Flowers of CapitaSpring

We were determined to take a post-brunch walk around the rooftop gardens of CapitaSpring Tower this time.

To look at the herbs.

And to look at the flowers. 

Which, for the last few times, captivated by the breathtaking scene of the island from 57 floors up, I'd completely missed. 

Perhaps I'm someone more into scenery than gardening and flowers and leaves. 

Perhaps I'm someone who gets so absorbed by surroundings as beautiful as these that she forgets there's just as much to see in the presence of living beings grounded by roots, soil and earth. 

So this time I was determined not to let the opportunity go, and here're them pictures of pretty little blooms.

To be honest, I wish I knew the names of these flowers.

But I've never been the type to pay much attention to flora (other than admiring how pretty and fragrant some of them are) and when presented with these, other than the roses, and what looks like a hibiscus, I've no idea what they are.

Perhaps someone will be better qualified to appreciate these blooms. 

Same way someone else will be more thrilled at the sight of a herb garden growing so high in the sky than I was.

But in any case, the thought of having a garden so high up in the sky is a pleasant, comforting one, so here they are!

OUMI Ala Carte Buffet @ CapitaSpring

To be here at CapitaSpring on an early Saturday afternoon is not something I take for granted.

Especially when you consider that weekend brunch at KAARLA X OUMI- on the 57th floor of CapitaSpring- is one dining experience that I relish, and treasure very, very much. 

It doesn't matter whether I've been there before.

It doesn't matter how long it's been since the last time I've been there.

To get to dine there is a blessing, and whilst it might sound sentimental, it is true. 

The first thing about this restaurant that strikes you is the view. 

It's a view you get no matter where you sit. 

But, of course, better it is if you do get a table by the window. 

We'd reached there at a good hour this late morning, or was it early afternoon, so the staff brought us to the table, and after admiring the view a bit, began perusing the menu. 

The menu here at OUMI isn't one of those long, extensive ones with lots and lots of dishes to choose from, but it is substantial, and everything is of quality, and good. 

One of the dishes that I love is the Smoked Salmon Crudo.

Don't underestimate it's simplicity. 

Maybe we can't see it but amidst all the slices of smoked salmon is dill cream cheese, pickled cucumbers and thyme croutons. 

Then there's the hot cross bun which isn't in the menu but given complementary, as well as the Kaarla Truffle Fries and the Kajiki Tataki. 

Kajiki Tataki may be a tad difficult to pronounce, but oy, don't miss out on what is a plate of lightly grilled swordfish with with tosaka seaweed, white onions and roselle leaves. 

Dont' ask me how the tosaka seaweed tasted like. 

All I know is that it felt like I were eating little leaves. 

Small little leaves. 

The Tempura Futo Roll and the Salmon Cheese Roll made for great choices almost immediately after. 

If Salmon is a favorite of mine, so is Tempura, and both dishes here were fantastic. 

 Again, there's the simplicity of everything, with salmon and with cheese. 

You could expect that they only got salmon and cheese, but no, they added a little bit of salmon skin, there was avocado and cucumber, and even the cheese was homemade with a bit of miso added to it. 

Same with the Tempura Futo Roll, where instead of one big slice of tamago on top of the sushi (as my brain had previously imagined it), this one was had one little cube of tamago, one little cube of avocado, one little piece of daikon pickle, wrapped with seaweed, lightly fried with tempura batter, and a bit of fish mayo. 

The heart they put in preparing this sushi was unbelievable. 

There're some dishes here on the menu that look deceptively simple, really. 

Like this La Latteria Burrata, and this Petite Beer Battered Fish & Chips.

But the dollop of burrata cheese wasn't small, and the salty milky flavors of  the cheese dissipated the bitter bitter taste of arugula salad leaves. What's more there was almond romesco and herb oil somewhere in the mix, and altogether this made for a very interesting, all round kind of blend to what would otherwise have been (just) a salad with cheese. 

The fish & chips were something I wanted to try this time. 

I like the batter. 

Rather, I like this kind of batter. 

And even though they're (petite) like I'm eating little fish bites, the batter's well spread out and they're all evenly fried like what good fish bites will be. 

We had a bowl of Misoshiru Soup each. 

To be honest I don't know what this soup is- the menu says it's got hijiki, maitake and spring onions. 

From the flavors alone I thought there might have been some kind of fish but then hijiki is a brown sea vegetable, maitake is a mushroom, and spring onions are, well, spring onions. 

If that be the case, then let me just say that the soup was very, very good.

How they did it to make what's essentially vegetable soup to taste so rounded and rich like a clear broth takes skill.

And I love it. 

We were up for two Sushi Bowls and Assorted Vegetable Tempura after this.

One of us took a Bara Chirashi.

The other took a Tuna Poke. 

I think I had the Bara Chirashi. 

It might look like other bowls which you'll see being offered outside, but there's all this salmon and (what I think) is swordfish cute into perfect little cubes, there's the salad- with tiny cute little leaves and then there're all these pretty edible little flowers that make this dish uniquely different from the rest. 

Same too goes for the Tuna Poke. 

Sure, it might be all but chunks of raw tuna dropped inside the bowl of rice, but it's got seaweed, avocado, tomatoes, aji amarillo and sesame, and that makes all the difference. 

My friend dropped me the tomatoes. 

You might think we'd be full after this- and we were- but the meal allocated one dish per person from the Wood Fired Grill and Hearth- and so delicious it seemed that we were not gonna forgo, so whilst I decided on a Buccatini Pasta, my friend had The Kaarla Wagyu Burger "With The Lot".

Don't laugh at my choice of the pasta. 

I wanted to try charred zucchini and zucchini pesto. 

I also wanted to try the texture of pasta with crunchy sourdough crumbs. 

But my friend's burger really took the lot. 

I mean, it's a fancy thing to have a burger of brioche bun with wagyu patty and gruyere cheese. 

It's another thing altogether when the burger comes with Japanese fried egg, streaky bacon, caramelized onions and pickled beetroot with cucumber. 

Let's just say this was no small burger that turned up on our table. 

Let's also say that we were very, very full by the time we finished. 

But one must have dessert. 

So, out of their four selections, we took three. 

There was a Chocolate Trifle. 

There was a Matcha.

There was a Yuzu.

I can't quite say which was my favorite- I like distinctive flavors as much as I do varieties of chocolate.

So, whilst the matcha panna cotta had black sesame brittle and azuki red bean, the Yuzu was this perfectly-shaped 3D model that resembled the yuzu fruit, and which came with yuzu curd plus something called wasabi-yuzunama chocolate, I quite fancied the Chocolate Trifle too. 

After all this little cup had a huge portion of vanilla chantilly, some pear sponge at the bottom, and two different kinds of chocolate- a Caraibe at 66% and a Jivara at 40% that were perfect complements to each other.

Alexandra's Japanese

A friend told me about this Japanese ala carte buffet at this restaurant called KUMO in Alexandra Park Hotel's retail area, said we could go try. 

I'm someone who doesn't mind a good buffet whenever there's one, so we went. 

It's an interesting place, this retail area of Alexandra Park Hotel. 

At first glance you don't know what to make of it. 

There're a couple of eateries- a zichar place (with indoor aircon seating right in the mall), a roti prata chain, and then there's this- KUMO. 

What makes this restaurant interesting is that whilst it doesnt look like a huge, fanciful restaurant, there're enough dishes to whet your appetite, and you don't need to worry that they'll be of mediocre quality. 

Like this Sashimi Moriawase that came to us served thickly cut and ice cold.

There's little that can go wrong with a plate of sashimi, especially when there's squid, tuna, salmon and another variety of fish served alongside with it.

We had a lovely time chomping through the thickly-cut slices of cold, fresh sashimi, dipping it in a mixture of soy sauce and wasabi.

It is, after all, not often that I get to have such thick slices of salmon sashimi and tuna sashimi. 

What's strange is that I had expected them to be hard to digest, and hard to chew.

But these fish weren't. 

In fact quite easy they were to eat.

Nevertheless, after two servings of Moriawase (yes, that's how much we ate), we decided we had sufficient of squid and tuna and the white colored fish (I can't remember what it was), so ordered a plate of just Salmon Sashimi instead. 

I'm still a little overwhelmed at how thick and chonky those slices were. 

One thing though, they weren't as chilled and cold I had wished them to be. 

Still, they were great, and we ate our way slowly through these thick slices, savoring the taste of the salmon with wasabi and soy sauce. 

Of course we didn't just go for the raw fish alone. 

A bit silly, otherwise.

We also went for the cooked food, which we weren't intending to miss out.

So there was an order for chicken kaarage- it turned out to be a single piece- then a bowl of agedashi tofu, a bowl of stir-fried beef, a piece of deep fried pumpkin, and tempura prawns. 

My friend liked the agedashi tofu. 

I liked the deep fried pumpkin and the tempura prawns. 

Pumpkins are one of my favorite vegetables, and as much as I like them stewed, deep fried ones are even more delicious. Prawns, on the other hand, seem to be better tasting when coated with tempura batter, and I ate most of these pieces here all on my own.

There weren't many other dishes that we ordered after this. 

There was another bowl of stir-fried beef- we liked the onions.

There was an order of two potato croquettes- all creamy and warm and soft. 

Then we decided to have two servings of fried mushrooms, which, to our surprise, turned out to be a serving much larger than what we'd expected.

Not that we were complaining, though. 

Especially since mushrooms are shared favorites and we always welcome deep fried mushrooms whenever opportunity comes for us to have some.

These deep fried mushrooms here marked the end of our mains for this meal.

But there was still complimentary dessert. 

No ice cream though.

Instead we got a matcha daifuku. :)

Bus Ride Sights: Harborfront-Kembangan

There're two buses that get me from Steppyhouse to Harbourfront.

One's 93, which I have to take from the bus stop on the opposite side of Jalan Eunos heading northwards.

Then there's 30, which- if I were to get to Harbourfront- I would have to walk out to Sims Avenue East, cross it, walk along Lorong Melayu, then cross over Changi Road to the other side. 

It's a bit of a humid hassle taking Bus 30 to Harbourfront and Vivocity.

Coming back from it, however, is another matter.  

It's much more seamless a journey coming back from the bus stop outside Seah Im Hawker Center. 

And way more straightforward.

Especially since the bulk of the bus journey runs along the Marina-Coastal Expressway, or the MCE, that from this side of the country begins somewhere around Straits Boulevard after the place behind Prince Edward Road, and which comes out at Fort Road. 

Along the way from Telok Blangah Road towards the MCE, it goes along Keppel Road- and all these buildings on the left side of the road.

I can't tell for sure what or where exactly these buildings are, but right after the bus stop opposite Vivocity outside Seah Im, the bus ran along for a bit before coming upon the Keppel Distripark on the left with West Coast Highway on the other side. 

Further on afterward the bus turned onto what I think is the road that runs under the Keppel Viaduct, where at one time out the left side of the bus you would be able to see the railway platforms, the magnificent Tanjong Pagar Railway Station building, and maybe even a KTM train. 

That's been gone for a good number of years now, unfortunately, but, well, at least the building still stands. We're not allowed to go inside, however, and last I hear, they haven't figured out what to do with this building as well. 

After this came the sight of apartment blocks and greens and huge lovely trees rising up from the district known as Raeburn Park and Spottiswoode Park.

And then, almost immediately after came the office buildings and that of M Hotel as the bus stopped at the traffic by the junction leading into Anson Road. 

Something about this area has always been of interest to me. 

Perhaps it's the way the whole place has been zoned out.

Perhaps it's how you don't think of one side when you're at the other, and vice versa. 

Like I could be in the Anson Road/Tanjong Pagar area, near Hotel M and Mapletree and Carlton City, McDonalds all that, and not realize just how close I am to the former railway station, the harbor port, Sentosa, and the sea. 

Or I could be at the harbor port, at Sentosa or even at Vivocity, and not realize I'm really not that far away from the business offices on Anson Road, Tanjong Pagar and even Robinson Road. 

It's all very fascinating how all the land lies in all these intersections and how an extra extension lets you so easily commute from one end to the other. 

I can't forget the sight of those glossy glassy skyscrapers at Marina Bay Financial Center either. 

In the bright afternoon sunlight, they looked blue. 

After this stretch the bus turned into the MCE and continued all the way until somewhere around what is I think Fort Road. 

How exactly it turns out, I don't know, but one minute you were in the tunnel, and next, you were out on the road close to the housing estate they call Jalan Batu. 

From here the bus turns into Old Airport Road, passing by the Old Airport Road Hawker Center, then Dakota housing estate, past the Geylang River, then a left into Tanjong Katong Road. 

From here it goes all the way down, passing by Green Lane, Sandy Lane and Grey Lane before it crosses Geylang Road, down a bit some more, then a right into Sims Avenue. 

Here the bus goes all the way down one straight road, passing Paya Lebar Square, one big field, a few housing blocks, the Eunos MRT Station, then finally Sims Avenue East, where on the second bus stop, I alight, and head back home.