Monday, 21 January 2013

外婆家

This is a recommended restaurant by many of my friends who've been to China :D So after work one day, we all decided to drop by :)

It was a long travel to 南京西路站. The restaurant is inside some mall called 818 plaza on the 7th floor :D The lift doors serve the restaurant directly. So when the lift doors opened we were at 外婆家! :D

The thing is...IT'S SUPER PACKKEDDDDD!!! The whole area was packed with people! I thought that was the whole restaurant but it was ONLY THE WAITING AREA!! Their waiting area is HUGEEEE!

The MOST fantastic thing about their waiting area is...they have a WHOLE ROW of MAC PCs there to entertain waiting guests!!

I was actually playing plants VS zombies on it! LOL! They really have class. And when it's your turn to be seated they'll play a sound track with a small girl's voice squeaking "168号,外婆叫你吃饭咯!" something like that. Haha.

Anyway, for the food, my verdict is...IT'S AWESOMEEEE! Like totally...And the thing is, we ordered A LOT!! And the price came out to be only about SGD$8 per person :D

Once again, let the pictures tell the story :D You can see how sumptuous the portion is :)

Xuan Qi, Jia Min & I :D
Li Seng & Chor Seng :D
Yup, the 5 of us are eating together :D Eating with 2 girls is really a bonus for us guys because we get to vacuum up whatever they can't finish. :D LOL! Let the food porn begin :D

Stir-fried brinjal/eggplant :)
The brinjal above is AWESOME! It's stir fried to what I think is perfection. The blend of sweet, salty and spicy makes it a flavourful bite. :D

Western style baked brinjal :D
The baked brinjal above is nice but, IT'S TOO SALTY. The spices and seasoning used to flavour this dish is too salltttyyyyyy! I couldn't even taste the brinjal...LOL! The salt overtook everything. Haha...But, it's still a unique dish with a good western flavour to it.

#1 dish award - Fried pumpkin! :) :D
This fried pumpkin dish is my ALL-TIME FAVOURITE!! :D I don't know how to describe this heavenly taste but all I can say is, the spices used are awesome. Once again, sweet, salty and spicy. The flavour compliments the pumpkin perfectly! Mamma mia! LOL!

Cabbage + LOTSA OIL. Haha.
The cabbage above was nothing special. It was a good, plain and healthy dish that's not too salty. It was kinda oily though :/ In fact, all the dishes are always kinda oily. HAHA!

Prawn-seasoned radish...backside tear dish award. LOL!
This dish was a failure. HAHA! It was too fishy and the seasoning was kinda bland. It was the only dish that wasn't slurped up in minutes. HAHA!

In fact, it had leftovers. Haha! Leftovers are a rare sight...haha. If a dish is good, the plate that contained it will be sparkling clean. LOL.

Hotplate beef lor...haha
The hotplate beef above was nice but nothing special. It didn't have the "WOW" factor like the pumpkin dish had. Haha.

But the interesting thing is, it had an egg cracked into the dish. Most hotplate beef dishes in Singapore don't come with eggs...Probably because they feel that the beef is too expensive and adding an egg will make them   吃亏 or something. haha!

Pumpkin + Ham + Egg soup :D
The soup was good. It had more than sufficient serving of ham. It was more than enough for the 5 of us. In fact, we had to get people to eat up the ham slices. Haha.

This dish wasn't too salty or sweet (whew...haha) and it was starchy and thick. So yeah, the soup wasn't too bad a buy.

#2 best dish award - Gong Bao Chicken :D
I forgot if that was Gong Bao Chicken or whatever chicken...haha. Basically, this is my SECOND MOST LIKED DISH! :D It was sufficiently spicy to get you breathing in with the "SSSSSSS" sound. HAHA!

The peanuts really complimented the chicken well. A totally fantastic dish which got me craving for more...like the pumpkin dish. Haha!

麻婆豆腐 + 2 litres of oil..hahaha!

This 麻婆豆腐 was HORRENDOUSLY OILY!! The entire dish was soaked in chili oil!! It tasted ok but it was kinda bland. Insufficient dao xi beans was used. Dao xi is hokkien. It's the black bean which gives it the nice salty quality.

Yeah, those were the NINE dishes that kept our mouths exercising. It was totally SUMPTUOUS! :D And all in, we only paid about 200元 in total! That amounts to 40元 per pax which is about SGD$8 per pax!!

If we ate this sumptuously in Singapore, it would've cost up to about SGD$20 per person? Cos we're in a RESTAURANT in a nice shopping mall in town.

Yeah, that's how cheap and awesome China food is! We're sooo gonna grow fat. Please pray for weight not to exceed 65kg. Thanks :D HAHAHA!

Shopping + 外滩

Today is the day Xuan Qi arrives! :D Haha...She's Chor Seng & my really good friend :D Haha...Xuan Qi and Li Seng met us mid-way while we were shopping at 七浦路.

When we came out of 天潼路 metro station, there were 2 exits, each leading to one whole stretch of fake-goods shopping. Haha. It's EXACTLY like Bugis street. LOL. The only difference is we need to BARGAIN HARD.

Initially, we went to 上海科技馆 station to shop but their prices there were SUPER INFLATED. Here's the interesting story :D

Jamie was shopping for her furry boots at 上海科技馆 and they charged a lofty price of 250元 for the boots AFTER BARGAINING!!

We knew it was SUPER EXXX because Soon Hwee saw it at Bugis Street for like SGD$18 before, which is only around 90元!

After much bargaining, they still refused to lower the price! So we left the shop...and guess what? The lady owner walked out and scolded us "如果你不想买你就别浪费我们的时间!" as we walked away.

Jamie was pretty affected by her rude remark actually but we told her to just ignore her...It's China culture to use emotional-blackmail to manipulate you to buy and to make you feel bad if you don't buy.

Yeap, that was 上海科技馆 shopping...which really sucked. Chor Seng then asked our friend Joan Tan for where to get good shopping. And she replied with a WHOLE ESSAY on whatsapp...LOL!

So off we were to 七浦路 to shop! :D The prices there were much more reasonable and Jamie bought her furry boots for 50元! 5 times cheaper!! Haha!

We figured that the stalls here were much more real and reasonable in their pricing and thus we chose to stay and shop :D

Well, the most 离谱 shopping stretch was still at 徐家汇站. It's the Orchard Road of Shanghai I think. It's a SUPER LONG stretch of shopping malls!

Inside there, I saw people selling leather jackets at 10000元!! I actually asked her if that was the price she is actually selling it for...She still had a cheek to smilingly reply "对啊!它的品质是挺好的!是精品来的!"

"精品my ass" was my intended reply. LOL! I'm not gonna spend SGD$2000 on a leather jacket! SIAO! haha! With SGDS2k, I can get a really good electric guitar man!

Haha...Ok, anyway, back to 七浦路 shopping. Jamie got what she wanted - her furry boots and I also got what I wanted :D

Down coat + scarf
I got that set for about SGD$40 :D And my down coat is really good...It makes me perspire even though it's cold. HAHA! The bad part is...some of the threading is coming out -_-" Feel like going back and slap them. HAHA!

I actually wanted a down coat of a different colour, like blue or orange but these colours were on ugly designs or on expensive designs, so I settled for this which looked pretty good too :)

Yup, we shopped till nightfall and we proceeded to the Shanghai Bund! AGAIN. LOL! This time, we were here to see the sightseeing tunnel or the 观光隧道 :D

We waited at Subway, which is 赛百味 in mandarin..haha, at the Bund for Chor Seng, Kah Wei, Yong Qiang, Gareth, Xuan Qi, Li Seng and Jia Min :D

Me in Subway :D
Zhi Sheng, Jamie & I in Subway while waiting for the rest :D
Soon Hwee & I :D
Now here's the fantastic part of the Subway story...LOL! In the picture above, I was holding the cuppa coffee which Soon Hwee bought and passed to me.

The next moment, the cap dropped off and the coffee spilled on my NEW JACKET and JEANSSSS!!!! AHHHH!!!

Soon Hwee was really apologetic but it also wasn't totally his fault...The Subway guy didn't cap the lid on tight. -_-"

The best part is...Zhi Sheng's reaction to the whole episode is "BACKSIDE TEAR!!" and he and Jamie burst into laughter...and they continued to 自拍 -.-" HAHA! Didn't even lift a finger to help me clean up...HAHA!

No grudges bore la...because Soon Hwee and I were already busy cleaning me up. HAHA! Thank God my down jacket is like TOTALLY waterproof. After wiping off the coffee, it had no stains and NO SMELL! WOW!

The only sustained damage from the coffee was the stain on my jeans...haha...It's depicted below with a really relieved me because my new down coat survived this ordeal. HAHA!

See the coffee stain on my jeans? haha
Shortly after, Xuan Qi, Li Seng and Jia Min arrived :D But Chor Seng, Kah Wei, Gareth and Yong Qiang have yet to arrive...Sooo...off I was to cam whore with Xuan Qi first :D haha!

Xuan Qi & I at 外滩 :D
Xuan Qi, Li Seng, Soon Hwee & I :D
ME :D
Xuan Qi, Me & Soon Hwee :D
When the rest finally arrived...we then proceeded to buy tickets to enter the Sightseeing tunnel or the 观光隧道 :D
Bund Sightseeing Tunnel ticket 外滩观光隧道票
Zhi Sheng, Jamie, Jia Min, Gareth, Soon Hwee, ME, Kah Wei, Chor Seng and Yong Qiang :D
Take 2 with Li Seng & Xuan Qi :)
That group shot was taken before we entered the capsule to bring us through the tunnel. The tunnel actually cuts across the 黄浦江 (Huang Pu river) to bring us over to the 陆家嘴 side.

Remember the photos we took of the Oriental Pearl Tower? It was on the other side of the Huang Pu river. This tunnel cuts through that river and takes us to the other side :D You'll see the pictures later :D

Yup, we then hopped in our capsule. This carriage will take us across the tunnel. The tunnel is littered with all sorts of lights and effects and the capsule provides the sound effects. Haha. The ride was really no biggie...it's what's waiting at the other end that's the biggie. haha!

The capsule
Upon reaching the other side, there's this "ice world" thingy where they try to simulate icy stuff and all...I really don't know why though...haha!

The icy stuff on display :D haha
Me with the penguin :D LOL.
Group shot :D
Next was some ice tunnel and all...I guess it was some history kinda thing...But we didn't really bother to go and read the posters around...haha!

Ice tunnel
Group shot :)
Take 2 :D
The next part was the most fun! :D It was some 3D art place where you pose with the painted 2D photos to make it look 3D...The pictures below should show you what I mean. Haha.

Statue of Liberty scroll...

Me & Xuan Qi rolling out a picture of the Statue of Liberty :D
Xuan Qi was too weak...Getting Soon Hwee's help...HAHA! :D LOL LOL!
Inception room...

Gareth, Kah Wei, Chor Seng, Yong Qiang and myself :D
Venture peeps again :D
Take 3 :D
Me & Xuan Qi :D
+ Chor Seng :D
I'M FLOATING!! haha!
The acrobat...

This one a bit fail...haha...Their legs should be resting on my shoulders and not my kidneys...HAHAHA! Oh well, you get the idea...LOL

Me supporting 4 peeps! :D
The dismemberment...

LOL
The mummy...


The door is movable...haha
Missing legs...

Where's my legs?? :O LOL
Shipwrecked...

Throwing the bag into the "sea" was Chor Seng's idea, which totally spoilt the whole 3D effect...hahaha! Do pardon my friend...LOL

Shipwrecked!!
Take 2 :D
There are more 3D art than this...but these are the few that I participated in...haha! You can refer to my facebook pictures...haha

After the 3D art, we exited at the other end of the tunnel at 陆家嘴 area...There, we were below the Oriental Pearl Tower :)

Me & Soon Hwee at the oriental pearl tower
The 5 of us housemates :)
Da 5 of us workmates in Venture-GES :D
Chor Seng, ME, Gareth, Yong Qiang & Kah Wei :D
After taking a few pictures at the other side of 黄埔江 (Huang Pu river), we took a walk to the nearest metro station which is 陆家嘴站 :D

On the way, we saw a really bright and shimmering shopping mall. With blue lights illuminating the entire parameter...

Me, Chor Seng & Soon Hwee :D
The mall is called IFC mall. Its entrance is a garden of lights...super niceee...Such sights are pretty common in Shanghai actually, but not in Singapore.

Take 2 :)
Shanghai's IFC mall at 陆家嘴 station :D
We then headed for dinner at Ajisen Ramen...forgot which mall we ate at...the only thing I remembered was, I ate some super spicy soup. If I remember correctly, it's 麻辣牛肉面汤 or something like that.

The first few spoonfuls were awesome. After a while, my tongue was kinda numb and my mouth was producing a lot of saliva and everything had a sour aftertaste. Is that the 麻辣 effect? Haha! I have no idea...

Anyway, Li Seng and Chor Seng tried my soup. They only downed 1 or 2 spoons and they gave up. LOL! I finished the WHOLE BOWL :D HAHA! Anyway, here's a pic of me & Li Seng :D

Li Seng & I at Ajisen Ramen :D
Yup, after dinner, it was the usual ride back with our 花木路 khakis back home :) Let's have a train shot to end this post then :D

Me, Chor Seng, Soon Hwee & Gareth :D