BloodCafe

It never fails to amaze me how much change we experience on a daily basis just living passively in a place like Singapore. By "living passively" I mean just going to work in an office, going home, going out for some chow, going to the supermarket, checking out the bookshop, just the mundane boring stuff that I'm sure other people do in between more exciting activities like scuba-diving, going on spa holidays, running a marathon... stuff I used to do before I met My Son.

But I digress.

I went to Paragon shopping centre yesterday to get my hair done and almost screamed. The place has completely changed. First, Project Shop Is No More (!!!!!!). It's just gone (!!!!!!). In its place is a lot of blindingly colourful hoarding. BloodCafe didn't go with it - it's now a little patch of concrete and glass on the second floor right next to the up and down escalators. So that hundreds of passers-by can see what you are eating and breathe on your food. Not just the people that walk past on the second floor but the multitudes that are going from the second floor to the third and vice versa.

No more giant magazine rack. No more cool red ceiling lights. No more vast chalkboards full of specials. No more gay (or gay-like) waiters ignoring your every need. The place is now the size of a walk-in wardrobe, the chalkboard now space-savingly wraps around a pillar (I'd like to see how we can read THAT), the waiters look like normal 12 year olds and the diners look as vapid and silly as I've ever seen any other people sitting in any other second-rate cafe serving any other second-rate food next to a busy thoroughfare.

And my poor husband still thinks they serve his favorite key-lime pie. Sweetie, I don't think they even serve 50% of what was in their regular menu anymore. Where's the freaking kitchen? That's what worries me. When you can't see the restaurant kitchen anymore, you just know it's been hidden away somewhere next to the toilets, in a space so obscure that the Building Management couldn't fit a rentable storefront.

Blood Cafe used to be a place where you could sit for hours and read all their cool UK/ US/ European magazines whilst eating (1) the greatest Caesar salad ever; (2) a really funky little bolognaise; and (3) their banana cream pie. No point rushing, since you have to wait at least 10 minutes before you can get the waiter's attention anyway. The kitchen was right there and you could see that it was not filled with children using microwave ovens.

I am very sad.

In other news, there's now a RAOUL for women, Diesel (next to Miss Sixty) and a new Cafe Beviamo (spell that right?) on the top floor plus some rooftop garden that I didn't manage to check out. The place looks very well managed, although with the disappearance of Blood Cafe (and the appearance of its hideous substitute) there really isn't any place to eat at in Paragon anymore.