Anyway, Tiffany is located inside the hotel at Furama. It’s a lunch buffet and currently doing a 1-for-1 promo if you have OCBC card (or was it UOB?). Pretty good deal I say! I think in the end it worked out to be SGD23 per person.

We attacked the sashimi first. I also had some salad on the side. The sashimi were decent, but I really only liked the salmon sashimi.

Then the main dish! don’t be fooled, the dinner plate was pretty huge so it looks like I had only a little bit of food here but it was actually quite a lot. It was fried rice, broccoli and mushroom, rendang, ayam lemak (which tasted like curry chicken) and some scalloped potatoes (yummy!). Had another serving of this later on.

DESSERT!! now on the contrary, these look big but they’re actually tiny little pieces. Which is good, because then I was able to sample a bunch of stuff without feeling guilty! All of the stuff I got above were very good.

Another tiny cake I “sampled” this one wasn’t very good so I didn’t finish.

I also made myself a cup of ice cream which I didn’t take pics of…

Anyway, the place was decent and I ate a ton of food, but if they didn’t have the 1-for-1 deal I wouldn’t come back because that would just bee TOO expensive.

Fortunately I’m blessed enough to have friends who DO cook and would invite me over, so here are delicious meals I had last week that were not pre-packaged or cooked by strangers for once :)

Chicken, mushroom and pasta made by Will some time this past week.

A shot of the whole thing! everything was so delicious~ the chicken was very tender and juicy.

A peek of my Saturday night: Ray’s roasted chicken and Karina’s mashed potatoes. If you can’t figure out by now, I AM a huge fan of chicken (especially the white meat)!! don’t even get me started on potatoes.

and the salad, which consists of green and red pepper, tomato and corn with a nice touch of quail’s eggs. nom!

Hehe, baby Xander! He loved my phone, camera, and apparently all things gadget-y. Funny story, he tried to “press” my blackberry screen because he thought it was a touch screen (it was not). Oh Apple, how you’ve changed the way we use our phones. X is very adorable. During dinner he brought my purse to me and went “cie cie, cie cie” (which means big sister), because he wanted me to show him my stuff. HOW CAN I SAY NO TO THAT??

Much like Shoukudo, you’re given a scan card upon arrival, which are then used every time you order a dish from their individual stalls. Everything is reasonably priced, but the set up of the place reminds you of a buffet so if you’re not careful you can easily rack up your bill!

160gr grilled chicken breast (SGD6.90) with oven baked potato (SGD2.80). they were freshly grilled in front of you and yummy. I can’t complain!

Cream of mushroom soup (SGD4.90) – wasn’t very good. I’d skip this next time

Crepe of the day (SGD7.50) with Moevenpick strawberry ice cream (SGD4.90). The crepe is made to order from mint batter with strawberry spread and fresh fruit toppings. so delish but i’ll have to skip on the ice cream next time. I was being greedy…

funky root beer bottle!

a shot of the place. i know it looks very empty but there were actually quite a few people there.

Thankfully with Google maps and my blackberry I can pretty much map up my route from and to anywhere in the island. Of course this is doable in other smartphones as well that supports Google maps, including but not limited to iPhones and any phone with android OS.

without you my life would be so much harder…

Anyway, it surprises me how so many people are not aware of google maps for their phones yet. So I took a few screenshots the other day when I was bored. Mapping your way is very easy with the map application, just like their web Google maps.

Use their “get direction” option and fill in a start point and end point like usual. Don’t forget to change your “travel by” option to Public transit.

Google will then give you a few options to choose from and estimated travel time. keep in mind they will also take into account rush hour traffic so you can change the date and time option to get the closest travel time estimate.

It will also give you a step by step guide on how to get to your destination. They are ridiculously accurate most of the time, but of course take their walking direction with a grain of salt. don’t be like that woman who got hit by a car because she listened to google’s suggestion to cross the road without proper crossing place.

If you click “show on maps”, it will draw you the route. Singaporeans can probably guess where this is =P

One of the feature i LOVE the most is their real time GPS, which again is ridiculously accurate most of the time (unless your network is messing up and you get slow connection). From there you could see where you are and the direction you are traveling to. I find this useful when I travel to a place I’ve never been to and I don’t know when to get off the bus! It also works when you’re walking, so I never get lost!

Also if you hover any bus stop icon on the map…

A little pop up will come up and tell you the name of that stop. You can then click on it to view more info and select transits that are available in that stop:

Like so! It will even tell you the approximate time each line will get to that very stop. HOW AMAZING IS THAT!

THANK YOU for making my life so much easier, Google!!

I have no clue what these are, but they look good in pictures!

A shy octopus. I had to heavily edit this picture because the tank was almost pitch dark!

Tell me these pics don’t look like a scene from a sci-fi movie titled “When the angry giant spiders attack”. Why are people still eating crabs????

Caught one in a totally menacing pose:

They are Japanese giant spider crabs and damn, they were HUGE. Those fishes you see above are probably about 4-5 inches long, so you can guess how big this guy is in real life! it’s no wonder the Japanese were able to come up with things like Godzilla when they have these sort of MONSTER swimming in their ocean…

We went down to the tunnel. Many of the fish were swimming in schools.. very pretty!

ooooo dream world like! This is what I get when I take pictures with low shutter speed while getting on the travelator.

This one is probably my favorite shot of the day. I caught the shark silhouette just in time and at the right place!

Bye bye sharky…

A huge and very ancient looking fish. I wonder if it’s tasty?

Jellyfish is always fun to take pictures of… something about the way they bob up and down is very soothing.

Why is nemo black? This is my first time seeing clown fish of this color.

Ok, that’s how big those crabs are. SO SCARY AND DISGUSTING!

We walked over to the Dolphin Lagoon for a seal show. I love seals! they are so adorable…

Playing dead for the audience.. awww!

Afterwards, headed off to Vivo to cool off. we walked around for a bit before settling at this cafe called White Dog Cafe. Food was so-so but they do have a great view of Sentosa island from inside the cafe:

Shared potato wedges (yummmmy) and caesar salad. first time i’ve ever had caesar salad with poached egg on top, but i suppose it was alright.

Playing around with my camera.. did you know some places put rice in the salt shaker to prevent the salt from clumping up? I didn’t know!

So the story goes like so – It’s Sunday and I had no plans,  so thought I was going to have the day to myself and be boring… like watch 30 rock all day and only step outside to get food from nearby hawker centre, which I kid you not is really all I had planned for myself. As it turns out Will was again free for the day (originally he wasn’t) so off we went to Robertson Quay, to try the elusive Epicurious we didn’t get to have last time.

I arrived later than Will did as he came from east coast and I from west. At first I was a little pessimistic about getting a seat at Epicurious since brunch peak times are 11am-1pm and we were there around 11:30, but he managed to get a great table inside. I had him order iced lemon tea while he wait, and it came in that cute little jug!

The inside of surprisingly small Epicurious. Most of the seating area is actually outside, which is why I was thrilled Will was able to get a table inside despite the place being super busy! You don’t want to sit outside at noon in Singapore.

Waiting for foood, and warming up to my SLR again. I almost forgot how to use this thing! I’ve been spoiled by the point and shoot camera.

We shared an order of Bagel with lox, onion, capers and cream cheese. yummy! barely touched the side salad. See the picture below and you’ll understand why.

Baked eggs with ham, which is basically layers and layers of heavenly goodness (cheese, eggs, cream, and bread baked together). It was freshly baked, served piping hot with grilled potatoes, and made from scratch, which just adds to the awesomeness of this dish.

The creamy, cheesy inside of the baked egg. it was soooo good! you know me, i’m obsessed with freshly grounded black pepper and must pile it on top of everything i eat.

It’s easy to see why Lady Iron Chef rated Epicurious as one of his most favorite brunch places around Singapore. Affordable and tasty with quaint decoration. I love this place!

Anyway, this is the view from my room at 730AM in the morning today:

Anyway, today I was perusing Holland Village with Will after watching Despicable Me (great movie by the way). I had mentioned before that I wanted Xiao Long Bao, so we decided to check out Crystal Jade which basically dominates an entire street at HV (there were seriously like three different Crystal Jades there!)

We went the one called Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, which as the name suggest specializes in La Mian (noodles) and Xiao Long Baos. They were very busy, we had to wait 30 mins to get a table before ordering a basket of Xiao Long Bao and a bunch of other stuff… despite being already sort of full since we had been drinking for hours (I can’t say no to happy hours). Thankfully every dish was a hit!

Ohhhhhh lovely, lovely Xiao Long Bao. OMG these were sooo good~! the skin were soft and thin and the meat + soup inside were flavorful. I can eat it all day and if i wasn’t so full I would totally order more of these! XLBs are definitely one of my all time favorite food.

You have to be careful when eating them as the soup is usually boiling hot when first served. What I usually do is put one of them on my soup spoon, poke a small hole with a chopstick and let the soup seep out onto the spoon so that they aren’t too hot. then eat with vinegar and sliced ginger.

Fried beef with veggies. I don’t know the chinese name for this, but I feel they are very common. This reminds me of those americanized chinese food, which I love, so this dish suits my taste buds well.

Kailan with black mushroom. yet another very common but very tasty dish.

Radish pastry. I didn’t have much expectation for this but it turned out to be one of my favorites! The radish is actually inside, all chopped and cooked, surrounded by this layer of dough that is crispy and flakey on the outside, moist on the inside. It’s pretty filling too!

Shanghai Pork Bun. The bottom is pan fried until they are crispy and golden brown, plus more tasty pork inside.

I was delighted when Will was free for brunch today because that means I can drag him somewhere to eat :) At first I wanted to try Epicurious which I have been hearing a lot about, but the place was very crowded and we didn’t want to sit outside on a hot day. So Will suggested an alternative down the street, a more quiet place called The Book Cafe.

The place is nice and rather cozy, with laid back ambient. We sat on the couch area surrounded by bookshelves (thus the name) and was promptly greeted with a menu. I was starving since I hadn’t eaten a thing after my morning run and it was already after noon, so I chose the most conventional brunch of all:

Smoked Salmon, scrambled eggs, hash brown, japanese tomato and wheat toast with butter and jam. It was good, but halfway through the meal I was starting to wonder if I should’ve added bacon since my food seems so healthy! nevertheless I was delighted with my order.

Will’s order of their omelette and a very yummy looking salad.

Also had Iced Honey Lemon to accompany my delightfully yummy brunch, very refreshing! :)

It turns out that I’ve passed by this place many times while I was at Robertson Quay. It’s located right next to the Ichibantei ramen place and pretty close to the Gallery hotel.

Anyway, we perused the menu a little bit before we decided to order one of their set menu, Set C, which is supposedly THE set for wagyu lovers. The set was one of the pricier ones on the menu, at SGD100, but understandably so since it’s all wagyu. The set comes with two portions of rice and the following items:

1) Kimchi Nori, which I didn’t try. I don’t even remember seeing it on the table to be honest…

2) Two bowls of Nikujyaga – pictured above, it’s described as beef and potato stew. It was nice, thick and a bit sweet. The meat were medium-rare to rare and the vegetables were cooked till soft. It was a good appetizer.

3) Yasai Salad – basically just lettuce and nori sprinkled with sesame seed and vinegar dressing… you can’t really mess that up. It serves as a nice filler in between all the meat.

4) Wagyu Jo Tan Shio (Beef Tongue) – on the picture above it’s the slabs of pink meat on the top right hand area. No one else liked beef tongue, so I basically had all 5 slices. It was good, and they sprinkled black pepper on it which is always a plus for me (i love black pepper!)

5) Wagyu Saikoro (Cube-cut Steak) – lower right hand corner. this one is DEFINITELY the best one out of them all. I like to grill them until they’re just about medium rare. it was tender, juicy and very tasty!!

6) Wagyu Harami (Outside Skirt) – not pictured above. I wasn’t too impressed with this to be honest.

7) Wagyu Jo Karubi (Prime Short Rib) – the top one next to the lemon. It was good and juicy but over shadowed by the awesomeness of Saikoro. Plus the cut were so small that we almost always over-cooked them :(

8) Shiitake Mushroom – your regular ol’ mushroom. nothing much to add here. you just grill and wait for them to be soft enough… then nom nom nom.

9) Tamago Soup – a very plain egg drop soup with vegetables. I can totally make this at home!

The set is meant for two people so we ordered extra rice and an order of Sausage Mori, which is an assortment of sausages (spicy pork, beef+pork+cheese, then i forgot the last one.. german?). It was quite good but again nothing to be too impressed about.

The verdict: while it was a good meal and I had fun grilling the meat, I feel that it didn’t really live up to the expectation. My meal at Toranomon was far more tastier and memorable, probably also because they gave us many variety of dipping sauces (at Aburiya it was just the regular soy).

Will I come back? well if it didn’t cost us SGD50 per person for that whole meal, I probably would.. but alas it did :( They added 15% service charge to the bill, so that’s something to keep in mind as well.

My new desk at work! this is kinda a bad picture since i took it with my blackberry (and it only captured like half of my desk), but i’m loving the new office. it’s a hardwood floor loft and very cozy :)

as you can see they make me use a mac, which I have never ever touched before. it’s okay, i’m getting used to it, but i’m not seeing why apple fans think mac OS is the shit. aside of the pretty/flashy interface there’s not much that sets them apart from windows… but of course, i’ve only been on it for two days.