Peach Garden Dim Sum Buffet - Thomson Plaza

 

As my birthday falls on a Sunday this year, and coincidentally, we have a long weekend before the Sunday (thanks to Hari Raya), we decided to try out Peach Garden's dim sum as it has been a long time since we last had one.

 

Thomson's Peach Garden dim sum buffet is currently running a promotion - 25% off the total bill with at least 4 diners. It was almost full house on Friday afternoon (and most of us had made reservations in advance). So given the turnout, I was thinking this must be good...

 

To my disappointment, the fried dim sum spread that were pushed and distributed by the aunties were all cold, so those dim sum lost the crisp and crunch touch. The steam ones were piping hot but the more popular items like har kow and siew mai ran out fast. We had to wait for a while before the new batches were pushed out in the carts. My other disappointment was that there were not much variety offered and the quantities were rather low. Although the buffet's period is from 3-5pm, the food was not continuously replenished from 3-5pm. I think they stopped pushing out food even before 4pm and whatever's that's left in the carts or table were whatever which were left for diners like us to feast on. As this was our first visit (and my last!!!!), we didn't know that we had to grab the fruits first before they were gone as the restaurant didn't replenish them after the first platter. I asked the waitress and even the manager if there will be any more fruits to be replenish, their blunt reply to me was no. And that was only 4pm to be exact. This is the worst buffet spread I had ever had to be honest.

 

We asked Ethan to help both of us to take a shot and he took a selfie on purpose instead!

Then his misson was accomplished...

 

Then he reluctantly joined in for a family shot...

Finally, he smiled!

Best dish of the buffet - Har Kow..

2nd best - Ice Cream! We have to queue up to get them...

Each of us had a 'sandwich' each..

Verdict:
Har Kow - Good
Siew Mai - So-So
Egg Tart - small and cold
Porridge - slightly cold but tasty
Steamed Glutinous Rice - Nice
Fried Prawn dumplings - cold
Beancurd skin roll - tasty but cold
Spicy carrot cake - Tasty but too spicy for the kids

I had dim sum buffet at Ju Chun Yuan Restaurant at Far East Square before with my colleagues and each item was served hot.. so if we were to hunt for a dim sum buffet again, we will probably head for Ju Chun Yuan.

Other recommendations which are non-buffet will be:
1) Imperial Treasure - Great world city
2) East Ocean - Ngee Ann city
3) Royal China - Raffles hotel
4) The Cathay Restaurant (Handy road)
5) Crystal Jade

Shots of their favourite Saturday activity - Football!

For Ethan's upcoming Chinese show and tell assessment - he was tasked to talk about his favourite person. Although he said it was me (**HAPPY**), we decided that he should talk about his Papa instead since there will be more context and pictures (given that I am mostly behind the shots). We were missing photographs of his favourite Saturday activity - Football, so I took the opportunity to snap a few shots last Saturday evening:

A few of the school mates joined in the game subsequently, and the boys had their fair share of good fun and exercise... I went back home after I got the shots done to chill .. hahaha

 

 

SEA Games Football : SG vs Indonesia 11th June 2015

We bought tickets to watch a football match this SEA games at Jalan Besar stadium. I remembered the last time I watched a football match was when I was still in secondary school and it was some Malaysia Cup match which took place in national stadium.

We were rather late on that day because we had difficulties getting a parking lot. So by the time we reached there, we were only left with the left side of the block of seats to occupy. Thankfully, there were still seats on the first row and we got ourselves settled down fairly quickly.. but it started drizzling straight after and ah lou had to run to the counter to collect ponchos..

Before the rain:

actually, view is blocked on the first row..

wet hair and faces from the rain

It turned out to be such a boring match. SG team didn't played well, we didn't get to see the drive in the players on that day to win the match. However, there could be a few contributing factors - field was wet, referee was so strict with our team, ball control was lacking.. etc.

Nonetheless, it was another new experience for our boys. I guess they won't be asking to watch another football match so soon again!

SEA Games Opening Ceremony 5th June 2015

We had tickets to the SEA Games opening ceremony which happened on the same day after we touched down from Phuket on the 5th June. I only had 3 hours of sleep that day as Caden had a lesson in school at 9am.

We dropped the kids off at Peggy's place and went to old airport road for our early dinner. Then we took a slow stroll to the Stadium. The crowd was horrid and there was already a long queue to get into the stadium at late 6plus pm (due to tight security controls).

Finally the ceremony started at 8pm, by then I was almost at a state of zombie (but my lou was super enthusiastic throughout the night) and tried really hard to stay focused and enjoy the show..

Some highlights:

Great LED displays

still so alert...

It was almost near 10pm when we got out of the stadium after the ceremony and I was completely tired and unwell due to the huge crowds outside the stadium. We had to take a long stroll back to Mountbatten where we had parked our car and it was such a torturing experience for me since I don't usually survive well in big crowds situation (I had low blood pressure)..

 

This kind of experience, I think I only want to do it once in my lifetime! (although I think the show was quite well done as a matter of fact)

June holiday in Phuket - 4 June 2015

On our final day in Phuket, we headed to Patong beach one last time after our breakfast in the hotel. It was high tide in the morning so I told the boys to keep off from the coastline (the tidal waves looked strong to sweep them away!).

Macho boys in action:

E went down after PaPa is back with us

I wanted to stay out because I don't want to wet my dress

Last picture at the beach before we leave Patong!

The boys asked to play at the pool again with their ball after the beach outing while Winnie and myself stayed on for a while before we returned back to our rooms to pack up our luggage.

  

Koh Brothers vs Chong Brothers

This hotel has a nice pool environment

we got so tanned after these few days

After we checked out at 1pm, we left our luggage at the concierge and headed towards Jungceylon again for our lunch. This time, we ate at a restaurant opposite Jungceylon (Di Yi Jia - First House Seafood) and their clear tom yum soup and chilli Kangkong (morning glory) were really good! Both Caden and Ethan ate their pasta and I heard it was nice too.

We managed to get ourselves movie tickets at Jungceylon mall (level 4) to watch San Andreas at 2.25pm (we got in only at 2.30pm). They allowed us to buy only 6 tickets for 8 of us, on the assumption that the 2 younger ones sit on our laps. There were 3 different tiers of ticket pricing in the theatre, cheapest is for the slightly softer seats, 2nd tier's seat feels like our GV kind, the most expensive one is couple seat, which is very spacious (all in the same theatre).

The movie started with all of us standing us to sing the country's national anthem, and the quality played was alright.. however, the movie stopped 2 times in between, and I think it's probably because the tape got stuck.. so it was really quite an experience for all of us! (and definitely good fun too) Most importantly, we got ourselves occupied till 5pm!

The boys spent another 40 minutes in the arcade once again before we had our dinner. It was good fun for all of them! Ah lou and Brian went for a match on basketball too..

we came across this in junceylon

This cafe sells good mango sticky rice for THB120

sunset at Patong

The 4 boys kept themselves occupied with card games while waiting in Phuket airport for our flight back home. It was near 10pm local time and they were still so energetic! There were no shops for Winnie and me to shop in the airport so both of us were so bored...

Overall, I think the boys enjoyed this trip thoroughly, most importantly for the fact that they played together with Aidan and Elliot throughout the 4 days. There were alot of fun and laughter from them so I guess this trip will bring them good memories in future.