Plateau Bar and Grill, Canary Wharf

We came here for dinner the other week after stumbling across it on Top Table and finding a dinner special. The place is quite comfortable with dim lighting and modern furnishings. There are two sections - a proper restaurant and a more casual bar and grill, which was what we opted for.

The top table offer included two courses. I ordered a braised beef cheek for main and a tart of the day for dessert while Irene got the cod for main and rum baba for dessert. I also ordered a red wine and we got a healthy serving of complimentary bread.

Given this was a last minute booking to satisfy our last minute desire to eat out that day, we didn't have much expectation for the food. However, to our surprise, the food was actually very nice! The beef cheek was really well cooked with the meat just peeling off. The cod, too, was very nice.



The tart, though tasted nice, looked a tad ordinary but Irene's rum baba (rum cake) was surprisingly big and good.



On the whole, a great dinner in a comfortable setting with food that did not disappoint.

Credit crunch explained

This was a post I made in my MBA discussions relating to stakeholders for Accounting and Financial Management...

I was working for one of the biggest banks in Australia at the time of the credit crunch. Although Australian banks were not severely affected by the credit crisis (as a matter of fact, they were heralded as being amongst the safest banks in the world), it was still a big deal and my team in Group Risk spent a lot of time doing case studies and discussions to understand the cause of the crisis and the lessons that can be learnt.

The credit crisis was well documented and, in my view, can be broadly summed up as follows. Credit was cheap and abundant all over the world. With so much money, banks started offering it to poor quality (risky) borrowers. At the same time, advancements in technology and quantitative techniques led to an explosion of exotic and complex financial products being issued by investment banks (eg, collateralised debt obligations). The complexity of these instruments and the lack of understanding of the quantitative models used to value these instruments allowed the investment banks to package the high risk loans into a range of products with a variety of risk ratings. Because of the poor understanding of the underlying risks by all those involved (including the regulators and rating agencies), the risk ratings given to these complex financial instruments were incorrect. As the risky borrowers started to default, holders of these financial instruments (which includes banks, governments, etc) started to lose money. The significance of the poor risk ratings is that people who thought they invested in instruments with next to no risk all of a sudden started losing money. Given the interconnectedness of the modern day global financial system, the losses started to flow through all over the world. As losses started to accumulate, having enough money for the day to day running of businesses became all the more important (this lack of funds available for day to day use is known as the liquidity crisis) and so banks, who themselves also need to conserve what little money they had, became more selective in who they lent to (this lack of funds available to be borrowed is known as the credit crisis or credit crunch). With a lack of funds available to be borrowed, companies started to run out of money for the day to day operations of their business (including servicing loan repayments). As a result, many ended up going into bankruptcy.

In this context, there are many culprits – banks for being too reckless, regulators for not doing a good enough job regulating the banks, rating agencies for assigning incorrect risk ratings, and investors for placing too much reliance on the regulators and rating agencies to do a good job (as they say, you should always understand the risks that you are taking before you invest).

Although Australia was not that severely hit by all this, it did bring about some interesting changes. Banks saw the risk with relying too much on wholesale funding (borrowing from other banks around the world to fund the loans that they make in Australia) and so placed more emphasis on funding their balance sheets with deposits (this lead to a price war among banks in the form of more competitive interest rates and reduced fees). It also lead to the demise of several poor performing organisations, whose problems surfaced as credit ran dry.

MBA - Role theory applied

It’s only the second week into my MBA program and already it’s given me a lot of food for thought. Learning about organisational behaviour has been quite enlightening. Not only has it put my role stress into perspective, it’s also helped me understand the different personality types and their suitability for different role types and hence what my own role preference is and what I should be doing (the wonders of role theory)!

Among the many struggles that people face in their various roles in life – that of a husband, that of a manager at work, that of a family member, etc – the one that, to me, is most prevalent is role ambiguity and the ability to distinguish one’s own role in different situations. Put more simply, people need work life balance, without which, they will end up feeling role strain (the negative type of role stress) from the various roles that they have in life.

My own enlightenment through all this is to not be drawn too much into the dilemma of balancing my work and personal life as to me, personal life is definitely much more important than work life. As such, to avoid role stress, I need to distribute my time according to what matters to me most!

Simple, but sometimes it’s the simple things that trips you up most in life!

MBA Induction 1

Had my first MBA induction today and boy am I impressed by all the technology! I feel like I’ve witnessed the future of education where lectures are conducted online and students work in virtual study groups in virtual meeting rooms from all over the world!

Having got access to the study notes yesterday for the first couple of lessons in each of the subjects, I am also impressed by the quality of the notes and the amount of thought and organisation that have gone into this!

I’m now looking forward to the second induction next week, the coming online classes study group meetings, and digging into the notes and readings!

Thumbs up totally to WBS!

Proud's Cabaret

Irene found a deal for a dinner and show at Proud's Cabaret late last year and knowing that I am interested in shows of a singing and dancing nature, she went ahead and bought a package for two. Last night, after a couple of week's wait, we finally made use of the deal.

We began the night with a cocktail at Revolution bar next to my office. Then we made our way across a few blocks to Proud's Cabaret.

Proud's Cabaret is in a rather secluded location in the City of London. It came as a bit of a surprise to me that such a venue exists in the otherwise dead serious City of London.

Walking down the stairs to the actual dining and show area, we immediately felt that we were going to a classy cabaret show. Such was the effectiveness of the decor. Then in the dining and show room, the atmosphere and mood immediately turned to one of partying and fun where everyone really did dress to impress, as the tickets instructed us to. To create such an atmosphere, the venue employed dim lighting and the room was filled with a smoky haze.

Our table was pretty close to the stage and was at the edge of an elevated section, giving us a great vantage point for the show. Deciding to make the most of the night, we decided to go for a bottle of Champagne but was convinced by the waitress in a skimpy outfit and never short of words to say to go for a Proseco instead. We then went through the menu and was quite impressed by what was on offer.

Given we were at a cabaret show, we didn't hold much expectation for the food but surprisingly, the choices available and the actual food themselves were fantastic. For entree, both Irene and I had duck leg terrine with foie gras paste. That was superb! The flavours were subtle and well balanced, and the texture was smooth and delicate. The plating was also quite impressive. Seeing us finished with our breads, the waitress then insisted she bring us more to have with the terrine; a level of service that we never would've expected from such a venue.


For main, I had a deconstructed beef wellington. That was cooked to perfection and tasted equally of perfection. The serving size was also very very impressive. Irene ordered a slow cooked belly and that too was equally good. In particular, the crackling was made in such a way that it was not hard but crunchy. The meat on the pork was soft and did not have much fat, which is the way I prefer.



For desert, Irene got a cheese board. Again, they were generous with the serving, especially with the quince paste. I, on the other hand, ordered a rice pudding tart, which was divine!



The actual cabaret show lasted over two hours but came in three parts with rather lengthy breaks in between. Some acts were great but others were average. However, on stand out performer of the night was the hostess, whose singing was superb.







Overall, it was a thoroughly enjoyable night! Great food and fantastic entertainment; no better way to finish the stressful working week!

London NYE 2011

Having spent New Year's Eve in Sydney for most of life, including experiencing the chaotic Sydney scene where my sister was separated from our family (this was when we were still kids and don't worry, we eventually found her crying at CQ station) after she managed to get on the packed train while the rest of us didn't, it was a nice change to experience the NYE chaos on the other side of the world and after an 11 hour delay from when I'm used to celebrating it!

The London scene is quite different to Sydney. For one, there are ridiculously more people and ridiculously less fireworks. But that aside, there were other differences too, some nice and some not so nice.

We left home shortly after dinner and took the bus to get to Westminster Bridge, one of the best viewing locations being right next to London Eye and Big Ben where the fireworks were being set off. Unfortunately, the roads started closing at 8pm and the driver ended up getting lost as all the streets he/she wanted to turn into were closed. After an elderly male passenger realised we were going in circles, he told the driver off and asked that he be let off where we were before the driver wasted any more of his time circling the area. Submitting the the request of the angry passenger, the driver stopped and opened the doors. Realising the dismal fate of bus journey, all passengers followed the old man's lead and got off.

Worried about the viewing areas being closed off once they're full, we hurriedly walked to the bridge. As it turned out, the viewing areas didn't close until 11:45pm! Nevertheless, by the time we got there, all the good spots were taken and we ended up occupying a little area with good views of both Big Ben and London Eye.


While we waited for almost 4hours for the fireworks, we had to put up with an increasingly large crowd, inconsiderate people carrying their prams over us, pushy Indians who were standing increasingly close and intruding into our personal space, a crazy bunch of lunatics dancing (and bumping into people while doing so) to the music played out on the loud speaker that hung at one end of the bridge, a stoned idiot trying to dance with his group while he lapsed in and out of his stoned trance, sausage sizzle sellers pushing their carts through the crowds, and the occasional piss from the skies!

Finally, the real party began. Just before midnight, a voice pumping out of the loud speaker told us all to act crazy as the world will be watching us and shortly after that, the count down began and an amazing display of pyrotechnics blazed the skies.







Using my Nikon advanced compact digital camera, which Irene never ceases to remind me of it being my Christmas present from her, I managed to take some dazzling photos of the fireworks. And with that, we stepped into the year 2012.




After the fireworks, we hurriedly walked to Waterloo station. One thing I like about the London celebration is that public transport is free after 11:45pm, but getting to them is no easy feat! First, you got to make a long trek to the station, then there would be a huge huge crowd that you would have to compete with to get into the station. Seeing how pathetic the whole situation was, we started to walk in the direction of home.

From Waterloo Station, there was only 3 stops before our station and so we could have walked home but by the time we got to London Brdige station, there was no crowd trying to get into the station and so we took the tube home from there. Fortunately for us, we got off at the first stop. The tube was so packed, the trip would have been extremely uncomfortable for those travelling long distances. Irene told me this is what she puts up with everyday going to work so I guess some of the people are used to it.

The walk from the station back to our flat was quite nice. It was not too cold and there were still many people about. And as we walked, we talked about how much better Sydney is and what we would have done if we were in Sydney instead...

Landseer British Kitchen, The Bloomsbury Hotel, London

This restaurant is tucked in an awkward location within the hotel and was kind of weird navigating through the hallways and stairs to get there. Once inside, the restaurant was bright and open spaced with the tables quite far apart from each other. As a such, it gave an awkward feeling of trying to be a fine dining restaurant in a hotel but coming across as a casual dining bistro.

Irene found this place after going through the list of restaurants on her Taste card. The reviews were pretty good and the Taste card discount even better - 50% off on food.

The occasion was a dinner catch up with Irene's cousin and her boyfriend from Hong Kong. I was the first to arrive and was given the option of a large round table for four or tables by the wall lounge where they would have to put two of the two people table together. I ended up going for the round table without thinking about the implications of it being next to the wine fridges and hence the constant distraction of the waiters getting wine for diners. Fortunately there weren't many other diners by the time Irene and her cousin and boyfriend arrived and so being next to the wine fridge did not turn out to be much of an issue.

We were initially given the set menu where you have the choice of two courses for just under £20 or three courses for just over £20 but then the waitress realised we were using the Taste card, which does not apply to the set menu, so she changed out menu to the a la carte menu instead. A quick calculation showed that ordering the most expensive items for each course would amount to double the set menu three course price so we figured using the Taste card gave us better value.

I ordered smoked duck for entree, beef and rabbit ballotine with pea mash for main and a lemon tart for dessert. The duck was really nice, well smoked and tasted much like smoked ham. The orange wedges balanced the dish out really well. For mains, I was the odd one out as everyone else ordered the Biilingsgate market mixed seafood grill, however, having shared my main with Irene, I was glad to have ordered the ballotine. The seafood grill mainly consisted of a few pieces of fish and a large prawn. Taste wise it didn't tickle my taste buds. The ballotine on the other hand was delicious! Everything from the ballotine, the sauce, fried quail eggs, to the pea mash were delicious. The pea mash was actually peas mixed with potato mash. The peas gave the mash a slightly different texture, which works well! The only grip I have with the dish is having only two small pieces of the ballotine; they were so nice that I was wishing for more!



The dessert, though nice, was nothing extraordinary. Reading lemon tart, I thought it was going to be a round lemon tart that you typically get at bakeries but I should have known that fancy restaurants like these never make things obvious and instead I got a slice of what was probably a lemon cake!


In addition to the food, we also ordered a bottle of a medium bodied merlot blend. The wine was nice but probably needed a bit of airing.

With the Taste card discount applied, the wine ended up costing almost half the price of the dinner for four! One good thing about Landseer is that they didn't include a service charge in the bill, making it genuinely "discretionary", which is the way it should be!

On the whole, it was a great night, with the food and wine above average. And given we were there to catch up, the lack of ambience was well forgotten shortly after the dinner started.