Staycation at MBS Part 2 - DB Bistro Moderne

NOTE #1:
This post is not suitable for my vegetarian friends and readers. Don't say I didn't warn you. ;P

NOTE #2:
Loooooooong picture-ful post.

NOTE #3:
If you stumbled onto this post via Google search on "DB Bistro Moderne" or "DB Bistro and Oyster Bar", this post isn't exactly a review on the restaurant. My write-ups on restaurants are usually in a descriptive style of my personal experience and preference rather than how a food blogger does it.


~

Continuing from part 1 of our MBS staycation, we went window shopping at The Shoppes@MBS Singapore before heading down to DB Bistro Moderne for dinner. We badly needed to burn off all the food we ate before dinner but shopping doesn't seem to be a good workout.




DB Bistro Moderne is a celebrity chef restaurant by Daniel Boulud and this season, there is a brand new Oyster Bar with a plethora of seafood from all over the world.




"DB Bistro Moderne is Chef Daniel Boulud's renowned re-interpretation of the Parisian classic. Among his many achievements, Chef Boulud is credited with elevating the simple burger into an art form. This is what sets db Bistro Moderne apart, new takes on old classics, the perfect fusion of sophistication with pure and simple pleasures." - hungrygowhere.com




I'm always intrigued by the variety of sauce available though I usually like to eat my food as their original flavour without any dips.




How adorable is this mini Tabasco sauce?




You know, we were totally not hungry from the Cocktail and Canapé Hour at The Club prior to this and I told myself, "No bread, no matter how delicious they are." I failed at this what you call a cheese bread or cheese puff.




I always say that you could tell how good a restaurant is from the bread they serve. I love good bread but I've to always stop myself from dedicating too much stomach space on bread.




There was a promotion for champagne which came in the form of Champagne Taittinger.




We ordered the smallest one-layer seafood platter which consisted of oysters, lobster, shrimps, clams, whelks, scampi, scallop ceviche.




I love the sweet, fresh and succulent lobster! Craving for some sweet lobster now!




The lobster was the star. Not that human behind.




The shrimps and scampi look sweet and red but looks are deceiving. I would very much prefer those steamed prawns at Chinese restaurants any time. Another favourite was the ceviche and the oysters of course.




We were pretty impressed by the seafood platter though I felt that the cheaper seafood platters at other seafood restaurants would do just as fine.




Check out the 3-layer seafood platter at the other table. I asked the staff if that was the biggest platter and nope, it wasn't. And and and, that guy whose face was blocked by the platter? He's so charming! I love his chiselled good looks and smile.




We also ordered The Original DB Burger to share -- the famous gourmet burger in town. It is a sirloin burger filled with creamy foie gras and braised short ribs served on a parmesan bun.

I'm not a gourmet burger person. To me, burgers are called burgers when they could be eaten with both hands. I don't like squishing thick gourmet burgers and struggling to eat them the way I usually do. So for thick burgers, I would use a fork and a knife to eat and I don't get the real kick from the amalgamation of flavours. On the other hand, kh is a gourmet burger person. I cannot stand it when he watches food channels on gourmet burgers and for the next few days, asks me if we could eat some thick burgers.

I love the taste of the sirloin and the parmesan bun. The creamy foie gras is stuffed in the sirloin. I personally prefer seared foie gras as opposed to pâté or creamy ones though for The Original DB Burger, the creamy one is a perfect blend.

Kh felt it was by far the best burger he had ever eaten. I have to admit that as much as I don't like burgers, DB Burger is really one of the better burgers around (Of course! That's their trademark and at SG$42 in full decadence, it had better be good!) If you are interested, watch the video on how the DB Burger is crafted.

How the husband eats VS How the wife eats

The man: Attempted at using fork and knife first, then decided on using both hands for the full flavour and ended off with sucking his fingers.

The lady: Fork and knife, fork and knife, "It's too difficult to eat and I'm too full can you help me to finish?"




We had complimentary warm madeleines from the restaurant with a special touch.




And when the hub started to do a mock clap, mouthing the word "Ha...", I told him, "No singing please. No singing."




I was so full by then but the madeleines were really good. There was a hint of lemon if I'm not wrong and I love that zesty freshness in a dessert.




The staff suggested ending the meal with apple crumble served with vanilla bean ice cream. When I thought that it would be great to try a French style home-made apple crumble, I hadn't expected a whole pan! Together with the complimentary madeleines, it was too much sweetness.




We had to pack the unfinished ones!




We decided to check out the pool before it closes to see if there was good photo opportunities but alas, no.




You know, I wonder how many people actually bother to read my long gibberish when I posted this photo on Instagram. I guess nobody read till the end to see the wry humour.

Repost:
I love the beautiful night city skyline of Singapore. Blazing luminous stars... Colourful dazzling lights from the skyscrapers... All part of the adornment on the vast canopy of black canvass .
❤️💕
Standing there with such a beautiful background, I imagined myself bathed in lovely bokeh effect. I wondered if I was standing alone in the universe or were there some extraterritorial life on one of those flickering stars thinking the same thoughts .
❤️💕
Then a voice whispered ever so softly to me, "No honey. There are many naked-looking people with you and one lady who seems to stand out more than you do in this frame. Screw extraterrestrial . "
❤️💕
I was jolted back to reality .
❤️💕




The polka dot lady photobombed all my pics but not her fault. She was there first.




The main focus of this photo is the lady with fiery lens aviators taking loads of selfies with the flashlight on.

There were many ladies like her at the pool who kept on tilting their heads at all angles, trying to get the best shots. While they were at that, they tried placing their hands on their heads, their face, their necks and did duck face, Angelina Jolie's pouts, smiled all sorts of sweet smiles, coy smiles, don't-hate-me-coz-I'm-beautiful smiles and I-swear-I-wanna-punch-your-face smiles.

It was all very interesting to watch!




I love this deceptive mirror at the lift lobby. It made my stumpy legs look really lean. In fact, it seems like all the mirrors in MBS have that effect.




And then when we got back to the room, I was pleasantly surprised to see a cake on the dining table from MBS.




Too much sweetness!




In my previous post, I mentioned about how much time and effort I put into styling my much shorter hair and how unruly my hair got after one evening in a non-windy place to boot. Here goes... half the time I was sweeping curtain of hair off my left eye. Nice in photo, impractical in real life.




The hair simply started to curl in all directions and I kid myself saying "Never mind. That was the bed head look I was trying to achieve." At least they were not sticking outwards.




The effect of the overlapping images of the bed in the beautiful night city skyline was just a reflection from the window of the room.




But yeah, it was great watching movies in bed and drifting off to sleep to my favouritest cityscape.

Check out my final post which would feature the iconic SkyPark pool in the day and the hearty breakfast at Sky on 57. I saw a couple of new readers/stumblers on my previous post. Welcome! And hope to see all of you around more often.

Happy weekend! xoxo

Wedding Anniversary Staycation at Tree Top Lofts RWS Sentosa Singapore

Hello all, I'm typing this from a treetop. It's our wedding anniversary and the hubz booked a 2D1N stay at Tree Top Lofts RWS Sentosa Singapore coz of a really sweet deal in July.

There are only 2 of such treetop lofts at Equarius Hotel and the hubz managed to book one. Prior to this, I did not even know Singapore has such treetop hotels. The rate for the loft is $3000++ per night on normal days but there is a special 2D1N package in July at $800 nett inclusive of 2 Adventure Cove Waterpark day passes and 2 adult tickets to Dolphin Discovery!

Read more about the lofts at the RWS page and view more pictures from RWS blog. Take a virtual tour of our room with me in the video below.




I can't quite decide if I should sleep now at 1:15am and wake up at 4:00am for Argentina vs Netherlands or should I just keep myself awake. I'm rooting for Argentina! YEAH!

For those who watched Germany vs Brazil yesterday, what are your thoughts om the 7-1 score? I totally support Germany but as the time went by, I simply found myself thinking aloud too many times for Germany to stop scoring and for poor Brazil to score. My heart really goes out to the Brazilians.


My Facebook status yesterday reads:

So I told the hubz just now:-
For the Germany vs Brazil match, I will choose Germany. And for the Argentina vs Netherlands match, I will choose Argentina. Then for Germany and Argentina, I will support Germany.

The hubz just scoffed and gave me a mixture of (1)so-you-think-you-have-foresight look and (2)so-you-want-this-to-happen-though-you-don't-even-watch soccer look.

Just for laughs, I would share this local National Council on Problem Gambling Ad with my overseas friends. It has since become a meme in Singapore with many spin offs and funny comments like "gambling pays", "the father got money already", "always let your dad have your money", "not sure if fail or successful", "I need to find the script-writer for the gambling control advertisement" etc.




Thank you all for your wonderfully sweet comments. I would get down to replying them soon! I would really need lots of steam to catch up on blogging but in the meantime, follow me on Instagram at iamjolene where I post more frequently.

Have a lovely midweek ahead!

After note:
Seeing many hits from Google search leading to this post, I would include the rest of the Tree Top Lofts experience here:
Staycation at the Tree Top Lofts Part 1 - Virtual Tour
Staycation at the Tree Top Lofts Part 2 - Anniversary Dinner at Forest 森

Staycation at the Tree Top Lofts Part 3 - Interacting with Dolphins for the 1st Time

Chuck and Beans' Take on Social Media

Have you heard of Chuck and Beans? No? Then you should be ashamed of yourselves coz they are the cutest bunny and canine pair on the Internet. They effectively capture the irony of people's altered behaviour due to social media. In this post, I would share my favourite comics from Chuck and Beans with all of you.

Happy Thanksgiving

This is a picture I stumbled upon many years ago and up till now it still tickles me. Pardon my sick humour. Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends today and all who celebrate Thanksgiving (today and any other day). I'm always confused by when Thanksgiving is.

Crocs Are For Dorks

My hubby kh would never fail to utter the above line each time he saw somebody with those abominable clogs on their feet walk past us.

Even the Urban Dictionary defines Crocs as "shoes for people with no taste".

Disclaimer:
Before I continue my post, I would like to invite all Crocs lovers to click the x-button on the top right corner of your browser now. Oh well if you are a good sport who love to laugh at yourself, please feel free to linger around. 


Recently, my good friends Cyn and Charlene were casually talking about Crocs over our Watsapp group chat. Cyn was voicing out her thoughts about how Dylan (Charlene's 18-month-old son) is always wearing proper shoes and not Crocs like many kids. Charlene replied that it was because his mum hates Crocs and hence Dylan would never be seen wearing Crocs.

Cyn is all for Crocs and clad my godson, Jase in Crocs whereas Paddy ABHORS Crocs and decreed that their baby would not wear Crocs when he/she starts to walk. Cyn thought it was just a British guy thing and was shocked by Charlene and my vehement abhorrence towards Crocs.

Our casual chat about Crocs jolted my memory of an absolutely side-splitting Croc-bashing article I read a few years back. I remembered reading that article thinking "Hey, that sounds just like me if I were to write a post about Crocs."

The article was written by Steve Tuttle on Newsweek online and it was really difficult retrieving that article. All the newsweek links had since been disabled. That's the disadvantage of respecting the intellectual property of a writer-- one would not reproduce the whole article anywhere on his/her site but to include a link to the actual page and then the page gets removed. I've lost interesting articles whenever I respected intellectual property and because of that, I would sometimes reproduce them on my blog while crediting the author so as to make them accessible for myself and other like-minded people. I was glad when I finally found the article on The Lawson Chronicles.

Do note that the following is a reproduction of Steve Tuttle's article with embedded links and pictures from my own research. I hope that the insertion of pictures would provide a more interesting read for those who could not bear reading mere text.





The case for ending our long national nightmare
By Steve Tuttle | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 1, 2008


I like to play a game with my son, Joseph. We sit on a bench in touristy Old Town, Alexandria, Va., and we're not allowed to get up until we see a dozen pairs of Crocs. It usually doesn't take long. But the other day we were stuck at eight after a few minutes, and I was getting a little concerned. Just then my boy leaned over and said, "Don't worry, Dad. A family of dorks will come along any minute." To paraphrase Hank Hill, if he wasn't my son, I would have hugged him right then, I was so proud.


I know what you're thinking: what kind of sick father lets his impressionable young son call people dorks because of the shoes they wear? Well, who else will teach him that wearing sweaty bright purple clown shoes in public is not OK? He certainly won't learn that lesson at school. Teachers seem to be some of the biggest abusers of this horrid fad.





I know what else you're thinking: "I like Crocs … they're so comfortable. I'll tell you who the dork is … the guy writing this story, that's who! And who died and made him the fashion authority anyway?" Well, no one. I own pitted-out T shirts that are more than a quarter of a century old, and I've been known to strut around town in some pleated khaki Dockers. I own one belt. A female colleague even told me once I'd be a "perfect candidate for 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'." I think she was trying to be helpful. My complete lack of fashion sense actually supports my theory, because even I know these things are an abomination.





Yes, I'm really, really late to the Crocs-bashing party. Really late. Plenty of fashionistas have written screeds over the years. But the damn things are still here, so this is no time to stop fighting. To quote the great John Belushi: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"


I've been following the good work of Web sites like I Hate Crocs Dot Com for some time, even going so far as to submit a photograph of a stuffed skunk spraying a pair of pink Crocs. The fantastic Best Page In The Universe posted a hilarious rant a while back joking that people who bought Crocs on Amazon.com also bought frozen corn dogs, Pabst Blue Ribbon Light and trucker balls, as well as the CD single "Hey There, Delilah" by the Plain White T's. The rant's author, Maddox, writes: "People who wear Crocs go on and on about how comfortable they are, and how it's supposedly odor resistant because it's made out of some kind of anti-bacterial foam …





You know what else it's resistant to? You getting laid."





A popular YouTube video called "Dorcs" parodies the trend: "Wow, but they're so ugly," says an office worker to her friend. "That's how you know they're comfortable," he says. By the end, she's a convert: "I've given fashion the finger, and joined the Dorcs revolution!" The Crocs Empire is acutely aware of us haters. Even their own commercials make fun of the irrational and over-the-top rage their shoes instill in people like me. In one, an unshaven lunatic holds a neon blue Croc in front of his face and screams, "Why are you wearing these!" for 30 seconds. I only wish I'd known about the tryouts for this commercial.


Crocs's stock price has cratered of late, so there is hope. According to the Rocky Mountain News, the shoes, "which were once so popular that the company couldn't keep pace with demand, are now piling up in warehouses." Maybe the company's just a victim of its own success. If practically every person in the U.S. already has a pair and they're indestructible, how many more can you sell? The same thing happened to Wham-O back in the 1950s with the Hula Hoop.


But the company isn't giving up. They've been diversifying, sponsoring Olympic teams and veering off into sandals and other designs, trying to fool us. They've even gone so far as to create a high-heeled Croc. OMG, as the kids say. These have to be seen to be believed. I recommend only the strong of heart should attempt to Google "high-heeled Croc." The company Web site has this ominous warning for us: "Today, Crocs™ Shoes are available all over the world and on the internet as we continue to significantly expand all aspects of our business" (italics added). That sounds like a threat to me. They're even suing other companies like Skechers for allegedly stealing their great idea. Skechers says the lawsuit is "baseless," "outlandish," and "ridiculous." I'll tell you what's outlandish and ridiculous: that these things sell so much that another company would feel compelled to copy them, allegedly. Don't we have enough eye pollution with just the originals still out there? Don't be fooled, America! Soylent Green is CROCS!!!


If you think about it, the Crocs company should really be admired. P. T. Barnum would be proud. They've managed to separate money from the wallets of millions and millions of seemingly sane people who wake up, look in the closet, and actually decide: "Today I'll leave the house wearing these neon-green Dutch bubble shoes with Swiss-cheese holes in them. Maybe I'll even buy some little plastic strawberries or bananas and jam them in the sweat holes, just to jazz things up and make the bacteria incubate faster." That's fine. I say do whatever you want in the privacy of your own home. Let your Crocs freak flag fly. But don't make the rest of us watch.





I realize this article might not go down too well even in my own editorial office and certainly not in our ad sales department. My boss in Washington read an early draft and said it was funny, but that I had a "somewhat demented obsessiveness." At least he threw me a "somewhat." Another editor wondered aloud if I had perhaps been trampled by Crocs at some point in my life. I also worry about writing this because some of my best friends—and their sweet, innocent children—wear them. One of my dearest—the sister I never had—introduced me to the shoes years ago when she waltzed into a garden party in a pair of bright hot-pink Crocs. I couldn't stop staring at them. "What are those things?!" I whimpered nervously, hoping maybe she was rehabbing from some sort of strange Achilles mishap. "Oh, they're called Crocs … I got them for gardening," she said, so innocently.


Oh, if only we'd known what a tsunami of fashion idiocy was about to be unleashed, maybe we could have stopped it somehow, and they would have stayed in the garden where they belong, covered with manure, a trendy item to be featured on www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. If only. Then they wouldn't be out there in the American mainstream, that big, vast, sweaty mainstream traipsing through our airports and over our beaches and around our great shopping malls. Plop, plop, plop, they go, stuffing their Crocs faces with ice cream and Doritos and giant sodas. Plop, plop, plop. Stuff, stuff, stuff. Yuck, yuck, yuck. And the rest of us have to watch. I spent eight hours waiting on a flight at Dulles over the 4th of July week and I was just minutes from tackling the next group of Crocs ploppers I saw. Luckily for me—and the ploppers—my flight finally arrived and I wasn't arrested for assault. Knowing my luck, I'd have shown up in court to find 12 pairs of Crocs sitting in the jury box.





It would have probably been better for my career if I just posted this as an anonymous Craigslist rant as CrocsHatah35 or something. Plenty of others have spouted off about Crocs there. And sure, I would have had a lot more readers. But Craigslist doesn't write my paychecks, and this is just too important to ignore another day. Some times you just have to make a stand, even if it's a few years late. Do we really think we're going to stop global warming if we can't even end this fashion Chernobyl once and for all? I think the U.S. government should institute a Crocs buyback policy, like they do in the inner city for guns. It would do more to beautify this great land than Lady Bird's highway beautification program ever did.


So I'm begging you, America. Just stop. When you wake up tomorrow and look at your options, choose flip-flops. Go barefoot. Wear boots. Anything but Crocs. By next summer—if we all work together—we can have this plague of bad taste virtually eliminated. Yes! We! Can!







Unlike my hubz kh, Paddy and Charlene, I'm not 100% a Crocs-basher. When Crocs introduced ballerina flats and slippers, I thought that they were quite pretty.


See, the ballerina flats are so sweet right?





And the slippers, they look like what Adidas would produce too! I've seen Adidas slippers remotely similar to these.





The hubz still do not agree with me.

Jo: See, Crocs ballerina flats are so pretty.
Kh: Crocs are for dorks.

Jo: The Crocs slippers don't look like Crocs at all. I like the colour combi.
Kh: Crocs are for dorks.






Shopping at ZALORA This Christmas


Since we are on the topic of fashion and apparels, I would like to do a little Christmas shoutout for ZALORA!

November is the time where sea of people start to throng the malls for Christmas shopping. I was at Orchard just yesterday evening and the crowd was massive. It was really difficult to shop and I hate to squeeze through the crowd. What else could I do but to take my shopping spree online! ZALORA would be the perfect online destination to do my Christmas shopping as it offers a range of irresistible Christmas gift ideas, promotions and deals to make your Christmas shopping a little merrier. On top of that, ZALORA offers free shipping for orders above $40 (which is easy to hit for Christmas shopping) and 30 days free return policy.


Sign up for ZALORA's newsletter and earn a S$10 cash voucher. I have many spam emails daily and deals, promotions and shopping are just some of my favourite spam emails. I love scrolling through ZALORA's newsletter for various deals and promotions which happen almost every day.





Hop over to ZALORA and start shopping now!

ZALORA's Website: http://www.zalora.sg/
ZALORA's Christmas page: http://www.zalora.sg/christmas/





Edited to add:
This is a scheduled post. So while this post happily made its way to blogosphere, I was miserably sleeping my ENT infection away with a 38.7 degree fever.