Perfect Substitute #4: Ice Cream

Haato ice-cream ^-^

Okay, okay, this is another ice-cream post, but seriously, who can get enough of ice-cream?

No other ice-cream can take the place of Tom's Palette's chocolate, hazelnut, coffee and rum & raisin ice-cream in my greedy little heart, but there is a void that Tom's Palette can't fill: Matcha. I am very fond of matcha ice-cream, but they don't make that flavour very regularly, and anyways their matcha ice-cream is a bit too strong for me.

I like to pair the slightly bitter flavour with something sweet and subtle such as vanilla, and I'm quite a fan of the Hokkaido matcha+vanilla soft cream cone at Central. The slightly bitter aftertaste; the fragrant, refreshing taste that cleanses your palate so effectively... I want one now! But as usual, I am fussy, and there was once they gave me the matcha+vanilla soft cream cone with too much vanilla and too little matcha to balance out its sweetness =( I've been emotionally scarred ever since and have hestitated to buy another cone in case I get disappointed again :P

The Matcha-Ice Cream force was strong with me though. While talking to Singing Tigger about food on msn one day, she told me about this ice-cream stall at Meidi-Ya, at the basement of Liang Court, saying that the durian flavour there is fantabulous. Another day, while trying to convince the staff at Tom's Palette to do matcha more regularly, he pointed me towards the ice-cream stall at Liang Court's basement for good matcha ice-cream. Hmmm, is this a sign??

Long story short: I met Intuition, dragged him there in my problematic shoe that was giving me a blister, hobbled to Meidi-ya and decided upon the combination of flavours above. The portions are so generous! Comparing the prices of the substitutes:
Ice-cream
Tom's Palette: single scoop for $3.
Haagen Daz: single scoop for $4.70.
Jap ice-cream
Haato: double scoop for $4.
Hokkaido: double scoop for $5.70.
The Hokkaido ice-cream at Central mall sells 2 flavours for $5.70 and their portions are measly compared to what Haato piles onto the cone, and Haato charges less for more! Oh happiness! Quick, go get your ice-cream fix today!

New Blog Layout!

Hi! I've changed my blog header and the colour scheme and I really like it now ^-^

Acknowledgements: Mr Bing for being my IT consultant ^-^

I tried another banner with an orange and green colour scheme, which I also quite liked:


but somehow I'm feeling more bluish and purplish today, which resulted in this floral banner and blue / purple font colours. For archival's sake, here is the original pseudo banner graphic:


I like the new banner! Which one do u like? :D

Edible Golfballs

This is for Singing Tigger, who posted a comment about pineapple tarts the size of golfballs in my previous blog post. They are bought from a bakery in Middle Road. You can be nice to Singing Tigger and maybe she'll tell you where to buy them. As for the taste of these huge tarts, it's everything a pineapple tart should be. Buttery, fragrant crust, sweet and sticky pineapple filling, with a perfect filling to crust ratio (i.e., lots of filling and just barely enough crust to hold it together).

For those who haven't tried this yet: TOO BAD!!! *pfffffffffft* =P

Perfect Substitute #3: Brownie

It's been a long time since I last posted anything really significant about food, mainly because life has been predictable (good, just predictable) and Intuition and I haven't really tried anything that is cheap, good and worth blogging about. Also because I haven't taken good food shots in a long time :P

This time I have something to talk about and it's about brownies. I never really liked brownies because a.I find them too full of walnuts, b. they are too dry (read: NYDC's cardboard brownies that crumbles to dust as your fork pierces its innards...), c. they're supposed to be full of chocolate, but they're NOT. Three good reasons why I'm not a brownie fan.

Recently, we had a good reason to buy a 1kg crunchy-based chocolate cake from Choc.A.Bloc since it's my mother's birthday. At the 11th hour, plans got changed and her birthday party got scrapped for something better, but that's another story for another day. So anyways, I had to cancel my order of chocolate cake. Because Choc.A.Bloc is so near my workplace, I thought I'd pop by there one day anyways to see if I could buy a slice of their sinfully divine (haha.. geddit?? geddit? Sinful yet divine?? Evil and good?? nevermind...) for tea-break. Instead, I left with two slices of brownies and $8.50 less in my wallet. As I left, I was thinking "What the...! That's not exactly cheap for brownies! It's just 2 pieces!" but I decided to give it a shot anyways, afterall they are a reputable chocolate cake shop.

I've not looked back since. This block of chocolate addresses every wrong I've met in other brownies and heals my faith in this dessert like a soothing chocolate balm. It's very moist, extremely rich, superbly chocolatey and not so nutty. It's also VERY ACCESSIBLE to me, being a stone's throw away from my office!

Goodbye my wardrobe, I am letting you go for the love of a good brownie. Farewell, my jeans. I've known you for less than 6 months; perhaps we'll get reacquainted when my affair with the brownie is over. Oh, and Intuition? Great news, there's more of me to love now; ) (Except that my affection shall be divided between you and the brownie, but you wouldn't mind, would you?)

Maggi Mee with a Twist

My brother, for all his healthy ways, has a few unhealthy snacks that he finds hard to resist. He effortlessly resists french fries, but he can't say no to a good curry puff. No chicken skin goes into his stomach, but roast duck skin goes straight in, even better if there is some fat stuck to the skin (and I confess, I have the same soft spot for roast duck skin. mmmmmm....).

Recently, he's been eating maggi mee for supper. Not just any maggi mee--only the Korean spicy ramen type maggi mee will do. This time, he adds something traditional and healthy in to tweak the flavours. Have you ever heard of "hong2 zao1", a.k.a. Hockchew red wine? It's a Hockchew traditional flavouring that is crimson red and has a strong wine taste to it. It goes wonderfully well when you stir-fry chicken, mushroom and ginger with a few tablespoons of that stuff, making the chicken look all bloody (but darn, it tastes so good). The Hockchews also eat it with meesua by adding it to the soup base. My aunty loves to add it to anything that she's cooking, especially if it's a soup.

It's from the hongzao meesua that my brother got his inspiration to add the hongzao to the maggi-mee. I tried it myself one evening and I must say that it's pretty good! Doesn't it look droolworthy from the picture? This hongzao supposedly has some health properties, so I'm sure it has magically made maggi-mee a healthy dinner. Yet another reason to indulge!

Quirkie Creations: Earrings

A pair of earrings I made last year. It's currently one of my favourite pairs to match with my blue outfits.

When you look at your custom jewelry, do you ever get an urge to take things apart and put it together again? Or do you feel like it will look better if only this bead was placed in a different position, and then you proceed to go ahead and give your earring / necklace / ring an overhaul?

No? Well, I do.

My interest in making my own pieces of custom jewelry started while I was hanging out with my Japanese friend, Ryoko. She would choose leather strings and pretty pendants and come up with stylish necklaces. My interest was piqued--you mean you can actually design your own accessories?? Ryoko would bring me to The Bead Shop in Hereen where beads of all shapes, shades and sizes were sold. I would visit that shop when I'm in the area and would buy strings and beads to piece together necklaces according to my wardrobe needs and fancy.

I had never ventured into the world of making earrings even though the interest was there. It wasn't until sometime toward the middle of last year when I stumbled upon a bead shop that also sold earring-parts that you could assemble yourself. The minute I stepped in I was stuck. It sold crystals, all sorts of glass beads, silver chains, hooks, nylon strings, semi-precious stones etc etc, and I would pore over each bead and imagine what I could do with each bead. Should I buy the blue or blue-green? Would a clear crystal match it better, or a light blue one? Or how about a complementary shade instead?

Over the next 2 weeks, I remember shelling out $60 for various beads, basic parts of making earrings and pliers. That's a lot considering what a tight-wad I am! I feverishly made my earrings (the same design in different colours. I had a packet of beads of the same design, but not enough variety to do more than 2 different designs) and wouldn't go to bed until my eyes were crossed and my shoulders were sore. Well, predictably, many friends received earrings for their Christmas presents last year, but hey! who's complaining :P

Anyway, this evening I thought I'd stay away from the internet for a change and indulge in my more productive hobbies. Presenting the work of my hands:

Experimenting with something different from the usual one-bead design by adding the bunch of beads at the bottom.



This is my favourite self-made pair to date. My mum bought me these beads. The design is not new, I actually made a few pairs of blue earrings in this design for Christmas last year. This time however the main bead is oriental in design and it's more colourful on the whole, which really suits my tastes. Pretty! Me likes ^-^

Family Guy

My latest internet addiction: youtube.

I've been trawling youtube for clips of Family Guy. My favourite character is Stewie. His sarcasm, wit and crisp enunciation wins me over completely ^-^

Here is one of my favourite Stewie clips:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wHiWdSqcE6M

and for all those who are into musicals, can you identify which one is this clip spoofing? :D (I loved this one):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q5-aYUYrqw&NR=1

Watch it and let me know what you think!

Stealing my time...

My friends are generally surprised when they hear for the first time that I don't watch TV, and it's true. I hardly spend time watching TV, I don't chase serials and I hardly know any of the new TCS stars. I don't miss it too, really.

However, I do waste copious amounts of time on the internet through reading blogs. The blogs I read are not those written by my friends, although I do keep abreast of what's happening in their blogs. Those that I really waste my time on can be largely categorized into 2 types: food blogs and Singapore based socio-political blogs. As usual, I have a "friend" to thank for it: Gara, it's all your fault, you know it and I've told you the same thing to your face. Gara was the one who first forayed into the dark world of e-voyeurism via reading the personal life of people whom we don't know--www.evince.net was one of our favourites (and I must confess, I had a mini-crush on him, with his witty writings and nice photos). Then there's Mr Brown's blog, a grand-daddy of Singaporean blogs, if you will. After that, blogs exploded all over the internet and there are so many interesting people out there sharing stories of their lives, even though I don't know who they are!

By chance, I came across Chubby Hubby's blog and that completely swept me away into the world of food blogs. Not being content with just the food he features on his blog, I started visiting the many, many links on his side-bar, only to discover worlds of food unknown. A humourous American baker living the good-food life in Paris? David Lebovitz. A charming Parisian food blogger who writes utterly winsome food articles in perfect English? Chocolate and Zucchini. And then there's Norldjus for her incredible photographs. Every shot featured on her site is perfect.

When the Singapore elections came along, the internet also exploded with opinions about how the campaign was run, what they thought of the whole James Gomez saga (mountain out of molehill, molehill out of mountain?), why didn't the Straits Times show any pictures of the Worker's Party rallies and only had praise for all things PAP... Suddenly, the internet was a very educational place to be. It was fun reading all these other opinions that were never heard as well as participating in discussions that would otherwise not happen--suddenly, I became more interested in the social-political aspect of living in Singapore. There were incidents that happened online that had spillover effects into the offline world, such as the Brown vs Bavani episode as well as the Derek Wee vs Wee Shu Min brouhaha. It also provided a platform for ordinary people like me to express my opinions as well as read other's thoughts regarding the ministerial salary hikes.

However, all these justifications aside, it doesn't detract from the fact that I spend waaaay too much time on the internet...

Guilty as charged. =(

Memories...

Blessed Easter Sunday to you!

I went with my mum to her church this morning. She attends All Saint's Church at Anglican High School, which was the secondary school that we both attended. If you've been to AHS, you'll know that there is the new school building and the old school building. The old school building is what I really love. The old rickety stadium with the concrete stairs and rusty grooves, the dilapidated table tennis training area, the old canteen that has fallen into disuse and the old school hall with the faded paint work and small toilets. Memories cling on better to old buildings than new, freshly painted and impersonal architecture.

As I stood and surveyed the old stadium, the nostalgia put me into a reflective mood and I started to think about the old buildings in Singapore as well as the places where my memories are built on. The grey, dinghy halls in AHS is one. My other memories are scattered between Malaysia and Singapore. The neighbourhood under my grandmother's old flat in Bedok; uncle Fook Wong's house--a family friend whose house in Petaling Jaya is the usual gathering place for my parents and their friends where they gambled many hours away playing Jim Rummy; a primary school in Siglap that is now defunct; the old highway with its mountainous view and various potholes leading from KL to Ipoh... These places never fail to make me stop in my tracks and fade back to when I was 5, 10 or 15.

I find that the problem with progress and clearing the old for the new is that it wipes out places where our past is tied to. When assessing the historical value of a place, how do you measure the value of memories? What is it worth to the people around it? In space-starved Singapore, many old areas have been cleared out to make way for the new and together with it, the sense of rootedness and belonging to a place is also gone. How do you feel attached to a space when all the familiar elements are no longer there?

For my mother's generation, all the old sights and sounds are long gone and replaced by shopping malls, official buildings and highways. This point gets mentioned whenever we drive past a plot of land near Changi ("We used to stay in a kampong there! Now no more already..." *gestures broadly at an empty land*). Earlier this year when I went to renew my passport, my mum and I spent some time looking at the old photographs in the ICA building and she would point out to me where she used to work relative to the new buildings now. The landscape is completely different so we had some difficulty trying to figure out where the new buildings are on the old maps, but it was a lot of fun.

Looking back, I must say that Singapore hasn't changed all that much in the past 20+ years I've been around as compared to the time from 1960s-1980s. However, with the old National Library gone and the National Stadium going to be gone, there will be 2 less places where we can stand and stare and be transported to when we were young.

A Nice Evening =)

Last night, Intuition and I spent an evening with Intuition's friends, E (Intuition's old friend) & G (E's girlfriend, from Korea). We had dinner at Prego's, which was expensive but the food didn't disappoint. I always look forward to eating at Prego's, but I can only afford to go there if there is a discount available because it's so expensive and the portions aren't very big. A plate of carbonara costs $22+++ and a Ceasar's salad is $18+++, so you can imagine what the other fancier dishes must cost. Intuition had a 25% discount voucher which we put to good use yesterday.

E & G are a really cute couple. Because she's from Korea, she did some sightseeing and we brought her to the Esplanade as well as to 1 Fullerton to take some photos and to sightsee. We also brought them to Tom's Palette for some yummy ice-cream, which they enjoyed. She kept apologising "Sorry, I'm tourist" whenever she stopped to take pictures of sights we take for granted, such as the skyline and the view of the CBD from the Esplanade. Looking at these sights through the eyes of a tourist helps me to appreciate the pretty views in Singapore all over again.

I had my camera handy with me, but no tripod =( Boohoo. Night shots without a tripod invariably end up aggravatingly imperfect. When I look at all these almost-there-but-darn-it's-BLURRY!!!! shots, Mr Bing's words of wisdom comes to mind: Always take your photos with a tripod! One such shot:

I love the skyline and the effect of the clouds in the photograph. BUT it's tilted and if you enlarge the shot, you can see that it's BLURRY! It would have otherwise been perfect, but it's slightly ruined! Slightly ruined shots are worse than completely ruined shots because you see how close it was to being a great shot and you just ache for what it could have been. *Bawl!*

Thankfully, for all my lousy shots and almost-there shots that evening, there is one blessed shot that survived the long exposure timings with a nice sharp focus. I bring you The Merlion.

$360 per year vs $1,000,000 per year

Public Assistance has gone up--hooray! But by a measly, measly $30 per month, which works out to $360 per year. That's $1 per day, which honestly doesn't buy you very much, especially with the impending GST hike (which hurts the poor the most, no?).

MP Lily Neo is pushing for $400 a month, a significant increase from our current $260 per month, which I totally support. Afterall, isn't our 2% increase in GST supposed to go into expenses like these, towards the poor and the destitute? I'm sure the amount collected from the increased GST is more than enough to finance that increase on top of the other schemes that are going to come into place to help the poor.

Speaking of increased payouts, the Ministerial salaries are facing a $1M upward revision. $1M can finance 3445 people on Public Assistance for a month if they receive $290 per month. Wow. That's a lot of poor people to help, isn't it??

It's rather beyond me why ministers can be convinced to give themselves a monthly pay increment of $83,333.33 per month while quibble and be hardfisted about giving the very-poor $400 a month and just give a token $30 increment instead. They have just given themselves a 75% pay rise! Who gets a 75% pay rise so easily?? O_o Surely not the poor! (for whom the GST has risen. But methinks that the 2% doth raise more cash than is being given thus far. Wherefore art the remaining moolah?)

The argument is that Public Assistance shouldn't be so generous such that people become lazy and rely on dole to survive rather than find a job. However, working in the social service industry opens your eyes to some of the difficulties that these poor people face. Some of them face health problems that make it difficult for them to find jobs (e.g., blind, or have lost their limbs to diseases etc...). There is this family I met where the mother is the only one able to take care of her bed-ridden son who met with a serious accident in his twenties, and her husband had just passed away. How about this old man whose back is bent at 90degrees, working as a karang guni to eke out a meagre income to support his wife and his daughter--both of whom are mentally ill? Then there is the host of elderly who are living alone, without the support of their children and they rely on social service centres to provide them with their meals.

$290 a month for them. $400 is overly generous. Isn't it?

Sigh.

Quirkie Tales of Quirkie Friends

I. The Lame Jokes.

Q1: At an international school, the children were practising high jump. A child from the Czech Republic couldn't even clear the lowest barrier. Why?

A1: Because that Czech didn't bounce.

* * *

Q2: What song does Dayong sing everyday as he goes to work?

A2: Dayong Sampang (Dayong shang4ban1, ie, go to work.)

Ha-ha-ha. These lame jokes are copyrighted by Mr Bing (YES he came up with it. *faintz!*).

--------

II. The Funny Friend.
This friend of mine, let's call her Gara, is truly funny without really trying to be, i.e., she will say something and everyone else will burst out into laughter while she looks around, bewildered.

So said friend went for Japanese lessons with her sister. One day her sister couldn't make it for the lesson, her tutor asked her in Japanese, why isn't your sister here today?

The correct answer is: My sister is working (imoto wa hataraiteiru)
Her answer is: My sister disemboweled herself (imoto wa harakirimasu)

According to her, during that lesson, she also told her tutor that she "ate a departmental store" :P Her tutor must love his job with priceless entertainment like that every week =)

Gara also tried bakuteh for the very first time when she's 26 years old. Yes she's Singaporean. No I don't know where she's been all her life. She tried it for the first time in Brunei, an Islamic nation. See the irony??

Another one of her priceless quotes: one day on MSN, she was asking me about "Mr Imitation" and I'm like, who?? so she said "your boyfriend!" and i'm like, "That's not Imitation. It's INTUITION!!!" Of all the words to be substituted... For the record, I do not have an imitation boyfriend, although I can't say the same for some of my branded clothes and bags...