Cabbages & Condoms Restaurant in Bangkok

This has got to be one of the better-known restaurants in the capital of the Land of Smiles. I believe it has been around for a few years at least, and if the size of the crowd on the Friday evening we were there is anything to go by, the place is still pretty popular among tourists. My CEB loves Tom Yam soup so this is what we had in a hotpot. The restaurant offers a choice between soup or curry being served in a hotpot which is more expensive, or in a bowl. Since we had pretty high expectations, we decided to go for the hotpot which meant a larger portion too. The Slog Reviews: 7/10. Soooo.....sooooo. Period. Not anything that would take one's breath away in a hurry. I suppose it is almost impossible to eat in a Thai restaurant and not try Tom Yam Goong so I would moderate my expectations if I were to order this dish from C&C.

Now, ever since our trip to Krabi last year where he had Tom Kha Gai for the first time at one of the more famous restaurants, my CEB has been hooked to this rich coconut curry dish which comes with pieces of chicken, pork or prawns. We didn't order this in a hotpot so here is how the dish looked served in a claypot bowl. The Slog Reviews: 6/10. If you like the rich sweet creamy sort of curry, don't order this dish at C&C. The curry was thin, watery and spicy to my CEB's tremendous disappointment.

1 of the restaurant's specialties was soft shell crab in curry. It came on a hotplate and some yellow curry sauce. The Slog Reviews: 6/10. I ended up eating almost all of this dish on my own as my CEB flatly refused to partake more than 1 mouthful of the crabs. It wasn't that it was awful but the crab wasn't fried to crispy perfection but more like a soggy half-cooked mess with gills. Do not waste any Baht on this! Oh yes, I know it's quite a lot we ordered (now you who know me well can explain the weight gain), but we did have one last dish of green curry with pork. The Slog Reviews: 8/10. My CEB and I agreed easily that this was the best dish of the lot.

The restaurant has outdoor seating and indoor seating but the weather dictated that we have a table inside. Here is a pic of the decor, most of which is about...condoms or the popularity of the restaurant.

When we were walking out, I took a picture of this most innovative costume - there are multi-colored condoms pasted on the mannequins' cap, shirt and pants.

And while I marveling over the creativity of the designer, I saw this. Unrolled condoms for the skirt! How smart is that!

And while we were on the way out....and no, I haven't seen the inside of the condom packet that my CEB picked up. I wouldn't count on the quality of the contents though, especially if not having a kid just yet is high on one's priority list.

There was a shop just next to the restaurant (within the same compound) that was selling all types of C&C souvenirs - my CEB grabbed a couple of key-chains with condoms in them for his male buddies. Men will always be boys.

I wouldn't go so far as to call C&C a tourist trap but if your intent is to have really nice Thai food, this wouldn't be the place to go. And if you are minded to go for the experience, just do remember to make reservations. There was quite a queue on our way out about 9pm.

Rossini's at Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Hotel

It was just after lunch time when I checked in and it was pouring outside so I was minded to find some grub in the hotel. I'd read about the award-winning restaurant Rossini's which just happened to be in this hotel so I decided to check out the place. To my delight, there was a signboard outside the restaurant advertising its Power Lunch, which looked really affordable at 690 (2 courses)/780 Baht (3 courses)(excluding taxes of course). Getting a seat for lunch on a wet Thursday afternoon did not pose much of a problem and the staff were attentive and spoke good English.

After I'd placed my order, the complimentary bread of basket arrived with some olives. No butter. I wonder why (but in any case I asked for some). And they also served a trio of flat lollipop-looking biscuits with nuts stuck on them. Forget the bread - that was nothing extraordinary but those biscuits things, they were just the right mix of sweet and crunchiness, the kind that leaves no cloying sweet aftertaste in your mouth, and not hard enough to hurt your teeth.

The waitress followed up with a complimentary beetroot mousse. Now, I hate beetroot but since this was free...well, it proved to be pretty alright with little bits of potato at the end.

I ordered the Seafood Salad for my appetizer and it came with all of 1 scallop, 1 squid, 1 mussel and 1 prawn. Fresh, presented well but...I would try some other starter if I'd the chance to go back. Even knowing that this was Rossini's did not raise this dish in my humble esteem.

I ordered the veal pansotti with parmesan cheese sauce as my main. It was a toss up between the veal and the snapper with black truffle sauce and it was only because the server strongly recommended the veal that I decided against the snapper (Which I will have the next time I go back to BKK).

Well, the dish looked like this when served - 3 lumps of yellow, green and brown. I'll give this dish a really low score for presentation. Just because it is a set lunch menu doesn't mean that you can depart with the aesthetics altogether, ya know?

But presentation aside, the whipped potato and the spinach heaps melted delightfully in the mouth and the veal was just awesome. Juicy, succulent, tender and done in a way such that each bite of the veal meant a mini-explosion of flavor in the mouth.

Dessert was the orange and pistachio cake. It was blah. Nothing to crow about - the cake was not too moist or too dry but it lacked the richness of a really delicious cake. I would not order this again.

Based on my experiences of having set lunches at better restaurants (even the celebrity restaurants in Singapore's MBS), I wouldn't be quite so quick to belittle my experience at Rossini's. However, I think that one should order from the ala carte menu to be able to truly judge the quality of the dishes of a restaurant.

And the power lunch (not very much food, was it?) cost a total of 918 Baht (about SGD 36?) after taxes. The Slog Reviews: 7.5/10 for this experience, and hoping to have a better experience at Rossini's the next time.

Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit Hotel

Having stayed at Sheraton HCM and Sheraton Hanoi the last business trip, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that my co booked a room at Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit for my Thailand work trip.

But it was a surprise, because the 3 SPG hotels (Sheraton, Westin and 4 Points) are located within 5-8mins walking distance of each other and I'd thought that the most expensive option wouldn't be their first choice. I had thought it would be 4 Points, and if I was lucky, Westin.

But as it turned out, not only was I going to be staying in Sheraton for 2 nights (The Sheraton was rated #4 of all the hotels in BKK on tripadvisor ), but there was also an upgrade to the grand deluxe room which came with a host of benefits such as the butler service, free laundry (2 pcs) per day and free high-speed internet in the room. More on that later.

The Sheraton is connected to Asoke Station by a sheltered bridge and it takes all of 5 mins to get from the lobby to 1 of the largest newest malls in BKK, Terminal 21. Westin is right opposite Terminal 21 but one has to cross a small road to get there and it was raining when I arrived. So in terms of access to the BTS and the mall, the Sheraton beats Westin hands-down.

Anyway, when I arrived, for once, the staff at the reception escorted me right up to the room after the checkin process. She also arranged for tea (there was ice lemon tea, coffee or hot tea) to be brought up to the room before we entered the room, and for the bags to be brought up later. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the tea came with 2 biscuits in a nice little tray. Below is a picture of the grande deluxe room. It reminded me a lot of the club suite I'd stayed in at the Sheraton Imperial in KL. The room was spacious of course but the design was far from modern and sleek as you can probably tell from the picture below.

In addition to the iced tea, there was a complimentary platter of fruits consisting of 2 bananas and 2 mangosteens next to the hot drinks facility. I have to say that the selection of complimentary tea and coffee bags was pretty good.

A picture of the room next to the toilet which is some sort of a walk in wardrobe. It came complete with a safe, and pretty fluffy complimentary bedroom slippers.

Here is a picture of the toilet. The bathtub was clean enough so I had a good soak in it. The shower on the hand needs to be improved - there isn't the right mix of hot and cold water - it is either a touch too much of either.

I'd read that the pool at Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit was something pretty amazing and my room on the 2*th floor had a view of the pool if I looked straight down from the window. It did seem rather pretty with the lush greenery and the dark blue tiling. If one wanted, one could have breakfast by the pool (But the selection of food would be smaller)

The more distant view from my room was of the river. In 1 of the mags I read, I learnt that the river flowing through BKK was the heart of the city. Which was something new to me because all my trips to Thailand consisted of well, shopping, eating and massages at malls and little nooks and crannies.

When my CEB finally joined me late in the night (almost midnight), the 24hr butler service promptly provided more iced tea for the 2 of us and biscuits. That was when I really started digging the butler service.

Because I had to leave the hotel at 8am for work and I didn't want to wake up early to have a buffet breakfast that I wouldn't be able to enjoy, I ordered from the butler service, a cup of hot tea and some biscuits. It was delivered in all of 5 mins and this was how I left my CEB to enjoy his day of a nice buffet breakfast, free in the room broadband AND WIFI, and easy access to the shopping mall. While I went to work. To say my CEB was happy is an understatement.

Talking about the buffet breakfast, I'd read on the internet that the spread was something awesome but my CEB had told me it wasn't. I was to find out the next day when we went for breakfast together before checking out. I didn't think the spread was that limited - of course, there are better breakfast buffets we've had but still, it was decent enough. My CEB groused that there wasn't anyone to cook noodles on the spot for guests (unlike 4 Points) and eyed the noodles I'd ordered for breakfast from the ala-carte menu. I think the bowl of noodles cost about SGD13 but it wasn't expensive when one comes to think of it. At least in comparison to the breakfast buffet which cost SGD40.

Now, here is the reason why one should book the Grande Deluxe Room at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit. Other than the perks of the butler service, the room comes with unlimited drinks at The Living Room (the lounge for Sheraton).

I missed drinks the first night because I was out shopping. However, the second night found us at The Living Room enjoying the complimentary snacks AND the complimentary drinks between 6 to 8pm. Did I mention that the cocktails, mocktails, beers and even wine (red, sparkling, white) on the menu were ALL free?

So we drank quite a fair bit. My CEB going straight for the sparking wine of course, and me, pussy-footing around with the mocktails (literally) and then progressing to the cocktails.

The Slog Reviews: 9/10. I have to say that the amount for the grande deluxe room at the Sheraton is worth every penny. A fabulous experience all in all. And when we got back, the first thing we did was to book air tickets to go back to BKK in August.

Ramen Champion at T3 is now open - Power Riki Ramen (Toyko)

To my CEB"s delight. And mine too, having been subject far too many times to my CEB insisting he had to have his noodles at the food-court at T3.

The concept is the same as that of Ramen Champion at Iluma - at the entrance, one gets a card with a band to slip over one's wrist and that card is used to record one's purchases which one pays for by producing one's card to the cashier at the exist.

However, there is one huge difference - the Power Riki Ramen stall at Ramen Champion at T3 Changi Airport which is not found at Iluma. Below is a pic of the stall found near the entrance. The chef is a genuine Japanese chap who speaks rather good English and was able to give me a full description of his broth, compared to the others around.

And he indeed has good reason to be proud given what the Power Riki ramen stall is dishing out. Out of all the ramen that we've tried (there is the Ikkousha station at this Ramen Champion too), we think that the Power Riki Ramen which hails from Japan is the best. Not just in terms of taste, but more importantly, it is CONSISTENTLY good.

Especially the broth which isn't just plain chicken broth as is the case for the other ramen station with the red sign called SuKe (the ramen there tastes like a watery version of Campbell's chicken soup).

The Slog Reviews: 10/10. Solid good ramen full of healthy flavourful ingredients. And in portions that aren't overwhelming but just right. Great job, chef!

Bario Ramen at Ramen Champion at Iluma

Ever since being introduced to Ramen Champion at Iluma last year December where I tried out the Ikkousha station (click here), I was quite determined to introduce my CEB to the good stuff.  My CEB, having lately developed a penchant for spicy stuff, ordered the spicy ramen from the Bario stall which looked like this - a mountain of noodles in some fiery and oily looking gravy.

I on the other hand, ordered the normal Bario Ramen which looked like this but came with a heaping of noodles and fresh beansprouts. Both bowls were pretty aesthetically pleasing I'll say and we fell upon the bowls as soon as we had the chopsticks in our hands.

The Slog Reviews: 7.5/10 (my CEB said 6/10 for the record) for the generous portions of fresh thick noodles and beansprouts. The noodles were a bit heavy though on the stomach, and plentiful but somehow the broth didn't hit the spot the way 1 other stall's ramen did. Will post about that later.

Indo Padang Restaurant at Cathay

1 of my first buys on Groupon was 3 vouchers for SGD90 worth of meals at Indo Padang restaurant at SGD45 (SGD15 x 3 vouchers).

That was the worst buy ever. Not only did I not have the time to use the vouchers till the week before they expired, but it was an absolutely horror altogether. The ambiance was nice, the servers were friendly, the food didn't take forever coming...BUT the quality of the food! Awful doesn't even begin to describe the food.

Food from a Malay/Indonesian stall at a food court beats the food coming out of this restaurant's kitchen hands down.

I'll start with the beef rendang, the dish on the left of the picture. That was the only semi-decent dish out of everything we ordered. The dish cost almost SGD10, and the meat was tough, but not too touch to spoil the dish. No great shakes, but edible.

I wanted to order the giant prawns dish but was told they didn't have that. So I ordered the udang petai, prawns cooked with the petai vegetable. That is the dish on the right. It came with potato cubes and those were the only bits of the dish which were pretty good. The prawns were smallish, very tough and totally dry. Not the least bit of juice or sweetness. I, a noobie at cooking, have cooked sambal prawns and those were much better. Oh, and there were all of about 8 small prawns for SGD 10! What a rip off! Even with a voucher giving a 50% discount, I would not have paid SGD5 for this dish.

And sambal kangkong...how do you mess up such a simple dish! My sister and I love kangkong and we attacked the dish with great gusto, only to look at each other with wrinkled noses after taking the first bite. The gravy was overly sweet, almost to the point of being syrupy sweet. Ugh. And it was such a tiny portion for that price! Less than what you would get in a food court mixed dish stall.

Now, the fish. I intended to use 2 of the vouchers so I was looking to order SGD60 worth of food. Since the fish head curry was SGD22 and there were 2 of us, it made sense to order this dish. The fish head came in a pot with thin looking yellow gravy. Which was a put off but never mind, maybe it would be nice. My sister took 1 bite and spat it out. And I soon found out why. The fish was not fresh. Not even the curry (which was awfully thin) could mask the "Cao Seng" (rotten) taste of fish that was not fresh. We told the waitress who took it back to the kitchen. She said the fish came that day. If it did, it must have been left in the open too long. It was bad. And that was the only fish head the restaurant had that day.

So I decided to order another dish. The next most expensive fish on the menu. Only to be told it was not available. So I ordered the belachan fish. And tada,...look at the picture of the fish that came deep fried, about 8 inches long, had belachan paste dumped on its body and cost SGD 8. What a rip off! I mean, look at the size of the bowls...that should give you an idea of the size of the fish!

I also ordered tauhu goreng. And for some strange reason, despite the horrible fish, prawns and all, we were envisioning a mountain of warm toufu...but no, we were served with the above dish whcih consisted all of 6 pieces of over cooked deep fried toufu. At least the toufu was not spoilt, like the fish, but the dish had been so overcooked that the outer lawyer was hard and dry and chewy. And the inside was all shrunken. This cost SGD5...I wouldn't pay a dollar for this.

And the drinks! My sister ordered ice strawberry which cost SGD 4 and I ordered lime juice which was the same price. After one mouthful of the drink, she abandoned the glass together. Ice strawberry? It wasn't even blended ice but just water mixed with strawberry powder. My own drink was so overpoweringly sweetly sour that I could not finish it either. So that was SGD8 for you.

The Slog Reviews: ZERO/10. I've never rated a local restaurant zero before but any restaurant that serves food that is just so awful really shouldn't be in this business. The bill came to SGD62 but in effect I'd only paid SGD30 for this meal.

And it was not worth SGD30. If I hadn't already paid using Groupon vouchers, I might have sent every dish back to the kitchen after 1 bite and just walked out. And I did mention I bought 3 vouchers right? I just let the third one go to waste. I wouldn't give a voucher for Indo Padang restaurant to my worst enemy...or maybe.

Fishing Season 2012

Ever since I've been with my CEB, I have not gone prawn fishing. The only fishing I've done was offshore fishing organized by his friend.

With my old fishing kakis jio-ing me to go pond fishing at Punggol and for upcoming fishing trips, I need to go send my reels for servicing and set aside some time to practice tying knots so I don't make a right fool of myself.

My fingers are itchy. It has been far too long. Going to cut back on personal and work trips to free up the weekends.

I MUST go fishing. The huntress in me is crying to be let out.

Sibu Island Resort - our first holiday for 2012

There was a Groupon Promotion for Sibu Island Resort at SGD48 nett per person for a 2D/1N stay at Sibu Island Resort which seemed like a pretty good deal. So a week before CNY, my CEB and I woke up at the unholy hour of 7am on a Saturday for the drive to Tanjong Leman jetty.

We stopped for breakfast at the Macs near Carrefour (en route to Jusco Tebrau City) and it took us about an hour to get from Macs to Tanjong Leman Jetty which I had been to before. How to get to Tanjong Leman Jetty is pretty simple. Head in the direction of Jusco Tebrau City and basically just keep going all the way straight in the direction of Mersing. No turn-offs or turning to the right or left. Just straight following the signboards. The turn off the Tanjong Leman Jetty is very abrupt off the main road so it is wise to keep an eye out for signboards. This is how the jetty looks like. Parking at the jetty cost RM4 a day and there is a nice new parking area behind the main jetty building near the KFC.

From the main road, one gets on to a narrower road (1 way each direction), the start of which is marked by a police post. And on this narrow road (the journey from the main road to the jetty is pretty long - at least 25mins), it is easy to get lost and head in the direction for the Sedili jetty so follow the signs that say KFC. I kid you not. There is a newly built KFC at the jetty which opens at 10.30am. The first ferry out to Sibu Island is at 11am and the KFC is the only place in the jetty which is air-conditioned and has a nice view of the sea. The cost of the tickets to the island was not included so we purchased 2 round-trip tickets at Counter 1 of Tanjong Leman jetty at RM140. The journey to the island on the ferry took less than half an hour. The ferry was supposed to hold just 50 pax and there was just the right number of seats for that number of people. Some folks put on life jackets and we followed suit though my CEB commented that this was a bad idea as we would be trapped in the cabin if the boat capsized. I made sure we sat very near the exit so we could get through the door. Just in case. The tragic drowning of fellow anglers at this same area couple of years ago is pretty much unforgettable.

Anyway, after we got off the ferry and started the short 3 min walk from the terminal to the resort (the only hotel on the island), I had a feeling of Deja Vu, that I'd been here before. And when I caught a glimpse of the staff singing and playing musical instruments at the reception area, I was even more certain that this was not my first time to the island. The peacock wandering across my path drove the nail into the coffin...especially when it let out loud and irritating caws.

My CEB on the other hand, had never been to the resort so I was careful not to spoil his experience by telling him what could be expected...he would find that out in due course. As we made our way to the room which was situated along the winding path up a hill, we came across some wild deer lazing in the shade. When we moved closer, well....guess from the pic below it is clear what happened. Forget Bambi cozying up to you.

The room (superior room) was just as I remembered it. Dank, dusty and dark. For the first time since a long time, I had to get up in the middle of the night and put on a pair of long pants so I could sleep on the sheets. I was scratching uncontrollably in my shorts and T-shirt before that and just praying I could fall asleep so I wouldn't feel how dirty the sheets were. There was limited cable access on the small (32 inch?) TV in the room and although we were told there was free WIFI access in the room, neither of us could get a working connection on our smart phones. We were "connected" but could not access the web so lying about the room (which is what my CEB loves) for the afternoon was out of the question.

So we made our way to the lobby where my CEB tried to access the web on his HTC but again the free WIFI service proved deceptive and he gave up after a fashion. To sit in the lobby and hear the cawing of the peacocks was not an experience I enjoyed.

We were entitled to enjoy 1 free recreational activity so we chose Archery where each of us would get to shoot 6 arrows under the guidance of an instructor. I was more than eager to let my CEB shoot my share of the arrows but because we had to wait so long for our turn (there were only 2 shooting boards so only 2 people could shoot at a time) I decided to have a go. The instructor was friendly and spoke good English so we had a pretty fun time there.

With 3 more hours to kill before dinner and no WIFI, my CEB and I decided to check out the sea sports centre for an hour of kayaking. The cost was only about RM30 per person, and when we got to the center, there were 2 staff there watching TV. However, they obligingly got to their feet and dragged one canoe to the water's edge for us.

My second time canoeing (first time was in Hanoi) and I was determined to get paddle around the island or at least head in the direction of the mountain which was most scenic. Unfortunately, the waves were pretty strong (monsoon season isn't officially over till Feb) and we found ourselves being rocked pretty violently in the little orange canoe.

From the pic below of my wet hair, it is pretty evident what happened. We capsized. The wave rocked us to the right and instead of leaning to the left, we let ourselves get caught in the momentum and before we knew it, we were in the sea. Salt water in my eyes, my haviannas floating around me...the canoe overturned next to my spluttering CEB...what an experience. The first thing I did was check that my camera was still around my neck (waterproof cameras rock), and then grab for my haviannas. My CEB and I then took an end of the canoe each and uprighted it before clambering on board. That was when he wanted to call it a day but with half an hour more to go, I wasn't about to. So the compromise was that we would just canoe near the island and not around any bends. Especially when my CEB pointed out that the resort staff in the sea centre were watching TV and not know if anything happened to us.

After the canoeing experience, we went straight to the pool, showered off the salt water and jumped right in. It was a really smallish pool with the deepest end being 2.3m which was really quite deep. Best not to let a child swim unattended in this pool despite its deceptively small size.

It started raining in the evening and to our amazement, we saw a peacock sitting in the rain at the small pool at the top of the slide (the pool). We had pretty much run out of things to do on the island short of fishing (which we didn't come prepared for and were loathe to spend good money renting rods and sitting at the coast) so we decided to take the earlier ferry (10am) back to the mainland instead of the 2pm one the next day.

Since there were no other restaurants on the island and there were no transport services provided between the kelongs nearby and the hotel, we had dinner at the same restaurant we would have our buffet breakfast the next time. There was a choice of having either a buffet at RM55 per pax or ordering from the ala carte menu but because we were starving, we didn't look at the menu at all. The buffet for dinner wasn't exceptionally good but the lamb curry was pretty delish. There was plenty of fish, green veg (kai lan) with mushrooms, and 1 other main dish but really the selection of mains was very limited. And the dessert sucked. Awful. Just awful. I would not recommend having the dinner buffet at all - a salad from the ala carte menu at RM20 would be a better choice. Now that I have blogged about this and have some photos of the place, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to forget that I've been to Sibu Island Resort and there is no way absolutely that I am going back, esp given the bedsheets!