A friend and I went to PasarBella recently with the intention of just browsing. But faced with quite a few food shops, we could not help spend even just a little.

The first thing I did was to buy Après-Soleil from The Cheese Ark which turned out great eaten together with grapes, and Francine die Rundi which was perfect with Ritz crackers.

Our shared lunch consisted of ribs from Charly T's (SGD 23.54) - tasty but the meat wasn't too tender (it wasn't falling off the bone), and seafood paella from Le Patio (SGD 13.50) which Ember and I both enjoyed (I would not mind going back for this).

Another thing I would love to go back for are the macarons by Bonheur Patisserie. At SGD 3 each they are a little bigger than others I've seen, but I only ordered two flavours - butterscotch and mint chocolate chip - because originally I am not fond of macarons. Though after eating these, I've definitely changed my mind.

I also ordered a steak and mushroom pie from Nibbles by Rabbit Carrot Gun to bring home along with a salmon and potato quiche with sun dried tomatoes. The pie wasn't to our taste (needed salt), but Earl liked the quiche (then again he likes anything with potatoes).

Unfortunately, most of the photos here were taken before lunch and in my hunger, I forgot to take pictures of the items I actually bought.

A Lesson from NATAS

My cousin and I were at NATAS yesterday hoping to book a cruise to Phuket. Turns out, we should have done it online. We asked Royal Caribbean agent Janning if there was an advantage to booking with them during the travel fair compared with booking via their website, and she said there wasn't any. Hmmm... what's the point in going there then? So for future reference, here are the differences:

Royal Caribbean Booth at NATAS
- SGD 4 entrance fee per person
- Randomly assigned rooms (you won't know where your room will be until after check-in)
- Eligible for the raffle draw - every S$500 spent (up to a maximum of 3 combined receipts) at NATAS Holidays 2013 entitles the customer to one entry form.

Royal Caribbean Website
- No entrance fee
- You can choose your room - all available room numbers are listed per deck so you'll be able to check the exact location of the room you're interested in.* Once you've settled on the room, you can then just click on your preferred room number and proceed to the payment options.

*This is easily done using the deck plans found online.

Therefore, if you want to join the raffle, go ahead and book the cruise at NATAS. But if you're like me, and has been reading up on which decks to avoid, then purchase through their website to ensure that you won't be up all night due to the noise in the surrounding areas.

Greenhouse

I recently posted about how I was a bit disappointed with The Line (which you can read here), but that memory was happily obliterated by my meal at Greenhouse a few days ago.

The buffet itself was more compact, but the food seemed to taste better or this just might be due to the fact I was so happy to find they had four types of roasted meat! They had roast chicken, beef, duck and pork. Needless to say, I was a happy camper (or in this case, carnivore).

The price for lunch is SGD 68.25 and comes with free hot tea or coffee, but DBS currently has a 1-for-1 buffet lunch promo which will run until August 27th.