A New Plan for Saturday

I spoke to Michelle and Ben on Friday evening, and we decided to postpone our barbecue for 2 weeks. Michelle told me that there was an IT Fair at the Marina Bay Sands over the weekend.  In addition, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra would be performing for free at the Gardens by the Bay.  Those would be 2 really fun events at the same subway stop, and I could spend some time enjoying the Gardens by the Bay and dining al fresco.

After our morning swim, we had to return to our apartment to meet with the jacuzzi contractor.  He was scheduled to arrive between noon and 1 PM, so we left the pool at 11:49 AM.  We went upstairs and waited...and waited.  At about 1:15, Rich decided he wasn't going to show up, and warmed up our lunch.  As soon as he told me lunch was ready, the doorbell rang.  Of course.  While the contractor was checking the jacuzzi, we lost power to the a/c again.  It turned out that the heating element in the jacuzzi was shorting out, and causing the outages.  Now, at least, we know what was causing it, and how to turn the a/c back on.  They just need to replace the heating element.

After the contractor left, I worked on figuring out how to get to the Gardens by the Bay.  I also looked at food options for the Gardens.  After the crowd we encountered at Casa Verde at the Botanical Gardens the previous week, I was also looking at options for bringing my own picnic into the gardens.   As I was furiously planning, there was a crack of thunder, and the skies opened up!  It continued to pour for the next 2 hours.  I kept checking the Symphony's facebook page, to see if the concert was cancelled, but I didn't see anything.  Michelle had warned us, though, that it would be a mudpit at the concert if it rained.  And it didn't rain - it poured!!!

After buying several kilos of ground beef on Friday morning at the Fresh Market, I really had a hankering for a burger.  Unfortunately, I had put all of the ground beef into the freezer to save it for our barbecue in two weeks.  Plus, it was date night.  That's the one time each week that Rich takes me out to dinner.  So, I started looking for a nearby burger restaurant.

Right across the river, just upstairs from The Wine Connection (where we had already eaten twice), was a restaurant called "Hummerston's" which was reputed to have good burgers.  Plus, it was right across from a dessert restaurant called "TCC" which was selling the Singapore Symphony Orchestra's CD.  So, even though I couldn't attend the concert in the mud, I could still listen to the Symphony.  Rich had a salad for an appetizer.  He said that it had many surprise vegetables, and was very tasty.  I had the soup of the day, which was a spinach artichoke in a light cream soup.  It was not what I expected.  It was almost the consistency of pea soup, but not as flavorful.  If we go there again, I will pass on that soup.

Outside, on the veranda, at Hummerston's 

Our burgers and fries.

My spinach artichoke soup, and Rich's salad.

The Singapore Symphony Orchestra's CD that we purchased.

Our burgers were great!  They came on a big Kaiser roll, with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and carmelized onions.  They also had a wonderful chili aioli, that tasted good on the burger as well as the accompanying fries.  A surprise addition to burgers here is a fried egg on top.  I remember going to a Burger King in Sydney in 1998, and having a whopper with an egg on top.  I guess that's just how they serve burgers in this part of the world.  We both put ours off to the side.  The burgers were so large that neither of us could finish ours, or our fries.  The waitress put our remaining burgers, fries, eggs, and fresh containers of aioli into a to-go container.  The bad news was that that meal with 2 beers and 2 glasses of wine cost $120.  The good news was that we had leftovers for breakfast and lunch the next day!