Shopping & Eating

I've decided to lump the past 10 days' (oh we've been here for 10 days! time flies!) happenings in a post, except sight-seeing. Especially so when hubby's going Wal-mart to shop with the rest aft work and leave me alone waiting at hm. They said its too out of e way to pick me up before proceeding to make some necessary household purchases, Wal-mart is located near their wkplace. Wait till we collect our car tmr, I shall shop every noon away! Rooaaaarrrr...

Shopping in St. Louis is dirt cheap. Mebbe it's only for now, when most of the major stores are having summer sale. I suspect it's the end of the summer sale, coz we see prices slashed 2-3 times down from the original price on the tags. Hubby bought a Tommy Hilfiger knitted sweater and a CK tee from Macy's for less than $20. I bought a pair of Nine West slippers for $10, and a H&M skirt for only $5. But the sad thing is, summer lasts only 2 months here in St. Louis. With the 1st month over, I only have another month left to to go on a shopping binge. Come tmr after we collect our car, I shall start on my shopping regime! At least something to look forward to till school starts in Fall.

To digress, I realised my farts here are more stinko. I have been eating more fruits here compared to when we were in our hometown, so I suppose it must be the diet. However we have been having asian food for the past few days, which is comparable to what we had in Singapore. So mebbe its the air I breathed, or the water I drank from the tap. Haa....

Food hasn't been much of a problem here. Initially we were all quite sick of fast food. As it seems to be the cheapest alternative to home cooking, we stuffed ourselves to fried fish, fried chicken and burgers for the 1st 2 days. When everyone was feeling queasy from the mass of oil churning in our tummies, our 1st intinct was to look for food our tummies are more accustomed to. To our amazement, yummy chinese and korean food are just at our door steps! Savory vietnam food and another equally nice chinese eatery is 15mins drive away. A couple of japanese restaurants and one Indian Curry place are also just a stone throw away from WH, but we have yet to sample them.

This is Applebee's, where we had good ribs and steak at a great value during lunch. I learnt a new culture here during our meal. When dining in a restaurant, every table has an assigned waiter/waiteress and diners can only request for whatever they need from the assigned staff. The moment we were seated, a pretty blonde introduced herself and that's when William explained to us, the purpose of the introduction.

At the end of each meal, we are suppose to give the appointed staff tips. The amount to give is up to the diners' preference, BUT that has to be 15-20% of the total amount on the check. So, even if the server provides a bad service, we are still oblige to give a min of 15% tips. All staffs get to keep what they earn from tips and they are not required to split equally among the other staffs. I think we should implement this culture in Singapore but to set the min at 0%, to eliminate bad service. How's that?

We had our 1st taste of chinese food at House of Wong which is a 5 mins drive from the hotel and a 10 mins walk from Whispering Hills. Hubby and his 2 other colls had fried rice while I had fried noodles. The initial mouthfuls tasted heavenly, but midway through we found the food a tad to oily. But still, hubby and I brought 2 other colls down to the same place 2 days later and appreciated the pork with bamboo shoots more.

This is a Teochew restuarant nearer to college, owned by a Cantonese chef from Macau. None of us had the guts to ask the affable-looking canton chef y he doesn't cook cantonese dishes, coz William said the chef flared up when someone asked him that. See the home-grown brand of can drinks? Felt nostalgic when we had them.
The impressive and retro handwritten menu in chinese, mounted on the wall. It's more like a Zhi Cha place, than anything else here.
Whack ar! The first dish was a cold dish. This is the 1st chinese meal all 9 of us had together and the 1st chinese meal since arrival for some. We were bewildered at how the chef managed to get pig's offals, since there are no pig farms here. Food here is yummilicious and cost us each only $8 for 7 dishes. The only drawback is the old eatery looks dirty.

Last nite, we had korean food. Hubby had Zha Jiang Mian, which wasn't too bad but I still prefer the Taiwanese version. My Kimchi soup has lots of veg and pork belly and the broth was thick, but it wasn't spicy enough for me. I guess it was cooked to suit the angmohs' taste buds rather than the asians. The few who had Bibimbap said it was marvellous. The have BBQ and steamboat too. We made a pact to go back there again to try the other items on their menu.

We plan to try the Indian Curry Place and the Ichiban Sushi (yah, they haf the same-named sushi palour here) soon too. Before that happens, I'll be cooking chicken curry tonite! Thanks to Chris and Jac, who passed us Prima Taste pastes before we left. Now I can cook our 1st meal, without waiting for the arrival of our food, condiments n such via shipping.

More on the sight-seeing expedition the next post. I have to start preparing my curry dinner! Heh...