Birthday Treats

16th June
Buffet dinner at Orchard Hotel, beside Delfi Orchard. Was supposed to eat at Grand Copthorne Waterfront, but when dad called to reserve a table, it was fully booked already and the staff on the phone recommended Orchard Hotel. At first I was wondering why, but suddenly remembered both hotels are owned by the same group/ corporation.
Orchard Hotel's Cafe was offering a "Everything Singapore" special in tune with the Singapore Food Festival and National Day. There was Hainanese chicken rice, drunken prawns, spaghetti, prawn noodles, roti prata, dim sum, bbq cheese sausage, squid, stingray and more, a 'Japanese' corner with sashimi and sushi, seafood, rock oysters, local stir fried dishes, chicken ginseng soup, porridge, bread pudding, muah chee, pastries and cakes, dessert, ice cream, durian puree/ paste, teh tarik, a whole lot more and best of all, fresh durians.
I loved the teh tarik, chicken ginseng soup and chicken rice. The cheese in the sausages oozes into your mouth. My mum's favourite oysters were fresh. The prawns were fresh. It was less than S$50 per head and my dad had US$100 to spend and 'subsidise' for the meal as he got an award from the company. Really value for money, if only there was more time to slowly eat... There were some I didn't get to try...

28th June
Treat from my favourite "bitches". We ate at Merchant Court Ellenborough. My 2nd time there. Luckily no shark meat that day. Haha...
There was shark fins soup, kuay pie tee, various Peranakan dishes such as Ayam Buah Keluak, omelette, braised duck, steam fish, luo han zai (mixed vegetables), 'lobster' (looked like size of crayfish), a 'Japanese' corner with sashimi and sushi, seafood, rock oysters and much more. For desserts, there was glutinous rice balls, bubur hitam (sweet black glutinous rice porridge), sesame paste, chocolate bread pudding, chocolate fondue, pastries and cakes, and of cos, THE durian pengat (puree/ paste) and a whole lot more.
I still love the kuay pie tee and bread pudding. If only they had popiah skin, cos kuay pie tee and popiah use almost the same ingredients. If only there was more time to sit down and slowly eat, I would have taken more kuay pie tee and bread pudding.

psst: The durian puree at Orchard Hotel is better than at Ellenborough...

8th July
THE Dearest's turn. We were actually walking around Great World City and I had the sudden craving for Kenng Rogers cos it's been ages since I last ate it. So I told Dear to scrape the original plan of having my favourite porridge buffet and have Kenny Rogers instead. We order a set of 1/2 chicken, 1/2 ribs, 3 sides and 2 corn muffins.
The chicken was tougher than years ago. Ribs were still as fabulous and yummy. The broccoli and cauliflower was slightly undercooked. The pasta salad was ok. The corn muffins' standard dropped. But the macaroni and cheese was as good as ever. Best dish out of the 6!