Bumbu-diction

brought jeremy and his parents to Bumbu yesterday at 44 Kandahar street for dinner because i’ve been raving so much about the restaurant but have yet to let him try how awesome the food there is!

the indochinese/peranakan deco lining the walls of the double-storey restaurant

stir fried kang kong thai style $8

the kang kong was VERY NICE! no idea why it didn’t stand out much the last time we ordered. but today it was so damn shiok! it is unlike any other normal sambal or garlic-fried kang kong that you can get from any zichar stall. Bumbu does sambal kang kong too. but my recommendation would be to go for their special thai styled kang kong, because the regular zichar uncle is not going to be able to fry that for you.

Butter Oat Squid $11.80

also another regular order every time i go Bumbu. but i wish, sometimes, that they had more oats! i usually enjoying eating that with the refillable rice (YES IT IS FREE FLOW).

 

Pandan Leaf Chicken $3.20 per pc

pandan chicken was surprisingly good!!!! i have no idea what kinda of special sweet sauce was that, but when drizzled over the chicken, it was just perfect!

only sucky part is the unwrapping of the pandan leaf, which i hate to do because i’m a lazy eater. same reason why i also don’t like prawns.

oddly enough, if i find that the thing inside is worth putting in effort to de-shell or de-leaf, i’ll do it. for that, same reason why i love eating crab even though dirtying my hands and cracking the shell can be a bitch.

Seafood Curry in Coconut $10.80

the curry wasn’t spicy at all! in fact, it tasted more coconut than curry, which gave the curry a very unique taste! i wouldn’t say it’s that good for me to order it a second time around, but not a bad thing to try for the first time either!

the unbeatable Tahu Telor $8 i could eat this every week and not get sick of it

sadly, the egg yolk today wasn’t as good as the past 2 times i had it this year ): the tofu was bouncy and smooth on the inside though. definitely hands down my favourite dish at Bumbu.

jeremy and me!

we later took a 10-15 minute walk to Shaw Leisure Gallery across from Bugis for our second Tom’s Palette this week. it’s a new ice-cream place we discovered while having Ah Loy thai in the same building a few days ago. say goodbye to the good old days of island creamery. Tom’s Palette is the place you wanna be at to hang out with your cool friends and indulge in home made ice-cream of all kinds of unique flavours.

you can sample unique asian flavours such as yuzu, sarsi, salted egg yolk (really tastes like the real thing!), lavender, longan red dates, mango sticky rice and even a flavour called “???”

was sold by the mango sticky rice, which happened to be featured only today because it was their special flavour featured today only! i was craving so badly for the mango sticky rice from Nakhon but couldn’t get it at Ah Loy thai on monday cos it was sold out ):

so luckily i found it, strangely, at an ice-cream shop just across Ah Loy Thai! oh goodness it tastes so much like the real thing, with actual sticky rice inside and sweet pieces of mango! SO DAMN NICE. CAN YOU PLEASE FEATURE IT AS A PERMANENT FLAVOUR???

earl grey was also very refreshing! just as all earl grey ice-creams are (:

the chocolate was VERY thick and luscious. lychee tasted nice, but nothing different from the numerous lychee homemade ice-creams i’ve tried so far.

earl grey + mango sticky rice (left) and chocolate + lychee (right)

please go check them out here http://www.tomspalette.com.sg

and here for their special flavours featured only on certain days of the month! http://www.tomspalette.com.sg/calander.html

oh man how lucky i was to have caught the mango sticky rice today! i’d totally wanna try to make it for the melon moscato on the 28 and 29 of sept too!!!!!

turning 23! (part 1)

i had a whole week of celebrations last week for my 23rd birthday! somehow, every birthday after 21 feels less and less exciting because of the impending thought of growing OLDDDD.

nonetheless, i always welcome the best part of birthday celebrations: PRESENTS AND FREE MEALS 😀 muahahaha

dinner on 31 august was at Otto restaurant, an italian restaurant that Jeremy found on HGW with pretty good reviews!

Otto is located at 28, Maxwell Road, #01-02 Red Dot Traffic Building. it’s a 5 minute walk from Tanjong Pagar MRT.

there was a bread salad offered to us for free for appetizers. i chose onion, ciabatta and foccacia from the platter of small sliced bread – already appearing very yao gui because the other tables only chose like 1 or 2 pieces. but it was damn shiok and i felt slightly regretful when i rejected the waiter’s offer to serve more bread.

we had Wagyu beef carpaccio with mushroom and parmesan cheese salad. first time tasting semi-raw beef and somehow, it’s almost the same as proscuitto lol! got abit sick of the dish towards the end though.

for the mains, jeremy and i chose the sea urchin pasta and the pan-seared proscuitto wrapped cod fish fillet with some pieces of asparagus salad at the side.

Parma ham wrapped cod fillet with warm asparagus salad, $40

Spaghetti with sea urchin and grey mullet bottarga, $30

when the sea urchin pasta came, the pasta was undercooked and they waitress tried to smoke me and claimed that it’s that way because it’s cooked in the Al-Dente style. er but i’ve eaten Al-Dente pasta before and it definitely does not taste like crunchy noodles…

anyway, they still took the pasta back for the chef to re-cook it. the second time around was definitely much better and more Al-Dente than the first time around. the manager was also very apologetic about the undercooked spagetti and came over to our table twice to check if the second plate tasted ok.

the taste of the sea urchin was rather unique. it’s supposed to taste “umami”, a 5th taste originating from Japan. to me, the closest taste i could relate to was salty-sweet.

on the whole, Otto’s menu prices were very exorbitant and i don’t think it’ll be every day that i get to eat at this place. still, it was a very enjoyable experience because the quality of service was impeccable!! food was also interesting and a change from normal italian cuisine!

post-dinner, we walked a little way up Duxton hill to have desserts at Antoinette.

macaroons galore!!

it was my first time trying the macaroons at Antoinette! the dark chocolate one is worth trying! salted caramel was wayyy too sweet eyucks. had the yuzu-flavoured macaroon but unfortunately, its taste was overpowered by the intensity of the chocolate.

from L to R: Yuzu, Dark chocolate and Salted Caramel

my favourite!! the Antoinette!

the next day after work, we went to have lunch at Raffles City because i won Watami restaurant $50 food vouchers! the only thing nice there was the beef wrapped spring onion yakitori sticks.

tried the newly-opened Tiong Bahru Bakery as well and had their famous Kouign Amann, $3.50. it’s very crisp on the outer layers while the inner layers are fluffy and soft. the caramelized sweetness on the exterior gradually transits to a slight salty taste as you move towards the core. so much flavour in a single piece of pastry!

because we realized that the pastry was already very shiok on its own, the butter and marmalade were pretty much untouched oops!

tried Magic coffee! which consists of 2 expresso shots with a single shot of milk. damn intense!!

having a non-conventional birthday cake this year

for dinner, we joined my family for dinner at Ju Shin Jung at West Coast Yes Centre.

the spread of “xiao cai!” which are all refillable! my favourite being the beans sprout.

all of us with the table that was cramped full of food

with my family! am always the last to celebrate birthdays in the year

with Jeremy! thanks for yet another awesome birthday present this year and for celebrating my bday with me over a few days ❤

into the wild

it’s been awhile since my last entry but i’m back!!

just finished my retail attachment and i miss it already ): managed to chiong all my requirements within 2 weeks our of the 4, so i had a pretty chill second half of the attachment, of which the weekends were spent doing some pretty fun stuff!

one of which was our sudden and random decision to visit the Singapore Zoological Gardens!

the Singapore Zoo was having a special offer for all those born in August, so because of Jeremy, we managed to get 1 free ticket (minus tram)! we also had an additional 30% discount thanks to my newly obtained NTUC card (i am officially an auntie :P) so admission for the both of us was just $12 each with unlimited tram rides!

with the orang utans family! that’s a mummy and her 2 kids in the background looking very bored while posing with tourists

with the cute (fake) otters

didn’t pay to feed the goats this time. instead just took advantage of the excited goats in the background to take picture with heh heh!

with a friendly free ranging lemur at the treetops trail! they’re super soft to touch! almost like petting a cat!

feeding the giraffes were the highlight of the trip!

giraffes are bigger than they look! they’re absolutely imposing when standing just 1 metre next to them on an elevated platform. i never knew that their heads were that big- almost half my height!! their tongues are very long (15 cm at least) and black. while trying to hold on to the carrot stick long enough for my photo to be taken, their long tongues would be twirling and snaking around the stick to grab a hold of it. super grossss!!! haha one even nibbled on my finger because i didn’t want to hand the carrot stick over.

at the Elephants of Asia show! pretty standard stuff that the elephants have been trained for years to do for years

king of the jungle ROAR! first time catching the lion during their feeding time! otherwise normally they are lazing around and sleeping

scary bat with its scary genitals. hahaha caught one bat peeing upside down and you only need a slight gust of wind to cause the stream of pee to completely wet the face of the bat LOLLL so amusing

with fake kangaroo because the real one isn’t friendly enough to take a pic with me ):

a must-have picture with the parrots at the entrance of the zoo!

really had such a fun sunday at my favourite touristy place in Singapore! so glad Jeremy drove there too because transport getting in and out of the zoo can be a real bitch because public transport is rather scarce in the North. someone ought to built an MRT to the zoo already!

also very impressed with the professionalism of the cameramen; most of whom are willing to help take pictures using your own camera rather than exploit you with photos that you have to purchase at an exhorbitant price.

wishing for the River Safari to be built quicker so that i can visit the pandas Jia Jia and Kai Kai!

Brunch at Hummerston’s

brought Jeremy to Hummerston’s at Robertson Walk (upon recommendation by gen that it was a worthy brunch place to try out) to celebrate his 23rd birthday a day in advance!

it’s a 10-15 minute walk from Clarke Quay MRT, which can be a bitch as you are heading there in the peak of the afternoon heat.

nonetheless, we were honestly surprised that we didn’t need to queue to get a seat on a Sunday! they place was only half empty and we were seated the moment we arrived 😀 if i had known, i wouldn’t have eaten pre-brunch LOL.

the interior of the restaurant was very dim so we didn’t really take photos of the place. but the decoration and set up was very spacious yet cozy! their tables are mostly big enough for 4pax and above so don’t worry if you’re bringing a large group of friends there!

me with the food!

the birthday boy!

Italian Job Poutine, $13

Poutine’s are Hummerston’s speciality. in layman’s terms, a poutine is a dish of fries served with gravy and various toppings. something like a more expensive version of Best Fries Forever, which i’m a sucker for.

sadly, the poutines are not cheap. we wanted to try the Montreal, but it was rather pricey at $13.90 because of the foie gras. so we opted for the Italian Job, which had similar ingredients sans the foie gras lol!

i absolutely loveeeed the poutine, espeically the cubes of Quesillo cheese. found it rather salty though but it’s not that bad if you share the starter.

Steak and Eggs, $28

jeremy had his steak medium-well and chose poached eggs (you decide whether you want your eggs scrambled, poached or sunny fried).

the only thing nice about this dish was the truffle fries. but having had the poutine earlier, we were kinda gelat of fries already.

i didn’t really like the steak though it was tender, but tasteless. and the poached eggs were completely bland because there was no Hollandaise haha. apparently we realized that we only liked poached eggs when their dripping wet with Hollandaise sauce.

Breakfast Tostada

i took a break from the usual Eggs ben and went for this exotic-looking breakfast consisting of a salad base, followed by 2 tortillas, scrambled eggs, grilled smoked pork and garlic sausage and topped with caramelized onions and asparagus.

BAD IDEA

sausage was yucks: hard and salty and absolutely no garlic taste at all

they weren’t very generous with the spicy tomato sauce

salad was full of all the bitter-tasting leaves that i don’t like and am unable to stomach when it’s not being masked by any salad dressing

Tarte A Roons, $11.80

thought we couldn’t go wrong with cinnamon + caramelized apples dessert topped with ice-cream. but there was something quite odd about the delivery of this dessert: the chestnut ice-cream was salty, the caramelized apples were sour, and the almond macaroon base was sickeningly sweet.

NEVER AGAIN…

Papa Palheta Latte, $5.50

thought at least having Papa Palheta (Hummerston’s is a boutique coffee roaster of Papa’s) could save the meal but even that got screwed up. the coffee didn’t taste the least bit like Papa’s at all!!!!! no idea how they are roasting it or what kind of milk they used. i liked the biscuit though haha!

anyway, if you’re looking to try Hummerston’s, perhaps go for the pancakes! i heard they’re pretty good! i might wanna try the Montreal poutine next time and have a salad instead of a main course.

Club Street Social

for our second brunch double date, gen & MS suggested that we went to Club Street Social instead of the usual places that serve breakfast.

a cozy little hideout along 5 gemmill lane; nearest MRT is tanjong pagar (exit D)

here’s what the place looks like from the outside

i don’t think this place is very well-known amongst the locals just yet. the patrons of the bistro were mostly angmohs with SPGs, groups of girl friends or groups of SNAGs. as such, our double date gang felt rather out of place there on a sunday afternoon.

nonetheless, the owner of Club St Social is a cheery asian chick with a thick american (possibly new york) accent who greets us at the door and is very quick to inform us the moment she has an available table for seating, even before her staff has cleared her table lol!

the setup of the bistro really reminds me of those i’ve been to in the US. it has a very chill atmosphere, mostly because it’s tucked away in a neat corner away from the CBD area. definitely a great place to go to to enjoy on a weekend. Club st social has a bar too, and majority of the deco that you’ll see upon first entering would tell you that they’re probably very good with alcohol as well!

the boys and the enormous mounted alcohol cabinet i was referring to in the background

i had the proscuitto panini (prosciutto, mozzarella, tomato, truffle mayo), $16

THE BEST PANINI IN THE WHOLE WORLD

one night in new york last december, when we ran out of things to eat, we had a panini from a bistro a block away from our place. and it kinda sucked because it was soggy even after toasting. so i never really thought about having another panini until i discovered that Club St Social has my favourite proscuitto in a panini!!!

i can’t begin to describe how good this is. it’s sandwich-love at first sight. i’d never settle for a subway ever again. you must try this!!!! screw looking for the best eggs ben in Singapore. i wouldn’t mind have proscuitto paninis every single sunday for brunch.

Club St is also famous for their scrambled eggs (scrambled eggs, fontina, chives), $12. very fluffy and buttery tasting! and a generous serving too! a great choice of breakfast for hungry boys

jeremy and gen had the duck confit panini (confit duck, roast portobello, balsamic onion), $19. it was good through the first panini, but the duck made it easily gelat-able halfway through the second panini

gen and i in very contrasting outfits haha

on the way to Everton road for a cuppa Nylon coffee!

us new running man addicts also satisfied our tteokbokki craving when we accidentally discovered a small korean restaurant a few shops away from Nylon!

Nylon Coffee Roasters (not affiliated with the Nylon magazine haha) is at 4 Everton Park, which is a small HDB estate. no idea how to go by public transport yet but i reckon it’s also around Tanjong pagar area

their cold latte is also very nong! great cool-me-down on a hot afternoon.

on my first visit there, the coffee seemed to taste very similar to the one at Loysel’s. and that’s because the owners of Nylon are actually ex-Loysel’s baristas. but then, a recent trip to Loysel’s left a bad taste in my mouth because the quality of their lattes (made by new and inadequately-trained baristas) dipped pretty badly. all i could taste was meiji milk so on my second visit to Nylon, i could really taste the difference in taste of the coffee.

their prices are also cheaper than Loysel’s or Papa. so if you liked those 2, i’d highly recommend you to give Nylon a shot (:

 

also at Everton park is Grin Affair (a block away from Nylon), which serves cakes in jars! we wanted to try that day but it was closed on Sundays )):

 

well, until next weekend!

hats in the air

last tuesday, we had our commencement ceremony which was held at University Culture Centre. was let off early at 430pm (one of the last few to be released) and headed straight to school to catch an hour or two of daylight so that we could take pictures with friends and my family!

with mum and dad, and a bouquet of pretty flowers that jeremy’s mum got for me 😀

i was so frantic upon discovering that i completely forgot to bring my graduante and guests invitation cards!!! seriously my heart was going to pop out of my mouth at the thought that i came all this way and wouldn’t be able to graduate LOL. thank god i managed to get replacements, thanks to the help of gen and some dude that i managed to seduce into keeping 2 guest cards for me at the booth for extra guest tickets 😛

with the guys! so awesome that ronald and i were graduating in the exact same ceremony 😀

jeremy and i (:

with jeremy, gen and MS

with ronald and the imba steph who swept away most of the medals for pharmacy

caught ronald in the act of being fussed over by mummy hee hee

mah and i during the (boring) ceremony. partners from year 1 to 4 yo!

christina, steph, me and nash!

thanks gen for lending me your graduation hello kitty for the day! :DD

 

A BIGASS THANK YOU to jeremy, gen, ms, kenny and renard for taking the time to make their way specially down to the ulu UCC to take pictures with me even just for an hour! graduation wouldn’t be the same without all of you there awww ❤

special thanks to chubby for the sunflower, the card and for lending me uni graduate hello kitty for taking photos with! also for helping me robe up and to queue for the replacement invitation cards. if not for you, i would’ve imploded from all the stress!!

only doing this once and never again. this is wayyyyy too stressful. hopefully i’d be more well organized (or get someone to do it for me) on my wedding day. i can’t imagine stressing out on another big day like this again.

bought the $8 studio photo that was taken after we went backstage. super nice!!!

congrats everybardy!!! WE DID IT!

NDP preview 2012

been neglecting my blog no thanks to the overwhelming amount of work that i have been drowning in since i started OP.

but last saturday, i made some time to join my mum at the NDP preview. we got a pair of free tickets to watch because my brother is performing in the artillery 21 (?) gunshots segment.

it’s been 10 years since i’ve watched my last NDP and it’s even harder to believe that the last time i was part of the NDP, i was actually performing in it. and i’m still cringing at the thought of wearing those god ugly costumes and dancing very intensely with those cui flower garlands.

brother and his hugeass gun

my mum went earlier at 2pm to watch them at their practice session. the good thing about it is that you get to see it up close. i only saw it at the parade itself; the guns were placed on some combat engineered MKG thingy that floats on the water, in sight but at a safe distance away from the floating platform (for obvious reasons). couldn’t really see much because of the smoke that engulfs them after each shot.

closeup of the segment, which in reality, is hard to know what is going on from where you are sitting at the floating platform.

quite amazed at how well this shot is taken, despite my mum operating Ritz independently at that time and only knowing how to press the shutter button on the DSLR LOL.

 

weather looking good for the parade

a sea of red and white even though this is only the preview and we’re still a good month away from 9 aug

jean danker, one of the parade emcees, arrives with style in a giant hot air balloon!

what a drastic change in weather by 6pm, just half an hour after the parade started

in true Singaporean spirit, everyone immediately dons on their free poncho as the dark clouds begin to approach

the f16s flypast, the highlight of the day! ever since the red lions pangsehed due to rainy weather -.-

fake president coming out of the car

bring on the fireworks!!!

the finale: so vibrant and colourful!

 

really enjoyed it even though at times, i found it awfully cliche and cheesy. nonetheless, it’s not every year that you get to be at NDP and see unobstructed view of fireworks. for years i’ve been camping at various locations around july or aug to watch fireworks. but nothing beats seeing it so clearly from the floating platform itself.

tanjong pagar hippie enclave

another exciting Hippie-for-a-day excursion for Jeremy and I on a Sunday afternoon, and the destination that day: Tanjong Pagar

 

1. Littered with Books

20 Duxton Road

this place is so tucked away that it’s pretty easy to miss if you aren’t alert enough

shelves with plenty of books, most of them pretty mainstream compared to the ones they have at Books Actually

the difference between shopping for a book here and at Popular/Kino is that the shelves are stuck with little post-its of short reviews about the books or even a short introduction of the author, a pretty ingenious idea, i reckon! most of the time, i tend to pick up new books to read based on recommendations given by friends. hence, personal handwritten reviews function the same way- a person who has already read the book is able to give you that added information to aid in your selection of a new read!

surprised to find regular Sophie Kinsella (and even Danielle Steel) chicklit as well, something that a hippie would be completely snarky about if they ever caught you asking for it in a hippie bookshop.

the latest thing to have: customized tote bags to motivate people to be green while being cool at the same time!

 

2. Flor Pâtisserie

2 Duxton Hill, #01-01

less than a 5 minute walk away is this apanese-French fusion bakery. it’s owner, Chef Yamashita, originally moved to Singapore and started Pâtisserie Glacé (at Icon Village)- was just there today and had the Strawberry Souffle, which is quite good!

1.5 years after opening Glacé, Chef Yamashita went on to open Flor Pâtisserie.

this place can’t accommodate more than 16 people dining in at a time, so you might have to takeaway if you happen to be there on a weekend afternoon

Ice Cheese Tart (Original), $3.40

cross section of the cheese tart

they take it straight out of the freezer when you buy it from the counter. so it kinda feels like cheese-flavoured ice-cream when you first sink your teeth into it, but then it gradually warms up to become more of a tart than ice-cream.

i found it to be very very very good and i’d totally recommend you to try it! the original flavour is much better than the green tea one that we also got. unfortunately, the green tea flavour was kinda overpowered by the salted cream cheese. would like to try the other flavours in time to come, they have so many!!

Green Tea Yuzu cheese tart, $3.40

“Ice Cheese Tart アイスチーズタルト

Description:
In a tartlette of an almond cookie and FLOR’s signature creamcheese filling, there is a flurry of tastes and textures; featured most prominently is the melt-in-your-mouth lightly salted creamcheese filling, followed by the incredibly fragrant crunch of the almond cookie”

check out the other flavours here! http://www.cakeflor.com.sg/ice-cheese-tarts.html

gotta have them all!

hee hee trying on my new harry potter necklace cum funny spectacles that jeremy bought for me at a vintage bazaar at OC 😀

 

3. Restore

124 Tanjong Pagar Road

by this time, jeremy had depleted my tiny Muji water bottle of it’s contents and we were extremely thirsty after the cheese tart. so we made our way to the next place, a 10 minute walk away, for coffee!

you’ll see why it’s aptly named this way

one entire half of the store sells vintage furniture that has been restored to mint condition, while the other half serves coffee to you while you sit on some vintage chairs and tables

basically any rickety furniture you can find in your grandparents’ or even your own homes can sell for at least $200 here. haha sounds pretty ridiculous to a non-hippie like myself who don’t appreciate vintage furniture, and furthermore at such an exorbitant price.

while waiting for my coffee

Hot Cafe Cinammon with an earl grey cookie, $5

the coffee menu at Restore

the coffee failed to impress me ever since falling in love with the taste of that at Papa and Loysel’s. found it pretty normal and almost similar tasting to Starbucks coffee. wouldn’t be worth making the trip to this ulu place for a second cup!

 

oh well, along the way to our final hippie location, we found time to do some hippie phototaking: the art of levitating photos

you’ve gotta go check this website out http://yowayowacamera.com/ her levitational shots are SUPERBLY taken and posed for! amazed at how she makes it look so effortless!!!

these are the best i could manage after numerous attempts and curious stares from passersby about what dodgy things we could possibly be doing in the alleyway. i even have one fail picture that i look like i’m dashing into the wall at platform 9 and 3/4 but i’m to embarrassed to blog it HAHA!

floating to get a closer look at some nondescript poster on the wall HAHA

must get to the fan to cool myself down from all the levitating

yes i am hoping to improve on my levitational skill.

 

4. Kki / The Little Drom Store

7 Ann Siang Hill

cute little mailbox next to the door of the shop

a store full of fun knick knacks, including a notebook with “小明和小华的故事” etched on the cover page. and the first line writes “一个风和日丽的晴天”. and at the end, “原来是一场梦”. seriously the nightmare of every chinese teacher in sec school hahahah!!

we were too full by then to try any of the pastries at Kki, but maybe next time we will!

next time you’re thinking of something to do on a weekend, why not explore the Tanjong Pagar enclave as well? and maybe perfect your levitation photos, the new jumpshot to photograph.

kuriya penthouse

for father’s day last sunday, my family + jeremy went to Kuriya penthouse at Orchard Central for a very sumptuous and partially sponsored lunch, thanks to a $100 voucher that my parents won from doing the crossword contest in Mind Your Body.

wearing leopard preenz from Topshop and a F21 skirt in my favourite shade of purple!

my parents, with my dad wearing his new A&F polo that i got him for a bday present (his bday coincides with father’s day every year) haha!

pretty attas place with a good ambience. great for a date on a special occasion, or any occasion if you can afford it.

attas pseudo jade for chopsticks to rest on

jeremy and i!

at first, my brother and i wanted to order the Kurobuta Tonkatsu set meal, but they ran out of black pork for the day :O (though it was only lunch time) and so we had to choose something else. so instead, my mum, jeremy and i had the Shokado Bento set and my dad had the Gindara Teriyaki set. my brother changed his black pig order to some Unagi set meal.

the place was so attas that they served us our food in courses instead of everything altogether.

Sesame Tofu appetizer

to be honest, this tasted really weird to me. it was like soya bean pudding that had an odd after taste. and pretty much killed my appetite for the rest of the meal. eeks!

Shokado Bento Set meal, $42

items i enjoyed the most from this set were the chicken karrage, edamame and tempura! the rice reminded me too much of the awful chinese steamed rice from Grad night and i ended up giving most of it away to my dad, who loves it.

Gindara Teriyaki Set, $39

the Unagi set that my brother had but i forgot the name of

a closer look at the sashimi bowl from my Shokado Bento set

the salmon was absolutely mouthwatering, silky smooth and melts in your mouth!! SHIOKZ! tuna was rather disappointing though, there were elastic bits in the tuna that we just couldn’t chew/swallow and had to spit it out

and dessert is served on a chilled glass plate!

wow their matcha ice-cream is very very concentrated and true to the green tea flavour! loved their petite slice of mango cake as well. and hidden behind the watermelon is 2 cubes of mochi lying on top of a small portion of azuki bean. loved everything, except the pineapple which i gave to my mum.

parents and my brother

family picture! albeit some pretty bad lighting because of the glare from the afternoon sun

grad night 2012

just a quick update! work has been piling up for me right from the very first day! totally underestimated the intensity of the program, despite hearing notorious rumours about it. perhaps the brain naturally chooses to disbelieve what it doesn’t want to acknowledge….. #quoteoftheday

anyhow, that saturday was an extremely tiring one for me. i had to work from 8am to 12pm, though at the store, but still very sleep-deprived. after work, it was a rush to get my hair washed + blown, paint my own nails at home and get made and dressed up!

well, the final product:

dressed in Lipsy (from ASOS), and wore ASOS wedge pumps that gave me nightmare blisters after that

took a hell lot of pictures from that night, although i didn’t take them with Ritz the DSLR because it was too heavy to carry along. so here’s the version of events from my mini Ritz!

at the Hilton ballroom, which is pretty small

food was a pretty standard chinese wedding dinner 8 course meal, though most of the time we were busying ourselves with the camera and event games/pageant so it was rather neglected at times.

sharks fin soup!! kinda starchy but managed to get some chewy fin!

the appetizer palate with the ball that changes light. liked the spring rolls alot!

took alot of free instant (but DSLR quality) photos using Hilton’s free photo taking and printing service from 630 to 830pm! best freebie of the night!

becky and i!

half of us from Table 2, which won the pharmacotherapy speed quiz thanks to the steph 😛 $10 capitaland vouchers!!!

with val and fiona!! my buddies in SGH for the next 9 months!

taken with mag’s iphone: our OOTD! haha

nash, mah and i! gonna miss bullying him during group work man!

what’s grad night without a photo with the lab group! minus mag because she was nowhere to be found and shuyi justified her absence with her lack of contribution to the group LOL

 

oh god, and to my horror, during the pageant section, i was pulled up on stage as a nominee for Ms Photogenic and asked to answer a pretty awkward question. i had to think of a witty answer in like a couple of seconds even though my real answer to the question is pretty standard and boring.

question: “when you walk past a mirror, do you find yourself looking at your reflection?”

like errrrr???

true answer: ” uh yes”

witty answer that attempts to make people laugh: “i have 3 mirrors in my room so that is pretty inevitable, but other than mirrors, i do enjoy checking out my reflection in the glass panels as well”

ok kinda fail. but you can’t blame me because the question was pretty duh LOL!

awkward moment with an awkward question

nonetheless, Xinyi (in a cream-black ASOS dress) won the category after doing some cute SNSD-ish poses for everyone when it was her turn! haha cutez.

with xiaojie, val and nash! it was a random photo moment in which we were just standing around the same area and decided to take a picture haha!

 

grad night was really awesomeeeee! sad that this is gonna be the last graduation dinner of my schooling life. the next time will be company d&ds and you know it’s hardly ever going to be the same. a compilation video made by a classmate left me feeling unexpectedly sad to leave NUS pharmacy. in any case, there’s still commencement, so hopefully there’ll be more photowhoring again then!

awww gonna miss ya pals! next time we’ll be all dressed up like this will be someone’s wedding already…. 😛