my 22nd - part one of three.
Day One * Dinner at Canele
i had already whined about wanting to eat at canele umpteen times and so i was really happy when ziwei announced that he'd planned for us to eat there! it 's so good that this has got to be one of the best meals i've ever had (so far..), and now one of the top few restaurants on my list. i had the marinara spaghettini which was a little over spicy for my liking but still very delicious. fresh seafood, thick tomato sauce and al dente pasta. i've already made a date with my mom for another round. haha..
ziwei had one of the sandwiches, croque madame, which was huge and totally not like a sandwich but like some burger. the bread was thick but not over toasted / oily. the egg was an extra nice touch. i always love sunny-side up eggs in my sandwiches. and the salad was awesome. the tangy sauce wasn't too much, too salty, too sour or overly bland. it was like a touch-and-go thing. you know it's there and you taste it, but it doesn't cover the freshness of the vegetables. plus, the extra sprinkle of sunflower seeds gave the extra crunch.
we had exotique from the crepes selection for dessert - Flambé caramelized banana, chocolate sauce, passionfruit banana sorbet, vanilla tuile and vanilla crème chantilly. the crepes were really good. but a couple of days after i had the crepes there, i had apple delight crepes from say bons which was even better. possibly because the crepes were not folded into quarters as at canele. so i found the crepes extra crisp and overwhelming with the caramelized apples. the caramelized bananas were too small and too little. i think they used the smaller bananas "ba jiao" instead of the del monte ones which are wider in girth. okay, sounds terribly off. but anyways, "ba jiaos" are known to be sweeter and softens better than the del monte ones. if you get what i mean. but there was too few of them. i think only 8 LOR - 2 on each corner of the plate. the passionfruit banana sorbet was VERY GOOD. the banana taste wasn't too heavy and blended really well with the passionfruit, giving some "weight" to the sorbet. but the vanilla creme chantilly was disappointing. it just tastes like whipped cream! now that i see the menu, i probably should have stuck with something safe like tarte tartin.
but still, i enjoyed the entire dinner so much. very satisfying. plus, i had presents everyday leading up to my actual birthday!
Day Two * Crystal Jade Ginseng Chicken & BBQ
so i had a date with candice (first picture) and enting (not pictured because we were too busy stuffing ourselves) for my birthday dinner. they're the closest secondary school friends i have. the rest have basically evaporated into thin air because neither of us have not heard about them, except sheryl who candice often sees in school but it's usually a hi-bye situation. so anyway, we decided to have korean because candice and i were craving for it. can't really say for enting though because she's always "i'm fine with anything". so yes, the two greedy-pigs decided on korean and since i'd eaten here twice before, we cld do without the finding-a-good-korean-place-online-thing. note: MUST RESERVE IN ADVANCE! this place is always packed with a long waiting time if you don't have a reservation. basically because the place is small, i think not more than 15-20 tables. and since it's with bbq, people tend to take a longer time eating. so even when we booked for 7.30 PM, we still had to wait for about 5 to 10 minutes because our table wasn't available yet.
so in anycase, there were three of us and we ordered set meal A - 2 meats (beef and chicken), one soup (seafood soup), side dishes, 2 bowls of rice and fruits. it was basically meant for 2 persons but i remembered the last time ziwei and i ate there, we ordered one meat and one soup and we were basically stuffing ourselves to finish the food. anyways, we upgraded our beef to the "niu gu rou". okay, i can't remember what it is but the waitress said only the "niu gu rou" comes with the set of vegetables for you to wrap your meats in. and i tell you, when you eat korean, must have the vegetables! i had this in korea with the "hei shan zhu rou" - black village pigs. and it was so scrumptious i'm still craving for it two years later. is cannot find in singapore one and i don't think the one that crystal jade has is any similar to it.
we ate so much of the side dishes which is close but not very authentically korean because they were special - chestnut cakes in some kind of chilli sauce, the only place i eat kimchi at, so must have kimchi, and the usual huge beansprouts which are actually soybeans (according to candice, who says her mom says so). and we had like four servings of the bean paste sauce - "dou ban jiang". my absolute favorite. we had it with everything. in the end, we were curious if they sold it, and casually asked the price. and the nice nice people there gave us half a container free! it's really half a container because it came in the clear transparent disposable ones. very nice of them! i must must say that that crystal jade has the best service in all of crystal jade. whatever we asked for came very promptly. plus, they knew one of our friend (enting) was late, and asked if they shd switch on the hot plate for us later. very professional!
i didn't quite expect to get a present from the both of them since we were having a somewhat extravagant dinner, as compared to what we usually have, so it really was quite a surprise! they two really got me what i always don't mind receiving (urh, if you get what i mean) - two hand towels, one mascara and one lipgloss. i tell u. all of which i needed lah! hahaha.. so yes, thank you dears!
i can't wait for our bbq this coming sunday when we're going to use our bean paste sauce! woots! i love good food. good food makes me happy.
okay, so that makes part one of my week long birthday celebration. shall post more tomorrow! =)