i went for the nutcracker yesterday at the esplanade. It was magical but first, I gotta gush about the fantastic dinner though a bit rushed of the performance. The food at my humble house is more than humble. It's exquisite and bursting with flavour. The menu itself was very puzzling. It had very poetic phrases which I can't remember now. We were very tempted to get the set dinner as there were more dishes but we were in a hurry. Dammit. We had a strange looking appetizer which came in a small cup with strange tasting liquid and something that looked like noodles. It was great! Next, we had some steamed chicken with ham etc and it was so well done and flavourful! Then, we had the fried beancurd with scallop floss which was good beyond words. As I couldn't eat seafood yet due to my poor lip, I had to ask them to replace the crab meat with pork in the fried rice. Dammit again... Then came our yummy Wagyu beef in black pepper. It was so soft that it melted in our mouths. We were high on the food which was served promptly after we told them we're rushing for the 8 pm performance. Our bill came up to 70 plus per person. Good service and the cooking's really fast! It's a pity the rest opened at 6.30 pm. Oh yes, the decor was beautiful, with chairs which resembled the wizards' hats in harry potter. The top of the back support of the chair curled back like a hat. There were seats of various shapes and sizes. Too bad we didn't make reservations so we got to sit on a normal chair. Anyway, the service was good, with the waiters politely asking us individually if we wanted our very fragrant tea to be refilled instead of asking all of us at one go if we wanted more tea. Kinda pitied the waiter as he had to repeat the same question to each of us though we were all within hearing distance. I had earlier read a notice outside stating the dress code, no shorts, just smart casual. Then, my colleague pointed out a couple dressed rather sloppily with the girl dressed in shorts sauntering in. I was disgusted as the couple were strutting like proud peacocks into this restaurant which required proper dressing. Was wondering why this young couple dared to dress so awfully to such a nice place. Am puzzled why they were allowed to even come in in the first place. If I were to be dressed like this in such a restaurant, I'll wish that I can turn into an ostrich. Anyway, we decided that we will come back again and sit down for a longer meal, ie take the set meal. Yay!
Moving on, let me talk about the performance. It was great except that it was marred by two combined schools' choir which was hidden in the orchestra pit. I shall not mention the two schools but I know of a choir which's ten times better than it. The choir members had too much air coming out when they were singing, they failed to sustain the notes, not enough lung power and they couldn't even keep up with the SSO's tempo. It was just so wrong and awful. The first reaction my colleagues and I had when we heard the choir sing was, Yucks! My colleague then pointed out that the organizers had no choice but to choose a lousier choir as no good choir would want to sing for only that pathetic few minutes in the orchestra pit. It just doesn't make sense. Even the sg youth choir won't do that. We were just so appalled by how badly the choir sang, given the very few notes they were supposed to sing! In fact, during intermission, we could still remember what notes they sang and we started singing hehe. Then, we continued our bitching about how bad the singing was. On the whole, I enjoyed the dance. I liked the part when the tin soldier danced with the doll at the beginning, the soldiers fighting with the rats which behaved like cats, the angels dancing etc. The clever use of multimedia played an impt role in the changing of the background / set. I can imagine how many backstage hands there must be, given the scale of the production. I liked the interpretation of the various movements in the suite as the choreographer indeed assigned the appropriate countries to the various movements. I like the China one in particular, with china looking ppl coming onstage in bicycles. The Arabia dance was so sensual too! Meanwhile, I saw my piano teacher leaving his keyboard several times during the performance so I asked him today during lesson why didn't he just sit still at his keyboard thruout the performance and he simply said he wanted to view the performance. Gee... Anyway, he told me this's a very costly production and I won't announce the cost here. U can ask me personally though... The nutcracker performance ended so beautifully with blue lights shining on the snow flakes hanging from the top and smaller pieces of flakes floating to the floor. My teacher told me that a certain size had to be cut for all the small flakes to float down in a certain manner and they had to keep testing till they got the right size. Amazing huh...
After the performance, we headed for drinks at Cityspace which my friends just fell in love with after I brought them there. Thank goodness we managed to get a good seat. Well, something really embarrassing happened. I was reaching out for my fren's virgin mary when I spilt my cinderella drink. 3/4 of it was gone and the ang mohs at the next table generously offered me their serviettes. The waitress helped to clean up and she even refilled the drink for me at no extra charge! It was so sweeet of her! Now, that's what I call good service hehe.. It was kinda strange that as time passed, the windows got foggier. Strange phenomenon and my colleague seemed anxious about it. I asked her if she was afraid that the water molecules were fogging up the windows and force their way in to attack her. We had a really great time last nite and we are of course looking forward to dining at Jaan next Fri. Yay!
Today, I was at suntec at 7 plus, headed to royce and oh god, the queue was just crazy. I decided to get my dinner with my friend and later try my luck there. Had a simple meal at country manna, exchanged xmas gift with her. I gave her an australian wine, ruby port, with 17% alcohol and she nearly flipped when she saw the percentage. On the bottle was a personalised message for her. Glad she liked it. She gave me a set of kenzo perfume. Can't figure out what kinda smell it's supposed to be but it's nice and came in nice small bottles. I love it man.. After dinner, I headed back to royce and got an even bigger shock. Ppl were queuing up to get into the shop! I had no choice but to queue. It was hellish. There weren't the slabs that I wanted so I just anyhow grabbed a truffle kirsch for my silly cousin. Waited in the bloody queue for such a long time and a woman behind me started complaining to the security guard that there should be more than 1 cashier. I was already irritated so I turned back and shot her my infamous dirty look. Wanted to tell her off that this's a specialty shop, even godiva has only one cashier. She should just go to cold storage and get her chocs since there are more cashiers there. Anyway, I am glad I got my chocs though they had run outta ice packs so I had to race home to preserve them in good condition.
It pays to be nice as you'll get nice gifts and you get to dine with frens at great places. Oh my, I am gonna drive my trainer crazy at the rate I'm going for sinful food. I can see my money flying away at an incredible speed and my credit card bills mounting... sighh... But I am still excited about all the dinners lined up for the rest of this year and of course, my anniversary on xmas! :D
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