Pham Quyen Muslim Vietnamese Restaurant - Inexpensive and So Tasty

 

                        Steamed Sea Bass Vietnamese Style Must Try 9.5 /10

Beef Nasi Pattaya Superb 8 / 10 

Vietnam Coffee Potently Awesome (10 / 10) 

 

Awesome Muslim Vietnamese Restaurant Coffeshop Food.

Situated at the junction of Clementi Road and at the westernmost end of Pasir Panjang Road sits this new coffeeshop place selling the most awesome Vietnamese food I have tasted in a long while. The place is called Pham Quyen Vietnamese Restaurant at 440 Pasir Panjang Road.

It has its share of fans, and my sons and I had the pleasure of a lovely dinner last weekend, with a very pleasant and decent price for dinner.

                                                    Fried Spring Rolls - Must Try (9 / 10)

Grilled Chicken Skewers - Superb (8.5 / 10) 

Honey Glazed Chicken Wings - Must Try (9.5 / 10)

Braised Beef Noodles Very Good (7.5 / 10)

Oops I did it again !

 

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I hope to turn back the clock and run another half marathon for old times' sake. It is what I love to do and something which I do well ; Time is not on mu side ; however, this is my hobby till the day I cannot run, I might as well derive as much pleasure from it as I possibly can.

So bring on 3rd December 2023 !!! 

All Set to Run Fast

 

A visibly happy me after a fast run last year around Pandan Reservoir. My goal is to get back to that level of fitness for 6 km with a sub 7 minute time. I will give it my all for 6Km today at the East Coast Park and see whether I can replicate that level of fitness.

6.29 km around the Reservoir in the drizzly evening and at the end of the day no less. My fitness this year has been hampered by aging injuries, such as strained LCL ligaments on my left knee. Apart from that I am generally OK, and the doctors at SGH did an XRay and all seemed well with my bones.

When I was in my youth, I ran with a laser like focus. Just run with the back straight up, look forward and hands around my chest level. I normally split my body awareness into 2 parts. One,the top part which is my lungs and my breathing. If I breathe normally and have no gasping for air, I am on track for a good run.

Then my legs. In the old days, I was called Steve of Stiff Austin because my legs were stiff and almost bionic. I recall playing Sunday soccer at the club old Open Air Theatre, and I normally played barefoot - till a while later, when we could afford proper shoes. Once I kicked the ball so hard, but missed it and kicked off the exposed bark of the 100 + old tree !  

Italian Food at Capita Spring 8th July 2023- Mediocre food

Grilled Octopus - their best tapas  

On the 17th Floor of CapitaSpring Tower at D'Almeida Street (closest MRT is Raffles Place) is the Fusion European restaurant called Sol and Luna (although the name is Spanish sounding the food I would call it at best Fusion). 3 of our family went there to dine last Saturday 8th July, The place is located on the 17th Floor and while the access to this ESG compliant building - there are a lot of floors with high ceiling and a lot of open spaces for greenery and thus reducing the heat take up and giving the building an airy and laid back space feel.  

La Bomba - Chicken Cutlet ; rather airy 

The service while professional, was exceedingly slow. The restaurant was full inside only leaving some tables empty on the outside. It took a whole 30 minutes for the 3 tapas (appetizer dishes) to arrive. The first 3 dishes were only average tasting. The grilled octopus was savory, but the other 2, the sardine wrapped with Iberico Ham and the La Bomba were disappointing.

The sardine tasted fishy and the texture was rather stringy, not very fresh. The potato cutlet was alright but again, it tasted like the food was reheated in the oven.

The chicken cutlet tasted rather bland, and again the feeling was that it was reheated and there seemed to be no distinct European flavour to it. This could have been cooked by any Club Western Restaurant. Poor.  

Truffle Risotto

Another disappointing dish, the rice appeared like porridge and the truffle aroma while strong did not seem appealing in a savoury way. If anything, this is just passable. Mediocre

Sardine Wrapped in Ham with Mustard 

Again, another dish which failed to live up to its nice name. This dish had a fishy taste and gave the impression that it was previously frozen and thawed before grilling. Poor. 

All in all, while the food was rather bland, the service was acceptable. Prices were on the average side, perhaps that is why the restaurant is appealing to the younger crowd with smaller budgets.

Overall rating : 2.5 out of 5. 

Go again factor : Low. 

What is Success ? Are you a Success in Life (Reprinted from my Blog in 2020)

This endearing picture above shows a little boy sitting on the beach, with his hands clenched on a fistful of sand and staring determinedly at the photo-taker. He has a look of bliss on his face, which seems to say "Hey, I am on my way !".  

Well, it is only partly true, in my book. Having been running a business as well as raising a family, for more than 30 years, we should all look at ourselves and ask point blank, Is my life a success ? 

I recall playing the board game called "Careers" or "The Game of Life" whereby the playing board represents Life and one goes out to achieve a total of 60 units of either :

a) Fame (becoming a celebrity) 

b) Money (become a billionaire) 

c) Love  (Hard to define this person, but I guess someone who is in Love and has Love). 

If only life were that simple.  

Lets dive in and look at each of these sought after sometimes intangible 'commodities' in deep analysis.   

Money 

Money, For almost everyone on this planet, with the exception for a few lucky souls like royal families, and scions of billionaires, is very important to everybody. There are many people who have worked and slogged and made a pile and find that at the end of life, a certain emptiness. A lack of creating a footprint for others to follow. So, while having enough money is important, the endless pursuit of wealth for the sake of having more wealth, will leave one devoid of empathy, or concern for one's fellow man. 

I find these never ending pursuits of the so called 5 Cs quite disturbing in our rich and plentiful Singapore. For those who are not familiar, the 5 "C"s young people strive to achieve without a thought for anything else : a) Condo b) Car c) Country Club d) Career e) Cash. And only those who have accumulated enough of the Moolah can then afford to buy these. In the bible this is called Mammon or Material Things.

At the end of the day, there are multitudes of marketing and sales people peddling everything from the latest smartwatch, to getting smarter by using ChatGPT to the exclusive Condos, and landed properties in the gentrified estates next to the city.  

Young and not so young people strive to drive the latest sports car or status car offerings, while the women carry the latest designer handbags and sport the 3 karat diamond rings. They may offer satisfaction, but it is only temporary, 

There will then be the yearning for something bigger or better or flashier. or they wake up one day and say "to hell with it all".

It is like hunger pangs which once fulfilled satisfies for a while before the yearning to make more comes along.  So making money for the sake of money is not Success. 

Fame 

Fame Some people want to be seen with the stars and crave attention. See all the famous Hollywood, Bollywood, JPop, KPop and HK stars. They make alot of money, have all the attention BUT have no private life. They have major crises, take drugs, gamble, have affairs and are afflicted with all or even worse problems than us 'nobodies'. As recently as last year 2 KPop idols, Sulli and Goo Hara committed suicide due to loneliness and depression as a result of leading the so-called 'perfect princess' lives which turned out to be lies. So sad. 

Fame as an Ends is also not Success. 

Love 

Love Ah, Love is always the one pure emotion. Yes, one can have alot of Love, but can we get by with giving Love to our loved ones and live on fresh air, love and music ? Dream on Love is an emotion, so we all have the capacity to give and receive Love. So Love by itself is not Success. Having and Giving Love probably is one facet to leading a successful life though. 

So What Does A Person Do to achieve Success ?

 

So what does one do to achieve Success ?? First lets try to define Success. In my humble opinion, first look critically at your own life. Identify what you want to change for yourself. It may be trying to improve your standard of living, your car or apartment, or even taking more holidays. Once you have identified and managed to achieve them, STOP. Look around you, there are many many more millions of people worse off than you. Why go on and on the merry-go-round of endless upgrading form HDB flat, to Condominium to House, to MASSIVE DEBT ? GAINING OF MATERIAL THINGS IN LIFE IS NOT SUCCESS, ITS MEANINGLESS !! 

SUCCESS IN LIFE IS TAKING THE PURPOSEFUL JOURNEY. IT HAS NO END POINT.

Living a purposeful life helping one's family, community, friends or religion without a thought for one's situation is a Success story in itself. But before one can start doing that, he must be financially secure and have relevant income streams so that Money and Family stability are not compromised. Here is where, everyone deviates or does not agree upon. What is Financial Stability ?? $10,000 ? $100,000 ? $ 1 Million ? $ 10 Million ? 

What's the Magic Number ?? That magic number depends on one's personal sense of comfort. 

Hypothetical Example

Take Mr. A : " I am 45, I have a flat, my kids have finished school and I take public transport to work. Wife is a good cook and we dine out at restaurants once a month. I have saved $ 100,000 for my next 5 years and can start to do some community work or help out in my Church outreach. Its time I gave back after having taken from others all these years. " Very noble. I salute these people. 

These are the true Success stories in this dog-eat-dog world. So, in the end, the church, temple and mosque helpers will say, "Doesn't matter. God will provide" However, in many circumstances, but there are many hard luck stories who have fallen by the wayside in the pursuit of the wrong goals and have relentlessly used or adopted these mannerisms in their daily life. 

I list them down, these are the 7 Deadly Sins. 

1. Lust 

2. Greed 

3. Sloth (Laziness) 

4. Anger 

5. Gluttony 

6. Hatred 

7. Envy 

I would define Success as this : Living one's own sphere of life, as being able to do what he / she wants, growing in character, and ultimately in helping others without much thought of one's well being. To get to that point, one needs to take stock of one's own life and be SATISFIED with whatever he already has, and not be green with envy that the neighbour has gotten a new and bigger car than him, or is going for holidays every 3 months while he has to slog just to pay the bills. To achieve success, one has to have these traits or acquire these attitudes : 

a) Dogged Determination to reach the goal   > 40% 

b) Resilience in bad times .                             >30% 

c) Vision to dream where he wants to be        > 30% 

Seize the Day my friends. Life is there for Living. Don't Moan or worse Bad Mouth others. Don't be a whiner and whinger and drop out at the first sign of difficulty. 

Be a Winner and Doer. Possess Grit, Resilience and Positive Mental attitude come what may.

Set your goals, however small, and while on your achieve them and help the less able.

There is no time like to present to start. 

That is Success.

Siamese Boat Noodles Thong Smith - Central Mall

 Tucked inside the Food Street at Central Mall is the Thong Smith Boat Noodles. So called because I guess in the old days, the vendors made the noodles at home, and put it in a pot with a charcoal portable stove underneath and paddled to the 'tongkangs' or boats which plied the Chao Phrya River. It was a means to feed all the workers and steveadores who had to take the sacks of rice from the godowns to the ships moored outside Bangkok port and transport the foreign supplies from the ships moored out at sea and into the godowns.

Thong Smith Boat Noodles 

This is my educated guess as to why it is called Boat Noodles. Now, it has gone all fancy and is located in many places including high end shopping complexes such as Central Mall. The branch on the 3rd floor is ALWAYS crowded so when we went on a Friday afternoon at 3pm, there were like 5 to 6 people in front of us. This place is a magnet for tourists so there will be many Chinese and S.E. Asians their to fill their hungry tummies.

The beef noodles I had was tender, but the flavourings were sweet and spicy and the taste was overpowering.  The noodles were chewy enough and there were some small chopped spring onions and the lemongrass flavour was also in the dish.

Good but not great. 

Must Try when in Bangkok

1. Thai Durians - since the Chinese demand this year is tepid, there are plentiful Thai durians without much pungent aroma, it tastes (to the Westerners) like textured ice cream and very flavourful. It is called the King of Fruits.

2. Crab Fried Rice 

They are practically everywhere - the Thai simple restaurants which serve up this dish are omnipresent in every shopping centre. The crab meat (mud) and taste is tremendous. Squeeze a bit of lemon and you got one top tasting fried rice. Better than all the Chinese seafood fried which is far too oily for me.

3. Deep Fried Sea Bass

Chaloern Restaurant - this chain is everywhere in Bangkok. Again, one of the signature Thai dishes when you are in Thailand. Must Try.

4. Tom Yam Kung (soup)

Any basic restaurant worth its name must do a great Tom Yam Soup. They have 2 versions, the clear (very misleading but very spicy) or the chilli infused one. Try it at your peril. I love it when I am sweating profusely and eating the seafood with small button mushrooms with gusto.     

Central Mall seen from the SkyBridge 

If you are not familiar with Bangkok, there are numerous hotels from 1 star to 5 star and the prices are very decent. I stayed for work recently at a 2 star hotel near Phya Thai BTS station and it cost me all of THB 1100 or USD 30. It was clean, within walking distance from the BTS Phya Thai station and came with free wi fi. The price ranges for hotels in Bangkok start from THB 900 (1 to 2 star) to  more than THB 10,000 (5 star by the river). 

Boat Noodles 

 This bowl costs approximately THB 300 or USD 10. 

For my family trip, we booked the Novotel Siam Square, which is right in the middle of all the shopping, massage and eating scenes. Novotel is located within walking distance from the Siam BTS station and Siam Square is right next to it. Siam Square is reminiscent of a small suburb of Tokyo with many small clothing outlet stores selling plentiful cheap T shirts, sneakers, bags, bracelets and all manner of trinkets for young people.

The Thai food is generally sweet, and there is a heavy dose of fish sauce thrown into all salads (mango or otherwise). The mango sticky rice is also very sweet, comprising of liquid sugar  infused mango with sticky glutinous rice. You can buy this in many shopping centre food courts and is a signature dessert for Thailand. 

If you travel light, take the VTS Skytrain, it goes from Suvanabhum to Phya Thai station in the heart of Bangkok.

At Siam Square