Easter hues, Monday blues

Another relaxing long weekend, over and past. Spent most of the time lazing around the house and playing Disgaea on the PS2, and still managed to find time for a swim on Saturday with Akane.

Last week, with strong recommendations from both Dake and Derien, I started reading George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. 22 pages was enough to get me hooked; my last read was terribly insipid by comparison.

GRRM's pace is fantastic; the story flows smoothly without stagnating, and the plot is deep and involving, multi-threaded as it is (in comparison, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, IMHO, suffers from terrible fits and starts, over-dramatization and general long-windedness). Each chapter, unnumbered, is named after one character, subtly focusing your attention, and neatly sidesteps the fancy-chapter-name problem prevalent in most works of fantasy/sci-fi.

A Song of Ice and Fire looks like it's a keeper.

Moshi moshi chawanmushi
Tried this Japanese restaurant called Megumi along East Coast Road. According to sources, the chef used to work at Akashi before moving out to start his own restaurant about a year ago.

We ordered a beef kami nabe (paper hotpot), chawanmushi, some tamago yaki and one plate of the house speciality Megumi maki. The kami nabe (try saying that ten times fast, will you) soup base tasted quite similar to the stock used in some of Akashi's soup-based dishes, so my source was probably correct.

Service was passable - we had to ask twice before someone brought an extra plate of sauce for the hotpot. I wasn't terribly impressed by the food quality and taste either. Overall Megumi isn't bad, but I wouldn't recommend it.

The beatings will continue until morale improves
So it's back to work on a lazy Monday after an even lazier Fri-Sat-Sun. In the rush to get to work, I forgot that my handphone was still hooked up to the charger, and left home without it. Doh.

Meaningless photo of the day:


Shophouses along TQL