Indulgz

The name of the restaurant opened by TJ's bandmate Christin, only 6 days old. We were meeting Grace and Jeremiah (J) and J suggested going there to support. Since we had no better suggestion, we went.



J told me it was a dessert place. Went there not expecting such a posh looking place. Flowers were still placed outside, indicating it's new-ness. We sat down, and started looking at the menu. Lady Boss Christin came and introduced herself, catch up with TJ and J, and recommended some items too. Seeing as we already ate dinner, we decided not to go crazy with the main courses but just order a few to share.







From top to bottom: potato salad, grace and j with cheese fondue, our main course: stuffed portobello mushroom

Potato salad was good, using new potatoes and yummy minced bacon fried until crispy. Stupid generic bacon bits sold in the supermarkets cannot beat this... Never had fondue before, this cheese one is pretty nice, thick and has this bitter aftertaste of alcohol (kirsch, if i spell it correctly)it comes with bread cubes, pear, green and red apples. the tart sweetness of the fruits matched v well with the cheese. finally the stuffed portobello mushroom. portobellos aren't usually so small, some seasonal issue, so we got two. it was stuffed with chicken etc. dun really know wat went into it. you could really tasted the original flavours of the chicken and mushroom, lightly seasoned with rosemary. it came with truffle mashed potatoes (v good and hand-mashed w/o any milk powder taste) and some veggies. good for ladies (healthy!)

Desserts!





I am suaku, never eat fondue before. Liked the dark chocolate fondue here. And here comes my fave item of the day: Lemon Souffle. Never eaten souffle before (ok this is repeating itself, i'm a suaku). When it was served, i tot it was some cocktail. Turned out to be a dessert. Light, lightly sweetened, with the tangy tart flavours of lemon. you can still taste the tiny lemon zest bits. and it comes topped with strawberries and homemade whipped cream. yummy!

They're still new, settling in and fine-tuning their menu. Christin tells us tt the rib-eye steak and the butterfish steak are highly recommended by customers. like this place so much tt i have persuaded my jc classmates to have our gathering there. must show support mah. cos it's good food, reasonably prices, nice decor and nice music too...

Here are the four of us who went:



Had a great time Grace and J, nice to catch up! We should do it often. Thanks J for giving us a ride back, and sorry tt you ended up being summoned (parking).

p.s. been reading a few food blogs recently, kinda inspired. but don't think i'm doing a good job. haha!

The Lake House

Went to watch sneaks on the Lake House last night, meaning that I caught it before most of the general population in S’pore. Did not watch the Korean film Il Mare prior to this, so I can’t do any comparison between the two. But yeah, because I haven’t watched romantic movies for so long, was kinda anticipating this and hoping for it to be good.

TJ’s rule # 1 for romantic movies (or all movies in general): there must be a happy ending. To him, if the ending is sad i.e. the protagonist dies/is injured/does not end up with his/her lover etc. then the show will never be great in his books. Hopeless romantic tt guy… but yeah… I don’t really agree, cos sometimes there more beauty/poignancy if the leads do not end up together, but are happier as a result, or it just wasn’t meant to be, but the process was still a most beautiful love story. Rambling in the morning, but I hope you know wat I mean.

My rule # 1 for romantic movies: leave logic out of the window while watching it. If you think too hard, it will never make sense, robbing it of the loveliness. Come on, the mere notion of two people meeting and falling head over heels in love all within the span of 2 hrs should already send alarm bells ringing. Not to mention ghosts who don’t leave cos of unfinished business and end up being brought back to life by the man of her dreams (Just like heaven) or people who can correspond via letters (who does that in 2006 anyway? Use email for goodness sake) and can even send letters back and forth in time over a two-year gap using a mailbox. So leave logic out of the window, and prepare tissues, cos allowing yourself the freedom to feel and experience other ppl’s love story is a sweet awwww feeling…

Haha not bad, throughout this whole entry I did not give away any of the plot that’s not already being overplayed on the trailers. Loved the soundtrack… It just set the entire mood of the movie… Especially the song by Paul McCartney: This never happened before. Simple but beautiful lyrics:

i'm very sure
this never happened to me before
i met you and now i'm sure
this never happened before

now i see
this is the way it's supposed to be
i met you and now i see
this is the way it should be

this is the way it should be for lovers
they shouldn't go it alone
it's not so good when you're on your own

so come to me
now we can be what we wanna be
i love you and now i see
this is the way it should be

this is the way it should be

this is the way it should be for lovers
they shouldn't go it alone
it's not so good when you're on your own

i'm very sure
this never happened to me before
i met you and now i'm sure
this never happened before

the noisy lampshade (pics)

Pics of my noisy lampshade before his lampshade gets taken away. Doesn't it just make you go awwwwwwwww...

Home Cooked Food

Finally I get my long overdue pictures to post here. Really should get a camera that works, or a phone with a good camera. This looks damn good. And comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera, and I can photoblog too! Woohoo! But I don’t think it’ll come cheap, not in the next few months at least. But a girl can dream…

Saturday 22 July 06

Watched Nacho Libre. Funny show, but it wasn’t as fantastic as School of Rock. Cos let’s face it, Jack Black obviously won’t look as fetching as Brandon Routh in spandex, though I must say that it’s quite a good coincidence that both costumes feature the red and blue combi. I loved the campy soundtrack though, cute and fitted the outrageous Spanish/Mexican accents to a T. But will I recommend it as must-see? Not really. Wait for the (pirated) DVD. Cos there’s no superb special effects in this one that you MUST catch it in a cinema anyway. Next show I wanna catch: the Lake House. Haven’t seen a romantic/tear-jerker since Just Like Heaven. And I must say the house really looks very nice.

After movie we went grocery shopping. Bought frozen cod fish in NTUC, a bargain at less than half price of what you’ll get in the wet markets. Then it was some chocolates, baguette from Delifrance. I went to have a look at the newly revamped Bistro and it’s menu. Madness! A sandwich costs almost 10 bucks now! I might as well top up abit more and go eat real western food at Café Cartel or something.

Why the cod? Well we were preparing dinner at tj’s home since his parents weren’t around. So the menu of the day consisted of:

Cream of Mushroom

Campbell’s Select Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic, diluted with milk. Fresh white button mushrooms were added to give it the mushroom kick.

Bruschetta on Toasted Baguette

Cubed tomatoes tossed with lightly sautéed garlic, olive oil and Italian herbs. Served on Toasted Baguette

Lightly fried zucchini and capsicum

Pan-fried cod fish steak with honey mustard sauce

We had help with this one, but doesn’t make it less tasty as you can tell from the pics. YUM!

Sunday 23 July 06

Celebrated Daddy’s b’day at Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao @ Toa Payoh. Their menu is the older version, less extensive as the outlet in Suntec or Holland V. I also felt that the food wasn’t tt up to standard, but who can really go wrong with Xiao Long Bao right? All in all a great dinner. Happy birthday in advance daddy! (His b’day isn’t until Friday)

the noisy lampshade

realised that i shd add pics to my blog to make it more interesting, then most of the pics will end up being tt of my darling kitty. who's been a pain the the backside recently.

so in the end kinky didn't have to go for stitches, cos his tail healed after cleaning with antibacterial solution and antiseptic powder + 2 antibiotic pills daily. was a bitch to feed him the pills and wash his tail but ok. so it really was getting ALOT better, u can even see the fur start to grow back... happy happy. but since he knows he's getting better, he's making TONS of noise wanting to go out. he still has his lampshade on, and tt's stopping him from squeezing out anywhere... but doesn't stop him from trying, and making a hell lot of noise to get us to maybe open the door for him.

we wanted his tail to completely heal b4 we let him out and take off the lampshade to prevent future troubles...

but alas, the clever and noisy lampshade managed to make his way out this morn, jump into my neighbour's house and happily stayed there until my maid found him, tried to get my neighbour to chase him out, where he happily jumped into the drain, and stayed there...

sigh. liddat how to get well you stupid cat?

i HATE falling sick

ok who doesn't? esp if it's the kind that makes your stomach churn and makes u grasp your stomach, and you can't stand up straight during the sporadic spasms, that makes you wake up in the middle of the nite (almost every half-hourly) just to go toilet to diarrohea. what kind of word is diarrohea anyway? i never really learnt how to spell it.

first tj, then me, then now cha. according to my doc it's some virus going arnd tt attacks the stomach, not sure how true is that. so was on one day MC, just sleeping at home. at least my stomach no longer hurts due to the medicine and also because there is only so much that can make ur stomach churn if you didn't eat anything and have proceeded to diarrohea out maybe 3 days worth of food.

all in all, agony. i HATE falling sick. unless it's the keng kind that i can take MC and feel pretty much ok.

fear to fall

met up with yun and ade to go blading after work. was kinda apprehensive cos 1) i haven't mastered blading properly 2) haven't bladed in a LONG while 3) never bladed in rented blades b4 4) tj (my 师父) wasn't here

so after getting our gear ready and wearing smelly wrist and knee guards, we were off. ade is a natural, she learnt while she was young. yun and me... dun really know how to blade, but she's much better than me... ended up ade and yun were blading far infront of me and chit chatting, while me (the tortoise) is always behind, trying to catch up and trying hard not to fall... so ade and yun kept having to stop periodically to wait for me. thanks babes!

i must say i surprised myself. when blading with tj he was almost always next to me, either holding my hand or just an arm's length away. so while i did manage to blade and move, i never really learnt to fall, or have the guts to trust myself to blade properly. so now tt tj's not arnd, i'm forced to learn quickly, cos now nobody's here to hold my hand to baby me... and let me scold him when he tries to make me go faster... and interestingly enough, it's like this tt i manage to learn faster...

is this how life is? you grow up faster when left to your own resources... tt's why wild plants grow much more luxuriously and healthily, while the sheltered ones in the greenhouse, while beautiful, seem lacking a little life?

perhaps this is how it is. i have to let you go, go out there in the world to find yourself, and in the process, i'll find myself too... and realise tt i'm actually stronger than i think i am, that while i need you here in my life, maybe i also need you away for a while. they say absence makes the heart grow fonder. maybe absence also makes the heart grow...

always had this fear in me... fear of failing, fear of falling... it's time to conquer tt fear, i think.

TGIF

Not in a particularly good mood today. Kinda dreary morning and was like super lack of sleep, guess this is after-effects of the world cup, slept 3 hours tt day, and less than 6 for the rest of the days, so now I’m feeling the effects liao. Good thing is, my boss is on leave today, so can take it easy for abit. But still, taking it easy entails time passing by very very very slowly, unless I do “extra” things like blogging to take up my time. And web-surfing and msn too… oh wellz.

Was on leave yesterday to attend tj’s convo. Pretty fun affair I must say, finally my turn to return the favour after he was so nice last year, helping me take my stuff, going all around marina with me and the gals to be our official photographer (and yes your pics are nice). So this time around, I was the photographer, holding up to 3 cameras at one go, snapping away… quite fun really, but people should just learn to use ONE camera only, then disseminate their photos via email etc. much more convenient than to stand there 3 times longer time to pose, and the photographer having to keep changing cameras. Going to take photos again on Sunday. Shd be fun but no more skirts and give me my comfy birkies anytime!

Well good news, tj’s new job thingie is just about settled, gonna start work on Monday to sign the papers and wat not. But it’s kinda disappointing for me, cos was thinking of going away with him to lovely Sibu for a long weekend before he actually starts work. And now that it’s been brought forward, guess no more beach holiday to laze around and do nothing. Yes he lives near east coast and in theory we could laze around the beach every weekend, but no it doesn’t work that way somehow. But I am still glad for you dear, that all the long wait and uncertainty is finally over, and holidays will always come, guess we can just save that money and it can go towards my new hp + mp3 player fund. Any other contributors are highly welcome. Hehe.

Double good news tdy, just found out my dearest lab partner proposed to his gf! Happy for them!

Shall erm start to try to do some work. All the bosses are not around this morning, making me have very little incentive to do work. But as I said, not doing work is boring. And gosh, it’s only 9 am. So many more hours to go! But at least I’m going blading later. Wish me luck that I don’t fall too hard! Haha.

Cat Pee

Flavour Description of a very cute lip balm:
Cat Pee: A funny name- but a yummy blend of pink grapefruit, orange, & lime.
Sounds good? It smells good too.
Well, what's the occasion for this title? You'll soon find out.

Basically, my very cute cat recently got his tail banged up, he probably got into a fight with another cat, and the bottom half of his tail is now bald, with wounds in it which got infected and stuff, so we bought antiseptic powder, cleaned and bandaged his tail. It got better, so we removed the bandage. Wrong move. Sunday nite (it was raining the entire afternoon) he came back, his tail dripping blood. It was like he was having his period. Yes it was that gross. Worse of all, he had this huge deep gash on his tail. Sigh, the cat that never learns. So we washed it (hearing his cries really make my heart melt, but serves him right) and bandaged it again. And made plans to visit the vet the next day.

After a lack of sleep due to the World Cup, mum, cheryl and i made our way after work/school to bring kinky (my very cute cat) to the vet. the vet was recommended by my cousin, but we've never been there before. so after going round in circles in the back seat of a van with a cat who obviously hates travelling in a car, we got tired trying to calm him down... so i was just stoning, and cheryl was absentmindedly patting him. next i felt a warm liquid on my pants and shirt sleeve. split second later i heard cheryl shout, "ARGH! Kinky PEED!!!" cue jumping out of seat. after which we frantically tried to dry the seat with his towel and newspaper (thankfully we were smart enough to bring some)

Have you smelt cat's pee? It starts off like normal pee smell, then probably because of some bacteria in it, it starts to stink to high heaven after a while, not good if you're in an enclosed van with a semi-deranged cat. and even worse if you have some on your clothes. super gross. and we haven't even reached the vet yet! arghz. so finally we reached the place before cheryl and i suffocated from the stink (my mum refused to wind down the window).

The vet was very nice, he came out to help us get kinky into the clinic. somehow kinky seemed soothed by the vet and his assistants, who were cooing over him, patting him and calming him down. all three were young and obviously loved animals... awww... after examination, he told us that the wound was slightly infected so he can't stitch it up, so we had to take him home, feed him antibiotics and clean the wound regularly to clear it up before stitching. the fee was reasonable and he even lent us a cage to take kinky home! so nice. luckily the place kinda stank already, so nobody noticed (we hoped) that cheryl and i stank of cat pee.

And yes, we went home and i rushed to the toilet to bathe. Gosh I hope we never have to do that again, but sigh, we have to return to the vet on saturday! wish me luck!

fly away

this is actually not my news to tell, but don't think he'll mind. tj got offered a job, MNC, pretty good offer, good money and all but entails travelling and drilling on oil rigs. probably lots of training too, and the chance to go all around the world (to work on oil rigs lah) for now, he's gonna get posted to china (chongqing) for 7 weeks, then come back to s'pore for 7 weeks, then go again. after a while there'll be trainings to attend etc.

he's pretty excited and psyched up abt it, as his family and i are... good opportunity to go abroad to see the world, earn money etc. and how many ppl actually get the chance to work on oil rigs? career prospects are good too. staff welfare, like all MNCs are good (my company is just a bloody GLC, everything also wanna cut cost) so everyone's encouraging him to go...

so dear, please do go, don't let anything or anyone hold you back. go see the world, but be safe when you're out there in a foreign land, working in a dangerous job. am a little hesitant, esp since the previous LDR didn't work out for me... but we'll never know where the road ahead leads, which is scary but exciting all at the same time.

things you said to me last nite really touched my heart, about how u will go, earn big bucks so u can hurry up afford tt rock for me...

so i'd borrow the words from corrinne may

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

dance and life

interesting last salsa lesson.

went with tj and yun, joined by 2 indian girls (one of whom turned out to be yun's coursemate. the world is that small) so tj was the only guy, naturally all the attention was on him. so i was dancing with him... he was trying his best to lead. but guess i was impatient, never wait for him to lead then i just move. so end up pele (the instructor) made some comments, which were very interesting and very true as well.

all in all, she said tt girls shdn't be too impatient, guys take time to learn how to lead properly, so if the guy doesn't lead tt well, and makes you do the same few steps over and over again, just let him... maybe can guide him, never scold/comment on him on the dance floor, do all the discussions off the dance floor... if really have to comment, dun say "how come u never do xxx dance move?" but say more diplomatic things like "if u pushed my hand this way i would be able to read ur moves more accurately"

it was v interesting cos this was EXACTLY wat happened when tj and i went union, cos he was unsure abt moves then we didn't end up dancing alot, and i was impatient cos i wanted to boogie abit. but he wanted to confirm each and every step first, while i just wanted to go with the flow. needless to say, it didn't end up very well...

so it got me thinking: since i was able to allow myself to be led by the zai dancers (e.g. the dance instructors), how come i can't let myself be led by tj? does tt translate to real life? i.e. is it because i dunno wat i really want, so i'm just waiting for the guy to take the lead, to do wat he wants and hopefully know wat i want as well? and when he sometimes fumbles then i turn impatient? are all girls like that or am i alone in this? then tj started telling me tt sometimes he's afraid sometimes tt i dun really know wat i want, and tt i'm settling for something 2nd best.

i beg to differ. i accept him for who he is and who he wants to be. and i know tt there's something in him tt has the potential to be great, it's just tt he hasn't discovered it yet. and yes, he fumbles sometimes, but i do too... if girls just want someone who already has wat they want, and know wat they want etc. then they shd just marry old successful men who have tons of money to get them wat they want... but no we don't do tt... cos there has to be something more, something special...

so yes, i'm still grappling with my place in this world, finding my way, and i know you are too. so take my hand and we'll make this journey much more enjoyable. and take heart to know tt i'll always be behind you.