Another overdue post! *hide*
The gf's wedding was on Dec 15th!
Anyway, for the very first time, i was asked to be one of ji muis [sisters] for the morning tea ceremony as my other married gfs didn't have one.
The gorgeous bride and i. Gosh.. i practically had to hide my giant arms away because the bride's arms were like THAT! Nope, i won't wanna show or tell u how big mine is! 'giant' would do. I'm too embarrassed!
And then, THE wedding dinner.
All my life, i have not been to one this grand.
Sure, i have been to many many in 5/6 stars hotel but somehow, this gf's wedding tops the cake.
With the very awesome deco and theme, not to mention.. the food.
Sounds like any normal Chinese wedding dinner menu aye?
Then u are so so wrong!
Because that was what i thought too.
The .food. fits fine dining bill perfectly.
And it's not Cheena. It's fusion with the fine dining very artistic deco style which we were served exactly that for every each of us individually.
The quality?
I wasn't expecting much initially as i'd been to the exact hotel for another gf's wedding dinner 1.5 years ago. You know, the normal standard..
Until i had my first bite for dish no.1.
I was completely blown away.
There after, i kept looking forward to the next dish, and the next and the next, not only for the food but also for the presentation as well ;)
Just for you to get a rough idea of what i'm blabbering about, here's my dessert..
Mango Galangal soup - vanilla milk ice cream + almond twirl. Oh, the choc cake behind it? It's the wedding cake which the beautiful couple cut on stage! How cool is that?
I finished every drop of it needless to say though i felt like a stuffed turkey!
Unfortunately, this is the only food photo i managed to capture because i was too busy looking forward to the food and savouring them! :P
Last but not least, my ex schoolmates and i.
I don't remember telling anyone but this is my ugliest hair style ever!!!!!!!
I will be kind and spare you the details. But seriously, i had never felt so ugly in my entire life before. [right after facial not included!]
My hair was ironed to stick straight and totally flat! Like flat's FLAT. No kidding. I specifically told her stylist to just blow dry for the Pantene effect but die die also tried to persuade me to straighten it using the iron.
As a nice girl, i didn't have the heart to say no so many times.
By the time i got home, i had only 5 minutes [no thanks to the 'ironing'! which took more than an hour to do - she told me it'd be done in 15 mins and i stupidly believed her. Ugh. Simple blow dry would be just 10-15 mins max? which was what i had estimated that fits my schedule perfectly] to change and do my make up - which i didn't of course - take ang pow [i forgot about the money and had to borrow from friends!], clutch and visiting the loo before another gf came to pick me up.
Throughout the whole night, i was consciously messing up the hair [so it won't be so flat] or covered half my face with the hair because i was totally unpresentable :(
It was really a disaster -> me.
Thank God for the food and incredible companions whom somehow made me felt a little normal. Yeah, i thought i looked pretty abnormal. Haha :P
And the bride, whoaaaaaaa.. she was breathtakingly beautiful and she's my girlfriend! ^.^
The beautiful couple and our chocolate cake! ^.^
So beautifully captured
p.s : i also happened to have the worst break out ever on the gf's wedding day which started a week before that and lasted all the way to January due to switch in products. Ugh!
It was my 1st time organizing a party for the kids.
The 2 elder boys never had one before. Usually, it'd be celebration with the in laws and that's it. But for beep's 1st birthday, i itchy backside went on to organize one and i'm sure glad i did :)
As the party started around 2.30pm, it meant tea party. No real food. Just finger food and all.
The kids
I like having not too many people in parties. Nice, cozy and comfortable. I'm not so much of a social butterfly. In fact, i don't really know how to socialize. In some ways, i think i'm very much of an introvert :P
Beep and i :D
For the party, i only invited 2 close gfs over + their brood.
It may sound very few but when they were all here, gosh... it was worst than pasar malam! Lol.
But i like.
The gang :)
The food that i prepared with 2 helpers :
Fish ball, cherry tomato, ham, cucumber + fish ball skewers
Sausage roll - the shortcut way :P
Fondue!
The cube cake that went into the chocolate sauce, marble cake which the gfs ta pao back - everyone loves it!
Besides the food above, we also have the boring ham and cheese sandwich :P
Last but not least, pressies for the birthday boy!
Simply lovely ...
And the gfs didn't only gave pressie to the birthday boy, the mommy also have! *yay*. So nice of them. Heh.
2 of the items were lugged back all the way from the UK ;)
Thank you Angels *muaks*
All in all, it was a happy happy day for all. It was a blast =)
I've been extremely busy these few days!
And i think i will be even busier for the next 2-3 weeks :P
But. It is happy busy. Busy clothes shopping actually.
Not for me of course but for the boys. However, in between.. i do sneak in a couple of minutes for myself to look see look see whenever possible. Grin.
Anyway, last week i baked some muffins for a gathering with the gfs.
You know, i think to date.. i feel muffins are the hardest thing to bake. You must never over mixed them or else, they'd be as hard as rock.
Fortunately, i remember the no.1 rule very well and although the muffins weren't as yummy as i had anticipated.. they weren't hard, unlike my 1st experience quite some time ago.
The lighting was really bad when i took these pictures so you can't really tell what's in them. Basically, as mentioned in the tittle.. it has got chocolates and Grand Marnier soaked dried cranberries in them.
For myself, i find them okay, not too bad. Not to say super yummy nor yucky at all. Somehow, i actually feel they were pretty healthy in fact!
Initially i was so worried about the muffins' appearance [they weren't pretty at all!] that i almost refused to bring them for the gathering.
Because i didn't have much time left for another baking session, i had no choice but to pack them along.
But guess what?
The girl friends liked it!
Either that or they were being very very nice to me. Ha! :P
FINALLY!!
I finally ate 'the' burger from Wild Rocket.
Met up with a gf for lunch on Deepavali to get some stuff from her and i die die also must drag the gf for lunch at Wild Rocket with me because she is almost the only one i know who love and will eat such a huge burger..
And she's skinny!! *pout*
We both ordered the set lunch instead of ala carte because obviously, it's more worth it ;)
Our starter..
Pan seared tuna with wild rocket
Both my companion and i agree that having only wild rocket is abit too much to take. Too bitter!! It'll be good if they had added other leaves as well, eg ; baby spinach etc!
I finished my tuna but not the leaves.
Nothing to shout about for this starter but me like the sambal on top on the tuna though :)
Then, 'the' burger!
It looked too awesome to just post only 1 photo! So 3 it is.. just for the burger :P
No fries... instead, we got this papadam? Cute. See the juice? A bit bloody.
Abit closer...
And up close and drool!
And of course, dessert.
Vanilla ice cream with black sesame.
The burger was pretty good. Juicy!
Before i could take my first bite, the juice came oozing out out of nowhere just because i grabbed the burger a little. Heh.
The juice that came out was slightly bloody but surprisingly, when i finally gotten my first bite, the pattie was just pink and no blood at all! I had mine done at medium and my gf had hers medium rare, which wasn't bloody as well.
THAT means, the next time i go again, i'll definitely get mine done at medium rare because i like it more juicy and tender!
And i like the yellowish sauce too! *lick lips*
However, i personally something is amiss when i was savouring the burger. I wonder if it's because of the lack of flavour in it? Or merely because i wasn't eating the burger in whole, as in.. not able to sink my teeth into it in its towering form due to the environment. Too embarrass to do so!
I bet if i were to do that, i'll definitely get lotsa unwanted attention / stares for opening my mouth THAT big. Grin.
Initially for my dessert, i wanted to try their famous kueh bahlu tiramisu by just paying an extra few dollars more. Then we saw the waitress carried the ice cream with black sesame to the next table and we were sold!
The black sesame with vanilla ice cream looks too good to pass. We immediately changed our initial order :P
And true to its look, the dessert didn't fail us one bit.
I tell ya, the thick thick black sesame paste was to die for and when combined with the vanilla ice cream, whoa.... totally wicked!!
I polished off every single bit for my 3 course meal except the wild rocket [for the starter] whilst the gf, didn't... now we know why the thin ones always stay thin and the thin-wanting-to-be-ones will just stay wanting-to-be!
Heh.
Besides food, i like the location of the restaurant as well. Though secluded, i like it. I like the fact that it is so close to nature and it's on a hill. Right opposite the Hangout Hotel is the National Nature Park. Because of that, it's quiet and very peaceful. It somehow reminds me of where hb and i used to go for our nightly walk back in Melbourne more than half a decade ago.. A walk that we never fail to go at around 1-2am even when it was freezing!
I like.
p.s : T, sorry for the late entry. Couldn't find the camera till today!
Last Saturday, i was invited to a new friend's open house. A very nice and friendly friend whom i got to know through a cake decorating class sometime ago.
We didn't keep in touch since then until i texted this new friend for festive greeting since she was celebrating her Raya :)
The first thing that hit me when we first arrived was her house.
It was beauttiiful and very modernised. Totally unexpected. Now, i dare not invite this new friend over to my house anymore! Too malu ah.. :P
As i had imagined, this new friend was still as friendly as ever. We hit it off from the beginning, once more, as though we had been some friends for years already. We yak and yak.. and the food, whoa.. very the sedap i tell you.. *drool*
The pretty house and yummy food + kpo boy :P
We had nasi briyani with 2 meat dishes. Oh, there was salad too. And not forgetting, a countless kind of cookies and cakes, all made, baked, cooked by the new friend.
This chicken dish is so unforgettable!
Ayam masak merah
Very spicy. The chicken is fried till just right, with juices retained unlike some stalls outside, fried till all dried up. I really do feel like attempting this myself after getting some cooking tips for the 'shifu' :P
As for the kids, they had the rice with a little bit of the beef dish.. which is just a little bit spicy.
The beef.. so tender! I suspect this dish has been slowly cooked for hours with love hence, the beef has that 'fall apart easily' effect in the mouth.. Heh.
Now, the best part is the cookies and cakes. But it was so unfortunate that i didn't get to eat the very fanciful cakes at all.. because the lovely 2 tier serving plate got moved here and there to various groups so, kinda paiseh to just walk up and take a few slices. The face skin not thick enough ah! :Ppp
Nevertheless, devouring the cookies made up to it.
Different kind of cookies.. the green one with peanut filling is absolutely divine! Melt in the mouth and then suddenly, crunch peanut filling. Yumsssssssss~
One of the friend's husband colllection. So cool yeah? Too bad i forgot about the Hard Rock one.. Dang!
Finally, us.. with our new friend :)
We all looked kinda worn out because we were in the hospital earlier for nearly 3 hours!
I call her Kak Siti.. It sounds better and more respectful but i wonder if that's okie with her because i do know some might find it offensive, mainly because it made them seemed so old like that but of course, that wasn't what i meant at all.. I better ask this friend what she prefers because i don't wanna seem rude :P
And last but not least, green ang pows for the boys. Their very first green ang pows... Previous visit to hb's collegue place, we got red ang pows instead of green. So, that doesn't count ya!
What a lovely day..
Because of the 1 sms sent, i had so much more in return especially a new friendship with this nice new friend. I am so glad :D
Yes!!
We got invited for lunch today by hb's Malay collegue from another company for Raya.
I'm ecstatic :D
I can't wait for the ketupat, nasi pulut, rendang and many many more! Hehehehe... *drool*
And of course, Selamat Hari Raya Adilfitri everyone!! :)
After seeing much raves on this 'Brownie Muffins', i decided to copy down the recipe and bake them when the opportunity arises, just for try. Am curious on how it taste like. Brownie? Muffin? Both?
Anyway, when i was told by my sil that she and her bf will be organising a bbq get-together on the weekend my pil went for holiday, i saw that as the most appropriate time to bake these lovelies.
Oh, do ignore the white chocolate chip on top. Lol. It's sooooooo out of place and uglify the whole look but it was the only task which the boy could help with, for him to play 'masak masak' :D
Brownie muffins
I love it!
They are very moist, fluffy and chocolatey.
Why are they called Brownie Muffins? My guess is because they are crusty on the outside and soft and moist on the inside. Very nice..
Me like!
And guess what?
These were the only food we had during the bbq. Why?? Because we didn't manage to start the fire!! Lol.
Father in law wasn't around. So he couldn't come to our rescue like the previous bbq we had. However, we didn't blame ourselves for the lack of skill but we blamed it all on the charcoal! Seriously, it was the charcoal's fault. It couldn't stay 'red' [a stage where the flame has gone and where the charcoal is really burning inside] throughout but died down after a while. Funny right?
See that? I think everyone got pretty fed up. We tried from 7pm to 9.30pm but to no avail. Poor chicken wings and the satays + marshmallows. Aihzzz...
Thank goodness for my muffins. Keke..
Am feeling extremely wicked today. LOL.To my gfs who have been missing my tiramisu, here's a slice, dearies.. kekekekekke :ppPPPp
Freshly made this morning *wink*Am i bad or what? *bleh* :P
The gorgeous bride and i. Gosh.. i practically had to hide my giant arms away because the bride's arms were like THAT! Nope, i won't wanna show or tell u how big mine is! 'giant' would do. I'm too embarrassed!
Mango Galangal soup - vanilla milk ice cream + almond twirl. Oh, the choc cake behind it? It's the wedding cake which the beautiful couple cut on stage! How cool is that?
