Review of Singapore Garden Festival 2016

I really dislike going to crowded places and try to make an effort to avoid going to such places or attending events or exhibitions during peak periods. First of all, it is difficult to move around due to the crowds. Secondly, when I want to take photos of things such as exhibits or flowers in this case, it irks me so much when I have to keep waiting for people who like to take selfies or wefies in a variety of poses while the rest of the visitors are waiting around impatiently for them to move away. It makes me wonder why they are so oblivious to their surroundings and don't seem to think that they need to move a bit more quickly to make it more pleasant for everyone. Coupled with the sweltering weather and my inability to get into Flower Dome due to the snaking crowds, the visit to this year's Garden Festival wasn't very pleasant for me after all. Fortunately, I managed to see some really nice exhibits so that helped to salvage the less-than-ideal experience.

One thing to note, the lighting in the sheltered areas can be improved especially in those sections which were deliberately dimmed. The direction of the small lights need to be adjusted a bit as they cast shadows or cause reflections e.g. in the terrarium section so it was really difficult to get good shots on some of the nice exhibits. I thought that it was a pity.

Here are some of the pictures I took during my visit:

Review of Rakuzen (Millenia Walk)

I'm not a frequent visitor to Millenia Walk primarily because most of its retail options are rather out of my budget and there's this "atas" image that the mall has. However, in terms of dining options, there are a few places there which I like so you can say that I'm there for the food most, if not all the time. Rakuzen is one of my favourites after a friend brought me there once.

My recent visit was rather ad-hoc since I was looking for a dinner place but didn't want the meal to be too overwhelming in terms of volume nor too rich for the palate. Although it was a weekday night, some of the places there were quite full due to the evening crowd from offices nearby. I have a personal preference of avoiding crowded places for meals if I can help it so those were naturally out of my consideration. While walking past the line of restaurants located outside the Millenia Walk building, I came across this signboard from Rakuzen offering a customised sushi set as part of their 10th anniversary celebration. Most of the time, such sushi sets tend to have the options fixed by the chefs so I do not like to order them because there is always bound to be at least one or two items which I don't like in the set. Rakuzen's promotion was good in the sense that I could choose whatever I wanted from the list of 21 options and I could choose multiples of the same item. The only condition was that if you want the more pricey ootoro and ikura sushi, you'll have to order the 12-piece set and each of these two items can only be ordered once. This didn't bother me since I wasn't going to order them anyway but if you happen to like them, you might want to keep this condition in mind.

I ordered the 8-piece set which consisted of nama hotate, ebi, ika, tako as well as 2-pieces of nii-hotate and zuwagani each. Besides the sushi, the set also included a miso soup, chawanmushi, pickles (radish slices) and dessert (jelly with watermelon cubes). I felt that this was a pretty good deal for the price of 16 dollars since each piece of the sushi was about 2 to 4 dollars if you order them ala-carte. Just the sushi alone would have cost me at least 24 bucks on the assumption of an average price of 3 dollars per piece. Coupled with all the side dishes, I have to say that this is a steal. Other than the fact that the sushi here is a bit slimmer than other places I've been to, I'm actually very satisfied with this set. It was also just nice that I wasn't feeling very hungry that night so the size issue wasn't much of a problem.

The miso soup here was comforting i.e. warm and flavourful without being overly salty. The pickles were crunchy and refreshing on the palate. I don't take chawanmushi so I can't comment on its taste. As for the dessert, the watermelon provided great comfort from the sweltering weather but the jelly was too soft and sweet for my liking. Perhaps they had used gelatin or agar agar for that but I prefer the kanten's texture which is firmer.

Although my main aim was to have the sushi set only, I got tempted by the delicious-looking karaage from a nearby table and couldn't resist ordering this. The portion is good enough for sharing among a few people and I must say that for this quantity and quality, 8 dollars is a great deal. The chicken's batter was not overly thick and I liked that it was not overcooked like what some places offer where the exterior looks dark brown. The chicken meat within retained its juices thus even without an accompanying sauce, I thought this was good enough to eat on its own with the salad. If the chicken had been dry, it would have been difficult to stomach this without a sauce.

It's not stated on the signboard how long the sushi set promotion will last but it looks like it's not restricted to lunch or dinner hours only. Be sure to check with the staff if this is what you would like to go for just to ensure that you'll get what you want since items are subjected to availability too. There are other good items on their menu which I tried before on previous visits and liked such as the kyuri asazuke (cucumber pickles), buta shabu (pork shabu shabu with sesame sauce) and surumeika sugatayaki (grilled squid). Other than this branch, there's another branch at Telok Ayer so you may wish to visit their website to find the details.