Valentine's Day 2012

I almost never eat out on Valentine's Day. Too many couples queuing, low food quality and obviously overpriced. Whats with the "no ala carte today only valentine's menu packages?"

The plan was for me to stay here and him to stay in KL then we'll celebrate belated Valentine's. But he made a surprise visit so we made an exception to dine out since it's not convenient to cook at home. I had to work till almost 7pm so the most obvious choice is...Clarke Quay. Easily accessible by MRT and I don't have to change line to go home. As we didn't make any advance booking so I reckoned most of the restaurants would be fully booked. Clarke Quay has 20 over restaurants so I don't believe we can't even get a table there!


Ended up in Ramen Santouka, famous for its Tokusen Toriniku Ramen, which is the pork cheek ramen. It boasts of the tenderness of the pork cheek and according to the advertisement, there's only 200-300gm of pork cheek from every pig, which makes it quite rare.


Spicy ramen with chasyu.


Central organized the "Locks of Love by the River" where with every $50 spent, you can take a photo at the arc of love and secure the love tag on the gate with the lock.

"This event is centered around the symbolic Lock of Love, whereby each couple inscribes a short message on a tag and secures it on the gate together with the lock. However, prior to the symbolic securing of lock, the couple will be invited to walk through an arc of love and ring a bell. It has been said that couples who do this attain unending love. This practice is especially popular in Japan where couples see it as a way to profess and seal their everlasting love for each other."


Obviously after spending $50 my arc of love photo is spoiled by another loving couple wtf.


Sat at the riverside enjoying ice cream. We looked over at the restaurants in Clarke Quay, and they're not even crowded. We thought all the restaurants will be fully booked. Either people don't come to Clarke Quay to celebrate or it's true that most couples refused to get conned by the overrated Valentine's Day!

Santouka

6 Eu Tong Sen Street #02-76,

The Central,

Singapore.

+65 6224 0668

Victor's Kitchen Dim Sum Singapore

My favorite item from a dim sum restaurant is the custard buns. I still remember the first time I bite into the bun and it literally exploded and the piping hot egg custard came oozing out!

I googled to find any dim sum places in Singapore that is not too expensive. There are many recommendations but mostly are in Orchard Road and they are on the pricey side. A search in HungryGoWhere brings me to Victor's Kitchen. It's one unpretentious little shop with close to no decoration and tables are all jumbled together to sit as many people as possible. It's almost like the Hong Kong Char Chan Teng feel.


It's at the far end of Sunshine Plaza next to manga and printing shops.


A look into Victor's Kitchen. Most of the tables are placed together in a long row so people have to share their tables. The yellow stickers on the walls are all written "MUST TRY: CUSTARD BUN".


The other reason I took the 1 hour bus here is to try the HK Summer Ice Tea (香港夏日冰镇奶茶，$3). Everybody knows I loveeeeeeeee my milk tea, especially if it sits in a pool of ice so it would be kept undiluted. We enjoyed both the milk tea and the Chicken & Sausage glutinous rice. My first impression wasn't good. It looks white and..plain. But damn, was I wrong, it was fragrant, packed with loads of meat and it was drizzled in the meat sauce hence made it sticky.


Her World magazine review of the best custard buns in Singapore. I am soooooo excited to try the custard bun since it's so highly raved about!


Meh. I bite into it and there's no sauce exploding out. What disappointment! It's a really ordinary custard bun. Either we're unlucky to get one lousy basket or it IS really not up to expectation.


The rest of the things are nothing to shout about. They're mediocre and costs about $3-$4 per basket.

I might go back again to try out the custard bun. I can't believe it's that ordinary when everyone else has praised it and wrote about how good they are!

Victor's Kitchen

91 Bencoolen Street #01-21,

Sunshine Plaza,

Singapore.

+65 9838 2851

Bitter Heart.

Having a boyfriend who lives in KL means traveling is such a big part of my life. Almost every 2 weekends I have to pack and either rush to the airport or to the bus station to catch the next earliest plane/bus to see the other half.

As I have flown countless times, I do not bother to look out the airplane window. What is there to see? It's the same night view on replay every 2 weeks.

Today, after the boy and I went to separate gates for my flight back to SG and his to Melbourne, I cried till my eyeballs pop out. When I got on the plane I grabbed the magazine and tried to distract myself. It doesn't help that the in flight entertainment is playing Demi Lovato's Skyscraper. What an emo song! As the airplane take off, I put down the magazine and gaze out on the night view of the city I'm leaving behind.

Mesmerizing city lights.



Thank you KL. Thank you for giving me great memories from all the weekends I spent there the last 3 years.

So True!

The Worrywart

I'm exhausted, worn out, frustrated, grumpy.

So........

I cooked myself a big bowl of Maggi Curry Soup for supper at 11PM.

I actually thought about whether I should have Maggi for supper for almost half an hour, from getting in the MRT, to getting on the bus, to getting home, to shower, and I'm still thinking whether I should when I'm cooking it!

I'm the world's biggest worrywart. I think everyone knows that already. I think and worry about everything, and now it has become so serious up to the point I worry whether I should have Maggi for supper. Urgh!

But I think I deserve it tonight. I've had migraine for the whole weekend. The kind that's so bad I can't think straight and I can only lie in bed and feel like vomiting the whole time. Even with such bad ache I had to get on the bus for another 6 hours bus ride. It's killing me and I wanted to saw open the head and take out whichever parts of the brain that's hurting!

Anyway, I finished the whole bowl and licked it clean. Now I'm feeling 10 kinds of guilt.

Ok. I'm going to lie on the bed and finally have some quiet lovely night in and REST! Good night everyone, and have a lovely Monday!

Dave's 1 Utama

My network has expanded!

From China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Taiwan, Singapore
to China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia!

He's someone I met through badminton. He's Indonesian Chinese! I've never really met an Indonesian Chinese who's a professional. Mostly, are just...maids. Not trying to degrade anyone ok. After months of crazy hard labor, I finally have time to go for the weekly company badminton after work on Tuesdays. There isn't many females who play badminton, at most 1, or on very good days, 2 of them. So usually I had to play with the guys and it made me feel really bad because when they play with me, they usually don't smash the hell out of me, which makes the game boring for them.

But I don't care. I still tebalkan muka and went into the court to play anyway. I need to lose all those nasi lemak I've been gobbling every night.

Photo from last Friday. We had dinner at Dave's 1 Utama after work because one of our friend, Joanna, sings there every weekend. Pizza is flavorful with thin crispy crust, mushroom soup is mediocre, would be happier if it's creamier. I took one glance at the table next to us who ordered 2 pastas and they look absolutely divine. I would love to try that the next time I go. Environment is comfortable with lots of Caucasians and mostly working adults after work with wine and beer.

Dave's

Ground Floor, 1 Utama Shopping Center,

Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya,

Malaysia.

+03 7726 5327

A Soup A Day.

You know what's one of the best thing about living with family?



It's no matter how late you get home, from work or from badminton like today, there's always a whole pot of soup waiting.

*Burp*

The Noose.

Sometimes, I really have communication breakdown with the Singaporeans, and the Chinese (from China) and the Vietnamese and basically, with all the non Malaysians. We use so much of our own language and slang and quotes and whatnot. My Singaporean colleague once told me my Malaysian slang is so strong she couldn't quite catch what I'm saying (she's a Chinese I'm a Chinese and I speak Mandarin to her.) #Fail.

We were playing table tennis after work just now at the cafeteria. There's a lot of running, smashing and shouting. This guy forehand smashes all the time so at one point he smashed again and I said "wah you think everyday Sunday ah!"

Nobody understood me. And I didn't bother explaining. "you think everyday Sunday ah" is a Malaysian thing? I didn't even know!

I was youtubing around The Noose tonight and came cross this episode which talks about Singaporeans complaining too much. It's true! They really do complain a lot compared to us because they expected so much from customer services around, whereas for us, if things go badly, well, it's just the way the country is, no surprise there right.



I think Michelle Chong is genius! She's a Singaporean artist and she made Lulu and SPG Barbarella so famous with her almost perfect China slang. You wont like The Noose if you don't enjoy really really dumb jokes.



But The Noose is the only Singapore Mediacorp series I watch. Otherwise, I mostly just watch Modern Family, New Girl, Grey's, Gossip Girl and all TVB series. Nothing from Singapore at all. I don't like everything translated to Mandarin, it's plain weird.