This is my first unofficial food blog:
Ming Room - Was there for a wedding dinner recently and the food was excellent.
Starters: abalones in a shells and dollops of scallops in a basket.
Soup: double boiled chicken with…
… shark fin chunks.
Fish: individual plates with fish flesh delicately fried in pomelo and lemon sauce.
Prawns: nope, no prawns but soft shell crabs!
Desert finale: tong sui boiled in coconuts. Yum yum.
Cafe Barbera - was planning to go to subway but then pointed out by wife to this place.
Starters: salmon salad, with greens wrapped in salmon and doused with caffeine-laced sauce. Highly recommended.
Another shot.
Spicy Shrimp Aglio Olio. Yep, from the arrangements we divined that we had dined at a designer cafe.
The portions were small, so we ordered wild mushroom soup. Chunkiest mushrooms around.
We made excuses to order desert as well. Brownies ran out so we ate apple pies that melt in your mouth.
This is wife.
This is me.
This is menu.
This is indulgence.
This is bar counter with shiny brass fans and golden coffee maker machine thingy.
This is the place. Newly opened within two months, just off Jalan Maarof. Food price is designer price and portions are designer portions. Bring loads of dough or be prepared to swipe big sums. Enjoy!
This meetup saw the return of the prodigal son, aycee to the meetup as well as a newbie, John.
Pan-o-ramic photo provided courtesy of aycee: From left: (leaning down) blownfreaks, neulwy, jack208, john, david, nelson, myself in a game of Bang!
another pan-o-vision: From left:myself, jack208, newbie john who seems to be having a hardcore time analysing, david and rhyen in the Powergrid game.
On right: Mr pan-o-photographer himself, aycee, doing Puerto Rico after many years/months of absence.
Read jack208’s report here,
and aycee’s report here.
One thing aycee and I agree on: The best thing to happen to Old Town Kopitiam since Roti Bakar Hailam: Root Beer Float!
Both Hiew and Jeff Au have written excellent reviews on Greed Inc and 18EU respectively so I won’t write another but instead redirect the readings there:
Hiew’s Humungous Greed Inc Review
Jeff’s Gigantic 18EU Report
I quite like Greed Inc and agree with Jeff that the timing aspect is what elevates the game above the ‘mundane’ resource management/optimisation. Looking forward to try this again.
me, crabzai, blownfreaks and hecose listening to jack208’s explanation
blownfreaks flashing his devious smile saying ‘it’s all the CEO’s fault!’. Hiew is just confused as to why it was the CEO’s fault…
me to blownfreaks: ‘hey I just fired myself, how would you like the CEO’s post?’
rhyen: ‘heng you gave away your CEO position too cheaply…’
18EU
I have to say my 2nd game of 18EU is way much better than the first. Our first game either had the problem of too many players or of public companies not starting up fast enough. (check out initial play review here)
In our three player game, we had enough cash to start our 1st public company in the 2nd stock round. I made the decision to start my company at par $100 and to inject 2 companies in while jack208 injected one to start at par $75 and rhyen did not start any. In hind sight this could have been a bad move as the public company could not generate as much earnings as two minor companies it was injected with.
On the other hand, I had came out of the ‘bidding of minor companies round’ before that quite well with 6 minors while jack208 had 5 and rhyen got 4. This as jack208 said, could have contributed to my coming out with guns a blazing with my generous public company startup.
The second operation round however I lagged a little as my neglect of the southern routes meant that they were locked in with no way to turn. Again looking back I could have started a public company in the south instead of the middle to help unlock my southern routes.
I took three companies in mid game but was caught short when the 4th or 5th train rusted quickly without enough return on investment. In my haste to extend the lead with my 1st company, I had opened up my 2nd and 3rd company to the dangers of having their trains rusted prematurely.
The final part of the game I gambled by trying to push up my share value at the expense of expansion into another train to boost my dividends. Clearly this had an effect on my final score as I still ended second.
Overall a great game and I’ve elevated this game up to be one of, if not the best, 18xx game.
Today saw some Essen games hitting the table and we start the night with Long Shot.
This is a light game of horse racing/gambling
There are options to buy horses or to bet on horses
There are also special power cards to mix things up!
Best of all it takes up to 8 players
me, friedricetheman, rhyen
waiyan, crabzai, blownfreaks. Not in pix: jack208, laiwah
I would give this game two thumbs up, way up, with the caveat to play it like a casual game and not make too much of its randomness. There are cards to mitigate this, notably the cards that affect horse movements, but those turn the game more into a collusion/negotiation game. Just make sure others have place bets on your horse or it might not finish the race!
Next we did Factory Manager
This is a brain burning game about managing and factory and earning the most money
me, rhyen, david, blownfreaks and jack208 did this game
The game has production machines, automation, stores, capacitors, power control, seasonal workers… in short, just like a factory
The comparison with the designer’s previous game, Power Grid, is inevitable but quite misleading. The production machines can be thought of as power plants and the storage as connections but the escalating electricity costs and additional resource in the form of workers makes Factory Manager vastly different in experience.
The game however retains the requirement of optimising resources to produce the most money
I would reserve my final ratings for this game as I have not decided whether the mechanics are overly complicated or just that my head have not wrap itself around the mechanics. I probably finished last or close to last in this game.
Next we did Rise of Empires
After having our brain blown off by Factory Manager, this game came in a bit heavy for us.
The theme of the rise of european empires mirror the theme in Age of Empires III
The war now is not limited to the americas but to europe and the far east as well.
The vaunted innovation in this game is the action selection where the players are forced to replay their choices in the decline of their empire, according to their choices made during the rise of their empire
This game however came off as more clunky than its Age of Empires III and Endeavour rivals. I would give this game an average rating for now as I much prefer its rivals. It might also be because I got screwed by food and came in dead last. It might have affected my judgement because I got food screw as a result of the game’s generous ‘whack-the-leader’ interactions.
Edit 18/1/10 - added thoughts and ratings on games.
Been doing some financial planning lately. Found this lovely website which I would recommend to everyone:
http://www.ykconsultancy.com/
I find the articles and financial calculators pretty comprehensive for beginners like me. So bookmark it and start planning your future!
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