Singapore in 2 Days

Deardo and I are aware and are still feeling sad that this year we won't be able to travel anywhere overseas due to the wedding. The wedding has taken away most of our savings and don't even think about honeymoon right after the wedding!

So when Deardo asked me if I wanted to tag along as he attend a training in Singapore last week, I jumped into the opportunity! I mean, all I need to worry about was the flight ticket, to have some money to spend on food and get boss to approve my short-notice leaves application!
We arrived at night and thank god for Ah Ku who picked us up and bought us a super yummy crab dinner, then the famous Chinatown porridge for supper... We definitely had a great start in Singapore!

Oh how had I miss you? 

For the next two days I stayed in the hotel while Deardo went for his training in the same hotel, doing things like a real 'tai tai'.
We had breakfast at the hotel's Executive Lounge, which is at the 29th floor of the building, looking down at the concrete jungle of the lion city. The food, though with limited choices, were awesome! Service too was superb I felt like such a VIP!

Really awesome breakfast to start my days! :)

And as Deardo went to his day-long training, I would go back to our room to watch Friends which I brought over from home. I'm re-watching the series since I didn't watch the complete series when I was younger and certainly enjoying the show A LOT!!! Then during lunch time, I would go down to the gym and work-out a little bit before taking a shower and going back the lounge for tea time! I am so crazily in love with their biscoti! So yummy and go so well with coffee! :)

Biscoti that I thick-facely asked for on the second day even when they were not at the buffet area. :p

We only had one full night in Singapore and we did A LOT OF WALKING. Actually, I think that is something I'm gonna miss about Singapore. They make sure there are pedestrian walkways everywhere and most importantly, it is extremely safe to walk in the city, even late at night! You have no idea how cool it was strolling in the city! We went from Orchard Road to Suntec City, then to Marina Bay Sand, then made our first visit to the gorgeous Avatar city of Singapore Gardens by the Bay!

If only I could go there again and go up the towers! 

Bubbling up my feet after the walk... 

I used to hate food in Singapore when I was younger and it's funny how now I kinda always look forward to the food there. While I still strongly believe our hawker food such as Bak Kut Teh, Wanton Mee, Fried Kuey Teow, etc are much better than theirs, it is undeniable that they have some really good foreign cuisines, especially Japanese.

Beef Noodles at the Food Court at Marina Bay's Shopping Centre is one of the best I've ever eaten! 

Tepanyaki @ Food Republic, Wisma Atria

This was our second visit as it was pretty unforgettable the first time we went end of last year. We never expect food court Tepanyaki to be so fantastic, really! Their gravy and I suspect some Sakae made the Tepanyaki extremely delicious!

Our sets of dinner! 

The generous amount of vegetables! I LIKE!!! 

I also love the fact that they aren't stingy at all in the vegetables to balance things up! :)

Hi! We are here again in less than a year time! 

The set that we had comes with a meat (lamb or beef), dory fish and prawns with vegetables cost us S$13.90 each and I think with or without converting back to RM, it was totally reasonable! 

Daikokuya Ramen @ Paragon Shopping Centre
We were looking for a place for early dinner before heading to the airport when we decided to give this restaurant a try. I do know that Singapore has a lot of famous Ramen chains now but I'm not sure if this is one of them.

Mentaimayo Gyoza, S$6.80.

Cha Shu Cha Cha Ramen, S$16.

Original Miso Ramen, S$14.90.

I think the Cha Shu Cha Cha Ramen is definitely quite good and something very different, but not too fantastic. I also love how they give their Gyoza a Mentaimayo twist but the gyoza weren't oily juicy enough lor... Surely, there must be better ramen in Singapore, right?

HAPPY TOURISTS? 

While we didn't begin the trip with shopping in mind, we couldn't help but bought some stuff in Singapore. I mean, the price for the branded stuff there are so much cheaper compare to the ones in Malaysia so why should we hold on to our wallet? :p

It was definitely a much needed break for me after a long long time. Though very short, I truly enjoyed the luxurious time I had in the hotel, love the little shopping, the food and most of all, the safety of the city! Singapore however, is sadly turning into a foreigners-invaded city where everywhere you go only two out of ten are real Singaporeans. Even hotel staffs are from China or the Philippines who either can't speak proper English or speak English with a heavy accent.
While I wished I have more time and money to stay longer and shop more, but for the time being, it was a great great Singaporean getaway for me!!!! :D

The rest of my Singapore trip

*Yawn~~~~*
Just woke up from a very short afternoon nap after another long day at work (yes, on a Sunday...). Been extremely busy with loads of events for the past one week. Thankfully all of them went on smoothly~! :D Another week to go before I can hopefully take some days off from work to RELAX a bit!!! Can't wait!
So... Before I actually drown myself into my work again, I gotta really conclude my Singapore trip before it is outdated!!! So here's a post to sum-up the rest of my Singapore work trip...

Dinner @ G7 Fresh Frog Porridge & Seafood, Geylang
That was actually the first night in Singapore when my colleague was like dying for this Geylang Frog Porridge. I had the Chinatown Frog Porridge during my last trip to Singapore with YY, so Geylang's one was really my first try. At G7, they also have a whole range of seafood dishes and I saw a lot of them having crab dishes! But my colleague and I, with our agent, who is an American, went for some normal food...Fresh Frog Porridge, which we ended up having two pots of them!
Ginger and Onion Frog.
Sweet & Sour Prawn.
Claypot Tofu.
Fried Kung Fu Mee.
Well, honestly speaking, I find the frog porridge nice, but not really fantastic. If you ask me to choose, I'll probably tell you the Lor9 Frog Porridge I had in KL is actually better. The Sweet & Sour Prawn was unexpectedly my favourite of the night whereas the Claypot Tofu and the Fried Kung Fu Mee were just really so-so.

Cool Ice-Cream @ Raffles Creamery
Like I said in my earlier post, my trip to Singapore was all about visiting hotels. So I actually had my first meal at a Japanese restaurant in a hotel which was not really impressing at all. And nobody from those hotels actually offer to buy us even coffee or tea during our visits! So I think it is pretty true that my colleague commented that Singaporeans are a little stingy in that case! In fact, come to think of it, they didn't even offer us some plain water! WTH!
When I was at Raffles Hotel, I couldn't resist but to dig my own pocket to try the very famous ice-cream. And my apologize, I couldn't remember how much that scoop of ice-cream cost me already...
Now the ice-cream here is pretty unique. You choose your flavour, they will get a scoop of ice-cream then sort of 'fry' the ice-cream like teppanyaki with some shaved ice. And then if you want your topping to be crushed together like me, they will add that in for you. That boy teppanyaki-ing my New York Cheese ice cream...
My New York Cheese flavoured ice-cream with Oreo and chocolate sauce was just plain YUMMEEEYYYY~~~!!!Okay... You don't need to remind me how fattening it is! Arrrhhh...

Dinner with 'The Gang' @ The Mushroom Pot, Singapore Indoor Stadium
Now, if you know me well, you will know I'm a 100% mushroom lover. So when XT told me about this Mushroom steamboat buffet I got really excited. The buffet deal to me, is pretty good. It's about S$27 per person if I'm not mistaken (many thanks to Kelvin, who paid for me, that's why I can't remember how much it is) for the steamboat where we can choose 5 side dishes and order whatever you want and however much you want from the menu for your steamboat.
Looks like XT and Kelvin are our Papa and Mama, isn't it?
Okay, don't get me wrong... That doesn't mean all stuff you have there are just mushrooms! It's just that their specialty is the mushrooms boiled soup base! I wouldn't say the soup is super yummy, but it was refreshing! Very sweet and a little pepperish, tasted very healthy and soothing that makes you easily addicted to it. It is definitely better than those random soup base you get from those random steamboat outside! :)The mushroom soup and the spicy soup steamboat we had.
I also love some of their side dishes in which some of them are made of mushrooms as well! Very interesting scallop dish.
Ohh... I love the Calamari and the Wasabi dip! Nicey~!
The Deep Fried Mushroom salad that doesn't taste like mushroom at all!
Some mushroom spring rolls kinda stuff was good too, just a little oily.
Because I didn't take beef, pork or lamb and I dislike those fish balls, pork balls or whatever balls, with the soothing mushroom soup, I actually felt really healthy without much guilt after having the mushroom steamboat buffet! :)

And last but not least...I envy Singaporeans for having low fat chocolate milk and papaya milk in their 7-11! Aaarrrhhh... Malaysian 7-11 are SO BORING!!!
And their Burger King has loads of coffee choices like Mocha, Latte and stuff. And they even have Espresso flavoured Sundae! SO UNFAIR!!!

Well, overall, the 'work' part of the trip was half fun and half not up to expectation. But the 'catching-up with friends' and 'food' part was awesome! I especially appreciate the long and detailed chat at the airport with KK and YY! I can't even remember when was the last time we had such cool chat where we share loads of secrets of our lives like that! If only I'm also working in Singapore, I'm sure I'll be happier hanging out with them sharing stories more often! I mean, with them all in Singapore, I don't really have close friends left in KL, how sad?! :(

Ah well, life must go on. Let's pray that I can handle all my work coming up next week!

Cute Lunch @ Ma Maison, The Central, Singapore

Despite its smaller size, Singapore is actually a small island with loads of nice food. And according to my observation, it's very Japanese. Try walking into a shopping mall, you will find whole stretch of Japanese restaurants, be it fine-dining or fast food! Even my first meal as I arrived in Singapore was a Japanese meal in a hotel!
Needless to say, I also went on to Orchard Road to search for one of mu favourites, MOS Burger and ended up noming my Kakiage Rice Burger happily alone at the fast food chain which I've always hope to see opening in Malaysia. OMG I can still remember the smell of my Kakiage Rice Burger!!!
Aaaahhhh~~~ I'm satisfied~!

Before I left Singapore, XT and KK (and YY joined us later) came to have lunch with me. As we were walking aimlessly near Clark Quay and The Central Shopping Centre, I picked Ma Maison to try because 'Japanese Western Food' sounds pretty cool to me!I absolutely love the deco of the tiny restaurant! It's like this old school American-styled deco with flowerish table cloths and pots and pans hanging around! Damn cute lor!Pretty cute and cool deco makes the restaurant so much more attractive!
Great opportunity for us, the posers to camwhore~! Yay~!
They have like a lunch time menu, which is just a one-page thingy with about 10 set lunches for you to choose from. Well that really left us with very limited choices really. We were like huh? Is that all???
In the end, of course each of us chose different sets so that we can taste each others' food...The one-page-only menu.
Here you go...The Meal of the Day with some chicken with some sweet and sour sauce or something with some olio and potato salad.
XT had the Tomato Rice with Omelet with Brown Sauce.
KK's Beef Stronganoff with Omelet over Rice.
And all sets comes with a drink, soup and salad too! It was Clam Chowder with bits of Bacon in it! Yumzzz~~~
A very colourful bowl of fresh salad.
And bread for us to share too!
We topped our lunch up with a Chocolate Brownie with Ice-cream!
I think the food were reasonably good. My don't-know-what chicken with Spaghetti was the best of all three I guess. I especially love the gravy of the chicken and the potato salad was yummey~! I didn't try KK's Beef Stroganoff but XT's Tomato Rice with Omelet was to me, pretty nice too! Hmmm... But isn't it very easy to make it at home? But I wish I could make omelet as nice as theirs! KK was right about their chocolate brownie, it was just too soft a brownie.
And I realized Japanese Western Food is actually quite a good idea! Perhaps I can try some cooking similar to this at home! Ah... Remember my Japanese Curry Chicken with Spaghetti??? :)
With the cool deco, a river view, cute and quality food at reasonable price (I mean, my set was just $12.90 ler), plus getting served by a real tiny typical Japanese-looking Manager, Ma Maison is under the 'worth another visit' category of mine.

P/S: Work is still EXTREMELY CRAZY. Let's hope that I really get to have a short break after all these havoc! :S