Mai siao siao

Kuali High Tea

Have always wanted to try this buffet at Suntec just opposite the roti prata, and last Sunday, we finally did. Can't fault them on variety, but at $25 pax, the quality just didn't cut it.

Tossed salad

Fettucine with pork ribs

Assorted fruit tarts

They have a pretty decent spread, but everything just seemed rather obligatory. Like, there was Hainanese chicken rice (Asian/Oriental), smoked salmon (Norwegian/Icelandic), Cheese and chocolate fondues (European/American), a crepe station, fruit station, etc.

Sigh. Somehow it just wasn't enough for me. Classic case of quantity over quality.

Kuali (Suntec City)

Food:2/5
Value: 2/5
Ambience: 3/5

9,000 species of birds in 4 hours

I've never been to Jurong Bird Park, so we decided to pay 16 dollars to do just that today. There were these tame looking birds that could be fed for 2 bucks.

Tame...

Tame...Argh...

WAH LAO EH GET OFF ME!!

Stupid birds look harmless but actually damn fierce in getting the food ok.

Conqueror of the red lory

The Bird Park's contribution to this food blog:

Bongo Burger!

$11.80 for a super thick beef burger, thick fries, jug of coke. Okay lah.

Bongo Burger
Taste: 3/5
Value: 3.5/5 (considering it's at a tourist destination)
Ambience: 4/5 (The staff were all in cute safari uniforms)

World's highest man-made waterfall

Nice lah, but nothing to shout about. Man-made after all.

For all birdie pics:http://www.flickr.com/photos/41669868@N00/sets/72157594410864195/

Momma's fish n chips

Homestyle cooking rocks

So we had a few guests over the other day and mumsie decided to whip up her style of healthy fish and chips (without the chips and a whole lot of other stuff).

Fish, corn, tossed salad, grilled chicken, mushroom soup (non-campbell), garlic bread and red wine make Danny a happy boy.

Arab street groovy ice cream parlour

Funky decor, funky flavours

Bitter chocolate (left) and D24 Durian (right)

Woah. Awesome ice cream parlour at Arab Street. At first xf thought it was a branch of Island Creamery, but we found out that they actually just purchase ice cream from all three famous local ice cream parlours and, in the process, choose only the good stuff.

The three ice cream shops are: Island Creamery (no website), The Daily Scoop and Ice Cream Gallery.

To be fair, I had one from each. The bitter choc is from DS and D24 is from ICG. The bitter chocolate is pretty good stuff. Unfortunately there are many other dark chocolates out there that are pretty comparable, like the one from Venezia and/or Movenpick. Don't be mistaken though, that is still pretty wicked company.

But hey hey hey, the Durian is just out-of-this-world-awesome. I can see why other bloggers are raving about the durian ice cream from ICG. It IS that good. Smooth and with just the right amount of sugar, the richness of D24 durian is perfectly captured in one teaspoonfull of the yellow stuff.

Normally you know for most Durian ice cream, the more pulp there is the better it tastes? This one doesn't have the most pulp I've had before but it doesn't have to. It's so incredibly... decadent that you don't really care.

On the flip side, Benjy pointed out that the richness of the D24 ice cream would overwhelm the other ice cream flavour I had chosen. "Sure cannot taste anything one," - Li, B.

There are only five smallish tables that seat about ten people comfortably, so don't bring an army with you when you do decide to visit this interesting and quirky shop. It sells vintage wear and accessories too, if you want to know.

Ok, this is weird, because I think I should just rate the shop where the ice cream originated and not the retailer.

Oh. One more thing to note, their scoops are pretty small, so not exactly value for money, relative to where they are originally sold.

The Daily Scoop Bitter Chocolate
Taste: 4/5
Value:3/5
Ambience: N.A.

Ice Cream Gallery Durian
Taste: 5/5
Value: 3/5
Ambience: N.A.

Cost of double scoop: $4

Of Ice cream, duck and looftop football

Horlicks and Apple Pie Ice cream in a cup

And in my mouth!

Now, I've never been a Horlicks fan, but the horlicks ice cream from island creamery is something else altogether. It is incredibly rich without being overpoweringly malty, like the drink is prone to be.

I can't wait to try their other wacky flavours. I've always been conservative with my ice cream choices. Dark chocolate, choc-choc chip, Belgian chocolate, Midnight cookies and cream, you get the idea.

Big thanks to Deejay xf for her recommendation.

What more could you ask for?

Island Creamery
Food: 4/5
Value: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5 (If you're into Jack Johnson cos they play him on loop it seems)

1F, Serene Centre
10 Jalan Serene, 258748
Tel: 64688859

They have another branch at Arab Street

Made my own sundae at HD

The grand old dame of ice creamery, at her irresistable best.

Old-school taiwanese porridge place

Oasis taiwan porridge is a rocking old-school joint that opens till late. The best dishes there are the kong ba and chye poh neng. Equally sinful and delightful. I like many many.

Oasis Taiwan Porridge Restaurant

Food: 5/5 (for the two specialities and 4/5 for the rest)
Value: 3/5
Ambience: 4/5

Oasis Building
50 Stadium Boulevard, 397796
Tel: 63464418

Johnson Duck 1/2 Duck for $10

Simple. Plain. Unadorned. I like.

Unlike their flashy neighbours BTK, Johnson Duck continues to dish out the same fare in the same way they've done for the last decade (or however long they've been around).

No service charge, reasonable prices and good food. Irresistable. I think I shall be coming here much more often.

Johnson Lock Roasted Duck & Chicken
Food: 4/5
Value: 5/5
Ambience: 3/5

11 Upper Boon Keng Road #01-939 Singapore 380011
Tel : 6741-1438

Musking tape football on the loof

Exams are playtime for c.s. folk it seems. Then again, maybe there's just something about the loof that makes us just wanna be kids again. Felt like primary school again. Too poor to afford the real thing, musking tape balls and balled-up drink packets were all we knew. But yeah, it was probably more fun anyway.

Sigh...285 views and counting

Loof Fool

6 hours after the party began, no one could move any longer

Clarence kept trying to set fire to Bacardi-soaked paper... it worked

Brokeback Benji

Journos turned up in full force

Mama Mia Thatsa power pizza

Hang on hang on. Sarpino's is really really good. It's so awesome I'm never ordering Pizza Hut again. Frickin rip-offs. Its what, 31.80 for two large pizzas!

Woot!

But damn heng the food was enough. Was scared there wouldn't be enough food, but hey, it's all good.

People who turned up in hats (Dong's is out of frame)

Sayheng. With bunny ears. awesome.

Ah Boon will turn in his grave

Same ole chicken, but what the heck is up with the potato chips?!

I went to BTK chicken rice tonight, and boy was I in for a surprise.

They re-did the entire fricking place. It wasn't so much the obvious in-store changes that surprised (and disappointed) me. They screwed with the essence of the BTK brand: the chicken.

I don't get it. What's wrong with serving your chicken the same way you have been the last 15-20 years? Why do you need to put it on a fancy platter (which elevated the chicken 3cm off the table) and put POTATO CHIPS on it?!?!

CHICKEN VERY LONELY AH??

The strongest thing going for BTK is it's heritage. Along with Loy Kee and Johnson Lock Duck (which, coincidentally is located next to the bt timah outlet we went to), BTK must be one of the most recognised and loved truly Singaporean food brands around.

The tables now sport gaudy (in my humble opinion) pseudo-leather table-cloths with gold trim. Service staff are dressed in spiffy all-white uniforms. Cutlery is encased in a pain-stakingly creased piece of paper made to look like banana leaf.

It.doesn't.work.

Ok, so their style of shaping their rice like a pyramid,

Like so.

so, so only lah. Nothing special

Has helped to differentiate the BTK brand, but really, Singaporeans are better than cheap tricks like these. Or so I thought. The queue that built up in the 1/2 hour we were there was quite impressive.

Bah.

Oh, right. One more thing. Because Nawaar said the Godiva chocolixir was "better than..." I thought I should try it, especially on the back of having Starbuck's signature hot chocolate yesterday.

So, it was with a view of comparing the two that I parted ways with $8 to the grumpy girl over the godiva counter.

I was presented with...

(the middle one, Dark Chocolate)

Chey.

Eh, nawaar, go and drink the Starbucks one lah. No fight.

(Cheaper also)

Anyways, Vivocity rocked! so big, I like.

Hot chocolate the way it should be done

Woah, the new Starbucks hot chocolate is every bit as good as it says it is. Each sip feels go damned decadent it's good.

You see those fake-looking peaks of whipped cream?

Well, they really look like that. They don't use the regular strawberry face whipped cream even. It's some special one that comes out really firm and cold. I kinda like it.

But the star really is the hot chocolate. I realise I've used the word really three times now, but I really don't care.

Each sip of the chocolatey brew deserves its own moment. I guess that's how I ended up taking about three-quarters of an hour to get through a cup of chocolate.

The thing that really hits you about each sip is how incredibly (which, really, is just really-really) gao(3) the drink is. It's like half and half of a melted chocolate bar and cream. And, and, if you close your eyes while drinking this, I swear you'll see Charlie of Charlie and the chocolate factory fame.

There was this scene in the book (I never saw the film) where he dips his mug into the chocolate river and describes how the warmth spread to every end of his body. Now we can all be Charlie.

Hurrah!

and Hurray for Starbucks for bringing a piece of heaven into my tummy today.

p.s. it goes really well with a book and an afternoon with nothing else to do

Long time no blog

Phew, being back at school is great. Just goes to show you really need to do something to benchmark your school experience against, be it army, working (anything but holidaying), to show just how good the life is as a student.

Anyway, FOOD!

There's only one picture of food here, but I'll be damned if it ain't one of my favourites.

MUDPIE FROM ISLAND CREAMERY!!!

Totally rocked my socks. They also have strange flavoured ice-cream, the strangest of which must be the tiger beer flavoured one.I had the apple pie-flavoured ice cream and it was really good.

The sign above the counter says their ice cream is made fresh daily and it really shows. The best part really is the texture of the ice cream. It's fluffy and moist and combines real apple pie, not those bs bits you get in even haagen daaz or bnj for that matter. Of course it isn't as rich as haagen daaz but they more than make up for it with their fresh ingredients. If there was one thing that didn't really work for me, it was the slightly over-cinnamonned taste of the apple pie ice cream, but hey, you cant have everything.

So if you wanna try it out, it's at Serene Centre.

Yeah, anyway, check out this absolutely cool vespa!!

Does it not scream BEN AND JERRY'S???

Becky and Xiaofen liked it so much they decided to get themselves in the photo.

Wah, the other nite as I was going home on the bus, I saw this:

Weird guy watching DVDs on a portable DVD player.

WTH!!

It's ok if it's like a movie or something, but this chap was watching KARAOKES. Tamade.

So I figured he's some cheena guy who can't get enough of Jolin Tsai but NOOOO.... he decides to switch dvds to...

FIFTY-CENT!

Damn funny lah, he was bopping his head to "candyshop". One minute Jolin, the next 50-cent.

And the last thought of the day:


Super crappy parody of Harry, nothing is sacred in this entire range of parodies.

Later guys.

Last friday was the last day at BM and they had a farewell party for me!! I wasn't really expecting anything so it was nice how Pat surprised me with an Adidas voucher (which will go towards a new pair of shoes - Thanks guys). It then hit me why she asked me out of the blue if I preferred Nike to Adidas -.-

Too bad I didn't have a camera on hand (since i wansn't expecting a party) or I wouldv'e been better able to capture the my last day there, at least for the next 5 months. Even though you got the feeling that it's something they do for every person leaving the company, it was kinda nice how they bother to have a celebration at all.

I guess I'll miss the folks there for their intelligent sense of humour, easy-to-get-along-type personalities and, well, their widely-read knowledge of obscure facts brought about by reading 14 newspapers every morning of every day.

So, thanks guys. You could've made it hard, but you didn't. Like Krishna says to Lathi before enlisting in Michael Chiang's 1998 play Army Daze, "This is not goodbye, it is merely a farewell..."

(I didn't get it either)

Loof on the house

The folks at BM had a night's out last Tuesday, and it was pretty interesting, haha. .

Anyways, PHOTOS!

(Luwyn, Aaron, Eric, Pat, Gen, Me)

Damn. I could get used to this.

Ok, this deserves a paragraph all on its own.

This, my friends, is a WET CUCUMBER. hahahahaha. The names of their drinks are damn funny lah. E.g. Steady-pom-pi-pi, Wet Cucumber... and ....

wait for it...


wait for it...


Pimp's Cup!

WTH!

They don't taste too bad, especially when they're free ;)

I suppose you're never too old for some bunny ears.

(Girl Gamer, Hot-Bod, Mr Pfizer, Ms Yellow-ribbon, Eve,
Back: Danny-the-magnificent, Anush, Amit)

We are suckers for publicity.

Oh, and this is like, the only picture with Carol, one of the people I work closely with. All Blacks!

These are the amount of drinks...left.

Disillusioned with beautiful celebrities

I don't know what reel beauty is anymore.

Living la vida loca?

This is what greets you as an entry-level public relations executive each and every monday morning (actually every morning, but mondays are especially bad). Without fail, the horizon of newsprint promises to extend from one end of the rather long table to the other, three waves in all.

Prelude to an interesting conversation

One of the guys that works at an adjacent company popped by and exclaimed:

him: you know, you guys have the best job in the world!

us: *blank, groggy stare*

him: All you guys do is read the papers every morning and drink coffee, fantastic!

us: *groggy stare*

him: I wish I had..

us: *stare*

him: your...

us: *glare*

him: *picks up breifcase and walks off*

hahaha.

Oh well, here's my favourite candy store in the world. OKAY, Singapore. OKAY, so it's the only candy store I know. Bah.

Ahah! what's that she's holding on to?

let's find out...
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Smith's sweet thai chilli sauce crisps!!

And here's a shoutout to my dearest darling, who somehow managed to endure four years of 2-day study weeks and unlimited overnight mahjongs

@ Suntec Convention hall. Darn. Why is everything better at smu?