Welcoming 2017 :)

On the first day of 2017, we decide to kick start our year with a hearty brunch. Back to one of my favorite place for brunch and it's near our hood :) 

Not my first time there but probably the third time to Whisk & Paddle. You can read about my previous experience here.

Matcha Latte - $6.50

Seems like they have jumped in the bandwagon of #everythingmatcha because I don't remember seeing it during my previous trips there.

Anyway, this has got to be the most pretty Match Latte I've ever drank! Taste very yummy too :)

Whisk Breakfast Pan - $19.80

A #flatlay of our brunch :) And yes, we ordered the exact same mains haha! Our taste buds are pretty similar at times and we would both rather settle for comfort food than to risk having something that is new and might not taste as good. We can be boring just like that haha! 

Whisk & Paddle

Address: 10 Tebing Lane, #01-01, Singapore 828836

Phone: +65 6242 4617

Fax: +65 6242 4634

Website: http://whiskandpaddle.com.sg/

The first #welfie of 2017

May 2017 be a better year than 2016 for us. And come to think of it, we are almost into the 2nd quarter of 2017. I won't say it have been a smooth first half of 2017, but I definitely hope the 2nd half of 2017 will be a better one.

If one has not start on his/her resolution, do remember there's still half year to go! Never too late to start on them right now :) 

Dinner @ Watami Japanese Restaurant, Dessert @ Ice Lab

December is meant for meeting and catching up with friends before the year ends. 

On my previous post, I met up with Sharon for lunch and in less than a week, I met up with Li Hua for dinner. Just in time to make it before 2016 ends. December is definitely a month of feasting! 

The last time we met was before we got our driving license (yup was struggling with it back then) and ever since then we didn't meet up with each other only until the end of the year. 

No solid plans on where to have our dinner so we walked around Ion Orchard and decide to dine in at Watami Japanese Restaurant. It have been ages since I last ate there though. 

Didn't took much photos but this is what I had at Watami Japanese Restaurant. :) 

Can't really remember the name of the dish but it was grilled pork on top of rice. I must admit the pork is not easy to chew and I have a hard time biting it. Will not order this if I ever go back there again for meals. 

 Watami Japanese Restaurant

ION Orchard #B3-23

2 Orchard Turn

Singapore 238801

We head to Ice Lab for round 2 as I was obviously not happy with my meal earlier on. Our original plan was to eat to the DOTS cafe (Dal Komm Coffee) but it was getting late so we change our plan and went to Ice Lab instead. Totally no worries because Ice Lab operating hours are way past midnight :)  

Not my first time there, probably the 2nd or 3rd and the place is still crowded as ever. Seems like the hype never goes down at all probably because of it's strategic location. 

So crowded even though it was already late night..

We ordered the Chocolate Bingsu for sharing. It does look like milo hor? haha! 

Since we are seated 'infront' of the bear, shall not waste the chance and took advantage of the situation to take photos haha! 

My dinner date that night..

A #welfie nicely taken with the iconic bear at the background :) 

More than a decade of friendship! I still remember clearly how we know each other even before year 1 of our poly started haha. So she's counted as the first few friend of my poly life back then as I have zero friends going to the same school as me. Good old days indeed. 

This marks the last post of 2016 happenings. Shall start typing on 2017 soon! 

Ice Lab

Orchard Shopping Centre, 321 Orchard Road #01-01/02, Singapore 238866 (Somerset MRT)

Opening Hours: 1:30pm – 1am (Mon-Thu), 10am – 1am (Fri-Sun)

d' Good Cafe @ Takashimaya & Paris Baguette @ Wisma Atria

So before 2016 ends, I meet up with Sharon for our yearly meetup. The last time we met was before 2015 ends. I know that's really bad but as long got catch up better than none right? :) Hopefully it can be a half-yearly thing instead of yearly affair haha! 

This time round, we set the venue to be at d'Good Cafe. I went to the branch at Holland Village (many years back) but it was crowded so I didn't had a chance to dine in there at all.

It was located at a corner which took me sometime to locate the cafe. It's not located at a prominent place location though. 

They offered quite a variety of food but mainly western food. 

There were some Xmas promotion going on and I ordered the Xmas special drink to try.

Matcha Soda - $8

It's very costly for a small drink like such. However, it's a very concentrated type of drink (the vegan taste is strong). Probably that explains why it's so costly.

Here comes our mains...

Slow Braised Cider Pork Cheek

This is what Sharon ordered. Can't remember how much it cost though. Feedback from her is that the pork cheek is yummy but portion wise is quite small! Definitely not suitable for the big eaters or guys because they will probably still feel hungry after consuming the mains.

Half Poached Lobster Pasta - $26 

This might be my most expensive pasta I've eaten till date lol. All because I was craving to eat some lobster and did some research that d' Good Cafe has got yummy lobsters. 

However, I was disappointed with the size of the half poached lobster because they are really small. I can finished the lobster meat very quickly. Other than that, the paste was nicely cooked and everything was great. Just hoping they will be more generous with the lobster meat!

D'Good Cafe Takashimaya

91 Orchard Road, #B1-56, Takashimaya S.C., Ngee Ann City, 238872

After our not-very-filling lunch, we decide to hunt for dessert. Eventually, we settled down at Paris Baguette @ Wisma Atria. It was mad crowded on a weekday afternoon. Quite surprising right? But somehow that branch always has lots of people sitting down to have a good afternoon tea. So we do have a hard timing finding our seats. 

In the end, we just took a counter seat since that's the only available seats. 

Pretty cakes! Totally spoiled for choice.

More pretty cakes! :)

We settled on the strawberry short cake. A classic cake choice which never goes wrong. 

We took some photos before we left. Didn't had a chance to do it at our lunch venue but we had our dessert venue to make up for it haha!

Introduced Sharon to snap chat filters haha! I was so hooked onto them for a point of time.

Us looking cute here lol.

My favorite filter.

Alright a normal shot at last haha! 

That's all about the meetup with Sharon. We had a enjoyable catch up with nice food :)  Hopefully I can meet her again soon enough and not wait till the end of the year to arrange the meetup.

Paris Baguette @ Wisma Atria

 435 Orchard Road, #02-02, 238877

X'mas 2016 Celebration

X'mas 2016 was a simple affair for us. We have had home parties in 2014 and in 2015. So time to take a break from hosting it at our house :) Hence, X'mas 2016 was held at Derp's brother's place instead, which is also in the North Eastern part of Singapore.

On X'mas eve, it was raining heavily especially in the evening. There were flash floods at various areas in Singapore. I'm gladful we are not spending time in town or squeezing with the crowd, but rather spending time with our family members. 

Derp decide to bring our own bean bag to his brother's place. 

All the food that evening. 

Nope we did not eat any snacks in the end haha! The pizza and xmas cake were more than enough for us :)

Pretty Xmas Tart (not cake) from Paris Baguette

Comes with the pretty box too. No idea why we lit up the candle also haha! 

All the presents for the Xmas exchange placed under the Xmas tree.

And so we started the Xmas exchange shortly after some gaming right after our dinner.

This was us before opening our presents.

We took more photos before eating the cake too.

We had Brown joining us for Xmas celebration hehe. 

A close up shot of us. 

The Brown bear has brought lots of entertainment for us that night. He's super nice to touch even though he's really heavy haha! 

We hanged out till really late that night, reached home at 2am and finally on bed by 3am haha! It was many rounds of playing till it's late then we made a move lol. Thankfully there's no work the very next day and it's a long weekend.

Love breaks like such to the max :) 

Ending of this post with this cute and hilarious photo..

SIL send us a photo of Brown with the nerf gun which Derp's bought it for the gift exchange and his brother was the one who was picked up this gift. Seems like the toy is for Brown instead? lol.

That's all for X'mas 2016. Instead of squeezing with the crowd at town area, we are happy to spend time gathering with our family members because family comes before anything else :)  

Birthday Cake from SugarbyJ, Long Beach Seafood Restaurant @ IMM

And once again, we ordered birthday cake from SugarbyJ, The previous time we ordered it was for my birthday celebration.

This time it was for Derp's birthday. Derp's birthday was 1 month plus after mine. So we had cakes from SugarbyJ for consecutive 2 months hehe.

 

Derp's birthday cake design was much simpler as compared to mine. After all, he's a guy so there's not a need for fanciful cake opps!

Derp and his favorite maple character cake haha! 

It was actually Claire's idea lol. Since she still have the maple story character image which I provided her for my wedding dessert table. Just make do with it then lol!

Matcha Houjicha Cake for Derp.

As per previous year traditional custom, I will cook for Derp his birthday Mee Sua. It's not as though he only get to eat Mee Sua on his birthday (on normal days we have this too), but having it on birthday has more meaning to it :)

We got ourselves prep to head out for the birthday celebration. We went all the way to the west for the Marvel's Avenger Station Exhibition which I've blogged about it back then.

Totally have no idea what to have for Derp's birthday dinner, and since we were in the west area for the Marvel's Avenger Station Exhibition, we decide to narrow down to having our dinner in the west area then. Too lazy to travel to elsewhere haha! 

We decided on Long Beach Seafood Restaurant for the dinner venue because of crabs haha!

There wasn't any queue on a Saturday night but the restaurant was quite full.  

We get to sit near the entrance of the restaurant as the smaller tables are all located at the front of the restaurant.

My dad used to bring us to this restaurant very often when we were young and I must say their standard hasn't really drop over the years.

So here's what we ordered.. 

Blanched Spinach with Trio Eggs - $14

Deer Meat with Ginger and Spring Onion - $16

Signature Black Pepper Crab

A picture of us taken before we start eating. 

But in actual fact, we had already took a few mouthful haha!

#OnTheTable 

Their service was really very good (top notch) as we were well 'taken care' of during our time there.

The waitress kindly offered us to help us 'de-shell' the crab. Gladly agreed to it because it would save us a lot of trouble and prevent us from making a mess at ourselves.

That's how it look like after the 'de-shell' process. 

The meat is so fleshy and fresh! This is the first time I encounter such service and I totally appreciate it :) Is there such service for prawns too? lol! I doubt so though. 

Because their service was so good, we decide to have dessert at there too. They have been recommending it to us to have their dessert, but we just brush it off and thought of heading elsewhere for dessert. 

Didn't take note of what's the name of this dessert. But basically, it's red bean with vanilla ice cream. This combination taste yummy though :) Something new for us!

Overall, we had a enjoyable dinner (most importantly Derp enjoy the food that night and it was my treat!) Long Beach Seafood Restaurant @ IMM though it's really far for us staying in the north east area haha. The food was yummy and service was good. Nothing to complain about and thankful for the kind gesture from them to help us de-shell the crab :)

Long Beach Restaurant @ IMM

Jurong East Street 21, Singapore 609601