New Asia Bar & Grill (place)

Despite being the least classy of the rooms in the Raffles International designed Equinox complex that sits a'top Swissotel The Stamford (formerly the Westin Stamford), New Asia Bar & Grill is perhaps the most poserish.

Designed in a sort of faux-sixties style, with bizarre ceiling décor, chessboard-like tables and coloured, transparent anvils which pass for stools. There is a tiny dance-floor on one side (empty for much of the evening) and a private room upstairs for those whose level of pretense is far above ordinary (literally).

Offers a stunning view over Singapore (as does the rest of Equinox), perfect for sipping outrageously over-priced cocktails in the evening with friends. Best tables are, naturally, along the floor-to-ceiling windows, which give maximum exposure to both you and the view.

Drinks and snacks will set you back a small fortune: evian is S$8 a bottle and is only for the truly naive -- ask for tap water instead, it's chilled and free; cocktails start at S$16; the sushi platter, at S$28, is expensive but has a decent selection of maki and nigiri. Note that the congee, if eaten with the accompanying sticks of lemongrass, makes an especially entertaining (and cheap) drinking game dare for teetotalers.

To be avoided at all costs after about eleven o'clock when the very drunken ang moh crowd arrive with their slightly less-drunken singapore party girls in tow; it gets considerably noisier, the dance-floor fills up and the embarrassment factor goes through the roof.