'Me in need of therapy'

Now I wouldn’t say that I been a good little boy and listened to what the doc said I should or shouldn’t be eating but here’s a shot of a ‘good’ dinner. Something from Soup Spoon on the way home from work. Tokyo Chicken soup and Waldorf salad (hey Ice, I didn’t get the Grinder’s coffee). The soup was light and tasty. Good enough for me to clean up the whole Styrofoam bowl. Got some pretty big chicken chunks in there too. I like using old porcelain spoon when drinking all kinds 0f soup, from Chinese herbal to Campbell soups. Anyone still uses them at home?






Awwww man, this time last year I was on my way to Osaka! * shakes fist at Yen exchange rate * yah, I’m still sore that I can’t make it to Japan this year. Humor me folks, while I look and post some of last year’s more interesting Osaka pix. This entry's title refers to one of the pix. Heh.

'I bought furniture at an anime toy fair!?!'

Bad news folks, with my bad throat and cough I doubt if I'll be eating anything worth mentioning for the next week or so. The doc said no fried stuff, no oily stuff, no chicken, no cold stuff, no coffee (I broke that one after only four days!) no oranges, etc etc. Really, I'm waaaay open to suggestions as to what's left for me. I told myself this would be a good excuse to double up on sushi but so far no chance yet. <^;^>

Managed to make it to the Anime Festival last Sunday and I got me this! Don’t ask. An impulse buy that I don’t regret (yet). You can actually fold it into a neat, flat package. I guess you can use it as a laundry bag or something. I BOUGHT FURNITURE AT AN ANIME TOY FAIR!?! :P What's up with that?!?

Hah, I got lots of other stuff too like my usual figures and MORE figures. Told myself since I won’t be going to Japan (damn you Yen rates!) this year, I might as well blow my budget on figures here at home.

Wanted to go on the first day Saturday but woke up with the WORST headache ever (headache, not hangover!). I couldn’t even make to a wedding lunch that day, slept it off till late afternoon. So I went early Sunday morning instead. Found much later from talking to one of the stallholders, lots of good, cheap bargain stuff went on the first day. Still, I’m pretty happy with my cheap buys.

'I call it the jelly-pork-and-shark-meat dish'

Finally! Got my hands on a memory card reader for the little phone memory card, now I can post pix that I snap when I'm carrying my camera with me. My phone's a pretty basic Sony model with a simple 2 megapixel camera hence the slightly fuzzy shots.

Saw this on sale at the supermarket. Collegen Water? Are these for real and are they for women? Maybe Dilutedmagnetics can answer this...

This kinda reminds me of the time I was in Japan and I bought this plastic bottle of cold unsweeted green tea from a convenience store. I bought it cos I was thristy (why else?) and the bottle had a 'studded' kinda shape, plus it looked different and interesting. It was only much later that I was told that it's a lady's slimming tea drink.

Here's another 2 megapixel shot of one of my favourite local dish and I don't even know its 'real' name! I used to have it when I was a kid. Nowadays I just call it the jelly-pork-and-shark-meat dish. ...Er...yah, that's basically what it is, I think. You are looking at S$5 worth of it from Jalan Besar Food Centre.

'Started with an alien babe named Lum'

Found something at China Square last week that was really cool, brought back some memories of my first coupla English manga. Little Gashapon figurines of characters by Japanese female cartoonist Rumiko Takahashi.

Back then, English manga reprints were the same size and shape as the American comics. These days, the English manga reprints are more like the smaller novel size as the original Japanese copies.

Anyway, Rumiko Takahashi’s comics are usually the romantic comedy variety, with a fair bit of action thrown in. Started with an alien babe named Lum, a comedy bout an alien princess and her horny earthling boyfriend, remember laughing out loud to it. Hey, I was young then, lotsa stuff made me laugh back then! Followed with Ranma ½, another romantic comedy.

The last manga that I read, that I really liked was of cos, Yotsuba!.  

BTW, posted this entry on Danny Choo and looks like its got quite a lot of responses! 

'Cavalock finally meets Danny Choo'

Had a pleasant Wednesday filled with some cool stuff. Took the day off from work to attend Danny Choo’s Internet workshop. Yup, Cavalock finally meets Danny Choo. He was one of the speakers at Promex BDA Asia. I tried to get my agency to send me to the 2-day conference but I think the almost one grand price tag kinda killed the deal. Hah!

Anyway, I left the apartment early, took a bus and train to Bishan Library, was lucky enough to find a coupla new comic books there. Hopped back on the train to Orchard for the workshop and also a very fast lunch at one of my favourite Japanese joints there, Shimbashi Soba at Paragon. Cold soba with duck slices and an egg for bout S$20.80. You gotta mix it all up real good to enjoy it!

Some pix of the workshop. Look for some sporadic changes when I find the time to try out some of the stuff he talked about.

Danny the presenter.

Danny meets the fans.

Danny belts out a tune.

Danny with an itch.


Yah, I know. They ain't the best shots around. But you can find and read more bout the workshop at some of these cool sites. I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting some of the other bloggers too.

Gordonator

Tachi

Tedfox

Ashke

Sesshomaru

'Shabu-rized pork loin slices for me'

Been kinda slow with any updates this week, partly cos I been recovering from a bad throat which means boring food for me while at work. Well, more boring than usual.

Luckily weekend food was different. Found out that Tonkichi at Suntec was having a 20% off pretty much everything from the menu till end of November I think. Now how could I say 'no' to that?

None of their deep-fried specialities for me. Had the shabu-rized pork loin slices for me, meaning there was no hot pot for you to boil them, it's already boiled when they serve it to you.


Was great specially with the seasame sauce that comes with it. Only problem was it was a little too little for me. Not a very big serving if you ask me.


Anyway, it was real busy week. Was back at the office almost the whole day on Saturday (BTW, I actually typed 'Satyrday' a second ago! hmmmmm....and I wasn't even horny). Needed some retail therapy. Ended up spending about S$50 on a whole bunch of Gashapon and other anime stuff!

This one's pretty neat. You put the figures and display cases together yourself and you can stack them up or place them next to each other. Whole set for only S$29.




Here's a nice gift I got from Duty Free (No, I didn't leave the country). New coffee flavour! Looks like Yotsuba! doesn't approve of my daily morning intakes.

'Only two straight men at the musical'

Well, I got to watch the eagerly-awaited Avenue Q with my friend Matt and I swear to Gawd we were like, the only two straight men at the musical. Rather, we were the only two straight guys who weren't with a female date at the theatre. BTW, my friend is married with a kid. I told him, if we were seen staring at any of the hot-looking women here, they'll probably think we were scrutinizing their outfits instead. Hah!

Anyway, it was a great musical and it really reminded me of the time when I was laughing to myself while listening to the soundtrack in the office.

Now whenever Matt and I got together crazy hijinks are ensured!  Ok, mebbe that link doesn't show how crazy things can be but once we were at the IT and this happened. 

So he picked me up at my place in the afternoon before we headed to Lau Pa Sat for lunch. You know, after so many times eating there, I can never find anything good at that place. But we did see some people filming something there. They appeared to be all ang-mohs.

After that we went for a drive, got lost and ended up at some really weird places...

Ok, we were really at the Singapore Biennale. Pretty surreal huh?

But we did get lost, missed an exit trying to get to Leisure Park and couldn't find a U-turn till we reached Katong! Hah, we did an illegal U-turn at the end! Later we got to the Esplanade at bout 7pm, just enough time to grab dinner before the show. First time at that hawker gourmet row of stalls, I forgot the official name. I avoided any fried stuff but almost everything there was fried. Finally settled on a mini-steamboat for S$10. No big deal, fortunately I wasn't that fussy, just wanted something quick and simple before the show.  

'My Christmas shopping early'

Decided to do my bit to pick up the economy by doing my Christmas shopping early last nite.

Got it at Tangs for S$699 and it's not for me. It was on offer and I was afraid if I don't get it now, the price would go back up again. Wanted to ask them to gift wrap it but figured naaahhh. 

Now believe me, it ain't no joke lugging it on a Friday nite all by myself through the train station! Damn, I feel old, haven't been to Orchard Road on a Friday nite for ages, it's so crowded! And no, I won't be adding this to my budget listings, something like this would blow half my entire budget for the month. 

So it's a Saturday morning now and I'm home alone watching a Frasier rerun on cable as I'm typing this. Will be catching Ave Q tonite. See wat pix I have later. 

Oh yah, managed to finally catch the first episode of award-winning TV series Mad Men earlier this week. Hmmm...what can I say, it may not be the 1960s when I joined the industry here, but yah, I have seen and committed my fair share of 'stuff', especially my Four Rules to Life. 

Also caught the 11-episode Anime series on Animax cable, Ayakashi - Samurai Horror Tales, which is a collection of three classic Japanese horror/supernatural stories.  

'What would Oprah do?'

Well, after 3 great sandwich meals, knew there had to be a bad one round the corner somewhere. That dubious honour goes to O’brien’s Irish Sandwich Bar. Gawd, the chicken and bacon triple-decker sandwich was just plain bad, very little meat and tasteless. And it was like over S$9, almost S$10 for that kinda monkey crap! That’s like, almost twice the price for a good sandwich at you-know-where! My colleague said the reason why it was so expensive was cos they had to pay the ang-moh who was serving behind the counter. Hah!

Was also at Ikea on Saturday. Is it just me or does the café coffee taste bad too? I know they used to serve Suzuki Coffee (or was it UCC?) cos I remember seeing them fill up the coffee machine with a Japanese brand a couple years ago. Think its some nameless brand now? 

Did some NTUC supermarketing too. Wanted to boil some edamame again but saw their frozen packs were from China and I figured maybe not just yet! The edamame at Cold Storage is pretty expensive, over S$6 for a 400g frozen pack but it’s from Japan. What would Oprah do?

Recruited some new models at S$25 for 4, for the latest Ladies' Drinks photo shoot. Here's one of them.

'I knew I had to stop'

Here’s something strange. I haven’t stepped into Plaza Singapura mall for like, months and months but since last week I been there three times. And all three times, I been eating at BrukFAUST (hah!) shop at the basement. The Grinders Coffee flat white is a must-have! Here’s the bacon and eggs sandwich with BBQ sauce I had for lunch. Will probably try one of their hotdogs next time.

Anyway, checking my budget application in my iTouch and it looks like I waaaay overshot my book/publication budget for the month. Should have known S$30 for a month was just wishful thinking. I blew almost S$60 already and it sure didn’t help with the Kinokuniya sale last weekend. But I still think it’s good to have the budget application cos I know that if I didn’t, I would have blew almost a hundred bucks on a whole bunch of other books, mags and comics that day. I looked at my iTouch and I knew I had to stop.

What else did I overspend? Under the Misc. column, I OD on that too. Same with action figures category. BUT I'm still within the overall month's budget! That's cos I have yet to overspend on my wardrobe, household groceries and gadgets!

'Sky high, crazy Yen'

*Whew* what a week. Working my @$$ off in the office. So far the recession is biting me via no freelancers to help out so I'll super busy and the sky high, crazy Yen exchange rate means no Tokyo vacation for me this year.

Yup, looks like this is one year that I won't be visiting Japan. Anyway, here's something that cheered me up on Saturday morning. A big breakfast at the Brukwurst Shop at the basement of Plaza Singapura.

A very, very nice flat white.

My breakfast, part of it. Hehe!

Here's the other part. Ok, I didn't have three pancakes, only two! And I'm still skinny!

'The last time the French saved me'

Let's see now, the last time the French saved me was a few years ago during a footbal bet. Last nite, they did it again only during dinner, not over a bet.

Dinner was at Absolute Haven along Prinsep Street, I must admit I haven't actually been to that row of eateries before. Have passed it many times but never really found an excuse to dine there. So anyway, our group of like 10 I think, had dinner there and well .... we all agreed the food was alright but not that good to make us wanna go back there again. The medium ribeye I was tasted rather bland, a friend who had the same said the ribeye at Jack's Place was better. The asparagus wrapped in cheese starter was quite crunchy and good.

The pix are a little dark cos I didn't wanna use the flash.

So anyway, after that we headed to another new place (at least to me) Crepere des Arts for drinks and dessert, also along Prinsep Street. Guess what's their speciality?

The French expat in our group brought us there. We had lots of crepes and we opened a couple of big bottles of apple cider brut. And gawd, what a great way to end an otherwise-average dinner. I have always luv cider since I was a kid. I had 2 cups of it last nite. That was good.

The crepe I had (shared) was a simple one, no toppings or ice-cream for me. Light but perfect. I may be wrong in what went into it but it had lemon squeezed over it and a little sugar over it. I would definitely come back. And they served WARM cream with their coffee! Believe it or not, not many places do that, it's always cold milk from the fridge. Hate that.






But the highlight of the day was this little purchase. An impulse buy when I was watching Tropic Thunder (great show!!!) at Cathay eariler in the afternoon. Something I would recommend to any food blogger, not that I call myself one. It's a little fun thing I thought, a little pricy S$30. An ex-colleague had shown me her copy a year ago and said she got it from a shop in Cathay. So I figured since this is like, my second ever time in Cathay (really!), I'll go look for it. Saw it before the show and only made my mind to get it halfway during the show in the theatre! <^;^>




...

'Treat myself to the good stuff'

Am liking the budget application in my iTouch. Good cos it serves to remind me if I’m gonna be overspending on something. My ‘eating out’ budget for the month is S$500, and that includes mostly lunch, dinner and weekends where I’ll treat myself to the ‘good stuff’. Doesn’t include groceries or homemade meals. Well, it’s the middle of the month and I have spent less than half, $240.51 to be exact! Like I mentioned in my eariler post, the biggest bill so far is still the S$52.96 lunch for 2 on the first of October, a public holiday.

I gave myself S$100 on transsport and so far I have spent S$59.70 already, but that's cos S$50 was spent on topping up my train and bus card. Oh yah, the name of the software is Spend at the Apple Apps Store for only 99 US cents, but you can get a limited free version Spend Lite for free.


Bought into StarHub's video-on-demand for the first time, just to catch the first episode of CSI's new season on Monday nite. That's like 3 or 4 days after it was first shown in the US! Ties up last season's cliffhanger nicely. Might do the same for CSI: New York and Miami once I finished watching all of last season's episodes.

'What recession?!?'

Well, it's a Saturday nite and I'm home blogging (don't worry, I am recording Best of Saturday Night Live on cable right now). Its been a crazy work week; up till waaaaaaaay past midnite from Monday till Wednesday. That's why the office went a little party crazy on Thursday and Friday nite. So its like home only in the early morning for the whole week, either cos of work or out drinking, and this Saturday nite, tonite I'm gonna turn in early by which I mean before midnite. <^;^>

But I was out in town in the morning till afternoon and all I can say is 'What recession?!?', the malls are packed, long Qs at the cash registers, everyone's still buying lotsa stuff. Oh, yes I do read the papers ... am just saying if you look at the crowd at Orchard Road today, you wouldn't know there's a global credit crisis.

And what did I buy today? Besides another book at Kinokuniya, I also got myself the new Black Sesame cake from Patissier. Was ok, the black sesame taste was a little too overpowering for me, unless you are a big black sesame fan. The layer of red bean near the bottom of the cake was cool and kinda helped ease the black sesame taste.

'The good stuff on weekends'

So I got this new iTouch application that does my budget for me. Used to have something similar in my old Palm. So I’m thinking like S$500 a month for eating out…wonder if that’s enough. Doesn’t include groceries of cos but it does include stuff like snacks and drinks. Keeping my weekday lunch to bout S$6 average, not over S$10 a day. That’s just lunch. And if I have the good stuff on weekends, I hope S$500 is gonna be enough. For instance, last Wednesday was public holiday and I blew $52.96 for lunch for 2. What else I got? I set like S$100 for transport and …er... S$100 for entertainment/gadgets. The good thing is the software lets you snowball the money that you don’t spend so if I don’t buy any gadgets for 2 months, I’ll have S$300 in my third month to blow on some new stuff.

Still on food, here are some pix of a little something I prepared for dinner. Real simple stuff. Some baked mushroom, Japanese style. Got the recipe off a magazine.

Like I said, pretty easy. Just place your favourite mushrooms on a buttered piece of foil. Add Sake, I added 4 teaspoons and my own little special ingredient, Chicken Salt!


Bake at 220C between 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how much mushrooms you got in there.

All done! I liked it and so does Yotsuba!

'TV has been pretty good'

My last post on breakfast got me really thinking bout more breakfast stuff.

Been heading to Freshly Baked at Killiney Road recently on Saturday mornings while visiting my aunt who lives down the road. Heh, my elderly aunt and mom are big McCain supporters, I dunno why I’m saying this but I just find it highly amusing that two little old ladies halfway across the world are so into the US elections.

Anyway, I’ll usually get the cranberry buns and the banana loaf at Freshly Baked. But they were out of banana loaf when I was there this week so I tried something new, the coffee buns.

Didn’t really like the coffee buns, a little too bland and dry for my taste, don’t think I’ll be getting that again. The cranberry buns are light and soft, just the way I like my bums. Both packs of 4 are S$3 each. I believe the single banana loaf was like S$6 for one. They have a breakfast menu for $9.90 (I think) that I’m very tempted to try the next time I’m there.

Yes, I had 2 of each for my breakfast this morning, plus a cup of instant coffee.

Oh yah, TV has been pretty good to me lately. Been catching up on my CSI: Miami and Reaper. Also really looking forward to the Best of Saturday Night Live coming on 11 October nite.