Giant Sotong

Imagine how many pots of sambal sotong you can make if you caught one of these giant suckers.

note to self: go deep sea fishing on next holiday

Dan Ryan's, 13 years on...

Spaz's dad wanted to have a small dinner gathering before his departure tomorrow and decided to have it at Dan Ryan's bar and grill along Tanglin Road. It was a terribly nostalgic dining experience for me. I loved the dark interior(not dark now though, the music(jazz circa 1930) and maybe even the food. The last time I was there was in 1993 with my colleagues from Haagen Dazs(yes I scooped ice-cream part time whilst I was in school). I strangely am able to recall what we ordered that night in 1993 - pecan pie, a caesar salad and nachos-that was the first time I tasted nachos. Do remember that those were the days before doritos were easily available in Singapore. Oh and I also had my first taste of bourbon coke. With Wild Turkey. I quite liked it then. Oh those carefree days of underaged drinking....

Ok fast forward to the present(and reality). The meal we had was ok. Between the 7 of us,we ordered starters consisting of nachos, buffalo wings, calamari rings and a caesar salad and for the main course we swapped around a steak, ribs and seafood platter.Everything was passed around so it was a like a sampler meal of sorts. Most of it was good except for the seafood platter that was generally overcooked and too heavily breaded. But I don't know about the steak though. I am not able to appreciate eating a slab of meat without it being really marinated in anything. It was bland and just tasted beefy I guess. After all that food, beer and wine, I must confess that I was pretty gassy at the end of it all.

The last time I made a mess like this was when I was five

Another mystery find!

I don't need to dig into cereal boxes to find mystery gifts. Chantal came over and offered me some pakoras(deep fried veg fritters) that she bought from the canteen. Before swallowing the doughy bit I had chewed on, I could feel something hard that I thought could have been the stem of a curry leaf or whole piece of fennel. Only upon further inspection thru mastication I picked it out and found this.

Mebbe I should buy 4D or something.

It's when you really anticipate something when you don't really enjoy yourself. I went to Spaz's farewell bash with a stuffed nose and blase attitude and it turned out to be a quite a blast.... the host was literally humping some of the guests, especially those who crashed the party.



Here is some vile chutney made out of wasabi, mint and yoghurt that Spaz and Isabel made. I fed it to the people I didn't know at the dining table who were hoarding the booze


some disgruntled neighbors that were sore about not being invited decided to leave their mark with some bird flu seeds

Risky business

I was too friggin busy the whole of yesterday that I didn't have time to get dinner. I toyed with the idea of getting some grub from cleaner pastures but settled for Roach Central(Aroma coffee shop), located just outside my office. I ordered my all time favorite zhe char dish of fish-slices-with-bitter-gourd-and-black-bean-sauce-on-rice. Upon opening the takeaway packet back at my desk, I realised that ordering it was a big mistake. How the fuck was I going to tell a roach from the bits of fermented black bean used in the sauce? I threw caution to the wind. The phone rang and I got back to multi-tasking. Eat, talk, email, colour correct, crop, bark back at boss, eat, choke, slam fone...

Where's Roachy?

Carol(the first hapless Aroma victim who found a roach in her noodles)came by to ask me if I wanted to anything from MacDonalds and I decided to indulge in an apple pie and ice cream sundae. Put the two together and u get this....

Onam makan

Today is the first day of Onam. And no, its not the Indian new year. I invited Spaz over for dinner today 'cos he is one of the few I know that can appreciate a Kerala vegetarian meal. He has been coming over on and off the past few years and gives my mum such joy seeing him wipe off every bit of food off the banana leaf. I have given up asking anyone else as they usually squirm at the technicolour palate of food and intimidating number of side dishes laid out on the banana leaf. Oh and the fact that the meal is vegetarian. No mutton curry. No broiled chicken wings. No fish molee.


This Onam was a pretty low key affair this year because of my gran's passing away earlier in the year, but the spread of food was almost the same as most years....I won't bother explaining the individual dishes but I would say the meal is kinda like a degustation smogasbord that you have with your fingers. It may look like a load of slop to some but it sure taste good. I think if I had a choice on a meal that I would be stuck having for the rest of my life, this would be it....


Dessert on the same banana leaf: payasam mashed with a banana and papadum-delish!

Mac Virgin

I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Spaz. He is leaving the country for greener pastures in less than 2 weeks so I thought that I should spend some time with him. He got himself a new ibook and after finding a scratch on it (barely 2 days into the purchase), he whipped out a bottle of car wax and started buffing. I am not entirely sure it its good your computer but the scratch did almost disappear...


This is AC the dog. I think she has issues. She is generally timid but not when she is taken for a walk. She will then turn into this frisky bitch in heat, constantly peeing(or marking her spot). She hates being photographed and if you are lucky you might see her getting humped by Bear, her sister.

If only they made prozac for pets

We had dinner at Scotts Picnic and headed to ICB for beer.... here are some pix taken under the influence of alcohol...

In Loving Memory

Cesar
Purchased: October 1999
Died: September 11th 2001

Furry and frisky
happy to be running in his wheel
Always stuffing his cheeks
with kacang and kwachi

Thought to be a He
but was actually a She
The guy at the pet shop
was trying to cheat me

To be put down on such a fateful date
was never intended
As the news only came
just after the injection

Take care my friend
in your journey
To find liberation from Samsra
sooner or later

Cravings

Its almost 4am and I suddenly have a craving for durian crepes. I am not a durian freak, but I do love durian puffs and crepes. Another thing i have been craving for is freeze dried durian. Its crunchy, creamy and not overIy pungent. Don't think you can get it here but it is available in Bangkok. So if any of you are going to Bangkok, buy for me, ok? Can get from MBK shopping centre. ;p

Anyway its getting late. Time to titon. Check out this puddy tat. It will surely take your mind off any kind of craving.

Weird ass cup of tea

My boss asked me if I would like a cup of tea and this is what she brought me.

Apparently its some kind of flower tied together with some tea leaves. Tasted like jasmine tea but not so sickeningly floral. Quite nice actually.

Marine Parade Char Kway Teow

No hum!

I had to endure horrible organ lessons at Yamaha music school as a kid. My parents forced me to do it(no this is not a cry for help), I simply hated missing the weekend morning cartoons.... it did feel like child abuse then. But one of the consolation was lunch at the hawker center nearby that had excellent western food, chicken porridge and char kway teow. I had a vague memory of splattering a new shirt that my mum bought for me to wear on my birthday with char kway teow gravy. The char kway teow here is pretty wet and sloppy, and every mouthful is slightly pungent from the generous amount of garlic, balanced with the sweetness of the black sauce.... its damm shiok lah.

Pizza Cookout part deux

Today was damm tiring man. Went to Syereena's for a pizza cookout after yoga (we learnt postures to relieve constipation today) only to find her still sluggish from a late night out. As we lazed and pondered on what pizza to make, Syareena wanted to make bread and butter pudding too. After half and an hour of slacking, we finally got off our asses and got to making the dough from scratch. Rehan called suggesting that we have the cookout at his friend Amin's batchleor pad. Syareena and I were both easy with the suggestion but the problem was that he didn't have an oven. Someone suggested taking the oven over there. And we did(Syareena's parents are away). The oven has sentimental value to Syareena's mum. Last time we made pizza in it, she said that her late mother had given it to her 10 years ago.

It ain't heavy...its Syareena's mum's Baby Belling

I was tired, hungry and sweaty. The lunch cookout was turning out to be a dinner cookout. And I still had to make dessert. Tho it was not that bad cos' Shan arrived and I now had her and Syareena as personal slaves. Shan called me a control freak while Syareena called me a kitchen Nazi. Perhaps I am not used to having to cook with women. Cooking with men is generally easier cos they are usually clueless abt what to do and just follow instructions.

The kitchen Nazi watching over his slave


Shan holding up the dough as if it were a limbless child(you have to go out drinking with her to get understand)

We didn't leave till about 5.30pm. When we got there, we wondered how we were to work in a pretty small kitchen. There was barely any couter space. And I had to deal with Arthur who was dropping by for a while. He got pretty drunk in no time and started belting out his greatest hits much to the pleasure of Shan.


Arthur venting his angst thru making music

The pizza base spoilt the the evening for us. It was hard and tasted pretty raw. Think we cooked it too long and we let the dough rise too much....Next time we are using tortilla skins as bizza bases like they do at Ice Cold Beer.

Don't cry over bad pizza


Made pizza toast instead(L to R: meat lovers, BBQ and 4 cheese pizza toast)

The bread and butter pudding was a slight disaster. Miss Sengari refused to use a water bath to place the dish holding the pudding in and we left it in the oven too long too so it got pretty dry by the time we got it out...but no one had any space for it in their bellies anyway.

Nice but overcooked


Me and Amin titoning after makaning

We watched a pretty silly but funny teen flick and finally left at abt 12.15am. I wanted to shower and hit the sack asap but the mysterious smell that has been lingering in my room for the past 3 days just got stronger. Kinda smelled like belachan. I sniffed around and pulled the sofa forward and found behind it a dead decomposing gecko. Thank goodness for the Dettol spray(kinda like lysol)

Yummy chicak

Taste just like Toddy!

Parents got back from India this morning and they bought an adventurous mix of alcohol with their duty free allowance. Dewar's whiskey, passion fruit brandy, two bottles of expensive jacob's creek(39 bucks!) and 2 sampler bottles of sparkling rose wine. Got back from the office today and found one of the sparkling wine bottles open with some left and retro champagne glasses on the kitchen couter. They had a wine tasting without me! I poured the rest for myself, took a sip and thought that it tasted like monet & chandon.... then my mum said "nice colour" referring to the drink, but then she actually ment "nice kallu". Kallu means toddy in Malayalam. Now who needs champagne when u can have the luscious fermenting sap of a flowering branch of a coconut tree. You know what drink to bring if u come over and want to earn brownie points with my mother.