Willy Wonka's cousin and tropical oompa loompas

On a recent evening noisy notes (my other half) and I were at an event at the National Museum organized by a European bank, part of the round of parties held for Singapore06. There were cocktails, canapes, live music, acrobats, and an exhibition of photographs by a Japanese artist from the bank's collection. The National Museum has not yet re-opened, and I must say it is quite an experience to take the escalator to its new basement level with a glass of wine in hand and to look up at the night sky through the glass ceiling.

There are two rooms in the basement currently displaying artworks from the Singapore Biennale. They were deserted, save for the two of us and the one or two men in suits who had wandered in from the party upstairs. There was a photograph of the Last Supper, wax figures at Madame Tussaud's taken by Sugimoto Hiroshi. There was a series of oil paintings of a man in varying seated poses and brandishing different disabilities called "The Artist Is A Lonely Heart" by Thai artist Chatchai Puipia.

Back upstairs we walked around looking for things to eat. That was when we met a woman in a chef's uniform who courteously showed us the chocolates and other sweets she had prepared.

"What is the name of your caterer?" we asked after eating a nest-like pastry with a hint of aniseed in its heart, and a half-coat of bitter dark chocolate, the name of which escapes me (Malfunctioning memory, the effect of drink and disturbing paintings on a mainly empty stomach).

"I can't tell you. I signed an agreement not to say," she said, "But I can tell you that I own a chocolate factory. And I have represented Singapore at chocolate competitions." Now I know what it means when in story books they say: "with a twinkle in her eye". Noisy notes suggested that she sign a less constraining contract at future functions. She handed him a tiramisu chocolate. "Here, try this."

The smile on Willy Wonka's Southeast Asian cousin's face widened when I said that the rose pastry she had urged me to try reminded me of the Middle East. One second later I got it: "It's like a Turkish Delight." I can easily eat a plate of those. They give me a magic-carpet high. I had two of the rose pastries. (They're called flanner or something like it though they are not at all like flans. "Flannel," insists noisy notes on the drive home, the effect of drink and too many meetings with suits on a mainly empty stomach.)

I am the size of a hobbit and I could see the top of her chef's headgear (another name to look up). She said it again, thinking we might not have heard it the first time, "I have a chocolate factory. We make chocolates for hotels . . . and some companies who say their chocolates come from other places." I wonder if she is a renegade Oompa Loompa. No - she is too pretty.

Noisy notes said, "You can't tell us the name of your company but surely you can tell us your name?"

Chef Jane Chan, you and the chocolates you made and your fabulous chocolate factory in Woodlands, they will always be part of our memories of our first visit to the new National Museum.