Quan Le Yan Seafood (泉樂園海鮮)

The old-school Quan Le Yan Seafood (泉樂園海鮮) is one of those eateries we visit on casual evenings when we want decent casual home-style Chinese food that isn't too oily. This is the secret gem in a near enough neighborhood for me to have eaten there for decades. Initially I didn't know what sort of Chinese food it serves, but after a few years, I figured out that it's a Teochew seafood restaurant of sorts since it doesn't have any dishes of chicken or sweet and sour pork on its menu. It has braised duck and tofu, ngoh hiang and cold crabs.

However, the lady boss told us that this old-school eatery (since 1968) is closing at the end of June, and they won’t be re-opening in a new venue. OHHH. Haizzzz. Another one bites the dust. Then this place is definitely worth a few more meals before June. Its kitchen can be slow on busy nights, and the wait for our food could be up till an hour. BUT, it has consistently churned out whole fish that is steamed to perfection at each visit. To me, that is EVERYTHING that even top restaurants can't do that well. As usual, I don't have any issues with the service here.

That night, we came for its steamed grouper and cold crab. Somehow, the man hadn't eaten crabs this whole year. Hahahaha. He was allowed one crab all to himself then. Look at all that roe. I'm not as interested in crabs as he is. While the eatery has loads of vegetables on the menu, I especially like its version of stir-fried bittergourd with eggs. The kitchen sliced the bittergourd thin and left it still crunchy upon serving. Three dishes made for an awesome satisfying meal.

Quan Le Yan Seafood (泉樂園海鮮)
721 Havelock Road Singapore 169645
T: +65 6273 4960
Hours: Lunch noon to 2pm; Dinner 5.30pm to 10pm. Closed on Tuesdays
[Apparently this restaurant is closing for good at the end of June 2018.]

Getting Our MOVES In

So our gym came up with a month-long challenge not just to get us on the app (which is still buggy), but also to spur on members to sign in for its fairly fun classes to MOVE. At the end of each class, the instructors hand out this little card with a QR code to us to scan and log in MOVES to get a score and siddle into the rankings.

We were given the impression that cardio classes accorded the highest MOVES. But after a while, we realized that the highest MOVES (1500) were given to Reformer Athletic classes, and 1167 to Reformer Flex, 1333 to Reformer Classical. My darling GRIT Strength only registered 1000 MOVES (BootyBarre's 1000 too), Body Pump 1069 MOVES, Impact 1250. Not that I know anything about sports science and movement... But simple Math versus calorie burn would render the MOVES given out a little...incoherent. If I do three Reformer classes a day, and friend E does the equal number of cardio classes a day, she'll still have to do two extra classes to catch up with my MOVES. That's sorta strange, because the current structure of the classes don't actually burn as much calories on the Reformer as a cardio class... Oh well, whatever. 

I had to catch up like mad because I was away in Tokyo. The friends and I long figured out that the top ranked 40 people were doing four to five classes a day. Okaaaaay, I'm not going to bother doing that. That's borderline insane. My body maxes out at two classes a day. Three if it's just Reformer classes. :P Erm, no matter how competitive we get, we know what our bodies can take. We aren't starting out in these classes brand new. Most of us (people I know at the gym) are already pretty fit and doing about two classes a day already, with one to two rest days in a week. At least for many of us, we aren't over-doing it. Nobody wants to get rhabdo or tear ligaments and tendons.

We wouldn't win lah, or be even among the top 10. There's this magic number of hitting 41230 MOVES to score a consolation prize of sorts. We started cackling. We would be so lucky if that means a free smoothie. I highly doubt it. HAHAHAHA. G said he won one of those weekly consolation prizes which gave him a voucher to subsidize the purchase of a FitBit. Anyway, this bunch of us aren't thinking of winning a prize. Many of us (friends) would hit it; it's just that we're competitive by nature, and it's fun climbing up the rankings and sliding back. 😂

I ended at Number 49, out of 4883 participants. But we'll have to assume that 60% of them aren't active. Hurhurhur. Loads of people are traveling at any given week. Dunno if I even get vouchers. Hahaha. Maybe the Top 10 did. Not bothered to ask; I'm just leaving it as it is. It was randomly sort of fun.

紅棗杞子蒸滑雞

Since the man has no time to cook these few months, I'll sort out dinners and trot out food that aren't very difficult to assemble. The only cooking skills needed are to conjure it from raw meats to something edible. But the man already knows that my style cooking veers towards a mish-mash of Cantonese and Japanese dishes, little meat except fish, and in my kitchen, deep-fried food is out of the equation. He's cool with that. 😏 If the man takes charge of the stove, he can do the Northern Indian food and basic Italian items well enough. If he eats out, it's mainly food from these two cuisines, so he won't be missing much of these in my cooking.

It was a crazy busy work day for me too. But I had the luxury of two hours to buy ingredients and get dinner ready at 8pm. Decided to poach a chicken to go with an easy salad of roasted vegetables. Plated an appetizer of goma tofu (ごま豆腐) as well. I didn't make the tofu lah; I bought it. Made a little bit of dashi for it to sit in, and served it cold topped with wakame. #ImpieCooks2018

Since there was sufficient time, I also did a yasai itame (野菜炒め) for the man's lunchbox so that he wouldn't have to actually eat 'leftovers' that are the same as the previous night's dinner. The immediate next meal should at least include an egg or something different. Yes, he packs a daily lunchbox to the office. For some strange reason, he doesn't mind totting a lunchbox around.

If I have to poach a chicken, it might as well be a pricey organic chicken, or at least one that's free-range and not injected with too many hormones or antibiotics. At least it will be delicious. Trust me, there is a marked difference to the taste if it's poached. If you're roasting it with the usual marinade of honey, butter and such, then I suppose you can be less fussy about where the chicken is from. I won't be eating much of it. This Empress chicken (Carogold or Sakura works too) is small enough for the man to finish most of it himself.

This poached chicken was done with ginseng, wolfberries and dried red dates. The dried scallops were first soaked in a small bowl of water to soften, and that would be the part of the steaming liquid along with a wee bit of light soy sauce and sesame oil. Just one tablespoon of each is enough. Please also use a good grade of soy and sesame oil. No Chinese wine. No additional salt flakes needed. I do use a wee bit of white pepper. Plonk the plate into the fridge to sit for about 40 - 45 minutes, then place it in the steamer. Voilà.

Simple Recipes Are Never Simple

Picked up Math Paper Press’s edition of Madeleine Thien’s earlier work titled ‘Simple Recipes’ (2001). It's her first book with seven stories touching on family ties, dysfunction, redemption and acceptance. It tells the story of immigrants to Canada, and how their adult eyes view their childhood, and how they're managing as adults.

Again, this isn't a genre I'm fond of reading. But I have to get out of my comfort zone a few times a year. This book isn't too difficult to read, but it's just filled with family (blood relations) issues that I generally do not like to deal with, and if I have to, I tend to exert a heavy hand to the extent that people opt out of having to deal with me.

Title story ‘Simple Recipes’ sees how a daughter views her father, of how he teaches her to cook rice, and he eats every bowl of rice that she cooks, even if the rice turns out too hard or mushy. The father is indulgent towards the daughter, and she is unable to reconcile his violence towards his son, her brother. The father yells and canes the brother with the bamboo pole all the time for mistakes made that she is unable to comprehend. Seeing her father through the eyes of an adult doesn't make it less painful either.

A face changes over time, it becomes clearer. In my father's face, I have seen everything pass. Anger that has stripped it of anything recognizable, so that it is only a face of bones and skin. And then, at other times, so much pain that it is unbearable, his face so full of grief that it might dissolve. How to reconcile all that I know of him and still love him? For a long time, I thought it was not possible. When I was a child, I did not love my father because he was complicated., because he was human, because he needed me to. A child does not know yet how to love a person that way.

The final story in the book is long. 'A Map of the City' follows Miriam, who grew up in Vancouver, Canada, and how she has been affected by the split of her Indonesian-immigrant parents, and has to deal with her father abandoning the family. She marries Will, miscarried, and eventually calls time on the marriage because she couldn't deal with her own emotions, and also finally reconciles with her parents, and her father who returns to Canada, and attempts suicide. To me, it's all very complicated. When you want a relationship with humans who are related to you by blood, that comes along with a truckload of emotional baggage that you might not want to handle, but you still get it anyway.

To Will, I said that longing was not the point. In any case, my parents were still alive. 

Will said, "Death isn't what I meant exactly. And don't be so sure about the longing." 

"Why not?" 

"Because it's plain. You miss them all the time." 

I let this sit for a moment, then I broke into a smile. Will was unfailingly patient. He let me dance around a topic but never come to rest on it. He forgave all my inabilities, first and foremost my unwillingness to speak with him about my family.

Sheet Masks For Seven Nights

Tried out this pack of moisturizing masks. Not that I know the brand or whatever. But I figured that since it's Japanese, it should be fine. My skin is generally okay with Japanese cosmetics. I literally died when the friends said that they slap on sheet masks every night. WHUT. They're so disciplined! Okay. This pack holds seven sheet masks. Decided to just do it and see how it goes.

Of course I had to pick this stretch of seven days to coincide with a number of scheduled late nights. My goodness. It was soooo tedious to do this every night before bedtime when all I wanted to do after a shower is to crawl into bed and sleep. I still had to put on the sheet mask for at least 15-20 minutes. To some people, it's just part of their beauty routine. Not for me though, since I go with the bare minimal cleansing steps. This added on at least 20 minutes to the before bed-routine. Grrrr.

I've been procrastinating going to the skin doctor to sort out the brown spots on the face. I should go soon. Except the down-time is a little off-putting. Oh well. That's the cost of ignoring sunscreen on my face for the first two decades and merrily spent thousands of hours in the sun. Meanwhile, these masks should help to alleviate the face looking like a dried prune.

These sheet masks most certainly won't diminish the brown spots and pigmentation or even out skin tone that much. Those require specialist attention and medical-grade treatment. What the masks did, was to keep the face moisturized so that the pores appeared smaller. For those seven days, I was a little more conscientious with scrubbing the face and dabbing toner. I usually don't bother with the toner. Even made the effort to put on a deep cleansing clay mask before the moisturizing sheet. While these masks didn't do wonders for my face, they did help to control monthly outbreaks, soothe bumps and pimples. But no, I'm never again doing this for seven consecutive days.

Bakalaki Greek Taverna

Took the man's parentals to Bakalaki Greek Taverna for lunch. I love the space, light and breezy vibes of the restaurant. Helmed by general manager George Kokkinis, assistant general manager Christos Parlapani and Executive Chef Spiros Palaiologos, it has been quite consistent with its food so far.

For some reason, the moussaka (with minced beef) has not improved very much since it opened. If I can do a better moussaka, then this restaurant's version isn't too good. And strangely, I still order it. Duhhh. It seems to be a popular dish with our guests though. The one thing we've never ordered, lamb. We never seem to be in the mood to try it. The grilled octopus veers towards the chewy side. I think the kitchen likes it that way. We don't mind it. The hummus, Santorini fava (this dip uses yellow split peas, not to be confused with fava beans), and those giant beans in tomato sauce are fabulous.

Glad that the menu offers an option for the grilled sea bream at 400g and 800g. I normally prefer to order a smaller fish at restaurants. For some reason, many restaurants don't seem to be able to handle the larger sized fish as well. The sea bream, at 400g, has always arrived at our table beautifully done.

The Dreaded Teaser

There’s a relatively simple stretch I can’t quite nail because of tight quads, hamstrings and hip flexors, and likely a set of not strong-enough lower abs. Press-ups and planks are great but they can’t give you the abs and control needed for many Pilates moves. I can’t quite do it form-perfect on the Mat or the Chair. It's easier on the Reformer though. My nemesis- The Teaser.

Coming up into a Pilates Level 1 Teaser isn't an issue. I want it to go beyond Level 3. In the same vein, I can’t quite nail the forward fold either. No matter if it’s standing or seated, I can’t comfortably hug my knees. Boo. That itself is quite a stretch for me. Practising these stretches is often forgotten when I focus more on getting in the unbelievably painful quad stretches against the wall.



The recent Reformer classes at the gym keep featuring The Teaser. I inwardly groan, but doing The Teaser on the long box on a Reformer is easier than moving into it and holding it on the floor. I could make the abs work even harder and bring up the legs high. The Reformer’s resistance and straps help loads for me to be able to control the movement rather than cheat by using speed. We’ve all got weak points I suppose, and this is mine.

That night, the estate’s gym was empty at 9pm. I rarely use it. It's small and doesn't have much floor space available. Thought I would do a quick stretch before heading up for a shower and to bed, Finally managed to bring the legs up and solidly hold them for a few seconds. Yayyy. But I can’t quite kiss my knees yet or hug the legs tight without falling over. No, one shouldn't be holding on to the ankles. I was trying out something to bring the legs higher. Gotta work on it more for the next six months, along with the forward fold.

The Pilates Teaser with a slightly rounded back ready for a roll down.
I want a form closer to yoga's navasana that's all the way up, chest to knees. 

Khruangbin at The Projector

When I stumbled upon Khruangbin's music, I didn't realize that they are a band from Houston, Texas. They're new to me. There's a really decent 54-minute video on Youtube of their set at London's Boiler Room in October 2016 that convinced me to buy tickets to their show in Singapore.

I listened to 'The Universe Smiles Upon You' (2015) and thought they were a Thai band. Till I googled. The band is made up of Laura Lee on bass, Mark Speer on the guitar and Donald DJ Johnson on drums. The first album is heavily influenced by Thai funk from the 60s and 70s. However, their second and latest album 'Con Todo El Mundo' (2018) doesn't take much influence from Thai funk; it leans towards Middle East and Iranian soul and funk.

Went to hear Khruangbin live at The Projector. Managed to score tickets to their 7.30pm show. The second show was slated for 10pm and that would end wayyy past my bed-time. :P I didn't know what to expect and was pleasantly surprised by the rather fun show in spite of them only having one four-track EP and two albums under their belt. I’m obviously partial to songs from their first album.

The trio flew into Singapore after their shows at the Seoul Jazz Festival and Bangkok. The Projector doesn’t have the best acoustics for a band, but Khruangbin and their sound engineers managed to fill up small venue with pretty okay sound. A pity that we were seated in chairs on high steps and couldn't stand up to jive. I could only bob around in my seat. The band played great music to dance to.

Baan Ying Singapore

[Baan Ying Singapore has closed as of July 2020]

I really like Baan Ying (ร้านอาหารบ้านหญิง) in Bangkok (both its Signature restaurants and Cafes), so it's with a great deal of skepticism that I went for dinner at Baan Ying at Royal Square Novena. I went to finally say hello to some old old friends whom I've missed loads. They're super busy folks, and am glad to catch up with them when they're in Singapore.

The kitchen churned out really good food for me at the levels of Thai-spicy and not Singapore-spicy. Hurhurhur. I stuck to very safe choices and ordered homestyle dishes. Everything was on point, except for the som tam. :P That one, fail. It isn't as finely sliced, pungent or spicy enough. I like my som tam elegant, spicy and pungent all at once. That wing bean salad was deliciously piquant. There were clear soups of tom yam seafood and mushrooms on the menu, but not for the prawns. The kitchen happily did a clear version of tom yam kung (ต้มยำกุ้งน้ำใส) for me. There were three proper giant Thai river prawns in it. NICE!

However, I wasn't impressed by how they charge S$0.50 for those stupid packets of wet tissue that I never bother with, but luckily they now allow you to return it, and they serve ‘alkaline water’ in a small carton at S$1.80 (not refillable obviously) and warm water at S$1. You know my pet peeve about how many mid-priced restaurants in Singapore justify charging for drinking water. Anyway, I usually carry a bottle of water around. I just hate to be held ransom to having to buy water at a restaurant on a day when I need it and have no water bottle at hand.

Although food and service standards fluctuate greatly even within Baan Ying’s Bangkok outlets, I found a measure of consistency in their branches at Silom complex and surprisingly, Central World. There's a certain style of Thai homestyle food I prefer (even if it’s just a ‘krapow gai’) and it's hard to find that in Singapore, and especially not at those eateries in Golden Mile Complex and such. I had a lovely experience at this first visit, and hope for more to come.

The thing is, the bosses were in town, and were friendly to all tables in the restaurant, checking in with each table to see if everything was in order. I'm not sure if that was the main reason why the food was good that evening. While items were ordered off the tablet, I had a number of customizations made verbally because there were no such options on the virtual menu. If the kitchen can maintain these standards, then I'd return often for a taste of 'home', so to speak.

The jumbo river prawns from the tom yam soup.

The Toy Makers At The Emporium

I was kinda hoping that 'The Toy Makers' (2018) by Robert Dinsdale would be less Dickensian and more fantasy. Nope. The book moves along in a dignified manner, including the prose and such. It was sort of boring. I didn't enjoy it very much. I didn't mind the ending though. The story also touched on the treatment of immigrants, and the right to fight in the war one believes in. (Reviews here, here and here.)

Papa Jack's Toy Emporium is the one shiny happy place in Mayfair, London where children's dreams come true. Papa Jack's sons Kaspar and Emil Godman work with him at the Emporium. They're excellent toy-makers. It's the golden era of toys, stories and all that you fantasize could come true in a three-dimensional world crafted by the toy-makers.

The protagonist is unmarried mother 16-year-old Catherine 'Cathy' Wray who left her home and takes on a job at Papa Jack's Toy Emporium in 1907. The Emporium is run by the Godmans, who are exiles from Russia. Papa Jack also welcomed her into his home Wendy House. She birthed her child, Martha right there. The story follows her and the two brothers Kaspar and Emil all the way through to the 1920s. Cathy marries Kaspar and becomes Catherine Godman. Emil marries Nina. Kaspar didn't want to sell toy soldiers anymore when World War I loomed. Christmas and toys take on a different meaning in this world.

The story moves slowly to 1940. Martha grows up. Along with the war, Emporium's business declines, a haunted Kaspar left his marriage, his family and his home. In 1953, Catherine Godman and the Emporium faces foreclosure, and it finally closes. Catherine leaves to begin a new life with her daughter and her grandchildren. The ending is as it should be. Bittersweet.

Come north with me now, past the green splendours of Regent's Park, through the elegant porticos of St John's Wood and north, to a little house off the Finchley Road. Take your shoes off at the door, creep past the kitchen where Martha Godman's children are putting the finishing touches to toys of their very own designs while their patchwork dog washes curiously on, and come up the crooked stairs. Here, in a chamber at the very top, sits an ill-hewn toybox, rescued from the Emporium on that last November night. Inside it are worlds too many to be imagined, and two old lovers making new ones every day.

Daisy's Dream Kitchen at Temasek Club

After the big move to Singapore from London, D and J were ready to experiment with the cookbook on Peranakan food, but didn’t quite know where to start. So we took them to a Peranakan restaurant to check it out. I wasn’t about to cook for them since I haven’t gotten the technique of getting the astringent buah keluak paste right or mastered the full flavors of an ayam buah keluak.

We went to the new home of Daisy's Dream Kitchen at Temasek Club. It's open to the public. Rifle Range Road is more convenient for us to get to now than its old home at West Coast Road. The restaurant is located right next to the swimming pool (park at Zone D downstairs).

I’m a little puzzled by their dinner timings though. Last order is at 8.15pm and the restaurant closes an hour later. That’s really early. It works when we do a 7pm, I suppose. Or a no-frills casual 8pm. Luckily we could meet early that evening, and after two beers, we were all ready for dinner at 7.30pm. Heh. So we could take our time with food and left by 9.15pm without rushing through the food.

The kitchen said they were still settling in as we visited within the week of their re-opening. But the flavors tasted fine to me. Ordered the usual stuff for our guests. It's pretty much comfort food, in tasting portions. The sambal belachan was just as spicy-piquant. It would be the first time that the friends ate the ‘smelly beans’. Hahaha. Sambal petai with ikan bilis. They loved it! Now they’re going to replicate it as tapas. Oof. It would go great with alcohol! Obviously I'm going to show up at their door step very soon. Heh.

Iron & Wine in Singapore

I couldn’t pass up the chance to catch Iron & Wine. Bought tickets fairly late to the sold-out performance, and still managed to get all our seats just three rows from the stage. Mainly singer-songwriter Samuel Ervin Beam, his show in Singapore also featured a full band at the ticketed gig in the night. For the lunchtime private showcase at Straits Clan, it was just him on the guitar.

Sam Beam is touring with the ‘Beast Epic’ band- Elizabeth Goodfellow on drums/percussion, Eliza Jones on keys/organ, Teddy Rankin-Parker on cello, and Sebastian Steinberg on bass. They did mainly newer songs from ‘Beast Epic’ (2017), which was a good album.

It’s a warm and serendipitous time to be reuniting with my Seattle friends because I feel there’s a certain kinship between this new collection of songs and my earliest material, which Sub Pop was kind enough to release. In hindsight, both The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002) and Our Endless Numbered Days (2004) epitomize a reflective and confessional songwriting style (although done with my own ferocious commitment to understatement, of course.) I have been and always will be fascinated by the way time asserts itself on our bodies and our hearts. The ferris wheel keeps spinning and we’re constantly approaching, leaving or returning to something totally unexpected or startlingly familiar. The rite of passage is an image I’ve returned to often because I feel we’re all constantly in some stage of transition.  Beast Epic is saturated with this idea but in a different way simply because each time I return to the theme I’ve collected new experiences to draw from. Where the older songs painted a picture of youth moving wide-eyed into adulthood’s violent pleasures and disappointments, this collection speaks to the beauty and pain of growing up after you’ve already grown up. For me, that experience has been more generous in its gifts and darker in its tragedies. 

~ Sam Beam’s thoughts in a release announcement for Sub Pop Records in August 2017

I’ve always loved Sam Beam’s vocals, lyrics and melodies in his brand of folk/indie rock. It was very nice to also hear the old songs too. We went back to 2007 with ‘Flightless Bird, American Mouth’, 2003 with ‘Such Great Heights’, and also ‘Bird Stealing Bread’ from the album ‘The Creek Drank the Cradle’ (2002).

.@IronAndWine | Back to 2003! pic.twitter.com/TM9xj2ZMga

— imp (@faerieimp) May 14, 2018

Two Men Bagel House

G had been seeking out good bagels for a while. I had to grab her out for lunch at Two Men Bagel House. The eatery currently trots out really decent bagels- good bite, texture and flavors. The standards haven’t dropped with the opening of a second outlet. Definitely one of the better-tasting bagels in town.

After the requisite cheerful morning cup of caffeine at Nylon, we strolled over to Two Men Bagel House at its original ICON (Tanjong Pagar) outlet. Of course it’s still packed at lunch. Those available seats are perfunctory and practical, and on week days, they’re totally not conducive to lingering over a bagel. Get ‘em to go, or stalk seats and eat quickly. We got them seats all right though. The weekend crowd thinned out after a while.

G went for the classic lox on a garlic bagel. I went for a mushroom and cheese, on a garlic bagel as well. Almost chose the onion bagel; next time then. Needless to say, I asked for an additional side of hash browns too. Ha! It’s very hard for me to resist the crunch of this processed-potato. Bagels are sizeable; on non-hungry days, the portion is a little too much for me, and I could only do half. Today we shared our halves to change up the flavors, it was a totally satisfying lunch.

SIFA 2018 :: ‘Parable of the Sower’

I had earlier bookmarked SIFA’s program of musician Toshi Reagon and her mother Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon’s musical adaption of Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 dystopian novel, ‘Parable of the Sower’. Glad I made it to the show. Although I’m no fan of musicals, I decided to keep an open mind with this one because it’s supposed to be adapted from a sci-fi novel (that I like). The musical has seen an incredible amount of support and has come a long way since its Kickstarter days.

Written in the 90s for an imagined future in the 2020s, the acclaimed author (who passed away in 2006 at 58 years old) had no idea how close she is to the reality in 2018. Alongside many other great writers, her stories formed part of my lifelong fondness for sci-fi and dystopian novels. As a teenager, I wondered loads about esoteric Earthseed communities in the Parable series. A pity there isn’t a third book for Earthseed stories. Her last work which began as a third book for Parable ultimately became a separate vampire story, ‘Fledgling’ (2005). 

Directed by artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theatre, Eric Ting, this SIFA highlight is produced by curator and theatre practitioner Wang Meiyin, who has moved from Singapore to New York City and is now based in the Bay area. In an interview with Jeremy D. Goodwin published in The New York Times on January 1 2018 titled ‘A Prescient Sci-Fi ‘Parable’ Gets Set to Music’, Toshi Reagon said,

“It’s not that Octavia predicted him,” the musician Toshi Reagon says of a current-day politician who, you may have heard, rode the same slogan to the White House. “It’s that she knew us so well and knew we would allow it to happen. That’s chilling. It gives me bumps on my arms.”

The musical is billed as ‘a rock opera’. Various reviews described it as a cross between an opera and a rock concert. Well, I think it’s neither. It’s exactly a musical. African-American music features deeply through gospel, soul, funk, blues and ermm some sort of EDM. The live band, vocalists and Toshi Reagon were such a joy to listen to. (Reviews of the show in other cities here and here.)

It could have been shortened to 90 minutes instead of its two hours without an intermission, which was, imho, a bit lengthy. Oddly, the sound was unbalanced at Victoria Theatre that night, muffling a fair bit of vocals. Otherwise it was a surprisingly unboring musical that I rather appreciated for its alternative and very-LA vibes. Kudos to SIFA for bringing in this show.

GRUB Noodle Bar Popped Up!

GRUB Noodle Bar popped up for a night at Cookyn, and I couldn't be happier. I loved the quality of their noodles and broth, and was sad to see the Noodle Bar close in 2015. The friends and I didn't know about the pop-up till fairly late (stupid facebook algorithms), but there were still tickets available. Whewww.

It was so good to see Mervyn giving the food all his personal attention. Amanda, as usual, is being her awesome-hostess self, plating and ensuring the guests were comfortable. There wasn't exactly fixed seating although you could opt to sit with the friends you bought tickets with. It's communal dining style at this pop-up. Unsurprisingly, we ran into many many familiar faces, and it was nice catching up with everyone too.

For S$38, we had a six-course menu. Three appetizers, a main of noodles, and dessert of choux. There was a fair bit of food to fill us up with. I couldn't stuff in dessert, and didn't bother. Passed it on to the friends who merrily chomped up choux of durian and ondeh-ondeh. There was coconut ice-cream for the ondeh choux.

Appetizers were generous in the form of kale salad tossed with nyonya achar and house dressing, Hokkaido scallops tataki lightly torched with mustard glaze and mandarin orange segments, Venus clams steamed in beer, toasted ginger and lemongrass broth, and steamed Tiger prawns in sake, garlic and ginger glaze. So good! The green tomato salsa and chincalok sambal complemented every dish, and I asked for a top up for both. Heh. Ahhh, I've missed all these flavors.

While the Kurobuta pork collar noodles are just as tasty, you need to really like fatty pork and marbling. None of us do. This isn't our kind of dish. Anyway, the beef noodles are where it's at. The Angus beef sirloin noodles with meatballs and beef balls were as delicious as I remember. That beef broth was thick and full of umami. Drank it all up. Mmmm.

The next GRUB Noodle Bar Pop-up is on Friday 1 June, 2018 at 7pm. It comes with a different menu. While it serves up either beef and pork noodles for your choice of main, the three appetizers are salmon tataki, foie gras chawanmushi and soft shell crab with crispy garlic. (All of which I don't eat! Muahahaha.) If you're keen, tickets are available on its Eventbrite page.

Fresh egg noodles with 150-day grain-fed Angus sirloin and homemade meatballs.

In Our Minds, Do We Ever Grow Up?

The article has been making its rounds in my social circles, mainly because we’re all turning 40, just turned 40 or are in the early 40s- ‘How To Survive Your 40s’ written by Pamela Druckerman, published in The New York Times on May 4, 2018. I refused to read it for several days. There’re so many of these essays and books going around. It’s like, congratulations, you’ve made it this far in one piece. Now what? Is turning 40 such a big deal?

I subscribe to the NYT, so there isn’t a limit of monthly articles read that I have to be conscious about. I wouldn’t be ‘wasting’ the quota of free articles. It just didn’t sound like what I would want read. Yet this article clearly reasonated with many girlfriends, even though they know there’ll another similar article next year, and a ton of them from the previous years since paper was invented. Is it because it’s this particular year? This moment in time? I wanted to know why. Anyway, late one night, after a seventh friend texted me this same link and went on about it for twenty messages, curiosity won. I sighed and opened the link. Reading it wouldn’t kill me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

In this article, the writer is clearly writing from a position of privilege, and imho, readers who identify with her thoughts would likely share a similar background and current situation in life and living. I read it in a minute, and rolled eyes for the next four minutes. I have so much to say. But you know what, I reserve all comments beyond these lines. Read the article if you deem it worth your five minutes.

It’s an op-ed. 🙄 AN OP-ED. I leave you with the opening few paragraphs from the article.

On one hand, I’m intrigued by this transition. Do these waiters gather after work for Sancerre and a slide show to decide which female customers to downgrade? (Irritatingly, men are “monsieur” forever.) 

The worst part is that they’re trying to be polite. They believe I’m old enough that the title can’t possibly wound. 

I realize that something has permanently shifted when I walk past a woman begging for money.   

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” she calls out to the young woman in a miniskirt a few steps ahead of me. 

“Bonjour, madame,” she says when I pass. 

This has all happened too quickly for me to digest. I still have most of the clothes that I wore as a mademoiselle. There are mademoiselle-era cans of food in my pantry. 

But the world keeps telling me that I’ve entered a new stage. While studying my face in a well-lit elevator, my daughter describes it bluntly: “Mommy, you’re not old, but you’re definitely not young.”

Getting Back Into The Groove

Although I stretch out at pilates and in the hotel room, getting back to the groove of cardio and HIIT (after not doing those for a few weeks) is a little tough. Doing only stretches in the exercise routine and getting too comfortable with it tend to make me grimace at the idea of hard cardio and getting the heart rate up in sweat classes. That’s a lot of jumping required. My quads aren’t hot about jumping.

After the first two consecutive HIIT + weights classes, the sore muscles set in. There’s something almost pleasurable about being pushed to my limits in GRIT Plyo and GRIT Strength classes. I didn’t cut myself any slack on the reps or ‘ease in’ by using lighter weights. After a while, my mind pushes past the pain barrier, the lungs take deeper breaths, and I simply do those jumps and lifts to the end. Each class only takes 30 minutes. It’s not an insurmountable feat to get through them. (I tell myself this every other day.) The daily classes are fairly fun, and they force me to just get with it. NO IFs, NO BUTs.

But these aches aren’t the kind that make me wince in pain when I remove the sports bra. Yup, it’s a thing. Do arms-and-shoulders day and tell me how you feel. These are the awesome aches that creep in when I stretch out before bedtime, and they disappear in the morning when I roll out of bed. (Not the weird debilitating ones like those from kettlebell swings which rendered me unable to even do roll-ups or roll-downs.) It made me wonder if I ever did HIIT or any sort of exercise in the first place before the trip to Japan. It felt as though burpees killed me all over again. Ahh, muscles, you're funny things.

SIFA 2018 :: ‘TAHA’

The blurb for the one-hour monologue that was ‘TAHA’ promised to be uncomfortable. But it was high on my to-watch list at SIFA 2018. The stage held only the performer, and a bench. The actor was wonderful, and contributed greatly to making the play even more unsettling than it already was. What an intense and brilliant show. It’s very hard not to discuss politics in such a play. So it’s important with whom you watch it with, and how you’d like to talk about it after.

In an interview with The Straits Times, ‘One-man play on the pain of Palestinians’ published on May 1 2018, playwright and actor Amer Hlehel (also co-founder of ShiberHur Theatre Company) shared his thoughts about the poet and the role,

Taha's poetry spoke about the pain and the loss of the Palestinian people through his human, personal story, writing in a deep, tender way without being political, says Hlehel, 38, over the telephone from his home in Haifa.  "You can identify with his poetry without being Palestinian. You just have to be human." 

The character he plays onstage is a mix of the Taha from the biography and Taha as recounted by the poet's relatives, whom he has befriended. "It is not meant to be Taha copy-pasted, but rather my perspective of him as a poet and a human being."

Directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi (co-founder of ShiberHur Theatre Company), this play is adapted from American essayist Adina Hoffman’s ‘My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet’s Life in the Palestinian Century’ (2009). I only know this book because year ago, I raided a learned friend’s bookshelves and came across it. It was only then I knew about celebrated Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali (1931-2011). Even so, I’m not fully schooled in his works.

The monologue by playwright and actor Amer Hlehel with this wonderful voice, cadence and facial expressions, gently told the life story of the Palestinian poet who was born in 1931 Galilee, before the existence of the State of Israel, and when Palestine was under British Mandate, thanks to the meddling by the League of Nations or La Société des Nations in 1947. Taha Muhammad Ali fled to Lebanon’s refugee camps in 1948 (that was Nakba, an event many Palestinians carry in their heart), then returned to Nazareth to a whole new landscape to set up a souvenir shop, learnt classical Arabic literature and learnt English. 50 years of loss, and angst of citizens and average humans who want peace, but are no match for political turmoil.

With our knowledge of the ongoing Arab-Israeli War that has roots no thanks to yet another meddling by the United Nations in November 1947. That, and claims to Jerusalem, have resulted in one tangled mess that is an international political hot potato. In an interview with Joe Gill of the Middle East Eye for Amer Hlehel’s London debut at the Young Vic, the 10 July 2017 article quoted Taha himself,

As Taha said in an interview shortly before his death in 2011: “In my poetry there is no Palestine, no Israel, but in my poetry there is suffering, sadness, longing, feeling, and this together makes the result - Palestine and Israel.”

As one who lives in this part of the world with no vested interest in the affairs of the Middle East, I’ve no right to even comment on it since I’ve not lived through the pain and uncertainty of that century. Zionism recognizes and pushes for a state of Israel, and it is Israel’s national ideology, of which it also includes extending an invitation to all Jews living anywhere else in the world, the right to an Israeli citizenship. The Zionist left of the 70s has taken a back seat, and the Israel I grew up learning about, comprised of the policies of the Zionist right, and to the general public, the definition of Zionism now kinda stinks. BUT when my country can’t even put a definition on its political ideal, I’m not even sure that I’m entitled to empathy towards any side, beyond pointing out that leaning towards the far right in any ideology is a bad bad bad thing. I left the show remembering Taha’s poetry and its very human emotions of loss, displacement, love, life and struggle.

大雪高原牛肉とともに大根と牛肉の煮込み

I lugged back a suitcase of groceries from Tokyo. Within the pile were insulated bags containing beef. Bought cuts of daisetsu kogen beef from Kamikawa-cho in Hokkaido (「大雪高原牛」の生産地である上川郡上川町は). I wanted to boil up Cantonese braised beef stew (燜牛腩).

Japanese beef tends to be very marbled, even when they're not wagyu. I'm not fond of wagyu. Whatever termed as 'premium', is lost on my tastebuds. But if they're placed into a stew, I need those fats so that they remain tender after being braised for hours. Might as do a pot with these cuts of beef and see how it turns out. I don't use Instant Pots or pressure cookers, and I don't want them. I grew up learning how to control temperature and heat over charcoal and embers. The old-fashioned way of boiling it for hours over the stove works fine for me.

Brought back a mixture of short ribs and oxtail. I could buy the rest of the ingredients (shin, tripe and tendon, daikon and vegetables) from Meidi-ya. If I use short ribs, I usually leave out brisket. Heh. But the most favored cut of meat in my version is oxtail. #ImpieCooks2018

Gotta say I loved these ingredients. They seemed to make the stew rich and thick; rather different from how the previous versions tasted. This is quite a winning combination. Wheeeee. I'm not inclined to overdose on the chu hou sauce (柱候醬), tau cheong (fermented soy bean paste 豆醬) and oyster sauce. I omit salt and light soy sauce, as well as Chinese wine. I replace dried tangerine peel with fresh orange zest and the whole fruit. In another variation, it would become wine-braised oxtail stew best with mashed potatoes.

The man seems to really like this Cantonese-style beef stew. He slurpped lots of it and asked for a portion to be frozen to have it the following week. Happy to have the girlfriend over at the dinner table too. Nervous about feeding her (because I don't dare to feed friends with dishes that are all mine; scared the food won't be to their tastebuds), so I'm super appreciative that she made time to hop over on a work day, and is always so thoughtful to text me as she hops into a train or a cab so that I can put that fish in the steamer. 😉

Jazz Nights at SIFA 2018

Glad to have been invited out to lovely jazz nights at Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). Admittedly, jazz music isn’t quite my thing. I hold little appreciation for the genre, and my enjoyment mostly comes from a limited understanding and narrow preferences of the style of the bands or the musicians.

While I’m happy to check out unknown-to-me bands, I’m glad to hear those whose styles I enjoy. I like hearing them in such a setting of a concert venue emulating a relaxed jazz club. I don’t fancy having to go to an actual jazz club and having to schmooze and suffer fools in order to hear these musicians. These musicians at SIFA are familiar faces in the local jazz scene.

Totally enjoyed Alina Ramirez and Mario Lopez's Latin Jazz Quartet. The quartet was the final bill of the night, and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. But I stayed, and didn't regret it. They were really good. They were joined by guitarist and vocalist Carlos Sendros, and on drums and timbales, Moy Olivera. Lots of bossa nova, samba, bomba in a set tinged with Mexican and Cuban folk music.

Aya Sekine.

Aya Sekine presented 'A Hue Liberal', playing her pieces and interpretation of two jazz standards. 😍 I'm a bit of fangirl. Heh. For many years, I've enjoyed her playing, and her sounds. I don't often get to catch her playing live though. Tonight, Brandon Wong joined her on the bass.

She spoke about the reasons and inspiration behind her compositions and how she does her improvisations for each piece, for example 'Every Day Life'. She also shared memories from her hometown in Osaka in a song title I forgot. ('Something something and the Rose Garden'.)

Not all the bands had vocalists. The curators did a great mix, and also invited the jazz singers to take centerstage. Tonight, the vocals began with Rani Singam. I love Rani Singam's crystal clear voice and was so happy to see her listed for the night, along with Andrew Lim on guitars. Rani sang songs from her album 'Contentment', and the opening track in the album, 'Happily Ever After' was really fun. She has ONE single on AppleMusic- 'My Muse'.

Loved it that the musicians mostly trotted out original pieces at this SIFA series of performances. That was unexpected, and I definitely liked that much better than hear them do their versions of covers. I really wanted to buy their CDs. But I don’t own a CD player! I'm not going to ask friends to help me rip the songs into a digital format. They’re not on AppleMusic or bandcamp, but they're usually on Spotify. I can’t even buy digital copies. 😐 Zzzzzz. I suppose I’ll stick to buying tickets to their concerts whenever possible.

Lucky House Private Kitchen :: 陶然居私房菜

Celebrated the BFF's birthday proper (but belatedly) with a special dinner at Lucky House Cantonese Private Kitchen (陶然居). We had a full table, of course, and ordered many many dishes. Reservations are still hard to come by, so it was a treat to score one, and we hurriedly gathered a table and locked the date in everyone's calendar.

Chef Sam Wong and wife Lee Yee run the private kitchen. I don’t know how Chef Sam does it, but he’s all cheerful in spite of spending days to prep for dinners. He didn't mind me crashing into his kitchen to poke around his pots and take photos. We were a party of 16, and made so much noise. The private kitchen permits us to bring our own alcohol, and nicely allowed us to chill champagne in the fridge. There were bottles of wine, and I brought a bottle of Glenrothes Elders Reserve 18y.o. We brought our own glasses, and disposable cups. Much more convenient. No wait staff, so do keep the place clean.

Couldn't wait for the food to appear. I arrived at the venue early enough to see him clean the fish to prep it for steaming. I saw all the pots bubbling on the old-school charcoal stove. Chef Sam Wong lovingly brought out each dish to present it to us before serving. The black chicken soup was beautiful. I totally approved of it; I'll shamelessly say that I can do soups well, so I recognize quality when I taste it. This pot held no salt or sugar, and had been slow boiled for ten hours. Half of us loved it, and the other half was wondering where the heck were the salt and pepper, and thought that the soup was utterly tasteless. 😂

There was poultry. Two kinds. Chicken and duck. Woah. The birds would have been prepped and marinated two days before our dinner. The concubine chicken (貴妃雞) was out of this world. Chef Sam served it two ways- large chopped pieces andd shredded. I took a bite and realized that his supply lines are excellent, as are his cooking methods. The smoked roast duck has been touted to be fabulous, and indeed it is. We had two ducks. They were carefully sliced up, and both were magnificent.

The fish was so fresh, and so well steamed. A gorgeous red emperor snapper. It was exactly how I would do it at home. I hate ordering steamed fish at restaurants precisely because so few of them meet my standards. That’s not to say the rest of the food wasn’t good. They were delicious. We also had crayfish omelette, and braised beef brisket with beancurd skin. Apparently the entire pot of rice wasn't sufficient. Hahaha. Although it would have only been a 30-minute wait, nobody was keen or hungry enough to volunteer to wash another few cups of rice and put those into the electric cooker.

Good food like this can be found in many home kitchens. I grew up in happy kitchens like this. I know a number of fantastic home cooks. And some still have traditional outdoor kitchens like this, without the aid of modern grills or pressure cookers. The amount of effort that goes in to creating each dish is ridiculous. And that is something I appreciate- to have someone else cook good food with such love and care, using age-old methods that produce the best sort of broth and textures.

ご飯は愛です

Totally bought this book for the cover. Heh. I didn't think that I'd be very impressed by the content, but hey, it looked like an easy read and I'm supposed to be practicing the language. It turned out to be absolutely hilarious, to me.

「恋が生まれるご飯のために」(2018) はあちゅう著. Written by thirty-two-year-old social media influencer and writer Haruka Ito, the title roughly translates into 'Love is Born of Rice'. It's written from a woman's perspective, and that itself is problematic because I don't share her views and I don't live in her world where I'm bound by certain rules of dating. It's a very...for the lack of a better word, goosebump-raising girl book, in its language, thought(s) and opinions.

The book proposes the viewpoint that romance is developed when there's compatibility in a couple's tastebuds and food preferences. I can't argue with that. A whole chapter talks about respecting the venue of a date, being punctual and not be overly critical of its food unless it's that bad. Hmmm.「食事の場を大事にしてこそ恋も仕事もうまくいくのです。」

Read this in the plane on the flight back to Singapore. By the last chapter, I was convulsing in hysterical giggles because I couldn't stifle them. My neighbor across the aisle peeked over quite a number of times to see what the heck I was reading. LOL. This line cracks me up, 「恋愛は、楽しくご飯を食べられる相手を見つけること、そして結婚は、一生一緒にご飯を食べる約束」It's saying that an ideal marriage is about finding two persons who can happily eat rice together for a lifetime. Hmmm...that's true, isn't it? That's perhaps quite an accurate gauge of all relationships- to have a meal together.

There's a chapter titled「朝ご飯で見極める朝ご飯が一緒に食べられる人は信頼できる人」, 'People who can have breakfast together can be trusted'. The author says that if the man she's dating likes to wake up early, and hence have breakfast together, she assumes that their future married life would be kept on a healthy pace too. 😂 Well, this, I can sort of get behind. Except that I have no wish to wake up every day to prepare breakfast for my husband. I don't need him to do it for me either. My stomach doesn't care about breakfast. Not as a kid, not as a 40-year old, and certainly never in-between. I rarely take breakfast. If there is a need to eat, it has to be cold milk, yoghurt, fruit, granola and the sorts. Not keen on bread or anything heavier. If I bother to get up early to meet you for breakfast, or maybe prep it for you, then chances are, you're already faeriefolk.

そこまで非日常なことではないでしょうために早起きてくれたガッツは信頼の証に思えますし、早起きが好きな人であれば、の人との結婚生活は規則正しく健やかなものていく気がする。 

朝ご飯の約束をしてちゃんと時間通りに来てくれる男性は、もうそれだけでちょっとイケてる感じがしますし、朝からもりもりと食べる男性は生命力が強そうでかっこいい。

さようなら、東京

It’s wonderful to be able to mesh work and play together in a trip. Granted, it means that we’re stuck in one city, and can't take the train out to Karuizawa or wherever, but it doesn’t diminish the fun. Work is the same in any city, isn’t it? So we make the best of it and seize the little pockets of time in between to make memories.

The BFF’s birthday fell in the middle of the trip. Well, she’s celebrating her fortieth for the whole month of April. Hahaha. I didn’t feel any pressure to to uhhh make extra efforts to do any parties for her. We have a huge dinner planned when we get home. Her liver currently loves me because her alcohol intake is moderated to my levels. Early morning meetings or pilates sessions don’t make for crazy late nights. She’s free to go out drinking obviously. There ain’t curfews here, but she has obediently kept early nights. In fact, she seems to have been sleeping much better in Tokyo, compared to the bouts of insomnia she’s had for months.

#Throwback

You know how unconcerned I am with cosmetics and skincare in general. She's probably only one who would bug me to get out to buy boxes of facial masks and put them on every other night. She suggested that I should do it nightly and I'm like, 'walaoeh this is not winter and I'm not living here, why must I keep my face so moisturized?!!' 🙄 Yes yes, I'm aware of the lower humidity and...ageing skin and all that. I'm just lazy lah.

I dutifully bought a box of two sheet masks, then padded over to her room to steal hers for the rest of the trip. She bought many boxes- some to use on the trip, and packed the rest home. Obviously I didn't exactly care about the brands. She buys, I shamelessly use. I assumed they'd work on my skin too. 😬 My bears didn’t know what to think when I took them to the BFF’s room. She has a violent Miss Rabbit who whacks the bears if they try to be funny. Hahaha.

It has been 34 years of putting up with each other’s nonsense. 😂 My idiosyncracies, mostly, and my opinions. Considering how people grow up to walk different paths of life, and how we change and evolve at various stages of adulthood, it's amazing that this friendship has withstood the test of time. The BFF and I are very separate entities with quite different interests. Okay, I’m an introvert who needs tons of space and privacy, and she’s the most annoying extrovert ever. She’s a go-getter, not a whiner, looking for win-win resolutions, as opposed to me who’s a procrastinator and can be fairly extreme and untactful when burning bridges in search of an ideal solution to issues. She’s a way more fun and forgiving person than I am. Yet we remain a constant in each other’s lives. Our attitude and expectations towards life, living, money, people, and friendships are similar; we see eye to eye on these fundamental values. She’s an absolute gem.

小料理屋です :: 昼ご飯でひろ作

J sent me to lunch at Hirosaku (ひろ作) at Shimbashi, Tokyo. She said I must have a meal there, and assumed that I would know how to get there and sort myself out at the restaurant. She win lor. I had no idea that it's a Michelin-starred restaurant till much later. I was a little skeptical. Michelin stars are so.....not my thing. But when J elaborated that it's a tiny place run by an elderly couple, I was sold.

Hirosaku was thankfully divine. It has been around for two decades, with its owner Chef Satoshi Watanabe (さんがそ渡辺聡) started off being a self-taught soba-maker and never looked back. It serves up traditional kappo (割烹). At lunch, it's nothing fancy. Six simple courses including an appetizer and one dessert in a washoku meal (和食, わしょく). The food trotted out is the sort homestyle dishes done in the exact way that I love (and miss). ごちそうさまでした!

There isn’t a menu in English or English-speaking wait staff available. It’s just the husband and wife team. The restaurant only has nine seats. A table for four, and five at the counter, and I think there's a tiny private room for four at the side. Ahhh, what a wonderful business model that feeds the soul. It was rather heartwarming to see them potter about with a ton of efficiency, getting each course ready to feed people. That’s omotenashi (おもてなし) done beautifully. However, I've got no idea how they sustain the operations for so many years in a fairly prime location that seems to demand high rents.

Sitting at the counter meant that I could see all that went on in the kitchen. I loved seeing the food being prepared and plated. This is truly 'cooking from the heart', as good as it gets. It's what we hipsters love to term 'farm-to-table'. The shiso rice was such pure joy in the mouth. The kitchen did it the way my grandmother used to do it- with a whole shiso leaf (and not chopped up), and bits of grilled white fish. And it was so very nice chatting with the elderly couple.

The tempura was sooo good. That juwari soba (十割そば, 100% buckwheat) was indeed heavenly. The buckwheat flour is hand-ground every morning. “昼に蕎麦を食わせろ。” Chef Satoshi Watanabe happily shared his philosophy of life through his soba-making—earnestly living each day with the same sort of translucency and openness. He's happy when his food brings a smile to the face of diners. A review of Hirosaku also mentioned,

ひろ作〟の料理を一言で表せば〝透明な料理〟。それは、店主の生き方そのものに通じるように思われます。

Japan has so much wonderful food for us to explore. There're many of this sort of gems around waiting to be discovered. Of course it's helpful to understand the language since English isn't too useful even in Tokyo. I was pleased that this lunch offered no meat beyond fish, uni and scallop. It doesn't just keep the prices low. It keeps my stomach very happy. This trip, it's Hirosaku that gave me the best meal, and I couldn’t be more grateful for this arrangement.

Hirosaku (ひろ作)
東京都 港区 新橋 3-6-13

3 Chome-6-13 Shimbashi, Minato, Tokyo 105-0004, Japan 
(A three-minute walk from Shimbashi station)
T: +81 3-3591-0901
Lunch is reasonably priced between 3300円 to 4000円, but dinner goes up to beyond 30,000円. Reservations are essential, do so three to four weeks in advance, especially for lunch (speak Japanese please); cash only, no credit cards accepted. 

BE VERY NICE TO THE OWNERS.

Freitag, Tokyo

Prior to the trip, the BFF and I were just randomly chatting, and we were sussing out what each other might want to shop for. Time is limited, considering most of it is spent in the office. Wandering around the malls aimlessly isn't our style. We gotta make a list of intended places to stop by, and see if our separate wants match. She has this crazy long list of cosmetics and toiletries to buy. I literally have three items- eyedrops, body lotion and lip balm. LOL. And the one other item we both wanted, is something from Freitag! The time-stamps of the text messages were hilarious. We knew instantly the one shop we both wanted to go to. Hahaha.

I'm keen to check out Freitag because the label isn't present in Singapore, and buying it online doesn't necessarily make sense sometimes. Some say Freitag is just expensive hipster shit; recycled materials shouldn’t cost this much. But whatever it is, I love my Freitag shit. The designs work for me, and the stitching has stood up to rough use. I like it as much as Tembea, bookhou and the sorts. It doesn't break the bank, and it stands up to rain, dust and rough use. It's about one's preferred look right? I’m all for Freitag.

The BFF indulged me and pointed me to the nearest Freitag store in Shibuya. She was gonna go to the one in Ginza. Haha. Sure, I like the label, but I wasn't going to pop into TWO stores. I'm also trying to avoid the entire Ginza area, and I've been very successful so far. I'll settle for whatever I want at one store. If I don't see something fun, then I simply won't buy any. Not a big deal.

Did I see something cool? Of course I did. Oof. 😉