What I've been up to

We've been out & about from mornings till late evenings since we got here. There always seems to be something we wanna do or have to do. So here's a pictorial summary (too long to write):

(1) Enjoying their lovingly made coffees at the many cute cafes. But it's getting to be a costly luxury so we've decided to invest in a good coffee machine once we've moved to a more permanent place. (i'm already eyeing a slick looking delonghi machine =P)

(2) Been Bio-ing Dogs. Met this Raindrop-look-alike waiting outside a pub while his Daddy's getting a beer inside. 

(3) Meet Samson, our friend's dog. Had a nice Bbq 

lunch at their house on Sunday. The food was so simply made yet so yummy. Had too much to eat and too much to drink as well. Between 4 of us, we had 

2 bottles of wine, a shot of tequlia, 2 mugs of homemade beer, tia maria, all this in the middle of a sunday afternoon! Much less to say, we slept really well that night and amazingly we weren't hung over the next day.

(4) Roamed around Chinatown getting our Asian food fix. We saw this long snaking Q from the shop to the street and were immediately curious. Turns out it was a shop selling PRATA and SATAY! Think it was started by a Malaysian, the prata made 

fresh, looked nice and fluffy. We're definitely gonna check it out one day. 

Ok la, it's not all fun and games here. We had to do serious and boring stuff like set up bank accounts, meet accountants n lawyers to get the company registered and work visa done, house hunting (which is becoming increasingly NOT fun), finish up a project here, meet up with some existing clients & partners.

Can't wait to find a place and really settle in so we can get business up and running. 

And oh, went to visit Raindrop at the Quarantine station on friday. She's doing surprisingly well! Will post an update on this once I've downloaded the photos i took of her =)

Super excited about getting her back soon. She's become more brave and I think she's gonna like it here. 

Shoot me

Ok I know this sounds pathetic but it's only been 6 days and I'm already having a serious case of intense longing for some tongue-numbing, gut wrenching jolt of super hot CHILLI. I don't care if it's sambal balachan (i'll just scream if i ever find this here) or fresh cut chilli padi or chicken rice chilli as long as it's tongue-numbing, gut wrenching jolt of chilli......er ok i said that already, think the dire lack of chilli is having it's effect on my brain.

Actually, there do sell chilli padi here. I almost died and gone to heaven when i saw those cute lil red things but believe it or not, I didn't buy it. 

2 reasons:

1. It's called Chilli Bullet.

My immediate thought was "Er, hot or not?"

2. It's FRigging 4 bucks for like 15 pieces!

So combine the sceptic in me and my singaporean sense of how much chilli padi should cost, i simply couldn't bring myself to get it.

This was 3 days ago but i confess right now, I'm seriously tempted to give in to this daylight robbery just to get my chilli fix. 

Then again, I think i'll wait till C comes then we go marketing at the Chinatown market where asian foodstuffs prices are alot more sane. I might just buy myself a chilli plant! 

Anyway this is gonna be one of the many boh-liao post you'll be reading here. The little details in life we take for granted: LIKE CHILLI!

Finally

Yes, having arrived in Sydney last nite, I've officially crossed the over to the new frontier.

The excitement didn't really hit me till I was on the plane and having nothing to do, i had alot of time to daydream & dwell on this new chapter.

Today's my first day here and maybe because I'm fighting a flu and maybe because the apartment's too comfortable, I've not gone out or done much yet. I'm staying at a really nice studio apartment along bondi road, just 10mins walk to bondi beach. The owners are a young couple who are currently holidaying in India. It's amazing how they've kept the place so clean and neat, it looks better than some of the service apartments I've stayed in! 

I guess it's alot less dusty n humid here but still, it's been one day and "signs" of my mess around are already quite apparent =) and I've not even unpacked yet! 

Gonna see some houses for rent tomorrow morning and probably head to the beach after. Can't wait to take my favourite bondi to tamarama beach walk, am determined to lose at least 2 dress sizes while i'm here. 

Well, now that I'm finally here I just have 2 things to worry about. Raindrop and Business. 

Everytime I think about this 2, my mind goes into a frenzy. I'm gonna church to pray for both haha, need divine intervention. Coincidentally, there's a church just 2 mins away so really no excuse not to go. The best part is i made a wrong turn and stumbled upon it so I think it's a unmistakable invitation back to church. 

Ok that's it for now, will keep updating my adventures in the land of OZ.

Klee

I was writing a long raving post about the cocktail bar Klee 2 days ago but got wiped out when the blog page crash on me &!*#$^!(!

So here's the long-short of it: 

Go try it! The drinks are amazing and deceivingly healthy. The experience very novel & fun.

Ever since Klee, all cocktails pale in comparison.

And oh, go with a girlfriend. You get more attention from the bartender that way =)

The next frontier

In less than 19 days I'm about to embark on the greatest adventure of my life or at least that's how i feel. I've been dreaming about this for the longest time but now that it's really happening i'm both excited and afraid. In fact, for the past few days I've been bouncing from one extreme emotion to another, one of immense anticipation and excitement and the other, fearful & anxious about the unknown.

I really hope once I've cross the threshold, things will just fall in place and work well for everyone who has a stake in this. I hope next year this time, I'll look back and be amused with the anxiety my silly mind put me through. 

Well the big plus side about this move is my 2 darlings will be with me and I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time exploring a new life, a new place together. 

I'm thankful that I've been able to experience so much diversity, adventures and fulfillment in my life. I'm thankful that I'm never content with the mutiny of routine that many people I know have grudgingly embraced for fear of "trying something new". Finally, I'm most thankful that God has blessed me with the courage and faith that He will always be by my side, smoothening out my journey for me. Even where there're obstacles, it's just Him playing prank and working in his usual mysterious ways. 

So guys, stay tuned and find out what happens once I've taken my leap of faith on the 19th =)

Fleur de sel

My swedish neighbour at portsdown just came back from a trip home and got us a jar of fleur de sel. (It's terribly sweet of them cos we sorta off handedly mention once that we find really good salt in Singapore overly expensive.)

I couldn't hide my glee when I got that lil pot of goodness and couldn't wait to try it out on a good recipe that just relies on good salt. I stumbled upon a roast chicken recipe from chubby hubby and it couldn't be more perfect. This recipe was so simple that I was initially doubtful. It only calls for good lug of olive oil, the best salt and some fresh thyme leaves but it was perfect to give my fleur de sel a good test drive. 

I gave a 1.5kg chicken a good rub down with the salt, left it in the fridge overnight and popped it in the oven for dinner the next day. (i was really careful not to waste a single grain of this rather expensive salt) 

The chicken came out AWESOME! The salt gave the juicy meat a tangy sweet savoury note, with the scent n flavours of fresh thyme....*drool* And oh, i threw in some whole garlic cloves at the side cos I know C loves roasted garlic. 

 It was my best roast chicken yet and it was so friggin simple. A perfect lazy tuesday night dinner meal. 

Ok here's the photo from chubby hubby's site. Mine didn't come up as brown n pretty, i still don't know how to get my chicken to that even goldish brown color. Mine always ends up charred in some parts n not very brown in the others. But oh well, bet it was just as  yummy =)

Gross & Rotten

It was a Friday and I wanted to dish up a good load of high carbo and high fat meal in anticipation of Con's home-coming after leaving for a very last min trip to Bkk. 

After starving myself off carbo for almost 2 weeks, I was literally smacking my lips dreaming up the most carbo-ladden meal I could whip up. 

Unfortunately, as it was a last minute meal and I had very little hope for getting sufficiently fresh ingredients at my nearby supermarket so I decided upon a simple but yummy dish of Aglio Olio. All I needed was a good dose of Bacon & green beans. Bacon as you know is preserved so high chance i should be able to get them decently "fresh" right? Green beans are hardy veg and have long shelf life so it should be easy preasy. 

So off I headed to Colds Storage.

Here's what I found:

The white stuff you see on the green beans is not light reflection but a serious case of  white fungus like mold growing on it. The bacon was a gross greyish brown color. I couldn't resist snapping the pork ribs, which was again that gross sickly brownish color of rotting meat!

While I know Singapore's food stuff are all mostly imported so one cannot expect "fresh-off-the-farm" quality but is it TOO much to expect at least not being sold ROTTEN food? 

This is not the first time I've had such a appalling & disappointing experience with Colds Storage. Just a few weeks back, we were unfortunate to have bought a completely rotten watermelon. Have you ever smelt a rotten watermelon before? OMG, I still feel nauseous recalling that godawful scent. The irony of it was, we were really cheesed off so called Colds Storage to complain. They got their staff to hand deliver another watermelon to us. That watermelon when cut open was equally rotten! We thought this was their idea of a sick joke and called them to thank for sending us another rotten fruit. In response, they were kind enough to apologise and sent us ANOTHER rotten watermelon! 

Suffice to say, I've not had watermelon since then.

Anyway back to my carbo-ladden aglio olio, I did still manage to whip it up but had to gingerly pick thru a packet of green beans for edible ones and had to buy a imported pack of bacon. 

The dish was yummy enough to put me back into a good mood. 

As for COlds Storage, I've written in to NEA. NEA apparently has recently set up a "hotline" for you to call if you encounter less than fresh foods being sold. For them to have a dedicated hotline, there must be alot of unhappy & equally grossed out customers out there.