SimonSimple

Hi People

I thought I would post 3 great places to chill out and enjoy a nice meal.

The first is BISTRO ONE ZERO THREE at 103 Pasir Panjang Road Singapore 118531. Tel: 6476 6373. It serves Western food. I especially like the duck and the ribs and the salmon. The pastas are neat to eat too. Lunch specials include the main dishes listed in the menu with a soup and coffee/tea thrown in. Speak to the owner, Karen Lam, for her recommendations. She adores the chef. I believe she is married to him! We recently were there as a party of 4 and 3 main lunch orders were sufficient to feed all 4 of us. We like the food & the service.

The second is STRAITS INN at 25 Teck Chye Terrace Singapore 545728. Tel: 6288 2729. They serve authentic Peranakan Cuisine. We were there for dinner last Friday. I could not resist the chendol after my dinner meal. The partner Mr U Myo Myint understands how to do business. When I was paying the bill, I gave him some useful feedback about how the chendol should be served. He promptly gave me a free chendol in return. I left as a very satisfied customer.

The third is DOME at Lido Cinema/Isetan 4th floor. The staff were attentive and their service was par excellent. I was there with my wife and a heavy bag recently. The staff promptly pulled out an extra chair for my bag! So you can imagine the kind of service we got if they treated 1 inanimate object so well, what more 2 human beings! When we commented that we had only 20 minutes to wolf down whatever we order, the supervisor recommended the Crayfish pasta. When we said one order was sufficient because we would behave like a panda (eats, shoots & leaves), we had one order served on 2 separate plates as if it were 2 separate orders. They did not make me feel like a cheapskate but treated me as if I had ordered the most expensive dish on the menu. It left a great taste in my mouth, literally!

Do you think we will return to these 3 eateries? Of course, over and over again! The object lesson? We tend to return to the places where we had positive deposits made to our emotional bank account. Do you want your children to return to you everyday? Do you want your spouse to turn to you every time? Then start giving them positive experiences.

Enjoy your meals, and your families.

Hi People

A quarter of 2009 has come and gone. We are now in the month of April.

It is no secret that most people (me included) got burnt with our investments because of FEAR & GREED. But it was only recently that I realised that many others (me included) could have prevented this unnecessary loss if only we were not so ignorant about investments. So now I have what I call the FIG principle why we lose our hard-earned money - through FEAR, IGNORANCE & GREED.

My son has a mantra “Don’t Know, Don’t Touch!” We often go around telling people “Learn to love”. Now I would like to add another line, “Love to learn.” We are duty bound to find out as much as we can, before we act on anything, be it a small purchase of a $10 item from the supermarket or a $1000 personal computer from the departmental store. That’s called good stewardship.

If you have a little bit more money, I would also ask you to adopt another FIG principle. And that is: learn to have FUN, learn to INVEST & learn to GIVE. This should give us a nice balance as to how we manage our money. I recently watched a CD on how to survive this economic downturn and learned that there is a great transfer of wealth happening. You might ask whether some of these wealth will fall into your hands. The answer is: only if you have the wisdom to use it wisely. I suspect if you take heed and exercise diligently the 2 FIG principles, you might well inherit great wealth soon.

May you and I learn to love and love to learn for the rest of 2009.