12 posts tagged “food”

I know I've been watching too much television - hey, the prez debate was funny - and playing too much Scramble and also chatting too much on MSN. A good lot it's done for me, getting over the horrific mistakes that were the promos. In between all that not-so-junk junk, I've been doing up some things for the people I owe some.

More to come, to be revealed in due course. A great use of time.

Overdue, but I've been too concerned about other stuff: fitness, homework. But this little spot of blogging is actually a nice getaway from it all.

1 Caffe Pralet by Creative Culinaire
17 Eng Hoon Street #01-03/04
Eng Hoon Mansions S(169767)

I did a double-take because the info I gleaned from the web doesn't seem to corroborate with my recollection of the shop. Namecards, it seems, are not always helpful. Neither are websites; and especially so streetdirectory.com at the moment. I'm pretty sure, nevertheless.

I only dropped by to grab some breakfast for the day after because I had tze char down the road already. I don't remember much... but everywhere I turned there was something that screamed - and sometimes rather directly - "HEALTHY MEALS". They offer a variety of menus for each day, which was a bit of a turn-off for me. It wasn't exactly cosy, the ambience brought to mind Kopitiam. Not good.

However, I recommend the Colourful Bread. I don't know its real name, but it's pink, green, and yellow. The bread is made from three different vegetable purées. I don't recall those either. Horseradish, I think? Erp. Still, it was novel, and it tastes surprisingly good. Even dipped in Milo - if you have an aversion to veggies like me - the hint of vegetable is not completely masked. I give 4 stars.

Note to self: Explore Tiong Bahru further.

2 Baker's Well
35 East Coast Road S(428754)

Okay, this gets brownie points for being in the east. :D

They came down to RJ recently to sell their amazing selection of 16 different flavours of muffins. (Understandable when applying price elasticity of demand here...) They claim their muffins are made without butter - not margarine either I hope? - and is free of sat-fats. Their actual shop has a wider selection of confectioneries, including breads. I tried strawberry, which is alright, but I wish they'd filled it up with more jam. Price aside ($1.30 for one, about $3.60 for three I think) the muffins are worth the money. Do drop by, and while you're at it, why not take a little jaunt and visit Chin Mee Chin (204 East Coast Road)? 

Today on a whim, I set off on 190 and walked around Chinatown. On the bus, I was debating whether I should get off at Peninsula Plaza (to look for cameras and Roxy) or One Central or at the interchange (to eat Yong Tau Hu). I decided to get off one stop before interchange - first sign of craziness, since this wasn't even in my top three options - and walk to the temporary hawker centre opposite the National Dental Centre.

After a less-than-satisfactory chicken rice lunch at a corner stall, I went to sniff around the CD stall. To my surprise, I saw Beth Orton. I bet Gramophone doesn't even have Beth Orton!! Besides that most of the stuff there are staples.

I got a watermelon-carrot juice and set off for Emerald Hill. I kind of got distracted, but I'll save that part for later. Walked along Kreta Ayer Road, which brought back quite a few memories of childhood Sundays whiled away eating ham jing peng at the now-closed stall on the 2nd floor of the hawker centre. Then there was Ming Fa Fishball Noodles (still exists, thankfully), the splendid mi jiang kueh that I first fell in love with with its crispy edges, zhu cao hidden behind Ming Fa and the free tissue boxes, and so much more. Oh, and CK Departmental Store - where I got my first coin collection book. Mmm. Such fond recollections...

This place caught my eye. You can't see what's inside, and I didn't really intend to press my camera to the glass door or something. I'll explore inside another time, maybe. [Note to self: Saturday by appointment only.]

Here's a Chinese medicine hall with free consultation. Funny enough, the clinic next door had 5 people, but there was no one to be seen here. And I thought Singaporeans were cheapskate... Guess there are exceptions, then. Or perhaps the notion of TCM is unattractive? This is Chinatown, still.

Left: Red moped seeks respite from the sun.

Turned right after Kreta Ayer and the first thing that caught my eye was this passageway.

Doesn't it remind you of some European alley? With all its white walls and overhanging clumps of green.

Vox is being uncooperative, I'll update tonight.

20h01:
I walked down Neil Road, risking my life as I dodged cars walking the fine (yellow) lines, only because they had conveniently installed their green dustbins on the pavement fit for a single file of people. I crossed before the eBay building into Craig Road. Unintentionally following a man munching on his ma la gao I spotted a ZoCard stand and immediately set upon it. And I think I was lucky, because when I turned around, right in front of me was a beautiful building.

This is the kind of place I would spend an entire day in. But obviously I didn't have that kind of time to spare, as I'd promised myself that I'd be at Tanjong Pagar MRT by 1pm. I indulged for a short while anyway. I was blown away - the shop had old angel statues, camera obscuras, and even an old ship compass ($8500 if you're interested)! There's a second floor, too! I can't wait to go back. :D It's Thong Mern Seng Antiques shop. I'll add the details from the namecard soon.

Grudgingly I left. I can't remember what happened next, really, only that I ended up at Tanjong Pagar hawker centre near ClimbAd and while balancing on the kerb (for lack of pavement) a butterfly suddenly fluttered at my feet and settled on a leaf.

Ah je pense que j'ai perdu un p'tit peu de poids aujourd'hui apres avoir me promenader de Funan a la Rue Arab. Après être sortie l'école, j'ai decidé de ne pas aller a l'Alliance Francaise parce que je portais un t-shirt avec les mots "Je n'm'prends pas la tête" donc je pense que si j'y suis allée les gens la aurait rit... Alors j'ai decidé d'y aller lundi ou mardi.

Puis, je suis allée a Excelsior Shopping Centre en bus pour trouver le magasin Roxy Records, que M. Law m'a recommandé. Je l'ai trouvé mais hélas, c'etait fermé. Pas decue, je me suis mise a marcher le long de la Rue North Bridge, en passant l'Hotel Raffles, finalement je suis arrivée a Food For Thought. J'ai hesité pour un moment avant être entrée parce qu'il y avait beaucoup de gens qui travaillaient dedans, et j'ai horreur de ca. Enfin je suis entrée et tout de suite un homme m'a dit bienvenue. J'ai demandé un café 'to go'. En l'attendant, j'ai regardé autour moi. J'ai remarqué une affiche montée sur le mur avec les mots "C'est n'est pas une réal picture". Ce moment-la, j'ai eu envie de rire pour cette grave erreur dans la phrase... Je n'sais pas si c'est intentionnel ou pas, alors j'ai resté silente.

Café a la main, j'ai marché vers la Rue Arab pour chercher Straits Records. Quand je l'ai trouvé il a été environ 11h30, et il était aussi fermé. Je suis un peu furieuse - c'est la troisième fois j'y suis allée mais c'est toujours fermé! Tant pis. Au moins je sais ou est-il... Et de plus j'ai perdu de poids...

Dis donc, je suis trop parasseuse pour ajouter les autres accents...

 

[providential: prov-uh-DEN(T)-shuhl
Occurring through or as if through divine intervention; peculiarly fortunate or appropriate.]

Today's ASEAN Quiz was such a disaster, I don't know where to start or end.
0743: I was there the earliest and the minute I got out of the car I wanted to cringe. The SCGS girls weren't in formal uniform, and neither were the Crescent girls.
0746: I sat down on a bench outside LT 2 and proceeded to pretend to do last-minute reading.
0756: By the time the HCI, RI, RV, and SJI teams had arrived, I wanted to yank the golden buttons off the CO blazers.  Everyone wasn't in blazing blazers. The six of us - Kristin, Evelyn and myself; Joy, Alicia Teng, and Shuyu made up the other team - had between us 9 blazers, after I forgot to tell Kris that the other team had already borrowed their blazers, because Alicia is efficient.

The test itself was alright, I feel sure I hit at least 60%. I could've done better if I hadn't been so ignorant and read up more, of course, but overall I feel satisfied. At least I knew where the ASEAN HQ is, and I only missed out one word in the OEQ, and I recognised all the flags.

Kristin and I discussed the merits of winning and losing. I thought both ways we'd be so screwed, cause

a. If we win, we have to do a skit in our bloody blazers and court shoes.
b. If we lose, we will look ridiculous looking smart as the only ones in blazers yet not winning, and the school will be :( .
Our conclusion? Better to win.

We didn't get through.
But really, whatever. I have a nice cert, a couple of CDs (including one heck of a weird animation), a beige cap which reads 'ASEAN', and I had a good laugh seeing my sister's face all over the ArtEd @ Raffles poster in the amphitheatre.

I'm not complaining.

Yesterday I become an Honorary Senior Citizen. Blissfully unaware of the details clouding the mystery buffet lunch that my mum offered to take me along on, I agreed. Oh, the greed. At first I thought it was just with a few colleagues, turns out there where six. And the combined age of our table of eight was probably 420 and above. Seems my mum was the youngest there.

We gave a lift to Mrs. Lim, the secret neighbour I'd never met, and when my mum drove past her bus stop asking me to look out for her, I saw no one. Suddenly Ma went, "Oh! She's here already!" and I went "Where??" Turns out she has a shock of red hair, which led me to eliminate her due to my selective eyesight.

Lunch was a Senior Citizen's Buffet, and I only discovered this fact as Aunty Rosalind casually mentioned it when we met her and Aunty Theresa at the carpark. Inwardly I cringed.

We were the earliest, thank goodness. Aunty Yoke Lan, Aunty Lily and Aunty Ellen (I thought she was a he because they kept talking about how "Lily and Ellen are coming" and I misintepreted it as "Lily and Alan are coming") turned up later. As we were taking the lift upstairs, Ma suggested I sit next to the art teacher, whom she had once described to me as the one she had seen jaywalking across Bukit Timah Road outside Chancery Court. She said that she was wearing a bandana then and she "suspected she's balding". -_- In the end, I spotted her before they did.

She was wearing a green bandana.
(Turns out she's the elusive Aunty Ellen.)

In a group of sextegenarians (and above; with the exception of my mum) I was a lone ranger. I was subject to verbal torture. Aunty Yoke Lan leaned in to me twice, not to express her sympathy, but to say, "See, this is what you will be like when you're old". Aunty Lily particularly embarrassed me when after I said I could not remember her she commented that that was not surprising, since when she talked to me when I was small, I would reply - sigh -

O-WEE O-WEE O-WEHH O-WEHH

and at that moment the entire audience collapsed into laughter (including my dearest mother) and I yearned to dig a hole into the ground. I exaggerate of course, they are a very nice bunch of ladies. Aunty Rosalind offered all of us some holy water ("I brought 5 bottles back!") from France, where she had been on a pilgrimage. For that I admire her. Aunty Ellen, although very stern looking, turns out to be quite an entertaining lady. She went on and on about how she had bought wonderful CDs and clothes for a steal from the thrift shop at Margaret Drive and at the "recent Red Cross jumble sale" that no one seems to have heard of. She must be very resourceful. Aunty Yoke Lan is, as I discovered early into the lunch, a francophone! Mais elle a appris la langue pendant les annees 50 comme deuxieme langue a l'ecole.

The buffet was satiating. There was a decent spread of meats, in particular. There was beef ketchup (bad), pork satay made on-the-spot, curry chicken, pork chop, boiled chicken (the chicken rice kind), tandoori chicken, and many others I can remember. In addition there was sashimi and laksa. The rest (here I refer mostly to the desserts) weren't that spectacular.

Nearing what I thought was the end of the lunch - I spent 30 minutes waiting for all of them to finish eating (they eat twice as much as me!!) and 45 drinking glass after replenished glass of water - I replaced my arm in the sling and waited. In vain. I never knew women could talk for so long.

Good thing the next session's not at our place.

The buffet lunch is SGD28 two-for-one for senior citizens every Monday at the café on the third floor of the Holiday Inn at Outram.

I came on to Vox with the sole intention of writing about a brilliant shining idea that suddenly came to me as I was doing the LD shirt: I want to spend the June holidays photographing all the old buildings in Singapore before they get torn down. Not those in Chinatown and Bras Basah- those will be saved by the URA- but those hidden between the rising commercial buildings, like Emerald Hill and Syed Alwi and Tiong Bahru.

But now my mother has conveniently plonked down a little tray of Japanese crackers so I must bring myself to elaborate on the goodies my father has borught home from Yamagata and Tokyo and the like. He brought back Wang Wang-esque rectangular crackers with a variety of coatings: sugar, seaweed, and other indistinguishable objects. He also bought tau sar paos, except they aren't really, because once you heat them up in the microwave, they get all soft and one bite and it all melts. Not my kind of pao. Besides those, he bought black sesame glutinous things, which I devoured with much glee. The wrappers of the boxes are gorgeous!

Plus, he brought back tissue packets which the hotels he stayed in provided for free. Funny, I never got those when I was in Tokyo. The packs are so pretty I can't bear to use them, especially the Fujitsu one. It's made of the nice kind of plastic.

can be found at Fu Lin Tou Fu Yuen, which is located at 721 East Coast Road. Sedap.

I am pleased with my caricatures,
[edit] and also that the book I bought from Grattan is featured on Swiss Miss.

Since young, I have always wanted to be a spy. In between wanting to be a policewoman and age 4, a teacher from ages 10 to 12, a designer from 13 to 15, and being a landscape designer/ urban planner since this year. My resolve was strengthened when we visited the Internal Securities Department Heritage Centre, aptly tucked away on some ulu hill near the Police Academy. The people are deceptively cool. The first guy- I don't know his name- was just plain cool, or maybe it was the Espionage exhibits. The Amazing Matahari Door! :D

And then at the Terrorism section, there was Claris (I think?) who talked at an amazingly rapid pace but dropped pearls of wisdom at every other section. As she explained about how some guy named Mansour looked handsome, she warned all of us not to marry good-looking men because they were probably "too good to be true". After talking about a Dutch lady called Anne-Marie who let her terrorist husband pack her luggage, she asked the group of us with red lanyards, "What's the moral of the story?"
Cheryl Teo offered without hesitation, "Don't marry Muslims!" (No, I do not suscribe to this.)
After chiding her, Claris continued, "No lah, don't let anyone pack your bag and Insert pearl of wisdom about boyfriends."

Oh dear, my memory is weak.
Then there was another lady- oh no I don't remember her name!- who wasn't as eloquent a speaker, but she also deadpanned some along the way. Her Chinese must be very pro though, because at the second cubicle, she tried to expound on something and she spewed out this entire string of Chinese. All I caught was "香港". Then there was the guy named George, who encouraged us to come join ISD "at least after (our) 'A' levels" if we wanted to go into the Operations (read: espionage) command, or "get (our) second uppers" so we could join the Research team. It was saddening to learn that one has to join the Police force before moving on to joining Intel Operations. Bummer.

I could be an immunoparasitologist and discover something wonderful about mosquito bites. Well then, I don't reckon it was a bad thing I was covered in mosquito bites when I visited my granduncle in KL when I was about P3. I have little recollection, except that we slept in the air-conditioned room, and when we woke up the next morning, viola! - pink bumps covered every square inch of my body.

Excerpt from New Scientist:
Mice that were pre-exposed to plain saliva in this way had lower amounts of parasite in their liver and blood. The saliva stimulated their immune systems to produce infection-fighting chemicals called cytokines, which are generally associated with immune cells called T-helper 1 (TH1) cells (Infection and Immunity, DOI: 10.1128/IAI.01928-06). More research is needed before components of insect saliva find their way into a malaria vaccine for humans, says McDowell. Her team is now searching for the specific salivary protein responsible for shifting the immune system to a TH1 response. They then will test whether the same protein exerts a similar protective effect in people.

On discoveries, my mother uncovered a little gem near the Tiong Bahru Yong Tau Hu stall. We went there near closing time, so there were only fishballs and tau kee left, but that was okay since I only ate those two types. For the uninitiated, TBYTH is where you go for the best yong tau hu soup. It's just good, lah. Really healthy too. It's at the junction of Eng Hoon Street and Tiong Poh Road. According to my mom, who deserted me while I slurped contentedly on my yong tau hu- "I ate already!", there is an old-fashioned confectionery just next door down the road. We never saw it before because we walk uphill to the car all the time. She found her childhood favourites like some meringue jam tart, meringue "fingers", and soft coconut-gula melaka-jelly thing. I love old confectioneries. :D I would've taken a look myself if not for the fact that I had an appointment with my orthodontist. Hm.

Now I have a craving for small bread.
Why does no one know what small bread is.

And when I sat in the dentist's chair they played John Legend's We Just Don't Care.

The dentist invented the electric chair.