My version of Cattypant's Kimchi Chigae

I recently tried Miss Cattypant's Kimchi Chigae recipe and it was very nice, the hot and sour broth was very comforting. For mine I added some glass noodles or mung bean noodles and instead of sliced pork belly I used some ready sliced frozen shoulder butt which is a very tender cut of meat with some fat running through it. I liken this cut of pork to the beef rib eye because of the fat marbling. I also had some left over so I saved it in the fridge and the next day reheated it, adding some more water and some extra soy sauce and gochujang and some dried instant noodles and dried seaweed. And it tasted great then too, I was surprised at how much it tasted like those Spicy Korean Instant Noodles.

Caelyn's 2nd Birthday Celebration at Harbour City Restaurant

We celebrated Caelyn's birthday this year at the Harbour City Restaurant (3rd Floor PSA Building, Alexandra Rd). We had the a-la-carte buffet. The buffet wasn't too bad, but also wasn't 'terrific'. The price was reasonable but unfortunatley drinks weren't included. And u know those peanuts they serve at the table just like any other Chinese restaurants, well those were also charged separately, along with the wet towels. So if you decide to eat there, be forewarned, although the price is cheap for a buffet, the plus plus plus soon adds up. Would I go back there again? Hmmmm.....most likely not. There's no reason to go all the way there just to have an 'average' type of buffet that you can have in other parts of Singapore and even Chinese restaurants at those mid priced hotels.

Caelyn at least seemed to enjoy herself...running around with her cousin that is. She's usually very good when we take her out to eat when it's just us, but put her together with her boistrous cousin, she follows suit with whatever he does. Unfortunately her cousin has a maid to look after him, so his parents can eat in peace even if he's running around like a kid on a sugar high. We have always insisted that Caelyn sit with us during dinner. I am very against taking her out for walks during meals at restaurants, I think it's a very bad habit.

Here are a few pictures of just some of the food.we had.

Chilli crab, limited to one serving per table. The crabs were small and troublesome to eat and the sauce wasn't tasty. We didn't even finish it.and left it there tilll the end.

Champagne Fried Chicken

No idea what this is

Some kind of meat rolls with a creamy tangy dressing. This one's nice.

With Grandparents (my MIL & FIL)

Edmund's face was waaay too blown up - too close to the camera.

Bintan Island Getaway

As hubby has been working endlessly and spending less and less quality time with our little family, we decided it was time for a quick break to Bintan, a place we hadn't been before.

We had to take a 55min ferry ride from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. Little did we know how sea sick we were gonna get. The sea was just so choppy and rough and the two storey speed ferry was just rocking away. I had a hard time keeping it together (and keeping the contents of my stomach in). Luckily Caelyn fell asleep not long into the journey without much of a fuss, I think the swaying lulled her into sleep. Unfortunately coming back was worse! And poor Caelyn felt the affects of sea sickness. She put her head on my chest and started to sob quietly then grew louder and eventually cried herself to sleep. Poor thing. When the ferry reached Singapore on the way home, as it docked itself at the jetty, it started to rock so bad that I was just praying that I wouldn't chuck all over everyone while waiting to get off the boat. It was a really horrifying experience for me and I hadn't felt this bad of a motion sickness in a very long time. I could even still feel the rocking well after we had left the boat. Sadly, because of this experience, we vowed not to go back on a trip where it requires a boat to travel to (as much as we can help it).

Anyway, we had booked ourselves into the Bintan Resort Hotel which is part of the Nirwana Gardens group. This was a very last minute trip and I had tried booking thru a travel agent who told me that there was no rooms available left at this resort. So here's a lesson I learnt, just because a travel agent says a place is fully booked, it really doesn't mean so, maybe just the block they had reserved had all been snapped up already. So I went home and got online to wotif.com and surprisingly got an even cheaper offer than the travel agent. It helped that there was also a HSBC credit card offer. I then booked the ferry tickets online separately. .Here's a tip, if you want a particular timing for the ferry and it says it's all full, keep on checking because I guess like flights, there are people who drop out last minute.

We had booked for a King Standard room which was supposed to have a garden view. But we had reached there earlier and the King bedded room wasn't ready and they asked if we minded a double room - we could push the beds together so we didn't mind. Turns out that I think we were also bumped up to a Deluxe room with a nice view of the front garden and an angled view of the beach!

The rooms themselves were ok, and I think were newly renovated. But I did have 3 gripes: 1) the aircon wasn't very cold, luckily they had a ceiling fan, 2) the tiled floor was rather dirty and full of sand - tho I guess it can't be totally clean since the beach is just behind. But still, it felt like they didn't vaccum it at all, 3) for 2 guests, I think it was a little stingy of them to just provide one set of shampoo and lotion. In Desaru the place we stayed at provided 3 sets of everything for triple share. But on the upside, Bintan Resort Hotel provided toothbrushes and a razor which you don't often see being provided in hotel bathrooms these days.

Everything at the resort is priced in Singapore Dollars and you can choose to pay SGD or IDR. But if you pay by credit card it will be paid in Indonesian Rupiah. The food on the property weren't cheap but they also weren't excessively expensive thank goodness. For our stay there we managed to try 3 restaurants on property, two meals of which were buffets. Not terribly fantastic either, but edible. We were thinking of going to the Kelong restaurant for dinner but we had to wait 20 minutes for the car to pick us up and as we perused the menu displayed at the hotel, we realised it would be cheaper and turned out to be more worth it to eat the buffet at the hotel.

The staff there are all very nice. The best thing tho would have to be the infinity pool which looked out over the beach. It was just fabulous and Caelyn loved every minute she spent swimming in it.

The beach was somewhat clean because it gets cleaned everyday by some workers. They take away the washed up seaweed and wood. The sand was surprisingly very fine, however the water isn't exactly turquoise as described in the ads, but I must say it's definitely nicer than Desaru beach and much calmer than Kuta beach. The day we arrived we were lucky enough to have gentle waves which allowed us to sit in the shallow water. But the next day we saw they had put up a red flag I think to indicate rough water with bigger waves. But that didn't stop people swimming in it. The only downside to the beach was the water had big rocks in it, which made it difficult and a little scary to walk on.

All in all, it was a great getaway, just too bad about the rocky boat ride.

Disney Live! Three Classic Fairy Tales

This is Caelyn's first musical stage show. She was a little bit daunted at first, but after a while she warmed up and got into it too like the other kids.

This show begins with Mickey, Minnie, Goofie and Donald finding a magical book of fairytales that tells the story of Snow White, Cinderella, and Beauty & the Beast. The show was wonderfully done with spectacular costumes, music, dancing and lights. Really, I was rather amazed at how they were able to show lightning streaks. There were also smoke of varying hues and a staircase even descended from the ceiling for Beauty and the Beast. And the stage was very nicely 'framed'. It was very entertaining and you could feel the magic that is Disney. Made me want to go to Disneyland...hehehe. This show is supposedly the first Disney stage show to debut in Asia.






For more photos, go to: http://reeney.multiply.com/photos/album/86

Holiday Lights Singapore 2008

For more pictures, go to: http://reeney.multiply.com/photos/album/85