Friday, February 25, 2011

Celebrating Gayle's Birthday and Valentine Day


(Above) Birthday and Valentine's gifts we got for each other


(Above) Cute Valentine's Day card that I got for Gayle


(Above) Pair of comfy Hush Puppies that Gayle had been eyeing and I got it for her


(Above) Pair of Precious Moments Figurines for each other.

We celebrated my dearest Gayle's birthday and Valentine's Day recently with a nice dinner at Ma Maison and shopping for gifts for her and myself.


(Above) Ma Maison


(Above) Speciality of Ma Maison - Butter Escargots


(Above) Fragrant and falvorful seafood rice dish - a must try at Ma Maison

Ma Maison is a French - Japanese inspired restaurant serving French delights . Yet the restaurant has a very traditional and charming English cottage theme that is evident from the wooden based floor, tables and chairs, replete with ornaments, old clocks and posters can be found on the walls. All these make for a cozy homely atmosphere. The dim lighting in the form of candles and vintage table lamps,helps to make the restaurant a good place for a leisurely romantic dinner. If you like French food with a fusion blend of Mediterranean and Japanese, this is the place for you. We ordered the speciality which was the escargots which was presented in a dish that was lighted up with flames for an exotic presentation. It presented a more buttery and oily version of French escargots with less spices treatment. Altogether something different from the French treatment. This restaurant is worth a first try. They have two branches - one at Bugis Junction and the other at the Central. Service was good. We had a courteous and efficient mix of Japanese and Filipino staff serve us and when we reported that one of the escargots seemed to 'refuse' to be extracted from it's shell, the manager promptly cooked a replacement escargot presented on a new plate and warmly heated up without any fuss.
An interesting concept is the presentation of a brass key(below) to each diner whereby you bring the key to the counter to make payment.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Chinese New Year Korean style dinner



Over the Chinese New Year break, we decided to try our own Korean Shabu Shabu steamboat and invited mom and brother to dinner. We got tasty Korean side dishes such as pickled seaweed, kimchi and anchovies to add to the main dishes of pork collar and pork belly shabu shabu, codfish slices, mushrooms and scallops! Gayle prepared the soup base by boiling pork rib to create a natural flavor base before spicing things up with spicy toufu paste. As a supplement, we bought chicken rice without the meat from 5 star chicken rice stall.