In a bid to save the environment & the feet of our friends who had just endured 1 hr of Kenko’s reflexology, we car-pooled from Esplanade to Clifford Pier – home to the only restaurant in that building – One on the Bund Shanghainese Restaurant.
We were welcomed by a gush of cold air as we entered into the huge expansive restaurant – imagine a large gallery with a generous central aisle and expensive Chinese dining furniture as exhibits that flank both sides. The cold air was doomed to be the set temperature of the restaurant and we were relieved to be informed by YY that our friends had cleverly reserved a table outdoors.
It was disappointing not to seated on a round table, ala traditional Chinese style, and inconvenient since we were expecting to be sharing the dishes. XL made an attempt to correct this by shifting our cutlery & thus our physical positions to a more centralized arrangment. The hard seats and blaring music of spunked-up Chinese oldies helped remind us of the Chi-na ambience we were set in.
In our usual style of indecision regarding food choices (this time compounded by the fact that we were eating Chinese this time, the one type of cuisine that demands shared portions ie, the order you make determines the order for the entire table), we flipped the menus and discussed to no avail. Thanks to someone’s clever suggestion, we got the manager (who surprisingly spoke perfect & crisp ?Brit English) to recommend dishes, of which we ordered most, since it was JL’s birthday and we know how JL loves to choose “recommended” dishes or “star or specially-marked” dishes on the menu.
Thanks to the strange tea options that we had – some bitter tea which we chose in the end, and osmanthus tea, we had a long discussion led mainly by ML, about osmanthus tea and its close relatives eg. Chrysanthemum and jasmine. ML particularly wanted to know how the osmanthus looks like so that she may recognize it in the future. May I recommend a botany book for ML’s upcoming 29th birthday. But in any case, due to popular demand, I shall google it and paste up a pic of this famous tiny white flower.
Record of osmanthus conversation (postnote by XL)
[In China, osmanthus tea Chinese: 桂花茶; guìhuā chá) is produced by combining dried Sweet Osmanthus (Osmanthus fragrans) flowers with black or green tea leaves in much the same manner the more familiar jasmine tea combines jasmine flowers with tea leaves.]
[Tiny, dried gold-orange Osmanthus flower buds. Delicate fruity-floral apricot aroma. It originates from the Guangxi province. When I was in Guilin, it appeared to be THE souvenir flower tea to buy back home. ]THE FOOD!
Frankly, I’m not a foodie and the lighting was terrible, hence the description and the accompanying photos may hardly give you a good idea of what the individual dishes were like. I apologize. Told you guys not to let me do the blogging.....
Appetizers:
1. asparagus stalks with the ends dipped into some sauce and toasted sesame seed
2. mashed eggplant with pale beancurd skin
Not my fave foods – for 2 main reasons – I dun really like veggies; both these dishes have a tinge of spiciness – huge turn off for me. I welcome any other comments from the other participants.
Mains: Cripsy lamb ribs & giant spring onions – second of the restaurant’s 2 best dishes!
- The lamb is disguised as roast pork but the scent and eventually, taste, gives it away. Not too bad, but difficult to fall in love with if you’re not a natural lamb fan.
Peking duck – first of the restaurant’s 2 best dishes!
- The taste was a tad disappointing , but it did spur on many a few interesting debates. Like, where’s the “pi” (skin)? (when XL asked that, I honestly thought she didn’t recognize the oily pieces of duck skin that did quite a good job of blending in with the similarly-brown plate they were placed on). Funny how we never notice that the colloquial phrases we use for our Chinese food can mean more than one food item and thus prone to misinterpretation. This question was repeated more than once and with similar mistaken responses.
- When the much awaited “pi” finally came, we realized it had a curious resemblance to prata, but what was more alarming was the scarcity of it - limited to only 2 per person (and only because YY generously offered to forgo her share). With a surplus of meat/skin, we vigorously piled in more stuffing onto a single “pi”. To me, the most queer part of it all was receiving instructions to eat the duck skin with sugar, whilst using the duck meat slices as stuffing for the prata-like “pi”.
Crispy Mandarin fish wiith peppercorns- The fish slices were tender and fresh as far as stir-fried fish goes. The peppercorn sauce was thankfully not too spicy. Hmm.. quite a non-descript dish.
Soup (white broth with scanty meehoon kway and some Chinese melon thingymy)
- I’m not sure whether this was the exact soup that YY had previously but it certainly didn’t feel “damn good”. Before we started ordering, YY had briefly talked about her previous experience at this restaurant and went on to describe a soup which naturally comes after the Peking duck (skin, then meat, then THE soup), and she graded it “daaaamn good”. Whilst this soup was flavourful and comfortable, it didn’t feel like some superior double-boiled broth bursting with aroma and richness. Maybe it’s just me, the meatarian who needs more meat than vegetable in her soups.
Toufu with salted egg gravy- I liked this. The salted egg gave the gravy a full-bodied flavour whilst its slightly powdery coarse texture was a contrast from the smooth toufu.
Stirfried stringbeans with minced meat and chilli
- Needless to say, after seeing ML douse her mouth with the full glass of water after a sample of this dish, I didn’t even attempt it. Ermm.. other than the taste (which I can’t comment on), I must say it looked quite good, and it must have been quite a hit with the others since the plate was finished off quite cleanly. But like what someone commented, how wrong can you go with stringbeans?
All in all, I felt the food was only average, and one main gripe was that the dishes were placed on oversized serving plates/trays which not only perpetually invaded into my eating space and were not easy to pass around at all (and you needed to pass these dishes around since you’d remember that we were not on a traditional Chinese round table).
NEXT, DESSERT!
No Chinese desserts in this Chinese restaurant! Nevermind, we stuck to the western desserts instead –
Macaroons and Hazelnut mousse cake.
We learnt today, from EL, that ganache is not a huge scoop of icecream, but the filling in the macaroon. Coffee and mocha macaroons had run out, so we had instead black sesame, mint and, yes!, our favourite flower of the day, osmanthus.
Last but not least, we had JL’s birthday cake – from Vicky’s. In view of the strong winds, she quickly blew out the single candle almost immediately after the manager lit it. She proceeded to make the customary cake-cut.. at the corner of the cake – bisecting the 90 deg angle, in a bid to be different from the other years, and requested that the manager continue cutting the cake in similarly unconventional shapes for the rest of us. The bewildered manager looked genuinely relieved when YY gestured, by the side, that it was ok to carry on to cut the cake into his usual rectangular/regular shaped slices! Trust JL to come up with such avant garde ideas!
Amidst the laughter and banter, a poignant point in the evening was YY’s recital of JL’s poem – a short compilation of contemplative & some random thoughts by JL as she turned 29 on the 15th. The first of us to hit 29 and crawl on closer to the 30 mark.
The 7 of us ended the night with a romantic walk out on the boardwalk, along the pier, in the cool breeze of the night, onlooking the front of the esplanade and unanimously agreed that STB has done Singapore proud in creating such a picturesque night skyline.
*JL's poem for reference... *
Whimsical at 29
I’ve announced to more than one person that when I turn 30 I’m going to hide in a cave.
Would u believe me if I said to youth I’m not a slave?
But I suppose that is a story for another year and not for this one.
Although from just a moment ago, I feel like I’ve aged some.
So perhaps it is not very appropriate for me to write in a rhyme.
Cos limericks seem like a type of writing for a younger time.
A friend wished me happy birthday and said she’s glad to have me as a friend.
And hope I’d stay the same just plain old me till the very end.
I thought that was kinda sweet and all-embracing.
To know all of you is loved is seriously quite refreshing.
Some birthdays I wish I’d morph into a butterfly and fly away.
Maybe these thoughts should remain as thoughts and not things you say.
But oh well that’s me I guess, somewhat honest and often uncannily real.
Perhaps that’s why my friend likes plain old me and finds me such a steal.
The intestines feel funny almost as if they’re a notch slower.
Maybe a large part of it is attributed to the crabs at dinner which were quite power.
I just hope it’s not because the metabolism is slowing and the cells are no longer regenerating.
Cos that would be a seriously tragic happening.
Oh well as the day draws to an end.
All I have to say to myself is happy birthday evan.
It’s been another year of fumbling in the dark.
As you grow older, do remain as free as a lark.
Because your later years shall not be regarded as stark.
To your earlier years where you thought u’d made your mark.
At the risk of sounding really cliche.
Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.
