Love Food

Yes, we love food! And its a natural choice for us to celebrate love over food. :)

So as part 3 of Shawn's Valentine day surprise, he brought me to my dream restaurant for good food.

We had quite a few courses (cant remember how many) and my favorite is their foie gras with truffles and sweet bread. It was a heavenly match! I also love their pork croutons. Crispy, fragrance, tasty and an interesting combi.

Shawn ordered roasted pig as main and my initial thought was "what a boring choice" but it turned out to be the juiciest pork I ever had! The waiter first showed us the little roasted pig (the sight was a little upsetting) before cutting up and serving only its shoulder which has the most tender meat. I had Halibut and it was disappointing. It was originally paired with a sauce that contains garlic which I dislike so they served the fish in a non garlic sour sauce instead. Perhaps this is their first experiment of the sauce or I have high expectation?

Desert was 'Five times chocolates' for him (which again I thought was a boring choice) but end up I love it too. It was actually 5 x diff smooth chocolates! I ended my meal with an amazingly soft, light and sweet to perfection souffle, slowly washed down with tea and heart-shaped sugar.

The service was excellent and food was good but it probably be our last time there. I'm sure we can have similar excellent food elsewhere without burning our pockets. *Ha* Beside, my taste bud still belongs to the chicken rice category.

But if ever this restaurant gets a Michelin star, I might go again. :)

Hong Kong 20-23 May 2011

Finally went for my first trip to Hong Kong. I have never seriously considered HK as a possible destination just because I was worried of communication problem in HK since I speak no Cantonese. That definitely makes no sense because I have visited Korea and Japan and know nothing about speaking or understanding their language. :P

Anyway, it was at the sweet persuasion of my 2 convincing girlfriends that I decided to take 2 days leave in the middle of a project to spend a long weekend in HK with them. I, too agree with them that a short getaway was much needed for my stretched brain.

So on 20 May, late Friday afternoon, I boarded budget airline Tiger Airways for the first time. The Budget Terminal (Spore) was disappointing. Though I have set low expectation, I did not expect it to look like Tanan Merah Ferry Terminal. Furthermore, the corridor leading to our departure gate looked like the hospital's. Good thing the spacious Tiger Airways plane lifted our travel mood.

PY and I arrived in HK on schedule, took a cab and went straight to YH's hotel but YH wasn't in her room. Guessing that she must be still at her farewell cum thank you company dinner, we dropped off our luggage, rearrange the beds (the spare bed was placed in such an awkward position, we just got to do something about it) and went out for a simple HK dinner.

After our happy hearty dinner, we found our darling friend back in her room. She must have talked too little in her conference as she couldn't stop yakking the whole night. We gladly let her to since we were both too tired to do so. :)

We kick-started Day 1 with excellent dim sum. I especially love their smooth and tasty chicken feet. Missing it as I blog. *drool* Remaining of the day was none other than shop, eat and shop again. I'm glad I went. It is a shopping paradise and I got myself many good buys! Why didn't I come before? What a real good break from the baby sitting, house chords and work!

Day 2 started with another round of yummy Dim Sum at a different restaurant. The dim sum was much better than the first. To know which restaurant, please ask PY. :P As for the rest of the day, it was shop and eat again but ended with massage. I had my first ever 'Shopping Recovery Massage'. I'm sure you have never heard of it. Ha. I got the masseur to 'customize' one for me by describing how horrible terrible my backache was, from all walking and carrying of heavy shopping bags. And oh, her massage was indescribably shiok! She is Suzanne from Foot Mark Massage at Garden Street no. 131. If I ever go HK again, I will make sure to visit her.

Our last day in HK was no different from the previous 2 though instead of dim sum, we had simple HK cuisine for brunch so as to have more time for outlet shopping at a mall near the airport. There wasn't lots of fantastic buys but good enough for PY and I to miss our flight! Arghh. We were sure we would have reached on time if not for the wrong transit stop at Disney. Could only blame ourselves for the tight allowance and talking too much on board the train. :P We tried begging the lady at the check in counter but in vain. C'mon, we were only 5 mins late! Alright, maybe 8 mins late. But we definitely had a good 40 mins before take off. Why couldn't they do us that favor?

But instead of dwelling of why they couldn't let us check in, we consoled ourselves that at least, there was a later flight instead of waiting till next morning. Just a $50-60 cash (only) top up for each person will guarantee us seats in the the next & last flight. But alas, we spent most of our cash (sgd, hkd and even our spare usd) leaving enough for only 1 top up. The lady was kind enough to block seats for us while we look for cash. We headed immediately to the nearest ATM and what luck, ATM card spoilt! I decided to draw cash from my HSBC credit card after seeing HSBC ATMs everywhere in the airport. I called the bank for a pin to draw cash but was rejected because I was holding a supplementary card. YH was taking a different flight at a different terminal and just when we decided to sprint over to her for cash, we remembered that a friend was boarding her flight at the same terminal as us. We found her, got a loan and pay off the other air ticket. Sounds pathetic huh? It was! Ha.

And to add on to the pathetic state, we didn't dare to eat at restaurants for fear of missing the last flight due to slow service. Luckily, we had enough hkg for 2 pks of popeyes cajun fries. Once on board, we had more food using our remaining sgd.

Despite the flight delay and all madness, it was an enjoyable trip. I definitely look forward to our next girlfriends' trip! Of course this time with slaps of emergency cash, own cards and a good time keeper.

This episode has become a convenient teaser for hubby to remind me to be punctual (I usually am though) and not to take him for granted as ATM. Nowadays, I TEND to carry some blue and red notes in my wallet as compared to purple notes or just receipts previously. :P

Mother's Day @ Dozo

Mother's Day celebration is not complete without your kid(s) celebrating for you right? So this 2011, I have little Rachel angel celebrating for me. :)

Rachel spotting a new wet look (literally), styled by none other than me! LOL




I prefer her hair down though :)

I love the choice of wall paper in our private room. It has the studio feel. Of course, most importantly, we love the food there http://www.dozo.com.sg/. I especially love their beef tenderloin on granite hot stone and you can choose to eat some pieces medium rare and some well done, depending on how long you want to leave them on the hot stone. The place looks a bit run down at a closer look but the nice food just make up for it.


My vain little one

And the mothers for the celebration are (1) Granny & Mummy Cecilia with her escargots

(2) God-granny and Godma Anna with also escargots...

(3) Grandma & Mother in Law Cindy with her tempura.

And (4) ME with super girl Rachel (p.s she is not my starter hor!)

Our complimentary dessert!!

After joking (aloud) how 4 mummies can share ONE complimentary muffin, they served us a complimentary 'family tree' of marshmallows. Unique and nice looking as photo shot tool! :P

Daddy can't resist posing with the nice food and flowers too!

My loving parents. :D

My lovely daughter.

Yeah, I love (some) Mondays

I remember an article that reports various statistics with further studies to show that human minds are the weakest on Sunday night and Monday morning! Such behavior are resulted from work stress and typical Monday blues.

So, its good to occasionally take a break and I feel especially good when Im off on Monday! Tomorrow will be one of those! I recall one wonderful Monday in Mar...

We, family of 3, spent our monday morning in West Coast Park. A pity that all the playgrounds (except for 1 pathetic one) were closed for renovation. But we still had great fun with the sand. Companions are most important. :)

Below: Rachel all geared for the sun, sand and sea! Look at her havesack!


Below: Rachel posing for me while waiting for Daddy to grab something from our neighbourhood.


Below: Rachel had milk. Time to fill Daddy & Mummy's stomach...

Below: A quiet perfect Monday!