Dining at the Paramount

My family went to Paramount Hotel recently for dinner at the Tung Luk restaurant there. We'd not been there for some time but the a la carte buffet menu had certainly made an impact on us. My sister and I both had happy memories of the salmon sashimi and the ice cream puffs!

Paramount Hotel has been around for a number of years (maybe around 20+ years or so. Like other properties in the Katong area, such as Katong Mall, there was talk of an en bloc sale some two years ago when the property market was at its height. En bloc activity has since quietened down quite considerably, of course. But I thought I had better put this down on my blog in case I am overtaken by events (as I have been in the past).

Paramount Hotel benefits from its very convenient location, near the airport and also the city centre. It is surrounded by yummy food and Parkway Parade is just across the road. The building itself stands out on Marine Parade Road, especially at night. It is thus a little bit of a pity to see that the shopping centre is not vibrant, except for a few pubs.

Tung Luk, however, is busy and bustling. (And it has its separate entrance from the Marine Parade Road side of the hotel.) Good thing we made a reservation. The a la carte buffet was as yummy as we remembered. There's a choice of soups, meats, seafood etc. The prawns, Peking duck and Buddha Jumps over the Wall/Shark's Fin soups are rationed but everything else is unlimited. Of course the dish my family ordered more than one of (aside from the sashimi and ice cream puffs) was a simple veggie dish - beans and minced pork!

Aside from the food, I like the restaurant interior. Somehow, it has a certain colonial elegance, with its columns and plastered cornices, the European-style display cupboards along the sides. Maybe it is the influence of the colonial/peranakan shophouses on East Coast Road! And the combination of European interior and Chinese food brings to mind Shanghai's Bund area, where I'll be next week.

Makciks Rock

Picture this: A Makcik, sunglasses perched firmly on her nose, legs astride her supersize tricycle, shopping baskets fore and aft, cycling between the row of shops in Marine Parade Central. I whipped out my cameraphone to take a shot. But thanks to the glaring sunshine, and the bike movement, this was all I got:

But Marine Parade Central is a veritable makcik paradise (and here I mean makciks of all races). My dear mother, for example, loves to explore the sundry shops here. All sorts of things are on sale here - containers of all shapes and sizes, plants, clothing and footwear (including these fun flip-flops) and even mahjong tables (guess where I got mine?). There is a small supermarket which is surprisingly busy considering that NTUC, its big competitor, is just 5 minutes walk away. I've patronised a pet shop here which has a good range of kitty litter. If you need kitty litter which clumps well and has odour control, by all means choose Fussie Cat.

The food is good too. There's a pretty decent hawker centre here (with stalls selling "Pontian" wantan noodles and one of my favourite comfort foods, beef noodles). But at the coffeeshop just at the end of the promenade is "Penang Delights", a little shop selling Penang hawker fare like Penang Kway Teow, Assam Laksa, Lor Mee etc. My father finds it great value for great Penang food. He once ate both the Kway Teow and Assam Laksa at one go (which he admitted was a little much) which just shows what a fan he is.

I'd eaten the Penang laksa before and enjoyed the assam stock and the generous flaked fish. The scent of the laksa broth was scenting the air when I came by today, tempting me to have another bowl. But I had decided to try out the Penang Kway Teow. And it was good - two fresh, nicely cooked prawns, well-fried noodles, but not exceptional.

What I really enjoyed, however, were the minced pork and chive dumplings! Not really a Penang specialty. But the skin was soft and transluscent, so we could see the juicy, meaty dumplings inside. They were served with a tasty chilli-garlic-vinegary sauce. I'll definitely come back for this and the Penang Laksa.

p.s. Now I have mentioned before that strictly speaking, Marine Parade is not Katong. I still stand by that. But sometimes its good to be flexible :-)

Morning Walk

This morning, I went for a walk in East Coast Park. This is something I've been meaning to do all year; and so typical that I only get round to it when it's nearer the end of the year than the beginning! I went with my mother, except that we each walked at our own pace. In other words I went walking off ahead and she found someone to talk to until I got back. Not that I'm saying she planned it, mind; it is just what happened ;-)



It is fairly busy at ECP at this time (about 7.30am). There are people walking and jogging. Because it is not a Saturday morning, there are few cyclists so there is no need to be constantly on the lookout for some uncivic-minded idiot who is cycling on the jogging path. Then there are the many qigong and dance groups and even (I think) a wushu group or two. A few swimmers - a group of elderly men, and one chap who was practicing some high kicks on the grass verge. What surprises me are the many tents which have been put up. I don't see many schoolchildren, so I wonder who can be camping here on a weekday.

After our walk we went to Marine Parade hawker centre and ate chui kueh (sp?). The stall proclaims that it is a branch of the famous Tiong Bahru chui kueh shop and I do agree that the topping of chai por, chilli and hae bee is pretty tasty and not as oily as I recall the Tiong Bahru one was. Plus a hearty cup of real, local coffee. Such a pleasant experience compared to the dark water masquerading as coffee served up in the US.

We were happily eating when an elderly lady came by and asked (in Mandarin) if we knew where the "Good Life Centre" was. I'd never heard of it and her maid showed me this article in Zaobao featuring Lim Boon Heng. Apparently the centre is somewhere in Marine Parade but there was no address so I was clueless. I'd just gotten around to reading (I am a very slow reader of Mandarin) that it was in the Family Service centre when the chap at the next table intervened and offered to take the dear old auntie there. So she was quite happy. She confided that the previous day someone else had helped her find another spot she wanted to go to. By this time she cottoned on that my mother can't speak Mandarin and so switched to English. She kept forgetting though and so her conversation thereafter was a mixture of the two languages. But she is 80 years old and evidently quite active, going out with her maid for company and assistance every day. That's a good life for you!