House of Dimpas

It was days ago that D and myself went to try out House of Dimpas (HoD) at The Amara. We utilized a $20 off with a minimum spending of $40 coupon, which required that we make a reservation beforehand. The requirement for reservation was understandable. For a usually quiet business to suddenly have to cater to a large crowd of people who patronize solely because of the coupon discount, ingredients and perhaps staffing would need to be adjusted.

So I searched for the website where I might find a number to make the reservation. It was on the website that I saw a description along the lines of dim sum and tapas, which was a misunderstanding that would eventually spoil my evening at HoD.

In any case, I made the call to the mobile phone number, which was only picked up about 20 seconds into its ringing. My call was answered by an unenthusiastic man who said nothing till I asked if I had reached HoD and that I wished to make a reservation. That man merely commented that there would be a private event on the evening of my reservation. That was it. No apologies, no suggestion of alternative dates, nothing.

D eventually made a reservation a few days later. I was dismayed when I saw the menu. There was nothing that alluded to dim sum or tapas. It was just fanciful zi char, with portions that were smaller than it's price suggested.

The food ranged from decent, to pretty good. But the lighting was utterly dull. One with night blindness would probably not be able to see the food one was eating. The air conditioning was turned up a tad too strongly for a restaurant that seats about 30, but held just 2 patrons, 1 waiter, the boss, and perhaps 1 to 2 kitchen staff. The dishes were served shortly after each other and in the climate of that room, turned cold pretty quickly.

HoD probably had a strong focus on being a drinking hole. It had a range of beer, and a bar well equipped with various liquors. The televisions in the place were initially on Channel News Asia, but was later then switched to a video of HoD's liquor promotion.

The owner, a chubby man with a ponytail left the restaurant to smoke several times within my hour plus dine there. With myself witnessing 2 other tables occupied throughout my time there, I would say the coupon deal is a last attempt to drum up business before the bleeding is stemmed.

So in summary:

• Not so pleasant experience of reservation over the phone
• Attentive and friendly waiter (although his English isn't that good)
• Overall good food
• Not so good prices and portions
• Dimly lit
• Too strong an air conditioning (perhaps meant for when the restaurant is half full)

Food For Thought Indeed

A couple of weeks ago I visited the local Botanic Gardens with D, and dined at the Food For Thought branch there. I recall ever reading a review of that eatery by a acquaintance, who thought that the design concept there reflected the mission of Food For Thought, of being environmentally conscious, and performing their corporate social responsibility.

All was right with the design and usage of materials for the tables and chairs. The air conditioning was broken that day - I was informed of it by the not-so-cool air in the restaurant, and by a sign at the main door mentioning a doctor being called to treat the air conditioning. There were however numerous standing fans placed around the restaurant to keep the patrons cool.

This particular restaurant ran different from the one near SAM. This one required you to get your drinks before placing your food orders at the cashier. The numerous floor staff will then bring you your food when it's ready.

The menu were made of textured paper, worn out, and slightly dirty. They were seemingly placed at random tables, perhaps having 6 or so tables share 2 menu. It was still all fine then. The variety of food offered seemed to be lacking, severely, when compared to the SAM outlet. Half of its main offerings were only available during lunchtime on weekdays.

After D placed the order, she came back with the second problem with that restaurant. There weren't any menu at the cashier. So you could either memorize your order and relay them to the cashier, or run back to your table hoping that your menu hasn't been taken by other patrons.

Then I tried opening the glass bottle of root beer. The metal cap had jagged edges like those of beer bottles, but apparently, the cap was meant to be twisted open as with plastic bottles. So I gave it a go. Having sliced a strip of flesh off my thumb on the eve of an O'level paper from a similar bottle in the past, I twisted warily. The cap wouldn't give way, so I took a piece of serviette from the kitchen counter and wrapped it around the cap, which finally came off after a hard twist. The serviette was stained with rust from the cap. Imagine cutting your fingers on the cap, tetanus comes for you.

Then came our garlic chilli cheese fries without forks, but in a decently large quantity. But we were tricked once again. The garlic chilli cheese came in the form of a dip. The menu's description of the dish had led us to believe that the additional condiments to the fries came as some sort of powder, on or within each fry. How disappointed we were.

Our main dish soon arrived, sans utensils, and I began to notice a strange division of workload among the floor staff. A single old man in his senior years would be the only person heading out of the restaurant to clear the alfresco tables, empty rainwater collected on some of the chairs, and to sweep the floor outside, while the remaining floor staff, all in their teens or early twenties served the supposedly air conditioned section of the restaurant. The younger floor staff would stand by the kitchen counter to chat with each other, occasionally taking a dish to a patron's table, or clearing an empty table of dishes. Then I noticed 2 young female floor staff standing before one of the fans, essentially blocking any wind from the fan from reaching patrons at 2 tables.

Then there were the young staff who brought food to the alfresco tables. While they were walking back in through the side door, they encountered 2 greedy pigeons who even while trapped between the glass partition and the staff, took a few more beak-ful of food before trying to find a way to escape. After they came in, a young staff (I can't remember if it was one of the two girls) opened the side door, and I thought "oh, they'll have some pigeon issues soon".

I was right. Not long after, the daring duo strutted their way in and started eating food on the floor, weaving between the feet of patrons. Several noticed and expressed amusement at the creatures' actions, all the while, the young staff stood by the kitchen counter indulging in their conversations. It was about 5 minutes more before any staff took notice and one of them proceeded to chase the pigeons out.

One of it strutted out. But the other strutted to the side door before taking flight back to the middle of the restaurant. That one staff set about herding the bird out once more, but this time the pigeon decided to make its escape and flew. Straight into a glass partition, with a pretty loud thud. The bird repeated it's charge towards supposed freedom 3 or 4 more times, flying and crashing above dishes of food. The staff member finally caught the bird in his hands the moment it fell after crashing into the glass partition, and brought it out to who-knows-where. There were no apologies to the patrons of the restaurant save for a whisper of sorry when the bird strutted past my feet. I pity those who find pigeon feathers in their food after the fiasco.

My dine there was finally marred by a young staff who came to clear the dishes while we were still drinking. He walked up, stood by D - a tad too close I would say (not the jealous boyfriend speaking) - and without so much as a word or nod, started clearing our plates.

We both thought the food there was overpriced. The prices would seem just slightly overpriced if it were a normal restaurant. But since its mission and vision touched on being environmentally friendly, doing their corporate social responsibility, and declaring something along the lines of there not being service charge because it is their pleasure to serve, the pricing of food is seen is severely overpriced. It's akin to McDonalds charging a dollar or two more for each meal, and then act extremely environmentally conscious and responsible, and ask if you would like to donate money for a children's water fund.

So in summary, what was unpleasant at Food For Thought (Botanic Gardens):

• lack of menu at the tables
• lack of menu at the ordering counter
• lack of variety for their main dish compared to the SAM outlet
• rusty and hard to open bottle caps
• inaccurate description of french fries (akin to labeling a hot dog with a small cup of cheese as "cheese hot-dog")
• staff that serves the food without the utensils
• staff members that block the fan on purpose while chatting with each other
• staff that foolishly and repeatedly open the side door
• staff that took ages to notice of the pigeons
• staff that seem to leave external clean up to the oldest member
• staff that offered no sincere apology nor checked on the food of patrons
• staff that rudely cleared our table
• overpriced food and drinks for a business that supposedly does not focus on profits alone

So instead of 9 or so floor staff who do nothing but chat amongst themselves, serve food and food alone, and clear tables, why not employ just 3 of them to clear tables and sweep floors. There won't be that many of them to leave the side door open, nor block the fan. I personally went to the kitchen counter twice, once for utensils, another time for serviettes, so I don't see why I couldn't handle collecting my own dish.

Impressionable

An outspoken, yet crafty acquaintance in polytechnic once announced me to be "on no body's side" while discussing with her friend the politics of the club I was in. While I may pride myself in being a neutral party, I suspect that state of being stems from me still being rather adverse to people. I was, at that time, preoccupied with the notion that my interpersonal relationships with people will not hold up forever. I was staunchly supporting the belief that after that graduation, there would be no outings to get stuff together, or anything of that sort.

In university, I find myself drawing close to a person who has more similar values as me than other people do. It is only recently that I realised my opinions may probably have been swayed by interactions with that friend, that my position of neutrality has been compromised through the absence of my constant reminder to myself to remain neutral.

Then I realised that friend wasn't the only person swaying my judgement. People I feel closer to impress their opinions upon myself, sometimes more so than they upon themselves.

Having watched Death Note & realized that I like mysteries of the detective kind, I believed that Sherlock Holmes will certainly interest me. But as I searched for that book, I found out it was not a book I was looking for, but books.

I had no intention of buying the books one by one and end up with an untidy looking, or perhaps incomplete collection, and so, the search was eventually forgotten.

Until Taiwan. At a particular Eslite bookstore, I came across a box of 2 Sherlock Holmes books proclaiming itself to be "The Complete Novels and Stories", published by Bantam Classic. I was exhilarated. Even more so when I reasoned that an English book should be cheap in Mandarin speaking Taiwan. The box set was hence, a definite buy.

Fast forward to the present time, where I currently am through about a third of the first volume, I am struck with words I do not understand, and phrases no longer seen.

Written in late 19th century, the language might have been mediocre then. Especially since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a medicine practioner. About a century and a half later, such usage of language is a welcomed novelty, and offers an interesting peek into Victorian England.

With regard to Sherlock himself, despite Doyle's descriptions, I cannot overcome the mental image of the Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr. But I am surprised by the habits of Holmes - some of which would be downright illegal presently - as well as the cases encountered. The book portrayed Holmes not to be an infallible machine, but an extremely well prepared person, and like all preparations, there will always be situations where contingencies have not been thought for.

After a long period of procrastination, here I am, finally trying out blogger on my phone. While I'm glad it works on the phone browser, & I appear to be able to access the full functionality of things through the phone browser, the site itself isn't programmed to optimize itself to smaller screens on phones. Fair tradeoff, in my opinion.

Skyfall

I was watching James Bond: Skyfall last night, and it felt darker than the previous films. I vaugely remember watching other James Bonds in action, as well as one or two of Craig's Bond before.

While Craig's Bond seemed to be less whacky, and more realistic the other Bond movies (perhaps due to technological advancements achieving more and more of the impossible), Skyfall seemed to showcase the darkest of Bond yet.

He appeared visibly thinner after his re-emergence from retirement. His failure in the various tests required by MI6, and the strain in his right shoulder raised questions about whether he should still be a hunting rat. It showed that he is still human, capable of losing his edge (perhaps due to age). All that makes for a rather intense Bond movie. Enough to keep me watching into the wee hours.

It is a bit hard to keep up with this constant exchange of comments and barbs between the opposing parties of the White Paper. I haven't read it, but I suppose much of it has to do with trend projections and the suitable measures to match those trends.

It all seems a waste to me since those future projections are always done with a certain factor being a constant; with a certain variable assumed to be unchanging. With the myriad of variables, plenty of views and therefore solutions can be proposed, depending on which variable, or micro-variable one assumes to be constant.

I am not sure if we can do without such trend projections, but do with it feels meaningless. It's like projecting how I'd look 40 years from now. It is near impossible to factor in all the possible things that will affect my facial features, and predicting and applying the effects with the highest possibilities means that somewhere along the line, certain variable(s) is/are not being considered.

What is most important is to gear infrastructure - legal, physical, or whatnot - to adapt to short-term projection and changes.

The girlfriend once said I would do great if I joined some sort of atheletics team and do the sport semi-professionally at least.

I was flattered of course. But I realized just, that I probably wouldn't last long in the team. I speak now with no ties to any sports team, and hence have no bonds with people who have any expectation of me, as well as the absence of the possibility of emotional blackmail.

For a team-member who gets injured, tries to recover as soon as possible (often not to 100% training-fit) in order to continue training, it might be passion (a pretty scary word) or commitment at work. Urging to get back into the game is a common feeling among such people. I see people around me, pushing themselves to be fit for their team, often trying to exceed their limits.

Sure, in sports, as presented by Nike, and Adidas, limits are meant to be broken. But training with a half-healed ankle sprain isn't the way to go, even if you can somehow prevent the sprain from getting worse. Having a team culture of training while nursing a minor injury does not help either.

I abhor such practices. When faced with such emotional blackmail, I have the urge to give the collective passion (foolishness really) the finger, and turn my back on the team that practices it. With a negative take on sports teams, I don't see myself joining one anywhere on a semi-professional level.

"Don't base your decision on the advice of people who don't have to deal with the consequences."

When faced with an injury, team-mates may volunteer their company, call on you bearing gifts, care for you for a few days. What team-mates do not and will not do, is to dedicate the rest of their lives to make up for the discomfort and inconvenience of living with the injury should it be chronic or recurring. They will not be faced with the constant pain, the inconvenience of having to schedule medical appointments into your work, or the struggle to move at every single instance of their lives. Every minute they are not with you, is a minute you suffer alone for 'taking one for the team'.

"No one will pity you!"

- Kenneth Fang

Well at least I won't.

I've been told not to judge people. By you guessed it, girls. The type that flocks together to condemn people who judge them. It is ironic since in condemning people, judgement has been passed by them onto their judges. There are also those who do not condemn, but opt to distance themselves from those who judge.

The people who told me off, I judged them to act childishly, seemingly on a whim. Especially when it comes to cute things, or being unaware of their environment.

For me, judging comes naturally. I believe it to be a survival trait, something to tell me the person who would most likely get me killed, and hence avoid that person. To generate attributes of a particular person requires a keen eye, observing and the follow-up acting on the observations constitute judging, I think.

Come to think of it, they do not judge because they prefer not to pay attention to their surroundings and company. For that, they are judged. Do they resent judgement because it is unfair for them, who do not judge? I do not know, but neither do I care.

On a side note, one of them once chided me for condemning Apple products and declared that I would get one within 5 years. While she probably would have forgotten about this since she is the type to be ditzy and unaware type, and me being the typical old man remembering a grudge, I take heart that nearly 3 years have passed without myself being in ownership of any Apple products.

Why partake in a forgotten bet? I suppose my dislike for how Apple runs is still as strong as the day when I first took a stand against the half-eaten fruit. Some of their products might be good, and I have been tempted. But their methods and ways have turned me off more.

Coming back here is like having my old immature throughts slap me in the face. But I have been driven by boredom, and drawn by the act writing.Twitter is too short for a good rant, while Facebook is too 'attention seeking' and open to commentary. Who knows how long I'll fuss over this blog this time.

Much has changed over the course of my absence here. Most obvious of which is the UI. I still remember the old blue-white interface where you need to have a bit of HTML know how in order to edit your templates.

All that has changed. But so has the physical environment.

It is odd, but there is the urge to talk about current happennings here as if the blog is an old friend. Perhaps this previous sentence will be of real use to those studying and analysing the usage and relationship of blogs.

I ought to tidy up the layout a bit, and maybe I will write about my time in NUS should I still be in the mood later on.

I suppose since I've wasted 5 years on someone, I should be able to spare 3 years or so for a girlfriend.

Maybe I'm the one at fault here. I can't be sure.

2 sides in a war. Winner writes the story. But who's the 'winner' here?

Maybe I should stop pondering over the future and just enjoy the present. Hmm, just like living on the edge.

If looking good is stupid, I could say the same of the sport you play.

After all, I always believed sports, entertainment and fashion were a waste of resources.

And again, I question - will I be able to handle this sort of thinking and impossible logic in the future? I have serious doubts now. Having to go through a long argument just to try to get a simple idea through.

Getting you to not dismiss something and address it seriously is already some work. Dealing with arguments that do not make logical sense afterward requires a completely fresh mind.

I like things proper. Closures, 'evaluation' of sorts. I walk in the middle of the line. So that when I fuck it up and fall, I'm still in the 'safe' zone most of the time. I neither have friends to 'save' me nor trust them to do so for me.

Every time you sleep in, I can't help but ponder if I'll be able to live with you for the rest of our lives. But today I reasoned that you went back to bed because you either had nothing to do, or weren't feeling that well.

And I wonder.

Do/will I have/be able to put up with these assortment of bad habits for the rest of my life?

Tardiness, laziness, thinking that life is all fun and avoid it when things get problematic...

Why are those under 25 called youths?

It's like calling a loaf of bread 1/3 into its expiry, fresh.

Different day, same shit, compounded annoyance.

So you can't depend on someone you're supposed to be able to.

Says you to being 'free' only on Thu & Fri.

Quit acting confident when you know you likely can't do it.

Hope you don't fail your modules from skipping tutorials.

Can't believe you behaved so nonchalantly over whether there's contact or presence.

It's not even been half a day & I miss her already.

I know I can live through the extreme other end. But I can only say I'm stronger if I live with extreme other end.

Foreign territory, uncertain risks. Much to gain, everything to lose.

Go forth & be strong.

Crap, I'm really sleepy from the notes making. I must now finally read the notes I made!

Her seeming lack of self control. When it comes to lessons, we all know she needs 12 hours of sleep, 10 hours at best.

我忍。

I'll shut up.