Relaxing Day at Capella, Sentosa

Kaiwei and Yanni had a staycation at Capella and they graciously invited us over to check out the resort/room before adjourning to W hotel for dinner. As we drove into the driveway of Capella, I felt as if I was transported into a different country even though in reality, we were still in Singapore. Yanni & I began our self-declared tai-tai training for this day, lol! First,  we headed over to the tea lounge for afternoon high tea. 

With our partners, Leecher & Kaiwei. While the wives dreamt of being tai-tai, they also aspire to be man-tai, lol!

Afternoon tea began its roots back in England, in the year 1840. The traditional afternoon tea consisted of a selection of dainty sandwiches, scones served with clotted cream, preserves, cakes and pastries served on delicate chinaware.

We chilled out at the lounge for a couple of hours eating our fill of sandwiches, cakes and cookies. They even served moon cakes, as Mid-Autumn Festival was approaching. We then headed to the pool for a quick swim. The pools weren't great for swimming - more of hanging out. A Taiwanese couple was making out in the pool, even though there were kids playing around them. We decided to call it a day but the guys had something else in mind. 

The guys decided to check out the beach! We followed the path and walked downhill before seeing a side door that leads to the beach. Since Yanni & I had already "washed up", we sat at the beach while the boys headed out for a swim in the sea. 

After the boys had their fun, we went back to freshen up before heading out for dinner. This dinner was to celebrate Kaiwei's birthday! I brought my new lens along and I was still adjusting to the new focal length of this lens. 

Quick pic with Yanni before the lift door closed, lol! #cheapthrill. I will be blogging about the dinner at Skirt, W Hotel in the next entry, so keep a lookout for it!

Capella Singapore
1 The Knolls | Sentosa Island, Singapore 098297
General Inquiries: +65 6377 8888
Local Reservations: +65 6591 5000 

The Jitches Adventure in Malacca: Snacks & Pastries in Malacca

We have officially stepped into the 2nd half of the year. I blame the laziness in me that I have not been updating regularly last month. We started June with a long weekend and before long, July arrived at our doorstep :( We were also busy with engagements during the June weekends, thus I'm really looking forward to a slacking weekend soon to clear some of the backlogs that I have accumulated :) 

After our meal of asam laksa @ Jonker 88, we combed the streets armed with the to-buy list from our parents. Mummy Fling had instructed Fling to buy some pastries - which was like a hybrid between mooncake and 老婆饼. We almost ransacked the shop before the owner said that they do this via special orders. Immediately, Fling placed an order of 100 pieces of the hybrid biscuit, ready for collection the next day. 

 

Old-school mama shop that brought back fond memories! I spotted a lot of childhood snacks that I wanna lug home. But .... must practice constraint, the weighing machine figures don't lie.

 

My nose caught a whiff of freshly baked goodies emerging out from the oven. Instantly, my resounding resolution just crumbled to the ground :( Since good things are meant to be shared, I decided to psycho persuade the sisters to hand over their wallets, heh. 

  

We continued our adventure after a quick stop back to our room to drop off the goodies. This time round, we headed to Mahkota Parade & Dataran Pahlawan for more shopping. It was really humid in Malacca, so imagine the cold gush of air that greeted us as we stepped foot inside this shopping mall. What's even better than air-con? A wide variety of gelatos that looked so inviting #takemymoney

 

3 flavours - mango, chocolate and peppermint - for sharing. A single scoop filled up the entire cup, which was way too much for us, lol! Our best combined effort only saw us finishing the chocolate, reducing mango by 75% and peppermint by half.

Gelato Fruity
Lot No. B-43B, LG Floor Dataran Pahlawan
Jalan Merdeka, Bandar Hilir, 75000 Melaka
Opening Hours: 10am till 10pm
Tel: +60 6281 8059

 Read our Malacca adventures here:

Malacca 2014: 5 things to do in Malacca  

The Jitches: Journey to Malacca

The Jitches Adventure in Malacca: Hotel Courtyard @ Heeren and Asam Laksa at Jonker 88
The Jitches Adventure in Malacca: Conquering Jonker Street
The Jitches Adventure in Malacca: Geographer Cafe   
The Jitches Adventure in Malacca: Breakfast, Chicken Rice Balls and Heading Home 

Leecher's Birthday 2014: Superstar K2 Korean BBQ and Ippudo

 

It has been a long while since the last birthday post. Last month, we celebrated Leecher's birthday and it dawned on me that I have yet to document his 2014 birthday celebrations, oops! I drafted this way back in May last year, but never got around loading the pictures from camera/phone for this entry -- testimonial of my procrastinating nature.

 

Before his actual birthday, we had a pre-birthday celebration with Kaiwei over Korean BBQ. Being the birthday boy, Leecher had the honour of picking the restaurant. Without any hesitation, he walked into a Korean BBQ, Super Star K2 Korean BBQ restaurant located along Amoy Street. The place was bustling with diners, despite the fact that it was almost 9PM. Almost every table was occupied and it took almost 15 min before we could grab a table. 

Having dinner with the boys. Yanni was busy with work in office, thus she couldn't join us in this korean feast. 

Before his butt even touched the chair, alcoholic Leecher immediately ordered 2 bottles of soju and 1 bottle of makgeolli to kick start the evening. I used to have a preference of soju over makgeolli. On this day, I decided that I should stick to makgeolli. 

Appetizers to start the meal: Korean seafood pancake and steamed egg soon arrived. The egg was so fluffy that it looked like a gigantic yellowish cotton candy. I couldn't polish this on my own since I was saving my stomach space for other food. 

Once charcoal is being placed, you know that it's time to start to ball rolling. The highlight of the meal arrived shortly. They have a variety of beef, pork and chicken. Price starts from $18 onwards. We had a go at 4 of their meat before deciding to order more. I much preferred spicy chicken over the other cuts/types of meat. Pork belly was awesome too.  

We were given a metal "tray" each with 5 compartments. Leecher & Kaiwei commented that this reminded them of their army days, where they have to take the trays and queue up in  the canteen during meal times, lol! You get your own set of condiments - bean paste, garlic, salt/pepper and onions. 

Let the feast begin (^^)

Superstar K2 Korean BBQ Restaurant

155/157 Telok Ayer Street 

Singapore 068611

Tel: 62212639

 

On Leecher's actual birthday, he had cravings for Japanese food. Even though I hate going to town during weekend, we headed to Ippudo @ Mandarin Gallery for dinner. We spotted the long queue while heading up the escalator, but Leecher insisted on joining the queue. What to do, birthday boy is the "biggest" on his day. 40 min later, we finally got a table, putting an end to my misery for I was in high heels :)

 

Birthday boy did the ordering: drinks, appetizers and mains.

The huge array of sake available on display. I was pretty certain that Leecher would definitely order a bottle to go with his meal.

Well, he proved me wrong by ordering Choya cocktails. We had Mandarino and Aranciata Rossa (Red Orange) mixed with Choya to kick start the evening. I was pretty surprised by his mild choice of drinks!
 

Love the vibrant colour. I was never a fan of choya. However, I was tempted to get a bottle of choya and recreate this drink at home. If Choya is not your cup of tea, you can always head for Umeshu cocktails that comes with tonic, cranberry, sprite or soda.

Leecher trying to get an instragram-worthy shot of the drinks, lol!

Appetizers consisted of beef tataki and spicy shrimps. The prawns were lightly battered and deep fried to a lovely golden brown, served with home-made spicy mayonnaise dip. The dip wasn't spicy at all, it was in fact more tangy which helped to whet the appetite. 

Akamaru chashu, topped with a tamago. This refined, modern-style ramen orginated from Hakata, where the broth is enhanced with special blended miso paste and fragnant garlic oil, served with thin noodles, pork belly, black fungus and spring onions.

 

I had Spicy Black, which was a mixture of tonkotsu and miso based broth mixed with chili oil and black pepper for that extra oomph. There was a range of ramen toppings to select from, but I always think that a bowl of ramen only looks complete when there is a tamago in it. I have a personal habit of saving the tamago for the last bite too.

 

Saving the last of our stomach space for Leecher's mini birthday cake. Happy birthday, my dear! 

Ippudo @ Mandarin Gallery
333A Orchard Road #04-02/03/04
Singapore 238867
Tel: 6235 2797

Jang Won Korean Restaurant & Just Want Coffee, The Garden

Whenever the convoy heads to JB, we'll end up going to Jang Won Korean Restaurant for a hearty meal (previous visit here). We have yet to come across another place that can rival the wide selection of banchan (반찬) at Jang Won. As usual, Joseph is our defacto order-guy, so we just need to concentrate on filling up our mouths with food while he shouts out the order list in the background. 

 

The Sisters untie! You can probably tell that this is a backdated entry given that I was still spotting my bangs, lol! Seriously trying to catch up on lost time heh.  While the others went for a "break", we spent time taking pictures, lol! Joycelyn is now a mummy to a sweet baby Valerie while Eunice has upgraded to Mrs Lik :) Will blog about their overseas wedding in another post when I sort out the pictures. 

 The mandatory group picture. As I coined it, this is attendance taking - proof of who joined for the gatherings.

Jang Won Restaurant

K3-211, 2nd Floor, Block C

Kompleks Perniagaan, Taman Stulang Laut

Jalan Ibrahim

Johor Bahru 80300

Joseph, being the 地头蛇, brought us to a cafe to chill. Before we departed Jang Won, Joe gave his smug look that the Sisters will love this cafe. We didn't believe him initially, but when Eunice also gave her nod of approval, we became excited. Sorry bro, we have more faith in your wife's taste. 

 

Located in a residential estate, the cafe is housed in an actual housing unit with its own garden! As soon as we got off the car, all the phones/cameras came out and the girls kept snapping away. Eunice showed me a picture of the exterior during day-time and mentioned that this cafe reminded her of our love nest, lol! 

Googled for the day picture (credits to owner of pic). OK, I want to go back again during day time and re-take all the pictures. Little did I know that this was just one of the JWC theme cafe outlets in JB. When I have the time to sort out pictures from the SD card, I shall blog about the JWC visit in another entry. 

Welcome to my The Garden. Both indoor and outdoor seats are available; given that it was a rather cooling night, we decided on outdoor seats to soak in the atmosphere. What a pity Leecher didn't join us for this outing~ I snapped lots of pictures & tapped on their free wifi to send those across to Leecher. 

 No one helped us to arrange the tables, so we had to self-service. Since too many cooks (will) spoil the broth, we decided to make ourselves useful by snapping pictures/looking at the menu first. Eye-power at its best! 

 

Love the simple floral arrangement :)   

They serve mainly desserts, pastries and beverages like coffee/tea. The sisters headed indoors to look at the cakes on display. However, there wasn't much choices left, so we can only make do with what they had to offer. Meanwhile, we spotted the hardworking barista at work. 

 The guys mass-ordered cappuccino (RM$11) for their caffeine fix.

 You can either order the original latte (RM$9.50) or pick a flavour from the list provided at RM$11.50 per cup. The flavour includes rose, roasted almond, masala chai and passion fruit. We didn't want to be adventurous, so we stick to the original latte.

For the non-coffee drinkers, I had to opt for pot tea (RM$18) which contains french rose and hibiscus. There is also a weekly selection of gourmet leaf tea at RM$11.50 each.

Blueberry scone (RM$10.50). This comes in cranberry as well, but it was sold out so we couldn't get to try. 

  

Cheesecake (RM$9) which was average at best. 

Lastly, presenting 2 of their recommended items - Tiramisu (RM$13) and homemade waffles (RM$12). Waffles was average, nothing particular caught my tastebuds. I had my own share of hit-and-misses with tiramisu. I really dislike those with extremely soggy base. The Garden's version was almost my ideal type - not-so-soggy base, the ideal proportion of coffee, mascarpone and sponge fingers. The serving is just nice for one pax, but food always taste better when shared.

Just Want Coffee, The Garden 

Jalan Persiaran Jaya Putra, 

Taman JP Perdana,  

Johor Bahru 81100

Tel: 07-2966530

Opening Hours: Closed on Mondays