Shanghai Ren-Jia

This is a really out-dated blog entry (December last year?) - sorry, I am slowly (but surely) clearing my back-log.

Both B and I both used to work in Shanghai (at different times - no, we did not meet there) so when his parents mentioned a "really good and cheap" Shanghainese restaurant at Geylang, we hurriedly gathered a group of friends to check out the place. It was a hole in the wall place - don't expect a fancy ambience or atas service. Run by PRC locals, I'd imagine you'd need to speak conversant mandarin in order to order the dishes.

Lucky for us, we already had a whole list of Shanghainese dishes we were craving for. For me, it was Hong Shao Rou and drunken chicken. We also ordered La Zi chicken (in dry wok style) and Duo Jiao Yo Dou (fish head in diced chilli). The latter was really more Hunan-style rather than Shanghainese but I don't think anyone was compaining, haha.


Ok, the verdict. It certainly doesn't beat my favourite restaurants in Shanghai but for the price and quality, I'd give it a thumbs-up. I love the fact that it's just in my backyard and I can get my fix of Hong Shao Rou anytime. Taste could have been more robust, but in the same manner they cut down on the oiliness and sweetness, the food has been prepared to cater to the Singapore palate.


We loved the drunken chicken though, it's a must order. Most authentic dish of the lot. The guys ordered a second serving! It's amazing how food can bring back so many good memories of our time spent in Shanghai.


I used to have my weekly fix at Xiao Yang Shengjian bao when I was in Shanghai, and when I saw it on the menu I almost hyper-ventilated. We were already stuffed but I couldn't resist ordering a dozen for ehem "desser". Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed - the shengjian bao just did not deliver - the pan-fried base was not crispy enough and it was too dry - where's that burst of delicious soup when you bite into the bao?


Nonetheless, this is one joint I'd go back to. The other dishes were good.

Invaded by nature...

I've mentioned before that I teach next door to a tarantula (not my teaching partner- although a nature girl, she's completely human!).  There are turtles and lizards in addition to the arachnid named Bob (even though she's a female).  After quite a few threatening persuasive opinion letters from my students, I added to our classroom...

I had 3 hermit crabs in our classroom, but they all seemed to have died in the first three months of school.  I don't know why.  They may have sensed my malcontent with their existence.  They are the lamest pets EVER!  They do nothing during the day, but hide in their shell.  Not conducive to a classroom.  When I had them at home, they cruised around and drove my cats crazy.  Whatever.  Anyway, slowly they died off.  I neglected to tell my class.  I know, I know... I'm an awful teacher.  I should have harnessed the teachable moment and had them write about their feelings or something.  Frankly, I was trying to teach them to read and that took precedent over the dead crabs.  (Can I say that I'm not really heartless?)  Fast forward to a few weeks ago... one of my sweeties (also happens to be nature girl's son) asked why our hermit crabs are so inactive when the one's in the store were climbing and having fun.  Ummm..... I couldn't lie to those big blue eyes.  I broke the news to the whole class.  There were no tears.  Weird.  They cried when I read Dear Juno last week.

Nature girl sent out an invite to take on two red-bellied toads (with full aquarium set up).  I jumped on it and it was delivered on Thursday.  Do have I have to tell you how much we accomplished that morning?  Nada!  They are SO AWESOME!  I freaked them out by trying to take photos, but here is a few of my little desk/zoo I have goin' on.

I don't actually sit at my desk very often (unless I'm searching Pinterest during prep for more ideas!), so I figured it was as good as spot as any in the room.  I also bought some new hermit crabs to fill the empty glass box... notice they are just laying there- lame.  :)

I must say, it was very soothing to hear the waterfall during readers and writers workshop, just softly, along with the instrumental music that I play.  I draw the line at rodents and arachnids- persona nan grada, Bob!

Good Lunch Deals (Part I)

Work has been crazy lately and I haven’t had much time to blog. When I get home, I gobble down dinner and vegetate in front of the TV. So much for a meaningful existence.

I dare not commit to weekday after-work plans now. Most recently on Valentine’s Day, I had a lovely Valentine’s Day dinner slice of raisin bread. B was sweet enough to pick me up post-drinks-with-his-pseudo-single mates but no, Valentine’s supper did not materialize.

Why didn’t anyone warn me about working for an American MNC?!!

No matter. This is a post about nice lunches. Given I can’t do many weekday dinners, I seek solace in my afternoon foodie fix now. These are two recent set lunch gems I found.

1. Kurosan Ginza (30 Robertson Quay, #01-10/11 Riverside View)

This is one mean Chiraishi set with salad, soup and dessert. All for $20++! On our first visit, we already preempted withdrawal syndrome and made reservations to return the next week.

Thank goodness Robertson Quay is a bit out of the work hood for most people, else I might not (for ehem selfish reasons) share this here. Not only is the bowl generously piled high with quality cuts of fish, the chocolate dessert here is absolutely delish too. Some sort of chocolate pudding - the milk/cream and chocolate combi is so yummy! Service here, in true Japanese fashion, rocks.

2. Sandaime Bunji (9 Raffles Boulevard, #01-14/15 Millenia Walk)

Talking about stretching that dollar, did you think that $9++ would get you this (see below) set? The restaurant does daily lunch set specials and the day we went it had:

Teriyaki chicken, salad, cold tofu, chawamushi, big bowl of mixed oden, rice, oxtail soup and dessert

Who would have thought that (such a quite) posh-looking restaurant like this would have such a good lunch deal?! W00t!

“Can you please not blog about this place?” B pleaded. Haha. Sorry love, I have a duty to my readers here. To give B credit, he had “discovered” this sweet deal a few weeks ago and was completely bowled over by the Gyutan (beef tongue – the restaurant’s signature) lunch set.

Watch this space. I am so going to look for more fantastic value lunch deals - I know they're out there!

PKNA #26 - Time flies AND MMMM #1 - The Link

Sorry I'm late with this, guys, I was out of the country for a while. But in the meantime both Banker and zvbxrpl have finished awesome new issues:


PKNA #26 - Time Flies


MMMM #1 - The Link

(Feel completely free to just ignore the end pages of MMMM, by the way. Apparently someone at Disney decided that the whole series was just TOO bad-ass, and some silly "Oh-wait-it's just-a-film"-framing device was added. Far as I can tell, the story still works perfectly well if you just ignore the final pages and assume that everything is really happening, so that's what I'M gonna do.)

Also, Aspargus32 is getting back to translating bonus stories, so we'll probably see a lot more of those soon, too. Cool, isn't it?

Which reminds me, are there any Italian speakers out there who might be interested in translating some of the bonus content we tend to skip, but which is actually really awesome? We used to do bonus content in blog post-format - like this, this, or this - but only for issues #6-#11.
So if somebody's interested in picking that up again, let me know. If you do the words, I'll take care of the formatting. :)