Brunch @ Tanglin Tree (Don't go there unless you have great company!)

Last Sunday, we had brunch at a new spot, (Trashy) Tanglin Tree. It was absolutely bitter to say that apart from the company, nothing else was worthy from Tanglin Tree. That was how much I dislike their food (so-so), their service (puke!), their environment and their blatant extortion of $0.50 just to add a few drips of hollandaise sauce (hello?? just hollandaise sauce ok!).

Service: I am rating it 3/10. Initially I wanted to rate it 2/10, but because another waiter brought us a lighter to light up the birthday candle, so I added a point for that. Otherwise, it was plain disastrous. One of the male waiters was super haughty, he seemed to forgot he was in the service line. Where's the smile? I could not fathom what made him asked if we were with another table when we ordered our food separately, not seated together, not exchanging conversations, nor glances. Maybe he left his 'common sense' at home that day morning. After answering that out-of-nowhere question, we asked for children cutleries and another dim-witted question popped out of his mouth again, "How many?" Now, this question really light up the fire in me. I asked him in return, "How many children are there (pointing to the two kids)? Two right? So two sets right?" Maybe he also left his specs at home this morning. I must cool down.

Subsequent service we received from the waitresses and waiters were not up to scratch given the fact that I dined at so many places that serves brunches. Yes, they MAY BE busy (not exactly when I looked around me), but so do other restaurants like Spruce, Rider's, Epicurious etc, their services is never as lousy as the one I get from Tanglin Tree. We have to specifically asked twice for the children cutleries. And, the same haughty waiter kicked J's baby seat and threw disgusted glance at him and walked past like J was blocking his way. Now what kind of attitude is that? Emily is magnanimous, if that guy have the gut to throw that look at Ziv, I tell you, that day will be his most unforgettable day (in his life!).

Enough said about the services. I am going to drop it to 2/10 again, if I have to recall more.

Food: I am rating it 6/10. First, food was not served HOT. Now, that reminds me of the hot scones from Rider's, how heavenly! Ok, back to Tanglin Tree, bread was hard like rock, to the extend that we could not even cut it with a normal knife. All of us had to use our hands to tear the bread apart, and that's so unglam. Second, because I deemed that it was highly unjustifiable and down-right absurd and outrangeous to pay $0.50 for hollandaise sauce, I decided to skip it totally even though I wasn't the one paying (Thanks to Yip family!). The food tasted dried, until I poked the poach eggs.

And how do you tell if the food is good? You have to trust the kids, especially Ziv. Having pointed out numerous times that Ziv is quite an epicure, he eats what he deemed as good, not like us adults, we do not mind occasion food that went slightly wrong. From what I observed, Ziv ate the sausage, very little of french toast, he ate it mainly because of maple syrup I guess, and that was it. So if you want to ask Ziv for his rating, he probably rate the birthday cheesecake more than the brunch.

Price: As I mentioned, I did not pay for the brunch, but judging at the price to pay for sauce is enough to piss me off big time. Furthermore, I would say they don't even deserve service charge! Maybe tips for the guy who brought me the lighter.

Environment: Big playground by the side, good for other kids but not for Ziv. He hates sand. He asked Kev, why is there sand in the playground. Maybe the pampered boy is so used to not seeing sand at the playground, think, playground at home.

Companionship: Every cloud has a silver lining. And the silver lining of the day will defeinitely be the wonderful companionship. And I am rating it 10/10. Despite having 3 brunches in a row with Yips, still we have endless topics to talk about. Endless complains to lament about. Endless gossip to yak about. And not forgetting this is a Birthday brunch for Jayden. Well, yes, we should not be reminded the day of celebration by the Trashy Tanglin Tree. Yes, we or rather I should let go. I am going to throw the complaint letter in the recycle bin just for Jayden.

Happy Birthday to Jayden! May you be happy and healthy always!

Brunch at Rider's

Brunch at Rider's again, where I find PEACE. Wanted to abscond from the F1 madness because I had enough of traffic jams that comes with the over-rated F1 night race. I mean, first time - it was great, you know, something new, but subsequent night race seemed to be so over. What's the hype?

I enjoyed having a lazy afternoon spent at Rider's with the Yips. Tucked in Fairway Drive, where I tucked away a big meal.

They changed the menu, Ziv missed his strawberry pancakes. And for me, I missed the muffin with Egg Benedict. However, the new menu did not disappoint me, I kind of like the new healthy bread. New on the menu, was scones. I love scones.

Wassup with kids these days? All of a sudden, kids are avoiding cameras totally.

The boys having fun, playing furniture shifting. How fun is that!

Emily is lucky to have a nice picture with Jayden, however, that was about 3 takes later.

Ever since we quitted Shichida, we have been going to lazy brunches. Next week will be...

Brunch at Riders Cafe

Last Sunday, we had brunch at Riders Cafe. It was a long-awaited brunch.
With the intention to bring Ziv to see horses...

After brunch, there should be a birthday party to attend, alas, I wasn't feeling well and so we decided to head home to have a good afternoon nap.

Weekend Fun

Last Week's Happenings

Last week we welcomed our two first visitors to our new abode when we officially moved in. J and E.

And the boys had a whale of a time playing at the pool and eating hotdog buns.

Before the swim or rather dip...

Ziv always repines that it was too hot to swim under the blazing sun, however, he changed his mind at the drop of the hat when he was told that he would be having an aqua buddy.

Trying to operate the jacuzzi.

After the dip...

This week's happenings

On Friday evening we got our new car and we have been driving two cars on the road because there were so many errands to run. First it was getting the new car, Kev drove the new one while I trailed behind (since I do not know the way) to park it at the Performance Motor. Then on Saturaday morning, we sent the new car to fix up window film and then drove the old car to brunch and later to collect the new one... Confusing, I know. Actually all these can be solved since our the PML salesgal offered to help us run all the errands, however, Kev declined, because he can't trust anyone with his cars.

Managed to snap a picture of the gleeful driver on the way to Performance Motor in the morning. Another gleeful passanger was seated behind fascinated by the panaromic roof.

Thereafter, revisited Spruce for brunch.

Kev's brunch. Big breakfast.

My brunch... Egg benedict on sliced toasted bagel with grilled shrimps soaked in hollandise sauce. Perfecto!

Ziv had a long beef sausage for Ziv all for himself. It was almost like a practice to go down to the playground under Spruce. Even playing alone did not deter the boy from running here and there. I have to gave Kev some credits, cause these playground pictures were snapped by him, while I leisurely sipped on my latte.

From this picture, Ziv seemed to have grown taller and bigger.

This weekend, we welcomed with open arms another set of guests to our abode. J and her two chummy daughters, J and S. Ziv remembers them as 'jumping sisters', because Ziv had fun bouncing on their beds last Christmas. And of course, they were here for a swim. Just yesterday, J and I met up for MJ. In less than 24 hours, we meet up again.

J bought like 50 breads from Four Leaves for the kids and a box of nicely decorated donuts for Ziv, so much so that I decided to take a picture of them.

And by the way, our company is having a photography contest and I decided to take part in this contest. This is my photo for the competition. And the caption for the picture is 'Friends'. It is hard to capture moments like this. It will be framed up on our wall even though it doesn't win me any thing in the contest.

What a Saturday!

It is really extremely rare that Kevin doesn't have to work on a Saturday, and it only happens once in a blue moon. I grabbed the opportunity to drag him out of the house to try out Epicurious. A place that I have been wanting to visit, for brunch. In fact, it is a toil and moil to introduce or sell a brand new brunch location to these two male, that's because, Kevin benchmarked every brunch with Jones, and Ziv on the other hand, is finical about the type of sausage he puts in his mouth.

I love going to Epicurious, and marked it as one of my fave haunt right now, because, those who patronize Epicurious are simple, cause they are mainly dressed in dishabille, very unlike of the crowd at Spruce. So, there is no pressure to put on makeup or dress well to be seen at Epicurious.

Today's brunch exceeded our expectation. Initially, we were pretty cheesed-off by their service attitude, first, they do not allow reservation, second, at the entrance, there was a sign that read something like this, "call Jasmine for a seat" and there was no sign of human standing at the door that looked like 'Jasmine'. I called up upon a male waiter and asked him, "Where is Jasmine?" He replied, "She is not here today."

HUH.

Anyway, he called the manager to get us a seat. The serving of the food was pretty slow, the drinks was served first followed by the food.

Here's what I ordered. Egg Benedicts. For whereever I go, I am sure to order Egg Benedicts because that looked more like a breakfast to me. The surprise that came long with the Egg Benedicts was the thin slice of watermelon. Better than nothing, at least, there was fruit.

I liked how it was cooked, especially the grilled potato with skin.


I specially ordered Choco-Nana for Ziv. It turned out that the finicky boy was more interested in the food on his Daddy's plate. The bread and sausages, as usual!

The Choco-Nana was sinfully delicious. Diced strawberries, banana slices, thick white bread and the generous spread of Nutella, H-E-A-V-E-N!! Since Ziv wasn't a bit interested, I ate it all by myself. I thought I gained a pound after putting this sinful piece in my tummy.

The contented boy, with bread in his mouth.

As usual, Kevin ordered his full breakfast set, completed with 3 slices of bread, 3 tiny sausages, bacon, baked beans, 2 sunny side up eggs, grilled potato and mushroom! I didn't realise that the breakfast had so much varieties until I typed it out. All in all, he was satisfied.

And that means, we can come back again!

Since the agenda was pretty empty for the day, I suggested to walk over to Medi-Ya to stock up my Japanese snacks drawer. I love going to Medi-Ya for obvious reason, I can't get enough of Japanese snacks and there can't be found even in the Japanese section in Cold Storage supermarket.

Ziv loves Japanese snacks too.

Because I wanted to build a pond in the balcony, so I suggested (again) to go Qian Hu. It was my 2nd time to the fish farm and each time, there was a surprise. I still remembered Kevin and I went to the fish spa last year and this time round with Ziv, long kang fishing.

It brought back many of Kevin's memories, he told me.

Anyway, he seemed to be the one who was more interested in the fishing than Ziv.

Ziv tried his luck on fishing...

We had a reasonable amount of fishes.

The fishes are now at home, I wonder how long will they survive in the hands of Ziv.

Today is really a fun-filled Saturday for us. I hope we can do this more often rather than just shopping.