Food: Kim Chi Seaweed

You must have eaten this brand of seaweed before. Now Fairprice sells the Kim Chi Flavour as well. Fabulous. Not for Leonard.

TechieEat: Food For Thought

My friend tweeted a review about this in the morning and since I was going near Bras Brasah with my other friends, I suggested this place and we headed straight to Food For Thought. It's a little red building on the right when you exit from the Queen Street exit at Bras Brasah Station. The ambience was really good. It was small, but cosy. They decorated their ceiling with 540 glass bottles. We were, however, shocked to find out that our table was the only one (occupied) under the glass bottles. Nice, but we still feel a bit insecure. Potted flowers that are hung inverted add to that unique atmosphere. 

We were lucky to get seats I think. Everyone else who came in after us seemed to have reservations done. Unfortunately the menu was lacking in variety. There was Risotto, pasta, and their breakfast extends all the way up till 5.30pm. I heard their breakfast is good. Gotta try sometime. The price range was a little on the high side. My friends ordered Risotto and I ordered the spicy beef pasta. My pasta was only so so, but the shitake risotto was good. The servings are a little on the small side too. Overall this is a great place for a chill out session. 

 Food For Thought -
8 Queen Street
Shitake Mushroom Risotto - 4/5
Spicy Beef Pasta - 3/5
Ambience - 4.5/5

Ramblings: Extra Good Service

Coffee usually cost less than 2 bucks. As in, any coffee would worth about 2 bucks at max. But coffee at Starbucks cost 6 to 7.50 bucks. That's because you don't just buy the coffee. You buy the time you spent at the Starbucks, you buy the ambience and you buy their service.

This is how techiewen rolls. If you want me to buy something which I am not really sure if I want to buy, then the thing that will make the difference is service attitude. It's easy to bribe me. A sincere smile, politeness and not overbearingly "hot pursuit" (don't chase behind me like a dog, that is), are all it takes. And that's where Starbucks stole my heart. If the barista gives me a wide smile, I will return a wide smile (rare to see on techiewen, frankly). If the barista talks to me, I will try to chat as much as possible. Just now at Plaza Singapura, I was ordering the new Espresso Frap (which was fabulous by the way), the barista who took my order asked me how was my day and if I went to watch Iron Man 2. Then when I asked her if she had watched it, she replied with a smile that she's too busy then she went on to take other orders. When the barista was finishing up my Frap, he asked me how was my day too. When I said "good, cause I didn't have to work today", he replied "wah you trying to make me feel bad right?" with a cheeky smile. Oh he also did a "wow!" expression when he heard me ordering the Frap. Friendly, not overly so, just nice.

Service, Starbucks shows how it's done.

Starbucks - Plaza Singapura
Espresso Frap - 4.5/5
Ambience - 3/5
Service - 5/5

Event: Platoon Dinner @ City Link Mall

Yesterday I met my platoon for dinner. It's been a long time since we came together as a platoon (well not everyone was there but...). The feelings' kind of different too. It's hard to describe. It's weird. Anyhow we had dinner at Niwa Sushi in City Link Mall. At first it appeared to be cheap, and the food seems pretty good. But it appears that there wasn't much quantity in the first place. Sadly Ben bought the last pack of bento and for some reason they refuse to cook anymore rice so the most value for money menu is out. I got the seaweed soup udon and a couple of sushi. Frankly the taste is only so-so.

Then we went to Starbucks as usual. There was this guy who was wearing exercise attire, a RJ PE tee and some spilt shorts. Now, we don't see that everyday at City Hall and he was sweating. Weirdo. We also saw someone with a LJ face with a bunch of flower in his hands. My friend was commenting about him. Sounds bad, but it was quite funny nonetheless. Shaun Lim ordered my favourite Green Tea Latte but iced. I tried it and frankly it was quite good too, though the taste isn't that full bodied. Shaun and Kay Siong spent a good amount of time trying to decide what ridiculous present to get for me. And I am so glad they didn't go into New Urban Male to get it. I'll rather not get any present at all. Geez.

Niwa Sushi - City Link Mall
Ambience - 1.5/5
Salmon Sushi and Beancurd Sushi - 2.5/5
Seaweed Soup Udon - 2/5


Starbucks - City Link Mall
Ambience - 3/5
Green Tea Latte (Iced) - 4/5

TechieEat: Ding Tai Feng

On 26 Feb my gang and I finally went for our reunion dinner. We met at Ding Tai Feng at Junction 8 since Danny only ends at 7 odd at somewhere near Serangoon. Anyway the fried rice was good. Nothing beats a good meal with your closest friends. NOTHING. :) 

Ding Tai Feng - Junction 8
Ambience - 3/5
Egg Fried Rice With Chicken Floss - 4/5

TechieEat: Full Tea Latte @ Starbucks

This is still quite new. Starbucks is offering a new series of full tea lattes. Previously they only had chai tea I think and I heard it's freaking bitter. Now, I like my coffee and teas slightly bitter but anything without milk is a big no no. I went to the counter, pointed to the poster and stupidly asked if they offered that many different types of tea lattes as the words as such "earl grey, mint" etc were on the poster. She explained that those won't really flavours but ways to customise my drink. I chose Earl Grey over English Breakfast and I think that was downright a big mistake. The vanilla taste was strong. I didn't really understand what's the sweetness until my friend who's a barista explained it to me. He mentioned that English Breakfast tea latte will be less sweet. Despite all this, I shall do Earl Grey tea latte justice. The latte is has subtle tea flavour, with strong and fragrant vanilla aftertaste. It is sweet yet the tea has its gentle characteristics. This is not for the bitter-hearted such as myself, but if you love tea yet prefer it to have some the-liked-by-all-vanilla taste, Earl Grey Tea Latte is the way to go.

Oh by the way, they let me try their new Earl Grey Cream Pot as well. It's truly amazing how tea can be made into cream with such full bodied taste, much unlike the Earl Grey tea latte. Fascinating.

Starbucks - Fusionopolis
Ambience - 3/5
Earl Grey Tea Latte - 3.5/5 

Event: My Trip To NUS

I call it the quarter-life crisis. It is the most difficult choice I have yet to make. NUS? Or NTU? Which is the university meant for me? Although I asked my friends out for a dinner, I didn't expect it to be in NUS itself. The tour to Prince George's Park Residence (PGPR) was a bonus which I hadn't planned in advance either.

So there I was, taking a bus into NUS. It's odd. I was like a child going into the known, unknown. I had been there before, I walked around the place a couple of times. The place itself is really no big deal. But I felt excitement. Knowing that I am to become a student here soon, knowing that all these people around me are going to be my school mates soon, it made my heart beat faster. Okay, maybe it was because I sprinted 50m to catch the bus after drinking 3 tall size tea. And I was quite disappointed with the influx of nerdy looking people near the entrance.

We went to the NUS Graduate Club for dinner. After waiting like eons for Yinning to fetch me at Central Library (so much so that I spotted Limin running and spoke to her for a while), we took the shuttle bus to the Guild House and met Liyue there. The new business school is really quite new and cool. The food there was not bad. Above all, the price was decent, if you're a club member that is. The ambience there was really good. We sat outside in the open. Though there was live performance inside, the feeling outside was better. The bar inside looks gorgeous as well. No doubt I will go there to try someday.

After chatting at the restaurant, we headed back to PGPR. They brought me to see the study room, sofa room etc first. Then I went into their rooms. I saw the blueprint of the rooms before and I thought it looked really small. So I was surprised to know that it exceeded my expectations. One more point to NUS. They also brought me around to their guy friends' rooms. Incidentally, all the guys' rooms look way more spacious than my gal friends. I reckon its because it's way more tidy. Tsk, girls.

The table was bigger than the one I had back when I studied in the Sengkang Community Hub's study room. It had space for me to put another 23inch monitor. There's space for a fridge as well. I was pleased to know that there's enough space for me to do my sit ups and push ups. I'll be looking forward to it. Thanks, girls for the trip!

Bad lighting, but fear not for my camera has manual settings!

Fish and Chips

Hawaiian Pizza

Grilled Beef, medium well

This is the club's chillax area, heard there's special programmes on Fridays, got to check it out!

NUS Graduate Club - The Guild House

Ambience - 4.5/5

Food - 3/5

Food: Hokkaido Cream Bun

I needed a snack when I was working. S Mart at 8 Shenton Way sells this cute looking bread originating from Japan. There are many flavours but this is the most odd one. The bread itself is soft and feels great to the bite. Unfortunately there isn't any "Hokkaido Cream" though. The packaging boast of a different method of preservative in a form of a card. It says it's alcohol. Interesting. $1.50 for one.

Food: FairPrice Treats

I went to FairPrice at Punggol Plaza as usual to do my grocery shopping. I saw a few new stuff that I never knew were there before.

Papaya milk. We saw this in Taiwan and we really loved it. It's expensive here. $2.85 for a pack of 3 250ml. When chilled thoroughly, it's quite nice.

Since I'm a fan of ice lemon tea, I just had to try this out. Unfortunately its too sweet for my liking. Seasons is still the best.

This shaker-fries alike potato chips looked very interesting. Its unagi flavoured with seaweed powder. But both packets of seaweed were too dried up. It's a failure on its part. The unagi chips itself were also too blend. $3+ for 52.5g pack.

Food: Favourite Drinks

Okay okay, the general category for food and drinks is Food. I don't see a point in renaming. But here goes.

After a few months, I'm finally back to drinking my favourite fruit juice of all time: Pokka's Carrot Juice! It's a drink which disgust a lot of people I know, so I guess you can say it's a acquired taste. In fact I don't know of anybody at all who likes this drink. I fancy many drinks and the brand is an important factor as well. Here's a list of my favourite drinks.

Favourite Fruit Juice:

1) Carrot Juice (Pokka)

2) Lychee Juice (Yeo's)

3) Powerberries (Marigold)

4) Sugarcane (any)

Favourite Iced Tea:

1) Iced Lemon Tea (Seasons)

2) Iced Apple Tea (Pokka)

Favourite Starbucks Drink:

1) Green Tea Latte (hot)

2) Green Tea Frap (venti ten scoops green tea powder no whip)

3) Caramel Macchiato

Favourite Milk:

1) Fresh Milk (Marigold)

I'm a green tea freak and I can drink green tea and iced lemon tea like water!

(anti jasmine green tea though)

Food: Vegetarian@E Hub

My friend recommended this small stall/shop called Yummy Green at E Hub (Downtown East) which sells purely vegetarian food. It's mainly japanese themed and I had the tonkatsu cha udon. Nice!

Food: Kuishinbo Dinner

When it comes to buffet, nothing beats Kuishinbo. For my ORD celebration with my gang, we decided to give it a good one. Man, in order to eat as much as I can, I even starved myself for 12 hours. I tried to book the table for Saturday on Friday but it was already fully booked, so we had to change it to Sunday.

If you read reviews from www.hungrygowhere.com , you'll realise that most people don't praise it so much. If anything, it's the hokkaido crabs that's worth it. Personally I think there's much more to Kuishinbo than just those, though those are definitely the best. I love the deep fried stuff and sashimi as well. The green tea ice cream taste very much like Starbucks' green tea frap so that'll give me a quick fix on my green tea crave. There's not much of a variety there but hey, everything's decently good, with an amount of above average delicacies around too. If the crabs and these food aren't good enough reasons, then at least Kuishinbo adds some life into dining by having a periodical special and announcing it with their cute "bom bom, 123, we are Kuishinbo~" music. When everyone hears that, they sprint to the counter, to queue up for a special treat that's not usually served. This time we got cheese lobster and iced strawberry with ice cream inside.

Gosh, can't wait to go again. But its a 50 bucks damage to my wallet everytime...

first time i see them serve dorayaki!

that's my favorite soft shell crab

too bad they don't serve mushroom kaminabe today, but I tried beef kaminabe for the first time. didn't try the chicken one though.

Food: Soup Spoon

The lunch at Soup Spoon yesterday was fantastic. I didnt expect a "Soup meal" to be so freaking filling. Its healthy, its filling, its not too expensive, there's variety, what more can you ask for?

Food: Durian Buffet

On 28/6/09, a few of my friends and I went to Carlton Hotel's Durian Themed Buffet. "with 10 different types of durian desserts", so says the review. And boy, I was not disappointed at all. At first I thought its easy to become sick of eating so much durian. But the variety was good. Though the actual buffet was quite toned down, it didnt matter since I attacked the dessert most of the time anyways. The shackled Red Prawn durians were really good too. Bitter and sweet at the same time. It's a pity that I forgot to starve myself the day before. The creamy and irresistible durian cake didnt help either. We were all full before we wanted to be. Nonetheless, it was an extremely good deal, considering its a eat-all-you-want high class durian buffet at only $45++. There's a dessert-only variant which cost $18.90. Its quite worth it too but too bad it doesnt have the shackled durians.

Big big durian, wish I can shackle it and eat from within.

Look at all the Red Prawn Durians!

Durian ice cream, one of my favorites

Durian waffle, durian chocolate cake, durian kueh, durian puffs, durian cake, durian pancakes... all dipped into a cup of durian mixed flesh

Event: Reunion Lunch

The reunion dinner is a chinese tradition for every family to have on Chinese New Year's Eve. So it represents many values such as prosperity and unity in the family for the year to come. It wouldnt be too off for my other family outside to have a reunion lunch. We went to Paragon in hope for Ding Tai Feng but alas, it was closed. So we went next door to this i-dunnoe-how-to-spell-but-its-something-like-spagetti to get some good food. Mine wasnt too nice but the five cheese pizza that i suggested that we should share as a group was not half bad.

all the shy shy people

five cheese pizza, shiok!

they said we got to go starbucks to get my addiction for green tea frap fixed

Drink: Starbucks (Green Tea Frap)

My friend introduced this to me some months ago and i totally love it. After trying many different configurations, i've finally settled with my favourite.

"Venti Green Tea Frap please, with 7 scoops of green tea and no whipped cream"