Tuesday, December 11, 2007

How I wasted my Sunday away

Okay, the foodie post (first one of two), finally.

I went out with G on Sunday to catch The Golden Compass. [spoiler warning] The movie was quite a disappointment, really; the trailer was really exciting and got me all revved up to catch the movie, and I even started re-reading the series again just to remember the story since it was quite a long time ago that I read it. Suffice it to say the movie really doesn't do an inch of justice to the plot of the book, and it even truncated the ending from what it should have been. I was looking out for so many things to happen (as in the book) that by the time the movie ended I felt it could have been longer, only to realise that it was already 2 hours long - but still, it could have been longer, and a lot better. Oh well. I blame it on political-correct censorship of the religious issues touched on in the book, which is a real waste, truly, because after all that censorship you still get blasted by Christian groups who call for boycotts on your movie. You lose both ways. The director/scriptwriter could well have kept the content and marketed it as a movie for adults or something. You have to know which audience you want to cater to or you'll lose everything. I can't quite believe Philip Pullman allowed them to mangle his wonderful masterpieces like this. Sigh.

Well, at least the acting was of some quality - really loved Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter because she's so delightfully powerful and always so gracefully poised and arctic. Her monkey daemon really creeps me out, as it should. Dakota Blue Richards, the girl who plays Lyra, also does a great job playing the wild petulant child that Lyra is (she calls herself an aristocrat in the book, such irony). Ian McKellen is unmistakeable (he almost appears in too many fantasy movies these days that it gets a bit confusing hearing his voice all over - he was the narrator in Stardust too) as Iorek Byrnison, and the great battle between the two panserbjorne is quite well done (I can't believe they changed the name of Iofur Raknison to Ragnur Sturlusson because they didn't want viewers to be mixed up between Iorek and Iofur - granted, I got mixed up a little myself when reading, but it's a bit ridiculous to quote that as a reason for changing the name). Daniel Craig appeared in such a small segment that I didn't get any impression of his acting.

I do hope that the next instalment will be more true to the book (which may be difficult to ask for, since the amount of controversial content will only increase exponentially in the second and third books).
[/spoiler warning]

To food, then. After the movie we went to Raffles City Shopping Centre for lunch, and decided to try this ramen place at the basement Marketplace called Bishamon; apparently they sell Sapporo-style ramen.


The ramen was really average only - the noodles were in no way fantastically bouncy or chewy, the soup was overly salty and rich and for some strange reason slightly spicy also, the egg came looking deformed and tasted like a normal hard-boiled egg (no soya sauce aroma at all, and the yolk was hardly semi-solid), the chashu was possibly a minor redeeming factor because it was just the right consistency and had a nice marinated aroma. Nothing spectacular, and makes me crave the ramen from Ken's (still haven't tried the egg there -_-;) and Marutama Ramen.

Later on we dropped by Kuriya (also in Raffles City basement) for their $5++ dessert offer (can get a dessert and a drink at just $5++ - very good value for money! Heh). I had the dessert crepe (can't remember the exact name) while G got the grilled ice-cream (Kushiyaki Aisu):


The dessert is really quite good - the crepe is filled with custard and drenched in mango-flavoured sauce, very luxurious and rich. The fruits on top of the crepe look rather dismal, though they are usually arranged quite nicely - I think the chef that day wasn't in a good mood.

Okay actually this wasn't a very interesting post. Hopefully the next post will be better (my vocab seems to have gone away without my realising it).

Avaris / 12/11/2007 10:43:00 PM

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