chubby hubby!

2009-03-25T22:37:00.000-07:00

I've Moved!

www.3layeredtummy.wordpress.com

Being a food blog, i might just treat this blog as a personal blog, one for ranting about my days and nights, good or bad, happy or sad.

As for 3LayeredTummy, do show me ur utmost support alright?

Cheers!

2009-03-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

Mango Flavoured Yoghurt topped with granola bits

Another one of God's awesome creations.

Its just so darn gooood.

How could anyone not enjoy it? Tell me dar, tell me. Haha

Just before we frolick-ed, dar and i had Claypot Chicken Rice for dinner. I never use to fancy claypot chicken rice at all, not till just recently. I guess the taste kinda grows on you?

Zhao Ji Claypot Chicken Rice, Smith Street FC, $8/2pax

Zhao Ji is one of those claypot chicken rice stalls highly frequented by my family. The other stall being Margaret Drive's. Both are good but i personally prefer Margaret Drive's. Firstly, Margerat Drive's lets you add your own black sauce and oil, the portion is slightly bigger, and it is more fragrant. And yes, i love Lup Cheongs.

On Saturday, after my 4 hour proj mtg, i drove down to pick dar up for lunch. Thank god we didnt ride as it started raining cats and dogs shortly after.

We had sandwiches from Quiznos, located at the ground level of Far East Square. Find Trully's Coffee and you will find Quiznos.

The concept is pretty similar to Subway. 6 or 12 inch sandwiches with varying ingredients. The only difference, you dont get to choose what goes inside the sandwich. The ingredients for each sandwich is fixed on the menu. You can have add-ons of course, but at an extra cost. Unlike Subway, Quiznos only has 2 different types of bread for you to choose from. One being wholemeal and the other being the RoseMary Parmesan Cheese. Obviously we chose the latter.

Smoked Chili Turkey with Bacon, $5++

Zesty Steak, $6++

The bread is awesomeness. Smells and looks like the cheddar cheese scones. I found the quality of sandwiches here higher than Subways'. But i doubt any of their sandwiches are low in calories. Especially so when almost every one of them are laden with lots of gooey cheese and bacon. It gets pretty messy too!

Dar and me are sandwich fanatics. I love bread, he loves bacon, bacon + bread, an explosion in your mouth, really. Gave Soupelicious a try just last week. Its an FNB outlet located opposite Carrefour, Suntec.

Cream of Mushroom, Tuna & Cheese, Peach Tea, Sandwich Combo, $11.50

Due to poor lighting, the sandwich picture didnt turn out too well. But for every sandwich combo, you get a regular sized bowl of soup, a sandwich and drink. They have quite a variety of soups for you to choose from. But for their sandwich selection, i'd have to say otherwise. Selection is only limited to 4 different sandwiches, Tuna and Cheese, Chicken Ham, Streaky Beef, and Veggie sth.

They are indeed very generous with their soup serving. I could hardly finish my bowl of mushroom soup. That's the problem with cream-based soups, it can get pretty nauseating after a while. The sandwiches cames served with foccacia bread and chilled marcaroni and ham. The ingredients in the sandwiches are miserable. The foccacia bread wasnt any good either. Tasteless and barely toasted. It gets me wondering whether $11.50 for a sandwich combo is worth it after all. But without a doubt, their soups are value for money and i'd certainly be back for thir soups, only.

Lastly, pasta from Piccolo. Its an italian stall located in the heartlands. Prices were rather steep for a stall operating within a coffee shop. We had ours from the Kopitiam Coffeeshop at Rochor Center Block 1.

Bacon Aglio Oilo, $7

Vongole, $7

Brochures claimed that the eatery is helmed by an Italian Celebrity Chef but he was nowhere to be found at all. The stall was helmed by Filiponos instead. Service was generally okie but the taste department requires some serious improvement. Its so bad i tot Pasta Mania was better. Hahah

Alrightey, its time to prep for school. After which i'm off to the gym and then its WatchMen with dar in the evening.

Pray for me, no, pray with me, will you, that i'd get a seat and get to dine at The Line this Friday.

2009-03-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'd be turning "double 2" in just another 27 more days. Didnt i just turn 21 quite some time back? Extremely bizarre, how time flies.

So here goes, my birthday wishlist, not in order of any prefernece:

- A Nikon D60
- Apple iPhone
- An Ice-Cream Maker (I think dar's getting this for me, LOL)
- A 2 in 1 griller (An open BBQ cum Sandwich grill)
- Kitchen-Aid (In light pink pleassse)
- Blow Torch! (Gawd i want this so badly)
- I wouldnt mind the entire book collection of the "Twilight" series
- Pierre Herme's Chocolate Recipe Book
- Japanese Tapas Buffet at 7atenine! (I've been dying to try this)
- Or perhaps we could go French at Le Bistrot
- Coach Wallet (Dar knows which design)
- A nice big bag that fits everything including my DSLR
- Gym outfit ( A sports bra or tank is fine by me =D )
- Anything Leather
- Ang Baos!

Haha that's about it i guess.

Right now, i'm at TTSH's Starbucks and can i just say one thing?

Their Green Tea Frapp, is simply AWESOME.

2009-02-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

My fingers still reek of garlic. They smell of durian too. But i'm still a happy girl because i got to spend the entire day doing what i do and love best, baking and cooking.

For tonights menu:

Pan-Seared Beef Tenderloin on Asparagus with Mushroom Rogout

Strawberry Delights - A tower combination of peaches, strawberries and strawberry cheesecake flavoured ice-cream garnished with home-made strawberry sauce, almond flakes and strawberry biscuit rolls

Durian Puffs

A menu with no starters but comes with 2 desserts. Haha. All these, baked and cooked with love for dar. It aint any special occasion or whatsoever, i just woke up this morning and thought i'd whip up something special for dar this evening. =D

My bad for the lack of pictures! My kitchen and HANDS were extremely dirty and i dint want to let the dishes go cold/melt (for the ice-cream) as it takes time to get a good shot.

Dar loved his maincourse. It was so good he whipped up every single bit of his most hated - button mushrooms. He dint even leave any for me to try! I'm glad he enjoyed the strawberry dessert as well~ The only blooper were the over-baked cream puffs BUT, the durian sure made up for it. =D

Now do i understand why chefs do not usually eat what they cook. Sometimes, the love for food and feasting aint the sole and only reason for a person wanting/aspiring to be a chef, its usually the desire for cooking, which is an art, really, and also the satisfaction that comes along with it, especially when your guests enjoy your creations.

But what i dont understand is how chefs and fatness go together. Cooking in the kitchen, standing on your 2 feet all day long, stressing over the menu and food presentation, all these are so physically exhausting! I feel so drained you know. It feels as though i burn more calories in the kitchen than at they gym. My appetite for food also diminishes as dealing with food all day is enough to ~~whet~~ kill my appetite. So, tell me, why do people associate getting fat with chefs? Does the size of a chef determine the quality of the food?

Could it have to do with all the sampling? ahah

Hmmmm...just some randomness on my part,

....and some food for thought

2009-02-24T15:32:00.000-08:00

Strange as it is but i've been craving for curry this week. All this while, i've never been a fan of Japanese Curry but that plate of Japanese Curry i had last Wednesday has got me craving and wondering when i'd get to have my Japanese Curry again.

The accompanying Pork Katsu was equally satisfying. =)

And if you hadnt known, i am a very HUGE fan of minced meat. In dialect, we call it "Ba Chor". So after school on Thursday, dar and i had HillStreet's BCM located at Crawford Lane.

It doesnt really matter if they didnt give the extra ingredients like meatballs,fishcakes,mushrooms and what not because they sure gave a generous helping of minced meat! Oh, the chili was really good. Its not everyday that i ask for chili you know. Unless you can give me a better alternative to ketchup, then chili will have to suffice.

Shared a plate of fried golden mushrooms and fries ($4) from the western stall next door.

BOO! The fries were served cold and the quantity miserable. Double BOO!

So how do couples actually go about deciding where and what to have for their meals? In my case, its really simple, dar always makes me decide. He's really smart you know, always taking the initiative to sms me the "what shall we eat today" question. I love food, and it never is easy to think of one definite place for a meal. Especially so when foodies like myself want to eat almost everything, this and that and that too. Haha. You know what i mean.

And as dar's "GPS" (i actually have to turn his helmet left or right if i want him to turn left or right respectively), i landed us both at Bedok Interchange's Food Center for dinner last friday. My cravings can be infectious, which is precisely what got dar craving for curry too. Having known this food center for its curry chicken noodles (its my grandma's fav), i tot i'd give this place a shot to see if there are any other stalls that sell curry chicken.

And yes, there was one!

Bought a loaf of soft bread, for dipping, from the bakery opposite. We had to top up 50cents for extra curry gravy. The chicken drumlets were very tender and the curry wasnt overly spicy and oily either. Not as good as grandma's but still worth a try. In fact, we'll be keeping a look out for better tasting curry chicken.

After that, we rode down to Geylang Lor 29 for my fav pork satay.

I like them for their chunks of fat. They also add pineapple into their peanut sauce.

And i made another sandwich! This time, i sauteed the swiss cheese with the mushrooms. It was a delish gooey mess. Slap in some honey baked ham and an omelette and you're done.

Easy peasy breakfast.

2009-02-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

A 2 day school week + no work = lethargic me. Many people are extremely envious of the amount of free time i have because compared to them, they have hardly any at all! haha that's really eeevil. But oh well, having loads of free time can be pretty stressful too. One could die of boredom or insanity. Talking about "dying", i had a very close encounter with death yesterday.

I swear it was green man. The pedestrains from the opposite side of the road were crossing. I was just ONE STEP away from the main road when suddenly, a HUGE truck sped by. Obviously he beat the red light! And he was SPEEDING! And what i found disturbing was the driver didnt even HORN. He'd still be in the wrong but if he did horn, it'd warn me of his presence at the very least. I dare not imagine what kinda injuries i would sustain if i had dashed across the road, or, taken that one tiny step...

So drivers (including me of course, haha), please think twice before you decide to beat the red light. Your irresponsible actions may cost someone else's life.

On a happier note, i did alot of baking and cooking this week. Prepped a tiramisu for dar, baked a quiche and stir-fried a plate of bacon and ham aglio.

As i didnt have time, i made use of ready rolled shortcrust pastry for the quiche. The ingredients consisted of bacon, ham and button mushrooms. Sprinkled swiss cheese slices and oregano leaves on the surface.

For some reason, the top view of the quiche kinda reminded me of the scallop and prawns thin-crust pizza from PastaDeWaraku.

And one things's for sure, i do not like Japanese style pizzas or pastas at all. They may look appetizing but seriously, dont you think they taste odd?

Dished out a bacon aglio for lunch just a few days back.

This time, i experimented it with white wine. I think i'd prefer red wine for a more robust flavor. But, today's aglio was a little bit bland as i added too little salt. Haha, my bad. At least its better than dar's! Muahaha.

And after school last thursday, dar and i rode down to Commonwealth for some simple Cze Char. We shared a plate of buttered pork ribs and hotplate tofu with minced meat.

I prefer to call the pork ribs pork chops. In fact, its one of the must order dish when you're here. Prices here are reasonably cheap and almost everything on the menu is tasty. 2 Chef's Eating Place, that's the name for you.

Just to side-track abit, Business Policy class is THAT boring. Lame, is how Faye describes it. This time, they spent 30 minutes debating over whether itunes was a strategy of diversification adopted by Apple. You know what, seriously, i don't really care. My simple minded brain just knows that itunes is a media-player application for consumers to download their music, organize their song files or listen to music.

Okie, back to the topic.

All you KPOs must be wondering how i celebrated v-day this year. Sorry to disappoint but i dont celebrate v-day. Its just another day to me but before you call me a spoiler/loser, i must clarify that i do not object to couples celebrating this very special day at all. =))

But, i did surprise dar with some gifts though. Haha.

Its a home made card! See the pink paper with hearts adorning it?

That was purchased 1 month ago from an art shop at Wheelock. I found it really pretty. It was a must-buy and so, i conned myself into believing that i'd find a use for this for Valentine's day. Unsurprisingly, i brought it home and chucked it into my bookshelf, along with my other art stash. One day prior to Valentine's, i took it out, glued a sheet of aluminium foil at the back to give it some support, cut some letters out from an outdated issue of 8-Days, ransacked my room for markers and ribbons, and viola, a hand-made poster card with love!

Ignore the Lip-Gloss, and the sentence beside it, those were cut-outs from the Benefit Cosmetic magazine. Absolutely Random! haha and of course, if you look carefully, you might actually spot PONYO!

That's not all, dar also got a photoframe, with a picture of the both of us!

The picture was cropped and printed using my 3in1 photo printer. Awesome. I must admit that the photoframe was a gift from Mervyn at our secret-pal gift exchange night last union camp. HAHA. Rather than let it collect dust, why not put it to good use right?

See! No money involved/spent at all. Unless someone's willing to pay me for my effort. =Pp

As for our v-day dinner, nope, we didnt dine at some fancy restaurant. This year, we dined at Margaret Drive's Open-Air and very Run-Down hawker center. Shared claypot chicken rice for 2. It was THAT good. Certainly worth every penny and the 45 mins wait. Haha.

OHH! I whipped up breakfast for dar on Valentine's morning too! It was an extremely oil-laden breakfast with 2 long Chipolata Chicken Sausages, 1 fried Sunny-Side up, a slice of Ham, 3 strips of Streaky Bacon and 2 pieces of toast with butter. Haha, that's one way to make your man fatter than you.

If you notice, i didnt call it a Valentine's Day Breakfast as i had no intention to whip him breakfast at all. Dar decided to drop by my place in the morning so i simply had to make do with whatever i had in the fridge. Yes, my fridge is well-stocked. Haha.

Two years ago, the breakfast i prepped for dar (this was specially made in view of v-day) had semi-cooked bratwurst, not round not square pancakes (haha!) and a perfect sunny side up which almost got me crying as it was my first attempt at frying eggs. Fast forward 2 years and im now a pro with eggs. I can seperate the whites from the yolks too!

=P

2009-02-07T23:59:00.000-08:00

It seems that i've been abandoning this blog for well, quite some time, but apparently, guilts' brought me back. So here i am, back once again, to rant my stuff.

Quite some time back. the family and dar made a trip down to the Marina Barrage. The breeze and the view, simply wonderful. In fact, its open-roof grass patch kinda reminds me of NTU.

And just one week ago, dar and i made a second trip down to the Barrage! Not for the view, not the breeze, not a picnic, nor for a kite-flying session, but, to have some ice-cream! No, let me correct that, its not SOME ice-cream, its ONE PINT of ice-cream.

Its also not just ONE PINT of ice-cream but one pint of D24 pungent smelling DURIAN ice-cream! And to think i consumed an entire pizza just 2 weeks ago. Thank god i don't have IPPT. Haha

OOH, i baked potato skins too. With mozerella and bacon pieces below.

I didnt like this potato and i found the process all too tiring. In fact, i ended up with 2 burns on my right hand. The one on my pinkie was pretty bad. The skin practically came off. Which got me wondering whether i was baking potato or human skins. Bah~

The FLU BUG got me this week. My nose was leaking real bad, and then came the sore throat and phlegmy cough which sounded like i could die from too much phlegm in my lungs. Skipped HRM on Tuesday, made an attempt to go to school on Thursday but left after CRM as i started feeling feverish halfway through class. But, with some baking therepy, the flu bug was gone by Friday. To cut the long story short, i baked a total of 4 pandan chiffon cakes while "recuperating" at home. =Pp

I quite like it! Mom was pretty impressed. Grandma found it too sweet (which aint anything new because she finds everything sweet) while dar's parents whipped it all up within one morning. The recipe called for a baking time of 45 minutes but the cakes came out 95% baked, so next time, i'm going for an hour. And, i would love to see if the usage of fresh coconut juice and pandan juice would enhance its taste significantly.

Alrightey, that's about it. I'm going to sleep hoping that my body clock wouldnt wake up at 8am like it always does. I'm tired, really. I just want to wake up at 10am, is that too much to ask for?

2009-01-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

School is lifeless. The lessons are dry and the people there are nothing more than lifeless morons. The classroom is half empty/half full and i wonder whether anyone is ever done pretending. The lifeless crisis i'm experiencing right now sure is bringing out the dead in me.

Let's just get on to blogging about my love, food. Food is good, Food gives you energy, Food bonds people together, Tasty food lifts up your spirits, Beautiful food pictures brightens up ones' eyes (which reminds me, i ought to start saving for my DSLR), Food gets people talking, Food gets people travelling, Food gets people hunting for the cheapest deals, Food gets people queuein, Food is all around us and that is something we cannot deny.

Just a month back, dar and i had Pizza for dinner at Da Paolo's Pizza Bar.

Its one of the better places that serves great pizzas. That night, we shared a pepperoni with cracked egg pizza. Of course, with extra mozerella.

Their parma ham pizza and smoked salmon pizza are worth a try too.

Fresh baby spinach tossed in taleggio cream cheese dressing with shaved pieces of parma ham, sweet cherry tomatoes and croutons

One of my favourite salads from Da Paolo. It is now dar's favourite too. Haha. If you prefer something less cheesy and lighter on the palate, why not go for their mango, avacado and shrimp salad? Pretty appetizing too~

Rode off to Prive at Keppel Bay later in the night. Prive, one of my favourite chill-out places in Singapore. In fact, its not so hot and windier at night too!

Dar and me shared a slice of Chocolate Hazelnut Praline cake and as for drinks, we ordered a peanut butter milkshake and a cup of iced cold valrhona chocolate.

I love the cake! We both did. Pralines and Hazelnuts are easy to fall in love with.

Having tried the milkshake before, i opted for no jelly/jam as it only enhances its sweetness. And what we have is just a milkshake filled purely with sinful lashings of peanut butter. Peanut buttery goodness~ BUT, steeples does a meaner peanut butter milkshake. And cheaper too. Heah

I was quite disappointed with the valrhona chocolate. It was a little on the diluted side and was slightly bitter. I guess i'd still prefer my chocolate hot.

OOOH, i know this is extremely unrelated given that CNY is just round the corner but here are some pictures of the christmas tree i helped my aunt set up! We've been using this tree and its ornaments for god knows how many years! See those star lights? They are from Ikea. Love them.

And just recently, Dar and i made a trip down to Ice-Cream Gallery. Eunice's recommendation for their Durian Ice-Cream was what brought us there. I was quite skeptical initially as their durian ice-cream had no smell at all! How can a pungent-less durian be potent? But boy was i wrong, because their durian ice-cream was full bodied durian ice-cream. Go try it to know, much better than U.D.D.E.R.S in fact.

Prices at Ice-Cream Gallery are also relatively cheaper than other ice-cream joints. Scoops are bigger too! And did i mention how good their cookies and cream ice-cream were too? French Vanilla is used and tastes pretty similar to the very-nice vanilla ice-cream from Ikea! And yes yes, now i know where to get my red bean green tea ice-cream fix too.

YAY to Ice-Cream Gallery.

You've got yourself another fan!

2009-01-15T17:43:00.000-08:00

School is crap.

Business Policy makes no fucking sense. Spending 1.5 hours debating over how comparative advantages and profits are related is indeed bullocks.

"Confusion is alright. Embrace Confusion. Be Comfortable with it.."

That's what i took home from class today.

Seriously, i didnt sign up to become a more confused person.

Seriously, Seriously!

2009-01-13T21:14:00.000-08:00

First day back at school and i must say it went pretty well. Had my fave ma lai gao as usual and an orange mango juice which tasted sweeter than ever. Spotted one or two familiar faces, Mari's one of them, am pleasantly surprised that she's chosen to do another sem here instead of heading back home to Germany. Lovin' it in our sunny island, doesnt she? =)

Do bear with me dearies because what im going to show you below are ~~overdued pictures~~ pictures that are bound to get you salivating and your gastrict juices running. Don't say i didnt warn you~

With all the craze and hype surrounding the drama serial, The Little Nonya, how can one resist the urge to indulge in some peranakan food, or i shall i say, dessert? As me and dar had heavy dinner already, a bowl of chendol and durian pengyat was all we settled for from PeraMakan.

Chendol

Durian Pengyat

The durian pengyat is oh-so-goood! Durian flesh is prevalent and they sure don't stinge on the amount of durian used here. As for the Chendol, it was just alright for me. I'd prefer the ice come in smaller shaved pieces, not chunks. Still, nothing beats a bowl of authentic chendol from the true blue Malacca itself.

Miguel Forbes has a list of the Top 20 Forbes Most Expensive Celebrity Weddings, i, on the other hand, have a top 20 list of must-have snacks/desserts. One of them, being the humble Apple Strudel! A FRUIT-based snack/dessert, how sinful can that be?

For no rhyme or reason, dar and i thought we'd drop by Renaldo's for some strudel. We always have room for dessert you know. Hah.

I've had disappointing experiences with apple strudels over my past few visits but this one was really good! The pastry layers were crisp, the cream wasnt very overwhelming and the apples were sweet! Everything blended perfectly.

I like my apple strudel not for its apples but for its crisp pastry. What about you?

Another snack which ranks on my top 20 list of must-have snacks/desserts would be the Kaya Toasts from Chin Mee Chin. Without a doubt, the best ever. Chin Mee Chin is housed along East Coast Road and unlike the other Kaya Toast joints in town, CMC chooses to retain its rustic old-school charm.

Served hot from the toaster, these buns are oh-so-goood with the melt in your mouth combination of butter and homemade kaya.

They do serve them with the conventional white bread slices too. Did i mention how much i love BUTTER? Even the store owner was surprised at how a girl like me didnt shun away from butter.

Their luncheon meat buns are not to be missed either.

Half-Boiled Eggs

A kaya toast best friend. Haha.

And how could i forget BROWNIES! Yes, Mind Cafe's Brownies are one of the better ones i've had. In fact, its the only one me and dar head to for our brownie fix.

Black & White Mind Cafe Brownies

Lastly, ICE-CREAM! Who doesnt love ice-cream? Me, dar and my family are loyal consumers of ice-cream from Tom's Palette but sometime back, we thought we'd give U.D.D.E.R.S a try.

Mao Shan Wang Durian Ice-Cream

Green-Tea Ice-Cream

Not the best but they sure have very good liquer ice-cream!

A chalkboard full of recommended ice-cream flavors from the public. Just cast your votes with the chalk over there.

And finally, a non-food picture.

Have you seen this girl ridding pillion on a 1098 on the streets during the christmas season? Think harder! Haha.

That's all i have for you today. We shall continue again when i'm done with my top 20 list of must-have desserts.

Peace Out!

2009-01-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

After weeks of procrastination, i've finally got down to blogging it. Heah.

DimJoy, a joyful dimsum experience indeed.

Located along the shophouses of Neil Road, DimJoy is pretty accessible via foot and car. Do keep your eyes peeled for it as a small-sized signboard like this kinda makes it obscure from sight.

Arriving slightly before 12.30 in the afternoon, Dimjoy was surprisingly quiet with vacant tables and all. But do not be deterred as the office crowd started pouring in slightly after 1pm and according to one of the waitresses, they are usually at their busiest during weekends.

Menu

Very red, very chinese oriental. Dimsum selection over here aint very extensive. Items like my favourite Fried Prawn Dumplings (Har Kok), Yam Puffs (Wu Kok) and XLBs (Xiao Long Bao) were'nt found in the menu. And to kick-start our dimsum feast, here's a basket of Har Gao and Siew Mai, a common sight in all dimsum eateries.

King Prawn Har Gao

Siew Mai

To me, a good Har Gao must contain a fresh-juicy-big-crunchy-to-bite prawn encased within a thin smooth layer of skin. DimJoy's version was almost there, except the prawns weren't as BIG as how a KING prawn ought to be. Still, yummy. Haha.

Siew Mai's, what more can i say? I quite enjoyed this as it didn't reek of oil and pork and yes, the taste and smell of those black chinese mushrooms was absent. Just the way i like it.

Honey-ed Char Siew Bao

Soft and Fluffy. A pity there was too little char siew filling. Else, it would have been a very enjoyable bao.

Char Siew Cheong Fun

Silky and smooth with a generous serving of chopped charsiew and some greens. The sauce compliments it very well. In fact, i quite like this. The cheong fun aint overly starchy and thats how i like it to be.

Fried Beancurd Skin Rolls

As described in the menu, this dimsum is entirely vegetarian. I couldnt exactly make out the ingredients inside but there is definitely no trace of pork/prawns. One thing's for sure, mushroom. The rolls were nicely fried with traces of tempura batter on the exterior. Coming rather strongly on the beancurd taste, i still prefer the non-vegetarian version of the fried beancurd rolls that come with prawn and sometimes, mango. Ummm.

Pan-Fried Carrot Cake

If you like your carrot cake to be fried to a golden crisp, then you might not enjoy this. DimJoy's didnt come across as being overly starchy and oily. In fact, i could still make out the strips of turnip inside my mouth!

Char Siew Sou

These are not pineapple tarts, they just don't look like your typical triangular char siew sou's. But don't be deceived by its looks, these char siew sou's, though small in size, are very addictive. Honey'ed char siew, similar to the ones found in the char siew baos, are also used here. The ratio of char siew filling to pastry is proportional. What i love most about this is its very fragrant and buttery pastry skin. Its not drying and cloying and best of all, it leaves behind a very sensational buttery after taste!

They should pack these into a container and sell it off as chinese new year goodies. YUM~

Custard Bao

You should know by now that i am no fan of custard. The only custard i eat is Beard Papa's and Tampopo's cream puffs. And the only reason why i order custard baos from dimsum eateries is because of my love for SALTED EGG YOLKS. Anything with salted egg yolk and you're bound to see it on my order list. The custard baos over here came steaming hot to the extent where the bao was oozing out molten custard. I couldnt detect the salted egg yolk, what a pity, really. But nevertheless, one of the better places for a custard bao.

Lingnan Egg Tarts

I was very hesistant to order this as i do not adore egg tarts from dimsum eateries. The reason being its small size and un-flakey crust. However, after reading a few positive reviews on DimJoy's eggtarts, we decided to give it a shot. We had to wait at least 15 minutes for these as they were still basking in the oven. Haha. Freshly baked egg-tarts, that's what we had. And the verdict? Acceptable but not to-die-for. The crust could have been flakier and it was obviously not buttery enough for my liking.

All in all, the dining experience here was pretty pleasant. Staff are attentive, prompt and approachable. A meal like ours costs appx $21/pax. The baskets of dimsum are affordably priced, ranging from $3-$4 a basket. Do not expect variety, expect simplicity. Dimsum items are not high in salt content, coming across as rather light and healthy. Another visit i will definitely make and this time, im going for their claypot dishes.

Till then, tata and have a happy MOO year!

2008-12-30T23:41:00.000-08:00

What do you do when you're hungry?

Eat

What do you do when you're bored and hungry for home cooked food?

Cook.

Yes, that is precisely what i've been occupying myself with lately.

As you can see below, that's my very first attempt on poached eggs aka eggs benedict. Which, kinda failed. Haha.

I love my ham and eggs. I love it even more when the egg yolk is molten potent. Haha. especially when it drizzles down the sides of your bread. Sinfully good, i know!

And i prepped brunch for baby too! The dish consisted of streaky bacon, shaved ham, a sunny side-up and tomatoes sitting atop toasted walnut bread slices. There were asparagus and sauteed mushrooms by the side too!

So what do you do with leftover walnut bread? Create a triple decker sandwich! That's what yours truely did. Heah.

Melted cheddar, Honey Baked Ham and Omelette. Tasted pretty awesome. Wait till i lay my hands on some smoked salmon and cream cheese.

And when you get really sick of ham, why not switch to chicken?

Chicken fillets, button mushroom, fried bacon and a sunny side up served with a thick slick of cheddar cheese bread.

Cheddar cheese bread from BreadTalk, one of my personal faves.

One can never get sick of cheese, how true.

Because i baked CHEDDAR and herbs scones for the christmas party!

They turned out more like crispy savoury biscuits than scones. LOL. But still tasty! And smelled really good.

Prepped a fruit bowl too. With a carved out pineapple for the bowl of course. There's strawberries, starfruit, kiwi and peach slices. Ummm.

And when you run out of ingredients in the fridge, what do you do? Improvise, like me.

Pork Floss and Peanut Butter on toasted gardenia. Sounds like an extremely weird combination but obviously i had no choice but to make do with whatever i had left in the kitchen. =)

And when you are sick of bread and toasties but still yearning for some carbs, what do you do?

~~pamcakes~~ PANCAKES!

Rolled up crispy pancakes dusted with white and cinnamon sugar. Sugar Spice and Everything Nice.

And for some strange reason, im having a terrible itch for cheesecakes. Mango and Lemon cheesecakes!

Till then, Happy Christmas and a Happy Holidays everyone!

2008-12-20T23:44:00.000-08:00

Pardon me for the lack of updates. At this rate, it appears that i have reached the impossibility of blogging a current entry. The pictures are just piling up, at a much faster rate than i am posting entries. Im so gonna kill myself. BAHH

A few months back, dar and me made a trip down to T3's TCC for light dinner.

My green tea red bean drink.

Would have been better if it had been creamier and less diluted. The red beans were good though.

Dar had his usual seafood aglio with the addition of smoked salmon.

I had something really light of course.

Beef Mezza Tofu.

I cant do without my cheese.

The quality of this dish tends to vary somewhat. This one today was pretty acceptable. The one at Clarke Quay was really delish. The worst one has got to be the one dished out from Shaw House's outlet.

It is important for the cheese to be thick and gooey with the tofu firm and not overly soggy. That's a good standard for you. =)

Dar dar fixing his ~~bomb~~ portable ERP Unit. Runs on batteries!

And then one evening, after school, dar and i had dinner at the pretty nearby Alexandra Market and Food Centre.

This place, if you've patronized it before, its famed for their Avacado Juices.

So of course, we had a Avacado Peanut to share. Its almost like a healthier version of peanut butter. Except green in color.

Shared some Cze Char dishes from this particular stall manned by an elderly couple. Its a stall recommended by a friend of mine, so why not let dar try it for himself too?

I like the stock used here. And i LOVE the charred parts. Wok Hei, they call it.

Ordered a plate of sweet potato leaves to share as well.

What else can i say? Its sweet potato leaves at its very best.

The family also brought grandma out to dinner one evening. This time, at Toa Payoh Lor 8's Food Centre.

We shared a couple of dishes here and there. One of them, being rojak.

There's this particular corner stall that sells really yummy chicken wings and satay. Do note that its accompanied by an extremely long wait.

And last but not least, here's a recommendation for you!

Duck Kway Teow! I'm more of a pork and chicken than duck fanatic but this place that im about to share with you serves really tasty braised duck! To me that is. Haha.

The duck meat is thinly sliced, the kway teow is smooth, and best of all, its housed within a very traditional ol'school coffeeshop. Its situated opposite the market/food centre at Tiong Bahru and also houses the well-known scissors curry rice. Now i believe you all know which one im talking about. Heah~

LIC's bugging me to start a food blog. I think i should, i want to as well, but, plain lazy. Oh well, we shall see.

For now, Peace Out~

2008-12-13T01:10:00.000-08:00

After a long afternoon of shopping around town, i (together with a fren) made my first visit to Royal Copenhagen's Tea Lounge ~~to rest my aching feet~~ for a round of afternoon high-tea.

Being our first visit here, opting for their high-tea set was a no-brainer really. Their high-tea set comes with tea, sandwiches. their ever-popular scones and a slice of cake.

And no, you dont get to choose your tea. In case you're wondering, its lipton tea by the way, served with sugar cubes and milk.

As for their open faced sandwiches, we went for their smoked salmon and baby shrimps.

I like smoked salmon. I really do, which kinda explains the frequent visits to TCC because 70% of the items in their menu contain smoked salmon.

IMHO, i found the portions too small. But then again, its high-tea, everything's supposed to be bite-sized right? Haha.

For the scones, we chose Rose Hip and Apple Jam from their selection of jams.

Thought we'd be a little more adventurous by steering away from the conventional blueberry, raspberry or strawberry jam. And a good choice it certainly was. =)

Butter and cream were also given to pair with the scones.

Please don't shoot me scone fanatics because i seriously found this scone very ordinary. It smelt better than it tasted but that doesnt mean its all that bad. Maybe im just not a "scone" person. Or perhaps, i shouldnt have come here with too high an expectation.

To end off the meal, we had their much raved about blueberry cheesecake and some tart.

I like the cheesecake. Surprisingly, the cream cheese wasnt on the heavy side. You know how some cheesecakes make you feel so full after a while but this one here actually made me want to eat more with each mouthful. The tart was pretty good too. The layer of raspberry sure gave this dessert an interesting twist.

Will i make a return visit? Sure, but prolly not for high-tea. Am looking forward to trying their main courses, the salmon one espcially. Heah.

2008-12-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

It was months ago but i thought it'd be nice to let you in on my little "excursion" to Kampong Glam. =)

If not for my class assignment - a photo essay consisting of a short write-up on our visit to a ethnic enclave of our choice; i doubt i would harbour the thought of making a trip down to kampong Glam anytime soon or in the near future.

Obviously, the opportunity presented itself this semester.

Pictures speak a thousand words right?

Haha~

I love Haji Lane. Prices may be a little steep but the things they sell are so unique and individualistic!

A real pity they dont have fixed operating hours. You really have to try your luck. Sometimes they open, sometimes they dont. Sometimes they open till late, sometimes they close shop even before the sun sets. Temperamental indeed.

Did i mention that i love vintage items! Like this shop over here, some toy museum that not only has vintage items for sale but also toys which your parents or grandparents played with when they were a child!

And.I.Want.This.Microphone

Haha. $250, if i remember correctly. Its way cheaper on Ebay, seriously.

Proceeded to Bugis for some food and AIRCON after the longer-than-expected session of photo taking under the sweltering heat. Kinda had a craving for RBGT (Red Bean Green Tea), hence, MOF it was.

Ramen, a chef recommendation on the menu.

It wasnt bad and neither was it very good. It was palatable and acceptable. Peanuts, yes, i rmb it tasted something like peanuts. I love nuts, you know? Hah, random.

And then it was dessert time! My favourite part of every meal. Geez

Green Tea Ice-Cream served with Adzuki Red Bean, Mochi Balls and Roasted Almond Flakes is LOVE. This is so GOOOOOD!

Green Tea Ice-Cream with Japanese Sweet Potato.

Wasnt as good but still tasty! A hot & cold combination. In fact, they named their desserts "imo" something. Imo, Emo, Hmmm.

Am so falling in love with RBGT.

Bahh~

2008-12-05T23:10:00.000-08:00

One day, Two days, Three days, and still counting. Its been the holidays since the 18th of November and i've done nothing more productive than engaging myself in a DVD marathon. I swear, i didnt sign up for this. Its Grey's Anatomy we're talking about, not any random DVD which i picked out from the stash in my closet. Oh yea, RANDOM. Gosh, i need a Haitian to erase those memories please.

We're talking about my life. My god damn life. Have you ever wondered what is up God's sleeves sometimes? Or have you ever questioned yourself how God actually knows what is best for you? He is God, right? So He should know right? Like who i date, who i choose to spend the rest of my life with, where i study, whether i become a Chef in the future, how many kids i have, whether i name my baby girl Giselle or Kaylen, the car i drive and all the other material stuff. God knows right? Its destined to be. I am destined to reign. Right?

So many questions. So few answers. This world is filled with so much uncertainty. It aint just about what the future holds, but also, about what the next day, the next week or even the next month may bring us. Sometimes, it gets so crazy, sometimes, it gets so cranky, sometimes, its so peaceful. so quiet, and still, we dont feel happy. What's happiness? What is it to love? What's love? There's no reason to love. We just love. Don't we?

Sometimes, we just want to forget. To put it all behind us. We have to, in order to move on. Move on. That's over-rated. Fight, is the new move. Fight for what you want. Fight for your happiness. Just fight and never let go.

Space. Yes, we need space to think. Not to space out and stare at nothing. But space to really think about what we want. Space for me, for you, for us, to breathe.

Its amazing how we actually have the power to hurt the people around us. Even when we so don't mean to. But in reality, we end up hurting ourselves most of the time.

I wish i had the power to turn back time. No, sometimes, i wished i never existed. But i did, and there must be a reason for my existence.

Nuff said.

I'm rambling, as usual.

2008-11-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

Keppel Bay, one of the many few places that recently made it to the top spot of my "Favourite Places to Chill" list.

Enjoy the sights of the calming deep blue sea, the many big and small yachts', the gastrobars and restaurants and feel yourself being transported to yet another holiday destination altogether.

Even the drive through this man-made infrastruture sends a sugar rush.

I'm thinking wedding shots even.

Just these two words, Keppel-Bay, floods my EMO saturated brain with happy thoughts.

=)))))

After my first visit to Prive@KeppelBay, i immediately knew i had to bring dar here.

As much as i would love to, I don't always, in fact, very rarely have brunch, but brunch at Prive kinda made me realize how awesome brunch actually can be! They are for lazy-mornings and they are certainly stress-relieving and mood-lifting!

It wasn't the best breakfast but it was without a doubt the bestest breakfast experience i've ever had!

And so, i made a trip down to TCC for some drinks at its Keppel Bay outlet a few weeks after my first visit to Prive.

This time, with my camera fully charged and ready on hand.

Imagine TCC situated on-board a two story yacht, with the sun setting in the background, sipping coffee and tea, chewing on scones and fancy sweet treats, while the waves lapped gently against the sides of the yacht... wait, your other half's missing! Hahahah, somebody wake me up please!

The Interior...

Anyway, dar had his boring Oreo Frapp while i had a Litchi Tea Freeze.

Litchi Tea Freeze is simply a combination of lychee and peach, which i thought, was very good! There was a right balance of lychee and peach, with none masking the flavor of the other.

Indeed, Keppel Bay is an awesome place.
I could dream of living here forever. Talking about living here, dar and me actually made a visit to The Reflections ShowFlat. It was amazing. What with the full glass panels and open bathroom concepts. How can one resist the possibility and ability of waking up to a sea-view that's oh so stunning?

Gawd, i'l so love you if you bring me to Prive for Brunch again. Haha. But seriously, it gets me wondering whether i'm actually paying for the food or for the ambience. Who in the right mind spends more than $50 on breakfast for 2 when Cheese Pratas', or Chin Mee Chin's kaya toasts and runny eggs could easily have benn a satisfying and very affordable breakfast? In fact, i just whipped up a very sumptous breakfast, consisting of walnut rye bread, philly cheese, bacon, smoked premium ham, poached eggs, and sauteed asparagus and mushrooms, for Dar! Haha

Oh well... some random shots...

Keppel Bay, till then, we'l meet again.

=)

2008-11-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

Below is a series of ITALIAN food which me and dar consumed over the past 1-2months, starting with the most recent, yesternight, at Peperoni Pizzeria.

Located at 6 Greenwood Avenue, this place sure aint accessible for those coming via public transport. But if you, like me, are looking for a nice dining spot to escape the crowd, noise and heavy traffic, then this is one place not to be missed.

The weather was pretty cool as the heavy downpour had just subsided 10minutes prior to our arrival. Gets you craving for a bowl of hot ramen noodles but hey, sharing a 12inch large pizza and sitting at their warm-lighted alfresco dining area aint all that bad you know? Heah

Pepperoni Pizza

I have to admit, i love pepperoni pizzas! To the extent where i'd stock up on Pepperoni/Salami from Carrefour and prepare pepperoni mozerella sandwiches everyday for lunch at home. Awesome stuff.

Pizzas at Peperoni Pizzeria come in 3 sizes. 9inch for the medium pizza, 12 inch for the large and 21 inch for the XXXL pizza. Its HUGE. H-U-G-E! I believe me and dar would have boldly chosen the 21inch family pizza if we didnt have late lunch at Mien.

In fact, no electrical ovens are used here. Only the conventional wooden fire furnace (its that what you call it?! haha). The crust of the pizza is extremely thin and crispy! One cant help but feel like he/she is eating a very crispy naan. With such a thin crust, the 21inch pizza shldnt pose a challenge for the FAT COW. Hahah

My only gripe? The pizza was a little too oily and limp due to the thin crust. However, plus points for almost excellent service. We'l certainly be back for the XXXL Pizza.

But my preferred choice for pizzas would be, and still is, from Da Paolo Pizza Bar. Its located along Chip Bee Gardens, Holland Village.

The open concept kitchen

We shared one of my all-time favourite salad and a pizza. Pardon me for the poor picture quality as i didnt have my camera with me that night.

I cant remember the names of the dishes exactly but the salad actually contains baby spinach, baby tomatoes, parma ham, croutons and for the dressing, melted Taleggio Cheese.

Ingredients for the pizza include pepperoni (Again, i Konw!), cooked spinach, extra mozerella and a cracked egg! Freak, i love cracked eggs.

Damnn, this is one good pizza. Da Paolo's pizza just has that WOW factor which is apparently absent in all the other pizzas i've had to date. I should just shuddup and let you savor the pictures. hahaha

Oh! Not on the same night but we also had pasta from Da Paolo, La Terrazza. Its located just a few restaurants down from the Pizza Bar.

Dar had his usual seafood alio (safe choice) while i opted for some crabmeat based home-made pasta.

Its pretty good but the pasta was a little too thick for my liking and cream based pastas always fill me up very quickly. To sum it up, i think Da Paolo's pizzas fare better than their pastas. Its decent but i've had better pasta's elsewhere at much more affordable prices.

A friend once brought me to Alforno for dinner and their aglio olio is so good it'd be a crime to keep it a secret. They were currently having a one-for-one DBS card promotion and it'd be a waste to not bring dar there for dinner.

Seafood Aglio

Clams in White Wine

P.S. The mussels do not come that way. Dar arranged them himself. Haha, itchy fingers.

The spaghetti was done al dente and it was full of flavor. One good pasta indeed.

But nothing beats Mien right? Cheap and satisfying. Hahaha!

Its been more than a year since dar and i dined at Wild Rocket. My first visit to Wild Rocket was 2 birthdays ago. It was dar's special surprise. Hah! Sweet~

Wild Rocket is a Fusion restaurant helmed by lawyer turned chef Wilin Low. Its located all the way up at Mount Emily. Not exactly inaccessible as coming via foot is still a feasible option. You'll just have to conquer the long flight of steep stairs. Haha.

Seafood Crustaccean Oil Spaghetti

Another confession, i do have a soft spot for crustaccean oil based pastas.

As for the pasta we had, i'd say its something different, something we've never tried before, something you'd most probably not find in other places. In fact, it kinda gets addictive after a while. I personally felt that it tasted like the chinese fried seafood beehoon. Except this, was certainly tastier. But then again, its fusion! - where italian meets chinese.

What.A.Really.Long.Entry

In short,

Dar loves his pastas' and calamari's. I love my pizzas and cheese. We simply love anything italian.

Its a no-brainer, really.

2008-11-23T10:03:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming and what do people normally do prior to this festive season?

Organize a Christmas Party/Dinner, Save up for the pre and post christmas shopping sale, Sip on Toffee Nut Lattes at Starbucks, and create a wish (i prefer to call it a want) list just like ME!

My Christmas WANT-List

Not in any order of preference:

1. Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia
2. IPOD Touch, 8GB, 2nd Gen
3. IPOD NANO 4th Gen, RED
4. MacBook Air (The new Macbook's fine with me too)
5. Nikon D60
6. KItchenAid, Light Pink
7. Black Tight Leather Pants
8. Ankle Boots
9. Coin and Card holder from Coach (Dark Brown Gold)
10. Spon me a hair-makeover (color and soft curls)
11. A trip to Tokyo =))))
12. Samsung Flat Screen (7 series)
13. Home Theatre System
14. PUMA Ring shoes (Black and Gold)
15. A romantic waterfront dining experience at Saint Julien
16. or, impress me with your cooking skills! =)))
17. Surprise me

This christmas, is going to be so much fun.

2008-11-20T23:23:00.000-08:00

*Tonight, Tonight i Wana Be With You*
*You Be The Prince & I Be The Princess*
*I Love You That's All I Really Know*

2008-11-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

A few weeks back, just shortly after our Genting Trip, Dar and I went to Changi on a Mini Food Escapade!

First up, for lunch, Carrot Cake!

I've heard and read many positve reviews about this place but it wasnt until after months of contemplation did i finally manage to drag my ass down here.

To my surprise, the coffeeshop wasnt very crowded for a saturday afternoon. Our orders arrived shortly within 10minutes.

White Carrot Cake fried with Chye Poh, lots of egg and Ikan Bilis. You have to understand that yours truely aint a fan of carrot cake but loves her carrot cake for the presence of fried egg. Stalls that dish out carrot cake with more egg than turnip usually is a bonus for me. In fact, for some reason, this version of carrot cake seemed to serve as a reminiscence of my early childhood days. Would have been much tastier had the ikan bilis been more crisp.

Standards tend to be inconsistent as well. I wasnt as impressed after trying it the second time.

Compare it to Chey Sua Carrot Cake, the latter's still my preferred choice.

Next, Mee Sua for dinner!

For sides, we shared sweet potato leaves and beancurd.

Dried Shrimps are love! Over consumption does activate the ezycma on my fourth and third finger but oh well, i cant help it, i really love dried shrimps, prawns, seafood, bla bla.

Can't exactly remember but i believe we had pork mee sua. Its definitely not pig kidney becuase dar and i, dont eat kidney/liver/stomach at all. No, maybe he does but i certainly dont, never and refuse to.

A very affordable dinner indeed. Total bill amounted to $14 for 2 pax. Happy!

Plus! It doesnt make me feel FAT.

*smiles*

2008-11-19T13:33:00.000-08:00

SCHOOL'S OUT! The past few weeks were a HELLuva rollarcoaster ride. Days of consecutive sleepless nights, staying up till the wee hours of the morning staring heavy-eyed at the white screen. You know what pisses me off? My body clock screwing up on me, especially on those nights when i could afford to sleep. Prolly am suffering from a bout of stress related insomia. What more can i say? Well, lets just say i'm pretty sick of report writing, surveys, interviews, analytical shits and ppt slides. Bahh.

But but, somehow somewhere i managed to squeeze in time for FUN. HEAPFULS of FUN JOY AND LAUGHTER indeed. =D

Let's just start of with my Genting Trip which took place approximately 6 weeks ago. Yeah, terribly outdated. Shoot me.

PICTURESS!!!

I think carousels are so PRETTY.

I think i've aged. Rides no longer thrill but scare me. Kiddy rides seem to entice me instead. Can't seem to find the GUTS i once had anymore. =(

But then again, i would so love to go back to DreamWorld at GoldCoast Australia. Bah, shoot me again for contradicting myself.

In short, Genting was pretty much a BORE. The food was mediocore (fed myself silly with loads of ice-cream, cupcorn, cakes and other junk), the weather was colder than ever, the casino guard thought i was under-aged, and perhaps, the only saving grace, was the company i had.

OoH! Starbucks@Genting served really yummilicious ham and cheese toasties! They were extremely generous with the serving of ham! Heapfuls after heapfuls of them. N the cheese! *Drools*

Ice-Cream!

And lastly,

I seriously do not know what he's doing to that monkey's ass.

More, and i do mean MORE updates coming up soon =)

2008-10-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

I know its been AGES since i last wrote an entry BUT, i do have my valid reasons!

School work's killing me.

In fact, i have lots to share with everyone.

I will be back,

promise!

=)

2008-09-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

A pity its on the 29th of September.

Dar collected his new ~~toy~~ ride today. Smiling gleefully from ear to ear, behaving just like a small little boy.

I hope i don't end up being his "side-kick"

=/

2008-09-21T23:49:00.000-07:00

Visited The Coffee Connoisseur yet again. N it seems like they've revised their menu, with the addition of many new items and the removal of old ones. I kinda miss their smoked salmon linguinne and beef panini sandwiches though.

Did i mention that prices have risen too? Its quite a substantial increase too!

In fact, nearly everything we ordered is something new from the menu. For drinks, we had one of their latest offerings.

It comes with a shot of matcha green tea, adzuki red beans, and latte. Personally, i kinda preferred their adzuki bean cooler to this. The latte sort of over-powered the taste of green tea. But the waitress was kind enough to provide me with a double shot of complimentary green tea upon learning about my complaint/feedback that it was tasteless and yadayadah~

Dar had his usual fare of seafood aglio.

This time, with the addition of extra pasta and smoked salmon. Total price? 27 freaking dollars. Wondering why its so expensive? I'l explain it later.

As for me, i had one of a Smoked Salmon Avo-Bayon sandwich - Citrusy smoked salmon draped with luscious avacado mash and topped with a thin layer of sabayon sauce, served between baked walnut rye bread.

I found the word "mash" to be quite disturbing. Haha

All in all, the bread was good, the smoked salmon was even better. I didnt like the avacado one bit. It got quite nauseating after a while. The sabayon sauce tasted a little wee bit like mango. Still, i'd prefer salmon to go with either cream cheese or wasabe mayo. A perfect combination altogether i'd say.

And how could a sweet-tooth like me leave without having desserts?

Strawberry Romantasia - Enchantingly sweet strawberry parfait with a tiara of fresh strawberries crowning layers of more strawberries. One of their new and latest dessert offerings in the menu.

There's strawberry sorbet, strawberry compote and chunks of crushed cookies inside too. Look at how pretty it is! Even the description makes you feel like a princess eating it. What with the words like " enchanting", "tiara" and "crown". Haha Kinda succumbed to temptation. How could anyone resist not ordering it?

And back to the "Why Dar's Seafood Aglio's so pricey" topic. Apparently, it costs $4 and $5 to add smoked salmon and spaghetti respectively. What i dont understand is how the addition of spaghetti can cost more than the addition of smoked salmon! In fact, one of the waitresses even informed us that the addition of spaghetti is equivalent to that of another portion altogether. But look at the picture, does the plate seem to be over-flowing with pasta? Eevn so, i found it unjustifiable to charge such a hefty sum for the addition of spaghetti which i felt was barely noticeable. Even a packet of italian spaghetti from the super-market cost less than that. If i'm not wrong, $3.95! And it can whip up more than 5 plates of Seafood Aglio Olio. At $27, i think i'd be better off having italian pasta from Da Paolo and Wild Rocket.

Obviously, knowing myself, i couldnt leave this matter lying and pretend that nothing has happened. Emailed my letter of complaint and apparently, one of them said they're currently investigating the matter and would get back to me shortly next week. I sure hope something is done.

Hopefully, i wouldnt be black-listed/end up being categorized inside their nasty customer list.

=X

2008-09-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

9 days since i last blogged! Only 9 days but i'm starting to feel like i've lost touch/about to lose touch with my blog.

School work's been tying me down lately. Its amazing how the workload keeps piling up at an ever increasing rate. Had to forgo sleep two nights ago to "pia" my report. The tutor who assigned this individual project's crazy. I bet she didnt analyze how much work her students had to do. Only 20% for so much tedious work and sleepless NIGHT. Plus it costs me $7.80 to print my report in color!!! Knowing me well enough, i didnt print it in color of course, it's so not worth it.

N i'm a really happy girl today because next week's RECESS WEEK! Plus, we're going to the Zoo at freaking 8.30am on monday as part of the requirement for our Services Marketing Project. And then, there's a very interesting field trip to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) scheduled a 3pm next tues! Come wednesday, its back to school for 2 project meetings and let's just say, dar's finally gonna ride me back from school with his brand new red hot duke. =D

Before u know it, we're off to Genting for a 3D2N holiday. How cool is that. A Holiday Gateaway. Just what i need most right now.

Anyway, here's some pictures and quick updates for the past few days/weeks.

A review on all-things-chocolatey by 8 Days.

Chocolates and Cakes, makes me smile and keeps me smiling for minutes. Still, the best chocolate's i've tried have got to be Neuhaus' Chocolates from Belgium. Royce prolly comes in second. Oh, how could i forget my beloved Roche's and Kinder Beuno's?

Chcolate Race Car.

Anyone knows what prevents it from melting and turning into a puddle of molten hot chocolate?

After having a strawberry shortcake from The Patissier, i'm starting to fall in love with shortcakes like totally. Still dont quite take to the taste of cream but the strawberries go so well together with the light vanilla sponge and crunchy biscuit base! What a treat~

Dim sum'ed with dar over at Chinatown for Dinner. Yes, apparently this place serves dimsum throughout the day.

Some of the dimsum we had:

Dimsum's supposed to be healthy but just take a look at how many fried items we ordered. Fried : Steamed, its almost like a 10:1 ratio

Seriously, this stall needs to work real bad on improving the quality and taste of its dimsum offerings. To make things even worse, all our dimsum items came cold. Basically, don't expect too much from this eatery. Afterall, its just a humble coffeestorehouse. Its not St.Regis for a reason.

Oh, check out my BagPage. Its part of an assignment for one of my modules. Its pretty fun to do acty. Many thanks to Malee esp. I didnt forget u girl! *winks*

Shall continue with my dining experiences at TCC and Sushi Tei maybe sometime tmr.

Sleep is what i need right now!

Peace out.

2008-09-10T23:26:00.000-07:00

Broke, so terribly broke. So many friends turning 21 this year, so many presents to get. Sometimes, i wonder whether we're getting presents out of true sincerity or whether we're getting it just for the sake of not going to a party empty-handed.

First up...

I didnt get her a gift but BAKED a gift this year. Yes, cupcakes, a joint effort by yours truely and nene!

Took the day off from work and spent the entire morning, up till early evening, baking. Nene was of a great help! Without her, i really wonder how i'd find time to wash the countless number of bowls, cups, and what nots.

Cupcake Flavours: Vanilla Cupcakes with Diced Strawberries and Almonds topped with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting, Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Chips, Adzuki Red Bean Paste and Matcha Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting, and last but not least, Espresso and Kahlua Cupcakes with roasted Walnuts and Coffee flavoured Buttercream Frosting.

Cabbed down with Nene to The Capri, Steven Roads. Dinner was catered food from Timbre. I like the CHEESY Lagsania. The smoked salmon and beef stew were good too!

Fast forward to the 6th of Sept, we have J.X's 21st.

It was a BBQ held at Meville Park. Dar tagged along as well. It was nice catching up with the GV mates.

N yea, i've finally tried Jolly Shandy's Peach flavoured drink. I couldnt exactly detect the peachy flavour though.

Before arrival at JX's party, Yisi took us for a drive around Bukit Timah/Cornwell Street. We went house-seeing. I swear i could throw party's everyday if i lived in one of those man-made "castles".

I wonder why he closed his eyes. Bah~

Genting, 15 more days

Ducati 1098, 13 more days.

Recess Week, 11 more days

Asian Markets Quiz, 8 more days

Product and Brand Management (TCC) report, 7 more days

BagPage Assignment, 5 more days

Me Crashing Out, now.

2008-09-05T23:41:00.000-07:00

Can you spot the rainbow? I think its really beautiful, dont you?

This one was taken in the bus

This was taken right outside my bedroom window.

It sure is a HUGE bow. I always wonder whether one can walk through the 7 colors of the rainbow, assuming the ends end on a flat surface. In the first place, can one actually find the 2 ends of the rainbow?

Speaking of rainbows, i can't wait to show you my new helmet. Pretty in Blue with stars, rainbows and what nots. I find public transport to be very expensive. One train ride to school already costs me a "hefty" $2.30. Even a litre of petrol doesnt cost that much! In fact, i'm keen on getting a vintage scooter so i can ride myself to school/work everyday without having to worry about being stuck in traffic! Best of all, i get more sleep!

I wana own a car soon! Driving is therapeutic. Baking is even more therapeutic.

SBS is screwed up.

Like totally.

2008-09-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna so crash on my bed after i'm done with this entry. Try having classes and project meetings, back to back, from 9am to 7pm. My brain cells were burned out by mid-day. I swear i couldnt even process a single question during our Promotional Marketing Class. For once i pray that i'd fall sick. So i can at least get an MC, stay home, rest and sleep.

Its bizarre to learn that i'm actually consuming more food when i'm in campus. Before class, in-between breaks and after class. Its not that i'm extremely famished, it's just that my mouth's itching for a bite. Or again, it could be due to S.T.R.E.S.S.

Anyway, dar and me finally got down to having ice-cream from Tom's after more than a month of procrastination and what nots. Made a trip down specially last SATURDAY to try their new flavour of the month, Tiramisu.

That was written by my and fatty 1 Year 5 Months ago. Once on a piece of scrap paper now scanned, embedded, printed and plastered on the dining tables of Tom's Palette. Do keep your eyes peeled for them! Heh Heh.

I would give it a 4.6 out of 5 rating on my Shiok-o-Meter. The taste of the liquer was very distinct in the ice-cream. I didnt quite take to the Grapa though. N the funniest thing happened. Me and dar accidentally banged our heads so hard i suffered a blue-black on my right brow. Terrible!

After desserts, dar accompanied me to the nearby Food-For Thought for a seminar conducted my Le Cordon Bleu School. Yes, i so want to go to the one in London. Refreshments were specially prepared by Chef David of Food For Thought. His Stewed-Pork Sandwiches and Choux Puffs are so darn good.

Walked over to the flaoting stadium thereafter. Caught Korea's Fireworks' Display. I didnt find it spectacular. Pretty boring i'd say. Thank god those tickets were given free for they sure aint worth 18bucks.

And on SUNDAY night, dar and i had dinner at Tampopo yet again! I suggested Ma Maison at first but dar, being a very boring foodie, was quite against it and hence, Tampopo it was.

Nothing beats having a bowl of steaming hot ramen on a cold chilly sunday night.

After you have this, Ajisen Ramen's nothing but crap "fast-food". Totally incomparable.

Ordered two of these semi-hard-boiled eggs. I'm not a fan of egg-yolk but this is really yummy! Just look at how it oozes out!

Shared a Pork Loin Cutlet as well.

This is a must-have at Tampopo. Had their Top-Grade Pork Loin on our first visit, hence, went for the normal grade pork loin this time around. I must say both are still very good BUT i personally preferred the Top-Grade version. It contains more fats, which melts in your mouth. I always feel like i'm on cloud nine whenever i bite into it. Its called Top-Grade for a reason. Else, why the need to differentiate them.

Now that i've tried a really good piece of Tonkatsu, i really wonder whether i'd be bias/judgemental/able to find a restaurant that serves a much better tasting black pig. The hunt for the black pig ultimately begins NOW.

That's a start. Hahahah.

2008-08-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Its been raining cats and dogs for the past one week. My flats actually went from white to black. The soles came loose and i was forced to chuck them in the bin. Oh well, with my flats gone and heels stolen, i guess its high time i get myself a pair of brand new shoes.

Met up with the project babes over at Wheelock's Starbucks for a ~~cuppa~~ project meeting. I had my all time fave drink from Starbucks - CHOCOLATE CREAM CHIP! Dar bought me a packet of icing biscuits from the biscuit confectionary.

One Buck for a huge bag of colorful gems. There's something nostalgic about it, and they sure know how to put a smile onto my face.

Its pretty addictive too. Everything was gone in 2 hours.

Dar joined me and the family over at my place for dinner tonight. Dad ta-baoed dinner from Astons. In case you don't know, they do have an outlet located at Tampines Street 11 and another one's opening just 3 blocks away from my home soon.

Dar had a medium rare with FRIED sides, i had a char-grilled chicken with cold pasta and coleslaw for sides. What a starking contrast from dar's. Mom had their terribly awful spaghetti while dad had their fish and chips, the safest of the lot. Garlic Bread was shared amongst all, it was far too hard for my liking.

In fact, i kinda personally prefered their chicken to steak. They do offer a variety of sides (hot & cold) for customers to choose from but seriously aint fantastic. Do stay clear of their pastas and don't come having high expectations for their steak for standards tend to vary from time to time, location to location. They dont charge GST over at Aston's. Food prices are pretty reasonable and affordable too. As i've always stated, taste can be very subjective. I, for sure, will not be returning to Aston's anytime soon but do give it a shot if you havent. You might actually like it. Who knows?

I do believe that i'd be better off having my fave chicken chops/cutlets over at 462. Give me Kenny Rogers anytime too. Oh my, their corn muffins are the bestest ever!

2008-08-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

SOMEONE stole my pair of black patented heels today.

I'm pissed with how that SOMEONE could resort to such a low-lying act.

Eventhough it aint dar's shoes that got stolen, he's kinda strangely affected by the lack of security in his neighbourhood.

To the extent where he's harbouring thoughts about purchasing and installing a camera outside his flat.

I hope those thieves get nabbed really soon.

Its not about returning those stolen items (who knows how many they/he/she has stolen) to their rightful owners but rather, upholding justice and putting a fullstop to all these nonsense.

To that SOMEONE who stole my pair of black patented heels, you dont deserve it and neither do i deserve to have them taken away from me.

Pfffff.

2008-08-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

SWOLLEN LIPS. I know it sounds really stoopid but i actually bruised my lower lip while attempting to give dar a peck. Apparently, his big hard head crashed into me at the wrong place, wrong time and wrong angle. It was painful. I swear my lips went numb for 3 minutes. Look carefully and you'll see a 1cm scar on my lower lip. I call it, a sweet gesture gone wrong. Phwah...

Have been really busy these past couple of days. So busy i hardly even have time for myself. You dont wana know the number of times SBS pissed me off. Yes, i seriously dislike public transportation but that's gonna change really soon. Yeah, soon. My appeal has finally, and i repeat, FINALLY, been processed. But whether its successful or not is yet another story altogether. And i just discovered that i have 5 U/E's to clear next sem. Plus Business Policy, it'l mean 6 modules to graduate for next semester. Blehh. Its gonna be my last semester and i'm thinking about taking up some interesting modules. Like learning French! Muahaha.

Anyway, here's a quick sum up of the week.

Yes, i had another cake from The Patissier. This time, its a Green Tea Bravarian - Smooth & Silky Green Tea Mousse with a Chocolate Layer, Rum-Soaked Raisins and Green Tea Sponge. Its pretty good! Redbeans would go so well with this dessert! Not in the picture but i also shared a Mandarin Chocolate with Claris, and a Jubilee with XH, just a few days back. Jubilee'S really pretty while the Mandarin Chocolate wasnt exactly to my liking. Reason being, it was far too rich and one mouthful's enough to make me feel as though a sore throat's on its way.

Moving on, last Saturday, Dar, Me and Kengy had lunch at Hong Lim. We had Popiah and Chicken Curry Noodles. The popiah's very traditional and consumers get to choose between 2 kinds of Chili. The normal or extra spicy chili for chili lovers. This one in the picture is extra spicy, chili-padi spicy in fact. Hence, the redness. Curry noodles, IMHO, were pretty alright... in fact, its my first time having chicken curry noodles! A spicy lunch, alas!

CUPCAKES for tea. Dined in at Paisley & Cream. We shared a Mango and Tiramisu flavoured cupcake. The mango was pretty tasty but latter was somehow lacking in flavor. Don't really fancy buttercream either. Give me real dark chocolate ganache anytime babe.

And on Sunday (yes i know its extremely outdated but i have to blog it eitherway else i'd feel unaccomplished), dar and i had hokkien mee for dinner over at Geylang Lor 29. Still as good as ever. Its burnt, packs wok hei flavour and i just love it la. Ordered Satay from next door. Kwuong's Satay, if i'm not wrong. We both liked it. 35cents a stick, that's rather rare these days.

On Tuesday, me and the girls (Yisi and Sze Hui) decided to indulge in some good food. Yu Qing and her French friend joined us too! So it was 5 of us, having yummy dimsum, at Jade Palace. We chalked up a total bill of $86. Pretty expensive but certainly worth every penny. At least i've found a dimsum restaurant that offers Custard Buns served with SALTED EGG YOLKS! I'm not a custard lover but pair it with salted egg yolk and it becomes a world of difference. Heh. In fact, all of us had classes at 3pm after that. Next time, no more such heavy lunches because after that, the sleep demon always wins.

I guess that kinda sums up almost everything.

I just had dinner over at Kampong Glam Cafe. Mee Soto! OMGawd you dont know how long i've been craving for this! It wasnt the best Mee Soto but oh well, its mee soto nonetheless.

I'm tired.

Nite Nite peeps.

2008-08-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

I didnt expect school to be much more mentally and physically exhausting than work. All the sleepless nights and early morning classes sure is taking a toll on me. 3 hour in-between class breaks aint very pleasing either. Hopefully the school buys my reason and the appeal for an earlier class slot goes through.

Lunch'ed at Vivo just the other day. Thought i'd give FRE(N)SH a shot.

Ordered their Salmon Tartine, which comes served with slices of smoked salmon and cream cheese atop a piece of sourdough bread. The salad was nothing spectacular.

Yes, its kinda obvious that i'm very into salmon and cheese lately. This tartine, i felt, was pretty good! It was a reminiscence of the Salmon and Cream Cheese Toastie from O'Brien's but FRE(N)SH is so much tastier! Quality of ingredients used here is also much better.

In fact, Ham & Cheese Quiche and Chocolate Tart were their appetizer and dessert of the day respectively. Both were equally and extremely tempting! But didnt grab any as i was on a DIET. LOL. Tang is gonna shooot me.

Kinda regretted leaving FRE(N)SH without having their Chocolate Tart for dessert. A second visit to FRE(N)SH i must!

N the best thing? They dont charge GST!

Going back to the corner where I first saw you,
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag now I'm not gonna move.

2008-08-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

So i got the car, picked dar up from work, and drove out for dinner.

Royal Copenhagen, Wild Rocket, The French Stall, Cilantro and Ma Maison were some of our brainstormed options. We Singaporeans are truely spoilt for choice when it comes to food. I even needed the help and advice of ladyIronChef's! Muahaha.

To our unsurprise, we ended up dining at TCC, Clarke Quay instead. All dar's fault. Haha!

For once, i chose al fresco over indoor dining. We each had pasta for our mains and shared a drink and appetizer.

Dar and i went for the usual Seafood Aglio but mine came with additional Smoked Salmon. Strange how i love Salmon but yet dont fancy Sashimi.

For appetizers, we shared a beef tofu gratin! As the name suggests, it comes served with smooth white tofu and minced beef covered with a thick gooey heavenly mess of Mozerella Cheese.

Its delish! I could have this for my main anytime!

For drinks, we went for their Azuki Coffee Cooler.

Its simply Latte with lashings of red bean. Something sweet and something different for a change.

Pictures aint very clear but i must say that we both had a very satisfying dinner indeed. I suppose you might also already know that TCC has become one of our favourite haunts for fuss-free food. In fact, we were so satiated from dinner that my tummy simply had no room for desserts from the Nectare (I believe that's what its called, oops)!

Oh well...

Prolly next time, i should start with dessert first.

2008-08-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

I cant believe this. School officially commences tomorrow. Is this for real or am i totally dreaming it all?

I really wonder how i'm gonna get used to:

1) Attending tutorials (this time, its 3 hours of sectionals!!!)
2) Lugging my Laptop from home to Campus and around Campus
3) Waking up early to catch the bus
4) Having Sandwiches for Breakfast Lunch and maybe, Dinner
5) Projects, Presentations and Group meet-ups (Hooray to NO EXAMS, i repeat, NO EXAMS, this semester)
6) The long bus rides
7) and my most dreaded 3 hour in-between sectionals break.

Phwahhh

Anyway, dad let me drive yesterday! Driving alone is so much fun! Picked dar up from his workplace before driving out for dinner. Drove to Suntec to get some ribbons too. Ohhh, dar bought me a THICK Baking book from Border's Book Fair at The Expo too! So sweeet right?

Got down to decorating my Tiramisu yestermorning. Glazed the strawberries, cut the sponge fingers, laid them around the 4 sides of the cake and tied a ribbon to give it a finishing touch. The whole family (excluding my mom, dar and kengy) all fell for our LIE. Hahaha. Only to discover later in the evening that the cake, wasnt from The Patissier, but from Pam's kitchen. =P

N i'm really thankful because God obviously heard my prayers and removed the lumpy cream lumps! I swear i could still see it, and taste it, just this morning! Messed up with the heavy cream but eitherway, it was a dessert well-enjoyed by all. Am pleased to see that Uncle, the birthday guy, is extremely surprised and impressed with it. All the hard work in the ktichen obviously pays off. That's the kinda satisfaction i truely enjoy.

My blog's gonna be experiencing a lack of pictures for the next 1-2 weeks. Camera's going on another trip to the States. Why not me Me mE?

Alrightey, gotta go pick dar up from work now. Yes, dad lent me his car again! Yipee~ Apparently, the company dar's working for has relocated from the Ubi to Expo area. Hence, the overtime and all. But its only for this weekend and the pays' brilliant. Heheh.

So i guess its Ta Ta for Now folks.

2008-08-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

HAPPY
NATIONAL
DAY!!!

2008-08-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, after 3-4 hours of baking and sweating it out in the kitchen, i finally get to relac one corner. As requested by Kengy, i got down to baking a 1kg Tiramisu for Uncle's pre-birthday celebration tomorrow evening. BUT, i over-beated the heavy cream, added a little too much Kahlua, and POOF, lumps started forming! ARGH! Somebody shoot me please.

An appointment tomorrow at Cali.Fitness, it appears that they are throwing some sort of National Day party cum Buffet. Am having second thoughts right now about attending it as i'm dreading the Fat Analyser Test. After all, the cakes i consumed during the week is enough to add on 1 or maybe 2kg, to my original weight. BOO.

Yes, i had an Empress Dowager - Smooth and Rich Strawberry Mousse cake with Raspberries on a crunchy Chocolate base.

This is good. Its soft, light and not overly-sweet. The chocolate base is simply fantastic. I could eat this for dessert everyday. I mean, the chocolate. Heh.

And this over here is their The Patissier's signature cake! Its called a Passionfruit Meringue and it comes with a generous dose of chopped passionfruit, strawberries and mango. Simply delish~

This is a Marquise - Hard and Dense Chocolate Cake with Rum Soaked Raisins, Almonds and Biscuits. Its really hard, and really dense. But sinfully tasty.

Had an Indulgence as well. Its basically a Milk Chocolate Praline Mousse Mud Cake with a crunchy Chocolate Base. Shared it with Claris. Crunchy Chocolate Bases are so delightfully addictive!

Just two days ago, the family also got to try whole cakes from The Patissier. Namely Chocolate Chewy Mellow (Rich Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake with Marshmellows, Nougats and Nuts) and Tiramisu. They were left-overs from filming. Apparently, they are filming Xin Hua Duo Duo Kai Part 2. N a Big Thank You to Claris who bought me muffins from Missy Muffin at Amoy. =)

Had dinner with dar at Chinatown just two nights ago. Had a Bratwurst with Bun from this stall located along Smith Street.

The bun wasnt grilled properly. Everything tasted pretty mediocore. Not something i'd eat again. BOO.

Also, i had dinner with my beloved aunt at Amoy FC yesternight. She had Tong Fatt's Chicken Rice while i had Lei Cha. Tot i'd go for something healthier you see. =P

In case ur wondering what Lei Cha actually is, its simply rice served with chopped vegetables (long beans, celery, green leafy veggies), bite-sized beancurd, anchovies and peanuts! You can choose between brown or white rice and every bowl comes served with green tea. The green tea's prepared using matcha powder, some herbs and hot boiling water. There are also several ways to eat this dish. You can choose to pour the entire bowl of green tea over your rice, or you can choose to have your rice dry, with the soup as a side. I prefere the latter.

I'm still crossing my fingers and secretly praying that my Tiramisu will turn out fine, no, more than FINE, tomorrow. I even baked Sponge Fingers today! Ahaha. And i have to glaze my strawberries, which will be used for cake decor, tomorrow morning.

Dear Lord, please please please remove the lumps from my heavy cream.

2008-08-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

After all that baking and feasting on restaurant desserts, it was time for some low-fat comfort food for dinner. Porridge was what we both opted for. Also ordered a plate of tofu to share.

In case you're wondering, this porridge stall is actually located in Chinatown. Its situated along Smith Street, across McDonald's (if i rmb correctly). From what i observed, they seem pretty popular with their claypot dishes. Getting a proper seat and table sure aint easy during peak hours.

IMHO, i personally do not like the porridge at all. It was far too grainy for my liking. What more its extremely watery consistency. Ingredients were scarce and miserable. Perhaps it could be purely coincidental but the porridge sure looks like hospital food. BOO. The tofu was rather average tasting, passable i say.

Also, during the mid-afternoon, i brought dar to Galicier, an ol'school cake shop in Tiong Bahru, to try their Ondeh Ondeh's! Its Orangey, its Big, and its Juicy. Just look at how molten the gula melaka is!

Yes, the sides are extremely clean and free of coconut shavings because yours truely licked them all up.

Geez

2008-08-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

Attended a Baking Workshop at Palate Sensations. A class of 6, together with Lynette, the M.D of Palate Sensations, were taught how to prepare restaurant desserts - Crepes Suzette, Chocolate Souffles and Panna Cotta with Berry Compote.

I really truely enjoyed the Crepes Suzette! If not for the tedious prep work, i might just consider whipping this up every morning for breakfast. Pana Cotta's were pretty good too! Don't be fooled by its tofu consistency for it sure contains a helluva heavy cream FAT. Souffle's on the otherhand were extremely light and airy. Consisting solely of pure dark valrhona chocolates and meringue, this dessert certainly doesnt fail to excite ur tastebuds. However, i personally do not quite take to the flavor of chocolate souffles. It tends to give me a nauseating feel, which is very strange and unheard of for a chocoholic like me.

1. Panna Cotta with Berry Compote

2. Chocolate Souffle

3. Crepes Suzette

And remember the last time i blogged about Kengy's B-day Cake from The Patissier? Yes, the picture's finally here. I hereby present to you the Croquembouch! Haha, even i had difficulty pronouncing it.

40 mini Profiteroles, sitting atop a 6 inch crunchy chocolate praline base. Aint it beautiful?

In fact, my camera kinda screwed up on me today. Images on my screen suddenly appeared chrome-like and pictures captured under bright light turned out looking disastrous. Brought it to see a doctor at Sony's Service Centre BUT the service personnel just couldnt find any particular fault with it. And boy was she right, my camera was perfectly fine. Bummer.

It aint just the camera alone. My laptop's also giving me a hardtime. Just the other day, a black screen appeared, with a message telling me to re-start the system. Also, it cant view livejournal websites! BOO! N as mentioned before, my HP also chose to crank up on me by automatically deleting all my pictures, ringtones and mp3s!

Grrrr..looks like technology and me dont go so well together afterall...

2008-08-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

As promised, here's a quick review of The Mummy, which i caught 2 days ago with Dar at The Patissier's Movie Screening Event.

Two Words. Immortality and Mummy. That's what the entire movie's about. An unrealistic 1 hour 40 minutes movie consisting of non-stop entertainment, excitement and suspense. It got me laughing quite abit too. 3 popcorns is how yours truely would rate it. Pity the rather cheesy ending else it would have earned itself 3.5 popcorns.

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Celebrated Dad's B-day with a song and Double Chocolate Praline Cake from The Patissier yesterday. Actually, its TWO cakes. One of the Chef's had an extra Mango Basil and thought he'd give me one before he left for home. How sweeet!

Part 2 of Dad's B-day celebration was held today at Crystal Jade, Tampines Mall. Uncle, Aunts and cousin joined us too. We had Brocolli and Spinach (egg style), Beancurd, Cereal Prawns, Soya Sauce Chicken, some Curry, Coffee Flavoured Pork Ribs and Seafood Ee-Fu Noodles.

No pictures yet again but they were more or less pretty average tasting. The Coffee Flavoured Pork Ribs kinda stood out from the rest. CJ"s rendition of Ee-Fu noodles were pretty good too! Certainly better than those dished out during wedding dinners. The downside? Some of their items were rather bland and portion size aint directly proportional to their prices. I'd still prefer to order items from their ala-cart menu though. Overall, if i were to compare tonights dinner with Pu Tien, the latter definitely wins hands down.

My phone's getting all cranky with me again. Previously, the battery was drawing current from electrical sockets. That problem was fixed appx 1-2 mths ago. BUT just yesternight, it deleted all my mp3's, ringtones and pictures without me doing anything! POOF! Everything was gone in just a split second!

I need a new phone. Like seriously.

2008-08-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

How do you define a COPYCAT?

If he/she/he-she is called a COPYCAT, does that then make you a CAT?

No? Yes? Maybe? I don't know?

Blogs are created for our own personal use and we bloggers have the freedom and rights to blog whatever we want. What kinda images to upload, what kinda blog design/template to use, how we edit our images, whether or not we make use of canveses and even what kind of music we play on our blogs, all these are beyond your control. Its called ~~consumer~~ blogger sovereignty. Unless of course, you're telling me that you own these designs and can sue me for infringement of property/copy rights.

1. Do you own Adobe Photoshop or any other digital imaging software?

2. Were you the FIRST to start a "food blog?" I highly doubt so because there are many floggers i know who started way earlier than you. As a matter of fact, i blogged about them before you eventually did, does that then make u a copy-pam? Hmmm.

3. Are you the only one in Planet Earth who makes use of Canveses? From what i know, this is a very basic photoshop tool and many people from all walks of life use it. Be it in facebook, friendster, blogspot, livejournal, flickr and many more. If your name is not called Canves, then please, dont get paranoid when others use it as well.

4. Do you also dare deny that you havent bragged on your blog before? Sths, bloggers may not intend or mean to brag but readers tend to misinterprete and judge their writing tone as a form of bragging. If uploading images of your branded purchases aint bragging, den the word bragging ought to be given a new definition.

If you've answered NO to all the questions above, then i suggest you stop putting others down for you are certainly one CAT who's not justified to do so.

period

2008-07-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

Bruised and beaten up. That's how my body feels right now. Which is akin to that of a Roti Prata getting flipped, spanked, fluffed and puffed up.

My abs and tricep area seems to be hurting the most. I can even toss and turn with ease on my bed for goodness sake! Much less drag open the toilet door. Bahhh~

All thanks to Shariff, a ~~sadistic~~ personal trainer from California Fitness. He knew that i was lacking/and had to build up my muscle mass, hence, brought me to one of his so-called "torture chambers" for a 45minute gruelling non-weight lifting exercise. In total, we did 10 sets of abs and arm exercises. They consisted of different styles of body push ups, sit ups and other ab toning work outs. A 120 push-ups in total maybe? That's quite a feat actually, considering how much i detested doing push-ups during my P.E days.

Planned on going for their BodyCombat class (Kick-Boxing) this morning but my ache-here-and-ache-there kinda stopped me from going. I doubt i can punch anything at all. Perhaps its also a good idea to give my tortured muscles some rest.

OOh, i cooked scrambled eggs with button mushrooms for breakfast this morning. Tasted rather bland to me. I did add salt okay! Haha. Brought back a Meringue from The Patissier for mom to sample last night too! She lurves it! So do i! And i believe you all would too! But we're still gonna stick to our order of a Double Chocolate Praline cake for Dad's B-day tml and settle for a 500g Meringue (prolly on a weekend) for they have to be consumed within the day itself.

Pralines Pralines Pralines, i'm sucha sucker for them. It never fails to entice me whenever i see this P word on cake descriptions. =P

Heading out for a movie at Vivo City later in the evening. Its a movie screening event, for The Mummy, organized by The Patissier. Dar gets a free ticket too! Not forgetting free popcorn combos as well. Say Yeah! to sweet popcorns!

My entries look so dull without pictures. For some strange reason, i find it difficult to bring myself to upload unclear/blurred/low-megapixeled pictures. It simply doesnt do justice to the images at all. Camera's coming back tml, hopefully, more pictures this weekend. I wonder what uncle brought back from the states this time. Reese? Donuts? Iphone? Gosh, i would love an Iphone anytime.

Also, i've been doing lotsa research on Le Cordon Bleu London. On their fees, lodging, expenses, loans and other related issues. Its not a finalized decision but its definitely a decision up on my priority list. Am extremely glad to have found a galfren whom i could go along with. Yes, i wont be alone after all. Kinda scary though. =)

Time to hit the shower! Movie Update tonight. No promises!

Ciaoz.

2008-07-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

Have been awfully busy these past couple of days. Hence, the lack of entries and updates. My apologies!

Am also feeling extremely guilty from the over-consumption of cakes at The Patissier. But kinda made up for it with a 3 year California Fitness Platinum Membership. Did a Fat Analysis and they were very impressed with my Body Fat Mass BUT kept commenting about how skinny i was and that i needed to gain at least 8-10kg of muscles. Yes, i am very under-developed and underweight. BMI 17.2?! You gotta be kidding me right.

Anyway, i baked an orange chiffon cake, as requested by dar's mom, just last Wednesday. Decorated the surface of the cake with rather thinly sliced oranges. Dar's dad found it too sweet while his mom felt it could be sweeter. Though i didnt get to sample the cake, I sincerely believe its on the sweeter side (tried the batter you see). Not because of the addition of too much white sugar, but prolly due to the natural sweetness exuded by those big orangey Australian Navel Oranges. Eitherway, i received positive feedback from them both. The entire cake was also consumed within the day itself! Dar didnt even get to try my creation. Haha!

See picture 3 and 4 above? That's a Cocoa Napolean (Light Chocolate Cake with Mascarpone Cheese and a crunchy Praline Base) and a Double Chocolate Praline (Hazelnut flavoured Chocolate mousse with Praline on a crunchy Chocolate Base) respectively. Also had their signature PassionFruit Meringue, Chocolate Fudge, Fruit Tart, Earl Grey Cheese and a Tiramisu! All these consumed within 2 days! The Meringue's extremely GOOOD! Am also considering getting the DCP for dad's birthday. Hmmm.

And come Saturday, the family and i travelled via BUS to Tiong Bahru for Lunch. I never liked and possibly never will like travelling via public transport. The crowd, the squeeze, the endless travelling time, the sometimes cold yet humid airconditioning, the long waits, the drivers who "crawl" on the roads and the list just goes on and on and on.....

Talking about Tiong Bahru, we had lunch at a very Ol'School coffeeshop. Its located directly opposite the Food Centre/Mkt and also housed within the same coffeeshop as the Curry Rice stall. Nope, we didnt come for curry rice today (i'm not a huge fan of it either), duck rice was what we came for. I particularly like the soup though. The duck slices were also very skillfully and thinly sliced, with very minimal duck fats on the side. Also purchased some side dishes, namely pork chops, braised sio bak and fish, from the curry rice stall.

Before that, Uncle also brought us to a very traditional bakery located along Tiong Bahru as well. If i'm not wrong, its called Galicier. We had their Sugar Donuts, Ondeh Ondeh, Coconut Rolls, Tapioca Cakes and some Pastries. Very traditional indeed. I especially like the Coconut Rolls. Instead of the usual brown coconut, here, they use fresh white coconut. Sugar Donut was pretty good too. Always loved them with loads of Castor Sugar. Heh~

And then, for tea-break, we all shared Macarons (Violet, Rose, Salted Caramel, Chocolate, Pistachio), Valrhona Chocolate Eclairs and a Grand Cru Royale Chocolate Cake from CentrePS. The Grand Cru Royale's one of their signature pieces but pricing wise is steeper than The Patissier. IMHO, i personally prefer The Patissier's, Dar reckons they both fare equally. -_-.

Caught The X-Files later in the evening. So Gorey!!! I was practically covering my eyes half the time! A little too much dialogue for my liking as well. The Dark Knight certainly is much much better.

Late dinner across the street. We all had Bak Kut Teh, Teochew style. Its pretty tasty! I havent tried Founders so i wouldnt be able to draw a comparision but according to dar and my aunt, they personally felt that tonight's version tasted pretty on par, if not better, than Founders! So why queue and torture your hungry tummies when you can simply head down the street to have some palatable Bak Kut Teh within minutes!

Alrightey, guess i better end my entry now lest you fall asleep. Shall keep you all updated on my cake consumption (still more to come) and also, my torturing but quite enjoyable sessions at California Fitness. Also, do pardon me for the poor quality pictures. These were taken with my lou ya pok HP camera. Cybershot is still enjoying its holiday in The States. Grrr..

Oh yes, Happy 22nd Monthsary Fatty! HeeHeeHee

Till then, Tata!

2008-07-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

Cupcake Baking Class with Chef Puja (Paisley & Cream) at Palate Sensations.

Its located along Portsdown Road, Wessex Estate. Only 2 options to get there, cab or drive.

Class started promptly at 11am and ended shortly before 2pm. There were a total of 6, including me. Each of us went home with a box of 7-9 cupcakes. I brought home some cupcake decorations too! Pretty Little Things.

Kahlua and Rum & Raisin Cupcakes. I shall just let the pictures do the talking.

These pretty little things not only looked good, they tasted good too! I'd prefer the butter cream frosting to be a little sweeter though.

The family gave Kengy a belated B-day Cake surprise at Grandma's place as well. Cake order for The Patissier's Croquembouch was closed yesterday, hence, cld only make do with Sunday. But it sure made a better surprise. Haha.

Pictures of the Croquembouch are still inside my Cybershot, which is currently enjoying a 2 week holiday in the US of A, New York City! Hence, they will only be uploaded in abt 2-3 weeks time.

As for me, no worries, i'm still with you all in our very sunny yet wet island, Singapore. =)

Lots of L.O.V.E now and forever
pammiez~

2008-07-19T23:54:00.000-07:00

The family and i made a trip down to Ivy Singh's Farm for lunch today. Located deep inside Kranji, a highly inaccessible place it certainly is. It took us 45mins-1hr, via car, to get there. That's one long helluva ride.

A vibrantly lit place laid out with wooden tables and chairs to give one a country home-ly feel. The yellow green walls and colorful drapes on the ceiling sure is pleasing to the eyes.

Surprisingly, despite its inaccessible location, the eatery was still brimming with people! What then is so special about this place? Well, what you see on the farm is what you eat. Her crops (vegetables and fruits) are grown organically, with no addition of medicine, chemicals or whatsoever. Even the fertilizers are 100% organic!

The food items we ordered, down below, are all items from their weekend lunch menu. Do come early for lunch for food items once sold out will not be replenished. They will be simply striked off their chalkboard.

Aloe Vera + Lime drinks for one and all. Kengy, the b-day lady and GM had Fig Tea.

Its sweet and refreshing. I like it.

4-angle Leaves

Black Pepper Tofu with Minced Meat

Sweet Potato Leaves

Brinjal

Chicken Wings

Assam Fish

Everything's very tasty! It took them less than 10 minutes to serve us our rice and accompanying dishes. Service was no doubt prompt and efficient. Impressive.

A very simple and hearty affair. One cant help but feel extremely ~~fat-free~~ healthy.

Explored Ivy Singh's farm thereafter. It was pretty huge, but not very well-maintained. Could prolly be due to the lack of manpower and equipment. Did i mention that her house is extremely beautiful? Its situated in the farm itself and has a back porch that overlooks the lake. Aww, how i wished i lived in sucha house, but not in that area though. =P

Drove out to Eunos for a very very sinful and heaty feast.

DURIANS from FOUR SEASONS CAFE!

They even had an air-conditioned dining area which i tot had a pub feel. With all that air-conditioning, imagine how that place must SMELL!

To cut the long story short, we had the Mao Shan Wang and Golden Phoenix.

Mao Shan Wang, $34

Creamy, Sweet and slightly bitter. Perfect for the sweet-toothed.

Golden Phoenix, $44

More bitter than sweet. The seeds are very small, hence, more flesh. A very good durian indeed. Durian lovers will appreciate this.

Tobie, my dog, LOVES durians. Dad gave him one piece of durian once and he polished it off in less than a min! Like owner like dog. Hahahah~

Trained down to meet dar for our movie session later in the evening. Dar got stuck in the lift! First time ever. LOL

Caught The Dark Knight, at The Grand Cathay, at 715pm. It was fully booked! Got tickets the day b4 hence managed to secure seats for the both of us. Munched on a large popcorn as we didnt have time for dinner.

The movie lasted 2 and a half hours. Its really entertaining, full of action and thrills. Certainly well-worth my $8. Haha. Next up, The Mummy! Gonna get tickets earlier this time around. And i hate it when the people beside you keep rocking their seats. How inconsiderate, BOO.

That kinda sums up my very lengthy post.

Tata for now!

With love, now and forever
pammiez

2008-07-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

COOKIESCOOKIESCOOKIES!!!

Enough baking of cakes for the month, that's for sure.

Mom tells me to stop lest ~~all my guinea pigs~~ start growing sideways. Hur Hur

Today's attempt? Oatmeal Cookies!

Baked them with Alpen's Swiss Style Muesli (Wholewheat flakes and rolled oats with raisins and roasted sliced hazelnuts & almonds) and Dried Cherry Cranberries.

The first batch of cookies were burnt. But i had successful second and third batches!

Ahh, baking is so much fun. Washing up aint though. Especially when butter greases stubbornly refuse to come off your baking utensils/equipment. The trick? Soak them all in a huge bowl of boiling hot water. Viola~

Cupcake Baking Class this Sunday with Paisley & Cream's Executive Head Chef. OOO so much fun!

2008-07-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Sundays, one of my favourites but not exactly the best day of the week. Especially during school term, when MONDAY BLUES hit you the hardest.

Lunch'ed with dar, after his bike practical, at Eighteen Chef's, East Point. One of the most inaccessible places ever. But what to do, yours truely was craving for baked rice. Hence, Eighteen Chefs it was.

The interior...

The restaurant's head chef, Benny Se Teo, who is the only Singaporean to have trained at Fifteen's London kitchen, has reworked favourites at the latter to offer pasta and baked rice dishes that are both wallet-friendly and suited to local tastebuds. The eatery is also commited to helping ex-offenders train as chefs.

One of their specialties is their CBR. No, not a bike model, but Cheese Baked Rice! Customers are spoilt for choice as they can create their own baked rice from a selection of 6 sauces and 13 ingredients. This means a total of 78 mouthwatering variations of Cheese Baked Rice! Interesting huh.

So a Cream Based Chicken Sausage + Minced Beef baked rice it was for me. Dar had Spicy Tomato Chicken Sausage baked rice.

Chicken Sausage & Minced Beef (Cream Based)

I lurve the cheese! Didnt request for XTRA cheese this time around for fear that its creamy base (with too much cheese) would be too over-whelming for my liking. I like how the minced beef adds flavour, yet compliments the cheesy baked rice so well. Definitely a must-have ingredient for your baked rice. Also goes to show that minced beef not only goes well with tomato based baked rice, but also creamy based ones too!

Our student set meal came served with their home-made ice-lemon tea. Its really good. Dar ordered another glass.

Shared a basket of garlic bread. Pretty good and garlicky. I only managed one, dar beat me to them all. In fact, dar even ordered a second basket of garlic bread after his meal! Too good for him to resist i believe. Heh.

Eighteen Chefs, affordable and fuss-free.

What are you waiting for?

2008-07-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

Its been YEARS since i last went to the ZOO. A&W was still here on my last visit, only to be replaced by KFC and Ben & Jerry's! Oh my gawd it truely has been YEARS.

If not for dad's company's Family Day event, a visit to the Zoo wouldnt by any chance make it onto our To-Do list at all. 4 free admission tickets plus some redeemable food, drinks and gift coupons were given. Got Uncle Kenny, Kengy and Dar Dar to tag along.

Below are some random animal shots, enjoy~

What a big phat bushy tail!

These otters are so cute! There's one that couldnt stop performing his back-stroke stunt. He'd dive from one end to the other, flip himself backwards, and the cycle repeats itself. Dive.Flip.Dive.Flip.Dive.Flip

Argh, Ultra Huge Ninja Turtles.

Gi-ra-ffes!

We paid to feed the Giraffes. $5 for 10 mini sticks of carrots, turnips and an experience never to be forgotten.

What LONG and FLEXIBLE tongues they have! They stretch longer than what you see in the picture! I think that's dar patting the giraffe's head. haha

Caught the sea-lions show but dint get to ride the elephants and ponies. But, we caught sight of a beautiful horse! The zoo now offers rides on these horse carriages. Interesting...

Yes, Dar's hand came out at the wrong time. Else, it would have been a very nice picture. Hahah!

Left the zoo abt 3-4 hours later. Oh, and before that, we had breakfast at Causuarina. Teh-tariks and crispy pratas, what else.
Uncle drove us down to town. Me and Dar shared Chippy's Calamari! My all time fave. Yum Yum. As for dinner, we had Teochew Cuisine from some restaurant located along Upper Serengoon Road. We had very yummy ~~Top-Grade Kampong~~ Herbal Chicken, whose pricing is almost on-par with that of Tampopo's Top-Grade Black Pig! But it was certainly worth after dollar and cent. in fact, its gravy makes one crave for more rice.

Just the thought of it makes me wana head back there again for more.

Ummm.

I hope all these pictures bring out the love for animals in you. Tata~

2008-07-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

Attended CHANEL's Make-Up (Hands-On) Workshop last tuesday. A brightly lit place which overlooks a beautiful scenary. What more can i say? Oh yes, there was food, free-gift samples, vouchers and loads of fun with cosmetics too!

Did some baking yesterday afternoon. Baked an Orange Cake, as requested, by my aunt herself. Not knowing what kinda orange cake version (chiffon, layered cream, buttery) she wanted, much less eaten orange cake before, i attempted two different recipes! Hence, you'll see two different kinds of orange cake in the pictures below.

Orange Cake with Orange Glaze

Yes, those ugly holes on the surface of the cake were called for by the recipe itself. The holes were meant to allow your drizzled orange glaze to seep through the insides of the cake.

Orange Chiffon Cake

Dust it with icing sugar and viola, so much prettier.

I personally preferred the Chiffon to the Glazed version. The chiffon was lighter but wasnt as moist as the glazed one. The glazed one was albeit too sweet and pudding like for my liking. I'd suggest adding lesser of the vanilla pudding mixture next time ard. But then again, why would i use the glazed recipe when i much prefer the chiffon? Anyway, Grandma and Aunt tried it and it more than surpassed their expectations. They were so in love with it! Grandma even asked me to bake every family a cake for next years' CNY. Crazy i tell you.

N many thanks to the one particular staff working at NTUC. She was of sucha GREAT help. What ever i couldnt locate, she found in less than 10 secs. One thing i've learnt, cream of tar tar, is not a creamy mixture, but rather, powdered form. To think i tried so hard to find it under the cheese/cream/butter section. What a revelation indeed.

Butter Manju Cakes!

A total of 5 redbean and 5 cheese flavoured butter manju pancakes from the Hokkaido Fair. It took me 45 mins to get these! Seeing the snaking queue everyday, i just couldnt help but be curious to find out what all this hype is all about. Seeing that people were buying $50 worth of these home, they have gotta be good right? Its kinda a reminiscence of how dar and me spent hours queueing up outside Donut Factory. LOL

The verdict? Not worth the wait at all. Dry, boring, and uninteresting. It just wasnt to my liking. Maybe redbean fanatics like CheryCho will enjoy it. Hahaha!

Alrightey, time to shower and get dressed for tonight's date. HoHoh.

We are so going to the ZOO tomorrow, ZOO tomorrow, ZOO tomorrow.

ahaha. Peace Out.

2008-07-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

CHING
CHING
CHING

"You Hear Me Before You See Me"

Creating a stir not only among road-riders but also in the racing world.
Ducati 1098.
Coming your way soon this September.

2008-07-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

OVER THE WEEK...

Banana Walnut Cake

It turned out too be a little too moist and mushy. Could prolly be due to the addition of ~~over-mashed~~ too much bananas. But grandma and mom loved it. She even asked me to make this for Chinese New Year! Will certainly give it another attempt, with a little bit of recipe tweaking of course.

Banana Pancakes

What else but delightful pancakes for breakfast.

Open-faced Sandwiches

Whipped this up for lunch. Very quick, easy and fuss-free. Served it with some kind of wholemeal nut grain bread. I like it. Toasted especially. Ummm.

Smoked Salmon & Cheese Toastie

These, are from O'Brien's Sandwich bar. Had them for lunch one weekday afternoon. That was after dropping some books off at the library. Yes, i spent the entire morning walking from place to place. Argh, tired legs.

Carrot Cake

Baked this last friday. I dig the cream cheese frosting! Its a little on the heavy side but still, awesome! Compared to all the other cakes i've baked, this one has got to be the most tedious of them all. I've no idea why but i just felt extremely shagged out by the end of it.

Oh, and we visited Tom's Palette twice over the week! All thanks to dar's idea. They made him a really "gao" or dense peanut butter milkshake! Super sinful i tell ya. Still, Steeple's the best! They wanted to sell us their old ice-cream machine for $3k too! My goodness! How many cups of ice-cream do i have to sell in order to recoup my loses? Its fun to own an ice-cream machine as you'l be able to play around with ur imagination/creativity and churn out interesting flavours BUT who's gonna buy and where am i gonna place that uber huge machine? LOL, not funny.

On Saturday, the cousins gave us all a dinner treat at Pu Tien. Most of the items there are pretty tasty but the one and only thing that always ends up on my ordering list is none other than their FRIED MAN TOUS! So darn ~~oily~~ GOOD.

N i've been watching Season 4 of Project Runway over the week as well. Its really inspiring. Christian's a very talented young designer. In fact, i love all their jackets! I'm starting to develop a fetish for ~~shoes~~ jackets like now.

Alrightey, that's about all.

Work.It.Out yeah~

2008-06-29T23:08:00.000-07:00

Today's entry's gonna be a L-O-N-G one. Especially with the copious amount of pictures. Hence, the splitting of today's entry into two different parts.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART ONE
SPINNING AROUND

To celebrate our 21st Monthsary, dar and i decided to take a ride on Singapore's very own Ferris Wheel!

Many thanks to DAD who got us both these two Singapore Flyer tickets from his company. Apparently, staff get to purchase them at $16 each.

Grabbed a drink and some Cajun Fries from Popeyes. I got a Biscuit for myself. Yum Yum.

I love the aircon there. It feels really fresh and of course, COLD. Their toilets are even colder!

And the best part? We got the entire cabin all to OURSELVES! Privilaged and so damn blessed.

In fact, i kinda enjoyed myself on the ride. It took us exactly 30 minutes, which i tot felt like 15 minutes, to complete the entire circle. We snapped and snapped. Every corner, every view, every minute. The sea-view was quite spectacular though. Especially when one's surrounded by transparent glass walls. I wouldnt mind making that capsule my home. LOL.

Pictures:

Somebody reckons he's the King of the ~~Cabin~~ World today. Hahah.

The Sea View

Greener Pastures on the other side

Up Up and Away!

Having the entire cabin for ourselves was really amazing. You get to talk loudly, dance, run, scream, and laugh stupidly at your own free-will. Its like you own the whole damn thing. You dont have to fight for seats and there's also no one blocking your view too! Would i ride this again? YES! If someone's willing to pay for my ticket. =P

All in all, its certainly worth an experience.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART TWO
TAMPOPO

After all that spinning around in the afternoon, we decided to pamper ~~ouselves~~ our tummies with some Japanese Cuisine.

Tampopo

Located at the ground floor of Liang Court, this Japnese Restaurant has been raved about by many and has also gained much popularity and publicity from the media. This is made evident from the masses of newspaper articles and magazine clippings plastered on their glass walls.

Warm and dim yellow lighting, accompanied with wooden furniture greets you upon entry. Its very inviting, very casual, and very modern japanese indeed. Its kinda chaotic, with people screaming their orders here and there, so dont come expecting to dine in quiet serenity.

Tampopo, which means Dandelion, is a restaurant that specializes in Ramen and the Black Pig. Hence, it was a bowl of Ramen for each of us.

Dar's-->

Shabu Ramen

Mine-->

Kyushu Ramen

It was without a doubt one of the better, if not the best tasting Ramen we've ever had. From what we know, the soup is made by boiling pork bones for 2 entire days! Hence, the rich and wholesome body and flavour. The ramen noodles were springy. The boiled egg was YUM. It kinda gets me wondering how they managed to have a hard-boiled exterior and yet have the ability to keep the inside yolks semi-molten and runny. In fact, i would have asked for an extra egg if they hadnt run out of it so quickly! Oh well, at least it didnt make me feel like i was paying for an expensive bowl of instant maggie mee.

And the star of the night-->

Tokusen Loin (Ala-Cart)

This is extremely shiokerdoodelicious. The outer crust was fried to perfection yet retaining its tenderness on the inside. There are two types of Tonkatsu for you to choose from. One's the normal Katsu while the other is the Top grade Black Pig. The difference lies in the amount of fat content. The fattier, the better. Hence, the latter it was.

At $21.80, it sure is quite steep but certainly worth my every cent. Its so tender it melts in your mouth! Dar had the "i'm on cloud 9" expression written all over his face. Haha.

And many thanks to Nig who drove all the way down from home (East) to send me back to Tamp from Clarke Quay. It was pouring and cabs were unavailable so dar gave him a call. Dar loves his black pig so much it looks like we'l be giving him a dinner treat here someday.

am.so.looking.forward.to.it

xoxo
pammiez

2008-06-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

Drinks from the newly opened TCC outlet in town. Its situated directly across the road from Zara, Wheelock.

Oreo Frapp

Peach Me Up

In view of Aunt's B-day, the family held a dinner celebration at PeraMakan. Its a Peranakan restaurant located deep inside Keppel Club. Dar joined us too! Heh.

Ordered a few side dishes to go along with the plain white rice. Cant exactly remember their names but they were all recommended by the friendly and very outspoken waiter. Tastewise, pretty average. Portions were a little small and prices aint very cheap either. Their desserts were certainly, without a doubt, the star of the night. The nonya's sure know how to dish out their specialty durian and coconut based desserts. In fact, the family ordered almost every dessert from the menu. There was durian pengyat (which i still have difficulty pronouncing), durian chendol, chendol, ice-kachang, bobo chacha and banana pancakes. One taste of the durian and you'll know they dont stinge on quality. It was sweet, savoury, and to die-for. Ummm.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. My bad.

Still, imaginations work best.

*smiles*

2008-06-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

Lunch, at TCC (Shaw) with my Aunt.

She had her all-time-TCC-Favourite, Seafood Aglio.

Spaghetti Aglio Olio subtly flavoured with Chili and Garlic accompanied with succulent pan-seared Scallops and juicy Prawns.

It was spicier, as requested. The spaghetti was a little too moist and over-cooked. Aunt reckons that TCC's Aglio, over at the CBD outlet tastes better.

I, on the otherhand, ordered a Surf-In Fantasia. Its a new item on the menu.

Breaded Sea Pearch served atop a toasted bun with shavings of melted cheese.

This is Good! The bun's uber crispy on the edges and the sea-perch's really tasty! Crispy on the outside, soft and delicate on the inside. Albeit like McDonald's Fish Fillet.

Sides

For drinks, we shared a Hazelnut Frapp.

IMHO, i think it tastes better with a double dosage of Hazelnut. Well, that's partly because i'm not someone who can appreciate coffee and caffaine very much.

Spent the rest of the afternoon SHOPPING! Had our eye-brows trimmed at I NUOVI too. We got loads of cosmetics! I think M.A.C has nice lip-gloss. Heh.

Tea-Time dessert at Cedele, Swissotel. This is the only thing i like and will eat at Cedele. Dont exactly fancy their sandwiches as their bread is uber huge, thick and floury.

Carrot Cake

Love the Cream Cheese Frosting and Walnuts to bits and pieces.

In fact, Carrot Cake and Banana Walnut Cakes are gonna be my next experiment. Soon, soon.

Went our seperate ways after that. Took a train to dar's place for dinner. His dad claimed that he wasnt cooking tonight, but lo and behold, there was a bigger home-cooked feast than usual on the dinner table! I really wonder how he manages all that. And i told dar:

"next time, don't have to inform your dad that i'l be coming for dinner, just ask him to fry an egg and he'l know for sure Pam's coming."

LOL

Its true.

2008-06-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

Made some Crepes and Sandwiches during the week.

My crepes turned out tasting, and looking, like wafer thin pancakes. But according to Wikipedia, a Crepe is a type of very thin cooked pancake! So it looks like my first attempt at making crepes didnt turn out that bad after all.

Had wanted to prepare Caramelized Apples but only remembered it after i had washed and cleaned up the kitchen. Hence, substituted them with Jam.

Salami and Mozerella Cheese! The salami's uber yummy!

Bacon Omelette and Cheese toast.

Was in the mood for some Fish & Chips today. Hence, rode down to CrabShack after our short meet-up with Nig at Bugis.

The baked rice wasnt as good as previous times.

Previous time-->

My guess was it wasnt baked long enough. Could also be because we didnt request for extra cheese this time around.

Fish & Chips were pretty good. A little too oily but uber crispy on the edges. Pity i'm not exactly a french fries lover for my Fish & Chips came with a huge platter of fries! It was like free-flow.

Scallop Trellis and Calamari for appetizers.

Felt extremely ge-lat after the entire meal. Must have been the over-consumption of OIL. My stomach felt really queasy, which got me feeling a little nauseous after a while.

However, CrabShack's still one of my personal favourite places for a quiet hangout with cheap affordable eats. No GST at all. Only cash payment accepted. There's even a pool table, a bar, and a huge TV screen for sports fanatics. And occasionally, a golden retriever for company too.

xoxo
pammiez

2008-06-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

From a Sunny Breezy day to a Stormy and Windy Monday. Just in a matter of 5 minutes.

Now you see the Sun...

...now you dont.

The winds were extremely strong it almost blew me away! If this were the kind of wind blowing out from my small little fan, the trees and the environment will be spared as i wouldnt need to turn on my aircon anymore. But it doesnt take 1 to save the Earth, it takes all of us to do it together. =)

It was meant to be a picnic for the both of us. But little did we know that we wouldnt actually need to use our beach mats and hammocks at all. Seeked shelter at the nearby Pavilion and that's exactly where we had our munchies.

Sandwiches! There's Egg Mayo and Bacon, a Triple Decker consisting of a Sunny Side Up, Streaky Bacon, Mozerella Cheeese, and dar's favourite Tomatoes, and last but not a least, Beef Salami with Mozerella Cheeese on Foccacia! I did drizzle alittle olive oil on the foccacia bread. Heh.

Yours truely spent the entire morning preparing all these. Delish arent they? Bacon always does wonders to your plain ol'sandwiches.

xoxo
pammiez

2008-06-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today's kind of a 2-of-everything day.

You'll understand what i mean by that statement in a while's time.

Anyway, dar rode down to Suntec, after his game of soccer, to meet me up for lunch after church service ended. Our lunch date was held at Suntec City's Donut Factory. Shared a Chocolate Hazelnut, a Coffee Roasted Almond and a Cookies & Cream, which is one of their newly launched flavours. In fact, the above 2 flavours, including Double Chocolate, are my all-time fave. Heh.

Strangely, i felt really full from all those donuts. Sadly, my b-e-a-utiful Sunday was ruined by one of their service crew.

Scenario 1: She refused to accept dar's donut order. For what reason i really dont know. Dar felt like slamming the signboard, which read "Only for a maximum purchase of 2 donuts...Takeaway...bla bla bla", right into her face.

Scenario 2: Ordered a Chocolate Hazelnut + a Cookies & Cream flavoured donut for dar and myself respectively. However, was told by HER that the Cookies & Cream werent ready and i'd have to wait. I then asked HER how long the waiting time would be and guess what, SHE actually had the guts to turn away from HER customer and not only refused to answer my question, but ignored me totally! HER other colleague overheard our conversation and was nice enuf to step in to answer my queries. Did i pose too hard a question that SHE couldnt even comprehand?

ARGH

Scenario 3: Went back to the counter to check on the availability of the Cookies & Cream donuts as i'd already paid for them. SHE, being in-charge of the cashiering counters, saw me but refused to acknowledge my presence. It took me almost 5 minutes to get HER to attend to me. I should have thrown knives and forks at HER. Now why dint i think of that?

Even the store manager had to attend to me on HER behalf. He even served me the freaking donut! Now i really dont understand what the manager sees in HER. Donuts are meant to make people happy, putting HER there obviously defeats the purpose. SHE might have irritated the shit out of me and dar but hey, it aint stopping me from frequenting Donut Factory anytime soon as i'd LURVEE to make hell outta HER life should i order from HER the next time around. You shall see.

PS, The cookies and cream donut was really good. There's a white chocolate/cream center filling that oozes out uncontrollably. =P

-fast forward-

Dinner was at Bukit Timah's FC. Dar missed the pastas from MIEN.

The chef's a real joker. He always digs dar whenever dar request for his pasta to be done xxxxtra spicy. The previous time, he called dar a "bian tai", today, he said dar wouldnt be able to "pang sai" given his huge appetite for chili. LOL The way he said it was damn funny.

We had Apple Strudel for dessert! Was deciding between Mind Cafe's Brownies and Apple Strudels. Apples keep the doctor away, chocolates do not. Hence, the latter it was. However, i was quite disappointed with the look of my "mini" strudel. It looked pathetic. Apples and Cream sandwiched between two measly pastry puffs. What happened to the 3 layered apple strudels-->

They certainly looked more presentable and worth my every three dollars and eighty cents.

Not being satisfied, i tot i'd give Renaldo's a visit to see if they still sell their apple strudels in 3-layered slices. But NO, they dont do that anymore. Perhaps its meant to help save costs and all. But fret not strudel fans, you can still get to savour the 3-layered strudels by purchasing the entire footlong strudel!

So which strudel outlet offers the better tasting strudel?

Initially, both tasted pretty similar. However, towards the end, my vote goes to Ritz. Renaldo's strudels have got whipped cream between the puff pastries and you know i never like cream. However, that wasnt the reason for Ritz victory. Ritz won because their puff pastry had a nice buttery after taste, which is a shiok factor for me given how i'm a sucker for all things buttery and flakey.

2 donuts (for myself) in one afternoon and 2 strudels in one evening. Doesnt it sound like a 2-of-everything day?

Haha

xoxo
pammiez

2008-06-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

Another weekend outing with the family once again!

Uncle drove his new car to pick me, dar and grandma up. Its big, spacious and comfy. Albeit difficult to manoevure, dat's all. That's big cars for you.

Lunched at the newly renovated food centre located along Smith Street, Chinatown. Compared to the former, this newly revamped FC houses a wider variety of food items, from Japanese, to Peranakan, to Shanghainese and even DimSum! Not forgetting the better ventilation and brighter lighting as well.

Strangely, all of us had noodles from the same stall. Grandma had prawn dumpling noodles, dar and aunt had chicken curry noodles, while i had their wanton noodles! In fact, it aint wantons that get me craving for wanton mees but charsiews themselves. The chunkier, the more charred, the more they glisten under the lights, the merrier. Heh.

N we brought grandma to the Underwater World, Sentosa, for a mini excursion today! In view of their school holiday promotion, tickets were selling at a discounted rate. Promotion ends tomorrow.

ARGHH, i think the fishes look monsterous and hideous. I dint even dare touch the stingray after dar told me they felt slimy. N i discovered that dolphin lagoon actually organizes swimming sessions with the dolphins! Its all day (except Wednesdays) at one time slot - 9.45am. Am definitely gonna drag dar for this. Dolphins!!!

For tea-break, we had fruit juices from Alexanders' FC. We had strawberry soursop and peanut avacado. The latter's so NICE! It taste just like peanut butter milkshake! Except slightly milder and healthier! OMGawd am so craving for it right now.

Dinner was a simple affair. We ta-bao-ed from downstairs and had it at GM's place. Dar even managed to steal a 2-3 hr nap. I helped him create a "fortress" to block out the lights. LOL. Played with Laughing Elmo.

Had problems loading the video. Next time, perhaps.

N that's my Saturday for you. A very HOT one indeed.

xoxo
pammiez
=)

2008-06-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

Below are pictures, accompanied with an extremely brief summary, of my fourth day stay in Bangkok. Enjoy~

Started our day with a visit to the tailor's. The "fitting" took longer than expected. But fret not, for the shopping mall, Platinum, was just located across the street.

Lunched at their foodcourt. They dont accept cash here. You pay using a store-value card. Which can be quite a hassle, really.

From what i observed, the thai's really LOVE their sugar. Every food stall had a huge bowl of white sugar for customers to self-help. They were practically spooning heapful after heapful of sugar onto their noodles. Perhaps how sugar is to them is like how cut chili is to us Singaporeans.

Pad Thai

Ma-Mee noodles! YUMMY.

Papaya Salad with Salted Egg Yolk

Mixed Beef

Belgian Waffles for Tea-Break. There's a variety of flavours for you to choose from. However, they all tasted the same to me. =/

In fact, this shopping mall, "Platinum", is more like a wholesale kinda mall. The more items you buy, the cheaper it gets. That's how it works.

Random Shots.

Dinner at T&K Seafood Restaurant, again. Its one of our favourite places for makan. We had grilled fish, fish-maw soup, omelette, prawn cakes and veggies.

Everything's YUMMY. Prawn Cakes are a die-die must try. Different restaurants have different prawn cake frying styles, taste and consistency varies, but so far, from what we know, T&K offers the best tasting prawn cakes! Heh.

Bird's Nest for dessert. They offer different grades of it. All of which are genuine. Certainly a great delicacy to end a delicious meal.

That kinda sums up everything. Its as brief as it can get. Compared to my other lengthy entries, this definitely is quite acceptable. Muahaha.

xoxo
pammiez
=D

2008-06-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

CHOCOLATES, my bestest friend of late.

Be it chocolates from Mark's & Spencer's Chocolate cereals or chocolates from "healthy" granola bars, as long as they contain some amount of chocolate content, i'd still love you anyhow.

They cheer you up when you're feeling down, they sparkle and spice up your otherwise boring mid-day snacks and best of all, it takes away all my gastrict pain and supplies me with the energy i need to last me through the entire day!

Chocolates, what can i say, my bestest friend, always.

Anyway, to make up for "the unhealthy lifestyle", i made apple salad for dar, myself and the family!

Chopped red apples, nata de coco, corn and raisins mixed with Nestle's Cream. A simple recipe which "mama", an ex-colleague, taught me. In fact, you might want to consider adding some nuts, like pistachios for instance and perhaps other chopped fruits like honeydew/rock melon. Also, do chill it to allow the cream to set/thicken. =)

Also, a few days back, dar dropped by my place to help springclean my room. Only managed 1/8 of my room. Dar wasnt of much help either. Just look at what he did to my poor Tobie.

Stuffed into a box and placed atop a mini skateboard. How terrorized he must have been. LOL.

Made 2 trips down to Amoy for lunch too! On my first visit, i had the must-have sliced fish soup from Han Kee while on my second visit, i tot i'd give allnaturalkitchen a shot.

Original Chicken Wrap made with all natural ingredients. No preservatives or whatsoever. This must have been my healthiest meal ever.

I found it too bland for my liking. However, i quite enjoyed the side dips and the half eurasian stall owner looks pretty cute too. He Heh.

Caught Zohan at Downtown East before heading down to Bedok South for dinner yesterday. Its a super hilarious yet crappy show. I think i laughed pretty loudly, and unglamly. Muahaha, who cares.

And what's up with Doritos Nacho Cheese? They've been wiped off the shelves at Carrefour and everyone seems to be looking for it. Hmmm.

As for lunch today, we had some cheap hawker fare at Toa Payoh's Lor 2 FC. Was craving for my favourite Carrot Cake you see. Dar on the other hand thought he'd give this pasta stall a shot and so, ordered a seafood aglio.

The linguinne was far too soft for my liking. Overcooked i believe. The chopped tomatoes werent to my liking as well.

Grabbed some muffins from Bliss Haven too. They've received many reviews from floggers, magazines and even newspapers. Got the oreo flavoured muffin and received a free chocolate flavoured one too! There wasnt some sort of promotion so i really have no eye-deer why he gave me a free muffin.

Sad to say, i wasnt wow-ed by it at all. I kinda like the crust but the inside just didnt taste like the usual buttery muffins! It tasted very eggy, like that of those chinese egg kueh (i dont know what its called but it has a dialect name). It would be a delight if those muffins had oreo bits or chocolate oozing out from them. Else, why call it an oreo muffin right? Right?

Haha, you cannot snap me.

n i wana try making crepes! With mozerella cheese and shrooms, with chocolate and strawberries, with caramelized apples and vanilla bean ice-cream. Yes, Crepes, i want to make YOU!

xoxo
pammiez

2008-06-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

Its Father's Day today!

And in view of today's SPECIAL occasion, i made Tiramisu SPECIALLY for my daddy!

Before...

After...

In fact, i actually got down to preparing this 2 days ago. Based on reviews, it is believed that tiramisu tastes best after 24-48 hours of refrigeration. Enabling the sponge fingers to fully soak up the Espresso, Kahlua and all.

This time, i made do without the addition of Baileys and also, lowered the liquer content as to dar's request. Also sprinkled white and dark chocolate shavings atop the layer of cocoa powder. Everyone loved it! Dar said it was PERFECT. N i know he didnt said that just to please me beacuse he had 2 servings in just one evening! N a friend of my aunt's even said she might order from me in the near future. Haha!

Baking is so much fun! All the joy, pleasure, happiness and satisfaction that comes with it cannot be bought, or attained from anywhere else.

More baking of cakes and maybe CUPCAKES to come soon. =)

XOXO
Pammiez, The Pastry Chef

=Pp

PS. Dad lent me the CAR today! Drove it to Ikea to get dar's cupboard and drove it back to dar's place to pick his family up for a Father's Day dinner celebration at one of the cze char restaurants in Geylang. Dar got to drive too! So much fun! Wheeeeee~

2008-06-14T23:50:00.000-07:00

A road trip to Melaka.

It took us 3-4 hours of non-stop riding, not counting the journey back to Sg.

Riding at a speed of 140-160km/hr sure puts me to sleep. It was a struggle with the sleep demon as i didnt want to fly off the bike whilst dreaming about la-la land.

Did i mention that my shoulders, thighs and butt were aching terribly? The pain only hits you after having spent more than 20 minutes sitting on that darn sports bike. It has speed, but you wont last long riding in a hunched up body position. A test of my endurance, tolerance and patience it really was. Endurance i may have, but tolerance and patience? It really depends.

So my friends, next time, ride in with either a super fast Ducati or a super slow but relac-jet uncle motorcycle okie? LOL

N before we even managed to grab a bite from A&W, me and Dar got L.O.S.T on the highway. 2 of the bikers, who were ahead of us, suddenly disappeared from dar's view. Stopped by the road shoulder in hope that the other 2 bikers (behind us) would show up. But NO, after 5, 10, 15 minutes, there was still no sign of them. Thus, we made a quick decision to head back towards JB before it got dark.

The 2 lost sheep. At Simpang! Approaching KL. That's how far in we were. Haha.

Yes, that full face helmet's really big and heavy. I find it quite difficult to balance myself. No like it at all.

Temperatures dip really low at night on the highway. With minimal street lights and with vehicles, including huge trucks and buses zooming past you at such high speeds, night riding/driving in M'sia can be pretty dangerous.

N so, it was pretty much an unfruitful road trip to Melaka. No seafood, no A&W, no Chendol, no cheap chinese fan-fare or whatsoever. Only mosquito bites, sun burns and a burnt mark (from dar's exhaust pipe) on my ankle. BOO.

I hope i did burn some F.A.T.S though.

My bed and beauty sleep is all i ask for now.

Shagged, like totally.

2008-06-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

Let's see, shall we, what this week had in stall for me...

...beginning with Monday, the first day of every week, of course.

................................................................................................................

Met up with dar at 4-ish in the afternoon. I recall vaguely that i was in the mood for some swings, slides, and playground fun and where else to go but Pasir Ris Park. It was an extremely HOTday. I was perspiring like a pig. Compared to last time, the slides and all didnt have their thrill factor anymore. Whoever built slides made of metal has gotta be a real "genius" because metallic surfaces only produces friction, hindering your asses from sliding off the surface with ease.

N nopes, it wasnt because me and dar, being over-aged kids, were too heavy (or fat) to slide down coz even pre-school kids had to drag their tiny bums down the long winding METALLIC slide! How cumbersome. To think i went through all the trouble to climb up that spider maze only to discover that i couldnt treat myself to a fulfilling ride down the slide. Poor kids.

Well at least the swings made my day.

Rode down to Old Airport FC for dinner thereafter. Waited for Nig to arrive. Chatted for quite a long while, longer than i expected.

................................................................................................................

TUESDAY.

Dar came over to my place first thing in the morning.

Chef Chung cooked pasta for me!

There was certainly an improvement from his first attempt BUT somehow, the linguinne just didnt absorb the flavours of the ingredients, rendering it bland.

But its alright. My kitchen is and will always be open for you and most importantly, I still love you ma. He Heh.

After much cooking sessions with dar, i've come to realise that we both cannot work together in the kitchen. Its either he cooks and i wash up or i cook and he washes up. There's never a we cook and we wash up together because..... i really dont know why but it just doesnt work out right between us. Ha Ha. Its just like a battery you know. In order for a torch to light up, the batteries have to be fitted in opposite directions. The + charge has to be paired with the -ve and vice versa.

yadayadayadah

Its not much of a problem anyway. We still enjoy our baking/cooking sessions together. Dont we? =P

................................................................................................................

WEDNESDAY.

Let's see, i planned on working out at the gym but didnt bcoz i was far too lazy to get outta bed.

The initial plan was to have lunch at Toa Payoh Lor 2's FC (carrot cake cravings) but sth cropped up and a change of plans it was.

Found some time to send my HP for servicing too. Service there was terrible but wtheck, my phone was heating up and i needed it fixed. I wouldnt wana use my phone n have it explode in my hands, ears, face or in my bag. Which kinda reminds me of those exploding handphone cases from legal tutorials. LOL.

Dimsum Buffet for late lunch. Tot we'd give this place a shot.

I do not like it when restaurants disallow you to reject their condiments and worse still, levy them as compulsory charges into your total bill. If you're charging me $1-$2 for that measly plate of peanuts, i'd close an eye, but for $3, that's not being fair. BOO.

Anyway, the dimsum items here were pretty average. They turned out looking different from what i envisaged in my mind (based on their food descriptions). Nothing really stood out, except maybe for the fried prawn and mango roll. Heh.

Desserts later at night. We each had mango sago from Ji De Chi, Liang Seah Street outlet.

I personally prefer this over Ah Chew's. I find Ah Chew's Desserts a little overrated.

................................................................................................................

THURSDAY.

Went for a run with dar at ECP today. Ran for less than 15 mins and dar decided to call it a day. Haha!

Rode off to Onan Road for Prawn Mee. Followed by a movie session at The Cathay later in the afternoon.

We bought tickets for The Incredible Hulk. Sneaked in a Strawberry + White Choc + Almonds crepe from Saybons into the theatre while dar had a large pack of ruffles all to himself. 3 letters, F.A.T

N we werent the only ones having a "picnic" inside. Next to us was this couple who apparently, sneaked in their lunch from subway, calbee and Jack & Jill titbits. That's not so bad, its quite normal actually, considering that we once brought in pizza during my JC school days! I really wonder how we even managed to squeeze it into a bag.

................................................................................................................

FRIDAY.

In case you've lost track, yes, that is TODAY.

I spent the afternoon baking a tiramisu for dad on Father's Day. N as requested, i lowered the alcohol/liquer content. Will only serve it on Sunday. Cant wait.

Met up with dar later in the evening. Rode down to Ikea Tampines to accompany dar in his scout for a cupboard. Before that, we grabbed Ikea's Hotdog Buns as we were already on the verge of dying from hunger.

Dinner at Amoy. Tot of having Cze Char over there. Its been a long while since i last had their yummilicious San Lao and Omelette.

Sadly, that Cze Char stall has since relocated, only to be replaced by a new Cze Char vendor.

Eitherway, we tot we'd still give it a shot. Ordered San Lao and a Fried Prawn Omelette to share.

The hor fun was a little hard to chew on but overall, pretty decent. Dont you just lurve the charred pieces of kway teow? I lurve them to bits and pieces. Full of wok hei flavour. Awesome.

As for the omelette, dar felt that it tended to the wet/soggy side. Onions come with it too. If i'd known, i would have requested for them to not add onions at all. Despite it, the omelette still exuded the eggy taste which i truely enjoyed.

................................................................................................................

N that's about it.

XOXO
<3 pAmMiEz

PS. I just found out from Wikipedia that XOXO actually denotes Hugs & Kisses. Yes, i'm sucha "mountain tortoise". Laugh all you want. N after watching episode after episode of Gossip Girl, you cant help but get influenced to use it right? Hahah.

2008-06-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

Hello World, its SUNDAY!

Drove to church early this morning. You know, the world may see Christianity as a religion, but to me/us, its more than just a religion, its a RELATIONSHIP.

Anyway, dar rode over, after his game of soccer, to meet me for lunch. Lunched at Chinatown. Suggested having Chiew Kee's Soya Sauce Chicken Noodle. Its simply delicious. I LOVEEE how their sauce compliments their tender chicken meat. Never fails to impress, that's for sure.

Proceeded to Holland V thereafter to get some baking utensils/ingredients. They've so many things there! Dar had a hard time trying to get my butt outta that place. I bet he had an even harder time trying to reject the idea of getting a $52 digital thermometer (its an oven thermometer, LOL) for his bike.

After much time spent in the baking store, we decided to ride down to Tanglin Shopping Center to have our fave peanutbutter milkshake! Sadly, Steeple's Deli was closed. Just when i tot i'd discard my low-fat diet for some heavy calorie milkshakes. BOO.

Settled for some drinks over at Shaw's TCC. Dar had a Hazelnut Frapp with an extra dosage of hazelnut as requested.

I had a NUTELLO! Its simply an espresso shot with lashings of nutella!

I LOVE it!

The size difference

In fact, i LOVE TCC! Hahah.

Dinner at Bedok South. Lots of yummilicious food stuff over here. From Hill Street Char Kway Teow to Fei Fei Wanton Noodles to Rojak and the cheapest Yong Tau Foo at 15cents a piece! You name it they have it, all under one roof!

I had a chicken cutlet don while dar had a katsu don. They were featured on Channel 8's Buzzing Cashier Variety Programme.

Its pretty good! The egg yolk was still semi-watery and chicken cutlet don? That's definitely a first time for me.

Im not exactly a huge fan of katsu don's as i still prefer to have my meats crisp and un-soggy but overall, a very good attempt for a Japanese Hawker Stall and certainly worth another visit.

N that's my SUNDAY for you!

EASYBREEZYBEAUTIFUL

XOXO
pammiez <3

2008-06-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

Accompanied Grandma, together with the family, to Gleneagles for a checkup.

No breakfast + Day 1 of Period = Horrigible Cramps. It was so bad i could hardly bring myself to conversize, laugh or even smile.

Thunderstormed today. Fantastic weather, for sleeping, snoozing and snuggling. How awesome if everyday the weather feels like that of a refrigerator.

Lunch'ed at Amoy. We had Lor Mee (No Queue!) and Mixed Beef Soup. For desserts, we each had a small serving of Or Nee (Yam Paste). You can choose between their original, or have it served with ginko nuts and pumpkin. Both were equally fantastic. This is coming from a non-yam lover like me. (I cried when mom bought me a Yam flavoured b-day cake, but that happened when i was barely 5 years old, hahah)

Also had lots of Ondeh Ondeh (durian, yam and original), and hot drinks (Teh Tarik and Teh Halia) from Rafee's Corner. You should see how he tariks his tea. BTW, all sweet treats mentioned above were purchased from SgKueh. They sell a variety of kuehs but specialize largely in their ondeh ondehs (original's the bestest!) and Yam Paste. Its been a long time since dar and me had lunch at Amoy. Looks like its time to head back there for lunch this coming week! Heh.

For dinner, Family organized yet another Sandwich Party. This time, we made use of SPAM's Luncheon Meat, Apple Baked and Smoked Ham, Pork Floss, Four Fruits Jam, and EMMANTEL CHEESE. We made a huge pot of Campbell's Cream of Chicken too.

In fact, if you've seen/read my previous entries, you would have noticed that i've been feeding on sandwiches for the past 2-3 days. I can assure you that home-made sandwiches are a thousand miles better than McDonald's Big Mac, Burger King's Whopper and Carl's Jr's SuperStar. Real Porky Fatty Bacon makes a helluva difference.

Oh, we dvd'ed at GM's place too. Caught The Mist, adapted from one of Stephen King's novels. We didnt like the movie one bit. The story line was weak and ridiculous. Thank God i didnt waste $8 watching a "white screen" (mist).

The family got to sample my tiramisu as well. Lucky bunch of people. Haha. All of them were extremely impressed, even bro was left wondering how i could produce sucha flavour. LOL. Will be baking a much bigger one for dad on Father's Day.

And Yes dear, i remember, less liquer more espresso. Haha. I still love you ma. =D

2008-06-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

MOS Prawn Pocket Burger. A limited edition that's back in popular demand.

Grabbed one for brunch after doing some grocery shopping at TM's Aunty Lucy. I love GROCERY SHOPPING. Who doesnt derive pleasure from being able to dump item after item into the trolley basket?

Wasnt exactly very full from brunch, hence, got down to making Kaya Toasts to help heal my hunger pangs. Added some crispy pork floss, which comes with strands of seaweed, for some extra bite.

Strangely, i wasnt full from all those carbs. I think i had more than 5 meals today. Tremendous appetite i've been having lately.

N last Wednesday, i made dar some sandwiches for breakfast! Its toasted bonjour bread with a sunny-side up, bacon, honey baked-ham, cheese, butter and butterhead lettuce.

Use Emmantal cheese for your toast. They're meant for them. =)

Made dar a cup of Van Houten's Hot Chocolate! Added some marshmellows too. It certainly helped enhance the drink's sweetness.

In fact, sth very funny happened whilst i was serving dar his sandwiches. LOL.

The sandwiches were so yummilicious even my dogs were barking for some. We even got down to making them together, for brunch, over at my place, today! Dar's -->

MINE -->

Spotted the difference? Mine has an omelette while dar has a sunny side up. N of course, mine looks slightly more presentable. Muahaha.

N for desserts... we had VERY YUMMY TIRAMISU!

Yes, yours truely spent the afternoon making them yesterday. Surprised i actually know how to bake? LOL

Overall, i think i could have been less generous with the liquer and baileys. But undoubtedly a very neat attempt by a novice like me! Made with love too! Heh Heh.

Mom's even requesting that i make a second tray some time soon! Looks like i should start penning down orders. Anyone wants to start the ball rolling? Muahahah.

Took a stroll at Henderson Wave later in the afternoon. Its a really great place to chill, run, walk, picnic etc. A no-no for those who are afraid of heights because you'l find yourself more than 60 feet high up in the air.

I officially declare that dar's photography skills are lousier than mine. That's why i darent upload my picture here because it looks retarded.

Look at what Mr Monkey is up to. Rummaging through the trash of course. Cute. haha

Alright that's all.

Peace out!

2008-06-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

N to continue from where we left of from last Saturday night's tenting.

Breakfast was at Old Town White Coffee the following morning.

As their name says it all, White Coffee is in fact one of their specialties.

For drinks, we ordered a cup of iced cold chocolate and a cup of white coffee infused with hazelnut. I must say both drinks were pretty good.

Dar had their Nasi Lemak Special, which comes simply with egg, anchovies, crackers and a fried chicken wing.

I dont exactly see how SPECIAL this actually can be, except maybe the egg came hard-boiled rather than fried.

As for yours truely, she had Kaya Toast.

Very traditional. But, not to my liking. It was far too bland already.

We shared French Toast too!

Surprise Surprise, there's peanut butter inside. Pity it didnt have the ooze factor. But i like how the sides and corners of the french toast were fried till uber crispyness.

Ordered eggs as well but it arrived while i was settling the bill. Hence, had no choice but to send it back. I dint get to see the egg but according to dar, he said it didnt look very appetizing bcoz the yolks (which i dislike) were broken.

Total bill amounted to $14, inclusive of GST. A little bit on the high side considering its only breakfast. Service aint very good either. It took them quite a while before they cleared our very small table and food items take ages to arrive.

But come to think of it, i'd certainly head back here for a cuppa. N maybe, to try their other items on the menu too!

Rode back to dar's place after that for a shower. Took a bus down to Suntec for Church service. Caught up with dar again after the service ended. I was like totally distracted during service. Two reasons. The air-conditioning was freezing cold and my stomach was growling like nobody's business. Izit me or is the weather getting colder these couple of days?

Anyway, we rode down to PS for some snacks. Yes, we were craving for Chippy's Calamari! Can you believe we actually rode all the way there just to lay our hands on a packet of spicy sotong rings? Bcoz after that snacking, we immediately rode off to Margaret Drive for dinner and that's when i spotted a Red Ducati (1098) on the road. Obviously my eyes were sharper than baby's. Haha!

N eversince then, he's been swooning over this red sexy devil. Yeah, its Hot, RED HOT. Apparently, dar found a seller and we went down, just 2 days ago, to view it. The sound of that engine. Awesome Adrenalin.

Right now, we just have to figure out how to get dar a loan. Hmmm.

Oh yes, dinner pictures.

Chicken rice from Xin Ji! Most people should have heard about this chicken rice stall. Chicken Rice lovers especially. After all, Margaret Drive FC is well-known for its Char Kway Teow, Claypot Chicken Rice, and Chicken Rice! Do expect a long wait though, but certainly not as long as the wait for CCK.

How i even said yes to eating this i really do not know. Did you know that the last time i consumed chicken rice was during my JC days, from the school canteen?! Gosh. N to think i still havent burned off my KFC chicken from last night too! Arghh, this is crazy, KFC and Chicken Rice on two consecutive nights. Dar thinks its a miracle. Haha.

N that's how our Sunday went. Easy, breezy and beautiful.

=)

2008-06-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

A WILD and WET Saturday it was indeed.

Dar rode over to pick me up from my place at 9-ish in the morning. Rode straight down to Downtown East. Had breakfast at BK before proceeding to join the queue for WILD WILD WET tickets.

With the Nebo card, cardmembers can purchase their tixs at $7.50 each. However, only cardmembers can purchase tickets for themselves. N to think my reason for signing up for this card was to enjoy its WWW privilages with dar. BOO. How dumb is that.

With the dark clouds, strong winds and slight drizzle, the weather didnt look very promising at all. But wtheck, its wild wild WET, you're gonna get wet eitherway.

Thankfully, it didnt rain till the later part in the afternoon. In fact, it started raining while me and dar were queueing up for their FOAM POOL. N when you're clad only in a 2 piece Bikini, boy, you cant help but turn PURPLE like me. My nose, lips and fingernails were purple. My fingertips were numb and dar was shivering his ass off.

But no doubt, it was an enjoyable morning/afternoon at WILD WILD WET. Rides are very limited, they aint very thrilling either. In fact, i kinda injured the upper part of my back on one of their rides. N if u recall, i fractured my wrist at Escape Themepark a few years back. How jinxed am i with themepark adventure rides?

Lunch'ed at their FoodCourt. Had something soupy to defrost myself.

Proceeded to The Cathay (Downtown East) for our Movie at 4pm. Purchased tickets for Narnia the day before.

This is so much better than Sex and The City. Its also a 2 and a half hour movie but i can assure you it only feels like a one and a half hour movie. We shared a large popcorn which again, failed to last us thru the entire show. I LOVE Cathay's Sweet Popcorn. Dont you?

Tenting at East Coast Park, @ My PlayGround, at night.

Check out the fans. LOL

Late dinner at KFC. Gosh, a place i'd nv go at all but eventually succumbed to this evening. KFC, Carls Jr, Starbucks and Ah Yat Seafood. We were really left with very little dining options you see. No doubt, their crispy fried chicken skin's really shiok to munch on but the amount of oil and fats that comes with it? EEW, sucha turnoff. I still prefer Popeye's for fried chicken though. =Pp

N then, it was time to hit the bed.

Lights Out.

Just look at dear Toby...

He just loves his durian. That brown thing in the picture? Its a small piece of durian from the durian roll.

Thankfully Flap doesnt like the smell or taste of durians at all. Else i'l have another monster chasing me round the house for durians.

Phew.

2008-06-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

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COLORS

<3

2008-06-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

18th May 2008

Way Overdued. So please bear with me.

Breakfast at the hotel lobby once again. I made breakfast toasts for everyone! It has bacon, ham, egg, and lettuce sandwich between 2 slices of bread. Sounds like YUM but after having this 2 days in a row, it might not sound so YUMMY afterall.

Some random shots, inside and outside the hotel.

Along some street, shops were still closed as the morning was still young. Quite young.

Headed for a Shoulder + Foot massage at some massage parlour located somewhere in the vicinity.

OMGawd it was HELL. I felt so tortured, bruised, whatever you call it. I think i've developed a phobia for massgaes. Thai ones especially!

Walked over to SiamParagon, yes, AGAIN!, for lunch. We had Jap today.

There's the Sashimi Platter, Unagi, Softshell Crabs, Katsu, Tempuras, Bacon Wrapped Asparagus and some other dish which i cant recall its name.

Not too bad. The bacon was way too FATTY for our liking. In fact, we dint even dare touch it! Service wasnt very good but that's okie, at least the prices here are within the reasonable and affordable range.

We shared gelato (Oreo and Macademia) and chilled over some beverages at a cafe. The family sampled their cold coffee samples and were intrigued by it.

Have i ever mentioned how many food stalls Siam Paragon actually has? Its more than 2 dozens in one basement alone! A majority of them sell cakes and pastries, gelato and japanese cuisines. Which kinda explains why the family kept making repeated visits to this place. Singaporeans love their food dont they? he heh.

Hailed for a cab and headed to our next destination, MBK Shopping Mall. Bought lotsa DKNY (Di Ku Nei Yi) and i cant rmb what else. Oh i met Eloera and her BF Yin Theng! How small is this WORLD?

Anyway, MBK's simply a Lucky Plaza duplicate. Except it houses more stalls and has a larger crowd. Got some mini donuts from Dunkin' Donuts to try too! They're everywhere in BangKok. However, Donut Factory's way better.

Dinner was at this restaurant called Som Boon. Its a well known eatery, almost like a household name. How Som Boon is to the Thai's is how Crystal Jade is to us.

We ordered their crabs, veggies, prawn cakes, fish and glass noodles.

Their veggies were sucha disappointment. Its lacklustre look kinda sums up everything. The prawn cakes/balls were nothing compared to those from the previous night's, which were obviously, DELISH! The glass noodles were pretty average in my opinion. The stars of the night has got to be crabbie and fishie. I loveee the crab gravy. Those lumpy things you see in the picture? Its actually pieces of egg. Goes very well with plain rice i tell ya.

N that wraps up my third day in BangKok.

Stay tuned for day 4 and final day 5.

Cheers~

2008-05-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

Caught it with Demi on a Wednesday, 2 days ago.

Do buy lotsa POPCORN to last you through this 2 and a half hour movie. May i suggest a SuperLarge? Hah.

The show may seem a little draggy but hey, i like it! Its all about LABELS FRIENDSHIP LOVE FASHION VOGUE NEWYORK CITY & LOTSA SEX . There's a little comedy too! Demi dint really like it. But i shall not generalize bcoz not all guys are like him. Heh.

Oh, he had this grilled chicken burger + egg from SuperDog at Downtown East. The egg looks really seductive. Too bad i wasnt in the mood for MEATS today.

In fact, after many visits to the newly renovated Downtown East, i must say that this is my first visit to their movie theatre (cathay)! Its freezing cold in there, much colder than Grand Cathay's Row P! N service at their ticketing counter seriously needs loads of improvement.

Alrightey, shall move on to tell you more about my night out with fatty today. Yes, he's finally booked outta camp, sadly, with an even flabbier tummy. LOL

We had dinner at Mr Bean's @ Prinsep Street. Ordered their dinner set which comes with a soup of the day, main course, dessert of the day and a drink. Its much cheaper than ordering just a main course from their ala cart menu.

Soup of the day was cream of mushroom. It was far too diluted for my liking. The soups came served with garlic bread too! They smelled good but tasted kinda sourish. Dint dare to eat further after suffering from a terrible bout of food poisoning yesterday. BOO.

As for the main course, i opted for thier grilled fish while dar had his usual seafood aglio. Pasta was the reason we came to Mr Bean's for dinner. After 5 days of hardship in camp, its best i give way to my fatty rite? Haha.

When dar's pasta was served, my mind went "Is that Hokkien Mee or Aglio Olio?!". It not only smelt like, but it also looked like Hokkien Mee! No joke okie. Reminded me of dar's home-cooked pasta, which was of course, a failed attempt. Muahaha. However, thnakfully. the "hokkien mee" didnt taste like hokkien mee. Haha. But still, dar reckons that the pastas tasted better during the days spent working here.

My grilled fish wasnt all that bad. Its dory fish btw. Kinda like the sauce used here. For some reason, it remind's me of my grandma's cooking.

Desserts were simply a small scoop of vanilla Bean Ice-cream. No condiments, syrup or what so ever. Naked. We scooped it into our rootbeer and there you have it, a rootbeer float!

Service was extremely SLOW. It took them 25 minutes to get our ice-cream. I must admit that i have very high expectations when it comes to service, much more than food. Because the quality of service can make or break a restaurant's/cafe's reputation.

N Whee Wow Woah, i have chocolates all the way from Japan! Many thanks to dar's mom. They're very good at making me grow side-ways.

Alrightey, guess i'd better end here else this entry's gonna turn into a 3000 word essay.

A WILD and WET Saturday awaits us tml. Narnia too! FYI, i borrowed demi's bike and cycled, under the hot blazing Sun, to get movie tickets from Downtown East. Now, my butt cheeks feel so sore. Thank God though i have no SUNBURNS !

More updates, coming up soon! Stay Tuned.

2008-05-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

A very overdued entry down below.

Met up with baby for a pretty early dinner on Saturday (25th May).

He picked me up from Bus 15's, Marine Parade Bus stop.

East Coast Lagoon, our dinner venue.

Not for the food, but rather, for a chill-out by the beach on dar's smelly HAMMOCK.

Dar had Satay Beehoon for dinner. He was the third hungry soul in line. The queue forms even before the stall shutters open! Is their Satay Beehoon really that yummilicious to call for this?

To me, its not too bad. One of the better ones around, definitely. But certainly not worth the very-long-wait and countless mosquito bites. From what i observe, the wait would have been much more bearable if the uncle would learn to speed up abit and maximize the utility of both his hands! At the rate he's counting his ingredients, no wonder it takes ages for me to land myself a plate of Satay Beehoon. But if you desperately need a satay beehoon fix, then bring a foldable chair, insect repellant and maybe, a portable fan (with batteries!) too. LOL

As for me, i had wanton mee. No chili please! I will only eat my noodles with chili if ketchup is their only other alternative.

I found it pretty good. My only gripe? The noodles werent evenly cooked, resulting in a block of clumped up yellow mee.

Ahhh, sweet coconut juice on a hot sunny day. As if all the coconut juices i consumed in Bangkok werent enuff. Haha.

Rode down to Expo for The Food Fair sometime later in the evening. Oh My Cheese, so many people! And Dar got 2 water pillows! Yes, i know, arent you supposed to buy FOOD from the Food Fair? He claims the pillows help cool his ASS. They are drop-dead heavy i tell u. And we got German Sausages and a basket of Wedges to share as well. The lady at the counter looked extremely lost, their service was terrible, if u cant handle money and orders in a stressful situation, i suggest u go fry some fries instead. It was pathetic. I was on the verge of barging into their stall area. In fact, i was inside. Haha.

And that's all, i think?

More of BangKok to come!

Soon, soon.

2008-05-26T23:59:00.000-07:00

Butt Cheeks Aching. So is my right hand (the part between the elbow and wrist) and tree trunk thighs. Pretend you dont recognize me if you ever see me walking like a pregnant lady, or worse, a DUCK.

All these sores and aches can be attributed to last Sunday's Badminton work out. Its been a long while since the family got together for some sporting activities. Dar joined us too! A great sweat-out indeed. =)

Caught Indiana Jones at The Grand Cathay. Despite our last minute purchase, we still managed to secure great couple seats! What more on a weekend! Amazing.

Overall, i'd give the movie 3 popcorns! A 130mins show felt like a 150min show to me. The beginning was all too draggy, i nearly dozed off. The action was a little too cheesy for my liking, pretty similar to what you see on Lara Croft aka Tomb Raider. No doubt, there was a little bit of suspense and tension but still, not my cuppa tea.

Cant wait for Narnia though. That's a MUST-WATCH. I'm still pondering over whether i should catch Sex And The City on the big screen or on DVD. Hmmm.

N i had the most WONDERFUL CREPE before the movie. Its a mushroom + CHEESE crepe from Saybons! It only sets you back by $4.50 and they were so so generous with the CHEESE! Oh my mama you should have seen how i pulled and pulled the CHEESE. Did it on purpose to tempt dar for some. In fact, the mushrooms and cheese went so well together it made the entire dessert taste like a heavy calorie mushroom swiss! In case you dont know, it was my fave burger years ago. Haha.

Anyway, after the movie, dar and i rode off to Bedok Blk 85 for dinner as i was craving for Chai Chee Pork Porridge! My most fave century egg/pork porridge is still the one from Maxwell FC but pity they only open during the day time. Dar had what i ate. Surprise Surprise! Somebody's decided to stick to a rice + water diet knowing that IPPT's the following day. Hahaha!

Oh, talking about IPPT, Dar actually has to go back for reservice this week. Apparently, he flunked his IPPT and blames me for the cause of his failure. Why? Because i've been feeding him with lots of crap over the months and years. Why doesnt anyone blame the PASTA? LOL

Got lotsa chocolates, biscuits, cookies and canned food from Carrefour for dar to consume in camp. He was so against me buying him a pack of double chocolate cookies (Milano's) but eitherway, i managed to sneak it into the trolley basket while he wasnt looking.

All that stuff he bought made me wonder whether he was going for reservice or a holiday picnic. LOL. Maybe i am the make-him-fat-till-his-arteries-are-choked culprit after all.

*Evil Sniggers*