Thai dinner treat: Rung Rueng

Tucked away in a recessed corner in the middle of One Fullerton is this new Thai restaurant sensation that's preparing to redefine quality Thai food in Singapore.


The front door of Rung Rueng

A couple of nights ago, we received an invitation from the charismatic Ronnie Chia, owner and primary chef of Tatsuya at the Crown Prince Hotel, to a complimentary food-tasting session in his new Thai restaurant, Rung Rueng. Of the three available nights - Friday through Sunday - we picked tonight and made arrangements to attend.


Sawadee... welcome!

The restaurant's decor is understated, with dark-stained wood panels, bright but tasteful lighting, a bar counter and a split-level dining area. Table layout is good, not too packed but making good use of the available space. The clientele tonight seemed to be a mix of Japanese ladies and businessmen, all whom I assume would be regular diners at Tatsuya.


What it looks like inside

Now I'm not particularly enamoured of Thai food, but J does happen to be a major fan. And tonight's meal did not disappoint. From the mango salad (which I don't usually like) to the rice crackers (served with a creamy minced-chicken dip) to two varieties of green curry (pork and beef), I happily took hearty portions of each. The tom yum soup was strongly-flavoured and only a little bit spicy - definitely toned down for local taste buds. The grilled chicken, fish cake and kai lan were good too, as were the selections of fruits and Thai desserts that came at the end of the meal.

No complaints about the food from me; Ronnie, knowing how fussy my tastebuds are, breathed a sigh of relief.

Service, for the most part, was pleasant and efficient. Some raw edges did show though - spillage, nervous hands and uncertainty, and a floor manager quietly but audibly taking a waitress to task for standing around idle. The restaurant is still in its trial-run phase, though, and problems like these should be quickly sorted out under Ronnie's experienced and watchful eyes (and whip, but you didn't hear that from me).


This is the first time I've seen Ronnie wearing anything other than his sushi chef uniform.

Overall, Rung Rueng gets the thumbs-up from me.

If I remember correctly, Rung Rueng officially opens its doors on Nov 3.

Rung Rueng - Authentic Thai Cuisine
1, Fullerton Road,
One Fullerton #01-05
Singapore 049213
Tel: 6423 1063 / 6423 1073

Two for the high road

Two departures this week.

Over at the workplace, Satheesh, our ops engineer, is homeward-bound for a slight change of pace and direction, so the team joined him for drinks (why is it always $!#@% drinks) at Balaclava (and $!#@% smoky bars) last night. We pooled together to get him a bag and personalized T-shirt, which he gamely pulled on for the night:



Not that we stayed for very long, being the non-bar sort. So long dude, and thanks for all the tech.

On the personal side of things, Alan left this morning for Australia to fulfill his PR responsibilities. Here's a shot of him during a lighter moment this morning:



We'll catch up with you sometime.

Stops and starts

Today, we saw a light-green Lancer on the road driven by a woman apparently in her twenties. She'd accelerate hard out of a green light, get stopped at the next red, sprint on green and brake hard yet again at the following junction. Her behaviour seemed rather odd indeed...

... until we realized that she was using the stoppage time to apply mascara.

Getting back into gear

Dropped off the dead hdd for RMA this morning. RMA stands for "Return Material Authorization", but it's easier to think of it as "Replace Mine (with) Another".

Since it's still under warranty (thank goodness for the older 3-year warranty scheme), they will either repair it or provide an equivalent (or sometimes better) replacement. Most likely I'll get a reconditioned piece - one that's previously been repaired and certified as working. I should hear from them again in five working days.

(Working days. Business days. Hah! Some places don't count Saturday as a "working day", but their employees have to haul their butts to work all the same. What a sham. What's wrong with "before next Tuesday"?)

Even though I have a work-issue laptop, I'm reluctant to use it at home.. kind of silly, I know. But it bugs me that my main machine is down. The trip photos are sitting in the portable harddisk, but I'd rather not process them until my PC is functional again. Sorry about the delay.

Work is annoying, but then again, what's new? People are moving, some up and some out, and it's always sad to see stalwarts calling it quits and mugwarts getting rewarded. But life's unfair.

Here's a parting shot dredged from my photo archive - a prayer tablet with an interesting wish, one of many thousands hung at the Meiji-Jingu Shrine in Tokyo. The photo was taken in Aug '03.



Happy thought of the day: dinner's at Buko Nero tonight. :D

Murphy's home

I survived an earthquake and a typhoon over the past two weeks in Japan.

Granted, the pretty minor earthquake struck at 2am and I was sound asleep. It did wake J up though, who attributed it to noisy neighbours.

The typhoon, regarded as the strongest to hit Japan this year, blew through Tokyo at 3pm; having landed in Tokyo from Hokkaido at 2+pm that day, we arrived to screaming winds and streaking near-horizontal rain. Not a pleasant experience by any measure.

I got back home on Thursday night. My PC booted up nicely on Friday; on Saturday the main hdd was dead. RMA time.. sigh.

Returned to work today. Since the de facto IT guy was on leave, four tech support issues struck fast and hard, ranging from the inane to the unbelievable.

Welcome home, Murphy.

I need another vacation already.

Pre-trip blues

J is in her study frantically trying to finish some work before we leave. I'm trying not to think about all the crap I have to face at work when I come back.

In a couple of hours, we leave for Japan. But right now, the house feels like a tomb; stifling and deafeningly silent, save for the sporadic burst of machine-gun typing.

This isn't what I expected, not a couple of hours away from the start of a holiday.

This doesn't feel right.

Whatever happened to that gut-wrenching eagerness, the build-up of excitement that is supposed to strike come vacation season? Blasé, or just disenchanted?

Think happy thoughts, think happy thoughts, it's vacation time.

Whee.

2004 ESPRIT Vertical Catwalk

Was passing by after lunch yesterday and spotted this event happening at Raffles City. In a bit of a rush, so just the photos today:

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