What I did last night: 4 Jan 2012

A friend opened up her house in Tanah Merah for a Happy New Year cocktail party. I am proud to say I was the youngest guest. Everyone was well over 60 and I was the only one who smoked. I've never felt so privileged.

There was a beautiful spread from Tanglin Club: I can still taste the satay on my breath. The hostess made her own kueh pie tie, which is essentially the stuffing of a lumpiang sariwa stuffed in a tiny ice cream cone. There were sweet cherries and a gorgeous plate of curried chicken but what was really after my heart was the freeflowing champagne. Considering how tense my shoulders have been lately from lack of sleep and a crazy workload, getting drunk was a well-deserved treat.

Where I ate: Saigon House

My side of Joo Chiat is really turning out to be Little Saigon with around ten Vietnamese eateries located within seconds of each other. Tonight I end up at a newly opened spot called Saigon House. Diana Vreeland would surely feel at home here with its high ceiling, painted a fierce lipstick red, and red-and-black tables that look lacquered. The menu is extensive (at least eight pages) and cheap, and according to the vertically challenged friendly guy who ushered me to my seat,  a stir-fry chef is arriving next week so they'll be introducing more dishes in the coming days.

These spring rolls served on a bed of vermicelli noodles costs only $5 (next door at Long Phung  would set you back at least $8). The fried rolls were crunchy and the meat was tasty, but the noodles were bland. I didn't finish the entire bowl, it got boring after a while. But I'll definitely be back to try their pho and the Vietnamese baguette.

• Saigon House is at 151/153 Joo Chiat Rd (6344 6700).

What I ate: 2 January 2011

I wake up at 8.30am feeling positive that today is going to be the day I start getting fit. So I switch on the computer and get some website work out of the way and ask myself, 'What am I going to eat?' Food is my stop-gap measure, something I use to fill in 'lull moments'. So I dress up in yesterday's white t-shirt and walking shorts and head out of the door in my FitFlops. I end up brisk walking two kilometers and imagining how I would look with a lean and muscular body. I like!

I resist food until I smell garlic and onions on the frying pan while I'm lying on bed. My housemate cooks pork chop and a Spanish omelette with leftover chicken strips inside. By 3pm I start feeling cabin fever so I step out and take a walk in the Bugis area, searching for Hainanese pork chop which I never find. I realize that what I have been craving for is Tasty pork chop from Banawe/Greenhills/Ongpin. The meat is flattened to a thin slice and deep fried in breading, when you eat it you can still feel the oil oozing into your throat.

I reach home at 7.30pm and there's a weird vibe at home. They've cooked the pasta and mixed Purefoods Tender Juicy Hotdog with the marinara sauce. Not quite the texture I was looking for but it's passable. I take a 15-minute stroll to help the food go down and see a Minnie Mouse stuffed doll lying on a street curb. I've been meaning to get rid of a Goofy doll from two Christmases ago (what was my friend thinking?) and I think I've found him a home. A friend, who is probably still nursing a hangover from New Year's Eve, says that the doll probably deserves whatever happened to her -- for wearing a Minnie.

What I ate: 1 January 2012

I wake up half past noon; had a late night which ended up with me sleeping on the floor of Raffles Shopping Centre and then the lobby of City Hall MRT. I wasn't alone. Hundreds were also stranded after watching the New Year's Eve countdown in Marina Bay.

Fortunately, I'm not suffering a hangover. I promised my housemates that I would start cooking in 2012 but this morning I feel blah so I toast two slices Gardenia multi-grain bread and eat that with Skippy's chunky peanut butter. The best combo. A little past 1pm and my housemates finally wake up. JP fries some eggs and Delimondo corned beef, which we have with last night's rice. Our former housemate, Denise, sends a tray of puto, leche flan and biko; their leftover. I have a half-slice of banana to cap brunch. And a cup of green tea.

I take a break and enjoy the strong breeze in the living room. That's when I discover a relaxation video and end up sleeping till 6pm. Early evening I eat a slice of the leftover chocolate cake I had bought from Epi d'Or called Coco Exotic. It's layers of chiffon, crunchy hazelnut flakes, mousse and topped with ganache. It cost $28, which is far cheaper than Awfully Chocolate or one of the hotel delis, but it tasted expensive. I tell myself I'm going to skip dinner but at around 9pm I start craving for fried, breaded pork chop the way we used to do it at home. We would squeeze lots of calamansi and pour a quarter of Silver Swan soy sauce to marinade the meat, then roll the meat in flour just before frying. Unfortunately, NTUC grocery didn't have marinated pork chop so I end up buying two packs of frozen meat, fusili pasta and a bottle of Barolo ready-to-use marinara sauce.

As soon I step out of the door, I admit that me cooking in 2012 is never going to happen, so I walk a few meters to a Vietnamese restaurant and order pork cutlets ($6). It comes with rice and a fried egg on top; the meat's grilled and tastes like teriyaki. It's good, but pork chop was just a craving so I only eat half since it doesn't even taste like pork chop. At home, I eat two more slice of chocolate cake and call it a night.

• Epi d'Or is at Raffles Shopping Centre (#B1-14/15), 6337 4717, MRT: City Hall.
• NTUC Fairprice is at Blk 2 Joo Chiat Rd (#01-02-1139).
• Long Phung Vietnamese Restaurant is at 159 Joo Chiat Rd, 9105 8519. 

Abercrombie & Fitch opens in Singapore

I almost retched after stumbling out of Abercrombie & Fitch on Orchard Road last night. The American sportswear brand had just opened its first store in Singapore a day earlier, and I was expecting a Friday night, last-weekend-before-Christmas queue. But I was inside within three minutes. Out in 15. Why? I couldn't stand the smell. 

You get a hint of A&F's signature scent, Fierce, from the street. But inside it gets suffocating. The strong musky smell made me think I had ended up in the Middle East even if  there's hardly any preppies or preppy wannabes in Saudi, and that's what A&F is all about: all-American pretty boys who are cool, casual, rich and go by names like Nate and Buck. That said, true preppies actually wear Brooks Brothers and Lacoste.

Inside, the lighting's turned down low and the good-looking staff like to ask, "How's it going?" They look like they mean it, but the music's too loud for small talk. I got asked five times but didn't know what to say back, so I just bobbed my head and stared at the wall which, fortunately for me, displays pictures of muscular, near-naked preppy boys engaged in varying forms of sporty activities. Near the entrance, a topless male model was posing for a picture with two giddy female Chinese shoppers. In life, as in art.

There are three floors: basement and first are for menswear, the second floor is for ladies. Merchandise are displayed on a large table in the middle of the room, and the walls are lined with clothes and accessories. Navigating your way around the shop can get tricky, though. The windows are permanently shuttered so whether it's morning or night, it's always dark inside. Some walls are mirrored, so the store layout can get very confusing. Walk slowly if you don't want to end up bumping into a wall or stepping into a recess. How can you get any shopping done here? Fortunately, you don't have to. No one ever follows you around to ask if they can "help" you so there's really no pressure to buy anything. And if you did want to get something but (literally) can't see anything you like, how's this for a consolation: you can always get a picture taken with a hot A&F model. 

• Abercrombie & Fitch is open daily from 10am-10pm at Knightsbridge (270 Orchard Road). Nearest MRT: Somerset.

Peninsula Plaza

The Peninsula Plaza building's basement is the best place to eat Burmese food in Singapore. It is located just beside Funan IT Mall and the nearest MRT station is City Hall. When you pass by this building, take time to admire the unique architecture: the wall design is made of thousands of little square bathroom tiles that give the facade a glossy finish. Notice how the tile design continues all the way up to the 30th floor. Can you imagine the workmanship involved in executing this design? It's beautiful. (111 North Bridge Road)