Dinner at Fisherman's Wharf

I had dinner on Sunday night with Shu Yi and Philip at Fisherman's Wharf, near Clarke Quay MRT station. Right-o, this is no thanks to me kicking start Philip's craving for fish and chips, following my post on District 10's offering of fish and chips. Har har har.. my bad I know. 

But in a way, his craving backfired on me. He had fish and chips at Fisherman's Wharf and told me about it. In the end, we ended up at this very place, his second fish and chips in a row at this place over a rather short period of time. 

This time he definitely went back with revenge in mind or something similar. We ordered fish and chips of 2 different types of fishes, one is lemon sole fillet and the other one is just controversial. I remembered Philip saying he will be ordering the silver cod fillet (Please correct me if I am wrong) but when the server plopped the item in front of me, he had announced it to be snow fish. And now, I can't recall what I ate. To boot up our orders, we got prawn fritters and calamari rings as sides. Haha, when the food came, it occurred to me suddenly that there is a lot of food! 

Shu Yi who came later, got herself a cream dory fillet. She said there's is no point ordering some fancy pancy fish as she can't tell the difference. Noting her point, I decided to test my fish tasting skills. The cod fillet was from a big fish I would guess, the flakes are a lot larger. The texture is tougher. The sole fillet was softer and smaller flakes. There is a slight difference in taste but I am not so fishy about fish that I can tell the difference. So her point is quite legit. :)

The batter for the fish and chips was a bit too thick and heavy for me but i guess it was fried at a good temperature since it was not oozing in oil when served. They used the same batter for the prawns. I enjoyed the prawns but the batter, I feel, didn't compliment the prawns. As for the calamari, I had expected it to be of thick batter too but it was very lightly deep fried in a super thin coat of batter. It was nice but somehow I wished it would have more crunch to it. 

It was a good day of fish and chips consumption. Not utterly oil choked though not awesome amazing. 

As I was too hungry and started attacking the food before I took a picture, there is none to post. But it is ok. Whoever who wants to have a bite can just go there rite? :)

Girl Hopper

There are pigs everywhere out there. For the amount of pigs out there, I guess it would be fair to note that there are a more or less equal amount of bitches out there. You see, there is a need to remember that there are 2 sides to a coin. 

I feel like talking about people with commitment issues. Most likely those who have such issues are in denial or refuses to see this as an issue at all. A better way to call it would be a lifestyle. Given that there is no such thing as a free lunch, for such a lifestyle someone has got to pay. 

Imagine a situation whereby a guy breaks up with his girlfriend out of the blue. Next thing you know he has a new girlfriend. It is all good as all healthy human beings are expected to get over the break up, pick things up and continue with life. However, for the girl who got dumped there will be many questions  about what went wrong etc going through her head that most likely will go unanswered. With a head full of unanswered questions, this girl finds out that she has been replaced (in a very quick manner). In most cases, the first reaction would be to think that the replacement girl is the slut who caused the end of her relationship with the guy.

This is where we pause and recall that a coin has 2 sides! What about the other side of the story? What about the guy has been approaching this new interest of his and has been telling her a very different story from what the reality is to his now ex-girlfriend? Isn't it possible? Little white lies mixed with a quarter of the truth usually make very compelling stories in general, with more drama and suspense compared to a standard weather forecast. In that case, what should the girl do? Warn the new girl that she may be in for a ride by the serial girl hopper? 

This is where the gray area starts: 

1. Is it morally acceptable to tell on your ex to his/her new partner?

2. Would you be taken seriously?

3. Will it backfire on  you and send you to the highest level of embarrassment? There is possibility that the new girl is a guy hopper after all.

This is sad. For the most part, no one would care enough to do the right thing, which is to protect our own gender from being bullied/lied/mistreated/misled into a temporary false sense of happiness that will end up in pieces before you say break up. 

The female gender has always been disadvantaged at the fact that if you seek happily after, you gotta note the years that will fly past quickly (Statistics show that it is usually harder for matured ladies to be partnered off unless you are an awesome cougar). If you dream of having offsprings of your own, you need to keep a watch on that bio-clock. (Modern technology is great but it doesn't mean that everyone can afford that kind of convenience) So, if you end up with a girl hopper and got left aside, some years older, a lil' bit more wrinkled and a smaller baby window, is it the fault of your own who chose to ignore signs of commitment issues or the fault of the ex who chose not to warn you?

Everyone has to care for themselves, although sometimes doing the right thing seems to be well, just right. After all, everyone deserves their happily after somehow or another. Most folks just don't want to end up facing the world alone, and in general girl hoppers too have this fear. Perhaps a bigger fear that most of us. The saddest part is that they need a lot longer to realize that it is their fear that causes them to actually, end up alone.

We are all same same but different

Yesterday I went to bed with a terribly active mind, focused on how I wanted to bitch, and that I want to do it here. Okay, in general, taking a dump in public is considered not so polite but to see it from a more objective perspective, let's put it as I have an opinion that I would like to voice out, regarding:

"Oh, you dating another ang moh again?"

I feel that I have had enough of getting the above line from people I know. As many of them claimed that their sentence is very innocent and it is merely to find out if my boyfriend is ang moh (caucasian/white) or not. Unfortunately for their innocence or ignorance, when you phrase a sentence like that, there is a hint of negativity associated with the words "another" and , especially "again". Likely examples would be, "Oh, you are doing it again?", "Oh, you are taking another smoke again?". Imagine we reuse the example, with a positive element, like an A grade from an exam, "Oh, you got another A again?" or "Oh, you got A again?"

As demonstrated, even if a positive element is used, the sentence does not come out as positive. In such cases, do I need to explain myself when I felt offended by these individuals? I highly suggest that they sign up for English courses with the British Council or any other institutes offering similar classes, as I do not wish for my other half to be insulted and seen as someone negative as well as that I do not need to be judged by people I talk to once a year.

While we are at this, I would like to call for these people with funny perspectives of judging me to think twice and rejudge. I did not specifically hunt down white guys. I happened to have a crushes on Asian (of my own race in particular) males, which resulted in as all crushes do, nothing. Do I drool over hot Asian guys? For sure! I even find Chinese guys with single eye lids super cute. I base the same criteria of interests and qualities as deal maker or breaker on all guys, regardless of what color they are. (That is why the book Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus from John Gray is such a hit, it applies to one and all). Look at it this way,  I like a chivalrous guy who holds your heavy shopping bags for you, who lets you walk first and opens the doors for you and above all, respects you and love you for who you are. I love to bond through food, so my guy gotta know how to cook. I like a guy with a sense of hygiene and understands the basics of housekeeping. See, my criteria is not based on color or nationality.

As it is with life, one does not hold on to a fixed checklist or a portrait with which you compare it to with every potential person. Life is unpredictable. And taking it all in stride makes simply makes it a lot more interesting. As long as you are comfortable with the person, checks out the majority of the points on your checklist, life rocks.

(On a side note, I always have the feeling that I am hardly approached by Chinese males because:

1. I don't meet a lot of them, at work or at play. I don't intend to date my guy friends from my own network circle as I see them more like good pals or well, just friends.

2. I am huge compared to many Chinese chicks out there who are in my terms, stick thin. My flaw is to have curves.

3. I am plain. I do not put on makeup 99% of the time as compared to many who does out there therefore they don't see me.)

So whoever has the guts to show his affection to me or be attracted to me and show it, in general, wins and gets another check on my list. By the way, do realize that we are part of the MTV generation. Everyone is this world grow up eating the same Happy Meals, listening to the same hits, watching the same cartoons from Disney and Nickelodeon and of course, watching the same movie blockbusters while gorging on popcorn. How different do you think you could get these days?

Melaka (01-05-10 to 02-05-10)

Preparations/planning for the Melaka trip is nearly done! I have found out how to get there without paying the monstrous prices express coaches thinks fit to charge. I also found ourselves a very charming little inn, right at the heart of the Heritage area. No hotels with stars! The pictures of the hotel rooms look so stifling, crumbly and definitely suffocating. I am glad Soenke is happy with my decision to get us something different. 

Here is the link of the place I found. It is run by a couple (Malaysian and Korean couple) who are hand painting artists. They ventured into the hotel business recently. And I love the old school style of booking via phone. Pure trust. I just needed to give him my name, phone number and our date of arrival. That's it. He didn't ask for credit card number etc. I like. 

Da Som Inn by Tripadvisor

Da Som Inn's own homepage 

Am I excited? Definitely, although it is just Melaka. I have been wanting to go back to that place for ages to re-explore.

Fish & Co Express @ Downtown East

After my conversation with Philip about the fish and chips I had at District 10 yesterday, I decided to give the fish and chips at Fish & Co Express a go. Fish & Co Express is a concept store of Fish & Co that sells food fast food style and is, so far, available at Downtown East only.

Noting that I had previously came across a list showing the top 10 fish & chips places in Singapore, I was a serious fella with this particular pack of fish and chips (also known as f&c). You see, I was already at District 10 and had an awesome time eating their f&c before I knew of this list. And after checking out that list, I was rather doubtful about the legitimacy of the list. Nonetheless now I have sought for the truth and is enlightened!

Do note that I had my f&c to go, so the fries were slightly moist by the time I got home. Still I have to say I do not like the fries, simply because I prefer fatter fries like MOS Burger fries. As for the fish, it was on the darker golden brown side. So that would mean on the over-fried side. I can see the oil glistening on the crust and as I cut into the fish, at one point, some oil squirted out. Well understandably it is after deep fried food but deep fried food does not equal soak in oil food. Note that. As for the taste it is okay. Let's talk about the whole package. I did not have that "oh wow" feeling that I had from District 10 f&c. There's only 1 piece of fish in an order of f&c but half way there I was kinda sick of it already. Another bad sign. I was beginning also to feel the oiliness of the fish (bearing in mind, it's a medium sized fillet only) so another not good.

I would say overall it is goddamn unfair to base the votes just on popularity. What if the voters only have been to Fish & Co Express only? What if they have never tasted a reallyy good piece of f&c? Based on just popularity is not good enough, unless there is a standard to it e.g. the voters tasted all f&c in the listed restaurants/outlets and have to rate for the best tasting one. 

I could only say "bleh.. thanks but no thanks.." I'd definitely think twice about trusting lists again.  

A night out with Hui Ying

I don't remember how it happened but me and Hui Ying were supposed to go chomp down ramen in town, like according to the list of must-eat ramen in Singapore. Well it is actually her commitment to that list but I being the usual kay poh chee decided to hop on the ramen bandwagon.

We ended up meeting at Ion instead of Mandarin Gallery and decided to be flexible and window shopped at Ion. After poking around through many items, I decided that it's time for dinner. But we had no idea where. We ventured out of Ion and into Wheelock Place and somehow came across this place called "The Pasta Shop by Sakae". It's a great sign. There was no queue! We went in and took a seat after perusing their menu. Hey, instead of ramen we ended up eating soup with pasta!

Hui Ying got a chicken kimchi pasta and I had a seafood miso something. When our food finally arrived, we both swapped spoonsful of soups to check them out. Both were yummy. But since I was in a mood for something simple I really enjoyed every mouthful of mine. The thing is you expect miso to be rather salty. This soup base however is 清甜, in other words, clear soup that is just rightly flavorful where you can savor a sweetness that is a result  of the mixture of the ingredients infused together. Ya, chinese folks have a really odd way of describing and enjoying soup. Well, nonetheless, it was great. I could drink the whole bowl of it and won't get the scratchy throat feeling I usually get from the standard miso soup. 

After dinner, we wondered around some more and passed by Paragon. We noticed that there was something flashy going on inside so we popped in to investigate. There was a runway set up with models walking up and down. Turns out we stumbled into a modelling rehearsal. Woah, the models had like endless legs.. To enjoy the legs further, we plopped ourselves on the seat and stuck through the whole rehearsal, checking out the legs, the faces, the styles and discussing if some had a bra on or not. The way the walk is so showy of the female body and even makes their assets all bouncy. Oh and there were 2 male models too. Nice to look at as with all eye candies but we felt that they don't have much to do. They don't need to twist their bodies and flaunt so much compared to the girls. Just need to walk naturally down the runway it seems. Oh well...

Oh yea and they are really really slim... hehm..envious. I wish some days I have mile long legs too. For what, I don't know. Just so.

District 10, no not sequel to the movie

Soenke was in a good mood. I was in a blehhhh mood. So to round up the week off, he said I should find a nice place for us to hang out on Friday night. In the end we settled for District 10, somewhere really near Newton & Bukit Timah. I didn't find that place. He saw the ad on the train. Haha but the pics on their webbie looked great. So there we went. 

It was raining/rainy that night. The outside sitting area was very nice but most of the tables were wet from the rain except those that are under a slim "covering" that runs around the encircling area of a big tree. Yea, I bet they didn't want to chop off the tree therefore they designed the place to suit the tree. But it was great. The ambiance was nice, gives you that relax and breath kind of mood.  Plus it felt like we were surrounded by plants and space as it's not in some shopping mall or shop lot etc. Its located away from the main road and is a stand-alone building as far as I can see in the 7pm lighting. It was cooling (since it rained), lanterns everywhere, lanterns with painted birdies on it.. and not a big crowd which is fantastic for me. These days I have gotten a bit crowd-phobic.

As we are both very focused on eating most of the time, especially at this hour of the day, I only managed to take pics of food.. hahaha snap and faster eat!

 Our food! I ordered the fish & chips coz the menu told me it's a must try. Soenke had their beef burger. We also got a french onion soup to share but.. I didn't take a picture of that as we both shunned it. It was our first onion soup and well, it just was not something for us. 

I want to talk about my fish and chips! It was incredibly light and crispy. Fried just right! I love it. I was really good. Hmmmm... it's one of those rare fish and chips which after eating you don't feel like an oil ball. Sigh~ I am hungry again at the thought of that. 

It was a very nice dinner :)  

 

My First Easter Celebration (Part 2)

Alrighty! I rummaged everywhere in the bedroom and finally found my Easter egg!! Hee! Happy happy happy.... 

(I think one shouldn't hide things up at the highest compartment of the wardrobe from your 5ft 1" girlfriend, dangerous for small people to climb ladders u know... hahahahhaha)

 Here is my Easter loot! See the precious yellow Easter egg is so cute! I don't know if I should eat the purple bunny.... 

Inside the egg :)

My First Easter Celebration (Part 1)

Soenke flew to Japan on Easter Day, which is today. This is my first Easter with real Easter celebration but without the person who wants to celebrate it with me. How odd sounding. 

So I will have a very simple Easter do. Soenke said he has hidden 3 items for me. And I have to find them while he is away. I took less than 5 minutes to locate 2 and 1 is pending. I am still looking for it. Treasures found so far are one Milka chocolate bunny, 1 box of chocolate clusters and 1 postcard. But I know there must be an Easter egg waiting for me somewhere. 

Wonder if they use Easter eggies detector that goes "beep beep beep" when you wave it near enough to one?

Fairycakes Infatuation

I am reminded once again that I was inspired by the movie Julie and Julia to set up this blog. I had also wanted to take the idea of cooking through a recipe book. So yes, my new aim is to bake through these two cupcakes recipe books that I have:

1. Cupcake Creations published by Hinkler Books

2. Wild About Cupcakes, written by Rachel Lane, published by PageOne

I am very excited about this project. However, I did not set a specific timeframe for myself in which I must complete this project. This is because I will have several challenges of hunting for the right ingredients as some of the ingredients required are rather exotic. Nonetheless I will try to recreate every recipe as close to the book as possible, bar some tweaks here and there for the decorations as I find some of them are a bit not my taste or just plain too much. Cheers.

Instant Glamor (my ass!)

As it is job application rush time, I realised I have no fantastic picture to insert in my resume. Not like I really care until I wanted to apply for a certain job, where your resume picture really counts. I am applying for a job in an environment whereby they view your resume picture as important as the contents of your CV. If you post some ho-hum passport picture, you are a goner. 

So determined to give this a try, I found a photo studio online. It says there they do professional pictures for resumes and et cetera. at $79. So okay, I went down to make an appointment. The next day when I went over to have my photo session, that fella said "Ok, $79 for 1 4R photo and bla bla bla. If you want CD, it's gonna be $20 more". That was not nice. He did not say so yesterday! The feeling he gives you is really like "hey come on, don't waste my time. What do you want?"

Ok, I thought since I am here and I have not much time to check for another fella, I will do this. From his sample pictures, his work look quite good. So I got make up slathered on me by his makeup girl. Yea, you get 1 inch of make up painted on you to make you photogenic. 

Then as I sat on the stool in the studio, he came in and started to shoot. His enthusiasm level? Zero. Was I enjoying it? No. Did I feel at ease and happy since I was "all glammed up"? NO. He gave me the worst feeling in the world. Its like your whole body is shouting "uh oh" to you. 

But it was done. 20 minutes and $99 later I got my pictures and my CD and I went off. Not happy and not satisfied. I will never go back there again. EVER. 

Lagnaa - Barefoot Dining

On Monday, I met Soenke for lunch and we decided to try out this restaurant he saw from one of his Iphone applications. The restaurant is called Lagnaa and its tucked at the inner streets of Little India. The review said it is a very cosy place and since its concept is barefoot dining, you can literally kick back (your shoes) and relax!

So we hopped on a cab and found our way there. The upstairs level is filled with really short little tables with cushions for some bum support. You sit down and tuck your feet in like Buddha or what they called lotus style, and enjoy the quiet ambiance of the place and stare at the menu. A lady came to take our order. She explained that many of their dishes come with a spiciness level of 1-6. 1 being totally not hot and 6 is, well, very hot. I am surprised. I have never encountered an Indian restaurant that lets you tweak your curry's hotness level. We settled for a 3 since its mid-way. It was a nice spicy level that is assuring that you won't lose your tongue after lunch. 

The food is quite yummy and the peaceful calmness was very nice, interjected with occasional toots from the one lane traffic below.

We noticed that they have full moon parties. And that consists of food tasting, spicy challenge (how hot can u go), thosai DIY. That sounds really fun and I am really looking forward for that. 

 So till next time to bare my foot. (28th April 2010)