Brunch at Barossa, Holland Village

Oh breakfast, breakfast, how I love thee.  I also have to thank the British for their lovely contribution to how breakfasts are eaten.  Above is my Wholesome breakfast set at Barossa ($28++) where the basics are: 2 eggs, toast, a pork sausage, a snail sausage (not that it contains snails...it's just curled), smoked salmon, salad, roasted tomato, 2 sides and a juice.  I chose to have scrambled eggs, garlic spinach and pork baked beans as well as grapefruit juice.

I've found a place where the scrambled eggs are as good as mine!! I was with Siew Mai and she chose poached eggs and they too were cooked to runny perfection.  Eggs here pass with flying colours!  The toast was very yummy too and the sausages were real meaty packages, unlike a lot of processed crap that's served out there.  They were rather generous with the smoked salmon and it balances well with the tomato.  Baked beans with bacon bits.  Mmm...I love baked beans.  The garlic spinach was very nice but it was tooooooo salty.  That was the only thing that marred the otherwise perfect plate.   

I've eaten at their Esplanade branch before and it's mainly pizza and salad fare.  Nothing much to wow about although they've got a 'What's your Beef' buffet every Wednesday and Sunday for $43.90++ and their Barossa salad is pretty good.  Their brunch is good enough for me to come again and I like that they still serve brunch at 1.30pm! Score!!

Barossa

Esplanade Mall

8 Raffles Avenue, #01-11
Singapore 039802
Tel: 6534 5188

Holland Village

22 Lorong Mambong
Singapore 277681
Tel: 6468 4688
Opening Hrs:
Monday to Friday lunch – 12pm – 3pm
Monday to Thursday dinner – 6pm – 1am
Friday dinner – 6pm – 2am

Saturday Sunday open whole day
from 12pm – 2am (Sat) 12pm – 1am (Sun).

Website: http://www.barossa.com.sg/ 

Movie Review - Helter Skelter

hel·ter-skel·ter  (hltr-skltr)

adv.

1. In disorderly haste; confusedly; pell-mell.

2. Haphazardly.

adj.

1. Carelessly hurried and confused.

2. Haphazard.

n.  Turmoil; confusion.

 

My friend made this movie known to me by describing it as the Japanese version of 'Black Swan' and after watching it, I would recommend it to whoever loved 'Black Swan'.

 

'Helter Skelter' tells of Lilico (played by Sawajiri Erika) who is a model and actress who has undergone extensive plastic surgery to reach her current state of beauty.  The movie shows how her mental and physical body breaks down, the latter due to the illegal procedures that the plastic surgery clinic used.  Lilico may be gorgeous on the outside but she's not happy and the pursuit of physical beauty leaves her empty, jealous, unhappy and she uses sex to feel something - be it the semblance of love or just to wield power over those whom she considers close to her.  As the title suggests, things start to go awry and she goes helter skelter.

The acting from Sawajiri is solid and those who remember her from '1 Litre of Tears' may be shocked at how she has shed that innocence and she's a total bitch-vamp in this movie.  After reading on her controversial real life, this role may actually be more her than one thinks.  She's breaking the mould, pushing the boundaries of Japanese media and really making people question whether what we see on screen and in magazines is the real person.  Also, it makes you question why there is this constant pursuit of an ideal beauty and like the voice of reason in the movie, in the form of the police officer, beauty may not be necessarily youth and vice versa.

Go watch it and stay with it.  You may not get it at first but it will draw you in.

Halia @ Raffles Hotel

They took away Seah Street Deli at Raffles Hotel and replaced it with Halia!! Can't complain since I'm not a fan of Seah Street Deli nor have I eaten at Halia before so this was a nice place to try out with the family.

Mum ordered a starter of roasted carrot soup with olive oil drizzled on top ($6++).  The soup was very yummy and the bread was very fragrant too! It wasn't a piece of garlic bread but I suspect that they may have rubbed it with garlic because there was that hint of garlic goodness.

For mains, I ordered the signature Halia Chilli Crab ($25++) which is a very neat version of our Singapore Chilli Crab but served with spaghettini (the thickness is between spaghetti and angel hair) instead of fried mantou (buns).

My mum and bro felt that it was too spicy but I thought that the spice level was just nice.  So...to each their own, I guess.  I liked that there was a lot of crab meat and it really was like our Singapore Chill Crab but then again, the wonderful thing about our Singapore Chilli Crab is that it's messy, eggy and just sooo delicious.  This felt like a sanitised version.

Mum ordered the Chilean Seabass ($46++) which is what we would normally call cod.  It is steamed in paper  with soy sauce, brocoli and enoki mushrooms, served with Japanese rice, courgette and a wafu sauce.

The fish was nice and oily and the subtle flavours of the mushroom and soy sauce compliments it well.  However, $46++ for this dish is really a little bit too much.  Mum also said that the rice was a little too hard.  I could cook that for you...it just wouldn't come in paper.

Now...onto dessert!!!!

To the left is the Sticky Toffee Pudding ($10++) and on the right is their recommended Ginger Nougat Parfait ($10++).  I think it quite apt for their signature dessert to have Ginger but...I don't like ginger.  It was a bit like eating cold candied ginger with cream BUT, it reminded me more of eating frozen chicken rice without the oily feeling in the mouth.  Would I eat it again? No.

As for the Sticky Toffee Pudding...

OMG.  I would go back to Halia JUST for this dessert.  Warm cake that's not sweet paired with cold vanilla ice cream (you can see the vanilla beans) that comes with delicious toffee that's surprisingly not very sweet.  It's perfect.  Who cares about fruit or fibre or what not.  You want a decadent dessert? This is it.  More satisfying than a mud pie from Coffee Club or NYDC.  YUM!!!

They do have weekday set lunches at $25++ and Theatre set dinners at $28++ so I think it's worth checking them out on a weekday.  I went on a weekend so everything was from their ala carte menu.  Service-wise, they are in Raffles Hotel so it was relatively good but speed is something that they probably have to improve on as we waited quite some time for our bill and received a less than satisfactory reason.

Halia @ Raffles Hotel
1 Beach Road
#01-22/23, Raffles Hotel
Tel: +65 9639 1148
Email:  general.hrh@thehalia.com
Website:  www.thehalia.com

Russell Peters in Singapore 2013

I finally managed to catch Russell Peters in Singapore this year!! This is still his Notorious tour so apparently, he recycled some of his jokes but I didn't attend last year's stand up so it would be new to me.

He actually brought 2 DJs with him.  (0_o)  It really felt like I was walking into a club when we entered the Indoor Stadium and if it wasn't a Monday, I probably would've felt the urge to go clubbing after.  LOL.

As usual, Peters was really funny and he's at his best when he's picking fun at the members of the audience AND when he's imitating accents.  Super funny!  It was such a shame that it ended when it ended and I think we could've gone on much longer but of course, it has to end at a sane hour.  We had to go to work the next day. 

I'm looking forward to seeing him again next year and I hope that it's all new material!!

Sweetheart Nails for the week - 25 Mar 2013

Decided to do something that's really sweet but yet still nail-artish, if you know what I mean.  So, for this design, you do need quite a few bottles of nail polish as well as a heart sticker.  If you don't have a heart sticker, you can draw a white heart using a dotting tool or a nail art pen.

Polishes:

• Base coat
• Light pink base colour
• Sheer pearl (I used OPI's pearl silver)
• Pink glitter with small glitter pieces (I used OPI sparkle)
• Large pink glitter that has clear polish
• heart sticker or white polish and dotting tool
• Top coat

1. Apply base coat and then 2 coats of the light pink base.
2. Once the base colour is dry, put on only 1 coat of the pearl shimmer. You can skip this step if you don't have an equivalent polish OR you can substitute this with Fasio's silver sparkle polish. You'll just get more bling all over the nails.
3. Brush on the small pink glitter only for the bottom half of each nail.
4. Then, brush on the large pink glitter on the bottom one third of each nail
5. Stick on the white heart sticker on thumb nails at an angle to make it more interesting.
6. Finish with top coat for a shine and to seal everything in.

If you're not using a sticker, wait for the polish to dry before you start dotting a heart on your thumb nail.  You can change the colour to baby blue or any other pastel colours but your glitter has to be the same colour (not shade), otherwise, it may look a little orbit as we like to say here in Singapore.

I like to use this design because it lasts very long as there's a lot more polish at the tips, which is where the polish usually starts to peel and chip off.  It's also sophisticated enough for work. Have fun!

Yet another farewell

This is the 2nd farewell of many farewell parties/lunches/dinners that I will be attending for the next few weeks.  Sigh...this time round, it's my manager who has left and yes, I'll be taking over so it is with bittersweet feelings that we part.

Her being the Singing Queen, I came up with the idea of a KTV farewell party instead of the usual dinner or lunch.

We went to Marina Square's KBox and went for their buffet dinner package which was a bit of a food overload.  For the first 15 minutes, we were so busy eating that we were not choosing any songs to sing! Hahaha!! Oh..it was mandatory for everyone to sing at least 1 song so it was really fun to finally hear 2 shy colleagues belt out tunes!  Jas even sang a Malay song by Peter Pan.

On her actual last day, she treated some of us to lunch and it was A LOT of food.  There was dim sum, cakes, other local desserts and 2 bottles of wine! She was also very sweet and made special cards and notes for each of us.  Cheeky her also wrote lyrics to a song on all of our cards in Italian and we had to guess what it meant.  Google translator wasn't very helpful but we managed to find out that it was the song "Time to Say Goodbye".  Awwww....

I'm going to miss having her around and to rant about certain things.  Not to mention, without her, all the stress and pressure is now mine.  Haha...with more 'power' comes more responsibilities.  Nice to know that she's always a message/ phone call away for a good rant session and the best part? She totally understands.

Alistair's 1st Birthday

How time flies.  It seemed like only a few months ago that I attended Alistair's 1st month party and carried him in my arms while he slept.  Now, he's a very heavy 1 year old who is able to shake his head to say 'no' and will pick who to carry him. 

Part 1 of my gift to him is this frame that's more 3D than this photo is able to show.  The photos in the middle are actually further into the frame.  This is my 1st attempt at a scrapbook-ish frame and I must say that I surprised myself! :)  Very pleased with it.

I even made the box for Part 2 of the gift, which is a shirt with a picture of a chimp.  Hence my note calling him my cheeky monkey, cos he IS a cheeky monkey!!

Guess the theme?  The 'Alistair Street' sign was made by Sing and she found the method online. Not sure which blog but I guess you can search for it.

Really cute Elmo cake made by Sing's aunt.  The Elmo is a soft toy which is meant for Alistair to play with thereafter.

Alistair LOVED the balloons and got upset whenever someone tried to take balloons away from him.  Haha...didn't help that my dad kept teasing him with balloons. Tsk tsk.

Man I love babies.  I want one.  But...let me get a boyfriend first.  :P  My mum had grandparent envy...hahaha...

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra in Singapore 2013 - Mosiac Music Festival

 

 

Above a photo of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra that performed in Singapore as part of the Mosiac Music Festival.  I didn't know it but this is their 2nd year performing in Singapore!!

I'm not totally into Ska music but I've seen the YouTube videos of Tokyo Ska Paradise and they're good! These 40 year olds can really bring a lot of energy on stage and they're just very entertaining.  Everyone was given those thin lightsticks that could be bent to necklaces or bracelets and people started throwing them towards the stage.  I pity those sitting/standing in the front area because they were pelted with those lightsticks.  Tsk tsk. I think there will be no such freebies next year.

Funny thing happened towards the end of the performance: a Caucasian guy climbed up on stage and danced on stage.  The members were fooling around with him for a short bit but he was really in their way as the stage wasn't really huge.  Soon, he was followed by a Malay dude too.  Security let them get away with it for a short bit but when the Caucasian man refused to leave, he had to be dragged off stage and he missed the rest of the performance.

You can see one of their videos below:




I'm looking forward to seeing them perform again next year!

Beirut Grill - Getting a taste of Lebanon in Singapore

The hunt for good food seems to be a favourite past time of Singaporeans and my family.  We wanted to go to Piedra Negro at Beach Road/Haji Lane but it was closed.  Hungry, we decided to explore the cafes and restaurants near Arab Street instead.  We chanced upon Beirut Grill and decided to give it a try, especially when we found out that it was given a 4 star rating on Trip Adviser.

We ordered the appetiser platter ($22++) which consists of hummus, baba ganoush, falafel, spring roll and another eggplant thing.  Haha...sorry...bad memory.  The platter comes with 2 pieces of pita and you can order another serving of pita for $4.

My mum ordered the Seafood Platter to share and it has grilled prawns (HUGE), fried calamari that were tossed with a special sauce, pan fried fish, rice and a bell pepper salad.  The calamari was yum and the rice was very fragrant.  The fish was too salty and it was very soft too.  My bro asked whether it was cooked because the texture of the fish was a little unusually soft.  My reply is that it was soaked in brine so even if it wasn't cooked thoroughly, it's still edible.

Another platter that we ordered was the mixed grill, which had chicken, lamb, olive rice and grilled onions and peppers. I wasn't impressed with this platter.  The meats were so-so while the lamb was pungent, despite all the spices. 

Although they're called platters, the seafood and mixed grill platters seem to be more suited for 1 or 2 females with smaller stomachs.  The food wasn't WOW but it is good enough to deserve a second visit. 

Like their Haji Lane cousins, Beirut Grill does have shishas and they also have another floor named the "Magic Carpet" where potions of alcohol are served.  You will feel as if you're not in Singapore as there were a lot more foreigners in the restaurant than Singaporeans.  Interesting place...will visit again with my gluttonous friends!

P.S. Address can be found in the first photo.

Colleague's Farewell Drinks

It started out innocently enough. A bunch of us at Sauce, Esplanade, enjoying the free concert at the Open Air theatre as part of the Mosiac Festival.

Then the drinks came...

That's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  8 shots!

1. Milk
2. White Rum
3. Tequila
4. Galliano
5. Whiskey
6. Kahlua
7. Cognac
8. Vodka

Hahaha...that's me and my colleague pretending to be drunk.  I must say that I was very very high.

In total...my drink count:
1.5 bottles of Asahi beer
1 Dirty Lemonade (DO NOT order this. It's a waste of $17 for lemonade masquerading as an alcoholic drink)
7 shots of the above

My liver doesn't like me very much now.  Ok...time to detox...

Saveur-ing again and again!

Greedy friends and I went to Saveur again after dinner at Jai Thai, Purvis Street, for dessert (and dinner round 2 for a super greedy friend).  Note that we originally wanted to have dinner at Saveur but when I arrived at 6.50pm, the waiting list was so long that we would have to wait 1.5 hours before we could get a table.

Nonetheless, friend did leave his number behind and we did have a nice Thai meal in that 1.5 hours.  However, this post is on the yumminess of Saveur...let me proceed:

Looks like a simple salad?  Do not let it fool you.  Their salad has a quail egg that's cooked just right, with the yolk slightly runny.  What's the MOST spectacular part of this is the salad dressing! At first, I thought that it was uber oily but when I tasted it, I was pleasantly surprised and how NOT oily it was! The dressing was the perfect blend of tangy citrus and olive oil.  In fact, it seemed as if there was a perfume of citrus fruits.

Anyway, super glutton friend had a duck confit and angel hair pasta too but you can read about that in my previous post.  This time round, I managed to try the angel hair pasta and well, I wasn't too wowed by it.  It's a very simple pasta tossed with olive oil and pepper and topped with the sakura ebi.

We were there mainly for dessert and I ordered the "Cookie Milk ($9.90++)" off their special menu.  It has been a LONG time I've been served froth.  Last time I saw so much edible froth was in 2009 at Tom Aiken's in London.

Ah...what treasures lie beneath?  It's ice cream with peanut butter and milk froth.  Wait.  There's a surprise in it.  They have sprinkles of honey pops or whatever and it's like fireworks in your mouth!  Super fun dessert!! Will definitely bring out the kid in you.

My friend ordered another dessert from the special menu which was Strawberries with a basil sorbet and mini meringue biscuits.  Basil sorbet? Yup...I frowned when I read that initially but I tried it and it was very very refreshing.  Amazing how everything just came together and was the perfect mix of sour, sweet, cold, soft and slightly crunchy.  Wow.

The week after that, I just HAD to go to Saveur for lunch with my colleagues.  I ordered their Beef ribs ($14.90++) and the Cookie Milk again.

The beef was cooked wonderfully.  Each piece was so tender that no knife was necessary.  You will use the knife to halve the slices so that you get to savour each morsel of beefy goodness twice as many slices as there are.  The potato gratin was also cooked perfectly.  My only complaint was the horseradish dressing in the mesclun salad that accompanied the dish.  I hate wasabi and horseradish.  But if you like them, it is a very nice pairing with the meat and potatoes.

Colleagues and I have fixed Saveur as a weekly lunch destination.  'Nuff said.  Are you sure you're not going to try the food there once?

Teochew Food - Ah Orh Seafood

Dad decided to go to Ah Orh Seafood Restaurant as we haven't been there for years. So here's what we ordered:

Melon soup, which really is chicken soup cooked with wolfberries, while fungus and golden needle mushroom (?) that was double boiled in a melon.  Really good stuff and chockful of chicken and the white fungus, which is good for your lungs.

Stir fried vegetables with mushroom and dried fish - typical Teochew style.  The dried fish was not the salted kind but it added a certain smoky/bacon-like flavour while adding crunch to an otherwise semi-soggy dish.

Oh. My fave dish in Ah Orh. The oyster omelette.  The oysters are fresh, juicy and there's LOTS of them!!

What's Teochew cuisine without the signature steamed fish?  The stock that the fish is steamed in is a lovely broth of salted vegetable, pork and sour plum.  It is sooo good that I was busy slurping the stock.  This is when the Teochew side will rear its head and then devour the whole fish.  Muahahaha....

Anyway, I'm sure most of you would've read reviews on how awesome the food at Ah Orh is by now but this trip there reminded us why we only visit Ah Orh once in a bluemoon.  The cost.  The fish alone was $45 and that's because we opted for the snapper.  Every dish is exorbitant! And you have to go to the kitchen 'counter' to order. With NO menu.  Ok.  Will visit Ah Orh again when somebody is feeling loaded and wants super good Teochew food.  Otherwise, there's this other place in Joo Chiat...

Ah Orh
115 Jalan Bukit Merah
Singapore 160115
Tel: +65 6275 7575