Steamboat II

Invited my cousins n parents over for steamboat on Saturday night. Unfortunately my Gazz steamboat failed on me! Hubby had to go downstairs last minute to buy a new one. This time, we opted for a steamboat pot that could hold 2 types of soup base.



Oops, my table full of ingredients was emptied so quickly before I had the time to take pic..



Chicken soup base and Tom Yum soup base

PP's East Side Escapade

Redeemed my bonus dollars from SBS promo for a free aglio olio spaghetti at Teenage Cafe @ Bugis. Went there with hubby n ah Zhen on Friday.



My free pasta - super super spicy!



Ah Zhen's super big chicken pie



Hubby's super crispy fish & chips


After dinner we shopped around, and somehow ended up strolling at East Coast Park. Zhen suggested supper at Simpang Bedok. Such a happening place.. its been awhile since I had supper in the East. How nice to feel the vibe again.


A whole stretch of supper shops to choose from



A whole stack of menu to order from



The upgraded version of dinosaur - godzilla (the difference: an additional scope of ice-cream)


Driving home along the ECP, I noticed that the Singapore Flyer is actually quite colourful at night, literally a ring of colours.

Premium food and premium sauces

Bought chinese almonds from Chinatown recently. Decided to have birdsnest with almond milk.


Ingredients:


Chilled and sweetened almond milk



Concentrated birdsnest


Combine:

Very shiok dessert


-----------------------------
Passed by Takashimaya Shopping Centre on Monday night. There was a CNY goodies fair going on at the basement. Chanced upon this stall selling premium soya sauce and other sauces used in Chinese cooking. The soya sauce was really different - it had a wonderful fragrance, similarly, their vinegar was also pretty good... in the end I bought quite a few stuff fm the stall.


Dark soya sauce ($9.50!), light soya sauce ($8.50!), black vinegar ($6), bean paste ($2.80).

Three Years Anniversary

Took leave last friday to celebrate 3 years of being with hubby.. (another excuse to eat good food! hee...)

Saw this dessert shop at Plaza Singapura basement.




Ordered the mixed fruit with mango sherbet. Very creamy texture for sherbet. Not bad, but this costs $6.50 (the smaller portion)





For dinner, I was craving for Korean food thanks to all the Korean drama I had been watching. Decided to try this restaurant at Amara Hotel - had done my homework beforehand by checking web reviews and this was one of the recommended + easily accessible korean restaurants.








We ordered one soup, 2 types of meat for BBQ, one plate of veg to go with the meat and rice. They then served us alot of appetizer dishes.. before we know it, the table was filled.. In retrospect, we ordered too much becos the meat (esp beef) slices were not that thin, so it was quite filling. I love the kimchi they served, would hv liked to eat more of that..








Pork Kimchi Soup



Sauce for dipping BBQ meat - bean paste and sesame oil with salt



Fresh veg to go with BBQ meat



Plate of marinated pork and beef rib



Waitress cooked the pork for us

Similarly for the beef rib



Cooked beef rib



Complimentary dessert and ice ginger tea to end off the meal





After dinner, we walked to Chinatown to burn off the calories.

A Belated Birthday Celebration

Finally managed to celebrate Siew’s bd. Invited the gals to my place as the birthday gal had not been here yet. Our tradition is for the bd gal to treat the rest. So generous Siew ordered a BIG party set fm Sakae Sushi (Matsu platter). It’s a lot and very big indeed. The box alone took up half my table.






She also ordered some side dishes. Both were very good, even though they were cold by the time we ate.


Chicken cheese



Salmon asparagus



Just sparkling juice


Toasting the birthday gal


Cakes fm Bakerzin - Sumatra (Coffee taste), Chocolate banana and walnut cheesecake. Superb!

Azabu Sabo again

I've been to Azabu Sabo at MSq a few times. But this time, me and my gf ordered more stuff.


Appetizer - grilled eggplant
Abit dry n hard



Appetizer - deep fried ham and cheese
As sinful as it looks



Main - cold seafood ramen
My favourite dish

Main - spicy tan tan mee
Spicy indeed



Dessert - mango and green tea ice-cream
Unfortunately the soft serve ice-cream machine was spoilt, so had this instead. Not bad though.


Cooked lunch on Sunday. It's been a while since I whipped up a proper (non pasta) meal. This turned out to be good, esp. the garlic red potatoes. Hubby liked the baked chicken. The whole meal took longer to prepare (about 1 hour +), as potatoes and chicken take longer to cook.

Tiny muffins

Ah Zhen came over on Thurs and we baked choc chip + walnut muffins.



Zhen carefully spooning the mixture into the muffin tray



Too much batter, so we used bigger cupcake holders as well



Not enough cupcake holders for remaining batter, so Ah Zhen made one holder with aluminium foil. Looks like 元宝？





Tiny muffin from muffin tray


Misc pic
Was browsing at River Island and saw this nice pendant. $25 (on sale). Din buy. Been thinking abt it. Still thinking of it. I should go and buy it since it stayed on my mind for so long..

A Small Change in Colour

Felt that the pink border in my bedroom was too glaring and mismatched. So I pestered hubby to repaint the border to blue to make it more soothing. But after painting the blue border, i missed the pink! It wasnt glaring and mismatched after all, it was warm and enthusiastic, while the new blue border seemed cool in contrast..
What a lot of difference a change in colour makes.


Before


After

To use up the remaining paint, hubby went to paint the bathroom as well.

First weekend of 2008

My first weekend of 2008 started on a pretty healthy note. I finally managed to wake up before noon so as to exercise with hubby. We walked to Labrador Park and was rewarded with a nice view.




The place has been done up quite nicely and best thing is, there is no crowd. No cyclists, rollerbladers, dogs, screaming kids etc.. Just pure peace.




Spotted some lizard on the rocks.





A good place for bbq!



Unmanned fishing poles?


Not so, the fishing enthusiasts were hiding in the pavilion for shade.



Care for a swim or wade?



Ang mo family with very cute kids




After barely working out, we finished our walk of Labrador Park and reached the small hawker centre at the base for a light breakfast.






We shared one prata-kosong and had teh tarik and teh halia. Unfortunately, hubby went to buy Samosa and curry puff as well. They turned out to be quite good. But the real killer was the smell of fried chicken wings that attracted us. We bought 2. Very good! Maybe I’ll come to Labrador Park every Sat for exercise so as to reward myself with these fried wings.




Passed by The Furniture Warehouse and went in to take a look. It's 3 levels of furniture. Staff on 1st and 2nd level barely acknowledged our presence even though there were hardly any customers. Maybe its our exercise attire, still there's no excuse for non-existent service.




Went to the hawker centre at my place for a dessert. Red Bean Ice. Only $1 - cheap and good!

Was craving for beer bread, and found some online recipe to bake beer cake instead. The beer smell was heavenly.. Cake is rather heavy and dense – too much liquid. Took me very long to bake this cake as it was pretty big.




My breakfast for the next few days


Went to a fren’s place for steamboat dinner at night. We were joking that it was a ‘clear old stock’ steamboat with sausages from eons ago and marinated chicken from last Xmas.. To be fair, most of the things were freshly bought. It was a good idea though, the 7 of us finished up most of the stuff (including old stock) and nobody got stomach upset the next day. After dinner, I had a ‘workout’ on my fren’s Nintendo Wii. Played tennis too vigorously, think I got a muscle tear in my right arm :(