Day Four

Day Four: Gelatinous Greyhound

Oh my GAWD. Having returned from yet another successful shopping trip, I believe I am finished with shopping, as I have now bought two different coloured jeans far from the normal colouring of jeans.
We then went to what is apparently the single best Chinese\Cantonese restaurant in town, and I reckon they’re spot on. The food there was amazing. Like seriously delicious. I’ll let Audrey do all the descripting, but woah, I’m sold. Shangri La is my new fav restaurant.

Today we decided to be artsy fartsy and visit the Esplanade aka the performing arts centre aka the durian aka Mickey Mouse’s feet. Yes it looks like a very funny building, I could come up with a million things it looks like right now but will refrain. Well to be honest, it was quite pretty and extremely artsy but since we went in the afternoon nothing was showing and as a result, it got pretty boring. We did manage to find a large underground watertight door that looked like something out of Deep Blue Sea. Considering there are no sharks or Morgan Freeman anywhere nearby I’m not sure why it’s there (for those people who want to argue logic and the possibility of flooding I’m going to ignore you and simply say that your reasoning is not nearly as exciting as mine).

Since being cultural quickly became tedious we decided to hit the other half of Orchard Road previously unexplored for some hardcore shopping. I managed to be frugal this time (only buying delicious macaroons and a $23 dress). Christo on the other hand was spending up a storm while I sat patiently on the plush couches of Bally silently wondering why there were more men’s shoes in here than women’s. What a travesty!

A mad rush home ensued after we spent way too much time in the malls of Orchard because we had a reservation at the Shang Palace restaurant in Shangri La Hotel. It’s a Catonese restaurant that had its own Chinese tea menu and birds nest dishes that went up to $300. Since my memory of food is vast and cavernous I have remembered everything we ate. For starters we had Nanjing Salted Duck and Drunken Chicken (which is chicken boiled in a brandy and soy sauce style soup). Both dishes were cold and both were surprisingly delicious and made us even hungrier. For the mains we ordered live fish, which was a whole Coral Trout steamed Hong Kong Style. This style is simple with a sauce of simply fish and soy sauce with the fish’s own juices mingling with it so as to “not interfere with the sweet flavours of the fish” (so said the waiter). It was cooked so perfectly that the slivers of fish simply melted in your mouth when you ate it. We also had Braised Pork Belly in a golden mantou sauce which is thick and almost gelatinous that they gave us these yummy chewy breadsticks to dip into the sauce and Diced Silken Bean Curd done Sichuan Style which was also melty in your mouthy. The best part as you all know of course is the dessert (although the fish comes close second!) I had a bowl of warm almond crème and sago while Christo had gelatinous dumplings filled with strawberry, mango and cream. Even a day after having the meal, my mouth waters as I recall all the dishes. After a good 3 hours in the restaurant we stumbled home (or rather, to the taxi) with our bellies full of food and wine to sleep it all away.