Wednesday, November 19, 2008

OPI Purples


The purples I have from OPI though I really don't remember all the colors too. It didn't help with the flash as the originals are much darker.
Of the 4 there, I only know 3 colors:
Catherine the Grape
Plugged-in Plum
Parlez Vous OPI
Not sure if the last one is Lincoln Park at Midnight or something else.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

OPI Reds

I took this pic a few weeks ago and now I have no idea which is which. But the reds do look very similar to one another, right?

What I have are:
I'm Not Really a Waitress (fave red)
You Rock-apulco Red!
Joyful, Toyful Red
Buy-Buy Tokyo
No Autographs, Please
The More the Berrier

So I am refraining from buying anymore red nail polish :)

Monday, November 17, 2008

Japanese Dining Sun @ CHIJMES again

This is like my favorite place now as I am at the Japanese Dining Sun a few times a month now. We were hungry while waiting for another friend and ordered the avocado shrimp to start. It was so so good. Warm and crunchy with the creamy mayo and avocado. The basket was some fried stuff which was tasty too.
The interior of the main dining area. It was a pretty big place.

And yes, the beef for the sukiyaki. It seemed like this is one dish we would always order either to share or on our own. It was so beefy tender (depending on the way you cooked it)

The sukiyai pot with the steam rising. You could request for the broth to be topped up though it took some time for them to bring to the table.

Pink dragon roll. Somehow I think I prefer the rainbow roll or something - the one with the mango and avocado on it.


My favorite ramen - Hokkaido Ramen with the corn and half runny soft egg and a hint of buttery taste in the soup. It was good.


We shared the dessert - the trio of mango pudding, green tea ice cream and some seasame pudding thing. We ordered another black seasame ice cream and I redeemed a free scoop of green tea ice cream. Lots of desserts for just 3 of us.

Things I like from Sun Moon chains:
Beef sukiyaki
Grilled beef with foie gras
Rainbow Roll
Hokkaido ramen
Avocado shrimp

Sunday, November 16, 2008

OPI Blues

My blue nail polishes from OPI. Don't they all look about the same?

L-R: Yoga-ta get this blue, Sonic Bloom and Russian Navy.

I have another blue which I got after I took this pic - Play till Midnight from the Toyland Collection. They all look quite alike :p

Don't you find that you tend to get the same colors all the time? I have so many reds which looked about the same too.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Shokudo @ Bugis Junction

We had a movie and dinner thing as part of team bonding for the office and so we decided to try the food from Shokudo. It seemed like there are so many such Japanese-Western fusioned restaurants now.
Fried mushrooms as a snack for us. It was not too bad, not too oily and crispy. Not fantastic though.

One colleague ordered the rice wrapped in egg with pork cutlet and curry sauce. It was not too bad. Curry was good :)

Another colleague ordered the same thing except the curry is beef. The beef was tough so it was not as nice.

Another dish to share - rosti with egg and curry sauce. I quite liked this. The rosti was done pretty decently and I think the curry just made a difference.


Dessert for one colleague who was too full to have a main (we had early dinner at 5pm or so) - she said the red bean mochi dessert was good. I didn't try it.


Pizze with eel and mushrooms to share. This was good too. Crispy crust - I loved thin crust pizza.
My order of scallops pasta which was not too bad. At least the scallops were not tiny and quite generous too. Didn't take pic of another colleague's pasta which looked similar - some seafood pasta.

I am not sure if I like Japanese-Western fusion food at all. It is interesting but somehow I prefer the traditional Japanese fare like sashimi, ramen, teppanyaki.....I would say leave it to the Italians to make the pizza and pasta.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Tom's Palette Ice Cream

Tom's Palette over at Shaw Tower serves a pretty decent selection of ice cream. They are home made, with no preservatives (I think) and fresh ingredients.

There are so many flavors which you can hardly get elsewhere. They will always recommend that you try the flavors first before making your selection as the taste could be different from the usual run of the mill ice creams.

After trying quite a number of flavors, I still love chocolate (strong taste of pure chocolate, giving a rich, not so sweet yet not too bitter chocolatey flavor) and Granny's favorite (reminded me of horlicks because of the malt, it has bits of chocolate I think and so it has a slight salty sweet taste) which are the flavors I always order.

I got the above - Chocolate and Granny's Favorite - in the smallest size and it costs only $2.50. Very reasonable priced and you get to mix the flavors too.

Another hot favorite is the salty caramel cheesecake which I tried and am not a big fan of. The rum & raisin has a strong taste of rum, likewise for the chocoholic stout. The newest flavor is rose and lychee which is pretty nice.

There are also apple pie, lavender something, and the berries flavors. I don't remember them all now as some flavors change all the time. So I always get to try new flavors but still go back to my chocolate and granny's favorite :)

The service was excellent too. They are patience and cheerful all the time.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Last Day at Turi Beach

I didn't sleep much and woke up several times before deciding to just get up around 7ish am (SG time). After browsing magazine for a while, I decided to go take a walk before waking up the others. View of the Riani wing from the Island Bar walkway. I thought I took pics of the facade of our rooms but somehow they were not in the camera.
View of the Tirta wing with the newer buildings and rooms. J & I decided we should stay at the Tirta wing should we ever go back to Turi again. Elevator rocks!

See the mangrove? The roots showing. These trees are all around the island.


We finally had our massage which was inclusive in the room rate and it was good though service could be better. We were not even served any drinks after our treatment. Also as the hotel was quite full, the only time available for our massage was at 1pm. Good thing we managed to get a late check out.
J & I while waiting for the ferry to depart. Black and white sunnies made the picture. I am so tanned!
Hello world! The ferry was not very nice at all. Good thing it was a short journey. I spent the entire trip leaning over and feeling the wind blowing which was cooling. But the journey back was better than going over. It was like a senior citizens convention with aunties and uncles smoking non-stop (even though there were signs indicating no smoking) and spitting on the floor. Ewww!

One part of Batam from the ferry. Mangroves again. Totally undecided if I do want to go back to Batam. While cheaper than Bintan, it was definitely not a very nice ferry experience.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Birthday Dinner @ Nogusaya Teppanyaki & Grill (8 Nov)

After failing to find BBQ seafood dinner over at the Island Bar which was solely for drinks though you could arrange for private function with food to be served, we headed over to Nogusaya which served teppanyaki and other grilled dishes. We didn't want to take a cab to a seafood restaurant 10 mins away and going to the town center (30 mins away) was out of the question.
Happy people everywhere. With just 3 restaurants, there were not many choices available.
Teppanyaki chef getting busy with the orders placed. This was the 2nd time I actually sat by the teppanyaki counter.

He sure was quick with his spatulas. Had to take pics with camera phone as the camera battery was running low.

Our chef (Eddie) who was quite serious. So serious that J kept urging him to smile and he finally did. Hahahaha.
J also kept commenting about the lack of showmanship til he finally did something and of course we applauded. Sometimes they are serious because no one actually appreciated what they were doing. The vodka mango which identified us. Hahahaha.


We were so loud and vocal that I think most people in the resort probably remembered us as very bitchy or trying or whatever. We certainly brought life to the places we went to.

At the Island Bar, J offered the vodka mango to the guy in charge (Edwin) after she finished braiding him about the lack of bbq seafood being available in the resort. Lol. It tasted so much better when mixed into a shirley temple. So Edwin remembered us and probably told the band at The Yacht Club it was her birthday and they played that for their first song :p


Then Edwin pulled me onto the dance floor to dance with him. Lol. Alkie helped. We were the only people dancing. The few people at the club were so boring, doing nothing but drinking? Not that I paid much attention. When N came back, Edwin pulled us back onto the dance floor again. The others played pool. There was really nothing much to do. So we helped to liven up the place with free entertainment. Hahaha.
Another shot of us with the bibs.

1st course of our teppanyaki set - salad. The seasame oil dressing was refreshing and not very oily at all. Easy on the stomach.

2nd course - veggies. It was very lightly seasoned and the butter brought out the taste of the sprouts.
3rd course - fish with lemon butter sauce and prawns. The fish was tender and not fishy at all. The prawns were so sweet.

4th course - beef. This was a disappointment. Too tough for medium rare. It might be the cut of meat.

5th course - garlic fried rice which was pretty nice. And miso soup too. J ordered bubbly which was really nice. Cheap too at $50 or so. Last course was the dessert of the day - ice cream. I didn't finish it.

Halfway through dinner, a 4-piece band came in to play some songs. Again, a birthday song was sung to J. J then gave a glass of champers to the teppanyaki chef. It was all good fun, bopping along to the latin music and just enjoying the food and company.
Dinner came to about $200 for 5 of us, which included the champagne. J said it was cheap and it was her treat (though she didn't remember a single thing the next morning - hahahahaha). Thank you, J :)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Turi Beach, Batam

We went over to Turi Beach Resort over at Batam for a weekend birthday bash for a friend. 5 girls having crazy fun, filled with lots of laughter and alkie. We took the 12 o'clock ferry and everyone overslept and was late for the meeting time. But it was all good. J bought absolut vodka mango to bring over. I didn't bring my alkie over as I was not sure if I could bring in through immigration.

We were at the Riani wing which was where the rustic huts were located. Level 2 was quite torturous as we had to walk up and down steps to get anywhere. Level 1 would be the sea view. The new wing (Tirta) was more hotel like and had elevators to get around!

N and I shared the room (Rm 235) which was the king size bed with the pretty (but useless) mozzie net.
It can actually sleep 3 as there are 3 pillows. We should have asked for more pillows.
My C & E bag, finally put to use. It has a high ceiling with fan which we didn't use. Aircon was good enough.

Pretty modern bathroom with shower and sink. No bathtub. Bathtub is only available in the suite. The towels were big and think and fluffy. Really nice!

Balcony with only 1 chair. I wanted to dry my swimsuit outside but there was something dark flying around which scared me so I decided to dry it indoors. Apparently those were bats or dragonflies.

The connecting room for the other 3 girls. 2 Queen sized beds which could actually sleep 4. Reminded me of those rooms in North America where 4 of us would usually share the room.

View from the restaurant where we had lunch while waiting for rooms to be assigned to us.

Ikan Bakar - grilled black pomfret. It took a long time but it was worth the wait. The sauce tasted like stingray.

Ayam Penyet which C ordered. I didn't try it.

I was on a nasi goreng drive and ordered it. Quite ok. Seafood fried rice with fried chicken, pretty dry beef, satay and prawn crackers.

Walkway to the Island Bar where we were supposed to have our free mocktails.

Turi beach. The beach was not as nice as Angsana Bintan but seaview was equally lovely.

Signposts indicating where to go. Main area was the free form pool. There was another pool at the new wing which looked nicer.

The old wing were we were staying. Huts on stilt which was good to experience but not necessary to try again.

Pool and the huts where you laze the afternoon away. Nice view of both the pool and sea.
We just spent the afternoon hanging out by the pool and drinking cocktails and other drinks.