Homecook Korean Army Stew (Budae-jjigae 부대찌개)

On the night of polling day, other than making mooncakes, we also have a go at Korean Army Stew. 

The ingredients were pretty simple and it's easy to prep and we just have to utilize the underuse pot given by MIL. Till date we only used it twice, once for steamboat during CNY and this time round for the Korean Army Stew. 

We find it no point to use it especially when there's just the two of us. No diff from using normal pot and just cook right? haha. 

I prepared the stock for the soup few hours prior to dinner time. Basically I stuff lots of anchovies into the soup bag and dump it into the pot (after the water is boiled) and let it cook. In order to let the soup have more 'taste', I think the total time taken to prepare the stock were more than an hour haha! 

When everyone arrives, we then start to place all the ingredients in for cooking. 

That's how it looks like after we put in all the ingredients. 

Our ingredients:

1) Crab Meat

2) Spam

3) Tau Kwa 

4) Kimchi

5) Hotdogs

6) Enoki mushroom

7) Baked Beans (which we only add in after it's boiling)  

Actually you can just add in anything you love to eat during a normal steamboat session. We should have bought marinated bulgogi meat to add in but totally forgot about it. If not it will be yummier!  

We also added in 2 tablespoons of gochujang sauce. I believe gochujang sauce is the most important ingredient because it contribute to the taste of the soup the most. 

Time to add the instant noodle after our ingredients are almost cook! 

Not forgetting a slice of cheese each to add more taste to the soup :) 

The soup wasn't that 'thick' in the first place so we did add a few table spoons of chicken stock into the soup. But after the cheese melts, everything taste good hehe.

Korean Army Stew is very easy to prepare and to have it at home and all you need is just the hotpot machine at home! Totally don't mind preparing it again next time because it's quite costly to eat it outside. Nothing beats homecook food yea? :)

November - The Final Month

过大礼 done on 31/10/15 :) 

It's less than a month to the big day! 

The day we have been preparing for over a year is just here in few weeks time. Can't believe how time files. At times it felt like we just booked the wedding venue and soon enough, we will be walking down the aisle at that place.

More than 90% of the wedding preparation have been completed and we are trying to tie up all the loose ends within the next few weeks. That's so because we aim to have the very last week to relax and rest well for the big day. 

I will do a proper review of the various wedding vendors be it for 过大礼 or the actual day when everything is over. So many backlog to clear but once the wedding is over, I'll slowly clear them so stay tune! 

Hopefully those posts won't bore you out but it's definitely useful for bride-to-be :) 

My aim for November is to keep calm and be a happy bride! Easier said than done so I can only cross fingers and pray everything gonna turn out well. Even if it doesn't, it's about enjoying the process!

Can't wait for the 'reward' aka honemoon after the wedding. Probably the best way to start our 2016! Looking forward :) 

Woo Ricebox @ Jurong Point

Yay to a new eatery at Jurong Point but why does it only open after I shifted out? :( If not I will probably patronize it very often hahaha! 

And with that, I'm referring to Woo Ricebox which was opened just this year.

2 years ago when I went Taiwan, one of our lunch was this 便当! Our tourguide bought for us and we had this while travelling to some other parts of Taiwan. The taste was unforgettable and I totally miss it when I come back to Singapore.

I'm thrilled to know that they have finally opened a branch at Jurong Point. When they first came to Singapore I was really excited. However, their first branch was pretty out of the way for me so I didn't bother to hunt it down. 

One of the Friday, I went back to my parent's place to visit with Derp. I had to remind my parents not to prep any food for me as we will be ta-baoing food back instead. lol. 

All the way back to Jurong not to have homecook food but instead packed food. But to me, it's totally worth it!   

Woo Ricebox is located at B1 of Jurong Point. Located near where Swensen/Thai Express is. 

There's quite a lot of seats and it's free seating. Function pretty much similar to any fast food restaurants out there. 

There's also a preimum gong cha located just inside the Woo Rice Box restaurant. Meant for you to have all the Taiwan delicacies in one place. 

However, we noticed the price is slightly more expensive so we did not buy it. We went to the Gong Cha located at NTUC Fairprice to get Gong Cha instead lol! 

The Menu 

We didn't wait that long for our food as most of the rice box were prepacked and kept warm. After waiting for less than 5 minutes, we collected our food :) 

Dinner that night! 

As you can tell from the pic, there's lots of different appetizer which comes with the rice box. And you'll be surprise at the size of the Golden Pork Cutlet which I've ordered. 

Ta Dah! 

The pork cutlet is really huge isn't it? lol. Even though we packed the pork cutlet back home, it still taste crispy. The pork cutlet is my favourite and it's the same as what we ate during our Taiwan trip. 

The generous servings of appetizers is also what I like about eating the bento set from Woo Ricebox. 

This Golden Pork Cutlet bento set costs $8.90 which I felt it's very value for money. Afterall, a bento set from other similar concept Taiwan restaurant costs 6-7 bucks too. What's more, the rice are imported from Taiwan. You can totally taste the difference in rice when you eat it. Taiwan rice is slightly softer and more moist as compare to the rice we eat normally.

I'm glad that they are so easily accessible now so whenever I crave Taiwan's bento, I'll definitely go back there to have it :)

1 Jurong West Central 2

B1-60/61 Jurong Point

Singapore 648886

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

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 :)   

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 :)  

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 :)