It has been months in the planning, but we have all been anticipating the wedding of the year – with a good work colleague and her fiancé, inviting a number of her Amex colleagues to the Indian wedding located at the WestIn in Langkawi, Malaysia.
I knew it was a going to be a good, and I also knew it would involve a LOT of drinking and enjoyment, and it didn’t disappoint.
A core group arrived on Thursday 1st August around midday, with another group arriving on the Friday. The Mehendi was scheduled for the Friday, 2nd August for the ladies, the Sangeet during the evening and the Wedding Ceremony was on the Saturday, 3rd August. Basically 3 days of “hard work” 🙂
It was such a gracious ceremony, and it was a great location to chill, relax and celebrate a great wedding ceremony.
Congratulations to Neha and Neel – I wish you many years of joy and happiness together…
I always wanted to try out the Sunday Roast at Level 33, so managed to get a group of us together and we decided to give it a go! Well it’s better to enjoy a setting like this with chums! It’s a bar located in MBFC Tower 1 (Standard Chartered Bank tower) – and ergh… is on the 33rd floor…go figure!!
Great View from Level 33 Balcony
I actually did the booking via their reservation booking system, provided by a service provider called “Chope” – it seemed to go through very smoothly, so I was pretty impressed. It even sends you an email alert to remind you a few days before the booking – nice touch! 🙂
The setting was very nice at Level 33, I’ve been before for an after work dinner and drinks in 2011, during my previous Singapore secondment, but haven’t tried their roast before! The roast is S$38++, so a little on the pricey side.
The food was amazing, thoroughly enjoyable, there was a good atmosphere, although with this ‘posh’ setting, it wasn’t really the feel of a ‘pub’ or ‘bar’ as such. We also wanted to give the microbrewery brew ago, so as we couldn’t decide, we decided to give the ‘sampler’ option – which gives you 5 half-pints tasters…it was a toughie, but I actually enjoyed the House Porter over the others, including their Stout. The sampler costs S$20.88++, but gives you a good array of tasty beer options to try throughout the meal.
The Sampler – Before
The Sampler – During
The Sampler – After!
We tried the following: Stout, Pale Ale, Blond Lager, Special Seasonal Brew, and a Wheat brew. We also created the House Porter with the mix of the Stout and Pale Ale – my favourite of the 5 brews we tried.
The panoramic view is simply amazing from Level 33 – so we decided to have a coffee from the balcony and enjoy the view…
Great Panoramic View
LeVeL33 Craft-Brewery, Restaurant and Lounge
8 Marina Boulevard #33-01
Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 1
Singapore 018981
Tel: +65 6834 3133
URL: http://www.level33.com.sg
A group of us previously aimed to visit Mad Men Attic Bar a few weeks back – having just opened earlier this year, but our visit was postponed due to various timing challenges, so we managed to get another date sorted.
The bar is located at North Canal Road, near to Boat Quay and Circular Road, but it is tucked away from the main street – so you definitely need to know where to go before you go 🙂 It is actually quite a nice place – mainly due being positioned as a roof-top bar, above some shop houses. It has a great buzz up there, but it is quite an intimate place, so the main outside sitting area is very popular.
We cocktails were pretty good, although the food is quite ‘interesting’ – they are trying to ‘posh’ up the food, which in my opinion is not needed. I just wanted ordinary fries, not one soaked with truffle oil – whilst it’s ‘nice’, it is simply a bit too over-powering for me (personally)…especially when you are just after the classic ‘fries’ taste. The life music was pretty good too, with some great tunes sounding out, however I would say due to the limited space, it was probably a bit too loud to really ‘enjoy’, as you struggled to hold a conversation above the music.
Service is also a bit hit and miss too – I think they need more staff, and the issue is also that you can’t tell who is a staff member and who is joe-public – sometimes they serve you at the table, other times you have to go to the bar to order – it’s just a bit too hit and miss for my liking…especially when you also try to identify the bar staff – haha! In fact, two of us tried to get the attention of passing guests, rather than staff, who looked at us blankly – whoops 🙂
Anyway, it’s worth to pay a visit, but I think it’s a one hit wonder.
Whilst doing a Google search, I located a new pub that was located along East Coast Road, which served 1) Guinness and 2) a Sunday Roast. It seemed to be run by an English chef, so it must be good.
It was called Sidewalk Tavern, and had pretty good reviews, so I decided to give it ago.
I decided to get their early and took a taxi there arriving around 11.30. It was easy to find, and actually there was quite a few places to eat and drink around East Coast Road and Upper East Coast – it seemed to be a nice area – with everything that you need in the area. The food and service was very nice – it turned out to be owned by a husband and wife combo, with the husband chef – who was indeed a fellow Brit, and a Singapore Chinese wife – who manages the front of us. It was a nice place, and very relaxing atmosphere.
Free beer – if only it were true!
Great drinking wall posters 🙂
Looked and tasted delicious 🙂
Reminds of my London Drinking days
The food was very nice, the beef was served perfectly, cooked medium, and it melted in your mouth – the only downside is that the plate was cold and the yorkshire pudding didn’t rise properly. But apart from that, it was definitely delightful and I certainly would go back. It is just a way out really to make it a regular location for my Sunday Roast. There is also another place nearby called Dog and Bone, so I might come back to the area and try the other place out and see which one is the best 🙂
I decided to venture back via the Kembangan MRT, which was about 15 minute walk, and I walked along Frankel Road until I reached the MRT along Sims Avenue East. There was quite a few nice houses along Frankel Road, so it must be quite an expensive area – very spacious and good quality establishments…so it was actually good to walk back and see some of the nicer areas around Singapore 🙂
After a hard day at work, it’s always good fun to get a group of us out for drinks and dinner. We decided to give a Tapas Bar a try, having received a review from a work colleague – the key to the recommendation was free Tapas for every drink purchased during the evening – nice 🙂 Yup that got my attention too!! Haha!
It’s towards the Little India district, just off Serangoon Road. We went there around 8pm, and it wasn’t that busy, they seemed to have 2 parts of the restaurant, one a sit-down area, but this excluded the free Tapas offer, all the ‘bar’ side which offered a lounge type area and outdoor roof-top area, and of course the free Tapas.
Free Tapas all night!
Zsofi Tapas Bar
Pizza? Isn’t this a Tapas Bar?
Haha – great art!
Perfecting the Risotto!
The perfect meal!
It turned out to be a fun night, and was truly delicious – I would definitely recommend to give it a go, although I wouldn’t say the Sangria was the best, however, the Tapas were yummy!!
I haven’t been cycling for what feels like weeks (actually it probably is almost 2 months now!) so I knew this was going to be a good ride from the outset.
I met up a work colleague at 4pm at the local Burger King at ECP – we managed to stay clear from buying anything there though! – and we went to the bike hire company next door. We went for the $8 per hour bike, and took up their $13 each for a 2 hour stint (they actually had an offer which was buy 2 hours get another hour fee – so it turned out to be $13 for 3 hours). That’s pretty reasonable methinks.
We headed along eastward, and before long we arrived at the Food Court at ECP – we stopped off for a Sugar Cane and Chicken Wings break – which was delicious – and then we decided to head off further east. After about an hour we had made it to the south-east edge – we then relaxed for a few minutes, before we headed north – towards the Changi perimter road – and we went on and on. The good thing about this ride is that it is very flat, and the cycle lanes are nicely laid out, there is also less people as you move east, so it became a nice tranquil ride. We reached about half-way up along the Changi Airport perimeter, and we then noted that we had to head back soon, as we had a house waming engagement at 7pm. I think we could have easily continued – and another 10 minutes, we would have reached the top of Changi airport and then reach Changi Village. I think we will eventually do that next time, because that would create another opportunity to relax and chill, before we head back to base.
It took us another 45 minutes and we finally reached back to the cycle hire shop near Burger King.
I think we did a 2 hr 30 minute ride (with 20 minutes worth of rest in-between) – a total of 25km round-trip. Nice! I worked out that if we went all the way to Changi village, it would be a 17km journey one-way, that’s a 34km round trip, so another 10km cycling – ouch!
During a recent grocery shop at the nearby Cold Storage supermarket, I decided to check-out the alcohol aisle – and noticed that there was one column of Guinness draught stout (normally it is the Guinness Foreign Export – which is much more bitter and a stronger taste – and personally so unlike the original Dublin variety). Anyway, they had just 3 cans left, so I decided to buy them all.
Guinness Special Offer – Yay
I went to the till, paid and started to check my receipt and I noticed, to my surprise, that there was a promotion of Guinness – resulting in a small saving. It was a buy 3 for S$12 (£6) offer, so equating S$4 (£2) for each can of Guinness, instead of S$5.35 (£2.70). I did say only a small saving – lol!
And yes I know it is still expensive, compared with the local UK supermarkets – where you can get special offers equating to £1 per can – grrrr…. I miss those offers – haha!
We wanted drinks, we needed drinks, we deserved drinks, so a few of us decided to meet-up and enjoy a Tuesday night at a local and reasonably-priced bar – at Chevron House. It’s called Five Izakaya Bar – a Japanese bar that has such a great atmosphere.
It started with 2 of us, and then morphed into 5 people, then 7 of us at one point before a couple of ladies decided to give the last part of the drinks marathon session a miss (wise move – haha!). We took it easy in the beginning with a bucket of 5 beers, we then went for the Asahi Tower, then we just kept ordering rounds of Asahi pints – with some finger food to keep our energies levels up. I think we had quite a bit to drink by the end of the night.
Asahi Tower
Fries and Dips
Another Round of Pints
Japanese Dinner
The night ended with 4 of us going for Japanese food – always good to line one’s stomach with food before sleeping – haha! 🙂 One of the dishes gave us entertainment – deep-fried Aubergines with grated Cheese on top – a bit weird, as it looked likes worms moving around…very funny (and tasty!)!
The worry is I had an 8am call in the morning (which I would take from home, mind you), and one of the colleagues had to be in the office by 7.45am – also for an 8am conference call. Ouch!
It certainly was a tough morning the next day…not necessarily a hangover, okay maybe it was!, it was certainly tough going 🙂 Now who’s idea was it again…?
Well I decided that I needed a break from Singapore, so booked a spontaneous long weekend trip to Tioman Island. Tioman is renowned for being a Diving and Snorkeling location – so not being a diver, I would settle for a snorkeling session, as well as just eating, reading and relaxing in the sun 🙂 I know, I could probably do some of that (minus the snorkeling) in Singapore, but the view’s aren’t the same (if you know the Singapore horizon from the (man-made) beaches, you will know what I mean.
Anyway, I did some checks online, and decided that I would go on the 7th-9th June weekend. I know you can do a coach to Mersing and a short ferry hop across to Tioman, but I decided to go with the flight option – going with Berjaya-Air, which goes from Changi all the way to Tioman in 40 odd minutes – perfect! Compare that with a 6 hour journey each leg – which wastes the weekend really! I then went on booking.com, agoda.com, hotels.com, and noted that there was a couple of recommended venues on the West side – which seemed to have pretty good reviews from trip advisor. However, the sites were coming back with a pretty pricey mix, so I decided to check on the airline website to see if they had any package deals – I was going to give up the idea of a long weekend if the price wasn’t right, and then I found an okay bargain. It wasn’t going to be a ‘cheap-cheap’ trip, but I just wanted a weekend away from the hustle and bustle of the Singapore city-life.
The website had a good number of packages, and there was a couple that were All Inclusive, but these were limited to coming from KL, rather than Singapore. I looked up the Singapore and there was a “3D/2N Free and Easy Summer Package Weekend from Singapore” listing. This seemed to be be perfect and exactly what I needed – it was a package but with some flexibility – so the flight and accommodation would be sorted at least! the offer price for any of the weekends in June was 888RM / person, but as I was travelling alone, the single traveller rate was 1248RM for the entire 2 nights stay. Then you add the 205RM for the airport tax and airline surcharge. I then added Renggis Island snorkeling which was another 35RM (which turned out to be 10RM cheaper than doing it at the hotel). There were only 3 resorts on offer which ranged in price – Berjaya Tioman Resort (4*), Japamala Resort (5*) or Tioman Dive Resort (3*). I decided to go with the mid-range, as wanted to ensure I was ‘comfortable’ too, during my stay. According to Trip Advisor, Berjaya Tioman Resort wasn’t too bad…and it was a B&B rate.
The plane was an adventure – it was a Turbo Prop plane – on a really old plane. But it worked, even though it was quite noisy and ‘old’ (and only supported 48 people). I was shocked to see I had seat 1A on the outward flight, and no this wasn’t first or business class – ha! It was actually a funny seat as was right in front of the partition wall diving the pilot cabin and the main cabin – and I was reverse-facing, so facing all of the other passengers – which was a first. It felt really weird, actually…and is how the steward seats are on the modern Jumbo’s. Anyway, the arrival hall was small and basic, but did the job. There wasn’t a “baggage belt” at all – the luggage cart just turned up and everyone just pulled their luggage from the cart’s cage…funny…maybe Heathrow should do it this way…probably quicker and more efficient. There was a 5RM wildlife sanctuary ‘tax’ which you had to pay on arrival, which wasn’t too bad, I guess. Once I arrived, the bus transit arrived about 5-10minutes – which ferries people between the Airport and Boat terminal to the Paya Beach Resort and Berjaya Tioman Resort. It was a 10-15 minute journey, and I arrived pretty hot and wanted to cool off with a nice relaxing shower. My room was available straightaway, and I was pleasantly surprised how comfortable the chalet was. It was basic and clean, but met by needs – it turned out to be quite spacious for me.
Yay Seat 1A!
The Plane at Changi
The Plane at Tioman
The lobby – beach view
My Chalet – Outside
My Chalet – Inside 2
My Chalet – Inside 1
Mind the big ants…bet these bite!
Tioman Island Map
Storm Clouds Brewing
I then ventured out to the beach area and founded a nice secluded spot when I could relax, read a book and sunbathe – well it was only 3pm 🙂 After a couple of hours, I decided to find somewhere to eat, I found out that there was 2 places just outside of the resort – so I tried the one that had quite a few people there, and the food and service was actually pretty good. The price was around 18RM. The price in the resort was over double the cost of this place, so it was cheap, tasty, and probably more yummy that the resort restaurant. The next day, I ventured early to the beach – and then walked down to the Dive centre where the Snorkeling would also take place. The boat takes you across the water for 2 minutes before you reach 2 man-made floating pontoons where you can relax and then jump into the water to snorkel. This was Renggis Island – and I was subsequently told by a Singaporean family that there used to me a lot of Coral in the reef, so it is true that you can see the reduction quite clearly over the years! The coral reefs and exotic fish were delightful – full of colour and amazing sights. Certainly enjoyable. I need to invest in an under-water camera for my iPhone – as really need to take some nice video’s of the underwater sealife. Truly mesmorising!!
Tough life!
Renggis Island – for Snokerlling
Sooo relaxing
Me – chilling!
Nice panoramic! Almost a private beach!
Beautiful horizon
This could have been my hotel 🙂
Large Lizard Climbing a Tree
Sunny beach panoramic
Relaxing Scene
A nice tranquil beach
A nice setting
The sea water from up stream
Can You See It?
Monkeying Around
Beautiful Late Afternoon Scene
I settled back onto the beach after an hour or 2, and chilled for the rest of the day. For lunch and dinner, I went back to the place outside of the resort – it was a buffet lunch, which was tasty and only cost me 15RM for lunch, and about 19RM for dinner. Very nice!
Dinner – Yummy!
I am still relaxing 🙂
A group’s beach game
One of these will be the winning sand-mound!
The tallest mound! Champions!
A nice setting.
Love the tree effect
My lunch and dinner establishment!
The next morning, I checked-out and the bus took us back to the Airport, where we waited for the plane to arrive before heading back home to Singapore. I was in 6B this time. Someone actually told me that the safest seat is right at the back – hey-ho…I felt safe enough…hehe!
The Airport Tarmac
The plane touching down
The plane taxiing
The plane ready for boarding
All in all – a very relaxing trip and I thoroughly enjoyed the island.
The brother of a university friend, who is based in HK and I visited when I went there around Christmas last year, was visiting Singapore and we agreed to catch-up, have a few drinks and grab some food. It was a great way to catch-up with him again and see another fellow “Ang Moh”. We went to enjoy a nice evening drinks session starting at Overeasy at Boat Quay – always a good spot to meet and have a few bevvies before we move on. I always enjoy this place, ‘cos it’s a good spot to enjoy the night life, it’s got a pretty good atmosphere, it’s great for people walking and very central to meet in the middle – oh and they serve the black stuff 🙂 Haha!
The chap spoke very good mandarin (mega jealous!) and we went for Szechuan cuisine for dinner in China Town – and I was extremely impressed by his ability to converse well with the restaurant staff! This reminded me that I need to put myself them on a course of something…it has been 6 months already…my bad…grrr!!
The food was delightful – bit spicey, as Szechuan cuisine is, but delicious and very tasty. I think we just ordered the right number of dishes for the two of us – which can’t be said for the table of 3 girls next to us, who seemed to order for the world! Funny when you see them surrounded by all of the dishes (they were pretty large plates too) – lol.
I then got a message that a work colleague was heading over to Cuppage in Someset for Japanese, so we decided to join them. We met them at the J2 Bar – which serves as a KTV place – yup you can see where this is going! After continuing the whiskey bottle that we previously put behind the bar, the two ladies arrived, and it wasn’t long before we started singing our stuff. I did a few interesting tracks (or should that be ‘varied’ tracks) such as Oasis – Wonderful, Blue – Park Life, and then my choice of music went downhill when I sang Cheeky Girls and their infamous Cheeky Girls title track. Funny and memorably (whoops, not sure if that is a good thing). Hey-ho!
We then finished off and headed our separate ways at the end of the night – or should that be early morning. I think it had gone past 2am … and then we remembered that we had to work that next day. Yup the head hurt a bit…for some reason (I think the mixing of drinks probably didn’t help) 🙂
