First day @ BM

Chez moi @ BM

Yay! Finally got my ass outta the house doing something constructive this hols. It's been fun bumming but I'm finding out that I'm really not the bummer sort.

Anyway.

This is my very own PC haha.

Didn't manage to get a picture of the view, which, at 40 levels above mere mortal level at suntec city, is astounding. I think I can see to like, Bedok if I stretch enough.

The people there are really friendly, especially my immediate superiors. No airs man, all first-name basis. Basically pressed the flesh early in the day and was settled by ten plus, whereupon I was entrusted with my first project... Media monitoring. zzz.

Ah well, I suppose it could be worse. The day progressively got better with 2 other projects which are really interesting and not at all what I thought I'd get to do at my lowest-level-below-recruit status. I think the worst part of the day was finding out that my diet will be absolutely destroyed in the course of working here.

Take the lift down, the lift door open, immediately I see what? ROYCE CONFECTIONARY! ne ne. The incredibly smooth champagne hokkaido chocolate ah. Pheewweeet. Heaven.

Damn. Goodbye diet.

Even if I try to close my eyes and walk down to the food court below, guess what awaits me...

!!!!!

Sian half.

Anyways, this is the food-picture of the day: mini-pastry from Sun Moulin. 5 for $2:40. Cheap cheap!

Chinese people eat everything

Heaven.

Although it may look pretty much like some weird Asian gunk (which it is), it really is a national treasure. Tau Yu Te Kah. Pig trotters in black sauce. mmm.

Hah. That alone will probably scare off most foreignors. but wait till you add this...

Pork ribs in a light, peppery broth

Yum. The past few days have been amazing, food-wise. Mumsie made pineapple rice, which turned out pretty nice...

Conceived in Thailand, Made in Singapore

Fried rice paradise
Nasi goreng very nice
Book a table very wise
That is what I'd do...
If I were you

-Dick Lee

Pre-match meal

Take a couple of saugsages fried in butter, throw in a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich, sunny side up egg, some fruit, and top it all off with a cup of steaming black brew.

Viola~ World cup bliss.

PSLE maths is hard

50.

XXX bought some pens and erasers in the ratio of 3:2. An eraser costs 20 cents more than a pen. XXX spent $174 in all. He spent $6 more on pens than erasers. How many erasers did he buy? [5m]

basket.

Teacher's challenge... failed.

Date Night 090606

Fish Head Steamboat!!

This.Is.Powerful.Stuff.

I think this must be Whampoa market's worst kept secret. The whole market is like, reserved for this stall at night or something and the place is frickin packed after 6pm. Which is why we went at 5:59 haha.

The unsmiling auntie will take your order and peg it onto an extremely long line of pegs in front of the poor guy (yeah its just one person doing all the cooking). Once you're like, only 5 pegs away from the front of the line, they'll bring you the utensils and chilli and stuff like that. Usually by that time my stomach is really growling and I start to eat chilli. No, seriously.

When your boiling pot of heaven finally arrives after (number of pegs X 5-10 mins) they bring with them four optional side dishes.

So anyway, the food, the food.

We had the ang kor li (red snapper) fishhead steamboat. The pot comes to you brimming with ingredients like extremely fresh fish, sticks of fried yam, bits of dried salted fish and cabbage. It all sounds very blah and plain but I assure you, there's absolutely nothing blah about the rich stock or the unmistakable wok hei (taste of fire) in the soup.

I don't particularly like steamboat but this is nothing like anything I've ever tasted. The sweetness of the fish contrasts beautifully with the generally salty flavour of the stock. The chunks of yam retain their unique flavour, and even having been immersed in the soup for long periods of time still manage to retain a crunchy outer crust which yields to a gooey center.

Even the cabbage plays a part in this traditional teochew delight, its natural sweetness and wonderful texture giving the dish balance and the feeling that everything in the pot is there for a reason. Oh, did I mention that the salted fish is edible? It is an absolute delight to have a piece of this to slowly crunch on while mulling on your next forray into the pot.

Now on to the side dishes. As I mentioned before, the unsmiling auntie will bring you 4 sides: lor duck, buay chai, lor egg and something else in a tupperware container I have never tried in 5 visits.

The duck and the fermented veggie are POWER. I think they will survive just selling those two dishes with rice. The duck simply melts in your mouth, as does the veggie. The duck gravy is positively decadent and if you look closely enough you'll see many many spots of oil floating on the surface. Ditto the veggie. I suppose this is not a really healthy meal but I've never been a calorie counter now, have I.

The whole meal costs $15 for the small steamboat, and $3 each for the sides plus rice $1 = $22!! not really cheap but it works out better if you go in fours or fives.

PS: If you're picking a weekday to go, don't go on tuesdays. It's closed. I found out the hard way.

PPS: The sugar cane stall there cheat ppl money one, add water into your drink. pui.

Dessert!

Mango with sago

After the thoroughly satisfying dinner, I went with darling to this quaint little traditional dessert shop on Liang Seah Street. I usually don't dig those places which bank on the nostalgia factor to draw in the crowds cos' I think its pretty cheesy, but hey, when its good, whatever man.

This place is known for their hot desserts like almond paste, ginko nut and tau kee and black sesame paste to name a few, but their cold desserts rock too. She had the mango with sago, a pretty simple dessert which is above average by virtue of the fact that their magoes are sweet and not too mushy. However, I felt that the coconut milk was slightly too strong and overpowered what would have been a very mango-ey dessert.

I had, this:

Almond paste

Shucks, everytime I get something I get so excited I start to slurp it down when i mean to take a shot of it first. Oh well, I suppose it'll suffice.

The paste is extremely smooth, probably because they actually strain every single bowl's worth of paste before serving it. It was also heartening to taste the bitter aftertaste (from the almond kerns) of the dessert, guarenteeing that it wasn't just almond essence they added to milk, but actually bothering to use real almonds. Not too bad, though pastes just aren't really my thing.

So anyway, the prices here are reasonable. Oh, and just get the small serving if you're there like, for dessert. It's pretty big already. I dunno who eats the large servings.

Until the next makan adventure.

Peace out~

Blueberry Muffins!

Woot!! My very own blueberry muffins. Darn. I rock.

Packed Day

Woot~ Today is gonna be PACKED man. First off I'm gonna be baking blueberry muffins with the new oven before going down to Mediacorp for my 4.5 sec of fame on some trailer/advertisement thingy my friend is working on haha. I'm supposed to be some football-crazy guy (not too hard) watching a 3G broadcast of a WC match or something like that. Oh well. Extras cannot complain right.

And then it's off to tutor my boy Jingren. This boy ah, very intelligent. Actually I don't quite know why his parents get tuition for him also. He damn zai already, tutor what. And he's damn cute also. haha. Everytime I get stuck wondering how to explain a maths question to him he will turn the hourglass he has in front of him and say...

jingren: "Teacher's challenge!"

me: "..."

jingren: "See if you can explain to me before the time runs out!"

me:"mumble mumble"

jingren:"hahahahaha"

me:"aha! got it!"

jingren:"yay! Teacher's challenge...Success!"

He's damn funny right!! haha. anyway there are many many other funny things he does. I shall post another entry with pictures of today's baking but for now, it's adios amigos~

Peace.

Buttermilk cookies...mmm... suppose I should just try to make them instead of always going back to popeyes haha.

Recipe for Buttermilk cookies
http://www.therecipebox.com/members/box/cookie/cookie015.htm

Anyway, world cup is coming!! Woo! And theres gonna be a world cup get together at clarence's place this friday to watch the opening match of *yawn* germany and Costa Rica.

Today was spent settling. Again. Oh, and run-cum-bak-jut-teh is finally on! next tues morning! woo! It's so strange I seem to be running just so I can afford to eat. Haha. Oh well, suppose I'm definately of the live-to-eat variety.

Oh, oh imma gonna eat fish head steamboat this week! woot!

Crap. Feel like a technosaur. I just accidentally my previous post. Oh well. Here are some pictures, again.

Hello that's me

Peek-a-boo

Woo! Settled the whole of yesterday at Justin's. Did stupid things like countdown to 6:30pm (the latest we've ever played settlers) and drink our fill of peach tea and coke, haha.

Anyhow, I think I shall attempt to turn this blog into a food-blog. hah. Yes. So from now on I shall record all my nice meals, recepies and other gastronomical experiences as a form of NS. hah, so there.

Food for thought.

- Bak Kut Teh with Zheng

- Bake Buttermilk Biscuits

- Have a kick-ass BBQ with the CS folk

- Go to Menotti’s again

Sigh. Wonder when I’ll be able to accomplish all these things. Ah well. Settlers again! Haha I think I’m going to be spending a LOT more time at Justin’s place in Serangoon Gardens…

testing testing, one two three.

testing testing, one two three.

It's true. Believe it. I have landed on the blogosphere. This really is nothing more than a test. I should have just used lorem ipsum. Bah.