Types of Coffee

My gf has asked me "why is a long black called a long black?" several times and I couldn't answer, so this time I decided to do some research on it. (At the very least, it will give me some peace of mind too.)

I thought of some common coffee terms below. This is not meant to be extensive, so I have only indicated very basic explanations.

So here goes.

An espresso is a thick and strong drink prepared by forcing hot water through finely ground coffee. It is one of the core constituents of many other drinks, as shown below. If you allow twice the amount of water to pass through the coffee grounds, it becomes lungo.

A long black is made by pouring a double-shot of espresso over hot water. There is usually a layer of crema (foam) on top. A short black is just another name for the normal espresso, so I guess adding it over water just changes the name to 'long black'. When you add even more water and dilute it further, it becomes an Americano.

A cafe au lait consists of 50% milk and 50% espresso (or just strong coffee). 

A cafe latte is quite simlar to a cafe au lait, but with more milk. It generally consists of 67% milk and 33% espresso. If steamed non-fat milk is used, it becomes a skinny latte.

A cappuccino is a shot of espresso with a combination of hot milk and steamed milk. It has more foam than cafe latte. 

A mocha is prepared by adding chocolate syrup or powder to cappuccino or cafe latte.

A frappe is espresso or instant coffee blended with sugar, water, milk, and ice.

A flat white is made by pouring microfoam (steamed milk) over espresso. In this sense, it is extremely similar to cafe latte and cappuccino, with roughly the same ratio of coffee to milk. But according to Wikipedia, it can differ in milk texture or number of espresso shots. 

Intrusive advertising

I absolutely detest it when someone clips flyers on my car. Firstly, who gave you the right to put your trash on my property? Secondly, a dustbin is not always nearby, and if I just toss it on the floor, I could get fined for littering. 

But the worst is when you drive off and only notice it while driving halfway. Rarrr.

Car flyers are an extremely intrusive form of advertising, which doesn't go well with me. It is basically a shove-in-your-face method - you are forced to take (and read) the flyer because it is clipped under your windscreen wiper. This is a contrast from handing out flyers on the streets, because you can choose not to take it.

That reminds me. I have been receiving advertising SMS from a variety of merchants. The most recent one is from CapitaLand, on 25th July. 

<ADV> Vote & Win! CapitaLand & Nat Geo invite you to visit..................... T&Cs apply. Unsub SMS UNADVCM to 97420594

I have been getting quite a few such SMS recently, so I tried to SMS the number given. After I sent it, I realised that I have actually sent it before on 14th March 2011 (it was on my iPhone messages history). 

Well, well. This is an interesting discovery. This means that I have messaged the same advertising agency before, and clearly, I was not removed from their contact list. The most possible explanation is that they only removed my 'tagging' to a particular merchant (in this case, CapitaLand). But this also means that the advertising agency is free to use my contact number for any other merchant that signs up with them.

I am not in the advertising field, so I must admit that I could be wrong. Maybe advertising agencies are not allowed to use any contact numbers that are not provided by the merchant. But given the poor privacy and data protection laws in Singapore, I won't be surprised if they do so. After all, many institutions that have our contact details actually sell them to other parties. It may not be done by the company; someone I know once told me that when he was working in a local bank's credit card department, he would always compile hundreds to thousands of contact information and sell them to third parties for his personal gain.

Food For Thought @ Singapore Arts Museum

Food For Thought is located at Queen Street, just a few steps away from Bras Basah MRT. I visited here for breakfast on a weekday morning with my gf, and we were the very first customers. We ordered their House Works and Full Works, and the former is basically a subset of the latter.

House Works - $12

Full Works - $18

The Full Works was a sight to behold. The plate was piled with a small hill of food - scrambled eggs, brioche bread, sauteed mushrooms, sausages, salad, bacon, and hash browns. The House Works was basically the same, minus the mushrooms and sausages.

I wouldn't order scrambled eggs normally, but having heard that theirs was good, I decided to try and was not disappointed. It had a strong milky taste and the texture was just nice - neither too dry nor too creamy. Their brioche was normal, though it was a bit too crumbly for bread. The salad had no dressing, but was a good compliment for the other 'heavier' sides. Mushrooms and bacon were not bad, and I loved the sausages and hash browns. The sausages were sliced into bite-sized portions before baking, and I found it quite pleasant to the eye. It was also deliciously tender and rather juicy. The hash browns were also excellent - slightly crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

At $18 with no service charge, the Full Works was extremely worth it with its huge and delicious portions. In fact, I think it is even enough for two.

Saveur @ Purvis Street

Saveur has been well known for their cheap and good French food - and for the long queues that form outside (they don't accept reservations). I went there today with my gf at 540pm, before they opened at 6pm. We were the first ones there, but within a few minutes, there were already more than 20 people queuing behind us.

They shifted to Purvis Street in March this year, and even more recently, expanded to the unit beside. This should alleviate the long queues somewhat, I guess.

Mushroom Cappuccino, $4.90

Compared to their other dishes, I thought this was relatively expensive, though at $4.90 it was still a good deal. This was really good - the soup was so rich and delicious that we ordered one more. This was their soup of the day though, so it may not be available every time.

Angel Hair Pasta with Tiger Prawn and Lumpfish Caviar , $6.90

The angel hair pasta was swirled beautifully, with pieces of prawns and lumpfish caviar placed carefully on top. It was a delight as the slightly bland pasta was nicely matched by the salty caviar. The prawns were also quite fresh though a tad tough.

Pan Fried Foie Gras with Apple Infused Port Wine & Vanilla, $9.90

Pan Fried Foie Gras with Lentils and Pickled Onion, $7.90

The first thing I noticed when both foie gras came together was - the one with lentils was much larger than the one with poached apple! (Can't really see from the picture) I am sure that wasn't their intention, though. Despite its price, this was pan-fried nicely and disintegrated in my mouth. Between the two dishes, I preferred the one with poached apple; the lightly sweet taste of the apple seemed to complement the oily foie gras better compared to the lentils. I was tempted to order one more, but that's enough cholesterol for the day... I mean, week. 

Confit of Duck with Orange Segment and Saute Shitake, $9.90

The duck confit was pan-fried rather well, such that the skin was brown and crispy and yet the insides were tender and not dry. Compared to The Tastings Room, this was so much better and only costs a fraction. Oranges are commonly used as an accompaniment for duck confit, and in this dish, it provided a good balance with the meat. 

Crispy Pork Belly with Poached Egg and diced Vegetables, $10.90

The pork belly was good, but the skin was not as crispy as I hoped. While I love poached eggs, I thought the egg yolk made the dish a bit too 'heavy'.

Overall, the food here was good, albeit not fantastic. But at their prices, they probably give you the best value you will ever get. Why pay three to five times more for just arguably twice the quality elsewhere?

Tao's Restaurant @ PoMo

Tao's Restaurant is actually set up by my primary school classmate, who is a Taiwanese. It opened sometime in 2003, and offered a unique proposition - a six-course set lunch (seven for dinner) at an affordable price. The set lunches cost $21.80, which is really value-for-money considering how much you get from it. 

Starter - Bacon & Mushroom Gratin

This didn't taste as good as I remembered it was a few years ago. Today it was just decent.

Salad - Huai Shan & Tofu

Supposedly a new addition to their menu. The tofu was quite normal, but the huai shan（淮山 - Chinese Yam) was an interesting dish, as we don't really eat it so often. However, I didn't really like the dip for it - it was a bit too sour and overpowering.

Salad - Japanese Cold Noodle

I thought this was pretty ordinary, actually.

Beverages - Ice grape mallow tea, and iced rose apple tea

Both beverages were good! Cool, refreshing, and yet not too sweet. The portions were very generous too and easily lasted us through the whole meal.

Soup - Cream of Pumpkin

This tasted rather watery and my gf complained that it had the "instant-soup" taste, which I do agree.

Soup - Japanese Fish Consomme

To be honest, I couldn't taste any fish inside and the soup was too bland.

Main Entree - Grilled Sea Bass with Japanese sauce

The Japanese sauce was actually teriyaki sauce, and was a bit too overpowering for the fish. The fish was also not really fresh enough.

Main Entree - Tao's Steak

This was incredibly tender - in fact, so tender that it tasted a bit... artificial. I suspect that tenderiser was used to achieve that effect. Still, this was pretty good, mainly because of its doneness - perfectly medium rare! The sauce was also not bad.

Superbly medium rare.

Dessert - Tiramisu

This was disappointing. Beneath the cream, the tiramisu tasted tough and dry. We left it half-finished.

Dessert - Green tea ice cream

The green tea ice cream came with some raspberry fudge on top, which made us wonder - why raspberry? Why not red bean? Wouldn't that be much more suitable?

Overall, I thought today's lunch was below expectations. I have been here around three times (well, over the past eight years) and this time it was the most disappointing. I wouldn't dismiss them though; the crowd on a weekday lunch justified its popularity. Will give it a try again next time.

The Dark Knight Rises

Batman takes on Bane, in The Dark Knight Rises. Source: CNN

With all the hype about how good The Dark Knight Rises was, I watched it with high expectations. Significantly high expectations, actually. So I was a little disappointed after watching it, especially with all the loopholes. Here are some that I noticed, and I am pretty sure there are more that I missed out.

1) Didn't the doctor say the cartilage in Bruce Wayne's kneecap was totally gone? How did it get healed totally with just a knee brace? I would love one of those for my back.

2) Wasn't Batman out of action for eight years? How did he still manage to fight so well after that? Heck, if I hadn't exercised for just half a year, I think I would be panting ten times as hard as him after fighting some thugs...

3) Regarding Bruce Wayne's bankruptcy via fraudulent trading in put options - trading should be suspended immediately when the trading floor was stormed. A trade of that magnitude, especially after an attack, should raise a lot of warning bells and take quite a bit of time to clear.  And come on, who trades using fingerprints? I don't even think the NYSE has a biometric system for accepting trades via fingerprints! Maybe I am wrong. But on the whole, it seems like a too-convenient excuse by the director to make Bruce Wayne bankrupt. 

4) Gotham seems to be very efficient in cutting off the power to someone who didn't pay their bills in just a short while.

5) How did Bruce Wayne return to Gotham City from that hellhole (which looks like it is located at the other side of the world) in just six hours, without any resources? And he looked like he just came out from the bath - clean, dressed up, and shaven. 

6) Which brings me to my next point. How did he even get into Gotham City, considering that all the bridges were closely guarded by the police and he had nothing? No suit, no submarine, no Batpod, no Batplane, no shit...

Having said all of that, if it was still reasonably enjoyable (although it felt like the whole Inception cast migrated over to this movie). Tom Hardy's acting was really good, considering that with his nose and mouth covered, he could only express himself mainly via his eyes. And I really liked Anne Hathaway (a lot of my female friends disagreed with me, though), especially how she was riding the Batpod and uh, how she got off the bike.

Clear Vision

Sniper heaven indeed. Source: iTunes

I downloaded Clear Vision on the iPad, after a colleague told me excitedly that it was free and the reviews were crazy - an average of five stars by more than 3,000 users. My first thought was "Clear Vision? Is that some sort of contact lens solution or what?"

It turned out to be a sniping game. Gosh, which guy hasn't dreamt of being a sniper before? The story revolves around Tyler, who gets bullied and push around by his supervisor in a grocery store. One day, he lashes out and punches his supervisor, which, unsurprisingly, gets him fired. After going for dozens of interviews and failing every single one of them, he decides to take up arms and become a.... sniper who kills for money. A hitman.

Graphics-wise, FDG Entertainment has chosen the innovative way instead of utilising brute force in churning out ultra graphics. They use... stickmen. Can a game get even more simple than this? But it is precisely their minimalistic features that attribute to part of this game's charm. The gameplay is also extremely simple. Most of the time, it consists of just staring through a sniper scope, shifting a bit to adjust for distance and wind, and *bang* - it's done. There are some different missions, like poisoning and crushing victims at a car junkyard, and these serve as interesting variations to the normal shoot-and-kill assignments.

The story also progresses well, giving players the urge to see what comes next. The game's narration has a certain charm to it, with its silly newspaper articles, getting assignment requests via notes and emails, and its cutscenes. I got the app when it was free; now it costs a dollar, which is still very worth it. I am now waiting for the next chapter of the game to be out, and I wonder if they will charge for subsequent updates?

Oh well, it's still not that bad

Today, I chanced upon Scoot Airline's offer - $88 for a one-way trip to Taipei. Being a big fan of Taiwan, I decided to try my luck.

Unsurprisingly, the $88 tickets were already sold out. But I still managed to get a reasonable deal; after factoring in all the taxes, surcharges, convenience fees, seat choice fees etc, the total bill came up to around S$380 per pax for a return ticket. No check-in luggage on the way there, but with 15kg of check-in luggage on the way back to Singapore. I did a quick reference check with Jetstar; for the same period, it costs around $460, so I went ahead.

I have some gripes about the convenience fee. It is basically a credit card surcharge of S$8 per sector. This means that a return ticket would incur $16 in fees. But I wasn't given the option of an any alternative payment method. Booking via their call centre is worse - it will cost S$30 per guest. So why not just bundle it together with the air ticket? Calling it a 'convenience fee' does not seem apt, considering that I was conveniently forced to pay only by credit card. If they offered alternative methods, say, paying by internet banking, AXS, cheque and so on, then it would make more sense.

Okay, actually I know why they didn't bundle it together. It's a tactic to lure customers in with low prices first, then add fees incrementally to test the customer's 'marginal tolerance' to extra fees. If the customer quits halfway, so be it. But at least the airline had the opportunity to try and lure the customer. It's better than not having any chance at all.

This makes the whole experience of buying an airline ticket less than satisfactory. Because people tend to have higher expectations when they go in, and get turned off incrementally when the airline slams another fee in their faces. The total fee may still be within their budget, and if they decide to go ahead, the feeling is usually more of "oh well, it's still not that bad" rather than "I got a damn good deal!".

Here is a summary of my experience:

1) I select my date of departure, and the departure fare is $150. Not $88 as I hoped, but still reasonable.
2) I get slapped with three fees. An airport imposed security fee of $8 + a government imposed aviation levy of $6.10 + an airport imposed service fee of $13.90. Ouch.
3) I select my date of return, and the return fare is $150.
4) I need some check-in baggage allowance. Let's see, 15kg would do. That's $12 more.
5) Another fee? Government imposed service tax of $12.82?
6) I pay by credit card. What? Convenience fee of $8 per sector, totalling $16? And there's no alternative payment method! What the hell...
7) I choose my seat. $5 per sector again, so it's $10 in total. And I didn't even choose those seats near the emergency exits or at the front rows with more legroom; those cost up to $99 more... per sector.
8) Finally done. Total damage was $378.82, instead of the baited $88 x 2 = $176. The flight only cost $312 (with check-in allowance on the return flight), but the smaller fees contributed to a hefty 21.4% more.
9) Oh well, it's still not that bad.

Record highs?

Today, the Straits Times reported that 'Temasek's portfolio rises to record $198b'. But on closer look, the article also mentioned that 'net profit fell 16 per cent to $10.7 billion from $12.7 billion', and that shareholder return 'fell to 1.5 per cent from 4.6 per cent a year earlier'. It also stated that it 'fell short of its internal performance target by $12.6 billion'.

It is obvious that the article is structured to make Temasek look better by choosing to emphasise on their portfolio's record highs on the headlines. But does this tell us anything?

If Temasek were to switch their entire portfolio to low risk investments, they would essentially be able to report this piece of news every year. 'Temasek's portfolio rises to record $200b' in 2013, and perhaps 'Temasek's portfolio rises to record $202b' in 2014. Is this an accurate portrayal of its investment return?

An article title, in essence, can be used to convey the summary and intent of the whole article. And in this case, I find it a bit misleading as it gives the idea that Temasek made superior investment returns for the past investment period. Of course, they did disclose the details in the article, but what matters most is public impression - people who just skim through the papers, read the article title only, or fail to think more would interpret this as a piece of good news.

The Amazing Spider Man

After watching The Amazing Spider Man, these were my first thoughts:

1) How did he sew such a kick-ass suit by himself?

2) I don't think Spider Man would be very popular with the city cleaners, with all the web that he is leaving all over the city. (And the web doesn't look easy to remove!)

3) Wasn't he shot in the leg? How did he get the bullet removed?

I should state that I wasn't specifically looking for loopholes, but these just came naturally to me (the first and third point). Overall, the movie was still quite all right, and comparable to the first movie by Tobey Maguire. The biggest question on most people's minds are "why remake Spider Man again?" so I took the liberty to do a bit of research on it.

It turned out that in 2010, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios wanted Spider Man 4 to focus on Peter Parker back in high school. And Tobey Maguire, who was 34 at that time and married with two kids, probably thought that he would not fit in anymore and hence rejected the role. Sam Raimi, the previous director, also quit after being unable to accept the new script and financial conditions (he supposedly requested for US$300 million but was only granted US$200 million). Thus, Sony and Marvel decided to simply refresh everything - new director, new story, and new cast.

Set aside time... to slack

Recently, I have been extremely busy at work. Many people assume that being busy in work equates to being productive (even after assuming that you are really working), but I find that this could not be further from the truth.

It is when we have time to slack - that we manage to think about things. More important things. And being relaxed and not being too involved in our normal work activities - is when we can think out of the box, think about improving the way existing things are done, taking a step back to look at the big picture instead of being immersed and obsessed with the details, and doing things that are not required in the short run but can provide immense benefits in the long run.

I am a forgetful person, so I have a notepad to jot down my tasklist or anything I find useful. Some of them are more urgent cases, like reviewing a particular client's portfolio, or replying to a client's enquiry. Others are less urgent but could improve efficiency in the medium to long run, like combining several scattered hard copy forms into one single Excel document. Today, when I flipped through the earlier pages of my notepad, unsurprisingly, most of the tasks that have not been completed are those that are less urgent but of no less importance.

So this is why sometimes, we need to set aside time just to slack. It would be good if the time comes naturally, when you have finished your most urgent *but not necessarily most important* tasks. But most of us do not have that luxury. Thus, we need to priortise our time. Setting aside just half an hour a week could already yield significant benefits and boost productivity.

Too busy to do that? Maybe you are not that productive after all.