had moved to “Golden Wall Centre”. It was then i also realized that this “Kopitiam” was actually in the MacPherson neighborhood where i spent more than four teenage years. After informing my sis that Tian Jin Hai was nowhere to be found, she made the decision to eat at the nearby Hunan shrimp noodle restaurant. Supposedly, this Hunan shrimp noodle restaurant is very well-known. Smelly and i were obvioiusly disappointed that we had come all this way and yet we were not able to taste what Anthony Bourdain had enjoyed.

The day ended with my cousin taking us to the Telok Ayer Market, aka Lau Pa Sat (老巴刹). We had some satay and i had a nice cold bowl of Cheng Tng that more than made up for the crappy Chendol i had the previous night.

The connecting flight from Tokyo to Singapore was not uneventful. Courtesy of my platinum elite status with Northwest Airlines, Smelly and i were upgraded to business class. When the plane was taxiing on the runway, ready to take off, all of a sudden, we heard this panic voice from one of the flight attendants. From her accent, i have to guess she’s one of the Singapore-based flight crew. We had no clue what was going on until we saw her attending to this passenger sitting one row in front of us on the starboard side. From where we were, we noticed that he had thrown up all over himself, from his mouth down. The same flight attendant got on the announcement system and made an urgent call for any physicians on the flight, again, in a panicky kind of tone.

Within a few minutes, two Singaporean physicians came over to check on the passenger. From what i could hear, it sounded like the sick passenger wanted to remain on the plane. This was almost like a repeat of what happened last year when we were on the exact same flight to Singapore. A couple were forced off the plane in Tokyo when they were discovered to be quite sick because the airline did not want the whole plane to be quarantined on arrival in Singapore. The flight attendants gave the same reasoning to this passenger and eventually he agreed to be taken off the plane. I think even if he did not want to, the decision was not up to him. Eventually, the plane taxied back to the gate and a Japanese emergency crew took him out of the plane.

Because of this, we arrived in Singapore two hours later than scheduled. Traveling to Singapore on Business class was not as pleasant as i had anticipated. All around us, inconsiderate people were coughing without covering their mouths. Two Singaporeans – probably a father and his pimply-face twenty-some year old son, who looked like he had consumed several more hamburgers than he should have – were the worst open-mouth cough offenders. In addition, i caught him digging his nose in full view of others. At times, with two fingers!!! And with his thumb!!! How he managed to fit two fingers in his nostril is still a mystery to me.

On arrival, we checked in at the Ambassador Transit Hotel in Terminal 1. Originally, i had planned to stay at Sheraton Towers but then my sis told me that it may be cheaper to stay at the Transit Hotel since they charge by blocks of six hours. It definitely made more sense to only pay for the hours that we were there than to pay for a regular night at Sheraton Towers. The Transit Hotel room appeared to be clean but the bathroom had a musty scent that smelled like a 5-day old wet towel. Because the Transit Hotel was located in the secured area in the terminal, we did not clear immigration and we did not pick up our checked-in luggage until after we had checked out of our room six hours later.

Singapore is a very small city state. One advantage of being so small is a really well-developed public transportation system. The island is well-linked by a subway system called MRT (Mass Rapid Transit). From Terminal 3 at Changi Airport, we got on the train that took us two stops to Tanah Merah station. From there, we got on another train that took us West-bound toward Raffles Place station. We could have gotten off at City Hall station – one station earlier – but my experience told me that City Hall station would be packed with people. From Raffles Place station, we took the North-bound train several stops to Newton station. Sheraton Towers hotel is located 5 minutes walking distance away from Newton station.

After meeting my parents and my elder sis at the hotel, we went to Smelly’s favorite Thai restaurant in Singapore, the Parkway Thai restaurant located at Centerpoint shopping mall. The lunch was great but the portion appeared to be smaller than the dinner we had there last year. I like how Thai food is prepared at the restaurant. I find that Thai food in the US tends to be too much on the sweet side. My favorite dish at the restaurant is the spicy chicken feet salad. After lunch, my sis took my parents shopping while i took Smelly to the resort island of Sentosa. Prior to arriving in Singapore, i had told Smelly about Underwater World at Sentosa island and she was very keen on visiting it even though i told her i did not remember being wowed by it on my previous visit (granted, my previous visit was probably back in the late 80s). Utilizing the MRT, it took us no time to arrive at the bus terminal that provides a shuttle service to the connected island at the Southern tip of Singapore.

Fish Reflexology ad at Underwater World on Sentosa Island.

Our first and only stop at Sentosa Island was the Underwater World. After getting our entrance tickets, we noticed a poster for Fish Reflexology, right next to Underwater World. A middle-age man, who was passing out the Fish Reflexology flyers, took us into the spa. I am really not a spa kind of guy. My only other spa visit happened last year on a trip to the capital of Malaysia. Prior to this visit, i have read about Fish Reflexology on some blogs and on some US-based news website some months ago. Paying to feed the fish with my feet really intrigued me. Smelly and i decided to go for the $52 SGD (Singapore Dollars) full service: a 20-minute spa fish pool dip, followed by a 20-minute foot reflexology and then a 10-minute head and shoulder massage. We received a 10% discount for using my American Express card.

Prior to dipping our feet into the shallow pool, we were asked to rinse and wash our feet without using any soap. There were two types of pools. One contains smaller fish while the other houses a bigger fish. We went for the pool with the bigger fish. There were two German guys with their feet in the pool when we started dipping in ours. Immediately, almost all the fish came to nibble on our feet. It was quite ticklish in the beginning. We were making so much noise that one of the spa attendants told us to quiet down!

Turkish spa fish mercilessly attacking my foot.

One of the German guys had absolutely no fish. We were making fun of him, telling him that may be his feet was too clean and there was nothing for the fish to feed on. It is also not out of the realm that his feet were so stinky that the Turkish spa fish wanted nothing to do with them.

Fish abandoned the German guy’s feet in droves.

After we got done with Foot Reflexology, Underwater World was up next. I could not remember why i was not impressed by my first visit to Underwater World but i enjoyed myself tremendously this time round.

Coconut crab at Underwater World.

The best part of Underwater World has got to be the underwater portion of it. We basically went through a transparent underwater tunnel on a moving carousel. When we wanted to spent more time checking out the fish in a particular area of the tunnel, we just had to step off the carousel and move onto the stationary walkway. It was an amazing feeling seeing so many different kinds of sharks swimming around me.

While we were on the surface portion of Underwater World, Smelly managed to hand feed some rays by placing pieces of fish between her fingers.

Underwater World RFID fish identification explanation.

In a fresh water exhibit, i noticed something quite unique. On one section of the glass separating me from the fish, there was a yellow-frame. As fish swam by this area, its identity would be display on one of the LCD touch-screen terminals. Apparently, some, if not all, of the fish in the display have been tagged with RFID chips.

No Signboard restaurant in Geylang.

For dinner, we met up with my parents and my sis. My sis decided to eat at the No Signboard (無招牌) restaurant in Geylang, an area in Singapore known more for its red light district. The No Signboard restaurant is famous for its seafood selection, especially its crabs. We ended choosing a white pepper-style crab. It was delicious!

After dinner, we all went back to Sheraton Towers. But Smelly and i had not had our sweet tooth satisfied yet. So we walked about 10 minutes to Newton Circus outdoor food court. It took me a very long time before i managed to find a dessert stall with chendol. Unfortunately, the chendol was added with so much unnecessary crap that it no longer tasted like what it was supposed to. Whoever thought it was a good idea to add red beans, cream corn and whatnot into Chendol need to be shot on sight. A good Chendol should contain nothing more than shaved ice, pandang-flavored green jelly, brown coconut sugar and coconut milk.

Hakka noodles with a not so original design.

Imagine my surprise when i saw packets of instant noodles called Hakka Noodles at Mayuri, an Indian grocery store situated in Redmond. But the thing that actually caught my eyes was the Chinese character 辛 (pronounced like “sin”), which when use with other characters, can mean tired or spicy. I have been eating Nong Shim’s Shinramyun spicy Korean instant noodles since the early 90s so i am very familiar with its packaging material. The character 辛 on the Indian Hakka noodles packaging material looked awfully similar to the Korean one.

The original Shinramyun.

On closer inspection, not only did Hakka noodles copied the 辛 character verbatim, the background with Chinese characters matches exactly like Nong Shim’s Shinramyun.

Hakka noodles made in Mumbai.

So what we have here is a Chinese(Hakka)-style instant noodles packaged in a Korean-”inspired” bag and made in India (Mumbai)!

The Garlic Jim’s near the Alaska Junction was quite empty when we arrived there.  In fact, only one table was occupied when we stepped foot into the restaurant.  That was one clear ominous sign that i wish i had not ignored.

We ordered some garlic wings and a garlic chicken pizza.  The chicken wings showed up like it had just been swimming in a pool of grease.  When the garlic chicken pizza was brought to our table, i realized that i forgot to tell the waitress that we wanted the thin-crust version of it.  In fact, i think the waitress should have told us the options available, just like what she did for the wings.  I am not a big fan of thick-crust pizza.  It was not the worst pizza i ever had but it was close.  The honor for the worst pizza goes to Pizza Hut. Both the garlic wings and garlic chicken pizza had absolutely no trace of garlic!  Normally i will be burping like there is no tomorrow when i eat something with garlic.  Trust me, you don’t want to be anywhere near me after i have consumed the garlic-potent Shish Tawook at the Mediterranean Kitchen in Bellevue.  After the supposedly garlicky meal last night, i had one burp.  Yes, only one stinky – not literally – burp.

If the name of your franchise includes the word “garlic”, your menu better have something that taste garlicky. Unfortunately, the only thing garlicky about Garlic Jim’s entrees are their names. Gourmet pizza? Not even close.

Seattle Municipal Court.

After watching an 18-minute video on a juror’s duty, one of the two ladies explained that the length of the Jury Service is Tuesday through Thursday. What ??!!! I initially thought it was a one-day deal. RTFM, it was printed in bold on the summon, right under the huge title “INSTRUCTIONS – READ CAREFULLY.

Basically, i am in a pool of about 30 jurors. Each time, they will randomly call a group of about 10 jurors. The bailiff will lead this group of jurors to the judge. The judge will tell them about the case and introduce the jurors to the lawyers and others who are involved in it. After taking an oath to answer all questions truthfully, the judge and the lawyers will question the panel to find out if the jurors have any knowledge of the case and things that may make it hard for the jurors to be impartial.

No one was called up before lunch so everyone was let out at around 1130 for a two-hour lunch. Since i had so much time, i decided to walk over to Salumi, a restaurant owned by Armandino Batali, father of celeb chef Mario Batali.

Long line of lunch crowd waiting outside Salumi.

There was a long line waiting outside Salumi, about 30-people deep. I must have waited in line for at least 45 minutes before i was able to make my order. I ordered the special of the day, Marco Polo, an East meet West sandwich with a prosciutto-wrapped chicken marinated in Wasabi sauce, loaded with Wasabi dressing and hot peppers. It was a huge and delicious sandwich.

I spent the whole afternoon in the jury assembly room, waiting to be called up. Four groups of jurors were called up and i was not among them. I fell asleep several times during the afternoon. By 1530, they let everyone who was not called go home.

Two more days of this to go.