Always a delight it is to be back here.
Because over here at Yotel there's always so much I want to do, yet so little space and time.
Much of what I wish to accomplish tends to get pushed back to the next time, the next time, but then new stuff crop up, and those earlier stuff I never get to do at all.
Still I'm not complaining.
Each breather is a breather on its own, and I don't mind doing stuff that are new, nope, not at all.
Like this time for dinner we walked from this Shaw Lido, Royal Thai Embassy side of Orchard all the way down to Robertson Quay.
A long walk it was, taking us across Ngee Ann City, Mandarin Gallery, down 313 Somerset, and into Killiney Road where we turned afterwards into River Valley Road and Kim Yam Road.
Come to think about it, I'm not sure whether we walked there or took a bus there. It might have been either.
What I'm pretty sure is that we walked to this dinner place at Robertson Quay from Kim Yam Road, because there's this picture.
I'm not familiar with the building or the organization that owns this building, but I was captivated by the height of the gated entrance, the stairs of the building, and the architecture within.
Plus, it's not always that we get to see a temple structure as such in the mostly gwai lo expat area of Robertson Quay and River Valley Road.
It was a lovely dinner which we had that evening- a combination of wagyu beef cubes, a rich beef broth, and a variety of tempura.
But if I thought that dinner was good, breakfast next morning at the cafe wasn't too bad either.
One of the highlights of any breather is the breakfast, buffet or otherwise, and I always try to get the best of whatever they have.
Doesn't mean that I'll always go for the American or the Continental.
Not necessarily.
Sometimes I go for the Asian- which is what I had on the first day this time round.
Maybe because I have a special thing for mifenmian.
I find them hard to resist, and for this day's breakfast I chose to have mine with neatly sliced, fresh, cold cucumbers, a serving of scrambled eggs, a couple of samosas, and a serving of dragonfruit.
Next day I had another serving of noodles (again) but instead of dragonfruit I boldly went for watermelon and little spring rolls together with an order of two fried eggs.
Watermelon juice with spring rolls and noodles didn't taste too bad.
But on the third day I decided to go a little Continental and ordered an omelet with everything in it, together with a pancake, more cubes of watermelon and a slab of butter.
For some reason, it's always the food that stands out best in my memories when it comes to breathers.
I may not remember much about the lobby or the pool or the lift or the surroundings of the hotel even, but I remember the Happy Lamb Hotpot lunch which we had at this place in Pacific Plaza along Scotts Road.
Not because of the ambience or service, or anything like grand-looking pots, plates and chopsticks, but their food, and the way they serve it.
You know how some places tend to have fantastic ambience, great amenities and lots of little extras?
Or how some places are grunge-like basic in their decor, and so is their food?
Happy Lamb Hotpot (definitely) was more of the first, and yet, it wasn't quite like that either.
A sort of Mongolian style hotpot (as so the wall says) which I can't really tell the difference save for the fact that the crockery and the pots seem to be larger, this outlet at Pacific Plaza had wonderful, sunlit ambience with cute little lifelike models of sheep and lambs arranged in a pastoral-like set.
There weren't that many extras one needed to pay, and even if there were, their prices didn't reflect them either.
Not to say that their food was poorly served.
On the contrary.
It was beautiful.
See, it's not always that I get to see such a huge plate of beef slices (on ice!) so aesthetically arranged, with excellent symmetry, and with such pretty looking (unedible) garnish too.
The flowers, plastic as they were, reminded me of wildflowers on grassy hilly slopes, and I found my eye being drawn to them all the time.
Hotpot is one of those meals that you can eat slow, eat quick, or take your time. We decided to balance out the time of two hours thereabouts, but somehow- despite our best efforts- we really couldn't finish it all.
It might have been the soup that filled us up, cos if it wasn't already the soup that won us over, their skewers did the magic.
Oily as they might have seemed at first, they were in fact skillfully grilled, full of crisp, full of taste, without the greasy feel lingering on your tongue after you'd eaten your skewer clean.
I really liked those skewers.
And I could have them even without the hotpot and hotpot soup.
Except that a couple of skewers wouldn't fill me up, and (as it turned out) I needed the extra burst of energy on that second-day afternoon.
A walk from Scotts Road to Dunearn Road on a very bright, very hot afternoon with no wind consumes a heck lot of energy.
Originally I hadn't planned to take such a long route, but I had no specific destination and so my route took me from Scotts Road to Draycott Drive to Draycott Park to Stevens Road, and after dawdling a little at the junction I decided to head along Balmoral Road until Bukit Timah Road and then Dunearn Road on the other side.
Out of all them all, it is Balmoral Road that left the greatest impression on me.
There wasn't anything in particular that I wanted to see.
But on that road were memories.
It made me think of a time when I walked from Barker Road to Orchard Road via Balmoral Road with a very tall man who happened to be my boss.
It made me think of a time when we stayed at a unique hotel called VIP Hotel, and after an odd experience in the bathroom never went back there again.
And it made me think of the Tudor-style hotel which I had always been curious about but, like the VIP Hotel, is now no more.