Showing posts with label Pictures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pictures. Show all posts

Saturday 19 April 2014

Desaru road trip ; 29-30 March 2013

This was last year 29-30 March 2013 and it has been lying in my drafts folder for a really long time and I've finally decided to post this up.

It's our first ever road trip with my family & I'm glad we enjoyed ourselves even though it's only for a night! :)

I'm not able to transfer pictures over from my phone, so here are the ones that are from my dad's camera.












"date in da zooooooooooooooo"


& so the boy and I spent our Good Friday yesterday at the Singapore Zoo! But before that, we headed to the temple to pray and had brunch with his parents. Thank god it didn't rain as the previous time we wanted to go to the Zoo, it rained cats & dogs!

Haha and while we were on the way to the Zoo's carpark, we saw that there were many cars parked illegally alongside the road, and next time we will do just that! Parking fees was $7 for the 3 hours we were there. #soexpensive!

Shall let some of the pictures do the talking now:











Thank you for the wonderful day well spent honey, you are always amazing in your own way. You never fail to bring a smile to my face and ease my troubled mind & heart. I really love you so, so much, always and always will be.


"I'll give you all of me, cause you're my end and my beginning" <3

Saturday 12 April 2014

Buttermilk scones

Whenever I dine at Popeyes, I seldom eat the biscuit (which I later knew from BunnyBoi) that they're actually called "scones". He would always say that they're nice and it's his favourite, hence I've decided to try my hands on it!

I adapted the recipe from: http://www.nofrillsrecipes.com/2012/07/buttermilk-scones.html?m=1 and I like that the recipe makes out 5 instead of a dozen like other recipes do.

Ingredients:

  • 200g self raising flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 50g cold butter
  • 150g buttermilk (I used Meiji low fat milk + 2 tbsp lemon juice & let it stand for 30mins)
Steps:
  • preheat oven to 220 deg celsius
  • Sift flour 3x
  • combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and manually whisk it to combine
  • add cold butter (straight from the fridge and cut into cubes) and use fingers to combine all together until it looks like bread crumbs
  • create a well in the middle and add milk (careful not to add too much like I did!) 
  • use a spatula to combine all ingredients together until it becomes thick and sticky
  • transfer to lightly floured tabletop and lightly knead (i've read from various blogs that we shouldn't knead too much as it may cause the scones to toughen.)
  • use a cookie cutter and transfer the scones to place them beside each other onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.
  • bake @ 220deg celsius for 15-20mins (however for mine, i don't know why it took me close to 60mins for the browning on top to surface!)
  • transfer onto wire tray to cool
  • serve warm with jam/butter any seasoning of choice

Unfortunately, I've added too much milk onto the batter and it turned out quite gooey, hence I've to keep adding more flour for the texture to be right before lightly kneading them into a dough to be cut out using a cup. 

Another thing to note was maybe the circumference of my cup was too big? Instead of 5 pieces I managed to cut 3, & it took about an hour for the scones to brown at the top. 

I was about to think that "this is yet another failed attempt" when......

TAAAADAAAAA!!!


I'm so so happy! Thank you @nofrillsrecipe for this wonderful recipe! :)


Sunday 30 March 2014

It's all about eating feasts in JB!

BunnyBoi and I crossed the causeway last Sunday with my family and we as BunnyBoi has mentioned.. It's all about feasting when you're in JB!

Here's half of our dimsum breakfast! It's my first experiencing the traditional way dimsums are served - the server will carry trays filled with many different dishes and you'd get to choose! 
Next, we went to some kind of hyper market and got our baking supplies! I love love them and I can't wait to start baking cupcakes soon! :)))

We ended off the short trip by having a sumptuous feast of fresh seafood! There's fresh oysters, clams, steamed prawns, Indonesian curry prawns, salted egg yolk crabs, chilli crabs, water snails, steamed seabass and mantou buns for the chilli crabs! 

The bill totaled up to be about SGD260 and it was shared amongst all 11 of us. Super worth it!! But can't do this every week else it's gonna be very, VERY sinful!
I love times spent together with you honey! Hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I did! <3 



Sunday 23 March 2014

Home cooked with love

BunnyBoi came over yesterday and we had oven roasted salmon & asparagus for lunch! :))


I'd wanted to do a crispy skin but soft meat but the skin was burnt really badly as the flame we used was too hot and too much oil was used for this dish. 

Overall I love love baked salmon and I'm glad that BunnyBoi enjoyed this meal we both prepared together. We'll cut down on the oil in future! 


Next, we both successfully baked a chocolate ganache cake for our first attempt!! 

I got the recipe from joyofbaking.com and it's really a "mix-in-the-pan-cake". 

I altered the recipe to my own preference as her recipe is really toooooo sweet.

Ingredients include: 
- 195g all purpose flour
- 50g caster sugar
- 25g unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda 
- pinch of salt 
- 240ml warm water 
- half a lemon, squeezed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence 

All we did was to add the ingredients listed 1 by one and then manually whisk it! 

By the time it was of a consistent texture, we lined the cake pan with butter and flour, and pour the mixture in!

Oh and before that we had to preheat the oven to 180deg Celsius and placed the cake pan in the centre of the oven for 35 minutes. The toothpick inserted in the centre came out totally clean!!! 

Due to time constraints, we cooled the cake at room temperature for 30mins, and proceeded on with our chocolate ganache frosting.

Chocolate ganache ingredients:
- 1 whole bar of Van... Baking chocolate 
- 1/3 of Bulla thickened cream
- 1 tablespoon room temperature butter 

Melt the ingredients over a double boiler and adjust thickened cream to your liking. 

Once time's up, pour chocolate onto cake and freeze for 30mins. (We later learned from BunnyBoi's mum that it can be cooled in the normal fridge section to harden)

And..... Viola!!




I've always wanted to bake with my boyfriend and I'm so so glad that it's you that I'm doing it with. I'm looking forward to many more cookings and bakings with you honey. I love you. <3


Happy anniversary once again!


Met the boy last Friday to celebrate our anniversary and I can finally say that I've tried Just Acia! 

We ordered creamy chicken & salmon teriyaki pasta + chawanmushi to share and I'd wish that the salmon fillet was a thicker slice. Overall, I think that the teriyaki and cream sauce don't really go well together. Its still a good meal with BunnyBoi anyway! :)


"You're the one I run to, the world I belong to. You're still the one I want for life."

Sunday 16 March 2014

Air purifier & ionizer


I've recently purchased an air purifier $14.80 (left) and an ionizer $34.80 (right) from Qoo10, previously known as Gmarket Singapore during their time sale + $3.90 Qexpress delivery.

I would say that this is the fastest experience in Qoo10 that I've ever received! The item came 2 days after I've ordered and it was delivered on a Saturday noon. 

The smaller one was bigger than I'd expected and I used that for my room while the bigger one with ionizer that's known to trap heat I've placed it in my grandma's room! 

The good thing about this purchase is it is affordable and definitely cheaper than those sold in the malls, but the downside would be that it's quite noisy as you can hear the motor sound churning when the switch is on. Oh and another redundant point is that the ionizer has a blue LED light that doesn't switch off until you off the main power, which makes sleeping at night harder due to the loud motor sound and the blue light.

Overall, I'd say it's a good buy though what you pay, is what you get :)

Hopefully the ionizer will work as shown in the video as the haze these days are getting higher:



You can find other items and aromatherapy oils from the seller here : 
http://www.qoo10.sg/GMKT.INC/Goods/Goods.aspx?goodscode=413909457

Sunday 9 March 2014

Penny University

The boy brought us to Penny University for a late brunch yesterday and it was really accessible by taking bus 10 from Tampines! We alighted just after Caltex and it's within 10-15mins walking distance to Katong 112.

Here's what we ordered: eggs benedict with smoked salmon and smoked chicken breast sandwich to share. 

I wasn't a big fan of eggs benedict as I didn't like that the yolk oozes out onto the food, one which the boy loves much more than I do. However, I like that the bread that came together with this set was easy to cut into, as the previous one which we had at Eggs & Berries weren't.

The smoked chicken breast sandwich was tasty too as well however the toast was slightly over-toasted(?) and it was kinda un-glam and I had a hard time trying to cut it.

Both dishes would definitely be better if they served it with more cherry tomatoes as only 1 were given.

We also ordered iced chocolate due to some reviews and it was actually milk with chocolate fudge. Tastes alright though I will definitely order the coffee drinks on our next visit!

Passionfruit meringue tart

Dessert was passionfruit meringue tart and the boy said that it was much better than the lemon tart! The crust was really thick and crunchy and the underneath the cream was the passionfruit filling that is sour and sweet at the same time. 

We went walking around Katong 112 and Parkway Parade and watched Non Stop after that starring Niam Neeson and the plot is about the air marshall receiving a threat saying to remit U$150m else he has to race against time to save the lives of each passenger every 20 mins.

Thank you for planning this date out and never giving up on me. I love you honey! <3

Friday 7 March 2014

The Time Keeper ; Mitch Albom


I love reading books like these.  It makes me think back and realize that our lives are truly precious and we should treasure it before its too late..

I'm gonna borrow another book to read. One at a time. :)

Thursday 6 March 2014

Lunch deal @ Nihon Mura


Went Nihon Mura for lunch at Tampines swimming complex today and all I can say is....

It's really value for money!! :))


We ordered chicken teriyaki rice and salmon teriyaki rice for myself. For sides we had chocolate eclairs, salmon sashimi, cream puffs, mochi and agedashi tofu. Oh and it's much better if you ordered their cold drinks as it comes in a can! Really super worth it cause 1 can of drink from the coffeeshop is already $1.50 haha.

However the downside would be that they serve the desserts together with the mains. So by the time we finished our rice, the desserts were semi-melted.

Oh and I like that their rice is served in the stone pot! There's some harden rice that tastes great too.

Wouldn't mind coming here again for the lunch deal again next month! 

Saturday 1 March 2014

Thai Express

Had Thai Express for dinner last night and we ordered the set meal which is value for money! 


There's another dish where it's roasted chicken but the soup served is winter melon. Hence, we didn't order that as you can get winter melon soup from those Chinese soup stalls like 老火汤.

We ordered both the green curry (not in picture) and the tamarind fish set. 

For the tamarind fish set, the soup was supposed to be seafood Tomyam but apparently all we found were mushrooms lolol. 

The soup is too spicy for our liking and for the fish, only 2 pieces were served. I liked how the sweet sauce complimented the fried fish but it would've been better if maybe an additional piece is provided though their rice portion is just nice for 1 person.

Thursday 27 February 2014

New Udon Mookata ; Golden Mile


Ended work on the dot today and went to have Mookata aka Thai steamboat with my colleagues at New Udon Thai, Golden Mile. It's very easy to locate it as its on the 1st level.

It's my first time trying out Mookata and I can finally say that I've tried how Thai steamboat is like! It's really different from our normal BBQ/steamboat as the soup and BBQ area is much smaller as compared to the Chinese style of BBQ steamboat. 

For us girls, we shared a set of chicken only and what you see here costs us $45/set!! 

It's quite on the expensive and unworthy side I must say as I don't think the plate of meat, bowl of vegetables, 2 eggs and tang hoon is worth $45... More like $25 haha.

However, the positive part of this meal is that I love how the chicken is marinated and it tastes really sweet! Don't forget to eat your rice with some of their sweet and spicy chilli provided free flow. 

Other than that.. Unless you're a small eater and don't mind paying alot, you can give this place a try. Otherwise, I'm sure there are other mookata places which serves affordable prices and provides more meat and vegetables.  


New Udon Thai Food Mookata
5001 Beach Road, #01-55 Golden Mile Complex
Open daily 9am to 6am

Sunday 23 February 2014

Homemade pizza!

(Photo credits to BunnyBoi @jxnr)

BunnyBoi's mum made Hawaiian & teriyaki chicken pizza yesterday! It's my first time seeing how pizza is actually made and I got to fill up the ingredients! There's shredded Parmesan and cheddar cheese, pineapple, onion, sausages, ham and teriyaki chicken.

I really admire his mum, even after a long day's of work she's still preparing sumptuous dishes for everyone, washing up and then cutting fruits for us to eat. I hope I can be like her in future! Always placing family first. 

And of course.. Without her, there wouldn't be you, Junxian. I love how much you love your mum, and I love how you sometimes help your mum with her chores without complaining. You are such a peaceful person and being in your home shows me the reason why. I love you <3



Sunday 22 September 2013

Taiwan trip day 1 ; Ximending

Hello! I've finally got the time to start on our 10 days Taiwan trip from 1st - 10th September 2013

Every posts are gonna be full of pictures & words as I hope these details will help anyone who are heading to Taiwan have a better gauge of what to see/do/bring/, hence please bear with me ya! :)

To start things off, we got our flight tickets from Tiger Airways back in May 2013 when they were having a 1-for-1 promo for all NTUC card members. The prices were the same if we went for just 7 days or 10days, hence we decided to make our money worthwhile by opting for the 10 days duration. We also purchased a 20kg check-in luggage to Taipei and a 30kg check-in luggage back to Singapore. *Do note that Tiger allows combining of luggage(s) hence you don't have to buy for each passenger!*

Total price of air fares ~ S$539.99 / 2 = S$270 each for 10 days with 20kg/30kg check-in luggage.

Another thing that I would like to encourage you to bring along is this Taipei guide book that my friend lent to me! It's like a dummy's guide to Taipei or the holy-taipei101-bible. This book covers cafes, stalls, restaurants, shops from every MRT line. It's really like an adventure trying to locate some of the recommended places listed in the book but the end result?? COMPLETE SATISFACTION for the food and reaching a very short term goal. The bad news is.... I don't know where can this book be purchased as my friend's sister got it from Hongkong and... EVERYTHING IS IN CHINESE. HAHA GOODLUCK.




Oh yes, for girls who (like me) don't intend to shop in Taiwan, these are the amount of clothes I bring over. I actually brought a tad too much though! The only clothing item I bought in Taiwan was 1 paisley skort which can be seen in the later posts)


Here are the list of what I brought (in a snake manner clockwise) :


- 3 dresses *can actually bring 1*
- 2 rompers
- 1 shawl + 1 cardigan
-1 set of basic top + tweed shorts
- 1 set of lace top + denim hws
- 1 set of basic tank top + cotton on skorts
-1 set of houndstooth top + shorts
-1 set of sleep wear
- 1 spaghetti tank to wear under sheer tops / + megagamie digi prints skirt *can omit the skirt*
- 1 set of cream top + cotton on skorts
- 4 extra tops (peplum + tees) *can omit*



We woke up early for our check in at 0655 and thanks to my dad for driving us there! :)

Mandatory breakfast shot of Changi Airport's MacBreakfast.

Waiting for our numbers to be called before entering the plane. 

Goodbye Singapore!

We were really lucky to be allocated the emergency exit seats as there were more leg room for us for the 4 hours+ flight without any additional charge. 


Touched down at Taoyuan International Airport and the first thing we did was to purchase their Taiwan sim cards! P/s: For easy reference & calculation, every NTD100 is equivalent to SGD4.


When you exit the arrival hall, turn right and walk straight all the way until you see on your right there will be 3 telco counters selling sim cards. I think their 3 teleco's are like Singapore's M1, Singtel and Starhub. 

We bought the cards from 台弯大哥大 (Taiwan Da Ge Da) as it was the shortest queue of all but there weren't any hiccups during our 10 days in Taiwan so I would recommend this if the queue is short!

You can choose from the plan depending on how many days you are in Taiwan. We got ourselves a  10 day pass (Plan E) for NTD500 (~S$20) which consists of unlimited data usage and NT100 worth of talk time which is about 10-15minutes? I used that to call home on certain days and to contact our Hualien private guide - Tiffany Chang. Will blog about that more in Day 4!

We had late lunch at their convenience store called Hi-Life located at 1 level below the arrival hall. It'll be better if you take a lift as it leads you directly.

In Taiwan, you will never be hungry as their convenience stores such as 7-11, Hi-Life and Family Mart will leave you spoilt for choice from their instant noodles to their traditional Lok-Lok aka our yongtaufoo to their snacks and majority of the drinks that are not on the shelves anywhere in Singapore. Oh and did I mention that everytime you step into the 7-11 store, you WILL smell their fragrant herbal tea leaves eggs!!! I LOVE IT but because of the first day's herbal eggs purchase, the herbs were not fully absorbed into the eggs, I kinda ate a normal hard boiled egg instead and had a phobia of purchasing another herbal tea egg from any convenience stores. 

Tea Egg NTD8  + Creamy Chicken Pasta NTD 62 + Honey Red Tea NTD20 = NTD90 (~S$3.80)

Taiwan's easy card : 悠游卡 (Youyouka) which is similar to our ez-link card.
The card itself is a non-refundable deposit of NTD100 + we topped up NTD200 value. (~S$12)



We then took a Freego coach (from Hi-Life walk straight out, turn left and you will see some counters again) to our hotel for NT70 (~S$3) each and the ride lasted us for 2.5hours.

Before you go up the coach the driver or his assistant will pass you a map & guide you to inform you on which stop name to hear and look out for, and when it was the stop for alighting, the driver will call the station name out and we would alight - to then change into another shuttle bus to 西门 (Xi Men) as our hotel is located there.

Inside the shuttle bus!

However from the shuttle bus onwards you'll have to be sure of the roads & buildings as the driver wouldn't be informing you of your station to alight so please refer to your map!

As our hotel Muzik Hotel is located at 西门 (Xi Men), we alighted at 簏夏 (Lu Xia) and we were really surprised to see that our hotel is just walking distance from the alighting bay! 

Our hotel is inside/beside the huge "Miranda" poster. You can also see Just Sleep Hotel which is the green building on the left!

Entrance of Muzik Hotel, which is also known as  簏夏(Lu Xia) Hotel. Btw that is the closest "lu" I can get on my keyboard. Their lobby is located on the 5th level and rooms are on the 8th.

The prettiest hotel card I've ever seen!
As the hotel has a late check-in policy at 3pm, we were not affected by it as we arrived there at around 4.30pm and our rooms were allocated to us within 5mins! It is located 5 minutes away from the local 西门丁 (Xi Men Ding) and the location is really easy to find as it is opposite Just Sleep Hotel and near Xi Men station. Their staffs even helped us with 1 of our luggage and their bed is really huge and comfy! I like that their room is small yet cozy as stepping into the room makes us feel at home. Do note that for our room there are no windows, no cupboards though only 4 hangers provided but our toilet did have a bathtub. Housekeeping was done well too and they also provided complimentary snacks, coke, sprite and mineral water for us everyday. Free wifi is provided too but we didn't use it as we had unlimited 3G data! Their air-con however is hard to be adjusted into your required temperature as it will automatically change by itself (we woke up 1 morning to find that it was 16deg!)

I'd call this the triple king-sized bed!




We booked this room online via Agoda and they were having an early bird promotion. We stayed a total of 3 nights there and paid S$252.70 which amounts to S$84.23 per night! We split the hotel charges among us and each paid S$126.35, which is even cheaper considering we paid S$42.17 for this kinda hotel!

And now.. It's time for dinner at 西门丁 (Xi Men Ding) !

Food #1 : 阿宗面线 (Ah Zong Mian Xian) 


阿宗面线 (Ah Zong Mian Xian) 
Located at No. 8-1 Emei St, Wanhua District, Taipei City
Opening hours : 1100 - 2230 (Mon-Thurs) & 1100 - 2300 (Fri-Sun)

I couldn't really remember how to get to this stall but if you were to take exit 6 from Ximen Mrt, it will be about a 5-minute walk around the corner. 
A large bowl costs only NTD60 (~S$2.60)

Instead of the usual oyster mee sua, they actually served pork intestines and their noodles has a smooth texture to it. Beware of the chili sauce though! Just a tiny spoonful and it was kinda spicy for me.

Food #2 : 葱油饼 (Onion pancake)
Onion pancake + cheese :NTD35 (~S$1.40)

This stall is just walking distance from Ah Zong Mian Xian and it is actually prata!! But the prata is already mixed with spring onions and we ordered one with additional topping of 1 slice of cheddar cheese. It's really naizeeeeeee when the cheddar melted due to the heat from the pancake and it's crispy as well! Definitely not the usual prata you have in SG. You should give it a try and it's available almost everywhere. *Do note that it would be better to go to the stall that doesn't have many of the pancakes already made as we may not know how long has it been left out in the open. Ours were made fresh!

Ps : Do you know that Cheese in chinese is actually 起士!Haha really direct translation.

Food #3 : White bittergourd with honey from 柠檬屋



This was in the Taiwan guide book but I don't have the exact location as I've already returned the book to  my friend. But it's really easy to find! When you walk towards 豪大鸡排 (Hot Star chicken cutlet), turn to the left, walk straight all the way and you will see the stall.  


Honey bittergourd : NTD60 (~S$2.60)
As BunnyBoi has said in his instagram @jxnr : trying this gives you a better understanding of the chinese saying 先甜后苦 (Sweet first, bitter later). You'll taste the sweetness of the honey at first and after swallowing the drink, you will then start to taste the bitterness lingering in your taste buds.

Heading back towards the direction of Hot Star, we couldn't help but be lured by the fragrance of the carrot cake and here comes :

Food #4 : Fried carrot cake from 天天利 (Tian Tian Li)



Fried carrot cake : NTD25 (~S$1.06)

This carrot cake has a very fragrant smell, is chewy on the inside yet crispy on the outside topped with their sweet chili sauce. I also like that it doesn't have much of the flour aftertaste unlike for some carrot cakes that has it.

Next up would another of the highly acclaimed by everyone else who's been to Taiwan :

Food #5 : 起士马铃署 (Prince Cheese Potatoes)



Club & Cheese : NTD65 (~S$2.80)

Their mashed potatoes are really delicious with the generous topping of corns & ham and for cheese lovers, this will be heaven for you as it is submerged in cheese. For myself, I find that the cheese gets a tad too overpowering after a few mouthfuls which made eating the potatoes very... Tiring?



MUST BUY BEVERAGE IN TAIWAN!!!!

Almost all of Taiwan's Uniqlo stores are flagship stores.



I'm finally done with day 1! Yay!! Here's ending this post with our OOTD!

On him:
Top & bottom from Uniqlo x Shoes from Vans

On Myself:
Dress from inhousefashion x Shoes from Bangkok