the more i think about food in singapore the more i wonder why people want to live anywhere else. i am supposed to be doing geylang research for our food trip next wednesday but instead i'm looking at all the restaurant guides and reviews and going wild. for tonight, all things food-related on the web are mine for the ogling. i am even taking food personality tests that tell me all about my subconscious mind and emotional needs based on my preferred chocolate centres and style of drinking tea. if i spent as much time or put as much vigour into looking for spenser or virgil related websites i would probably be the best-read undergraduate in the department.

places i've always wanted to go to but don't see happening short of netting an oil baron spouse :

• any of the les amis restaurants. i suppose i'm really thinking about the one in the bungalow in the botanical gardens, though the new one at fullerton looks quite exciting too. i like that story about justin quek and the french ambassador!
• alkaff mansion - nearly made it there once. this was when i was 17. wealthy family friend came along and was going to give us dinner there, i remember a nice long drive up in the dark only to find the place was fully booked for a wedding. i would like to have my wedding dinner there. i got to look at the building from outside though, giant and imposing and lovely-lit atop telok blangah hill and always wanted to be able to go, one day.

places that look really good and are much talked about, might get there one day

• intermezzo (but i hear it's gone western now, no longer pan-asian). this might be because i've never been inside one raffles link.
• indochine (at acm not club street), because of the river view, and because i've actually peeked at it! incid i think the indochine group is really rather exciting now that i'm reading up about it.
• 360. even with the dubious owner. and the disappointment of embargo.
• au petit salut (somewhere in bukit merah)

interesting places i'm determined to get to within the next 3 years

• siem reap ii, with any luck i'll be there next week. i want to see this lotus chandelier thing that supposedly adorns their cafe. also part of the indochine group.
• broth at duxton hill, shophouse style and all that. i read that it's run by several ex-compass rose people.
• marmalade at purvis street. i have eyed this place for three years and i will get there someday. it's very pretentious though. sort of a only-for-the-very-good-looking approach.
• brewerkz. it's been around since i was in jc and still i haven't been!
• opiume. i keep wanting to go to this one because i made nodding acquaintance with it the other night. anything i find in the new acm has to be exciting.

highly lauded places i shall now pronounce judgment on

• nectar at club street. do you know, one day i will eat my way through club street, one restaurant at a time. of course, i'll have to have married an investment banker or a cabinet minister, and by then i'll be ancient and mouldy and for that matter neither will club street be young and trendy anymore. anyway nectar. i was oohing and aahing over my food while i was there, but on reflection it was disappointing for the price and hype. the memory fades, and i have no compulsion to go back. i thought the service sucked. perhaps the experience wasn't quite as ravishing because most reviewers raved about the special seating but we got a regular table that was rather cramped. interesting, but not that out of the ordinary after all.
• yaoshan at the metropole. damn bloody good, and chinese medicinal herbs galore. they also do damn good sharksfin, only i decided i wouldn't eat sharksfin for 10 years, because sharks are now becoming extinct, and i still have 8 years to go on it. my mother says it's my own fault for rashly making grand vows only i explained that it wasn't a rash vow, it was a carefully considered decision, and that if everyone emulated my example we might all still have sharksfin to eat in ten years' time, whereas if they went on gorging on the stuff in 10 years there won't be sharks around, and then i would be more better practised than they are at going without.
• charming gardens at the copthorne orchid. okay lah as far as chinese restaurants go this one isn't the most exciting place to be seen at but my family loves the place. the pigeon soup (comes in those bamboo tubes) there is very good, only it isn't real pigeon.
• fig leaf: fantastic. in fort canning country club. hey do you see a pattern? i like these colonial buildings transformed into restaurant with either waterfront or hilltop views. fig leaf is beautful. perhaps it needs more windows, to let in the dark, or it could go the other way, with dimmer lighting, but otherwise very nice decor. i doubt i'd ever be able to go back though, unless *scan horizon* investment banker shows up
• erm, compass rose? 70th storey view, very exciting. food, vastly overrated. i suppose the edibles are secondary lah, the view and the swank is the thing? ah well.