Happy New Year everyone!!!! It's a brand new year and so as our hopes, aspirations, plans and objectives for the days ahead. I hope you had a fabulous celebration and welcomed the new year with a big bang! I am extremely delinquent in updating this blog recently but I am vowing to make big changes and an ultimate revamp of it soon. So while I prepare and execute my plans, let me share with you how we celebrated the New Year's Eve at home. 

This is the table setting for this year.

The beauty of the flowers never fails, so I made sure they are part of the centrepieces. As all Filipinos would know, it's our tradition to put numerous fruits on the table (12 kinds to represent the 12 months of the year, but others put 13 or even more) to symbolize prosperity. 

Fruits and flowers really make a very nice centrepiece. 

Some gold coins to make the coming year more prosperous.

There's a sweet surprise for the little ones too.

Because 2014 is year of the horse..



The daughter specifically requested for this - Classic Fish and Chips (I used Cod Fish and it's by far the best fish that should be used for this dish). 

 

The opening of world renowned Lady Iron Chef - Cat Cora's, restaurant in Singapore definitely made a buzz and waves of reviews around the island. Being owned by "the" first and only Lady Iron Chef, it's already a big brand not to resist. So when I heard about it, it was certainly one of my must visit dining places for this year. The perfect timing came yesterday to celebrate my birthday with the family. I've made the reservation more than a month in advance to ensure that we got the front row seat near the aquarium. Fortunately I did, because the kids really enjoyed watching the marine animals while waiting and devouring their food. Also, I wanted a not so formal dining experience hence, I opted for a lunch visit instead of dinner. (Read: the restaurant is more strict in their dress code during dinner).

A 3-Course Set Lunch Menu

This is what the restaurant promises to provide you and as far as the underwater dining feel is concerned, it did deliver.  

I love how the hues inside the restaurant adhered to the Ocean theme. That's why, more shades of   blue can be seen.

Even the cutlery stand and the towel resemble the colour of the ocean.

Beyond the ambiance, for any restaurant, we always rate the dining experience based on the foods being offered, aren't we? First, I highly commend Ocean Restaurant, for serving only sustainably sourced seafood. With that concept, it makes dining here more worth while. Although there were a lot of negative reviews written about the foods in the restaurant, I will say otherwise. Generally, it's not that bad at all. I've been to worse of the most pretentious dining establishments and Cat Cora's Ocean Restaurant is still nowhere near that. I must admit that not all food choices are worth raving about but it's neither too bad that you'll dread coming back to the place.

More than three months since Jamie's Italian opened its doors to the Singapore food community, the buzz about the restaurant hasn't died down a bit; much less its long queues of diners. We were fortunate enough to have tried it just a few weeks after its opening and with more than an hour of waiting time, I'm sure the first question that comes to our mind is that - is it worth it? Precisely what my friends and colleagues asked me after our dining experience. To date, there are mixed reviews about the restaurant. In general, I would say just like any other food place anywhere in the world, it's also a case of a hit and miss. I know this might be a bit disappointing owing to the well established celebrity status of Jamie Oliver. This is the least that we could expect from one of his chains. However, it's also the kind of restaurant that you would want to be more lenient about and give it another chance. Again, maybe because the brand "Jamie Oliver" has something to do with it. At any rate, he seemed to be one of the sweetest and charming chefs around. So, essentially you want to negate all the doubts.