les petit mangoes

It’s an eye opener at times when I do my daily groceries shopping here, with the wide variety and range of food. Loving the seasonal fruits especially!

Recently I noticed lots of small mangoes-like fruits at the fruit stalls. And upon a closer look, they are really mangoes!

They are really small! The average ones are like palm-size while the smaller ones are like half the size of the usuals~

According to the descriptions, these mangoes are mainly from Taiwan. I think they do look kind like kidneys and even beans! Heh.

Being a BIG fan of mangoes, I bought a couple of petit mangoes and oh boy, they tasted sooo good! They are not only sweet, they also have a strong sweet fragrance that makes one drools.

This is gonna be my favourite food snack for now! heh.

Food Cravings Satisfied

Haloha!

It was errands running week and prepping myself for the next stage of my life. The thoughts of it seems exciting and scary at the same time!

Oh wells, that aside, by going around the island, I managed to give my stomach a good treat, no wait, many good treats~

My favorite Korean BBQ restaurant: Hyang-To-Gol, situated at the city center. It’s a very popular restaurant and be sure to make reservations in you’re going in bigger groups. This was recommended to me by a Korean friend a few years back and I’m totally loving it!

Cold Kimchi Soup to kickstart the meal. It’s sourish and lightly spicy, has a refreshing taste that whets the appetite.

I was there for lunch so I ordered the lunch set instead of having BBQ all by myself.

What I love most is the unlimited refillable side dishes. Besides, being refillable, they are really tasty too!

Another of my favorite is the Ginseng Chicken Soup. Love digging the rice out and slurping it with the soup. Yums.

Hyang-To-Gol
Tel: +65 6220 7160 
165 Tanjong Pagar Road
2F The Amara Hotel

Recently, I’ve been having constant cravings for meats. Yes, meat! And this made Nando’s one of my best friend.

YAMI peach yogurt with colorful pebble cornflakes. Definitely brightens up the day plus low in calories. Heh.

The Tanjong Pagar Food Hawker is a gem and I think it’s one of the best hawkers around. Conveniently located near the MRT and filled with lots of good food. This sliced fish soup stall is one of my regular choice.

The Fish Maw Mee Sua is paired with sliced fish, minced pork and pork liver. Plus tomatoes, lettuce and bitter gourd. Love the tasty soup! I find it best to visit the stall right after the lunch crowd as the soup goes through more hours of stewing, which makes it even tastier. But be sure to go before 3pm else they might be closed by then.

The other stall that I’ll not missed out every time I visit TP hawker is Aunty Annie’s Peanut Ice Kachang, which is just next to the fish soup stall. She serves the best chendol! She uses thick and rich coconut milk and gula melaka sugar syrup, which makes very cent worthy. The red beans are soft and in tact as a whole to give some munch. I’m personally a big fan of chendol but I have also tried her famous peanut ice kachang and that’s 2 thumbs up as well!

Avocado Chicken Sandwich from Cedele.

Dragonfruit with sour plum powder from Taiwan. Mommy knows me the best!

The famous Beef Hor Fun at Gelyang Lorong 9. My family have been a regular to this place during my teenage years and it has been quite a while since we visited again due to transportation issues. I believed it was unarguably the best beef hor fun once. The standards have dropped now, with the kway teow less charred and the overwhelming black pepper and chilli taste. The good thing is that the beef is still as tender as before!

Finally, had the chance to visit Antoinette. The first impression of the restaurant – it is seemingly to similar to Ladurée, which annoys me. I had the French Toast, Macaroons and Mont Blanc cake.

The French Toast was too sugary for my liking. I prefer the Marmalade Pantry’s for their fragrant caramel sauce. The Macaroons and Mont Blanc were average as well. I find Antoinette being over-rated.

Antoinette
+65 6836 9527
 333A Orchard Road
#02-33/34 Mandarin Gallery 

 

Twelve Cupcakes

I had been a follower of Jamie Teo’s blog previously and so when I learnt that she opened a cupcake shop, I was eager to try out her baking skills. But sadly, Novena is hardly an area that I hang out at.

A couple of days ago, I happened to be in the vicinity and decided to grab some cupcakes from Twelve Cupcakes. It was a small store chucked at a corner of United Square, with lovely sweet decor and alluring cupcakes.

As I arrived at 5+pm, there wasn’t much selection left to choose from. I badly wanted a salted caramel and it was sold out. Frankly speaking, I wanted to buy just 1 cupcake and eat it on the spot before committing to the whole box but I thought that would be weird. So, I ended up with 2 Red Velvet, 1 PB Chocolate, 1 Strawberry Chocolate, 1 Strawberry Vanilla and 1 Blueberry Vanilla.

With much expectations, I started off with Red Velvet when I got home. Sadly, it didn’t wow me. I felt that the cake was a little dry and the cream cheese frosting didn’t taste strong enough.

What wooed my heart was the Strawberry Vanilla and PB Chocolate. I guess Peanut Butter and Chocolate can never go wrong. For the Strawberry Vanilla, the white chocolate bits on the strawberry frosting was just marvelous! It melted in my mouth instantly and the luxurious mix of strawberry and white chocolate was perfect with the moist vanilla cake. Yums.

I would still love to try out the other flavours but I’m just not sure when will that be.

Twelve Cupcakes
+65 62568130
101 Thomson Road
B1-60 United Square  

a simple CNY

This year’s CNY was as the usual – lots of nibble goodies, tangerines, yusheng, and catching up with relatives.

Mommy and I made a last minute decision to bake pineapple tarts!

Butter crumbs.

Before they are sent to the oven.

The tarts didn’t turn out to be like previous years. The crust was pale and dry and we reckoned that it’s all the cheap butter’s fault.

My favourite dish during CNY. Love the plum sauce with crackers~

May we have a prosperous Dragon Year!!!

Went down to Wen Zhou Association on the 2nd day for the Lion Dance celebration and visiting the elderly.

That’s all for my CNY this year. Somehow, it’s getting boring. Hopefully things will spice up next year! Heh.

The Last of 2011!

Can’t believe it’s already the 2nd week of 2012!!! And CNY is juuuust coming right up in less than 2 weeks~

L managed to fly over on NYE and we check-in to MBS~

The view from our room. It was very last minute and therefore we couldn’t get any of the City View rooms.

We had TWG for dinner because I was craving for the scones with tea jelly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The scones tasted better at ION outlet and the tea jelly is still divine~ ❤

A kind friend helped me brought back these little devil sweets from London!

Oh how I miss you little babies!

Extremely happy on NYE!

Savouring my Rose macaron` ❤ ❤ ❤

Well, when i had both brands in Paris 2 years back, I favoured La Durée over Pierre Hermés. I kinda felt PH crust was overly soft. LD had a chewy bite.

But for now, I think I prefer Pierre Hermés. However, I’m still not a big fan of his experimental creations. The traditional flavours are my cup of tea!

Now, I wonder when will be my next encounter with these little sweeties!

MBS had made special arrangements for hotel guests to countdown at the Infinity Pool.

Just look at the crowd at 11:30pm!

It was a splendid night spent watching the beautiful fireworks popping just right in front of us! 🙂

Happy 2012 everyone!

May the New Year be filled with love & happiness everyday~ ❤ ❤ ❤

 

OPP Staff Treat!

With 2012 ending, we ought to treat ourselves to a good meal and have a gathering since there’s hardly any chance for everyone to work together at the same time.

And P.S. Cafe was the deal!

Truffle Fries is <3…

Portion was extremely h-u-g-e! It took 6 of us to finish up this plate~

I had Soft Shell Crab Salad. Didn’t quite liked it as this crab had a strong seafood smell.

Jayne ordered a Japanese Miso Noodle Salad.

R. & Amy shared a beef burger! Hohoho, and there’s more fries~ We still love our Chokchai though.

Triple Chocolate something.. With caramel, nuts and tons of chocolate!

Extremely sinful but nice! 😉
You should never attempt this alone~ Trust me!

Super-sized coffee eclair. See it longer than the knife!

The OPP Team!
A pat on our shoulders for the wonderful 2011~
And a toast to an even better year ahead! 😀

Another shot in the toilet~ Hehe.
I’m wearing the Sequin Collar Dress in Burgundy. Mad love for the sequins! 🙂

PS. Cafe
+65 98348232
Palais Renaissance
390 Orchard Road 

Dinning in the gardens

Before the year ended, I managed to catch up with YQ. This time round, the food places that we wanted to try were ALL fully booked~ So we settled for Halia @ Botanic Gardens.

I went there for brunch some years ago and it left me a good impression.

We had some fresh oysters for appetizers.
They were fine, not exactly the sweet type that I like.

His Oven-Baked Chilean Seabass Fillet.

You know, I always regret my choices whenever we eat out together because his food always turn out to be much nicer than mine! If you do dine at Halia, you cannot miss this seabass~

Even though it’s oven-baked, it doesn’t compromise on the fish’s freshness and tenderness. And the sauce is just mouth-watering!!! The fish is accompanied by Japanese rice and cucumbers. Perfect combination!

My Pan-fried Hiramasa Kingfish.
It was really just so-so and I was simply drooling over the seabass throughout the dinner. I would usually choose seabass but I get disappointed all the time, so I decided to opt for kingfish and still, it was a disappointment. 😦

We had a cheese platter to end off the dinner. Yums.

The gorgeous lightings at Botanic Gardens~

Halia Restaurant
+65 6476 6711
1 Cluny Road, Ginger Garden
Singapore Botanic Gardens 

Octoooober in photos

So much for attempting to keep my blog alive. *embarrassed*

Here’s the photo log for Oct!

Freezing cold at mid-mountains in Beijing.

Bring on the music and liquor, baby!

Attended a couple friend’s wedding at Wenzhou.

Looks like I’m heading there more often than I’ve ever imagined.

Dinner was held at Shangri-la. A pretty grand affair with 40 tables~

The firecrackers and beautiful fireworks for welcoming the newly weds.

Isn’t it lovely? :*) I am always so mesmerized by the gorgeous short-lived sparkles. I was promised a ten times more grand welcome affair for my wedding, and I am taking his words for it!! 😉

My outfit for the dinner. Wore a skater dress from Topshop, cuff from H&M and clutch from OPP. If you have been following OPP, you will probably notice that the cuff is my favourite accessory!! 😀 We have been using it whenever possible and needed!

The Chinese ‘Chinese wedding’ is somewhat different from SG Chinese weddings. As you can see, the cold dishes were served even before the event officially starts.

Debris of my cold crab. 😛

My favourite cuff and clutch! Love the clutch, it is so versatile. (:

I was also wearing my favourite earrings. Not quite visible from the photo though, but we are gonna launch it on OPP for the end year! Egg-cited~ 😉 Oh! I didn’t realised that I was wearing all my favourite items that night~ Yes, including my footwear. I wore the most comfy pair of flats I got from Topshop. 😀

Unlike SG, the newly weds didn’t go around the tables for photo taking. Instead, they went around toasting and collecting red packets!

The night ended off with this yummy and nourishing dessert: Papaya Hashima
It was soooooo good that I wanted a second serving! Sadly, all the guys at my table ate their share. Boo…

Spotted fake Crocs at departmental store in Wenzhou. *dumbfounded*

Outfits of the Day in Shanghai:

Striped Sweater – Topshop
Grey Leggings – H&M
Snakeskin Carrier – OPP
Potion Bottle Necklace – F21

An extremely adorable mustache double loop ring coming up on OPP soon! 😉

Snakeskin Carrier – OPP
I love how comfy the maxi dress is but it’s just to viable to wear in SG unless on cold rainy days. I was tempted to bring it in for OPP and we decided not to as our customers don’t seem so receptive towards maxi clothes. What say you? (:

Checkered Top – H&M
Highwaist Denim Shorts & Oxford Shoes – Topshop

Diamond Knit Cardigan – OPP
It’s a very cute piece and it’s already sold out at OPP. Comes in Cream and Mustard too! I wanted to keep Mustard as well but I already own a Mustard sweater.
We have opened up BO and all slots for are taken up. There’s still so many customers enquiring about it but sadly, we couldn’t get hold of any more stock. 😦

Embellished Cuff Dress – Love, Bonito
Ribbon Flats – Topshop (extremely comfy!)

Spent a Sunday in town at Kinnokuniya.
Embroidered Maxi Dress – F21

I managed to grab some Moleskine under the Discount Day for members. 😀

It took me almost an hour to decide between what type and what color I should get.

Lastly, I bagged home 2 twin pack – one plain and the other with lines.
Love the vibrant colors! Makes me happy instantly. 😀

Braided Sandals – Pretty Fit
It was such unlucky (or lucky) that my wedges’ strap gave way before I reach Kinno. I ended up shopping for footwear first. Lovely sandals, isn’t it? :*)

Arburi Sushi @ Fuji, BKK

Met up with FZ and A for Sept babies celebration and a catch up @ Timbre!

For the first time, I plait my hair out! How do you like this look? 🙂

Top & Skater Skirt – OPP
Bag – ASOS
Horse Necklace – F21
White Leather Cuff – H&M

Cajun Fries, Buffalo Wings, Hawaiian/Roasted Duck Pizza!

Nothing beats talking through long hours with good friends over yummy food and drinks!

Blended Mango Margarita.
I have a bad habit of licking the sugar rim. 😛

We had too many failed self-take group shots and this is one that’s more presentable. 😀

It felt rejuvenating catching up each others’ lives. It’s been years since A and I met up with FZ. I’m so glad things are going well for the both of them now. On contrary, I looked at myself and reflect….

There are many times when I’m alone or late in the night, I asked myself if this is all worth it. I have graduated from Uni for almost 6 months and I’m not bringing home any income. Comparing to my peers and many of them who have started work after Poly, I feel dejected at times.

Many people think that blogshops earn a lot but they fail to realize all the hard work behind the computer screen. Also, success doesn’t come for every single start-up. I have been in this business for so many years and I have given up once. But I do like what I’m doing and nothing beats that. Yet, to juggle between dreams and reality is a challenge.

I am always so excited when we come across gorgeous items during our sourcing and planning for manufactured designs. The adrenaline rush keeps me going on. And also, having to know that our customers are satisfied and happy with their purchases.

I am hopefully that OPP will be a strong brand in time to come.
Of course, with the support of our customers and our continuous hard work.

Gambatte, Jeanine!
Gambatte, oh! poupée 🙂