another wonderful weekend


we always cherish our weekends together. there's no waking up early for work on saturdays since we're hardly crazy enough to go for a morning run (not even when ippt draws near). the evening is usually spent in town, with friends or by just by ourselves, maybe a movie (we almost always have our mixed nuts) or an ocassional treat at a nice restaurant. on sundays, we get our weekly dose of endorphins from playing badminton (him) and gymming (me), head home for mummy's homemade lunch, followed by a long afernooon nap. heavenly. anyway, last saturday was one of those weekends we felt like indulging in some italian food, so it was smoked salmon pasta and seafood pizza from borders bistro... the creamy pasta sauce is what i call R-I-C-H.

it's less than a month to christmas! the lights are up everywhere in town, orchard road is sparkling with brilliant lights and ornaments, and you can spot a pretty chrismas tree at every single shopping mall or hotel you step into... it really puts you in a cheery festive mood almost immediately. oh, how i love christmas! i'm really in the mood, i'll be crazy enough to snap a picture of every nice christmas tree i see... and i've a date with my friends to go photo-taking on the 8th! (and ahhh... i'm on leave that day too! *chuckles!*). but hey, i've not started on my christmas shopping... with three presents to buy for gift exchange parties this year, i better start racking my brains for christmas present ideas.

portuguese egg tart

feeling bored on a saturday afternoon, since the boy was on stand-by for recall back to camp. so here's what i came out with, my first try at portuguese egg tart! i wished i had another 12 cup muffin pan today. to reduce the total baking time, i used individual mini baking tins for the remaining pastry dough, only to find that the base of the tarts were stuck to the tins :|... the rest of the tarts turned out prettier though!


recipe taken from here. this is a relatively simple recipe, since ready-made puff pastry is used.

btw, i have converted to blogger beta, which allows me to restrict my blog to readers of my choice - finally some privacy for blogspot users! i will be implementing this very soon, so please drop me an e-mail (if you know it) or leave a comment with your e-mail address if you wish to have access.

blueberry birthday


remember i talked about the blueberry cake i was making for my mum for her 55th birthday? (oops, did i just revealed her age?!? :P) had initially planned to bake the chocolate chiffon cake on tuesday, to allow it to cool overnight, and so that i'd just have the frosting to worry about the next day. it didn't go as planned (as itchy-backside me decide to follow the bf to buy badminton racquet!), so in the end, i had to spend the whole of wednesday evening baking, so much standing till my feet started aching! anyway, it was all worth the effort! the cake turned out to be satisfactory - the chiffon cake was soft and spongy enough, although i think i need to improve on my cake layering skills; also added to the recipe a few teaspoons of rum which my mum enjoyed, and some red and blue m&ms for some colour. not too bad for an amateur baker, lah!

well, mum still prepared dinner for the family last night and it had been a long time since we had homemade western food - breaded pork chop and chicken cutlet served with mixed vegetables. singaporean hainanese are well-known for western fusion food... in fact, my grandfather was trained as a chef during the colonial british days, and i guess my mum must have picked up a skill or two.

and SIL also bought three small tubs of 'hei' dark chocolate ice-cream from awfully chocolate. hey, lion! you should try this, even a non-dark chocolate fan like me thinks it's good! smooth and creamy, yet not sickeningly sweet.

no wonder i had to force myself to run this morning...

happy birthday, mummy!

we had an early birthday dinner for my mum last sunday... check out the food, man! the six of us were so stuffed at the end, and even had to take-away the crab beehoon (which was btw, very tasty). i'm sitting in front of the comp now, waiting for the chocolate chiffon cake to cool down before preparing the frosting for her blueberry birthday cake. let's hope it'll turn out fine! *excited*

weekend indulgence

during dinner at vila'ge at hereen, we were discussing about what next to do on a friday night. ktv singing was out 'cos i can't sing for nuts (sorry, gals!) - i have explained it to a zillion people that i have a limited pitch range, and please don't doubt me! watching a movie is like what jack described as "very uninteractive", bowling and pool aren't really our type of activity, so in the end, we went to settler's cafe at holland village. :-) anyway, maybe we can consider bowling or pool the next time, just make sure we get to choose the last lane or the table at the darkest corner of the room, hah. we spent more than two hours at settler's munching on mixed nuts, french fries and playing just three games - a silly monkey and sticks game (we agreed it was quite a silly but good warming up game), pictionary (boys vs girls! eh, you don't need to know rocket science to know who won! :P) and blokus (quite an interesting and intellectual game). it's a pity xp had to leave early... glad you like the aries keychain! :-)


marina square lights up for christmas in the theme of purple and gold. we planned to dine at genki sushi this weekend using the $20 voucher i redeemed with my credit card reward points. being quite a fan of japanese food, it's actually strange i've never tried genki before... well, it's probably due to the locations - the other two outlets in town are at forum and united square, hmmm, i think i've never stepped into united square before (!) and the only time i go to forum is for my monthly facials. i gave the bf the opportunity to place the order while i went to the washroom (super long queue!), and well, i was pleasantly surprised that i liked everything that was on the table when i was back and of course, how fast they managed to serve the food. :-) the salmon sushi was fresh, and i enjoyed the octopus balls (aka takoyaki), they tasted much better than those from the takopachi booths (with ziltch QC). well, what's a proper meal without the DESSERT?! the cherry in the pic's from swensen's strawberry stripes, a sundae with traditional flavours of strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ice-cream topped layers of strawberries chunks and chopped almonds. i'm beginning to like strawberry ice-cream, but not a total convert... chocolate's STILL the way to go!

presenting mr and mrs mark liew!

morning 'takan' session:


[1] pink roses and white lilies - such a sweet combination
[2] the peugeot wedding car
[3-4] the first 'takan' dish - vegetable/fruit sticks of dragonfruit, tomato and celery, one for each brother. it's actually quite edible and the groom even thought it was tasty! think the jie meis were really kind.
[5-6] sour-bitter-hot! sticks made with chilli padi, lemon slices and bittergourd - goodness, the groom actually swallowed everything (including the chilli padi), eeks. not so easy to fetch the bride, huh.
[7] spotted the dragon & pheonix candles at the door
[8] mark singing the wedding montage theme song - "love of a lifetime" outside the bedroom door. your "tian mi mi" cannot make it, lah. oh yes, before that the groom had to translate the wedding vow in hokkien (with the help of his brothers), you poor thing. anyway, it sounded really funny (and crude)... :S
[9] oooh, my bride! "what should i do, ah?" "i promise to buy you a mango freeze when you're down, i promise to do the household chores when you don't feel like doing them, i promise to buy you tiffany on all birthdays and anniversaries...(kenna conned liao)"
[10] "unveil and kiss the bride!"
[11] dried longans, lotus seeds and quail egg dessert
[12] the couple
[13] the door keeper while the bride changes into her tea dress
[14] two slabs of roasted pork had to be presented to the bride parents, they smelled darn good!
[15] the pork IC and his helper
[16] one of the eight brothers and the photographer

evening @ club chinos, orchard parade hotel


[1-2] red roses to match the theme of club chinos, accompanied by "cheenafied" background music. anyway, the food was excellent that night, probably the best wedding dinner i've had! huge servings too!
[3] me & wen - the two photographers busy snapping photos the whole day
[4] bride & groom welcoming their guests
[5] the groom was a little high on alcohol at the end of the evening, guess what was he singing? the SJI school song! goodness! and that's after reciting the scouts pledge earlier in the restaurant.
[6] ig & neumann striking a pose with the floor plan
[7] la teh girls with the bride
[8] the SJI gang
[9] us *smiles*
[10] the la teh gang! prata, teh tarik, kambing soup, anybody? anyway, the crazy la teh gang DID go la teh after the wedding dinner...

how we spent our day off from work... in JB!


[1] our pancake king breakfast at ang mo kio interchange before we headed for marsiling. peanut pancake is our type of food, yum yum!
[2] lunch was at pizza hut at aeon tebrau city. i suggested going there since it's a newly opened mall (think early 2006). sad to say, although it's quite huge, very comparable to vivocity (or is it bigger in terms of floor space?), we weren't exactly fascinated by the range of shops. yes, they have the usual brands - paldini, vincci, mango, shu uemura, mac - but somehow shopping there wasn't fantastic. i think singapore's just better, and to the bf, there's no huge sports store and no badminton rackets at a good deal, so it's a big no-no.
[3] posing with my second slice of pizza. btw, it's island supreme, made using tuna and thousand island as a base.
[4-6] dinner was back at city square, we had sushi king instead of the originally planned secret recipe - 10 coloured plates + 1 plate of fried cuttlefish + 1 bowl of fried tofu. it's salmon season, so we enjoyed all the raw salmon special dishes.
[7] dessert (!!!) was at secret recipe (of course) - our stomachs could only take in one slice of cake so we chose chocolate indulgence, check out that SINFUL layer of white chocolate cream, i like the thick chocolate fudge coating, soooo chocolat-ey and rich!
[8-9] what we bought (not shown is bf's von dutch tee) - doraemon mini drawstring bag and a pair of gingerbread man (& woman) christmas ornaments! how i wish december is here, and i can put up the christmas tree again.

the phantom of the opera is here...inside my mind


my favourite musical so far! it's also my first 'live' musical when i was 15 at kallang theatre. tickets selling FAST (i mean really fast, and considering the show only starts in march next year) at sistic. tickets are not cheap too, with category 1 going at minimum $145. how, how, how?