Lazy Sunday...

J & I went for a movie on Sunday – The Butler. It wasn’t what I had expected. The caption – A small voice can start a big revolution. Something like that. Well, when you read such a caption, there would be expectations but those expectations are not what I had expected! As such, I was disappointed.

Before the movie starts, J & I went to Secret Recipe for lunch. He had the Caesar Salad and I opt for the Tom Yam Kung (Chicken). There’s no way I’m going to settle for salad for my lunch on a weekend. He claimed that the salad was good. Looking at the salad dressing, I’m not too sure. Thousand Island – Not light and refreshing. My Tom Yam Kung wasn’t that bad. It was spicy for sure.

Caesar Salad

Tom Yam Kung

After the movie, I went to Spotlight to look for A7 envelopes. No luck there. Before heading home, we went to Secret Recipe where I bought a slice of Chocolate Banana cake.

Just look at all those bananas...

Frankly speaking, choc cakes rich in choc makes me sick after a few mouthfuls. One of which is Awfully Chocolate. Don't get me wrong. Their cakes are delicious but not one which I can take slice after slice.

This one from Secret Recipe comes with fruits so it's not so nauseating.

That’s how I spent my Sunday. For now, I’m just glad I’m almost done with the Christmas Cards for church.

Dreamy C

Lovely Choc Banana Cake

Photos self explains

Dreamy C

Another Parcel...

Another parcel! Makes me so happy... Let me show you my goodies!

This I bought because you are able to have a straight glue and also a small square of glue. Don't understand? Go YouTube and find out more!

This I bought as I have the co-ordinating stamp set.

Saves me time cutting the little pieces out though at times, I do prefer cutting even though it takes more time and effort as I find it therapeutic. 

I bought this as I lost the alphabet Y from my Martha Stewart alphabet stamp set. I lost it while washing it. I dropped it in the hole in the sink. Bummer! Anyway, I'm glad I now have small letters as well! I'm thinking of getting the Harold's version on the next purchase.

This I bought to make Baby Shower cards.

Lawn Fawn never fails to produce stamps with cute images.

Most Lawn Fawn stamps have to be pre-ordered. This included.

I've a powder pad but I don't enjoy having cornstarch on my hands all the time so I bought this, hoping it's better.

I've been wanting this Glossy Accents for a while now.

This is 1 of the items which will make a difference on your card, just like the white gel pen!

Like I said previously, I've a number of girlfriends who gave birth to bb girls recently and I thought of making some hair clips for them! I got the felt material ready couple of weeks back so I'm ready to roll now...

I like straight lines. This explains the ruler.

It's not just any ruler. It's a T-ruler.

That's all I have for today!

Have a brilliant Saturday y'all... I know I'm going to be busy, VERY busy...

I'm now towards the end of making Christmas cards for my church. I'm now making the lids of the boxes.

Till next time, take good care...

Dreamy C

My Parcel Arrived!!! Yippee!!!

This morning, I checked the USPS website and it says Chicago. I was disappointed. It's been 10 days and I'm getting impatient. Boy was I surprised when my helper said there's a package for me. So excited!

This will ensure better stamping

I'm going to make Christmas cards for my loved ones with this set!

I got this for Christmas.

I heard that Hero Arts Shadow Ink is really good.

I've been looking high and low for packaging like these.

Singapore cannot find.

I was really happy to finally get these.

This is the main reason why I even place an order.

Just look at my stamps with the new packaging!

So much neater and presentable.

Makes me feel so good and organized!

I'm going to make a trip to IKEA 1 day to get some containers!

I'm going to get the remaining stuff which I ordered locally come this Saturday. So excited!

Think I'm spending too much? Well, I bought all these from the money earned from selling cards! My little box is now empty. Poor me...

There's about 34 x Hero Arts Shadow Ink pads I'm eyeing. That will set me back by 240 bucks! So much money but the colors? Oh so yummy looking...

Dreamy C

Dinner at Aunt's - Always a Happy Event!

I went over to my 1st Aunt's house on 19th October 2013. I made the arrangement earlier during the week. I bought a duck and $20 worth of siew yok from Toh Kee for all to enjoy. I called Toh Kee on the same day, wanting to reserve the duck and siew yok. Only then did I find out that they will close shop when they managed to sell everything. Hence, there's no official closing time. I had the intention of picking it up at 6p.m. which is nearer to dinner time but I guess I'm not going to risk it. I reached there 1p.m. and picked it up. Come dinner time, well, the siew yok is no longer crispy. It was a disappointment but I guess this is with any food no matter how delicious it is. Food have to be consumed when hot or on the spot.

Just take a look at it! There's my roast duck, and siew yok. There's also salted veggie soup. Beside it is sweet and sour prawns. I love it! On top of the siew yok is steam Red Snapper. Lovely! Next to the fish is steam chicken. Love it! Next to it is mince pork with salted fish - one of mommy's favourite. She can eat bowls of rice with this dish alone. It brought back fond memories of my Grandpa I believe. On top of the fish and chicken is veggie! 

I showed my beautician this photo and her 1st comment is, "Wah! So much meat and so little veggie!" Ha ha... I didn't realize that till her comment. Anyway, I enjoyed the meal beri much and I'm definitely dropping by for dinner again... SOON! 

Nothing beats home cooked food!

Dreamy C

Pete's Place Not My Kind of Place

Given that the kiddos do not have to attend school this entire week, J decided to bring them out for a good meal. They have always liked pizza and instead of going to our usual joint – Prego, J has decided to bring them to Pete’s Place.

The entrance.

Hall of Fame?

We start off with some bread. I was told that the bread and butter are all house made. Butter was good. I quite like the focaccia bread with sun dried tomato. Yummylicious but then again, they are my favorite bread. The ones served here – not bad ah… I do apologise for the photos to follow. Poor lighting and Samsung Note 8.0 no flash. Also, I left my portable flash in the car. It’s a nice gadget. Talk about that next time.

Both J & I ordered the same starter – Burrata cheese. It’s something like mozzarella cheese. Let me give you the Wikipedia’s explanation on this.

Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese, made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is solid mozzarella while the inside contains both mozzarella and cream, giving it an unusual, soft texture. It is also defined by some sources as an outer shell of mozzarella filled with butter or a mixture of butter and sugar. It is usually served fresh, at room temperature. The name "burrata" means "buttered" in Italian.

Ok so there you go… Saves me some explaining work. >.<

I Love, Love, Love the tomatoes in this dish. Sweet but not the artificially kind. Fresh sweet. Lovely! Best tomatoes I’ve tasted thus far! No joke! The cheese? It’s my first time tasting Burrata cheese and I’m not a fan. Give me my Mozzarella and Parmigiano-Reggiano anytime!

Next up, Fatty’s dinner – Spaghetti Carbonara. I didn’t taste it but according Fatty, it was nice. He liked it.

Handsome’s dish was some kind of chicken with polenta. It tasted alright. Nothing fantastic. Poor boy didn’t enjoy it. He was busy munching the pizza away.

We ordered the Magherita Pizza as Dumbledore couldn’t quite set his mind on Spaghetti Carbonara or Magherita Pizza. In the end, he shared the spaghetti with Fatty and the pizza with the rest of us except for J. Pizza was ordinary. I’d prefer the one from Prego.

J had Minestrone soup as his main dish.

Me? My main was Gamberi. It’s linguine with chili, garlic and I-don’t-remember-what-else. It’s not tomato based. Neither was it cheese based. It’s more like an Aglio Olio. Oh… I remember now! It’s also comes with prawns! For the price, I’m better off with pasta from Prego. The linguine was over-cooked! What a disappointment! I’m a fan of spaghetti and linguine. What a waste!

With a huge bottle of San Pellegrino & 2 glasses of apple juice, the bill comes up to almost 230 bucks! Totally not worth it… Would I pay 230 bucks for good butter, nice bread and lovely tomatoes? Nah!!!

Dreamy C

An Interesting Find...

This is what I found in Kinokuniya recently. I was so happy to see this. They have it for Cantonese as well. As for Hokkien and the rest, I'm not sure as the Teochew and Cantonese are the only ones I saw that day. I'm sure Kinokuniya will have stock for other languages.

I'm a Teochew but sucks at the language. I gave this book a try and read aloud. I did not notice if the people around me are staring at me. I was too engrossed in reading the words in Teochew. There's words like steamboat, lemon, spoon, toothbrush, banana etc. When I first saw this book, I thought of my niece immediately. Though too early for her to start reading, I thought it's pretty harmless having such a book on hand. Not cheap though for a few pages of words. Anyway, it's worth it considering our younger generation losing the capability to speak in their dialect.

Dreamy C

Roast Duck from Toh Kee

While trying to get the contact number of Fatty Cheong, I chanced upon Toh Kee from Hungrygowhere. I clicked on it and was tempted to give it a try.

Toh Kee sells roast duck which is pretty dark in appearance. Dr Leslie Tay called it the Dark Lord. Ha ha... I went back home and checked on Dr Leslie Tay's book and found Toh Kee inside.

15th October 2013 being a holiday, I decided to make a trip to Chinatown just to buy their roast duck and Siew Yok. It was worth the trip!

The duck skin was not that bad considering that my journey back home took at least an hour. The Siew Yok? Marvelous! I LOVE it! The skin was crispy and the meat salty but not that salty.

Photo of the Plastic Bag...

Cantonese Style Roast Duck and Siew Yok

I'm so happy with it, I'm going down to Chinatown this Saturday again! This time round, I'm going to buy an entire duck and perhaps $20 worth of Siew Yok. Well, this is for 7 people to consume as I'm going down to my Da Yi's place for dinner! I'm so looking forward to her soup. My relatives from my maternal side are Cantonese so that explains the wonderful soup I've been enjoying since a young age. 

So very happy and so looking forward...

Dreamy C

Nasi Lemak Kukus

Like I said in the earlier post, I'm going to blog about Nasi Lemak today...

This stall - Nasi Lemak Kukus is located at 908 Upper Thomson Road. The rice has been steamed over water and not cooked in water. This results in rice with a more grainy texture. This is according Dr Leslie Tay. What are my thoughts? Well, I was too hungry to try and figure that out! I also failed to take photos of the food and will have to make do with the photos taken from the portion which I bought for our helper. My sincere apologies.

This is how much I bought to feed 1 person. I couldn't help it! I wanna buy almost all of the dishes there! Taste is another matter.

There's curry veggie which tasted not bad, hot dog (I'm a sucker for hot dogs and sausages) which taste pretty standard, chili ikan bilis (this I like a lot! Taste just nice.), omelette (one word - bland. Please allow me another word - distasteful.), sambal goreng (lousy, tasteless. Even my helper cooked better ones).

I also bought otah. This was unopened. Color of otah was unattractive and the taste was nothing memorable. Enough said.

Their chicken wings was worth waiting for. I reached there 15 mins to 6 and was told that they're not ready till 6. It was flavorful, well marinated and delicious!

The photo does not do the real thing justice.

So I say, next time, go for their chili ikan bilis, rice and chicken wings. Have a truckload of chicken wings if you like but save some for me! Heh heh...

I took a cab home and the uncle was telling me that he has not heard of Nasi Lemak Kukus but he sure know that there's a stall selling really nice Yong Tau Foo nearby. He said it's very near the petrol kiosk there. Will give it a go soon! He also told me that there's a stall selling nice Pigs Trotters in a coffeeshop at AMK 31. Hold on... was it 13 or 31? Lol...

Till next time...

Dreamy C

Watami Japanese Casual Restaurant @ Junction 8

I had lunch over at Junction 8 today. I wanted to try their Beef Sukiyaki!

What I do not like is that the beef slices were presented in the soup.

Not good for people like me, who doesn't like their beef very cooked.

Overall, it was alright.

A Japanese meal wouldn't be complete without Sashimi!

I do like the Salmon Sashimi from this restaurant...

Makes me want to fly to Japan for some really 'solid' ones...

That's all for today. Come tomorrow, I shall blog about Nasi Lemak from Nasi Lemak Kukus. It's 1 of the stalls in Dr. Leslie Tay's book, bought recently from Kinokuniya.

Gonna bring Mom out for makan more often! 

Have a brilliant Saturday y'all!

Dreamy C

Morganfield's @ Star Vista

I met up with my poly girlfriends last night and we settled for Morganfield's for dinner. It was also my 1st visit to Star Vista. My Mom actually beat me at it. Can you believe it? o.O Star Vista is not an air-conditioned mall by the way... doesn't affect me though.

Anyway, we did not make any reservation but it wasn't long before we got a table. 

We ordered Crab and Spinach Dip. It was great though the serving of chips (tortilla I believe) is pitiful. For individual portion, it was good but for 4 hungry women, the portion is indeed pitiful. Besides, the dip was good and so, shouldn't they be more generous with the portion of chips? Just saying...

Next, we had the Sausage Platter. I love sausages... These were ordinary.

Next up was a Full Slab of ribs in sauce - Honey and Rum. We were told this is a new flavour. It wasn't even on the menu. On the menu, the sauce to go for would be Hickory BBQ, according 1 of the servers.

If you go to Morganfield's, the food to go for would be their ribs and chocolate lava cake. This slab of rib taste alright but it could be it has gone cold by the time we attacked it. We were busy talking. That's what happens when you put a bunch of women who have not met up for a while, together.

I talked about their Chocolate Lava Cake. It did not disappoint and both SS and myself was very happy when the other 2 were busy discussing about stuff for babies. Why? Just because we can have the whole cake to ourselves! Ha ha...

This was before all the action took place

Not much oozing from my side

The side of SS. Look at that lava oozing out!

Brilliant! SS can't help scooping from my side.

Ha ha...

It was indeed great fun meeting up with the girls again. 

Well, there's LOTS of eateries at Star Vista. A LOT and I kid you not...

Will definitely pay another visit!

Dreamy C

Yay!!!

Yay...!!! The items I purchased recently are now finally in my hands!

Left: Christmas

Right: Sentiments

The one on the left, I purchased so I can make the 5th card for my church. I'm not sure if I've mentioned in my blog before but I'm on a journey of making 100 x Christmas Cards for my church to sell. The proceeds will be utilized by the church. I know for which area it's going to be utilized of course!

I'm making 5 different designs and I'm pretty much done with 4 designs. For the 5th design, we have an agreement on what the design is but now, I thought of making a better looking one. You know, one progresses as time passes. The same for me with my hobby. Now that I'm improving, I thought of making a better looking card to replace the original 5th version! ^^ 

I purchased a matching die (2nd order) for this stamp set on the left and it'll arrive round about 2 weeks from now. Can't wait...!

The one on the right, I purchased on impulse. Well, not really a bad buy. Who doesn't need stamps of sentiments? o.O Give me lots of stamps of sentiments anytime! Ha ha...

For this 1st order, this is only part delivery. There's another 2 x stamp sets and a floral die which will arrive 2 weeks from now. I'll blog about it when I get them. 

I placed the 2nd order just yesterday. It consist of the Christmas die which I mentioned earlier here. It also consist of some adhesive (I'm running out of it so it's a replenishment). That's about it!

The 1st and 2nd orders are made locally. I'm contemplating on getting an order from the US. I've already decided on what to get. Well, I guess that shall have to wait till next month. ^^

I'll tell you more about the floral die when I get it. Can't wait...! I've a few friends/relatives giving birth this year and I thought of making something nice for their kiddo. Coincidentally, they are all baby girls. I think this is a good year for baby girls???

Till next time...

Dreamy C

Smaller Tummy???

I've been exercising since 01st October 2013.

On 01st October, I did a 2.59 km jog and brisk walk at rate 7.77 km/hr.
On 02nd, I did a 2.96 km jog and brisk walk at rate 6.83 km/hr.
On 03rd, I did a 2.96 km jog and brisk walk at rate 7.1 km/hr.

After 3 days of exercise, I dropped a kg in weight.
The % of my fats remained the same.

Why am I telling you this?
Well, on 04th October 2013, I realized that my tummy seems to look smaller when I'm in the standing position! I didn't make it a point to measure but I asked J and he said the same i.e. seems slightly smaller than usual. Believe me, I do not have a huge bulging tummy but it sure isn't anywhere near flat or a small bulge. I would say it's medium sized. Heh heh...

It could be due to the exercises I've been doing OR... it could be due to Clarins.

You see, for the past few days, I've been applying a lotion from Clarins. I apply it at least once a day and today, my cute little tum tum seems to have gone slightly smaller! Even if my tum tum is fatty, I'll still call it my cute little tum tum. I like cute names like these...

I'm going to continue exercising every Mondays to Saturdays. Sunday is a day for rest. ^^

If you're interested to know which product from Clarins, here goes...

I purchased this on a spur of the moment many months back.

Might as well use it. ^^

Have a brilliant Saturday y'all!!!

Dreamy C

FOTD #20 - 30.09.2013

It’s been ages since I last blogged about FOTD. That goes to show how long I’ve not applied make-up, not even foundation! I looked at my make-up compartment recently and decided that this could not go on. Otherwise, I would end up with products which have gone bad. That is when I pick up my make-up tools and do some work!

I used the same products for Sunday and today. The only difference is that on Sunday, I used Missha’s BB cream and today, I used Estee Lauder’s liquid foundation.

Here’s the look:

I may have gone a bit heavy on the blush but I have a reason for it! A lazy reason.

I wanted it to last till end of the day and not having to touch up.

Products used:

Clarins Sunscreen
Clinique Pore Minimizer on my cheek area
M.A.C. Refiner on my T-zone
Urban Decay Primer Potion on my Eyelids
BB cream / Liquid foundation
Christian Dior Concealer
M.A.C. Powder to set the foundation
M.A.C. Mineralized Skinfinish Natural to contour my nose
M.A.C. Mineralized Powder Skinfinish in Lightscapade to highlight my nose and my cupid’s bow
Lancome Hynose Mascara (LOVE this product!)
M.A.C. Blush in Peaches
M.A.C. Pro Longwear Lip Pencil in Staunchly Stylish
Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stain in Honey

And this is how I look mid-day:

Foundation may have looked a bit pale in the beginning but after oxidization, I think it's pretty good! ^^

Dreamy C