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.
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!
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
