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Lake Toya, Japan

Spot of Tranquility.

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Little India, Singapore

Spices, gold and splashes of colour!

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Singapore Flyer, Gardens by the Bay

Garden City, City in a Garden.

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Bryce Canyon, USA

Thor's Hammer

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Chocolate Test, Singapore

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." -Charles M Schulz

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Elafonissi Beach (Greece)

Every 2-3 months, I get hit with a bout of wanderlust. While searching for new destinations to travel, I will look back at photos taken during previous vacations just to look back at the great times. 

Two things about travel that are certain.

Firstly, I don't regret anything about my travel decisions (albeit sometimes on hindsight!)- the ending up in the middle of nowhere, the staying in crappy hotels etc. Even something unpleasant can teach us a thing or two. Secondly, travel is a drug- it leads to a never ending craving. 

Last July, I went to Elafonissi Beach- also known as the beach with pink sand. We went early because we wanted to avoid the crowds and reached at around 9+ a.m. The crowds were out but we managed to secure vacant deck chairs. You have to pay something like 6 Euros for a day to rent the deck chairs. 


We are not beach goers and I am a heavy sunblock user. But we were left in awe when we saw the clear and azure sea- never saw anything like this! The water was so cold that it took a lot of courage to plunge into the water.


The legendary pink sand occupies an incredibly small strip. If you tried hard enough, you will find it at the intersection between the sand and the sea. After a while, the focus shifted from looking for pink sand to just enjoying the play of light on water and taking dainty steps on the soft sand.


There was another area which had very shallow waters with considerably warmer waters. This is safer for children who have not learnt how to swim but would like to soak in the waters- 50 magnificent shades of blue!


To get here, it is around a one and a half hour plus drive from Chania. For such views, it is worth it even if you are not a beach-goer. 

Monday, February 20, 2017

Fish & Chicks

Fish and chips in food courts are common. But fish and chips doused in chilli crab sauce and salted egg yolk sauce? 


As we were in a dilemma whether to choose the chilli crab sauce or the salted egg yolk sauce, the only rational thing to do was to order both.


The Best of Both Worlds ($14.80) comprises salted egg and chilli crab sauce over two pieces of fish, together with fries and a choice of side. One portion is good for a hungry teenager. But if you are inching towards 30 like me (or older), it would probably be a good idea to share. The moment my partner took a bite of the fish, he declared that he liked the batter of the fish - not too thick, not too oily and crispy.

Between the chilli crab sauce and the salted egg yolk sauce, I preferred the salted egg yolk sauce because the flavours weren't as overpowering as the chilli crab sauce.

Like my partner, I enjoyed the fish. However, I took issue with the onion rings. There was a grand total of 5 onion rings which tasted frozen. The onion rings were hard and lacking crunch and juiciness.


This is pretty value for money and innovative. They just need to get those onion rings in order.

Fish & Chicks 
Cathay Cineleisure Orchard
8 Grange Road
Basement 1 (Koufu)

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Ministry of Crab (Sri Lanka)

Ministry of Crab has been included in Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2016. To round off our trip in Sri Lanka, we visited Ministry of Crab. Try getting reservations ahead of time. We were lucky that we went before the lunch crowd started streaming in and managed to get a table. 


Ministry of Crab was set up by former cricketers from the Sri Lankan cricket team and a celebrity chef. Their website is very interesting- which is rare for a restaurant's website. In their Constitution, they state things like "We are proud of the reputation sri lankan crabs enjoy in singapore- thank you singapore! But we're even prouder of bringing the finest institution in sri lanka dedicated to serving you the best of our crabs here in their home country."


Everything about this place felt polished- the location, the decor, the service etc.


We wanted to order a medium crab (up to 800g) only to realise that they did not have such crabs that day. We ordered a small crab (up to 700g) to share which was a little small for two people. On the menu, they had options like chilli crab, curry crab, baked crab and pepper crab etc.

Given that we usually eat chilli crab and pepper crab, we decided to try the Garlic Crab (Rs 4400- small). Needless to say, the crabs were incredibly fresh- the meat was so tender and moist and we concurred that it was better than the ones we ate in Singapore.

This is a wok fried crab and the sauce is a mixture of Italian olive oil, Japanese soy sauce and garlic. Initially, it tasted a little too salty. But after a while, it was incredibly addictive to soak the oil up with the Kade Bread (Rs 320). The garlic taste was just nice, without being too overpowering.


The kade was nicely toasted, with crispy sides and fluffy centres.


After eating the crab, it was a little anti-climatic to eat the Chicken Curry Rice (Rs 1520). We swapped the Japanese sticky rice for Kade bread to dip into the curry sauce. It did not elicit the same kind of joy when dipping the bread into the garlic oil. The curry chicken was decent - it was slightly spicy and cooked well but a little underwhelming after eating the crab.


Ministry of Crab
Old Dutch Hospital, Colombo 01
Sri Lanka 00100 Colombo
Tel No: +94 11 2342722