Let's Sweet buffet restaurant

This restaurant at Plaza Singapura is part of the Ajisen Ramen group. The name is a bit odd - like very broken English or some weird direct translation or something.
We went there for lunch because I thought that we could have a long relaxing lunch so we could sit and catch up with our friends. But we only realised as we got there that you're only given 1 hour to eat!! Ok so it's written on the board but still...felt disappointed. Price wise it's quite cheap at around $15++.

Foodwise it is not bad for the price. Although the name is Let's Sweet they also have hot food to fill you up. There's a couple of thin crust pizzas, steamed siu mai, steamed hargao (crystal skin prawn dumplings), stewed pork with potatoes, pork and cabbage rolls, mac and cheese, 2-3 different pastas, paiella, Japanese chicken rice, Japanese curry with steamed rice, mixed greens salad, cold japanese spaghetti salad, free flow drinks, chocolate fountain, crepes to order with ice cream, various cakes, various jellies, pana cotta and trifle.

Would I go back again? Not sure...I like the food but not the time limit.


Forgot to take photos till dessert time.

Uncle Leong Seafood at Ang Mo Kio

Crab Beehoon Soup

Baby Kailan

Cereal Prawns

Coffee Pork Ribs

Crusty Cheese, Olive and Herb Pull Apart Bread

This was soooo delicious that I had to post it up straight away to share. The recipe is from: http://www.food.com/recipe/crusty-cheese-and-herb-pull-apart-bread-113729 and it is super simple to do. I added chopped olives and garlic granules to the dough to mine and mixed in a bit of mozzarella cheese to the cheddar cheese and swapped the fresh herbs with dried oregano and thyme and added some freshly cracked pepper to the cheese mixture. I also sprinkled some poppy seeds on top too.  I'll definitely be making this again!

Before baking.

After Baking!

Look at the oozing cheese!

And this is why they call it pull apart. Cos you literally just pull apart the bread! Soooo good!

Caelyn's first dental experience

Today Caelyn had her first dentist appointment and I must say she did very well and I was so proud of her.

I think one of the hardest thing about being first time parents is figuring out when your child is ready for certain experiences. A lot of ppl (including my in laws) were telling me that caelyn is too little and she'll get scared going to the dentist. Going on my own personal traumatic childhood experience with the dentist I bought into all the reasonings and so kept on waiting despite the fact that the chip in her front tooth looked like it was wearing down. Ppl kept on saying don't worry if it's not hurting her, her tooth will fall out anyway since it's just baby tooth. But one day she came home from school and said she wanted to see a dentist! I had talked to her abt it before and I guess the teacher must've told them about it too.

I agonised over whether to bring her to a normal clinic, children's dentist specialist or somewhere in between. I initially booked an appointment at this dentist in compass point because Daddy had been there before and said the dentist was nice and friendly and their price was reasonable. But I've always felt uneasy there purely judging from it's drab exterior. Waiting room was uncomfortable and there are no toys for children to play with. This part might not be important for some ppl but for Caelyn she's usually very happy to go to the GP because of the toys there. Then I also noticed that the 1 Receptionist also doubled up as the dental assistant. I think this is probably common practice in Singapore right - cut costs etc. I prefer my own dentist at Kovan. Sure they charge more but I feel like I'm paying for better quality service and peace of mind. They use a huge DSLR camera to take photos of your teeth which they immediately upload onto the iMac computer. If u need x-rays done they also have staff and a separate room on site that does that. They also have oral hygienist that can handle children, albeit at a limited capacity.

So today's session we managed to get her teeth cleaned as well as patch the chipped tooth. So now she has a beautiful smile. She wasn't without hesitation thought. She got scared and intimidated and looked like she wanted to cry a couple of times, but I held her hand and she was fine.....a little whinging at times, but the oral hygienist was good at putting her at ease. She had a cavatiy in one of her back tooth and the oral hygienist wasn't confident enough to patch it up for her because she was still so little. So she referred us to a Paediatric Dentist.

After we got home, I called around looking  for a Paediatric Dentist. Their consultation alone is upwards of $80....and over $100 for a filling so I knew it wasn't gonna be cheap. But after looking around, I finally found a Dentist which has a dentist who is very experienced in dealing with children, they even have children friendly rooms, and a new technology that doesn't require painful drilling. Best of all consultation is about $35. So yay, will blog about that experience after Thursday.

So for today's one, the breakdown of the bill was, $20 for consultation, $40 for cleaning and polishing, and $80 for the filling (pretty hefty) and I also picked u this cool toothbrush for her.

So if you're considering taking your little one to the dentist for the first time, I think you know the best whether or not he or she is ready and prepping them at home will also help. But I really don't think you should wait till Primary school for the free dental clinic.

She only wore these initially, after that she didn't want to wear it.

GREAT TOOTHBRUSH, BRUSHES ON ALL SIDES

BEFORE

AFTER

Candylicious at Resorts World Sentosa

This gorgeous new candy store just opened up at Resorts World Sentosa a couple of weeks ago. If you're there,  go in and take a look. It's great - but expensive - I guess because the candies are mainly from the US. It is a little strange that this store also sells Hersheys stuff when the Hersheys store is just opposite them. I love the oudoor deco....it's so pretty and SWEET!

These Lollipops are just the cutest!! I wonder how they made it...

these are monogrammed marshmallows and you can create a message on a stick. BUT it's really expensive. I think it was like $6 for one heart shape....so just to make LOVE it's like $24...that's just for marshmallows people!!

Caelyn's drawing of ME!

I'm very proud of her drawing of me. Despite my big teeth :p

The hottest (spiciest) dish at Thai Express

Yellow Ginger Chicken with Rice

I've never shied away from ordering anything spicy. I love chillies. So when I saw this dish at Thai Express I didn't really think twice eventhough there was a 3 chilli rating next to the name on the menu. I did think twice when the waiter asked me if I was really sure that this was the dish I wanted because it is super hot. I looked at him pretty skeptically thinking seriously it can't be 'that' hot. But just to be safe I also went ahead and ordered a Watermelon and Lime freeze to douse any fires in my mouth.

And glad I did because I sure needed it! The dish looked deceptively mild when it arrived but the first bite of chicken immediately put my mouth on fire. And as I progressively ate it I started to have tears in my eyes and I can tell you now that I NEVER have tears in my eyes when I eat hot and spicy foods. I started to wonder whether my face was going red too from the heat.

Apart from the heat, the dish really had no other taste. So I was really disappointed. But I was glad that my friend had packets of sugar in her bag for me to sprinkle onto the chicken....didn't help much.

Total waste...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chicken Livers from Barcelos

I quite like chicken livers and I don't see it often on menus (if at all). So when I did see it on Barcelos' menu, I was tempted to try it out.  Barcelos' has a similar concept to Nando's with it's Peri Peri sauces of various heat. If you've never tried Nando's and you don't like sour food, then Barcelo's isn't for you because the Peri Peri sauce is pretty sour.

But I did like their chicken livers, it was marinated and cooked just right. Has inspired me to try cooking livers at home more.

Coach Retail vs. Coach Factory Outlet

Have a read here http://www.brandculture.com/blog/2010/06/when-is-a-coach-bag-not-really-a-coach-bag-when-its-from-the-coach-factory-store/ regarding the difference between Coach Retail and Coach Factory Outlet. It's a big eye opener as I never knew how factory outlets operate these days. Not just Coach, but other brands too. I guess it makes sense to just manufacture stuff specifically for their outlets and sell at a cheaper price. But I don't think this would deter me from shopping at Outlets, especially in Oz and US - WE LOVE OUTLET SHOPPING! I think it's the thrill of finding a good bargain. Have you heard how Asian tourists going to NYC just hop in a cab with empty suitcases and immediately tell the taxi driver to go to Woodbury (Factory Outlets)? Yup....think that will be me next time....hehehehe. Seriously considering going just for the Thanksgiving Sales or Black Friday Sales next year!

Become a Citizen or be forced to lose your PR?!

By now most people in Singapore would've heard about the speech made by a certain Senior Minister. If you haven't, have a read about it here http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100908-0000069/A-good-idea,-or-maybe-not-,,,

In all honesty, in my 7 years of PR I have never once had the inkling of wanting to convert to Citizenship because I don't want to lose my Australian Citizenship. I don't see why I should when there is always the possibility of me living back in oz. Perhaps if I had no intention to ever return I would gladly give it up, but not right now and I don't foresee myself changing that mindset in the near future. Truthfully I can't think of any good reason right now, except for those occasional cash incentives given once in a while which I'm ok to go without. Concessions when you go to the polyclinics and hospitals, but most of the time I go to private clinic for treatment anyway and I'm not really too concerned about voting in elections either.

Is Singapore really freaking out about not having enough citizens to populate the country? How can you possibly force anyone to become a citizen of a country whom they may not even be loyal to?

It almost makes me feel unwelcome now after all these years of trying to fit in. My husband and child are citizens, so will they ask me to become one? Maybe, maybe not since I pretty much don't have anything to contribute to the country....LOL!

How to create your own Ringtone for your iPhone - My Step by Step Tutorial

Making an iPhone ringtone is actually very easy. As long as you have some music on your iTunes, you can create endless numbers of Ringtones. Let's begin shall we? :) Click any of the pictures for a bigger version.

1. So find the song you want to turn into a ringtone. Then right click it and click Get Info. 

2. Then click the options tab. Here you can specify where you want your ringtone to start and end. It is best to keep your ringtone lengths to 30 seconds. It doesn't have to start at 0:00, if you want the chorus part, then just put in the time when that starts and add 30 seconds to it to get the end. Then click OK to close the window.

3. Then right click the chosen song again and this time click Create AAC Version. This will create a duplicate of your song. Notice the length of the song will be just as you specified. Listen to it again just to make sure it's where you want it to be. You can then go back to the original song and click the Get Info again and Options tab to unmark the start and end time to restore it to its original settings.

4. Then click and drag the duplicate onto your Desktop. You can then go ahead and delete the duplicate off your iTunes.

5. Go to the file on your desktop and change the extension to .m4r

6. Then drag the file from your desktop to the Ringtones folder on your computer. It should be something like the above, in the iTunes folder. Double click the file to play it and will play on iTunes and appear under the Ringtones tab on your iTunes - see below pic.

7. Link your iPhone to your computer and find the Ringtones tab on your phone and choose the ones you want to upload.

On your phone you'll find your ringtones under the Settings --> Sound --> Ringtone

Hope this helps! Feel free to repost and share with friends!

Coastal Scents Make-Up Haul

If you regularly trawl YouTube to watch various makeup tutorials by popular gurus, you would've one time or another come across them talking about Coastal Scents 88 Eye Shadow Palette. A lot of them gave very good reviews of the palettes and say how pigmented they are and how they are very value for money and are very comparable to MAC's eyeshadows which also draw rave reviews because of how pigmented they are. Pigmented meaning you don't even need to swipe so much of the stuff on your brush in order to see the colour. But we all know MAC is very expensive. So I decided to go get them myself. They don't sell this in Singapore so I bought it online from the US and used Comgateway to send to me as I had other stuff I was getting elsewhere too. I got 2 palettes, the 88 Ultra Shimmer and 88 Metal Mania - only because they were having an offer when you buy the two (of course!)

My Verdict: I totally love it! Now I think I'll never have to go buy another eyeshadow again, this is gonna last me for yonks. And they were right about the pigmentation, a light swipe of the colours as you can see in the photo below show how bright their colours are. And if you use an eyeshadow base/primer these colours will last you ALL DAY.

Nice matt, clean exterior and it tells you on the front which palette it is. Convenient cos all the other palettes are the same design. Here is the 88 Ultra Shimmer Eye Shadow Palette. The palettes aren't that big and can easily be packed into your suitcase or handbag if you need to take them with you.

There's a mirror, but unless you prop the lid on something, it'll just fall down and render the mirror kinda useless.

  

When it arrived one of the darker pinks was a little cracked :( The size of the pots are between the size of Singapore 10 and 20 cent coins.

The Metal Mania Palette is more warm hues.

Also bought the Blush Palette

The brown one in the middle is the contouring one, it looks scary and dark but it's really a matter of control on how much you put on the brush. The highlight colours I'm not really sure what to do with cos I don't usually do highlighting.