Today we (the younger sis and I) are back at the Botanic Gardens. Our last trip was almost a year ago. We are back today to go to the newly opened Gallop Extension.
We were pleasantly surprised that it was not so crowded, probably due to the dark clouds and forecast of possible rain. Although the dark skies don't make for good photos, the tranquillity of having fewer people was great. The gardens were decorated with Christmas ornaments on some plants, which was interesting to us. Do they do that every Christmas season? Maybe we should come back before every major festival to see how the garden would be decorated.
The new extension can be reached by the HPL Canopy Link (a bridge over Tyersall Ave) which connects the Learning Forest and the extension. At first, we were using Google Maps to help us to navigate, but it led to us walking around the gardens in circles, unable to find where we wanted to go. At one point, it even led us to a car park and out to the main road to someone's house. So we decided to ditch Google Maps and use the pathfinders by the park instead. And that was the best decision as we got to where we wanted to go. Except it started to rain and we had to take shelter at the Forest Discovery Centre. But it was a short shower and soon stopped so we were able to go back to our exploration of the area.
For lunch, we went to GoGiPan @ Market Blue, Tanglin Mall. It is a new Korean dining concept space that includes a restaurant, a Korean supermarket, a ramyeon 'library', and a makgeolli brewery.
We ordered the Seoul Lunch Platter Special (special opening special for 1 person $24), Soup Tteokbokki ($11.90), and Original Korean Fried Chicken ($15.90).
The food is typical Korean fare you find at Korean restaurants. I like the wide variety of the banchan, some which are not in the restaurants I have visited, such as the kinpira and tamagoyaki. I like the tamagoyaki and the kimchi the best. The kimchi-jjigae was okay. I think I still prefer the one from Doongji which had more ingredients. The bulgogi was good, not greasy as it tends to be in some places when they are served on a hot plate.
The tteokbokki here is also typical fare with the usual rice cakes and fish cakes. Very different from the crazy variety at Dooki. The fried chicken was great and the fried rice cake was interesting, never had it like that before. May try doing that at home.
Overall, I give this 3 Aunty Karens. The food was good, but I find it a bit pricy for the environment and service. It wasn't really restaurant quality, more like between a cafeteria/food court and a restaurant. The sitting was problematic as we were seated at the same table with another couple of girls and we could hear their entire conversation, as I am sure they could hear ours, although the place was a tad noisy. The place was crowded and it was difficult, at times, to get the attention of the wait staff to refill our banchan. I will not return. It was a nice place to visit to say been-there-eaten-that. There are other places with nicer and cheaper food in the area.
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