I solemnly swear that I am up to no good~

Backlog: We Are Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo!!

2010-05-29T18:20:00.005+08:00

These are actually pics from our trip to the zoo a year ago!!

29th May 2009

Aren't they precious?! I especially like the orangutan on the far left with its tongue sticking out - so cute!!
I imagine that's what the horse must be thinking and really wanted to say when Baby and I stood there ogling at its beauty for quite a while~
FYI, kua si mi = hokkien for "see what see!?"

Just basking in the sun, my human friends!!
Guess whether this crocodile is real or fake?
Penguins!!
Is there more than one snake here?!
Moulted snake skin!! I find it most fascinating and was observing it closely for a prolonged period of time before Baby announced that I'm perverted -_-"
Another piece of moulted snake skin!! Right behind is a set of snake skeleton~
This pelican (I think it's a pelican) was pooping into the water behind it as I snapped this pic!!
Nice scenery!!
I like the feel of this pic!!
And my favourite pic for this zoo trip:

Love is in the air...~~

Backlog: Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe

2010-04-25T22:22:00.002+08:00

This is a mini assortment of the food from Xin Wang over several visits!

28th March 2009

Their iced milk tea which Baby and I are so fond of! Complements their butter sugar toast very well (scroll down for pic of toast)!!
I like their chicken chop - crispy skin and tender meat!
Mediocre char siew rice~
Their guo tie (pan-fried dumplings) were passable~
Orgasmic butter sugar toast! Look at the thickness of the butter!!
18th April 2009

Spaghetti a little overcooked but chicken chop was yums~
13th June 2009

Fried rice with luncheon meat - nothing out of the ordinary~
7th August 2009

Soya bean curd served in a cute wooden bucket!
Our favourite branch in Plaza Singapura!

Backlog: Mother's Day 2009

2010-03-31T19:52:00.002+08:00

We ordered hakka buffet for last year's Mother's Day! There were hits and misses but their 算盘子 (a hakka delicacy in which the main ingredient is yam - the name loosely translated to "abacus" coz of the shape resemblance) was especially bad~

Food's here!!
Another pic of the buffet~
Baby bought a Mother's Day cake from Bengawan Solo, think it was mocha flavour~ It was yums!!

Cakey cakey are u ready to be eaten...?
Yumsssss...~
I hand-made mini ferrero rocher bouquets for all the mothers present!

Chioness haha~
Materials used~
More pics of the mini bouquets coz I'm so proud of them!!

One more to go...
and that's all!!
Bro and I brought Mummy to Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe on another day for our own little Mother's Day celebration!

Mum's~
Bro's~
Mine~
Shared!
Our presents to Mummy dearest!

穷学生就只能送这些了!

Happy Mother's Day!! ^_^

I finally got off my lazy ass to blog!!

2010-03-30T14:52:00.003+08:00

I feel the sudden urge to blog today! If there's anyone who still comes by here, I am sorry that I have been on a self-imposed hiatus for the longest time! I still love my food, but somewhere along the way i kinda lost the motivation to blog - or maybe it's just plain old laziness!

My food pics have been building up to a ginormous amount and I figured it's time to start backtracking them - I can't wait to blog about my Oklahoma trip last December!

Backtracking starts from last May (!!)~

Homemade Soaps!

2009-04-06T19:50:00.001+08:00

Hiddy said she'd send me some (chemical-free) homemade soap samples which came along with all the homemade soaps she purchased online some time back and here it is!:

That's a crazy amount of stamps!

From top left: Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Crème brûlée, wooden soap dish
From middle left: Mag Champa, Lavender Dreams, Sex Appeal, Mendhi, Popstar
From bottom left: Brier Rose, Chealsea Garden (These soaps had soap roses embebbed into their sides!)

Hiddy, thanx for the extra full-sized soap bars and the wooden soap dish! ^_^ The soaps smell delicious enough to eat and I still can't bear to use them!

我们的秘密企划: The Icing Room and... more!

2009-03-06T19:20:00.007+08:00

I've been wanting to try the icing room for the longest time! I thought it was a cool idea to let us decorate our own cake; gives it more meaning~ Baby and i went down to jurong point for this even though we didn't need a cake for anything haha~

It's by breadtalk - the shopfront almost looks whimsical, no?
Look at that array of cakes!
Not exactly cheap!
First, u start off with this:

Then they will give u a set of frosting cream/gel to pipe on to your cakes.

Ok, don't laugh at our creation hor!

Looks very juvenile, i know haha~ The frosting cream wasn't very fresh, they were kind of watery. That's why we used more of the gel ones~

Another angle~
And our cake was boxed nicely:

The cake wasn't for any particular occasion, but we wanted to stick on the candles anyway heh heh~

The cake not nice de! U'll see why:

As u can see, there was more cream than cake! -_-" Sickeningly sweet!

And here's a collage of what we had over several days woohoo!:

Bliss!
We had the porridge buffet in joaquim at suntec for lunch:

And our dessert:

Blissful days! ^_^

Baby's Birthday: Ma Maison

2009-02-28T03:36:00.002+08:00

And yes! The treat to ma maison that i owed Baby! This time round, i made a reservation a week in advance and managed to secure our favourite table!

First to arrive was the fries ($6.80)~ They can even make such normal fries like these taste so good haha~ They stayed crispy on the outside and soft on the inside right till the end of our meal!

Next to come was our assorted sausages ($11.80)~ Each sausage tasted different and we loved all of them!

Baby's beef stroganov omurice ($14.80)! I would have preferred the beef to be more tender but overall it was a good dish~ The garlic butter rice nestled within the egg was so flavourful and orgasmic!

Looks absolutely tempting!
The orgasmic garlic butter rice!

My napolitan spaghetti ($14.90)! We haven't tasted a lot of pastas from restaurants around Singapore, but both of us agreed hands down that this is by far the best pasta we've tasted! Orgasmic!

And guess what? They do give out a little treat for birthdays:

A complimentary slice of cheesecake with a candle for the birthday boy! It is also by far the best cheesecake we've ever had haha~ Orgasmic again!

As seen on their plates - Yes... beautiful tasty food and wonderful staff!
They changed the table lamp for a couple of tables~
And the huge golden key for our bill:

It was such a lovely dinner! ^_^

Baby's Birthday: Science Centre & Marutama Ramen

2009-02-25T15:36:00.002+08:00

On Baby's birthday, we went to the science centre! We realised that we tend to do touristy things during special occasions, like sentosa's underwater world for my 21st and the zoo for our 5th anniversary haha~

My last visit was during primary school!
Science centre, here we come!
Huge dinosaur that moves and roars at the entrance!
Some of the stuff~
Cool walkway that lights up when u step on it~
Another shot~
Weird eerie robot girl~
We went to the omni-theatre next! Both of us have never been here but i've heard of the huge IMAX screen! So excited! Our film of choice was wild ocean~

Very steep!
Part of the screen; it stretches all the way up to the ceiling!
After the movie, we proceeded to take one of the worst stimulation rides i've ever taken. -_-" It is called prehistoria adventure~ $4 per person for 5 minutes of crap!

The animation and stimulations were prehistoric alright~ -_-"
I wanted to treat Baby to ma maison, but it was full~ Stupid me should have made a reservation! Ma maison treat postponed to a week later!

We went to marutama ramen instead~

Yummy chicken soup ramen!
Mine!
Baby's!

当我们同在JB!

2009-02-22T17:55:00.006+08:00

这就是为什么我们会那么开心的原因啦! ^_^

Baby and i went on a trip to JB and it was a most wonderful journey! Here's just a little part of our trip; i was told that this place is really popular:

Location was rather ulu but a lot of people!
They offer items such as chee cheong fun, wanton mee, laksa... etc, but i think what they are famous for are their milk tea and toast!

Their milk tea was rich, smooth, a little sourish (in a good way) and 一点涩涩的~ It was undoubtedly one of the better milk tea we have had but i felt that it could be better? That is when Baby informed me that the standards of their milk tea has dropped since his last visit some time back~

But thankfully their butter sugar toast was still spectacular! They were toasted using charcoal and we could smell the fragrance~ The bread was crispy on the outside yet remained unbelievably soft on the inside! The melted butter combined with sugar crystals were the icing on the cake...~ Orgasmic!

We simply have be back to taste the other items on their menu!

And dunkin' donuts was spotted:

In a shopping mall~

Didn't buy any coz wasn't in a donut mood haha~

Baby, 期待着我们下一次一起到JB玩哦! ^_^

Bistro Delifrance

2009-02-20T17:18:00.004+08:00

It was after dinner one day when we saw the poster outside bistro delifrance promoting their $7.90 and $11.90 set meals (only on weekdays). We thought it was rather affordable and so we came back on another day to try it out~

http://www.delifrance.com.sg

There are different main courses for each day of the week; we went on a wednesday and it was grilled chicken with mushroom sauce under the $7.90 menu~

Each set meal comes with a starter, main course, dessert, and coffee/tea~

Our server asked us whether we want to have our coffee and tea first but it never did come even though i said yes, we would like to have it now!

Anyway, our starter was mushroom soup served with garlic bread. There certainly was no garlic taste in the bread and the mushroom soup was diluted and horribly salty!

Our grilled chicken with mushroom sauce came in a very small portion! But it's ok coz we didn't expect much for $7.90 anyway. Taste was alright~

Dessert was this small slice of chocolate cake which wasn't too bad~ Our server must have completely forgotten about our coffee and tea and was now nowhere to be seen, so in the end we had to ask another server for our drinks~ -_-"

Coffee and tea served with a mini chocolate chip cookie~
After stirring in the milk and sugar~
The coffee tasted really bland and as for the tea... well it's lipton so erm, no comments!

Fortunately we were in a super good mood that day so we didn't mind anything at all haha~

However, the restaurant was less than half-filled the whole time we were there, the table of 3 next to us left without finishing their food and another table returned their bowls of soup coz the soup was cold. Tells u lots, doesn't it?

I think that bistro delifrance is another one of those "try once enough" kind of restaurant~ It's better to just stick to their pastries and breads!

Our Valentine's Day!

2009-02-16T18:59:00.006+08:00

We met up super early on Valentine's Day for an appointment in Novena! After the appointment, Baby gave me my first Valentine's pressie of the day and...

Say hi!! ^_^
It's the cutest little lamb soft toy we've ever seen! Shall show it in its entirety later on in the post! We've already seen this soft toy in central some time ago and liked it immediately~ Baby had previously act as if he's not gonna get it as my V-day pressie... 原來是要給我一个 surprise! ^_^

And so we went for breakfast at long john silver's happily! Lalala.........~

Both choices were great, especially texas chicken! Love their hashbrowns! When we were about to leave, we heard the ah beng (who was with a friend) sitting at the table next to us talking with a loud and super flirty voice on his handphone:

Ah Beng: 我很想你咧... 你想我吗? (I miss u a lot leh... u miss me onot?)
Ah Beng: (pauses)
Ah Beng: 你不想我啊? 为什么? (U don't miss me ah? But why?)

Haha u have to hear him talk like this with his flirty voice right in front of his 被冷到的 friend, then u will know how funny the situation is lor! Haha Baby and i tried so hard to contain our laughter! Baby cannot tahan first and burst out laughing, i see already of coz also cannot tahan lah haha~ Erm we then quickly siam! Heh heh~

Baby then wanted to go to central mall coz he said he needed to buy something, and so we went! He asked me wait at level 1 while he dashed to the basement... hmmmmm i knew something was up and haha! He came up to me with the most gorgeous bouquet!

That was the second surprise coz he had previously made me believe that there won't be any flowers this year! Hehe 谢谢 Baby!

And... it's bouquet camwhoring time!

To me, my bouquet was the gorgeous-est on that day! ^_^
美到冒泡!
美到冒泡!
美到冒泡!
美到冒泡!
And here's the super cute little lamb!

Wahaha buay tahan, too cute already!

Cute到冒泡!
Cute到冒泡!
We didn't make any dinner reservations and decided to just go with our f-e-e-l~ Wanted to go ma maison, but as expected; fully booked. Even pizza hut had a queue. So secret recipe then! 重要的不是在那里，而是跟谁在一起! ^_^

Nope no free plain water. Have to buy their distilled bottled water (50 cents)~
Grilled chicken with mushroom sauce and horrible-tasting butter rice ($11.90)
Pan-grilled catch of the day ($11.90)~
Smarties treats ($5.50)~
The food was mediocre but it doesn't matter as long as we're having it together! ^_^

And the bouquet camwhoring continues at home:

It's been a long time since i've last used the colour accent function:

Baby 我爱你! ^_^

元宵节

2009-02-09T23:25:00.003+08:00

I forgot to include the collage of my house's chinese new year decor in the previous post, so it shall be the first pic in this post (although i've already added it in to the previous post) coz they're so cute lah haha~

The decor!
Anyway, on to 元宵节. It is on the 15th day (which is also the last day) of chinese new year~

What the 5 of us, including Baby, had for dinner:

青菜炒鲍贝~
蒜炒烧肉~
烧鸭~
酥炸海鲜丸~

Happy 牛 Year!

2009-01-30T23:12:00.011+08:00

How was your chinese new year? Mine went pretty ok, although i wasn't as lucky as last year in our annual gambling sessions haha~ HUAT AH!!

大年除夕...的除夕!

I had an exam on the day before chinese new year's eve, sian! Baby fetched me from school and we had lunch at a random foodcourt:

梅菜猪脚 for him and 梅菜排骨 for me~
I had bandung coz of its colour - i was in the chinese new year mood haha~

大年除夕

Simple reunion dinner with just Mum, Dad, bro and me:

青菜炒鲍贝~
白斩鸡~
烧鸭~
姜丝蒜蓉虾~
鲍鱼(谢谢Baby! ^_^)~
大年初一

The decor!
The indispensable mandarin oranges~
The goodies!
Homemade~
Homemade love letters in a milo tin~
One of my favourite! 蜜蜂窝!
One of my favourite too! Red lemon cuttlefish with loads of sugar!
Candies~
Candies again~
旺旺 for huat-ing purposes and chocolates~
The ever essential bak kwa! 美珍香肉干 from Baby!
Visited ah ma's place in the morning, and mum's side came over to our house in the afternoon to begin our annual gambling session haha~ We played cards all the way till dinner:

No individual shots of each dish coz everyone was eager to start haha~
大年初二 was at popo's place and we had pizza, kfc and lo hei-ed before continuing with our gambling heh heh~ Only once a year leh, must make full use of the time we have!

Went to the cinema on 大年初三 where Mum, popo and xiao yi watched 幸福万岁 while bro and i watched 大喜事~ We then met up for a late lunch at wan chai hong kong tea room~

Baby came over on 大年初四 and we nua-ed together by watching forrest gump for the nth time on his laptop while pigging out on this:

Sugar-loaded cuttlefish again!
Baby stayed for dinner:

Mini steamboat~
I shall end this post with mcdonald's prosperity meal which we had before chinese new year~ (Every year also the same leh, when are they going to change their menu offering for chinese new year?!)

Prosperity burger~
Twister fries~

My 22nd Birthday: Cafe Cartel

2009-01-20T17:20:00.002+08:00

22nd December

Let me start off by saying that it was a bad idea to go to plaza singapura's cafe cartel for my birthday lunch with milo and mion before our tutorial~

I forgot who suggested it but i think it's stupid me coz it was just at the entrance of plaza singapura, there were empty tables still and we had about an hour to spare~

This experience totally reminded me why i haven't been to cafe cartel in years~

Ok, so we were seated and we ordered 3 set lunches. We got ourselves some of their free-flow bread to cushion our tummies nicely first before the soup arrived:

I think it was mushroom soup; i kinda gulped it down without noticing~

That's mion's grilled fish pasta in cream sauce. We all tasted it and agreed that it was mediocre at best~

Milo ordered the same dish (jumbo chicken leg in black pepper sauce) and i thought we were going to receive our orders at the same time.

After about 15 minutes after ordering, both milo and mion have received their main courses. I have not. And the nightmare officially began.

I waited 10 more minutes before i got hold of a server to help me check on my order. He took look at our receipt and brushed me off by saying that my jumbo leg will need much longer to prepare. HELLO? My friend already had hers ok!?

But never mind, i gave them the benefit of the doubt and waited for 10 more minutes before i got hold of another server to help me check on my order in the kitchen. He said he would and he returned with a freakin' wrong dish!

I then got hold of first server who brushed me off to check on my order coz my order has had ample time to be prepared, rriigghhtt? He agreed and scurried off. By that time i was already seething with anger coz we had a tutorial class to rush to!

I managed to get hold of a manager and complained to her that i have been waiting for almost 40 minutes and there's still no sight of my stupid jumbo chicken leg! She finally got another server to get me my freakin' order and mumbled a sorry to me. Wah lao!

Here's the offending dish:

They've obviously forgotten about my order lor. And it's not even that nice. The chicken would have been tasteless without the black pepper sauce~

Dessert:

Magnolia ice-cream. -_-"

I only had less than 15 minutes to gulp down my lunch and ice-cream before rushing off to class!

I sent them a complaint via their online feedback form some time later and insisted on a reponse from them in my complaint, if not i think they will 不把我放在眼里 leh! I received a reply 2 days later saying that they will conduct an internal investigation~

On the very next day, they replied and apologised, saying that the staff "acknowledged the incident with regrets". Yeh right. Like i believe!

Both of their emails actually sound suspiciously like template answers to me. I remember reading the exact same words from another blog where the blogger had complained to cafe cartel and received their email reply too!

Cafe Cartel 根本一点诚意都沒有嘛!

My 22nd Birthday: Chalet!

2009-01-12T23:26:00.000+08:00

6th December

A 3D/2N chalet with family, Mum's side of relatives and Baby! Met up with Baby after my morning class to have lunch at waraku (central's branch) before heading over to downtown east to meet up with them.

We 念念不忘 what we had on our 5th anniversary, so we ordered the exact same things haha~

Baby's tonkatsu set ($15.50)~
Mine ($14.80)~
The only thing different was the side dish:

Tonpei yaki ($6.80)
New candy shop in central!

Apparently all candies sold here are handmade~ We saw them in action, but didn't manage to snap any pics coz there were too many people blocking the view haha~

More candies!
Baby and i got these lollipops for the little cousins:

All of them gave nice reviews for the lollipops!

The whole bunch of us went to this chinese restaurant called "different tastes" but no pics coz all the food were pretty much snapped up the moment they arrived haha~

We then took a walk and got addicted to the games in E!Hub's arcade!

7th December

On the 2nd day, we had breakfast at burger king coz mcdonald's was full haha~

I forgot the name for this breakfast set but it kinda resembles mcdonald's big breakfast don't u think?

We then spent the afternoon nua-ing and pigging out in front of the telly in our rooms before getting ready for the bbq in the late afternoon~

And bbq for our dinner!

Mum's marinated pork chops and chicken wings were super yummy!

Only 2 pics of the bbq coz... too busy!

Baby and i hung out at McCafe for a while before heading back with our supper (McChicken and large fries from mcdonald's) and this:

Half of the whipped cream had already melted by the time we reached our room~
Iced chocolate from McCafe! Orgasmic la this drink! Never knew it was this nice!

8th December

Day to go home! Baby and i have won quite a number of tickets from E!Hub's arcade over the past 2 days, so we went to exchange them for some random stuff first~

200+ of them!
We exchanged the tickets for these:

Cutsey stuff which i have no use for haha~
Had lunch at E!Hub before heading home!

The overhyped mr chicken rice
Mr chicken rice is opened by the ex-chef of mandarin hotel's chatterbox and he used to have a stall at downtown east's foodcourt. I have tried it once back then and it was really really average~

He has since relocated to his own chicken rice shop here in E!Hub and we thought we'd try it out again!

That's 2 set meals plus an extra order of veggies~

Erm. Still really average. We've tasted better chicken rice in kopitiams and foodcourts. The crowd is probably due to the hype and the chef's reputation~ The only saving grace was the beancurd dish shown above!

We'll be back!
P/S: Do bear with me for the many birthday celebration posts as i really want to remember them by documenting them down on this blog!

My 22nd Birthday: Kuishin-Bo

2009-01-09T17:55:00.000+08:00

2nd December

It's the actual day and Baby brought me to kuishin-bo for my birthday lunch buffet! ^_^

Suntec City Mall #03-002
3 Temasek Boulevard
Singapore 038983

Tel: 6238 7088

Webbie: http://www.res.com.sg/restaurants_view.php?v=8

Kuishin-Bo at suntec has gone through a renovation last year i think. It's entrance looks like this a long time ago~

Still gotta love their chawanmushi!
Their tempura prawns (not the breaded ones) are orgasmic haha~
This fried noodles thingy wasn't too bad~
Teppanyaki: Chicken and beef not as good as before. Dory fish still rocks!
Random-tasting soba~
This is called nabe. If there's crab in it, it would be called kani nabe. Haha i love its name! Very flavourful broth!
Desserts were alright - not particularly fantastic~
More desserts!
Baby skewered the grapes haha~
Their vanilla ice-cream was really a letdown compared to before!
Fruits to end off the meal!
It's a miracle we still have room for dinner later in the night at yoshinoya:

Skinless chicken bowls for both of us! But then they bluff leh, there's still so much fatty skin on the chicken!

P/S: If anyone wishes to know, our weekday lunch at kuishin-bo costs $26.90++ per person~

My 22nd Birthday: Home Celebration!

2009-01-02T17:02:00.001+08:00

29th November

Had a simple home celebration the saturday before my birthday as always!

Mum cooked 猪肝面线 (pig liver thread noodles) for me! (Didn't happen on the 29th Nov though haha)

Ok now for what really happened on the 29th:

Mum cooked longeivity noodles with quail eggs! I requested for it coz i couldn't get enough of it last year haha~

This is a must-have for my birthday every year: Mum's fried prawns! Simply out of this world~

All the others were from the cze char stall:

Braised tofu~
Sweet & sour pork~
Sambal kangkong~
Chicken from the chicken rice stall~

Bro got me a slice of cake!

Chocolate fudge cake from prima deli~

It's 2009!

2009-01-01T23:59:00.003+08:00

My goodness it's 2009 already! Where did all the time go?! Anyway... here's my usual "last meal of 2008" and "first meal of 2009" post!

Last meal of 2008

1st Jan's Dad's birthday, so we celebrated at home on 31st Dec with our usual cze char!:

Baby's and mine!

First meal of 2009

We had dim sum at lot one!

Chee cheong fun with char siew~
Egg tarts~
Char siew pastries~
Fried carrot (radish) cakes~
Lotus leaf glutinous rice
We went back home and slacked before we got approached by a singtel representative and signed up for something great before we had dinner!:

Chicken chop from downstairs! Really yummy!

Had a really nice simple and quiet new year~ ^_^ Here's hoping that this year will be better than the last! Happy new year, everyone!

Christmas '08

2008-12-25T17:15:00.006+08:00

We went to swensen's for our christmas eve dinner this year coz Baby had coupons! Haha save money! ^_^

It's been years since we've last visited swensen's! Thank goodness their standards are still fine, unlike cafe cartel (reserved for another post)!

The calamari rings ($6.20) were yummy! I actually prefer these battered ones than those breaded ones~

Baby had the bbq half chicken ($14.90) and it was suprisingly good! Not only was the chicken well-seasoned, its meat was also really tender and moist~

I had the fish-in-a-jacket ($13.90) which i didn't really enjoy. I wished i've stuck to the good old fish and chips instead! The batter was thick and tasted really heavy!

And how could we do without those good old fries ($4.50)!

We shared dessert; the orgasmic "sticky chewy chocolate" ($8.20)! We devoured the whole glass of goodness in record time heh heh~

Like last year, the vicinity we were in didn't have any mini logcakes for sale. Hence, we resorted to christmas cupcakes from paisley & cream again!

Cute little santa!
Last year's cupcakes were prettier (especially the christmas tree one) though~

And a galore of christmas trees!:

Takashimaya~
Takashimaya again!
Paragon~
Central~
Bugis Junction~
Ok la not really a galore coz there's only 5 trees haha~ And the christmas lights/decorations around orchard:

I like this year's theme! All the candies and cupcakes and stuff~

Only 2 pics coz we were not interested in hustling with the hordes of ppl trying to take pics of the lights/decorations too!

My 22nd Birthday: My Very First Pressie!

2008-12-02T00:00:00.009+08:00

I received my very first birthday pressie for this year from Baby; very much like last year! It's funny how it's another gadget haha~ ^_^

We got matching phones! ^_^

Sony Ericsson T303! It's a cute and simple phone suitable for people like us who mostly only use the mobile phone for calling and sms-ing!

It's a slider phone~
Love the sleek and smooth metal finish!
Couldn't resist another pic!
Thank u Baby! U made me the happiest girl in the world, like how u always do! ^_^

Our 5th Anniversary! (IV)

2008-11-23T18:36:00.006+08:00

15th November

We decided to revisit the place where we had lunch on our very first date 5 years ago - takashimaya's mcdonald's as a closure to our celebration this year!

We wanted to have the exact same food we had 5 years ago, but as fish mcdippers is no longer on the menu, we had to settle for the closest substitute: filet-o-fish!

Our regular "set-up":

老公, 五周年纪念快乐! ^_^

Our 5th Anniversary! (III)

2008-11-16T17:52:00.001+08:00

8th November

No celebration of ours would be complete without a homecooked meal! And so, we tried our hands at omurice woohooo~!

I find this version easier as we just needed to top the rice (stir-fried with tomato ketchup) with fluffy scrambled eggs instead of the other version where u had to wrap the rice in the omelette itself~

We were inspired by ma maison's beef stroganoff butter rice's presentation but we substituted the beef with good old chicken!

Our 5th Anniversary! (II)

2008-11-09T23:23:00.003+08:00

31st October

Our favourite Waraku outlet in The Central!
Baby's tonkatsu set! ($15.50)
Yummy!
Mine! ($14.80)
The katsu don in my set~
The soba and udon from my set too!
Our side order - german sausage~ ($6.80)

Our sweet little anniversary cupcake!:

And watermelon to wash them all down!:

Our 5th Anniversary! (I)

2008-10-28T18:09:00.004+08:00

Since Baby and i are such suckers for celebrations, we decided to make our 5th anniversary celebration last for a month! ^_^ I've divided the pics into 3 parts, so do bear with me as i record our food trail(s) in this blog haha~

24th October

Breakfast@Ya Kun:

Ya kun's half-boiled eggs are always lukewarm -_-"!
Our favourite butter sugar toast!
Dinner@Aston's Specialties:

Onion rings ($1.80)~
Chicken and sausage combo ($10.90) for us both!
Baby's set~

25th October

And off we go to the zoo! ^_^

Our self-prepared brunch!

It's been so long since we've been to the zoo!
Lovely afternoon! ^_^

Dinner@Magic Wok:

Broccoli~
Sambal sotong~
Lemon chicken~
P/S: Sorry for the long lapse in updating this blog as i was busy a while back!

我们在一起五年了! ^_^

2008-10-25T00:00:00.005+08:00

Pontian Wanton Mee (II)

2008-10-22T23:15:00.005+08:00

I'm not quite sure whether the previous heeren's branch moved to cuppage or there was already an outlet in cuppage but it sure pales in comparison to the heeren's outlet!

Cuppage Plaza
5 Koek Road
Singapore 228796

After the heeren's outlet closed in feb this year, we went to the nearest pontian wanton mee in cuppage and found that they weren't using their usual springy noodles anymore.

We went back recently and were surprised to find that their noodles were springy again. However, this time round, it's the flavour which was screwed up. We told them that we wanted more dark soy sauce for our noodles but when our order came, the noodles still looked and tasted bland~ -_-"

There's other things that disappointed us could nitpick about: the tasteless char siew, the greasy fried wantons, the absence of fried pork lard (!!)... etc.

Despite all these, there seemed to be a steady stream of customers still. Perhaps we should return another time and who knows? Third time's the charm?

Canon Powershot E1: CUTENESS!!

2008-10-17T23:36:00.001+08:00

I saw the advertisement of this camera weeks ago and i cannot get over how frickin' cute it is!!

OMG.
My fave is of coz the cotton pink one! Even the name of its colour is so cute can!

OMG.
OMG.
This is the advertisement that caught my attention:

OMG.
Even its advertisement screams CUTENESS!!

All i can say is that it came out one year too late! But i love my beloved camera still!

Ajitei

2008-10-12T23:55:00.004+08:00

It was after Mion's and my AOW presentation and we met up with Milo for lunch in plaza singapura~ Mion and i were in the mood for some japanese food and since Milo was late, it gave both of us the authority to go ahead and choose a place first heh heh~

We didn't want sakae and ajisen, ichiban was under renovation, so it's down to ajitei. I was disappointed with the takashimaya's branch and i thought i'd just avoid ordering what i've tried and disliked before!

I had a sudden craving for omurice and i ordered the tonpei omurice ($10.80). It comes with grilled sliced pork which was a tad salty and oily but it wasn't all too bad. The tomato rice inside the omelette was rather bland though~

I know it's unfair to compare but ma maison's version was way better! Actually, even this was a tad better!

Mion had the salmon don ($12.80) and i think it was alright except that they were a little stingy with the salmon slices? She still had a sizeable portion of rice left after she finished the salmon~

Milo had to rush off first, so she only had a side dish: cheese cutlet ($4.80). She liked it coz it had loads of cheese!

We ordered a side to share: potato menti ($4.80)~ Unlike waraku's version, ajitei's potato menti actually features chunks of potatoes topped with cheese and bits of bacon~ We liked it pretty much but agreed that it was quite salty!

I gotta say that it was a rather long wait for our orders, although the staff was pretty fast to refill our iced water several times. The food's pretty average; i'm not too much of a fan still!

QQ Noodle House

2008-10-06T17:18:00.005+08:00

We have passed by this shop many times before and we finally caved in after we saw the affordable prices on their menu banner outside the shop~

Bugis Village
231 Victoria Street
Singapore 188025

Tel: 6336 2698

Their menu's rather extensive and we contemplated quite awhile over it. Their ordering system was simple enough; we had to tick our choices and take it to the counter where we pay first and finally sit down to wait for our food~

Baby's (dry) pork chop noodles ($5.50) was a rather good choice - the noodles was springy and well-flavoured. The pork chop was really well-seasoned as well~

I went for their fried qq noodles ($5.50) and we were pleasantly surprised at how good this tasted - we could distinctively taste the wok hei in the noodles~ Plus, the portion's pretty big as well. The only thing I could pick on in this dish is that it was much too oily!

Their dumpling soup ($4) was rather mediocre though~

In a nutshell, this was a surprising find! There's no service charge and GST, dishes are priced affordably, and we were pleasantly surprised at the standard of their food~ We'll be coming back!

满满的爱

2008-09-30T22:09:00.004+08:00

Just after i've recovered from diarrhoea, the dreaded cold and cough virus had to come invade my system. My menses decided to join in the fun by choosing to arrive at this exact moment. Whooopeeeee.

Being in the foulest of moods should never be a reason for me to be so unreasonable to Baby. I felt so guilty after that! But Baby still came over early morning before going to work and before i go to school to hand me this:

虽然昨晚我一直跟你怄气, 今天一大早你还是特地送来了这一袋满满的爱, 真的让我好感动。

谢谢Baby那么包容这样一个任性的我!

Bro turns 16!

2008-09-23T23:19:00.002+08:00

Bro turned 16 on the 20th and i'm insanely jealous of his youth! We had our usual "cze char celebration" (for any occasion haha) and Baby was here as well! ^_^

Fried noodles, sambal kangkong, stir-fried fish slices, chicken in plum sauce, seafood assortment and mum's fantastic fried prawns!

Pandan kaya, chocolate and mango~
Cake slices from bengawan solo: cheap and good!

All of us chipped in to get Bro his first handphone! Kudos to him for not succumbing to the temptation of owning a handphone considering how everyone in sec sch nowadays owns one!

All of us, including Bro preferred the white model, but no more stock!
My personal gift remains the same every year: candies to cater to Bro's sweet tooth!

Re-using mcdonald's happy meal box!
The candies!
I try not to get those run-of-the-mill candies and i got the ringpop and pushpop for nostalgia's sake!

Remember these?

Mooncake Festival 2008

2008-09-14T23:39:00.003+08:00

It's the mooncake festival again! Anyone gotten sick of eating mooncakes yet? Haha~ Mum has already notified everyone beforehand not to give us any mooncakes coz we cannot finish them every year! (Look at what happened last year!)

We make our own mini snowskin mooncakes every year, and together with Baby's gift of traditional baked mooncakes, it's more than enough for us!

We couldn't get lotus paste this year coz it's sold out everywhere! This taught us a lesson: we should be kiasu-er and buy it earlier next time haha!

Since there's no lotus paste...

Substitute with green bean paste and red bean paste! We've decided on 2 flavours this year: mango and orange~ The mango-flavoured one has dried mango cubes stuffed in the paste!

Busy busy...~
Love the red polka-dotted paper cups!
We made 8 boxes of 6! Most of them are gifts; we only kept 1 box for ourselves~
Love the Q skin!

Gift from Baby: Lotus paste double-yolk baked mooncakes~ I love love love the yolks in baked mooncakes! ^_^

Which do u prefer? The traditional baked mooncakes or snowskin mooncakes?

QuickBite & Wall-E

2008-09-09T19:08:00.000+08:00

We were in The Cathay for Wall-E and we wanted to get a quick bite for our lunch before the movie starts, so we chose... QuickBite. ^_^

Both of us went for the Value Meal 8 ($5.70), which included a stick of mushroom-stuffed bacon, 2 chicken skewers and a fried chicken drumlet over rice~

Pretty mediocre stuff, except for the mushroom-stuffed bacon which we loved! The enoki mushroom provided an interesting texture and the strips of bacon tasted like bak gwa haha~

Our extra order: gyoza ($3.90). We liked it but it was nothing to shout about~

We bought tickets for the digital version; same price, so why not? And it was in the grand cathay; love those couple seats! ^_^

The movie was alright but i guess i was a little disappointed. I had expected more coz of all the hype and raving reviews!

Aston's Specialties

2008-08-29T18:36:00.004+08:00

I've been wanting to try out aston's for the longest time! Thank goodness they have finally opened an outlet in town and it's now so much easier to come by!

Baby brought me here for a mini celebration after my RWAR exam!

The Cathay
2 Handy Road
#04-03
Singapore 229233

Tel: 6887 5889

http://www.astonsspecialties.blogspot.com

It involved quite a bit of waiting for their mains but it was well worth it! Both Baby and i ordered the chicken and sausage combo ($10.90), which is a little more expensive than the other chicken and fish mains (less than 10 bucks)~

I chose teriyaki chicken for my combo, and baked potato and potato salad (potato overload haha!) for my sides. The teriyaki sauce was a little strong for my liking but the chicken's really well-grilled and remained tender and moist! Loved the sausages and sides as well!

Baby chose fried chicken for his combo, and fries and coleslaw for his sides. I loved his fried chicken more than my teriyaki chicken! In fact, i loved it so much more that i exchanged my teriyaki chicken with his fried chicken heh heh...~

The seasoning for the fried chicken's great and the cutlet was fried to perfection! Was really tender and moist as well! We would have liked the fries better if it was chunky fries or wedges though!

Such a filling and satisfying meal! Prices are rather afforable and there's no service charge (just GST)~ Do note that they charge 30 cents for plain water though!

As a mini reward for completion of the RWAR project assignment and exam, Baby surprised me with my favourite tidbit!:

Jagabee!
Sticks of goodness!
These are so yummy! Do not be duped by other brands; only this brand of french fries sticks is nice! I know this through personal experience! ^_^

Hong Kong Kim Gary Restaurant

2008-08-26T17:52:00.002+08:00

The 2 ah siaos and i got together for a belated birthday lunch for ah siao milo! Fickle-minded ah siao milo finally decided on kim gary - the place with snaking queues every weekend!

We went on a weekday afternoon, so there were plenty of tables for us to choose from! Time to find out whether their food's really that good to command such crowds!

VivoCity
1 HarbourFront Centre Walk
#02-128
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6376 8183

Ah siao milo and i both ordered their set lunches which came with a soup and drink. The soup that day was cream of corn - i didn't expect much but it was really diluted and bland!

My set lunch's main dish was steak with spaghetti (set lunch - $9.80)~ The portion's pretty big; i couldn't finish it! The steak was tender enough but very chewy and i got so tired of chewing! They were both laughing at me coz i looked so sian and tired while chewing the steak!

I got pretty sick of the tomato sauce after the first few mouthfuls coz the sauce tasted like the sweet and sour sauce in... 咕噜肉 (sweet and sour pork)!

Ah siao mion ordered a la carte and her dish has a really long name - soup noodles with minced pork and vegetable wanton ($5.90)~

She reported that the soup was pretty salty and it made her very thirsty... MSG eh?

Ah siao milo ordered a set lunch too; her cheese baked rice (set lunch - $11.80) took so long to come!

Since she is so biased towards kim gary, she said that her cheese baked rice was "mind-blowingly tantalisingly freakingly fantastic"! -_-"

We ordered french fries to share! There were several condiments to choose from and since we were feeling adventurous, we went for the special mix ($3.60)~

When we each took a bite, we were like CHEY! Haha coz the so-called special mix just tasted like the 椒盐 (chilli pepper and salt) flavouring powder they use for those shihlin-style chicken cutlets!

My iced horlicks which was included in my set lunch - i liked it coz it wasn't diluted!

Ah siao milo's iced almond milk - forgot to ask her how it was, but considering her biasness towards kim gary.........

Ah siao mion had to order a drink coz her soup noodles made her so thirsty! Her fresh honey lemon with aloe vera ($4.20) was almost as expensive as her main dish and hardly any aloe vera to be found!

In a nutshell, i don't understand why they can draw such long queues on weekends!

Ah siao milo jio-ed me for kbox-ing on her birthday itself (the week before our kim gary lunch)! I love kbox-ing in 2s coz no one can snatch the mic from me already wahaha!

It feels so shiok to be a student coz with $14.50 nett, we can sing for 5 hours from 2pm to 7pm, and all these food included!:

Chips and drinks!
5 tempura prawns and 7 nuggets - complete with french fries and ketchup!
I love being a student! *kisses my student card!* ^_^

Price hike or shrink in portion?

2008-08-21T17:26:00.007+08:00

Nowadays, many food sellers either raise prices or reduce food portions without raising prices~ The worst kind are those who increase prices and reduce portions at the same time!

Here's an example of "reducing food portions without raising prices" (from kobayashi):

The hotplate became a round and much smaller one, and the portions are now being reduced to half of what they used to give!

An example of increasing prices and reducing portions at the same time would be long john silver's, whose chicken pieces never fail to amaze me with their gradual "petiteness" over the years~

Baby and i'd rather food sellers increase prices without affecting food portions!

Which would u rather have? A price hike for the usual portion of food, or a shrink in the food portion for the same old price?

BBQ Express

2008-08-15T18:06:00.004+08:00

There used to be more bbq express outlets; a quick google check told me that there's now only 3 outlets left in bukit panjang plaza, imm and hougang mall~

Bukit Panjang Plaza
1 Jelebu Road
#01-23
Singapore 677743

Tell me how can anyone not be enticed by these!?
They offer many more items, but i love their whole chickens best! Their whole chickens (honey/black pepper) go for only $6.50 and their meat's tender, moist and well-seasoned, especially the honey-glazed ones! ^_^

Happy National Day!

2008-08-09T00:00:00.001+08:00

It's Singapore's 43rd birthday, y'all! And damn the e-balloting thingy again! Every year also cannot get tickets!

归属感。
That's actually the view from my room window la haha~ I purposely waited for the LRT to come by before snapping each pic! ^_^

Here's what Baby and i had for our National Day lunch:

I thought that it was appropriate to eat chicken rice on National Day coz it's one of the most representative dishes of Singapore!

I shall post the following videos like i did last year coz i love Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew so much! Ok la no link but u know what i mean! ^_^

Love this song by Hossan Leong!
And how could i ever forget my favouritest national song?

As old school as u can get. *Waves flag* Sniff~

Petit Provence

2008-08-04T17:06:00.004+08:00

From what i understand, petit provence was branched out from provence in holland village and the former only carries a small selection of breads and pastries, hence the name "petit"~

We have walked past this little shop in central countless times but we have never gotten anything from them coz the limited selection doesn't really attract us~

One saturday night, however, i decided on a whim to try them out, and so we got 1 of each from what were displayed~

The Central
6 Eu Tong Seng Street
#B1-29
Singapore 059817

http://www.provence.com.sg

http://www.provence.com.sg/petit/index.html

I forgot the prices but they were around 80 cents to $1.20 i think? That's the chocolate wassant by the way~

And here's the cream custard wassant. Their wassants had no texture to speak of, they were just... soft~

The chocolate croissant looks good but it wasn't! The chocolate flavour didn't really blend in well~

Now this croissant was the best in both Baby and my opinion; it was lightly glazed and had a buttery fragrance!

Never-before-seen food pics on this blog! (II)

2008-07-28T18:09:00.014+08:00

It's that time of the year again when i scour my archives for this past year, for piccies that has never been posted here!

I presented the pics in collages of several categories last year after this blog's 1st birthday, so i figured i might as well make this into an annual thing~

There's twice as many unposted pics as compared to last year, so piccies galore ahead! This is gonna be a super long entry as i've added in my personal random notes below each collage in relation to the pictures!

Do click on the link below each collage to view a larger and clearer image of the collages! ^_^

Homecooked

Click here for a larger image of this collage!
Random Notes (Homecooked)

**For the huat kueh to "huat" beautifully, dip a knife in cooking oil and cut the batter into quarters before steaming! (The [un]huat-ed kueh pic shows what happens if u don't!)

**Did u know that potatoes are one of the most misunderstood foods? Contrary to what many people believe, potatoes are hardly fattening if you cook it in healthier ways (boiling, steaming, baking... etc) as it is actually more than 75% water!

The reason why it has gained a reputation for being fattening is because potatoes soak up oil very easily when it is being fried~

I adore potatoes no matter how they're cooked, and a healthier alternative is to prepare a potato salad!

A potato salad is real easy to prepare:

1. Boil some potatoes (they're ready if u can cut through with a knife or poke through with a chopstick - usually 30 minutes or so, depending on the size of the potatoes), and leave aside to cool before peeling and cutting them into cubes

2. Drizzle sufficient low-fat (it's up to ur preference but low-fat makes it a tad healthier, no?) mayonnaise over the potato cubes

3. Add in black pepper and salt to taste

4. Sprinkle chopped spring onions or chives

5. This is optional, but u can also choose to squeeze in a wedge of lemon

6. Stir and mix well!

7. Chuck it into the fridge (or freezer for faster results) for awhile if u prefer ur potato salad chilled (i do)!

Fastfood

Click here for a larger image of this collage!
Random Notes (Fastfood)

**Baby and i avoid going to superdog nowadays as it's almost always a super long wait for their food to arrive! The fish and chips wasn't nice at all~ =(

**I like how subway's always so generous with their portions of veggies!

Local

Click here for a larger image of this collage!
Random Notes (Local)
**We're so lucky that the cze char stall in the coffee shop near my house turned out to be so darn good! ^_^

Japanese

Click here for a larger image of this collage!
Random Notes (Japanese)
**Both Baby and i feel that the sushi from takashimaya's cold storage is the best among the supermarkets!

**The chicken cutlet bowl and teriyaki chicken bowl from yoshinoya looks so tempting to me now! *salivates*

**Wah yoshinoya very generous with their mayonnaise on the salmon! Like free lidat haha!

Donuts

Click here for a larger image of this collage!
Random Notes (Donuts)

**The donuts from pop doh have a cakey texture; it's nice for the first few donuts, but it's also easy to get sick of it as it's really heavy on the palate!

**I like ~~munchy donuts'~~ donut empire's choz o'cream donut (the dome-shaped and covered with dark chocolate one) coz it's filled generously with butter cream!

Snacks

Click here for a larger image of this collage!
Random Notes (Snacks)

**The double chocolate cupcake from paisley & cream is lip-smackingly good! Its dark chocolate frosting's very rich but not too sweet!

**The cookies & cream ice-cream from azabu sabo was horribly bland and watery!

**Pie kia is overrated! Their pies smell so fragrant every time i walk past their shop but they turned out to be so mediocre!

**The triple c (cheesy curry chicken) from chippy's were horrible! I thought there's gonna be cheese fillings in the chicken but the cheese came in a tub instead. There was hardly any hint of curry too!

My goodness doing up this entry made me so tired haha~ I hope all of u have enjoyed the pics and notes! ^_^

This blog turns 2!

2008-07-17T00:00:00.007+08:00

狂贺!!! Couchpootato turns 2 today! 恭喜老爷~ 贺喜夫人!!!

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeee~~~!!!
Like I've said last year, this is my 4th blog ever since i've started blogging 7 years ago and it's my longest-lasting blog ever! (I just kinda lost interest in the previous 3 blogs after a period of time haha~)

But i've found my passion! 庆幸有个和我一样爱吃的Baby, 能陪我到处品尝美食! ^_^ And thank u all for coming here! Here's to many more good years to come! ^_^

Pepper Lunch (II)

2008-07-12T23:25:00.001+08:00

I didn't realise that it's been more than a year since we've gone to pepper lunch!

Baby was feeling adventurous that day, so he ordered one of their newer items; the japanese curry rice set ($10.90).

Our advice is, plz dun order this! Or probably any of their newer items (spaghetti and such) too for that matter! The portion of the chicken was meagre and the curry was so blah i can't even remember its taste!

I stuck with my good old hamburger steak set ($13, with drink)~ We realised all over again how easy it is to be sick of pepper lunch! I think it's gonna be ages before we set foot in here again!

Secret Recipe

2008-07-08T17:25:00.002+08:00

The 3 ah siaos and me went for lunch at anchorpoint on our last day of the news module and we decided on secret recipe after scrutinizing every eatery there haha~

Both ah siao milo and mion ordered the chicken lasagne ($8.90)~ I think both of them regretted the choice coz the portion was pretty meagre and it didn't taste that good either~

I didn't get to taste Syahidah's tom yum kung noodles ($12.50) but i think it should be alright since there wasn't any complaints from her? Haha~

I liked my pan-grilled catch of the day ($11.50)! Although the menu reads "with lobster sauce", i reckon it tasted more like mushroom soup instead haha~

Boon Tong Kee

2008-07-03T23:16:00.003+08:00

Baby fetched me from school on the rainy saturday mum made dumplings and we decided to have lunch on the way back~

My bus home from school goes past this stretch of eateries (cheong chin nam road) at bukit timah and it sure is hard not to get tempted!

Anyway, we had a sudden craving for chicken rice! Boon tong kee it is then!

The appetizer ($1.50) which we hardly touched! Too sour! My goodness, so heart pain for being charged for something we didn't want! Must remember to tell them the next time before they automatically plonk it down on our table!

Their pyramid-shaped rice (50 cents)! Hmm... didn't make much of an impression!

Chicken for 2 ($9)! See that layer of jelly under the chicken skin (top right)? I didn't dare to eat it and so it was up to Baby haha~ He said that it was tasteless and the texture was just jelly-like~

As for the chicken, it was tender and we liked the sauce doused all over it!

Our favourite veggie - sambal kangkong ($7.80)! Portion was rather large (of coz la, look at the price! O_o")

We also ordered barley and lime juice ($1.80 each) and our total bill adds up to $25.65 after GST! We would have felt ripped off if it wasn't for the satisfactory standard of their food!

Rochor Original Beancurd

2008-06-29T18:38:00.002+08:00

I've wanted to try out rochor and beancurd city eons ago coz (i gotta admit!) of the much publicised feud between the brothers!

We had wanted to compare both their beancurd since they were just beside each other but alas! I didn't know that beancurd city has moved out a long time ago, leaving their sister to occupy the space with another beancurd shop (which was deserted when we went)!

2 Short Street
Singapore 188211
(near sunshine plaza!)

We shared both the chilled and warm versions of their beancurd. Both were smooth in texture but Baby preferred the chilled one while i favoured the warm one coz i felt that it made the beancurd a tad silkier~

Their you tiao (fried dough fritters) were pipin' hot and crispy! Other snacks like egg tarts are available as well~ We also tried their soya bean milk but it was just rather ordinary~

The comparison part has expanded though. What's left to do:

1. Sample their sister's brand of beancurd which is just right next door

2. Find beancurd city

3. Visit rochor in geylang (owned by eldest brother) which many have said is the best

Victor's Kitchen

2008-06-19T23:35:00.007+08:00

I have to apologise for not updating for the past week! I was really peeved by Isabell the cousin whom, by the way, has yet to reveal herself.

I would jux like to tell "Isabell the cousin" that i hope u know it's not difficult to guess who u r at all. Piss off from my blog if u do not appreciate food like the rest of my readers do and is jux here to nitpick like a childish prick.

Anyway, coming back to more important matters like food, i realised that i've never done a proper review of Victor's Kitchen even though we have been patronising them for our dim sum fix since who knows when!

Sunshine Plaza
91 Bencoolen Street
#01-21
Singapore 189652

Sunshine Plaza is a quaint building near dhoby ghaut and also houses Parklane Wanton Mee~

Our must-have every single time we visit - lotus leaf glutinous rice ($4)~ We love digging into the pipin' hot soft rice for the chicken, lap cheong, mushroom and salted egg yolk hidden within!

Chee cheong fun with prawns ($3.50)~ The savoury sauce was a good complement to the otherwise plain and simple cheong fun!

Each har gow ($3.80) contains a single huge crunchy prawn~ We always eat the har gow in whole and we can only go "mmm mmm mmm..." ^_^

Baby and i dun actually like siew mai but we thought we'd order something we dun like to see whether we'll like it!

Their siew mai ($3) doesn't contain fatty meat (fatty meat is the main reason why i dislike those mass-produced ones coz it makes me feel so jerlat!). We wouldn't mind ordering their siew mai again!

Both of us love their milky custard buns ($2.80)! Take a look at the insides:

There's also a salted egg yolk nestled within the custard which, by the way, tasted really like kaya to me!

Baby's favourite char siew buns ($2.80)! Their insides:

Big, robust pieces of char siew with oyster sauce!

Not ur usual carrot/radish cake ($3.80)! The steamed carrot cake was both smooth & Q and it goes really well with this!:

The complementing XO sauce which added fragrance to the carrot cake!

Both of us had their stocking iced milk tea ($1.30)~ We're not sure whether they really made the tea using stockings but it sure tasted good!

Be forewarned that the standard of their iced milk tea does alternate between mediocre and good on different occasions!

Baby and i encountered Vladimir A. Yarets for the 2nd time! The only exception is that we only got to see his motorbike this time round! Perhaps he had popped into cheers for something? Heh heh~

An open letter to whoever Isabell the cousin is

2008-06-11T23:59:00.003+08:00

I have no idea who u r (since u have chosen not to identify urself), but u should get ur facts right before u try to accuse me of anything.

Firstly, if u haven't already noticed, my blog is a food blog. My passion and interest lies in food.

It doesn't mean that, in ur own words, "she goes spending like no one's business on food food and still food yo!"

I don't "spend like no one's business" and eat out every other day. In fact, i usually only eat out on weekends and that's when i take the pics and store them in my archives for future use.

I also do not go around spending my dad's hard earned money like u said. In fact, i have not taken pocket money from my parents for years.

My daily expenses are covered using my earnings from job stints, CNY and birthday red packets. My boyfriend usually pays for our meals when we eat out together (i hope u don't start saying i go around spending my boyfriend's money "like no one's business" coz i don't) and i hardly ever spend money on shopping.

I'm not going to comment on anything else u said but i would like to ask u this; what is the point in stirring up more trouble than there already is?

端午节

2008-06-09T15:32:00.001+08:00

I've been having so many of Mum's dumplings these few days! Mum made both bak zang (meat dumpling) and kee zang (with red bean filling)~

Mum was almost done with the wrapping when i got home after school and lunch with Baby on saturday:

It's always the bak zang for me! Dun really like kee zang~

Ikea (III)

2008-06-01T18:56:00.004+08:00

After waiting for more than 6 months, Ikea's nasi biryani is finally back on their daily specials menu (every saturday for the month of June)!

The price of their daily specials have gone up from $4.90 to $5.50!

Gotta love their boneless chicken thighs! Remember to ask for more of the savoury gravy coz they dun give as much now! (Refer to this pic from last year!)

Nuggets ($2.90) from the kids' menu!

Thank goodness their potato salad ($1.80) didn't turn out tasting aircon-ish like before!

P/S: I've mistaken! Their nasi biryani is actually available on every saturday for the month of May, not June! Yikes!

PastaMania (II)

2008-05-25T17:59:00.003+08:00

I wasn't actually gonna blog about this but i thought i should warn u peeps about this horrible pasta i had in pastamania!

I had this Chicken Cheese Salsiccia ($9.90) and it was absolutely appalling! The pasta was overcooked which made the texture kinda mushy and the spicy tomato sauce was bland but it definitely doesn't make it any less weird! The only saving grace was the cheese sausages!

And to think that this dish actually comes recommended in the menu!

Baby's reliable Creamy Chicken ($8.50 + $ 2.20 for upsize)! Dun u think it looks like a plate of hokkien mee from the pic?!

Our Mango Soda ($3.40)~ Baby prefers his usual passionfruit flavour to this, while i think that they are all artificial-tasting haha~

Google sent me moolah to spend!

2008-05-18T18:27:00.000+08:00

Look what arrived in the mail the other day! My first ever Google cheque! This is my 2nd time to receive a small "earning" from the internet! ^_^

They check ur account at the end of every month and will cash out ur earnings automatically once u've reached US$100~ It took me so long to reach this amount lor!

I wonder how long it's gonna take me to earn my next cheque from Google! *shudders*

Yippeeeee...!!!

2008-05-14T23:32:00.003+08:00

Woohoo! End of project = end of job stint! ^_^ Thank goodness the job didn't turn out to be that bad after all!

Our celebratory dinner at... lot one's foodcourt haha!:

Our mixed fry (tempura prawns, fried pork cutlet and fried salmon) bento sets!
This new jap stall is pretty darn good! Love those tempura prawns and the zesty coleslaw! Their chawanmushi even triumphs the chawanmushi some sushi chains have! And the extra bowl of rice belongs to my 饭王Baby! ^_^

P/S: I just realised that every single one of my sentence in this entry ends with an exclamation mark! Including this postscript! I feel so good now that i'm becoming random! ^_^

Mother's Day 2008

2008-05-11T23:59:00.020+08:00

(I'm gonna write in Mandarin so that my mum can read this entry too!) 母亲节前夕, 我们在家举办了一个迷你庆祝会, 还邀请了妈咪's side of relatives!

多亏有Baby帮我把花握得那么稳, 我才能把照片拍好! =D
这六朵颜色鲜艳的毛绒玫瑰花是送给到场的妈妈们的! 可爱的妈咪因为听说今年会旺她的颜色是桃红色以及红色, 所以就选了朵桃红色的 (on the left with a purple ribbon)!

我们从报章上看到了FoodTalks 的广告后便当机立断, 预订了它们的迷你自助餐。大家之前经过一番讨论后所选择的菜色就包括了 (从左上, 顺时钟) 亚參香酸鱼 (本来要的是酸甜鱼)、酥炸饺子、焖豆腐、罗汉斋、參巴鸡、凤梨炒飯。至于甜品呢, 我们就选择了果冻! (not shown in picture above)

自助餐准时送到, 食物也是热腾腾的, 但是我们原本的酸甜鱼却变成了亚參香酸鱼! 甜品的分量少得可怜, 而食物的水准也不算好, 所以我想我们应该不会再光顾它们了!

这是从另一个角度捕捉到的画面! 因为拿不定主意要post哪一张, 所以干脆两张都一起post上来吧!

在母亲节期间预订它们的自助餐, 还附送一个一公斤的奶油蛋糕! 所幸蛋糕还挺令人满意的; 口感松软, 奶油也不会太甜!

Baby也买了味道一级棒的烧鸭、叉烧和烧肉 (picture shown below) 来加菜!

嘻嘻不好意思! 馋嘴的Baby和我在拍下以上的照片之前, 就已经忍不住偷吃了好几块叉烧! =p~~ 不过幸好我们偷吃得有技巧, 所以从照片上看不出来hor? 嘻嘻。。。

就像每年一样, 我和弟弟都会请妈咪到餐馆去享用一顿。今年妈咪说只想到邻近的餐馆就好, 然后便心血来潮提议了在我们家附近的ten mile junction的一家印尼/泰式餐馆Magic Wok。这家餐馆平时的人潮寥寥无几, 让我们既好奇又担心! 可是到了最后, 好奇心还是战胜了!

记得几年前曾经到过Magic Wok的另一家分店用餐; 那时的人潮相当旺盛, 菜肴也挺美味的, 就不知为何在ten mile junction的这家分店生意会如此惨淡, 与隔壁生意兴旺的中餐馆形成强烈对比!

前一天自助餐的黄梨饭水准逊色, 吃得不够过瘾, 所以忍不住想再品尝多一次!

绝对少不了我们最爱的sambal kangkong! 稍嫌这里的kangkong不够辣, 反而还多了一分甜。

这道參巴苏东的酱汁竟然和辣椒螃蟹的酱汁味道相同! 当时还真想来份炸馒头沾着酱汁吃!

铁板豆腐虾仁的用料还挺丰富的。如果在铁板上的那层蛋花再厚些, 那可真是天衣无缝啦!

虽然菜单上写的是炸春卷, 卖相及味道却像是炸五香比较多。香甜的沾酱是不错的配搭!

妈咪的甜品; 椰浆西米露! 妈咪说它的味道普通; 西米露的口感不佳, 应该是不新鲜的缘故。

其实整体来说这家餐馆的菜肴都相当不错, 价钱也很合理 (而且还不外加消费税和服务费哦), 就是不明白为何生意会如此惨淡?!

吃饱了之后, 我们步行到附近的Bukit Panjang Plaza闲逛~

经过Missy Donuts的挡口看到这些可爱的迷你甜甜圈, 就忍不住买下来当做是饭后甜点! ^_^

HK Roast & Iron Man

2008-05-04T17:15:00.006+08:00

We were in Cineleisure to have our lunch before catching Iron Man when i suddenly remembered that there's a stall called HK Roast in the basement's foodcourt which was featured on channel 8's 抢摊大行动!

I was kinda expecting a long queue but surprisingly there was none~ The adorable auntie and uncle didn't seem as shy as they were on TV!

Both of us went for their char siew rice ($3.50)~ Baby is a 饭王, so he always requests for extra rice without fail~ We were so amused when one of their helpers served us 2 plates of char siew rice and another plate of duck rice as she'd apparently misheard Baby's "加饭" for "鸭饭"! Haha~

The char siew was succulent and tasty, albeit a tad salty. It was above average but i'd really expected it to be better!

We caught Iron Man after that!

My goodness, this is such a great movie! We haven't enjoyed watching a movie so much in ages! Peeps, u must catch Iron Man if u haven't already done so!

I Hate Working!

2008-05-01T23:21:00.010+08:00

I am blogging so irregularly nowadays coz of work! I've taken up a temp job in science park almost 2 weeks ago as i'm on sch vacation till end of May and i'm counting down everyday till the end of this job stint!

As u can tell from my blog url, i'm a couchpotato; so work makes me stressed and moody and tired and sleepy and that in turn makes me lazy to blog! I shudder to think how i'm going to cope when i'm gonna have to work permanently after i graduate in the future!

I'm too lazy for my own good!

Actually, this temp job would not have been that bad but... shit happens.

Anyway, here's what i had on my first day of work at a canteen near my office building:

Breaded fish and chips~
Mebbe coz i wasn't expecting much, but the meal wasn't half bad!

P/S: I hate working i hate working i hate working i hate working i hate working i hate working i hate working i hate working i hate working.........

Changes!

2008-04-27T23:15:00.000+08:00

I can still remember how i used to "loiter" in Lot One (just next to Choa Chu Kang MRT) with friends almost every single day after (sec) sch!

But alas! A lot of these memories have been taken away from me given the drastic makeover Lot One's going through right now!

The saddest change for me had to be the cruel removal of MY KBOX last october!

Guess what? More shops!
And now they've moved the foodcourt from the basement to the 4th level where a part of KBox used to be! They're tearing down the very place where i used to have lunch with my npcc mates every saturday after training!

Baby's and my last meal from the old foodcourt on their last day:

Prata kosong!

The new foodcourt is actually smaller with fewer seats!

Baby's and my first meal from the new foodcourt on their first day:

Couple chicken rice set!
Yah i know we very bo liao right, went on both the last day of the old foodcourt and the first day of the new foodcourt consecutively haha~

Rite Pizza

2008-04-21T23:27:00.004+08:00

Which is ur favourite pizza delivery? My family almost only orders from Rite Pizza nowadays after eliminating the other contenders!

Delivery Hotline: 6899 3838

http://www.rite-pizza.com

I like their winter special (although i don't see any relation to winter)! U can choose between lettuce or cinnamon as the final topping!

This comes with their combo; chicken wings! Gotta love the sauce!

Honey, i shrunk the cinnamon sticks!
This comes with the combo too; cinnamon sticks (choose between cinnamon or garlic)~ Their bread sticks shrank in size! Boo!

Our extra order: their mini platter combo~ Erm i think they changed their supplier or something; some of the items weren't as nice as before~

Thank goodness their chilli (top right hand corner) stayed the same (i'm being reminded of a certain ancient song by Joey McIntyre right now haha)!

That's 2 sets of potato wedges u see there!

Carl's Jr (II)

2008-04-20T23:55:00.008+08:00

Baby and i were in plaza singapura to catch a movie as we had free movie vouchers. We wanted to grab a quick lunch before the movie starts; we walked past carl's jr and decided on it there and then since we haven't had it for ages~

We always share a burger (they'll cut it in half for u if u tell them ur sharing!) and beef chilli cheese fries at carl's jr; it's so filling!

We had the super star burger; which is really just double cheeseburger. I like it that their onions are in big chunky pieces!

I've always wondered why their beef chilli cheese fries tastes so much like curry! But we love it all the same!

They changed their shoestring fries in their beef chilli cheese fries to straight cut fries! Yippeee! Now i can safely say that i prefer carl's jr beef chilli cheese fries to that of superdog's!

And we love their free flow drinks! We even filled up our drink and smuggled it into the cinema! We cheapo ma! Haha...~

Here's a little tip: Mix ice tea with sprite, add in a portion of sugar syrup, be generous with the lemon slices, and u will end up with a drink that tastes like mountain dew!

Totally pointless, i know! Wahaha...!

We watched The Forbidden Kingdom! I was skeptical about the movie intially coz it's just plain weird that almost all the characters speak english as if it's the most natural thing to do in a film which was set in ancient china! But it turned out alright i guess; wasn't as bad as i expected!

The movie vouchers were free anyway! Heh heh...~

The Asian Kitchen (IV)

2008-04-18T18:30:00.008+08:00

We were in VivoCity, wondering what to have for dinner when we decided to just pop into The Asian Kitchen - our foolproof restaurant, coz we were too lazy to think!

VivoCity
1 Harbour Front Walk
#B2-29
Singapore 098585

Tel: 6376 9623

We ordered a warm longan and red date drink ($2.80) to share. I like it that it's sweet without being ovewhelmingingly so~

Baby initially wanted this but he changed his mind coz he was in a "fried rice" mood and there was only plain white rice in honey pork rice ($8.70). I then took up what he rejected and I could see the regret and envy in his eyes when it arrived haha~

I could just eat the rice alone with the sauce! My only grouse was that there was too little meat on the honey pork ribs~

Baby had the chicken chop fried rice ($8.70) which was actually quite nicely done too~ I can just imagine his disgruntlement if it wasn't coz he gave up the honey pork rice for this!

The chicken was delectable and u can really taste the wok hei in the fried rice; it was nicer than the luncheon meat fried rice we had in the citylink outlet!

And how could we get by without a side? We had their ngor hiong ($4) and it was just alright i guess. I prefer my aunt's homemade one!

Our favourite marina square outlet doesn't offer xiao long bao on their menu, so we always have to have them when we visit an outlet which does offer them!

We had the 4-piece version ($3.70) and while it was still quite tasty, i would have liked it better if the skin wasn't so sticky and there was more broth in the dumpling!

The next time ur stuck at deciding where to eat, give any asian kitchen outlet a try! They're pretty foolproof, prices are reasonable and the food rarely disappoints (Baby and me, at least)!

Parklane Zha Yun Tun Mee House

2008-04-13T17:31:00.002+08:00

I realised i've never done an entry on Parklane Wanton Mee despite having visited them for several times now~ I've only tried their wanton mee at 2 of their outlets; namely sunshine plaza and bugis (sunshine plaza's better)~

Sunshine plaza's such a quaint building though. U should know that it also houses Victor's Kitchen - the place for our dim sum fix!

Sunshine Plaza
91 Bencoolen Street
#01-53
Singapore 189652

I was a little disappointed this time round coz i felt that it wasn't as good as the last time i had it. The noodles was slightly overcooked and the dark sauce in which the noodles were tossed in was a tad too sweet.

The char siew was a letdown too - i could hardly taste any flavour in it.

I sure hope that the quality of their food isn't going downhill like so many other food outlets are!

The noodles might not be up to par this time round, but we still need the perfect condiment for wanton mee - pickled green chilli doused in soy sauce!

I would say that i prefer Pontian Wanton Mee coz their noodles' more fragrant (secret weapon - pork lard)! Their new outlet at cuppage was a disappointment though, but that's another entry all together!

Pork Ribs for Dinner!

2008-04-11T23:53:00.005+08:00

I'm wallowing in self-pity right now as my menstrual cramps has been torturing me for the entire day already! I'm pressing my bolster real hard against my tummy as i type! Urghhh~

I still gotta eat though, and here's what i had for dinner just now!

Yummy pork ribs in sweet and sour sauce with rice from the cze char stall near my house! The incessant pain made me enjoy it less though! Damn!

My Favourite Instant Noodles!

2008-04-10T23:36:00.001+08:00

Okay this is really random, but i thought i'd share with u peeps what my favourite instant noodles is! I almost only eat the Chu Qian Yi Ding brand, and my current favourite flavour is garlic chicken!

The secret weapon is the garlic oil pack inside!

I always stir in an egg in a maniac manner! It not only gives that extra "eggy" flavour, it also acts as a natural soup thickener! ^_^

Pressies!

2008-04-07T18:50:00.003+08:00

I was arranging my pic folders when i saw this bunch of forgotten pressies pics (for my 21st and Christmas last year)~ I always end up with a load of pics coz this made me snap away at anything related to special ocassions like a maniac!

I'm not complaining though! ^_^

I love love loveeeeee giving and receiving pressies! ^_^

My Favourite Breakfast Cereal!

2008-04-01T23:59:00.002+08:00

Introducing my favourite breakfast cereal! Eh... actually i shouldn't call it my favourite breakfast cereal coz i dun really eat breakfast!

It's the Triple Chocolate Crunch from Marks & Spencer! Chocolate lovers should try it if you haven't already done so!

Ooh look at how generous they are with the chocolates! ^_^

Best paired with chilled milk! Oh my i think i'm gonna go fix myself a bowl of that goodness now!

满家乐 Full House Cafe (II)

2008-03-26T17:12:00.003+08:00

We had dinner here again! We might have sworn off ordering their 卤肉饭 (braised pork rice), but we still wanted to try their 公仔面 (instant noodles with luncheon meat, egg and veggies)!

Their HK Lemon Tea~ It tasted like home-brewed lemon tea; not too bad!

Our 公仔面 (instant noodles with luncheon meat, egg and veggies) ($4.50)! Their version is slightly different; they used those korean instant noodles (We saw them cooking in the open kitchen!) instead of the standard 出前一丁 (my fave instant noodles!)

U can see that their version also has much more ingredients compared to the usual fried egg, luncheon meat and veggies! It wasn't too bad actually; comparable to the ones i had at xin wang and wong kok!

Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits

2008-03-23T17:39:00.008+08:00

Baby and i went down to Changi Airport for a kaypo look around the new T3 the other day and i thought it would be a good time to finally try popeyes chicken!

There was previously only one popeyes chicken at T1, but there's now a new one at T3~ I just wish they'd open new outlets at places other than the airport though! (Thanx wenn for pointing out that there's another new outlet at the Singapore Flyer!)

Changi Airport T1
Viewing Mall Central
Level 3

and

Changi Airport T3
Basement 2

We ordered a 2-piece chicken set ($6.45) each and chose cajun fries and coleslaw as our sides~

I was actually quite eager to try their chicken coz of all the good reviews they had but both of us didn't like it! The first bite reminded us of KFC's chicken (the spices used) but popeyes chicken's flavour was blander~

The subsequent bites only served to remind us how painfully dry and tough their chicken was! I dunno whether it's coz we caught them on a bad day or their standard has gone down but we would much rather have Arnold's or even KFC, thank u very much!

The only good thing was that their sides were pretty good. I liked the cajun fries and we loved the coleslaw! The savoury biscuits were alright, but i found it quite jerlat after a few bites~

In a nutshell, Arnold's Fried Chicken is still the best!

Old School Cakes!

2008-03-17T23:19:00.001+08:00

Remember these colourful cakes?

I remember how Mum used to buy these cakes by the box when i was a kid; i had fun choosing which ones i wanted to eat first!

U can only get these in the more traditional bakeries now~ I hope they won't disappear all together, along with those good old bakeries!

We cooked!

2008-03-16T18:30:00.001+08:00

It was one of those rare days where Baby took a day off, so we cooked! We weren't sure what we wanted, hence the variety of food haha~ And yes that's eggs cooked in 2 different ways!

That's rosti with sour cream, scrambled eggs, a fried egg and sausages! Notice that the fried eggs' supposed to be in a heart shape? Haha~

I'm currently obsessed with gordon ramsay, so i wanted to use his recipe for scrambled eggs! The ingredients were pretty basic, except that i substituted crème fraîche for sour cream~ It turned out yummy! ^_^

Here's the video for the recipe!:

Hotpot Culture

2008-03-12T23:59:00.007+08:00

Went out with Mummy and bro the other day to catch a movie! But of coz, it's always important that we fill our tummies first! Mummy had wanted to have our lunch at Joaquim (porridge buffet in suntec) but we ended up having another porridge buffet in marina square's hotpot culture~

This is coz fate works in curious ways! Haha~ We were in marina square purchasing movie tickets before heading to suntec when we were handed this pamphlet where we were enticed by this $6.90 porridge buffet!

Since it's still a porridge buffet and being the ~~cheapos~~ good thrifty people we are, we headed straight for hotpot culture!

Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard
#02-138D
Singapore 039594

Tel: 6835 0080

I was actually thinking how similar the food was to Rajah Inn while i was eating. My suspicion was confirmed when i was ready to take that picture coz right under their signboard were the words "Managed by Rajah Inn"!

There's quite a huge crowd during lunch hour; we almost couldn't get any seats! We shared all that we took; those were the usual suspects! The fried fish fillets were amazingly good though!

No i dun dare to eat fatty meats!

Their fried duck tasted strangely like sesame chicken!

Ooh u gotta try their lup cheong (chinese sausage) which tasted amazingly like bak gwa! All of us loved it!

U cannot tell, but these are the amazing (yes i do realise i'm overusing the word "amazing" in this entry) fried fish fillets! Crispy on the outside, tender and moist on the inside! Best consumed warm!

U can have their fried bee hoon...

Or sweet potato porridge (sweet potato nowhere to be found)! There's rice too, but we didn't have any~

Green bean soup for dessert! The green beans were all snapped up so all we got was the soup haha!

Another dessert alternative would be the watermelon!

In a nutshell, hotpot culture was slightly better than Rajah Inn, but the food's still rather average and the variety was what u would expect to find in a chup cai png stall except for a few winners like the fried fish fillets and lup cheong!

We didn't know what to watch so we just picked ah long pte ltd since neither of us watched it during the CNY period. We were so surprised it's still showing in theatres (only GV i think)!

Well it wasn't as bad as we expected (from all the bad reviews)~ Parts of the plot and some jokes were really lame, but it certainly didn't deserve the miserable 1/2 star rating it got in 8 Days!

糖水茶餐厅 Tong Shui Cafe

2008-03-09T17:32:00.001+08:00

Baby wanted to go to the IT fair the other day and we thought we'd stop by the bugis area for our lunch. And so we walked down liang seah street and settled for tong shui cafe after some contemplation~

I was about to snap this pic when that white car on the right drove in~ -_-")
1 Liang Seah Street
#01-05/06
Singapore 189022

http://www.tongshuicafe.com

I quite like their decor actually!:

Lovely, dun u think?
And the pink walls! I absolutely positively cannot resist that! (Unfortunately we cannot say the same for their food!)

The utensils on every table~

We were served salted peanuts once we were settled in. It's a great snack to have as we contemplate over the menu/write down our orders/wait for our food (it's quite a long wait!)~

Our iced milk tea ($2.88) arrived first; wasn't very nice as it's quite diluted!

Baby's cheese baked rice with chicken wings ($8.88)~ This was pretty awful; the fried rice beneath was dry, the chicken wing was mediocre and the cheese was tasteless and rubbery~ Baby had such a hard time swallowing his food!

That's my hotplate chicken chop with cream corn sauce ($11.88)~ I can sum this dish up with this conversation i had with Baby:

Me: 你知道这道菜最好吃的是什么吗? (U noe what's the tastiest in this dish?)

Him: 是什么? (What is it?)

Me: 鸡蛋。(The egg.)

The Soup Spoon

2008-03-07T23:51:00.004+08:00

The 2 ah siaos and i went to town to catch a movie the other day and ah siao mion suggested soup spoon for lunch!

Paragon Shopping Centre
290 Orchard Road
#B1-K4/K7
Singapore 238859

http://www.thesoupspoon.com

That's ah siao mion's beef goulash soup~ I had a taste of it and actually... i can't remember how it tasted like now! Guess that speaks volumes!

That's my roasted pumpkin soup with toasted almonds~ It tasted kinda powdery and i didn't really like it that much!

That's ah siao milo's smoked ham and cheese sandwich~ She only let me taste the bread leh (which was nice) but i think she enjoyed her sandwich!

We shared a side of spicy wedges with cheese~ I liked it coz it's potato! Haha~

After lunch we caught The Leap Years!

I admit i wanted to watch the movie coz of ananda everingham! =D

Donut Factory (III)

2008-03-02T18:35:00.002+08:00

It's been almost 8 months since we've had donuts from donut factory! I had a sudden craving for their double chocolate donut and so we popped into their outlet in novena since we were in the vicinity!

The novena branch operates cafe style rather like their previous suntec branch~ It's brighter here in the novena branch; better for taking pics! Heh~

惊人腰功!
Velocity@Novena Square
238 Thomson Road
#02-33/34/42
Singapore 307683

http://www.donutfactory.com.sg

We ordered a donut set ($5.50) which consisted of 2 donuts and a drink~ Double chocolate is a must! It was so chocolate-y i could hardly taste the bread haha~

Best consumed when warm!
Watch the warm dark chocolate ooze out as u cut/bite into it! Orgasmic sight, i tell u!

We didn't want to have any of their old flavours so we went ahead and picked one of their new ones; chocolate lemon cream heart~

The lemon-flavoured cream was light with the texture much rather like whipped cream~ I would have liked it better if it was custard cream or something!

We washed down our donuts with iced mocha which tasted just like coffee; no hint of chocolate at all! What's more, the staff had initially forgotten about our iced mocha until i asked for it~ -_-"

包今天 Bao Today

2008-02-29T23:59:00.005+08:00

We had a late dinner as we were still full from our late lunch haha~ We were in marina square and decided to just settle for dim sum at 包今天 (the mere mention of it makes me wanna sing the 包青天 theme song haha)!

Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard
#02-234/236
Singapore 039594

Tel: 6336 2237

http://www.baotoday.com (Their webbie has the 包青天 theme song with lyrics about their dim sum haha~)

Their pan-fried radish cake ($2.80) was decent enough, albeit a tad oily. Made me kinda sick of it after awhile~

Their chicken porridge ($4.80) was substandard; it was horribly bland and we couldn't contemplate eating it if not for a saviour which came in the form of soy sauce!

I couldn't remember much about their paper-wrapped chicken ($2), which is really only a single chicken wing wrapped in paper except that it's way greasy~

The char siew baos which they called the honey-glazed bbq pork buns ($1.80)~ They were alright i guess~

I dun see us returning to this place again; i would much rather have my dim sum fix at victor's kitchen!

旺角茶餐厅 Wong Kok Char Chan Teng

2008-02-28T23:55:00.001+08:00

And so, we were undecided again on what to have for lunch haha~ We were in bugis, so we just went ahead to this char chan teng since we've never been there before~

Bugis Junction
200 Victoria Street
#02-50
Singapore 188021

Tel : 6336 9319 / 6336 2003

enquiry_wongkok@yahoo.com

http://www.wongkokcharchanteng.com

That's their 冰镇鸳鸯 (Chilled Coffee-Tea - $3.60)~ Note that it's chilled, not iced! 鸳鸯's a mixture of coffee and tea, and the drink's being put into a bowl of ice cubes so that it would be nicely chilled without being diluted by ice!

Their 鸳鸯 wasn't really nice~ It was almost like having coffee; we could hardly taste any hint of tea!

Baby's fried rice with honey grilled pork ($6.90)~ The portion was a tad small; he had to order an extra portion of rice ($1)! Other than that, no complaints about this dish~

My luncheon meat soup noodles ($5.50), which is really only instant noodles with luncheon meat, an egg and some veggies! It's so simple but it's like a staple in hong kong char chan tengs!

Just like how i like to use fish and chips to gauge a place selling western food, i like to use this simple luncheon meat soup noodles to gauge a char chan teng~ Coz don't they always say, the simplest dish is actually the hardest to make?

I actually prefer wong kok's version to xin wang's~ The former's soup was more flavoursome!

We also shared a peanut butter and condensed milk thick toast ($2.30)~ It was just alright~

I personally think that a lot of char chan tengs here offer too many items on their menu; resulting in many of their dishes in being just average~ Think it's true?

Man Jia le (Full House Cafe)

2008-02-26T23:59:00.000+08:00

If i'm not wrong, i believe man jia le (full house cafe) first opened in far east plaza offering hong kong-style snacks, desserts and drinks. I dunno how many outlets they have now, but we always frequent the one in central for their superb 功夫奶茶 (kung fu iced milk tea)!

They have recently expanded their menu to include mains like 公仔面 (instant noodles with luncheon meat, egg and veggies), 猪扒饭 (pork cutlet rice), 卤肉饭 (braised pork rice) and the likes.

This is odd, but 卤肉饭 (braised pork rice) is actually included in the menu. Isn't it like, taiwanese?!

Anyway, Baby and i couldn't decide what to have for dinner (this happens frequently to us haha), so we decided to just try out their new mains. We didn't think they would be any good but curiosity killed the cat!

The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#B1-30
Singapore 059817

http://www.fullhousecafe.com

That's their 功夫奶茶 (kung fu iced milk tea) (regular - $1.90, large - $2.30) we order almost every single time we're in central! We love it so much simply for the fact that it's so milky and sweet without being overwhelmingly so!

We both had their 卤肉饭 (braised pork rice)~ There was a portion of minced braised pork, hard-boiled egg, chicken (or pork - can't tell) floss and this little piece of fried beancurd which tasted weird~

Both of us didn't like it. I can't say that it's god-awful, but it's certainly bad!

We ordered their egg wrapped carrot cake coz i saw it being recommended on 超级小吃赞 (ch8 food programme)~

The carrot cake itselt was alright, but we both felt that the addition of the egg and floss was redundant~ There are too many layers; it made the taste confusing and took the limelight away from the main character - the carrot cake.

I would say just go for the pan-fried carrot cake - it doesn't really need any fancy dressing to taste good!

In a nutshell, we probably won't be back for their mains; just the safer options like fries and such, and the ever foolproof 功夫奶茶 (kung fu iced milk tea)!

Song Fa Bak Kut Teh

2008-02-25T23:22:00.000+08:00

This bak kut teh place opened just last year and it's just opposite central; along the stretch where fishermen's wharf is~

11 New Bridge Rd (Upper Circular Rd)
#01-01
Singapore 059383

Tel: 6533 6128

Baby had the loin ribs ($6)~ It was just okay; a bit tough even. I can't help feeling that the soup's got a homely feel to it; it tasted kinda familiar to me! (I'd know why later - read on!)

As for me, i absolutely love love love pig's kidney! Hence i always order pig's kidney soup ($6) whenever i'm at a bak kut teh or kway chup stall!

I hate it when ppl overcook pig's kidney! Thank goodness Song Fa didn't - u can still see the blood!

We were pleasantly surprised when an auntie topped up our soup when she saw that our soup was almost finished; that was a rather thoughtful gesture!

We'd always order a side of mei cai or in this case; salted vegetables ($1) to go with our dishes~ It's almost like the perfect complement!

Their disappointing you tiao (dough fritters - $1)~ It wasn't fresh at all; they have pre-made and stored all their you tiao in this big container. That resulted in their you tiao being horribly rubbery and tasteless!

And as i've mentioned earlier, their soup tasted very familiar~ It turned out that my mum has always used Song Fa's bak kut teh spices (in packets)! No wonder i thought the soup had a homely feel to it!

McDonald's Prosperity Meal

2008-02-23T18:11:00.001+08:00

This year's prosperity meal was exactly the same as last year's; the same black pepper beef / chicken burger and twister fries. I think only the chicken burger remains available right now!

We only tried the chicken last year, so i had the beef this year!

Same packaging~
Huge slab of beef!
Ooh we love the twister fries!

元宵节!

2008-02-21T23:27:00.000+08:00

Baby came over for dinner on 元宵节 (the last day of chinese new year)!

The quintessential chicken~
Mummy says we must eat 7 kinds of veggies on 元宵节!
Stewed pork!
Mum's fried prawns! It's my absolute fave!

Baby's Birthday!

2008-02-19T23:56:00.005+08:00

Baby's birthday was a few weeks back (before chinese new year!), and we celebrated for 4 days! Haha told u we're suckers for celebrations! ^_^

Hence, dun be alarmed at the amount of food shown here; they were consumed over the period of 4 days! Heh~ It's like a food trail similar to what i did last year!

1st Day

It's the actual day! It's a thursday, so Baby had to work~ He got off work earlier though, and i prepared a bento (sort of!) dinner for us!

Baby wanted his favourite!:

Spaghetti!
All packed and ready to go!
At our favourite place again!
2nd Day

Our miserable lunch!:

Hotdog bun from Cheers~

Our fabulous dinner!:

Blanja-ed Baby to Waraku!
Cook it urself!

Ordered Baby's cake from Lil' Foot again!

Can't wait!
老公生日快乐!
See, the long candle on the right cannot tahan already haha~
Mini supper:

Seedless grapes from sun moon, central~
Prawn crackers from Cheers~

3rd Day

Our hearty breakfast!:

Good old Big Breakfast from McDonald's!

Our lunch!:
We shared a 6-inch sandwich from Subway~
and...

popcorn chicken and cheese fries from KFC!

We went to chinatown to soak in the chinese new year atmosphere and we decided to search for the chicken rice place we went to last year. We couldn't remember much about the place coz we were in a hurry at that time; the only thing i could remember was that their staff wore shirts with "tiong bahru" emblazoned on the back and that their chicken rice was yummy haha~

We could only rely on our very vague memory to locate the place and i swear chinatown's practically a maze with all those chinese new year booths!

皇天不负苦心人, after we walked some 冤枉路, we finally saw it!

原来 it's Tiong Bahru Boneless Hainanese Chicken Rice!
Lemon chicken rice again!
柠檬鸡~
招牌豆腐~
油菜花~
We were quite disappointed actually! We felt that their standards have dropped quite abit and their chicken rice wasn't that yummy anymore!

Mini supper again!:

Hahaha we were scared that we'd undercooked the yakitori, so we chucked it into the microwave oven for the second time! Slightly chao tar but still edible la! Haha~

4th Day

Our lunch!:

I has some mini steamboat thingy with noodles at a foodcourt~
Baby's fishball noodles~

Remember the ferrero rocher bouquet i made for Baby (his birthday present!) that was shown in the previous entry? Here's 2 more pics!

The ribbon's from spotlight, if ur wondering~
I love this shot!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T23:59:00.003+08:00

今年的情人节我们决定一切从简! 不需要太奢侈也能过个又浪漫，又有气氛的一天! ^_^

在河边一起吃着廉价的炸鱼薯条也能很浪漫!
开动啦!
虽然说好了一切从简，宝贝老公还是坚持要送我一束我最爱的粉红玫瑰! 手上捧着花束的我，感觉就像个被宠爱、幸福的小公主!

自制的ferrero rocher bouquet是我较早前送给他生日礼物!
Although Baby ordered the bouquet from the same place where he ordered my fabulous birthday bouquet, the roses this time round weren't very fresh. I guess they were too busy!

Bouquet camwhore time!
Couldn't resist!
Couldn't resist again!

宝贝老公情人节快乐! ^_^

大年初五!

2008-02-11T23:59:00.001+08:00

Did anyone catch any 贺岁片 this chinese new year? Which one did u choose out of the 3? Baby and i chose to watch 长江七号 on 初五!

外星狗七仔简直是可爱到爆!

观后感觉得还不错，但还是较喜欢周星驰以前的无厘头style! 以下就是个典型的例子!:

哈哈哈我太爱这一段了!
After the movie, Baby and i went home for what's almost like a second reunion dinner!

炸五香~
菜花炒鲍贝~
虾炒大蒜~
清蒸红鸡鱼~

HUAT AH!!!!!!!!

2008-02-10T23:30:00.002+08:00

HUAT AH!!!!!!!! is my favourite chinese new year greeting! Haha~ So how was ur chinese new year?

Mine went great! Let's see. Stuff self with lots of goodies; check. Collect a considerable amount of moolah from ang baos; check. Make quite a bit from the annual gambling; check. Having fun during the process; check!

Call me a happy camper! ^_^

I took quite a bit of photos as well, here's some taken over the past few days!:

鼠年行大运!
Mandarin oranges for 拜年!
Some of the chinese new year decorations!:

鸿运当头!
Cute hor!?
成双成对!
Big Mac!
Haha very random right? Suddenly there's mcdonald's pics! Baby and i had it for dinner the day before chinese new year's eve!

Twister fries!
On to the chinese new year goodies! Not all of them were pictured though; there were simply too much of them haha~

The home-made ones are all gifts!
We reduced the amount of candies this year coz we couldn't finish them every year!

I love those shrimp rolls!
大家旺旺啊!
We dun actually like the wangwang brand; we much prefer this other one called binbin~ But then wangwang have a huat-er name ma; so mum bought that! Heh!

Ferrero rocher - Courtesy of Baby!

The bak kwa were pretty much gobbled up before i had the chance to snap them; so i can only snap their paper bag haha~

大年初一

Bro and i dread the morning of the 1st day of chinese new year coz we have to go ah ma's place where we have to face dad's side of relatives! We much prefer mum's side, thank u very much!

No pictures at ah ma's place! It was happier times when mum's side came over to our house in the late afternoon! Not to mention the fun we had during our annual gambing! ^_^

It was also one of my little cousin's birthday, so his parents brought a cake~:

Chocolate cake with football theme from swee heng~
The cake was unexpectedly good! Gonna try more cakes from swee heng next time!

We had steamboat!:

I had to snap quickly! If not all the food gone haha~

We went to popo's place on 大年初二 where we had mac and kfc delivery and more gambling haha~

大年初三

Wah blurry shot of the yu sheng for lo hei! But nvm, can see the abalone slices on top right? Every year only during chinese new year get to eat leh!

Chopsticks madness! 捞啊!
Cze char on the 3rd day!
Thanx to my new shoes and my stubbon refusal to stick on plasters, i had to walk on tiptoes to both ah ma's and popo's! Serves me right for the muscle ache in my legs! But nvm, i've got my trusty massager!:

It looks like it's got a face!

I shall end this post with a short video of us lo hei-ing!

Reunion Dinner

2008-02-06T23:59:00.001+08:00

Reunion dinner's just simple fare at home for the 4 of us!

Stir-fried broccoli with pacific clam~
Stir-fried prawns in ginger and garlic~
Steamed chicken~
Roast duck~
Stir-fried prawns with leek~
Boiled abalone slices~
Assorted veggies~
Red wine from Baby~

Everyone HUAT AH!!!!!!!! ^_^

很重要的咧!

2008-01-31T00:00:00.000+08:00

祝我的宝贝老公生日快乐! ^_^ 今年的庆祝稍微特别些，我们简直玩疯了! 至于我们是怎么个庆祝法。。。那可是我们不能说的秘密哦! 嘿嘿。。。

超棒的巧克力蛋糕!

Pontian Wanton Mee

2008-01-08T23:06:00.000+08:00

Baby and i have been coming here for our wanton mee fix since goodness knows when! They may not be the best but they're good enough to satiate us!

U can ask for the dark soy sauce-based mee or ketchup-based ones but it's definitely only the dark soy sauce ones for us! They do have their good and bad days, but no worries there; just ask for more dark soy sauce and problem's solved!

Oh my look at the crowd!
The Heeren
260 Orchard Road
#05-29
Singapore 238855

Our standard fare: a bowl of dark soy sauce-based wanton mee ($2.80) for each of us, an extra order of fried wantons ($2.50), mayonnaise for the fried wantons and green chilli for the noodles!

There's fried pork lard in this thing; it makes the wanton mee more fragrant and yummy! Who cares about the sinful-ness?! Heh!

There's not a lot of meat in each wanton, but it always comes out so pipin' hot and crispy! Paired together with the mayonnaise, it's hard not to like it!

This is random; we were handed a free sample of the new sarsi light from this promotion booth outside heeren~

Anyway, there's a notice pasted on the wall that this outlet at heeren's closing down at the end of feb; so head on down before they do!

P/S: The nearest outlet to heeren is at cuppage!

My 21st Birthday! (VII): Bento Box

2008-01-06T18:18:00.000+08:00

The bestie finally returned from london and the other 2 army boys were rounded up in no time for this super belated 21st birthday celebration!

The 4 of us were at jurong point and trying to decide between ichiban sushi and bento box for dinner~ We went for the latter since they offer other stuff like pizza and spaghetti besides bentos~

Jurong Point
1 Jurong West Central 2
#02-42
Singapore 648886

Tel: 6790 8587

I had their beef bowl~ The red chilli made the beef quite spicy but it was still managable. The meat was quite overcooked though~

I only tried the katsu from this bento set; i expected it to be tough like their beef but it was surprisingly quite tender~ I should have ordered the katsu bowl!

Unappetising-looking spaghetti! I didn't try any of this; HW said it was just okay but he eats anything, so he's not a very accurate gauge haha~

I can't remember the name of this pizza, but it's got chicken, ham, pineapple and loads of cheese~ We all agree that the portion of their chicken and ham's miserable and the cheese was rubbery and tasteless~ -_-"

We ordered some side dishes to share~ Their sotong balls were alright; i liked the dip~

I didn't have any of this fried tofu; CR said it was nice, but then again... he eats anything too haha~

Their gyoza was fine but wasn't anything to shout about~

This open-concept restaurant can get real crowded as it's quite family-oriented; their kid meals were pretty cute and enticing! But then again, i doubt i will come here again; the food was very much forgettable!

We then proceeded to mcdonald's where we sat down for a drink, chit-chat and opened my pressies from them~ ^_^

PastaMania

2008-01-05T23:33:00.000+08:00

We got so sick of the food in Lot 1 that we decided to just go for pastamania, which had opened not long ago~

Speaking of which, Lot 1's building a new extension now (which is probably part of the reason why they closed down my beloved kbox!)~ Hopefully there will be more new food choices to compensate for my kbox!

Lot One Shoppers' Mall
21 Choa Chu Kang Ave 4
#03-02A
Singapore 689812

Tel: 6765 2213

cck@pastamania.com

http://www.pastamania.com.sg (Check out their webbie for the many more outlets!)

We wanted one of their combos (A, B or C) for the garlic bread and soup of the day, but there appears to be no such combination on the menu~

We ordered it anyway; and it appeared as Combo D ($3.10) on our receipt~

The garlic bread was ok but the soup was a tad watery for a cream-based soup!

We didn't want to think what to order, so we just chose a "foolproof" item each~ Baby had the chicken bolognese (upsized: $6.70 + $2 = $8.70) while i got the...

Creamy chicken ($7.40)! It's my first time having their cream-based pasta actually; i usually just go for the tomato-based ones~ It's better than what i expected, i would say! But then again, i wasn't expecting much~ Haha!

Baby wanted a passionfruit italian soda ($3)~

In case u dunno, they deliver now (not sure whether they deliver everywhere though)~ Gonna try out their delivery some day, just for a change from the usual fast food and pizza deliveries!

The Asian Kitchen (III)

2008-01-03T18:39:00.000+08:00

We were in the mood for some Asian Kitchen again! ^_^

Our fave branch!
Marina Square
6 Raffles Boulevard
#02-201
Singapore 039594

Tel: 6333 5961

We were being seated in this 2-seater situated in a dark corner (bad for taking pics!), so we accepted the manager's polite request to shift (to make space for a group of 6 ppl) to a 4-seater with cushion seats rather readily!

And that wasn't the end of our luck! Read till the end of this post to see what it was! ^_^

My grilled chicken rice set ($8.70)~ Looked like roasted duck right? Haha~ The chicken wasn't as tender as i'd like it to be but generally fine~

Baby's pineapple duck curry ($7.70)! No, the duck's not pineapple-flavoured; it's just the pineapple cubes in the curry! Heh~

The thick and rich curry was chockful of duck meat and potatoes~ We liked the addition of pineapple cubes; they made the curry mildly sweet~ ^_^

Our must-have: sambal kang kong ($5.70)! I love it that their kang kong's comfortably spicy, u noe what i mean? Hee~

Another must-have: calamari ($5.70)! Soft and chewy insides with crispy batter, coupled with sweet and sour sauce; divine!

And as i was saying, we got lucky! After shifting to larger and more comfy seats, we were just talking about how lucky we were when a staff placed a dish which we didn't order on our table.

We thought he'd delivered it to us by mistake but he assured us that it was no mistake coz it's complimentary from the manager as a way of making up to us for having to shift tables! ^_^

But the manager's too kind; we were glad to get out of that dark little corner 2-seater anyway! Haha~

Here's the complimentary dish!:

It's prawn paste stuffed in fried toast! I checked the menu for its price; $5.70~ It's a little oily but not too shabby on the whole! Love the sweet and sour sauce they provided!

Yummy food, affordable prices, commendable service; what's to stop us from visiting again, and again, and again.........

It's 2008!

2008-01-01T23:59:00.000+08:00

1st Jan's Dad's birthday, so we decided to have steamboat at home on the 31st Dec to celebrate his birthday, as well as to usher in the new year! Heh~

Baby's invited to join in as well! ^_^ My faves are the cheese tofu, hot dogs, broccoli, meatballs, quail eggs; all very kiddish stuff haha~

Too impatient; the soup had yet to boil but we'd already dumped so much stuff inside!

The soup becomes very flavourful at this point! But this is also the point where we cannot tahan anymore; too full! Haha!

Baby's and my first meal of 2008 was chicken rice at the kopitiam below my house! The second meal was dinner at mcdonald's!

Big mac meal for Baby and mcnuggets meal for me! I love their corn cup with loads of butter and a pinch of salt! ^_^

The big mac!
U gotta love their nuggets!
Not forgetting their fries!

We always have 2 packets each of their curry sauce and bbq sauce! Especially the curry sauce; it's the must-have for their nuggets! Woohoo!

Our Christmas Day '07!: Cuppies & Marutama Ramen

2007-12-26T23:59:00.001+08:00

We wanted to get a miniature logcake, but we realised there weren't any for sale on christmas day itself~ Thankfully we still managed to get these cuties from paisley & cream:

Christmas tree!
Santa!
We skipped our lunch today too, although not without cushioning our stomachs with some snacks to quell the hunger pangs first!

We decided to go back to central! We wanted something soupy and i suggested this ramen place called Marutama Ramen which i was quite keen to try but always being deterred by the constant long queues~

We chose to go in at a little past 5pm when it was still pretty empty~

The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#03-90/91
Singapore 059817

Tel: 6534 8090

http://www.ma-rutama.co.jp/

They have thoughtfully provided tissues, toothpicks and even a flask of plain water by the side of the table~

This was the fried garlic for u to put into ur ramen~ We didn't try it though; we didn't want to have nasty breath haha!

Their menu~

We ordered their chicken soup ramen with an extra order of char siew ($12 + $4 = $16) as there would only be a single piece of it if we didn't add on the topping~

I can feel my mouth salivating even as i look at this pic now; no kidding! There was some fats wedged between the char siew meat; i usually hate the taste of fats in meat but this was different!

Besides the fact that i could hardly taste the fats in the char siew, it also added on to the softness of the meat's texture~

The ramen was springy; and the best thing is they allow refills ($1) of the ramen! The only condition is that u must have some soup left in ur bowl~ Baby refilled twice! They let us have a free choice of topping for the second refill; we chose char siew haha~ (just a single piece though!)

The chicken soup was a tad salty but oh so flavourful! And the egg! My goodness take a look at this:

*Goes crazy*!
I absolutely love the runny yolk! But alas! It was a tad salty as well! Their seasoned eggs' available as a topping for $1~

This is one of their new side dish i think~ Dumplings doused with vinegar ($5)~ Not too shabby!

We're soooooo coming here again! ^_^

Our Christmas Eve '07!: Manhattan Fish Market

2007-12-25T23:59:00.000+08:00

Baby and i wanted to make sure that we have enough room for our christmas dinner feast, hence we decided to forgo lunch!

But then we got so hungry we lined our bellies with some old chang kee and what have u first~ Heh heh~

Eventually, we went to the central's branch of manhattan fish market at 5.30pm to avoid the mad christmas eve crowd!

The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#02-79/90
Singapore 059817

Tel: 6534 7903

http://www.manhattanfishmarket.com

We used to go to their plaza singapura's branch before we lost interest~ But we felt like having their seafood platter for 2 again!

The staff presented us with a christmas menu which comprised of only 3 sets of choices and i was dismayed that there was no seafood platter for 2! Thankfully, it had merely disguised itself as "Festive Platter for 2" haha~

Every set comes with the same soup, drink and dessert! I was so disappointed when they told me they weren't serving chips that day!

Condiments arrived first; as always!

Mayonnaise, garlic and chilli~

That's 2 huge glasses of drinks for u! I have no idea what this drink is coz there was no indication whatsoever (either that or i didn't notice) and i forgot to ask the staff haha~

I do reckon it tasted like some kinda passion fruit flavoured sparkling juice though! Both their drink and soup came in christmassy colours!

I think this is tomato-based clam chowder; which is also called manhattan clam chowder! Not too shabby; it was rich and appetising~

And here comes our platter!

Pretty as a picture~
There were some changes to the usual seafood platter; there was the new addition of broccoli and mushrooms, little hash browns replaced the chips, there were scallops instead of fried mussels, the calamari were not as small, and i believe there were acually more prawns this time round haha~

However, it was not as yummy as we remembered it to be~ The portion shrinked (especially the garlic rice!), the fish wasn't as good, the little hash browns were cold~ -_-"

But there's something good too; the veggies was a welcomed addition to the many fried items, the scallops were good, the calamari were not as small and rubbery as it used to be, and the cheese on the prawns wasn't as jerlat~

However, i'm not sure whether which changes applied to the christmas' festive platter or the usual seafood platter as it's been eons since we've had this~

I didn't take a pic of the "famous" blowtorch-grilling of their seafood platter's prawns coz i was too slow to reach for my camera haha~

While waiting for our dessert...
We sat in the al fresco area to avoid being stuck in the greasy-smelling restaurant and enjoy the slow breeze at the same time!

Dessert was fried brownie! This reminds me of fried mars bar! Sinfully yummy! ^_^

The whole set cost $59.80; which would be $70.35 after adding in the GST and service charge!

We stubbornly sat our arses down till the sky darkened to experience the "night feel" haha~

On our way out, we heard some loud sound and before we know it, this one huge piece of glass from the glass wall cracked into a million pieces and all that was left was a gaping hole:

Everyone literally stood there in silence as we watched the glass cracked into a million pieces and fall onto the ground with loud glass-breaking sounds~

Everyone remained silent for a few seconds after that before the whole mall became alive with choruses of oh-my-god~

Cleaning up
Fortunately no one was hurt; there was a man standing beneath but he got away in the nick of time~

The police arrived soon after and we were part of the few kapo ppl still mucking around haha~

We're now sure to be more careful when standing around those glass panels!

I shall end this post with the central's gorgeous christmas tree!

Spot us in the golden glass ball?

My 21st Birthday! (VI): The Vila'ge & Thai Express

2007-12-08T23:59:00.001+08:00

It was a day out with frens but alas! It was totally screwed up due to some irritants! No, make that A LOT of irritants! Sheesh! I was damn pissed can!

Anyhow, let's get down to it!

Lunch was to be at The Vila'ge at heeren~

260 Orchard Road
#B1-01 The Heeren
Singapore 238855

Tel: 6737 6996

http://www.thevilage.com/02_about.htm

This is their rosti with fried egg ($6) which i made a beeline for immediately haha~ U can add a sausage too but it makes the price obscenely high so... nah! Heh.

Truth be told, i actually prefer vila'ge's rosti over marche's one~ And i even prefer vila'ge's sour cream. It's creamier. Haha~

Some ham and bacon soup ($6.50)~ It tasted ok but forgettable~ Sorry about the ugly shot though coz i was halfway through stirring the black pepper in before i remembered i haven't take a pic of it!

Garlic bread ($1.80)~ I didn't taste this but it should be alright~

Their calamari ($9.80) was horrible! Marche's calamari's definitely tons better! Vila'ge's calamari was tasteless, almost rocklike (u can tell that jux by looking at the batter), and did i mention tasteless?!

Their salad (small - $8.80)~ It's all potatoes, y'all! Haha~

Overall, i still prefer marche; but i wouldn't mind coming back for the rosti! We adjourned to KBox after that and dinner was at Thai Express~

290 Orchard Road
#B1-45/46 The Paragon
Singapore 238859

Tel: 6836 8417

http://www.thaiexpress.com.sg/

We went to the paragon's branch~ Check out their webbie for the other branches!

We had this:

It was some seafood tom yum stick noodles ($9.90)~ I think stick noodles is a thicker version of glass noodles?

Anyway, i like the noodles, the generous portion of seafood, but alas! The look of the soup was so deceiving! The clear broth was actually super spicy! Which reminds me the deceiving-looking tom yum soup they have in Asian Kitchen too!

I thank all those who came and thanx loads for ur pressies! ^_^

My 21st Birthday! (V): Marché & Underwater World@Sentosa!

2007-12-02T23:59:00.000+08:00

Pardon me while i continue on my birthday updates! I've been busy celebrating all sorts of stuff, so updates have been rather slow! Paiseh paiseh!

So it's the actual day! 2nd December; remember it well u peeps! Heh. =p~~ Such an important day should and must be spent with my loved ones! It's decided that i go out with Baby before i head back home with him for dinner!

We'd decided we were going to do something touristy today! Can u guess where we're heading from where we had lunch? *winks*

Marche@VivoCity~
Foooooooood!
Our root beer~
We love their calamari!
Rosti is a must everytime i visit!
Mushroom soup and swiss cross bun~
Plain crepe with cinnamon sugar and loads of chocolate chips!
As i've mentioned earlier, we're going to do something, or rather go somewhere really touristy! Somewhere near VivoCity...

Sentosa! *HUGE grin* We haven't been there for ages! We were going there today for one sole purpose; Underwater World!

Can u believe we have never been to the Underwater World?! *HUGE sheepish grin* I've always wanted to visit it so Baby decided to fulfill this little wish of mine on my 21st birthday! Woohooooooooo...~!

Merlion was the first/last to greet us when we alighted/boarded the sentosa express~

The bus which brought us around the island~ Loved sitting on top!
Here we are!

Woohooooooooo...~!

The tickets included a visit to the dolphin lagoon, so we visited it first~ It turned out to be anti-climatic~ -_-" And it's not even near Underwater World! Ate into my precious Underwater World time~ -_-"

Anyway, i didn't take many pics at Underwater World coz it's useless trying to get any good and clear pics from behind the thick glass tunnel! I took plenty of videos instead, and i compiled some of them into one single video~ Watch it at the end of this post!

Baby and i rushed home for zi char dinner with the family!:

There's another prawn dish at the upper right corner!

I had the most blissful day! ^_^

As for the video, i tried using windows movie maker, but it kept crashing on me, so i turned to this other free video editor which left an ugly watermark in the middle of my video~ -_-" Plus my video became so blurry; doesn't do justice to my wonderful cam at all! Urgh!

Anyhow, try not to be bothered by the stupid watermark and enjoy the video anyway? Hee~

P/S: The song's "Sympathique" by Pink Martini!

I am 21!

2007-12-02T00:00:00.000+08:00

I turn 21 today! Happy birthday to ME!!! ^_^

Gosh, i feel old already!

Busy celebrating; will update soon with loads of pics! Watch this space! ^_^

My 21st Birthday! (IV): KBox, Enchanted & Ma Maison!

2007-12-01T23:59:00.001+08:00

Baby brought me to KBox coz it's my fave haha! We went for KLunch and if i've not remembered wrongly, i believe we had the butter fish set:

Usually i've not much complaints about their lunch sets, but this butter fish set... i think the picture pretty much spoke for itself! Miserable miserable portions! Not to mention its unappetising-ness!

I can't believe they had the cheek to serve that! Hardly filling, especially for Baby! Fortunately we brought along our half-finished cake!

Anyway, we still had a terrific time; we took so many crazy videos in there! ^_^
After KBox, i decided i wanted to watch Enchanted!

Not too bad... I'm a sucker for all these princessy thingies haha!

We walked around a little bit before we went to Ma Maison for my birthday dinner!

The Central
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#03-96
Singapore 059817

Tel: 6327 8122

We wanted a window seat, but they were all taken up~ Thankfully they offered us a 4-seater nestled in a cozy corner~ YAY to more privacy! ^_^

I love the ambience in there; dark and intimate!

The table lamp~
The sugar~
The condiments~
The tea light candle on every table~

That's our Root Beer Float ($6.50)! The ice-cream was a tad too soft; it melted into the root beer within minutes~

Those are the condiments they served before my Tonkatsu Set arrived! I especially love the one on the left; i reckon it's some garlic sauce~

Their brown sauce (which tasted like BBQ sauce) came in a little honeypot-like container~

My Tonkatsu set ($19.50)! The one i had at Waraku was of a larger portion and was cheaper even, but Ma Maison's version's not that shabby either~

Their miso soup was chockful of ingredients!

The fried pork~

Baby's Omurice ($14.80)! Positively yummy! We were afraid that the ketchup-soaked rice wrapped inside the omelette would be too jelak like what some places have, but we're really glad that Ma Maison's version was absolutely divine~ No jelak-ness at all! ^_^

The insides~

Our Assorted Sausages ($11.80)! I think it's suffice to say that both of us loved this dish so much! ^_^

We shared a brownie ($5.50) for our dessert~ Warm, moist brownie paired with cold vanilla ice-cream; the perfect complement for each other!

This black sesame ice-cream came along with my Tonkatsu Set~ All i can say that it's an acquired taste haha~

We took this huge golden keys to the counter to make our payment!

Love how their christmas tree glowed in the dark!

Give Ma Masion a try if u haven't already done so! The food was great, the ambience was lovely and the staff was attentive and polite!

If ur interested, they have one other outlet at Bugis Junction~

Thank u Baby for the lovely dinner! ^_^

My 21st Birthday! (III): Homecooked Meal!

2007-11-30T23:59:00.000+08:00

Hehe paiseh there's still quite some parts coming up for my 21st birthday! I like to divide them into parts so that they'd appear more organised instead of me lumping all the pics into one super long and cluttered blog entry!

So... tolerate with me for the time being eh? ^_^

Baby and i always insist on a homecooked meal whenever we celebrate something; it has become some sort of a tradition for us!

Since this dish went so well for our anniversary, we decided on this again! Besides, we were craving for it! Haha~

Pan-fried potatoes and sutchi fillets with mushroom and white wine sauce~
Pan-fried goodness~
My absolute fave!
We also ordered a small cake (jux for the 2 of us!) from Lil' Foot!

Can't wait to open this!

Woohoo! Chocolatey goodness! Lemme quote this from her webbie, "It’s chocolate and cocoa content is also replaced in entirety with a unique blend of the Grand Cru Series of Valrhona gourmet chocolate" and also "featuring a crunchy Hazelnut Feuilletine base that makes it all the more delectable."

Are u sold yet?

I love these candles!
I made Baby sing a birthday song in both ang moh and cheena for me haha~ ^_^

I hope that doesn't look gross! Paiseh ah wasn't a good cutting job coz we jux wanted to gobble up the cake haha~

My 21st Birthday! (II): Home Party!

2007-11-24T23:59:00.001+08:00

I held a birthday party at home for some of my relatives the week before my 21st! It was nothing grand, jux a simple affair, but it went great nevertheless! ^_^

I had such a difficulty sifting through all my pics and choosing which ones to post here as i was obsessed with my new camera and snapped away like a maniac; especially of my cakes!

I was really looking forward to the arrival of the cakes i ordered from Cupcake Divinity! I was really worried that they would be late but surprisingly, the delivery was an hour early! I couldn't wait to see whether they'd turned out the way i wanted them!

The bigger box was for the 1/2 kg cake and the other for the 20 cupcakes!

The ribbons were tied up so nicely i couldn't bear to open them haha~ But i did anyway and here's the cuppies!:

They're exactly how i wanted them! So very pretty and sweet! Can't help smiling even as i look at the pic now... ^_^

I had a tough time trying to decide on the cupcakes' designs:

Those are a few of my favoutite things! Random, but don't they look so nice together? ^_^

And of coz, i had to have this!:

My princess cupcake! Cute onot? Haha~ The tiara even bears my name! Mum had to keep reminding the kids (especially the girls!) not to touch this particular cuppie coz it's mine only! Wahaha...~

And here's my whole cake!:

It looked great! The details were what i wanted although the final look was a little different from what i imagined to be, but it worked for me as well! ^_^

A tiara on my castle! Grand, eh? Haha!
We wanted a catered buffet initially, but we decided to opt for fast food delivery instead coz it's more convenient and everyone loves them! Here's the food!:

Not yet unpacked...~

We had both KFC and Rite Pizza delivery! Mum also cooked her specialty; hakka niang tofu, as well as longeivity noodles as a traditional birthday custom!

BBQ Chicken and Winter Special!

Time for some cake after polishing off the food! I was damn proud of my cakes coz everyone was praising how cute and pretty they looked! Wahaha...!

I couldn't even bear sticking the candles into the cake! Haha~ 2 long ones and a shorter heart-shaped one for 21! In case anyone's interested, the long ones are from Daiso and the heart-shaped one is from Art Friend~

Couldn't resist taking more pics of the princess cuppie! And look at the details of the sides of the cake! The little specks of brown are not dirt by the way, they're chocolate cake crumbs!

Not forgetting party favours for the kids!:

Candies!
Which one would u choose?
The candies are packed into little paper bags and i let them choose which design they want!

Those are mini clips i bought from Art Friend to secure the paper bags!

Kiap kiap!
Baby was so sweet! He got me a bouquet with little bears and pink roses!:

So very pretty and cuuuuuuuuute!!! OMG i love this bouquet to bits!

Testing out the new camera's colour accent function!:

In pink...~
And in green!

Thank u Baby, for both the camera and this bouquet! They're the best pressies ever! ^_^ *hugs*muackz*

My 21st Birthday! (I): My Very First Pressie!

2007-11-10T23:59:00.000+08:00

Oh. My. Goodness.

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

I can't believe i got this from Baby as my very first pressie for my 21st birthday!

It's the Canon Digital IXUS 860 IS!!! It's mine! Mine, mine, mine! I've finally got a camera to call my own!

I'm the happiest and luckiest girl on Earth right now! *twirls around in joy*

THANK U THANK U BABY!!! *MUACKZMUACKZMUACKZ* ^_^

Fishermen's Wharf (II)

2007-11-10T23:38:00.001+08:00

We were in clarke quay when i had a sudden craving for some pipin' hot fish and chips! We thought of the nearby Fishermen's Wharf which we haven't been to for months, so... no prizes for guessing where we went for dinner!

27/29 New Bridge Road
Singapore 059392

Tel: 6532 6468

Part of their menu~
We didn't want to be stuck in the humid non air-conditioned restaurant, plus a really nice, comfy breeze was playing up by the river; hence the natural choice would be to order takeaways so that we can eat by the river!

Their takeaways came in those cze char boxes; chilli/tomato sauce sachets, tartar sauce, serviettes and plastic cutlery were provided~

We had the cheapest on the menu; cream dory fillet ($6.50)~ There is no need to check out the other more expensive ones coz they can't compare! The irony eh?

Check out the generous portions! Fried to a gorgeous golden brown while the insides remain moist and tender~ They're really one of the better (not to mention affordable!) fish and chips here!

Be forewarned that they get real crowded on friday and weekend nights! And u noe how it is to be stuck in a crowded non air-conditioned place with the pungent smell of grease!

I'd say order a takeaway and enjoy ur meal by the river instead! ^_^

P/S: Ask for chips instead of fries if ur like me who like 'em soft and more potato-y!

Miss Clarity (II)

2007-11-05T23:19:00.000+08:00

It's Miss Clarity again! Milo, mion and i wanted to get some research done at the national library, so we decided to lunch here as it's jux across the street!

Milo and i ordered their set lunches (only available on weekdays) which is inclusive of a soup, drink and dessert~ The soup-of-the-day was corn soup again...

Mion didn't get a set lunch as the Beef Stew Vol-au-Vont ($10.80) she wanted is not included in the set lunch menu~ Her beef stew came in a generous portion and was served with potatoes and a puff pastry; i didn't try it, but according to mion, it was rather crispy and yummy~

I tried a bit of the beef though. It wasn't too bad; i thought the meat was rather tender, but still retained its chewiness. Anyway, mion said that she got sick of the dish half-way through!

My Crispy Chicken with Black Pepper Sauce ($8.80 - set lunch price)~ It's name says it all... fried chicken drenched in black pepper sauce~ The crispy skin turned soggy after a while due to the sauce though! Very ordinary; almost anyone can duplicate this dish at home!

Milo ordered the Fish Cordon Bleu ($9.80 - set lunch price)~ I recommended it to her although i've never tasted it before haha~ I did have the Chicken Cordon Bleu before (read about it here), but the chicken breast meat was much too tough, so Baby and i sorta resolved to try their fish version someday as we're sure it would be much better!

Anyway, i resisted ordering it today as i only want to try it together with Baby! Hee~ I couldn't help pinching a little of that yummy mayonnaise which i so love though!

The dessert-of-the-day was a single scoop of their strawberry ice-cream~ It tasted a bit weird to me, but milo thought it was good in a different way... go figure.

They already had a mini christmas tree all decked out in decorations and such!

For details like their addy, webby and such, u can refer to my previous post about them!