X'MAS - SEASON OF JOY & LAUGHTER
I alway love it whenever x'mas is approaching. This is because I noticed it is one of the few occasions when people really gets into the mood to celebrate an event together, buying gifts for loved ones, friends and families. Even though it does not snow in Singapore, the X'mas lightings and decorations evident in most major shopping centres and roads still allows me to soak up the X'mas spirit and bring a smile to my face. As usual, this year is the same, but instead of shopping at Orchard (which was our main purpose initially), me and Caroline ended up spending more time on taking photos. Haha... Click! Click! & more Clicks!
Rows & rows of dangling lights at Orchard Road!
Huge X'mas tree near paragon!
Me & Caroline under the huge X'mas tree
Even have Braun Buffel Tree. Cool~
I love this M&M mascot :)
Love this M&M house too. So colourful! :)
This year, celebrations with my beloved nutpals is at Grand Plaza Park hotel near cityhall. One of the reasons why i love X'mas so much is also because this is one of the rare occasions when everyone is free to meet up (usually there is alway 1 or 2 who can't meetup during normal days). Sometimes i really treasure these moments together, and i am so glad that our friendship remains as strong as ever even though we may not meet up that often nowadays. Thanks to them, this X'mas continues to be a season of endless fun & laughter for me! :)
As usual, the first thing when i stepped into a hotel room was to take pictures. The room seems fine, except for a missing luggage rack even though there is sufficient space for it. Weird...
The bathroom has a separate shower cubicle...
and a bathtub. Good! I preferred it this way.
They provide LCD TV with DVD player. Happy~ :)
View from our room: Can even see the swimming pool of Peninsular Excelsior Hotel, which is just opposite ours.
Rong preparing the lots for our gift exchange. Again, she surprised us with her new hairstyle and super long fake eyelashes. She said she looks more like a Mamasan than a teacher. Haha...
Our presents for the gift exchange. How our dear Groundnut managed to wrap a square-shaped present into such a weird shape is beyond everyone's imaginations. Lol~
Group Photo :)
Piggy Frenzy!
I love this pic! Haha... Everyone was laughing at our dear Donut's "自High" pose and she tried to defend herself by claiming that she was "acting dead". Objection overruled!!
Went to Ichiban Boshi for our dinner. I ordered the tempura chawamushi set. Yum!!!
Enjoying the food & the company!
Gift Exchange - Time to draw Lots!
Groundnut receiving her present from Coconut
The 2nd time me and peanut got each other's present. Wonder if next year will be 3rd time lucky. Haha...
Rong got a Santa hat from Donut!
Donut received a mug from Groundnut!
Coconut received an SKII mask from Rong. Wow...
And Peanut said she wanted this "Taboo" game as her birthday present. So we bought that for her and we get the chance to play with it too. Yeah~
All the gifts unwrapped!
Some cute light pointers given by Coconut from her recent Taiwan trip.
Personalised tiles with our names and pictures given by Rong
The extra gifts given by my nutpals! :)
Coconut also gave each of us a packet of "sanitary pad" from her Taiwan trip which turns out to be marshmallow -_-"' Surprisingly, it was quite delicious. Haha... Really gotta hand it to the Taiwanese to even think of using this as the packaging.
Coconut & Groundnut acting like 2 little cute "傻妹" Lol~
I got the chance to be a Santa Claus. Ho Ho Ho ~
1 Santa + 2 little cute gals!
Peanut gave me this dangling chain cos she said it looks like "Pau" which suits me -.- But i gotta admit that this "Pau" is really cute and i love it. Thanks Pea!
Planning a surprise for our birthday gal who just came out from her bath. Still gotta use some tricks to force her out as she was really taking her own sweet time inside. Haha...
Gelare Chocolate ice-cream cake. Nice!!! :)
Our delighted birthday gal
Game Time = Forfeit Time!
After enjoying our delicious ice-cream cake, we decided to try playing the 'Taboo' games that peanut just bought. We split into 2 teams of 3 with me, Peanut & Coconut in 1 team while Donut, Groundnut and Rong makes up the other team. Proud to say my team won all the 3 rounds and so poor Donut, Groundnut and Rong gotta do their forfeits thrice. Haha...
First Foreit:
Pole dancing with Rong acting as the pole. Lol~
Second Forfeit:
Imitating the classic scene from the tv drama, "金枕头"
And just nice our hotel pillow cover is gold in colour. "阿朗， 你听见了吗？" Wahahaa...
Third Forfeit:
"Romeo & Juliet" alternate ending - Juliet's plan to get rid of Romeo succeeded as she eloped with her new lover. Wahahaa...
Tired of constantly being in the losing team, Donut, Groundnut and Rong decided to try out for a new team combinations. This time round, i was being switched with Groundnut to the other team. Guess what? My new team won both the final 2 rounds again before they decided to stop playing. In the end i managed to avoid doing any forfeits. Wahahaa... Heng ah. So our poor Groundnut had a cameo role in every forfeits.
First Forfeit:
Another pole dancing
Second Forfeit:
Classic Scenes from the movie "赌圣" - The "Armpit-with-mole Qi Mong" and "Zhou Xing Xing"
Our score sheet - My winning "Bao Ba Zhang" team vs the losing "东亚病夫" team. Wahahaa...
Now i am looking forward to X'mas next year :)
Posted by 大路痴
@ 1:07 AM
1 comments
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007
HMMM... FOOD HEAVEN!
I don't usually do food review for some reasons:
First, i LOVE to eat and even though i am not exactly choosy about food (eg. don't want bean sprouts, onions, tomatoes, veg, internal organs, cannot be too oily, too spicy, too sweet, too salty and the list goes on...), i don't think i am qualified or dare to call myself a food critics. Yes, sometimes i do try to avoid some of the items from the list above but occasionally, i will still eat it if i am too lazy to remove it. However, there is 1 type of food which makes an exception: Brinjal!!! (I will rather die than eat this! Don't ask me why) Ironically, i dare to eat ladiesfinger even though they are rather similar except for the shape & colour. Funny hor...
Secondly, whenever i am hungry, the sight of food will make me lose self-control and i tend to gobble it up without second thoughts. Hence, i don't usually have the time to take pictures of food. In addition, I don't think my camera and photography skill is good enough to make even a bowl of plain rice looks like the most delicious thing anyone has ever seen before. Thus, usually i will leave it to the 'professionals' to do the job while i drool behind the scene. But occasionally i will still take some pictures for fun lah.
Ok. Stop. Enough of my crap. Wahahaa...
Anyway, it has been a few weeks since me and bb started on our weekly food hunt around Singapore. Our food guide is this guy by the name of Leslie Tay, a doctor whose passion for food influenced him to start a food blog (I think it was ZY who intro me to his blog) based on other people's recommendations and personally tried and tested by himself --->
http://ieatishootipost.blogspot.com/Our latest stop was Golden Mile Food Centre. Knowing that we will be trying out chocolates over there (cannot help it, i am a chocolate addict), i decided to be biased for once, bring along my digicam and do a food review for this food centre. Haha...
Our first item was the hainanese curry noodles at #B1-53, which i think was not bad, although my personal preference would be chicken shreds from the thigh instead of the breast (I don't really like breast meat). I also find the gravy not spicy enough (I like things hot & spicy! Haha). But overall, it is a decent plate of curry noodles. Mai hiam buay pai lah~
The second item we tried was the beef noodle at #01-89 "Kheng Fatt Beef Noodles". Yes, i actually tried this even though i THINK i am not supposed to eat it cos it's against my religion (Ssshhh...) But then, since we were on a food hunt, i was willing to give it a try. You will never know what surprise is in store for you if you never try right. We ordered the dry version of the bee hoon which the boss recommended us to try. Had a bite at the beef ball lst (at this moment, i heard the cows screaming. Just kidding.) Hmm... Normal leh. Doesn't really induce me to crave for more. I also find the gravy too thick and kinda like insufficient for the whole bowl of bee hoon. The only saving grace was the sliced beef which was actually quite tender. I wonder whether the soup version would be better. Overall, i felt that it was nothing special. Both of us did not even finish the bee hoon. Certainly a major disappointment considering that i actually went against my religion to try it.
The next stall we tried was the "Ah Balling Peanut Soup" at #01-75. Not sure whether i remember correctly, cos i think they have another stall along the Food Street in Smith Street (Chinatown). Anyway, we ordered a bowl of peanut and a bowl of sesame Ah Balling. Guess what? I absolutely love it! Especially the ones with peanut fillings. The skin was very chewy and the peanut fillings was nice and fragrant. Even though it was something rather new to him, my greedy ang moh (Grrrgh!) actually gobbled up most of the Ah Ballings while i was busy trying to take this photo for myself to drool at home:
~~~~~~ My Peanut Ahhhhhhhhhhhh Balling ~~~~~~
Our last stop and highlight of the day - Belgian chocolate!!!
The store name is called "Sweet Stone Parad Ice" at #01-67, which is started up by an Ang Moh(-.-) called Sebastian - in a hawker centre somemore!
Their stall is really high-tech... They even have a tv and scrolling LED to display and promote their menu sets. Strangely, the stall was managed by 2 chinese aunties instead of Sebastian. Initially we wanted to order the claypot chocolate fondue set with fruits and marshmallows as shown in the picture taken from Leslie Tay's blog:
But then considering we already ate some other dishes before that, i think the claypot fondue set above is too much for the both of us. So we ordered the gelato and waffle set with chocolate dip instead:
bb told me that one of the aunties scolded the other one cos apparently she gave him too much ice-cream (not sure what is the actual portion). Maybe the auntie thought he is the owner's friend since they are both ang moh. Haha... Had to quickly snap a picture of the set before the greedy hands start taking actions again!
Seriously, the waffle was DAMN GOOD, slightly crispy on the outside and warm inside. The only downside was that the portion was too small. With both of us being a chocolate fan, dark chocolate especially, the chocolate dip was perfect when mixed with the waffle. Just choco-licious! I certainly have no guilt or regrets if i were to eat it over and over again. Haha... Guess what we did with the remaining chocolate dip? We poured it over our ice-cream! No chocolates shall ever be wasted within our sight! lol~ Too bad the ice-cream tasted normal to me.
They even have a royalty card to accumulate points to claim for a free waffle or gelato. Talk about marketing strategy! Hmm... Maybe next time we shall try the claypot fondue set when we have an emptier stomach. Didn't managed to try all the stalls in Golden Mile Food Centre cos they are just too many. Probably gotta go back another time to try out the rest. But thank god for the belgian chocolate and the ah balling, otherwise i would have went home in disappointment after trying from the beef noodles stall.
Usually our modus operandi is to try as much food as possible from each food place in Leslie Tay's blog. To sum up our makan trip so far, i think the followings are the stalls we both think are worth a second try:
ABC Food Centre - Fatty Cheong Char Siew (The best Char Siew i tried so far!)
Adam Road Food Centre - Selera Rasa Adam Road No.1 (The basmati rice was so good that we even bought a packet from NTUC to try cooking at home! Haha...)
Bukit Timah Food Centre - Mien by FirstPasta (bb ordered the tomato based spagetti which i don't really like due to the tomato sauce. However, according to bb's friend, Ross who i think ordered the carbonara, he said it was very good + there was a lot of +ve reviews from other people. So i am willing to give this stall a second chance)
Golden Mile Food Centre - Needless to say, it must be the Ah Balling and the belgian chocolate with waffle which we tried above.
Margaret drive Food Centre - You Char Kway (tried with my ex-colleagues last time, fresh & crispy!), Xin Ji Chicken Rice(Everything! The chilli, the rice and the meat. But standard seems to have dropped a bit the last time i went there), Shanghai dim sum (The steam dumplings are really value for money), Char Kuey Teow (not yet try but heard it's good & even receives thumbs up from bb who tried it before)
Sim Lim Square Food Centre - Hock Kee/Qi Ji Poh Piah, Shanghai Delights (another value for money steam dumplings without comparing to crystal jade or those high class restaurants of course)
Tiong Bahru Market - Jia Xiang Carrot Cake - black version (not tested by Leslie but we like it & so do my friends)
We have not gone to Tanjong Pagar area yet cos both of us worked around there last time. So we decided to skip there first since we had tried out some of the food individually. It is a food heaven over there too - Char Kuey Teow, Nasi Lemak, Chocolate Muffins, Wanton Mee, Prawn Noodles etc. So many good food!
Noticed that most of the places above are in the west/central. Being a West-erner, i must say actually west side still have some good food loh, just that not as many compared to the east. So now i am already trying hard to convince bb to eat in the east someday. He is always too lazy to travel there even though got bike + we have a common obstacles: 2 路痴！So imagine what will happen when 2 West-erners go East -_-"' I can predict he will need to top up his petrol more often. Haha... However, i believe we will definately travel there someday cos sooner or later, we will run of places to eat in the west/central area assuming if we only follow Leslie Tay's blog (Of course i have other sources which i didnt tell bb so that he will be forced to go east. Wahahaa *Evil grin) For the time being, gotta stop our makan session temporary for 2 weeks cos as usual, he is on holidays again. Sigh~ Must make him compensate for my time once he's back. Hmph!
Looking forward to January :)
Yes, no need to guess. This is my Chao Ang Moh! Wahahaa...
Posted by 大路痴
@ 11:55 PM
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