Bakerzin @ Paragon

It was a ladies who lunch situation where you get 4 ladies and a baby having a leisurely lunch and watching everyone passing by with their loots. Yes, the sale is on and everyone is shopping. Pink bags, brown bags, orange bags. Yum.
We ordered the lunch set which is quite a good deal. Add $9.80 (I think) to any main course and you get any drink of your choice and 2 tapas dessert. I ordered the lychee tea which was really refreshing and the lychees were sweet.

Curry linguine with chicken and tau poks. It was pretty good, the curry had a bit of a sour lemongrass taste, so it was not totally like the regular curry noodles you get. No lemak taste at all. They were very generous with the ingredients, so much tau poks and chicken. It was hard to eat linguine with chopsticks though. Fork worked better.
We decided to order 6 tapas dessert plus 2 tapas ice cream and share them all. Hmmm...not sure if I can remember them all now. We had the rose ice cream with lychee at bottom (tasted like bandung), the opera ice cream (too much of a coffee taste), raspberry panna cotta (pretty good and creamy), blackforest something (that was so-so), creme brulee (yummy) and something cheesecake (pretty ok).
Another view of the desserts.
Something with rice krispies - the chocolate ice cream was not as good as the caramel ice cream which was so much better
Caramel banana pizza. This was pretty yummy especially when it was served warm and added with ice cream. Nice.

A pretty good meal. It has been a long time since I last ate at Bakerzin that I didn't know what to order. So many choices now.

Bebe Top/Dress

Retail therapy again.
I am so in love with bebe now. The clothes can be quite hit and miss, depending on the seasons, I guess. The current season's dresses and tops were pretty, and quite my style. I like. Plus the sale made the items much more affordable too :) The paper bag looked so luxe with its matt shiny satiny smooth and soft paper. The dark brown paper and handles with a gold sticker just screamed understated luxury.
My bebe top. It can also be a dress as it is fairly long, maybe 2-3 inches above the knees. I love the color and material. So silky soft. In fact, most of the clothes in bebe are so touchable.
I love this detailing. The waffle mesh bit with the halter and the ruched bust area. This can be dressed up or down too. A very good buy since it is on sale :)

Pasta Cafe

I have not been to Pasta Cafe at Taka Basement 2 for like a couple of years and there were a few changes. It looked renovated and not as homely as I remembered. The menu has expanded and changed slightly too. I decided to get a set thing where I got to choose my appetizer and 2 small portions of entrees. I selected the slipper lobster (aka crayfish according to the waitress) salad. That was surprisingly pretty good.

My entrees - seafood pasta in cream sauce and baked grilled chicken on penne.
This was disappointing. Chicken was tough and pasta was a bit tasteless. I needed to add tabasco sauce to make it palatable. I didn't finish it.
This was even worse. Seafood was not very fresh. Cream sauce too watery. Not nice at all. Again, unfinished.
Apple aloe vera blended drink. Another disappointment. It was too fibrous to drink. So overall only the salad was enjoyable.

I doubt I will go back to Pasta Cafe anytime soon.

Haagen Dazs Affogato

Has anyone noticed that the prices have gone up for Haagen Dazs desserts and ice cream? It is very pricey now when a scoop of ice cream is almost $10 after taxes. Anyway, I decided to try the Affogato which essentially means "drowned". A scoop of vanilla ice cream drowned with espresso.
Voila! My affogato. I must say it is a bit too bitter for my liking. Yes, I am not a true coffee connoisseur since I like my coffee to be white and sweet :p I don't take it black at all. The ice cream is not enough to take off the bitter edge of it. Probably perfect for those who like their daily dose of strong caffeine.

Starbucks Dark Mocha Frap

New seasonal drink at Starbucks now - Dark Mocha Frappuccino. How could I resist that? Mocha frappuccino was my choice of drinks ever since Starbucks opened in Vancouver and I grew up drinking that.

Mocha frap, cafe mocha, mocha valencia, hazelnut latte and then caramel macchiato...these were my fave drinks. Starbucks became a habit, a lifestyle. It is an expensive habit in Singapore now with my usual tall caramel macchiato going at S$6 per cup, that is more than $100 a month :p I miss the days where short was still an option.

Sad to say the dark mocha frap was just average, not that fantastic. I am so a convert to Blenz coffee now. I miss the dark hot chocolate over there and the coffee is way much better than the Starbucks in Vancouver.

Candle and Bath from Crabtree & Evelyn

This was my retail therapy fix. After a stressful day at work last week, I just needed a little perk me up. Yes, work is finally stressful again :p

I went to Vivocity, my usual haunt now for after work when I just did not feel like walking. Bus is right outside the office and then a train directly to home. Convenient.

I went straight to Crabtree & Evelyn over at Vivocity and I didn't mean to buy. I just wanted to browse but somehow I managed to buy all that in the picture. Actually I only bought the India Hicks candle, India Hicks room spray, Summer Hill milk bath powder and La Source bath tablets. The tea set (miniature strawberry jam, teabags and cookies) was a GWP, and the set of shower gels was also a GWP with the coupon which entitled me to about 30% off my purchase. So it was not too bad, my damage for all that.

Sun with Moon Japanese Dining Lunch Set

I am starting to realize Sun with Moon Japanese Dining at Wheelock Place has different menus for different parts of the day. Weekday lunch menu has a slighter wider selection than weekend late lunch/tea menu but still less than the full dinner menu. Tanny ordered the chirashi set which came with the sukiyaki beef hot pot. Looked pretty good. The beef was nice too. I didn't realize the pot was covered with Japanese characters till now. Guess we were pretty much engrossed in eating :p
I ordered the Hokkaido ramen set which came with dumpling. I only noticed the sauce after I finished all the dumplings! Hahaha. No wonder I felt something was missing :p The ramen was good. The butter (probably from Hokkaido) made a huge difference. The egg was not that great though, not that flavorful or runny like the one served at Maratuma over at Central.

Tods - Coral Pink Card Case

For once you get a proper shopping experience. A nice box to go along with a nice paper bag. I can finally tell or see the difference between a quality paper bag and a regular one you get from any other shops. I spilled coke on the paper bag, and by the time (around 10-15 mins later) I got to a bathroom and wanted to clean it (I don't want to attract ants by the sweetness), the stains were gone. I couldn't tell where the spilled area was, there was no streaks, no marks, no condensation at all. Amazing.

So yes, I went to Tods and got myself a little something. I first saw that earlier this year when I was looking for a wallet. I found the wallet design I like at Tods but not the style or color, so I didn't get it then. Plus I wanted to wait for the end season sale (happening now).
Ta-dah! A coral pink card case. I saw this together with the wallet. I much prefer this color to those available for the wallet.

The leather is so super soft that you can literally bend the case in half. This is convenient to take out of the bag. I intend to use this for the ez-link card and the office card access key most of the time. Other uses will probably be if I just need to carry a couple of cards and cash. There is a slot in the middle to stash some notes. Nice :)
The back view of the card case. 6 slots and the middle. So now I have totally colorful accessories, so in tune with Spring. A robin egg blue wallet, an emerald green bag and now a coral pink card case.

I still need to get a better ipod case. That can probably wait till I replace my existing mini ipod. Too bad the nano is no longer in the old design. I just dislike the current squarish look.

Golden Mile - Beef Noodles from Bugis

Someone told me about the beef noodles at Golden Mile Food Center, which is the one originally at Bugis before the place was renovated and all the hawkers disappeared. Her family has been patronizing the stall from its days at Bugis till now at its current location.

It is the best beef noodles in her opinion. Way better than Hock Lam and cheaper too. Hock Lam beef noodles prices have been going steadily up. A small bowl at Hock Lam is going at $5 and it is really tiny portion, fit for a kid.

With such endorsement, I decided to go over to try the beef noodles at Golden Mile (apparently that was the first place I had beef noodles too when I was a toddler, but alas, I don't remember that at all :p)

I ordered the typical set of beef slices kway teow dry with a side soup bowl of beef balls. The beef balls seem to be homemade and didn't taste synthetic at all. There was a bite to the beef balls. Pretty good. The soup was full of a beefy flavor.

The sauce was thick and viscous and it didn't turn watery at all at the end of the meal. I liked the chopped salted vegetables and nuts sprinkled on top. The beef slices were tender and fresh and not overly cooked.

Everything was good, except for the chili. Maybe I am used to the chili from Hock Lam now but I felt the chili was not spicy enough and didn't enhance the noodles at all.

I don't remember the stall number but it is located at the lower level of the food center, surrounded by the Malay stalls. The signboard does indicate it was from Bugis and there was a "Lost and Found" sticker or something on its stall so I guess it has been featured in the program before.

Macarons from The Mad Baker @ SATC Night

It was a fabulous Wednesday when we went to Vivocity to catch the sneak preview of Sex and the City movie. What was even better was having our very own SATC girls gabfest over dinner and macarons from The Mad Baker. In fact, other diners were intrigued by the macarons and actually asked the servers if they can order what we had at our table :p

Macarons cheers! I just realized all of us had unpainted nails except for one. Hehe. The above macarons were the raspberry flavor.
Caramel Fleur de Sel (Hazelnut Vanilla Macarons with Salted Caramel Cream)
One bite out of the airy light delectable macaron
The salted caramel was pretty good. A bit too sweet for my liking though.
This was new and not on the regular menu. Violette macarons with cassis buttercream.

Pretty lavender pink shells with cassis (blackcurrant) buttercream
I love this! The sweetness contrasted nicely with the tangy blackcurrant.
Raspberry macarons in the container.
Look at the feet of the shells. It is simply amazing how she baked such gorgeous and super yummy macarons.
The shells were so crispy that it got caught in the raspberry buttercream. I love macarons from the mad baker.

Macarons are just not easy to bake. There are so many variables which could make the macarons failed.

Thank you, Tanny, for buying the macarons and sharing with all of us. We are just missing the cosmopolitans :p

Shimbashi Soba Dessert

Somehow I never go to Shimbashi Soba at Paragon though I always walked past it. The other week, we decided to rest our feet after shopping and had dessert there. It was a pretty good deal as you get to choose your dessert and a drink for less than $10. Tanny's order - I don't remember what it is now. See the picture and drool :p
I ordered the green tea cheese cake with a scoop of ice cream. I love that they serve mugicha (roasted barley tea). I fell in love with mugicha after Canada when my friend always keeps a container of mugicha in the fridge. It is just so refreshing. And I continue this habit now that I am in Singapore. You can get mugicha from the Isetan Scotts supermarket.

Asia Grand Restaurant

No pictures as it was a company lunch. But I was just so bowled over by the food we had at Asia Grand Restaurant at Odeon Towers. It was formerly at the Hotel Asia along Scotts Road and moved into the space previously occupied by Chef Chan.


I like the decor with its glass and luxe surrounding. Service was pretty good with attentive waitresses who would refill the tea and change the plates countless times without us asking. Then again maybe it was because the manager knew our bosses and we did order a lot of food.


The appetizer snack was a fishcake and capsicums pickled mix. Interesting. Our table loved the dried shrimp sambal thing that they refilled it many times and with huge portions piled on.


Here is a list of what we had:
Cold dish of steamed crabs (2 crabs with roe) - crabmeat was sweet and pretty good with the vinegar
Shrimp dumplings - the skin was transculent and filled with lots of prawns though it didn't look that big. One thing I realized was that you need to eat it immediately else the skin would harden and dry out and stick on to the paper parchment in the steamer
Siew Mai - pretty ordinary
Scallop and prawn dumplings - not too bad
Chicken feet - I didn't eat that
Fried shrimp with cheese dumpling - it was crispy and nice
Scallops and shrimp rice flour rolls - silky soft rolls
Steamed carrot cake - this was really good
Dough stick fritter wrapped with rice rolls - not bad, reminded me of HK breakfast
Fried cod dumpling wrapped with rice rolls - nicer when warm, a bit too oily when cold
BBQ pork pastry - this was also good


Like what the boss said, we were done with breakfast and to be ready for lunch :p Yup, more food to come.


Peking duck - it was so good that I had 3 pieces of the skin :p The skin was not too fatty and the plum sauce went very well with the egg crepe and duck skin. I loved the prawn crackers which were served with it
Soup - it was superb when with a couple of chili padis. The spiciness gave a kick to the soup. There were chicken, san luo fish and other stuff in the soup.
Oxtail Stew - I didn't really eat the oxtail as I am not a big fan of gelatin but the sauce was fantastic. The carrots and potatoes in the stew were good too.
Crispy noodles with duck meat - this was good though I was not a fan of the duck meat.

Then the highlight of the meal: kobe beef shabu shabu style.
This was the first time I had kobe beef and I could see why people raved so much about it. We ordered 2 plates of the beef which slices were amazingly thin and perfectly marbled. Initially I thought it was parma ham, the way it was presented. I tried it medium and cooked and they were still delicious. It was never too tough. It practially melted in my mouth. But too much of it could be a bit jelak. I had 5 slices and it was enough.

This was followed by a huge platter of fruits - pineapple, watermelon, grapes and chinese pear.

Our feast was shared by 10 of us. Too much food. Good thing I didn't have breakfast. But seriously with the kobe beef, oxtail stew, crabs, peking duck, I have a feeling the bill would be over $500 and probably closer to $1k. A big thank you to one of the directors for treating us.

I wish I could take pictures, especially of the kobe beef but being a company event with so many other people, it was not nice to do that. Oh well, maybe on my own when I am feeling rich :p

Location:
Asia Grand Restaurant
331 North Bridge Road
#01-02 & #01-05/08
Odeon Towers
Tel: 6887 0010

Tea @ Aria Bistro

We organized an event at Aria Bistro a couple of weeks ago. I didn't realize that they are actually closed in the afternoon on a Saturday, so we were able to have the place for our event. The place is tiny so the maximum capacity is 30 persons.
The food presentation was wonderful. Look at the pretty garden salad for the caesar salad.
You get to mix your own Caesar salad with the sauce and cheeses. Freshly grated and tossed.

The set up for our event. I liked the way they set it up. Just a pity it was a hot afternoon, so no one really wanted to be outside.
Egg and cucmber sandwich. Pretty normal though I think it could be better.

The spread of food we got. It was a bit of a disappointment as there was no refill! We catered for 30 persons and this was what we got. We did a count and there were less than 30 pieces for each of the sandwiches. That was totally unexpected. I felt bad for their coordinator as at least 4 persons spoke to her about it. That was a bit wrong too as usually communications should be done between the I/C from both sides. Otherwise it would be a case of too many I/C and no one really knows whose instruction is the most up to date or accurate.

They used a fancy name for this dish - croque monsieur - which is basically ham and cheese sandwich. It was not fantastic as I had better croque monsieur from other places.

The sofa area outside. It was actually cheaper to order beer :p
The bar counter area. Service was pretty ok. Not too bad.
The rest of the food - anchovy olives tomatoes canapes, cheesey mushrooms, marble cheese cake, profiteroles, lemon meringue tarts. I like the cheesecake which was really yummy. The meringue tart was good too.

After our feedback, they did try to rectify it by serving additional snack food like fried chicken wings, sausages and 2 pizzas from Al Dente. Can you imagine being charged $30++ each for the initial spread which didn't come with any refill at all? At least it was a free flow of juices (orange and fruit punch), soft drinks, tea and coffee. But even the high tea menu for events held at hotels come with refills and could be cheaper too.

Men at Work - Esplanade

I was at the Esplanade a couple of weeks and saw this sight in the morning. I think the men were cleaning the roof or something. For a weekday morning, it was packed with students on a class field trip. There are some renovation works going on near the waterfront area.

I think the Esplanade kinda grows on you. The design is certainly different with the spikey covering the glass topped roof. The shape of the roof changes when view at different angles.

Lolly Truffles

How do you like your chocolate? In round shaped balls or on a stick? Davis gave this to me after her trip to Taiwan. It was cute. Having choccies like eating ice cream.
My bite of the caramel toffee biscuit crunch chocolate lolly. It was really chocolate overdose with this. Best to share with friends. The chocolate was smooth and I liked the crunchy bits of cookies and toffee. Nice. I saw Lily O Briens chocolate truffles at Candy Empire the other day but not this lolly.

Fergie - Labels or Love

Video from TonyBabyProductions on YouTube

I love this new updated theme song from Sex and the City movie!

Shopping for labels, shopping for love
Manolo and Louis, it’s all I’m thinking of
Shopping for labels, shopping for love
Manolo and Louis, it’s all I’m thinking of
1,2,1,2,3,4 turn the lights on

I already know what my addiction is
I be looking for labels, I ain’t looking for love
I shop for purses while I walk out the door
Don’t cry, buy a bag and then get over it
And, I’m not concerned with all the politics
It’s a lot of men I know I could find another

Oughta know that I’m always happy
when I walk out the store, store
I’m guessing Supercalifragi-sexy,
nothing to be playing with
I love him, hate him, kiss him,
just I’m trying to walk a mile in my kicks

Love’s like a runway but which one do I love more
No emotional baggage, just replace it with Dior
Love’s like a runway, so what’s all the fussing for
Let’s stop chasing them boys and shop some more
1,2,1,2,3,4 turn lights on

I know I might come off as negative
I be looking for labels, I ain’t looking for love
Relationships are often so hard to tame
A Prada dress has never broken my heart before
And, ballin’s something that my feet are with
I’mma do the damn thing, watch me do the damn thing
Cause I know that my credit card will help me put out the flames, flames
I’m guessing Supercalifragi-sexy, nothing to be playing with
I love him, hate him, kiss him,
just I’m trying to walk a mile in my kicks

Love’s like a runway but which one do I love more
No emotional baggage, just replace it with Dior
Love’s like a runway, so what’s all the fussing for
Let’s stop chasing them boys and shop some more
1,2,1,2,3,4 turn lights on

Gucci, Fendi, Prada purses, purchasing them finer things
Men they come a dime a dozen, just give me them diamond rings
I’m into a lot of bling, Cadallic, Chanel and Coach
Fellas boast but they can’t really handle my female approach
Buying things is hard to say
Rocking Christian Audigier, Manolo, Polo, taking photos in my Cartier
So we can’t go all the way, I know you might hate it but
I’m a shop for labels while them ladies lay and wait for love

Love’s like a runway but which one do I love more
No emotional baggage, just replace it with Dior
Love’s like a runway, so what’s all the fussing for
Let’s stop chasing them boys and shop some more
1,2,1,2,3,4 turn lights on

Shopping for labels, shopping for love
Manolo and Louis, it’s all I’m thinking of
Shopping for labels, shopping for love
Manolo and Louis, it’s all I’m thinking of
1,2,1,2,3,4 turn lights on

Rose Mandarin Candles

I know I know. I keep saying I need to declutter my room, but somehow other matters will claim my attention instead ;p

I bought votive candles from Spotlight, of all places. The scent - Mandarin Rose - was a blend of the sweetness of the rose and the tanginess of the mandarin oranges. I like!

Unfortunately I didn't learn my lesson of burning votive candles without a proper container so the wax was dripping all over. Sigh. I guess votive candles are only nice to look at when you don't have votive candle holders. I had before, but I hated the mess it left behind. It was so tough to remove wax from the glass containers. I have tried the putting into pot of boiling water and leaving in the freezer method and they were such a hassle.

So tealights it shall be for me in future and maybe pillar candles. Somehow pillar candles are pretty ok. No more votive candles on its own. I still want my Tocca candles!