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!