Rambling

I think I may never get around to updating everything, so I'll just ramble off some of the things that have been happening in the last couple of weeks.

We celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by running some errands and doing Christmas shopping.  Our aim was to finish all our shopping before I deliver.  It may be an everyday thing for a lot of people, but having a whole day to hang out, just the two of us, is something Jon and I don't get to do that often.  It turned out that our anniversary took on an 'old school' theme by accident.  It started with lunch at Wishbone, a restaurant that's been around since I was a little girl.  My Mum had a cooked food stall opposite, and between plucking tao gay and picking tau suan, my brother and I would hop over to buy ice-cream from Happy Kappy, their dessert arm. 

Dinner was at Shashlik, a Russian restaurant at Far East Shopping Centre.  It's a place with special meaning for us cos Jon once brought me there for a surprise dinner.  It was one of those times that he really really managed to surprise me :)  Things haven't changed at all in the intervening nine years.  The place looks the same, and the food was just as good.  The Borsch was heavenly and the Shashlik, of course, was great too.  As for dessert, we just couldn't resist ordering the ever indulgent baked Alaska.  How things have changed for us personally though.  We're now married with one kid, and one more on the way!

Day 2 of our wedding anniversay (our wedding was spread over 2 days, so we have an excuse to celebrate more!), we had lunch at the chicken rice stall on the top floor of Far East Plaza - another old school joint.  Somewhere we both went to as students. 

For me it felt like we were dating all over again, and it was just sweet and romantic in an everyday, ordinary way :)

Now that we're both on leave too, we've been settling stuff in the day while Asher's at school.  We haven't had so many afternoons out together since we were students!  So we caught Narnia, and I'm hoping to catch the sneak of Gulliver's Travels tomorrow.

As for Asher, he's settled very well into his new school.  Although initially he'd protest a bit when I left, now he walks off to join his friends and blows us kisses as we head off :)  He always seems to happy when we pick him up, and I love how he runs to us to greet us with a big big hug :)  Things really took a turn for the better when Jon started dropping off and picking up Asher together with me.  I think that helped him adjust more quickly.  I was worried that if I continued to drop/pick Asher alone, when Baby comes Asher would feel abandoned or neglected if I suddenly stopped sending him to school.  So these last 2 weeks we've been doing it together, and it has come to the point where Asher's ok even if Jon picked him up by himself. 

Jon's been more hands on these last two weeks at home, and that has helped me lots, and is great for Asher.  From helping with laundry to bathing Asher when I need a rest.  Asher's now even closer to Jon, and it's evidenced by requests from Asher for Daddy to read to him, even though storytime is usually done by Mummy.  I'm really happy to see them bonding :)

Asher's also eating SO much better.  I was reading up on picky eating sometime last month, and found that kids who are not pressured to eat end up getting all the nutrients they need anyway.  I think that perhaps in my anxiety about his weight loss and his poor food in-take, I was unconsciously making meal times stressful for him.  I decided to let go, to not press for him to "take another bite", to just offer him a wide variety of healthy options and let him pick when he wants to eat from that selection.  I decided to let him be in charge of his intake, afterall they say breastfed kids know how to regulate their food intake well.  And the results were quick and satisfying.  Within a day or two he was eating more, and he started drinking milk again (yes, he had rejected even that!  At it's worst, he could go an entire day with less than 200ml of milk and just 2 tablespoons of rice!).  He now generally eats heartily, even though there are some meals where he just picks at the food.  But that's ok.  I've come to be very zen about it, especially cos I now adopt the mindset that it's just one of many meals in a week.  He's still more of a vegetarian/fruitarian, not liking to eat meat that much, but I've found a pretty decent list of almost full-proof food that he'll take, some of these he ate even during his picky phase.  Some things are, well, fast-food, but I've also come to think that if he will eat it, let him be.  It's still food afterall.  At home offer him the healthier stuff, outside, close one eye. 

So here's the list: all fruits, veg (esp carrots and corn), my bolognaise sauce, fish fingers, chicken nuggets, egg tofu, rice (esp if he helped to cook it), roti prata, tortillas, eggs (in one form or another - but you must give it to him in the form he wants or he won't eat it), and the KFC breakfast platter (he esp likes the biscuits).  Besides these, the cuisine that seems to work almost all the time is Indian food.  So far, he has without fail (to my memory at least) eaten well whenever we have Indian food.  Roti prata is one case in point.  He will happily munch on egg prata, and sometimes even dips it into the curry.  He loves briyani rice, he eats dahl curry, has munched up palak paneer (a mild spinach and cheese curry) with gusto, likes vegetable korma, eats dosai and apun jala (pancakes which look like spider webs), and enjoys papadum no end.  I think he likes their stronger flavours, and I'm not surprised, given how much Indian and Malay food I ate when I was pregnant and breastfeeding.

So it was a very happy Selena tonight as we left Samy's curry.  He ate very well, eating half a good sized piece of dry curried fish (he actually ate fish without me having to sneak it in!), dahl with briyani, papadum, and a cup of mixed fruit (this is something I didn't know they offered until today!).  I have always liked going to Samy's curry, and we've brought him there before, but tonight I left thinking, "I love Samy's!".  The staff are always so friendly to him, saying hi as they walk by.  He likes having his own banana leaf to eat off, free flow of papadum and dahl, fab lime juice, and now there's  even fruits to end the meal!!  And for the parents - great teh tarik too :) 

We weighed him tonight, and I was very surprised and happy to see that he's finally broken 12!  He's 12.4 kg!!  What a vast improvement from a month ago when he fell back into the 10 range! 

So I'm very very happy to see Asher happy at home, at school, at meals.  He's really been a jolly fellow these few weeks with Mummy and Daddy being available to him.  I hope it keeps up when Baby comes, and when Jon goes back to work. 

Speaking of Baby, we've decided on the name already, but we'll keep it under wraps until he arrives.  Asher's been refering to Baby by his name for the last several months, and I suppose we can't change it now else he'd be so confused when Baby is introduced with a different name.  Anyway, it's a name we like very much, and in fact was the first name we considered many many months ago when I was about 3-4 months pregnant.  We deliberated several others in the last few months, but nothing quite sat as well with us. Anyway, I'll elaborate more on the name when Baby arrives.

Asher's been very sweet though.  He talks about Baby as part of the family.  A few days ago when playing with blocks he built a house for Baby.  He has also in his new school played with a baby doll, and called it by Baby's name.  He carried the doll, brought it for a stroll around the room in a stroller, fed him milk, and included him in storytime :)  (I've some pics, will see if I can upload when I move to a new site.)  He says that Baby loves him, and he loves Baby.  I just hope that this good feeling keeps up! 

I've been getting him prepared for the arrival of the little one.  Asher chose to give a toy to Baby, and he's picked out which toy.  He knows I'm going to be in hospital for two days, and he'll stay with Por Por.  He knows it tiring to deliver and Mummy might be sleeping a lot after.  And the most recent piece of info I've introduced is that Mummy doesn't know when Baby is coming.  Only God/Jesus knows.  I realised I had to tell him this last piece of info too in case Baby comes in the middle of the night and we're not around in the morning when he wakes up!  Right now Asher's not the most reliable predictor of when Baby will come.  Every time I ask him whether Baby is coming before or after Christmas the answer changes :)   

And as for Christmas, I can't wait! :)  Where will I be celebrating it?  At home?  At a friend's house?  In hospital?  Let's just see how it goes!

The Magic Island

Brought Asher to catch PLAYtime's The Magic Island at the Esplandae Theatres after school.  I thought that it was a good production in that the storyline was kept simple, the characters sufficiently engaging, and it was obvious the children enjoyed the programme.  Plus, the tickets aren't that expensive at $15.

The Recital Hall was set up with a platform in the middle (the island), four marked out areas for parents and children to sit, four more 'islands' in the outer perimeter, and a platform in front which, I suppose, was a hill. 

Basically the story is about a little girl who visits her big sister, and during her week-long visit tries to make friends with the animals she meets.  She eventually makes friends with Baby Monkey, Baby Tiger and Sally the vegetarian singing Snake.  It brings the children through a series of adventures such as a journey to Coconut Island, to Starfish Island, and learning how to swim. 

Asher was engaged throughout the performance, and I had to catch him back several times when he wanted to wander onto the stage, or didn't want to come back to my lap after an interactive portion where the children actually were allowed to go on stage :)  He particularly like Baby Tiger, and after the performance we walked around Esplanade looking for Baby Tiger to say hello.  I think he had fun, at least, he nodded his head when I asked him after if he did :)

Will definitely try to go for their other performances next time.

As usual, when we're at the Esplanade, we headed to the bayside to see the Merlion and watch the boats go by.  That day there were canoes, and even better, two eagles soaring above.  They even swooped down a couple of times to catch fish!  What a treat to watch.

Trying to be an eagle

 

We ended the outing with dinner at Ichiban Boshi.  The food there is always decent for the price, and I really like some of their sushi items.  I ordered an unagi-tofu-tempura set to share with Asher, and a side order of cha soba.  The set was hearty and I was happy with the variety of dishes it came with.  Besides the three mentioned above, it also came with miso soup, some pickles, chawanmushi, a bowl of rice and oranges.  The portion of unagi was generous and they gave an entire slab of tofu!  Asher eventually only wanted to munch some of my tempura, but walloped the soba, a mound of rice, the entire bowl of chawanmushi and the oranges.  Didn't realise he would like chawanmushi so much! 

Overall, a good outing :)

Runway Raiders

It was a sunny Sunday.  Clear blue skies.  We decided to bring Asher to see aeroplanes take off from Changi Airport.  He's seen aeroplanes ascending in the distance when we are at East Coast Park, but I wanted to show him aeroplanes taking off, and what better place than from the runway itself? 

So together with my parents we first stopped by the sailing club opposite SAFRA to see some planes from there.  Then, we drove to the side of the runway and watched the airplanes take off right in front of us!  We observed that for the more established airlines, the sound the engines of the planes made when taking off was much richer and nicer than for the less established airlines.  SIA planes really make nicer take-off sounds. 

Asher was eagerly watching the planes take off one after the other.  Big planes, and bigger planes - cos from there, they were all big!  And then of course we had to all imitate how planes fly, and Asher followed, particular enjoying being 'flown' around by Jon :) 

We managed to stay there watching the planes for a good while before we got hungry and headed for dinner at Charlie's Corner at Changi Village.  The food there is great!  My Mum loved the pork chops which were thick and juicy.  Many places serve their pork chops too dry.  The grilled fish that I shared with Asher was also well done (generous portions, not charred, very flavourful), as was the fish and chips my Dad had, and the hot dog Jon ate.  And as my Dad ordered a beer, he initiated the clinking of glasses while saying "cheers" just for fun.  Then, Asher picked up on it, and for the rest of the night kept on wanting to clink his waterbottle with us while saying "cheers" too.  Haha...oh dear.  What have we taught him? :)

At the sailing club

By the runway

Ro-ma-Roma-ras

Tony Romas always satisfies.  Coming on the heels of a bad dinner at Applebees, we appreciated the good food all the more.  It's still number one on the HungryGoWhere list for ribs, and I heartily agree! 

We were there to celebrate my mum's birthday.  Tony Romas featured new items on their menu, and we just had to try the Spinach Artichoke dip to compare with Applebees, and my, it won hands down!  It was much more flavourful, creamy and addictive.  The Bourbon BBQ and Chiptle Beer were very interesting new sauces for their Ribs.  I liked them both, though I think I prefer the Bourbon BBQ a little more. 

The two cousins also had a yummy feast there!  They shared a ribs & fish main course - and finished it!  Asher particularly enjoyed munching on the corn-on-the-cob - his latest favourite food. 

After dinner action was great fun!  The two little boys had a great time playing together - if their laughter and squeals of delight are anything to go by :)  One of the funny moments was when Aidan was at one end of a pond, and Asher at another.  They were staring through the glass to look at the water when they saw each other, laughed, then both started to try and make their way to each other.  There was a pillar at the corner, and when they rounded the corner, the both burst out laughing and started to run away, thinking the other was playing peekaboo with him :O) 

At the Orchard Hotel lobby, it was adorable to watch them follow the lines on the ground and go "choo choo" as if they were trains :)  Round and round and round they went - was tiring for us parents having to keep up with them!  It was great to see them really playing with each other.  For the longest time they were mostly playing alongside one another, but now they learn funny 'words' from one another, and follow each other's actions. 

Asher didn't want to stop, and as you can see from this series of pictures, he kept trying to escape to run around some more :)

"I want to break free!"

Ok, ok, one photo

Alright, that's enough now, time for me to go!

See Asher's cheeky smile as he slides off my lap

More photos???

I'm outta here!

A Bee Disappointing. A Great Date Night

It was date night for us!  My parents took care of Asher, so we had a night out in town!  We decided on something we've always enjoyed, but don't get to do much of nowadays - dinner and a movie.

Our show was at Cineleisure, and Jon noticed that there was an Applebee's nearby.  Applebee's is special to us cos it was where we dined together the first night I was in New York when I visited Jon during our exchange.  We remember fondly the great food and the excellent signature dessert Apple Chimi Cheesecake.  I still remember that we sat by a window and watched the snow fall as we ate. 

BUT.  The Singapore Applebees is such a poor imitation of the real thing.  It was an absolute disappointment.  First, they don't even have that famous Chimi Cheesecake.  Jon asked the waiter about it, and he just gave us this blur look.  Then the service was really not up to scratch.  We asked for two glasses of warm water as we began our meal, but they only came near our final bites and after many reminders, plus a beverage mix-up.  They somehow thought we meant two bottles of Hoegaarden?!?!  Twice!

Then the food.  Oh.  Gosh.  A classic case of misrepresentation.  I didn't have a camera with me, but it's probably not worth taking pictures of anyway.  I ordered the ribeye with parmesan shrimp.  In the picture it showed a steak an inch thick with a lovely yellow cheesy sauce drizzled over succulent prawns.  I know one shouldn't trust the pictures in the menu.  But really.  At least try to live up to it.  The steak that came was hardly even 1cm thick!!  I had asked for medium-rare.  How can you possibly medium-rare a 1cm steak??  It came rare.  Bloodly and uncooked.  I told the waiter I wanted it cooked a little more, and reminded I prefered medium-rare.  They took it away to cook some more, but Jon and I gave each other looks which communicated that we knew they were probably gonna just cook it right through.  Seriously, but the time you sear the meat enough, the insides would be all cooked!  And as we predicted, it came out well done.  In terms of taste, I honestly prefer the steak the Western stall at Redhill market sells.  It's probably the same, or thicker, than the Applebee's steak too.  And it only costs $6.  The Applebee's dish was $39++!  If it came out as it looked in the menu, and tasted better than it did, it would probably have been a fair price.  But for that, it's wayyy expensive! 

And I haven't even talked about the quite uncheesy sauce, the small and over-cooked shrimp, the over-singed vegetables, and the overly big serving but underwhelming mashed potatoes.  I had just made a some mash the night before at home, and I think even that tasted better! 

Jon's starter trio was a lot smaller than expected.  And to compensate, they gave a huge serving of much too salty tortilla chips.  Thing is, the tortilla chips were meant for dipping into their spinach and artichoke sauce.  But then...there just wasn't enough sauce for all that tortilla. 

Then there's the image mismatch.  Applebee's calls itself a 'neighbourhood grill and bar', but they served up the steak and starters on dainty rectangular plates.  I guess it's a difference of opinion, but I think that a more appropriate way to serve everything would have been on thick heavy round plates, diner style.  Plus, the big plate just served to accentuate how small the starter trio was. 

The bill came up to $89, and for what we had, it was definitely overpriced. 

As we walked around 313 Orchard, we found ourselves repeating as we passed each cafe/bistro/restaurant, "the food is probably better and cheaper in here!"

Anyway, the night certainly took a turn for the better with the movie Date Night (how appropriate huh?).  Maybe it's cos the issues are salient, we had SUCH a good laugh in the theatre.  I absolutely loved the show :)  Haven't laughed so hard for a long time.  Perfect for a relaxing and light-hearted night out!  I shan't spoil the plot.  I shall just say that if you have kids and have been married for a while, this is a good show to watch.  And by the volume of the laughter from the rest of the audience, and looking at the demographic, I don't even think being married or being parents is a prerequisite to enjoying the show.  So I thoroughly disagree with the review in the Business Times that the show was a dud.  Perhaps the guy is a real grouch.  So there.

Birthday @ Spruce

Was so pleased that Asher was extremely cooperative today, and I could settle him to bed without any fuss at all by 730pm! I had a birthday gathering to head to and didn't want to be too late and miss all the fun :)

Janine chose Spruce as her birthday dinner spot. I've been there for breakfast, but not for dinner, so was keen to see how their other dishes were.

The Spruce Signature Pasta was all green...and strange looking. We were making fun of Alex's meal, but she ignored us and ate her dinner anyway :)









I had the blue cheese burger, which was competently done and I quite enjoyed it.









These were the other dishes the girls order - Fish & Chips (not too bad), Kurobuta Pork Loin (didn't try), and mushroom risotto (didn't try either).


















For dessert I order the beet root chocolate cake which quite interesting and tasty, but I didn't like the icing they used. Think it would be gone down better if they had used a cream cheese icing on top instead.










The rest of the desserts were okay too. Panna cotta quite yummy, cheesecake ok, sorbet ok. I guess most things, including the mains, were ok, but wasn't anything to shout about.

















As usual we were catching up, poking fun at each other, etc. Key question of the night...why are we still friends after so long when we jibe each other so much?? :O) What can we say, it's a love-hate thing? Haha :) Anyway, I was happy that night, and remember that I'm blessed to have such old friends in my life :) We were speculating whether 40 years down the road we'd still be jibing each other like this...and you know what? I hope we do! ;)
















PS was trying to feed Janine a morsel of something :)

Birthday Dinner @ PS Cafe

It was a crazy busy day! Rushing around the office trying to clear stuff. Was glad to finally get off work and meet my friends :)

We went to PS Cafe at Dempsey. I like the place for it's food and atmosphere :) I always love how there are fresh flowers which give the place a lovely fresh fragrance. And I like how there's greenery both in and outside the restaurant.










Dinner was yummy as usual, and I was so pleased to have my keylime pie! It's something I fell in love with from the time Jon introduced me to it when we were in New York. Actually, the keylime pie from the diner near Jon's New York apartment is still the best I've had, but well, since it's not often you find any keylime pie at all, I won't be fussy! :)










We were having our usually banter, among which we were having a funny conversation on whether the word irresistable is pronounced IR-resistable, or ir-RE-sistable. And other words like IR-responsible vs ir-RES-ponsible, liaison (lee-ay-zon) vs liaise (lie-aise), etc :) It was really quite hilarious and I remember having lots of laughs over it. Went home tired, but it was a fun night out :)

Le Sacré Coeur

For Jon's birthday we went to Le Sacré Coeur, a French bistro in Islington.

I had gone there once with Sathia, Hsu Hsien, Ganga and Charles, and remembered that the food was good and reasonably priced.

Jon had a lamb steak and I had a pork joint, both served with new potatoes - something that Jon and I have grown to like very much. The dishes were flavourful, hearty, and very satisfying.





























We ended the meal with creme brulee!















And the wine we had was even better than the one we had the Gaucho's Grill!



















Just a quiet dinner him & I :)

St Moritz and the Cheese Eaters

After the visit to Forest Hill, the day was topped off with a wonderful dinner at St Moritz at Wardour Street near Tottenham Court Road tube station. We met Shan and Ben at the restaurant for a good dose of cheese fondue! They've been telling us how good the fondue is, and we had to try it! We especially wanted to have fondue when the weather was still cold :)

The servings were good, and the cheese was...er..cheesy? We tried 2 types of cheese fondue. Fondue Moitie-Moitie was a mix of gruyere and vacherin cheese, and Fondue Forestiere was a combination of wild mushrooms and cheese. Both had a stronger taste of wine than we expected, but were still very good! Served with bread and new potatoes, we ordered extra dishes of chicken cordon bleu, swiss sausages (which turned out to be more like ham slices), and rosti! Such a hearty happy meal, with such cheery chummy company ;)












Special note for Nessie: They had a plate specially created for you (and Shan haha)!