Just watched Avatar on last Monday at Orchard. It was a good show, same comment as other people.
The selling point is the visual effect, simply stunning. The producer successfully create a virtual world that only exists in our imagination. All the objects seem so real and amazing.
Beside that, the story line also good. Although it is a normal plot, but it goes well with the visual effect. Thumbs up.
Yesterday, I told my colleague that there is no good chicken rice at Tampines area. The famous store at Downtown east I haven't have a chance to try. Today, she drive us there to eat the chicken rice. The queue is long but service is fast.
True to the fame. The chicken rice is good. There are few components of a plate of rice - rice, chicken, chili and soup. The rice has good fragrance and taste. The chicken is tender and skin is smooth. Chili has distinctive sweetness and not too spicy. The cabbage soup neutralise the oiliness nicely.
I would say I would come back to visit them again.
就在2009就快过的时候，超级偶像4，超级大热凭空出世。我是在一个部落格中看到他的表演。只有一个字-好！
看过就知道，不看会后悔。我只能说这就是2009最好的声音了。
曾昱嘉 - 無底洞
曾昱嘉 - 如果沒有你
真的太强了。
The most interesting news for this week is the new iPhone launch for M1 and Starhub. After Starhub includes a 12GB data bundle, M1 and Singtel soon caught up. Of course the ultimate winner is consumer. Finally, competition brings advantage to consumer.
Looking at monthly price alone, M1 offers the best price which is just $36. Unless you call frequently, most people would opt for this plan.
I would consider my option later.
How do you define good food? To me, it is something tasty, and worth the money you pay for. Only when you perceived there is value for the food, then you would keep visiting the stall/restaurant.
Singapore in recent years has evolved to be an eating country. Newspaper and media keep featuring the good food store, people flocking to the store based on recommendation. Believe it or not, not all are really good. When you walk past the hawker centre, there are many stalls with newspaper article. Some "famous" stall even penetrated the coffee shop, setting up many branches of their famous bak chor mee. To me, it is all hype, having many branches does not mean the food is really fantastic.
Today I tried the fish soup at one stall in Bedok area. The stall is just another stall in hawker centre, with no newspaper article. However, you can see the crowd waiting for their food patiently around the tables, sensing there must be something which draws the crowd, I also joined the wait. When the food is served, I realised the reason.
The fish soup maintains the sweetness as other stall. The key draw to the store is plenty of fish slices and vegetables. You can find many slices of fish and different vegetables like lettuce, chai sim, cabbage, all inside the bowl. It is really value for money - balance of taste, cost and healthy. So, the crowd knows which is good.
The stall I visited this time is Hainanese curry rice stall at Bugis area.
At 11:30am, the Auntie told me the curry wasn't ready, I need to wait another 30min. By noon, when I came back, long queue was already in front of the stall. I guess this should be quite a good stall.
When it was my turn, I ordered these with rice - cabbage, braised pork and egg.
Curry rice with dishes, gravy and curry (of course)
Hmm... The taste is good. The rice is in perfect balance. The rice is just cooked, the individual grain doesn't stick together yet it is not too hard. The cabbage and egg with yolk not fully cooked were done right. The braised pork was good. All these were covered under the braised gravy and thick curry, it is not difficult to imagine how good it is. I would definitely come again.
The stall is found inside Rong Liang coffee shop which is opposite diagonally of Iluma.
Just went to Hua Yu Wee (华友园) at Upper East Coast Road with colleague. It was recommended by one of the colleague for seafood. The place is not so accessible if you are not driving. However, looking at the building which is an old colonial house, it gives a refreshing feel. The restaurant seems old enough just by looking at the signboard.
We ordered few dishes like baby kailan, roast chicken, steam prawn and deep fried small sotong. All the dishes taste good, prawn is fresh and roast chicken is crispy. The climate of the night is the chili crab and black pepper crab. The chili sauce is just nice, balance between sweetness and spicy, dip the bun inside to enjoy. Black pepper got its nice fragrance. The crab is big and fresh. Both are good.
Good food come with reasonable price. We spent average $25 per person for this meal
I just saw the advertisement of one famous fresh milk brand. On the pack, it is stated that "Trans fat Free". Maybe consumer would think that this brand is healthier and buy their product? Do you know that very little trans fat exist in natural product?
Transfat is produced by hydrogenating the oil to make it more stable. In this way, the food could last longer, e.g. baked products. Only in these few years, more people pay attention to the danger of consuming product with trans fat. I think the manufacturer is trying to gain point by stating their product is free of cholesterol, trans fat etc, despite the fact that these substance might not exist naturally at all. Same situation happen for peanut butter with "no cholesterol" label. It doesn't exist in the first place.
Looking at the response on the news so far, I guess not only I am surprised and worried about the incident(although I don't have starhub cable). The consensus is it is bad for consumer.
On the hardware,
You have to install both starhub cable set top box and mio tv box. You also have to juggle between the remote controls.
On competition,
It is definitely bad competition. A competition that does not benefit anyone, except the EPL telecast owner. Starhub would lose subscriber, Singtel lose money to lure subscriber, consumer pay the extra cost. Because they got the exclusive right, consumer is held to ransom, maybe not now but in the next few years. Somebody has to pay the bill right
On regulation,
MDA says they would look into the matter, but I doubt anything would be done on this. This is ultimately commercial decision, and it is free competition world. But, really, consumer would not benefit.
On future,
Judging at the public outcry, Singtel would keep the cost on par with old starhub fee for the moment. Then, gradually increase the price over the years. Another way is they use other way to milk the consumer. At the end of the day, somebody has to pay for it and it would be consumer. The overall cost would go up slightly, if you still want your existing starhub and you have to pay for the mio tv also. Of course, if you don't watch soccer, then congratulations, you are not part of the equation.
Overall, something has to be done to stop this unhealthy "competition".
Singtel won the right to telecast English Premier League (EPL) for the next three seasons. The soccer fan can look forward to some price increase, despite Singtel saying the price would be kept affordable and comparable to last time.
Over the years, EPL has grown as a money spinner. The club keep splashing money to buy star players and increase the attractiveness of their game play. This help them to sell more shirt and TV broadcasting right. More fans are attracted to the EPL which keep up the demand for live game telecast. The pay TV operator buy the exclusive telecast right to lock in the subscriber. However, at the end of the day, it is the soccer fans who are financing all these.
The two pay TV operator compete for the exclusive right to air the live soccer match, so they raised their bid. Once they won the bid, the fans are made to pay for it. This is a special case where competition does not introduce cheaper service. The more intense the competition, the more you need to pay for future viewing right.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Starhub Plaza Singapura roadshow to have a look and hands on for HTC Hero. The handset on the booth seems not working, you have to get it from the promoter. While you are playing, the promoter would also explain the features and answer the query.
First impression, it looks snappy. Although the promoter said he got the handset few weeks ago, but I suspect it is with the updated ROM already. The scrolling and menu selection looks fast and without lag.
The important part, it is all about the Sense UI. Yes, really. You buy the HTC Hero because of the customisation they put, that is Sense. You have have up to seven pages in each Sense, where you add all the widgets. In different Sense, for example - work, play etc, you can configure the widget that suit the purpose. Other than this, it got all the rest of android handset features.
On screen keyboard, it would take sometime to get used to it, if you are coming from the normal handphone user. Very often, you would touch the other key wrongly and need to backspace. I suppose after a while, your eyes and hand would be more coordinated.
The chin, yes it got a unique look. But in my opinion, the chin actually adds to the usability. It make the phone easier to hold on hand. So, this "feature" actually serve some purpose.
Other areas, camera function look so so. The image quality is respectable, but I don't think it is really that fantastic. The touch is close to iPhone, you don't have to press hard in order for it to recognise.
Bottom line is you need to try it out for a while to decide whether it is for you. I guess the sms won't be faster, but the tight integration to online service make it easier to use.
HTC Hero is out in Singapore right now, with all the three telco - Singtel, M1 and Starhub
This should be a eagerly awaited handset of the year. I have compiled the price plan as follow.
Singtel
Phone price: $298(depends on price plan you select)
Phone plan: iOne Plus $25.68 (free caller id 3mths)
Data plan: BroadBand on Mobile Plus $19.90 for 1GB (12mth contract $13.93, capped at $94.16)
3G Flexi Lite $39 for 500MB data, 100min outgoing call
3G Flexi $56 for 1GB data, 200min outgoing call
M1
Phone price: $598(w/o data plan), $498(w data plan)
Phone plan: SunSaver $25.68
Data plan: SunSurf Max $16.05 for 1GB (capped at $36.38)
Starhub
Phone price: $498
Phone plan: 3G PowerValue 100 $25.68
Data plan: MaxMobile Premium $9.95(offer) for 1GB (capped at $36.38)
*$100 off for new signup *$100 off for PS roadshow
It looks like Starhub got the best price overall. Singtel handset price itself is cheap, but the model is out of stock now on the website. This shows the popularity of the phone. Check the price with telco again before deciding. The advertisement is confusing with many fine prints.
Finally, a phone maker is coming out with an attractive handset full of feature and hype.
I came across the TWG tea brand from blog and newspaper. They are opening the flagship store in Ion Orchard. I decided to give it a try.
TWG tea Kwai Flower Superior (Osmanthus) from Takashimaya counter. 50g tea leaves.
The fragrance is great. It is a kind of Oolong tea infused with Osmanthus flower. The taste is light, without the usual oolong woody taste, full of fragrance. You pay for the quality.
This afternoon, went to Tampines 1 food court to eat at the KL roasted stall - Restoran Selayang. The wanton picture looks good, so decided to order the wanton mee. But the wanton itself is disappointing, too small and doesn't match the picture.
The char siew is ok as usual. But I find their char siew quality is not always consistent. It depends on which part of the meat you got. Some tender, some rather hard, despite the fact they are using meat with fat.
The surprise is actually the noodle and sauce. They claim to use Pontian noodle, somehow the " "Pontian noodle" has made a name in Singapore scene. Ignore the name, the noodle is curly, springy and chewy. The sauce is good, I can't figure out how they made the sauce. But it goes very well with the noodle.
You can try it as Plaza Singapura or Tampines 1 food court.
Like it or not. After end of Sep, the Giro auto top up facility of ezLink no longer comes free. It has already cause some discontent, when people trying to take away free facility to become charging service.
1. The application would take 21 days, instead of almost instant application previously
2. It only works with DBS and POSB
3. The most important part is there is a convenience fee of 0.25 per top up, like the credit card
Of course, people can come up with reason to justify the fee. But, as a consumer, that is no good. Again, like it or not, it is a fact now and we have to do away with the auto top up.
继一战成名之后，蔡艾珈又到了星光5PK 。在这第二战，演唱的曲目是 - 我该得到。依旧人小，声音大，得到了25分。她的演唱与她的年龄非常不搭，却依然受落。
蔡艾珈 - 我该得到：
那集竟然出现了3个满分PK。接下来看看。
倪安东 - K歌之王：
孙自佑 - 当我想起你：
This is a mixed post. Still have a few pictures haven't posted.
135 Fishball noodle at Tampines. The fishball is really good, very Q and tasty. The sauce also mixed very well.
Roti Prata at Ang Mo Kio Ave 2/3. Place near my friend's new house. The prata is crispy.
Fish and Co offer, 9.90 per dish. This is the Thai Sauce Fish. The curry sauce is spicy yet complement the fish well.
Pasta at Pizza hut. Going for under $10, cheap yet tasty. The tomato sauce is good.
I was having the blogger posting page screwed up problem for few weeks already. Only today, after I went through quite a few post in the blogger support forum, then I realise the problem is with Singtel.
Somehow, it just screw up the page. So, I followed someone suggestion to press the Ctrl + F5 in the screwed up page. You guess what, it works again. This shortcut force the browser to ignore all cache content and re-fetch all the things from the web server again. I hope this problem would go away forever.
On the same day I went Ion Orchard, I also tasted the first outlet of Itacho Sushi. It has many stores in HK and first time open shop in Singapore.
I came during lunch time, so it is less crowded. They were having the lunch set at 9.90 only. I ordered the Matsu lunch set with 10 sushi, plus two a la carte sushi. You have choice to order sushi in one piece only.
Let's talk about the 10 piece Matsu sushi set. The sushi were being displayed on a long plate, layout in a straight line. This make it looks nice. By the way, your sushi is being made only after you order. This guarantee the freshness and I was satisfied with the quality.
The other two that I ordered were Lobster and Mango salad roll and Cod Liver Scallop Sushi. The lobster mango roll is nice, but the sweet mango overpower the lobster taste. I can only tell it is a mango roll.
Next is the cod liver scallop sushi. Looks tempting right. This is very nicely done that it melts in the mouth.
My verdict: it is worth your dollars. Visit them next time.
I went to Ion Orchard yesterday to take a look at the new mall. Ion is made up of four storey above ground and four storey under ground. It looks like the 4 basement level is cater for the mass and the other 4 for luxury shop. There are also a couple of new brand to excite the crowd.
I noticed there are many foreigners, I am not sure why. Maybe there are more free to shop on Monday? At the basement 4, there is a food hall, where they divided the space into many smaller shops. This is becoming a common features in all the new mall. Especially this mall is operated by Capital Land. There are many interesting option like the Japanese Ginza pork chop, the long queue in front of the takoyaki stall etc. Your familiar brand old chang kee is also there.
Breadtalk opened the Food opera food court. It is like a more upmarket food court. Price is more expansive than the food republic. The typical breadtalk strategy when operating the food court is to invite many famour hawker stall to join their food court. So, every stall is a quality choice. Except the price is more expensive. I even see the Fu Lin Yuan from Siglap selling Yong Tau Fu there. The Balastier Ba Ku Teh is selling a bowl of soup at $9.
I tried the R Burger in the food hall. They are selling beef burger in white chinese steamed bun. Although the burger looks nice, the taste is rather disappointing.
Avocado Cheese Burger at R Burger. The bun is too lightweight, hardly filling. I can taste the sauce but not the meat. I am not sure the meat is tasteless or the sauce is too over powering.
After this, I walked to Orchard Central to take a look. The mall is tall but at every level the space is limited. The floor design is also kind of weird, not very easy to follow.
Tully Coffee brewed of the day. Not much difference than Starbucks or Coffee Bean.
I came across the voice of Zee Avi from a music blog. Rarely would a Malaysian be able to shine on the world stage. But, she did it. After posting her singing on the youtube, she has generated a great interest and signed by Bushfire record from US. The debut album - Zee Avi sounds great. If you like Norah Jones or Joanna voice, you cannot miss Zee Avi.
I was impressed by the songs and voice. Hear it out yourself.
I had a special mission today. That was to troubleshoot my uncle's PC which cannot boot up after he installed something last night and the best part is he didn't do backup. It was a tough fight, close to 6 hours, trying to get the PC up again. My poor Sunday evening gone.
The first two hours, I was trying to figure out the windows message "Windows cannot start, file missing or corrupt..." After a while, I realised that the registry was corrupted. OMG. I searched high and low on the internet and found microsoft instruction - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545. It was a series of file moving and backup. I succeeded in getting windows to start as per normal. But don't be happy too early.
Just when I booted into the normal windows, I realised something was wrong. There were constant security alert from the stupid software - Windows Protection Suite!! Can you believe that? It is actually a malware, instead of a security software, trying to cheat you into believing something is wrong with the computer. Possibly to ask you to pay subscription fee later. I asked him again. He visited some website which pop up the IE window saying your computer got virus and ask him to install this malware. After it get installed, it constantly pop up alert message and if you shut down computer, it never get started up again.
I was trying to remove the malware.
- But there was no uninstall option.
- I cannot open regedit.
- I cannot open task manager.
- I cannot access internet to download scanner
- When I connect the external hard disk, it failed to recognise.
- When I try open up CD rom drive, it took forever.
When I restart, the registry get corrupted again. How stubborn the stupid thing is!
Finally, I thought of a way to kill it. I boot into the windows recovery console, copy back the backed up registry file and boot into safe mode (F8). Inside safe mode, I deleted the program executable from Documents and Settings\Current User\Local Settings\Application Data\xxxx\XXXX.exe (the exe name could change).
After reboot using normal windows, thank god, it doesn't get loaded. It gives me time to access the internet, install the malware scanner and remove it thoroughly. Malware scanner remove the re-generated exe and registry setting.
The moral of the story are
1. Don't click or install any pop up window software.
2. Always do your backup. That's very important
我一直都比较少看电视，原因是工作比较迟。几个月前看了校园superstar 的决赛，对蔡艾珈的最后一首歌印象深刻-星星 I am not a star。她的歌声令我震撼。一个十五岁的小女生有这样感染力的歌声真是难得。原以为没法再看到她的演唱了，她却去了超级星光大道5PK。
这一唱，真的是一战成名。除了拿到高分外，主流媒体的报道与电视的播出将会让更多的人见识到她的厉害。超级星光大道作为一个在海外都有观众的节目，能让更多人听到她的歌声。说不定很快就有唱片公司找上门。不过她年纪还小，还是多读一点书的好。
高水准的演出：
蔡艾珈 星光5 - 不痛
Sushi Tei has a new shop at Tampines 1. Last Friday, I went with colleagues for a enjoyable relax dinner. I decided earlier to have something different this time, compare to the usual item I ordered.
After going through the menu, I finally settle with this item:
HOURAI (6 kinds) tuna belly, sea urchin, sea bream, yellow tail, raw scallop, salmon belly
Friend's fried sotong. Don't ask me about the Japanese name. It is simply delicious to dip with mayonnaise sauce.
Associated sushi item ordered by them with the usual stuff - squid, scallop, tuna, salmon, egg etc
Need to fill up the stomach first, I was having this Salmon handroll.
Finally, my Hourai came. raw scallop, sea bream, yellow tail (row above). salmon belly, tuna belly, sea urchin.
This is supposed to be the premium item. I need to take time to slowly enjoy it. The scallop sushi, sea bream sushi and yellow tail sushi has their own distinct sweetness. For the real taste, I dip the fish slightly into soy sauce, the rice must not touch the soy sauce and with minimum wasabi. The salmon belly taste just like the usual salmon. Maybe I didn't really try hard to appreciate its difference.
Sea urchin or Uni sushi. This is the very first time I try it, having seen it in tv for quite a number of times. It was really good. It tastes a bit milky or cheesy, but not exactly the same.
Tuna Belly sushi. I never thought it tastes so heavenly. The meat is tender with fat distributed evenly on the surface. I would say this is one of the item I would want to try again.
Watched the 超级星光大道5 十强赛, this is the performance which I like most. A very touching performance by 曾梓淞 蕭煌奇 with the song 阿嬷的话.
Watch it:
It was a small gathering with my usual Poly gang. I suggest to go Iluma Bugis, since the place would be less crowded than the Buigs junction itself. Friends arrived there early and suggested to go Empire State at level 4.
When I reached there, two of them already sit inside the shop. Helping themselves with fries. The fries come with topping like tomato, cheese, italian sauce. A nice twist to the usual boring fries.
I ordered two - mushroom soup and potato salad. The mushroom soup is really good. The soup is filled with real mushroom and rich in flavour. Not the usual canned campbell soup. No picture taken.
Next on the table, Potato Salad. Quite a nice presentation and the taste is good also.
LK ordered the mushroom pizza. It is not like the usual pizza hut style. The crust is crispy but thick with lots of mushroom and cheese. A big portion, for big eater.
Food ordered by other friends also taste good. The price is not too expensive. A good choice for dining at Bugis area. Try it out, but the place is always quite occupied.
I just happened to eat at this Tampines Blk 802 coffee shop with friend on Friday. We ordered different food individually.
While waiting, we realised that this fried oyster stall was having very good business and selling at $5. Tempted, we ordered one plate to try ourselves. Really long queue.
Fried oyster delivered to us after sometime. Notice the oyster at the corner, it was really big. But, in total, there are only three of them. Three big oyster with flour is selling for $5! This is Singapore. A place where even average food is asking for sky high price. Seriously, the taste is only so-so.
This is an unexpected find, right at the Singapore Expo food court. I was hungry and wanted to find something to eat inside the food court. After I entered the door, I saw few aunties eating the Satay Bee Hoon, it looks good. I was a little bit curious.
The stall mainly sells noodles, from bak cho mee, to beef noodle and satay bee hoon. Beside that, there is one newspaper article on the wall. I guess it must have some standard and decided to order the satay bee hoon. The price is on the high side, maybe because of the low human traffic in Expo.
The lady took a while to cook my bee hoon. I seldom eat satay bee hoon. If not the aunties, I won't order one. But the taste is good.
Satay bee hoon covered with thick peanut sauce. It comes with the kang kong, pork meat, pig liver, cuttle fish, tau geh, tau kua and cockle. I really like the taste. Everything seems to mix perfectly. The meat, liver, cuttle fish and cockle is cooked just nice. The kang kong and tau geh is cruncy enough. Together with the thick peanut sauce, I guess this is really a tasty treat.
The shocking football news of the weekend has to be Michael Owen moving to Manchester United. Because of the rivalry between the two clubs. The fans would have hard feeling that the previous idol has moved to the rival club.
But Owen as a professional and out of contract, the decision is not hard to make. When you are out and nobody wants you, you would bounce on every single chance, especially the big club like Man U. Therefore, he has became a Man U player!
All the best to him and next season would be an interesting one.
Waraku is a new Japanese food brand rising fast in this two years. Today this is the first time, I step into the shop at Changi Terminal 2. The aim is to try out the squid ink pasta (seppia nero) and also to test the food quality.
Generally, the food is not expensive. I ordered a pasta set which consist of pasta, curry rice, corn soup and salad for 15.80.
Japan style corn soup. This is first time I am having corn soup, surprisingly good with cruncy corn.
Small portion of salad. Taste nice.
Curry rice with prawn, scallop and green pea. As a standalone dish, the curry flavour complement the seafood well. The portion is small, as it comes with the pasta set.
Ikasumi pasta or squid ink pasta or seppia nero. On the menu, this is Japanese crab with black ink sauce. What attract me is really the colour of squid ink and how it can stain the teeth and mouth. The sauce itself is just average, maybe since this is the first time I eat this, no benchmark can be established. The pasta is alright and springy. But it is quite tough to find the crab meat that is supposed to be inside. Try it if you never have it before. If got chance, I would try to search for better taste version.
Overall, the food quality is good, portion is big and price is not that expensive. Worth your visit.
Friday morning, while I was watching the Channel News Asia, the reviewer gave Transformer one pop corn rating. Have been stressed out for a whole day, I went to watch Transformer. The cinema is packed with people, wanting to catch the second episode.
The movie last almost 2 and half hour. To me, at least it worth two pop corn. Some part of the story is not so logical, although it is supposed to be a science friction. How can robot disguise as human? How can human be revived by transformer?
The story is weak, but packed action. Anyway, people go into cinema watching the robots. So, story might not matter most, after all.
Just now, watched the channel 8 travel program, the episode was about Philippine and the food. This dish is called Bicol Express. Sounds interesting. This is how it is cooked.
1. Fry the pork inside pan without oil
2. Put in the mashed garlic, ginger and black pepper to fry together
3. After that, pour the coconut milk
4. Next is to put the fresh small shrimp
5. Throw the cut red and green chili inside for the last step
Without eating it, I already know it should be very good. The pork is with a bit of fat, so the lard taste would come out. Together with garlic, ginger, black pepper, coconut milk and shrimp. Each of the ingredient would add some its own unique flavour to the dish. The final taste should be quite heavenly.
The dish would look like this:
In Philippine cooking, they like to use pork. Lots of pork. There is a Filipino cuisine stall at Tampines Mall food court. Every time I passed by, there are many pork dished on display. According to Filipino colleague, the cooking is authentic.
I had meal there three times, the taste is very good. We can find influence from Malay and Chinese cuisine. They also like to use coconut milk. To me, it is like eating Chinese dish with ingredient like coconut milk. But if you happen to drop by, try it out.
昨天晚上，张清芳出现在公益金的慈善筹款演出，真的是风采不减当年。虽然已经淡出歌坛，但是她的招牌金曲，还是让人回味无穷。从加州阳光，到Men's talk及成名曲激情过后，清亮的嗓音依旧，功力还是保持在当年的水准。
After the first iPhone, we know the mobile phone industry was never the same again. Sadly, the change is happened slowly than expected. As HTC launched the second Android in Singapore for all three carriers - Magic, consumer has more choices now.
The so called smartphone space is getting so much crowded now, with Palm Pre launched in US also. I am quite excited because 18 android phone is scheduled for this year. Excited in the sense that consumer has more choices and no need to pay the sky high price.
Waiting for the upcoming Android phone and more price slashed, before changing my current one.
鼎泰丰，一向来出名的是小笼包及拉面，但是他的炒饭也是挺好吃的。在一个同事的介绍下，尝了虾仁炒饭。虾仁倒还没有什么，但这蛋炒饭却出乎意料的好吃。
想了一想，这关键在于他的饭。炒饭若想好吃，这饭很重要。一定要用隔夜饭，那饭才会够硬，没有这么多的水分。除了这一点，他们应该选用的是台湾米。看那米身略圆，带点黏性，与我们一般吃的泰国米不同。入口带点香Q的感觉，这确实是关键。
师傅把蛋炒得与饭融合在一起，加上青葱，就算只点蛋炒饭，味道还是一样的好。打包回家还可以省下服务费，以将近七元享用着蛋炒饭，绝对物有所值。
Toast Box has been around for one two years, but I never really try it. Mainly because there is no motivation, another reason is because of the price. It function like a premium coffee shop. Just in case, you always wonder why Toast Box open beside Bread Talk, they are actually belong to the same company.
Few weeks ago, since the place is not crowded, I decided to give it a try. Although the price is a little bit high, the quality is actually quite good.
Floss toast with floss and milk on the toast. It taste just alright. The peanut toast is actually better, in my opinion. Because the toast is thick, you can feel the crunchiness.
Half boiled egg done to perfection. The egg is just half boiled as the name suggest and look great on the picture.
Maybe change your meeting place with friend to Toast Box would save you a couple of bucks compared to going Starbucks.
This morning woke up at 6am to go for passion run at East coast. The organiser provided a free shuttle service from Bedok MRT. When I reached there, the queue to board the bus was already quite long.
I reached the place in time, before the race starts. Seriously I have never run at East coast before. Overall the entire 10km was quite enjoyable. But occasionally I have to slow down to catch my breath. The turn out was quite big and the title sponsor Saucony was there to show case their shoe and promote awareness. They really have to do that, because before this run, I haven't hear the company before.
After the run is completed, Eddie wanted to try the Penang Laksa I recommended. Just nice, I got a urge to eat Penang Laksa this weekend also. When we reached Gelyang East food centre, the crowd is not huge. Being first time trying Penang Laksa, he also agreed that it is tasty. I almost finished the soup. yummy.
Recently, Tampines 1 just opened shop beside the Tampines MRT. Before the mall opening, the web site has been setup to inform the potential shopper of the construction progress.
Before the mall opening, the management team has setup a blog about the mall. Blog being the in thing in this couple of years, they want to engage the new age media to do the marketing. The puzzling decision to me is blog being an unorganised way of presenting data, except that the hype, is not suitable to organise the mall information properly. Maybe the decision is just to have an informal way for the mall to engage the shopper.
This is not the only action they have taken. They have invited a few bloggers to attend the media session and mall tour. Just before the mall opening. These blogger would go back and blog about the see and did. Thus, creating awareness and hype about the mall.
We are indeed at the web 2.0 era, where marketing is also evolving. Social media is perceived to be more influential to the shopper, as personal recommendation is viewed as more reliable than the advertising word.
I guess you can call me ramen fan. I tried many Japanese ramen and also Chinese's. This store hide in the usually quiet Century Square basement. I went there a couple of times and I guess it is worth mentioning.
They were having promotional discount last month when I visited the place. Now, they are having a 15% discount.
Pork Rib ramen with nice soup and generous serving of pork rib.
The noodle is chewing, the usual taste of chinese hand made la mian. The soup is good. The pork rib is nicely done. This bowl is having discount. What are you waiting for?
After the food place renovation, Food Junction brought in quite a number of interesting name to its food court business and the quality surprises me. I was just windows shopping and unexpectedly walk to the food place food court. After walking one round, I decided to try one of the Omu rice stall - Rakeru.
The chicken set was on offer, so it was quite a natural choice.
Omu rice chicken set with Tomato rice
Open up the egg layer, found the round shaped Japan pearl rice
It is quite good. The pearl rice mixed with tomato sauce is tasty. The egg is so smooth that I wonder how they did it. The chicken was nicely done also. Worth the money.
It all started with the U weekly, featured two authentic Penang Laksa stall. It made me wanna try both of them. People tend to develop a love or hate with the Penang Asam Laksa. Believe me, once you are get used to the taste, you kind of hooked. Wanted more every time. Provided you try the good one.
I went to ABC market to eat the Asam Laksa, but come back not impressed. Therefore, unlikely I would purposely go there to eat. That left me with another stall at the Geylang East food centre. Done some research, people are giving thumbs up for it. Today I just had a little bit of time to drop by to try.
You can take mrt to Aljunied station. Alight and walk to the food centre. It is not obvious from the mrt, you need to get some help from the street directory to find the direction and exact block. It is a 10min walk and I found the stall at the row further away.
Immediately I ordered the Penang Asam Laksa from the boss.
Mouth watering Penang Asam Laksa. There are lots of vegetables on top and the prawn paste is put into the spoon. Mix them together and you are ready to go.
I was pleasantly surprise at how good this Penang Laksa really is. The key ingredients - onion, cucumber, pineapple, chinese lettuce mix well and plentiful. The asam soup is thick and full of flavour. You can see chunks of fish inside the soup, not mashed up. I would say it achieve a perfect balance of sweet, sour and spicy. The combination of the three taste is what makes Asam Laksa so tasty.
Thumbs up, it is worth every cents of your mrt fare. If you are fan of Penang Laksa, it is a must try.
Details:
Penang Delights
Geylang East Food Centre
Rest on Monday
Don’t want to mess with my existing Win XP machine, I decided to use the Virtual Box software to try out the Windows 7 Release Candidate.
The first steps is of course to install the Sun Virtual Box downloaded from the website. After the installation is completed,
1. Click the New button to create a virtual machine
2. Select Windows 7 from the drop down box
3. Follow the instruction by selecting RAM and hard disk space
4. After the configuration, you would see something like this
5. Click the Start button, and follow the Wizard to select the Windows 7 ISO image to start the installation
6. After that, just follow standard windows installation screen
Finally, my Windows 7 is booted up
Beside the H1N1 virus, I think the hottest news in Singapore is the AWARE saga. A group of women took over the exec committee by storm, the old members voiced out and the new committee was voted out at the EGM. Many twist and turn along the way.
The newspaper like it because the story is attractive, and people like it too, because it is something unusual and exciting. But does the people on the street care what happen to it afterward? I guess not many. People read it and follow it as an interesting news. However, after the saga ended, I doubt anyone would still have keen interest on what the organisation does.
Few weeks ago, if you ask me about swine flu, I would give you a stare. By now, almost everybody on this planet know what it is and the impact. Potentially, it could spread before being detected, that makes it more dangerous than the SARS. Everybody should take care of himself/herself, should not go to work when feeling unwell.
However, this swine flu, has nothing to do with pig. At least the pig hasn't got it. Don't know who named it swine flu, but the correct name should be H1N1 strain of virus which is a combination of pig+bird+human virus. Sounds sophisticated.
After the lunch, we were rather full and have a good chat. Left 1.5 hours before the Jason Penang cuisine stall would re-open at 5:30pm. So, we went to Queensway shopping centre for some window shopping and eventually bought an arm wallet. For use when jogging.
5:30pm we returned to the place and found the stall open already. Without any hesitation, we chop a seat and went to order the food.
The mouth watering Penang Asam Laksa. It looks authentic. After I dug in, the taste is quite orginal but not great. For Asam Laksa the taste is fairly original, but I find it a bit thin, the taste.
The stall owner also fried Penang Char Kway Teo. Well, this is good. True Penang style.
Yum yum. Still the fried kway teo.
It was quite a satisfying trip. Tried some good food. Pity the Penang Laksa not thick enough.
I actually don't know the ABC market somewhere near the Alexandra market, only until I found out there is a stall selling Penang Laksa there. Just suddenly wanted to try out the Penang laksa and therefore organised a simple food hunt with Mr See there.
We reached there after 2:30pm and the Penang stall already close for afternoon. No choice, we have to settle for other things.
Fishball noodle, with many articles in front of the stall, I guess this should be a good try. Credit to the stall, the fish ball is fresh and springy. The soup is nice.
The Fatty Cheong roasted pork. The much hyped roasted pork at ieat blog. Frankly, this roast is good but not great.
The siow bak is crispy at the skin and tender inside with fair amount of fat. The char siew is nicely done, crispy outside and full of favour. However, the meat inside is a bit hard and not much fat. See my KL post for the die die must try KL char siew, you only know when you tried it.
My friend ordered this fried hokkien mee with O Ba leave. I am not impressed. It taste ok but the noodle never absorb the soup throughly.
We took a break after all these and decided to come back after 5:30pm for the Penang stall.
After the Geylang food poisoning incident, the news everyday is about the food hygiene. How the existing grading system work? How the restaurant and hawker is preparing their food? Suddenly all this is in spotlight. Actually it doesn't really matter to me. This kind of incident is unavoidable.
All the focus you have for this period of time would frizzes out after a few months. Then, nobody would bother about this subject anymore. What you can do is actually to train up your immune system to be able to process more dirty food.
It is true. I always see hawker or assistant wearing the hand glove but handling the money together. Even in a restaurant/stall where the guy who cook the food has to double up to handle money, they would do this. So, how hygiene you can get?
After finished the Ba Ku Teh, it was around 11am, hard to squeeze in another heavy lunch. So I suggest something potential light but tasty.
The same shop which sells the Kim Lian Kee Hokkien Mee at night, is selling Chee Cheong Fan in morning till noon. I made the decision to eat this, and gladly I did.
Chee Cheong Fan is quite a normal dish, in the sense that you can find it in many places. However, the way it is being prepared vary from Singapore to Johor, KL and Penang. Remember the Penang style Chee Cheong Fan which is close to here but served with prawn paste? I also tried the Anson Chee Cheong Fan which has the turnip inside.
So, this version of the Chee Cheong Fan is a little bit different. The Chee Cheong Fan is chop into thin stride and serve with the usual sauce and chilli.
Petaling St Chee Cheong Fan. The fan is in thin strip and surrounded by sauce and chilli. The sesame is on top. I am surprised how good it is! Really. The fan comes with a little of oil and is soft. You dip a little bit of sauce and chili, it is quite satisfying.
This post would be the last for KL Food Hunt 09 series. Overall, it was a good trip.
On the third day morning, we went to SUN HONG MUK KOOT TEA (新峰肉骨茶) at Medan Imbi. The translated name spells differently than what usually people would do. Nevertheless it is a good ba ku teh. I have been there few years ago, others brought me there. It was really good.
Beside the Ba Ku Teh, what I really like is the salted vegetable, but they are not selling anymore. Too bad. After they revamped the menu, by including more sze char dishes, that was being taken out. We ordered the normal vege instead.
What we have is really simple - Ba Ku Teh (original version), Tou Po, You Tiau and Vege.
Single serving Ba Ku Teh, but it is good for two also. Since normally you would order other side.
Ba Ku in close up. Notice that, the meat is cut into square shape. I am not sure the reason, but the meat is good. One bite size you can detach the meat.
Overall, the taste of teh is superb, it is the herb's version. Not the pepper type soup. The Ba Ku is nice, nice cut of meat. One word - Good. There are many celebrities pictures on the wall which you can take a look also.
The vege we ordered, sze char standard.
The place is at
No.35,37,39 & 41 Medan Imbi
Today is the first day Tampines 1 open for business. It has already created a buzz in the blog sphere. Many people have blogged about the mall. My first impression after a brief walk during the lunch time. The crowd was huge.
Food attraction:
- Manpuku Japan gourmet town operated by Ajisen, which you can order food from 10 stalls
- Xiao Bar Wang by Jeff Wang, brings you the taiwanese snack
- Sake Inn selling Sake only
- Carl Jr in neighborhood
- Teadot cafe selling tea
- Sushi Tei in mall
Fashion draw:
- First shop of UNIQLO in Singapore
- Topshop Topman in sub urban mall
Healthy Living:
- Few sports shop like World of Sports, Sportslink, Running Lab club together
- Amore Living with swimming pool
Some fresh idea for people hungry of retail therapy.
After the coconut house, we went to Mid Valley. I have the plan to meet up with KL friend for a meal and chat. She suggested the restaurant at The Gardens called Gurney Drive which apparently serve Penang food. Gurney Drive is a famous place in Penang, a night market or hawker centre. The concept is pretty simple. They try to bring the Penang hawker food into restaurant. The restaurant layout itself represent hawker centre. However, the price is not.
Ok, time is up and we finally met. We have four person, so very easy to order and share the food. It didn't take long for them to serve the food.
Penang Asam Laksa. The laksa just sucks. Before my friend order, I asked her whether it is authentic, she said she tried before and it was quite good. However, the version I have is not. It simply sucks. You know Asam Laksa has two type - Tasty or not tasty. It is the later. The taste is simply not right. I think in Malaysia or Singapore, many people screw up the dish. Once you tried the good Asam Laksa, you won't forget it.
Penang Chee Cheong Fan. Seriously I am not sure what is special about the Chee Cheong Fan, but since my friend ordered, I just have to eat. I don't like it, seriously. The fan is plain and the sauce is prawn paste base. I never try prawn paste chee cheong fan before, and I think it just sucks.
Penang style Fried Oyster. Ok, something encouraging comes. The fried oyster is alright, however the oyster is a little bit small. The chilli sauce is average to good.
Penang Cendol. Wau... this is good. Penang style cendol means you get cendol + red bean + gula melaka + coconut milk. As simple as that. No other ingredients, but it taste good.
Finally, the famous Penang Char Kway Teow. Ok, thank god, they didn't screw up. The char kway teow just like the other Penang style char kway teow I had before, it is fantastic. This is the only dish you need to order, I feel.
After eating all these, we were quite full already. This would end my second day of food hunt. Because I have no stomach for any subsequent feasting.
