weekends are so precious for every OL who's working 5 day week, so I will always try to pack it with activities and go out to play!
how I spent my last four weekends:
26 May
finally tried tori king keisuke ramen at 100AM. the chicken drumstick always look so appetizing in photos but I was pretty disappointed after trying :(
the chicken meat was too rough for a drumstick, it tasted like breast meat lor. Very sad, I expected it to be tender. the soup base is also too viscous for my liking, prefer my soup to be less viscous. I will prefer keisuke tonkotsu king over tori king keisuke but my favourite ramen is still santouka ramen @ cuppage! still the best ramen I've eaten! in Singapore that is, Ichiran ramen in Tokyo is a totally different league =p but that's another story for another day
met up with lianny after ramen dinner to put our evil plan in action. say hello to the twinnies, Johnson and Dayne!
lianny and I got the same tee for the guys while we were in Tokyo and devised a plan to let them wear the same tee out without them knowing =p and the story goes like this:
bf wore this tee to my house on that fateful day and I was thinking to myself, omg today is the day we girls can execute our evil plan. SMS-ed the BFF and ask her to get Dayne to wear this tee as well for our meetup later that night. went out with the bf innocently after that, but I can't help giggling everytime I look at his tee or when I am messaging the BFF to get latest update on whether she managed to get Dayne to wear the tee. bf noticed and was asking me throughout the day what I am giggling at. almost let the cat out of the bag haha
imagine the guys' stunned look when we finally met up with each other, EPIC!
coincidentally, they were both wearing berms, loafers and carrying an iPad which makes the whole thing even more corny hahaha. we totally didn't arrange the berms loafers and ipad lor, some chemistry they have ;)
tried out play nation @ scape, played Kinect and wii games like raving rabbids and dance central. the dancing part was funny la, I thought it's slack dancing game but actually really will sweat one. can it be a replacement for exercise? lol
1 June/2 June
switch on a Friday after dinner @ p.s café. truffle fries craving satisfied!
JB on sunday to pump petrol, I also did a gelish classic mani and pedi @ KSL mall for only sgd$70, both are 2-tone somemore. #whysocheapcomparedtosingapore lavender for the fingers and blue for the toes, super love the bling-ness =D
after doing nails and shopping, it's zi char for dinner again!
stuck in a jam on the way back and only reached home 1am with next day a working day o_O told ourselves to avoid going JB on Sunday next time lol.
8 June/9 June
JB on a Saturday for this week, thought we can avoid the Sunday jam but no difference lehhh. explored a different shopping centre this time round, went to City Square Mall instead of KSL.
had our dinner at Canton-I. food is relatively good, worth trying.
we wanted to catch a movie and City Sq JB have Cathay cinemas woo! bought tix for "Now You See Me", the tix price is half of SG movie tix lor, not fair sia.
RM13 for weekend show and couple seat, that's about SGD$5.30 only #howcan. weekend non-couple seat even cheaper, RM12 nia. SG weekend tix with credit card promo or Passion card is at least $9.50 so JB price is very cheap!!!
the movie was awesome! very entertaining with all the "magic" performances and mind blown at the end. love it! and isla fisher is sooo pretty, haven seen her in movies much ever since the Shopaholic movie.
went for massage after movie, chose Thai massage and can hear my bones cracking lol. decided that we are hungry after massage and went for wanton mee supper at 4am, sinful max.
can you imagine as we head back to SG at 430am, there is still a jam at customs o_O so so so sleepy while stuck in the jam but poor baby still gotta drive so I try to stay awake and talk to him to keep him awake lol. felt like my eyes needed toothpicks to keep them open =p
reached home 6 plus and only slept at 7am, cui. been some time since I stayed up so late, now old liao, body cannot take it haha.
15 June/16 June
the legendary closing-down-soon braised duck rice. my 1st time eating here, I really didn't know it existed until recently when news of it closing emerged. the duck is sooo soft and the kang kong is really good as well. yummy yummy.
Lim Seng Lee Duck Rice Eating House
38 South Buona Vista Road
Opening Hours: Tue - Sat 10.30am to 8.30pm
after duck rice, it's JB again! exchange rate is really good now at 2.47 and still going up. watched man of steel since it's the blockbuster of the week. went for wanton mee and lok lok supper before heading back to SG, at this rate we gonna grow fat.
thinking of venturing out of City Sq and KSL this coming weekend, maybe Sutera Mall or Tebrau City! can't wait for this weekend to come! new motto in life - work hard during weekdays, play harder during weekends. :)
this entry is 1 month late hehe. been MIA from blogging as April had been so busy and overwhelming (more about April in next entry =D)
bf suggested to go for an art jamming session at arteastiq on 1 April as it's our monthni-versary. they have a 1-for-1 promo every Monday where you can get 2 easels for the price of 1. the promo comes with 2 drinks as well, usual price is $48 per pax so now it is $48 for 2 pax! each session is 3 hours but we used 5 hours instead hehe.
i am a noob at drawing and always hated art classes when i am still schooling. reason being i simply cannot draw and my art pieces always come out like crap haha. so to be honest, i was like oh man what will my end result today be.
if you have a picture reference, you can use your own. otherwise, you can browse through arteastiq's catalogues and choose a picture. the friendly staff will then photocopy it for you and tadah you can refer to it while drawing.
no prizes for guessing what i chose to draw - rilakkuma!!! i think i quite daring to choose to draw rilakkuma because it will be very obvious if i draw crappily. it will just not look like rila at all. haha.
After 5 minutes, bf’s sketch already coming out while I only drew a circle as the head. Haha, bf stress me! Another half or 1 hour passed and his already 90% done while I am still erasing away lol...
Ok DON’T JUDGE, my sketch looks really ugly but I know it will look fine once I coloured and outlined it. I was so embarrassed at first cause my sketch really looks crappy next to bf’s and lots of people were looking outside. I bet they were all laughing at me SIGHZ but it’s ok. I know the outlining at the end will change everything haha.
halfway through colouring, my drawing still looks crappy LOL kill me already. bf's drawing just keeps looking nicer and nicer haha
i managed to finish earlier than bf cause my colouring took a shorter time. back is breaking by the time we reached the 5 hours mark TADAHHH
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looks DECENT right??? ^_^ but actually there's an error/weird part in my drawing. haha try to spot it!
bf still hard at work. so 认真 hehe
cannot stop admiring my artpiece. i think this is the best drawing i've done in my whole 25+ years of life haha. anyway, i mentioned that there's some error in the earlier pic, it's the paw!!! i outlined the paw wrongly as shown in the first pic, it looks like rila has transparent paws lol. rectified it before i took below pic. can you spot it? =D
our drawings side by side
his eeyore was very well done lor actually, the colouring got gradient somemore one. didn't know my bf got hidden drawing talent lol
hang in new house toilet next time? one for each toilet just nice haha
had our late late dinner at ma maison tonkatsu @ mandarin gallery. it's our fav tonkatsu restaurant, super yummy!
happy 1st april! :)
Was in the mood for cooking 2 weekends ago and roped in the bf to help. Decided to cook pasta as we have limited cooking time and looking for a fuss-free recipe. This is not my own recipe, you can find the original recipe here, I made some tweaks along the way due to lack of ingredients haha
Got our ingredients at cold storage as some of the items look exotic and I think my friendly neighbourhood FairPrice will not have them hehe.
Recommended Ingredients: (extracted from original recipe)
250g ham (of your choice)
120g shitake mushrooms (or brown mushrooms)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon chicken stock granules
1 cup liquid cream (don’t use milk, it’s not the same)
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons finely grated fresh parmesan cheese
200g spaghetti
salt and pepper to taste
chopped parsley to garnish
What I used:
250g honey baked ham --- recipe called for 1 cm thick ham but Cold Storage’s butcher on leave that day so we only have pre-cut thinly sliced ham to choose from -_-
5 medium-sized dried Chinese mushrooms --- I thought what I have at home is shitake mushrooms but it turned out to be dried Chinese mushrooms. Lol. Turned out a tad too hard =p on hindsight, should had used button mushroom instead
1 tablespoon minced garlic
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil --- Borges brand, very expensive though, $10 for 1 bottle =p for cheaper option, can get virgin olive oil but extra virgin olive oil is more flavourful and healthier
Swanson’s liquid chicken stock --- used this instead of solid granules as my mum swears by this brand and always have 1 packet at home. liquid version works fine, amount-wise agar agar just add a bit, too much will make the sauce too watery and salty
1 cup liquid cream (don’t use milk, it’s not the same) --- mine was not really liquid-liquid but semi-solid. I tried shaking the bottle but most brands are quite viscous so I just bought the brand (Bulla) that the recipe creator recommended. Bulla fresh cream comes in a cup form so no need to measure, just throw all in, my liquid chicken stock did help to make it more watery though
finely grated fresh parmesan cheese --- lazy to grate myself so I just bought pre-grated parmesan cheese, add as much as you like
200g Barilla Spaghetti N.5 --- this brand and pasta type is recommended for its texture
salt and pepper to taste --- didn’t add any salt because the ham itself is already salty, some ham can be very salty so take note! Test your sauce first before adding salt
chopped parsley to garnish --- don’t like parsley so didn’t add this
Cooking Time!
Cut the ham. We are not able to get 1 cm thick ham so we cut our thinly sliced ham into strips for easier eating instead of cubes. Use about 5-6 slices of ham to serve 2 pax.
Cut the mushroom into strips. We used dried mushroom so I had to soak them in hot water for 10 mins to soften them first. But, end up still not soft enough so maybe soak for 20 mins. No soaking required if using shitake or button mushrooms.
You can cook the spaghetti and fry the ingredients at the same time. The timing for both to be done is almost the same (10 mins) so you can save time if you do it simultaneously. Break the spaghetti into half so that it can all submerge in the water nicely. Add a bit of salt. We used about 1/3 of the box of spaghetti and managed to polish off everything =p Johnson is a big eater though hehe, his stomach is bottomless pit!
Add 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil to hot frying pan.
Throw in the ham when pan is hot and fry till golden brown.
Add the minced garlic to one side of the pan and stir fry it evenly before mixing with the golden brown ham. Add in the mushroom. Stir fry all ingredients till mushroom is soft. Add in chicken stock and the liquid cream. My suggestion is to add the liquid cream first so that you can gauge if the sauce is too thick and use your chicken stock to dilute it accordingly. Our cream is not liquid enough so we had a sibeh gao sauce. We can't use too much chicken stock to dilute it (will be too salty) so we added hot water instead.
Cook till mixture is bubbling. The longer it cooks, the thicker the sauce become. Hence, make sure your ingredients are already 7/8 cooked before you add in the cream so that you do not need to cook it longer than necessary.
Add as much grated parmesan cheese as you like when mixture is bubbling. Taste the sauce after adding the cheese to see if it's too salty. Add chicken stock if it's not salty enough. If it is too salty, add some sugar to neutralize it.
Drain your pasta and put it on a big plate. Add 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and toss the pasta evenly so that the oil can coat the pasta.
You can then either pour the cream sauce on the pasta or throw your pasta into the pan with the cream sauce. Mix well.
Ready to serve after sprinkling grated parmesan cheese on top!
We got all this done in just 30 mins so it's a really good quick fix. And I think it's much healthier than fast food :) well done to my co-chef!
Cooking is really fun and I hope to share more recipes in time to come! :)
