Ah Boy and Chin Yat - fruit loving dogs

Despite being just 2 minutes away from where Anne and VB live (HP offices are just up the road from where they live), we hardly get to meet up - so it was nice to finally catch up after not seeing them for more than 6 months. We picked them up for a quick tze char din din at Zi Yean (Redhill area).

It was my first time to Zi Yean since they moved from Stirling Road. There was a good crowd but the place was big - so no problems with getting a table. That coupled with easy parking made gave this place a plus for the convenience factor. Their menu was pretty intensive so we ended up getting recommendations from the waitress. Within 15 minutes, we were served our 4 dishes - red snapper steamed HK style, prawns in crispy bean curd skin, chinese braised spinach and grilled beef tenderloin. I won't go into details about each dish as I did not find any of them overly too exciting or memorable....it's a good place for a good quality tze char meal but for the same price, Por Kee at Tiong Bahru is still my top favourite :)

VB is a true durian fan and what's a meal with him without the usual hunt for good durians? He directed us to Bukit Purmei where we found an uncle who was selling D-24 durians a very reasonable price. We managed to pack back 2 full boxes comprising of 5 durians at just $10!

We headed back to their place at Gilman Heights (really nice place too if I may add - only $700 rent a month - VB's lucky to be on the NUS faculty) and met up with their 2 "permanent" house guests - Ah Boy and Chin Yat - 2 shi tzu bred doggies whom Anne has been doggysitting. I say permanent because they have been living with her for the past 6 months and she takes care of them like they are her own :)

The dogs are hilarious! Ah Boy is actually a female doggy who's blind so she bumps into everything and anything. Yet despite this "abnormality" of hers, she's has a wonderful spirit - happy , friendly and warm. On the other hand, her partner Chin Yat can see perfectly well but is so clumsy that one would have thought he was the blind dog :)). He is also quite the scaredy cat - being afraid of heights of any level. One thing they both have in common - they LOVE fruits of any kind. So imagine our delight to watch them patiently waiting for some of our durian morsels ;). Now to all our friends who still are not convinced durians are yummy - see here, even the dogs know a good thing when they "smell" one :). The durians were very tasty all with soft firm flesh - just wished that they were more bitter!!