Udders

Just tried Udders over the weekend. I think I went a little too crazy with their alcoholic flavors.

It tasted alright when I sampled but it was a totally different experience when I had 2 scoops of the Orange Choc Bitters & Tira-miss-u.

The ice cream was so not enjoyable after a few scoops. It tasted too bitter, too alcoholic without the sweetness that should accompany ice cream. Anyway, I had to struggle with finishing the ice-cream. Actually, this is the very first time in my life when I didn't enjoy my ice cream.

I shall stick to the usual flavours in future :P

Rich & Good Cake Shop

My sis bought me a box of this cake when we met up for lunch ytd. I was soooo excited coz I've read about their swiss roll from many a food blog since way back. She got me a box of kaya swiss roll. Ok actually she didn't get me. Her temp staff came to office with BOXES of this cake to give away to the colleagues and so my sis bought a box over from him to give to me.

YAY!!!

I have to say the cake is really nice! It has to be kept refrigerated. The texture is really soft and not too sweet. Simply heaven.

But the shop seemed pretty out of the way .... between Muscat & Kandahar Street

Yummy!

SINful Food!!!

Been craving a lot for sinful food.  The deep fried stuff ... hahaha

So this is what I had in the past 24 hours ... 

Curry Favour

- Tonkatsu Jap curry 

- brownie ice cream 

Found that the serving for their dessert had reduced dramatically.  I don't recall that it was so pathetic a portion the last time I was there ... but then ... that was quite some time ago 

 

IKEA

Apart from the furniture, Singaporeans seem to flock to IKEA for the food.  Strange but true.  The cafe was packed when we got there before 7 and the snaking queue would have sure turned me off if not for the perseverance of companion.

But I have to say I'm really happy with my dinner.

The fries are so yummy - oh what comfort food!

The chicken wings yummilicious - I saw that every table would have a plate stacked with chicken wings .... some also da bao back ... and I have to say, its REALLY finger-licking good! 

I read about the cheese cake and for one who is not into cheese cake and would rarely (if not ever) order cheese cake voluntarily, found the cheese cake to be delicious too!

All in all a very nice meal.

And while we were paying for our merchandise, I found another long queue at the hotdog counter.   Recession or not, Singaporeans are constantly famished :P

Canele Patisserie

And I absolutely need to have my dessert ... even though we were both stuffed by the huge Jap dinner :P

So I brought my ex-colleague to the Canele.

Again it wasn't crowded even on a Fri nite .... prolly coz it was still early .... 

The dessert was alright ... we ordered a Strawberry Shortcake which my ex-coll wasn't very impressed with (he said he had had better -___-"), some chocolate royale which I liked and a Kalamansi Sorbet which was to help with our digestion :P

Nice place to chill on a fri nite ... 

Sugisawa Jap Restaurant

Met up with an ex-colleague for dinner on Fri nite.

He suggested Robertson Quay and so we headed there to find a dinner place.

Stumbled upon this jap restaurant with many Jap patrons so I said we will have our dinner there.  The restaurant couldn't go wrong if it has so many Jap customers.

Food turned out to be yummilicious.  We ordered sashimi (thick, fresh slices!), unagi sushi, tempura (prawn & vege), more unagi, pork and many more.  We really stuffed ourselves to the brim and I could hardly stuffed anymore by the end of the meal (a rarity!).

The place wasn't packed even on a fri nite ... but from the shelves of half-consumed wine bottles with names scribbled on the bottles, could tell that this place is frequented by regulars.

Very good food, but not very attentive waitstaff.  Ah well, can't ask for much can we ? :)

Close to $140 for the two of us.  Quite a spread and a hole in moi pocket haha

Fish Mart Sakuraya

We had wanted to try the Sakuraya Fish Mart @ South Buona Vista Road.  The last time we stumbled upon this place, it was on a busy Fri nite.  Hence we made a mental note to come visit this place again some other time.

And so we went last Thurs night after the movies.  Ok caught the movie 20th Century Boys which is so freaking lousy and boring I don't think I wanna spend time to blog about it.  Anyway, so we reached the fish mart and it was thankfully not crowded.  We chose the sashimi from the freezer and handed it to the counter staff to have it sliced for us.  So here is the sashimi.  Cut into small chunks.  Verdict: Nothing fantastic.  In fact, not very good.

We also ordered the agedashi doufu, tempura etc.  Forgot to take snapshots, but seriously, don't think you missed much because the food is rather disappointing.  The doufu was tasteless, and the tempura - non descrip to say the least.

Would i return ? I would come back to The Village for drinks etc, but will definitely give this Jap shop a miss.

We later had drinks at Harry's just downstairs.  The place wasn't busy and hence was nice for a quiet time just chatting and watching ESPN.  Caught some sports on tv and let the world pass us by ... it poured later in the evening and helped cool the weather even more.  Nice.

Happiness Is ....

When you enjoy your day and all you can do is smile / laugh and nothing seem to get you down ....

I was on half day leave yesterday and we went to Central for lunch.

FINALLY get to try the famous ramen shop which had a perpetual queue - Marutama Ramen.

Think it is less crowded during lunch so we easily got a seat.  The menu is limited, basically just three types of ramen with some side dishes which we didn't order.

The ramen was YUMMILICIOUS!!!  Even the fussy eater partner raved about the food. So you can be assured its good.

This is what was left of my ramen.  I forgot to take picture of it until I was half-way through :P 

While happily tucking into the hot ramen, i saw a big piece of something that looked like tamago on a plate.  After enquiring and found that it was indeed egg (dashi), we ordered a plate.

I can only say it is just as heavenly .... yumz!

And when u see that the shop is patronised by lots of Japanese, you can be assured of the quality of the food.  We saw many Jap streaming into the restaraunt while we were there.  Yet another strong evidence that the food is authentic & good! :)

  

Oktoberfest

So much for my lame attempt in burning off some fats yesterday.

I put it all back (and with a vengeance) last night with pork knuckle, 5 beers and potato wedges.

And I felt woozy just after the first one (and on an empty stomach).

Haha ... 

I think I lived in a cave.  Used to work in Suntec but I never ventured to Paulaner for the years that I was there!  It was only last night that I finally made my way there!  We were early so got ourselves a cosy corner and just chatted and watched the crowd filter in gradually.  It was a pretty nice place to hang out.  Not too noisy so you can still hold a decent conversation.  The live band wasn't something to rave about.  But they were playing music of my era (as pointed out, the crowd there weren't all that young haha) so that suited me well. 

One horrible thing about the place was the BAD and LOUSY service.  I really dislike the wait staff, especially one female phillipino one.  Prolly the alcohol made me less combative and saved her some serious bitching from me.   :P

Thanks!

Actually wasn't expecting any get-together for my birthday, since I haven't really been in touch with any of the friends except over msn. So was quite surprised when TL organised a dinner to meet up.

To make things simple for everyone (since I thought most of the gang are from HSP), I suggested Taiwan Porridge at Kovan. Its been too long since I last had a meal there. I have so many fond memories of that place, the many times the gang ended our runs with a warm dinner there, or just to meet up for some warm, comfort porridge followed by soya bean curd at the Rochor franchise stall nearby. Those were very very happy times which always bring that little warmth back to my heart each time I think about them :)

The gang of us (Teelee, Taz, Bala, Fred, Noodle, Angel) then headed to this nice cosy hideout called Grapevine nearby for more jiaks and all. The place is really nice!! Its an open air cafe (that sells booze). It was very airy with ceiling fans that kept the air well circulated and cool (very eco!). The place weren't choked with people so it was pretty quite and was a very nice place to chill and chat.

We ordered some snacks and dessert to share and just whiled away the evening chatting about anything. It was nice catching up with the gang of them after soooo long. Most whom I have not met in MONTHS but at least contacted over msn occassionally ...

These kind folks also got me a very sweet birthday gift - a tin of cookies from The Cookie Museum. Again I've read about it recently but yet to give these cookies a try. Thanks to Angel for going to get that !! She chose the rose scented cookies and they tasted very light and not too sinful. TL & Taz said it had a hint of the bandung taste (haha) .... ok ma, bandung is rose drink mah rite ?

It was really nice to meet up with the gang again, I'm really happy to see them after such a long absence. Really appreciate Teelee for organising this (THANKS!!!!) and to the gang who turned up.

Photos will be put up once I received them .... in the meantime, some very nice photos here on the cookies

Angel

An angel got me this from The Patissier to cheer me up. Pardon the blurry image but that's the best I could do with my useless mobile phone camera. Really tempted to get myself a better phone with better camera features! Ok, but I digress...

I've read about The Patissier long ago but never really got around to trying it. It was a pleasant surprise to receive this little package in the middle of a work day and when I'm feeling most depressed ...

And this Cocoa Napolean was REALLY GOOD! After trying this, I know I'm spoilt as it would be really hard to eat just any other cake from from now on .. :P

This nice little gesture really helped cheer me up ... at least it helped me survive the rest of the day hee

Harry's Bar

Was suppose to go for a swim but just really didn't want to go and weather was just tooooo cold. Last minute arranged to have lunch with friend. Weather has been pretty bad whole week, it was so cold in the office I even had to wear my jacket to meet him for lunch. He was wondering why I was so formally dressed haha

I wasn't in the best of moods and wanted some place to chill, so finally settled for Harry's Bar. Lunch partner had the beef pie which looked quite nice, too bad I don't take beef so couldn't try it. The pastry crust wasn't to his liking, but loads of meat he said. I ordered the sinful chicken burger, recommended by the wait staff. Burger was yummy, but the shoestring fries were a huge disappointment. Friend ordered a beer to go with his lunch, argh ... I was sooooo tempted to do the same but thought the better of it. Better stick to water during office hours. :P

I had this for dessert all by myself. Chocolate cake with ice cream.
As usual friend couldn't match my hearty gluttony appetite :P
It was alright. In all, food was nondescript, but I was just glad to have some company to save me from my own grumpiness. It was a nice place to chill as we got a seat away from the crowd so it was quite peaceful.

Recently had a chat with some friends who started talking about lunches and how they dislike spending too much or meeting certain friends as one meal with them would actually be many times of what they would have spent on a normal lunch. I felt ashamed upon hearing this conversation as I definitely overspend on my meals. Ok, I'll prolly grow old poor and eating bread crumbs ... I know I have to be more thrifty, but sometimes I really just couldn't care less. Strike a balance, strike a balance ...

Thur Jiaks

Another last minute arrangement for lunch. This time, I was brought to Santaro Japanese Restaurant in Amara HotelFor lunch, I seldom eat out, and never in the mood to seek out yummy lunch places, so didn't even know where are the good eating places near work place *faint*.

Anyway, apparently this is a restaurant that even MM Lee had visited!!! Yes, saw the photo in the restaurant.

Food was EXCELLENT! Very scrumptious. For a lunch, pretty extravagant. Get to try all kinds of food. Cod fish, sashimi, sushi, tempura and a very nice yam. Yumz!

It was meant to be my treat, but ...... :(

Nevermind, I'll be faster next time.

GREAT lunch, nice company. What a nice way to count down to the weekend :D

Oh .... and my friend called me "oink oink" -_________-" This isn't good :P
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Passed by the coffeeshop near my place and thought I saw this stall Uno Beef House. Uno used to be (not sure about now) a western food stall that was very famous in the Toa Payoh Lor 5 area. My sis used to love the food there until she moved out of the area. Anyway, read about it shortly after in some food. Knocked off late and friend suggested to settle our dinner there since I briefly mentioned about it last night.

Food turned out to be pretty good! (Ok, I went with no expectation) I thought the fish & chips is decent enough. The deep fried batter was thin and the fish was fresh. No thick batter with soggy fish flesh. The chicken cutlet was tasty too. The fries were good enough for coffee shop stall fries. Not those thin soggy over fried kinds.

I'll definitely be going back :)

Suburbia

Arranged to meet up with a friend for dinner. He suggested Sentosa as he was in a messed up state and needed quiet time. Anyway, found Suburbia. First got acquainted with this place when I went to Spa Botanica late last year.

I totally agree that Suburbia was a place with exclusive tranquility. There was hardly any patrons on that Fri nite. The menu was quite miserable, nothing much really to choose from but the food was surprisingly good. We were both very impressed with the Tiramisu. We both agreed its one of the better ones that we had tasted. Its a must try in our opinion.

Its a very good place to chill. You can just sit by the couch and have a glass of red wine. Only drawback is Suburbia is sited along the road and so you don't really have a good view. But considering its so quiet, its a good place to rest & have some peace if that's what you need.

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I remind myself that I cannot be affected by decisions made by others for themselves. I could only put forth my point (almost like making a pitch), but I cannot expect to succeed. And if he/she so decides on something, in which in my opinion is to the detriment of his/her own health, that its the MOST STUPID decision, that its TOTALLY senseless, irrational, almost irresponsible. I could only bite my tongue, keep quiet and respect his/her decision.
Its afterall his/her life. As someone advised "You cannot be responsible for his/her life". Damn right I can't.
I can only wish him the best.

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Major Pig-Out!

Today is a day of major pig out. Lunch was hosted by vendors for a project appreciation / thank you lunch at Nobel House. Company was great as it was with my very fun group of now ex-users. Great to have a chance to catch up with them and just share many laughs over a good meal. Meal was sinful and we all felt extremely stuffed. One interesting dish was the beetroot (+pineapple+lime+dunno what juice) that was served in testtubes and chilled over a big bowl of crushed ice. Everyone was wowed by the presentation of this dish but was at the same time a little hesitant to try. This was supposed to be an appetiser but was served as the third dish. While we wondered out loud why it wasn't served first, the wait staff explained that some of us might not be able to stomach the acidity if we were to take it on an empty stomach. Secondly, the drink would aid in cleansing the system of the oily food that we had just imbibed.

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A very last minute dinner was arranged with friend when we both thought we should not need to work late tonight. He brought me to the Brotzeit German Beer Bar & Restaurant in Vivocity as he wanted to have pork knuckles *faint*. The place was quite alright, noisy but still ok to hold a decent convo without having to hurt our lungs. Again stuffed ourselves with loads of sinful food *shake head* and we each had a 1L beer !!!!!! It was like this humungous mug filled to the brim with dark beer. OMG. I was only 1/5 into it and I felt giddy :P So much for drinking. And I think I have trained him sufficiently that now he could stomach dessert after a heavy meal :P

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Shucks, all this pig-out. I should be ashamed :P

The Daily Scoop

It was an impromptu decision to head there for dessert after a simple dinner.

We were surprised to be able to find a parking lot, got to the place and it was packed!!! As I walked into the little shop space, the stench (yes, I mean stench :P) of durian hit me. Eeeeks, apparently they were selling durian ice cream.

We were lucky to have a couple vacate one of the tables as we were able to order to go. So decided to try their waffle instead.

It was a long wait of about 20 mins for the waffle ... and when it came it looked pretty nondescript. Very thin piece of waffle, sprinkled with powdery sugar. It tasted alright though, definitely better than the Haagen Daz that we tried previously. Ordered the Simply Chocolate, Banana Fantasy and Butterscotchpecan. We didn't like the Banana Fantasy. The other 2 was yummilicious. Of the several ice cream cafes, I have to say I enjoy this one .

Walked around the place a bit. Brought back happy memories as that was the place I had my birthday celebrations two years back. Still warmed my heart when I reminisced .....

Binge & Booze Nites!

Been happily busy bingeing & boozing this week .... My tummy is protesting .... and not to mention my ever widening girth :P

Anyway, this was the humungous ice cream & brownie from Hard Rock Cafe. Two scoopes of ice cream on top of a warm and not-too-rich brownie in this big plastic cup. The plastic cup made it feel quite kiddy / cheapo but I have to say the brownie is delicious! That coldness of the ice cream followed by the warm sensation when you bite into the thin crust of the brownie ..... Heaven ... :)
Ok, the food was passable. The fish & chips looked average. Definitely not worth the $22.50. I much preferred Dan Ryan's. The booze ? Uhm ... forgettable.
I can't even recall the last time I was @HRC. Perhaps over 10 years ago. Why HRC ? Well, I didn't get to visit the HRC @ Bangkok so decided to head there after work on one of the week nites for some yak with friend.

And ... I ... finally ... tried ... Botak Jones! Ha! Yep. Its almost embarrassing that I've yet to try this famous joint! Well, I was surprised when my never-into-western-food-especially-burgers friend suggested dinner @ Botak Jones. Ok he tossed several other jiak suggestions with Mac being one of them. I sweared I almost punched him about the Mac thing. Mac?!?! That's like the last thing I would ever eat. Pls, I'm not a kid. Frankly, even my niece & nephew aren't interested in the golden arch.

Anyway I digressed. The place was crowded but thankfully the queue wasn't (guess the novelty had worn off after so long). You queue to place your order and pay up when the food is served. I was told that it would be an estimated 20 to 30 mins wait but the food didn't took half that long to arrive.

Between us we had a caesar salad (didn't like it. Too unhealthy looking with the overly generous sprinkle of the cheese and thus too salty), pork italian sausage (I'm not big on sausage so I can't comment but the sausage is HUGE - again too salty for me) and the thai chicken burger (which is what I had. Its yummy).
Perhaps I went with no expectation after reading many reviews about it being over-rated. Anyway, for a simple meal I thought the burger was alright. The fries were commendable! Definitely chunky, freshly deep fried. Yumz!

And oh, I still enjoy the easy relaxing feel at Wala's.

Shanghai Delights @ Sim Lim Square

Oooooooo ..... I FINALLY tried the guo tie at this stall!
And we luv it!!!

The skin was fried til its crispy and though its oily (what do you expect from fried stuff?) its not dripping oil. So it doesn't make you feel nauseous after downing several pieces.

We also tried the sour & spicy soup with noodles. Its just as good! For someone that doesn't like vinegar ... I was actually enjoying the dish.

Also bought popiah from the Local Delights stall. It was not bad, just that they were too stingy with the ingredients and hence the popiah was too thin. Hence the skin was a tad too thick when u bite into the popiah, so not exactly a pleasant experience. I think the popiah at Yi Kou Wei is much better, of course its much more pricey.

Anyway, I'm glad I finally tried out the Shanghai Delights stall. Definitely not a disappointing experience :)

Haagen-Daz

Just had Haagen-Daz @ Holland Village.

We were considering between Cold Rock or HD but friend took a look at CR and decided he didn't want it. So we crossed over to HD.

Obviously I haven't been to a Haagen-Daz for a long time coz its a completely new menu now.

We were torn between the waffle or brownie, so finally decided to order 3 scoops of ice cream with both waffle & brownie.

The ice cream is still good. Think I still prefer HD. But the brownie and waffle were atrocious! The waffle is salty (eeeks!!!) while the brownies - two pathetic pieces of dry biscuit-like brownie. I would have expected a lot more from HD, boy am I disappointed. Think many other places (try the one at Tango just a few shops down) not known for dessert had done much better.

So guess we will stick to just the ice cream the next time we patronise HD.

No $ignboard

Friday dinner was @ No Signboard in Vivocity with the division.

Seldom feel so un-excited about food. That's how the company can really affects one's appetite. :P Anyway, didn't feel like taking pics so no pics but didn't miss much.

For such a well-known restaurant, I have to say the food is really mediocre. The organiser of the dinner ordered this $499 set for each table (there were three) and we had:-

• lobster salad - seldom get to eat lobster so I'm not complaining. My fav sides of this dish turned out to be the sweet & juicy .... orange! ha! bummer
• shark's fins soup - quite perturbed that the soup is orangy. Its too thick and colleague complained that there weren't any sharks fins and its plain starch. Agree. We left the soup mostly untouched.
• deep fried toufu with minced meat - what's so big deal about this simple fare ? Nothing :P But ok, i luv toufu and minced meat.
  
• steamed fish - the flesh was rubbery. nuff said
• cereal prawn - sinful deep fried prawn with cereals. Think this was one of the rare occassions that I ate so many pieces of prawns. Luv the cereals too ... colleague was warning me about how sinful it is, but do i care ? :P
• noodles - yucky. How wrong can u go with noodles right ? Its not like the most diff dish for a chef to master. But sigh ... you will be surprised. Its horrible. The noodles were almost clumpy, soggy and its just noodles without ingredients!!! ok, i saw another bowl with mushrooms, so i think the waitstaff didn't do a good job in distributing the portions. More about the waitstaff later.
• crabs - that's what No Signboard is all about right ? Sigh, so disappointing. The crab in the chilli crab was soft, a sign of not being fresh ? The white pepper crab was touted to be their signature dish. I'm not a fan of pepper and that strong pepper smell when that dish was presented to us already sorta turned me off. So I guess I'm not a good judge to this dish.

Now to the waitstaff. Two of them. Mr BIG-Man-In-Suit first swiped my head with the lobster when he was carrying the plate away. Eeeks. Later got bumped by him while he walked past. Think I'm just plain suay that day. Whole night I was just busy answering calls from the bosses about some fire that ignited out of an email from a head to the bigger head. Haiz, stupid politics. Anyway, the other waitstaff Mr-BO was way too loaded that night. Poor guy was doing his best but with that many tables to serve, the service definitely fall short. Our plates were only changed once at the start of our meal (after the first dish). Our requests to refill our glasses with warm water were also left unfulfilled. The pot of tea wasn't refilled even though we had overturned the lid. Worst of all, Mr-BO was so busy that he must have perspired and he reeked! I had to hold my breath each time he came near ... that surely did a lot to kill my already waning appetite.

Last but not least, a few of us were quite puzzled by the decor with the black chandeliers (which a colleague commented to be gothic) with golden dragons that coiled round the big pillar in the middle of the restaurant. The whole decor just seemed so confused.

I recalled how i used to enjoy my meals at the branch at Pasir Panjang. I thought the crabs there were pretty good. And I also patronised the branch at Geylang and my friends and family also enjoyed the food there. But this more up-market branch has definitely not lived up to its name (it has in my opinion tarnished the name though).

Will I visit this branch again? Not likely in the near future, unless someone convinced me otherwise.

More Jiaks

Damn. I'm just happily overfeeding myself. Instead of being discipline to go for my lunchtime swim, my plans have been thwarted either by last minute meeting arrangments with the bosses or just plain laziness. Sigh .... I was actually quite determined to swim on Wed but the mtg with boss lasted past 12. By then I reckoned the pool would be crowded, so another beautiful excuse to skip the swim.

Anyway, someone working far away came by my office area to collect something from someone else. So we met up for lunch. We ended up at this ramen shop that I've read about and passed by several times called Men-Tei Ramen. We eagerly joined in the short queue and the staff was friendly and at hand to take our orders first. The queue started to grow as we were waiting but were glad it wasn't a long wait and we were shown to our seats shortly after.

Their variety is limited and the ingredients are essentially the same (pork, some vege etc.). The differentiation is in the soup base, what with miso soup or pork bones etc. It was a very short wait for our food to arrive and well, to me the food is alright. We both ordered the miso soup base (with mine being the spicy version which turned out to be "spicy-deficient"). I'm happy with the bowl of spicy miso (not spicy at all) just as I would be similarly contented with a good piping hot bowl of instant noodles :P Guess the good bowl of ramen is wasted on me but friend commented the soup base is good. No complaints really, we both cleaned out the entire bowl of ramen.

Well, though I missed the swim, I'm glad I get to meet up with good company for lunch and chat away and spend some relaxing moments out of work, rather than just packing a sandwich back to eat in front of the puter. Alright, I admit. I'm a contented slacker! :P
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Friend and I been looking forward to this dinner. We've been working toooo hard @ work, with more shit then recognition. With loads of agony, frustration, irritation & even some back-stabbing, with little returns.

We left the office earlier than usual, was still delayed by some last minute frantic call from a user but we were just thankful that we could still leave the office.

Arrived at Dan Ryan, suggested by friend. Think the last time I was here was >5 years ago ? But the place has not changed a bit. I left the ordering of beer to him while I zoomed in on the food (hehe, what's new?). We had a caesar salad and this is what I had. Fish & Chips!!! The fish was good and very nicely deep fried with this very thin batter, and without that gap between the fried skin and fish flesh. I enjoyed it tremendously. The chips were a disappointment though. Not that it doesn't taste good or that its soggy or overly fried. Just that its not the chunky fries that I so miss :( But all in all, I still like the fish & chips. According to the waitress their fish & chips is very popular (main reason why I ordered).

Friend was stuffed by the end of his seafood platter, while I was still pinching at the bread in the bread basket. He was amused that I could really stuff myself haha

For dessert, I ordered their brownie with Ben & Jerry's ice cream while he was too stuffed and only accompanied me with a scoop of ice cream. We both chose cherry garcia but both hated it as it somehow had that almond taste that we both disliked. The brownie wasn't that fantastic, it wasn't piping hot and was too dense for my liking. It was an extremely huge piece too that for once Ms Piggie didn't finish her dessert!

It was a great nite out with great company, just yakking and bitching and pigging and boozing. A very superb way to end a weekday night and to welcome the holiday.