This Friday, we decided to spend the afternoon at Casual Poet. This was a place that Stella discovered while surfing some time back, and the last time we came, it was in the evening and we stayed for a little while. Since we both thought that it was a nice place to chill, Casual Poet was our choice of venue.

Tucked into an innocuous corner ( or should I say – stairwell) of Chinatown, Casual Poet is an independent establishment that allows you to forget everything and just enter a reality where only you and your dreams come alive. The shop stocks rustic charm, and carries an eclectic mix of products as well as furnishings. Somehow that all adds together with the ‘dreamstate’ feeling that the place gives you. It eerily reminds me of the cafe in Time of Eve.

Couches to chill and a random blackboard for you to draw on. The wall is covered with various photographs, probably submissions for some kind of competition.

Stella dreaming about her dreams :

A mix of CDs from various independent artistes:

We ordered some fries and milkshakes. The fries were pretty pricey in my opinion, but the milkshake was really good.

Since I brought along Dungeon Twister, we had a game. This is a picture of me sorting out the cards in preparation for the game.

The dungeon board. Stella won by a large margin. I wasn’t watching my flank and her guys totally outran me. Great game and I really enjoyed it. Will be writing a review on it soon on the new blog once we’ve gotten a few more games in.

We then decided to lounge on the sofas and just read for a bit. Ended up chatting about what we would like in our place and how our gaming/hobby space would look like in future. Told you this was a place to dream about dreams.

Really like this pic – Stella with some gig stuff in the background:

Us:

Unfortunately, there was some private party at 6pm so we had to leave. We headed down to the steamboat place just below Casual Poet for dinner. Frankly, I was impressed by the cleanliness of the place. The food was clean and fresh, and there was decent air conditioning as well.

Our heaven and hell steamboat. We came up with that name ourselves, of course. Man, the ma la soup base was really quite lip numbing. But yeah, it was a fantastic soup base for the food that was there. The herbal soup base was great also, and despite being a little bitter, it had just the right amount of kick to it.

Ate our fill of shrooms and vegetables :

Haiiiyah! Okay I think I look hilarious here:

The very spicy hot soup (doesn’t that red just look dangerous?) with my equally very spicy hot girlfriend (she’s not dangerous though). haha.

After eating our fill, we walked around for a bit, before heading to Clarke Quay for desserts. Our intention was to eat at Nectarie. A nice quaint little dessert bar located at the Cannery. We really loved the dessert.

Had the brandy chocolate infused cake:

Some macaroons,

Some peony tea, which was really good for washing down all the sugar.

And the highlight for the night – the redwine pear strudel. This was quite fucking delicious. The custard was smooth and light, and the pastry was fantastic too. Damn. I could have finished one all by myself.

I thought of heading down to The Pump Room after to listen to Jive Talkin’, but it was way too early so we decided to walk around for a bit. Unfortunately that was a mistake. We came back around 1030 to find a queue outside AND a cover charge of $20. Damn. Well lesson learnt. The next time we’ll be there early. Nevertheless, we had a smashing great time listening to the band, and if not for the fact that we had bags with us and no where to stash it, we would have a great time dancing to the music too.

We headed back home at around midnight, tired but happy – by doing everything that we like doing together.