Review of Platypus Kitchen (Bugis Junction)

I was looking for a nice place to have a late lunch in the Bugis area when I found Platypus Kitchen on the Internet. It had pretty good reviews and I liked what I saw on its menu so it was decided then to head to its outlet at Bugis Junction. As a matter of fact, I had walked past this place a number of times before but never had the chance or inclination to visit it especially since it seemed quite crowded during meal times.

When I entered the restaurant, I was a bit intimidated to find that I was the only customer around. I guess that's to be expected too since it was already past three when I was there. Nonetheless, the waiter who had come to greet me was very welcoming so it helped to put me at ease. I was seated at a table which allowed me to have a great view of the entire restaurant which was largely in soothing pastel tones and black. With the afternoon sun pouring in, this felt like such a good place to spend a lazy afternoon in as you watch the people walk by outside. In particular, I liked the seating which was very comfortable due to its padded seats. There have been many times when I stopped going to a restaurant because I found the seating very uncomfortable (e.g. chairs being too high or too low while eating at the table) or the tables being too close to one another thus resulting in a very cramped feeling so it was a good thing to be able to find a place which doesn't add on to my stress in this respect.

First up was the lobster and crustacean soup which is roasted lobster broth served with double cream and bits of Boston lobster. Based on my experience so far, most soups would be either served in a small round bowl or those very big round dishes so it was a bit unusual to see an oval dish used in Platypus Kitchen. I liked the idea because it was rather easy to drink from and prevent spillage which tends to happen with smaller bowls. As for the soup itself, the aroma was very tempting as soon as the dish was served. There was also no need to add additional seasoning like salt and pepper because the soup was already flavourful enough on its own. As for the lobster bits, I felt that they were a bit too finely-cut for me to get a more accurate feel of the taste but at the very least, they didn't taste fishy in a bad way. The only thing which I didn't like about this dish was probably the herbs served as garnishing because they tasted a bit bitter.

The main course I selected was the Italian Rosemary Garlic Cast Iron Grilled Chicken which was tagged as a specialty dish on the menu. The reason why this is called a Cast Iron Grilled Chicken is due to the fact that the chicken is grilled in heated cast iron skillets at 250 degrees Celsius. I presume that this cooking method helps to seal in the flavours of the chicken without the meat becoming too overcooked. There are four versions of this dish where the chicken is further cooked in different sauces so I think I'll be back to try the other versions another day. Coming back to this version which I ordered, I felt that the aroma of the garlic and herbs was nicely infused into the chicken so I was quite satisfied with this dish. The salad was fresh with a nice citrus-like dressing which made it more palatable since I really dislike those with a strong vinegar taste. The fries were of the right thickness but I would have preferred them to be lightly salted so as to eat them on its own. The chili sauce provided was a bit watery and unlike the usual local version we are used to so I thought that didn't go so well with the fries.

One good thing to highlight about the service here is, the staff noticed that I was struggling with cutting the meat and went to get a meat cutting knife for me to replace the bread knife I was using. Granted that I was the only customer at that time, it might not have been difficult to notice that but I still applaud them for taking the effort to make the change because they could have just ignored me anyway if I didn't ask for a change in the knives.

Last but not least, my dessert was the molten lava cake served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate soil. The vanilla ice cream was rather ordinary in my opinion but I thought the idea of having that almond chocolate glico stick as a garnishing was pretty interesting. On the other hand, the lava cake was rather dense and tasted quite rich so I gathered that it should be made of dark chocolate or the proportion of dark chocolate was pretty high. It was a pity that the cake was so dense that the "lava" failed to flow out when I put my spoon into it. However, the semi-liquid chocolate within was still nice to eat despite its gooey texture. I'm not sure how the chocolate soil was made but as long as it tasted good, it didn't matter so much.

On the whole, I was rather satisfied with my dining experience at Platypus Kitchen and would want to visit it again but still, I would prefer to avoid the peak hours. I sure don't mind being the centre of attention again as the only customer in the restaurant! I also liked the fact that the restaurant attempted to distinguish itself as a place where people can meet up to enjoy meals together and it's making an attempt to get people off their phones at the dining table with little notes in the form of bookmarks. There are quirky questions and little known facts about food which can be used as conversation topics and I thought that it's a pretty good idea to catch the diners' attention. Whether it does help in making people concentrate more on their dining partners and food rather than their phones still remains to be seen but this type of initiative should be encouraged for its positivity.

Going down the memory lane of toys - MINT Museum of Toys

Having heard of MINT Museum of Toys for some time through my friends' posts on Facebook, I never got a chance to visit this place only until this afternoon. I had the impression that this was a place which housed vintage toys from various countries and local childhood toys which coincided with the museum's description on its official website:

"MINT (Moment of Imagination and Nostalgia with Toys) Museum of Toys is the world's first purpose-built museum for toys, and opened its door to the public in May 2006. It was officially launched by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr George Yeo, on 5 March 2007. Belonging to Mr Chang Yang Fa, a Singapore Citizen, the private museum showcases an extensive collection of vintage toys, including rare and unique one-of-a-kind pieces. It is considered to be the largest collection of its kind within Southeast Asia, with more than 50,000 pieces of vintage toys and childhood memorabilia from more than 40 countries, including Singapore, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States, and even Bulgaria. The collection ranges from the mid-19th Century to the mid-20th Century."

It may be easy to miss the entrance of MINT since it is sandwiched between a chicken rice shop and a pub-restaurant. Luckily, there is a new pop-up board for people to take pictures with outside the entrance so it should be easier to spot the museum now. The museum consists of 5 floors whereby the first floor is the MINT shop which offers various toys on sale. More on that later after I introduce the other floors of exhibition space.

On the 5th level, there is a rooftop bar and on the walls and staircase leading to the 4th floor, there are enamel displays of vintage ads for products such as alcoholic drinks. Personally, I thought that it was interesting to see these ads and how the products were marketed in the past. Some of the ads were really simple with a single picture and the brand name which was really straight-to-the-point and concise. Unlike many ads these days which can get really cluttered or abstract that we can't tell at a glance what the ad is selling, I thought the simplicity in the past excels in bringing across the message as it is instead of letting "noise" disrupt the delivery of the message. Perhaps this is something which the advertisers of today can learn from. Although there are quite a number of ads on display, it might be ideal to re-arrange it in the form of specified themes or clusters of ads selling similar products so as to leave a deeper impression on the visitors.

At the staircase landings between the levels, there are huge glass cabinets extending from the floor to the ceiling showcasing a variety of toys and related merchandise. However, due to the absence of any descriptions, tags or signage indicating that there was a theme in each of the displays, it took a fair bit of time and effort trying to decipher why certain toys were displayed together and if there was any similarity between them. There were some sections which I could hardly understand why the toys were being placed together and if there was a theme on each floor. As such, I felt that it was a pity because visitors wouldn't have known the message behind the displays if they are not on a guided tour. In addition, the lighting in the glass cabinets was so dim that it made the toys appear darker than they truly are. The items featured on the top shelves could only be seen if you are standing on the top of the stairs while those at the lower shelves can only be viewed if you bend or squat down. I thought that it was really inconvenient and difficult for me to view the displays in this straining manner. Coupled with the poor ventilation and lack of air-conditioning especially in the higher floors (be it the stairways or the exhibition gallery), it was truly a sweltering experience for me even though I spent only an hour or so in the entire museum.

In the exhibition galleries though, the lighting turned out to be an issue again. This time round, the lights are fitted at the bottom of each shelf so if you want to take a picture of something opposite the full-wall glass cabinets, you will get ugly light lines as shown in the picture on the right. That was why I decided to give up taking pictures of some of the exhibits because I just couldn't avoid or erase the light lines from my pictures. Perhaps a skilled professional photographer will be able to do something about this situation but alas, I'm not.

Given that MINT is a small-scale museum and privately-funded, I guess that it might not have resources such as the bigger national museums which can invest in special lighting to bring out the best in the exhibits but it will be worth looking into this in time to come so as to boost the appeal of the museum to visitors. In this time and age where many people take photos and share on social media, not being able to take a decent picture with a handphone is probably going to be a sore point for people who want to leave behind some memories of their visits and share it with their friends and families. It will do the museum good if the sharing of such photos is facilitated as this will create interest just as what it did for me when I saw pictures of the museum on my friends' Facebook pages.


On levels 2 to 4, there are exhibition galleries featuring the themes of collectables, childhood favourites, characters and outerspace. True be told, I had difficulty understanding the themes as the descriptions at the entrance of the galleries made me wonder why certain things are classified under a particular category. In any case, I think the bigger problem lies with the heavy focus on vintage toys which may be too far back in time for us to get excited about. I do like seeing vintage toys in order to get a feel of how toys made in the past looked like. However, when you go through rows and rows of such toys which featured characters that you've not seen nor heard of before, I admit that I was feeling rather weary quite soon. Considering that I'm in my early 30s and there are so many toys featured which came out before the 80s when I was born and grew up as a kid, it was difficulty to get excited over these older toys. Perhaps there might be an exhibition in future where the toys are classified in terms of the time periods they come from and more side stories to elaborate on the history of each character/toy so as to engage the visitor in another way and stir up interest. In addition, there is too little focus on the toys played by children in Singapore during the old days so I would prefer to see more of that. The arrangement of the toys could also be altered in such a way that the exhibits are not blocked by one another. As seen from my photo on the left, two of the seven dwarfs from Snow White had their faces concealed which I thought was not an ideal thing to happen in a museum's display shelf.

Last but not least, with regard to the MINT shop, I thought that they had a pretty interesting range of items, be it old or new. However, the pricing of the items seem a bit high e.g. the pack of vintage "five-stones" would cost $15. Considering that I had already paid $15 for the adult ticket, I wasn't too keen to pay another 15 for a relatively no-frills set of "five stones". Perhaps there needs to be more competitive pricing so as to entice visitors to shell out extra money to bring home souvenirs after the visit.

In conclusion, I truly applaud MINT's efforts in conserving and displaying such an extensive collection which makes it one of its kind. However, to keep the museum going in future and attract both new and repeat visitors, there are some improvements which need to be made and hopefully, these enhancements will happen in the near future.

Official Facebook fan page up!

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Review of "Oishii Japan 2015" in Singapore

Oishii Japan is ASEAN's largest dedicated showcase on Japanese food and beverage which was recently held at the Suntec Convention Centre the past weekend. The first two days were opened to trade partners thus the public could only attend the event on the 24th. Even so, the opening hours were relatively short especially since I only managed to reach the venue two hours before the closing time and did not have enough time to visit all the booths. In addition, the fact that some of the booths had already been closed by the time of my visit meant that I wasn't getting access to all the content that was supposed to be showcased so I thought that it was a pity. Last but not least, as some of the booths had already sold all their merchandise, there were some items which I wanted to buy but couldn't. It might be good if there was a way to purchase the items directly from the manufacturers and get them delivered to Singapore especially if they had not found any distributors to sell the products locally. For example, there was this white wine from Yamanashi which I really liked after sampling it at the booth but was disappointed to find that there was no more stock and it was not available in Singapore yet.

The organisation of the booths at this event was in a somewhat inconsistent manner where some prefectures had a cluster of booths taken up by various companies based in that prefecture e.g. Aichi, Gunma, Chiba and Ibaraki. I suppose this was probably because they had more companies within a single prefecture to take up the cluster of booths compared to other prefectures which may have one or two companies taking part in this event. Those which were not put into the prefectural clusters either had the location of their home bases plus their company's names or just the companies' names reflected so it was tough to identify which items came from which area unless you talked to the staff manning the booths or read the brochures given out. In that sense, it might be good to see a classification of the booths according to geographical locations in future editions of this event.

As for the things I managed to buy from this event, first up were the tea products from Isodaen in Aichi. They were selling their products at buy two get one free for SGD 8 which I thought was a steal after sampling the tea. I got two packets of the mint tea bags and one for the green tea powder which I'll probably be using for my desserts.

At Daiei Foods' (Kanagawa) booth, most except for two of these items were sold out. The crab kamaboko was given out as samples and I really liked how fresh and flavourful it tasted. I was even more intrigued when the staff said that the kamaboko could be eaten straight after defrosting since it was already cooked before being frozen or to be used in salads. Nonetheless, when I ate the kamaboko today, I still cooked it since the idea of eating this raw was rather new to me. As for the other item, it was shellfish steamed in Japanese wine which could be eaten after defrosting. The rich flavour of the wine was nicely infused into the shellfish but may be a bit overpowering for people who doesn't like the smell and taste of alcohol. Although the staff said that the items can be bought at Meidi-ya, I'll have to check it out before this can be confirmed.

There was also a J Food Court where people could buy onigiri from SAMURICE, Singapore's first onigiri outlet or the Niku Soba from Keisuke Ramen. I even saw Takeda Keisuke-san, the founder of Keisuke Ramen at the booth. Unfortunately, both stalls were sold out by the time I reached so it was a pity that I couldn't taste the food there.

In conclusion, I thought that it was a good effort to boost awareness of Japanese food and beverages. However, it would have been better if the following improvements could be taken into consideration:
- Planning of the booth layouts to put companies from the same prefecture together or improved labeling to help visitors see the companies' origin easily from the signage
- Extended opening hours or increase in the number of public access days so that more visitors can attend the event
- Ensure that there is enough stock for individual visitors to purchase because it's rather disappointing to be greeted with "sold out" signs wherever you go

Till next year's event then!

A nostalgic tribute to SG50 - "7 Letters"

"7 Letters" is a compilation of 7 short films from 7 of Singapore's well-known filmmakers to commemorate the Golden Jubilee namely  Boo Junfeng, Eric Khoo, K Rajagopal, Jack Neo, Tan Pin Pin, Royston Tan and Kelvin Tong. I haven't watched films from every director so I approached this movie with no knowledge of their styles and which type of films they specialise in making. As the free screenings at the National Museum were so popular, I resorted to catching this film at Golden Village instead.

I do not plan to go into details on each of these films even though there were some which didn't really interest me. Given that this is a celebratory gift for the nation, I guess it's better that I keep my criticism to a minimum. Nonetheless, I would like to share my thoughts on the stories which did strike a chord with me in one way or another.

The Girl directed by Jack Neo
Jack Neo's films are usually commercial hits in the cinemas because the themes of his stories tend to be on things which affect most of us, be it NS, family problems and bread-and-butter issues so they can easily engage an audience of all ages and genders. On the other hand, he always gets rather harsh reviews from critics on the value of his films. Frankly speaking, it's not easy to achieve commercial success in a small market like Singapore. To go out of Singapore is yet another feat. Not all arthouse or indie directors can succeed too. Although I don't really see his films as those food-for-thought type of films, they aren't always as bad as how the critics make them out to be. I've watched a number of his films in the past especially during the Chinese New Year period because honestly, there's not much you can do during those few days other than head to the cinemas. In addition, the elders in the family tend not to be keen on Hollywood movies so it's always a natural choice to go local. Then again, after his highly publicised affair scandal years ago, it just feels terribly odd to see his films preaching the goodness of family ties or doing good so my interest in his films have dwindled a lot since then,

This short film however gives off a slightly different vibe. Signature-style of humour with a mix of dialects and Chinese, the story is as simple as it gets. A girl has a crush on a boy in the same class and would even sacrifice her well-being just to help him even though the guy treats her like trash. However, what really hooked me was how the simple story ended with this really sad twist of the girl's family moving to another kampung and the boy had no chance to repay her for what she did for him. Cliche or corny you may say, but sometimes, an emotion as simple as regret like in this instance is what really gets to you.

The Flame directed by K. Rajagopal
The entire film is in monochrome and depicts how an Indian family is faced with the choice of staying behind as Singaporeans or taking up the offer of British citizenship on the eve of the British's military withdrawal from Singapore. The father insists that his son and daughter-in-law go to UK with him but the son is caught in a dilemma especially since his wife refuses to go and become second-class citizens. On hindsight, it's easy to applaud the daughter-in-law for standing up to her father-in-law and insisting on staying in Singapore. However, at that time, nobody knew what was going to happen to Singapore after the British left so you can't blame the father for believing that things in the UK would be better for the family. What impressed me about this story was the great acting between the three characters and how they managed to convey the conflict convincingly to someone like me who didn't go through those difficult times and didn't have to make such a tough choice. It made me feel a sense of admiration to those who decided to stay despite the uncertainty and honestly speaking, if not for those who believed in a future for the nation, we might not have made it. Of course, for those who left, I can't blame them too because they thought that it was the best way out at that time. Luckily for the film, it doesn't choose to judge either side for the decisions they made which I thought was a good thing.

4:30 by Royston Tan
I can empathise with the little boy in this story because I used to be a latchkey-kid myself where I returned to an empty home after school. Eating lunch all alone with no one to talk to until someone returned home in the early evening is really not fun for kids of that age. Other than this "familiarity" with the lead character's situation, the nostalgia of seeing things from the past and that community spirit which is sorely missing nowadays brings back a lot of fond memories. Now, we hardly know our neighbours, let alone allow them to come into your place to borrow the shower room or offer them kueh like that Malay grandma did.

Grandma Positioning System (GPS) by Kelvin Tong
Again, this is a relatively simple and straightforward story of a Chinese family which has to travel to Johor every year during the Qingming festival to offer prayers to ancestors. Despite doing it every year, the family actually has little time and patience as seen from their eagerness to wrap things up quickly and get back into their routines. Even the route to the grandfather's grave is always "forgotten" by everyone except the grandmother who spends a huge amount of time talking to the grandfather about how to get home from the cemetery with her grandson seemingly listening without a care at the side. However, when the grandmother passed away, the family finds themselves stuck again in a bid to find the grave the following year and manages to find the location with the help of the grandchildren who remember what the grandmother said in the past. Just when the family is glad that they can wrap things up quickly unlike previous years, the grandson heads back to the graves and repeats what his grandmother said in the past so that the grandparents' spirits will be able to go to their new house. The significance of this film is probably not so much about mocking the impatience showed by the family members when paying respects to their ancestors and how much they were focusing on their own lives but rather the fact that everything is changing so quickly around us that there are hardly any landmarks of the old times which we can remember or see these days. That could be why the grandmother was insistent on telling her dead husband's spirit about the directions back home in case he got lost without the old landmarks along the way. Good thing that the grandson remembered what she said or else the "tradition" would have been lost with her passing.