♥ firstlove88 ♥: October 2015

Monday, October 26, 2015

Brunch @ Carol Mel Cafe

Yet to another cafe for brunch with Derp but this time round, it's at a all new place which I've never explored before.

Derp and I were around that area to run errands and we gladly popped by The Commerce @ Irving as I've google beforehand there's various cafes at that area.

In the first place, I didn't even know there's hipster cafes located there because it seems that there isn't much people hanging around that area. However, I'm totally wrong. On weekdays, they attract the working adults lunch crowd and on weekends, the cafes located there were filled with people who came all the way down for brunch.

Our initial plan was to visit 23 Jumpin but it was full house. We were famished so we didn't wait for seats. We went to another cafe few doors down, Carol Mel Cafe. It wasn't as crowded hence we decide to dine in there.

The mains menu.

The drinks menu

The brunch and snack menu.

This has got to be the most cosy cafe I've ever been to.

As I need to have my daily coffee fix, I decide to go with the brunch menu and ordered coffee to go with. I had the Bagel with Sausage and Scramble Egg.

Bagel with Sausage and Scramble Egg - $9

They ran out of bagel and sausage so they replace it with another type of bread and ham. To be honest, it was very filling and I couldn't finish it (even though the portion doesn't seems huge). A yummy and filling brunch even though some of the ingredients were out of stock.

Homemade Basil Pesto Spaghetti

This is Derp's order. Apparently this is their new dish, Even though it doesn't contain any meat inside, but the spaghetti itself is very tasty. I guess it's due to the herbs and cheese added to it. It'll be good if they served it with minced meat so as to make the dish a more nutritious one.

No cafe visit is complete without ordering their Truffle Fries($12)

Brunch #onthetable

Even though we did not have the chance to try 23 Jumpin, but we had a yummy brunch at Carol Mel Cafe. The bill came up to $40+ (after all the GST), but it was a good brunch fix with Derp.

I will definitely go back to that area to visit other cafes soon as it's accessible and pretty near to where I'm residing :)

The Commerze @ Irving, #01-30, 1 Irving Pl, Singapore 369546

6635 5755

Friday, October 23, 2015

Monster Curry @ Ion Ochard

Not long ago, I met up with my girlfriends for dinner. #finally

The very last time we met was during Claire's wedding in KL. That was like in May and we only had time to meet up in August. We used to meet up once a month but everyone is busy with their own stuffs hence the lack of meetup. Especially for me, I'm cope up with all the wedding preparation. I guess everyone is busy with their own life but oh well, I finally had a chance to pass them the BKK souvenirs too :)

Anyway, we met at Ion Orchard and not knowing what to eat, we decide to have Monster Curry!

I've chance upon this restaurant quite a few times and will always go 'wow' at their food because it looks so delish and the portion looks so gigantic.

The menu.

To be honest, I find the price reasonable and especially so for the combo which is totally worth it. Since there's 4 of us, we had 2 combos in total.

Hereby presenting to you the signature dish of Monster Curry..

Combo Curry!

It consists of pork shabu shabu, tempura, cheese, pork katsu and fried fish. And also the mandatory Jap curry and rice!

For a better comparison of how big the plate is!

Sea Monster Curry

YY and claire shared the Sea Monster Curry where as Esther and I shared the Combo Curry :)

Our curry combs placed together.

We got really excited when our food arrives but we didn't forget to take photos with it before we start to eat. We were famished by then so we can't really wait anymore but to quickly start on it haha!

A quick group pic after so long :)

Just like any other meetup, we update each other what each of us have been busy with and what we will be busy with in the near future.

While we were eating, we had lots of praises for the food we had. We must be really hungry because everything taste nice to us! In the end, we could not finish our combo because of our limited stomach space. I believe if I were to have this with Derp, we should be able to finish the combo set.

Monster Curry Singapore

#B4-52, 2 Orchard Turn, The Orchard Residences, Singapore 238801

We went to run some errands and soon enough, we settled down at one Hong Kong's dessert shop for desserts. As the saying goes 'there's always space for dessert. Even though we were quite full, but YY' has craving for desserts so we went ahead to have it lol.

The dessert shop which we went to is call Honemoon Dessert located at B3.

The price of the dessert is somewhat similar to the other Hong Kong dessert shops if not, some desserts are slightly more expensive especially those that contain durian.

I had the red bean beancurd dessert (bottom right).

I usually go for mango/durian desserts but not this time round. Decide to go for a healthier choice instead after having such a sinful yummy dinner.

Monster Curry has various outlets located around Singapore. Infact, the one located at Nex is the one nearest to me. And Jurong Point has one branch too. It only appear at there after I shifted out! Totally no fate but nvm, now I can have it at Nex then.

That's all for my review!

I will love to go back to Monster Curry one day to try a higher level in terms of spicyness Jap curry :)

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Birthday celebration in the house :)

2 months ago, we celebrated Derp's youngest brother's 20th birthday at our place.

It's been awhile since we hold such gatherings and we took quite sometime to clean up the whole place, making sure it's clean and neat enough. In the past, we had housewarming sessions nearly every week and such sessions 'forced' us to keep the place clean and tidy. After that, we were quite slack and 'bo chup' in general.

Gatherings at our place sort of 'force' us to tidy the house if not on normal days, the whole place will feel as though someone broke in lol. So sometimes, gatherings is good for us and the tidy-ness will last for a few days before it back to normal again.

It was a simple dinner affair with pizza and home prep nuggets and fries.

All the yummy food that day for the 6 of us :)

The food was a little too much and we couldn't finish it lol.

After dinner, we played an hour of game on the PS3 in our living room before cutting the cake.

The birthday boy.

Still a boy because he have not reached 21 yet!

With his gf.

Making his birthday wishes

Cutting the cake

Brothers

A more formal shot before the casual ones.

Family #welfie

And one more.

The one piece polaroids taken that day :)

All very nicely taken and it's in our favourite one piece character's polaroids!

As we grow older, birthday celebrations tend to be less fanciful because what matter most is everyone come together for the gathering even if it means nua-ing around talking rubbish/play games :)

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Review: Polar FT4 Watch

Not too long ago, I ran for Shape Run 2015. For the fun of it, I took a #flatlay the night before the race just so to ease off the pre race jitters. I didn't actually know there's a ongoing Shape Contest and it's only until after the race then I came to know about it.

But there were quite a number of people posting their #flatlay or #ootd for this contest so I never think I will be lucky enough to win the prize.

It was only till one fine day I saw shape_sg commenting on my photos! It happened during sometime near the end of August (more than a month after the race). I totally forgot about this contest so when I saw the comment, it totally caught me by surprise :)

I remember I did googled it once before to find out more about the watch. I do like this watch because it's in my favourite color and it looks kind of cute haha! Very similar to the tamagotchi I used to once owned when I was a kid.

Though having a heartrate monitor watch is something good to have especially for runners, I did not think of buying it so soon. It was part of my to-buy list in the near future.

And that's how it looks like.

After few weeks of waiting, I finally received the letter to bring down for redemption of the watch :)

Felt so excited because I can't wait to use it! The redemption hours is from Mon - Fri and only during office hours. I accumulated a number of wedding errands to run so I took half day leave to run those errands and also to collect this watch.

Say Hi to my new 'baby' :)

I started configuring the watch once I reached home that day. I was first asked to set the language and to input my height and weight. Not forgetting I've to set the date and time too. I can't really remember if there's any other information I set but these are the main few important ones.

That's how it looks like once you press the middle button on the right hand side. You will be brought to this page and the heart rate is only caculated when you wear the heart rate monitor below your chest area. It comes with a strap for you to strap across your body.

That's the heart rate monitor(on the left) that I'm talking about. It will detect your heart rate and reflect it on your watch.

Come to think of it, I've an additional thing to wear/bring out when I go for a run. The watch will just be another digital watch if I forgot to wear the heart rate monitor out. It took me awhile to adjust the tightness of the strap across my body to a comfortable level. At first I wasn't really used to it, but sooner or later I got used to it.

Due to the hazy weather that comes and goes so often, when the skies are clearer I will seize the opportunity to go for a run.

One of the run during the not so hazy day.

Other than showing the duration of the work out and calories burn, it also allow you to monitor the calories burned and your heart rate during your work out.

However, I find it a chore to keep switching the screen here and there (by pressing the right bottom button to change view), so I will usually stick to the heart rate page till I end my workout.

One example of the summary of the heartrate page after I end my workout.

I did up some research and this is what I found

"The basic way to calculate your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220. For example, if you're 45 years old, subtract 45 from 220 to get a maximum heart rate of 175. This is the maximum number of times your heart should beat per minute while you're exercising."

I usually keep my heart rate below 180 which is my comfort zone. I supposed I'm still at the optimal condition to burn fats! I believe this heart rate monitor watch will come in useful when I go for races and training next time.

Once again, I will like to thank shape_sg for this watch :)

Saturday, October 10, 2015

#savethedate | Two More Months

Hello October!

This was suppose to be posted up few days back but I totally forgot about it. I dayre about it instead so here I am, transferring and probably adding on to what I've wrote there.

#savethedate.

No prize for guessing correctly the theme of the wedding :P

It's the final 2 months countdown! If I say I don't feel the stress, it's definitely not true. In actual fact, my stress level only keeps going up.

Many stuffs have been finalized but there are also many outstanding issues waiting to be close and can only be close during the final month.

One very good example is the guests list and seating plan.

The hardest part is not planning who to sit where because we don't have much tables. But the shuffling going on after guests have confirmed/drop out is never ending. We decide to leave it till the few weeks to do the final shuffling.

And the question I got most from people is

"When's your wedding date again?"

Oh well, we concluded we are probably the only one who will really save the date in our calendar and remember about it. We can't expect everyone to have the habit of saving the date in their calendar.

We send out the first batch of invitiation cards via snail mail few days ago. Cross fingers that we will get lesser of that question because the actual day is nearing very soon. You may call us paranoid or what, but all this questions do make us more stress lol.

"If things don't goes on as planned, it's alright. Just enjoy the process :) "

This is what we have been telling each other and constantly keeping this sentence in our mind. It seems to be the hardest thing to do but logically speaking, we will be too busy on the day itself and we won't be aware of what went wrong.

I still remember how relief we felt when our ROM was over. Everything went as planned even though some friends were late. However, we went ahead to sign the paper since the important witnesses are around. It's not nice to delay the JP's time.

When all the guests have left and after the mini photoshoot, we went back to our hotel room to rest and it's really 'ORD'!

I should just keep calm and enjoy being the bride. Looking forward to the 'ORD' day! To all the brides to be out there, hang on! It's once in a life time so one must enjoy the process :) Fighting!

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Mian Miam @ Tampines One

It was one of those rare weekdays whereby we took leave together to run some wedding errands. Oh well, we take it as taking a break from our busy work schedule even though there were things to be done.

That period of time we were both busy with our work due to milestones so the rare weekday break came in at the right time. Anyway, it was my rare treat to Derp :) I usually do that once a month though haha!

We were at Tampines area so we decide to drop by Miam Miam for our lunch. I've heard much about it but no chance to try it yet. Initially, I thought it was a restaurant that sells Vietnamese cuisine though but to my surprise, they actually serves French cuisine.

It was a weekday and it wasn't lunch time yet so the restaurant is pretty empty.

The menu

This place reminded me of Hoshino Coffee as both place served drip coffee!

We topped up our mains for the soup of the day and drinks. This is only available for the lunch special if I'm not wrong.

The soup of the day - Cream of Broccoli

My Mains: Chicken Teriyaki Spaghetti

I can't really remember the price but it costs around $16. They were very generous with the portion! There's lots of chicken and mentaiko in the pasta. I didn't finish everything because it was too much for me.

Derp's Mains: Miam Miam Spaghetti - $16.80

A very colorful dish whereby they balance the usage of veggies and meat very well.

I requested for my coffee to be served after I'm done with my mains. I just need coffee to kick start my day with hehe. So here's my iced coffee :)

Iced Coffee - $5.20

Actually, I don't really know how to taste drip coffee because to me they are all the same though haha. I can only feel whether my coffee have foam or no foam lol!

Our Dessert: The French Toast - $15.80

We thought it will be ice cream on top, but it's actually whipped cream. So we were quite disappointed with the dessert. The toast is good but it will be perfect if it was served with ice cream!

By the time the dessert was served, we were already quite full. The dessert was a little too much for us hence we didn't finish it.

Overall, the food served was good. Portion wise is kind of huge and I do advise on sharing unless you are a big eater/very hungry. Derp have problems finishing his pasta too lol. However, the price is slightly on the higher end for their mains and desserts. It's not that affordable for one to keep revisiting it unless they come up with various promotions (Lunch/dinner Set, credit card promo).

That's all for my two cents worth of review.

Miam Miam @ Tampines One

10 Tampines Central 1

#B1-05 Tampines One

Singapore 529536

Website: http://miam.sg/

Ending off with a casual #OOTD taken that day :)

Friday, October 02, 2015

BKK Day 3 Part 1 - Big C Supermarket, Santa Fe Steak @ CentralWorld,Chan Traditional Thai Massage

BKK Day 3 started off by taking a big ass selfie! Just a tip, hotel rooms have the best natural lighting and they will turn out to look really good. No filter needed *wink*

#selfie before heading out

Time flies and it's the 2nd last full day in BKK. It's the last full day to do our last minute shopping and run our errands. But first, we had a hearty hotel breakfast to start our day with.

It's our first time eating the poached egg from the hotel breakfast and it taste good. I do prefer poached egg these days and will tend to order that when I'm cafe hopping because I don't really know how to cook it haha.

After our breakfast, it's time for us to do our shopping! We went to a street stall outside Platinum Mall to get the remaining souvenirs done. Not forgetting to customize a passport holder for ourselves.

We've been busy making souvenirs for our friends/colis but could not find a appropriate one for ourselves. We chance upon this shop outside Platinum Mall which sells good quality passport holders so we went ahead and customize our passport holders there. They need to take sometime to finish making our orders, so we went to shop around Platinum Mall first.

A #welfie on our 2nd last day :)

It's the first time during this trip that we step inside Platinum Mall to shop. During all our previous trips, we will go Platinum Mall everyday for shopping. However. this shopping mall has become a low priority place to visit nowadays.

I find the quality/standard of the clothes drop and the variety is just so-so. Maybe I've aged so the fashion sense doesn't seems to appeal to me that much as before. #signsofageing

Feeling happy because this is the first dress I bought after spending 2 days in BKK.

We went back to the street stall to collect the souvenirs after probably half an hour and head to Big C Supermarket! It's time to stock up and bring back yummy snacks to Singapore. A must-do for all our BKK trips.

#OOTD taken outside Big C.

We can easily spend an hour or more in Big C Supermarket. The supermarket is easily many times bigger than our NTUC Extra and there's a very wide variety of snacks being sold.

Lots of pocky at a really cheap price.

We had a hard time choosing which flavour of pocky to bring back due to the limited space in our luggage.

In the past, I don't remember they have such baskets for us to pull around. Can't help but to take a photo of it.

My turn to drag the basket around lol.

We also spotted this chilli which was used during our cooking lesson. I regret not buying it back to Singapore though so as to add flavour to our homemade tom yum soup.

It's time for lunch after our snacks shopping. We cross the overbridge back to Central World to have our lunch. Didn't plan what to eat beforehand so we walked around to see what we crave for instead.

In the end, we settled on western food lol. After 2 days of non-stop thai food for every meal, we decide to eat something different this time round.

Santa Fe Steak @ Central World

They have this combo which seems to be a good deal. Around SGD 10 bucks for a steak meal. Sounds not bad right? However when the food arrived, I was quite disappointed.

This is Derp's combo.

And this is mine. Why the portion so pathetic one? There's no salad being served too :(

Oh well, we get what we pay. Seems like it's still a safer choice to stick to having Thai food when in BKK.

We passed by a department stall in Central World and I was attracted to the Rilakkuma soft toys in there. Even though the variety of Rilakkuma items on sales cannot be compared to items at Ookii Ookii Village, but I can conclude Rilakkuma is popular in BKK all these years :)

Love the background but due to the lighting, I can't get a proper pic taken. This is one of the nicer picture.

We left Central World and walked back to Amari Watergate to visit Alex Fashion once again. This time round it was for collection. However, the custom made clothes were not ready yet. Part of the reason was they do not know what color of the buttons to use for each of the formal shirt, hence it wasn't ready yet. So the boss quickly told the factory over the phone our decision and they sew it on the spot and delivered over. We were told to come back 1 hour later.

I decide to take this chance to go for a quick massage while Derp brings the barang barang back to the hotel. Yay to cheap massages and I finally have the time to do it after 2.5 days in BKK.

I went back to the trusted Thai Massage which I've always patronize. It's just a short distance away from Baiyoke Sky hotel which explains why I love to patronize them.

My masseur who is really good.

I chose to do the legs,arms and shoulder massage for 1 hour. Kind of regret not taking the 1.5 hour massage as I almost fall asleep when the time is up. Total costs is less than 10sgd .

Derp came to meet me after I'm done and we walk to Alex Fashion again. This time round, the clothes have arrived from the factory. Derp tried his clothes while I waited for him.

It's best to try your custom made clothes during the collection so they can quickly alter it. If not you will have to alter it yourself/wait for them to come Singapore. It's much more troublesome that way. We've learned our lesson so we make it a point to try during collection.

Previously, we were in a rush to catch our flights. Anyway. only 1 pants need to be further altered so we brought back the rest of the custom made clothes back to our hotel. We will need to go back there on the last day to collect the pants again.

While on the way back to the hotel, we decide to drop by my favourite chicken wings stall to get some fried chicken wings for tea break! You may find directions to the chicken wing stall here :)