A Foreign Journal

Aug 17, Fri
Tapas Tree @ Clarke Quay, Post @ Fullerton Hotel, Highlander & Cuba Libre @ Clarke Quay

Aug 19, Sun
Crystal Jade @ Ngee Ann City , Rush hour 3 @ Cathay Cine, Coffee Club @ Opp Cine

Aug 23, Thurs
Alphabet Bar @ Amara Hotel

Aug 25, Sat
Sketches @ Bugis Junction, Bugis Village/OG, Bakerzin @ Vivocity. *

Aug 29, Wed
Outback Steakhouse & Paulaners @ Millenia Walk, Pan Pacific Hotel

Aug 31, Fri
Giraffe Restaurant & Bar @ Istana Park, Ratatouille @ The Cathay, Carnaval @ Chijmes. *

Sept 1, Sat
Carrefour/Comex @ Suntec City, Magaritas/Bens & Jerry @ Dempsey Hill. *

Sept 2, Sun
* Breeks @ Changi Airport T1 ~ the end ~

Updates*
Sept 22, Sat
Out of The Pan @ Raffles City, Esplanade/Merlion Park, Highlander @ Clarke Quay

"Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember"

Womad 2007

Woo hoo! Madness! I love Womad! I love Poutine Fries!

"I could have danced all night!
I could have danced all night!
And still have begged for more.
I could have spread my wings,
And done a thousand things I've never done before.
I'll never know what made it so exciting;
Why all at once My heart took flight!"

J

Memories of affections turned 'auto-pilot', so easily wiped out within the day. If only it was that easy for me.

Thanks for the deserted memories, they're mine for keeps.

Follow Your Heart

Toothsome haato gelatos & a priceless friendship. Luv you di! Remember: "Present fears are less than horrible imaginings" Don't worry so much!

Welcome to Elmo's World!

I declare 24/7 Elmo baking day! One potential client requested a sample on Frostie - so i ended up practicing lotsa and lotsa elmos.. big and mini elmos! Elmos are so cuteee. Some were alright while some didn't make the cut.. what do you think?

Island Cafe : Spread The Word

It's a real pity not many shoppers know about Island Cafe; which is tucked away on the top of Tangs Shopping Centre. Honestly, it is comparable if not better than some eateries are over-hyped by print/visual media or food blogs.

On Monday, Neo, Jo & myself 'pontang-ed' a talk half-way and headed straight to Orchard for shopping! Three of us had the same objective - get birthday presents for our friends. Already then, I knew where to bring them for dinner. Knowing neoneo's love for spicy food and variety - Island Cafe seemed like the perfect choice. The place was filled with mainly rattens, bamboos and plenty of wood - very resorty and relaxed feel... can get a lil too comfy (neo neo was feeling kinda sleepy! haha)

As expected, the gluttons i.e us ordered a shit load of food. Black Pepper Crab Tung Hoon for me, Indo Fried Rice (which comes with Satay, Chili Chicken, Achar & Keropok) for Neo, Chicken Bryani for Jo and one Asian Platter (Fried Chicken Wing, Spring Rolls, Wantons, Satays) & one bowl of Tom Yum Soup to share. I loved my Crab Tung Hoon lar! It had the wok-fried taste..and everything in there just tasted so right *slurps* I am salivating as I am typing!! Neo's main was pretty incredible as well - sambal fried rice was oohh lala and chili chicken was tender and sauce shiok~ Jo's one was not too bad either.. but I still liked mine n neo's better. Hee. Tom yum soup lacked the fiery oomph and was slightly diluted..but passable.

Although the dishes are not authentic, the food tastes good! To me, that's good enough. Plus it doesn't hurt that Island Cafe is generous with their portions...truly a cafe that delivers; this place gets my thumbs up!

*Island Cafe
Level 4, Tangs Shopping Centre,
Orchard Road
Tel: 6737 5500

Cafe Oliv trips

18/7 - I suggested Jia to have dinner at Cafe Oliv. Instead of the usual recommends (like pork ribs / lamb / beer battered fish), we settled for what we deemed as 'safe' i.e 1) Pink Sauce Linguine with Grilled Salmon 2) Thai cream sauce with Seafood. Oh yes, and Battered Softshell Crab with Salted egg.

The crab (one and only) was nicely presented in entirety, crispy, not oily and very well crusted. Quite the Yum. Then I thought, "what a good start, hope it stays this way".

Somhow or rather, it just didn't. The pasta dishes were a huge disappointment - one of the 'blah-est' ones ever tasted, worse than some western stalls found in neighbourhood coffeeshops.

The Three Trips for me (in order of importance)

1) The Basics of cooking pasta til "Al Dente" weren't met : Linguine noodles was really soggy/soft, a clear indication of it being overcooked.

2) Sauces (Pink Cream & Thai Cream) - Both types lacked flavour, no traces of herbs, black pepper, so we ended up dumping loads of clumpy parmesan cheese into our pastas for flavouring. Jia asked for blackpepper and was even tempted to ask for herbs! The unusually semi-translucent cream sauces weren't close to being called 'creamy'. Sigh.

3) Portions can almost be considered 'stingy' but should be just enough for females if there were other sides to accompany along . Value for money...NOT! For about the same price, I could get more 1.5 times the servings and way better tasting cream pastas @ New York New York.

Having low tolerance for crap food, Jia gave up on her pasta after a short while. She actually insisted I blog about this so everyone knows. Ok now you guys know - if you ever decide to go there, order something else. It was an unsatisfying meal but I do feel that this cafe has immense potential. Not too sure if I'll give this place ever a second chance..maybe one day when I feel forgiving enough.

*Cafe Oliv
220 East Coast Road
Singapore 428917
63443114

Care Bear Stare! I'm a Friend Bear!

	Friend Bear You are everyone's ideal friend because you are sincere and genuinely kind. Sometimes you worry about your friends' problems so much, you forget about your own responsibilities, which can get you into trouble. For you, it's the little things that really count. You also happen to be the main driver of the Cloud Car. No speeding!
Take the Which Care Bear Are You? Quiz!

The 2 day Getaway

Blown out sun, sugar fine beigey sand, gently swaying palm trees, 340m of "alleviation" - gunung-bintan style, tranquilizing french massage, thirst-quenching fruit smoothies & sedap indonesian cuisine; soto, curry, durian, indomie :)

Oh and a warped, tanless me.

Audit kills

Three weeks past and one more week to go, i can hardly go on. As days go by, I feel like I am sinking deeper and deeper into depression. Don't worry I'm not gonna kill myself or anything YET. lol Since the start of audit til now, I practically have no life, having to deal with such a disgusting routine. For three entire weeks, I reach office at 8.30am and do not go back til midnight. That's almost 16 hours! Yeeks! The feeling totally SUX! It has come to a point of time i dread coming to work and every single activity I do - I've almost dumped my daily operations for audit and somehow or rather refuse to pick it up. RFIs are such a pain in the ass, with unreasonable timelines. Hopefully next week will be a less torturous one and PLS no more late nights! I want to be able to leave office at 5.30pm! Argh..going nuts already! I need to smash some window panes!!

Ciao, Al Forno Trattoria

Our initial plan to bowl somehow turned to yet another food hunt; this time - to satisfy our pasta craving. Jia found this one place, Al Forno Trattoria, recommended by a blog so we decided to go with that instead of the usual. Lucky I made reservations in advance; the restaurant was easily filled up because of its size. Ambience wasn't cosy or homely as it claimed to be and nothing like what one website described it to be - quaint / rustic. Instead it was bright with a tinge of modernism.

Allow me to walk through the dishes we had last night.

A complimentary appetiser which is common among many Italian restaurants - Bread. Not bad, tasted like sour dough bread which is denser than the usual.

Insalate Tricolore
Green Lettuce, cheese, avacado, tomato and mamma's dressing - $12
Some of the lettuce leaves had holes and didn't look fresh. The avocado was unriped. "The cheese tasted cowy", quoted Jia. Indeed. The cheese had a strong beefy after-taste to it. Weird. Mamma's dressing - nothing more than olive oil with a pinch of salt & black pepper. I don't like my salad salty so this is a no no for me. Yeeks.

Penne Polpa Di Granchio
Pasta with cherry tomato, garlic, olive oil and crabmeat - $18.50

The description "CRABMEAT" was calling out for me aloud. Ever since I've tasted the delectable Tornarelli all granchio (Squid Ink Spaghetti tossed with Crabmeat Sauce) @ Ristorante Da Valentino, I fell in love with the heavenly combi. I requested the waitress to do a tomato cream base and would have asked her to change the pasta too if I hadn't been so blind! How could I have missed the huge bold word "penne" on the menu? ^$#!@ Gimme linguine anytime! The penne in my opinion was undercooked, Jia thought it was okay though. Tomato cream sauce was tasty but Valentino's still better.

Pappardelle alla Venexiana
Home-made pasta in saffron sauce, prawns & scallops - $22
Looks yummy! Taste wise - Its was okay but not fantastic. The cream based saffron sauce was delicious on its own and the homemade pasta though thick, had an interesting texture and extremely filling. But when combined, the pasta dish was unable to produce the wow factor and we got 'jur-lat' in no time. The prawns were also super tiny, not worth a hefty $22.

I would have been extremely delighted if these dishes were served @ pastamania or a cafe. But this being an authentic italian restaurant, I had really high hopes for it. For such prices, I rather visit Ristorante Da Valentino - the restaurant with the whole package: Fantastic food, ambience & service! Sorry but its unlikely I will ever revisit this place.

*Al Forno Trattoria
203 Thomson Road
Goldhill Centre
Singapore 307638
62562838

Superwomen in da house!

Early this week, we received this email for an upcoming company event. Not sure what got into me, I got super excited & went around my colleagues to ask them to participate in the bowling match with me. Hehe. Neoneo initially was quite hesistant about joining because she's scared of 'losing face'. But somehow, she gave in...perhaps she was enticed by the prizes. LOL. Wen, Jo, Neo & myself formed a team, while tx and the other experts formed another (in hope of clinching the top prize of $500 which they did!!! OMG!).

That fateful friday, we reached Safra Bowling early; tried to 'kop' lighter balls and fitted our feet into kiddy looking bowling shoes. Cute! The four of us joined this for the name of fun and honestly weren't expecting ourselves to do well. But somehow or rather we played a reasonably good first game and landed ourselves in 10th place (out of 24) and an even better 2nd game (9th position). Unfortunately we couldn't maintain our stamina and our third game went down the drain literally! (aka our balls were constantly washing the drains :x) Even though our team eventually came in 14th, we were still happy because we had lotsa fun! Half the time, we were busy cheering for one another and another two teams from our dept which was side by side. The other half was spent spying on other team's score with neo, taking pictures (of our 'ox-es') AND talking to DT! --> He actually initiated a conversation with me! *melts* that was def one of the major highlights of the event! Yippie!

ALL participating teams walked away with at least a $50 taka voucher; which was clearly THE reason why I joined. Lucky Neoneo & Gracie also won vouchers during the lucky dip - $20 GV movie voucher. Woo hoo! That wasn't the end. After the fun, the five of us treated ourselves to yummy steamboat near Jo's house - only costing us $7 per pax! Cheap right? Then we proceeded to mind's cafe for some games. Pity it had to end to soon but it was surely a day to remember!

Happy Burpday!

Happy Birthday Jia & Tricia!
Amazing company, crazy card games, overload of good foods with cute dinosaur themed party hats & blowouts! So much fun!!

Attendees: Jia,Tricia,Angie,Deena,Di & myself

Strawberry Shortcake From the Patissier!!
Chantilly cream & strawberry on chiffon sponge on a sugardough base.
Fresh fruits, awesome crust, lick-so-licious cream = Super Yum!

*The Patissier
18 Ann Siang Road #01-01
62205565

4, Mohd Sultan Rd #01-01
67373369

Happy Stepday!

Attendees: Step, Neo, TX, Jo, Serene & myself

Second birthday celebration this month, this time is for the sweet and lovely step! TX suggested Sushi Tei (Serangoon Garden Branch) which was a change from the usual. Very zen looking place with moderate food. The best dish for me that night (wed) gotta be the Phoenix Roll (above pic) because it had two of my fave ingredients i.e Unagi & Avacado. Chicken cutlet with Cha soba (my main) was erm, blah. Chicken cutlet was tough and the noodles/sauce seemed to be lacking texture and flavour. Nonetheless the celebration was still a success! This time round, our gang decided to play smart and get small pieces of cakes instead so we dun end up over eating!

Not to overeat? Like real!! Right after dinner, we headed to this COOL place (pun intended) called Ice3cafe (pronounced as Ice Cube). Rejoice all sweet tooth alcoholics! This COOL place serves Magic Potion aka ice cream with liquor, their specialty! The liquors (over 10 kinds) come in test tube supported by a wooden stand which comes in three shapes. The ice cream on the other hand are 100% home-made! Isn't that COOL or what? hee. One complain tho.. the sofa is a little too soft making it slightly uncomfortable for the big butt me.

Credits: David Goh

*Ice3Cafe
11 Kensington Park Road,
Serangoon Garden Estate
Singapore 557263
67452708

Happy Budday!

Attendees: Bud, Cheryl, Elvin, Joyce & myself

Had a pre-bday celebration for Bud last Saturday evening. Our initial plan to go Eng Seng's Very Pepper Crabs was changed to No Signboard Seafood Restaurant @ Geylang because they had more variety so to speak. Our orders - White Pepper Crab, Butter Crab, Cereal Prawns & Scallop with Seasonal Vegetables & la la (I think!?) Good thing about this place is you can order 1 crab per flavour unlike Eng Seng where you have to order 2 crabs per flavour at least. But somehow when we were eating the white pepper & butter crabs, there were no ooohhs no ahhhs and worst thing.. my mind was crying out loud for Eng Seng's crab! How I miss the crabbies there. Sob! Nevermind, I'm sure there'll be a next time. But I'm really thankful for those who managed to turn up, enjoyed the company v much! Thinking back, the last time at No Signboard Restaurant was also with Bud/Cheryl/Elvin - almost 1 year plus back.

May I just add that the bud's bday chocolate cake was super-moisty-chocolately-fudgey-sinfulicious-goodness?? Mama Mia!!! If I didn't have to watch that waist line of mine (which by the way is disappearing), I would have gone for seconds or even thirds! Arghhhh! This to die for choc cake is from famous Choc.A.Bloc which happens to be a stone's throw away from where I live (Yay!). Usually they require orders three days in advance, but lucky they baked extras that day phew! Di, listen up I am so gonna get this for you on your next bday! *slurps*

*Choc.A.Bloc
Blk 86 Bedok North St 4 #01-179
Singapore 460086
Tel : 64466096
Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays

Leslie Kee is one superstar

Joe Nakamura (below Andy Hui) is so hot!!

"Superstars" is a life-work project by local celeb photographer, Leslie Kee which took around 1.5 years to complete. For this photo-book, Leslie got about 300 Asian artistes to pose with proceeds going towards helping the victims of the 2004 Tsunami. MDA has banned the book in Singapore because of some "full-nudity photos of males" photos, disappointing many. If MDA are able to lift a long-standing ban on the popular US women's magazine Cosmopolitan, why not this? Time to loosen the apron strings men, afterall this is not pornography, this is ART! Well the good news is some photos from the project are currently being exhibited at National Museum, including special appearance of Singapore local artists.

Jo, Tx & myself had made arrangement to catch the photography exhibit yesterday afternoon. Somehow it did not start very well for either of us. Firstly I stupidly entered the ERP gantry four times, then I parked at the wrong carpark which resulted a 15 minute walk uphill to reach my destination. TX was 'conned' into buying a small box of mix candies at $30!! For the name of charity. Just as she thought one good deed will beget another, she found both her feet submerged in mud on her way to the museum! And poor Jo had to wait an entire hour for us. :x

A minimalist approach; no fancy backdrops using mainly basic colours (e.g white, black, brown,blue & lotsa skin), it was evident the attraction was the "Superstars" themselves and nothing else. Its pretty awesome to see the 'other side' of some of the artistes, very interesting. Pity that the exhibition space was quite small, compared to the ones held in Tokyo and HK which featured more of his works. Within 20 minutes, we were done with the exhibits. Had to admit I was slightly disappointed, not of his works of course. Do drop by if any of you have the time, its still worth the trip. :)

More photos of the project can be viewed here.

*SUPERSTARS Exhibition
National Museum of Singapore
93 Stamford Road
27 Apr - 4 May 07
10am - 6pm
Admission - Free

New York New York

This is an overdue post and because I am lazy, I'm gg cut short it and let the pictures do the talking instead, yak yak yak. All received stamps of approval from me except the cheeseballs which tasted rather potatoish rather than cheesy. (bottom left)

Special thanks to Mr Conan Foo, the manager of New York New York, for hand picking the three of us to sample pure hot chocolate on the house! Instant sugar rush I tell ya! This is exclusive to only us and no other customers! *Proud look* Mr Thoughtful Foo does the hot chocolate personally and makes sure each of us get our drinks piping hot! I'm pleased I chose this over queuing for donuts last Friday. Above average food, more-than-I-can-ask-for service plus CLEAN sofa seats, trust me I will be back again.

*New York New York
1 Raffles Link Citylink Mall
#B1-47A
11.30am – 11pm

Also available at AMK Hub now

Not nuts about donuts

Man, this is crazy! Singaporeans love to queue, sometimes I think they queue for the fun of it. A long line forms at the basement of Raffles City everyday and waits could go up to 4 hours. I'm no donut fan but I was ever so curious to find out what's so special about this donut factory craze. Jo, Neoneo & me took half day intending to queue for the donuts. For the fun of it of cos. But we didn't in the end. Filling our stomachs were top priority at that moment in time so we dumped the donut idea altogether.

Then this afternoon, I received a call from Jo. She got her hands on the doughnuts after 2 hours of queuing! Woot! And she got us some..how nice of her!! I drove down to her place at night especially to view the entire collection of doughnuts and of cos to claim my share. Within one night, I sampled 7 flavours. What an accomplishment!

My thoughts? I am still not crazy about donuts. Flavours like Apple Cinnamon, Double Chocolate, White Strawberry Heart & Cheese Tartar were not bad but some erm were just weird and disappointing- Lotus Mocha. Think red bean paste in a tau sar pau but coffee flavoured *shakes head*, Peanut Butter - Pathetic solidified peanut butter filling (where's the creamy peanut butter which should ooze out fm every bite? Sigh!) Texture wise - it felt like I was eating semi-soft white bread with varied toppings all these while. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it. But they don't come close to my version of my dream donuts - melt in your mouth kind - light, fluffy, creamy in the inside with a slight crunch to it! The last time I had decent tasting (and pretty!) ones were from Mister Donuts from Taiwan.

Donut Factory gets credit for creativity i.e injecting asian flavour into their doughnuts e.g. Spicy/Wasabi cheese & Kaya White Chocolate. (Jia thinks otherwise). Also for $11/dozen of assorted donuts, they are definitely cheaper and better than those you would find in 7-11 stores. But all factors combined, I don't think they are worth queuing long hours for. In fact, the management should rethink about speeding up donut making process which clearly is the root of the problem.

Ok. Enough of doughnuts and I will stay off 'em for the time being. To know how Donut Factory's doughnuts compare to US's Krispy Kreme, visit Jia's blog.

*Donut Factory
B1-61, Raffles City Shopping Centre
250 North Bridge Rd
Singapore 179101
Opens from 12.30pm