You know you are addicted when...

...You cannot wait to go home and switch on your computer to check whether your food is cooked and ready to serve; Or that you cannot wait to wake up so that you can again check whether your food has been cooked and ready to serve; you were calculating the amount of time to cook your food or the time when your food is ready until you almost forgot to get off at your mrt stop.

That is the level of obsession that I am in right now, but I am trying to control myself. I am trying to convince myself that these games actually keep me at home and away from shopping (i.e. spending money).

There are two games that I am playing consecutively now. One is of course, Cafe World, the other is Hotel City. The latter is a game whereby you gain money by building rooms and other such facilities to let people come in to occupy. As they stay for the night (about 2 to 3 minutes) they pay you money and thus allowing you to make more money to build more rooms or other commercials rooms like the gym room, restaurant, swimming pool, bar and such.

Oh! Last but not least, you know you are addicted when you talk about the game even when you are outside with friends and asking them to help you complete your spice rack and trying to convince another to join the game as well. You know who you are. Haha!

Happy 'cooking'!

Craving

Never had I have such a bad craving for something. I almost thought that I was pregnant and although I know that I wasn't (how to, when I am so very single?), I thought I would die if I did not satisfy my craving.

It was a Tuesday evening and I decided to go and eat at Ion Orchard. I passed by the very much talked about bakery/ patisserie called Bread Society. It was opened by this very much celebrity Japanese baker and it has very European sort of breads there. My parents like the Kraften (hope I got the right spelling) dark rye bread and so whenever I can, I will buy it for them. It is $3.30 for only half a loaf! Super precious!

I once overhead this Japanese lady comment, "Tsubarashi" while I was buying bread in the shop and upon checking the internet, this word means something along the lines of "fantastic, excellent, incredible". If it came from a fellow Japanese's mouth, then it should be good! Then again, I already tried it before that and KNEW that it IS good!

There are lots of fanciful stuff within the shop like the custard brioche and things like that, but my favourites are 45rpm, mad about mushrooms, and most of all (the one that caused me to crave), the spinach and cheese bun.

Let me start with 45rpm. It is a super long sausage wrapped in dough and the description in the shop makes me conjure up this cartoon image of someone eating up a very long piece of bread from one end of the room to the other at top speed. The mad about mushroom piece has got some potato and squash in the middle of a round bread topped with lots and lots of forest mushrooms. Hee! Maybe not forest mushrooms but really delicious ones.

I chanced upon the spinach and mushroom buns by accident. They were just lying in the corner, away from the main trays of buns. They did not look very attractive. I had to walk by twice to finally decide to get them. I only got it because the ingredients reminded me of quiche lorraine, which I happen to like.

It was love at first bite when I heated it up in the oven to eat. Yummmmm, yummmm!!!! I really wanted to go back that same night (Wednesday) to buy some more as they were not too expensive, but I really could not. I had to attend classes. Bummer! The thought of me not being able to eat it the next day and having to wait two days to buy and eat it just made me feel all panicky and like I said before, I thought I was going to die. At that point of time, it was worse than missing someone.

Anyhow, I really went back to Bread Society yesterday to get my beloved bread rolls and I have another new favourite which is called mustard and bacon on dark rye. Yes, I actually went to the heart of Orchard Road, despite the newspapers reporting that the Orchard MRT had been marked by Indonesian terrorists; despite the fact that there was heightened security all around. All this, for the sake of food.

p/s: The Japanese baker, who has a life-size cut out of himself in the shop, actually does exist! My mum was fortunate enough to see him kneading dough in his work area and she said that he was very polite as he nodded at her every time he looked up and saw her. Aaaargh!!!! Jealous!!!!

Instant Noodles

It has been awhile since I ate instant noodles as I find that it makes me grow fat rather easily. Recently, as mentioned in my previous posting, I watched this Taiwanese programme that happened to be talking about instant noodles. They were asking some artistes when their poorest period was and how did tney manage to keep themselves full. It was instant noodles of course, and the artistes also went up to cook their own style of instant noodles to let the rest try.

Woah! All that cooking on t.v. made me drool and tonight, I went to buy myself some more instant noodles. This time though, I decided to be a little healthier and bought some vegetables and fish dumplings to go along with the food.

I realised that the Indomie brand of noodles have changed packaging. I think there could have been some sort of merger or something for there was a new brand added on top. Or it could just be Singaporean venture or merger of sorts. For what I saw next was rather surprising too as Nissin, the mother and father of all instant noodles in the world has commissioned some Indonesian company to manufacture and come up with the brand, Mi Bagus. It has a very South East Asian slant to it and its tag line, "makan already?", which means "eat already?". Hmm...all the marketing tactics and strategies.

Anyway, back to my dinner. I finally cooked my dinner using the Nissin orignal flavour, which is the sesame oil one. It used to be my favourite. When I opened the packet, the very first thing I noticed was that the packet for the powdered seasoning has changed. Or rather, the colour for the packet has. Next, I sort of noticed that the sesame oil packet seems to have shrunk. Maybe it was just my own illusion. They might just have made it rectangular in shape instead of the usual squarish shape.

Upon eating, I realised, to my (sort of) dismay, that the taste has changed too! The seasoning, albeit less salty, is not as fragrant and tasty as before. I miss the old taste already!

Anyway, I consoled myself that it will always be my favourite brand of instant noodles, followed by Indomie Goreng, followed by Myojo Charmee and then the Korean noodles. well...let's just say that I am a bit of an instant noodle connoisseur of sorts.

Will I ever get to eat dry noodles again?

Recently, I have been very troubled by the fact that most hawkers sell their dry noodles, rather wet!!

It all started from my minced meat mee pok, that I love to eat. Some places just love to scoop one big scoop of soup to so-call mix the sauces together, when I specifically ordered dry mee pok.

Then it extended to the wanton noodles that I love to eat! They had to scoop soup into the wanton noodles dry that I ordered. I was particularly very angry with this stall at Gourmet Paradise, a food court at Toa Payoh HDB Hub. I had specifically told the guy, "dry-dry, don't add soup". But in the midst of all that talking with his co-worker, he added one round of soup into my noodles already. The second time that I saw him wanting to scoop some more soup, I literally barked at him not to do so. I was fuming mad as I was ordering take-away and by adding soup, it would make the noodles super soggy.

True enough, the noodles were soggy and it had a very bitter taste to it, which means a certain type of ingredient (called jian shui in Chinese) has been overly used in this noodle. I swear I will never eat at this stall again.

At first, I thought this was a trend brought in my Chinese nationals but it seems like the Malaysians (those working at the Gourmet Paradise Hong Kong style roast) are also picking up on this adding soup onto dry noodles habit.

Worst still, I was watching this Taiwanese show on cable t.v. and they were doing an episode on instant noodles. The host was also doing the same thing!! She was demonstrating how to cook IndoMie Mee Goreng and after she dished out the noodles, she poured some soup in to mix!!! EEeeeks!!!

I guess it boils down to personal preference but I really prefer my dry noodles to be just that! Dry!!

I think the only mee pok I will eat will be from the stall at Kopi Tiam food court at Plaza by the Park (reachable by Circle Line, Stop: Bras Basah)and this 24-hour coffee shop at Toa Payoh. But for the latter, I must ensure I get the right staff to cook. If not, this other lady will still steal some soup and even add ketchup, which to me, in mee pok world, is not acceptable.

This stall at this particular food court is called Tang Ren Jie (Chinatown). You must look out for the uncle with white hair and not the uncle with thinning black hair. The latter is a stand-in. He has a slightly bad temper and does not cook as well as the 'original' uncle.

As for wanton noodles, I shall tell you in my future postings, which ones I prefer. Got to get the addresses right first before I 'report'.

Virtual cooking Vs Real cooking

Today, I cooked my own dinner again, using Linguine. I just change the ingredients around. It is quite a versatile dish to work with.

This time around, I still tossed with Balsamic vinegar and olive oil but I put cut up cherry tomatoes, shredded chicken, thyme and parmesan.

I even put the chicken breast meat to good use. There was a whole lot of shredded chicken breast left and I intend to use it to make salad for sandwiches and stuff.

The funniest bit was that I was both cooking in the kitchen and 'cooking' in Cafe World. Halfway through stirring my pasta, the alarm sounded from my laptop, indicating that my food was ready. Inexperienced me was so afraid that my food will spoil that I rushed to click and serve, with ladle in hand. Hahaha! It was a funny sight and my mum had a bewildered and puzzled look on her face as she saw me fly past her.

Cough, cough, cough...

Been coughing non-stop the whole of this weekend, despite the fact that I am already taking Chinese medicine. Before, I would have wanted to cut off my nose. Now, I wish to cut off my nose and dig my lungs out.

I have coughed till I have chest aches and at times, I can barely hold my pee when I cough! It is terrible, but I really have to be a little more patient with Chinese medicine. They just take longer to take effect. Either that or I must have taken something that I am not supposed to. Anyway, I am lifting it all up to Him now as I struggle on to sleep peacefully tonight and have to use my voice tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I will just have to rely on my Nin Jiom throat sweets as supplements to my medicine and my Badger Chest Rub to relieve a little of the coughing (hopefully).

Charm of Chinatown

I went down with Dad and Mum to Chinatown today. I used to think that it was tacky to be going to such a place as it is THE place for old foggies. Throughout the years though, I somehow had a pretty regular 'relationship' with this place. Dad would bring me to the Chinatown Food Centre every Sunday for porridge and then he discovered the other porridge stall (Ho Kai Kee/ He Qi Ji) and we went to that other coffee shop for porridge.

After my schooling days, I went down to Chinatown less and I did not eat porridge so regularly but about four, five years ago, Dad introduced me to the porridge stall at Maxwell Road and we started going to Chinatown again. Until we sold the car, that is. Dad was not deterred though. He had all the time in the world and would take a bus down to Chinatown to look for his favourite food stalls.

Today, with public transport so well connected, I am visiting the place again. I witnessed the Chinatown Food Centre being built when all the roadside hawkers were asked to move into hawker centres like these. It was for public health reasons that they shooed them into buildings. It has undergone at least 2 major renovations since.

Today, the Chinatown Food Centre is still a very crowded place. The old and/or mature like my Dad, go there to seek solace in comfort food and reminisce in familiar surroundings; the young go there in search of famous food stalls told to them through websites/blogs/forums/their own parents/their friends; some old bring their young to 'pass down' the tradition in terms of the type of food and the stalls they frequent; the foreigners are also there perhaps due to good marketing by our tourism board.

Sitting there on a rainy Saturday afternoon, near where the escalators are, I could see all these people coming and going. There was a very heartwarming sort of feeling and there is a charm about the whole place that drew me in and made me want to stay there for longer. Alas! The lack of air conditioning also makes me want to up and go, to somewhere more airy.

There is always the first level, where the sundry stalls are located. I used to find the clothes there tacky, but now, it a nice place to find nice clothes at reasonably good prices. There is also the CD store which I used to suspect that it was selling pirated CDs. Turns out that they are parallel imports from China and therefore much cheaper that way.

Till next week, I would just have to be contented with the food and happenings around my area.

Stuck in the virtual world

For the longest time now, I have resisted playing those virtual games on Facebook. Maybe that was because I was scared off last time by The Sims Family. It seemed really hard to play and ever since my one attempt with it, I was convinced that I would not touch such games anymore. I was convinced I should stick to such games as Tetris, Puzzle Boggle and so on.

Well, not until very recently anyway. After playing Bejeweled Blitz (BB) for the longest time, I succumbed to playing Cafe World. By the way, I must also say that I did attempt to play Restaurant City but was so confused by it that I stopped playing.

I was introduced to Cafe World by Spacecake. Spacecake preferred the idea of waiting for things to cook and earning coins by letting people eat, rather than just clicking away at the jewels to earn the highest score. BB was merely a test of speed. To some extent, I agree, but sometimes, when you just want mindless playing, BB is still good.

It was cook at first sight!!! I mean, this was an easy game to play and yet, at the same time, it satisfied my desire to cook, own my own cafe and be my own boss all at the same time! In the virtual world of course. Maybe I am just that easy to satisfy.

It is a game that makes me want to stay home and go home quickly if I am outside!!! I would count the number of hours before my food is cooked and then try to make it home by then. Not that the food will go bad that soon (they have a certain time limit for you to serve the food. If you pass that time, your food goes bad and all the cooking goes to waste).

It also helps someone like me learn a thing or two about time management. The cooking time and the serving time should be such that there will be enough serving counters once the food is ready. Of course, one can decide to delete the food on the serving counter in order to serve the cooked food, but I would not want to throw away food that I spent hours to 'cook'!

There is also the anticipation of getting to the next level and also getting the opportunity to add new stoves and serving counters and of course, to expand your cafe! It makes me want to play it even more.

When I first started playing, I even went to the extent of making sure I have a starter, a main and a dessert. Now though, I just take the points and cooking time into consideration.

There were a few things that got me very tickled too! Firstly, you see virtual versions of your friends coming into your cafe to eat. Then, you can actually employ your friend to be a wait staff. Then your friend, who is your wait staff can actually serve himself or herself. Last but not least, the characters (i.e. the cook, the wait staff and the customers) can walk through stoves and other characters to walk out of the cafe. I was beyond myself when I first saw that!

I just hope I do not get too addicted to it and I do not know when I will get bored of it and ditch the whole idea of playing this game but for now, I am enjoying myself and cooking while I am blogging all about it.

Life plans

Oh gosh! It was a stressful week and I am glad that half of it is gone. We had to do role play for this particular module of my course (yet again!) Although I think that acting is not that difficult a task for me, but I think the conceptualising, brainstorming and the getting it all together, is altogether very, very stressful.

I am just glad that it is over now. From now though, got to headache about the 60% worth of individual assignment. Think the weightage of this assignment is too high and it is causing us unnecessary stress. We are very near end of our course and practicum is coming soon. Starting from June in fact. Got to clock in hours of work experience and then have a final site visit by a practicum supervisor. Altogether another big load of stress.

Sometimes I do not understand why I had put myself through all this torture. Then again, I think about some of my classmates who will turn 50 as they graduate and I tell myself that it is not that tough after all.

Then, there are those course mates who are already thinking of which course to take next. I suppose the lesson I need to learn here is to plan. Have at least one 5-year plan in my life. I thought I could be contented with this job for a while but somehow, it seems of the general opinion that if you don't have a plan, you are not human or that you must have a screw lose in your head.

Well, plan is good, plan is good. Will sit down and seriously map out my 5-year plan now. After all, this assignment requires that of us to map out one.

My date with Donnie Yen

Was wondering what to do on the eve of the Labour Day holiday when the morning papers inspired me to go watch a movie. I was contemplating whether to go Bishan GV to watch or somewhere else instead (as J8 tends to get a little claustrophobic).

Then I thought of Kallang Leisure Park at the Stadium MRT stop. Hahaha! It was decided then, Instincts told me that there will not be that many people there, but I was wrong. Although it did not draw crowds like Bugis or Takashimaya, it was still quite a turn out!

Anyway, the next dilemma was which movie to watch. I could not decide between Ip Man 2, Iron Man 2 or this other Chinese movie filmed by Malaysian singer "Ah Niu". In the end, you should know which one I chose, since the title of this post says it all.

To me, the show was fantastic and I feel like watching it a second time. I liked the way Donnie Yen portrays Ip Man himself. Calm, cool and collected.

By the way, I discovered that Kallang Leisure Park is one of the few places that does not have one single POSBank and/or DBS ATMs!!!! How bizarre!

After watching the movie, I went train-tripping on the Circle Line. There were many ways to reach home: I could either take the Circle Line to Dhoby Gaut and switch to the North South line (red) to go home. Instead, I took the one going to Bishan. After all, there is only a one stop difference.

I think this train-tripping will continue until I feel trippy and has to stop :-P