Hambagah!

The first weekend of 2012, and the so-called first meeting among us housemates kakaka (which turns out to be temporary only). All of us were quick to decide on burgers and The Handburger it is!

Sterile workstation, open and simple dining area. Lunch crowd wasn't bad though it's already 1pm. But the place plays this loud music coming out from really bad speakers that it's really just noise. Housemate 1 complained and the staff immediately turned the music off lol.

 There's a whole wide range of burgers available here, some so outrageously huge, well, you see get the picture.

How true is this? hmm....

 I ordered the Original handburger (150g of 100% NZ grass-fed prime beef,  sweet onion jam, cheddar cheese, handmade barbeque sauce on a bed of coral lettuce and tomato on a toasted caramelised onion bun, damn that sounds so good right now), as that looks safest and I didn't want something overly huge that can strain my belly. Each order comes with a side as well, fries, mushroom soup or a bowl of salad. All for $13.80.

I was still guilty over the recent indulgence over Xmas and New Year so I was really cautious about what I ordered , hence the original burger and yes, a bowl of salad -.- But the salad is also as sinful! Comes with a hard-boiled egg, croutons and fried bacon! Lol. There's no escaping the guilt now.

 The brothers order the mega burger, The Works ($17.80) (grilled 150g of prime bla bla bla, topped with battered onion rings, crispy bacon, sunny side up egg, sautéed basil pesto mushroom, sweet onion jam, cheddar cheese, handmade barbeque and aioli sauce on a bed coral lettuce and tomato on toasted caramelised bun). It's tall and it's huge. But I doubt anyone can ever open their mouth that big to get a bite outta that thing! Even my own humble one also I had to eat in installments.

The burgers come in a cute tray that has little compartments for knives and forks kekeke... Anyway I think the burgers are slightly overpriced la.... I find their burgers not really memorable.

Short term housemates, swell people! Funny thing is that these brothers kinda mirror us sisters.... lol.

Check out their website here - http://www.thehandburger.com/ , the have these food displays that look like origami art, it's really cute!

Chinese New Year coming up, can't wait to eat all my favourite things in the world!

Hit on the Rewind

I know I'm totally outdated but I'm just only going to blog about my Xmas and New Year's Eve celebration hehehe.... Completely busy with searching for a new place, with work and everything else. And would you believe that CNY is coming up next week, OMG!!! I haven't even went shopping for Chinese New Year clothes :s I think I'll just have to wear something I've worn before, but since no one back home has seen it, it'll pass off as something new :D

 Xmas eve, walked around Orchard, window shopping and had coffee and finally my fave popcorn! I love the caramel ones at Garrett's. Way overpriced but it's worth to give yourself a treat every now and then :D Then headed to Novena to collect the turkey (yes MCC cheated hehehe) and headed back pronto to finish up with preps!

 Christmas spread - this is obviously a carnivorous dinner! Sausages, hams, turkey, meat piling on one another, it's sinful enough to lay your eyes on these, let alone to finish these...

Anyway, special occasion cos friends of MCC were around..... Great people, with a lot of funny stories to share :) 

Check out the only handmade additions to the sausage platter... LOL! Miscellaneous greens to vegetari-ze the meal! We poked some cucumbers to create a Caribbean team leh... lol. Epic fail.

And yes... the only member from the plant family is the ceviche! Credits to Su Jen again for the recipe. Made this dish two Christmases ago in Kuantan. And as ever, it's an instant favourite *perasan* Anyways, sent the first shot to SJ and she reckons there's too much green in it. Had to kinda balance the meal y'know ;) 

Prepared this the day before... Had it soaked overnight and SJ says to soak them in lime juice and so I did... with plenty of lime, so much lime juice it was too sour when I tested it the next day!! Lol.... Anyways added more sugar to balance it out and it was perfecto :D

I managed to avoid the Xmas crowd but I couldn't escape on NYE. Since I'd already turned Sue Wern and Chia Chia down to celebrate Xmas with MCC, I couldn't say no again...

So NYE, met up with SW and we decided to have a bite first before heading over to Esplanade. We stopped by Umi sushi where they sell sushi on the go and we bought a few of them and proceed to the seats. As I was taking out the disposable chopsticks, the tiniest of bamboo splinter went right through my index finger! I tried plucking it out but my nails were too short and to make matters worse,  the splinter went in deeper! Not only I succeeded in pushing the splinter deeper in, but also broke the jutting end -.- 

SW was really nice, she went to a convenience store to get a nail clipper and I tried clipping the skin around the finger in a feeble attempt to get the splinter out. The pain was still bearable but the thought of having a small piece of wood under your skin just wasn't comforting!

Either way, I had to push the thought aside and we went to Esplanade.... Walao! I tell you... there. was. so. many. people!! I can't believe Singapore had the capacity to hold  such a large number of people. If I didn't know better I'd have thought that Singapore sank a couple of inches deeper every major festive season.

We had to literally swim through the crowd, to get to the eatery. There wasn't place to sit and we didn't bother looking anyways, so we tapao-ed chicken wings, fried rice and onion omelette and went to find a small space to sit and eat. LOL. You wouldn't believe where we ended up.... It's just a small area between walkways.

I felt sad for myself at that time... thinking that I could have been sinking on a large plushy couch and watching the fireworks comfortably at home but CC was like darn excited to sit on the grass and eat. -.- Fried rice was really bad, no taste at all, omelette was extremely greasy but chicken wings was good though I didn't have much of those because I just overdosed on chicken wings the night before -.-

It wasn't a good idea to watch the fireworks at Esplanade because the whole stretch overlooking Marina Bay Sands was lined with palm trees -.- Plus, the front harbour overlooking the waters was already brimming with people! It was nightmarish, even more so to the claustrophobic I think. At that point I was beginning to regret my decision to head to one of the busiest places for NYE. And the nightmare is far from over!

 Okla, to be fair, the fireworks are really something to be amazed with. The display has to be the best I've ever seen! I also took a clip of it - the whole 8 minutes, but it's 1.5GB and Facebook, Blogger all refuse to let me upload it :(

 I love the night skyline! Never fails to awe me... So continuing off where we left from the nightmare. After the show of fireworks, we ma decided to head back lor. It was already close to 1am. CC decided to leave with some of her friends so it was just me and SW. We walked towards Raffles Place MRT and guess what? The whole area was filled with MORE people trying to get into the MRT! It was a crazy scene. SW and I, we were looking at each other helplessly. I mean, I've heard of stories from friends and colleagues about how crazy the crowd can get, how impossible it is to get back afterwards, but I always took it all in with a pinch of salt. Now I understand the full weight it bears. Too late :S

So we thought maybe we should just walk further along and see if we can get into that MRT instead. We walked towards Tanjong Pagar using Google maps lol. Oh yea, my phone battery some more almost dying out on me! Talk about a horrible chain of events lol. We walked close to 30 minutes before checking that we are also near to the Chinatown MRT. Thank goodness the service was still within the extended hours and the place was close to deserted! We hopped into the train, and I reached home slightly after 2am.... If we had joined the massive crowd in Raffles Place... I think we would only be able to get back at 3 or 4am. It was madness...

And the splinter? After getting back all hungry from the long walk, I heated up leftover pasta and after washing the plates, I realized that the skin on my fingers were all soft and I pushed the splinter out by pressing on the other deeper end. Amazingly it works and here it is in its full glory, seconds before I chucked it into the bin.

A good start to 2012, this is.

The Chronicles of 2011

And yet another year has passed! I've not been blogging as regularly as I'm used to and I'm not proud of that... I'd blame it on the move down south that's been keeping me busy hehehe. 

The usual review of the year... It's been a year of extremes, it's been either really mundane or shooting off the charts, in short, a roller coaster ride.

 

On the highest peak of the ride, one that takes the cake with cherry on top has to be the move across the Causeway. It has not been a breeze and I am expecting more challenges.

The difference in environment is something I will have to learn to adapt, but don't get me wrong. I love living in Singapore, it's a great city! It's just so different from the tidak apa of my homeland. Here people do pay for the consequences if they are in the wrong. I miss my country, that's for sure but it's a small price to pay in my pursue for a better quality of life.

 I've also, finally, gotten my license to breathe underwater! It's something that I've been putting off for the longest time. And in fact, it wasn't supposed to happen this year at all, due to obvious procrastination, financial constraint la, work constraint la... The list goes on.

But I'm glad I went on the crash course (2 levels squashed in four days). It's opened up a whole new world, literally, to be explored. The experience and stillness of scuba diving is out of this world! On the downside, it's a freaking expensive hobby :s But that's where the higher exchange rate comes in eh, eh ngeh ngeh ngeh.

In terms of traveling, I've only covered one country! Well, two, including Singapore but that hardly counts, right? I've set higher goals for next year, fingers crossed, I'll be jet setting all over (a bit exaggerating). In fact, ideally I would love to be able to travel at least once every quarter.

In terms of family, I feel I've been putting in more effort to keep in touch. There are circumstances where I am pushed to my limits because of the insensitivity of a certain overweight party, but it is a case where there is not much I can do to change, only hope that realization will come and slap the other victimized and also overweight party with sense.

I try to put in time for my parents, whom I love dearly. There is no substitute for family love ;) It's been over a year now Ah Ma has moved on and I'm proud to say that everyone had moved on. We all still miss her but all the same, I'm just really glad to be able to have known her, tasted her cooking and able to take a part of her with me permanently in memory.....

Friends come and go but there are only a certain handful of friends that stick to you through thick and thin. I've learnt to recognize these people and appreciate their qualities, our similarities and even differences (at least that's what I would like to think).

Looking back through my blog, I realized that I've been going on a lot of makan sessions. I've got to try to get myself in more physical activities (ahem), with prioritization on enrolling to a gym here!! Also very interested to try out rowing...

I don't want to get too long-winded lah. I think I've pretty much covered the important aspects of life... Here's to a great year ahead! Happy new year 2012!

Signing off on the last post for 2011.

Turning Twenty Six

When you reach a phase in life when you have to joke about your age (Q: How old are you this birthday? A: 21! *shrill giggle), you know you're on the highway to the big 30.

Still, like they always say, age is just a number! Still so many things to do, so many place to go.

 MCC made birthday lam mee a couple of days before my birthday! And she made it without knowing my birthday is creeping up hehe. But the lam mee was superb! I especially loved the sambal (would you believe it's ready made, taken out from a jar purchased in Giant).

 I must say, I feel very loved indeed this year.... Didn't know so many people still remembered my birthday (gotta thank Facebook for that). Su En gave me a surprise which already gave itself out! I came back from work on the eve of my birthday and saw a huge cake box sitting in the fridge and occupying almost a whole shelf to itself. Lol. Don't  mean to be perasan but what else could it be for :S 

Thanks Kakak :D

 Dinner with SE, MCC and IKK @ Picotin Turf Club. Place recommended by MCC since I requested for a French dining. Those two husband-wife gang really cutthroat...

 I lav rose wine :D

 Our first appetizer! Pan-fried foie gras en croute, spiced pear chutney, old port emulsion. What can I say... eating foie gras is always so sinful... like eating pure fat (which in a way is also correct). And the foie gras goes surprisingly well with the pear chutney! Can not get enough of this yum yum.

 MCC's choice of  steamed clams, white wine, aromatic vegetables and fresh parsley. Being not much of a seafood person (I'm a meat person!) so the clams are pretty meh to me. It's like something you could order in a Chinese restaurant?

 Both SE and MCC were seated across each other and unknowingly to both, they ordered the duck confit and both IKK and I, seated opposite, ordered the beef bourguignon.

Duck leg confit, sausage and orange glaze. It was a meal of meat, meat and more meat.... Duck leg confit was sitting on bits of what MCC claims to be ham. It was really salty! Well seeing that duck confits are normally made using loads of salt (but usually not tasting very salty at all), probably it was really a bed of salt?

 My main of  'classic beef bourguignon, mushrooms, bacon, shallots braised in red wine and  mashed potatoes. Beef was really, really tender! But to be frank, the whole dish was really filling as well. It wasn't the bed of potatoes, but the culprit was the braised beef! As much as I liked it, I couldn't bring myself to finish it unfortunately :(

 Oh! We also ordered pizza (these people are gluttons in a whole new category), some more ordered already can't even finish! We ended up tapao-ing three-quarters of the pizza back. Still, pizza was good though.

 Su En insisted I take this shot, Notice anything funny? 

All of us were stuffed to the brim after our mains. But there always has got to be room for dessert right? So I placed an order for the creme brûlée... Then right.... suddenly it felt kinda warm and from the back a waiter carried a plate of cake with candle!

 Birthday song and all.... Yeay! Ice cream cake on the house. Initially we were stabbing the cake with forks and the surface was covered in chocolate with what appeared to be thick sponge cake underneath. After a series of stabbing, the waiter approached us and pointed out that he has also provided a knife to cut the cake with lol. Only when IKK did cut the cake through did we realize there's ice-cream under! LOL.

Focus a bit off cause I forgot to change the camera setting. It was on macro mode! :S

Creme brûlée with assorted berries and sorbet. 

 The mess from all that stabbing and selective feeding...

Phew..... another night of celebration... with great friends :)

Jo Lynn texted me whether I wanted to have Chinese, Mexican or Western. So I chose Mexican since it's been a while I've had good Tex-Mex food. 

 So JL brought us to this place in Holland Village called La Patio or something like that. It was a Wednesday so Sangria is only $7! Apa lagi.... hehehhe.

 My Texas Grill Fajitas... more meat on the menu ...

 And more cake! Lol... Heng Ving bought two little cakes, one for sharing and another one for me to tapao back LOL!

 Interior. By the way, I've concluded that my 4S sucks at taking night shots or any shots at all in a low light setting. My trusty old camera does a better work than the overrated 4s!

 Thanks guys!

Look at me... all red and flustered. After so much meat and booze, coupled with lack of sleep, all that could only mean one thing right?

Yaah.... got the suei-est present... fever! Crysanthemum tea in the office... lol!

So Cheap!

If there's one thing I enjoy about living in Singapore, it's gotta be the really affordable groceries.

See, every time I go grocery shopping in KL, the bill comes up to RM100+, easily. So far I haven't reached that record (thank god) here.

So there was one day when Su En and I went grocery shopping and we bought so many things, but!!! What's even more shocking was the bill!

I'll put the items into figures and you'll see what I mean... I'm going to put in an estimate of what I can get for the similar items in KL ;)

Item:
#01  Frozen fish fillets x 2             SGD  6.60         MYR 10.00
#02  4.4kg Dynamo detergent      SGD  9.85         MYR 22.00
#03  1.2L Body shampoo            SGD  2.95         MYR   7.50      
#04  Broccoli                              SGD  1.62         MYR   3.50
#05  Onions                                SGD  1.25         MYR   2.00
#06  Red chili padi                      SGD  0.80         MYR   1.20
#07  Spinach                               SGD  1.35         MYR   2.20
#08  Minced pork                       SGD  2.58         MYR   6.60 (pork is like super expo in Msia)
#09  Post Almond cereal             SGD  5.90         MYR  14.50 (my favourite cereal! Now so affordable!)
#10  Pancake mix                       SGD   4.55        MYR  8.90
#11  Vermicelli                           SGD   0.95        MYR  2.00
#12  Farmhouse milk                  SGD   2.65        MYR  8.50 (Farmhouse is like milk with gold bits in Msia)
#13  Blueberries                         SGD   5.90        MYR 15.00 (Yea you see that right!)
#14  Grapefruits                         SGD   1.25        MYR  2.00 (I dunno how much so I cincaily put one low price).
#15  Eggs                                  SGD   1.95         MYR  5.50
#16  Maggi mee Kari Letup       SGD   2.00         MYR  3.50
#17  Dole bananas                     SGD   1.41         MYR  4.50

Some more after that got added discounts from Fairprice cos got promotion..... you ready for the nett total??

Damage in MYR = 119.40 (See see, over RM100 d)

Damage in SGD = 49.80 !! (including GST!)

It's almost like a direct exchange rate. How come!! My favourite has to be the ultra cheap blueberries! It's like the good ol' Houston days when I would load on the blackberries (they are like USD2 for a small box) and pile them on with ice-cream. Bliss!!

Now I use them for smoothies ;)

Ippudo Ramen

I've been a huge slacker lately, I know! Haven't been updating as regularly as I should. But there just isn't time to lug out the laptop, transfer pictures, edit and compose :P 

Well, yeah, excuses.

So it's back to one of my passion - eating! Popo was asking around for recommendations on a belated birthday rendezvous and I've heard so much of this place - Ippudo-  from ex-colleagues and the blogosphere.

Dinner was supposed to be at 8, but here's what happened:

5:00pm - Text from Popo. Dinner arranged at 8pm.

6:30pm - Another text from Popo saying she will be late as Wei Kiang's flight is delayed. I proposed changing the appointed time to 8:30pm but no replies from her. Fine.

7:45pm - Made my way towards Orchard. Received text from Jo Lynn saying she will be 15 mins late.

8:00pm - Met up with a couple others, then waited for Jo Lynn. Received another text from Jo Lynn that Heng Ving will arrive later.

8:15pm - Received call from Heng Ving. He said he's only able to reach 30-40 minutes later.

8:20pm - Jo Lynn arrived and we decided to head towards Mandarin Gallery where Ippudo is located, which is about 10 minutes walk from Orchard MRT.

8:40pm - Located the restaurant and a long line was already formed.

8:50pm - Popo and Wei Kiang arrived (with luggage and all LOL). But we were still in mid-queue.

9:00pm - Finally got to the front of the line and one of the staff inquired for the number of people to be seated. 10 I said and we walked into the restaurant. Bloody hell! Still another line to queue indoors -.- Oh and Heng Ving arrived d.

9:10pm - One of the staff informed us that a VIP room was available but we are only able to have 50 minutes of dinner time. Fine with us!

9:15pm - Seated and ordered -___- Was starving like mad then.

 But service was pretty good and the waitress was funny and tolerated with our dumb jokes hahahah. Best part was we got to have a whole room to ourselves and thank goodness for that because we did make quite a ruckus.

Ippudo has a couple of branches in Singapore, outside of Japan and another one in the United States I think. They are hyped for their ramen noodles and broth, and also the fact that you could customize the level of 'done-ness' of your ramen noodles, such as chewy or really soft etc.

Ippudo came up with a few teaser dishes for their Grand Menu and these are the two we tried!

Bottom: ASPARA OHITASHI with ONSEN TAMAGO ($8 I think)
"This is a cold appetiser featuring chilled asparagus immersed in special soy sauce, served with hot spring egg."

Popo reckons that the asparagus were a bit too matured (as in fibrous) but I think mine was alright. I just loved the hot spring egg! I wish that the egg came in a bowl so you could sorta dip your asparagus in. Hmm...

Top dish : TONKATSU TAMAGO TOJI

"Deep-fried pork cutlet with egg and onions."

I didn't think it was really special or jaw-dropping but it was good in any case (which deep fried isn't??).

 The long awaited ramen! I ordered this Akamaru Kasaneaji.

 "Original recipe enhanced with Ippudo's special blended miso paste and fragrant garlic oil. Served with thin noodles, Buta Bara (pork belly), kikurage and spring onions, Ippudo's original refined modern style ramen."

Verdict: Unfortunately, falls a little short of expectation! I mean the noodles are great (I chose the chewiest texture of ramen) and the broth is simply packed with flavours and delicious, and all that but I think I may have tried a better one at Santouka in Tokyo Street Pavilion KL :S The one at Santouka was really simple, but the broth was crazily amazing.

At $15 plus $2 for additional Nitamago (flavoured egg), this is the costliest bowl of ramen I've ever had!

 Shiromaru Motoaji-
"Original recipe tonkotsu soup served with thin noodles. Rosu chashu (pork loin), cabbage, kikurage and spring onion. Smooth yet classic Hakata-style ramen."

Popo ordered this I tried hers. It's more alike the one I tried at Santouka hehehe.... Comparably, the ramen I had was richer, whereas the Shiromaru Motoaji was simpler. I'll be trying this bowl the next time I come here :D

 Gyoza!!! There were 5 of them in a plate and omg I love them! They are kind of small but it has the right amount of pork versus amount of vegetable or whatever that makes up a gyoza! Then when you put in the whole thing in your mouth right.... bliss! For some reason, Ippudo gyoza has a little soup filling, kind of like what you get from xiao long baos, but not as much as XLB, which I think is really good cause the gyozas I've tried before now seems too dry in comparison! lol.

 Springy noodles :D

 Interior of the restaurant. Very nice settings really but it's just too bad that you have to queue THAT long for  a bowl of ramen :s Darn it Singaporeans! :p

p/s Photos taken from my new iphone 4s ;) nice or not :D


Ippudo Singapore
333A Orchard Road
#04-02/03/04 Mandarin Gallery
Singapore 238897
Tel: 6235 2797