Happy Birthday to the Queen

Went down to vivo for a simple birthday celebration for meili with sufang chunguan jiehong and bingwei..

The queen and mangosteen... very impressive setup... good view during the evening
The beer was good.. happy hour from 6 to 8 ... food was quite disappointing though... only the mini burger was nice.. the fish and chips dun seem fresh, the sausage was very tough, this special drink they have called pimm's lemonade was far from impressive... we even had to ask if it contains alcohol... apparently it does, but we couldn't taste it
Adjourn to adam road hawker centre for sting ray and dessert....

Happy birthday meili!!!

Happy Birthday Sept Babies

Bw and the rest have been talking about this jap restaurant called minoru at hong leong garden. finally got a chance to go try the food there with them. loved the place, nicely tucked in a corner, away from the crowds in town. food was not bad. more on the food on justximplyfood...
Small restaurant but cozy, nice food nice company, nice chat, nice catchup!!

Proceeded to mb and jh's place for mahjong and cake cutting!!

Happy Birthday to bw and jx!!

SoShiok Gourmet Safari

jsrs was telling me that i should be participating in the contest on soshiok.com since i blog about food so often, so i decided to try my luck and posted a few entries there.. not long after, i received an email to too me that i have won a gourmet safari treat.. seldom win in contests and this was quite a shock to me!! so got along ripple jim and lawry and we went for a sumptuous lunch, after looking at the menu from the email, we decided to skip breakfast so that we have enough stomach space for all the food We ate from 130pm all the way till 4pm!! can you believe it!! check out the food on justximplyfood. it was a satisfying lunch. i wonder if there will be more of such treats coming!!

Happy Birthday Leng

Time flies... it seems not too long ago that we had leng's bd celebration at vivo, this year, it's at vivo again, dinner at bosses, a restaurant that i have always wanted to try, cos there were many varying reviews about the food there. more reviews about the food on justximplyfood.We got a table at the side and the wallpaper there was really nice, makes a great backdrop for phototaking. the lights they have there also creates a nice warm ambience.Took quite some photos as usual, all came out nicely with the wonderful backdrop!
Nice cake, nice company, and as usual, jokes all round the table, this time it's about this new prc friend we have called zaina... and she loves the cucumber lemon tea at the bosses restaurant..

Salsa at Bikini Bar

Libing was appointed to run this event at sentosa every sat evening. xen bar will be conducting salsa classes free, for those who happen to be at bikini bar and coastes at siloso beach on saturdays. so last week, i went down with bangzhi to check it out.
Libing invited other friends too, according to him, he told quite a number of people but only a handful of us turned up, so if you are reading this, please bring some friends down to the bikini bar on sat to support our friend here!!
Actually, he has improved quite a lot in terms of his teaching skills, dun play play, he has been dancing every day and teaching every week you know!!

Since we were quite late, decided to have dinner at the bar itself, food was quite good, just a little expensive, 6 chicken wings for $16, and bangzhi had to shuttle between the dance floor and the table cos he wanted to learn as well as eat at the same time!!

Nearing the end of the session, he perspired so much that the dance partners had to try to siam his sticky and slimy shoulders, and according to him, the girls seems a little turned off by his sweat.. haha

Well done libing, and to the rest... remember to go support him if you can afford the time, bring all you friends along, he'll be happy to see you people there.

Gifts from Japan

Met up with lawrence leng and regina . lawr and leng just got back from japan and got me more hard rock drumsticks.. heh heh!! Had dinner at this ramen place in central called marutama, not difficult to find, it has a basketball look alike logo, not a big place, food is quite expensive with little variety but it's really good.
Spent some time sitting around at starbucks before i had to rush off for another appointment!!!
Really outdated entry.. have been too busy with work, will try to finish up all post to get it more updated these few days

Pre Christmas Meetup

Managed to get js ripple and borong to meet up just before christmas, passed them their gifts and had a nice dinner at sakae teppanyaki at bugis junction.the food was quite good, we ordered 3 sets to be shared by 4 person, and the amount was just right, price came out to be about $20 a person, satisfying dinner i must say.

Some interesting conversation that we had during dinner, but i'm writing this so long after the event, it might not be 100% accurate, but the jist is there. try to check out the food pix on justximplyfood before reading on, it'll be more interesting.

br: how come the butter on the hotplate won't melt one huh?
jx: because it is tofu and not butter

jx: the bamboo clams are really nice.
br: which one is the bamboo clam
jx: ... erm.. the one where the shell is long shaped like bamboo..
br: oh that one is the shell ar, i thought it's a decorative dish

jx: wah so much garlic for the fried rice, must be really nice.
br: wah, must have taken them a long time to chop so much garlic
jx: heard of the blender?

Proceeded to tcc for chit chat and to play with borong's new camera, now that he has a blog, he gotta learn how to take nice photos with his camera. remember to check our his blog here!!

Blu Jaz

Met up with kaisi hansen and frederick at this nice diner called blu jaz at arab street area, it has been a while since i met them. supposed to meet fred for his bd.. until he got angry that he has to organise his own bd celebration and called it off totally... food was quite good and the price was quite reasonably, the place was quite dark ,so i didn't take photos of then food, and thus no food reviews on the place.
Had to brighten up the photos a little so that the faces could be seen, any more would make the photos very grainy... sorry if you had to strain your eyes to see the people in the photos.. flin joined us later in the evening, and i realised that i was quite outdated in terms of their lives.. hansen is busy building this huge bridge across henderson road, fred busy with fyp, flin busy with his numerous business plans, and kaisi busy flying around... flin has got a new bike and hansen & kaisi got a new sports car!! hhmm when can i change my car??

Wonderful Dinner, Disappointing Dessert

Met up with the gdis gang for dinner, and since nuanda highly recommended this jap rest in cuppage plaza, we decided to make reservation and give it a try. the place was a little small but cosy, food was absolutely fantastic.. check out the photo here. (click for a larger version)This place is called kazu sumiyaki, more detailed reviews on the individual dishes on justximplyfood.

We were there from 8pm till very late, i thnk it was 10 plus, and we had to top it up with a nice round of dessert, they have very good dessert too, we only tried the grilled mochi. i highly recommend this place to those who are reading this.

Price wise.. haha.. here's the bill for 5 person.. very seldom do you see someone holding up a bill so happily when the price is that high, but this time, the food was totally worth it.

After leaving the place, we decided to go holland village for some drinks. can saw this place that sells ice cream called cold rock. the idea is good for mixing up ice cream and crunches, but their ice cream cannot make it, only slightly better then the tub ones from magnolia and kings you get in supermarket. so we ended up sitting at haagen dazs for more ice cream..

One More Baby

Dorina is back in singapore and we met up with the rest for s simple dinner at pu tien restaurant at kitchener road. and she's nearly 3 months pregnant, ok this is not new but i haven't wrote about it, so here's one more baby coming soon after little jerard and little nat.. jerard has been too busy to update his blog, so we can see that the last entry was quite some time ago, little nathaniel seems more regular in terms of blog updates right?.

Dongshu is back in singapore too, haven't seen him for quite a while, not that he's going to be based in sg, i guess we'll have more chance to meet up..

Food was quite good, at least for most of the dishes, dun really like the noodle and the bee hoon though. Food review here

Proceeded to island creamery for dessert cos pu tien ran out of yam paste and all other desserts they have are not to our liking.
I realised that the people in the front are quite blur, i need to improve on my skills when it comes to setting apperture size ..

Leaving for Turkey

Cruz was leaving for turkey, he was tasked to lead a group for a tour in turkey by chan brothers.. it was his first time taking up such a task, totally not knowing what to expect, but i think it's a fun job, get paid to travel man!! he was so busy that the only time he's available to meet was at the airport for dinner before he flies... dinner was settled at crystal jade at t2 together with jan and ryan. super bad experience, expensive and totally not nice, coffee shop tze char stalls have nicer food!! details here..
Went over to t1 cos we weren't satisfied with dinner and wanted to have some popeye's butter milk biscuit, and got turned off by the horrendously long queue. though of having ice cream at swensons, and found out that swenson is no longer at t1...
Had to settle for some fruits at the food court, this small cup of fruits costs $5, wow!! but it's the most attractive dessert we can find at t1. now cruz should be halfway through the trip and he has been blogging quite constantly from turkey. check it out at his blog.

Also, we gotta congratulate him for clinching most popular 933 dj award at sra 2007 3rd year in a row!! clap clap..let's hope he's enjoying himself at turkey right now!!

On a seperate note, just knew that jan's an agent for suzuki, so if anyone is thinking of getting a suzuki, can contact her, see if she can give you good price.. then must tell her i reccommend one so that i can ask her for referral commission.. hahaha, she just got herself an sx4 sedan, interior quite chio, almost like a bmw with the orange displays.

Visit to Malaysia

It's grandma's birthday, and we are having a simple get together lunch session at her place in kulai. if you have never heard of the place, it's in johor, around an hr's drive from the customs. on a sunday, we had to go early in the morning to avoid the jam, so we set of at 6, and by 7 plus we were there already, and how can we mis ba kut teh for breakfast.

I love the ba kut teh there, the herbal taste is strong, the pork is really tender, very different from the one we have in singapore. dad is a fan of the ba kut teh as well. but i think price have been increasing, now it costs almost like that in singapore. but for nice food, it's worth it. see more of the food on justximplyfood.

Grandma's place is away from the city, the whole place has a retro feel, the window, the grilles, walls, roof. the well which has already dried up, vegetables and fruits growing right outside the house... perhaps leon, ilona and rene will know what i'm talking about. this time round i went there and found another technological improvement, the manual gate to the house have changed to a remote controlled one, so much mroe convenient now.

Golden Birthday

It was goldie's birthday, or belated birthday celebration, and it's supposed to be a surprise to her, she only knew we were meeting up for a normal get together dinner, but i nearly let the cat out of the bag. plan is the get a cake, then go for dinner at lemongrass at 7pm.. but miss gold said she had something on and wanted to change the time to 8pm, so fine, we arrived at 8pm, a couple were late, but golden girl was even later, i think she arrived sometime near to 9pm.. we were all famished.. luckily we got them to prepared beforehand, once she arived, the food could be served. you can see the food we had on justximplyfood.
At the end of the dinner, the cake was brought out and we had a simply birthday song session for her, by then, most of the customers have left the restaurant already, we were the last there..

After which we actually wanted to find a place for coffee and chit chat, but on a weekend evening, everywhere was crowded, and we had no where to go.. so we went home!! haha how sad right? anyway, before that , we took some photos along orchard road, and this might just be the next in thing when it comes to posing.. everyone has to act busy, as if you are doing something and not noticing the camera.. in a group, i find it quite cool..

Oh another thing, heard from goldie.. her brother came over to her and made a pact with her that he won't get her a present for her bd and she won't need to get him a present for his.. haha when did giving a present become some form of an exchange??

New Lens

Was looking at reviews regarding a lens that i was eyeing.. the canon ef24-70mm f/2.8 for those who do not understand, it's ok .. it's just a better lens that the one that came with the camera with i bought it. last weekend, i went down to alan photo at sim lim and got it!! yeh!! Photos are really different from the kit lens that came with the camera. indoor photos looks so much better with f/2.8, loving the lens so much.. and there's no better way to test it out than to have a model to pose for the cam!! arranged to watch stardust with bangzhi at vivo, so i took the chance to take so photos with the new lens.

Walked around vivo to look for a place for early dinner at 5 plus, saw this thai restaurant called thai accent. the place is quite big, with lots of seats and it feels very spacious, but i wasn't impress with the food, the price is quite high for that kind of standard and ambience too, details here.

Here are some photos i took at the restaurant when we still had some time after dinner before the show starts. bangzhi got his hair cut... now he looks like an army boy


Stardust is a nice show, ok, i like to watch fantasy shows with magical happennings, like harry porter, so probably that's why i like this show. bangzhi felt that the lead actor and actress wasn't good looking enough for a beautiful romatic story like that, i felt that it was ok. michelle pfieffer acted really well as the witch!! if you haven't watched the show, remember to go catch it!

After the show, we proceeded to mingbao's place for 2 rounds of mahjong, together with bingwei and jiemin.It was jiemin's lucky night, laly luck was following her all the way!! someone threw her winning card, but she felt that it was too small, so she chose not to win it... a couple rounds later, she got a flower, 1 more tai.. and immediately got her winning card, another 1 more tai!! and 3 tai, suddenly become 5 tai, zi mo somemore!!

A happy girl at the end of the game..

Now for some updates of jerard, can see a substantial growth in size, but i realised that he still like to keep his eyes close, so difficult to get to see his eyes..
It's really not an easy task to take care of a new born, so much attention is needed but looking at the satisfied look on the baby's face after the feed, an looking at the baby as he looks around innocently is quite warm.. mingbao has been busy... or isit lazy. when it comes to updating jerard's blog! when can we see a new entry?

Yihan's Birthday

It's deepavali and it's yihan's birthday as well.. met up with the birthday boy and terry for lunch. initial plan was to go to this jap restaurant at paragon, heard a lot about their soba, but when we reached there, the queue was so long that we decided to go elsewhere.. ended up at this place where yihan claims has the nicest pasta (his standard) ... reviews of the food can be found here.

Lunch was ok, i should have order pasta instead of rice.. after that we went to shop for his birthday present.. in the end he settle for a pair of adidas sneakers..
Happy birthday yihan.. all the best for your big quest next week!!

Salsa at Marina Square

Libing together with the guys from xen bar had a performance at marina square. and the photos i took are quite similar to the ones i posted on their past performances so i shall not post them this time.
During a break, this small kid actually walked up the stage and weanted to join the dancers, so they just played along and got him to dance a few steps on stage, absolutely sporting little kid.

After the performance, we went for lunch at azabu sabo, and i ordered my fav cold sabo again!! it's really good, you must go try it.. read it from my food blog.. and yes, libing walked around marina with his make up still on, even while he was having lunch...