Summer Fat Camp 2010 - Destination IV: Penang

Before I came home, I was craving for all kinds of seafood cooked home style. One of our favourites is the octopus. The secret to cooking good Mr. Octopus is to blanch it in hot water and once it's cooked, take it out immediately. Season it with some garlic oil and walah, you have yourself a plate of sumptuous fresh Mr. Octopus as the appetizer.

Our 2nd favourite is bamboo clams. Oh-my-god. They taste best in ginger and onion. Not only they're really clean (free from any sort of sand), I cannot even express how naturally sweet and tasty they are! This is dish is quite rare so not every body knows how to appreciate it. But if you are a seafood lover, I'm pretty sure you'll fall in love with this baby.

*Drumroll*

Our 3rd favourite is Prawns in mint curry.

There must be mint in this dish, without it, it looses its zing. As usual, when you eat seafood at this restaurant, they only serve the best of the season and freshest of the day. Hence, there's no doubt to the freshness of the seafood. Having such fresh raw ingredient, the seasoning, style of cooking are only secondary. But for me, I love the soup more than the prawns. Hehe... I love to flood my rice with the mint curry. I could literally just the curry sauce and rice!

Total damage for lunch was only RM54. Now, isn't that worth making a trip to Penang?

Before I left Penang, my aunt treated me to Thai food and she took me to this place which my cousins love. Since there were only 4 of us, we couldn't really order a lot, we ordered the deep fried kangkung (water spinach), mango salad with minced fish, omelette with Thai vegetable and cat fish kang som (tastes more of tamarind than hot and spicy like the tomyam). Surprisingly our food came out more green than red as it would typically be for Thai food and they were really nice. I like it very much because it was really appetizing and we asked the dishes to be made less spicy and sour than it would typically be. So instead of having to burn my tongue I could actually taste the food! :)

Yummy yummy yummy, yummy in my tummy! :)

Happy Birthday to Me

How do you usually celebrate your birthday? I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate my birthday with my friends and family at home this year. I had a week long celebration, every time I met up with a group of people, they would celebrate it with me. I was very touched and felt extremely lucky to have these people in my life. Without them, none of these would probably be meaningful.

Thank you.

Summer Fat Camp 2010 - Destination III

It didn't take long for me to decide where I should go next - Lion City. Reason being? My beloved friends of course! What's better than to meet up with old friends that feels like family. After a long trip away from home, I truly felt blessed to have my gregarious and generous hosts picking me up from the airport and spoils me with the best food in town. All in the name of pre-celebrating my birthday! See, these are the kind of friends we all should have. I felt truly blessed.

1st stop: Rider's Cafe

This cafe is tucked deeply in the luscious green Bukit Timah Saddle Club. As we drove into the parking lot, I thought the place was too posh for breakfast (based on the luxury cars parked in the lot), I felt a little guilty when my hostess insisted on treating me the whole trip I was there. But surprisingly, the food was really affordable and our bill came up to not more than S$40.

After getting used to the American portions, I thought my omelette was a tad too small, but I could barely finish my food and it was just nice. As I thought I was too full for lunch, my hostess took me to another favourite Japanese restaurant of hers Ootoya at Orchard Central.

One thing I like about Singapore is you don't have to pay through your nose for a good meal. A meal like this would probably costs more than double at home. The scallop rice was yummy, the salad is wonderful and even the pork tastes really good. But my favourite is the dessert! Green tea ice-cream served with caramel custard, red bean and banana. Yummylicious!

After lunch, I could barely eat dinner, so we skipped. The next day, she took me to this Dim Sum place which I forgot the name, but it's so old school that it reminded me of old Hong Kong. Look at the red chairs and red lantern hung all over the restaurant. There's not much we can order for 2 person, so we ordered some of our favourites: chee cheong fun, pork ribs, 'phoenix claw', har kao, char siew pow and egg tart. It was really good, it was really the authentic dimsum that I've been craving for and it really hit the spot! So I was a real happy camper that day. :)

After breakfast, I headed towards my 4th destination- Home.

Summer Fat Camp 2010 - Destination II

Summer Fat Camp Destination II is the.... Philippines!

No summer camp is complete without going to the beautiful islands of Philippines'. For this trip, we went to Apo Island. Apo Island is a diving heaven and a marine sanctuary. I was hoping to go diving and I did! But I didn't feel too good after the first dive and got really sick but other than that I had a great time on my 2nd dive and snorkeling in the marine sanctuary. The hotel that we stayed in is so rustic that there's no running water and electricity is only available on certain hours. Reminds me of my grandmother's place when I was growing up. :)

Isn't the weather and the sea beautiful?

It was an awesome weekend! I would love to go to Apo Island again and maybe you can come along too! :)

Summer Fat Camp 2010 - Destination I

Summer Fat Camp 2010 is not an annual event. When the invitation lands on your lap, you grab it and don't think twice. It is not limited to only 1 destination but to many, where to? It is up to the organizers and all you need to do is to pay for your flight tickets and the rest is planned and covered for. The schedule is crazy but the experience is - priceless. Thanks to all the wonderful organizers!


Location 1 : Shanghai
My first stop was to go to Shanghai and to attend the Expo 2010. Frankly, it was really an awesome event, unfortunately, it was way too crowded. An average of 40,000 people attend the Expo, entering the Expo first thing in the morning took us 2 hours, let alone lining up to go into the exhibition halls. I was told that the to enter the China Hall, many lined up for 4-5 hours. So I didn't bother hence I didn't get to see a lot of the cool ones, I barely made it through the day and spent only a limited time at the Expo. If you have the patience to be in line for hours and be a part of the mob, you should definitely go and check it out.

The best part about this China trip is the accommodation!
My camp coordinator had the best accommodation mapped out! When the hotel's restaurant was fully booked, we just ordered room service. :D
Check it out!

Then of course, how could we forget camp food? Insufferable camp food? *Haha* On the first day, we went for Ajisen Ramen and it was pretty good.

For the next few days, we were stuffed with the best of the best in Shanghai. The best Shanghainese food that I had tasted was at Xiao Nan Guo, not only the food came out beautiful, the tastes were amazing! Most of the dishes looked simple but the tastes from the fresh ingredients were incredibly accentuated by the master chefs. We had the sticky rice in lotus root, salad, drunken chicken, seafood tofu (looked very plain but tasted very good), mixed mushroom, fish, Long Jin prawn, and my favourite is the sticky rice balls in sweet rice wine.

Somehow we always miss Japanese food so we had - Dory fish hot pot rice, agedashi tofu, and Rainbow sushi. When the weather got too unbearably hot, we hopped into Tian Mi Mi (dessert chain) for some grass jelly red bean soup and cold ice tea. Also, not forgetting the famous Lao Ma Mi Xian, thick vermicelli, best eaten either hot or cold.

Of course, not forgetting the Shanghai night scene.

And the famous Bund.

And the crowded Nan Jing East Road.

It's crazy, but I love the lights and colors. They're so vibrant and full of life! Glad to be back in Asia again. ♥



Location II: Hangzhou


We also went for a 2-day trip to Hangzhou, it was pouring during those 2 days, so we didn't really get to enjoy the West Lake but at least we get to see the beautiful lotuses.

When you travel, it's best to have local friends because they will bring you the best local restaurant. We were treated to the famous Cai Die Xuan Restaurant.

Location III: Suzhou


What's famous in Suzhou? The old gardens, temples and canal streets. And what is cheap there? Silk scarves. Well, only if you know how to buy and bargain for them. For the cheap price that I got for the scarves, I still think I was sold the imitation silk scarves although the lady looked insulted when I asked her so. Haha....

Next stop - Philippines.

Black Widow

M," LOOK! OMG, LOOK AT THAT SPIDER! IT'S SO HUGE! (Her eyes huge and in a disbelieved state)
Me, "What? Where?"
M, " LOOK! IT'S OVER THERE!"
Me, "Where? Are you pulling my legs?"
M, " NO, IT'S THERE, IT'S HUGE!"
M, "Oh, you mean that one? That's not big."
M, "YES, IT IS."

(I chuckled.)
Me, "You're just exaggerating. Here, let me get rid of it for you."
M, "It's so big it's almost like a tarantula,"
Me, "No it's not, have you seen a tarantula?"
M, "It's bigger than a black widow."
Me, "No it's not, a black widow is much bigger."

So I proceeded with using a stick and tried to get the spider out off the chair. Oh, that's odd, the web was so sticky that I find it hard to poke through the web to the spider. I got a better look at the spider, 'Oh, that's an odd looking spider," I thought to myself.

"Maybe I should hose it out?" I told M.
So I got the hose and started spraying water at the spider. It curled into a ball and stuck to the corner of the chair.
"Wow, it's so strong, it's not coming out."

M, "Hit the chair, flick it in the sand and see if it would come out?"

I tried. It's not coming out.
M took the chair and hit it on the pavement, thinking that it might help get the spider out.
Finally it came out. ALIVE.
"Wow, that's really a resilient spider," we said.

"You know, it could be a black widow after all, see if there's a red colored hour glass underneath it," S said over the fence.
"We should put it in a glass jar and take a look at it," M said.
So I rolled the paper up, the spider climbed onto the paper and I got it into the glass jar. I was so surprised how easy it was. M capped it tightly and we turned the jar over. Lo and behold. It was the - BLACK WIDOW.

Was I brave or a complete fool who is oblivious?
M thinks I'm amazing because I was not afraid of it but, I think I was a fool for not realizing it was a black widow.

Fenton Schmanton

Our 1st year has finally ended, to celebrate the beginning of a long deserved break, we went to Fentons and watched the Babies documentary. If my memory didn't fail me, this is the first time I've had diner food since I arrived 10 months ago. So a burger is a must! And at Fentons ice-cream is also a must!

This is my yummy Western Bacon Burger with much craved curly fries.

Mozzarella Sticks

Caesar Salad

My yummy Toasted Almond and Pomegranate petite sized ice-cream with complimentary cookies on the side :)

Old Fashioned Petite Sundae with hot chocolate fudge.

It was nice to be able to hang out after 9 months of hard work! Definitely should do it more often. :)