Day 9 - Myeongdong Gyoja, Cafe 5CIJUNG & Samwon Garden

After breakfast in the hotel and some shopping in Myeongdong, we went to Myeongdong Gyoja for lunch. The place is famous for its knife cut handmade kalguksu (noodles in a meat, dumpling and vegetable broth) but it was already quite late in the afternoon when we arrived so we didn't have to queue to get in.

Soup was thick and flavorful, we couldn't get enough of it and the noodles had a great texture.

Street food:

Potato Tornado! Best street snack ever. And it was pretty huge lol, I felt like I was wielding a yummy sword!

Sweet potato chips. These were kinda hard.

Later we went to Garosugil and stopped by the cutest little cafe for some organic smoothies...

Fresh Ginseng Milk. I figured we should have some ginseng since we were in Korea.

Lemon Radish Permission. Loved this one, apparently the permissions are brought in from Cheong-do, which is known for its permission produce.

Complimentary scones.

After strolling through Garosugil, we proceeded to Samwon Garden for dinner. This restaurant is opened by Grace Park's parents!

Table full of sides.

Beef short ribs! The waitress BBQ'd it for us at the table. Super delicious but kinda expensive.

After, we returned to Myeongdong around 11 pm and guess what, it was still as bustling with life as ever.

Must. Complete. Last. Minute. Shopping.

Stupid People Make Me So Mad!

So my dad is a cabbie on Sundays and yesterday he was involved in a minor accident. This woman in her 40s didn't look before alighting my dad's cab and the car door was hit by an oncoming vehicle that was not expecting someone to do something as retarded as alighting into the way of traffic, she is lucky the car didn't hit her. The door was ruined so ofc my dad couldn't continue picking up passengers so he had to stop work for the day (no passengers = no money. Barely made enough to cover rent of the cab + fuel) The woman offered to compensate so my dad took down her contact details and left it at that.

As the cab company's office is closed on Sunday, so my dad had to wait till today to go all the way down to Loyang to give his statement about the accident and handle all the admin work and bring the cab for repairs. Luckily (finally, a silver lining), he did not have to pay for the repairs. After all this, he had to rush back to work at his regular job, he ended up finishing work even later than usual.

Since the woman had suggested compensating, my dad tried to call her 5 times but she would not pick up. I helped my dad send her an SMS politely requesting for compensation of $100 (my dad makes an average of more than that) and asking her to give him a call so they could discuss the amount and she immediately replied that she had to check with her husband first. But soon after, she sent another SMS.

"My husband already inform Comfort and I will inform him that u msg. If he gets angry, I do not know what he will do. Thank u and please don't msg me again. If I need to pay then get Comfort to write to me."

Ok srsly WTF?! It's not as if we were blackmailing her. Yes, she was not legally obliged to pay my dad but he was only seeking compensation as she was the one who brought it up in the first place! He had only hoped that she would, out of the goodness of her heart, pay for earnings he would have otherwise made and the trouble caused for having to make repairs. If she did not want to do so, fine, he would just write it off as bad luck and that would be the end of the matter, but wtf was "If he gets angry, I do not know what he will do." (is that a threat? her husband is the Hulk?) and "please don't msg me again", as if she had been harassed with numerous SMS. In total, only 3 were sent, 1 asking for a call back, 1 thanking her for her reply and 1 replying to the last SMS (yes I had to get the final word).

This whole mess was solely caused by sheer stupidity on her part, the least she could do was pick up the phone and just say sorry for the trouble caused, but she did not want to compensate my dad anymore and not act as if she was a poor little victim being harassed by the greedy taxi driver. Judging by how quickly she replied to those messages, she sure as hell heard those missed calls.

I am just glad my dad did not have to pay for the repairs as well, cos if she reacts like this to a request for $100, imagine how she would react if she found out she had to pay $1000.

Disclaimer: These views in this post are my own, nothing to do with my dad, if that lady (trying to be nice here...) or Comfort, somehow finds this post...

Breakfast at Marché

Breakfasts are available from 10 am to 12 pm.

Ordered a Swiss Breakfast Set (Rosti with egg, sausage and bacon + Fresh Pressed Juice + Tea/Coffee/Hot Chocolate)

Rosti was delicious but a little greasy for breakfast. And I love that it came with both bacon and sausage, love having these items included in my breakfast!

Decided to have tea to wash down the grease.

Marché Crepe with mascarpone cheese and bananas.

Since I can never decide whether to go for the sweet or savory option at breakfast, we also got a crepe to share! Total came up to be about $12 each. I like that items are all inclusive of GST and there's no service charge since you bring your own food to the table.

After lunch we went to the Botanic Gardens but it was really different from how I remembered it. It used to be a pretty chill place and you would see the odd tourist but now, the whole place seemed to be filled with Filipinos. They were everywhere, on the benches, on the steps, on the grass, in the park pavilions. You couldn't hear the sound of the birds and the insects over the racket they were making. I understand that they need a place to gather and relax on their day off but the place was ridiculously overcrowded with them! I just can't help but feel a little annoyed that they completely changed the vibe of the place.

East Ocean Teochew Restaurant

Had a rare weekend off and decided to have brunch at my favorite (hey, LKY says must use American English sial) dim sum restaurant! I used to come here all the time but my job requires me to work weekends now so I really missed coming to this place.

Appetizer: Squid fritters.

Great to snack on while waiting for the other dim sum to arrive...

Har Kau, lol I watched a video where Gordon Ramsay was learning to make them and the way he pronounced it was hilarious tbh.

A must order for me, the prawns are so crunchy! I recently learned that to make the prawns crunchy they have to rinse the shrimp under cold running water for hours (!!!) or marinate with egg white tapioca starch and baking soda.

Mango Prawns. Tastes great with the mayo!

BBQ Pork Bo Lo Bun

Yum I absolutely love these, the sweet pastry on top and the savory BBQ pork inside, it has everything I love.

And of course, the egg tarts! Another must order for me. It takes forever to come, but it is worth the wait, always. Pastry is fluffy and buttery and the filling just melts in your mouth. When it is served fresh out of the oven, god, it's so good it makes my eyes roll back.

Seriously, this is a great restaurant and the first place I think of when I'm craving for dim sum, there's a wide variety and consistently good, I've never had a bad experience there. Also, it feels very authentic, the place is always packed and noisy, families or friends gathering and chatting loudly, and the servers walking around with trays and shouting out the name of the dim sum, sometimes in Cantonese, it reminds me of the dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong. Don't know why I never see it in lists for best dim sum in Singapore but it certainly is the best for me.

Mad For Garlic (Part III)

Went to Mad For Garlic again! This time, we went to use our 1-for-1 pasta/pizza NDP voucher :D

Remember how I was lamenting the fact that there was scarce enough of the delicious fondue sauce for the Anchovy Cream Garlic Fondue the last time? Well, this time I asked the server if it was possible to have more of the sauce and she said 'ok' without hesitation! I was expecting that there would be just a little bit more than the last time but this is what came to our table...

Ask and ye shall receive...

Ok, so there wasn't the little candle to heat it up but we could hardly complain when there was so much more sauce to dip into! This time we could really cover the whole pieces of toast and whatever with the sauce. I especially enjoy it with the broccoli, mmmmm...

As usual, we ordered our favorite Garlic Snowing Pizza, but since we also had that voucher, we decided to try something else from the menu.

Calzone with sweet garlic dipping sauce:  The calzone itself pretty much had just cheese in it, but it tasted pretty good when paired with the sauce. However, we still much preferred the Snowing Pizza. Maybe next time I'll just order 2 of that.

Photography post!

Some random stuff I uploaded on my Flickr today...

Playing with the Picture Effect function on Sony NEX from the firmware update.

Landscape

Sunset

Toy Camera

Retro

Partial Color

Toy camera