Author Archives: Administrator

In today’s paper and dinner at Pho House Suntec City

Leave a reply

I found out that the Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony was in the paper today. My boss was quoted and I’m actually in the picture they used (although I’m very hard to see).

If you can’t see above, you can check out the whole story on TODAYonline. The Ministry of Health is investing a large sum of money to further the profession of pharmacy in Singapore. It’s a very promising first step to have pharmacists play a bigger role than they are currently allowed to do.

This evening was a colleagues wedding dinner so many of the ladies were dressed up already for the evening. I just happened to be wearing a dress although not attending the dinner.

Today was the quietest day at work. Although we didn’t leave early, at least we weren’t working up until the last minute.

Ron headed to Friday Foody at Pho House at Suntec City. It’s in Tower One on the 3rd level, next to Swiss Culture.

They offer a set meal for $13 that includes an appetizer, a main, and a beverage. They call it a 3-course meal but I don’t think a beverage really counts… but it was still a good deal considering each main dish is already at least $9. Ron and I felt kind of bad because we kind of crashed the dinner since we didn’t RSVP but to note, the restaurant is quite small so couldn’t have easily accommodated the original reservation for 20 pax. They tried the best they could but the service did suffer a little bit.

For appetizer, I ordered the shrimp salad roll that was served with peanut satay-like sauce and sweet and spicy fish sauce. This is hard to go wrong.

Ron ordered the lemongrass chicken wings (add an extra $2 to the set meal price) which didn’t have much lemongrass flavor and the chili they provided didn’t really go well with the chicken.

For the main course I ordered the vermicelli with grilled pork and egg rolls, known to me as “bun thit nuong”. It’s a bit different than I’m used to but then I don’t know which is authentic. In the US, the vegetables are more shredded, the carrots are usually pickled a bit, and the grilled pork is a flattened pork chop that is grilled then sliced. For this dish, the lettuce was very roughly sliced only so a bit hard to eat. The carrots were okay as they were thinly sliced and sweet. The pork was a bit strange as they were more like oval shaped thinly sliced pork pieces so a bit harder to eat, also a bit tough. But was still pretty nice as there were lots of bean sprouts and the noodles were nicely separated and not sticking together.

Ron ordered some pork spareribs with rice dish but they didn’t look like spareribs when it came out, more than shredded pork. It sort of tasted like Korean bulgogi except it was pork instead of beef. It was also served with some sort of shredded chicken salad.

It was a rather light dinner but I guess that’s good after all the steamboat I ate last night. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep and sleeping in tomorrow. I’m working my first Sunday this weekend but I’m going to try to enjoy my Saturday.

Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony

Leave a reply

This evening the Singapore Pharmacy Board held their inaugural Pharmacist’s Pledge Affirmation Ceremony. They invited all the 2008 newly registered pharmacists to take the pledge and sign the official register. Plus they invited many of Singapore’s influential pharmacists to also take the pledge.

It was a bit like a graduation ceremony since we walked across the stage and collected a scroll. The Minister For Health was the guest of honor who presented each of us with our scrolls (actually empty containers, the real scrolls we collected later). It was also very similar to the Oath of a Pharmacist that we take during our first year of pharmacy school in the US and we also repeat it at graduation.

Here is Joyce and I with our red scrolls. Matches my blouse and shoes, eh? 🙂

Here we are taking a photo opportunity with the Chief Pharmacist.

Afterwards we had a dinner reception and snacked a bit before going to have an actual dinner. On the recommendation of one of the other pharmacists, we headed to a restaurant near Outram Rd and Tiong Bahru, it was called Ting Heng Seafood Restaurant (Blk 82, Tiong Poh Rd, #01-03, opening hours are 5PM to 4AM). They have a small indoor air conditioned area and many tables outdoors. We had Alex’s favorite type of food… steamboat.

Alex worked his mastery of steamboat for us, taking charge and cooking and serving for us, also showing us the correct way to cool down a freshly boiled shrimp (hold it by the tentacles! haha…).

I found this interesting, it’s a fresh fish nicely sliced…

It’s been a long day, it’s good to be home with a full stomach.

Au Petit Salut

Leave a reply

http://www.aupetitsalut.com/

Tonight Ron treated me to dinner at Au Petit Salut near Dempsey Road. Our seat was outside next to the rippling water … that had frogs croaking in it all night.

It was a beautiful night:

We had a beautiful dinner..

Foie gras

French onion soup

Little neck clam soup with saffron and cream

I had the “US Kurobuta” braised pork cheeks stuffed with smoked bacon, fork mashed potato and two mustard sauce.

Ron ordered the pan-roasted beef ribeye steak with sautéed baby onions, mushroom and bacon match-stick potato.

We shared a nice bottle of wine

A very delicious meal

Of course topped off with dessert of warm chocolate cake, profiterole, gingerbread, crème brulée, strawberry sorbet.

Oh my goodness… so stuffed but so good. That warm chocolate cake was divine.

Shopping in Bangkok

Leave a reply

Today we woke up early and checked out of the hotel to catch the free shuttle to Chatuchak Weekend Market. It was really HOT! But only if you were standing directly under the sun, inside was tolerable because a lot of people have their own portable AC units.

We had some lunch at one of the shops. We had the green papaya salad, fried noodles, and fried pork sausage.

The way they cut the papaya is interesting. It’s hollowed out and then they use a chop vertically multiple times then shave it to make thin slices. It’s yummy stuff.

The market had some cool stuff.

We left the weekend market for more conventional malls and had a small snack at one of the food courts. They give you this card with a 1000THB limit and you go from stall to stall to order your food and you pay as you leave.

Ron had a pad thai tostada.

I had the mango and sticky rice.

While walking from mall to mall, we walked place these shops that do eyelash extension so I had it done just for fun.

What do you think of my (temporary) new look?

After that we went to Pantip Plaza to shop for movies before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. We ended up hailing a tuk-tuk and bargained for 80THB to our hotel. The guy kept on trying to convince us to pay him 90THB but we told him we’d get off if he kept on pestering since we only got on because he agreed to 80THB.

We headed to the airport for our flight back to Singapore.

On one last note, pharmacies in Thailand are the same as most other pharmacies but you can buy a lot of medications without a prescription. They’re behind the counter though so you need to talk with the pharmacist.