Trip Down Memory Lane

yes 933 pick of the pops is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a classic hits marathon from today till tomorrow. heard this song on my way home just now. gosh! all these songs bring back so many fond memories. This song was in "If There're Seasons..." too. =)

[Edited] Replaced the 姜鄠 version with this one cos i can't stand the self created MV. (o_O)

Guru's Hypothesis is Proven

A long withstanding belief of The Shopping Guru is proven once again.

"When you want to buy something, you will never find it. When you do not intend to buy anything, you will have lots to buy!"

Had spent the last 3 days looking for a pair of flats. From Far East Plaza to Wisma, from the Central to Centrepoint to Tangs and from Bugis to Raffles City... My poor feet... wanted some better "clothes" for them but the best is yet to be. Sigh... at least i've saved some money and had lots of exercise instead!

Heroic Rendezvous

<-- Picked up this very cute post card yesterday. Saw its outlet at The Central today. Kawaii! But the stuff are way too expensive! :( Oh did i forget to add that the shop is lined with plush fluffy white carpet!?

Ramen Santouka

Really am obsessed with ramen this week! i had the Tokusen Toroniku Miso Ramen. Best pork i've had so far with ramen. The toroniku is the speciality here and i guess the oishii rating is probably because of the quality of the meat used. This is supposedly choice pork (heard its pork cheeks). The fat and the meat seemed to blend together you can't taste the fat. And it just melts in your mouth when you take a bite. OooOoo... It's almost heavenly if not for one major blunder - too salty. The rest of the bowl are nothing really to scream for.

Noodles - ordinary
Menma (bamboo shoots) - too tough and tasteless
Soup base - quite nice

$18 for a ramen is expensive but the portion is quite generous. There are 8 slices of choice pork, black fungus, menma and one slice of the japanese fish cake. Saw alot of Japanese eating here. Think i would return to try the normal char siew ramen to see how good their skills are in doing normal pork.

Another plus point. They have a small basket for you to put your belongings under your table so that you don't need to carry a big bag on your lap while you eat and no need to worry about getting your bag dirty by putting it directly on the floor. How thoughtful of them. (^_^)

IVINS Peranakan Restaurant

Boss treated to lunch again! All thanks to a super-brainless meeting arranged at 1130hrs. Some people are just so weird to arrange meetings at such timing. Seriously my morale would drop rock-bottom whenever i hear such odd timings. i've really got to control myself! All things happen for a reason. Well... something good did come out of it! Free lunch again! :p

IVINS is located in a quiet and serene (read: ulu) part of the Bukit Timah area. Boss had ordered 5 dishes plus dessert for the 3 of us. i was still wondering if we could finish them when the food arrived and we nearly dropped our jaws! The portions are really small. So it turned out just nice for us. Well, i guess considering the location, the prices (average $4.80 per dish) are reasonable though relatively expensive.

The stuff we ate.
1. Ayam Tempra - just normal diced chicken stir fried in soya sauce
2. Sotong Sambal
3. Nonya Chap Chye - the cabbage is overcooked in a sweet clear sauce
4. Fried Ngo Hiang
5. Mutton Kromak - the best of all the dishes. nice tender mutton in a non-spicy curry. quite yummy.
6. Chendol - i was quite surprised at the presentation of this dessert when it arrived. Not sure if "authentic" chendol is supposed to be served this way. Basically it is just green jelly and red bean in a wallop of coconut cream and brown sugar topped with ice. Literally. i don't usually eat chendol but i thought there was supposed to have some liquid in the chendol? Oh well, after mixing the ice with the coconut cream, it did turn out to be like the chendol that i usually see. Quite refreshing but it was a bit too sweet and the green jelly was too soggy.

Tak Po Dim Sum

Boss treated to lunch today! Yay! This is pretty rare. All thanks to CL and YT (boss' ex-right hand man and woman) that boss' current right hand man and woman (hee. that's me! :p) could enjoy this privilege! We went to this dim sum place in Chinatown that i didn't know existed. Ate the usual dim sum stuff e.g. siew mai, har gao, char siew bao and all those steamed and fried dim sum where almost practically every item comes with prawn in it. The fried stuff are quite nice and crispy. And this place has all kinds of siew mai. I didn't look at the menu so i don't know what they are exactly. They taste almost the same to me. All with some meat and lots of prawns. But there's one where they use seaweed as the siew mai skin. Quite interesting i thought. i didn't like the rice roll here. i thought it too mushy. My colleagues ate plenty of it though...

[Sidenote] Saw on 省钱王 just now that there is a very cheap ktv club along Smith Street. Should be somewhere above the dim sum place. ooOoo.. Only $10 nett. That's why it is called the Ten Dollar Club! So uncreative! :p

Quickstep

First quickstep class today. Our original class had dwindled so as usual, they told us to combine with another class. i really do not like the new time slot as it is one hour later than my usual time. This means i have to loiter at Raffles City for one more hour which really is a torture when you have nothing to buy. That also meant that i would reach home very late. :( This new class also happened to be a medal class; meaning in preparation for the medal test which is some sort of exam that you can go for to get a cert to show that you can dance. lol. What do i need the cert for?? Not as if i'm turning pro... Well, at least the dance is a light-hearted one and we are all prancing and hopping around. :)

Din Tai Fung @ Raffles City

Gosh! Today is ramen day. Had Japanese ramen for lunch and now Chinese la mian for dinner. :p

First visit to the Raffles City branch. Ordered the Noodle Soup with Fried Pork Chop and a 小菜. The 小菜 is just kelp with vermicelli and bean curd strips. Nothing special. The la mian was too soft and didn't taste handmade. i prefer crystal jade's la mian. The pork chop was nice and tender but somehow it just lacked the WOW factor.

Saw some very pretty desserts at Aerin's and not very expensive. Shall try them out when i have a camera on hand. :p

Oh. Saw Olinda Cho shopping at Agnes b. She looks quite petite leh... Not as tall as i thought she was.

Sapporo Ramen Bishamon (revisited)

Ate the Special Miso Ramen for lunch here again. But compared to my first visit, some things are no longer special.

No more special salty soup base. i think people might have complained to them.
No more special clumsy cook who made a hole in my egg. But in return, there was a special dunno-how-to-cook cook who made the egg too raw. The egg was supposed to be half-boiled with the yolk in a semi-solid state but mine turned out still liquid... And i thought the noodles were slightly undercooked too.

But some things are still special...
Special tough and fat singular piece of char siew. i don't mind fatty char siew in ramen cos most of the time they are nice and melt in your mouth. but this is really yucks!
Special expensive as there is only one slice of meat, some menma and corn.

2 minus and 2 plus = 0 --> Nothing special.

Soup Spoon

So glad that there's a Soup Spoon at Bugis Junction basement. i could eat here every week to try out all the soups! Tried the Velvety Mushroom Stroganoff (aka mushroom soup). Huge chunks of mushroom with every sip. Love it! Just the grande size ($6.00) is sufficient for a meal!

The Leap Years

According to tradition, a woman could propose to a man on Feb 29 and that's how the story begins when Li-Ann made the first move to ask Jeremy, a stranger out on that day. i didn't really thought of watching this show initially but since K asked so i'm there more for the company (of AL, LH, YS, WL and K). i'm quite glad i watched it. And it's good that i have low expectations of a local production so other than the slow pace of the film at times, it turned out much much better than what i thought. Or maybe the recent rigorous advertising on tv rubbed off me.

One line stroke me particularly when i heard it. But i guess my memory must be failing me. Jeremy said, "It takes more courage to refuse to be with someone than to be with someone for the sake of loving someone". (something to that effect). How do you know if that someone is THE one? So does that mean i'm courageous? i don't know. But one thing's for sure. It's better to have loved and lost than never loved before.

Quotes, i like quotes though i could never remember them. To every pragmatic and logical side of me, there's a dreamy and romantic side who had envisioned me years ago to be a literature major. For every leap year, there was a quotable quote in the show. Here are some of them, in no order of preference.

"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it" - Jean de la Fontaine

"In three words, I can sum up everything I've learnt about life: it goes on" - Robert Frost

How apt these three words are.

"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves" - William Shakespeare

"If you are not too long, I will wait for you all my life" - Oscar Wilde

Kbox & Waraku @ Orchard

Today's k session was down to the regular three (AL, WL and i). Not that i'm complaining. At least there's no need to wait too long for my turn to sing. A pity we could only sing for 3hours. My voice was not even warmed up when we were done. :(

Went over to Waraku for dinner so that i could use my $4 voucher from here. :p Ordered the rindo set which consists of cold soba and udon and a katsu don. i like the cold noodles which was why i finished all of them and ended up not able to eat any of the rice. Managed to clear the meat after some struggle. Ended up very full and satisfied. Please please remind me not to be so greedy and order a rice-and-noodles set again! Really gotta CONTROL! The scales are climbing! *gasp!* :p

Curry Rice

Mummy cooked Japanese curry chicken today. Oishii! And she added corn to the rice. Very cute right?! What a pleasant surprise. i love corn!! yummy! (^^,)v

Anchorpoint Foodcourt

Simply have to say that i ate a cheap and good pineapple rice set today! Pineapple rice, tom yum soup and a dunno-what salad. We all presumed it was mango salad. But the mango strips or dunno-whatever-it-was was too bland that we could not tell what it was! lol. Nevertheless, the pineapple rice is nice! i fell in love with it on the first bite! hehe. The tom yum soup is a little too spicy to my liking but i think it was nice too. A pity there were only 4 halves of straw mushroom and plenty of i-dun-like leaves floating in it. Well, all these for $6. What can i ask for?! :p

To continue or not to continue?

Tango's finally ended. My bones are breaking after today's class. Should i continue? Quick step is next... Maybe i should rest for a while. Seems to be experiencing fatigue. And it does not help that i do not have a fixed partner. :(

Glad that I Live Am I

While writing a post, suddenly remembered this song... which i thought is quite apt for the recent spate of rainy weather and the sunny respite.

Glad that i live am i;

That the sky is blue;

Glad for the country lanes,

And the fall of dew.

After the sun the rain;

After the rain the sun;

This is the way of life,

Till the work be done.

All that we need to do,

Be we low or high,

Is to see that we grow

Nearer the sky.

So glad that i could still remember it after all these years! it was my school song. (^^,)

[Updated on 25 Mar 08] Accidentally discovered while googling that this is a poem written by Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856-1935) entitled "A Little Song of Life". Whoa... i didn't know that! i wonder how many of my classmates did.

Caramel Corn (Strawberry)

More caramel corn!! Yum yum! *crunch crunch* (^o^)

Ratatouille

Was quite surprised to see French Ratatouille soup on the menu at The Soup Spoon @ Bugis Junction, so tabao-ed it home after gym. Tomato-based soup with lotsa vegetables which reminded me of minestrone without meat. Not too bad though it don't look good...

Oh. Saw Chen Hanwei in the gym just now. But i was in a class so didn't "stalk" him to see who he was with. hehe... :p

Michael Buble - Sway

The bride's brother sang this song just now. i thought he did quite a good rendition. The only thing lacking was a dance floor and latin dancers! :p

Last Staff Day for the FYear

Oh am i glad that the day is over! Didn't have much time to think about today's event. Considering the budget, the over-optimistic response and uncertainties in the number of people turning up now that it is near closing and the pressure to spend all the money before end of the year (financial, i mean), i think it was quite a success!

About 10% didn't turn up for the movie even though they had said they would. 2 had made me walk out of the movie halfway to pass them the popcorn voucher. They didn't want to watch the show. (-_-") Thank goodness i was seating right at the back. And did i forget to mention that i love the legroom at GV Vivo? i could extend my legs out in the massive leg room which makes walking in and out the cinema easier without having to hurdle over others. haha.

Part 2 of the day was a tour at Tigerlive which was St James by day. By now the numbers had dwindled by half. It's a good use of space but i wonder who would really go for the tour other than tourists and corporate people. At the end of the multi-media show, you get to tap your own beer and drink it. The icy cold beer was quite well received by the girls especially. It taste nothing like the yucky broth out of the can. Cheers, am i glad that my big arrow is over!

~glad that i live am i, that the sky is blue~

The Spiderwick Chronicles

3 siblings and a creepy old house. Slow start but it gets better as the story builds up. i think the show is quite good and nail-gripping. Something scary, something humane, something funny and something touching. Best part is it's on the house! hehe. But it's a bit scary for little children. Even i was screaming at some scenes. *blush* Hope my big big boss' daughter could sleep well tonight! If not, would i get a red mark in my record book?? :p

J.Co Donuts

While queueing, i overhead this woman behind me pointing at an empty tray and telling her friend, "hou hou sek". Lucky they were fast refilling the empty tray so i got a piece of that which turned out to be the best seller, Alcapone. Shall see how good it is cos i don't usually like white chocolate. Don mochino - the description says dark chocolate on top and cappuccino cream inside... Dark chocolate? i'm sold! i took some time to decide on the last one... Black jack. The girl at the counter said this is the ONLY item there that is chilled. Ok set.

By the time i paid up, my ramen (from previous post) had settled down and i had no appetite to eat. lol. Alright, shall leave it for supper then cos i'm sure today's tango would be rigorous. Sure enough, by the time i got home, my tummy had started growling. The black jack is too annoyingly saccharine sweet, even for my sweet tooth. No one else wanted to eat the donuts. :( oh well, i shall review them for breakfast tomorrow!

[Update] Trust the box. When it say microwave for 8 secs, don't act clever and microwave for 11 sec. i heated it for 8 sec but the donuts didn't feel very hot. So i made it go another round of 3 sec. Argh!! The cappuccino cream had oozed out... Taste quite ok.. The Alcapone was quite nice too. Both not as sweet as i had feared. The donuts were still very soft after one night.

Shokudo @ Raffles City

Been raining cats and dogs this week, which means it is the perfect weather for RAMEN!! Ate the original char siew ramen which had only a miserable slice of tough pork, 4 pieces of menma (bamboo shoot), half a hard-boiled egg and 1 thin slice of fish cake in a bowl of overcooked ramen and half-warm soup. Perhaps i shouldn't be too picky considering its price ($8.80) but there ARE much nicer cheap ramen around. The whole place stink because of its open concept (i.e. Marche style). i had to run out as soon as i finished my ramen, smelling like it too. Feeling terribly unsatisfied with my dinner, i went to join the queue for donuts.

i didn't have my cam with me, which was just as well cos there's nothing to show anyway! (+_+)

Muji Maple Cream Cracker

This biscuit smells so heavenly! Realised that the prices of their food stuff has dropped, so now you don't need to buy a plane ticket to get muji's stuff. If only i knew earlier! haha. :P

Kuriya

Had wanted to eat at Shokudo, one of the newer additions at Raffles City basement. But there was a queue snaking outside the eatery which made us change our minds. Too tired from all the standing at the museum. So we ended up at Kuriya as there was no queue.

i ordered the ten cha? (don't know if it is correct. Can't remember the name already) which was rice with tempura to be eaten with soba water poured onto it. Interesting. Quite nice but it is not THAT nice till i would want to eat this again. i mean the menu is extensive. If i return, i would rather try some other stuff. Given the price ($9.30), the portion is expectedly little. Too bad no photo. Kuriya is certainly not one of the regular japanese family restaurants. The dishes are priced slightly more expensive. A tell-tale indicator is that they have omakase sushi. Omakase simply means "Chef, please decide what i eat". This is pretty common in Japan as the menu change with seasonal pickings.

Next i ordered the mini seiro (cold soba) ($7.80). This is one of the specialities as the soba is handmade in the store by a soba master. Word of caution! Fresh soba is cooked slightly tougher than the usual dry soba. That was what the captain told me when i feedback that my soba was not well cooked. He requested the kitchen to prepare a fresh portion for me which turned out exactly the same. The soba is quite nice after some getting-used-to. As i didn't want to waste food, i ate both portions of the mini soba! (gasp! *blush blush*) You can also add soba water to the soba dipping sauce and drink it like a tea. The soba water was said to contain lots of nutrients from boiling soba.

For the good service, i will come back again to try out the other dishes, when i'm feeling rich that is! :P

Greek Masterpieces from The Louvre

Finally took the time to see this exhibit cos (hehe) it is ending soon. Reached about 4 pm plus but since my friend was not here yet, i just walked around leisurely in the "free" areas. While i was happily enjoying myself, i got a sms from YZ that she had reached. Oh good, at last. Next came a frantic call from her.

"Hey i got a free pass to the gallery as it's free for ladies today but it CLOSES at 6pm and the LAST admission is at 520pm. You better come down to get the ticket!".

"WHAT?!" Glancing at my phone, the time is already 517pm! i ran to the ticketing booth and requested for a ticket to the exhibition gallery. Luckily i was still in time. :) But the hall was exceptionally packed. I guess everyone must had heard that the exhibition was ending. So i had kinda expected the crowd. What i didn't expect to see were people shutter happy away. Almost everyone was snapping shots of the exhibits. What?! i didn't know that we could take photos in the museum! They even made us deposit our bags at ACM. Oh well, since there is not enough time to go through all the exhibits. i might as well take photos so that i could read the descriptions later. Feeling rather glad and smart, i took a couple of shots. What!? Low batt!? Tough luck. i had no choice but to go through the exhibits in double time.

Learnt that originals are very rare now. The sculptures on display are all replicas of the original Greek masterpieces. This is the first time they are presented outside the Louvre. So it is quite a good chance to catch the exhibition while it is here. It runs till 16 Mar. Admission is $8. It just happens that today is World Woman's Day so it is free for us girls! Yay!

"Love, who is most beautiful among all the immortal gods, the melter of limbs, overwhelms in their hearts the intelligence and wise counsels of all gods and all men" - Hesiod (c. 700 BCE)

i could not resist taking a bite of the juicy red apple, erm, pepper outside the museum.

Sembawang Country Club

Just got back from a longggg day! Gosh! It really feels like today is Saturday! No work and all play! but i had not felt this tired for a long long time... CQ and i went to the range in the morning to practise a few balls. Next to SCC for lunch, game and dinner. First time playing here. Too much undulating ground and water. Ended up walking alot and losing alot of balls. Score is expectedly dismal. Coach had organised this session for networking he said. i just wanted a break from work and was supposed to submit a card for maintenance anyway. The club was quite desserted other than our group which was odd considering today is a friday. Lunch was nasi lemak. Rice too soft but the fried chicken was nice. Dinner was the usual 8-course chinese meal. We thought the food was not bad. Or maybe we were really hungry from all the exercise. haha. But the highlight of the day got to be the massage after dinner. We headed to Healing Touch @ Tank Road for the 1 hour Tension Relief massage. Really loosen up all my stiff muscles. We looked at the menu. The prices are relatively cheap (no wonder coach chose this place! :P) but a pity the location is abit out-of-the-way. Else, i would have signed up for a package myself! Hmm.. all that kneading and stretching is making me a little hungry now. Should i indulge in a little supper?! To reward myself for all the hard work! :P

MOF @ My Izakaya (revisited)

Decided to forego gym after class today. Wrong decision! *slap head!* As i was about to go home, YZ jio-ed me for lunch. So i walk walk see see at Bugis Junction while waiting for her class to end. Tick tock tick tock. Why is she not here yet!? 10mins past the meeting time...

So i decided to look for a nice restaurant to sit down and hide from all the temptations at the stores. Tick tock tick tock... Why is she not here yet!? It's already 30mins past the meeting time! Tried very hard to look cool and act busy while waiting. i think i can memorise the whole menu!

Decided to order an appetiser while waiting... Saw this very interesting soba crepe. It was stated that this item might need a longer preparation time... erm... ok... i have time... i was quite puzzled why did it come with soba sauce when there's mayo on it. Turned out that it is quite bland with just the mayo. If dip it in the sauce then it still taste ok... But why is she still not here yet!?

Finally, after 1 hour, YZ appeared! Her lecturer was really over-zealous to have OT-ed for so long! i could have gone to the gym and still in time to lunch. (-_-") i finally placed my order for the surf and turf shabu set which comes with half beef and half salmon. i couldn't decide if i want all beef or all salmon so this set is very good for on-the-fence people like me. The set comes with a potato salad (yucks!), a cucumber-tomato-cabbage salad (which was drowning in the sauce that they poured over it), an "egg-flower" clear soup (i had thought that this was miso soup cos it really resembled miso soup but i was wrong. The soup was quite nice. There was alot of "egg-flower"!) and rice and pickles. The shabu shabu was nice and it went very well with the special honey apple sauce that their Japanese chef had created. yummy! The set also comes with tea/coffee and the best thing is that this was given out in the form of a voucher so i could come back anytime to enjoy my tea/coffee! I really can't down it after such a hearty meal!

BUT, there's always room in a girl's tummy for dessert! Hehe. For all the sets, you can get any of the less-than-$6.50 deserts for only $3! What a deal! i simply had to order one! i got the matcha mixed imo. Basically this is soft ice cream with fried jap sweet potato and yam. As usual, they have it with all sweet potato and all yam but i wanted to try both so this is good! Hehe. (^^,)

Saw the card in the background next to the bowl? They actually have instructions on how to eat it! lol. But only for selected items. YZ's dishes did not have the instructions. Only mine happened to have them... So thoughtful of the restaurant but not environmental friendly.

Psst! To do my part to help save the earth, i took these two cards home. Thought that they make very good bookmarks! hehe. (^_^)

Genki Sushi

Met up with YZ at Tampines Mall. Normally i would not even think of coming here in a right frame of mind unless

1. i'm really very extremely bored
2. i happen to be in the vicinity.

Well, since i was at expo anyway, which was that's why i'm eating here. And why was i at expo? Refer to #1! i guess no one except me would take an hour train ride (2 hours if considering the return trip as well!), queue up and pay $3 just to collect one bagful of pamphlets! it shows how bored i am! haa... (-_-")

Anyway, Genki was crowded. We waited almost half an hour for our table. But i think it serves much nicer food than sakae which was why we waited and which explained why there was a queue even at 930pm! They serve the usual sushi and stuff but i would have to recommend the chawanmushi which has real crab meat in it! oishii!