woo hoo!

finally, the weekend is here. soon enough.

daytime this week has been not-so-good. received sickening news at work. i’m going to have a new boss. the big boys up there decided to give the finance organization structure a revamp and move the teams around as they wish – like monopoly pieces.

i’m pissed about the developments. and i’m even more pissed about the lack of devlepments. this time round, i am not going to sit around and mope without doing anything. i’ve already highlighted my concerns to one level and if nothing comes out of it, i am going to escalate to the next level.

the best thing out of this is that i spoke to dearest about how i felt about the whole issue and he is supportive. if things do not improve, i might just throw in the towel. i can’t always hang around and be bullied just cos the big boys think i need this job very badly right?

anyway, i know i am being ultra cryptic here and you won’t understand much of it. originally i wanted to relate the whole thing at length and then lock it up but i’m just to lazy to do that. anyway, you are probably not interested in what i have to say about my work anyway. heh.

nightime, on the other hand, was not-so-bad! on wednesday, dearest picked me up from work and we went pak-tor-ing! it’s been some time since we’ve done that. dearest was dressed very smartly that night as he went for an interview earlier and maybe he felt very executive, so we went to marina and esplanade and mingle with the working class. ha.

dinner was at the glutton bay – steamboat in individual claypot style, cooked over charcoal, plus a mini bbq! it was rather special but the slow cooking time disappointed us a little (cos we were sooo hungry!). food is alright, not exactly fantastic but not bad enough to complain about.

then we strolled under the cool breeze, hand-in-hand… it feels great! to be able to spend time with someone you love in the middle of a lousy work week. and then we did something which we’ve never done before in our 7 years together! we went to 爱琴海!

i’ve been to the music cafe before with my ex-classmates but not with dearest. and dearest had always wanted to go. most of the times when we go to marina square together, we will walk pass, think about going in but never did. this time we finally did! yeah! it was pretty enjoyable… i think we might just go back there again.

i was so pleased by the mid-week dating that i slept like really really soundly that night… and… overslept the next morning! wahahaha…

work sucks. but i’m happy when dearest is around.

meeting the old pals later! should be full of gossips and complaints later… yeah! =)

Penang Trip – 27th to 28th June

better late than never… here comes the entry on our long awaited Penang trip.
the trip to Penang was supposed to be (at least to me) a havoc durian tasting trip. but alas… it was not meant to be. nevertheless, the 4 of us had lots of fun – with food, driving on tiny roads full of bends, and visits to temples (and… my poor useless tummy full of shit – no kidding!)

let me start off with a complaint – the next time any of you takes air asia, don’t bother to check in online and print out your boarding passes. why? because when you are at the airport, you will still need to queue up to have your passports checked, which is, fair enough… except that the queue for online check in is longer than the one for counter check in! and the dumbest thing is, after you show them the boarding pass which you have printed out, they keep the boarding passes and issue you with new ones! DUH!

random pictures taken at the changi airport, all of us still sleepy…

with advice from alfred, we decided to rent a car for our 2 days trip, and i’ll say, it was good advice! we’ve had a lot of freedom driving around, stopping as and when we feel like it to grab food, and not to mention the thrill (for the 3 drivers, not me) of driving up and down winding hill roads, which can suddenly change from 2-way lanes to 1 single lane – at a bend! wooo… that was scary (for sheena, i believe)

and here’s our car – a dark purple proton persona, and one of the drivers… heh. the indian guy at the top left hand corner was the staff from hawk-rent-a-car who was pretty friendly and had a shock when dearest took his picture.

and of course… must show you guys the FOOD!

there was penang laksa (duh… by the way this is my fav of all!), char kway teow, lor mee/prawn mee (jackson! i am very sure you ordered prawn mee, not lor mee!!), curry mee, mctucky fried everything (chicken skin, sotong, fish, chicken meat, etc), apom, oyster egg, bak kut teh, fish bee hoon, fresh tropical fruits, durian (not so good), etc… YUMMY!

we went to the toy musuem which cost us RM20 each (for non-malaysians). i was quite excited about it… until i stepped in. the whole place was a maze of display shelves with hundreds of small little toy figurines locked behind glass panels. if you ask me, it’s not worth the money. but then again, i’m not one who loves toys, so i’m not the best person to comment

and… i’m not writing this in sequence, but the first place we went after collecting the car was the snake temple. despite being given directions by the indian car rental guy, we weren’t that confident of finding the place until jackson pointed out “there! ular! ular means snake”. LOL. so we found the place.

contrary to what was shown on tv, the snake temple isn’t that huge, and doesn’t house that many snakes. but it was still quite cool because it seems like dearest is not as scared of snakes as i thought he was.

so it was a quick tour for us, some photo-taking and off we go to head to the sunway hotel.

we also visited the tropical fruit farm where i had my mini disaster of diarrhea immediately after eating the ‘fresh’ tropical fruits. so much so that i had to miss half of the guided tour. the saving grace was that the toilet has a long water hose so that i can clean myself up after every… erm… ‘burst’ (?). haha…

the uncle who was bringing us around for the guided tour was chinese, but spoke in english with an accent. on and off, the guys try to talk to him in mandarin or hokkien but he always replied in english. makes me wonder why. he wasn’t the sort to make jokes but was friendly enough to answer our questions. he was quite pissed off at another indian group who didn’t want to join in the tour though. ha…

we also went to the air hitam dam. just for fun because we were running out of places to go to

it’s like this huge reservoir with a small dam in the center. we walked all the way inside to go to the man-made waterfall, only to find that the area is off-limits

another temple visit – the reclining buddha. it was not easy finding this place. we had to stop and ask for directions a few times.

when we finally found the place and stepped in, dearest held my hand and said “do you feel it? it’s so peaceful here i have goosebumps all over me”. at that moment, i felt… touched… and held his hands tighter. he’s my love.

and another temple:

there’s a really sweet story here, but i won’t share it for now. heh…

and beaches of course!

and here’s the various busy scenes of gurney drive, the famous tourist place with all the delicious food, esp the penang laksa!

and last but not least… the place with the good bak kut teh… except that we didn’t like the taste very much…

ok ok ok… i know this entry is not exactly that exciting. but that’s because it is almost 2 am right now and i have a ferry to catch early in the morning. yes! dearest is bringing me to desaru!

got to sleep…

the long awaited getaway

IT’S FRIDAY!

we’re watching transformers tonight, and heading to Penang tomorrow morning! yippeee…

durian, char kway teow, durian, laksa, durian, rojak, durian, lor mee, durian, durian, durian, and more durian!!!

woohoo… exciting…

some other updates:
- went kite flying for the first time in my life last sat
- went ice skating for the first time in my life last sun (and fell on my bum twice)
- dearest made a courageous decision and quitted from his yucky boss job, and today is his last day at work

will put up photos the next time! have a great weekend!

and the answer is..

“S” – The Sage
“B” – Bistro One Zero Three
“W” – Wild Rockets

and the final choice was “W”
W for Weirong!

Hehe…

cedele

today… is not a bad day!

met dearest and his sister to run some errands and then head into town to get our new e71s protection screens and cozip casings. then we shopped around a little.

and went to celede for tea-break, supposedly. but as the menu looks pretty enticing, we ended up having our dinner there.

this is what i ordered – rosti with sausages and sunny-side up. it’s a breakfast menu… well, they serve breakfast throughout the day! the rosti… erm… looks really strange. tracy thought it looked like prata, and i thought it looked like fried nian-gao. but it was tasty!

tracy ordered the sea bass sandwich. not bad… fish is fresh… though it will be better if it was warmer.

dearest had the beef sandwich. i’m pretty sure it’s nice cos he finished it all! =p

they have a good selection of teas, juices and desserts. and their food looks really healthy… so i think the place is fantastic to rest tired legs after a day’s shopping, or just to hang out with friends. one warning though – the service sucks….

[edited to add]: last night over dinner, dearest & i said we didn’t know how to pronounce the restaurant’s name. then sheena said “ce-dell” (or something like that) and i was thinking to myself, did i get the name totally wrong? cos i’ve spelled it as “celede”. then jaslyn left a comment and i finally realized it’s “cedele”! alamak… so blur…

saturday proposal

so dearest & i spent a simple saturday afternoon together – driving in the heavy rain, followed by lunch @ ikea, followed by more driving.

dearest insists to bring me to a new place for ice cream. he would only say it’s far but refused to tell me where it is. we ended up in this place called 10 raeburn park. in case you are wondering, this is NOT a park (not the likes of labrador, east coast etc), this is a school with not a single soul around at 5pm on saturday.

after driving around the campus and failing to locate the ice cream shop, dearest drove out of the carpark (10 min grace period) and pulled over along the road outside and winded down the window.

me: what are you doing?
him: *looks at me* why, you think i am proposing to you ah?

*faint*
yea… it’s on my wish-list for 2009 but i’m not that desperate ok! i dun think abt it 24/7!
wahahahaha…

we managed to find the shop (seventh heaven) and hesitated before going in (it was empty!). we ordered chocolate & whiskey, lychee martini and green tea. the chocolate & whiskey was so-so. i hate the smell of whiskey usually but i couldn’t actually taste the whiskey in the ice-cream. couldn’t taste the alcohol in lychee martini either but it was quite good – i’ll say, the best of the 3. the green tea was quite special – there are tea leaves in the ice cream, gives a different texture to it. 3 small scoops (yea, the portion wasn’t that huge) set us back by $16… too expensive to our liking. back to udders anytime!

but thank you dearest, for researching and bringing me to new places for interesting makan! the next time, just skip the bit about proposing ok…

PS. i wanted to hyperlink my post about udders above but then i realized i’ve never blogged about it before! how can i?!? it’s the favorite ice cream place… another day… i’ll write about it another day… now, i’ll go back to sleep and maybe dream and drool of the tiramisu & maoshanwang from udders…

it warms my heart

when dearest behaves soooo sweet to me.

i waited for dearest at his void deck just now. i sat beside the stone table about 20 meters away from the lift landing. when dearest stepped out of the lift, he held his arms out wide and shouted “baby!”. and when i walked over, he gave me a big hug.

that’s love. and that warms my heart so…

when we were in the car, dearest asked me why am i so sweet today… and my reply was “you are the one who is sweet!”

don’t you all agree? a relationship is like looking into a mirror… if you smile, the image on the other side will smile back at you. if you frown, it will frown at you too. similarly, when the guy is sweet to the gal, the gal will be sweet to the guy. if the gal is concerned about the guy, the guy will be concerned about the gal too. the tricky part is, who should take the initiative? the best solution will be for both to always take the initiative. then the relationship can only blossom further…

ok… enough of the boring theories…

so we went for dinner and planned to go and have our favorite durian. we wanted to call in advance and reserve the solid XO durian. so i digged into the pile of namecards and finally found it. dearest placed an order and half hour later, we reached the durian place in katong.

only to find that ALL the durians are gone! after clarifying with the boss, we concluded… i gave dearest the wrong number!

apparently, there were 2 different durian namecards in the stack. i picked up the first one and gave dearest the number. dearest did ask me whether it was loon & teck. it wasn’t but we flipped the namecard over and the back of the namecard looks exactly like the one we took yesterday, so we presumed it was the right one. we ended up calling the wrong number – at upper serangoon rd.

in order not to disappoint me and my craving for durian, dearest drove all the way from katong to upper serangoon (another oh-so-sweet act). we ended up buying 1 mao shan wang durian which burnt a small hole in dearest’s pocket – $27!

yea… that’s it… my big blunder…

my point… dearest is so sweet in both his words and actions today, it warms my heart… so… much…

V Day!!! (7th Vday & 6.5 Yrs Anniversary)

it’s valentines day!
the 7th v-day, and also the 2,376th day which dearest and i have spent together!

activity for the day was… CAR SHOPPING!
dearest has plans to bring me to a really romantic restaurant for dinner but we didn’t know how to spend the afternoon, so for the first time, we went around visiting car showrooms together…

first stop was toyota… to see the white vios sport.

the showroom was really packed! half the singaporeans went to buy cars – all because the coe prices dipped sharply…

then, we headed to honda. the place was crowded as well but not as packed as toyota. once we walked in, a salesperson asked us what we were looking for. we said we were simply looking around. and immediately he said he will show us the honda jazz.

HELLO! i know we look young and trendy (ahem…), but are you assuming we are not rich enough to buy civic or accord? then when we didn’t show a lot of interest, he had the cheek to introduce the honda city to us! hmph…

next stop was mazda. this time, dearest said, let’s do a test drive and sit down to listen to the prices and package.

i’m so in love with the car (the white on, not the green one… pls) that i felt this impulse to buy it there and then! it’s only S$50K! but obviously my logical self took over and i didn’t commit to the purchase. i’m still in love with mazda 2 and if i do end up buying a car, it will surely be in the top 2 choices!

unfortunately, dearest says my driving is not up to standard and he will worry for me if i drive alone. so until he ‘passes’ me, no new car for me! boohoo…

after the car viewing session, dearest brought me to the dinner place. at first he told me to close my eyes… hehe… but in the end he told me he’s bringing me to dempsey. i’m really touched – that he made extra effort this time round to do research online to find out about nice romantic places for the day, and made a reservation.

and so… this is where we went… presenting… the white rabbit

it’s this beautiful place – once a chapel, now converted into a lovely restaurant. almost everyone who was at the restaurant ordered the set dinner.

the set dinner came with 2 glasses of champagne – something which we didn’t appreciate very much. we are unrefined people who drink beer and brandy, not champagne and wine… haha…
the oyster shooter was really really fresh, and we both loved the pan-fried foie gras. the foie gras parfait however, was erm… gross!! i took a quick look across the restaurant and found that almost everyone shares the same sentiments as us. a guy beside us even exclaimed YUCK when he first tasted it.
the scallops were nicely done, not overly baked. and the beef in the main dish was good. but i couldn’t say the same for the oxtail.
the best part was desserts – chocolate ice cream, brownie and white chocolate mousse! yummy!

and here’s our photo of the day…

the dinner burnt a BIG hole in dearest’s pocket though… thank you my dearest – you are most wonderful!!!

after dinner, i get to drive home! hehe… and we ended the day with me practising vertical parking for like 20 times… and still not getting it right… sigh…

tai tai day @ hediard

it’s friday the 13th and phyllis & i are determined to have a fun tai-tai day again.
this time round, phyllis intro-ed this french boutique cafe Hediard beside tanglin mall.

it’s a really small cafe with only about 8 to 10 tables. the entire cafe is filled with a warm ambience of red colours. i love the place – its coziness and a bit of country style setting…

when we sat down and were presented the menu, i was at a loss….
firstly, the menu was mainly in french – or maybe they were in english, but i couldn’t make out what they really mean – things like tartine, croque…
secondly, the ala-carte prices are… well a little steep. thank god for set lunches @ $29.xx nett (weekdays only)

ok ok… picture time!

the presents are belated throw in (and throw-ins to the throw-in) xmas presents.

the cute tall milk glass has a story behind it.
when we were doing our xmas shopping together last year, and was at taka looking at glasses (for her colleague), i mentioned i will love to have milk glasses cos they look so pro… so this thoughtful phyllis kept that comment in mind and bought the really cute milk glass with many little lambs for me.

only to have me tell her: “aye… i’m lactose intolerant and dun drink milk anymore”. wahaha… she rolled her eyes…

still, i love the present! i’ll make it a breakfast glass ok (orange juice, apple juice, soya milk, etc)

here’s the food! ALL of them taste GREAT!

the set also comes with red/white/rose wine, blended tea or coffee. so i chose rose wine (cos i’ve never tasted it before) and the waiter said: “sorry, we ran out of rose wine”. DUH! so i chose blended tea…

and so we carried on with our girly gossips and what not, leisurely finished the food, asked for the bill and left…

it was only when we were near borders that i suddenly exclaimed: “where’s my blended tea?!”
they didn’t serve me my tea! sigh…

and here’s the debut appearance of the mysterious phyllis – my dear friend of 12 years!!! thanks for bringing me to nice and atas places!

the place is nice, food is nice, but i can tell you, the service cannot match up to its image. what a waste.
still, i’ll head back there again and introduce to all my friends. i want to try their breakfast set some day!

after lunch we went shopping for a v-day present for dearest. it was… difficult. but in the end i managed to buy something from agnes b (something small & not so expensive)

it was one of the more successful outings that we’ve had. in the past, i run out of stamina really fast and will start to complain that i’m tired after a few hours. but this time, we walked quite a fair bit with me carrying quite a bit of weight… and i didn’t complain much. truly enjoyed the day…

when’s the next tai tai day going to be???

happy birthday baby!

dearest came and announced: “i’m going to cook lunch for you today…”
and he didn’t want to tell me what he is cooking.
after much probing, dearest finally said: “i’m cooking mee sua”

then it dawned on me… it’s dearest’s lunar birthday today!
oopss… hahaha… it’s dearest birthday and i should be the one cooking mee sua for him.

so it was a busy afternoon, trying out pots and pans, washing bowls and utensils… and sneezing away (too much doggie hair flying around in the kitchen)…

my task was to boil red eggs… and i can tell you, simple task it is… not! the eggs turned out… red. TOO red.

check out the tub of red eggs in reddish water! hahaha…. those eggs were already shelled… and the egg whites have all turned red… hmm… FAIL!

anyway, happy birthday my baby… thank you for forgoing the mee sua at home to spend time with me instead… love ya…

thai-style bbq/steamboat

it’s friday!
went to meet dearest at his school because he said he’ll be bringing me out for dinner with alfred and nicholas before i go for my long-awaited driving lesson.

guess where we went for dinner?
golden mile complex! little thailand…
and we had thai style bbq cum steamboat! yummy…

the shop is really small, called “new udon thai food”. but it gets pretty crowded. everyone’s there for their bbq though they do serve other cooked food (i think… cos we saw them serve grilled sotong).

this is what we ordered. basically you just say “1 set” and they will bring this out. for normal eaters, i’ll say this is sufficient for 3 pax. if there are girls who are relatively smaller eaters, 1 set is good for 4 pax.

the bbq/steamboat cooks using charcoal and the charcoal is placed underneath the ’sphere-like’ thing.

the pale pinkest stuff is fatty pork belly, which you bbq to create oil to cook the other food.

cooking in process – with all the meaty stuff place on the sphere to be bbq-ed. around the sphere is the soup base for steamboat.

finally, with all the other ingredients cooking in the soup

how? interesting? it was quite an eye opener for me. mind you, if you are like real hungry, don’t think of having this to fill your stomach. not because the food is not enough, but it takes a really long time to cook the food, especially at the beginning. i’m not complaining because it’s quite fun to see the guys turn the meat around and prevent it from falling off the sphere. but i have to warn you because if you are the impatient sort, this is not for you.

because the meat is bbq-ed using charcoal, it has this very fragrant taste to it. while each type of meat tastes differently in texture, they all remind us of bbq sliced pork (肉干). my favorite is the pork liver – it tastes quite special!

the soup and other ingredients are nice too though they also take a fairly long time to cook. and strangely, even the rice is nice! usually we take rice for granted and won’t comment on it (unless it’s really bad), right? but both dearest and i said that we enjoy the rice.

and what’s the best thing? it’s cheap!

vege, meat, seafood, egg, tang hoon, golden mushroom, fishballs, etc etc, enough to feed 3 to 4 pax, for…… S$34! plus 1 bottle of heineken and 2 cans of soft drinks. and 3 rice. total bill came up to S$44. so each of us paid only S$11. cheap right…

sheena, during the dinner we kept saying we think you and js will love it… we’ll bring you there soon!

a ful-”filling” start to the weekend!

a couple of weeks ago this conservation took place between me and daddy:

D: why are you still at home, can go to work so late?
K: today my company is announcing retrenchment namelist.
D: oh, will you be affected?
K: nope! *confidently*
D: aye seh! (in hokkien)

LOL. isn’t my daddy funny? i was very amused by his reaction. me and daddy is always like that, talking like friends.

on friday, i took half day leave and when i reached home:

D: take half day again ah? you not worried you will get retrenched ah?
K: aiyah, won’t one lar…
D: hng! (basically he thinks i’m too full of myself. LOL)

moments later…
D: you waste money ah… always take leave to come home and sleep.

well, the truth is, i took leave so that i can doll up and join dearest and his friends for a sumptuous buffet dinner at Ritz Carlton. it’s a pre-celebration for Alfred’s birthday.

it’s a pretty pricey dinner @ $76 nett after 10% discount with HSBC credit card. but it’s got a good spread of seafood.

now… let the pictures do the talking…

don’t you absolutely love the seafood spread? there’s actually a lot more variety than this but i didn’t try them because i wanted to save the stomach room for seafood and seafood and more seafood! love the oysters and flower crab! yummy! and the desserts were not bad too. but we had too much seafood and couldn’t fully enjoy the desserts. oh, and the shitty looking thing is tiramisu… my FAV!

throughout the dinner, all of took many photos… some decent, some really cheeky!

couple #1

couple #2

getting all excited before the feast starts

 and now… some silly antics during half-time

the gay pose

i’m gonna kill you

let’s kiss and make up

hi… see we sooo cute?

alfred say: hng… i can also be very cute

sexy!

and i’m the little bunny….

eeeww… so gross i dun wan to see!

YES! we have finally conquered everything!

 

and now… the main ‘attraction’ of the day:complimentary cake from Ritz Carlton

*i wish i find a pretty girlfriend soon…*

and that’s the end of our wonderful buffet dinner.
you won’t believe how many tables are celebrating birthdays! one after another, the different shapes, sizes and flavours of cakes just keep being dished out from the kitchen. every 5 to 10 mins, the live music will play the birthday song. strange.

and soo… it’s the xmas season again! so how can we not take pictures with the xmas tree?! haha

and yup.. that’s it…
straight after dinner, the dearest ran off to the loo… haha… ate too much.
and for me, i didn’t sleep well the whole night because i woke up every hour to pee!
i didn’t know that eating seafood will increase urine amount!
no more buffet for me for a long time….

mixed feelings

i wrote a pretty long entry earlier about recession blah blah but i decided not to bored the hell out of my friends so i deleted it off.

so to summarize, this recession is starting to look real bad. DBS retrenches 900 staff in both SG & HK. my fren works in DBS and thankfully she is not one of the affected but it has sure brought her morale down.

my company has announced drastic strategic changes in US resulting in closure of facilities and loss of jobs just a few months ago. then a couple of days ago another announcement was made on further downsizing the business in US resulting in further loss of jobs. come next week there will be another announcement for asia pacific and it is anybody’s guess what the announcement will be about.

i think my job is safe. but who knows what will happen in future. good luck to all of us.

on a happier note, we went for a sumptuous crab dinner tonight with sheena, her sister and jackson. wow. her sister is chio lor! haha… very slim but with very good figure…

during dinner jackson shared that they are planning to ballot for the new punggol flats. i’m so happy for them! to me, it’s like a next step, an affirmation of their relationship, a step closer to marriage. yeah yeah yeah!

unfortunately, dearest and i doesn’t seem to be progressing in this aspect. well, i’ll wait… patiently…
at least we are progressing in other areas, like we are becoming more and more loving! i’m sure my patience will pay off. soon. right, dearest? haha…

hip hip hooray!!

i passed my FTT!

i feel like a pampered little gal today because dearest spent time with me doing mundane things like picking me up from work, bringing me to search for the elusive turtle soup, having lunch with me even though he was not hungry, sending me to take my FTT, helping me to prepare for FTT, picking me up after my FTT, spending time with me before i head off for my company dinner, buying me a pair of shoes for dinner and dance, searching for a pair of stockings with me and finally sending me to the flyer for dinner. tell me, who else can beat that? my lovely dearest.

dinner was good! we had pricey alaskan crab! 1 huge crab cooked in 2 styles (which cost $408!)

and when i reached home i found this waiting for me!

my new 九把刀 novels direct from taiwan!

on the left, the latest book, a collaboration with mayday named 后青春期的诗, same title as mayday’s latest album!
on the right is a heart-warming novel named 妈，亲一下. no prizes for guessing why i ordered this book. it’s a book about how 九把刀 spent his days with his cancer-stricken mum. enough said.

and there’s a free gift! will give it to tracy since she loves mayday more than i do. hehe…

woohoo… i’m a happy girl tonight.

durian craze!!

ok ok… i know it’s NOT the durian season now… and that’s why dearest and myself are so crazy over these durians that we are having these few days – they are fabulous tasting ones! during non-durian-season! how cool is that?

over the years, many different kinds of durian breeds have been introduced – from D24 to sultan to XO etc etc. and in recent year or 2, there’s the famous 猫山王 (and its various imitations of course – just the other day we saw a stall selling 毛山王! lol). i’ve tried 猫山王 a few times but i’ve never liked the tast and texture. i enjoy my durians ultra-bitter, ultra-’smelly’ and slightly runny in texture. and the 猫山王 which i have tasted are nothing near what i like.

during the durian season back in july, i found this food blog which introduced the four seasons durian cafe and thought we found a great place for durians even though the prices were pretty steep. but on saturday, we found an even better place! and dearest and i swear that we are only going to buy durians from this place in future!

this durian stall is a modest set-up along east coast road – ah loon and ah teck durian, which is actually also featured in the same blog. however, it didn’t catch my eye previously because the setting of the place isn’t as attractive as four seasons. but upon edward’s raves, dearest and i gave it a try last sat and voila we were totally bought over!

the boss was totally friendly, honest and not pushy. i wanted to buy the D24 because i had bad experiences with 猫山王 and while he did recommend that 猫山王 is better, he didn’t push us to buy it (which is more expensive than D24). but when he heard my explanation about how i found 猫山王 to be too creamy and sweet, he said that his is the authentic breed unlike some stalls and then proceeded to let me try one at no obligation. and i was like WOW! I LIKE! haha… so we bought some back as well.

and my dad loves it too! well, my dad is pretty picky about durians. so when he says he like them, they must be good stuff! and when i told him that he can have all of them, his eyes actually lighted up! haha… and tonight, i smsed him to ask if he would like to have more, he actually said yes and repeated that they are really tasty! haha, sometimes he can be such a kid.

so we went to the stall again earlier and the boss recognized us. we bought 3 猫山王 and 1 D24 (dun buy D24, really not nice. haha) and the boss charged us cheaper than on saturday.

and, to elaborate on the honest part – we requested them to pack the durian in styrofoam boxes and we weren’t paying attention to what they were doing because we were happily chit-chatting with the boss. and the uncle who was packing the durian actually pointed out to the boss that one side of the durian is spoilt. and the boss promptly asked him to open another one for us. i mean, we were not looking, and once the durian is packed, we won’t be able to tell whether it was spoilt or not, so they could have just ignored it but instead they opened another one and didn’t charge us for the good side. i like their honesty and commented so and the boss was very humble and said that honesty is very important to retain customers. i think the boss knows that he has bought us over totally.

wah seh… i think i wrote too much over some small durians. but i’m feel compelled to share with the whole world that there is such a good durian seller in the east, and at cheaper prices too! and with such warm and humble personality too!

now i totally love 猫山王 and is so looking forward to XO when the season is right! if his 猫山王 is fabulous, imagine his XO! yummy yummy!

and thanks to my ever dearest love who sponsored all the durians – out of love for me, my dad and durians! lol… thanks love.

oh, i forgot to mention where the stall is:

231 East Coast Road (near junction of Still Road)

looong weekend

yippeee! it’s the long weekend… no work on Monday because of deepavali!
and no work for me on Tuesday too because i’m on leave!
WOOHOO!

it was double date again on Friday after work.
we went to dinner at T3 – sakae teppanyaki and then headed to a thai disco at city plaza.

ordered a bottle of martell. martell plus green tea is my best drink – i can hold this drink really really well.
unless i had the wrong food before drinking.

and oh man did i had the wrong food.
5 glasses later i do not feel even a bit high but i had to make my way to the toilet and induce puking.
i felt so bloated!

and i puked. lots of brown liquid and guess what… lots of garlic.

i’ve always suspected that too much garlic causes indigestion for me. and i think i proved it then.
everything in the teppanyaki meal (except the chawanmushi) is prepared with garlic – lots of them.

i was convinced that garlic was the culprit but i couldn’t really understand why.
i did a search online and saw that it’s been documented that garlic causes indigestion! well, i still dunno why, but at least i’m assured that i’m not strange and troublesome who is ‘allergic’ to garlic.

in the midst of my ‘research’, i also found the answer to why i feel bloated with coffee or tea with milk, but not so with black coffee or black tea. the answer is: BOTH caffeine and milk causes indigestion. thus when combined, one gets bloated more easily. oh, and peppermint can cause indigestion too! no wonder because if i drink peppermint tea, i feel bloated too.

so, must be disciplined and avoid these foods in future!

wanted to write more but i’m dozing off… need to wake up 5 hours later to book badminton court, so better turn in now… night…

i heart PH on wednesdays

doesn’t it feel especially great when public holiday falls on a wednesday?
it’s the middle of the work week, so we get to work two days, rest one day, then work two days before the weekend comes.
don’t you wish that there’s a public holiday every wednesday?
or, a public holiday EVERY SINGLE DAY for that matter? HAHAHA… dream on…

dearest and i went to queensway shopping centre. took a quick curry chicken lunch (yummy!) before dearest started his hunt for his favorite – sneakers! along the way, dearest bought me 2 FBT shorts, one cobalt blue and one shocking pink, and an adidas sports top (dri-fit, white with purple stripes, just the way i love them!), and he bought himself a dark blue FBT basketball shorts (hmm, they are knee-length, do we still call them shorts?)

we went in search for this series:

dearest loved the yellow one (match the car! haha) but we could only find the white and black. so yeah, he decided to buy the white one.

 

i think dearest was really happy. he hasn’t had something new for a long long time!
i bought a jacket as well. pretty much impulse buying, but then, there was 20% discount, so… why not? haha…

we thought that was it for the day but we went to the next level and found ourselves spending an hour plus looking at clothes, and spent like $250 on clothes! dearest looked so excited going through the racks – imagine, $40 for a pair of jeans, $10 for a t-shirt, so cheap. he also finally found a nice pair of black bermudas! guess what i bought? high-waist shorts, with suspenders! hahaha… ahem… let’s see if i dare to wear it…

after like 4 hours, we finally left queensway with many many shopping bags.

after so much shopping, it’s time to fill our hungry stomach and dearest was so sweet to bring me to the place where he went with his family the last time. that’s my love – he always remembers me, even when he is out with his family, and he always bring me back to the place if the food is good, or if he thinks i will love the place as well.

so anyway, this is where we went:

yakiniku daidomon – it is a japanese bbq restaurant. they do serve the usual japanese sets, sushi & sashimi but they are known for the fresh beef, pork & seafood slices where you can bbq them to your liking.

so dearest was in the mood to pamper me and he ordered the second most expensive set. if not for the fact that the most expensive set has some kind of fried rice which he knows i dun fancy, i think he would have ordered that.

i tell you, the salad is damn delicious! dearest couldn’t understand why i was so excited about it, but it was nice nice nice! it’s the sauce… dearest love the cold tofu, and he had to eat all the kimchi because i don’t like spicy stuff.

on top of the set meal, we also ordered pork belly and pork collar because the set doesn’t come with pork and i am a pork lover!

bbqing the pork on charcoal – not hot plate ok, but grill with charcoal!

this is part of the set – an array of good beef slices – ox tongue (this is the best! top of the plate), prime belly and prime rib eye.

and then the waiter served this, saying that this complete our meal. i looked at it several times and complained to dearest: “aren’t these pork slices? they look uncannily like what we ordered from the ala carte”. and then we pondered, and even said that the waitress who took our order should have told us that there is pork in our set, and reconfirm whether we want to order ala carte again. so and we bbqed 2 slices of each type of pork.

and then dearest felt something was wrong, stood up to get the menu and checked with the waiter. in the end, we realized they have served the wrong food and we should have butterfish, squid and scallop instead. so the waiter (with no apology though he wasn’t rude) went to the kitchen to check, and guess what he did? he came out minutes later, and took the plate of pork away!

we have previously told him that we have already taken several slices away. i thought the right ’service recovery’ was to leave the plate of pork with us, and just serve us the seafood! what do you think? not that we can finish the food, but what can he do with the food if he brings it back to the kitchen? dun tell me he is going to serve other customers with those?

he finally served us the right food (forgot to take pictures, sorry!), accompanied with a hasty sorry. we were in a good mood, so we weren’t upset with his way of coping with the error. but seriously, i’m sure if it were the waitress, she will handle it much better.

still, the food was good (though it felt a tad too greasy towards the end), so no complaints. but the damage was like $142, even after discount! oooh… hurts the pocket… dearest pocket. hahaha…

thank you dearest, for a wonderful meal. next time let’s revisit the one at holland village with sheena & jackson ok!

*4.5 hours to my first private driving lesson, very anxious!*

good old comfort food

just came back from a sumptuous dinner with dearest, jackson & sheena.

any idea what we are having?

taiwan porridge! good old sweet potato porridge with delicious dishes that tastes so heavenly.

the dark dish in the middle is fried pomfret with black bean sauce. then starting from top left corner and going clockwise – cold fresh cockles, cold tofu with pork floss, chaipo omelette, pork intestine with preserved vegetables, and lastly, bean sprouts with salted fish.

great company, great taste. but i tell you, the bill is ‘great’ too. 4 of us – S$71.

well, what do you expect? it’s the good old Oasis Taiwan Porridge.

this restaurant used to be at Oasis in kallang, beside the indoor stadium. it’s the place to go for late night supper because it opens 24 hours (except for a short break between 3pm to 5pm). dearest and his sister and i used to go there after watching concerts at the indoor stadium.

but it has now shifted to Toa Payoh Town Park.

after dinner, we thought of heading to have durian as desserts. but decided against it (all of us are getting fat!) and went to the interchange for some grocery shopping instead.

great start to the week. and it can only get better. YEAH!

allergic to coffee

giddy giddy giddy…

活该。明知道喝咖啡会很不舒服，还是要喝。活该！

i dunno why but i am allergic to coffee. or perhaps caffeine, or perhaps caffeine with milk, or something like that.

luckily i’ve never loved coffee. or maybe i’ve never loved coffee because i know i’m allergic to it. whatever.

went to old town coffee with dearest for dinner earlier.
have never drank white coffee before, and i can’t drink cold drink, so i thought i’ll 破例 once and order a hot hazelnut white coffee.
ooooh… smells so heavenly… tastes good as well…

dearest said: i think later you can’t sleep.

he’s not wrong. but it’s not because of the stimulating effect of caffeine.
i can’t sleep because the coffee is making me bloated and a teeny weeny nauseous and giddy.
urgh!

i didn’t believe i would react like this to coffee in the past. but it’s been tried and tested many times.

once in a while, i like to prepare a 3in1 coffee and dip soda crackers in it for a yummy breakfast in office.
each time i do that, i regret tremendously a couple of hours after that.
i’ll start burping. and feel bloated. and feel faint and a little breathless when i walk. will then drink a lot of plain water to try to flush out the coffee. and when i go to the toilet, i can literally smell coffee in the pee.
i will then promise myself never to take coffee again.
but will repeat the whole process 2 months later.
and totally regret it.

just like now. urgh…

anybody knows why i’m allergic to coffee?

tea is better – i dun get breathless with tea, but i get bloated (with milk tea)
teh-o is totally fine.

why why, tell me why?
so am i allergic to coffee, caffeine, or caffeine with milk?

macaroni soup

ok so dearest is not here yet and won’t be here for another half to an hour. *sigh*

so the ultra famished me tucked in first. and you know what? the macaroni soup is oh-so-yummy! heee…
but i think i may have cooked too little for 2 pax. well, never mind, if i’m still hungry i’ll eat cornflakes for supper. hahaha…

and so… presenting my masterpiece!

my specialty macaroni contains a whole lot of ingredients:
soup base: ikan bilis and dried scallops
macaroni
minced pork (marinated with salt and white pepper)
chinese spinach (i like mah…)
carrots
dried silver fish
enoki

woohoo… so much goodness in a simple dish.

i’m so going to cook this again soon!