I get a little warm in my heart when I think of winter

I miss feeling cold. I don't mean the freezing in office aircon type of cold but that sharp biting cold that smacks you in the face once you step out of your (almost) warm building.

Yesterday I heard a 'cute' version of Tori Amos' Winter when browsing at Kinokuniya. Not that I thought it was cute but that the singer unfortunately had one of those cute-sounding voices (probably local), that is just wrong for the song. And then the album continued into a variety of other pop songs sung in the same way, cutesy. It made me just want to go and listen to the real thing.

Yesterday also saw dinner at the temporary Chinatown market (fishball noodles, carrot cake), followed by black sesame and sweet potato ice-cream at Liang Court, eaten on a wander through the Meidi-Ya supermarket.

The weekend had begun with Friday - with the sassy slumbering gal at Blu Jaz Cafe (the three, sometimes four piece band were good, the audio set-up was not), and Timbre at the Arts House, where a group of Caucasian men cut in front of us as we waited for a table, but we ended up getting a better seat anyway.

Saturday saw a very large dinner at Mortons. Onion bread for a start, a gin martini to wash it down. The ribeye was juicy and for want of a better description, meaty. I felt like I needed to chomp on a cigar. The baked potato was introduced with a clatter - as the waitress swirled her three buckets of goodness, the entire contraption fell clunking down, sour cream, butter and bacon bits. And my dad's complimentary molten chocolate cake arrived with the fourth birthday song heard that night in the restaurant.

At lunch on Sunday, former starlets of an era long gone smiled down on us as we feasted at The Cathay on baskets full of dim sum, some really good crispy chicken, noodles that had been sitting for a litlte too long, and steamed preserved egg custard buns (sounds weird, but trust me, it sinks into you and you only realise it when you reach for another and discover it's all gone).

Steamed preserved egg custard buns would be so good on a cold day.