Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Sunday Brunch: Symmetry Cafe

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I love to sleep in during weekends, especially when its the rainy season. While we experienced a thunderstorm early in the morning, I was up early at 8am preparing to head out for a morning brunch date with BFF :) Even though I made reservation 1 week prior to the meetup, I was told that they only have 10am slot available. Wow, good business huh!
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Hidden at a corner of Jalan Kubor, we took ages to find this place for we parked at the opposite side of the road, not knowing that Jalan Kubor is divided into 2 different parts. We were walking around in circles before calling BFF and realising our mistake, lol!
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Even though it was a cold & wet morning, I was greeted with a lovely smile upon entering the cafe. The small cafe was packed with people despite the heavy downpour. Symmetry cafe is a cafe by day & restaurant bar by night. Taking inspiration from both Australian casual dining culture and French cuisine, Symmetry presents an unique dining experience with an emphasis on sharing.  
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Latte ($5.50) that came along with a gingerboy cookie :) I sneaked it off the saucer & ate it before Leecher could realise anything. 
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BFF went for Nectar Smoothie ($10) which was banana milkshake with honey. I'm not a fan of banana so I didn't try this. Banana to me is akin to jackfruit to Leecher. I had a bottle of Mandarino ($7), served with crushed ice. Instead of a usual plastic straw, the straw that came along was made of metal. I wasn't used to drinking from the metal straw, so I drank from the cup instead. 
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With BFF + Jonah! Less than 3 months to their big day & honestly, I can't wait! Haha, can't wait to marry BFF off, lol!
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We ordered 3 items from their starters for trying. First up, we had prawn popcorn ($17) served with wasabi seaweed remoulade. Recommended by BFF, this was highly addictive!
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 Symmetry Caesar Salad($18) served with romaine lettuce, caesar dressing, pancetta, quial egg, toast and smoked salmon. Besides smoked salmon, you can choose either bacon or chicken.  
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Corn Fritata ($17) served with potato, crab, avocado, spring onion, tomato, cheese, corn, egg and mesclun. The first few mouthfuls were good but after that, it tasted ordinary. Egg was unevenly distributed, with a full egg on one piece while the other had none. Not sure if this was intentional though. 
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  Our brunch spread :) I'm kinda hungry now looking at these food pics.  P9291533 
Leecher ordered Flan ($23), which consisted of pork cheek, saute wild mushroom, onion, poached eggs, cream, parmesan and pommery mustard. This can be an overkill for the small eaters but Leecher managed it well, lol! I had a small bite of pork cheek and it was so tender that it melted in my mouth. 
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 Jonah's Big breakfast ($24) set, served with 2 eggs of your choice, maple glazed bacon, chicken cheese sausage, hash potato, mushroom, tomato, mesclun, jam & toast. With so many items on the set, this is one hearty meal for the big eater :)
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BFF ordered their pork collar croissant ($19), which came with watercress, pork collar, caramelized onion and hickory sauce. I tried a bite of the croissant and was slightly disappointed with it. The croissant lacked both flavour (doesn't smell buttery) nor the bite (not chewy).
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Lastly, I knew I had to order this as soon as I spotted this item on the menu - truffle eggs mushroom ($21), a combination of 2 of my fave food :) Truffle scrambled eggs, served with saute wild mushroom, tomato, hash potato, mesclun, jam & toast. Instead of the usual butter, we had raspberry butter on our toast! Unfortunately for me, this dish wasn't up to my expectation :( Both the truffle eggs + saute mushrooms were too salty for me. What a pity!
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with the hubby
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Even though I was filled to the brim (I didn't even finish my main course!), we went ahead with dessert :) They offered a range of items for desserts, ranging from cakes to waffles to french toast. We ordered their waffles ($16) & boy, I love it!! The waffles were crispy& drizzled with maple syrup, so yummy! I had mine loaded with hazelnut chocolate + peanut butter :) 2 toppings that you can't go wrong with. 
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 The rain had stopped by the time we stepped out of the cafe, so we took pics outside. We brought along the same Cath Kidson bag that I lugged home from London :) 
Symmetry Cafe
9 Jalan Kubor #01-01
Singapore 199206
Tel: 6291 9901

Monday, November 18, 2013

Junior Chefs @ Work II - Sep Edition

Long weekend for me this week :) Been ages since I took a break from work and it certainly felt great to be home on a Monday. No Monday blues for me this week, haha! Since I'm home today, I decided to make my day useful instead of just spending the day watching drama. So, here I am loading/blogging about Junior Chefs Sep edition while Leecher is now in the kitchen preparing our meals for the day :)
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We were feeling hungry & Leecher prepared this late night snack for us to munch, lol! Super sinful with lots of cheese but I love it :) I did helped to grate the cheese block and sprinkle the cheese over the mushrooms.
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Since we had the oven out on the table, Leecher decided to try out this recipe that he found online. I made a "baking tray" from aluminum foil & guess what, I cut my finger. I was shocked when blood oozed out, but the plus side is - I get to rest simply by showing Leecher the plaster I put on my finger, haha!
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Tofu dish that mummy dearest used to cook for us & Leecher recreated this for me, yeah! Lil bro showed this to mummy dearest and she told us that she'll buy tofu from the wet market as that is smoother & softer than the one we bought from supermarket. My mum is the best lah!
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Steamed ngoh hiang from the wet market as well. Even though I'm not quite a fan of 酿豆腐, this tasted pretty decent to me.
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I love steamed fishes so we'll have that once in a while, whenever mummy dearest give us fresh fishes bought from the wet market. Given that we don't cook every day of the week, there are times when the fish is no longer "fresh", so we'll fried it instead.
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We even prepared our breakfast :) Since Leecher was on a "diet" for a couple of days, I decided to accompany him on his salad journey. Since I'm not really a fan of greens, I packed my salad box to be filled with fruits + croutons + sunflower seeds + thousand island sauce.
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healthy start to the day! I must admit that I got pretty hungry by lunch time & ate more than usual, lol!  
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Mummy dearest gave us some of her 卤肉 while Leecher whipped out some greens to balance the meal. 
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Sometimes, we'll have pasta for dinner. I'm the in-charge for cooking both rice & pasta while Leecher takes care of the rest. On several days, I'll cook extra pasta so we can have that for breakfast the following day.  
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OK - Leecher has finished cooking & I'm off for my meal :) 
******

Friday, November 15, 2013

KL Work Trip, early Mar 2013: Shangri-La Hotel & Shang Palace

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As I'm penning down this trip, I began to realize that some of you will feel a sense of Déjà vu, since it is almost similar to my last KL trip in Oct. I stayed at the same hotel, visited the same restaurant etc. Looked like I really need to start looking for a new place to stay and/or visit new places. Anyone with recommendations please email me or leave a comment, thanks in advance!
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In the beginning of 2013, I was traveling quite frequently to KL as we were trying to close a major deal with one of the companies. Though I was traveling there on almost a monthly basis, I did 2 trips within the month of March: one which I stayed for 2D1N while the other was a day trip. As usual, breakfast at my cozy corner in the airport before heading to DFS to check out some items for Leecher. 
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Even though it was a 2D1N trip, I'll always check in my luggage cuz I don't wanna drag my luggage all over the airport #lazybum. In this entry, you will see pic taken from 3 sources - my blackberry, iphone and camera.  
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Rows of luggage waiting to be picked up. I suppose their owners must still be shopping at DFS, heh. 
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Nope ~ even though I checked in my luggage, I don't need the trolley. 
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Trusty 2 bags for my laptop and barang barang. Coincidentally, both were in different shades of pink :)
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Checked into Shangri-La once again & was disappointed to know that they have only twin rooms available :( Well, I shall make do with what they have since I'm only staying for the night.
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Street view from my room. No twin tower view though.   
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The essentials in my bag :) I'm still waiting for the day where company will provide us with iphones instead of blackberry so I'll have one less item in my bag.  
Shangri La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur
11, Jalan Sultan Ismail
50250, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Dinner @ Shang Palace, together with Eric. No pics of food as both my camera + iphone batt decided to die on me at the same time, lol!    
Shang Palace
Level 1 (Shangri-La Hotel, KL)
Opening Hours: 12pm till 2.30pm (Lunch, Mon - Sat), 10.30am till 2.30pm (Lunch, Sun & Public Holidays), 6.30pm till 10.30pm (Dinner, daily) 
Tel: +603 2074 3904
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Checking out early morning before heading down for breakfast. Both Eric and I had meetings with different clients planned in the morning, so we arranged to meet back at the hotel before heading to the airport later in the afternoon.
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 I finished my meeting earlier, so I went to the lounge for a quick lunch while waiting for Eric to be back from meeting. These set of pics (in the lounge) were all taken using Blackberry, but the colours don't look vibrant as compared to the other cameras.
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My lunch: chicken rice with a pot of jasmine tea :)
Lobby Lounge
Lobby level (Shangri-La Hotel, KL)
Opening Hours: 9am till 1am (daily)
Tel: +603 2074 3900
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A long queue at the check-in counter which we weren't expecting. Thankfully, it moved rather fast & Eric had time to grab his lunch before we flew back to Singapore. I realised that I'm churning out more KL entries as compared to BKK, but it is not helping me much on my air miles, haha!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

VW Golf Cabriolet

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Leecher came home with a new toy one night (^^) Nah, we didn't get a new car - this was actually a replacement car for Jet since he was stuck in the VW workshop for routine servicing. We were all pretty excited at getting the cabriolet, so we decided to take it for a spin + take pics the following day :) 
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Inside the car with the top still up. Hey, it's not that often that we get to drive a cabriolet ... so of cuz must drive with the top down to feel the wind in your face :)  
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 Having fun with the top down was sure fun!
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 Leecher clearly enjoyed this car, terming it as his fun car. Even though the specifications/horsepower for Golf Cabriolet is the same as Jet, Leecher somehow felt that drive on the carbriolet is smoother as compared to Jet.
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I have not been driving for a very long time even though Leecher has been "forcing" me to take over the wheels again. While some people feel driving relaxes their mind, I'm one of the few that feel extremely stressful while on the roads. I would much prefer to be Leecher's GPS on the passenger seat, lol.
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Leecher claimed that I'm biased towards the cabriolet for we didn't even took Jet out for a photoshoot when we first bought him, haha! After having the replacement car for 4 days, I was starting to miss Jet. For our practical usage, Jet was a more suitable candidate even though I don't deny that Golf Cabriolet has its strengths too (",)
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