Yoshimaru Ramen Bar @ Holland Village, Haagen Dazs @ Holland Village

For those who saw it on social media might already knew it, but I'm here to announce..."I'm Offically Engaged!" 

I'll blog about the whole proposal soon :) It was kind of sudden but that's how Derp caught me by surprise. I did smell something fishy going on just didn't know it will be like that! He has totally exceeded my expectation this time and did something "WOW". Okay, at least to me it was "WOW". Stay tune for the proposal story! 

Few weeks back on our usual Friday date night dinner, we went to Yoshimaru Ramen Bar @ Holland Village. That was probably one of our last date as boyfriend and girlfriend. :)

I do frequent Holland Village really often because all my treatments are done there, but there was this particular alley which I never really explored before. It was the alley at the coffee shop and Sushi Tei area. That alley do have many nice food and 1 of which is 2am dessert bar and also a looks-not-bar laksa restaurant whereby you order through a mini computer outside the restaurant. 

We were there pretty early and there was already a crowd at Yoshimaru Ramen Bar. Seems like a popular choice and the price of the ramen is quite affordable. 

The menu as below...

I love the extensive range of sauces/seasonings they have. Oh but the downside of this ramen restaurant is, they don't really have spicy ramen. Derp was finding spicy ramen but there's only 1 type and he don't really gian to try it. The person suggest him to just use the chilli oil and chilli powder they provide. 

They provided us with sesame seed to pound. 

Pounding the sesame seed. It's Derp first time haha! 

The other time I pound sesame seed was at Ramen Keisuke Tori King. 

Derp's ramen. He chose the DIY Hakata Ramen which allows him to choose the ingredient himself :)

I had the Traditional Hakata Ramen

So what's Hakata Ramen?

"Originating in Hakata, Japan, Hakata ramen is a distinctive ultra thin ramen with a film texture, served in a rich, mouthwatering broth extracted from pork bones( Tonkotsu). Pork bones are slowly boiler over 13 hours to create this creamy white and flavourful stock."

Yoshimaru Ramen Bar

31 Lorong Liput Holland Village Singapore 277742

We originally wanted to go have some ice cream at Cold Rock Ice Creamery but sad to say, they have closed down! :( I guessed business wasn't really going good for them. Anyway, we settled in Haggen Dazs for our desserts. First time dining in there for both of us. 

After seeing their wide range of selection, we opt to just DIY our own ice cream hehe! We chose to have waffles with 2 scoops of ice cream, macadamia and cookies and cream. As for the toppings, we had whipped cream. #fatdieus. 

Haggen Dazs may seems to be famous for their ice cream only but their waffles are really special. It's not the normal type of waffle but it's butter waffle hence it smells really good.

#OOTD for a dress down friday. Embroidery Black Top by The Friday Best :) 

Spageddies @ JEM

I had a dinner with Li Hua few weeks back cause she's passing me her Phuket trip souvenirs. :) And she's back from Phuket for more than 1 month! We finally found a common day to meetup after a few last minute cancellation of the dinner. 

We originally wanted to had dinner at Sushi Tei but the queue was really long. We proceed to level 1 and spotted Spageddies. Since there's OCBC credit card promo and the queue wasn't long, we went ahead.

Spageddies, located at the 1st level of Jems, one may have just give it a miss because it's located at quite a hidden area in JEM. Most of the time, our eyes would be attracted to Marche Movenpick. 

They do serves good Italian food and they have a wide range of Italian pastas. On days when I couldn't think of what to eat, I would stick to Italian because it's like the simplest kind of food that never goes wrong. 

The ambience of the restaurant is kind of countryside and gives a homely feeling :)

Our side dish - Fried Calamari

My main - Spaghetti Ham & Mushroom. 

As simple as it may sound, the flavouring and everything matches well :) Their servings are really hugeeeeee! 

Li Hua's Main - Spaghetti Aglio Olio

She was asking me why are there no prawns. I told her because it's not seafood aglio olio or prawn aglio olio hence it's just noodles + mushroom lol! Nevertheless, she ate every bit of her spaghetti because the seasoning and everything was just right, it's not tasteless at all :)

Our meal cost us a total of $34 after the OCBC credit card discount. Totally worth it because they do serve some decent food. 

Spageddies @ JEM

#01-05, Jem, 50 Jurong Gateway Road

                             

Phuket Souvenirs from Li Hua. Thanks! And yes I'm a ultimate fan of the seaweed lays chips, I just don't understand why the local seaweed lays chips is not the same as those from batam and phuket. Just that week, my colleague, Karen also bought me a packet of it from Batam. :):):):) I just simply love seaweed lays! 

Save the Date for Subway BOGO Day - 26th September 2013!

I'm a ULTIMATE fan of Subway and I can save $$ on dinner tml! wooo hooo!

Anyway, Derp and I had Subway for dinner once every week, sometimes twice! We can save some dinner mooolah tomorow! Totally loveeeeeee this promotion. :):)

Subway will be having an islandwide buy 1 get 1 FREE (1 for 1) sub promotion on 26 September 2013. 

Get a FREE 6" sub with purchases of a 6" sub and 22oz drink at any Subway's outlet in Singapore on 26 September 2013. 

Promotion is only valid from 9am to 9pm on 26 September 2013. Offer valid while stock last. Good on regular 6" sub only. Not valid with other discounts or promotions. 

Free sub must be of equal or lesser value. Maximum purchase of 2 subs per customer. Not valid at US Naval Base, Singapore American School, Changi Airport Terminal 2. 

While stock last. Other terms and conditions apply.

When you walk, don't smoke. When you smokes, don't walk.

As the title say "When you walk, don't smoke". Sounds simple isn't it? But I've met with tons of people who just loves to walk and smoke.

Whenever I go down for my routine jog, I'll bound to meet people who smoke as they walk. Seriously, I can only use "wtf" to describe. That is what's going on in my brain at that point of time. Almost every evening run, I'll meet smokers. I'll have my ways to tackle them like always

There are 3 types of smokers:

1) Smokers who stand at the bus stop and smoke - Stationary smokers aka least harmful smokers. At least the 2nd hand smoke don't go around passing to whole world or in my case whole Jurong.

2) Smokers who walk towards you. He/she belong to the middle range of harmful smokers. You will just need to hold your breadth for another 50M after passing the smoker. 

3) The most most most bastard type of smokers are those walking in front of you and you're just so 'heng' to be behind. So probably you'll suck in all the 2nd hand smoke unless you overtake him/her. Most harmful type of smokers around who don't give a shit about their surrounding/environment and just keep SMOKING! Their slogan should be "Just keep smoking!"

At first, I do thought it's legal to walk and smoke as long they are not indoors, I can only blame myself for choosing to jog at a place with so many smokers. BUT NO IT'S NOT! IT'S ILLEGAL!

Adapted from NEA website as below: 

List Of New Smoke Free Areas Included in the Smoking (Prohibition in Certain Places) Act (updated as at 15 January 2013)

Residential Estates

All common areas including:

Linkways from bus stops to residential blocks

Void decks

Corridors

Staircases

Stairwells

Multi-purpose halls

Public Spaces:

Covered walkways and linkways

All pedestrian bridges

5 metres from the edge of bus stops

Hospital outdoor compounds

Link: http://app2.nea.gov.sg/public-health/smoking/smoking-prohibition#smokefree

Let's see the keyword here, 5 Metres from the edge of Bus stop! I passed by 2 bus stops each time during my routine jogs, I still can meet people who smoke like free. As long they get out from the lift and walk to the bus stop, they smokes. 

Can they just be a little more considerate?? What if you're just happily smoking and totally unaware of who's behind you sucking all the 2nd hand smoke and the particular someone is a pregnant lady? or a young child/elderly? 

At least when I'm jogging, I can overtake or siam the 2nd-hand smoke in the shortest possible time(While holding my breadth and jog at same time, trust me it takes me sometime to train), but for those who can't move fast due to their body condition, they'll probably be sucking in everything. Yet, smokers always give the "I don't give a shit face" when that happens. 

I'm not in anyway against people who smokes, I just wish to bring out this message " When you walk, don't smoke. When you smoke, don't walk", as simple as that. Be more considerate! 

Nobody is forcing you to cherish your life more, but at least you shouldn't be or don't have the rights to take away few years of others. But nonetheless, it's never too late to quit smoking :)

Marutama Ra-men @ Liang Court

Ramen stalls have been trending in Singapore for quite a couple of years, even with the influx of korean culture over the last few years, japanese culture still have it's own loyal supporters and standing strongly in Singapore. 

Derp and I are always on the hunt for nice ramen restaurants because Derp is a ultimate fan of spicy ramen. He ate this particular ramen at Liang Court with his friends and he have been telling me how nice it was. So when I asked him what's the name of the restaurant, he couldn't answer me. lol! 

Derp bought me there the other day, yup he know the way but not the name. The ramen restaurant he brought me to is Marutama Ra-men. Many would have called it the basketball ramen too. It's located at the 2nd level of Liang Court. 

Their menu.

As you can see, it's a really simple menu with 4 types of ramen, and the additional toppings are at the next column followed by the side dishes. 

They have actually prepared a jug of ice water at every table and you can refill it yourself! And yes I do hate to wait damn long to get my ice water refilled. 

We ordered the Yaki Char Siew as our side dish. Roasted char siew grilled to perfection which literally melts in your mouth :) Yummylicious! 

We each ordered the Nama Karashi Ra-men - Spicy Chicken Soup Ra-men with toppings as our main. One can't really tell it's spicy at one look but it really is. But the level of spicy is just nice! Not too overboard whereby one will start sweating after eating one mouth of it. 

And because we knew we were ordering the yaki char siew, we didn't add aditional toppings for the ra-men. If not it will be meat over-load. I've always thought that ramen are cooked in pork broth or just simple miso ramen, this is my first time trying a ramen in chicken broth. The very obvious difference between pork brother and chicken broth would be, pork brother are much thicker than chicken broth and often more salty. Chicken broth are usually light in taste but yet not totally tasteless. 

As taken from their website

"Marutama's Toripatan soup served with homemade Hakata-styled ramen noodle. Best quality of this soup due to its 100% pure chicken broth that made with no MSG at all! As for Toripaitan soup itself is one of the very difficult soup to cook. This is because the taste of Toripaitan soup are very susceptible to change in color and taste if the cooker are not detail enough in processing the soup. Every Marutama store needs approximately 5 hours daily for cooking process and preparation. This pure milky white chicken-based soup has delighted and won-over many ramen lovers' in Asia."

Not forgetting, Marutama Ra-men has super big piece of roasted garlic! Shiok to the max! Honestly speaking, I loves to eat ramen with roasted garlic and they usually come in very small form, like the chilli flakes of pizzahut. I can basically eat the roasted garlic of Marutaman Ra-men by itself! 

I'll defintely pop by there again for some nice ramen :)

Central

6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-90/91

The Central

Singapore 059817

Liang Court

177 River Valley Road #02-01/02

Liang Court Shopping Centre

Singapore 179030

United Square

101 Thomson Road #B1-07/08

Singapore 307591

Ending off with a #ootd picture..

Jeri Lace Flare Dress in Cream by Tracyeinny. Check out my review here :)

Review: Shake N Take Personal Smoothie Part 2

After using this Shake n Take Personal Smoothie blender for close to 5 months, time to do a review about it.

Many have been searching for the review of this smoothie blender and are being brought to my blog entry about it. Time for a 2nd review because I ought to let my readers know how the blender goes..

Here how it looks like now.. 

My 2 smoothie bottles and the machine.

Can you see there's some disgusting thing on the machine? Let's zoom in...

Ta dah! 

Okay I've to claim that I have never really taken good care of it well especially the machine, I don't really wipe it after use, okay maybe I did but that was initially. 

Anyway I think all these are burnt marks. I got the additional bottle set from G market, I don't know why but the additional bottle are of different color than the original bottle. It's the darker one btw, on the left. 

When I first uses the machine with the additional bottle, it releases a BURNT SMELL! #Scaredieme

I seriously don't know why and I highly suspect is caused by the burning of the bottle's rubber away. Isn't it weird that they send me the additional bottle that's of different material? It does feel and looks different.

Anyway from then on, I hardly use the 2nd bottle unless necessary. The top and bottom cap are interchangeable so that's the best part I guess. Because the top and botton cap of the original smoothie spoil first. 

Closer view of the 2 bottles.

The first problem I met after using the smoothie blender for long would be the cap!

Let's have a closer look at the cap..

This is the additional bottle cap, can tell that the hole is starting to get loose and hence when you are drinking from the bottle, the flow of the juice won't be smooth to your mouth. You got to suck really hard in order to drink your fruit juice. 

And that's the original bottle cap. Totally let me use until loose and even drop out before. I just fix it back lol. But it totally can't be use anymore so yup. You can just try o drink but no juice is gonna flow out, even if there is, you probably take super long to finish it. 

Second problem I met is the hard-to-wash bottle. I've got to really use a brush to scrub and comb off the debris. I don't know why it will get stucked to the bottle after all it's fruit juice. It really looks disgusting and moudly la! But actually you can still use it. No idea why it had stain the bottle. Fruits will stain bottle de meh? -_-' It's not tea or coffee le. 

The really mouldy smoothie bottle. 

It was worse before that but I did clear it up recently but the mouldy-ness will just reapear -_-". BUT no harm one, you won't get food poisoning after using it in this state. I'm still using it till date. 

I did thought of changing a new one since there's so much offers on this now. Honestly speaking, it's worth to have it because it can replaced your house's blender. 

The additional smoothie bottle. 

It doesn't look as mouldy as the original bottle and that's probably because I hardly use it. I believe if I used it more often, it will probably be more or less as moudly as the other one. 

The last and final problem I met with is the noise of the motor running in the machine.At first, it just sounded around the same as normal blender, or slightly softer. But that's not the main point. As I used it more and more often, the noise keeps getting louder till a point I'm afraid that the whole thing will just fly out one day.

 I heard from my colleague that when the machine starts to get nousier, it probably meant it might just spoil anytime and all of a sudden not functioning. I'm praying for that day not to come! 

Okay la, honestly speaking, it's really a cheap thing to invest on and if you're trying to eat clean, this is definitely good but don't expect too much :) I've no idea of how long the life span of the smoothie blender will be but I used pretty often (probably 2-3 times a week) and it lasted me for 5++ months.

Hope this review helps  and the link to part 1 is here!  

Play Kitchen @ Jurong Point Kopitiam

Derp and I went to Play Kitchen @ Jurong Point Kopitiam for dinner one weekday.  I've been wanting to try to see what's nice about it but always got no chance. Play Kitchen is opened by Ben Yeo, the mediacorp artiste. 

 Most of the time I didn't get to try it ever since it opened is due to the crowd at the whole foodcourt. Totally can't find any seats! I don't really wish to ta bao home because it won't be that nice. 

I managed to grab a seat first before Derp came that day. I felt as though I strike lottery to get a seat in that foodcourt, and it's really a 'war' at the foodcourt if you get what I meant.

Here's the menu. 

They printed the menu and put 1 stack at the counter for people to vet through it. Obviously, their food belongs to the high-end type of foodcourt food. 

          

Their menu at the back is really kind of small hence that explains why they got to print out the menu for easy viewing. Oh their staff are really quite friendly, but this picture don't do them justice lol!

         

I ordered the Smocked Duck Breast Penne with Fresh Vege in Thai Sauce. 

Yes, it's the healthier choice so I go for it lol! No la, I'm a fan of duck meat so yup. To my surprise, the whole pasta tasted sweet, it's my first time eating a sweet pasta! $7.90 for this dish, portion not that big but just nice for me. It would not be enough for guys. And yes, I didn't know Thai sauce was sweet. 

Derp ordered the Sambal Balachan Grilled Fish with Aglio Olio Spaghetti. 

The portion was alright, but why the chilli so little???!!! It's totally not spicy and I would have expected the fish to be cooked with the sambal balachan sauce and not like this! :(

Oh but to be honest, they do take in effort to ensure the grillled fish is perfectly cooked. The crispy, soft and not dry fish should be praise. Other than that, nth much. This cost $.8.90.

People may be curious to try it at least once but might not go back again, after all it's too expensive to have it for dinner everyday. Do make sure you have the Kopitiam Card because it entitles you to 10% off the total bill :)

Play Kitchen 

Jurong Point 1 Level 3 Kopitiam Food Court, Singapore 648886. 

Opening Hours: 11:00am – 11:00pm Daily

Home's Favourite Mooncakes, Bakerzin Mooncakes

One more day to Mid Autumn Festival! As we grow older, we no longer carry lanterns or play candles/sparkles, okay la, I still do it last year :x but not this year.

Derp and I went for a jog last weekend and we saw many kids at the playground playing candles, it's only then I remember we forgot to buy candles and lanterns this year. Sigh, too many things on our head so we totally forget about it. Nvm then. 

BUT we did remember to pre-order our mooncake during the 7th month, it was much cheaper with all the discounts and also no need to scare there's not enough stocks. The hot favourite mooncakes are always sold out way before the actual day and the booth are just basically there for customers to collect their pre-order mooncakes. It's always good to be kiasu when come to mooncakes! You won't want to miss out the yummy mooncakes.

Home's Favourite durian mooncakes have been our favourite durian mooncake ever since Derp and I try it last year. No offence to GoodWoodPark durian but Home's Favourite durian mooncakes is DA BEST! I can't believe I didn't noticed their mooncake until last year! 

Last year, we bought the Mao Shan Wang and D24 durian mooncake. One can really taste the difference and Derp's mum preferred the Mao Shan Wang mooncake. So we bought another 2 for her this year. We don't really want her to over eat also lol!  

The standard until cannot standard type of Home's Favourite Packaging each other. I'm very sure they do not need to spend much on marketing their stuff because they get back their regular customers each year. Their sales are bound to be super good. 

:)

I saw the Bakerzin's mooncake on bongqiuqiu's blog and I know I've to get it for my mum and Derp's mum. I think the mooncake won't taste that bad la, afterall snowskin mooncake is usually quite sama sama de. Anyway the main reason for getting Bakerzin's mooncake is not for the mooncake, it's for something else. hehehe. If you have read bongqiuqiu's blog, you'll get what I mean. I'll show u at the later part of my entry.

We ordered the Royal Jade Collection and Black Seasame Collection. They have this liquor range, I was so gian to get it but I didn't. Probably next time ba :)

The flavours are as follow: Mung Bean Purple Sweet Potato Snow Skin (2 pieces), Mung Bean Green Tea Red Bean Snow Skin (2 pieces), Mung Bean Black Sesame Snow Skin (2 pieces), Mung Bean Yam Snow Skin(2 pieces). Bakerzin's snowskin moncake comes in a box of 8 and costs me $30++ after discount. Worth it to the max!  

Btw, the containers and box can be reused and store your own stuff. :):) 

The black sesame collection. 

        

I personally have tried the black sesame mooncake by Bakerzin. It contain white chocolate in the middle. The mooncake are not to Derp's liking but I find it not bad lor, just yet another snowskin mooncake. Btw, I'm a sucker for snowskin mooncake and I totally siam myself from traditional mooncake. Traditional mooncake can be really sweet if you buy the wrong type.

       

#OOTD of my mooncake delivery day. Can't help but to take photo with the Bakerzin bag! It's so chio and the quality is superb! Oh ya and that pair of shorts are from cotton on. My first pair of floral shorts. I'm so proud of it but Derp thinks that it's some wear-at-home shorts. -_-". 

Anyway, the shorts is super comfy la! I tried the size 8 and size 6, 2 Sundays ago, Size 6 was of perfect fit but when I went back there, it's sold out. So I got to make do with Size 8. As long it don't drop, I'm good :). There's totally no holes for belt! That's why I'm very skeptical about it. 

Okay that's all, Happy Mid Autumn Festival! :)