Shang Palace & Badminton

DINNER. Went for dinner at this highly-recommended restaurant called Shang Palace Chinese Restaurant. It's a nice place but was quite empty as seen below. Ordered a simple dinner of half-Peking duck, noodles, soup and dessert. Came up to about 1,200,000vnd (S$72) for both of us. There's a 10% service charge and 5% tax. I think Koh Thai restaurant gives better value for money. It is said that Shang Palace serves the best dim-sum  in town but we haven't tried that yet. 


Address : 1st Floor, 17-19-21 Ly Tu Trong St, Dist 1 (Tel 0838 23 22 21)
Website : www.shangpalace.com.vn

See the wine collection?

Empty tables

Decor

BADMINTON. Finally found a place to play after all these years here in HCMC, at the invitation of a very kind lady, Michelle Tran. Am I unfit!!! Almost met my Maker after a few minutes of play!! A long way to go to build up some decent level of fitness. Guess it's a good thing. Continue my present sedentary lifestyle and I will certainly meet my Maker real early. 

The courts are near Cho An Dong. Managed to drop by there to get some roasted lotus seeds at 260,000vnd a kg (stated price was 280k). That's cheaper than those sold in Cho Ben Thanh.

Family Key-chains

Went to Winsor Plaza Hotel this morning after mass for tim sum brunch. Big crowd there. Quality of the food is so-so. Price ranges from 22,000VND to 48,000VND per dish. I'm sad to say that the delicious sesame buns are no more delicious. I think the chef has changed - a great pity. The buns used to be a mouth-watering sensation but not any more. Sad!

Walked around the old An Dong Market - nothing changed there. Gets boring after a while. Some changes to report about the new An Dong Plaza though. They have turned Level 3 into a Saigon Square look-alike; it's now more fun to shop there than previously.

Found a shop selling some cute letter keychains @15,000VND; so bought 5 for the five of us.

Shopped till I dropped!

My mother - the great shopper. She has a problem with walking but outshopped and outwalked all of us!! Here's the shopping list of my parents:

Sea cucumber 900,000VND/kg x 3kg
Roasted lotus seeds 230,000VND/kg
A pair of custom-made reading glasses 280,000VND
Coach © bag 300,000VND (here, © is for "copy" without the "right")
Coach © traveller's bag/wheels 450,000VND
Gucci © bag 250,000VND
Burberry © watch 180,000VND
Rolex © watch 630,000VND
Longines © watch 160,000VND
Adidas © Polo-Ts dri-fit @70,000VND
Puma © shoes 250,000VND

Shopkeeper & Mum at Cho An Dong






























I had my teeth 'cleaned' for 100k. Dad did 4 fillings for 300k.



















This is 700k/kg






























The biggest joke was when she bought 200g of bird's nest from Cho An Dong, thinking it's 500,000VND/100g - so cheep, cheep, cheep (ie S$43.50/100g)!!! Turned out to be 5,000,000VND/100g (S$435/100g) - shopkeeper thought Mum made her day!! Unfortunately for her (and fortunately for us), we don't even have that much money on us, let alone buy it.