Happy Sunday - girly brunch, dinner & crazy shopping!

I caught up with my good Japanese friend today. We used to meet up almost every weekend but I hadn't seen her for about a month! I was busy with work and settling down at my new place and she was overseas for a week. 

It was raining so so heavily like really pouring this morning but we managed to get out of the house and met up at Far East Plaza. I sometimes go there for lunch with my colleagues but it was my first time meeting up with my Japanese friend there. She told me that there is a nice yakitori place called "Nanbantei". I had been there once but couldn't remember what it was like and felt like going back there so we did. Price is reasonable and food was not bad. People were friendly especially after they found out that we were Japanese. Singaporean waitresses tried to speak Japanese to us and that was really sweet. 

I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of the food but we both ordered yakitori bento and it was good. SGD 13++ and came with miso soup and red bean dessert too. 

We talked, talked and talked for about 2 hours - about work, holiday, food, fashion, family, friends, japan, everything, basically updating each other on what we've been doing for the past 1 month. 

Then one of the waitresses came to us and said the shop was closing. We looked around and realized that most of the customers had already left the shop. 

It was close to 3 pm. Whenever we meet up, we always forget time and talk so much. 

After that weather was kind of getting better (pouting to drizzling) so we moved to ion and started our crazy shopping. 

What is crazy about our shopping is that it's not about the amount of money we spend or things we buy. It's the time we spend at each shop, trying out many clothes, discussing and commenting on each other's outfits, taking time to decide  what to buy and what not to buy. 

Boys might find this process of shopping "wast of time", but actually I find this the most fun part of shopping. 

Even some girls can't take shopping with other indecisive girls but we are both indecisive and we enjoy giving advice to each other and wait till your indecisive shopping buddy finally makes her decision with a happy face! 

We talked, laughed, shopped and ate so much and I'm so fully charged from work fatigue & everyday stress! I haven't felt this way for so long and am actually happy to start Monday again! Many thanks to my friend for her positive energy. I was very happy to converse her in Japanese too. 

The below picture is the souvenirs from Canada that she got for me. Thanks so much for the lovely gifts & happy Sunday! 

Happy 2013

 

 

It is a bit late to wish everyone a happy new year.. January is almost ending.

Well, but in Singapore, Chinese new year is coming up in few weeks time.

 

So it is not so late after all?  :)

It is exciting to be able to celebrate a new year twice!

 

 

I spent my Japanese new year in Japan with my family.

Even though I'm usually away from home,

I feel so greateful to be able to celebrate the begining of a new year back home

with my family and friends, the people I love the most.

 

Thanks lots and lots to my company, my boss and colleagues!

I was very fortunate to be able to back to Japan for 3 weeks this time.

I spent Chiristmas, New year and my birthday in Japan.

 

 

I couldn't meet my sister this time,

but I talked to her over the phone many times.

 

She sent us 2 huge yummy crabs for the new year!!!!

 

 

 



 

On my birthday, my mum gave me a notebook with a story of my life.

All the stories and memories since the time I was born.

Earlier stories of my life was something so special, yet something I don't remember.

 

There were messages from the people I care the most.

Some of them longer exist in this world.

But I hope they can still see me reading the messages from the other side of the world.

I love you and miss you a lot.

 

 

As everyone expected, I cried on my birthday again.

 



 

 

 

I always thought that my birthday was one very special day for me.

 

I used to think and think.. what should I do on my birthday?

I want to do this, I want to eat this, I want to wear this, I want this that this that...

 

My mind was occupied with full of "me! me!" thoughts,

untill my ex-colleague taught me something very important last year.

 

She said,

 

"I don't celebrate my birthday.

For me, it is a day to thank my parents for raising me and taking care of me."

 

 

I was so shocked and upset and greateful at the same time when I heard this from her.

I spent all those years only thinking about myself on my birthday.

How selfish is that!

I am so sorry.

And thank you for telling me something so important!

 

 

 

 

After some thoughts...

Well, my birthday is still one special day for me.

I still want to celebrate it.

 

But from this year, I also decided to make my birthday a day to thank all the people

who have been making my birthdays very special.

 

My precious parents, grandparents, great grand parents and above, 

my precious sister & brother, my dear friends, 

my very kind and patient boyfriend, my boyfriend's very warm family,

and all the people who had cared for me and whom I care the most.

  

 

 Thank you so much to every one of you 

and hope your 2013 will be a fantastic year with full of happiness and smiles!

:) :) :)

 

Lots and Lots of Love!!!



Sunday lunch & dinner out

I caught up with my friend over lunch on last sunday. We had pork cutlets at Ma. Maison!
This place was awesome :)

Pork was soft and juicy, the outside was very crisply!
The zakkoku mai (the brown rice with heaps of grains) was also delicious!
Rice and cabbage are free flow.

I had never been picky for pork cutlets when I was in Japan. It's because almost everywhere I go (except for some dodgy places), they serve very crispy and tender cutlets in Japan!

But ever since I moved to overseas, it had been difficult.
Most of the time, pork has got too much fat and there is hardly any pork inside the breadcrumbs. This is cheating!
Also despite the low quality, It is often pricy! The worst is the very soggy cutlets. Ahhh I hate those!!!

But hey, this pork cutlets at Ma. Maison at mandarin gallery is really great!

Thanks a lot to my friend who took me there :)


We did a lot of shopping after lunch and we had sukiyaki udon for dinner!

It was not bad either! The taste was great, I just wish that they serve it hot!!!
It was not cold but not hot either.
I ate at "fu fu udon" and "fu fu" in Japanese means hot! ( it's the sound you make to cool down the food temperature. If the udon is not hot, you can't make this sound)

Anyway overall it was a fun & delicious Sunday!!

Smile!

Guess what I ate for lunch today...

Yang tau foo!!!!!

Finally I got to eat it!!
I've been craving for it for the entire week.

Apparently my colleagues are sick of yang tau foo. I guess it's because i always ask them to eat there. Haha
I wonder if I will ever get sick of yang tau foo...



Why, oh why are you so delicious!!!

Getting ready for Melbourne!

I'm going back to melb for holiday very soon and so I must eat my favourite Singaporean food before I leave!

It'll be just about a week that I'll be away from Singapore but I had to eat my favourite yong tau foo!!!

The photos are my favourite yang tau foo (in a purple bowl), basil chicken rice at Newton hawker centre (spicy, but very delicious, I only eat this at Newton ) and very delicious fruit juice I tried for the first time today at far east plaza. This shop was good! Better than a lot of other places! I forgot the name...but yeah super nice!( this is not helpful is it?)
Mango & pineapple mixed juice! Very yum!!!

The lucky one and yong tau foo

I watched "the lucky one" yesterday!
It was a very nice movie...
It's not just a love story, it's about family, wars and life.
I must watch it again! ( I have a habit of watching my favourite shows, movies & dramas over and over again)


After the movie, my friend took me to her favourite cafe and I had a mixed fruit juice :) yum !

We chatted for a while at the cafe and then moved to a food court...to have yong tau foo!!!!!


This is not the one in lucky plaza, in case you wondered.
My friend took me to her favourite yong tau foo shop!

I still think that the ingredients and the soup are better at lucky, but the special thing about this yong tau foo is that it comes with this spicy, sourly sauce!
You can dip tofu& veggies into this sauce and eat them.
Hmmmm it was very nice!

I had a very relaxing, fun and delicious Sunday! :)

Craft work

I bought very cute papers and stickers from an art craft shop called 'made with love' today!

They had so many cute stuff that I took a very long time to decide. They were having 40% off sales!!

I'm going to make birthday cards with these cute papers i bought today.
I'm so excited!

Ramen & cakes at Tanjong Pagar

I caught up with my friend over delicious cakes and ramen dinner yesterday.

The ramen shop was so popular that there was a long queue as soon as the shop had opened!
Ramen was all tonkotsu based and you can chose different degrees of spiciness. There were also free flow bean sprouts and boiled eggs.

My friend ordered black spicy ramen and I ordered normal tonkotsu ramen.
Both were delicious! I think the spicy ramen tasted like tantanmen and i found it quite spicy bur my friend didn't find it spicy at all!


I didn't know that there were so many cute cafes in Tanjong Pagar or even in singapore!

My friend took me to one of his favourite cafes next to this interesting looking antique shop!
(We actually went into the antique shop
and it's not bad! They were selling interesting stuff!)


The lemon tart and drinks ( fresh orange juice and some very tasty unique drink) at the cafe were all very tasty!!


I came to realise that he is one of the first friends I made in Melbourne and also one of the few long lasting friends from Melbourne.
It is really cool how we can still keep in touch (not just on Facebook but actually meet up) even after uni and moved to another country- Singapore!

I'm still new to Singapore and don't have close friends here so I appreciate his existence!

It was a good catch up :)


P.S


Oh and the purple cake is supposed to be super famous as it appeared on magazines before!

Wild honey again!

My colleagues and I had a team lunch today at wild honey!!

My boss organises a team lunch once in a while. She gathers everyone in the department and have lunch together.
The purpose of this team lunch is to develop good relationships among each other so that we can perform a strong team work in the office!

Food was tasty and the cafe was pretty as usual!
I had a great time :)

hippopotamus

My housemates & I went to a restaurant called 'Hippopotamus' located in raffles city today for a birthday dinner.
It was one of my housemate's birthday yesterday, but we could t celebrate it yesterday so we did it today in stead.


It was supposed to be a French restaurant but I'd rather say, it was a French influenced restaurant. I had a French classic burger ( not sure if a burger is French food) and my housemates had steaks!

One of them ordered a course menu and appetiser was definitely Japanese yakitori served with sweet chilli sauce (definitely not French dish but it was very nice).



We also had this tomato based veggies which was very nice, and chocolate fondue & 'floating island' for dessert!

According to my French housemate, "floating island" is a authentic French dessert.

Floating island was very interesting!
It is actually meringue floating in a vanilla sauce with sliced almond on top!

I'd never seen such desserts or eaten them before so I was very excited!!

Meringue was very soft&smooth and it matched very well with the vanilla sauce! Pretty nice!

Chocolate fondue was nice as well, except for pineapples. I personally don't think pineapples go well with chocolate..

At last, but not least, Customer service was also very good at the restaurant!


It was a very good Sunday :)

Going back to Japan for the new year!

I'm at the changi airport now ! Can't wait to see my family and friends!

The last days in Melbourne

I started this blog almost 2 years ago after learning how to blog in one of the media classes in the university. Since then, I've been writing about my everyday life, things I cooked, ate and experienced in Melbourne, Australia.

However, now it has to come to the end.

As I am now relocated to Singapore, I can no longer write about Melbourne anymore.

But I will continue writing this blog. I shall write about my everyday life in Singapore from now on! I will also continue writing about my everyday cooking and delicious Japanese recipes :)

So, this blog post is about my last days in Melbourne.

I had to do few very important things before I left Melbourne.

1. Eat my favourite Korean BBQ at WooGa.

I love the BBQ in this restaurant! It is awesome!!!

I went there with some of my really good friends :)

It was delicious! I hope I can find a nice Korean BBQ shop in Singapore too.

2. Eat my favourite breakfast

On my way to the airport, I had my breakfast breakfast on Sydney road.

This cafe is always packed during lunch time, but as I went there early, it was less crowded.

I like all the interior decoration of the cafe.

Breakfast stuck

My favourite breakfast!

My bf had

Chicken sandwiches

This is also very nice!!!

My new life in Singapore has just started about 2 weeks ago.

Weather has been pretty bad in Singapore, it has been pouring everyday.

But I like my new job and people at work are also very nice.

I miss Melbourne sometimes as I had lived there for almost 6 years but I am also excited to find out more about Singapore :)

Miss Marples @ Mt. Dandenong

Few months back in April,

I went to Mt. Dandenong with my housemates.

There was a place where we could see a lot of parrots

and feed them from our hands.

We went there on weekends (I don't remember if that was sat or sun)

so there were really a lot of people.

By the time we got there, many people had already fed the parrots.

So not many parrots were interested in my food...

As you can see from the picture above, I managed to feed one!

It took us so long to get this picture!

There were so many other people standing still,

just like trees with birds' food on their hands...

they looked so desperate for parrots to eat their food!

It was quite funny.

Afterwards,

we went to Miss Marples's Tea House for lunch

(It's a famous cafe in Mt. Dandenong).

This cafe is so popular that

you have to queue up for a very long time

(2-3 hours!!) just to get a seat.

Plus, it closes very early,

so you must get there early in the morning

if you want to have lunch there.

Why is this cafe so popular?

One of the reasons is that

the cafe's name "Miss Marple" is taken from

a fictional character in Agatha Christie's novels.

They have related pictures on the cafe's walls.

Its interior is pretty.

We ordered...

Garlic bread

Today's Soup

Sandwiches (This was very yummy)

Meat pie

(I don't usually like meat pies but this was not bad)

Scones

I think, scones are the best in this cafe.

They are very soft just like freshly baked bread.

Well, the cafe is pretty, the food is quite good.

But better be careful.

Their service is bad.

Well, at least I found it very rude and unpleasant.

They don't smile at all.

We ordered quite a lot

but they were not happy.

They wanted us to order more!

They gave us wrong change.

(I guess this was by an accident)

Anyway,

If interested, this is their website:☆

Good Food VS Bad Service. It might be worth trying.