Hmmm.....Home-made Big Breakfast

Home-made breakfast in 15 minutes?

(1) Scrambled eggs

(2) Toast with cheese spread and hams slices

(3) Almond and Chocolate croissants from Coffee Beans


(4) Boiled frankfurters

The croissants are a bonus but still, it is technically feasible to have scrambled eggs, frankfurters and toasts for breakfast in just 15 mins! If I can do it, you can too!

Day Trip to the Singapore National Museum

It's been ages since I last visited the Singapore National Museum. The last time I was there, it was out of pure boredom and in an attempt to seek refuge from the sweltering afternoon sun, I chanced upon a free exhibition and spent a few unexpected enjoyable hours playing with some long forgotten childhood toys.

This time round, the National Library was no longer by it's side and along with it, the small food center that used to serve yummy-licious indian rojak was demolished as well.

The newly renovated museum looks grand though and so does the high-class restaurants in its compound, along with the nice prices too...

So to support the cultural scene in Singapore, I started with a tiny appetiser at the restaurant Muse, managed by a French general manager. The place is lavishly decorated and an orchid-in-a-glass dotted each table.

I was not really hungry but still, to curb the itchiness in my mouth, I ordered deep fried calamari. The serving was rather big and as much as I tried to stuff the crispy, hot calamari rings into my mouth, it's just too much for my stomach to contain.

So having satisfied the tummy, I went on a free guided tour of the Greek Masterpiece exhibition. The admission cost me $8 but the tour was conducted free of charge by the museum's volunteer. I must admit that I was a little confused with all the Greek names and mythologies but nevertheless, the tour was rather enriching. Interestingly, what I found most intriguing on the sculptures of the naked Greek men/women was their toes.

A close examination of all the toes from the scultpures revealed a stunning discovery! The second toe is longer than the first toe!!! So the next time someone pokes fun of my feet, I'm going to poke their eyes and tell them to bugger off. Afterall, I'm a Chinese with Greek toes and how many of you can beat that! :)

The Book Bug Got Me

I think the book bug got me! Despite the waking-up-early, coming-home-late schedule, somehow, I still find time to finish chapters upon chapters of whatever books I'm reading on a daily basis!!!


And right this very moment, I'm totally hooked onto a book by Neil Humphreys - "Complete Notes From Singapore - The Omnibus Edition". Sounds like an SBS bus guide to me when I first saw the word "Omnibus" on the cover. And I was a little confused as well because Neil Humphreys usually writes articles on his observations of the daily sights and sounds of Singapore with a wicked tinge of humour. So what's this "Omnibus" thing about?



After fumbling through the book and reading a few pages at random, I realised that this book is essentially a combination of three of his previous publications. So instead of paying more to buy three books separately, I got all three binded into one book at a much cheaper price! Then, I became confused again. Why would anyone come up with such a marketing strategy? I can already visualise those big, black spiders spinning cobwebs on the earlier publications.


Anyway....this book is definitely a MUST HAVE on anyone's book shelf. Shortly after I started reading a few pages, I'm already giggling away. I'm a sucker for British humour and for him to ingeniously merge the Singapore humour to that of his home country does it big time for me! I'll be reading the book while I'm half-way through my bread and Milo in the morning, still at it in the train to work, smacked right infront of me when I'm having my takeaway lunch in the office, my trusty companion on the late evening train ride home as well as my bedtime story before I doze off to slumberland.


I think I'll be totally heartbroken when I finish the book. :(


And before I sign off from the blog to join my book in bed, Goodnight to all the pricks (my favourite word from the book and I simply can't resist using it here regardless of how nasty it sound!) out there!

Dessert at Goodwood Park Hotel

After dinner at Cream Bistro, a friend and I walked to the nearby Goodwood Park Hotel for something sweet to complete the meal.

As it was our first time there and without any recommendations or prior knowledge, we wandered off to the L'Espresso for a drink and some desserts.

There was a choice of either the indoor aircon seats (which is kind of freezing cold) or the outdoor seats facing the swimming pool. With the slight drizzle and the soft light illuminating the swimming pool and its surrounding low hotel terraces, the choice was clear.


We ordered a cup of coffee, camomile tea, vanilla raspberry cake and a dark chocolate fondue with fruits.

The coffee came with a sugar stick where looked as though the sugar crystals were cultivated on the stick right out of a primary school science laboratory. I thought it was kind of cool! If I'm not mistaken, it costs only about $6 - $9 a cup. Cheap!



On the menu, a serving of camomile tea was priced at $9. So I thought it would only be a cup of tea but I was pleasantly surprised when it came with a pot plus the option to refill. Real steal!



The vanilla raspberry cake looks nice but upon the taste test, it was kind of disappointing. It's essentially a thin layer of sponge cake spread with raspberry jam and took the form of a swiss roll with thick vanilla mousse as the outer layer. It costs around $6.50 per piece. Relatively cheap!

Finally, the grand finale - dark chocolate fondue with walnut sprinkled in it + a selection of 6 fruits (strawberry, dragon fruit, pineapple, rock melon, banana and kiwi) + 3 selection of dip-ins. It costs about $25. Relatively cheap taking into consideration that it's served in a hotel.

We were kind of puffed out by the time the fondue was served. Some of the fruits were a little sloggy but the dark chocolate covered it all up. My favourite would have to be one of the dip-in selection: a bowl of tiny riceballs coated with chocolate. :)

The Nokia E65 is absolutely crappy when it comes to taking photos. Quality is really bad with highly pixelated photos.

Takeaways to usher in the New Year

On the eve of 2008, I decided to have takeaway dinner as my last meal for the year.

I didn't have anything in mind as I made my way through the shopping complex. My first thought was to have a healthy and quick meal. So I settled for the QQ Riceball which made a rather big bang in the fast food scene after it was featured on a local food program show. The idea originated from Taiwan and the customer gets to choose the type of rice and five ingredients which will be wrapped in the rice and rolled into a mini-rugby ball with the help of a plastic wrapper. I chose the purple rice and the crabstick, preserved cabbage, fishcake, corn and smoked chicken as the ingredients. However, the corn was already spilling from the rice ball even when it's wrapped in the plastic and so foreseenably, once the plastic wrap came off, the ball sort of 'disintegrated'. Nevertheless, I like the taste of it although the small rice ball comes at a price of $3.20

In my next attempt to fulfil my craving for more carbohydrates, I made a mad rush to Cold Storage and savaged whatever was left on the sushi counter...not much left really...

Finally, to add a bit of 'sin' to my dinner menu, I bought a curry puff, a stick of crabmeat fillet and an oily chicken wing from Old Chang Kee. I couldn't stand it if I'm eating too healthy a meal either.

Oh well, my diet resolution can start next year anyway....