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.
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...
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!
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!
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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:
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.
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.
