The banana shake is not bad, though a little pricey. Their lime juice is probably a better option as a beverage - it comes free-flow, and the food portions are quite big so a shake might be too much to stomach. I could though, but that's ME.

Any qualms about the place?

I didn't like the ambience one bit. It was so noisy that the nice jukebox music could hardly be heard. I think even Billy Bombers has better ambience, and I've ever so often criticized BB for its sub-standard food.

I was also put off their service for a split second, but the minute I kicked up a fuss about my reservation having been "ignored", they were very prompt and profuse in their apologies. And the waiter was extremely attentive thereafter - kept refilling the glasses, even way after our table was cleared and our conversation shifted into purely bimbotic, when-will-they-finally-shut-up mode.

The toast for my New Yorker was a little hard, especially the crusts.

Apart from those details, it was a pleasant dining experience.

So there is pretentious blogging - I really doubt most of us think, speak and believe the way we do in real life, compared to in our blogs, but then what of it, really? We all take on personas; it's a form of  survival skill. And some of us are attention-seeking (fame whores would be a more extreme term). I think everyone wants to be unique, wants to have something in their blog that goes, "Hey, I'm different from the rest". But what's worse than pretentious bloggers is the group of blogger-fantatics who flood the blog comments page with unconstructive, unadulterated gushings of how completely flawless their entries are - "Mr X, you are sooo funny. I HEART your entry (without justification)", "Miss Y, you don't need guys in your life or make up, you already look gorgeous" etc etc. Then on the other extreme, there was those who leave "You're a &*^%*&^" comments, probably over and over again, using different nicknames.

It irks me even more to see "145 comments" on a reasonably interesting entry, and I later find that only a handful are worthy of reading. Most would be non-comments like, "I agree with you (full stop, no elaboration)" and "You are so right" and "You are stupid. Your only think of yourself and therefore come up with such baseless assertions of others"...

I wonder how anyone can ever be a true advocate of freedom of speech. Think many a time, we kid ourselves into thinking that we are this someone whom we are actually not, never can, and never will be. It just sounds so romantic to be associated with an ideal, doesn't it? Even if you do not truly understand or live it.