Modesto's and Dolce Tokyo

I realise it's a REALLY late Valentine's Day post. But here it is. We had a BFF dinner for Valentine's day on short notice.

Or else....

Anyway, after we have our whole indecisive ritual about where to eat, we decided Modesto's. I've seen it around a lot, especially when E and I used to work together at a certain huge mall. So we've finally got down to trying it.

It's always nice to be served the bread basket, but it would ALWAYS be better if the bread was warm and toasted. Unfortunately this wasn't..... C'mon, just throw it in the oven for a bit.

Bread with Olive Oil.

After glancing over at other tables, I got a bit worried that the portions might be too big, so we shared an appetizer and main course.

Seafood platter

Squid Ink Pasta

Washing it down with beer

For dessert, because we are such failures, we couldn't find a Fruit Paradise which we wanted to eat in Orchard. Did it close? I swear I thought there was one. So after searching high and low, we ended up at Dolce Tokyo.

This is by the people who opened MOF(Ministry of Food) and LENAS.

Chocolate brownie with Gelato

I actually wanted the one with flambe bananas... but they got our order wrong. 

This wasn't a very exciting Valentine's Day for us. But I hope yours went much better!

Chongqing Hotpot

Hope you all had a great CNY now that all 15 days are over! Everyone probably gained a little weight, but really, doesn't matter as long as you are happy.

E and I went to The Magic of Chongqing Hotpot for our reunion dinner, just us two. A yearly tradition to meet during CNY period. Plus I really love this place. If you can appreciate Sichuan hotpot, then you'll enjoy this place.

It works as a buffet style, and I find it really worth every cent you pay. You get 2 cooked appetizers to begin with. Then free flow of tea and the food of course.

Fried Dumplings and Xiao Long Bao

I really like the service here, since I'm really lazy, the waitress will just bring you EVERYTHING on the menu and you just throw in what you want. Whatever you don't want, they'll send back to the kitchen. But please be considerate, don't throw in 1 tofu then send the rest back.

Extensive menu. I can see my pineapple tarts beside the menu! Made by our friend. She's amazing! Do order from her next year!

You get to pick 2 different soups. We chose the medium spicy Sichuan soup and chicken soup. The Sichuan soup can get a bit numbing... So if you're not that hardcore, medium is good enough. But if half way you cannot take the spiciness, the waitress will help you remove the spicy oil. Did I mention I love their service?

My mouth got all numb. :(

I've heard from the waitress in my previous visit that the Ba Bao Cha is the best tea to counter the numbness from the Sichuan spice.

All the food will be sent on trays. Those that you don't want you can send back.

MEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAATTTTSSS!!!

Their homemade noodles and meatballs. REALLY GOOD!

Halfway through your meal they'll send this dish to you. It's Mantou, Water Chestnut Cake and Tapioca Kueh? I don't know. It had icing sugar on top. It's supposed to help you clean off the Sichuan spiciness also.

I don't know what to call this course. I always save this for last.

THEN we had dessert. So that wasn't dessert. There are no photos of our dessert. It was ice-cream.

Highly recommended place!

The Magic of Chongqing Hotpot

19 Tanglin Road

#04-06/07 Tanglin Shopping Centre

Tel: 67348135

Paul

You know there's always that restaurant, that you walk past and you go "wow, looks nice" but you never try it?

Well that was Paul's for us. Now, I think most of you are going "where's this?", but I can assure you, you all have DEFINITELY seen this restaurant before.

It's at the 3rd Floor of Ngee Ann City, beside Kinokuniya. That big restaurant that you can see while taking the escalator up, ringing a bell now? Yep, that's the one. Always gives me the Tai-tai feel kind of restaurant, where I'd expect to see middle aged ladies sipping tea and talking about manicures after a yoga class from California Fitness that's located on the top floor of the same building.

I've heard about it from my chef friend that the pastries are good, but the bread was hard, stale kind of hard.... So we didn't order any of that.

Nice bistro feel/setting.

I can imagine that this place, in France, perhaps...? Would be at a little corner by the main road, where customers can sit and enjoy fresh bread and coffee while watching motorists and pedestrians pass by. But we were in Takashimaya, so all I could enjoy really, was people going up and down the escalator.

Smoked Salmon on a flat potato pancake

Yeah yeah, I don't remember the names of the dishes exactly. I would have preferred if the potato was piping hot and crispier... Maybe if filled with a bit of melted cheese too... 

I felt that the dish was so-so really, just a new dish experience at best. But the salad was good though, because of the vinaigrette.

Sautéed mushrooms with flat potato pancake.

For dessert, E and I shared a Lemon Meringue Tart. WOW IT WAS SOUR. It's so sour that my saliva just collected my mouth while thinking of it. Need more of that meringue to sweeten it up.

My God, it was sour.

Well, a new experience, it was.

Paul's

391 Orchard Road

#03-16/16A/17 Ngee Ann City

Tel: 68365932

S'mores COOOOKIIIESSSS!

I've heard/read a saying:

 You can be unhappy before eating a cookie, you can be unhappy after eating a cookie, but you can never be unhappy while eating a cookie - Unknown source

HENCE, E and I decided, we needed to be very happy people. So we got together with the help of another of my friend, AND MADE S'MORES COOKIES. (S'mores was added because we needed to be extra ultra happy).

You may wish to find the recipe here.

The cookies were really, really sweet and probably added more calories than you can burn off in a marathon. But who could care when you are this happy?!

                                                           

LOOK AT THE COOKIE DOUGH!!! It was a huge bowl.

Piling it up. The smores are precariously perched on the cookie dough. E has skilled and stable hands.

The difference between the one packed with smores and the ones without. 

While E and I were baking this, my phone buzzed like crazy. My friends were Whatsapping me for a cookie. 

1st batch of cookies. GOD SPEED. 

I prayed so hard for the cookies. 

WE DID ITTTTT!!!!!

I think E really did a great job. I just stood around snapping photos and.... yeah.

The perfect s'mores cookie.... You may drool now.

Let's take a look inside. MELTED MARSHMALLOW AND CHOCOLATE. Oh wow my mouth just watered up.

A MOUNTAIN!!! 

E and I did stare at the amount of cookies we made... We can't seem to just be normal and make a normal amount. We made probably close to 30. Yeah, we don't like being normal. Don't know who we were planning to feed.

What should we bake next? Any suggestions?

Kith cafe

I always look forward to our quarterly girl's outing. Though not all of us show up all the time, I strongly believe that all of us will make the extra effort to come (er-hem, excuse me if I'm wrong). Planning a dinner date with the girls is always hard as all of us work in different industries with some strange working schedule (of course I am referring to myself :( ). And deciding where to eat is always a chore, AS USUAL. Thankfully, Jayne suggested Kith Cafe and since there is no objection (because nobody else actually have a place in mind), that is where we went.

To be really upfront and straight forward, this is one cafe I would not go back again. Their beverages were average and really blend, nothing special. Food wise....... I believe we can find similar food elsewhere which would actually taste better. I have nothing else to comment and I am really great I had good companion to offset the disappointing meal.

So pictures..

Our appetisers

Some fruit soda... Lacking.... Fruit taste.

J's linguine

Mine

Jayne's lasagne

Cheryl's Maninara

Short of one main because I was too engrossed in our conversation and food. For your information, this always happen to J and me. We never remember to take pictures of our food first before tucking in. That is why.... we are BFFs ;)

Batam trip

Our quick getaway, or a "FINALLY WE WENT ON A TRIP TOGETHER" to Batam. E's had lots of nightmares about me abandoning her during any trips we go on together. She once dreamt she didn't have her passport on her and almost got kidnapped. I AM NOT SUCH AN IRRESPONSIBLE FRIEND. However she got that idea that I'd leave her alone in a foreign place is beyond me. Trust me, I won't do that, so don't hesitate to call me for a quick getaway like this. 

So we decided, we should try to put E's mind at ease and travel together. See what happens. We did almost split up cause I was staring at Kueh Lapis while she was staring at Egg Tarts and we drifted off in different directions. Yeah. But I swear I'm safe to be with.

E did all the booking for the trip, because I'm lazy like that. We spent $150/pax(including the currency we brought there). We can be such retarded people and forget how much our hotel costs.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort. Not a bad place, it's the hotel closest to the jetty so you could just walk over, but the hotel does provide free shuttle for lazy people.

They also provide free shuttle to Nagoya, but the journey was a tad long.

When we reached the hotel on our first day, a couple with kids in front of us had so much requests about putting beds together and whatnot, E and I sat and had the free pineapple juice while they tried to check-in. When it was finally our turn, we didn't have any request, just that the bed has to be comfortable and clean. And they decided to reward our simplicity with a HOTEL SUITE. See, it pays to be the nice, friendly customer.

Travelling like a boss. Our suite.

I think we did ask for 2 single beds, but in the end we just slept on the huge single one. That room had a TV.

Freshest cheap seafood I've ever eaten.

After settling down at the hotel, we took the shuttle to Nagoya. Now, I don't know where our courage came from, but we decided that we wanted to be adventurous and take a cab to a more ulu place with cheap seafood. The things your hungry stomach can make you do. We had to hand gesture and try our best in whatever knowledge of Malay we had to tell the taxi uncle we wanted the journey back as well.

But I can't say that was a bad decision.

So, don't go to Batam for the scenery.

When we entered, the waitress brought us into a room with all the live seafood swimming about in little tanks. We were asked to choose which seafood we want right out of the tank and how we wanted it cooked. So we decided on mussels and prawns. Chilli for the former and cereal for the latter.

Can I just ask if I'm the only weirdo that eats the shell for cereal prawns? I don't eat the head though.

Fresh mussels. Completely different from the frozen ones we usually eat in Singapore.

Veggies are necessary for every meal, people. Always eat your greens!

Soak in more of the atmosphere by going tropical and drinking coconuts.

All this comes with free flow of rice and for only SGD$15/pax. Yes you heard me right. 

And for dinner, we got for ourselves A&W! Can't remember when was the last time I had this.

When was the last time you saw this fella?

Oh yes, we also had egg tarts(yes, the same one that almost separated us). Then we fell asleep after watching Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides. 

The egg tarts that almost separated us. It was good though.

And in the morning, we had a buffet breakfast. I think it's a great end to a quick getaway. Then we went back to bed for like a couple of hours before heading back home.

Back to civilisation.

E got carried away, obviously.

So since our first trip ended with no one getting kidnapped or lost.... We can now go other countries for a longer duration. Where will it be, E??

Geeking out - Food and Games

I'm back with my random post about food! Previously, I did a post about food in movies and television shows. (Don't what me. Go read it.  )

Now I'm not going to hide it, I'm a geek. There's 2 things I love most in the world; Food and video games. So it's basically heaven for me when you combine these 2 together. If I'm not playing video games, I'd like to be eating.
Food and games go together like cookies and milk, brilliant pairing. Majority of the time in video games, food is used like a health potion, but I'm not going to go into that, let's see if I can pull something else off............ FOOD GAMES!

If you've played your fair share of video games, you would think of one game while reading this post the most;

COOKING MAMA

Cooking Mama! With her really bad English.

What else could it be? This game is the closest simulation game you get to actual cooking. You can use the recipes in the game to create real dishes too.
The game teaches actual cooking techniques, such as when you are frying, keep stirring your onions and stuff, or they'll burn easier.

Move those chopsticks or Mama will be angry!

They make you do everything from stir frying, to deep frying, to baking to garnishing. Whatever you can think of, you could probably find in some Cooking Mama 2 or some other Cooking Mama expansions.

If you get angry enough at the lady slave driver, you can go all Hannibal Lecter on her with the that knife.

You have to shape those patties as fast and as many as you can or Mama will not have enough for her  8-bit guests.

After you've completed a dish, she'll score you depending on how you did for each section of the food preparation.

That deserved a 95! This mama is one tough cookie. (Pun? What pun?)

Now that we've covered the food, let's move on to drinks. I haven't heard of a really popular and famous bartending or barista game that's the equivalent to Cooking Mama, but hey, I could be ignorant.
While I'm in my own world, here's a bartending game that I found interesting:

THE RIGHT MIX

You may play the game here.

Simple enough, your aim is to mix the perfect drink for the stuck up Bartender to try. Then he judges you on that.

Stuck up Italian guy judges you.

Also realistic enough like Cooking Mama, the drink combinations are not random, they have to make sense in real life, and if you shake too long your drinks explode. (Ok the last part maybe isn't true, but it's true that you should not over shake your drinks)

This is the screen you should be aiming to see. Assuming you're normal and don't wish to kill the Bartender.

And folks, that's all you do in this game. But the slapstick humour in this game does make it addictive for awhile.

I'm not going to move on and do waitress games, looking at you Diner Dash, even though it's in-my-face famous and is screaming for a place in this post. I just always feel a tinge of sympathy for Flo as she solos her eatery tables and serving demanding customers, while you click on the tables in such inhumane speed, that I can almost see pixelated tears rolling down her face. So yeah, I'm not going to glorify that.

I would have continued with RESTAURANT CITY, the Facebook game, where you could overwork your friends and see pixelated tears running down their faces instead. Unfortunately, the game has closed down. What a waste.


Excuse me now while I go try killing the bartender  making some nice cocktails.