We had our own small group Friday Foodie and suggested to go for steamboat. We thought we’d head to Marina South again like that time for BBQ Steamboat.

When we all got there though it was like a ghost town! We were shocked to see as we were turning the corner to the bowling alley that there was absolutely nothing open! No cars, no people, no buses, no neon signs… no steam! It was rather disappointing.

Thank goodness our taxi driver had an idea of where to go for steamboat and he took us to Beach Rd where there were a few steamboat places but none of them do the Korean BBQ part. We had to search the whole street and finally landed at the place where our taxi driver had dropped us off. The restaurant had an upstairs so could seat all of us.

Spicy and regular soup stock.

Now we’re cookin’!

The selection of food wasn’t as good as Marina South and it was disappointing not to have BBQ but I think we all walked away quite satisfied.

Now we’re in search of a place that does BBQ…

I have been quite stressed all week because I had to prepare a presentation for Thursday morning. Each month, 2 or 3 pharmacists present a 15-minute patient case presentation for the other pharmacists and pre-registration pharmacists to listen and hopefully learn something. I felt like I didn’t have enough time to prepare because I didn’t get all my information about the patient until last Friday and had to research the topic (ovarian cancer) a bit more since I’ve still got a lot to learn about these solid tumors. But although I was stressed, I don’t think I really needed to be because everything worked out in the end. I think it’s just that I hadn’t given any sort of talk in many months and because I tend to talk quite fast so that some people cannot understand me. Oh well…

But one piece of good news, I found out I passed the pharmacy forensic exam! The Singapore Pharmacy Board sent me an SMS on Monday that I passed! So did my friend Joyce and I’m taking her lead and posting my SMS message on this blog… hehe…

Yes I know, kind of nerdy 😛

However, I didn’t have time to celebrate that evening and have been cooped up working on my presentation that I just wanted to go out somewhere. That somewhere ended up being Takashimaya Basement 2 for dinner. We didn’t really know what to eat and there wasn’t any space for us to sit so we just ordered some things to eat while standing:

Southeast Asian version of a hotdog, black pepper sausage wrapped in a prata

From the okonomiyaki stall, fried noodles mixed with egg

Bacon and cheese takoyaki

Original takoyaki (squid)

Sometimes it’s just nice to get out of the house, it doesn’t mean you have to go anywhere fancy, just to breath some fresh air and not be at work or home.

It’s been welcome week for INSEAD so there have been quite a few events going on for them and I’ve also been quite busy with work. You know it is after you’ve been on vacation for a while… it can be difficult to get back into work.

Tuesday night we had Bar of the Week at No. 5 Emerald Hill, which we’d been to last year as well. Ron and I shared lychee martinis and had a good time catching up with all our friends and hearing what they did on their winter break. It was pouring rain that day though so that part wasn’t so fun.

Friday night we again went to Samy’s Curry and this time it was a bit more expensive per person because I think we had less people but ate the same amount! Well I’m exaggerating… but the food was still really good. They’ve remodeled since the last time we’ve been there and there’s some new restaurants open next door. It was extremely jammed packed with people and cars. It’d probably be better to go on a weekday when it’s not so busy to try their fish head curry.

On Saturday we went to Sentosa as Bain & Company hosted their welcome week party at the KM8 bar. We missed the bus to Sentosa because we went to have dinner first so ended up taking a cab. But funny enough, the bus was still waiting at the ticket counter so we got off the cab and boarded the bus instead to be taken inside to KM8. It was a nice cool night to relax on the beach.

Today we had the best crab I’ve every eaten. One of the students, Jackson, who’s lived in Singapore many years invited a big group of us to try the best crab he’s ever eaten. Apparently this place, Mellben Seafood, usually has a long long line and they have plastic chairs set out especially for those who have to wait. They open at 4:30pm so we arrived at 4pm so that we wouldn’t have to queue as long.

It was a really good thing that we arrived early because it started storming really heavily, complete with thunder and lightning right above our heads.

But the food was worth the danger. We had fresh steamed shrimp, fish cake, chili crab, black pepper crab, crab bee hoon, and my favorite (!) butter crab.

The best was using the fried steam buns and dipping it into the butter crab sauce. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it again…

We had to roll ourselves home as we were so stuffed. I don’t want to know what my cholesterol is like after this.. I think I’d better eat fruits all week!

It’s quite funny and seems like it’s becoming a trend that we go out to Holland V with our friends after returning from each break. After the last break we also had Mexican food at the restaurant next door and now we had dinner at El Patio. It was a surprisingly cool night so we had dinner outside on the patio and enjoyed catching up with each other about our breaks.

I had some sort of chicken enchilada burrito (don’t ask me how it can be an enchilada and burrito at the same time):

and Ron’s dish: