My Birthday dinner

Yes .. i know!! It has been about 20 over days since my birthday and I have just gotten round to blogging about my birthday. Well, blame my inertia ... my lackdaisical nature ... my whatever.



Anyway, first off I have to thank C-kun for organising it. Thanks to the everyone who came - (I tried to do the usual first letter of the last name, but it got too long. You pp know who you are. *another manifestation of my laziness?!*). We went to Cordury and Finch - food was ok but the company was great. So I can't complain. Ha!

So here's too one more year that has passed. May I become wiser...

Thai food at Golden Mile

Finally met up with Mr Anus after a long time. He has been studying for the last month so this would probably be the first time he is out. Poor boy .. haha. We went to Golden Mile because I have been telling him about the great Thai food there - cheap and good.

Reaching there, it was almost like entering another country - thai workers everywhere. You even have the occasional tranny walking by. How authentic!!




We went to this store and ordered seafood tom yum, black pepper beef, chicken curry and pad thai. The tom yum was good - hot, spicy (a little too spicy for my taste), and sour. So was the beef, although i have to say that it would have been better if they used a better cut from the beef - the beef had some stringy bits. The chicken was ok at the start but got a little too heavy towards the end - I think the sauce had too much coconut. The pad thai was rather authentic. Overall, I would say that it was a good meal and not too expensive. With drinks and rice, it cost $33. Will come back again to try other dishes.

Mocha Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin

Fresh out of the oven...



These came out good. The crust was crispy and the inside moist. I am becoming quite good at baking muffins *pat myself on the back*.

You can get the recipe here or below:

I added more coffee though since I love coffee and decreased the amount of sugar to up the "mocha" taste. I used vegetable oil too instead of magarine or butter.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup margarine
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 egg
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon instant coffee granules, dissolved in
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Blend butter or margarine, sugar, egg, banana, dissolved coffee, and vanilla in food processor for 2 minutes. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and soda, and blend just until flour disappears. Add chocolate chips and mix in with wooden spoon. Spoon mixture into 15 to 18 paper-lined muffin cups.
3. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Weiner Kaffehaus

I am having blogg-iahroe.


During the last few days, it was a big-boss-free and together with Ms. X, Y and L, I went to Weiner Kaffehaus on Cantonment Road. It serves Austrian food but it's similar to German food. The owner, anton, was friendly and walked around chatting to the customers - it gave the place a very European feel. The wait staff was a little gun-du though - we kept having to reminding them to get our things, partly because we were quite demanding. In the end, we ended up getting the forks, knives, water ourselves. But I have to say that the food is really Delish!

Too Bad Bee-hoon and Chua-kun cannot join us. Maybe next time ... Anyway, Dec will be truely a boss-free month.

the Veal Brutwurst


Wedges - it was deep fried to perfection: crispy on the outside, soft and fluffly potato on the inside. God, I sound like an Ad.


Beef Gulash - yes i know ... that is how the menu spelt it. It even had the little dumplings at the side. Sorry that the photo was a little blurred.


Slaughter Platter - the coup de grace. The pork knuckle was fantastic: not that much fats (all of it probably melted into the sauce), tender meat and very crispy skin. The smoked pork was good. But I felt that the burtwurst wasn't as nice as the Veal one. And don't think that it was all meat. There was the suarkruat too which was good too.

It's been a while - Little shop of Horrors

I have been negligent in blogging. Cos I have been lazy, choosing instead to surf, chat or read books. But I will give more updates ..

So I will be donig many flash backs ... the birthday dinner that Chua-kun so kindly help organised, some food pictures, more food pictures and hopefully more things to come. :)


First off, the office went for a play/musical "Little shop of Horrors" - a really really off broadway production, with the Dim Sum Dollies. I have to say that the dim sum dollies were the highlight for me. They were hilarious. Made me regret that I did not catch their previous productions. However, the 3 dim sums were not the main stars. I would say that the actress playing Audrey (brenda something) was surprisingly good. It was Hossan again in the lead - *does Singapore not have other actors. Seems like there is only a finite number of guys willing to go into acting*.

The ending was a little let-down though. It was a little strange - everyone died and the plant was cloned and its terror spread all over Singapore. It ended with the warning "Don't Feed the Plants!!" 0_0 *huh??!!*

Anyway, it was enjoyable nonetheless and I got to see Jade from America's Next Top Model. According to our resident TV guide, Jade is in town doing some photo shots. I really wanted to take a photo of her but I thought it was a little desperate. I can't say whether she is pretty or not - she was wearing a LARGE sunglasses when she was standing in the lobby. But she has style, i will give her that. And she got her poofy hair back. ...

Quarter Life Crisis

It is past 12 midnight.

I can officially declare that I am having a Quarter life crisis. :( ... although this is assuming that i am going to live to 100 years old. (Judging by my eating habits ... maybe not).

Well ... have been wallowing for the past two weeks. Is it in anticipation for this day? The realisation that time is passing again and I am standing still ... *sigh*.

I need a compass...

Trip to Algeria

Finally blogging about the algeria trip in OCt ...


Had a rather long stopover in paris .. because was not allowed to go into the business lounge with Mr T, i had to rough it out in the cafe myself for (i think) 5 hours. There was cigerette smoke everywhere. And the sad thing is, I only had work with me :( So i did my work ... and was actually able to puzzle out the whole thing and produced a powerpoint presentation at the end of it. Good on me!! haha.


Then to Algeria. There was nothing there ... or rather i could nto venture out cos i was with *ahem* someone elderly and not very adventureous. Well .. at least on the last day of meeting we were ferried around the town area. It looked nice and interesting. I had many issues on this trip. It was Ramadan so many of the restaurants were closed during the day. And it did not help that I was in a hotel that was about 1/2 hour away from the city. Also, it was french or arabic speaking so English will not get you far.


But one thing i saw was that at least it was not the usual desert and white buildings. I find those rather depressing. There was a nice garden beside our hotel but it was closed for renovation so all i got was this picture.

Banana Crumb Muffin

Hi Mr Anus,

I have made my banana crumb muffin. It has had rave reviews although some have said that they liked my apple cinnamon muffins better ("but next time, hold the burnt bits and the overcooked top" :). Some have also mentioned that it is a little salty.

Too bad you could not try this one. Next time then. .. hee.
website
And for those that are interested, here is the recipe from the allrecipe.com website.

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup white sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

My Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I have been looking for a muffin tray for a long time. Cos I am not sure whether I will continue to make muffins after the first try, I wanted to get a cheap muffin tray. Got one from some dept store in chinatown for $5. What a steal!!

Anyway made my first muffins - Apple Cinnamon muffins. (See pix).
According to pp in office and home, it is not bad .. some even ventured a "good". I find it so fulfilling to cook / bake!

The recipe if you are interested:
3 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
2/3 cup butter, melted
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups finely chopped tart apples

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Mix together.
3. Add all remaining ingredients and stir until flour mixture is moistened.
4. Spoon batter into 2 greased or paper-lined 12-cup muffin pans.
5. Bake at 375 for 19-23 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool for about 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Back from Algeria + Paris

I know it has been a long time ... i have been busy (*ahem* lazy). Hee!! Well now that i have been on a trip i thought that it would be requisite for me to post something about it and put up some photos for the pp that are reading this blog (I highly doubt that though). haha.

So once i got the photos to my comp, I will blog about it. Till then. .. hopefully it will not be two weeks from now.

K800i

i finally got it after two weeks of agonising :) .. so far, it has been fun using the camera. Fun thing is that i can take a photo and blog it immediately. Havent used it yet though. More photos from the phone later.

Wondering about the urinal

Things i have always wondered about urinals:
- why the urinals have a big "TOTO" on top of them? It is prob the brand of the urinal but goodness, it is so strange to be peeing into Dorothy's dog (from Wizard of Oz). ladies, you have to see it to believe it. Maybe one day you should just sneak into the male toilet, esp the one on 23rd floor ;)
- why pp in the toilet (male) never stand side by side in the urinal? When there is 3 urinals and two males, both would split up and go to the urinal 1 and 3. Urinal 2 is left empty. [One time i went in and there was 2 pp already at the urinal. Urinal 2 was empty so I slotted myself in and then persons using Urinal 1 and 3 starting talking over me. Most strange experience.]
- pp tend to look down when they pee? Like they would aim wrongly even though the urinal is such a giant mouth.
- {this is not about urinals but closely related} women can do the hovering thing on the toilet bowl .. (all the better to avoid touching the seat .. can't imagine? Go ask your friends). They must all have strong abdominal / gluteus / hamstring / thigh muscles. It is akin to doing the horse stance ('ma bu') for at least 1 min. Amazing :P

Finally ... i have managed to change my template.

it has been a struggle but i have finally tweaked my template and got it to work with the blogger system .. yippee. I think that this new template is nice :P comments?

my Virgin DQP with cheese

I finally got off my ass to transfer the remaining photos of the peru trip. Actually these are the few photos that i took after returning from machu Picchu. The most exciting one is actually a photo of a Double Quarter Pounder (DQP) with cheese. WTF ... you would say. Well, let me tell you.

Long long time ago, when i was in sec school, my indian friend Mr N Swami. told me about the greatness of a DQP with cheese. "Did you know that Singapore used to have a DQP with cheese but it was taken off the menu of Macca's because it was toooo unhealthy?" But apparently Mr S has tasted this ambrosia in the States and he swears that it is soo good. So because I have never went to a country with a macca's selling a DQP with cheese, I have never tasted one. Then when the Macca's here put the DQP with cheese, Mr S commented that it was not the same, it cannot compare... it is NOT REALLY A HALF POUND burger (for those mathetically challenged -- 2 quarter pounds makes half a pound).


Then when i stopped over in LAX, I told myself I had to have one DQP with cheese. I begged money (becuase i have spent all my USD) from Ms L and then went to buy the burger. Please note that this was BEFORE i suffered my traumatic food poisioning experience on the way from LAX to SG. And NO it is not due to the burger. .. or at least i dont think so. I distinctly remember that I vomitted the soba .. which was something that I ate AFTER the burger. Unless of course the burger caused the food poisoning and then it was down hill from there?

I have to tell Mr S that the burger was good .. succulent and definitely seemed tastier than those you find in SG. Of course this could be the hunger talking .. well i finally tasted it. ... Mr S will be so proud of me!!

Addendum to "drool???"

Sorry if I have been absent minded .. but I can also 3G with dad, mum and of course Mr Anus too :)

Drool???

In yet another attempt to agonise about buying this phone ...

It is actually a beautiful phone with all the bells and whistles ... the fantastic camera at the back (I am still wondering whether I really need a 3.2 mp camera, or whether I will even use it in the first place ... but then I can be a japanese tourist sometimes) ... and the 3G function (who am i going to 3G with .. C-kun? Ms J?.) What i want in the phone is the mp3 function so that i can zone out on the way to and fro office. So nice just to have some peace and quiet.

I think i shouldn't have asked Ms Y to go phone buying with me. I was so settled on the w700 phone .. the bling bling titanium gold walkman phone but then she comes along and says the k800 is so nice, so new, so ...

I will wait till this sat to see what other offers i can find ...

A day of Thai, Arab, Malay food

Went to golden mile for lunch today with OY and JC. Amazingly, it took my foreign friend to point out how wonderful the Thai food in golden mile is. Cheap and authentic. yummy ... We had seafood tom yum, beans with pork, Kai lan with roast pork, and beef noodle, rice and drinks for only $26. CHEAP!! But the place really is dodgy and i cannot forget the toilet that i went to when i was there a few months ago (read the entry on KL trip). Later we went to Arab street to have a middle easter dessert. It was only so so though, nothing special. Dont want to waste time blogging about it.



Then for dinner, met up with WF and WX for nasi Lemak. Well, i was the only one that bother to queue for the nasi lemak. I have photos :) It took me about 15 mins to get the rice. And then they did not have the "full house". Only the chicken meal. :(



The rice was yummy - they used basmati rice to make the nasi and the chicken was freshly fried, ohhh the oil. And the chilli was good - sweet and spicy but not too spicy. And of course, my fav, the ikan bilis, was so delicate and freshly fried. I think cos they have such a large clientele the store can afford to just keep frying and frying to have fresh supplies of ikan bilis and chicken. But truth be told, once i had it, i thought that i wont bother queueing up again for the nasi lemak. Unless someone is going to queue for me. :)

Anyone??

What do you want to be when you grow up ....

I hate it when i have to think about the future. It seems to be happening more often now. It doesnt help that there is always someone that is asking you "what do you want to do with your life"? It makes me questions whether i am really happy. ...

Photos from Peru ... finally

after much procrastination and delay ... I attribute it ALL to work, here are the photos of my work trip to peru.

Downtown lima
click here to view the slideshow

Cusco and Machu Picchu
click here to view the slideshow

Because i have taken over 600+ shots and am still waiting for more from other pp.. I did not upload all my photos. So too bad for those pp who dont know me or have no access to my laptops. haha ...

Back from Peru ....

I am finally back from my trip to Peru ... The funny thing is that i was fine throughout the trip but then when i boarded the plane, i started to have diarrhoe and nausea. And then when i got back home, I had to worst case of Jet lag.

But it was WORTH IT :D

Peru is so freaking Fun ... some many things to do and see and BUY... hehe

I will blog later with more photos. They are all currently residing in the office lappy.

Next week ... Jakarta :P