Singapore Holiday Photos

August 2011

Last year I visited Singapore for a few days during my short holiday and I stayed around Sentosa area for a change. Sentosa had undergone massive transformations for the past several years and looking pretty awesome now. They have Universal Studios, Casino, beaches (Siloso and Palawan), natures, Museum, Underwater world, shopping area etc. It was a good decision to stay there, quite relaxing and very different from the hustle bustle Orchard Road. Too many places to visit within Sentosa, too little time, what to do?

Singapore Merlion - Lion city

F O O D

• HERSHEY's chocolate @ Resorts World Sentosa (RWS)

Chocolate lovers rejoice, Hershey's is your heaven indeed. They sell other stuff too apart from chocolates, e.g. soft toys, tees, stationary, etc.

• Garrett Popcorn @ RWS

Savoury or sweet popcorns? Take your pick.

• Food Republic foodcourt @ Vivo City

 From Sentosa, take the train (MRT) to Harbourfront station - linked to Vivo City. Head to the foodcourt level and go crazy ... from Roti Prata, Bakuteh (pork ribs soup), Popiah (Singapore spring roll) to dimsum.

• Toastbox @ RWS

 Singapore style coffee shop, famous for their Kaya Toast (toast with coconut jam)

• Breadtalk @ RWS

One of my fave breadshop  in Singapore, I love their 'Bakwa Delights' (bread with dried pork fillings) and Taro-cotta (taro bread).

Toastbox @ Resorts World Sentosa

Toastbox Kaya Toast - a must have if your visit Singapore, thick toast with melty  butter and coconut jam, great for breakfast/ afternoon tea

Toastbox Mie Rebus - noodle with thick tamarind/ limey gravy & boiled egg

Breadtalk @ Resorts World Sentosa - Casino themed bread

Food Republic foodcourt @ Vivo City - Oyster omelette, love it !!

Food Republic foodcourt @ Vivo City - Rojak, fruits with sweet brown sauce and sprinkled with peanuts (pineapple, fried tofu, cucumber, and jicama/ bengkoang.

Food Republic foodcourt @ Vivo City - noodle soup with egg and ikan bilis (salty fish), was okay..not keen on having ikan bilis on my noodle soup, broth was really good

Food Republic foodcourt @ Vivo City - Popiah, ie. Singapore style spring roll (boiled egg, jicama, peanuts, lettuce, chilli sauce, shrimp/ prawns). I wish we have popiah in Sydney...

Hershey's choc shop @ Resorts World Sentosa

Candylicious - candy heaven

M&M's - arrghh so cute, I want them all

Taro-Cotta from Breadtalk,  sweet bread with taro paste filling yummyumm I can eat this everyday

Bak Kwa Delight from Breadtalk - smoky porkie filling bread ... anything with pork never go wrong

S H O P P I N G

• Resorts World Sentosa (RWS)

Mainly branded items, hhmmm my pocket is not yet in sync with shopping @ RWS

• Vivo City

The closet shopping mall to RWS, has good mix of medium range brands, e.g. Zara, Uniqlo, Topshop. Need to take the train (MRT) from Sentosa to Harbourfront station.

PLACES to VISIT

• Universal Studios

I heart theme parks no matter where so it is a must visit for me =) 

Bought so many junks there, e.g. mouse pad, tees, key chain, pen, magnet, etc. *** tourist style shopping ***. The heat was unbearable on the day we went to Universal Studios. I was like a walking sweatbox, didnt play much though, too exhausted dealing with the heat and humidity,

• Siloso Beach

Siloso beach is kinda cute too, a bit man made if I compare it with Bondi beach or Balmoral Beach in Sydney, but it's still pretty. Siloso offers lots of outdoor activities (cycling, segway, eco walk trail, Aquarium, etc) and of course worth visiting when you can ride the Siloso free bus.

Universal Studios @ Sentosa - Shrek Castle

Cycling around Siloso Beach Sentosa? Best to do it super early in the morning or after 7pm, the heat is insane

Sentosa - Siloso

Sentosa cable car

Singapore Flyer

ACCOMODATION

• Hard Rock hotel

Funky hotel with lots of entertainment throughout the night (e.g. live band etc), big gym and massive room. Excellent + friendly service, you will not get dissapointed.

Hard Rock gigantic pool to melt Singapore's heat

Hard Rock Hotel signature guitar for toiletries

Check this out ... 'Girl's Thing' ... ladies, how special do we feel? I wonder if they have 'Boy's Thing' version too ??

PAUL's Famous Hamburgers

Many of us probably forgotten simplicity of the old school hamburger as these days we are quite spoilt with choices of glorified burgers, i.e. Wagyu burger, Built your own burger, Japanese style burger (using rice as the bun), Foie Grass Burger, etc - and we perhaps forgot basic burger or where to get them in Sydney.

I do know where we can get them *** wink wink ***
We can still get old school burger in Sylvania, 40 mins from CBD, down South. Yeah I know it's a bit of an effort to get there, petrol probably costs as much as the burger but it is worth it.

Paul's Hamburgers - a well established  family run burger joint, has been an icon for the shire since the 1950s. There's nothing fancy about the shop, retro-ish feel, pure & simple and popular amongst the locals (and non local like me). The burger went well with their home made pineapple crush, which can be bought in a 1/2 litre or 1 litre jug. Happy trying.

Paul's Famous Hamburgers

12 Princess Highway
Sylvania
New South Wales 2444
Phone. 9522-5632
*** Mon & Tues CLOSED ***

The famous Paul ...

Fresh crunchy hot chips with chicken salt

Home made pineapple crush

Hamburger with Bacon, Egg and BBQ sauce, nothing fancy...just how the original burger should be

Lean meat patties with juicy bacon, quality burger for under $10

Freebies

Dear my generous and lovely friends,

Thank you for buying food related stuff for me wherever you go, and thank you for thinking of me. I feel loved and spoilt now ...... XOXO

ITO EN Vegie Juice from JT - Quite random but kinda funny 'Here you go I bought you a bottle of Vegie juice'. I was stunned for 1-2 mins 'HAH - Oh okay?' .... When do I say NO to freebies? Never. Thanks for buying the juice + delivering to my house too. Good job JT.

ITO EN Vegie Juice - I feel healthy the moment I read the ingredients, 20 different vegies + 3 fruits

Bachmann Pistachio Milk Chocolate from SZ all the way from Lucerne, Switzerland.

Pistachio pieces scattered all over the chocolate block. Nice, smooth and not so sweet. Top stuff. This choc block is really dangerous, once you pop you cant stop

Cookbook from DL - Thanks for the gift, I love the book so much. I have been hunting for Basic Italian cookbook for a while and this book is awesome, simple ingredients, simple methods yet yummo, suitable for beginners like me. So far I have executed 2 recipes. More trials to go.

Hello Kitty mug from H flown from Japan, Pineapple tarts from JD from Malaysia (she bought it from IKEA Kuala Lumpur during Chinese New Year, nice and buttery)

Chinese New Year 2012 - Day 7

Sunday, 29/01/2012

Summer has landed (late) in Sydney, it was 30 degrees on the day, super humid and sunny. I just have to proudly announced the arrival of summer as we have been having crap weather during summer. Anyway ... enough weather update from moi ...
My program for the day, exposing my friend who has been hiding in his cave all this long to more eating places around Sydney. He has never been to Mamak OMG, what a crime...can you believe it?

LUNCH @ MAMAK Chatswood (1-5 Railway st, Chatswood, Sydney)

Was a mini CNY casual lunch, didnt order much on the day, errr my usual capacity is usually doubled hahaha. I was hungry but my appetite somehow was toned down due to the weather and my friend is on diet program too.

Roti Canai - fresh and fluffy, I cant choose between the dahl/ curry sauce, I love both. The dahl sauce is thicker and more grainy, whilst the curry sauce is more runny and smooth.

A dozen satay - 1/2 chicken, 1/2 beef. We vote for chicken.

Mee Goreng - with fish cake, prawns, tofu puff and other goodies.

DESSERT @ YummyBerry (190 Military Road, Neutral Bay, Sydney)

I was in sugar deficiency mode after lunch, my fro-yo craving kicked on, lucky my friend was super nice to take me to YummyBerry. I feel bad for ruining his diet, coz he had frozen yoghurt too at the end...well look at the bright side, he bought the $5 cup instead of the $10 tub. I was a bit disappointed, they had no green tea flavour again. I had mango & raspberry yoghurt, equally good but I really really miss their green tea yoghurt.  I might have to come back this weekend to checkout if green tea is back.

- LEFT: Raspberry & Mango yoghurt with Oreo and almond - RIGHT: Original & Mango yoghurt with Oreo, TimTam biscuits and passionfruit -

Chinese New Year 2012 - Day 5

Friday, 27/01/2012

Sniff..sniff..can you smell Friday? 

Hell yeahhh, it's my day off too today, how awesome! I went to my friend's house to help her make red velvet cake with cream cheese icing + crumble topping for Chinese New Year. It's kinda nice to make something red for CNY, red is always the theme during CNY. Initial plan was to help my friend...but I think I created more trouble than lending a helping hand hahaha.We had to make 2 batches coz some mini drama caused by who else but moi. We baked the cake till midnight and I have never feel so exhausted from baking cake. Here's the story:

1st batch - I had some intervention in mixing the mixture and apparently I put too much force in mixing it. For once, I sound so fit, strong and sporty 'too much force' wowww. Epic fail. The cake had to be thrown out coz it was as hard as brick. If I slap someone with this cake, I might be charged with manslaughter.

2nd batch - successful with no intervention from moi lol. 

So...who made the cake? My friend did. 

What did I do? Weighing sugar/ flour/ other stuff, watch her made the cake, washing up, clean up and taste taster (I do well in this department).

1st cake - super hard, can you see the darker part in the middle? It was solid hard. We baked brick cake.

2nd batch - Succesful, nice and glossy sponge cake base...Recipe of success? No intervention from moi.

Cooling the cake

Layering - with cream cheese icing

More Layering....I can smell 'FATT' from a distance

Red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and crumble topping

Nice layering job ... good stuff !! Thanks for making the red velvet cake for moi. I promise I will stay as taste taster ... =)

Chinese New Year 2012 - Day 3

Wednesday, 25/01/2012

DINNER @ Kopitiam (594 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney NSW 2000).

Called me crazy for coming to Kopitiam again, I was here 2 days ago with my collegues. Not sure why I picked Kopitiam again?? Location wise, it is the best for everyone (7 of us), quite central for everyone to get around, especially for me, only 15 mins walk from my office. Kopitiam does great Chinese New Year menu & normal menu, more than enough to entertain everyone's preference, kinda within reasonable $$ too (if you compare to typical Chinese restaurant that charge $ 100+++ / person for their special CNY menu). Yes one of the Kopitiam lady knows me by name now since I booked table for Day 1 and Day 3 ... =)

Yee Sang is a must starter and whilst tossing the Yee Sang up high in the sky with your chopstix, you need to wish everyone good luck, good health, great career and happiness to welcome the Chinese New Year

Chicken Satay - one of the best satay in Sydney for me - tender, tasty and not overgrilled (some other places often over grilled their satay till they have cardboard texture sighhh, wasting the chicken). Peanut sauce is tops.

Roti with curry sauce - roti is kinda ordinary, curry sauce is great

Kangkung belacan (water spinach with shrimp paste) - spicy, crunchy and well cooked

Salt and pepper chicken - seems to be everyone's fave on the day. Malaysian version of KFC.

Kam Heong Prawns - spicy, crunchy, sweet and salty .. all in one. I ordered this dish last year too...no change in taste, just like last year's. I am not sure if you suppose to de-shell the prawns. I was too lazy, I ate the whole thing, the shell was soft yet crunchy.

Malaysian Mee Goreng - it is yummy and authentic but less oil please... =)