West Coast Plaza, Crystal Jade HK, The Hurt Locker

Wow this entry dates back to 25th feb when Hurt Locker was still showing and it hasnt even won the oscar yet. How much has happened since then =P After the med eopt MCQ test (tks for picking up the osces after leaving so early from the paper, K!), I made a wrong turn towards Tuas and we ended up at West Coast Plaza whilst still trying to decide on travel plans.

We browsed around before deciding to try ou the D24 durian buns from Oishii Bakery ( West Coast Plaza). Durian paste was wonderfully potent but it'd do nicer in a puff form!

We were debating between Bread And Butter Box and Coffee Bean and chose the former. This is the Yin Yang - peanut butter and nutella and we loved how crumbly the bread was...till it was like eating air in the words of K.

Her He Bi Hiam Toast

Mine Kaya Toast...its like a thick toast with the characteristics of a crisp thin toast

We went for Prof Soo's - only half filled heh - but it was worth going for all the oeso/stomach knowledge. We were ravenous so we went to hurry get movie tickets before going to Crystal Jade Hong Kong (Orchard Central) and started with this Salted Egg and Chicken Porridge which was served in a claypot. Not quite the typical Crystal jade consistency of the porridge (a little more watery) but still very delicious as late night food.

A walk down memory lane with the very colourful and cheery menu complete with fantizi in the menu (the difficult chinese characters), loud chinese mtvs, and waitresses with HK accents. lol, even the PORRIDGE was named after a district in HK... And Kels had a nice window seat!

This is what we came for - Spring Chicken with a huge load of fries and crispy bits!!! Very freshly fried, very crisp skin, very juicy chicken... Its worth your 10 bucks - Arnold's sells this at a much steeper price but imho I think this is really really good, don't mind paying more...lol

Hot Plate has all the meats - fish fillet (very tender and nice!), Chicken (too tenderised =P), Lamb chop (yums too) and the Cheese Sausage which Kels had. We were deciding between this or the Ocean basket (but everything fried leh.....together with the spring chicken), but this was a real carnivorous grease bomb.

This is finally our last movie before MBBS (yeah and this chapter was typed before mbbs lol). But anw havent had a chance to write a review about The Hurt Locker, which we caught during the study break (when everyone scrambled home to study;P). This movie is incredible, in the sense that it was directed by a woman (the war, violence, grit was absolutely cutting). Its like, you'll never expect anything less than Carrie Brickshaw to direct Sex and the City.

And it makes you thank you every day of your life that you have such a safe environment to function in, live in, play, and have a little quiet at the end of the day. Movies like The Blind Side make you grateful for the bed you have (no matter how rich you are, you only have a bed to return to at the end of it all, aint it), and the fairness despite the unfairness in the world. Don't compare, don't complain, I'm so happy to have a chance to study what I chose and to make the people I love proud.. Is the unfairness of your situation the driving force for your work? So you can get a release from that unfairness? Is that what drives materialism?

Sultan Kebab, Inglourious Basterds, Food for thought

It was a Friday and after morning rounds we were supposed to attend happy flower's tut at 2pm but when we found out it was an invite to join another group (no need for so much vigorous thinking of ways out) and that my effort to ask around for other groups' happenings (another case presentation at 1pm) were to naught, we decided to head far away for lunch. Anyway the journey here was most roundabout. We thought of Whampoa Market again, but somehow we went to Little India - got lost, not finding the Tekka Market carpark and landing up instead at Mustafa, curse the one way roads, and cos the other car decided not to have lunch at Komala's and suggested a pay-as-you-deem-fit vegeterian place which didnt pick up calls, we landed at Sunshine Plaza where the Thai food was closed and finally we ended up walking over to Sultan Kebab (1 Sophia Road #01-15 Peace Centre). Hell of an unexpected journey.

What Kelly and I wanted to try was the beef kebab here, cos the first time we were here in the evening for dinner only the chicken was left - so we tried the chicken with rice and the iskender chicken. Hence this time, we tried the beef kebab roll - and it was lovely, with the tortilla being toasty and warm, with generous slabs of beef kebab. It seems really healthy though, with no compromise to taste - it was extremely tasty.

The iskender beef, on the other hand, packed even more beef on the plate - and is on a piece of toasted bread. If you eat it fast enough, you might be able to eat some toasted crusty bread before the sauce sogs it all up.
Along with some old school kacang in a cone from the uncle hawking outside...
We then walked over to Le Cafe Confectionery & Pastry (264 Middle Road Elias Building) to try the soya bean tarts - as strongly recommended by Dedrick who said that it was like a taste of heaven - and it seems popular for each customer was only allowed ONE box of eight tarts (preferbly to call before collection). They sell a range of pastries of which their pineapple tarts in the shape of golf balls seem to be most popular.


The soya bean tart was a contrast of textures - really smooth, wobbly silky soya bean custard on a hard buttery crust. It was almost as if the crust was premade and the custard was just poured in on order. There were other flavours for the soya bean egg tart and we'd love to try the grass jelly soya bean egg tart the next time round.

Kelly got innovative and cos we moved onto Rochor Original Beancurd (2 Short Street) for tauhuay later on, she scooped some of her tauhuay into the hard crust (after she sucked up all the original custard) and concluded her own invention was tastier! Note that the hot tauhuay here is much better than the cold (probably in storage for too long).

Looks like our CG mates were getting really too innovative. (and he was then having tauhuay-orrhoea through all the created orifices....gross) Marc's dad unknowingly finished this up when he saw this tart....lol ignorance is bliss..

Luckily I decided not to join any of the 2 tutorials cos they ended up being 1/2 hour apart from each other so decided to hurry to watch Inglorious Basterds with Kelly at the Cathy (yes this is a dated entry, this was way before surg started), and we were amazed by how sadist we were at the sadism. I mean, I was wincing from my behaviour. This movie comes in 5 parts, in each character's perspective and talks about how it all finally culminates in an act, which was reminiscent of War of the Worlds - this movie, if you are a movie buff, has plenty of references to other films, Quarantino style.

Introduced Kels to my new finding.....the Diet Cream Soda Root Beer is DAMN FRIGGIN AWESOME.

Tried the portuguese egg tarts at the Mooncake Festival at Takashimaya at this stall called Yah Weh Confectionary. This is almost like eating a sweet eggy curry puff for the crust was extremely flaky yet thick, and the custard itself was also blowtorched to form this lovely crust. The main outlet is at a really secluded place in Yishun so I guess this is the first and last time we're having this.

Took the train down to Raffles City cos we were still on a quest to find that kaya toast at Beach Road when we stumbled upon these creatures..... there are almost always strange walking advertisements around - the last time round we spotted naked people in cardboards advertising for Ikea.

Finally nailed down YY Ka Fei Dian (37 Beach Road). This is the row of shophouses along Beach Road that is behind Raffles Hotel, on the way to Shaw Towers. The teh ping (Kelly's) and my hot yuanyang was really shiok! They still use stockings to brew their coffee, no less.

Their kaya buns are just what you expect - lightly toasted, with steamy soft bread within. Not spectacular - for I think if I practise enough at home I can achieve this too! Note that they do not have the thin kaya toast here - if you want the flat bread its pretty much the normal Gardenia variety they use. Popped by the National Library again and managed 3 books - The Pig that wants to be eaten, Book of God and Physics, The Thing around your neck. I just finished the Hour i first believed... not great.

After the library visit, we went to Food for thought (420 North Bridge Road #01-06 North Bridge Centre) . I dined here with Matt and Chiara (desserts only), and subsequently Jillian (dinner - sandwich and soup set), so I roughly knew what I liked at this place. What I didnt try though during my previous visits, was this very interesting tomato garlic soup - this had a layer of olive oil atop the soup and when stirred around this was a symphony of all the condiments as mentioned, and was lovely with the chewy bread that was provided, which soaked up the soup very well.

The mushroom soup here didnt come with any cream, and you can taste the earthiness of the mushrooms in this soup.

We then had desserts - if you get a chance try the Brownie-Expresso-Marshmallow-Chocolate-sauce-icecream this dessert rocks my world. But I decided to try something different and had this peach butterscotch crumble which turned out to be rather disappointing. Warm peach pieces taste strange (prefer the frozen cold ones in condensed milk!), and the butterscotch got too cloying amidst the (very little) crumble pieces.

But the red velvet cake tasted as good as ever - sour cream cheese layers amidst the red flour - its a tad like a carrot cake minus the nuts and other condiments. Kels said the colouration is cos of the vinegar treatment to the flour. Imagine your friend's surprise/horror as she slices the whole cake to find the cross section to be as such!

Good Morning Nanyang Cafe, Barcook Bakery, Yami Yoghurt

Had a super insipid Jap curry salmon lunch at the Jap place at YIH (i cant even remember the name!) with the CG minus Marc and Jeremy meeting a friend at Subway, after morning ward rounds and a super-quick falls tutorial with R.M. before having to vacate the place for the incoming HOs where we found out there was this baby bear book equivalent for the NUH HOs by HOs. And it turns out we ate the insipid lunch for NOTHING cos the afternoon orthoG tutorial got cancelled (postponed to Sports Day, Doh).

So Kelly and I arranged our own tutorial with the dolphins, wanting to catch the Cove but its a whooping 10 bucks at Cinema Europa at Vivo so we're waiting for a good time to watch at PS (so that 10 bucks can buy us student price ticket plus popcorn). Meanwhile we almost wanted to go back but a glimpse at Toast Box rocketed us down the NEL line to Chinatown to...

Good Morning Nanyang Cafe (133 New Bridge Road #03-01 Chinatown Point)My second time here. I discovered a new blog sistablog and the writers do seem to like the same stuff as Kelly and me! Actually we wanted to try the peanut thick toast (below - as recommended by the blog) but we still ordered the Ciabatta Kaya toast anyway. Today's was DAMN FRIGGIN GOOD I proclaim this to be my top Kaya thick toast. The kaya is eggy and lumpy (mixed with the butter) and the bread is crusty, with the soft in betweens. Kaya heaven, for a while.

The owner gave the writers of sistablog a sample of this Peanut butter with condensed milk thick toast - we had whole meal bread with this. Kelly spotted that they use Skippy's Peanut butter but overall, we couldnt really discern the taste of the condensed milk and this is quite replicable at home (the Ciabatta Kaya toast is not replicable though and warrants repeat visits)

We couldnt resist going to Barcook Bakery ( Blk 531 Upper Cross Street #01-54 Hong Lim Complex) to eat the Raisin cream cheese bread. Today's wasnt as awesome as the first time we ate it - we rationalised that its cos we were sharing that very time - sharing makes everything taste better. Company matters! Maybe also cos the bread wasnt straight right out of the oven - the cheese wasnt scorching. But the bread is as soft as ever, the sweet rummy raisins taste awesome with the cheese.

However, we tried a new bread, the coconut bread - which we shared and it DID taste better in Kelly's opinion...has a crusty layer, and the coconut doesnt fall apart easily (like the grated kind I had in Hong Kong which was IMHO much better than this) and Kelly postulates that the coconut was prob mixed with custard. She proclaims this is the best bread of the day.

Actually the whole excuse of getting to Chinatown was cos we were going to Ocean to get toiletries (dropping by.........) and we were aunties for the later part of the afternoon..

Headed down to Bugis to the National Library where I happily borrowed the Omnivore's Dilemma (finally!) and couldnt resist my third icecream of the day (after Mr Bean, and Milo icecream) at Yami Yoghurt (B1, Bugis Junction)- this is the peach flavour. Being $2.30 its much cheaper than Frolick (at $3.50 a pop if its not for the one-for-one Zouk offer). Its slightly creamier than the sorbet like Frolick, but not as creamy than Yoguru (which is still my favourite cos its the creamiest and sweetest and biggest).

Later on met JM at Starbucks whilst getting my mandatory Soy Latte. Must meet up soon! The last time we met was when we were having chicken rice at Margaret Drive Food Centre and fantasizing about that abominition of a Awfully Chocolate-Island Cremery - Chocolate sauce- M&Ms all in one dessert. Lets go for it.

Seng Hong Coffeeshop, Moon, Thaksin Beef Noodles

Today was an extremely long day - starting from the prophylactically please-cover-my-ass-i'm-running late (I was late instead sigh) and the long morning ward round about everything under the sun (or without, haha) about osteoporosis. Had a Nasi Padang lunch at KR (its not bad ! everything from the firms eggplant to the sambal goreng and sayur doleh was good) and to Kelly's astonishment the Prima Deli has become swallowed by my past obsession. iSymphony saved me mid-day, the cancellation of the HO teaching double saved me, and the unsaving grace was the grand round when poor Raphael got totally fired by an incidental massive BILATERAL PE.

Its midweek and the need to get away was immense, we took off to Seng Hong Coffeeshop
(Blk 58 Lengkok Bahru). Kelly is fantastic with her sense of GPS as always and getting there was a breeze - and so was sitting in the coffeeshop to leem kopi. This coffeeshop is so old school, it had a signboard of Chinese characters (that we didnt recognise and had to go in and double check it was the right place.)

Seng Hong only serves beverages (notably, their coffee), steamed bread and toast and is the only stall open within the extremely tiny coffeeshop, right in the heart of the neighbourhood. We felt like we were entering a village when we turned into the carpark to search for block 58 - we passed by barbers and grocery shops, and it was a really old neighbourhood. To our surprise, there were many middle-aged and old men sitting and chatting, enjoying a leisurely afternoon. I was joking with Kelly we could just turn up in our pyjamas and not denied our kaya toast and sure enough there was this funky grandlady walked in in her floral (it may not be though) pjs. Funky ah mah, we aspire to be like you!

Being in this place reminds me of this coffeeshop which served fantastic Chicken shredded noodles Andrew brought me to in KL - subsequently I brought my family there - the aunties there speak Queens english, and the coffeshop setting, old staircases, wooden chairs were all so familiar. We love such rustic places.

Here, we were also speaking English! But it was to a mid-aged uncle who recommended nicely the breads and spreads, and even gave us directions to town! Kels said that this place is run by relatives of the folks at Tong Ah Coffeeshop (where we also had steamed bread before), explaining the exemplary standards of simple fare.

Started off the leisurely afternoon (learning from the ah peks to enjoy life already) with coffee need all the energy we can get after the lethary infecting us from GRM. Extremely thick and quite acidic.

The steamed bread with creamy overflowing peanut butter was awesome possum. Extremely soft pillowy bread reminds us tremendously of our Hong Kong days where it was mandatory to have steamed bread in all the chachantengs when you order a sandwich. This is like eating an airy mantou in the form of a sandwich - with sandwich fillings too. Extremely spongy.

Kels is used to steaming her own Gardenia bread in her modified steamer and hence used to piping hot bread. The fantastic ventilation here meant the breads cooled down super quick before we could sink out teeth into it!
Steamed bread with Kaya and butter - the bread was the star still.
This is kaya toast (really mini and cute! too used to see +++bread in Ya Kun) and is like toasted steamed bread? We wanted to order the thick bread but we had to order the whole loaf and that would be an overkill so we'll come back for that another time.

We hurried over to Cathy the Picturehouse for the movie, Moon - which Dedrick recommended and is exclusive to the Cathy only (not Cineleisure even). I highly recommend it, it is probably one of the best movies I've caught - wrought with thought provoking scenes, a twist which set you thinking of the plot, people (in the broader sense, mankind) and drawing analogies to philosopy, ethics and human behaviour. Scrowl to the next picture if you don't wanna read spoilers or my ten thousand word take on the movie (for Kelly and my reference cos we were debating alot after the show).

And before I start, I must complain about the policy of no food and drinks allowed in the Picturehouse?! WTH! We not only brought in popcorn, we also had Sweet Onion Kettle Chips (love the texture of these, almost like eating real onion rings). I suppose art flicks require you to be more....civilised? ummmpzummpz crunchcrunch unaccepted.


Anyway I just found out from Dedrick that its cos the couches in the Picturehouse are really friggin expensive. People have wrote in to complain before (whats new) so I guess I'm not that much of a movie buff to be in the know.

Moon starts with an astronaut who was supposed to go home in 2 weeks. But he ends up in a crash, next moment he wakes up back in the OT, and the robot-butler tells him they rescued him. He wakes up but decides to go back to the crash site and there he discovers his own self, still trapped in the destroyed vehicle. At first, just before he entered the wreckage – Kelly was postulating that he was gonna hallucinate (especially since he was hallucinating his daughter in the opening scene) and I postulated that he might see himself in the wrecked vehicle. True enough, to his horror, he realises its his clone (Lets name this Clone 2). Questions started popping in our head from then on - Why is he the ONLY clone to realise that he needs to exit the rocket to go back to the accident site to recover his original self (Clone 1)? – K realised its cos Clone 2 was wondering why two out of the four videos weren’t screening material and hence he wanted to find out more.

I was wondering if the crash was orchestrated by mankind as an excuse for the clones to start life afresh, but we realised it was purely unintentional and an accident cos the ELIZA team was arriving on the moon to salvage the wreckage. But how long has the clone who was the actual one involved in the accident been there and how long has it been since the crash?

Eventually the clones realised that they were part of mankinds’ plan – their shelf life was 3 years (why not longer??) and after that they expire, told that they’re to return to Earth and is instead combusted in a coffin and reduced to ash. Both the clones stumble across the archives of the many many clones last words and getting in to the spaceship coffin, thinking they were returning to Earth, to his family, when the hypocritical Boss on Earth dispenses words of gratitude for their unyielding service towards Mankind on the moon. They only discovered these after entering the forbidden room - when Clone 1 realised he had recorded hundreds of videos that were not being transmitted back to Earth and the robot butler eventually entered the password to discover the grand plan of Mankind.

The most tragic part of the movie was when Clone 1 was close to expiry and was haemorrhaging everywhere – and in his live real-time communication with his daughter, he realised that it has been 16 years (since the first original human left Earth) and his wife has since died – AND that the original human has already returned to Earth to reunite with his family. This stunned Clone 1 and I believed it was a downturn on his health from then on – there was no motivation to return to Earth - he was an unwanted being. Clone 2 watched the same video – but the last part got cut off and he did not realise that his original form had returned to Earth already, and thought that there was a place on Earth still, for him.

Clone 2 then planned to return back to Earth, and place Clone 1 in the wrecked spaceship for the ELIZA team to rescue him. We were wondering what is his intention, really? Isn’t it likely that the ELIZA team might rid Clone 1 since he was of no use? – but we realised it was because Clone 1 was already close to expiry and had volunteerily decided to stay in the wreckage (I think the fight for survival in him died because he realise he was no longer the man his family needed). Clone 2 then had to fight against time because another new clone (this will then be Clone 3) was being regenerated and he had to launch himself quickly back to Earth, cos no more than 1 clone is supposed to be alive at any one point (excluding the one in the wreckage).

And we were wondering, why is there a part of the spaceship that can be transported back to Earth if mankind didn’t want the clones back on Earth? We only figured its cos that detachable part of the spaceship is to ship back materials that is the source of energy back on Earth.

He succeeded in returning to Earth – but during the entire journey, the conversation between the scientists on Earth about these clones and its ethics was most compelling. They didn’t reveal his life back on Earth – I would imagine it would be very much District 9 like – only Humans allowed.

This show is extremely thought provoking because so many questions popped in our head – and we were trying to recall parts of the movie to piece everything together. This is probably the only movie I’ve watched with only 1 lead character (the robot-butler and images of his wife and daughter doesn’t really count) and yet, absolutely brilliant in the portrayal of the loneliness of man, the innate sense of survival and need to seek solace in companionship and familiarity. Men work in order to feed their families – this need drives them in their workforce, drives them to strive and succeed. Does competition within mankind drive man to commit sins (greed, envy thy neighbour) or does it drive the human race to stand in consolidation to better the progress of mankind? Aren’t we all of the same species, of the same DNA and very broadly speaking – clones of a species?


Are humans inately unkind? Has evolution produced a human race where civilisation and society can function purely because it is limited by law and religion? What is the threshold of one's conscience and how is it governed? Some philosophers have argued that the very open -endedness of human appetite is responsible for both our savagery and civility, since a creature that could conceive of eating anything (including other humans) stands in particular need of ethical rules, manners and rituals.

Moreover, the analogy for this for humans and the ultimate end point of death – isn’t it similar? We all do have an expiry date, some of us do believe in the after-world when we’ll be surrounded with our loved Ones, and some of us do believe in the higher Being, placing our destiny in the hands of Fate and the powers of the higher Being. How real are we?

It was a friggin hot day - and by sunset we decided to head to Marina Barrage to chill. Went round a wild goose chase (cos my GPS not prepared hehe) so rely on Julie's instinct = waste petrol - no lar, only went one round, found our way almost effortlessly, not like the first time I was with Mountains. Spotted this Rover convertibles in the carpark and Kels was thinking about the demise of this species of this once popular car...

And a super cute kid and his dad spotted on our way back in the car park. Love to see Dads go solo with their kids, exudes so much paternal charm!

Fantasizing about swanky offices, we got even more mesmerised by this kite flyer whom we eventually chatted with and showed us the ropes (no pun intended) in kite flying. It was a lighted kite (100 bucks! sold by an uncle in Sengkang in a white car remember yar, Kelly) and flew pretty easily without much effort. Feels abit like reverse fishing - we were lamenting how guys love fishing, and reeling in their catch. Mmmms.

Has light clips attached to the string and hasnt dropped off thus far. He said he was thinking of flying his Snake - a 60 metre long monster. We wished he did! probably interesting, disappearing into the night -now we know the importance of the light. He was educating us that from the speed in which the light spins, you know if the wind is flying it in the right direction and if any resistance was present.

Then talked about nice flying grounds in Sengkang and Punggol and the possible sad outcome if the place is to be developed. He flies near his workplace, and goes out to fly when he senses the wind. Abit like windsurfers being able to guesstimate the wind ! I find it amazing how some people have the intuition for certain elements - like a certain someone for Sun and Water *AHEM*

Was throwing up many possibities for dinner - Geylang and Old Airport road but for convenience sakes we took the ECP-AYE to Seah Im Food Centre and had dinner at Thaksin Beef Noodles. This is my second try here (heard that the Blanco Fish Soup here is good but couldnt find it) but I realised what is great is the Phad Thai! We found a fantastic Phad Thai for $3!! It is $4 with beef. It has plenty of wok hei, sufficiently oily, and has generous bits of egg and taukuar, crunchy peanuts and beansprouts. Divine with that chilli powder.

Kelly and I shared the Phad Thai and each of us had a bowl of beef noodles (value $4). You get a mix of tripe, beef chunks and is all darn pretty good in a robust soup. The noodles were slightly too hard though, but went well with the soup and minty vegetables. Kelly, however, (for the first time in a looooong time) got her tastebuds massacred by the potent vinegar chilli so I suggest you exercise caution (espcially with the +++ chilli flakes in the Phad Thai). She was so badly scalded (for lack of adjectives) she had shallow breathing and hoarseness ++ with incomplete sentences. She still has PTSD as of this morning..

So we rushed over to Vivocity B1 for dessert - and stumbled upon this fruit juice and vegetable juice (Kelly's favourite!! My enemy=P) called Tracy's (Vivocity B1)selling interesting Paus with Pumpkin Kaya filling - but they were sold out by closing time. We settled for Aloe vera seaweed dessert ($4) instead. Actually Kelly was super skeptical but I made her try it! It is chokeful of ingredients and is like what Kelly has at home (she has the seaweed in bulk) except with the unique addition of the aloe vera jelly. This is like premium cheng tng.

Wednesdays will soon become the designated pseudo weekend for us =)

Pâtisserie Glacé, Tong Ah, Pasta Brava

Met Chong after Acute Abdomen CTS. it was a like a live blue letter consult conference between the emed-radio-surgeon and the echoes from the speaker in his bid to speak louder was hilarious. We were intending to eat at Dozo but changed our minds and decided to eat at Pasta Brava instead. But when we headed to Craig Road, Pasta Brava only opens at 630pm.. We were actually early for once!! So we walked further down to Chinatown Point to try our luck at Pâtisserie Glacé (34 Craig Road#01-10 Chinatown Plaza). And we managed to try the Rin Rin Cheese Tart - Original Cheese Tart for Chong and Earl Grey Cheese Tart (on right) for me. This is like a frozen block of cheese, and was divine with the tart base. My Earl grey flavour was perfectly infused into the cheese tart, whereas the pure cheese in Chong's makes us feel we're eating a frozen cheese icecream. or a tangy frozen egg tart.

Oh yes, they are moving to Icon Village next to The Amara (and Tanjong Pagar MRT station) on 9 September, which means I'd definitely be able to access the place and blog more about it. When Chong and I first went there (cant beat how odd Kelly and I felt when we went there for the very first time) most shops in Chinatown Point were closed - and the area felt a little seedy, and this cake shop was like a aircon coffeeshop with a simple cake display (with nothing inside cos they were closing!) and an open kitchen. We thought we spotted the Chef Yamashita.

Still had 10 more minutes to kill so we went to Tong Ah Coffee shop (36 Keong Saik Road) and had the Super Crispy Kaya Toast - super crumbly and is like a toasty biscuit with kaya and butter.
Just yesterday I had the steamed bread with kaya butter , and another with peanut butter at Seng Hong Coffee Shop and today I'm back at the sister outlet Tong Ah Coffee shop, gee talk about obsession with steamed bread ! The steamed bread here is alot warmer than the ones at Seng Hong - but I think that the bread at Seng Hong is softer, finer and more spongy - here the bread has more pockets of air and is a little rough- is it cos Tong Ah uses the Pau Steamer, but Seng Hong uses a dedicated bread steamer?

We still had space for Pasta Brava (11 Craig Road) so we went back to our actual reserved time - we almost wanted to ditch this for more snacking. But we're good girls and we'll have a good, proper dinner ! Wolfed down (burnt) walnut brown bread, with crusty baguette with butter, balsamic vinegar and olive oil whilst...

What we do in lectures....

More scribbles which mark our grand plans for work and play, and everything else in between.

Ravioli stuffed with beef and in light gorgonzola cheese - The pasta has pockets of minced beef and a slight sourish gorgonzole cheese over the pasta. Right down my alley.

Squid ink risotto with seafood - The risotto was plump and rough, infused with the salty squid ink. Love the fresh seafood especially the lone scallop (heh no sharing, Chong!)

We decided to go and bowl then ! Off to Marina Square and a real coincidence bumping into Kums and Jiayuan in the MRT train - right at the same door somemore. If we had gone to Dozo or I had driven or we didn't explore so much before dinner we wouldnt have met !

Hideous bowling shoes!
We are gonna aim for more Xes!

Good Morning Nanyang Cafe, Annie's Peanut Ice Kachang, Saybons

Everytime I meet Kelly we always have these spontaneous food trails (it never goes according to plan though we've a list of places we want to try) so this time round it was no different. And I never fail to be excited about writing about the entries, and to write it quick lest I forget the extraordinary measures we take to fill our tummies.

It was a wet gloomy day but chilling at Good Morning Nanyang Cafe (Level 2, Chinatown Point)while watching the crowd go by through those glass panels was the perfect day to spend with my best friend.

Yes, I'm not past the kaya toast phase so here we are trying another place again.... and it was tea we were having, not breakfast. Toast is such a breakfast thing, yeah? We were actually here before, but we were so stuffed from bread that day from Tong Ah Coffee Shop and eventually Barcook Bakery we bypassed this place but luckily we came back to try today cos the bread here is really GOOD!

We ordered a set (kopi, eggs, ciabatta toast) and an alacarte orange ciabatta.

I must say that the coffee here was quite good - not bitter at all, and not too sweet. Definitely freshly brewed local style coffee. Kelly had an iced tea (not part of a set).

Ciabatta Toast

The bread was really light, crispy, and crumbly...even though it looks thick its actually really light - fluffy inside yet crisp outside. One of the most perfectly toasted thick bread I've eaten.

Check out the eggy lumpy kaya! There are no slabs of butter here - the kaya and butter are mixed together. This kaya tastes similar to Tong Ah Coffeeshop's kaya - homemade and extremely fragrant. I read that here, the Coconut, Eggs, Sugar and Pandan leaves are slow cooked over a double boiler for 1 and a half hours. The flavour of the pandan is enhanced by leaving the pandan leaves in the Kaya overnight after cooking.

Don't you feel like making your own kaya now? Easier said than done man - I can imagine the temperature, timing, proportion of ingredients must be extremely precise!

Orange Ciabatta Toast $2.60

This toast is really unique. At first I thought our toast was gonna come with Orange Marmalade but no - the orange peel was actually embedded in the bread and the filling is actually the same - kaya. It has a fruity, coconuty taste - you taste it all together. You have to go try it to actually know what I mean. The bread here is slightly more sturdy than the ciabatta toast above - that was really quite crumbly.

Actually i went back to read the article on ieatishootipost and I realise you can choose the filling from a range of preserves like Orange Marmalade with Cognac, Four Fruits Marmalade and Strawberry with Champagne! Wow! Warrants another visit! And we totally forgot about the scones here... But we were so comfortable on those seats we actually sat till closing time (just before 7 pm). so we had to set off for another place after catching up.

Oh today seemed like a CG day I bumped into Jason along Holland Road just before meeting Kelly and after our tea we bumped into Kums in Chinatown MRT who was gonna try this cigar cum fine dining place which he said was amazing. Okay an aside for Kelly and my reference =)

Then for Chinese desserts we walked all the way to Smith Street cos we wanted to try the elusive 115 Tang Shui Stall (which was closed) and the Hai Sing Ah Baling (which we couldnt find) and since we were unsuccessful - our backup was actually the porridge over at Smith Street - then we decided to walk to Glace at Chinatown Plaza - (and our backup was Tong Ah Coffeeshop's toast) but it closes at 630pm so gaspp we reached Duxton Hill -which has beautiful architecture in the evening by the way, each shophouse had such interesting riot of colours and styles. I'd wanna come back and walk the rest of Duxton Hill (and try Pasta Brava at Craig Road). However, the looming HDB project at Duxton looks quite monstrous now - and even more so in the dark..Wonder how it'd look like when its all done.

Walk and walk and walk....eventually we landed up at Tanjong Pagar Food Market! My poor friend was quite exhausted esp when climbing up the stairs here! But we were eventually very =) when we saw that Annie's Peanut Ice Kachang(Level 2, Tanjong Pagar Plaza Market and Food Centre) was open! We were really quite discouraged that ALL our dessert places ditched us today so you can imagine our surprise when this place was open!! (it closes at 715pm on weekdays)

There is peanut ice Kachang, mango ice kacang, and durian ice kachang. She also has Chengtng, Chendol, bobocharbar. But everyone goes for her signature Annie's Peanut ice kachang!

It is gigornous at $1.50!

The shaved ice was really smooth! And it doesnt melt - so it doesnt leave a pool of colourful syrup at the end - according to the observant (and experienced ice kacang eater =P) Kelly. The red bean, corn and peanut went really well together, and with the evaporated milk and syrup it was phwoah! Just the thing we needed after walking the length of many train stations!

Oh but the ingredients when you get to the bottom is scant. There is no atapchee, and there is very little chendol jelly and grass jelly. It doesnt have much.....inner substance =P

We wanted to go Amoy Food Centre but it was too hot to walk any further so we decided to head to Saybons(B1 Plaza Singapura) on our way home.

This is our second time at Saybons - previously we tried the nutella crepe and seafood bisque so we decided to try something different today.

We went for the (nutritious according to an article pasted on the screen) Brocoli and Cheddar soup (and additional bread which we didnt try) and a savoury crepe.

They actually warm/fry our bread before serving...

Don't the wild mushrooms look like some virulent octupus? We were truly..enthralled.. haha, we love watching chefs at work...even watching Annie, the icekachang lady make our dessert got some oohs and ahhs...yes it doesnt take a lot to entertain us...

Brocoli and Cheddar Soup, Regular $3.20

The soup was really heavy on the cream - but surprisingly it wasnt jelak even with the cheddar. I couldnt really taste much vegetable but I thought the soup was really a good cream soup.

Sundried tomato Bread, Garlic Butter Bread Additional $2.50

You can choose a maximum of 2 spreads with your additional bread. These are the 2 more popular ones out of the 3 spreads they have (the last one is a herb butter). The bread was gently fried and really delicious - even better with the cheesy soup!

Mushroom and Cheese Crepe

I really liked the mushrooms here - and they are really generous with the mozarella cheese as well. The crepe is really light and chewy - Kelly remembers it being more crisp the previous time we had the Nutella crepe. Unfortunately here the crepe is ready made - they fry it, and add the ingredients before serving it. We thought the previous time they made the crepe from scratch but we could be wrong.

And after that we made a hilarious secretive transaction at Dorothy Perkins before heading home. Oh I cant wait for her to clear the last hurdle before planning our next trip (for Kelly its our elective trip but for me it meant a food trail =P).. All the best, babe!