Since Joyce’s URI seemed to be completely cured after a week of antibiotics, she no longer had her “manly”, “nasal” voice… we made a plan to do some shopping on Orchard Rd since Good Friday is a public holiday in Singapore. I had the day off from work but Ron still had to go to class so we couldn’t go anywhere for a long weekend. So I was glad to have someone to spend the day with rather than just being stuck at home 😛

We met up for lunch at the Paragon. In the basement there is a cafe called Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie where they have fabulous desserts and also serve salads, sandwiches, and crepes.

I had the croque madame, a sandwich made with gruyere cheese and ham and a sunny side up egg on the top. The first time I tried this sandwich was in Napa last year for Vicki’s birthday.

Joyce had the smoked salmon crepe with canapes and dill butter. The dill butter was very good. It was a bit buried by the salad though.

Of course, we saved room for dessert. Joyce had the strawberry shortcake.

I look like a little kid but we were both like little kids in a candy store. I had the warm chocolate cake with something creamy on the side. It was too rich for me to finish the whole thing.

Oh this is also the same place where my boss gets her macaroons! very excellent but no space to eat them after our lunch.

After we rolled out of the restaurant, we headed to do some shopping. Both of our mom’s have their birthdays at the end of the month so we wanted to get them something special… and also indulge a bit for ourselves. We found some great deals and bought our gifts so it was a successful shopping day 🙂

We ended up at Paragon again to have dinner at Fish & Co. They serve their fish in a pan.

They have these cute wooden blocks to put the pan on:

Joyce had the salmon and fries.

See one of her many shopping bags next to her? 😛 The topping on the salmon was pretty tasty, called futaba or something, but she said part of the salmon wasn’t well cooked. The vegetables were a good addition to the meal. The fries are also included but if you don’t want fries (called “chips at this restaurant, like “fish & chips”), they also offer rice.

I had the swordfish collar.

I didn’t realize it was so huge, the pan is twice the size of Joyce’s. I only ate one side. It was really good when dipped in the mango vinagrette provided, otherwise it was a bit too fishy by itself. I brought the other half home to eat tomorrow.

Ah, a satisfying day… it totally doesn’t feel like Friday… it’s so nice to still have two more days of the weekend to look forward to!

My friend Joyce has been really sick with a upper respiratory tract infection but she was feeling a bit better so wanted to join us to try some Korean ja jang mien. Ron’s classmate recommended this Korean – Chinese Restaurant on 76 Amoy Street. He took us there and we were lucky to have him there to order for us.

We tried two seafood dishes, a seafood soup with noodles, and the ja jang mien. The guys also tried some Chinese wine, they translated to me from Chinese to be “Confucius family’s wine”… it smelled really really strong and “burns” inside your mouth.

This is the ja jang mien. It was delicious.

We were thoroughly stuffed but they still served us with watermelon slices and candied yams. The restaurant closes at 10pm but we were there until almost 10:30… we felt a bit bad because we were still finishing our meal when they had already finished cleaning up outside and were ready to go home. Oops…

But I think it’s a good place o try, their hours are 11:30pm to 2:30pm for lunch and 5:30pm to 10pm for dinner. They speak Chinese and English also.

Although we were stuffed, we decided to go to Swensen’s. Yesterday night when we went to dinner there, I saw they serve chocolate fondue and I promised Joyce that if she felt better that we would go have chocolate fondue! Alex joined us too.

We tried the Swensen’s at Chinatown Point but it was already closing but there are three Swensen’s open 24 hours: Changi Airport, Holland Village, and Orchard Rd. Orchard was the closest so we grabbed a taxi to head over there.

This particular Swensen’s always has a line out front but the wait isn’t really long… there were maybe 3 or 4 parties in front of us and it only look us like 10 or 15 minutes to wait. The service was a bit slow though, we were able to order quickly enough but it took a while for the banana splits and fondue to come out.

But it was worth the wait… the chocolate fondue was served with five scoops of ice cream, maraschino cherries, bananas, strawberries, wafer cookies, marshmallows, and cream puffs. Very yummy.

To check out other pictures from the night, see here:

Chocolate and ice cream are the best remedies for a tiring week.

There are quite a few Swensen’s Restaurants in Singapore… compared to the only one Swensen’s ice cream parlor in San Francisco. In contrast, the restaurants here have a full menu including pasta, sandwiches, burgers, etc. But of course include the desserts of sundaes, banana splits, and fondue.

Ron just wanted to go out to eat so we headed to IMM to their Swensen’s. It was really good ol’ American cuisine. I ordered the Mega Burger which has a sunny side egg on top along with the hamburger, bacon, and grilled vegetables. Quite tasty and filling.

Ron ordered a not so tasty healthy choice pasta. I don’t even know how to describe the taste, it was so boring. Healthy food doesn’t have to be boring, dunno what they did to their pasta sauce.

One more day of work before Good Friday, yay! Good Friday is a public holiday here so we have the day off. Unfortunately Ron has class so we can’t go away for a long weekend.