THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2007

Our French girls planned a wonderful holiday party for the partners held at the condo next door, Dover Parkview. Some of the partners would be leaving for Fontainbleu right after the break so this was a good time to get together to say our farewells. Each partner was to bring one food item (appetizer, entree, or dessert), a bottle of their favorite drink, a decoration item, a gift (under $10), and come dressed in something red (although I didn’t know about the red thing until last minute so didn’t have anything to wear). We had music playing and had a wonderful dinner. See the slideshow for pictures although I’m missing a few items like the risotto and pumpkin soup. Emilie played Santa Claus and we did a game gift exchange. The organizers had written “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” in different languages on note cards and if you guessed the language, you could open your gift. There were other rules involving “stealing” gifts but I think the majority of us were too shy to “steal”. It was a nice night but I was quite tired and had started to feel a bit sick that morning so I left early to head home to sleep.

See slideshow below or click here.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2007

We had our own Friday Foody with a few of the couples at INSEAD. JP and Anne Sophie had been to this yummy Thai restaurant closeby, near Clementi Ave. The place was called YUM YUM THAI. It’s the best thai food we’ve had in Singapore but still not quite like US. But then we also don’t know what real thai food is supposed to taste like since we haven’t been to Thailand. But it was a good meal, the pomelo salad was very refreshing, the green curry wasn’t spicy enough, and I enjoyed my favorite dish of eggplant.

See slideshow below or click here.

Afterwards we also went to celebrate a bit at Clarke Quay at a place called Barfly. I had a Longan Mojito which was excellent. But it had been a long week so we headed home around midnight, which unfortunately is a terrible time to catch a taxi, the queue is very long and taxis don’t stop on the street, they’re waiting for a booking. Tip: it’s better just to queue, don’t try to catch your own taxi from the street.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2007

Today I took a baking class at Palate Sensations. It was a 6-hour workshop on how to make four different petit fours. The instructor was Nan Ong from Classique Gateaux. It was quite a good class with lots of hands-on practice. The only thing I did not enjoy was that there were quite a lot of “old-timers” who have been to classes before and the instructor would ask them to do tasks that they had learned before rather than letting newer people do it. But Ron explained it by saying that it just means I need to attend more classes so I can be like those people. We’ll see. But I did get to make my own pastry dough, learn how to decorate tarts, make buttercream, and now have some great recipes. My favorite is the mango panna cotta. I can’t wait to try to make it again next year.

It was heavily storming today as well so it was good to be inside and feeling Christmasy with the baking and the music… almost felt like being at home in my kitchen.

See below for slideshow or click here.

For dinner we went back to the Clementi area where we had thai food because I had a craving for steak. There’s this restaurant called Grill Out that served beef from the US. So I had a ribeye, I love all the marblelization but I try not to eat too much of the fat… but it tastes good. The steak was delicious on its own without the sauce provided, it was seasoned well and tender. Not sure if it’s worth the $30 as our flatmate Justine says at another restaurant called Essential Brew in Holland Village served an $18 ribeye steak that’s not bad. Guess I’ll just have to go check it out.

We walked around for a bit afterwards just to check out what else they have around and there’s a steamboat place plus two food courts. I think we’ll be frequenting there more often next year as we’re kind of getting tired of Holland Village. The Clementi place isn’t that far away, it’s probably the same distance.