Eva Brown
Christmas Eve.
You know, it’s not true what they say, that the Christmas spirit has evaporated from our shores. No, I’m not in love, but I think the Christmas spirit is around – you just need to lay off your nostalgia and skepticism, and open up your mind to it. I caught a glimpse of that spirit – choirs carolling, people in good spirits, the cool weather… but I just didn’t have time to stop and stare, for I was getting on with my busy life, scrambling to find a reasonable and affordable wrapping service. With not much time on my hands, I was utterly annoyed by my mom’s general lack of urgency. While I was ready and pumped up to go at 11am, we didn’t leave until an hour and a half later. Our pace was further hampered by her refusal to walk briskly, having chosen to wear the same cheap loosely strapped slippers which caused her to sprain her feet previously, and was also slippery to wear in the rain. She has many pairs of footwear, but I couldn’t understand for the life of me, why she thought this was a good idea.
Then, there was the obligatory lunch, which I could totally do without, but my mom insisted, so on her suggestion, we had lunch at Ambush at Junction 8. The open-concept bistro is better known for its outlet at Takashimaya’s basement 2, and serves decent Italian food. The outlet at Bishan, features an expanded menu including mains, pasta, mussel and clam pots, salads and more. I’ve never been a fan of Ambush, mostly because despite Italian fare being one of the simplest to prepare and universally accepted, they still take shortcuts and liberties with it.
The Bruschetta was not very good. The diced tomatoes lacked flavor, and were obviously pre-prepared and left out for a long time, which would explain a certain staleness to it. The people at Ambush know this, hence the use of Foccacia Bread, which with its own herb aroma, should have masked the fact that the tomatoes weren’t exactly in their freshest state. However, the problem is, I only had the tomatoes…
The Mini Sausage Platter isn’t too bad, considering the odds and all. I know Singaporeans aren’t as receptive to beef, pork and veal sausages while restaurants tend to aim for the Halal certificate, which means in this pragmatic society, chicken sausages are the only real option to offer.
Expectations play a very strong part when you eat, and I thought I had ordered a Marinara Paella. What was served to me, was more of a risotto, which wasn’t too bad if it was the case, but paella is NOT risotto. The tomato-sauce base was also not commendable – no wonder so many Singaporeans, including Keidi, don’t like tomato-based pastas – the sauce they used was clearly the cheap, unbranded ones, which I thought was a real pity. Or maybe, they spent the money on the seafood, because the seafood here is among the freshest from a low-to-mid-range restaurant.
After lunch, it was a mad rush home – napped a bit, wrapped my gift and got ready.
My “Christmas” dinner, turned out to be at Putien Restaurant – Titus thought it’d be a nice change from the “usual” western fare we “always” have during Christmas. Besides him, there were two more of whom I only recognize as acquaintances, Aaron and Terrence. Putien is a restaurant that serves Heng Hwa cuisine from Putian, a costal region of the Fujian province in China. The chain markets itself as a “modest eatery serving homely food”, which is apt, considering that more than 50% of Singapore Chinese descended from the Fujian province.
We were started with two “small dishes”, or tapas, if you will, to whet our appetite.
Fried Yam. I don’t eat yam, but this was amazing. However, I didn’t eat more than a single piece, because yam can get very filling.
Fried Pork Rib chops. I enjoyed this, not only because the meat was tender, but it was a welcome difference to the Cantonese Sweet & Sour Pork. Usually, this is also served sweet, but this tilts the flavor in favor of the savory, which meat oughta be.
Herbal Prawns in Bamboo Cup. The tiger prawns were immensely fresh, and while some people may not like it, I appreciated that the meat had not absorbed the herbal wine. While this wasn’t the best (the best herbal prawns, if you’d like to know, in my opinion, is Yujiazhuang Restaurant), it was still okay.
Hing Wa Bee Hoon. I don’t know what’s with the Hokkiens and their plain, tasteless vermicelli, but it wasn’t anything a dash of Putien signature chili couldn’t solve, and soon, it was lovely.
Ahhhh…. You can never really go wrong with a classic Chinese steamed fish. I’ll be honest here, I didn’t have as much as I’d like to have because let’s face it, we are 4 guys.
Dessert of Tortoise Jelly.
After that, we headed to TABOO to club, where Darren joined us. I have never clubbed with Darren before, and neither did Titus, despite knowing him a lot longer than I do, so we didn’t know what to really expect. Unexpectedly, and I mean, totally expectedly… the way he danced… well, it made us look professional. He was sooo not into it at all!
