5 loaves and 2 fish

My first attempt in cooking KL Hokkien Mee

2009-08-11T11:01:00.003+08:00

During the National Day holiday, I attempted to cook KL Hokkien Mee as I managed to source for a recipe online. However, I tweaked the recipe alittle in order to suit my family's strange eating habits (e.g. no spice and certain seafood allowed).

So I bought some fat yet flat yellow noodles, fishcakes and two chicken bones from the wet market on the Saturday morning. I always enjoy going to the wet market to get some ingredients instead of the supermarket because their stuff are really fresh. It wasn't difficult to find the yellow noodles. One can get it from the soy beancurd store where they sell almost everything - from noodles to soy beancurd.

I cooked the chicken bones in a pot with two gloves of garlic and a big chunk of ginger and I boiled it for an hour. You can season it with salt after that.

Once it's done, I started my real cooking. I sauteed the fish cake slices and many pieces of mackerel fish meat into the wok for about ten minutes. Scoop it up and set it aside.

Then I sauteed the chopped garlic and pork slices for a couple of minutes before I pour one and a half bowl of chicken stock into the wok. When the stock is simmering, I pour the dark sauce seasoning which comprises of two tablespoons of soy sauce and three tablespoons of dark soy sauce. Let it simmer for a couple of minutes before putting vegetables in. Well, I put in Wong Bok vegetables instead of the cabbage as the former was available in my fridge. When the stock starts to boil again, I pour my noodles in and cover it for about 15 minutes. After that, I pour in the fish meat and the fish cakes slices into the wok and cover it again.

You can put in more dark sauce if you prefer your Hokkien noodles to be darker in colour.

This is my plate.

Somehow, when I ate the noodles, the vegetables dissolved without any reason so I reckoned that I will put in more vegetables in future. But overall, the noodles was really good. I guess the trick is the chicken broth. However, I need to put more broth into the noodles in order to prevent the noodles from absorbing the stock instantly.

Chocolate Cream Horn for Breakfast

2009-08-02T16:45:00.002+08:00

Last Thursday's night, my brother bought an assortments of cream horns and a milk bread from Provence Bakery and Cafe at Holland Village. So I had them for my breakfast on the following morning. In fact, I only had a Chocolate Cream Horn as I dislike the taste of a milk bread due to the milky filling. Yikes!

The chocolate filling inside of the cream horn is actually custard chocolate and not really a chocolate cream. As a result, the bite of the filling is different from biting inside a cream bun.

But what I like most about the Provence Bakery and Cafe is the Choco and Cream Wassant which is the mini croissants. I like it so much! Perhaps, I can blog about it next time!

Homemade Fish and Chips

2009-08-02T16:23:00.003+08:00

Last Sunday, Liverpool came over to our small island and played a friendly match against us at Kallang Stadium and what a good way to catch the game over a plate of good old English Beer Battered Fish and Chips!

I took the recipe from Jamie Oliver's cooking program which consists of lager beer (which I used Tiger Beer), egg and plain flour. As for the fish, I didn't use Haddock Cod fish which the English used to cook their fish and chips because it wasn't available at our supermarkets. Instead, I used the Red Snapper. However, by using the Red Snapper, the meat tend to be bigger after I deep-fried them as if they have expanded when they are swimming in the hot oil. As this was my first attempt cooking fish and chips, I was elated that the fish turned out to be quite good.

The fish was moist and flaky on the inside while the outside was crispy and crunchy due to the batter, whereas, the fries were slightly overcooked. Thus, the colour of the chips were a little too brown for anyone liking. My dad thought that I burned the fries or something. But overall, it was lovely.

Other than Fish and Chips, I cooked a plate of Fried Rice and some Chicken Wings as my dad, my bro and I enjoyed the game.

Anyway, the game was a boring one with Liverpool defeating Singapore 5-0.

Cherie's 21st Birthday Party

2009-07-22T20:36:00.005+08:00

Last Friday, I went to one of my fellow cell sisters, Cherie's 21st birthday party at her place. Earlier this month, she returned home from her nursing studies in Australia and since her birthday is round the corner, her parents held a surprise birthday celebration for her.

My other cell sisters and I were lost together while trying to find her place in the East. Fortunately, by God's grace, we managed to find her place at around 8.30pm. However, when we got there, some of the food were almost gone. These were the food that weren't depleted:

Appetizer

All the food were catered by Eatzi - a Halal Food Catering Establishment - thus all the food were halal for some of the invited Muslim friends. I believe these were not really 'pork' ham but turkey ham. I like the Spicy Turkey Ham on the top left corner of the plate.

Sotong Ball and Thai Fish Cake

Lemongrass Chicken

Chocolate Eclair

Those eclairs were a little soft when I got hold of them. I would prefer them to be cold and slightly hard.

However, one of the nicest food on that day was actually the Laksa (I didn't take any of those photos, sorry!) .

It was a cozy birthday celebration for our friend, Cherie who will be flying off to Australia again at the end of this month.

My Childhood Favourite Biscuits...

2009-07-22T20:25:00.004+08:00

When I was a kid, one of my favourite biscuits was Ais Gem.

My mum felt that it was too sweet for her liking but to me, I love the colourful sweet icing on top of the biscuit. In fact, my favourite colour among all the colours is green. I will never fail to find the green ones and place it in my bowl immediately before anyone gets hold of it. :D

What is your favourite childhood biscuits?

Pastamania @ Shaw Centre

2009-07-05T21:57:00.004+08:00

4/07/09, Saturday - My cousin, Yi and I went shopping on a humid Saturday in a bustling town called Orchard Road. It has been a long time since I went shopping at the shopping arena and now, ION Orchard is almost open for business.

After hours of shopping, we went to have our dinner at Pastamania@Shaw Centre. The food eatery is located on the fifth level and there are smorgasbord of food eateries on the level, namely, KFC, Long John Silver and Subway. As a result of the unconventional food dinning, Pastamania doesn't sell pizza in this outlet and the serving doesn't come in the usual plates and other metal utensils. Instead, it comes with black plastic box which will house the pasta and plastic fork and spoon.

I had the Chicken Sausage Linguine (S$7.90). The sauce was creamy and slightly spicy.

Yi had Spicy Chicken Spaghetti (S$6.80). I used to love to eat this pasta but after a while, I had hop on to other things.

My Maxwell Market Food Adventures

2009-07-05T21:31:00.002+08:00

3/07/09, Friday - In the afternoon, I accompanied my brother to Chinatown as he needed to see his doctor for his usual check-up. He has some stomach problems which requires some help and I hope he will get well soon.

Since the clinic is a stone away from the famous Maxwell Food Centre, we went there to get some food after his consulation. As everyone knows, Maxwell Food Centre has all the fantastic food inside the food centre. As a result, I am often spoilt for choices whenever I am there for a meal.

I ordered the famous Fish Meat Noodles (S$4.00) from the famous Fish Soup stall (sorry, I forgot to write down the name of the stall). Fortunately, there wasn't a long queue and it didn't take long before it was my turn. However, when I returned home with the food, the noodles was too soft and was close to being soggy.

Next, I went to the stall next to it which sells the deep fried sweet potato balls. Speaking of that, I am always screaming in delight whenever I see this stall being open for business. I will never fail to buy a few sweet potato balls when the stall is open for business. I believe this stall is one of the last few stalls which sells deep fried stuff since food stalls are always emphasising on eating healthy.

I bought two flavours - a sweet potato ball ($0.40) and a pandan coconut sweet potato ball (S$0.50). The pandan coconut flavour was bursting with green-coloured dessicated coconut and it was great.

This is the innard shot of the pandan coconut sweet potato ball.

If I ever visit that food centre again, I will perhaps order the chicken rice or something else...

An Annual Report on a Soup Spoon Meal...

2009-07-05T21:05:00.006+08:00

2/07/09, Thursday - A year ago, my friend, Ivy and I had a slightly unpleasant meal at Soup Spoon at Raffles City. Perhaps, it was the meal I had or the place which was packed almost every other day. I'm not sure. So we went back again and one year on, things had definitely changed.

The place was packed as usual and we had to stand besides a nearly empty table but with two people still chatting away and who were oblivious of our presence. However, the two people were gracious to leave the table for us to have our dinner.

This time round, I didn't order the Velvety Mushroom Stroganoff which obviously resembles a face mask after quite some time. Instead, I ordered a regular bowl of Beef Goulash (S$10.80) and since I ordered the SouperValue Combo Meal which consists of two sides, I chose a Chicken Tikka Wrap and a glass of Homemade Iced Lemon Tea which comes free with the meal.

The Beef Goulash was really nice and hearty. The beef cubes were soft and chewy. The staff asked me if I wanted a scoop of sour cream in my soup and I agreed. The combination between the tomato-based soup and the sour cream worked really well. There were even bits of potato, carrots, celery, celery and etc swimming in the soup. Yum. of course, I polished the soup off my bowl.

Ivy ordered a plate of Spicy Herby Cheesy Potato Wedges (S$3.60) as an additional dish for the both of us.

Well, other than the mushroom soup, I would definitely come back and try the rest of the soups, perhaps, another time.

Botak Jones - An Authentic American Meal

2009-07-05T19:16:00.004+08:00

30/06/09, Tuesday - My brother and I headed down to Botak Jones@Ang Mo Kio for a late lunch after a traumatic morning. The both of us thought of eating at Botak Jones since two years ago before he entered the national service. However, we didn't have the chance until today.

The place is not a restaurant. Instead it's a humble middle-sized stall situated in a coffeeshop. When we went there, the place wasn't packed at all. Perhaps, lunch time was over and people might have already migrated to somewhere else. So we took our time to look at the menu and see what we want to order. As the both of us weren't hungry at that point of time, we ordered The Botak Jones Burger Set and a Mini-Me Cajun Burger to share.

The Botak Jones Burger Set (S$8.50) comes with a choice of several side dish items. We choose Colesaw and a Cheese Potato. There is an additional charge of S$1 for two slices of cheese in your burger. Since we like the ozzy feeling of the cheese melting in our mouth, we don't mind the additional charge.

When the food arrived at our table, we were hoping for some fries but my brother told me that if we didnt order the set meal, there might be fries as our side dish. Oh well. The beef patty was pretty thick and juicy. The taste of the beef is definitely different from the usual fast food joint.

Here is another upclose angle of the burger.

Then the Mini-Me Cajun Burger (S$4.00) arrived at our table at the same time as the Botak Jones Burger Set. My brother loved the spicy taste of the Cajun Chicken. I think this burger isn't that bad.

However, the only bone I would pick is the cheese on the beef patty which wasn't melting and ozzy enough. Other than that, I think this meal is worth the money.

There are several outlets around the islandwide including this outlet at Ang Mo Kio. For more information, please check http://www.botakjones.com/locations_angmokio.html

Tonkatsu for Dinner

2009-07-05T16:59:00.004+08:00

29/06/09, Monday - After a meeting with my lecturer, I went back home to cook Tonkatsu for my family. Tonkatsu means breaded pork cutlet. The day before, my dad bought a huge pork fillet at least a few kg so my mum suggested that I fried some pork cutlets.

Well, I sliced the huge pork fillet into eight pork cutlets. Subsequently, I pounded them into an evenly thin slices. I marinated it with soy sauce and pepper.

Later, I dipped into rice flour (preferably plain flour), and then into beaten egg and lastly, panko which is the Japanese version of breadcrumbs. I bought the breadcrumbs from Fairprice Finest at Thomson Plaza but I believe the packet of breadcrumbs can be found in any supermarkets. Once it's done, I deep fried it into a pot of hot oil.

This is my first attempt in making Tonkatsu.

I guess I need to look after the meat because due to my slight neglience, there were some charred bits in the cutlet itself. I cut them into thin slices for easy consumption and placed on a bed of lettuce. I decided to use lettuce and tomato wedges as a vegetable and garnish respectively for absorption of the greasy pork cutlets.

Chee Cheong Fun for Breakfast

2009-07-05T16:49:00.004+08:00

22/06/09, Monday - On a breezy and sunny Monday morning, I prepared a classic local breakfast. I headed down to the market early in the morning to get some Chee Cheong Fun.

Since I have the remaining tubs of dark sweet sauce and sambal chilli in the fridge, I drizzled some dark sweet sauce on top of the steamy and soft Chee Cheong Fun and put a little sambal chilli by the side. It was yummy!

What a way to beat Monday's blues.

Father's Day

2009-06-29T21:46:00.005+08:00

21/06/09, Sunday - I had Cheese Scones (S$1.30) for breakfast. My brother bought it from Sun Moulin Bakery at Isetan Orchard.

The shape of the scones was a little irregular. Instead of the usual round shape, it was a triangular shape and there was a strong cheesy aroma coming out from the toaster. I spread butter and jam on each side of the warm scones. I love the taste of the cheese in the scones.

On this day, I also celebrated Father's Day with my family. I bought a Cappuccino Cake ($16.00) from Dino Cake House and Cafe.

This is the innard shot of the cake. Love the cappuccino cream which gives off the mild coffee aroma.

Sweet and Spicy Meal

2009-06-29T21:21:00.004+08:00

20/06/09, Saturday - My dad came back home from work and surprised me with a food which I didn't quite expected. It was a durian! I was screaming with delight secretly in my heart because I haven't been eating for almost a year. I miss eating Mao Shan Wang durian! Hah!

Apparently, my dad told me that he picked it up from the forest near his workplace so the fruit itself was a little different from those which you buy from the shop. There was only seed per compartment. Usually, there are at least three seeds per compartment. After tasting it, it wasn't that bad. It was rather sweet.

For dinner, Yi's mum cooked Sweet and Sour Pork which was slightly different from the usual sweet and sour pork that are in the market. She didn't deep fried the pork instead, she pan fried the pork slices and cut it into smaller pieces.

Then my third aunt cooked Fish Head Curry. I was famished when I first saw the pippin hot fish head curry. Well, you know what happened next.

I haven't had such a satisfying meal till this day. Yum!

Homemade Honey Baked Chicken Wings and Garlic Bread

2009-06-17T21:36:00.004+08:00

Today's dinner: Honey Baked Chicken Wings.

I realised there were some chicken wings in the fridge and there was a bottle of newly-bought honey in my home. Thus, I decided to make some Honey Baked Chicken Wings as I have not tried making any honey-based food. In the afternoon, I surfed the net for recipes for Honey Baked Chicken Wings and I managed to find one from allrecipes.com. This recipe which I selected is pretty fuss-free and easy to make.

Also, I baked some potatoes together with the chicken wings for about 45 minutes at 200 deg. I was so worried that the chicken wouldn't turn out golden brown or something and I went to check the chicken like almost every 10 minutes.

Meantime, I chopped up some garlic and mixed it with butter and basil leaves for some flavour enhancement. I spread it on these small square pieces of bread and shove it into the oven for about 15 minutes.

After an hour, this was my family's complete dinner.

Surprisingly, the chicken turned out to be good. Naturally, the honey flavour was there and I was elated. Fortunately, my food endeavor went well. As for the garlic bread, it tasted like croutons because the bread became hard instead of being softer. Anyhow, it was still good.

This is my plate.

My brother commented that my garlic bread didn't have the 'Omph' feeling to it while my dad enjoyed the chicken as much as I do.

Macaroni and Ham Soup

2009-06-17T21:26:00.004+08:00

16/06/09, Tuesday - Lunch: Macaroni and Ham Soup. I attempted to make a bowl of Macaroni and Ham Soup - one of Hong Kong's favourite breakfast meal - and it was a good attempt despite the fact the soup was a little bland.

I chopped up some garlic and onions, hams (of course!) and I had some mixed vegetables as my fibre. I fried the garlic and onions till golden brown then I threw in the shredded hams and mixed vegetables into the pot. I stirred about a few minutes before I pour some water into the pot and bring it to a boil for about 10 minutes. I added salt, pepper and sesame oil for taste and flavouring.

I think I might have overcooked the ham thus the soup was a little bland. Maybe the next time, I will boil the chicken bones as the soup base.

Sweet Indulgences on One Fine Day...

2009-06-17T21:06:00.003+08:00

15/06/09, Monday - During noon time, my brother offered to drive me to Bishan to return my book to the library and at the same time, he wanted to buy a cake to celebrate his accomplishment in serving in the national army.

We walked around the Junction 8 Shopping Mall, checking out all cake shops in the mall before buying the cakes he wanted. Eventually, he chose Chocolate Banana Cake (S$18) from BreadTalk. The cake itself wasn't that fantastic compared to Awfully Chocolate's Chocolate Banana Cake and Secret Recipes' ones.

Then in the evening, we went to Sembawang Shopping Centre for a cup of coffee and also to fetch our dad from work. We went to Starbucks Coffee Joint for coffee because there was an on-going promotion where there will be complimentary coffee of the day with every cakes we order. However, there are only a certain assortments of cakes we can choose from. It was really a good deal. The both of us ordered Chocolate Fugdy Cakes (S$4.50).

The cake tasted good only when it is warm up. Yum. The promotion happens only if you get a copy of the Sembawang Shopping Mall Advertorial Papers from the Customer Service Counter and it ends on 5 July.

Belgian Waffes @ Starbucks

2009-06-17T20:38:00.003+08:00

9/06/09, Tuesday - I met up with Christine for lunch at United Square Mall. It has been ages since we meet up and since she recently returned from New York City, I thought it would be a good time to catch up with her before she gets busy again with her piano teaching.

Though it was lunch hour when we there, the place was neither bustling with activity nor the eating places were packed. In fact, we managed to find a good eatery to have our lunch.

After lunch, Christine suggested that we have some coffee before we end our meet up. So we went over to Starbucks coffee joint which is within the mall's compound. There were students studying at the coffee joint despite the school holidays. Fortunately, we managed to find a good and comfy cushion seats.

I ordered a cup of freshly brew coffee (S$3.50) and Belgian Waffles (S$2.90) while Christine had some lemon drink.

Initially, I thought the waffles would come only one piece but little did I know, it comes with two pieces of the waffles and also it comes with butter and jam. They even heat up the waffles for you when you once ordered it. Thus, the butter will melt once you spread the butter on top of the warm waffles. Yum. If only, it comes with a chocolate fondue... :)

Hazelnut Milk Tea from KOI Cafe

2009-06-07T17:50:00.004+08:00

Many years ago, the bubble tea market was hot in demand and many bubble tea shops were sprouting everywhere and every corner of this island. Everywhere you turn, there was sure to be a bubble tea shop in that corner. At that point of time, there was even had a temporary bubble tea stall set up in my school. Then all of the sudden, the bubble tea market burst! Since then, the bubble tea market was a lonely one.

Astonishingly, the bubble tea franchise began to surface in the market a year back. First, there were enormous queue at Sweetalk! And now, there are queues at KOI Cafe, another popular bubble tea chain. A colleague of mine was telling me that the bubble tea at KOI Cafe was better than the rest of the bubble tea chains.

So today, I decided to try.

There wasn't any long queue at the newly-opened AMK outlet so I ordered Hazelnut Milk Tea (S) (S$2.40) without ice as I dislike drinks that are diluted.

In KOI Cafe, they actually give you a queue number for you to pick up your drinks. For once, I thought I was at the polyclinic.

Here is my half-drank Hazelnut Milk Tea. It wasn't that bad and since I get to choose the sugar intake of my drink, I would give a brownie point to KOI Cafe.

Dinner Buffet at KBox@Orchard Cineleisure

2009-06-07T16:37:00.004+08:00

5/06/09, Friday - There are times as a food blogger when I would be so absorbed at what I do till I forgot that I brought a camera with me and realised that I was supposed to take food pictures. And this entry is one of them.

I had dinner buffet at KBox@Orchard Cineleisure with J1 and J2 on a Friday's night. The entire buffet dinner cost S$30++ but we ended up paying S$37 at the end of the day. The dinner buffet was held in a karaoke place so we can eat and sing at the same time. When I got there, I was briefed on what to do during the buffet. I was given a sticker sleeve and was supposed to peel it off and stick it on my top to certify that I had paid for the buffet. The buffet spread was a reasonable one consists of Japanese counter, Teppanyaki counter, Local food counter, Deep fried snacks counter and the dessert counter.

Because we were all hungry, we picked as many food as we can and bring it into our room.

This is my plate. Here were the Thai Tofu, Black Pepper Chicken, Fried Kai Lan which was hidden by the bed of Tom Yum Fried Rice.

Then there was the seafood platter, with Tuna Sushi, Raw Salmon, Prawns, Scallops and Green pea Pods.

I picked up some deep fried food such as the usual onion rings, potato wedges, sotong ball and deep fried salmon which was half-eaten by J2.

This is Jo a.k.a J1's plate which consists of fried noodles, cereal prawns, black pepper chicken and kai lan.

This is J2's plate which consists of almost all Japanese food.

Apart from those food, we had Teppanyaki which was not too bad because J2 had her favourite Japanese Pregnant Fish. We even had Chicken & Beef Satay, Grilled Dory Fish with Mushroom Sauce (was too salty for my liking) and Beef. Sorry, I forgot to take those lovely pictures as I was too caught up with singing. :/

After one and a half hour later, we went to have our desserts as the buffet ends at 10pm. I had Pulu Hitam. It was alright. I was hoping that the dessert would be thicker and the coconut milk was too diluted. I picked some cakes as well.

(L-R) Two Oreo Cheesecakes, Strawberry Chocolate Cake, Cream Puff, Green Tea Mochi and Red Bean Mochi.

The Green Tea Mochi was too bitter after taking one bite and the Oreo Cheesecakes were a little artifical in terms of the taste.

By the time the buffet ended, my stomach was so filled. That is the problem about eating buffet. Other than eating the buffet, we also celebrated J2's birthday and we had a crazy time belting out songs after songs!

The Making of Wantons...

2009-06-07T16:28:00.002+08:00

2/05/09, Tuesday - I made some wantons (dumplings) that day with the marinated minced meat and the wanton skins given by Yi's mum. I chopped up a couple of garlic, red onions and mushrooms. Instead of using prawns, I threw some carrots into the mixture. I had a fun time wrapping those wantons like a parcel.

So for dinner that night, I whipped up wantons soup for me and brother. I used the Ikan Bilis (dried small fish) and garlic as my soup soup and the combination of the soup based and wantons was awesome. :)

Wedding Lunch at Daniel & Annabelle's Wedding

2009-06-07T15:41:00.003+08:00

30/05/09, Saturday - Over the last weekend, I attended Daniel & Annabelle's wedding - one of my dear friends - at the Traders Hotel. The interesting thing about their wedding was that it was held in the afternoon rather than the usual dinner which would eventually last till 11pm. So that day I didn't had a heavy breakfast, instead, I had a light one.

Their banquet hall was a pretty small and cosy one which holds about 20 plus tables. The other best thing about their wedding was that the ceremony was on time, thus, no time was wasted. Having saying that, the lunch came on time as well. :)

The first dish that arrived was Cold Dish Platter where the servers would walked in fashionably and cheesy way. The platter comprises of Roast Chicken, Salad Prawns, Sushi, Jellyfish and Duck. Sorry for the dim picture.

The second dish was Shark Fin and Mushroom Soup. Not sure if it's the real shark fins though.

The third dish was Prawns with Green Pea pods. My friend, He, who sat next to me, doesn't like pea pod so I ended up eating more pea pods.

The fourth dish was Spicy Crispy Chicken. When the server came and serve us the plates of chicken, I was in fact, eying on the one with chicken wing and chicken breast. But it was yummy!

The fifth dish was Mushroom and Spinach. Yet again, my friend, He, doesn't like the unappealing taste of spinach so I ended up eating more spinach. I felt like I was the Popeye the Sailor Man.

Well, my food photo taking ended at this point as the rest of the dishes that came later were almost the same as what I would usually ate at the wedding 8-course meal. And people were amused by my photo taking of all the food that were placed before me.

The wedding lunch ended around 4pm and the people, including myself, on the table had a last chat before we went back home and rest for the day. If you ask me, I think wedding lunch is a great idea.

Desserts from Miss Clarity Cafe

2009-06-02T13:36:00.004+08:00

22/05/09, Friday - My brother and I bought some desserts from Miss Clarity Cafe after our dinner.

Profiteroles (S$5.00 for three) . We were encouraged to buy three as a profiterole costs S$2.00. Those splashes of dark chocolates on top of the choux pastry just makes me wanna eat them fast! I realised that these pastry has to be defrost for a while before one can start eating them because the cold temperature in the fridge will freeze the pastry. Otherwise, one will end up eating the hard pastry and the hard chocolate cream.

Tiramisu (S$4.00). My brother had a sudden craving for Tiramisu and he was deciding between Breadtalk and the rest of the other cake shops islandwide. As I didn't want to travel far, we opted for Miss Clarity Cafe which is nearer to where we stay. Fortunately, they had Tiramisu in their display chiller. As you can see, the Tiramisu is being placed in a cute little square cup with a clear wrap on top of it.

My brother said it was good. As for me, the Profiteroles were good as well.

A Disappointing Meal at Gluttons Bay

2009-06-02T13:09:00.004+08:00

21/05/09, Thursday - I met up with Zoe in the evening to catch the gala opening of Sutra - the opening core shows of the Singapore Arts Festival 2009. Initially, the show started off insipidly but midway through the show, the tempo begun to pick up. However, it was the music composed by Polish Composer Szymon Brzoska that took my breath away especially towards the end of the breathtaking shadow-boxing finale.

Here is a short snippet of Sutra.

After the show, we headed to Gluttons Bay which is situated next to Esplanade Mall. I ordered a plate of Char Kway Teow (S$4.00) and Zoe ordered a plate of Char Tow Kway (S$4.00).

The place wasn't crowded when we went there and there was even an occasional breeze in amidst of the humid night atmosphere. Sadly, both dishes failed to meet our expectations. I regretted eating my plate of Char Kway Teow. In fact, I think I should have ordered something else from Gluttons Bay. Oh well, I guess I won't be visiting Gluttons Bay for some time.

Dinner with Ellie and Cheryl

2009-06-02T12:39:00.003+08:00

20/05/09, Wednesday - Dinner: Shokudo@Heeren. Originally, it was supposed to be the gathering of the 5ofus but I guess some of us had conflicting schedules at that point of time, thus, only Ellie, Cheryl and I managed to meet up.

This outlet was a little smaller compared to its other counterparts, hence, the choices of food are dwindled down to the popular items such as the usual Yakitori, Japanese Hotpot, Ramen and Desserts. After browsing through this 'marketplace', I decided to opt for something filling which is the carbohydrates: rice. I ordered Unagi Fried Rice with Egg (S$9.80). The original cost of the fried rice is S$6.80 but I added an omelette which costs me an additional charge of S$3.00.

This is the innard shot of the dish.

The dish wasn't that fantastic but it was still edible.

Apart from that, I also ordered a plate of Plain Rosti (S$4.80) as it has been long time since I touched rosti. The last time I had was my visit to the now-defunct Marche at Suntec City. I split the rosti into four pieces and shared it with Ellie. The potato pancake was a little oily but overall, it was still okay.

Ellie had the Ultra-Thin Crust Seafood Pizza (approx. S$9.80). Previously, we had the Hokkaido - Style Curry Mashed Potato Cheese Pizza which was great.

During our dinner, our dear friend Cheryl played with her new toy, the Luv-U Therapy Ball, a gift from Ellie.

We had a ball of a time (no pun intended!) asking questions like, "Will I have a boyfriend this year?", "Will he look like so-and-so?" or "Will my boyfriend be a British?". But I guess it was this ball that got us bonded together in that dinner.

Food over the weekend

2009-05-19T13:50:00.004+08:00

16 - 17/05/09, Sat & Sun - On Saturday, Yi's mum bought a packet of Nasi Lemak from the famous economical beehoon stall in Yishun. It consists of the coconut rice, ikan bilis and my favourite, Chicken Wing! There was a scoop of lip-smacking sambal chilli at the side of the lunchbox. The sambal chilli is not really hot and spicy, instead it leans towards the sweet side.

On Sunday, we celebrated my brother's birthday and the celebration came early this year as he will be stationed in his camp on his birthday. Well, the celebration was not an elaborated one because my brother prefers a simple birthday celebration. And that consists of only a cake.

This year, he went to buy a Green Tea Cake (S$18.80) from BreadTalk and this shot was taken by my dad.

I ate the cake the next day and I realised that there were red beans littering in between the layers of the green tea cake. The cream tasted good.

Sadly, there isn't a strong hint of green tea which I wanted it very much.

Another version of Malaysian Hokkien Mee

2009-05-12T18:54:00.004+08:00

For lunch - Fried Black Noodles with Luncheon Meat and Fishcake.

I attempted to cook a different version of the Malaysian Hokkien Mee where the noodles are usually black and kiam (def: salty) and I managed to do it with a good sigh of relief. I believe cubes of crispy pork lard can be found inside of the black noodles in the Malaysian's version.

Initially, I was pretty lazy to cook my lunch but my mum prompted me to have lunch because she doesn't want me to end up with gastritis. In order to pacify her, I relented by cooking this dish. I threw in stripes of luncheon meat and fishcake into the pan and fried them till fragrance. After that, I pour some water into the pan and allow it to simmer for a while. Once it's done, I placed the flour noodles into the pan and stir it together with the luncheon meat and fishcake. Instead of putting oyster sauce (which is usually done in the Malaysian's version of the Hokkien Mee), I drizzled lots of dark soy sauce. Also, I drizzled some soy sauce and pepper for taste.

Since this was my first attempt, it wasn't too bad. Because of the luncheon meat, the noodles tend to be a little salty. But overall, it's pretty good.

Dog Bones Cookie from Spinelli

2009-05-10T21:25:00.003+08:00

My younger brother showed me something interesting today and then I realised that he bought this cookie that has a shape of a dog bone. He told me it is called Dog Bones Cookie (S$1 for 1 & S$1.80 for 2) from Spinelli Coffee joint.

On top of the cookie, there's a huge sprinkle of coarse sugar. Looks yummy!

The process of cooking Fish Head Beehoon on Mother's Day...

2009-05-10T20:45:00.006+08:00

On this very special day, I celebrated it with my mum early this morning with New York Cheesecake (S$18 per half kg) from Dino Cake House & Cafe before I head down to church.

Personally, Mother's Day is a wonderful time to cherish and appreciate the selfless love which my mum bestowed us over the past years. My brother and I truly appreciate her kindness and patience. Love ya, mum!

I ate a small slice of the cake and it tasted quite yummy.

For dinner, four aunties from my dad's side came over to visit my mother and at the same time, catching up with one another. My second aunt, who is a brilliant cook, whipped up a storm in the kitchen. Ever since I had a strange craving for deep-fried chicken wings for the past weeks, she took that into consideration and deep-fried many chicken wings to me to gorge. Oh man! And of course, I had about three pieces of those crispy chicken and it was good. What a way to satisfy my cravings! :D

Subsequently, she cooked the main fish which, was the Fish Head Beehoon, and I had a wild time capturing photos and learning how to cook Fish Head Beehoon from her.

First step: Marinate the fish with soy sauce, pepper and garlic. After that, sprinkle some corn flour onto the fish and start coating it. This is to prevent the hot oil from splashing as there might be retaining water from the fish.

Second step: Deep-fried it in a very hot oil. Make sure it sizzles! :D

Third step: After 10 minutes, take out the fish heads and drain them on a paper towel.

Fourth and the last step: Throw in chopped vegetables of your choice and meat into a pot of boiling water. Once the water is boiled, throw in the deep-fried fish heads and allow it to simmer for a while. Drizzle some salt and pepper for taste. Lastly, throw in the noodles of your choice. And tada! It's done.

Well, this is my bowl of Fish Head Beehoon.

My auntie used flour noodles, which is used for Laksa, and she used Wong Bok vegetables to balance out the numerous fish heads which were swimming inside a pool of slightly clear broth. Sadly, there wasn't any taste and we surmised that she forgot to put salt into the broth. True enough, she didn't. But overall, it was still good.

Next time, I will ask her to cook Nasi Lemak and I will probably learn that skill from her. Heh! :)

My new pair of shoes...

2009-05-09T22:36:00.002+08:00

6/5/09, Wednesday - After I had a briefing with NAC, I headed down to Everlast@Bugis Junction to get a pair of sneakers. It was almost an emergency mission because all of my shoes are gone case (!) Yes, I know what you mean.

Fortunately, I finally had the time to buy a new pair of shoes. It's in off-white colour which I think it's pretty neutral to pair up with any clothes. It costs me S$55.95 to get this pair of shoes.

The material is very much like a cloth material, unlike those shoes from Converse shops. I really like the comfy feeling when I first tried it in the shop. Yes, it eventually ended up on my shoe rack.

Desserts Galore @ PS Cafe

2009-05-09T22:16:00.004+08:00

18/4/09, Saturday - My cousin, Yi and I went to PS Cafe at Dempsey Road for dessert on a warm Saturday night. We planned to have desserts at the cafe for a quite some time and finally we got our wish. :)

We had a light dinner before we headed down to Dempsey Road because the desserts are too pricey and also, the desserts usually come in big portions. We hailed a cab from Orchard Road because of its shorter distance and the taxi driver went to the other entrance thus, we almost couldn't find our way to the cafe. Usually, some taxi driver would enter from the Minden Road entrance as it is nearer to PS Cafe. Moreover, Dempsey Road is divided into many parts, hence, one can get lost if he/she failed to get the proper address.

So anyway, we managed to find the place without losing our sanity. The place was half-packed when we enter and we were placed on a waiting list. Within 10 minutes, we got our table. I realised that reservations is a must if I ever had to go to this cafe again.

I ordered Southern Fudgy Chocolate Pecan Pie with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream (S$14.90) and a cup of Earl Grey Tea (S$5.50).

Yi ordered Cheddar Cheese Crust Apple Pie A La Mode with a scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream (S$14.90) and a glass of Passion Fruit Drink. She wanted to have Lemon Pie, which only can be found in the Palais Renaissance's outlet, so in the end, she settled on the apple pie.

Halfway through our desserts, we realised that our desserts were tad too sweet especially my pecan pie which consists of two kinds of chocolate inside of the pie. Soon, the both of us almost die of overdose of sweet desserts and clearly, we lamented that we should have ordered a basket of fries and a plate of sweet dessert. Balanced.

Dinner @ Carl Jr

2009-05-09T21:50:00.003+08:00

15/4/09, Wednesday - I met up with my long-time friend, Chris and his Wife Allyson for dinner at Carl Jr, Plaza Singapura after an afternoon of musical theatre rehearsal. Chris returned from his postgraduate studies in UK not too long ago and we decided to catch up on lost times. I wasn't really fancy Carl Jr but since Chris wanted to have his burger, I relented.

As I wasn't into Charbroiled Burger that evening, I opted for something else. After screening through the menu properly, I ordered Carl's Catch Fish Sandwich Meal (approx. S$7.90).

I didn't take any innards pictures of the fish burger but I must say, the fish fillet was fantastic! After munching multiple times onto the burger and the fish, I could see the fish flakes. The fish even tasted fresh. It really tasted like a fish burger! :D

As for the fries, it was a medium-sized fries and it was still crispy when it arrived on my table. It wasn't limp or anything. I enjoyed it.

I remembered the last time I had Carl Jr Burger was back in 2005 when it first came to Singapore. I had the Famous Star burger but as one understands that Carl Jr burger is humongous, thus, I often failed to finish my burger.

Italian Raviolli

2009-05-09T21:27:00.003+08:00

12/4/09, Sunday - For dinner, I had Italian Raviolli which my dad brought it home from his working place. He said that one of the chefs cooked the Italian pasta onboard of the ship which he was working on. So he came home with a big tray of these huge Italian pasta.

He heated it up in the oven and within 10-15 minutes, we were all ready for dinner. Inside of the raviolli was all cheese and I think the chef used buffalo cheese which is more creamy and salty. Apart from that, the chef even sprinkled some parmesan cheese which makes it even more salty and gooey.

Here is my bowl of raviolli. I sprinkled some chilli flakes on the pasta to spice things up.

With the combination of the tomato sauce and the huge amount of cheese, I couldn't elaborate more. Yummy!

Good Friday's Celebration with lotsa food!

2009-05-09T20:58:00.003+08:00

10/4/09, Friday - This year's Good Friday, our cell group organised a harvest event filled with games, food and fellowship. Our games master decided to play Twister which everyone had to twist their body to get one colour to other colour. It was a tough game, I must say. I think those who do yoga or pilates may have an advantage when comes to playing of Twister.

After the games, all of us sat down to watch a video called "The Crossing". Subsequently, after the video and the sharing of our dear sister-in-Christ, Justine's testimony, we finally get down to our dinner.

Here were the food that were contributed that day:

Hawaiian Pizza from Pizza Hut.

Red Jelly from Jo, our host.

Sushi Platter.

Green Salad which had Sunflower Seeds littering on top of the greens.

Chicken Curry. It was superb and everyone managed to polish off the entire pot of chicken curry. Sorry for the blurry photo. :(

French Loaf. The bread was soft and combining it with the chicken curry, it was heavenly!

For desserts, we had chocolate cakes, contributed by Pheb. I tried one of them and it wasn't too sweet, something which I adored.

Then, our dear Char who rushed down from work at Ben and Jerry contributed B&J cakes. The two cakes at the bottom are apple crumble pie. Due to my filled stomach, I didn't really try the apple crumble pie but I heard it was quite good.

But during the dinner, we had a little accident. I offered to help Jo's maid to get her 7-up drink which is a gassy drink from the table. And since no one open the bottle yet, I had the honour to be the first one to open the drink. However, as I started to open the bottle, the gas inside the drink rise up to the brim and because I was panicking, I failed to close the bottle in time. Thus, the 7-up drink started to spray everywhere like nobody's business. I was utterly embarrassed though.

MacDonald's for dinner and TPDE Dance Concert

2009-05-09T20:45:00.003+08:00

4/4/09, Saturday - I had Fillet-O-Fish Meal (S$6.45) from McDonald's at Tampines Mall for dinner, together with Ellie. It's just one of those days when you have cravings for something salty and unhealthy. Besides, most of the places were crowded and by the time, we decided on the place to eat, we would have been late for a concert.

When the food arrived on our table and I opened up the box, I realised that the fish fillet had somewhat shrunk. Clearly it was different from the menu board and I do understand that picture on the board is definitely different from what we will get. But I didn't expect it to be really thin and small.

The only consolation I had from the entire meal was the salty french fries. I always love McDonald's French Fries. It's really tasty and salty. And the coffee.

I realised they have re-packaged the coffee and I felt that it was a good move. It's a premium coffee and it really tasted like a premium coffee.

After that meal, Ellie, Cheryl and I went to catch Gin's choreographed dance concert at Temasek Poly.

Baked Dinner

2009-05-09T20:11:00.003+08:00

26/3/09, Thursday - I came home feeling a little surprised to see something different on the dinner table. "Daddy cooked baked rice for you.", said my mum who was eating her dinner. Later I realised that he was trying out some new recipes which he eventually called it Italian Baked Rice.

He chopped up a couple of potatoes, marinated some pork ribs with garlic and soy sauce and he threw them onto the baking tray. As for the rice, he mixed it with tomato-based sauce, cheese, potatoes, mushrooms and peas. After everything has been baked in the oven for an hour or so, the rice looked like a huge cube and my dad used a knife to cut it into portions.

The rice was quite tomato-ey though I don't really fancy tomatoes and I realised he shouldn't have stuffed potatoes into the rice as it tasted really bland on the tongue. I will remind him to stuff some savoury hams or bacon the next time round.

Steamboat at House of Steamboat

2009-05-09T18:38:00.003+08:00

23/03/09, Monday - I had a steamboat dinner with the 5ofus at House of Steamboat which is situated at Tan Quee Lan Street (yes, it's along the same stretch of shophouse that has other steamboat eatery, including Tian Tian Steamboat). Initially, Gin wanted to have dinner at Cuppage Road, however, that Japanese eatery was closed on that day. Alternatively, we had steamboat.

Prior to that, I had vegetarian meal for lunch with my classmates and I was wondering if my stomach had some space left for a round of steamboat. And as one know that steamboat is pretty much a eat-all-you-can buffet and surely, anyone wants to maximize their dollars. So I tried my best to eat whatever I could.

When I went to the place, I was already late. I was flustered of what to do in the eatery when Ellie, Cheryl and Gin had started on their meal. I went to pick whatever I had taken a fancy to, which includes my all-time favourites, fishball, and the other food.

There were two choices of soup: the ever-popular Spicy (Ma La) Soup and Ginseng Chicken Herbal Soup.

Here is the thing. I was really eager to try the soup and so I scooped the Ma La soup into my small bowl. As a result of my eagerness, I gulped the spicy soup down my throat, thinking it was Tom Yum Soup. How interesting you may say. Not long after, I found myself choking and coughing due to the chilli seeds which might have stuck onto my esophagus. I was coughing so badly that tears began to roll down my cheeks. Cheryl was stunned and I guess everyone on the table and other tables were looking at this flustered girl coughing and choking. I immediately ordered an iced water to clear my throat. Lesson learnt, never ever be too greedy. :D

We get to choose whatever we feel like putting into those two soup base. Food ranging from seafood - crabs, prawns, cockles, crabmeat, fishballs and sliced fish. I must say the sliced fish was really good. I think they used dory fish.

We had a couple of servings of sliced fish. Then there were some meats, which are Gin's all-time favourite, sliced beef, pork and chicken. I didn't really try the meat though I did fish out some meats onto my plate. There were also other food such as corns, shredded yams, straw mushrooms.

Towards the end of the meal, the server gave us a plate of deep-fried mantou and from my first instinct, I recalled not ordering of such food. Little did I know that, it's actually a complimentary dish from the eatery as according to Gin. I tried two of those and it was really sweet and yummy.

Minutes later, Zoe entered into the eatery and surprised Cheryl with two slices of cakes - a heart-shaped strawberry chocolate cake and a strawberry shortcake.

We really had a fun-filled time catching up over a meal of steamboat and the meal was really good. Each of us paid about S$17.90 at the end of the meal. I may come back to try their steamboat again.

I'm updating my food blog now...

2009-05-09T18:29:00.002+08:00

Dear readers,

Yes, I know what you mean. What the heck have I been for the past one month? Alright, I have a confession to make. I have been doing productions back to back and sadly, I neglected my food blog which I sorely missed so much.

And since I am having a three-months break, I decided to get my fingers off from all the lighting equipments and props and start catching up with my past food posts.

So more food posts coming up!

Cheers,
Munchie The Foodie

P/S, I begin from the earliest post which is in March. :D

Have a date with Vegetarian Food

2009-04-01T18:57:00.004+08:00

23/03/09, Monday - My classmates and I went to Fortune Centre to have our lunch after our sound class. We went to our usual vegetarian restaurant at level 2 (sorry, I didn't take down the name of the resturant ). The thing about vegetarian food is that not everything is all about vegetables. There are meats stuff such as chicken, pork and fish but then they are all mocked meat, not real meat. I have tried some of the mocked chicken and fish and they tasted like the real stuff except that most of them are all made up of gluten, soy beans and flour.

I ordered the Lemon Cutlet Rice (S$3.50) which comes with a bowl of vegetables soup.

The chicken cutlet is breaded and fried till crispy. They toppled some lemon sauce on top of the chicken cutlet yet the meat wasn't really soggy when it arrived on my table. They even gave a stab of vegetables as the side dish. Yum!

The meat itself tasted really nice and crispy. I think this is the best dish in that restaurant apart from their curries.

Updating my food blog...

2009-04-01T18:26:00.003+08:00

A month has passed and my last food entry was still in February. Yes, I know. I haven't been updating my blog for that long. I'm guilty now. However, having said that, I have actually done my homework but it's just that I didn't have the time to put it up on the blog. So here it goes...

1/03/09, Sunday - I attended my niece's Sarah's full-month birthday celebration at my second uncle, Uncle Tong's clubhouse at Faber Garden after my church service in the morning. When I arrived, people started digging into their plates of scrumptious food. My cousin actually ordered lunch buffet as part of the birthday celebrations for the guests. It was quite a spread. Unfortunately, when I went to queue to get my food, there was a snake of people queuing behind me and it was totally impossible to hog up the line with my camera-taking session of the food.

So in the end, I took picture of what I choose from the buffet spread. :)

(L-R) Sweet and Sour fried fish, Sotong Ball, Fried Chicken Wing and Kai Lan on top of a small heap of fried rice.

The fried fish and the fried chicken wing were not too bad. Sadly, the fried chicken wings were almost half-empty when I went to get my lunch.

Food Celebrations!

2009-02-27T20:11:00.006+08:00

23/02/09, Monday - As everyone has worked extremely hard for our Backstage Pass production over the last two weeks, all of us decided to go all out to celebrate our hard work. And one of the ways was, of course, binged!

We went over to this newly-revamped shopping centre called Pomo (it was formerly called Paradiz Centre) and after viewing a few eateries, we decided to settle for Thai food at Lerk Thai.

There was a lunch promotion on that day where two persons who purchase two set meals (S$11.00 e.a) and the third person will get that extra meal for free.

The set meal consists of a soup, starter and a main course. Sam, Pet and I decided to go for the set meal deal while the rest decided on the ala carte meals.

First stop, the Tom Yum Soup. It was really good. There was a huge chunk of fish and other seafoods swimming in the red and spicy seafood broth.

Then the starter arrived and I chose the Deep Fried Prawns which resembled Japanese Ebi Prawns. They gave the papaya salad as the side dish to compliment the greasiness of the prawns.

For my mains, I chose Green Curry Chicken. It wasn't really fantastic after all. Instead of chunks of chicken, there were only slices of chicken and the curry was mildly spicy. I could only wish the curry would be spicier.

As for Sam, she chose Thai Fishcake as her starter. I think it looks really good although I didn't really taste it.

Pet ordered Fish Fillet with Hot Sour and Spicy Sauce yet to me, it appeared more like a Sweet and Sour Fish.

Halfway through the lunch, Sam suggested we eat dessert at Peace Centre. So after lunch and where we leave some space in our stomach, we hopped over to the Dessert Lover at Peace Centre. It has been a long time since I went there. The last time I ever went there was with 5ofus. We used to eat desserts whenever we have breaks in between our classes.

Anyway, the prices of the desserts have increased. For instance, a bowl of Glutinous Rice Ball in Peanut Soup cost S$2.20 whereas previously it was only S$2.00. After studying the menu, I ordered the Black Glutinous Rice Porridge (S$1.50). I like the way how the coconut cream is being drizzled on top of the blackly porridge. Yum!

Here was what we've ordered. [L-R] Yam Paste, Mango Sago, Walnut Cream, Almond Cream, Black Glutinous Rice Porridge and in the middle, Black Glutinous Rice Porridge with Ice-cream.

All of us really had a wonderful time eating those wonderful desserts. I still love my Black Glutinous Rice Porridge.

After our bump out that evening, some of us went ahead with dinner at PastaMania. Apparently, I learnt that PastaMania has become a Halal-certified establishment thus one of our classmates, Ila can dine with us. As my stomach was filled from the super heavy lunch, I could only eat something light.

In the end, I ordered Garlic Bread (S$1.80) and Aglio Olio (S$4.90).

Somehow, I regretted eating their garlic bread because it wasn't really nice. There wasn't enough salt and butter. The garlic taste wasn't there as well. Oh well.

As for Aglio Olio, that was my first time trying it and I had a mixed feeling on that dish. Overall, it was still edible. Here is an ordinary shot of Aglio Olio.

Here is another shot of that dish but one can see the pippin hot steaming of that pasta dish with all that smoking presence. Hah!

Strangely, that day was a day where all of us eat to our heart's content. I guess that is called satisfaction.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day 14

2009-02-15T19:47:00.005+08:00

8/2/09, Sunday - On the second last day of Chinese New Year, I headed to my First Uncle's house for dinner. His wife whom I addressed Auntie Esther cooked up a storm for all us.

Here were the dishes:

Duck Curry. Auntie Esther told us that this dish is actually a Myanmar dish and her maid, who happens to be a Myanmar national, cooked this dish. Since I seldom eat duck, I only ate the potato.

Braised Pork Belly with Boiled Egg. As you know, I don't really take Pork Belly so I chose the boiled egg.

Prawns in Tomato Sauce.

Minced Pork with Mushrooms.

Stewed Chicken in Black Sauce and Prunes. Apparently, this was one of Auntie Esther's new creation where she infused sweet prunes into this dish. It didn't really tasted funny as a result of the combination between sweet and savoury. Instead, the chicken meat was really soft.

This was my plate. As I was hungry, I had a second serving of the above dishes minus the rice.

Yet again, the Chinese New Year is going to end soon. Although it seemed like there isn't any festive atmosphere this year, I do hope I could feel the atmosphere next year.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day 13

2009-02-15T19:07:00.006+08:00

7/2/09, Saturday - Three days before the Chinese New Year comes to a close (read: sad), I had a Chinese new Year lunch (again!) with my maternal relatives at Zhou Kitchen at Square Two.

There were a few plates of Keropok (crackers) on the table and I believed the flavour was prawn. My cousin, Wen urged me to try dipping the Keropok with the given sweet chilli sauce was also on the table. I dipped it with apprehension of course, and surprisingly, it was really good.

Our first course was Seafood soup with chunks of fresh prawns swimming inside the brown broth. Something different from the usual Shark Fin's soup.

The second dish was Broccoli with Mushrooms and Abalone. Sadly, the abalone was a small one. Didn't get enough of it. Hah!

Then, the Steamed Fish course arrived in designated small bowls. One of my cousins actually loved the sauce of this dish.

The fourth course was the usual Crispy Chicken. It was nothing special about this dish.

While we were at this dish, some of us were discussing about wasabi which is called horseradish and it can be found in most of the Japanese food. My little nephew, Brandon is often tricked into eating this green wasabi thing because the colour resembles green tea. So anyway, as we polishing our chicken dish, the next dish happened to be Deep-fried Prawns with Wasabi Cream.

The flavour wasn't really strong enough to cause my nose to drip. Instead, it was quite mild.

The second last dish was the Glutinous Rice fried with Chinese Sausages. It seemed that I have been eating this dish throughout this Chinese New Year's period.

Finally, the dessert was a Lemon Sorbet with Jelly. The sorbet was soft and sweet. It reminds me of our local Ice Kacang.

After our heavy lunch, all of us headed to my fifth uncle's place for tea and a game of mahjong. Then for tomorrow, it would be my first uncle's place where he will host dinner for us. More food pictures!

Thank you the 5ofus for the Macaroons!

2009-02-07T00:34:00.004+08:00

On thursday, I received an instant message from Ellie asking me if I was in school as she had something to pass to me. Since I was in school, I agreed to meet up with her in one of our school blocks.

When I arrived there, she passed me a bag which concealed the rest of the details inside the bag. She said this bag was a gift for me from our 5ofus group and it was like a token of appreciation because I invited them over to my place for dinner last Friday. Then guess what was inside the bag? It was macaroons! And it was from Bakerzin!

There were altogether six assorted macaroons in the plastic bag and I couldn't bear to eat them in school because they were so beautiful. Fortunately, I brought a container from home that day which housed some Chinese New Year's goodies. But when I went back home, a few macaroons were badly smashed up. Perhaps, the macaroons were too big for the container which resulted it being dented.

Nevertheless, I did try some of those lovely and sweet macaroons. I had the Grape (Purple), the lemon (Yellow) and the Raspberries (Red) ones. No matter how much I eat these macaroons, I am still unable to decipher the real taste behind the macaroons. So I was telling Ellie that perhaps we should initiate a "Guess the taste of the macaroons" game. She just laughed when I told her the idea.

Then I realised they also wrote a card for me. Here is the card.

They even wrote a thank you note and I was moved when I first read it.

I am really privilege to be loved by this bunch of people and to the 5ofus, I hope our friendship will last till we grow old!

Macaroons Galore!

2009-02-07T00:11:00.003+08:00

Recently, Bakerzin has been offering promotions and their desserts. Last month, the cost of the Warm Chocolate Cake (U.P S$9.80) was reduced to a very good price tag of S$4.90. Pity, I didn't manage to try that cake despite my cousin telling me how nice and warm it was. However, this month, the cost of my favourite Macaroons (S$1.60) has been slashed to S$1 per macaroons. *Screams in delight*

So last Wednesday, I went over to my cousin, Yi's place for dinner and her lovely mother offered to cook dinner for me even though I arrived late at her house. After the dinner, Yi finally showed me a packet of assorted macaroons and immediately, I was over the moon. She told me that there weren't many choices when she went over to the shop. So eventually, she picked what was available.

(Top Left -R) Coffee, Orange, Rose and Raspberries macaroons.

The flavour above may be wrong except for the Coffee and the Rose macaroons as I was able to decipher it.

But those macaroons were really nice. Yi even gave me a packet to bring home for my family. Although I tried to dissuade her from giving me that packet, she still insisted on me bringing some home.

Yet do rest assured as there will be another macaroons coming right up!

Chinese New Year Edition - Day Seven and a Peach Garden Revisited

2009-02-02T23:26:00.004+08:00

1/02/09, Sunday - Day Seven of CNY signifies "Ren Ri" which means it is everyone's birthday. I kinda forgot what is the real meaning behind it but I guess everyone knew that day seven is everyone's birthday. My mum cooked seven kinds of vegetable for everyone in my family to eat before we had our dinner at Peach Garden Restaurant (yes, again).

This time, we had all the relatives (my dad's side) having this dinner with us. Yet again, we had our Fa Cai Yusheng. I didn't take this picture as I had taken it previously. But the rest of the dinner course was different from yesterday. Our soup was different as well. We had Braised Baby Superior Shark Fin's with Bamboo Pith in Golden Broth. I'm not sure how superior the shark fin was but the soup wasn't that fantastic.

Then we had the Crispy Chicken which I tried my best to attack my favourite chicken wing first before the rest of the people take it. Hah!

And the Sweet and Sour Garoupa which was being sliced up before I could take a good picture on that.

Speaking of taking food photos, I was trying my best to take all these pictures before everyone starts to dig in and most of relatives were nice enough to allow me to take the pictures firsthand.

This was the Stir-fried Prawn with Fresh Scallop, Celery and Walnut. I do love the crispy noodle which double acted as a basket. I just help munching on those.

By this time, most of us at the table were struggling with our next course that was Fried Glutinous Rice with Chinese Sausages.

Finally, our dessert arrived. We had something hot today than some chilled desserts. Double-boiled Red Dates Tea with Glutinous Rice Ball was what they called it. The soup was sweet and the rice ball was the sesame flavour - my favourite.

Unfortunately, people from the next table (the older generation) couldn't finish some and they passed it on to us when we were all struggling. So we tried our best to finish everything, with struggles of course.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day Six

2009-02-02T22:46:00.004+08:00

30/1/09, Saturday - On this day, all my relatives from my mum's side came to our place for a visit. Thus, we have to clean the house and prepare some food for their arrival. My mum kindly cooked slices of 'nian gao' (means new year's sticky cake) with an egg batter. She would pan-fried it and soon, the cake would be soft and chewy. Yummy! Most of my relatives were often looking forward to eat slices of those with either tea or coffee.

For dinner, we headed down to Peach Garden Restaurant at Thomson Plaza. Before we entered into the restaurant, I happened to see Tay Ping Hui, a Mediacorp actor walking in opposite direction. Immediately, I nudged my mother who was looking elsewhere. Once I notified her, her head instantly turned to his walking direction. He is really tall. But he didn't smile at us or something. Maybe I'm too small for him to notice. Hah!

When we sat down on our designated table, two plates of oranges and sweet walnuts were placed on top of the table for us to munch on before the commencement of the dinner.

Once we gathered everyone on the table, our first dish finally arrived. Guess what, it was Fa Cai Yusheng again! (yes, again!) We mixed the Chinese Salad again. But what was interesting about this particular yusheng was that there were slices of crispy lotus.

Our second course arrived after the Yusheng. It was Double-boiled Shark's Bone Cartilage Soup with Shark's Fin and Tien Shin Cabbage. What a long title! Looking at the creamy soup, I reckoned it was a very nourishing soup since it was double-boiled.

The third course was Crispy Roast Duck. It was succulent and filled with fragrance. My cousin, Shuyang loved it.

This was my favourite dish - Deep-fried Fillet of Sea Perch with "Nonya" sauce. It was a really big piece of fish and the meat was moist and soft. The sweet and spicy sauce was fantastic. This was so much better than Fish and Chips.

The fifth course belonged to Braised Pig's Trotter with "Fa Cai". I only ate the meat and not the soft and rubbery fats. I gave it a pass.

Then came the Stewed Spinach Noodle with Live Prawn and Minced Meat Sauce. The noodle came in green colour but the noodle, which resembled our local, Mee Kia, tasted soft and less chewy.

Lastly, the desserts. We were given three kinds of dessert - one, their signature's and Nian GaoWater Chestnut Pudding. The nian gao tasted different from how my mum's cooked it and the pudding was really good. Wish I could have more.

The other dessert was Chilled Jelly Royale with Queball. However, I didn't take any pictures on that.

Chinese New Year Edition - Day Two

2009-02-02T22:10:00.008+08:00

27/01/09, Tuesday - According to the Chinese New Year traditions, the second day was supposed be the day for married daughters to return home to visit their own families. My family used to visit my maternal grandmother many years on this day before my late grandmother passed away six years ago. So instead of visiting my grandmother's house, we visited my second uncle's (my mum's second brother) place. We went there early as the older generation were all gearing up for a game of mahjong. As the next day was a school day, I brought my work to do. Bah!

For dinner, my second auntie cooked up a storm. But before the dinner commences, we had our usual Fa Cai Yusheng (again!).

This time round, we had more people than the first day. We mixed the Yusheng as words of good fortune were coming from everyone's mouths. I never failed to enjoy mixing the Yusheng as this dish can be termed as the Chinese's version of salad. Now for the main dishes, there was mutton curry.

The lovely pan-fried pork chops. I remember when I was young, I would love to eat this kind of pork chops with my hands till there wasn't any meat left in the bone.

Then, there was Sambal Chicken or Curry Chicken.

My auntie's latest creation or recipe, Mango Prawns. Initially, I thought it was pumpkin prawns.

The greens - Vegetables with Baby Abalone. Aren't they cute?

Lastly, the venomous and unhealthy Kong Ba (means, Fatty Pork Belly) which goes perfectly well with steaming buns. No, I didn't eat that of course.

This was my plate, filled with each of the above, except for the Kong Ba and Pan-fried pork chops. I have been eating less these days due to my health. But I guess eating in moderation is better.

Oone of the main highlights or rather the attention wasn't on the food, but it was on my two lovely and naughty niece, Chloe and her elder brother, Brandon. The latter has grown up so fast and began to look really handsome; whereas, Chloe is still as lovely as ever. With them around, there won't be any peace.

Chinese New Year Edition - The Big Day

2009-01-27T01:26:00.005+08:00

26/01/09, Monday - On the first day of Chinese New Year, my family had a good rest. We didn't do any cleaning and as my parents were traditional, we didn't do any housework at all on this day. So what we did was munching on the goodies such as pineapple tarts and love letters.

Speaking of pineapple tarts, this is the best pineapple tarts which I have ever tasted! Every year, I look forward to eat these pineapple tarts which are homemade by my auntie' friend. Apparently, I learnt from my auntie that she had to beg this friend of hers to make at least two bottles of these lovely pineapple tarts because making this particular goodie is a definite sheer hard work. Currently, the status quo of these pineapple tarts is finishing real fast. I think in two days time, it will be all gone!

On the other hand, my dad also bought a box of pineapple tarts from Bee Cheng Hiang. I'm not sure how much it costs. After tasting a few of those, my mum felt that these weren't that bad except for the fact that the pineapple filling is a little artificial.

After our morning breakfast, we went out for a walk in Botanic Garden. Well, it has been our family tradition for 5 years now that we go for a walk in a garden on the first day of Chinese New Year. Along the way, I managed to capture a picture of a swan swimming lazily on a big pond.

In the mid afternoon, my relatives from my paternal side came over to my place for a visit. We played mahjong, eat and drink merrily on this festive season where we are able to gather once in a year. So my second auntie who is very good in cooking came to help my mum with the cooking.

She whipped up this lovely vegetables with abalone.

Stir-fried leeks with tanghoon.

And lastly, she cooked this sweet and sour fish. Most of them ate up most of the fish before I can capture a good one on this.

This is one of my mum's speciality - Stewed Duck.

Before the dinner, all of us did a traditional thing - mixing of yusheng (raw fish salad). But instead of raw fish, we substituted it with abalone because some of us don't really like eating raw fish.

This was the beginning state of the Yusheng. It may unapetitising. But once it's mixed, it tasted really good.

This was how it looked like after we mixed it.

It was really fun to meet up with my cousins, uncles and aunties as we chatted, played and ate through the night in this once in a year festival.

Chinese New Year Edition - The Eve of the Big Day

2009-01-27T00:48:00.005+08:00

25/01/09, Sunday - On the eve of the Big Day which was Chinese New Year (CNY), I found myself busying spring cleaning my entire house with my parents. Honestly, I don't really like spring cleaning because it just means giving out my entire strength and energy out for 12 hours non-stop. So true enough, I went on spring cleaning my house for about 12 hours till the clock strikes twelve which signified the start of a new day.

Anyway, for my reunion dinner with my parents, we had steamboat. It was nothing fanciful, just warmth and lovely food to go with the chicken broth. As you can see from this picture, there were some vegetables floating on the soup. It is called Tang-O. It tasted really well with steamboat actually.

My mum sliced up some fish, pork, prawns and abalone as the main dishes.

Then there were some simple straw mushrooms.

My favourite fishballs which my dad bought early in the morning. At the side of it was sea cucumber.

Lastly, my mum cut up some leeks as another alternative as vegetables.

Not forgetting, my parents did ordered a Roast Pork in a real pig form for this festival and man, I think it tastes like pork though I haven't tried it yet. Hah! It's amazing to see how the seller decorated the pig beautifully before sending it to us.

Since this is going to be a Chinese New Year Edition, the next few posts will be updated daily with the food I ate during this festive season. So look out for it!

Justine's Homecooked Food

2009-01-11T21:12:00.004+08:00

This afternoon, one of my cell sisters, Justine invited us to her place for lunch after church service. It was a humble home when we first stepped into her living room and bedroom. Furthermore, she even prepared the food the night before till 2am. Boy, she really worked hard for this lunch and we all love her for that.

So she cooked two kind of dishes for us - Zha Jiang Mian and Egg Crepe Wrap.

For the Zha Jiang Mian, she toppled some pork belly, beancurd and peanuts with fermented bean paste sauce on the noodles. I mixed the noodles with the sauce before eating it. Since I didn't really like pork belly as I prefer lean meat to that, I passed some of it to my other cell sisters, Cherie and Jo. This was my second time eating this noodle dish and I still enjoy eating it.

Then came the Egg Crepe Wrap. She took the opportunity to make these while we went to the nearby shops to get some drinks. First, she made the platter by mixing egg, flour and water together. After that, she put the platter onto the pan and cooked it about 10 minutes or so.

Inside of the crepe, she put shredded crab meat, chinese preserved sausages, sesame seeds and fried kimchi. Before wrapping up, she smeared mayonnaise and tomato sauce.

To prevent getting our hands dirty, she passed some plastic gloves to us to eat this crepe with ease. The egg crepe wrap was really good and I told Justine how she should make more of these during future potluck gatherings.

Desserts at Cheeky Chocolates

2009-01-11T20:46:00.003+08:00

7/01/09, Wednesday - As all traditions happen, my lovely cousin, Sharon and I celebrate our birthday together every year without fail. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to do that in 2008 as our schedule conflicted. So we brought it forward to 2009 and on this day, we headed to this newly-opened shop called, Cheeky Chocolates.

This dessert cafe cum chocolaterie is opened by this business graduate, Aaron Choy and given his passion for chocolates and desserts, he decided to open a dessert cafe. We looked through the menu and we decided on two chocolate desserts.

I ordered the Cheeky Chocolates Crepes with Chocolate Ice-cream (S$7.90). The crepes were made of chocolates and they even smeared lots of chocolate sauce on top of it. Yum!

Sharon ordered the Cheeky Chocolates Warm Chocolate Cake (S$7.90). When I cut through the cake with my fork, the warmness of the chocolate just oozed out of the cake. Eat it with the ice-cream, which was placed at the side, and you will get a warm and cold feeling of the dessert. It is really good!

Between those two desserts, I can't really decided which is better and I guess, each dessert has its uniqueness, just like us.

By the way, their entree aren't that bad. I tried their Mushroom Soup (sorry, no picture!) which cost S$3.90 (if I am not wrong). The portion was pretty big and the toasted bread came in big slice. As I slurped into the soup, there were some bits of mushroom floating on the soup. Lovely!

Cheeky Chocolates is located at 223 Upper Thomson Road. It opens from 12pm to 10.30pm (closed on Mon). This place even sells assortment of chocolates.

Food at CreateleVoyage's Potluck Gathering

2009-01-11T19:20:00.004+08:00

3/01/09, Saturday - Over the last weekend, Createlevoyage (an online Christian Arts Magazine) organised a small New Year's potluck gathering at Aaron and Nam's place. Prior to that, we had our bi-monthly core team meeting at Annabelle's new home. After the meeting, we went to buy some groceries with likes of drinks, crackers, mushrooms and even more mushrooms. Subsequently, we headed to our host's place to whip some food before all the guests arrived.

At their place, Aaron helped to chop up some mushrooms and sausages before throwing them all into the aluminum tray. Annabelle and I were giving some instructions of how to prepare this dish which was called, Annabelle CLV Surprise. Reason being, there are so many things inside this dish and each piece is like a surprise. You basically have no idea what you will be getting. Hah!

Anyway, Aaron chopped up Button mushrooms, Portobello mushrooms, King Oyster Mushrooms, Chicken Sausages, Onion Sausages and Cheese Sausages. Annabelle raved to us on how the aftercooked taste of the King Oyster Mushroom tasted similar to abalone. I must say, it really tasted like an abalone. After all the chopping, he sprinkled a little pepper, Mediterranean Spices and then spread some butter onto the food. Mix them well before putting the tray into the oven. However, do not put salt as the mushrooms will absorb the saltness of the sausages and the butter. Cook for about half an hour and voila!

The mushrooms really absorbed the saltness of the meat and as a result, there was a nice balance of saltness and the mushroom flavour. As there were some juices oozing out of the mushrooms, we dipped it with pita bread and it was fanastic!

On the other hand, Nam was really nice to bake us some cookies called, Hamantaschen Cookies. It means Haman's Cookies. This lovely pastry derives from Israel and the cookies actually represent Haman's triangular-shaped pockets which were filled with silver coins given to him to kill the Jews. Nam bought a recipe book, "Simply Israel" while on her trip to Israel in November and since then, she has been trying out some of the recipes. Many a time, her effort paid off. Well, we are lucky to be able to sample some of these Israel dishes.

She used Raspberries Jam and Apricot Jam as her fillings and to prevent the filling from spilling out of the cookies, she put a little jam inside of the dough.

Here is the first tray of the cookies.

And here is the presentation of the cookies on the plate for everyone to munch on.

Here is another angle of the cookies.

I really love the sweetness of the cookies. It was really good! I have a few of those raspberries one as I don't really like Apricot filling.

New Year Day's Feast

2009-01-02T17:47:00.006+08:00

1/1/09, Thursday - Happy New Year! On this day, I woke up with excitement, embracing the new day in a new year despite the fact that I went to my church for countdown the night before. A few of my relatives will be coming to my place for dinner, thus, I have to garner some energy to clean the house before they arrived.

Halfway through my breakfast, my next door neighbour popped by our place and gave us a box of Apple Strudel, one box of Chocolate Eclairs and a box of Chocolate Puff. It was nice of them to gave us something for New Year Day. :)

Anyway, for our New Year Day's Feast, my dad baked turkey as it is our family tradition to eat turkey, not on Christmas Day but on 1 Jan (don't ask why). He even baked potatoes, pumpkins and sausages. By mid-afternoon, the aroma of the turkey and the side dishes had surrounded the entire house.

On the other hand, my mum fried Bee Hoon as the other main dish. She threw in some Char Siew (roasted pork) which she bought from the market and assortment of vegetables into the Bee Hoon.

My plate. I was pretty hungry when dinner time arrived. The turket meat was moist and tender. I really love eating that turkey. The sausages and potatoes complimented each other. I love the Bee Hoon too.

After the dinner, my relatives and my family sat around the television to watch the much-awaited drama serial, The Little Nonya. An interesting way to end New Year Day.

Christmas Gifts

2009-01-02T17:32:00.003+08:00

Just realised that I have this backdated post which I missed out.

During the Christmas season, I received a few gifts from my cousins, Andrew and Sharon. Andrew and his wife, Melissa wrapped packets of these nice stuff nicely for the cousins, including myself. Inside the packet was candies and mouth-watering chocolates. So far, I haven't tried the chocolates and the candies yet.

Then Sharon gave my family a box of mini macaroons from Gobi! This was one of the best Christmas gifts I have received so far given that I love macaroons. I let my mother tried some of these sweet and colourful French pastries and she actually enjoyed eating it.

Last days of 2008

2009-01-02T17:08:00.006+08:00

30/12/08, Tuesday - On the last two days of 2008, the 5ofus (comprises of Zoe, Gin, Cheryl, Ellie and myself) finally meet up and we indeed make use of every seconds to paint the whole town red! In the afternoon, I went on a shopping spree with Cheryl and Ellie as I need to get some clothes for Chinese New Year and I needed their opinions. Subsequently, Zoe joined us and lastly, Gin arrived.

For our dinner, we headed to MOS Burger@Taka. Usually, I would order Unagi Burger whenever I am at MOS Burger but since I was recovering from the therapy, I had to curb from eating all kinds of seafood. Hence, I had Curry Croquette Burger (S$2.40) and a small packet of fries (S$1.80).

After dinner, we continued catching up until Gin somehow suggested we go to KTV either at KBox or Partyworld for the rest of the evening. We went to Partyworld which was located next to Park Hotel@Orchard. Given the five of us, the rate which they were charging us for the evening was S$112 (after discount) and that includes drinks, two snacks and one plate of fruits. Since we didn't know where to go, all of us decided to sing our hearts out in the last days of 2008.

Speaking of singing, we indeed sang to our heart's content and not forgetting fun. What a way to end of our 2008.

Christmas Lunch at Andrew and Sharon's Place

2008-12-27T12:26:00.009+08:00

On Christmas Day, I celebrated with my family, relatives and cousins at Andrew and Sharon's place. For the cousins, it was more of a reunion lunch for us as two of my cousins - Andrew and Xinyi, together with her husband - returned from Australia and American respectively for this holiday season. It was truly a season to be jolly!

Although my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, we still went over to their place to soak in the festive season. Andrew and Sharon's parents ordered Christmas buffet for everyone. However, due to my upcoming therapy, I wasn't allow to eat certain food which was a pity for me as I love food. Therefore, I can't evaluate certain food. :( Anyway, enjoy the food pictures!

Seafood Fried Rice Wrapped in Lotus Leaf

Fried Mee Siam

Scallop Mornay

Chicken Schnitzel

Tempura King Prawns with Chilli Sauce

Squid Stuffed with Meat

Stir-fry Mixed Vegetables

Chicken and Mutton Satay

Lontong, Onion and Cucumber for the Satay

Roast Turkey and Ham

Of all the dishes and from what I ate, I think Chicken Schnitzel was the best. It was crispy on the outside and moist in the inside. Yum! :) Sadly, the main highlight which was the Roast Turkey and ham fell flat.

As for the desserts, it was colourful and enchanting! My mother made some jellies specially just for that day. This is her one of her creations which I called it "Clowns in a mystical land'.

This creation proved that it needed alot of work in order to get this result. But my mother felt that there is some room for improvement in this creation.

Then she also made this striped jelly which consists of three colours - red, green and white. Coincidentally, it looks like an Italian national flag to me.

She also made this colourful Konnyaku fruit Jelly which everyone polished it off in a short period of time. Through all her ardous work for the past few days, she finally and managed to churn out all these three colourful jellies with of course, my help.

Then, there was this hot dessert called 'Bobo Chacha'. It is actually a flavourful coconut soup filled with yams, sweet potatoes and other stuff swimming inside the sweet soup. There is this debate among us arguing about what does bobo and chacha mean exactly.

Lastly, how can a Christmas lunch ended off without the famous Christmas log cake? These were a few slices of the chocolate log cake provided by the caterer and to me, it looked more like a swiss roll than a log cake to me.

Yet again, I have to say this year's Christmas was the best among the rest of the Christmas's I have ever celebrated.

Dao Siao Mian at Food Republic

2008-12-22T18:06:00.004+08:00

21/12/08, Sunday - My church cell group and myself went to Food Republic@Wisma Astria for a late lunch as one of us, Vana had work that day and couldn't attend the service. Moreover, our beloved Cherie finally returned home from Australia for a break. Yay!

I went all over the food court to see if there is any stall that attracts me but I guess the only stall that attracted me was the Japanese Teppanyaki. Sadly none of us was interested in the Teppanyaki as the majority wanted to eat the famous Hokkien Mee.

Eventually I had this bowl of Chicken Dao Siao Mian (S$5.80) from this noodle stall.

Dao Siao Mian is actually a noodle speciality in China where the chef would slice the dough into strips of noodles with precision and then into the hot water. It's almost like Handmade Noodles except that the noodles didn't go through the machine roller. The chicken drumsticks were soft and tender. The noodles and the soup base were great as well. This bowl of noodles never failed to open up my appetite.

Saturday's McDonald's Breakfast and A Huge Tweety Bird

2008-12-22T17:12:00.005+08:00

20/12/08, Saturday - My brother and I went to the heartlands - Ang Mo Kio's latest McDonald's outlet at the park - for their morning breakfast meals. The both of us woke up at 8.30am to have breakfast as their breakfast menu ends at 11am. Moreover, we wanted to avoid the morning crowd that is filled with families and children.

There was a McCafe inside of that McDonald's outlet and my brother had a hard time choosing which morning menu to have. In the end, he chose the McDonald's menu.

Due to my tiredness, I couldn't articulate my thoughts very well that morning and I guess I fumbled when I ordered my breakfast. Here was how the conversation went:

Me: (browsing through the menu on the board) Can I have one Hotdog with Sausage meal?

Staff: What?

Me: Can I have one Hotdog with Sausage meal?

Staff: (louder) What?

Me: (realising my mistake) Can I have one Hotcakes with Sausage Meal?

Well, I managed to cover up my mistakes by acting nonchalant. But I was embarrassed of course yet I tried my best to hide the embarrassment. Anyway, I finally had my Hotcakes with Sausage Meal (S$5.95).

It was really nice to eat McDonald's Breakfast once in a while especially when one can refill their coffee or tea endlessly. The both of us sat down at the alfresco area next to the park where we can see the trees and plants. Basically we tried to stay close to the nature.

After the breakfast, we hopped over to the AMK Hub for some groceries shopping. I got myself a beautiful planner at this shop called, Art Box. Lovely place. Then along the way, we saw a huge Tweety Bird on display and it was for this "Guess the weight of this Tweety Bird" contest. Out of amusement, I took this picture.

Soon after that, I left the place to meet Charlene at Holland Village and subsequently went shopping at Vivocity. Given that it was the weekend, the shopping mall was so crowded that Charlene and I sneaked out to the amphitheatre which is located at the top level. That was when I took this picture of a huge Christmas tree with diamond's ornaments.

Pre-Christmas Homecooked Dinner at My Place

2008-12-17T17:50:00.005+08:00

Last night, I opened up my place for the 5ofus group - Gin, Ellie and Zoe came over for dinner. However, Cheryl couldn't make it as she was down with food poisoning. Hope she recovers soon though. :)

I spent two whole days cleaning my place for their arrival and also planning on the menu. But eventually, these were what I churned out last night:

Roasted Chicken. I marinated it with salt, pepper, basil leaves and garlic and kept it for two hours before I spent another one hour plus on roasting. I decided to chop up on the chicken into a few pieces rather than having to roast the entire chicken. I did so in order for the guests to eat with ease.

Roasted Potato and Carrots. I chopped up the Russets Potatoes and the baby carrots into different pieces and then boil it for about 10-20 minutes. After that, I placed them into the oven for extra crispness.

Linguine with Mushroom Sauce. I decided to substitute this with rice.

For desserts, my mum prepared these colourful Konnyaku Jelly on Monday - it's basically a Japanese brand of jelly - and my friends love it.

I also scooped some chocolate ice cream with slices of bananas on a bowl for them but I guess they were too full to have some ice-cream. Heh.

We spent the entire night catching up with one another and eating food. It is always nice to have friends around to celebrate this festive season before we usher into the new year.

Unpleasant dining experience at Pizza Hut

2008-12-17T15:52:00.003+08:00

11/12/08, Thursday - I met up with my good friend, Wati for dinner at Pizza Hut@Marina Square. She decided to celebrate my birthday at Pizza Hut as she enjoys eating pizza and moreover, it's a Halal establishment. A few years back, she celebrated my birthday at Pizza Hut too but at different place.

By the time we stepped into the restaurant, we were so hungry. We discussed about what we want to order and so we decided to have our mains and a large Cheesy Lava 3 Stuffed Crust Pizza (S$24.50) to share as Ping and her boyfriend would be joining with us at the later part of the dinner.

I had Beef Lasagne (S$9.20) because I had not eaten lasagne before and I thought perhaps I should try eating one. But to my horror, when the lasagne arrived on the table, the portion was so small and I wondered, " this cost me, S$9.20?" I'm not trying to be cheapskate. I just want to make my money worth. Anyway, the lasagne wasn't really fanastic after all.

Wati had Sausage Mania Baked Pasta (S$9.80). I didn't really try this dish but looking at her eating happily, I presumed she enjoyed it.

Given the small food portion, I felt hungry again. I asked Wati if she wanted to have Garlic Bread (S$3.50) as I haven't had for a long time. She agreed.

Meanwhile, we informed the wait staff that they can get our pizza ready as Ping and her boyfriend were making their way to the restaurant. However, we also contemplating whether to have medium or large pizza as we had so much stuff yet we want to make sure that Ping and her boyfriend can have the pizzas well. Eventually we stuck to the medium-sized pizza. Halfway through our Garlic Bread, the restaurant manager came and asked us about our orders twice. She didn't really looked friendly. Well, it was true that we changed our orders a few times and it seemed like we were difficult people but then for service staff, they should have know that some people would change their orders once in a while. We also tried our best to be nice to her as well. Oh well.

Subsequently when we want to refill our drinks, the wait staff also took a long time to get back to us about the water. In the end, Wati and I weren't pleased about it.

Now, I will think twice about going back to the restaurant.

My Birthday

2008-12-16T01:09:00.003+08:00

10/12/08, Wed - On my birthday, I headed down to Liang's Court to get my birthday cake. Despite the fact that I wasn't in the best of mood, I still insisted on going out to take a breather rather than cooping myself at home. There wasn't any crowd when I went to the shopping mall to shop for my birthday cake.

I wanted to get something nice and light for my parents especially my mother as she doesn't like sweet and rich stuff. Even though there were only two bakery shops, I bought a Mango Cheesecake (S$17.80) from a Japanese Cheesecake Shop (sorry, forgot to ask for the namecard!)

My mother tried and she agreed that the cake was light and wasn't too rich for her liking, compared to other cheesecakes.

My birthday was a pretty much hush and low-key affair as I felt that it is unnecessary to celebrate my birthday in a lavish way.

Andrew and Melissa's Wedding at Orchid Country Club

2008-12-09T22:50:00.005+08:00

Over the weekend, my family and my cousins celebrated the holy matrimonial of our beloved cousin, Andrew and his newly-wed wife, Melissa at Orchid Country Club. Andrew, my cousin who now resides in Australia, married Melissa last year at Down Under and now, they are back for a Singapore's wedding. It is good to be reunited again as we hardly see other.

The wedding was held in a grand ballroom which was also called, "The Grand Ballroom" and it was no doubt 'the grand ballroom' because the ballroom itself is really grand and huge. When we arrived in the afternoon, there was a tea ceremony for the bride and groom and it basically involved the elders, not the younger generation.

As I was helping out in the reception, I wasn't able to capture pictures of the appetiser and the soup course. However, I managed to capture pictures of the food after the soup course. So here it goes:

Steamed Live Garoupa With Superior Soya Sauce. The texture of the flesh was soft and the fish appeared to be fresh. With the combination of the soya sauce, the taste was good. I had more than one serving.

Deep Fried Scallop with Mashed Yam. This was my favourite dish which has yams! As long as there is yam of any kind, that would be my favourite dish. Inside of the yam ball, there lies a small scallop. So it was a combination between sweet and salty.

Baked Prawns with Chicken Floss. Apologies for the badly-taken picture. As for this course, I actually enjoyed munching on the spicy chicken floss than the prawns.

Braised Chicken with Eight Treasure. This was my least favourite dish. There was some herbal ingredients being integrated into the dish which puts me off. But I did sample the dish in a small portion and it still didn't manage to change my perception on this dish.

Braised Spinach Topped with Bailing Mushroom & Beancurd Skin. This vegetable was one of the kind which I find it intriguing. It's true. There were three kinds of ingredients in the dish itself - mushrooms, vegetable and I am sure there were slices of abalone. Nonetheless, I enjoyed eating this dish.

Stewed Ee-Fu Noodle with Mushroom & Yellow Chives. This dish signified longevity for the couple. Sadly there wasn't enough mushroom and yellow chives for me to munch on.

Hot Red Bean Cream with Lily Bud and Lotus Seeds. This dessert was awesome. There was sweetness in every sip and there was enough lotus seeds. I have two servings for this course. Yum.

Despite all the raving of the food above, I didn't really have my fill, sadly. I guess I should have eaten to my fill. But it's alright. There is always a next time.

Pie Kia's Curry Chicken Pie

2008-12-09T21:59:00.003+08:00

5/12/08, Friday - I went to Ang Mo Kio Hub to meet my friend's friend to discuss about his programme booklet for his debut theatre performance over the weekend. After the meeting, I headed to this new stall called, Pie Kia - a funny pun for 'gangster' in Hokkien dialect. There were a variety of big and small pies being sold in the stall, namely, mushroom chicken pie, lemon chicken pie and not forgetting, the all-time favourite, curry chicken pie.

I choose the large Curry Chicken Pie (S$1.50) and decided to eat it for my tea-time. The pie wasn't really huge like the ones in Australia but instead, it was more like a medium-sized pie. The texture of the pastry wasn't flaky but it was more likely a thick pastry.

The filling of the pie was spicy, fortunately and it wasn't too oily. So it's pretty good for people who don't really like oily fillings.

An Advance Birthday Treat at Fish and Co.

2008-12-05T22:37:00.006+08:00

I am not kidding. I have not been to Fish and Co. - one of the hot favourites eateries with the yuppies and young people - until last Wednesday. You see, on Wednesday, Zoe and Ellie celebrated my birthday in advance at Fish and Co.@The Glass House as I have requested. Sadly, Gin and Cheryl wasn't around for the dinner if not, it would be so much fun! Thinking of that, I miss them!

Anyway, my other friends told me that the common food which people would ordered whenever they dined at Fish and Co. is Seafood Platter for Two (S$37.90). Nevertheless, I still studied the menu carefully before I start ordering the food. As Ellie and I were famished (we actually skipped our lunch just for this meal!), we almost wanted to eat everything that is on the menu. Hah!

Zoe told us that the Seafood Platter for Two can be shared among three people or more because the portion is really big. True enough, when the platter finally arrived, it was huge. But prior to that, I order Soup of the Day - Fish Chowder (S$3.90).

The Fish Chowder surprised me as there were chunks of dory fillets, carrots, onions and etc. in the creamy soup. Yummy!

The Seafood Platter for Two consists of an assortments of seafood, together with French Fries, sprinkled with Cajun Powder and Butter and Raisin Rice. They even drizzled a little of their signature sauce, Garlic Butter Cream Sauce.

I quite like the big chunky fries which has the Cajun Powder on it. The Pan-fried Fish Dory Fillet wasn't too bad; the texture of the meat was soft and tender. I didn't really like the Grilled Prawns as it wasn't really fantastic at all. But I like the way how the Squids (Sotong) were cooked. It was soft and it didn't take very long before the squid slid through my throat, unlike some places where the Squids are as hard as a stone. Ellie and I gave all the mussels to Zoe as the both of us don't take mussels at all.

The Pan-Fried Fish Dory Fillet

The Grilled Prawns

The Squids (Sotong)

The Mussels

Ellie was afraid that we didn't have enough to eat so she ordered New York Fish and Chips (S$15.90) for us to share.

The batter for Fish and Chips was pretty heavy; it was more salty than the usual fish and chips and moreover, the Lemon Butter Sauce which was on top of the fish made it even heavier and rich. But I must say that the fish was cooked it its perfection.

As for dessert, Zoe and Ellie made me choose a cake for which I chose Dulce De Leche Colossal - a cheesecake toppled with Caramel Sauce (S$6.95).

It was sweet of them to put a candle on top of the cake slice and sang a birthday song for me. Thanks gals! As a result of all the heavy and rich main course we had, we had a hard time finishing the cake. In fact, we took a long time to polish off the cake from the plate.

In order to ease our heavy stomach, we took a long walk along the streets of Orchard Road under the night breeze and colourful Christmas glittering lights.

Supper at Mr Bean's Cafe

2008-12-05T22:12:00.004+08:00

27/11/08, Thursday - Two of my good friends, Zoe and Ellie came over to my school to render support on the production which I was working on and it was good to see them again after we last met each other a few months back.

After watching the three hours performance and waiting painstakingly for me, we went over to Mr Bean's Cafe at Selegie Road for supper and destress. Initially we wanted to have our supper at other places, however, most of the cafes and eateries were closed by then. Thus, we went to Mr Bean's Cafe.

As we were hungry, we ordered a Platter (sorry, I forgot the name of the dish!) which consists of Prawns, Vegetarian Spring Rolls, Chicken Wings and Calamari. It costs less than S$10. Since I didn't bring my camera along, this photo was taken from Zoe's beloved camera.

Funnily, the three of us had our supper at this same place six months ago and it was also after a performance. Perhaps, we have an affinity with this place.

Mr Bean's Cafe is located at 30 Selegie Road, Singapore 188351.

My Good Friend's Engagement Party

2008-12-04T22:02:00.008+08:00

9/11/08, Sunday - Finally, they are engaged! My good friend, Wati finally engaged to a man of her dreams, Juraimi on this special day. Myself and a few other of our friends were invited to her engagement party.

When Ping and I went over to her place, she was still in amidst of preparing herself in her room before the groom's family comes over in the later part of the afternoon. So instead of waiting aimlessly in her house, her brother advised us to take our lunch at their lunch banquet below their block. Usually for a Malay wedding, their engagement/wedding banquet takes place at the void deck and it is in a buffet-style unlike in the Chinese wedding where there are 8-course dinner. Moreover, one can eat as much as they want and once he/she is done with the eating, he/she can leave the table. As for the Chinese wedding, one has to wait for course after course before he/she can leave the banquet.

There weren't many people at the banquet when we went there. So we took our time to choose a table and have ourselves feel comfortable. There was a bunch of banana on every table and Ping was a little curious on 'why would a Malay wedding need a bunch of banana on the table'. Anyway, she took one before the main course and I think she enjoyed it.

At the urging of Wati's brother, I hop over to the buffet section to see what were the food in store for us. Here are some of the food which were served at the banquet:

Achar Achar

Beansprout with Desiccated Coconut

Beef Rendang

Sambal Bamboo Shoot

Sambal Tempeh with Long Beans

Curry Chicken

The Dessert Corner

I guess the transparent film wrap that was in placed at the dessert corner was to prevent any flying insects from coming onto the food. Though it looked kinda ugly, I believe hygiene is pretty much important as well.

Here was my plate of food.

I didn't really tried some of the dishes such as Sambal Tempeh with Long Beans and Sambal Bamboo Shoots but the Beef Rendang was really good. I love eating the spicy Beef Rendang. Yum!

Here was the plate of desserts which I took for Ping and myself to share.

I love the mini Chocolate cake, the Kuehs and the coconut jelly. The coconut jelly was real good. I had a couple of it before I have to stop myself from eating.

After a filling lunch, we went over to her place as the groom's family has finally arrived. As a good friend, I have the privilege to enter her bedroom and get exclusive pictures before everyone else has the chance to see it. So when I first stepped into the room, I was taken back by the lavish and colourful gifts that were on her bed. Little then I know that for a Malay engagement, the bride will prepare several gifts for the groom while the groom's family will also prepare several gifts for the bride. Thus, when the groom's family (minus the groom himself) arrives at her place, the exchange of gifts will then take place.

These were some of the gifts Wati prepared for the groom. (L-R) A heart-shaped cake, Ferrero Rocher Chocolates, Assortment of Cupcakes, Wedding ring and watch and Cadbury Choclairs in a basket.

There was a basket filled with delicious mangoes as well. Looks real yummy.

When the exchange finally took place, her entire room was changed. The groom prepared two heart-shaped box of sweets for her and decorated lights were brimming out of the basket as well. So sweet!

The mango jelly and the Banana/Coconut Cake.

It was truly a cultural experience for me but I did enjoy myself at her engagement party especially with the food and the fun!

My Dad's Birthday

2008-12-04T21:18:00.004+08:00

8/11/08, Saturday - That particular day was my dad's birthday and strange enough, it was also the day where I almost couldn't wake up from my bed due to exhaustion. My cousin, Yi, her mum and my two other aunts came over in the evening to share this special day with my dad and without me knowing, they were chatting happily in the dinning room. I was actually awoke by their chattering.

We went over to Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice Restaurant to have my dad's birthday dinner. We ordered the usual plate of Roast and Steamed chicken as my dad prefer the latter while I prefer the former.

Apart from ordering my favourite spicy Kangkong dish, we tried out this Scallop Dish (S$8, medium) and Hometown Tofu dish (S$8, medium).

The Scallop dish wasn't too bad although I still prefer Kangkong. As for the Hometown Tofu, it was still good, just like how we tried during our previous visit.

Throughout the dinner, I was staring into space as I was really tired and I felt like I could sleep on the table as well. Tsk tsk.

A Food Blog Revisited

2008-12-04T20:42:00.002+08:00

After taking a month off from my food blogging, I tell myself that I better start updating and catching up with my older post before I get lazy again. It has been a crazy month for me dealing with several school productions and as a result, I couldn't find the time to update my food blog. However, since I am having my break now, I decided to blog again.

So please stay tuned with all my newly-released food post!

Sushi on a weekday dinner

2008-10-31T21:15:00.004+08:00

Yesterday, I happened to help out with my mum's grocery shopping at Fairprice Finest@Thomson Plaza when I chanced upon the Sushi Promotion. Each sushi platter cost S$5 and it comes in an assortment of sushi in the packed tray.

Since I haven't had sushi for a long time and somehow I am craving for it, I persuaded my mum to get one so the whole family could have sushi for dinner. Fortunately, my mum agreed. It was quite nice to have sushi for dinner at some point of time. However my dad didn't really like it and he decided he will eat the more traditional dinner food. Bah!

Sunday Dinner with Cousin and Aunties

2008-10-31T20:57:00.004+08:00

Over the long weekend, I met up with my cousin, Yi, her mother and the latter's sister for a dinner at Thai Express@Thomson Plaza. Due to a public holiday the next day, some of the eatery were pretty packed with people and after walking aimlessly at the equally small shopping centre, we opted for thai food.

There weren't many people at Thai Express when we first entered the shop and we got ourselves comfortable at the corner table. We took a long time before we decided what we wanted to eat.

For our appetisers, Yi suggested Thai Mango Salad (S$6.90). After mixing it and tried it, it was fiery! Never underestimate shredded mango and crushed nuts. Those who can't take spice, please refrain from eating this dish.

Then she even ordered Prawn Toast (S$6.90). It's actually prawn paste spread on top of the bread and subsequently, get toasted. It comes with a sweet and sour dip.

For the main dish, I had Beef Noodles (S$10.90). It comes with a pippin hot beef broth and inside the broth are stick noodles (which is like kway teow but the smaller version of it) and slices of beef. I had to put chilli flakes to spice the broth up otherwise, it has a very strong beefy taste. Apart from that, I couldn't finish all the beef slices.

At the end of the dinner, we were drinking more water than before because of the spiciness of the salad and other stuff. I think we all learnt our lesson. Never underestimate Thai food, even in Singapore.

Reminiscing of a Rum Ball and BBQ Nite

2008-10-25T20:37:00.005+08:00

Prior from my previous post on High Tea Buffet at Goodwood Park Hotel, I had an interesting breakfast and also dinner that Friday.

As I didn't have any morning class, I had Rum Ball (S$1.40) from Han's with my favourite cup of coffee. This Rum Ball reminded me of my childhood days when my late grandfather would never fail to buy this cake for me especially whenever I pestered him. It has been ages since I last ate this cake. Whenever I sees Rum Ball on display, it would remind me of him.

But when I tried the cake, it was a total disappointment. It was hard and unpleasant to eat. I struggled to finish the cake actually.

Then in the evening, I went to my faculty's BBQ at one of our senior's house. One of the seniors organised the BBQ party a few weeks back and I thought, perhaps, it would be a good bonding time for everyone. I didn't really take many pictures of the BBQ as I was busying eating and talking to people.

Here was what we cooked at the BBQ. At this moment, the fire wasn't big enough to cook any food. However, we managed to get most of the food cooked. The food on the menu were Pork Cheese Sausages, Otah, Stingray, Chicken Wings, Prawns in Butter Herb or Black Pepper, Sotong, Corn and Sweet Potato.

The party was pretty fun and I had my fill, of course.

High Tea Buffet at Goodwood Park Hotel

2008-10-25T18:35:00.009+08:00

On Friday, I met up with Charlene for high tea buffet at Goodwood Park Hotel. That was my second time having high tea at the hotel. The first time I had high tea buffet was with my mother at Marriot Hotel. However, that was an International High Tea Buffet whereas at Goodwood Park Hotel, it was an English High Tea Buffet. The reason why we went there was to check out the place for Charlene's wedding next year.

We went into the Coffee Lounge where the High Tea Buffet was held at around 2.45pm, just in time for the buffet. We sat at the patio of the lounge instead as to enjoy the scenery and also the weather (it was pretty cooling and cloudy at that time).

This is the patio where we sat and had our food. This picture is taken from Charlene's camera.

This is where the pool and the courtyard are situated.

Charlene and I went inside the lounge to get our food, excitedly. We picked whatever we felt like eating. Since it was High Tea Buffet, everything came in 'mini' portions. Anyway, we came with an empty stomach.

Here was my first plate.

Mini Croissant with Ham and Cheese. The combination between the ham and the cheese fitted perfectly well.

Mini Prawn Vol Au Vent. Besides the mayonnaise mini prawns, I realised that there was a little spread of avocado. But I couldn't taste the avocado at all.

Chicken Tortilla Wrap. Initially, the outer layer looked like an egg crepe but after looking at the label, it was written as Tortilla Wrap. Even after tasting it, I couldn't tell the difference. Bah! I like the shredded chicken though. Wish I could get some chilli sauce for this.

Bacon Sandwich. The meat that was sandwiched between the two slices of bread was actually parma ham. It was raw but it tasted great!

After eating this plate, I went back again to get another serving, just like a typical buffet-goer.

Vegetable Penne Pasta. I decided that I needed something heavy instead of all the breads and the pastries. The pasta tasted good, in fact.

Raisin Scone. In every English High Tea Buffet, there will always be scones, apart from the sandwiches. Just like an English, I tried out the scone as well. I spread it with cream and butter. Surprisingly, the scone tasted amazing.

Throughout the session, we didn't really gorged ourselves with just food. We did catch up with one another and personally, I felt that it was a good time to mix conversation and food as well. However, once our stomach grew hungry again, we went back again to the lounge to get our food.

(L-R) Chicken Salad Kueh Pie Tee, Sausage with Bread, Lightly Toasted Chicken Ham Sandwich. I enjoyed all three of them.

Alright, now for the sweets.

Creme Brulee. One of my favourite desserts of all time, this mini creme brulee, which is a custard that has been sprinkled with sugar before placed under a broiler to get a brown effect on the top pf the custard, came in a small portion. But overall, it was good too!

Chocolate Fondue. When I saw the chocolate fountain, my heart went screaming, "I am going to eat this later!". Hah! Next to the fountain laid a few plates of fruits and marshmallow to choose from. I picked two strawberries and a marshmallow to share with Charlene. There were even toppings such as rainbow beats and almond slices to choose from. Yum.

Cakes and Pastries. (L-R) Chocolate Eclair, Lemon Meringue, Raspberry Cake and Fruit Tart. The Lemon Meringue tasted really sweet and lemony!

After eating so much, we felt quite satisfied. However, I felt that the selection of food could have been more. After getting the bill, we explored the hotel premises and Charlene told me of another swimming pool which I captured a shot of it.

This is the hidden pool. It's gorgeous! I love the serenity and tranquility of it. I may make this my writing space the next time!

Goodwood Park Hotel is located at 22 Scotts Road. The High Tea Buffet starts at 2.45pm till 5pm. It costs S$30++ per person.

Big Barley

2008-10-22T21:02:00.004+08:00

This afternoon, I had lunch with Ellie and Cheryl at Golden Wall Centre's Kopitiam. While Ellie and Cheryl went ahead for a full lunch, I opted for dessert as I had a heavy lunch before that.

I ordered Da Mai (literally translated, Big Barley) which costs S$1.50. It's actually a hot dessert and the barley is usually cooked till soft and to perfection. It is often eaten with coconut milk. But when I tried it, it wasn't really nice at all. It was more starchy than what I thought.

Nowadays, it's hard to find places that sell this kind of desserts. The last time I know of such place was the Queen St. Market which is now in renovation. There was an old couple who sells Da Mai and Tau Suan - two of the most well-known desserts in the desserts arena - in the market and the desserts cost about S$1. However, they only opened the shop at random timing and day. Once it's sold out, they would close the shop. Thus, there was always a frequent long queue in that stall. I wonder if they still sell these desserts.

Anyway, I didn't finish up my Da Mai dessert.

Roast Pork for Dinner

2008-10-20T23:00:00.004+08:00

My father roasted some pork over the weekend and I managed to try it for dinner today. He marinated it with garlic and the usual soy sauce and pepper. I believed he roasted it for a few hours before the skin got crackled up and hard.

The meat was juicy and succulent. I didn't really chew a piece of meat for very long in my mouth. The only thing I wish was that the skin could be more crackled up and crispy. That would be doubled 'Yum!'.

Fab food at Liang Court and about a frog

2008-10-20T21:58:00.006+08:00

Over the weekend, I decided to let my hair down and not to allow assignments to spoil my precious weekend! Hence, I went for the CLV Retreat@River Valley which I was very much involved in. A day before the retreat, I asked my mother if she would like to bake a cake for the retreat as a refreshment item and she agreed. I grinned subsequently. So here I was, carrying a heavy bag and a homemade fruit cum carrot cake with my hands to the place. But it was satisfying.

After preparing the place nicely, a few of us went for lunch at Liang Court. To think about it, I have only been to Liang Court for a few times for a few practical reasons: mainly because I used to work around River Valley area or I am there for a casual meeting. Anyhow, it appeared that the place has been given a serious makeover with new and interesting shops.

We went to the basement to source for food and we chanced upon this Japanese lookalike foodcourt which offers Japanese Food like curry rice, Don Rice, Sushi, udon and etc. It was kinda packed when we went there so in the end, a few of us had to be separated into two places.

I had Chicken Katsu Curry Rice (S$10.20). It comes with a piece of crispy chicken cutlet lying on top of the fluffy Japanese Rice and a curry sauce in an Aladdin's shape bowl!

To my surprise, it was really good! The curry was spicy and the chicken was crispy. Yum.

Dawn had a Croquette Bento Set (S$10.20). It comes with 3 pieces of deep-fried potato croquette, two special sauces and a side salad. Dawn even requested for more pickles which was also my favourite!

After my satisfying lunch, I realised my stomach wasn't exactly satisfied. So while waiting for the rest to finish up their lunch, I went ahead to source for some desserts. Then I chanced upon this shop that sells chou pastry (sorry, forgot to take down the name of the shop). It comes in two flavours - ordinary and chocolate chou. But I chose the ordinary one.

This was the chou pastry (S$1.50) Cheap and good!

Soon after that, Annabelle was tempted to try as well and bought one as well. I should become a chou pastry salesperson. Hah!

Then another friend of mine, Chris bought a piece of chocolate chiffon cake (S$5.80) and a light green tea cake.

As for these two cakes, it wasn't really cheap but after tasting the chocolate chiffon cake, it was truly light and tasty. The light green tea cake was for Dawn who is heavily pregnant and also being well-loved by us.

During dinnertime, the participants and the main core team went for dinner together and we had it at a local coffeeshop along the River Valley Road that sells Zhi Char.

The Spicy Tofu, also known as Mapo Tofu (S$6). Sadly, it wasn't really numbling spicy for me.

The Kangkong (S$6). Quite spicy and good.

The Prawn Paste Chicken ($6-$7). I did tried a few of these wings but it wasn't exactly what I like though.

The main highlight of the day: Stir-Fried Frog Legs (S$8 per frog). First of all, it tasted like chicken and the meat is soft. It just melts in your mouth.

Overall, it was an enjoyable meal. I came home with a filling stomach.

An Old Food Post

2008-10-20T21:31:00.005+08:00

It just occurred to me that I haven't been updating my food blog for like the longest time and in order not to let my blog die of natural death, I have been taking pictures of food which I have eaten recently. So here is an old food post which I should have posted two weeks ago.

9/10, Thursday - I met up with Ping after her office hours and subsequently, we went shopping for my black dress. It was for an event that happened over that weekend. Unfortunately, she managed to knock off from her work at around 8.30pm and so it left us about 2 hours before all the retail shops in Orchard Road closed. After I managed to get the black dress, we realised our stomach was complaining. Given the present situation, we went to the Xin Wang Hong Kong Cafe @Orchard Cineleisure for our late dinner since most of the eatery were already closed for the day.

The place wasn't really packed on a weekdays and we managed to get comfy seats. Since I have visited this same eatery many times, I decided to try something new and different. After studying the menu, Ping and I ordered the same thing.

Our Spicy Zha Jiang Noodles (S$8.90). It wasn't really spicy as indicated and instead, it was more salty than spicy.

At the end of the meal, we washed down those greasy gravy with our milk tea. Anyway, we were all tired and we just can't wait to hit our pillows.

Ramen Ramen

2008-10-04T21:47:00.004+08:00

Before heading to the VM performance last night, my friend Cynthia suggested an eatery called Bishamon Sapporo Ramen at Bugis Junction Basement One for our dinner. I know that there is another outlet at Raffles City Shopping Centre (also at Basement One) but I never got around to try the food at that place. So anyway, it was nice to try out another ramen outlet in the marketplace since I adore eating ramen.

We studied the menu carefully and since Cynthia was hungry, she ordered the set meal which consists of a small bowl of entree, a side dish, a sushi set and a drink (S$12.90).

I ordered a bowl of Shio Ramen as my main. There was a slice of pork, a few strands of shredded radish and spring onions. I felt the meal was just satisfying. However, there wasn't any seaweed found on the soup which I wanted badly. Maybe they have it in the ala carte menu.

This was my side dish which was two Seafood Croquette and two pieces of sushi. Cynthia couldn't wait to sink her teeth on the Seafood Croquette. Heh!

This was what Cynthia ordered for her sides. Two pieces of Fried Chicken and two similar pieces of sushi.

As we were enjoying our meal and fellowship, people started to stream in gradually and soon the eatery was packed. We drank at least two cups of green tea before we leave the place.

Hari Raya Feast

2008-10-01T21:36:00.004+08:00

Today, Ping and I celebrated the Hari Raya festival with Wati and her family at her place this afternoon, just like the previous years. Unlike the last two years, we decided to visit her house in the afternoon on the first day of Hari Raya this time round. We used to visit her in the evening and she would whipped up steamboat for us. But I think we have already troubled her much.

Surprisingly, there wasn't many people at her place today. Before I stepped into her house, her grandmother noticed me and informed Wati of our arrival. We were being ushered into her living room to taste all the cookies that were all laid beautifully on the coffee table. That was sufficient to whet my appetite.

I munched a few of these M&M cookies. At first, I thought it was ginger cookies as the shape and the colourful chocolates reminded me of ginger cookies. But it wasn't. It was a chocolate cookies, toppled with mini M&M chocolates. Not too sweet. Quite nice.

I also had some Honey Cornflakes cookies. In fact, I ate many of these. Wati used to make this in the past but due to her hectic working schedule these days, she stopped making it. Instead, she buy it from the shop itself. Though these didn't taste as good as hers, it was still edible.

And the crunchy peanuts. These peanuts are totally addictive! I couldn't stop munching on it. It's so good and yummy.

Now, for the main meal. Her dining table was lined up with trays of traditional Malay cuisines, just like eating buffet in the restaurants.

Sambal Fishballs and Chicken Rendang

Vegetable Lemak and Beef Rendang

How can one eat Malay cuisines without the one and only important food? Ketupat! It's actually a type of dumplings and people would usually eat it as an accompaniment to Satay and Rendang. Wati and her family made it using the palm leaf for the festival.

My favourite food of all time, Sambal Fishballs. One of Wati's aunties cooked it specially for the occasion and I have always love this dish ever since I first tasted it many years ago. However, what was so unique about this simple dish is that there was meat inside the fishballs and it caught me and Ping by surprise. Nonetheless, it tasted great!

This was my plate filled with all the food. The chicken and beef rendang weren't that spicy so I didn't managed to burn my tongue but those were still good. I love eating it with the ketupat.

After all the scrumptious food, Ping and I couldn't move and we just sat down at the dinner table, chatting away on this lazy afternoon.

Mutton Murtabak

2008-09-27T19:06:00.003+08:00

For my dinner last night, it was Mutton Murtabak, together with my mum's homecooked dinner. It all happened when I received a call from my Dad asking me if I wanted to eat Roti Prata. Tempted, I said I wanted to eat Mutton Murtabak as it has been a long time since I ate that.

The portion was huge, compared to the other prata places. I shared this with my mum and I love it when I spread it with the chicken curry. Spicy and Doughy.

The inside of the Murtabak. Filled with minced mutton and onions. Shiok!

Food Madness at Mad Jack

2008-09-27T17:56:00.005+08:00

On Thursday's evening, I had dinner with my good friend, Wati and her boyfriend at Mad Jack Cafe at Paradize Centre. After looking through the menu online the day before, I knew what I really want. Initially I wanted to place my order with the waiter as what the other cafes or restaurants are doing but one of the waiters informed me that I need to write down my order and then order and pay at the cashier. Immediately, I looked at the menu again. I was deciding between Fish and Chips and Grilled Fish in black pepper sauce. Eventually, Fish and Chips won. Hah!

When my Fish and Chips (S$8.90 exclusive of GST) arrived at our table, I was stunned beyond words. It wasn't because the food was poorly presented but instead, the portion was humongous! Ok, I may be exaggerating a little but indeed, the portion was big for a price like that. In other places, they may sell it for more than S$14.

Here is another angle of the Fish and the Chips.

By the way, the Fish and Chips was yummy. The fish flakes just fell apart when I cut it open and the batter was crunchy.

Wati and Juraimi ordered Chicken Baked Rice (S$8.90 exclusive of GST). They toppled with lots of chilli sauce onto the baked rice as they dig into the meal.

The place is quite cosy and bright except that it can be quite noisy. I have to scream my lungs out when I was talking to Wati.

After dinner, the three of us went to Plaza Singapura for desserts and also to meet another friend of ours, Ping. The latter was supposed to meet us at Mad Jack Cafe, however, she knocked off from work late. Anyway, we headed to Secret Recipes for desserts.

As usual, I ordered Chocolate Banana (S$4.90) and shared it with Wati. My stomach was still filled with my Fish and Chips.

Juraimi ordered the Chilled Strawberry Cheese (S$4.90). The top part was strawberry and there were bits of juicy strawberry and below of that was cheesecake. With these two combination, it was like sour and salty at the same time. It was a good change for me who often order the usual cheesecakes.

Since Ping didn't had dinner earlier, she ordered Lasagne Chicken (S$8.90). She didn't managed finish off her bun after her first bite. She said she enjoyed her Lasagne.

For her dessert, she had Brownie Walnut (S$3.50). It was really chocolately. Yum.

As we parted for the night, Wati, Ping and I agreed that we should visit Mad Jack Cafe again because the prices are insanely reasonable.

Mad Jack Cafe can be found at the following outlets: Paradize Centre, 01-04/05, 1 Selegie Road. 242, Jalan Kayu, next to URA Carpark. 304 Bedok Road, The Market Place (Next to Tanah Merah MRT Station) 6 Duke Road, before Coronation Plaza.

Noodles and the story of Samantha Jones

2008-09-24T16:15:00.006+08:00

After our make-up Textual Analysis class yesterday, some of us decided to head over to a coffeeshop which is located below Selegie House Blk 9. Pet recommended this particular new stall which sells pretty nice waffles after she tried it the day before. As a result of her recommendation, we were so tempted to try this waffles stall.

And since it was lunch time, we also ordered proper food like rice. We ordered food from the zhi char which is available in that coffeeshop apart from the usual noodles and chicken rice stall.

I had Fried Beehoon (S$3). The vermicelli tasted and appeared burned and the gravy was bland. Sadly, the only thing that was nice was the sliced fish.

Sage had Sang Mee [also known as 'Crispy Noodles'] (S$3). It looked appetitising in this picture.

Sam actually took this picture of the chilli sauce out of bordeom while she was waiting for her Sambal Seafood Rice.

Sage and Sam shared this plate of Cheesy Fries (S$2). It wasn't really cheesy but at least, it looked good for their standard.

For my sweets, I ordered the Classic Waffles (S$3.50). I let everyone tried this waffles dish as I can't really finish all by myself even though it doesn't look big at all. However, the waffles actually arrived on the table before my beehoon came so by the time I ate the waffles, it was already cold. The waffles was toppled with maple syrup and butter. Yummy!

In the evening, I met up with Charlene and Christine for dinner at Ichiban Boshi@Great World City. The purpose of the meet up was due to the fact Charlene had something to annouce. And when the news was being announced, we were all happy for her.

Anyway, about the dinner, I had Chicken Katsu Don (S$10.90). I was choosing between conveyor belt sushi or main meal but I opted for the latter. Perhaps, I was hungry but I find the Katsu Don tasted really good. I love the egg and the chicken.

Halfway through the dinner, Christine asked if I was interested to be a publicist. For a minute, my meal suddenly tasted bland. And Christine and Charlene immediately associate publicist with Samantha Jones in Sex and the City. But there is no way I am like her. I will most probably commit suicide, not literally of course.

Food Break

2008-09-24T15:44:00.003+08:00

During one of our school productions' dinner break, my friends and I went to Fong Seng Nasi Lemak for our dinner. It was a good change of environment for us to dine at a different place and also a good time to take a breather away from the black box. Besides, we went there to eat as the place is halal certified.

Instead of choosing the 'Nasi Lemak' rice, I opted for plain white rice as 'Nasi Lemak' rice tends to be more heavier in terms of its contents. I choose Otah, Fish Fillet and vegetables as my side dishes (S$3.50)

Since I was hungry after helping out, the food tasted good to me especially the Otah. I love Otah! Spicy and Yummy! But as for the vegetables, it tasted funny. When I was choosing my sides, I thought the vegetables were potatoes as it appeared sliced and yellowish. But the minute I put it inside my mouth, it was a little crunchy and not mushy. It was quite disappointing of course cos I love potatoes! But, I deduced it was a gourd melon. Due to my poor intepretation of the melon, my other friends took turns to try and guess the name of the melon. However, they didn't manage to produce the name of the vegetables until much later.

Mid-Autumn Festival, Lanterns and Homecooked Food

2008-09-19T22:17:00.005+08:00

Last Sunday was the Mid-Autumn Festival and whenever it arrives in the month of September, it will always be a hysterical period for me. Thoughts of delicious mooncakes, colourful lanterns and family bonding will start to form in my mind. But sadly, I didn't really eat alot of mooncakes this year for certain reasons.

Early in the morning, my mum boiled a pot of small yams for us to eat as part of the festival. These cute and small yams can cause sticky fingers when you start peeling the skin. I ate about 2 of these yams.

In the evening, my mum had to attend a wedding dinner and thus, the atmosphere was already half-gone. So I cooked myself a homecooked dinner with rice, fried egg with onions and vegetables.

It was neither greasy or filling of sort. It was just a comforting dinner which I had after a long while.

After the dinner, my dad helped to light up all the lanterns at our backyard. As he did that, I helped to illuminate the dark concrete floor with candles. Eventually, everything looked very romantic and cosy.

As for the mooncakes, I didn't really take many pictures of the mooncakes which my parents bought. But I ate a pastry which took a form of a piglet and inside of it was filled with lotus paste. Usually, there isn't any filling to accompany this golden brown pastry. I remember I love to eat this when I was a little.

I also had Tau Sar Piah - a flaky pastry which has mung beans filling inside. It's very good.

Though I didn't take many pictures of this festival, I still have fun enjoying my mooncakes and gazing at the full moon.

Prata Breakfast on a rare Saturday's Morning

2008-09-13T22:51:00.005+08:00

This morning, my brother and I had Prata for breakfast at a coffeeshop at Blk 24 Sin Ming Road. It was raining when I woke up and I was lying on my bed, thinking perhaps I should just stay in and sleep. Yet despite of the morning rain, we still went ahead with our breakfast plan.

It was my idea for eating prata as I had a craving for it for some time. Fortunately, my brother didn't mind.

My brother ordered a plain prata (S$0.60) and a cheese prata (S$2.80).

I ordered two plain prata (S$0.60 ea) as usual. I decided not to get anything other than plain prata. Basically, I enjoy eating prata without any fillings because my stomach would be really filled up if I were to eat prata with fillings.

The prata tasted really good and cheap. It is those doughy-kind of prata which I prefer, not one of those crispy prata.

We drowned our greasy prata with a cup of traditional coffee. It was a lip-smacking good breakfast for a while. After that, I headed to school for a production bump-in.

Tibits and Goodies from Thailand

2008-09-13T00:46:00.005+08:00

On Tuesday, my younger brother came back from his Thailand Trip. I was elated to have him back finally after two-week of hiatus. He bought many yummy goodies which mainly consists of junk food and other stuff such as T-shirts.

This is the Peanuts Coffee Flavour Coated in a bottle. I had a good time munching it away.

Other than food stuff, he bought me a Recycling Bag. I thought the design of the bag looks really cool without being so cliche.

And he gave me an Elephant Handphone Pouch. Kinda cute.

Then for the next few days, I began to crave for tibits. First, I decided to eat my Meji's Dippy (S$1.50) which Jo bought for me two weeks ago. I waited for this day to eat as I was down with a flu previously. Thus, I couldn't eat my Meiji's Dippy. But it's ok. Good things come from those who wait.

Meiji's Dippy is another version of its sister's brand, Meiji's Yan Yan but the former is so much nicer than the latter. The moment I dipped my chocolate stick into the strawberry jam, I am already won over. The strawberry jam is filled with real strawberry bits and it has the real strawberry taste. The more I eat, the more I want it.

Second, I bought a packet of Caramel Corn (S$2) from Daiso Mart at Plaza Singapura. I would always buy a packet of Caramel Corn whenever I pay my visit to Daiso. It has become one of my favourite hangouts since all the stuff are sold at S$2 each. How good is that?

There are many flavoured of Caramel Corn and one of them is Coffee Flavoured. But I still love the original version - Sweet Caramel Corn.