comfort food and more fashion pin pointing

i did disappear for a while but dah-lings, it's all because school work is just iling up and this blogger is trying to play catch up with school's ongoings! Ok, anyway, in the past 4 weeks I was absent from the blogsphere, so many things happened!

Firstly, I have been eating alot. In fact, 2 weeks ago, I have a craving to try out lots of foods on this street called Purvis that is 20 minutes away from campus. There's this Hainanese coffee shop I know I can always trust to gimme a pot of delicious stewed mutton. So, I went there twice over a period of 7 days and i tried out more dishes. The first time round, I went with Peiyi and we had half a chicken, a mutton pot, and hot plate tofu, the second time round, I went with my fellow bitch tina and we had mutton pot (yes, again!), claypot tofu (which turns out to be same as hot plate tofu, but they just change the storage device to a clay pot...duh?!), and kangkong belachan. I really really love Chin Chin, cos I think the food's cheap albeit not darn fantastic, but still, i'll call it a cheap thrill.




Opposite Chin Chin is this loving little Thai coffee shop which I thought was cheap, cos it has no air con (and aong that lne, there's this other posh Thai restaurent which I think is freaking ex, especially with it's oppulent decor) so, I went there to try out the place cos a fren of mine had tld me years ago that the food there is oh-so-good. I had a good Tom Yum, thai fried vermicelli, green curry and some veggies which I forgot..Bt the point is, the food there is not cheap. A meal is twice the price of Chin Chin, and depending on your lck, you may get a pair of fellow diners seating besides you who can just plain give you bad vibes (which I realised is a term I am using so often nowadays to describe people whom I don't like about).

Ok, so here;s thi bitching part, I was walking to the tran station to catch a train home on a random night after school project and saw this gal with like one side of her pants rolled up to reveal her calf...hmmm...somehow, i suspect she's a FOBer and I really cannot fantom what kind of message she's trying to give to others with this weird sense of fashion trensetting - whch will so not take off.


Ok, to end this post on another note, tina and elise decided to fully utilise the pockets on my tee to fit in theor handphones and whore me out for aother sexy photo opp. TASTY!

lets talk bout fashion and random pin-pointing

before i go into my topic du jour, i'd just wanna tell all that my new lappie rox! haha, colors are so real and i am so enjoying every mnute at home with this gorgeous baby of mine.

ok, anway, i wan adedicate this post to fashion, yes. that's right. I wanna talk bout how some people have great fashion sense and taste (i.e. the shameless me) and how some others have well...let's just say they are Fresh Off the Boat (a.k.a. FOB), a great term to refer to certain gp of ppl here which a great frien miss Michaela had taught me the term.


So, i have this FOB couple in my monday strategy class and this FOB gal actually wore this atrocious outfit the other day in class. I cannot hep but just had to play papz and snap this while she was walking out of the class:



i was kind enugh to circle her so that you can pay her your utterly undevoted attention. Look at the dress which is bleah and so ultra communist (hint hint at her country of origin)with bright shocking all over the place prints, it really reminded me of a ultre cheap version of a zara/H&M/topshop rip off of Missoni collection - from the 80's.

As if a rip off is not bad enough, it actualy looks like a rip off from anothe rand that does rip offs. shudders. Oh, and may i divert you attention to her shoes, more accurately boots, or rather to be precise, KNEE high boots. Yes. KNEE HIGH. IN SINGAPORE! KNEE HIGH IN SINGAPORE WITH A RIP OFF FROO RIP OFF DRESS!


She must have suffered some brain damages to her fashion nerves while on the boat to our lovely shores.


And now, lets proceed to the good stuff! My bddy Karin got me a birthday gift, and since I was perpetually busy like forever, I only got to meet her after a lng hiatus yesterday for lunch and look!



I love the Tee to death cos I for sure, know this joke! Ha! I am so gonna wear this soon, oh, maybe tomorrow? haha... Thanks Karin! I love the Tee to death!


Now, to another event that was stressful: In my Tuesday equities clas, the roff cold call ppl to do up some problems and guess what? Yes! My group was that lucky! So in the end only KS went to the board to do up the problem ans since I cannot leave him to die there alone, I tag along and decided to be the flower vase with the caculator besides him to help him punch in the numbers and give him the answer. Man, only till then did I realised that Vanna White had such a stressful job! I the end, I cannot help but had to capture KS's baby on the board to show all (ok, plus I am runnng out of party photos cos I am broke and thus staying at home lately)

familiarising myself

yes i am trying to make myself familiar with my new laptop: from the bigger keyboard where i kept pressing the home key instead of the backspace key, thus making my continue my sentence from the start of the sentence to the new ms vista plaform which ust seem to ake everything slower. even my 2 gig ram cannot seem to speed up this demon! but then, the colors from my new screen is wonderfully rich and vivid and watching my tv shows on it are full of pleasures!

i am also in love with the fun mode on vista call wondows switcher, just look at how cool it is!

Still craving for steam fish

So, the steam fish Mum and I had for our birthdays 2 weeks+ ago was so fantastic that we decided to go for dinner tonight at Lei Gardens again. This time round, I tried their fins in superior stock (78 bucks for the bowl below) and found it below that of Crystal Jade Grand Palace (not those express outlets that targets the *cough* poorer people, though i dine there too, haha) but above that of Min Jiang (somehow, alot of places are above Min Jiang, i realised)



Since we also had the steamed fish last time and this time agian, i though I'll spare all of you the torture of yet another fish photo and took a photo of the Stir Fried Hong Kong Kai Lan with Prawns instead (31 bucks) :


Then, Mum loved the stewed baby ribs to death that she just had to order again and I took a closer photo of it :


Another great dinner at the ever friendly Lei Gardens, we so gotta try their Dim Sum soon.

a new baby is born

hi all, i have a major majpr annpuncement to make! I have a new baby! haha, no! not another prized bag or shoes to aadd to my collection, but rather, i have gotten myself a new laptop! Yes,despite spilling coffee over my fujitsu and it refusing to die, i still decided to i need to move on to get myself a new lappie with a bigger sceen to replace my desktop which has been collecting dust circa 2000.

S, after weeks of extensive research and budgetting, i decided to get a heavier laptop from Vaio but with spaectacular colors and resolution so that i can finally indulge in my CSI and Ugly Betty BTs.

Well, i have not taken any photos of my baby, but you can visit here to ogle at the amazing designs of it!

un beso

haha...yes yes...it was meeting up with my Chilean BSM buddies tonight, but poor Uvy had bad tummy problems after dinner of comidas de Mexicanos that she had to leave early; to think that she was the one that wanted to get wasted tonight...bleah! so happened that this was the forst time we all met ever since Sam (now a PR honcho at local IT club Zouk) came back from a 1 year stint in Japan teaching English and me back from Vienna, and JR and IVY back from a term overseas in Rouen, France and Jonkopong, Sweden respectively! Man! These are my ultra get hiogh drinking buddies; a trait we realised and shared from Latin America!

so anyway, sin ivy, JR, Samantha and i decided that 10+ pm to call a night is way too early and we diceded to check out Lunar; a Mandarin pop oriented place newly opened at Clarke Quay. Funny thing: two ang mohs were there and i bet they have the same confused feelings as us when we ventured into a underground trace club in Buenos Aires 2 years back (where almost everyone were hgigh on drugs; trance is so not for me and sam and JR, thoguh ivy professes her love for it though...go figure)

Ok, noe Lunar was ok, i mean the first band had a very pretty gal who knew how to work her hips by constant sashaying to get the horny guys in the audience excited with her whiny voice but the other 2 members are so forgettable. The second band with a rejected Project Superstar (Singapore's own Mandarin pop version of American Idol) was good and Sam got heaving with a rather cute guy singing from the band. But really, Lunar is kindda sucky. Period









Then JR decided to head home at miodnight but Sam and I used the guilt trip on him to make him go to Dragonfly at Saint James Powerhouse with us; man! it was a worthy tri pthere cos that place is packed! On a Tuesday some more! The band was really great, and Sam opened a bottle of Chivas and we all enjoyed purselves there ( which happened to be the 1 year annivesary of St. James Just look at our smiles at Dragonfly; ain't us so much more happier there?!











Oh, as I was saying, it's Dragonfly's 1 yr anniversary so they put up a really great and cheesy performance! JR got some shots...ultra farnie!

the lovely smell from them

i love strawberries; in fact, i can survive on strawberries and any berries all day long for 3 days straight. Ok, i know 3 days can't really prove my love for these berries, but hey, try that and if you still have normal intestinal activities then i take my hats off you.

Ok, anyway, on de rigour grocery shopping trip to carrefour with my mum yesterday, i picked up 3 lovely punnets of these lovely australian strawrberries, despite theyu all looked a lil bit mal-nourished and awfully tiny - chihuahua strawberries anyone? Nonetheless, they are still delightful!

me and my (boy)friend

haha, well, in case all of you reading this thinks that I am finally out of the closet, NO! haha...i am very comfortable inside my closet so i have no intention of doing that or anything remotely close to the outside of my comfy closet.

Today, after celebrating my strategy professor's birthday at Ice Cold Beer in campus (and i do mmean celebrate by going there and getting free beer), Elise, Huiling, I and Kenneth (now you know where the title of this blog entry comes from) headed down to Holland Village for dinner and desserts at Marmalade Pantry. I wanted to head to Holland V cos there's apparently a new dessert bar call 2am but after 30 min of walking around, I still cannot see it. Well, after a search on google, i can be sure that it is indeed there in Holland V but we just cannot find it. Darn.

Anyway, I played Kenneth's gay boyfriend tonight and provided countless moments of fun and joy to Elise and Huiling...haha...oh, and the desserts at marmalade was good, nothing uber fantastico; just mas o menos mis amigos.

I also showed the gals my new 'itsy bitsy spider' dance on kenneth with my fingers...hahaha...


Elise had the brownie, Kenneth had the sticky date pie and I had a lemon tart (like me, a tart...haha)


Elise and Huiling with disastrious white wine from marmalade pantry, no wonder it was 1-for-1


Oh, and while I was with the pal, I got a call from UPS saying that my education books are delivered to my place (Mum;s fearing it is some weirdo decided not to open the door at night) and I quickly called mum to accept the box...Man, turns out it is my CFA textbooks; all 6 of them! And I only registered 2 days ago! Ain't they fast?

belated elated gals

my dear ole' fren lauren was so sweet and got me a lovely pressie and i am glad it came late than never! She got me an espirit polo tee:



She of course, jazz up the gift with a very lovely birthday note address to someone very special (i.e. me):



After BP class today, my project mates consisting of Lauren, Andrea, Michaela, and Sara even treated me to coffee and cakes at gloria jeans at raffles city! They are such a sweet bunch of gals! And very funny too, may i add. I am so glad that I am making so many more new friends in my last year of school. Somehow, i realised that friends made in year 1 and 4 are the special ones. Ok and a couple from my year 2 days...of course.

These gals even sprinkled lotsa colored rice candies on the plate to jazz up the cakes! haha...so sweet of them! The cheesecake was lovely and the chocolate cake was ok, but the presence of these friends more than made up for the blandness of the choco cake!


Andrea and Sara:


Michaela, me and Lauren (I tilted more to lauren's side cos i so do not want michaela's bf to come punch me if i lean towards her! haha)

sing sang sung

despite a sunday, nothing in this world just seemed to make a bunch of ole' pals down and keep them satisfied with juat a dinner. So, to the ktv we all went where, despite 2 ladies needing to wokr regular (harrowing) hours on weekdays, we sing, sang and sung and tore the whole place down till 1+am.

Ok, so, not all are free on a monday, and especially miss stewardess who just touched down this morning after a night stop in manila, and a nus student who has no lessons on monday,
an ntu student who is on MC from chicken pox recovery (at this age still?!), and me, the one with a noon lesson with dear strat proff.

Noneteless, lotsa fun despit some having problems keeping ahead with the fast tracks and feeling sleepy...

Lagsana galore

i finally decided to make full use of the baking dish i had gotten from ikea eons ago by making some lagsana today. I mean, anything with pasta sauce is so hard to go wrong, right? unless of course you did what this idiot did many years ago at a christmas party by making spaghetti neopolitan with much sugar and turned the perfect dish into spaghetti neopolitan for desserts instead of main.

Ever since that fateful event, moi has learnt that sugar never ever goes hand in hand woith pasta sauces. Ok, so anyways, I decided to make some lagsana today cos while channel surfing days ago, I happened to chanced upon this lovey dovey couple making this dish and found out that lagsana is kindda an idiot-proof dish to make (once the suger is outta the equation). And so my dear readers, presenting to you all: Gerald's first attempt at the lagsana; and it turned out amazingly delicious!

I added in lotssa garlic (which is my favourite part of the sauce) and mushrooms and minced pork for the sauce. Yummy! And of course, since i love all thngs cheesy, I also added in extra mozeralla inbetween layers of pasta!

I am SO getting old(er)

in the spirit of making the birthday boy(=me) feels pampered and know that his friends actually still cares for him, dearest friends k.s., tina, elise, huiling and adelyn got me my favourite cake (=strawberry shortcake with lotsa whipped cream) when we had lesson yesterday. Ok, so things this year are not as happening as the event last year where the whole of Vienna literally celebrated for me...haha, but still, i had a great time! Oh, its is so darn sweet to have friends that reminds you that you are getting older.


And of course, my bitching buddy Tina decided to unleash all the grudges she has on me by telling miss pastry lady to write happy birthday BITCH on the cake. Nice (and i do really love it!)


The rooms all have smoke detectors so we were trying to light the candles and get a quick shot and then i have to blow off the flames...haha, another cheap thrill moment; atypical of me...haha

just the 2 of us

since mum and i share a birthday only day apart, we decided to hop into town today to treat ourselves a nice lavish dinner (sponsored by daddy dearest, no less) tonight before the actual days on monday and tuesday coming.

I was cracking my head trying to think of a place to go and since my last experience at Min Jiang at Goodwood was good but not purr-fect, I actually though of heading back there tonight to try their steamed fish which looked gorgeous on other diner's table. Of course, I remember Mum always love to have a good nice perfectly steamed fresh fish done Hong Kong style.

Just as I was looking at the WWW for the phone to call, I suddenly remember about this restaurant which my friend told me eon ago: Lei Garden. Ha! I don;t know how many of you heard of this but back when I was a Freshie at SMU, there was an occasion where I dropped my cell oin the cab cos the pockets of my berms were too shallow and when I called back the number, a japanese lady was in the cab (thanbk goodness it's not some evil asshole trying to steal my cell). Ok, so what has this got to do with Lei Garden? Patience my dears...Well, turns out that japanese lady was actually heading to Lei Gardens! Haha...and I had to pick up my phone from the restaurant in Orchard that time.

Ok, back to Lei Garden proper. Well, There are 3 branches here and I tried to pick up a reservation for moi and mi madre at the Chijmes branch opposite my campus but apparently, the lady said "Well, you can come at 6, but you HAVE to finish you food and leave by 7, or you van come after 7.45pm" Now, if it's me i don;t mind 7.45 but since Mum (=old folk) hates late dinner (anything after 7 is late) i decided that 1 hour is definitely not gonna help us place any memory of the dishes meant to celebrate our birthdays at dinner.

So, I called up another branch in Orchard (there's 2 there, and I chose another one nearer to Somerset MRT) and thank god! I manage to get a reservation and we actually decided to head to town earlier so that Mum can do some shopping (no LV this time dah-lings, she got a pair of cheapo flats from Taka instead) before we head to Lei Gardens for the much anticipated dinner (I mean I've heard great raving reviews of them but somehow, I've also heard that Ming Jiang at Goodwood has oh-so-great food which turned out to be, great, not oh-so-great, u get my drift?)


We had a fish, braised pork served with deep fried buns and Stir fried Geoduck with Asparagus and XO sauce. Then I ordered my favourite dish of glutinous rice with chinese sausages and i had mango pudding for dessert.

The meal was spectacular! The fish was fresh and steamed to pure perfection (we hate over steamed fish to death!), and the braised pork was a nice chunky 5" by 5" square piece of meat (not the individual small 1"X1" square at Ming Jiang) simmered and stewed to a moist tender perfection (ok, i am so running out of other words to use other than perfection, there goes my food critic career)







Oh, don't get me started on the Geoduck! The geoduck was extremely tender and the XO sauce tasted way better than the other chinese restaurant. Glutinous rice was not as good as I had expected it to be but nonetheless not bad (though at 18 bucks for a portion, it is kindda ex).
I thought i was too full to get a dessert but somehow, I just blurted out to the waiter that I wanted a mango pudding. The mango pudding turned out to be extremely well worth the extra space in my tummy! You have to taste it to gauge for yourself!




I love every bite of my dinner and mum had nothing but praises too. In fact we are so hyped, we are going to go back next week to try their Dim Sum! Hopefully, we are ably=e to stay this enthusiastic about that (the Dim Sum)!


Lastly, even though you will never get to see this cos you totally do not know how to use the computer, mush less the internet and, coupled with the fact that you don't read English, Happy Birthday Mum, and thank you for giving birth to this spoilt brat of yours whom share so many wonderful moments in the apartment that never fails to be filled with words of anger and laughter of joy. People often say that the child brings the greatest joy to a parent, but I think you bring me even more joy to be your child.

update 2.00

well, another week just passed (or rather, is gonna pass) by; week has been rethaer boring and the only bitchy person i had met this week was my career counselor whom I went to seek advice on how to jazz up my resum on Thursday.

"Your resume cannot make it"

(thinkin) "Then tell me how to re phrase it so that it 'can makt it', and not stop at that sentence, you goon, to trust that you are my career counselor"

(but rather, i said) "Oh, that's sad, so how do you think i should re do it?"

yada yada...

And my flu is still here, so, I finally went to another doctor yesterday in my neighbourhood to get more flu tablets and some pills to clear my phlegm.

I also went for my IPPT (mandatory fitness test by the singapore military for all fot young men) test yesterday before my birthday next week (more on that later) so that I will not get charged by the ever so efficient singapore government for failing to oblige my mandatopry singapore citizenship duties. Well, as usual, i failed. haha...lets not even go there, so yes, my gym routine ain;t working it honey.

Yes, it's gonna be my birthday next Tuesday! Yeah! Another age added on top! Boo!

Well, so happens that this year, my birthday falls on Mooncake Festival too, so well, at least i can look forward to a night with the brightest and round-est moon in the year! Since Mum's b-day is one day before mine, I think we will probably go for a nice dinner in some Chinese restaurant on Sunday. It always feels weird celebrating a birthday, somehow, you wonder even why there's a need to do it, I mean, after the tender age of 16, 18, and 21, all the rest are just painful reminder of how long one has been rotting on earth. Oh my, such a pessimist!

My choice gift this year? Hmm, Lasik, Vaio, and wisdom tooth extraction. haha, ok, ok, maybe a job overseas in Hong Kong or London or New York. Or even an acceptance into NYU Masters in PR program! Life, oh life...

so getting ole'

after a pathetic thursday last week at zouk, elise and i headed down last night (friday) to zouk again, and man this time round, it is very crowded, in fact, phuture was sp farking crowded that i don't think there's much space to dance cos it is just so freaking packed. Love the music, hate the (too young) crowd. In the end, the night was spent (trying to) dance in phuture, drinking at Zouk and Winebar.


Yes, its Elise, Vanessa and Huiling who i went to Zouk last night.







Yes yes yes, i drank lots again but what is new? haha..but highlight of the night was meeting Vanessa'a friend (think she's called Stacey) . Stacey byt the way, was so sloshed by the time she met Vanessa at the club and we kindda suspected it cos her text message to Van went somthing like this: I am new ouebc zouk, whte u? Oh, and my favourite thing bout this really crazy drunk is that she actually got drunk at 7-eleven (WTF?) oh man, who knows 7-1 can get you like that.
Stacey kept insisting I am gay, then went on to brush my hair (do i look like a puppy?), then when Elise said that I am not gay, she went on to brush Elise's hair! haha... She was such a noisy drunk anthat I just gotta grab a photo of her to show you all (she's the one on the left):


Vanessa and Nicholas (Elise's long time friend who went to Europe for a tour last year before she started school in Prague)


Somehow, I have a feeling this photo was taken after my hair was messed up


Elise and Nic


Elise and me