r a n d o m e a t s

Squid Ink Pasta with Smoked Salmon & Cream-based sauce @ Dome
Tried out Dome at Shaw House with Ivan, I must say service was quite impressive since I seem to remember that about them despite only blogging about this almost a month later. Quite cozy old-time decor, complete with my fav booth seat tables too. ;) First time having squid ink pasta without the pasta sauce being made of squid ink too. Doesn't seem much different from other pasta though, guess squid ink's not strong in flavour on its own anyway so the other tastes kinda overpower it. A generally nice combination which wasn't too jelak despite the cream-based sauce.

Deep-fried combo @ Dome
Typical deep-fried mix of calamari, chicken wings, prawns and potato wedges, served with 3 types of dip -- salsa, sour cream and chilli. The chilli one was surprisingly hot! The sour cream was unfortunately slightly bland, though it adds a refreshing dimension that's light on the palate when mixed with the other dips.

Mille-feuille @ Coffee Club
Which means thousand-layers in French, referring to the brownish bit peeking from behind the scoop of vanilla ice cream, adorned with raspberries and blueberries. Presentation was really sweet with a substantial amount of fruits and chocolate fudge blobs and a chocolate leaf, however it seemed to overshadow the actual protagonist of the dish. Which also sadly didn't perform up to expectations. The pastry was actually tough! We had some problems tearing it apart with our dessert forks. Oh well, at least the ambience at the outlet at Raffles City was really chill...

c u r r y f a v o u r

Ivan intro-ed me to Curry Favour that day (haha yes yes, my ubiquitous 'that day'). Somewhere around City Hall area.. Never knew it was linked to MoonRiver (though never been to either, despite having passed by both a couple of times).. Basically it's known for its Japanese curry. A typical dish has the usual sticky Jap rice and a tiny side of pickled ginger, and deep fried something, which in our case was fish and chicken (if my memory didn't fail me oops). Then it's served with this lovely amount of jap curry that comes in some contraption that looks almost like a genie lamp (yes, pardon me for my lack of vocab). Initially seemed like quite alot of curry, but cos it's not spicy yet rather tasty, don't be surprised that you'll be wondering where it all went before you notice it.. ;)

We had some crispy soft shell crab too.. Came with a wasabi mayo dip, remember having been served a similar at Cafe Cartel for theirs too.. Think it was a fair bit of crab mmm... Always had a soft spot for soft shell crab anyway hee.. Generally quite a nice dining experience I guess, with nice couches further in to lounge around too.. =)

v d a y

Had the sweetest ever Valentine's with my darl.. =P Really touched that he was putting so much effort into it and trying to keep the preparations hush hush so it'd be a surprise hee.. Can't stop gushing oops... That's my pretty light purple hydrangea set in its own quaint wicker basket -- my fav flower in my fav colour muahahaha.. The beauty of hydrangeas is in how a single stalk can naturally seem to be a bouquet on its own! =)

The pirate and his rum! Haha couldn't help myself but post this unglam photo of someone's alcoholic tendencies.. =P

Wasn't rum nor shandy.. Was actually Riesling! My gosh.. I'm no wine connoisseur but kinda liked them (a species of grape quite commonly grown in Germany) when I first tasted it in Germany.. Mmmm wine by the beach, with a soft sunset too.. How perfect can things get?

Perfecter! Pardon me, I simply had to coin that word.. Master chef's TLC work of art.. After much experimentation and sweat, voila! Pate and Avocada prawn salad which can't be described by any other word but heavenly... Would never had thought of making pate myself, especially not in Singapore hee.. But he apparently proved me wrong! And my my, that was one smooth salad, shan't further divulge his secret ingredients hee..

Simply had to fool around a bit with ice and fire as the sky turned dark... =P That was one really memorable Vday, couldn't have enjoyed it better, all thanks to my dearest!

d a i l y s c o o p

Waffle with Ameretto Ice Cream @ Daily Scoop
First heard of this ice cream parlor at Clementi Arcade along Sunset Way from the CSS people, so suddenly decided to look for it and give it a try after an afternoon at the career fair. Serves up a variety of homemade ice cream with some local flavours, such as Durian Durian (what else screams more 'Singaporean' than that?), and exotic ones such as Orange Tequila. Quite a number of flavours with liquer actually, how nice haha, though obviously the alcohol ain't that strong, can't imagine kids getting drunk in an ice cream, can you? ;) The ameretto's a almond liqeur, it came with mashmallow and chocolate bits too. The waffle was subtly crisp on the outside and soft inside, which is quite a well done version of the typical light Singaporean waffle in comparison to the heavier doughier Belgian waffle. Love both versions nonetheless.

Warm Chocolate Brownie with Lychee Martini @ Daily Scoop
The brownie's nothing to rave about, denser than the one I tried at Four Leaves but not as dense as the one at Mrs Field's. Lychee Martini's lychee flavour was rather refreshing, though the martini bit was hardly there.
Having had my fill of waffles yesterday at Olive Cove at NUS (finally) and today, think it brings me to the end of my waffle binge, but think my hunt for brownies has but just begun oops... =P

t e a

Viennese Chocolate Shortbread (Marks&Spencers) and
Ipoh White Coffee and
Peanut Cookies (First Choice) (in background)
Been pigging out on meals like breakfast and tea.. Blame it on being deprived of CNY cookies for 1 year haha, even Germany gets the blame for my Kaya spread craving! Sipping on ipoh white coffee while nibbling on cookies -- that's my idea of a perfect tea mmhmm.. Btw both cookies were bought while on promotion (good time to buy CNY cookies right after CNY as prices are slashed yet they're still rather fresh).

Chicken Curry Puff (1A)
Yes, I'm nuts enough to hunt down this stall at Block 94 Bukit Merah View, behind Henderson Primary School, which I heard is the original before the whole franchise chain started. Have always loved this version of the crispy curry puff, ever since my mum first bought them from some franchise stall at Jurong West (where we used to live in at one point in time). Not so much cos of the flaky skin, but rather for the really moist fillings which somehow seem to have gravy and yet not have been absorbed by the skin. The sardine version's delicious too. Helps that this stall's rather near to my home too muahaha..

j a l a n k a y u

Tulang @ Jalan Kayu
My uncle's been bringing me to this place at Jalan Kayu that's 3 stalls (selling different stuff like Roti Prata stuff, Seafood Zi Char stuff, Satay, Nasi Padang etc) which combined forces, so customers can sit anywhere and yet order from any of them. This bone marrow dish (which is called Bone Steak on the menu) is really huge and worth it for 8 bucks! Plenty of bones, more than enough to go around the table of 5, and really lip-smacking sauce! Waaaay better than the one we had with my sis at Rowell hee... This is so gonna make her drool till she next flies back haha...

Tissue Thosai @ Jalan Kayu
This is humongous. Totally. Just look at the puny bowl of chickpea sauce in comparison. And I didn't even manage to squeeze in the entire length of it into the photo yet! Really thin and comes with 4 sauces to boot. My aunt and I just love the chickpea sauce (the one served in the bowl), and we all just ended up dipping some Thosai in the Tulang sauce too haha cos that sauce was that good.

Roti John with mutton and cheese @ Jalan Kayu
Somehow not as impressive as I was expecting. Found the bread a bit tough for my liking. Maybe I like stuff that's more crisp on the surface, though no idea whether that'd be authentic roti john hee.. Sauces came in generous amounts, but not so for the fillings.

Roti Prata Bomb @ Jalan Kayu
Was reading about this Prata Bomb thingy in some food blog somewhere, think the craze started in Malaysia but apparently hasn't really caught on in Singapore, as nobody else at the table had ever heard about it. It looked rather dismal when it arrived at the table, but was really not bad tastewise! Think the dough's slightly different, had some margarine and sugar in it too. Guess I'll try a Bomb again when I next see it in another prata stall's menu.

Sardine Murtabak @ Jalan Kayu
First time having fish in Murtabak haha.. Was quite a fresh change, though it was more moist than usual Murtabaks, dunno whether it's cos of the sardine, or their Murtabaks are generally of the wetter sort.

Beehoon Goreng Pattaya @ Jalan Kayu
This was good stuff! I generally love Pattayas, which is just whatever stir-fried carbo-dish wrapped in omelet. The egg was soft and moist enough, and the beehoon goreng had sufficient ingredients too.

q e d

quod erat demonstrandum
. . . q.e.d.

Latin for Which is the thing that was going to be proved, which means Thus it is proved.

Have always wondered what that q.e.d. thingy we used to write at the end of mathematical problems which required proving LHS=RHS meant. Remember asking our math teacher and he just jokingly said "Quite easily done." which we obviously didn't take seriously. And voila! Enlightenment appeared years later, randomly in a novel I was reading today!