Got up early; pounded on Lori_Q's door to see if she wanted
to find breakfast (yes) - decided that maybe the Chinatown
Center food court would have more variety than, say, the
local Hainan chicken rice store. We however didn't factor
in that it was Sunday morning, so we were left pretty high
and dry. Almost decided to go back in the direction of the
hotel, as there were some storefronts open nearby, but then
we noticed a pastry shop on New Bridge Road called Pau Dian,
out of which were coming some nice smells.

A pork dump was porkier than usual, with the sticky rice
saturated with a soy-based gravy. I asked for a pork bao;
what came was a minced chicken with salted egg bao, very
tasty but not what my tastebuds had asked me for. A couple
minced BBQ in pastry things - bakkwa pie and "cha siew soh"
were similar but not identical pork fillings in respectively
tartlet and cigar shapes, both with an impossibly flaky
pastry. I always enjoy the so-called "carrot cake," which is
really a thick white block made of rice flour and turnips;
Lori looked a bit put off by it and declined a taste; she
also didn't care for the egg tart, finding it heavy and
eggy - I thought it was perfect, but I am accustomed to and
appreciate nondairy egg tarts. She much preferred the
peanut-filled fried sticky rice ball, deeming it superior
to the ones we'd had at Lau Pa Sat earlier, as these were
fresh off the press, if you will. The peanut filling here
was smooth, quite unlike the usual crumbly one of chopped
peanuts and sugar grains. This feast cost all of $7.10 and
fortified us nicely for the rest of the morning. Lori went
back to the Botanic Garden, I think, while I went along the
waterside drawn inexorably to the violin shop in the Durian.
It was closed when I checked at 10, 11, and 12, so I spent
the rest of the time poking about the Marina area. The plan
had been to meet at the Marriott at 1, I thought for lunch,
so I walked down through the rabbit warrens to City Hall,
planning a leisurely walk down Orchard Road; but when I
surfaced at City Hall, it was raining cats and dogs, so
motorized transport was the order of the day. Took one of
the SMRT buses that went down behind Doby Ghaut and thence
down to Orchard Turn. Got to Tang's at about half past and
met Lori there. While she looked for a necklace for herself,
I idly looked for one for Carol, but the only one I even
vaguely thought attractive turned out by Kenneth Cole, so,
you know, why bother.

We landed at the Marriott right at noon, but no other FTer
was there. What the heck, I found a regular bargain on the
drink list - Glenmorangie at $12, albeit for a shortish
about 25 mL pour; this at a place where a pint of draft beer
is 17 and change and a bottle of Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay
is something like $65. Even Lori's mango juice was close to
that in price. After a few minutes, seanthepilot and newself
arrived, and we chatted for a while before deciding to pull
up stakes and find a bite to eat. Just as we were thinking
of packing up, bseller arrived with WWBGD in tow.

WW had managed to finagle his way into (and, as it turns
out, out of) town in C but sadly was unable to convince
his wife to show up - she had taken the passport snafu as a
sign from higher powers that the trip was not to be.

After a chat in the lobby, I suggested Din Tai Fung, the
Taiwanese dim sum place that is within about 4 blocks of the
Marriott, down at Paragon Center. WW and bseller begged off,
having eaten recently, and WW doesn't like dim sum anyhow.

So it was down to Lori_Q, newself, seanthepilot, and myself.

I ordered slightly too little food, so Lori suggested
doubling a couple of the orders, and so we ended up with
slightly too much food. We should probably have varied the
menu a bit, but hindsight is useless.

Soups are death to appetites, and we got two, a large pork
noodle soup with pork chop and a small chicken soup. The
former is your standard broth with lots of wheat noodles
and a cut-up katsu-like thing on top. Quite good. Chicken
soup is a bowl of chicken parts with soup - also very good,
the chicken boiled for a heck of a long time but the scrawny
and flavorful real chickens that you get in Asia.

Fried rice with fried pork cutlet (two orders) was a reprise
of the same tune, with yangchow rice instead of noodles.

I ordered an order each of glutinous rice and pork dumplings
and shrimp and pork dumplings. On consultation with newself
and Lori, I changed this to two orders each. Mistake, The
glutinous rice dumplings, which I love, are filled with this
dried pork stuff and maybe some dried shrimp, mingled with
sticky rice to cut the intensity of flavor. It's a poor
people's version of dumplings and has a spot in my heart.
But two orders is too much, Especially as Lori had had a
dump (pronounced doong) for breakfast, and the filling of
these dumplings is pretty much the same as that of the dump.
The shrimp and pork dumplings taste pretty similar to the
xiao long bao for which this place is famous, only they have
whole shrimp and are in a regular dumpling shape.
Nonetheless, they have the same broth squirting out at you
as you bite them, and I think they are a better buy than the
xiao long bao. What happened. Two orders of the glutinous
rice dumplings came out but only one of the shrimp and pork
ones. So we had the second order cancelled, which caused a
big kerfuffle in the end; the waiter kept trying to convince
us (in his very mediocre English, so I'm not sure if this
is quite right) to get the second order to go, but we tried
to get him to understand we wanted to delete it from the
order. Eventually he came by with a revised bill.

An order of spinach and garlic was delicious and assuaged
our guilt at eating all that food.

We made the mistake of hanging around maybe 15-20 minutes
too long, as we (stuffed as a dumpling) finished the
remnants. What happened was ... the missing order of
dumplings showed up as we were packing up to go. Much
gesticulation all round before they quit trying to put the
basket on our table.

newself wanted to try Taiwan beer. It's not so good as
Tiger, which he was getting tired of.

After this we split up - myself going back to the hotel
for an hour nap, the others I think shopping or something.

We'd arranged to meet up again with the intrepid few -
newself, bseller, and WWBGD at a Thai place on Boat Quay
that we had patronized during a previous Do and that
offered pitchers for $18. We drank lots of Tigers and a
bottle of rather neutral Chenin Blanc called something
like African Sunrise. An order of mixed satays in a peanut
sauce that was authentically fishy but not authentically
spicy served for dinner, and we filled up mostly with beer
and pleasant conversation. I don't think anything came of a
suggestion for the Night Safari - the whole weekend after
all had been overcast and quite moist. So early to bed and
early to rise and so to the airport by 5 am.

We'd asked the front desk to call a cab for us, and the
helpful young clerk suggested that we should just hail one
in the morning, as there were a lot of them cruising around,
and that way we would save the prebooking fee. In fact, we
stood outside for less than a minute before a taxi came by.