An Uneventful Week

The week started with a nice touch of generosity from Ah Jess n Hubby. Having tried wagyu beef, Ah Jess raved about it and said that since they tried that, no other types of beef (maybe except kobe?) can compare. However, the $20 per 100g price tag was too exhorbitant for me. Just nice, Mmmm.. (butcher shop) at Novena Square was selling it at a discount ($16 for 100g), so they bought some and invited us over for teppanyaki-style grill to try the much talked about wagyu beef.


A table full of good food


Normal beef


Wagyu beef
The wagyu beef is highly marbled with fats but you wont be able to taste that its 'fats'.. it just taste very tender and there is no 'beef-meaty' smell. Now I comprehend that 'no turning back' (to normal beef) feeling.

On Saturday, I went back to my parents' place and helped my mum get ready for a wedding dinner she had to attend. I lent her my dress and helped her do her makeup. Hee.. think I'm getting pretty good at it. I drew her brows pretty well (she had very sparse brows).


This sequinned purse is vintage! From my grandma


My mum in my blue wanko dress and with matching blue purse. Ok, her makeup doesnt seem much to rave about. But its tough having to do makeup on a wrinkled and pigmented face such that these flaws would be gracefully covered. So I would say I was quite successful.


My new Lesportsac bag. Nice print! My gf helped me get this at 50% discount. Good buy.


Was shopping around Suntec Level 3 - again, many new changes (lots of shopping centres have revamped recently) with new shops cropping up. Saw this ice-cream shop with interesting flavours, but most of the flavours I wanted (Sesame, Tiramisu etc) were sold out. Made do with blueberry cheesecake flavour.


Blueberry cheesecake ice-cream - taste exactly like its name.

Some Extravagant Purchases

Over the weekend, I heard about the WMF cutlery sale at Tangs. Wasnt interested to buy at first. After all, there's only 2 of us at home, why would we need 4 sets of spoons, forks and etc? But after my bro spent 5 mins lecturing me the merits of WMF and of cos, the fantastic discount (from $428 to $129!), I was sold. Bought a set for myself and helped him get one set as well.






Passed by Birkenstock at Wisma and noticed that they had a sale. So I went in and browsed through. Started trying a few pairs and found one pair that seemed pretty nice. At $99, I thought it was a good buy since it had been marked down from $129. Surprisingly hubby din object to the purchase either. At night, when I told my gf about this purchase, she was surprised. She said I had stretched my budget considerably, since this is a pair of casual sandals after all. How true indeed, paying this price for casual shoes! Still, the saleslady told me it's good for walking long distances (and walking only, no other activities). So probably I can use it on tours as well. The design I chose was a bright and cheery one. But the shape of the shoe is still quite unladylike and with my big shoe size, it makes me look like I have big feet. Wonder why fashion mags endorsed it in the first place. As for the comfort level, I tested it for a few hours by wearing it immediately after purchase. So far so good. Keeping my fingers crossed that it would stay so.

My Deepavali Shopping Spree

Met gf ah Zhen to shop at Central Mall before going over to visit Siew and her baby at her SengKang home. We only managed to cover the second floor of the mall + 1 shop on the third floor in about 3 hours. In total, I spent almost $170. Got quite a few good buys at 40% discount. Avg price of the items was $25. Think Zhen is a good salesgirl, she convinced me to buy these and more (but i restraint myself).


White woven belt $13.90 and bracelet $9.90


Dress $24


Pin stripe skirt $24 and Spaghetti tops - $10 for 3


Short cropped jacket and tops - total $70


Blue patent wedges $26

Finally at about 6.40pm, we had to tear ourselves away and proceed to my Siew's place in Sengkang. To save time, we ordered pizza delivery to her place. Pelican Pizza (1-for-1). Pretty good - Singapura Pizza (seafood) and Black pepper chicken.






We sponsored dinner while Siew sponsored dessert. She bought 4 slices of cakes from Secret recipe. All were quite yummy, I found the yoghurt cheesecake the most outstanding. Unfortunately, the waiter packed the cakes lying down in the box, so no pics, cos the cakes kinda fell apart.

So anyway, this is the highlight of our visit. Nicknamed the mini sumo wrestler by the proud parents.


I must say his walker and caterpillar toy are pretty fun!


Mommy, baby, ah Zhen and me

My eve of Deepavali

Took off on the eve of Deepavali and went Holland Village for lunch with hubby. I wanted to go for one of those lunch deals. But my favourite restaurant (Crustacean Grill) had closed down... after checking almost all the restaurants in Holland V for lunch deals and with hubby getting impatient walking around under the hot sun, I finally chose Raku. They had lunch sets at $15 / $20 / $25, which seems like a good deal. And indeed it was, because the ala carte menu prices at Holland V Raku are higher than the Millenia Walk outlet, but Holland V Raku's lunch sets are cheaper.

We were ushered into the quiet restaurant, which was tastefully decorated. What a relief to sink into comfy seats and enjoy cold aircon when the hot sun is baking outside.





Though we ordered Bento set, they did not serve everything in one tray. The appetizers came first, followed by the main course.


Egg tofu with prawn roe, sashimi salad and Tamagoyaki




The sashimi was pretty fresh and nice.


Salad with kelp


Tori Katsu curry rice - my order. Hubby liked this (think he likes anything curry)


Ebi fry, garlic rice and miso soup - the garlic rice was good.


Overall, the lunch set meals were value for money. The two sets we ordered were $15 each. Just dun order green tea though. Its $4 per cup (free flow).



In the evening, decided to bake cookies since I had a packet of Hersheys chocolate chips. I followed the recipe given in the packaging of the choc chips. But I subsituted one cup of flour with one cup of oatmeal. Turned out to be too little flour and my cookies flattened... Made quite alot. Shall give some to my gfs since I'm meeting them the next day.




My flat chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies

A Weekend of Good Food and Bad Food

Friday

Was at Plaza Singapura on Friday. Wow, now there are more food stalls in the basement. Saw that Sakae Sushi opened a Teppanyaki outlet there , and the setup seemed like a casino table to me... looks like I missed Macau.





Instead of trying out the finger foods, I opted to go Crystal Jade Kitchen. Bad choice. I always thought Crystal Jade is a place where you can order any dish, and it wont go wrong... I was proven otherwise.

I ordered the fish-crab-prawn porridge hoping it would taste like the watercrab porridge I had in Macau, but it turned out terribly bland. Reason being the fish meat was in tiny pieces (minced size), the crab was one small pincer (not fresh) and the prawn was only one piece too.

Also ordered this yam-chicken dish that looked interesting on the menu. But it tasted weird (not horrible, but not fantastic either). Weird becos the sauce in this dish, tasted like a combi of cheese and coconut milk. Think bobo-chacha meets cheese fondue.

I really felt the $30 for this meal was money down the drain. It's not that I would not go back to Crystal Jade ever again. But I definitely would stick to the tried-and-tested items.


Saturday
Met my gf for shopping at Suntec-Marina Sq, and we enjoyed a teatime dessert at Azabu Sabo.

My dessert - ice-cream with sweet potato cake base

For dinner, our guy fren suggested Rakuzen at Millenia Walk. Good choice. No queue, no crowd, and we were given a private tatami room. Wow factors - food was value for money and service was fantastic.


Couldnt get a good pic of the room, so I took a pic of the ceiling where the mirror reflected the room.


We shared the grilled skewers. Left - supposed to be grilled asparagus wrapped in bacon,but it turned out to be lady's fingers instead. Upon hearing my loud remark, the waitress on her own initiative, went to check with the chef and came back to apologise. They had run out of asparagus, hence the subsitute. Since she did not notify us beforehand, they would not charge us for these (including the mushroom which was a separate dish). Wow!


Grilled scallops - this one was yummy. Juicy with lots of sauce.


Teriyaki chicken with sushi set meal.


Yakiniku with sushi set meal.


Beef Teppanyaki with garlic rice set meal.

Each set meal was about $25-$28, very worthwhile. Comes with so many items - side dish, miso soup, chawanmushi etc. Grilled items were about $5-$6 for 2 sticks. The next time I get to go there, I'll be trying their udon noodle soup. The shoyu based soup smells really good.

After dinner, we stayed in the restaurant and chit chat a while. The staff would drop by periodically to check if we needed to refil our green tea. Impressive indeed.

We stayed til almost closing time, and went to Bugis TCC. Nice place. TCC has an extensive menu. But somehow, I feel that their food / drinks looks nice in presentation, but doesnt taste as good as it looks. I would give A to the appearance of the item, but B to its taste.


Pear-fect mousseline

Sunday
Enough of outside food. Cooked a pot of claypot rice and had that for lunch and dinner. Definitely much nicer than Crystal Jade's food.

Fish pics

Took these fish pics early last week. Passed by No Signboard at Vivocity and was admiring their aquarium.