Creamier ice cream waffles

Cloudy with a chance of ice cream!
And that's what happen on a cloudy Thursday afternoon.
Hidden under and behind blocks, is a little cafe tucked away from the busy streets on Toa Payoh.
At the beginning, it took us a while to find the cafe, but with a turn of the corner and noticing the buzz at the front, we know we're arrived at our destination.

Simple design of the cafe. But one major flaw is the lack of available seats, and customers either have to stand and wait till a table is available or they can choose to have their dessert at the tables near the playground instead. We chose that option since we weren't sure how long we had to wait for a table. The only main thing we had to worry about is the black birds hovering above and nearby, as well as the undesired thought that ants might drop from the branches above.

The menu gave you a choice whether to have waffles with single or double scoop.
Flavors that day was Sea Salt Gula Melaka and Plain O' Chocolate.
Both are interesting flavors which I enjoyed, except that after eating it for a few more bites, I grown a little sickish of the flavor. Surprisingly to me, especially for the chocolate flavor, I mean for a person who adore chocolate, it was upsetting that I had to force myself to munch down the rest of the ice cream in cringed agony.
The waffles on the other hand were nice and crispy, unlike the other waffles places that I tried which had 'not too bad' waffles. The cripsy-ness was there and try your best not to spread the ice cream over the waffles too fast, they do, afterall, get soggy eventually.

Overall, it's a nice cafe. Just not one where I would see myself spending an enjoyable afternoon there. It's like finishing your dish so that others can have your table, and with the tables closely placed to each other, it's not the best chill out place either. Good for fast dessert eating. And with a reasonable price of $7.50 for the waffles set.
Bright side, it's a check off my list.

Shiok Maki

On Saturday I had one of the most enjoyable lunch with Bumpy.
One of the places that has been on my foodie list for a while, and we just haven't been there. The thought of the queue turn us off, and we weren't sure how long we would queue, especially on a weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, it was a bargain.
We were to meet there at noon, and it's for our monthsary lunch!
The awesome place to celebrate our monthsary together. And the night before we were up till super late (or early in the morning). Waking up about 9am the next day wasn't easy and initially we were meeting at 11am but it got pushed to noon instead.
A super good time I reached there at 11.45am and I even got a window seat! Hahah. Now I can spy on people while I have my lunch. Yes little minions walk past me and not know that there's someone upstair spying on your every move.
Half hour after I arrived, the crowd started kicking in and before I know it, the restaurant is packed. Even when we ordered then, we were told that we had to wait about half hour for our both maki to be ready.

Meanwhile, for the first dish, we had the grilled unagi ($15).
Super a big fan of grilled eel ever since I started eating it years ago, and it's always the sauce that makes the difference to whether it's good or just alright.
This dish won us over, the sauce was just awesome and together with the tender meat, I'm in love.
Hahah! Even the lettuce salad that came with the dish had a simple feel to it with the light sauce on it. Definitely glad we ordered it.

Our shiok maki gen 1 ($16.80) and salmon ($8) arrived next.
Just the perfect timing when we had finished the unagi. Now that's when we finally tried the dish that everyone has been talking about.
The first bite, or rather the first piece (freaking huge piece!) was mouth-watering. But I struggled a lot at the first bite. The thought of being greedy and wanting to stuff the whole piece inside my tiny mouth, but it failed in the end and I passed Bumpy the piece instead and took a smaller one.
Bloody hell, he opened his mouth and the piece went in easily.
Fine, I got a small mouth. Deal with it.
The sauce on top of the sushi was the one that made the difference, and how it makes the sushi better than the rest. As well as the grilled salmon at the top, it's a combination of shiok-ness alright. Somehow the sauce seemed to be a mixture of Japanese mayo and something else. Just can't figure out what.
But it's my favourite (okay second favourite after unagi).

The second shiok maki second gen arrived. Even with the half hour wait, I reckon it's alright since we needed time to consume each dish and we get to finish one dish before 'attacking' the second dish. For this dish, it's with grilled salmon at the top as well, with the awesome sauce but inside it's filled with grilled prawn instead. The first gen is with unagi, maybe also that's why I enjoyed it so much. For this, I didn't quite like the combination of prawn and salmon.
Conversely, it's Bumpy's favourite dish instead.
Either way, it's a must order dishes when you're at Koh Grill & Sushi Bar.

For the four dishes that we ordered, surprisingly it was just nice for two to share. Sufficient for lunch and quite filling as well. But one thing for sure, I'm definitely returning back here again maybe end of the year for another round of maki & unagi & salmon. Repeat the same four orders as today. Heheh!

Koh Grilled & Sushi Bar
Wisma Atria Shopping Centre #04-21
Daily: 11:30 - 22:30

After lunch we headed off wandering around Orchard. And Bumpy suddenly had the thought of getting macaroons. That's when it all begins...
I mentioned to him about the cheap macaroons that I found at the top floor of Ion which was selling for only $1.50. I mean I don't see macaroons selling that cheap before, even the minimum amount I thought would be $2. But $1.50 is a good steal. Let's just hope the cost and the taste is reasonable as well.

We tried two types of chocolate macaroons, just the lighter one include coffee. The darker one is with marshmallow filling. And that is better than the second one, softer and more chewy. The lighter one is nice as well, just that it wasn't that soft, feel like it has been in the fridge longer.

The second store we tried was from TWG. The macaroons selling at TWG are $2 per piece. A little more pricey but with more flavours available (but with weird names).
We tried three this time; a rose flavoured, a mint tea flavoured and one with kaya inside.
Personally, I felt that it was a major disappointment. The white and blue one taste more of kaya, mainly because of the kaya filling. And for macaroons I found it interestingly weird to have kaya filling.
And the rose flavoured, unfortunately, taste like bandung. Super funny. Bumpy had the first bite and told me of the taste, and when I had mine, after I realized what he mean, I started laughing.
Definitely not purchasing any more macaroons from TWG.

The last store to try was obviously from Laduree. And it is the most expensive one as well, we paid $3.80 each! I can get two pieces of macaroons at the first store for that price. This time we tried salted caramel and chocolate (yes again). The salted caramel was interesting, when you first bite it, you taste the sweet caramel, but eventually at the last taste, somehow you end up with a little bitter taste. Is it normal for all salted caramel macaroons? Even today when I told Carolin about it, she had the same experience with salted caramel (and we bought from different stores!). Perhaps it's just that way.
The chocolate piece is the best macaroons eaten! It just so chocolatey and awww, it does not feel like you're eating a macaroon but like a rich chocolate brownie. Hahah.
Appreciate Bumpy for being my hand model throughout the three store, holding his hands still for me to arrange the macaroons for pictures taking and holding out for three pictures each time.

And yay, I introduce Bumpy to my favourite Boost drink; King William Chocolate milkshake. A Boost drink that I always order when I'm in Australia and most people that I introduced to enjoy the taste of chocolate and bananas in the cup. It's in the indulgence section that is said to be 98% fat free (but is it?).

Off for birthday shopping after that before we headed down to Pasir Ris for another 21st birthday celebration. Almost died of exhaustion this weekend from staying out till 3am in the morning and waking up at about 9am the following day. And I almost fell asleep at the party as well. On the other side, it's also nice how Bumpy brings me along to his events and get me associated with his friends, as well as giving me some night life into my boring life.
Here to an awesome weekend and us crashing in bed on Sunday afternoon, two hours of napping and his mother's awesome dinner to end the day. Hahah. See it's almost as though I'm living with him already. Every Sunday afternoon is spend at his home, napping from our busy weekend before a family meal together. Soon it will be Bumpy turn to be doing that at my home, perhaps during his POP week. Make him come my place so much till his turn to feel as though he is living at my home. xD

Till another blog post, probably about more food again. 

Le Chocolat Cafe

Spending the whole weekend with my bumpy is becoming a regular thing to do.
Sometimes it does suck not to have him around always, but at the same time, you learn to cherish each other more, especially during the weekend when you just want to spend every moment.
You rather not waste time on other things which can be accomplish during the weekdays.
And better still, you also don't want to waste time on arguments or setbacks which waste time.
Bumpy's current favorite words is 'where got time?!'

To admit, it isn't easy being together with an army boy.
You wait for Friday to come each weekend and you scream in agony if the boy gets confinement or guard duty on the weekend.
Other times on the weekdays, you wait for 9.30pm onwards to come, stare aimlessly at the phone just waiting for the most important call of the day.
And suddenly, the rest of the matter can wait when the call comes in. After all, it's just for that one hour (or more or less) that you get to speak to him for the whole day. That you get to rant to him about things that bother you, annoy you, satisfy you, please you or anything that happened in the day. And in exchange, you hear about his day, how his training went, how was his e-learning and his awesome meals in camp. You learn to be positive for him, encouraging and supporting his journey.
In a way, both sides learn to be understanding and more supportive.

Anyway onto today's post. I met my bumpy at Serangoon mrt before we headed down to Chinatown for lunch. Today we did a mixture of hawker food and cafe finding.

As the Mid-Autumn Festival draws near, Chinatown is brightly and colourful decorated with lanterns.
Stringed across the road, the colourful lanterns will definitely captured your attention once you're in Chinatown area.
Now makes me wonder how it would look like at night when the lights are on.
Oh well, another three weeks later I would be walking under the block with Bumpy and at the end of the night, we would play with candles and burn the lanterns. Muahahah!
Of course not forgetting to eat mooncakes and have tea to go with it.

Outside Chinatown mrt, just the main tourist street, there lies another attraction. The lanterns are hand painted by students of different primary schools and they are proudly displayed for everyone to admire and snap pictures of.
The two pictures were kind of a monkey-see-monkey-do action. I saw another pair of photographer taking from that angle, and well, armature me decided to follow suit.

Decrease the exposure for these shot since I'm directly below the sun. It's either that or I would be taking a far too bright picture.
And surprisingly it turned out well, not too bad.
Improving in my photography taking. Time to be using my camera more often for pictures already since my phone is about to retire from pictures taking.
Moving into lunch, today Bumpy introduce me to a really nice place for roasted meat. And just nice the timing where I am in need of protein.
It's a store near People's Park Complex. Just around that area is the main hawker centre nearby, you just can't miss it 'cause of the amount of people stopping there to buy food.

The char siew is like the best I have eaten. A good balance between the meat and the fatness. Juicy stuff.
And the roast pork is crispy and crunchy at the top, with a good flavour of meat. Even the roast duck was like food-orgasm. Hahah!
The only downside of this store; the price. For a plate to feed both of us, it costed $19.20.
I'll say it's pricey for a hawker food, but tasting the meat, somehow it seemed sort of worth it. You got to admit that at times good food doesn't come cheap.

After that we headed off to find our dessert place. Heard about it from my friend that this cafe served rainbow cake as well, so it's a rainbow hunt to find it.
At the same time, we were finding a steak place to have after Bumpy' outfield.

Located at Club Hotel, we found our dessert place!
We ordered two types of desserts; the famous rainbow cake and brownie with ice cream.

From the first appearance, the rainbow cake looks sweet. Especially with the chocolate coated and dripping chocolate down.
At the second glance, it does have the six layers of a rainbow cake. However I wasn't satisfied with the design. The cake layer were unfortunately unevenly baked, with some layers being thinner or thicker than the others. And the stacking of the cake was also uneven. To top it off, it had a 'generous' serving of cream at the top.
To be honest, I hate cream on cakes. It put me off instantly and I would literally try my best to scoop the cream off if possible.
With this, I just felt that it was too much creamy and the cake was just disappointing for me. At the last part, I decided to scoop away all the cream before finally having the last few bites without the overload of creamy-ness.

The thick layer of cream both at the top and side. Together with the uneven layers.

The first bite.
For the second dessert, we had the brownie with ice cream.
Mainly we chose that dessert 'cause of the size of the brownie. I mean that thing is huge. It's like the size of my palm and usually we don't see brownie in that size. Hahah.

A good piece of brownie I'll say. Not too chocolatey and with the addition of nuts inside, it's not bad.
Decent should be the right word.

The food listed are priced before GST and service charged. A quiet place for weekend brunch or cakes eating.
Though service is a little slow despite that there wasn't much crowd when we were there. Pretty much less initiative staffs.

Le Chocolat Cafe
Club Hotel, 28 Ann Siang Hill
Mon - Sun 07:00 to 20:00

My Bumpy all booked into camp and I won't be seeing him for 18 days. It sound like confinement period all over again. Only that this time we know we're getting better at it, and that after his outfield, we will spam the weekend with each other.
Till then, we will wait another 18 days to compare skin colours and see much darker he will get.
Then again, who ever said love is easy?

Lola's Cafe

A little cafe that just opened a month ago (I think or more) along Simon Road.
Decided to head there on Sunday for brunch with Bumpy.
The cafe is a retro style and their table is even made from retro sewing machine. During the meal, I was busy moving the machine up and down, making a horrible creaking sound to annoy others. Heheh.
It was a cafe that appeared on 8 days and figured well it's nearby my area why not.
To be honest, I never really eaten at any cafe around my area like at all before. Seriously. To think the past 20 years that I stay around my area, I don't really eat here much. Maybe kovan hawker centre here and there. But that seemed about all.

Do love their clock though.
Definitely want such an unique clock in my future home. Decorate my home to have a slightly retro yet modern style.
And of course hopefully a couch beside the window. A place of relaxation, book reading and daydreaming. But of course the window better have a good view.

We ordered their brunch set.
Avocado Eggs Benedict and Full Meaty Breakfast.
I enjoyed Bumpy's brekkie more than mine.
The sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs are seriously awesome. The bread not really cause it's slightly hard for my liking.
But that's one recommended set to order when you're there.

The Egg Benedict is alright as well, decent meal, or maybe just learning that Egg Benedict not really my kind of brekkie/brunch that I would like to have.

For desserts, we tried their brownie and this salted chocolate tart with Kahlua cream.
The brownie deserve every thumbs up for the rich moist and chocolatey slice. Super happy that Bumpy ordered it.
Definitely coming back here just for the brownie and maybe more items on the menu. And another cafe to add to my list of chill out places.

Lola's Cafe
#01-00 5 Simon Road
Tue - Sun 11:00 to 00:00

The Coffee Daily

This weekend started with a little overdose of dessert.

And considering I had strictly placed myself on a 19 days of no dessert, a sudden overload of dessert intake does make me nausea. Surprisingly from a disciplined dessert eater like me. 

Then again I literally was off limits to desserts. It was terrible, horrible and I nearly fainted of low sugar level inside me. 

So when my Bumpy had his first book out on Friday night, I was happy to the maximum. 

Waited for him at Pasir Ris for him to come down from the bus and hopping into the cab to head home. 

The first awkward moment seeing him in green after 19 days and for the first moment it really did seem foreign. Like is this really my boyfriend. He doesn't look like my boyfriend at all! Hahah.

Okay he better not be reading this part.

But eventually having him beside me again even just for this weekend, I know this is my boyfriend. Maybe he's not entirely the same as before. Inside, I feel that he grown up. More mature, more appreciative, more loving, knowing his priorities and obviously more mushy.

Maybe after booking out, you learnt that you don't want to spend the weekend in front of the computer playing dota, you rather be spending it with family, with girlfriend and with friends. 

And this weekend, he managed to accomplish all. Above all, I get to spend all three days with him, even while I was studying for my paper. 

Another 3 more days and I'm seeing him again. 

Somewhat true that when you have an army boyfriend, your whole weekend practically revolve around him. 

Weekdays are then used for other friends instead.

On Saturday night we headed down to Serangoon Gardens for a little dessert and meeting with his friends.

Personally I did not enjoy the red velvet cake at all.

The cake texture was crumbly and the amount of cream cheese frosting was insufficient for the amount of cake available. Overall I felt that it was quite a piece of disappointing slice.

As for the rainbow cake, I enjoyed it as well as I did last time. Just that I needed more time to complete the cake. For a six layer happiness cake, you definitely do not want to rush through the process.

Probably or definitely damn sure that Bumpy died of dessert overload that night at the rate that he ate more than me. 

Next time we're heading there with a book and spending a lazy afternoon there just enjoying the atmosphere and cakes available.

75 Brighton Crescent

Mon - Thur 12:00 to 22:30

Fri 12:00 to 23:30

Sat 9:30 to 23:30

Sun 9:30 to 22:30

Back at Sec School

My ultimate busy Friday morning at my secondary school.
Even though I have graduated from secondary school for coming five years already, it doesn't mean I can't find any excuse for me to go back to help out.
And today my mom just gave me the perfect excuse.
Just nice that today is Racial Harmony and she agreed to help them in the tending of booths. Who knew that mummy would still be active in the PTC even after I have graduated years ago.

And boy was my principal happy to see me. Again with the usual comment, but this time he asked if I'm doing Twilight since I have red lens, and him asking me to stop changing hair colors. Hahah!

Today I'm in charge of the game stall. Just a simple game where it's all about luck and lucky fingers.
You pay $1 for two spins and on the board, they have only about 6 columns where you get to win something, and they are labelled 1, 2 or 3. To make it harder, there is only one 1.
At the beginning there weren't much students who wanted to play the game, but gradually as we started promoting and doing the sound effects each time a student wins something, we attract the crowds. Before we know it, we have the busiest game stalls.
Crazy morning of watching the board spin and seeing whether the students would come close to winning something.

There was a group of basket ballers who really aimed to try their luck at the game. On their first round, they gave me enough tickets for 17 spins. Of which they won at least 5 toys. And even after winning the toys, they gave all away.
After that they came back to play again, but this time with 10 spins.
Was joking with them that if this time they win the toy, could I have the toy instead. Hahah!
Surprisingly, after a while they came back later to find me and said that they had spare coupons and pass it to me and my friend, asking us to play the game ourselves and see if we have luck winning anything.
A really pleasant surprise, and coming from juniors whom I barely know but yet giving us the coupons just like that.
Though in the end I bought a book with the coupon instead.
Still definitely an eventful way to spend a Friday morning.

A much needed lunch after the high energy morning. Pretty much the food was gone within minutes.
Hungry kitty.
After that it's off to find Box.

Spend at the day at Toa Payoh before dinner at Bishan together with his sister.
Three kids off having black carrot cake for dinner. No words needed, just eat.
And I found out that his sister also doesn't eat spring onion with carrot cake too! So I'm not the only one who doesn't eat it.

And with the day ending with dessert.
My much needed post exam therapy at Wafflicious. Not too bad, but I reckon I prefer the usual at Cathay instead. For starters, the waffles got a little too soggy after a while and I didn't quite like the cookies n cream ice cream.
Still not too bad I guess. Though it's a first that I have chocolate flavored waffles and with everything chocolatey on top.