Monday, March 26th 2007
Today is my dear’s first day of school! I feel so excited for him. Partly because I get to meet him for lunch almost everyday after lessons and also have brekkie with him b4 the start of a mundane day! Now, not only do I have an eating kaki, I also have a studying kaki too! Or shall I say that I’m blessed to have someone teach me FNA. Right teacher alvis? Haha.
Met up with dear for lunch at Vivo City. Was supposed to meet up at Amoy Food Centre but thought it would be more convenient if we met up at vivo instead as I had to go back to school at 3pm for a project meeting. We had lunch at Harbourfront’s Pasta Mania. The nicely toasted garlic bread I had the last time at this outlet left a good impression on me. But sad to say, their garlic bread today wasn’t up to standard as it wasn’t even toasted! BOO~ Its so hard to find nice garlic bread nowadays. Think the best ones I had so far are those from Black Angus (Its topped with melted cheese) and TCC, which comes served with Caesar salad.
For lunch, dear and me shared a spicy tuna + bacon + mushroom pasta tossed in tomato herb sauce and a 6-inch hawaian pizza. As usual, we requested for extra extra cheese. Don’t know if they did add cheese as this was my first time having pizza from Pasta Mania and so, am not sure of the amount of cheese their pizza usually contains.
But overall, it was quite a nicely done pizza. No doubt, there are better tasting ones from Da Paolo and Spagheddies but considering that this is PASTA mania, I will say it’s a commendable attempt. So no complains. Heez.
After lunch, we bus-ed down to The Cathay and bought 2 tickets for the Mr bean’s Holiday show at 5.05pm. A 1 and a half hour show of non-stop comedy. Though I personally think that their jokes are pretty lame. In fact, I only watch movies at The Cathay because they sell the best tasting sweet popcorn in the whole of Sg! I usually prefer salty to sweet, especially if its butter salted but for The Cathay, I make it a must to have it ALL sweet. Furthermore, I get to enjoy 12% off movie ticket purchases, why miss such a good deal? =P
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Tuesday, March 27th 2007
Today is dear’s second day of school! And also his first accounting lecture! Haha. I dread accounting so much. Now I’m having second thoughts about whether I should major in finance.
Met up with dear for lunch after lessons at Redhill Mrt. Today, we had something different and that’s red wine chicken thread homemade meesua! We tried the red wine chicken thread homemade meesua from 2 different outlets. The first one was from Hoe Heng Handmade Noodles,
a corner stall located in a coffeeshop at Blk 269, Waterloo Street. Its very easy to find as it’s the first coffeeshop opposite the Guan Im Temple. Then after that, we went straight to Sultan Gate (Seow Choon Hua Restaurant) to try their version of this dish. In my opinion, both are good but Seow Choon Hua’s version taste much better.
Firstly, the soup/broth isn’t as thick as Hoe Heng’s. His handmade meesua is also smoother and finer and the chicken is much bigger and more tender than that of Hoe Heng’s. Hoe Heng’s one was not too bad itself. In the sense that its soup or shall I say THICK red broth has a strong chicken essence taste to it, leaving behind a pretty nice after taste. But for sure, good food doesn’t come cheap. For $5, Seow Choon Hua’s version was a little pricey as compared to Hoe Heng’s which cost only $3. Guess you have to pay more for better quality, better tasting food!
Seow Choon Hua's version. The better tasting but more expensive one.
After that, dear rode to Golden Mile to try the Chendol which my uncle Kenny recommended. Its been about 3 mths since I last ate there, ever since the time I banned myself from eating from the ytf stall which never fails to generate queues. Their service really CMI (Cannot-Make-It). Okie, back to the Chendol. Haha. I only had a single scoop while dear ate the rest. Its nice and very traditional. Like those you get along the streets in Malacca. Except I thought this would have been better if their coconut had a much stronger and richer taste to it. I like the chewy green worms though. Haha.
For dinner, we had 109's yong tau foo located along Syed Alwi.
Their dry version of yong tau foo is very different from the typical yong tau foo's you find else where. Over at 109, they use a thick black gooey sauce to replace the usual sweet chee cheong fun sauce. Yong tau foo here is priced at 40cents per piece with a min order of 7 pieces. Quite reasonable compared to the price extorting hakka yong tau foo stall down the road, which charges like 30cents for one tiny quails egg and $1.20 for cuttlefish.
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Wednesday, 28th March 2007
Had breakfast with dear at Zam Zam. It’s a 24-hr muslim-indian restaurant that sells all things prata. Had wanted an egg plaster prata and a ko-song prata but they were unavailable for that morning. So dear ordered 2 egg prata for me while he had mutton murtabak. How weird that they actually have egg prata but no ko-song prata. How on earth did the egg get into the prata then? Funny.
Was suspecting that my egg-prata had been made beforehand, since they claimed that they dint have any more plain pratas. Hence, I dint have high expectations for it. But lo and behold, first sight of the egg prata immediately made me change my mind. The prata was quite huge compared to those you buy from coffee shops. I guess the reason why they didn’t have plain pratas was because their egg pratas were infused with plain prata as well! Haha. Its like ¾ egg and ¼ plain prata. I don’t usually fancy egg prates but this one taste so good I was considering giving egg pratas a second chance. The prata was super oily though. But funny thing was despite it being so oily, I couldn’t help but stuff more and more pieces of the egg prata into my mouth. Simply irresistible. Will definitely be back for more. =D
As we were in the vicinity, we decided to check out the popiah from Jln Besar. For $1.20, you get quite a nicely wrapped popiah filled with juicy turnips, crunchy crackers, peanuts and chopped Taiwan sausage. It was not too bad, definitely better than your coffeeshop popiahs but I still personally think that Toa Payoh’s one is the best.. It just has a very different taste to it and every mouthful never fails to make me go Ummmm, a sound of satisfaction.
No pictures for both the prata and popiah as i was too hungry and forgot to bring my camera along. =P
Had dinner at dear’s house today. Suggested going for a walk at Bugis as I was quite stressed up from school work. Dear brought me to Tong Shui Café located along Liang Seah Street for an after-dinner meal. We shared a fried red bean paste pancake, a fried mango and shrimp roll, one thick peanutbutter + condense milk thick toast as well as some drinks to go along. I had ribena lemon while dear had coffee.
OOoo.. I’ve been raving and craving for Ritz Carlton’s crispy red bean paste pancake ever since I saw a review on it quite sometime ago. Tonight, my cravings for this snack was more or less satisfied. Though its not from Ritz Carlton, its still red bean paste pancake! Something which I haven’t tried b4 and want to try.
The peanut butter condense milk thick toast was Good! I think its better than Kim Gary’s. In the sense that Tong Shui’s one has got more peanut butter . Kim Gary’s one is better for its bread as their thick toast was toasted, making the sides of the bread extra crispy. A pity they werent generous with their peanut butter.
That wasn’t all. After that, we took a 5 min walk down to Shaw Towers. Read about Tom’s Palette Ice-Cream Parlour and decided to check it out.
Initially, I dint have any intention of buying ice-cream as I was pretty full from Tong Shui. Made a really bad mistake of stepping into the shop as was curious about the ice-cream flavours that they have to offer. And within 30secs, I was given ice-cream sticks after ice-cream sticks of various flavours to sample! After trying the fourth flavour (it doesn’t stop at 4, think I sampled almost everything on display as well as those not on display), I knew that I had no choice but to buy at least 1 scoop, even if my stomach said no.
Their ice-creams are handmade and even a small bitesized sample is able to blow me away. Their ice-cream is dense and superbly rich in flavour. I strongly recommend you to try their chocolate, coffee, and hazelnut ice-cream! Its EXTREMELY GOOD! It even got my honey raving about it through out our 20 mins walk home. They offer really unique flavors like horlicks (taste just like drinking horlicks itself), wasabe lime, black seasame, summerberries (taste like fruittella mixed with yakult), and many many more. The flavour for this month is called Justiano, which consist mainly of bailey’s irish cream (my fave!!), vanilla beans and brownies. After much talk and sampling with the staff, we bought a small cup of justiano + hazelnut. The hazelnut is really really THAT good. Its just like eating kinder beuno. One word to describe Tom's palette ice-cream - SHIOKALICIOUS
Prices are reasonable. A small cup cost $2.80, a large cost $4, while a 650ml pint cost $9.90. They are also quite flexible in a way where they allow you to choose a max of 2 flavours for small cup and 3 for pints. My advice is to mix and match. That way you not only get to sample variety, you also get to enjoy a more wholesome and unique creation! For instance, chocolate + hazelnut = ferrero roche while coffee and chocolate gives you mocha!
Interesting huh. No doubt, Tom;s Palette has thrown Ben and Jerry’s off its number one spot on my best tasting ice-cream in the whole of Sg. This place is highly recommended and for sure, a DIE DIE must try!
Gosh..what a long review..
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Thursday, March 29th 2007
Today is dear’s third day of school! I’m really amazed at how he’s able to endure 3 hours of non-stop FNA (financial accounting). For me, just 5 mins into Prof Mak’s lecture and its enough to put me to ZzZ. So if you’re taking FNA, don’t complain so much, you’ve not seen/heard/experienced the worst. =X
Had breakfast with dear and his friend Desmond before going for my stats lecture. We were still a little full from last night’s “mega feast”, so me and dear shared a Hotcakes + sausage meal from Bukit Merah’s McDonald’s.
After stats, I train-ed down to redhill to meet up with dearie for lunch. I suggested going to People’s Park Complex as I wanted to try a particular stall’s yong tau foo. The last time I passed by it, there was an extremely long queue of people waiting to buy his yong tau foo. So curious as I was, I decided to give it a shot today.
But sadly, I dint manage to eat it at all. No no, it wasn’t closed or what, it was just that the guy said they would only be ready at around 1 plus, which meant another 45 mins wait for me. And even before he started business, a queue had already started to form! People were sitting down at the nearby tables and chairs, waiting patiently for him to prepare his yong tau foo. From what I observe, there were easily 30 to 40 people waiting in line. Its worse than the donut factory queue! So I ended up eating only 1 Queenstown Popiah while dear ate 10 fried guo ties. I have no comments for the popiah. It taste just as ordinary as it looks.
1 popiah for lunch was certainly not enough to feed a big fat vermonster like me. Dear kept bugging me to think of what I wanted to eat, and was willing to drive me to anyplace I wanted to dine at. So sweeeet~ I thought of trying QQ rice but it was way out of the vicinity. Dear wanted to bring me to Red Star for dim sum but I saw no point in paying GST when all I wanted was their century egg lean meat porridge. So, I thought of eating donuts from the Donut Factory as its been a long time since I last laid hands on their yummilicious double chocolate donuts!
Was hoping that there wouldn’t be any queue. Considering the fact that it was a weekday and that probably and HOPEFULLY, the donut craze would have died down by now. But boy was I wrong. The queue was longer than ever. When will the craze ever stop?
Donuts, out. Hence, decided to have sandwiches from the O’briens’ Irish Sandwich bar.
I love this place as they make delicious sandwiches! They also sell one of my fave snacks – wasabe sour cream and onion chips. Ordered a toasted turkey brie sandwich which came with turkey slices, brie (a type of cheese), mixed leaves, fresh greeny lettuce, juicy tomatoes and cranberry sauce. It came served with chips as well.
Nice. The downside is they don’t accept nets/credit card. Thank God dear still had 5 bucks with him, otherwise, there goes my sandwich as well.
After that, me and dear walked down to Shaw Towers. For what? Tom’s Palette ice-cream of course! We bought a large cup to share. This time, we opted for chocolate and coffee. Do sample the coffee flavoured one before buying as its quite strong.
They even have a notice board for you to pin up your new ice-cream flavour suggestions. So me and dear sat down and thought of 4 flavours. They are, Strawberry + soursop, Banana walnut pie, cranberry oatmeal raisin cookie, and wasabe pistachio! Think the girl said their gonna try making the strawberry soursop flavoured one. So guess I’l be popping by quite often next week to see if they’re selling pam and alvis’s concoction! Hahaha.
Yeah! Prison break tonight! Love this show to bits and pieces.
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Friday, March 30th 2007
Had lunch at Amoy. This time, I ate hainanese curry rice. Dear was surprised to see me eat that as I seldom eat rice for lunch. Chilled over 2 cups of drinks while waiting for the rain to stop. Dear had his usual teh-o peng while I had almond teh-o peng. Talking about teh-o peng, do you know that I’ve been having at least 1 cup of it eversince the start of the week? Surprisingly, im still able to fall asleep. Just like how coffee puts me to sleep rather than keep me awake.
I had 2 more hours to waste away before I had to go to sch for econs tut. So I suggested going to Island Cremary to check out their ice-cream. They have unique flavours like teh tarik and champedak too. But we ended up going to Tom’s Palette instead as Shaw Towers was just a 5 mins ride from where we were. Haha
This is our 3rd consecutive time visiting Tom’s Palette. Even the girl working there recognizes us already. She shares the same name as me too! Haha. Today, we bought the large cup with oreo cheesecake and hazelnut flavoured ice-cream. One cup wasn’t enough so dear bought another one. This time, dear bought a small cup with chocolate and hazelnut. Yum.
This is how much ice-cream or shall i say CALORIES we consumed over the past 2 days. How many rounds do i have to run, how many laps do i have to swim and how long do i have to live on "grass" in order to burn off these fats? BOO~
And to add on to the accumulated fats......
I love their hazelnut. Let the chocolate and hazelnut ice cream melt, allow them to infuse together, mix them evenly, and you’l get melted roche. Their ice-cream not only taste best when its frozen, it also taste especially good when its melted! Their chocolate is quite strong though, so it sort of covers up the hazelnut taste when eaten together. Furthermore, their ice-cream is low fat as they replaced cream with milk! Yeah! That means more ice-cream everyday! Haha
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Saturday, 31st March 2007
Met up with dear at NLB. Tables at the central lending library were fully occupied and since the reference libraries forbidded us from bringing any books in, we thus studied at my mom’s office on the 14th floor. Studied for about 2 hours before going out for dinner.
Dinner was at Basil Alcove. It’s a small al fresco restaurant that sits only 6 people inside and about 30-40 people outside. They light candles on every table too.
The restaurants’ so small you can actually miss it while walking past. I only took notice of this restaurant when my eyes caught sight of the food being served. It looked appetizing and so, I told myself that I had to check it out someday.
So here I am today, pigging out at Basil Alcove. I had a mushroom and bacon aglio while dear had a bacon aglio. We shared a Caesar salad too.
I quite like the Caesar salad. Sad thing was it dint come served with bread croutons but instead of the usual bacon bits, their’s came with medium sized chunks of real bacon. They added raisins too! Their Caesar salad also left behind a wasabe-spicy-tangy after taste. Which I thought helped to spice up the Caesar salad quite abit.
The aglio olio was average. It was a little too oily for my liking and it wasn’t spicy at all! There wasn’t a sight of chili padi which is a must have in all aglio olios! Hence, dear requested for chili flakes to help spice up the dish. Their chili flakes are kinda unique though. They’re not the typical large flakes you find in pizza hut or pasta mania but rather, theirs were superbly fine (like glitter/star dust), almost close to powder form. Sprinkled quite a lot of chili flakes into my pasta but it still wasn’t spicy enough. The chili flakes sort of made the pasta taste like chili indo-mee. Not just taste, it smells like Maggie mee too! Think the winner of the MOST SPICY AGLIO OLIO award goes to Aglio Olio. 100% guaranteed chop. If anyone of you noe where to find aglio olio that’s more spicy than Aglio Olio’s rendition, do tag me about your findings kiez? =D
The BEFORE & AFTER result of adding excessive amounts of chili flakes to spice up the dish.
Bill amounted to $16.90 for two. Pretty reasonable I must say. The up side was there was no GST but the down side was they dint accept nets/credit card. BOO~ The food variety is also very limited but I quite like it this way as it makes it easier for me to decide on what I want to eat. Haha.
If you dine out often with me, you'll find out that service matters ALOT to me. The service here is not top-notched but its still up to standard. For instance, my dear requested for no mushrooms in his aglio olio and also requested for his pasta to be done extra extra spicy. At first, the waiter said it could not be done as the chef, Xander, will most probably cook both our pastas together at the same time. Unknowingly, that waiter actually took the iniciative to ask the chef whether it could be done and he came back to tell us that the chef would do it specially for my darling. How nice.
This waiter is one funny guy as well. Think one of the waiters saw our puzzled look after he served some customers their drinks. We were puzzled as to why how come our drinks weren't served first despite us ordering it first. So we told this waiter that we had already ordered an ice-lemon tea and the funny waiter overheard and asked us " You ordered from me izit? " whahaha..you should have seen his expression! Its damn hilarious~ muahaha. okie this is digressing.. back to food..haha
Before that, me and dear chilled out at Rochor’s tau huay shop as Basil Alcove only opens at 6.30pm. Due to its small capacity, do make it a habit to make a reservation first before heading down for dinner as seats are usually fully occupied by 7.30pm.
Cam-whoring at the bus stop along middle road. haha! The weather was killing me, dear was dead hungry, so cam-whored while waiting for 6.30pm to come. Apparently, dear wasnt in the mood. hahaha. But nvm, its all just for pure self entertainment. -bleahz-
After dinner, we headed straight to Tom’s Palette AGAIN for dessert. I was against going there at first as I wanted to give my stomach a break from ice-cream but gave in, not to temptations, but rather bcoz I could tell that dear wanted his “comfort food” badly. =P
NOTE : This is our 6th cup and 4th consecutive visit to Tom's Palette.
We bought a large cup of hazelnut + horlicks flavoured ice-cream! The 2 blend quite well together! Imagine hazelnut horlicks? Yum~ The guy, whom I found out happens to be the owner of Tom’s Palette chatted with us for about 20 minutes. Sampled 3 different types of rum for him as he was working on improving his rum flavoured ice-cream. Drank 3 small sips and it was enough to send a burning sensation through my lungs.
In fact, I believe many of you, like me, would think that Tom is the name of the owner but boy was I wrong. Tom is actually one of the owner’s good friend and he named it after him bcoz this Tom guy did not believe in him and told him that he wouldn’t be able to make much money outta an ice-cream parlour. What a GOOD friend huh. Haha. And Palette there is not his surname but rather, its used as a descriptive word to illustrate variety. Like paint palette, palette paint, you noe, you noe? Haha. And they reason behind the richness of their ice-cream is because to use paste rather than syrup/power for flavouring. Found out from the owner himself that it cost $10,000 just to buy 1 ice-cream making machine! To think I even harboured thoughts about getting one for my future home. Even if I did, who on earth is gonna pay me/ where on earth am I gonna get the money to recoup my losses?
=D Hope you enjoyed reading this very very long blog entry of mine. No doubt, the star of the week has to be Tom Palette himself. haha. kiez. Think that's all for the week. Up next, Ugly Betty and ANTM on Channel 5! Ciaoz people!
