Dinner and Drinks (24 Nov 2006)

Table Setting

Menu for dinner

Sushi, Chicken Karaage and cold tofu

Cold Soba

Dessert - Lamington with Baileys (YUM!)

A gf invited a few of us over for dinner last Friday and it was a sight to behold. Japanese food ruled the night, ending with an Aussie dessert (Lamington! - courtesy of moi).

I love the way she did the presentation of the food. A cosy dinner for 5 of us, a night full of fun and laughter and gossip, with wine and liquor flowing freely.

Lipgloss Collection - 26 Nov 2006

I am amazed at myself. From just a couple of lipglosses as I am allergic to most lip products, I managed to amass so many glosses now, in just under 2 years (2005-2006). There would be more but I did finish 2-3 glosses and dumped them.

So yes, I shall try to finish the rest and not buy anymore for a while now. About 2/3 of the glosses are brand new and untouched. I find myself reaching more for Bobbi Brown glitter tube tints recently. They are excellent!

I have to do a fragrance and eyeshadows and blushers collections soon. Be still, my heart ;p

Manna Korean Restaurant in Takashimaya Food Hall

I have always walked past the Korean stall near the entrance of Takashimaya Food Hall but didn't try it until a few months back.

I was craving for some Korean food and decided to try the dolsot beef bibimbap. I like that it was served in the dolsot (hotpot-like) as it kept the food warm and gave a bit of crispiness to the rice sticking to the dolsot.


For $8.80, you get the beef bibimbap, bowl or soup, 3 appetizers (ikan bilis, seaweed and kimchi). Pretty good deal as the appetizers are fresh and of a generous serving unlike in food court where they are quite pathetic. Plus the ikan bilis are actually crunchy and not chewy rubbery.

My new lust: Blackberry Pearl

Pic courtesy of Sam

The blackberry never really impressed me much. I just didn't care for the bulky size of the usual blackberry. Then I found out about the Blackberry Pearl from another person. Saw the gadget from the website and it is a beauty! The most attractive part is its weight - less than 90g! I'm sold! And it looks like a normal phone, plus it can do many things too. This will definitely be handy since my PDA (Palm Vx - yes, it is that old!) is kinda dying now. The stylus is just not inputing the correct information at all.

Now, I do need to change my almost extinct phone. I am just waiting for the Violet Moto Razr to be launched here but no news of it yet despite us being in the 4th quarter by now. So now I am lusting over the Blackberry Pearl. Hope it gets here before the GST hike :p

Too lazy to extol the greatness or beauty of the Blackberry Pearl, but you can read more about it here.

More info here too: http://www.blackberrypearl.com/

Afternoon Tea @ Bar & Billiard Room

I finally got to try the afternoon tea at the Bar & Billiard Room in Raffles Hotel last Sunday. There were 2 sets available - English and Asian. The food was served in the 3-tiered silver stands. I like the selection of tea as it was a huge list available, including white tea, green tea, chinese tea and the various English tea.

Food wise, it is a bit skimpy as it is non-refillable. Maybe I am so used to having more food than I can handle. Hehe. However, the portions are quite alright, more than enough for one actually as it can be filling.


The set on the foreground is the Asian set - it has more Asian kuehs e.g. lapis, ondeh ondeh, pineapple tart and others. The savory items are more of the dim sum varieties e.g. samosa, char siew siu, prawn roll, etc

The other set is the English set with Western pastries and sweets, and sandwiches. I quite like the smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich actually. Other than that, the others are not so memorable.

This is pricey at S$42+++, especially since it is non-refillable. I would rather go to Regent Hotel for the Afternoon tea. My favorite place :)

Miss Clarity Cafe

I finally found Miss Clarity Cafe after hearing so much about it, but I always forget the address. Only know that it is somewhere near Bugis area. I was walking along Purvis Street thinking of having the Hock Lam Beef Noodle there when there it is - a bright hot pink sign - Miss Clarity Cafe.

It sure wasn't what I expected. It was so "cartoonish" with its bright neon colors and drawn figures. It reminded me of the trend a couple of years back where it is very popular to have female "cartoonish" figures and you see that in a lot of ads or print materials.

It has a wide range of food at reasonable prices and I ordered the set lunch. Crispy chicken, salad and dessert of the day (mango pudding).

The chicken was quite alright, and came with boiled cabbage and roasted potatoes with black pepper sauce. The cabbage didn't leave much to desire. The salad was quite a mish-mash of everything. Thousand island dressing (I dislike Thousand Island dressing) over shredded veggies and it even had chickpeas, cubes of fruits and nuts. Very different. The mango pudding was a disappointment. Tiny and super sweet. I took one bite and left it there and ordered a bread and butter pudding instead. That was served with vanilla ice cream. The pudding was warmed up and was pretty ok, nothing fantastic too.

Miss Clarity Cafe serves average food at affordable prices (below $10 for all items), but I won't be back there in a hurry.

Christmas @ Starbucks

I love Christmas, and I love the special drinks that Starbucks come up with every time there is a festive season. But Christmas certainly came early in Singapore. Barely after we celebrated Deepavali and Hari Raya Puasa, I saw Christmas trees and other Christmas decorations along City Hall and Orchard Road just last week. Turned out the Christmas Light-up officially started on 12 November 2006. The shops are sure getting people in a spending mood early. With the impending increase of GST (to 7%) next year, no doubt people will be spending like there is no tomorrow, especially on big ticket items.

So yes, Christmas at Starbucks. I just can't resist the peppermint mocha. The usual chocolatey coffee mixed with the minty aftertaste - just delicious. I have been resisting the cakes that came with this season, but I finally caved in and bought a slice of the raspberry swirl cheesecake and had it with the toffee nut latte.

I like the box and packaging for the festive treats :)


The cheesecake is really heavy and the raspberry adds a nice contrast. However I prefer my cheesecake to be lighter so I much prefer Secret Recipe's version or even the one from Coffee Bean. The toffee nut latte is sweet and has a slight nutty taste to it. Give me peppermint mocha anytime though :p

Fragrance again - Nina

I just love the shape of this bottle - a red apple with silver cap and leaves. I bought the smallest bottle, which is a cute size. A tiny apple. It is a sweet toffee apple scent when you first sprayed it, then it settled onto a powdery vanilla-y finish. It reminded me of another scent, probably Pure Wish from Chopard.

Taken from OsMoz:
Story
Nina is a ‘young woman living under a lucky star’. This graceful, romantic ‘fairy for our times’ is looking for an unusual fragrance, ‘a magical elixir’ with sweet, fruity and mouthwatering waves of scent. For her, Nina Ricci invented Nina, a fairy-tale fragrance in a love-apple shaped bottle.

Perfume description
A fresh, fruity, mouthwatering floral. An opening that sparkles with Calabrian lemon and Caipirinha lime. The heart reveals the charm of “love apple” (candy apple, in French), paired with floral notes of peony and moonflower. Then a sweet vanilla praline note announces the trail: apple-tree wood and musks. Perfume designers: Olivier Cresp and Jacques Cavallier, Firmenich.

Top note : Calabrian Lemon, Caipirinha Lime
Middle note : Love Apple, Peony, Fleur de Lune, Praline
Base note : Apple Tree, White Cedar, Musks

Bottle
An apple-shaped bottle, as raspberry-pink and bright red as a candy apple. The fruit is decorated with shiny metal leaves and stem. The bottle reinterprets the shapes of an earlier Nina Ricci perfume: ‘Fille d’Eve’ (Daughter of Eve).

Wine, Cheese, Crackers = Bliss

This is the ultimate way to chill. When you have a long day and are just too tired to bother about cooking. Grab a ready-chilled bottle of wine (white for me), some crackers and a chunk of cheese. Voila! A square meal. Cheese for protein and calcium, crackers for carbohydrates and wine as dessert? vitamins? ;p

My way of relaxing at home when I am really stressed and chocolate doesn't cut it. Put on some jazzy music, burn candles and essential oil, lay out the spread and surf the web or chat online to friends.

Stuffed Chicken

I have been meaning to blog about this but just didn't have the chance/time.

I have heard about this - stuffed chicken. From Stufit.

The chicken is deboned, stuffed with fragrant rice, and then cooked/roasted to perfection. A nice brown crispy skin. I saw it at the moon cake fair at Takashimaya the day I was to leave for Phuket. I popped by the fair after seeing the doctor and decided to get one chicken for the family to try. It is such a novelty.

I bought the regular chicken with rice, instead of the other version where it is stuffed with raisins, nuts and rice. I never liked rice cooked with fruits and nuts though I realized it is quite common in western countries. I prefer my rice to be savory, not sweet.


It is quite a marvel how they managed to debone and stuff the chicken. Taste wise, the usual chicken rice wins hands down. Still, it is an interesting meal.

You can find more information here: Stufit

Wedding Cake?

I don't really eat much cakes, even though I like them well enough. And when I do order cakes for dessert, I always go for chocolate cake as I prefer the "tried and tested".

We received a cake from my cousin's family as she is getting married (wedding in December). I am not sure what this is called, but it is probably not wedding cake. Should it be an "engagement" cake? I find it confusing - the Chinese custom of holding a wedding.

Apparently, the family who is going to have a wedding will give away cakes to relatives (and friends too?) to announce the impending nuptials. Usually there will be the formal meeting of the parents to discuss the "dowry" or something too.


Anyway, the cake we received is actually a cookies and cream cake from Angie The Choice. I rarely have cakes from there, as it seemed to specialize in cream cake and that is not really a favorite of mine. I was pleasantly surprised by the lightness of the cake, and the cream is very fresh, not heavy buttery at all. That usually made me a bit sick.

Chocolate sponge cake with layers of fresh cream and bits of cookies inside the cream. It was good.

Elements Spa - Update

I went to Elements Spa today and had the most "torturous" massage ever. In fact, I wouldn't even call it a massage as the therapist applied acu-pressure for most of the 60mins session. And I specifically requested for a therapist who can do Balinese/Indonesian massage.

My fave therapist has left :( So now I am stuck with a package (luckily left just a couple of sessions) and no other "recommended" therapists. It is so hard to find good therapists now. I know majority of people who went for massage sessions, they are mostly office workers and so tend to have tension at the shoulder/back area and would prefer a "hard" massage. And it seemed like therapists who "specialized" in the hard massage are mostly from mainland China, and they used their skills (usually Tui Na or acu-pressure, etc) to do that.

They are not very good with the relaxing Swedish massage at all. They are so used to doing the hard massage, they seemed to forget that sometimes customers do want to give their bodies a break and just have a relaxing, soothing massage. Or they applied their knowledge of trying to "unblock" the "blockages" in the body or bloodstream or whatever. (I never did understand what they are saying to me.) and to do that, they tried their darnest to use all the strength they have (or so it seemed) to press hard.

So yeah today, the therapist (I have tried her a couple of times and she was ok then cos I always specified I do not want to have Tui Na, just regular massage with a bit of firm pressure) saw from my card that it has been over 6 weeks since I last went there for a massage. She kept "tsking" and said I should go more often and then I wouldn't be so stiff now.

The fact is I had 3-4 massages just in October but at other spas, which I didn't tell her. And my stiffness is due to the position of my laptop at home.

So throughout the session, she went on about me having to go to see her regularly so I wouldn't be stiff, and she applying acupressure on me more than the usual Indonesian style massage which I liked. Maybe I should have interrupted her midway and asked her what exactly she is doing, but sometimes it is hard to do that cos you really have no idea what they are doing.

Bottomline - yakking away is bad, acupressure is equally bad when unrequested.

Well, at least I know I will definitely not be signing up another package once this ends.

I don't know why, but I really do not like to have a massage done by a mainland Chinese. Too many bad experiences - mostly cos they like to do Tui Na which I thoroughly disliked. The first time I had that, my arm swelled up. Apparently the technique was all wrong, and the "qi" or "blood" or whatever was stuck and caused the swelling.

I very much prefer Malay therapists or Singaporeans or Malaysians and Thai (for Thai massages only). They are much better. The most soothing, relaxing massage I ever had was done by an Aussie in Byron Bay (my fave place in Oz). It was totally pain-free.