I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Guess where we went for dinner tonight?

There aren’t very many Singaporean restaurants in and around the Bay Area, and from the menu and reviews, you’d probably be inclined to give it a miss.

But hey, a giftcard changes everything!

So off we went to the Westfield Center today after work to utilise some of that Christmas cheer (thanks Pete!)

The Westfield Center, by the way, is pretty kinda fun! It doesn’t feel like the typical American Mall, instead it’s laid out like a typical Asian Mall (supermarket + food court + flowers in the basement level, pretty shops for apparel and watches and stuff in the mid-levels, restaurants on top). Basement is connected to the Muni / Bart. Huh!

Won’t bother reviewing the boring stuff, you can read it on yelp. But here is the hit and miss.

The Winner
Their fried hokkien bee hoon really hit the spot for me. It was pretty darn good! None of that soggy crapload of yellow noodles in a bland pool of gravy. Super-hot-wok-fried, prawns, egg, chives, stock and all. It was superyummy.

The Loser
Ikan Goreng (the server mentioned something about “eye-can go-wring” and I was going to answer, “issit? I can’t leh, how?” but she wouldn’t have got it anyway). It was overfried, flaky, over-the-top on the plate, and the Chinese Broccoli it came with was superold and superuncut and just a pain to eat.

The Mediocre
Hainanese Chicken Rice with an oh-too-sweet chilli sauce.

The rest

Yay! I found Hokkien Mee!!

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Our electronic sense of direction showed up bright and early today, probably because none other than Mighty Mouse delivered the package. I like Mighty Mouse. He’s funny and efficient.

Perhaps the most delightful thing about living in the US is that online shopping is a breeze. Technically, I should never have to leave my house, since you can get almost anything delivered to your doorstep. US Postal or UPS will also take care of situations where you have to send stuff out, since they do pick ups.

Over Christmas I did ALL the Christmas shopping online. Now I order my toilettries online. I get my shoes online. In fact, I’ve bought half a dozen pairs since I’ve been here, though thankfully not all of them were for me. The cameras – well, that’s not really new stuff, we used to do it all the time. I’m expecting some pj’s and tees this week. Other major appliances purchased include a vacuum cleaner. I guess about the only thing we haven’t been able to buy online is a house.

USPS, as unpredictable as they are, are actually making a decent effort to not get squeezed outta the whole online-shopping-fulfillment game. They’ve created themselves a pretty useful website, where consumers can order free priority mail boxes for shipping (for domestic and international packages) which they’ll deliver to your doorstep, set up accounts to print their own postage, schedule pick-ups, buy stamps and probably more though I haven’t used the other services. That’s pretty neat, and more than we can say for VPost.

I’ve heard so much about the Presidential Election, that it’s coming out of my ears. And the only time I get some reprieve from it in the news is when Microsoft makes another move on Yahoo!.

I don’t care for one candidate over another so I guess it explains why I find this to be a little too much.

Leave literature out of the coloseum! Don’t be tainting poetry with crap, it’s rude!

I’ve been doing a lot of waiting lately. Wait to get a table at Shanghai House. Wait to use the bathroom. Wait for my new toy to arrive by the slow boat from USPS. Wait for home-sellers to wake up their bloody idea and smell the sloshy coffee. Wait for my days off.

My newest re-discovery (that’s worth the weight, really) just happens to be Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream. According to my Hainese Chicken Rice logic (you can’t call it Hainanese Chicken rice if the cook and servers are speaking Cantonese) it’s not authentic, since it claims to be Italian, but is made and run by Asians.

So anyway, my real estate agent’s office is right across the street from there, so we dropped by the other day. They make Asian friendly flavours like Guava, Lychee, Coconut and Durian(!). I got a pint of Guava and Chocolate. I mean, I can’t ever pass up chocolate, right? Good call, cos the chocolate is super fine! I’m getting the Arcabaleno next time, it’s a blend of pistachio, almond, chocolate and vanilla. Anything with so many of my favourites has to be good, right?

Going back to waiting. Not on tables, thankfully. Though that’d probably be more of a tragedy for the customer. Maybe I’ll go wait on the (housing) world to change.

There are quite a few Quickly joints here, but they aren’t any good.

Despite the fad back in Singapore years ago, I’ve only gotten hooked on Bubble Tea when I got here. And not just bubble tea from anywhere. It has to be from Eggettes.

The almond milk tea is the best on earth. It’s the right amount of milky. And the right amount of almond. And they make really good pearls (They call it just tapioca or boba here. How boring.). They’re cooked just right so the texture is wonderfully chewy.

What they also do really really well, is the eggette. It’s like an Asian style bubblewrap waffle, where instead of little pockets of air, you get egg-shaped pockets of dough which is soft and chewy held together by a crispy layer. I would’ve taken pictures. But…

The new camera is only going to arrive early next week. New toy. No real reason to get it but for the fact that it’s relatively cheap. The 400D is doing well (love the lenses!), but I’m just not getting as much outing time as I’d like, so I figure a little PNS would be neat to have all day.

Anyway.

In other news, my domain service provider is annoyed at me. Might have to switch domains, so drop some suggestions in the comment box.

Back in SF.

Sick.

Later.