Island Creamery ice cream ( ICic )

This is a fresh post. Fresh-out-of-the-oven post, or should be fresh-out-of-the-freezer? Anyway, Jiahao, Jon and I went to the Island Creamery to eat ice cream today( haha, other than that, Jon prob went there to see chiobu? :p ).

We tried Apple Pie, Burnt Caramel, Nutella, ReversO, Black Forest, Teh Tarik, Horlicks and Khaula Latte flavor as arranged in the order from the pictures. The first two pics were taken halfway when we were eating, hence the amount was visibly reduced.

Anyway, here are my opinions on the ice cream flavors ( taste buds differ in different people ):

Apple Pie: One of favorites, the tint of cinnamon goes well with small chunks of apples and the ice cream was delicious, not too sweet or rich to the extent of causing thirst.

Burnt Caramel: This was not bad but the burnt taste was not present and hence I wonder why the name 'Burnt' Caramel?

Nutella: This I tried before, tasted okay to me, nothing much special and I guessed Jon liked it a lot since he like the spread very much. Jiahao also liked this a lot.

ReversO: This was the first flavor I tried and I really do not find it appealing. It was too chocolatey and rich that I felt very thirsty after eating this ice cream. However, this became Jon's favorite.

Black Forest: To me, the taste seems similar to ReversO with a strong chocolate taste at the start, giving way to a sweet cherry taste. This seems a better choice for me. Being less rich in chocolate taste, hence will not feel that thirsty after eating this ice cream.

Teh Tarik: I loved this. The taste was sweet, full of Teh Tarik, with a slightly sour after taste which was quite nice. It was nice on the throat, rich but not overwhelming and did not cause me to be thirsty. It was like drinking cold Teh Tarik.

Horlicks: The taste was quite powdery and drying on the throat again. If the ice cream was more creamy rather than powdery and perhaps slightly less sweet, it would have been better.

Khaula Latte: The taste was coffee, not exactly Khuala, since Khuala should have gave an alcoholic taste. This was like Rum and Raisin ice cream with the Rum not tasting like how it should be.

Oh, as a sidenote, I have also tried MacFlurry Green tea today as well. It tasted quite good, without any bitterness unlike that I tried at Shokudou.

Dear dear's birthday mini party

The initial idea was potluck, which was altered to making pizza bread because of the fact that it was meant to be a surprise. If the potluck idea was to go ahead, somebody have to cook enough rice for 9 people which will be tough unless we are going to use Dear dear's rice cooker, which will then let the cat out of the bag with the amount.

At the last minute, there was yet another change; the surprise was no longer there since in order to make Dear dear stay at home on the day itself, I lied to him saying I will be cooking for his family for lunch. They expected one person and well, Dear dear told me that every member of his house will eat when they heard that I will be cooking. That certainly gives pressure, and with Dom's dad, I am not sure if bread will be preferred to rice. Hence, the idea was changed again to Jon cooking 2 dishes and me cooking 2 dishes as well. The mini kebabs were made on my own on the thought of the guys' voracious appetites.

I started cooking first since the dishes were simple, Jon was preparing for his dishes meanwhile. After I were done with my cooking, the fun of photo-taking entered. Here is Jon, presenting his dish of squids in tomatoes and capsicums sauce.

The soup was also prepared by Jon, with the help from Dom's mother. The whole cooking was done in laughter, in success... with a few hiccups such as Dear dear dropping an egg, as well as dropping like 1/6 of the tofu when opening. His actions invited hilarious roars of laughter from the rest of us.
Here is the end result of everybody's hard work, click on the picture to see the large version.

Jon was extremely pleased to know that Dom's house still have a hamster, his favorite animal.
Anyway, the mini party idea came to me when I looked back on my past photos of birthday. The table filled with simple dishes and a cake with candles on seem appealing as well as heart-warming. I also hoped Dear dear can have this experience as well, hence I organized such a mini party.The effects were quite well, especially with my newly acquired Canon IXUS 860 IS to take pictures. :p



Due to me forgetting to bring along "Uno" cards, we had to trouble Dom to find a game for our after-lunch entertainment. We settled with a game of Monopoly, which Dom was the ultimate winner and I was the ultimate loser, since Dom keep buying assets and I keep ending up in jail and landing on other people's properties with hotels.

Anyway, due to the day being Father's Day as well, I had to rush back home to celebrate for my dad and the game was ended.



Sidetrack: Zihan was not being able to come due to miscommunication. Since the budget was calculated with 4 people instead of 3, I ended up not having enough money for transport and Dom has to reimburse me a little.
For a different perspective of the event, one can visit either Jon's entry or Jiahao's entry.

一个迷你聚会

大家，久违了。 前些日子正在忙着考试，接着又举办了一个迷你聚会和一个生日会，身心疲惫，所以部落格直到现在才更新。



在这聚会之前，我添购了一架新的数码相机 Canon IXUS 860 IS。 这些照片都是我兴致勃勃拍摄的作品。
我们首先到<<别府>>吃拉面, 我本人是认为叉烧还不错, 但同行朋友却觉得很腻, 很倒胃口。感觉不好意思，因为是我介绍他们去的。以上图片以左到右：九州ラメン，照り焼き鳥のラメン w/o chicken, 照り焼き鳥のラメン with chicken, チャシュウラメン。



吃饱后，我们到诗情画意的鲤鱼池继续我兴致高昂的拍照旅途，顺便一游附近的宠物店。再来，我们去电脑科技展逛一圈，为 Jon 搜集买手提电脑以及数码相机的资料。在新达城的节目告一个段落，下一站是我家。
我为此大扫除我家两天，累得像只趴在地板喘气的小狗。拜二刚考完，拜三和拜四忙着收拾一间，这个聚会正好在拜五举行。所幸男朋友在进家门那刻惊叹了句　“好干净”，一切努力没白费。：）



开牌咯！大家玩不算真钱的麻将，互相切磋手艺。我一上场就以“杠上开花”让大家目瞪口呆，后来又赢了多一场，再接再厉。：Ｄ　见好就收的我让位给客人Jiahao去继续奋斗。两位资深“老”辈Jon和Zihan不再手下留情，把Jiahao 和Dear dear杀得片甲不留。Dear dear 最可怜，到最后只剩两片青盘子。感谢妈妈烹煮一道道的佳肴来款待客人，其中还有我最爱吃的炸鸡翅膀。＊偷笑＊

原定计划是去芽龙吃甜品，但因为大家吃得挺饱，所以改为继续玩其他游戏。几场参杂着＂Ｄｏｇｓ　ａｎｄ　Ｂｏｎｅｓ＂的＂Ｈｅａｒｔ　Ａｔｔａｃｋ＂让大家笑得东倒西歪。Zihan 为了夺得"bone"，而"bone"在争斗过程中滑落Dear dear's 的大腿下。。。　后果可想而知。天下无不散之宴席，在大家告别前，我们玩Uno Stacko。场面依然轻松搞笑，Jiahao 说到曹操，曹操就到。没人除了他中"Draw two"，但他竟幸运地成功过关。烫手之芋到了Zihan，他拔出砖块时迟迟不敢松手，整个构造也在摇摇欲坠。只见他一松手，“啪”的一声，整座“高楼”立即坍塌下来，同时也宣告了挥别时刻。大家回家后准备后天的生日会。

My new hairstyle

A night out at Geylang with friends

We started off with Geylang claypot rice at 6pm. The claypot rice was not bad, but somehow it did not trigger the feelings I had when I ate claypot rice for the first time at Chinatown. Perhaps it was due to the short waiting time, or maybe the atmosphere? In any case, this claypot rice was more expensive than that at Chinatown, cost about $8 plus per person, including drinks.

The guys really had monstrous appetite, the claypot rice was unable to fulfill their hunger and hence the journey continued.



The next stop was Yonghe eating house. Jon had you tiao and cold soybean milk, whereas the other two guys ( Jia Hao and my Dear dear ) had 酥饼 or toasted bun which they displayed. My Dear dear thought the toasted bun was like those which accompanied chilli crab, apparently it was not. I was still full from the claypot rice and hence did not order anything.

The menu itself was funny in a sense, it showed "cold soybean milk" below that another item was "sweet soybean milk", making us wondered if the cold was sweet as well. It turned out to be sweet.

Since the guys still wanted to eat some more food, the journey continued.



The last stop was Mongkok Dimsum. We took a long time in ordering our food and the waiter came and asked for our orders three times. When we finally decided what we wanted to order, it was hard to get the waiter to come and take the order :p.
The tri-coloured latte tea with palm sugar tasted great, super thick and fragrant. The shrimp dumplings were nice too, the shrimps inside were big and fresh. The scallop dumplings tasted average, not very impressive in my opinion and my Dear dear found the taste of spring onion to be overpowering. He don't like spring onion by the way. The fried dumplings were not bad, although I preferred 冯记 ones.
A picture of the menu with the respective prices for the dishes was taken for future reference.



The end of a long trip, with all the guys being full at last.

Sidetrack:

Along the way, we saw many people selling contraband cigarettes. I wondered how come the police never take any action and also how the cigarettes managed to pass the customs. The situation was quite bad that there were people holding plastic bags with the cigarettes inside at almost every even number street and at Geylang lor 14, there were times those 'hawkers' went out to the road to solicit the motorists.

Eating at Old Airport Road today and desserts at Heartland mall yesterday

Dom was eating Blanco's Kway chup, or something like that, with an extremely long queue. He commented the food was nice, but was not to my liking due to the piggy smell/taste. I had Marinara at Pasta Manna, another stall which I came to know of from this food blog entry. The Al fungi was sold out and hence I ordered this pasta that came with seafood and herb tomato sauce. We also had avocado shake from the stall beside the pasta stall, which can also be found in this food blog entry. Initially I wanted to try the mango with pomelo juice but there was no more stock, hence I stick to my old favourite: avocado shake.



My favourite dessert on par with ice-cream in my ranking of favorites: Snow ice, which I ate at Heartland mall in one of the above photos.

A day in NUS

Had this indian set lunch at NUS with my Dear and his friends, I saw the meal being featured in this food blog and thought it was really nice that I felt like eating it too. The dessert was different in colour, and tasted like pineapple. It contained nuts and pineapple bits. However, the texture was a bit oily, thus making the dessert appealed to me less. The chicken was nice, the coleslaw tasted too salty, the curry was not as spicy in a sense less flavorful and the vegetables was average. Overall, it tasted not bad.



When my Dear and I were about to enter his dormitory, a spider appeared. His dormitory was somehow infested with spiders and their webs. A nice scenery to be waved goodbye since Dom will be shifting to another dormitory, and Dom's snack bar!!! Please look at the cupboard space next to his head. :)

Happy Mother's Day @ Desire

Starting off with what my parents have for lunch, the Mother's Day special set at $50++ per pax,
each set consisted of the starter, the soup, the appetizer, the main course, the dessert and the coffee/tea. The starter was bread with butter, which I forgot to take photo of. There was a choice between olive bread and onion bread. My mother was quite funny, thinking the butter was cheese (that was what the rest of us thought so too :p) and tried a small piece, only to realize it was butter. The bread was served hot and the butter melted nicely into the bread.

The soup was some mango and chilli soup which I cannot remember the name and did not have a chance to try, but anyway, my parents liked the dish.

The appetizer was with some cheese, which my younger sister commented, tasting like the cream sauce in spaghetti.

The cod fishes in their sets were delectable, with crispy crusts, sweet scents of fish and a tantalizing taste. Both my mom and dad enjoyed very much.

Their desserts were ice cream with some tarts with chocolate inside. My mother noticed some gold powder on the tart.

The coffee in the picture was mine, my mother took tea and my dad took coffee. Since they looked about the same, I shall just put in one photo. The coffee has an aftertaste of almond in my opinion.



My appetizer, followed by my main course, my younger sister's main course and my elder sister's main course.

My appetizer was tuna and avocado. I thought was canned tuna, but it came as sashimi sort, a bit shocked? Nevertheless, the fish tasted soft, no fishy smell and gave a salty and creamy combination with the dressing and avocado.

My main course was cheese ravioli, which the cheese sauce tasted sweet but the smell was just too overpowering. All the while I eating the dish, I was thinking of my dessert :p. As for my sisters, they had chicken roulade and grilled ribeye respectively as shown in the pictures.



The desserts for my sisters and myself. My sisters ordered the same dessert 'banana flambe' and I ordered coffee tiramisu. They said theirs tasted superb. I liked tiramisu and the standard of this tiramisu was still acceptable, even though not the most impressionable one I have tasted. The crusts at the side tasted a bit like kinder brueno in my opinion.

Overall, the service was great and the food, depending on the tastes and what you ordered, most tasted quite nice. I shall end off with "Happy Mother's Day."