Archive for April 2017

Home Archive for April 2017

"If I lay here, if I just lay here.

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

Anyeong! Noona is currently feeling a tad emo because it seems that the more she sees some light about certain situations (or someone), the more her fantasy crumbles. Crack crack, yeah, that's more like it *dry laugh*. For someone who has always been a dreamer (despite the fact that she has become less and less idealist because of some reality lessons learned from life), she kinda feels sad when her fantasy crumbling. Oh man.

In time like this, let's go for a cuppa joe. Noona used to think that Tyrwhitt Road is somewhat inaccessible because the last time Noona visited Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee Bar (CSHH Coffee Bar), she has to take a bus from Lavender to a she-dunno-where bus stop and then walk for a bit to CSHH Coffee Bar.

Oink Noona: Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee Bar, Farrer Park

But now, Noona and her cafehopping buddy took a train to Farrer Park MRT Station and made our way to CSHH Coffee Bar on foot. It seems to be way nearer than taking bus from Lavender MRT Station. Since this was cafehopping buddy's first time at CSHH Coffee Bar, she was kinda shocked when Noona brought her into a building which looks like a deserted office building. Once you are inside though, you will immediately see an al-fresco area of CSHH Coffee Bar which obviously look like a normal cafe and not some industrial building. Hahaha.

Al fresco area of Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee Bar

This is the main entrance of CSHH Coffee Bar if you would like to sit inside an air-conditioned section of the cafe.

Main door to Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee Bar

Other than coffees, CSHH Coffee Bar serves food too. The food section is divided into mains, to share, salads and sides. Noona has never been a fan of salads so she totally did not look into it. Since we are going for dessert at the neighboring Creamery after this, we tried to limit our food intake by sharing the Huat Dog and Mac and Cheese.

Food menu from CCSH Coffee Bar Farrer Park

While cafehopping buddy proceeded to make order at the cashier, Noona is busy observing the cafe's interior. Yeap, we are sitting at the coffee bar table and hence, we could observe how the coffee is made at CSHH Coffee Bar. Not that we understand how the coffee was made though, so we could not really comment much after looking at the creation line. Hahaha.

Bar area at CCSH Coffee Bar at Farrer Park

Fancy coffee machine at CSHH Coffee Bar. Kinda makes Noona and her cafehopping buddy want to try out learning coffee-making. Barista course on the look. Hahahaha.

Coffee machine from Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee

There is no way we visit CSHH Coffee Bar without ordering their coffee. Noona notices that a lot of customers are buying their coffee powder so CSHH Coffee Bar must have been serving an awesome coffee. The latte art on our mocha looks fantastic too with hearts on both coffee. Definitely happy with our mocha <3.

Mocha from Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee Bar

Halfway sipping our mocha, a plate of Huat Dog (SGD 16) has arrived on our table. It is basically something like coney dog but served with Asian rendang sauce. Quirky and yummy at the same time.

Huat Dog from Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee

There's nothing that can go wrong with an order of Mac and Cheese. Taste even better when eaten with chili sauce (blame my Indonesian tongue). Yummy!

Mac n Cheese from Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee

Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee Bar is located at:

150 Tyrwhitt Road

Singapore

Nearest MRT: Farrer Park MRT

Opening hours:

Sunday to Thursday 9AM - 10PM

Friday to Saturday 9AM - 12AM

"I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend."

Anyeong! Happy Saturday everybody. Noona has just reached home after an "oh-no-I-ate-a-lot-again" kind of Saturdate. But it's hard not to eat while you are out with your best pal and talking about a lot of stuff under the sun. Noona does not have a lot of friends but she has been blessed with a few awesome buddies which she can discuss about basically anything in life from work, current crush, world, celebrities, travel, and the list goes on and on and on. We decided to chat over plates of gyoza tonight at Gyozaya.

There are two branches of Gyozaya in Singapore and both branches are located at Orchard area. One is located at ION Orchard while the other is located at Robinsons Orchard. If you prefer to dine in the quieter place, you should go for the branch at Robinsons Orchard. Just like its name, Gyozaya is famous for its gyoza (re: Japanese pan-fried dumplings). Gyozaya serves a variety of gyoza with different toppings that you probably have never tried before like cheese, chicken curry and even mentaiko (the Japs really love to put mentaiko on almost everything).

Special gyoza menu from Gyozaya at Robinsons Orchard

Since both Noona and her pal are big eater, they know for sure that they would not be filled with gyoza alone unless they order maybe more than 5 plates of gyoza so they decided to order some carbs to go with their gyoza. Noona ordered a bowl of Garlic Fried Rice which tastes so damn good (nothing can go wrong with fried rice, really!).

Garlic fried rice from Gyozaya at Robinsons Orchard

While Noona's pal went for Japanese rendition Jya-Jya Men (which Noona thinks is the counterpart of Korean jajjangmyeon). There is an instruction available on the leaflet provided on every table how to mix the black bean sauce and the condiments on the table. So, any customer who orders Jya-Jya Men will be able to enjoy the noodle after mixing them in the right way. Noona still prefers the Korean rendition of black bean noodle though.

Jya Jya Men from Gyozaya at Robinsons Orchard

The two hungry girls opted for three type of gyoza: Mentaiko Miso, Normal and Cheese flavoured gyoza.

Assorted gyoza from Gyozaya at Robinsons Orchard

Noona loves mentaiko taste so she enjoys Gyozaya's rendition of Mentaiko Miso Gyoza. It gives a different kick to otherwise a normal savoury gyoza.

Pan fried dumpling with mentaiko miso from Gyozaya

However, if you don't like your gyoza to be fanciful, you should really stick to the original flavour because it's "cleaner" in a way. Don't forget to use the special gyoza sauce to dip your dumpling into.

Pan-fried dumpling with pork from Gyozaya at Robinsons Orchard

The cheese gyoza turns out to be quite heavy on Noona's palette after a few bites of eating this gyoza with the garlic fried rice. Pouring chili powder on it kinda helps to fight the "too much" taste though. Spicy taste is the solution to make any food taste better for any Indonesian living in this world. Hahahaha.

Pan-fried dumpling with cheese from Gyozaya at Robinsons Orchard

Gyozaya is located at:

260 Orchard Road, #B1-02A

Robinsons Heeren

Operating hours:

Daily 11.30AM - 10PM

"There's no need to complicate, our time is short."

Today is Friday and yet it's so hard to be chill like how Noona is usually is on a Friday because Noona's friend in office is going through a trouble. In a gist, there has been a miscommunication within our team member which resulted in some stuff not reported timely to the tax authority. And this may result in penalty to our workplace. Nothing is a good news when it involves some kind of "loss" to the boss no matter how big or tiny the amount is so yeah, Noona has been busy consoling her friend throughout the day. Sometimes she wonders why work has become so complicated up to the point everybody is busy and tired and start to make mistake.

That's why it is so important to enjoy weekend to the fullness whenever it arrives. Last weekend, Noona and her cafehopping buddy finally managed to get seats at Creamery Boutique Ice Creams (after one hour of waiting, nonetheless).

The one hour waiting time is probably partly because the ice cream boutique is not big in size and hence, only manages to accommodate a few table and chairs. The concept of the dessert sold at Creamery Boutique Ice Cream is a set of cookie and ice cream. The idea is to serve cold ice cream on a lava/ non-lava cookie.

Cookie set menu from Creamery at Farrer Park

The lava cookies will crack and ooze out its fillings whereby the non-lava cookies stay sturdy and solid even when you put a scoop of ice cream on it. Creamery has beverages too but we are not interested in the beverages menu at all.

Cookie, ice cream and beverages menu from Creamery at Farrer Park

Some nice decoration beneath the menu at the black board. The menu on the blackboard is not that complete so it's better to take a look at the paper menu instead.

Some of the flavour of the ice cream to select from include Piko Piko (tiramisu coffee flavour), Sugus (a brand of sweets from the past), Strawberry, Matcha, Thai Tea and classic flavour such as chocolate and vanilla. You can ask for tester first before deciding which ice cream you would like to have with your cookie.

Ice cream flavour at Creamery Farrer Park

Since it took a lot of effort just to get a table at Creamery Boutique Ice Cream, we decided to pig a bit and order two cookie sets. The first set is called Red Devil (SGD 8.90) as it consists of Red Velvet Cream Cheese Lava Cookie and one scoop of ice cream. We chose Milo Dinosaur ice cream to pair with the red velvet cookie. But when the waitress press the cookie, the cream cheese filling did not really ooze out like what we expected it to be.

Lava cookie red velvet cream cheese from Creamier at Farrer Park

In fact, the cream cheese filling was only oozing out from one direction. We found this kinda anti-climax to be honest with you.

Milo Dinosaur on Red Velvet Cream Cheese Cookie from Creamier at Farrer Park

The waitress came back to pour topping which seems to be Milo powder on the whole cookie + ice cream set. Still not impressed with the lack of oozing cream cheese inside our red velvet cookie here. Taste wise, it was not bad. Red velvet and milo make a pretty good combination apparently.

Milo Dinosaur ice cream on Red Velvet Cookie with topping from Creamier at Farrer Park

The next cookie set that we ordered is Brownie (SGD 7.90) which consists of a non-lava Brownie cookie and one scoop of ice cream. We paired our brownie cookie with Piko Piko ice cream. Since it is a non-lava cookie, we left it aside to finish our Red Devil first.

Tiramisu ice cream on Brownie cookie from Creamier at Farrer Park

But when we were going to move on with our second cookie set, the Piko Piko ice cream has started to melt and creating a great visual for our Instagram. Taste-wise, Noona thinks she's about to have diabetes after eating this sugar + sugar combination which leads to sugar overload. Okay, morale of the story is tiramisu + brownie is an overkill. Don't do this unless you have an extremely high tolerance of sugar.

Tiramisu ice cream on brownie cookie at Creamier

Creamery Boutique Ice Cream is located at:

139 Tyrwhitt Road, #01-03

Nearest MRT: Farrer Park

Opening hours:

Daily (except Thursday) 11AM - 10PM

Closed on Thursday

"Wanna take a spin? Wanna take a roll?

You know you're dealing with a wildcard."

Anyeong! Noona has just finished her midweek dinner date with her high school buddy, R5. Since R5 has gotten married, it's kinda challenging to find a common timing for us to date each other. Especially since both of us have gotten ourselves busy with work work work. Ugh. But today R5 has agreed to my date invitation. Yeay! So we went to the hipster office cum retail space at Esplanade, South Beach to have a lovely dinner.

R5 was so tired after dealing with her day-to-day task. Noona finds this quite ironic because she's not working in a profit-driven organization. In fact, she's working in those non-profit education organization which people presumes to be quite family-friendly and work-life balance supporter. Turns out there are so many things to do everyday up to the point that she simply feels so drained with her weekdays. Since R5 was feeling so tired, Noona let her choose what to eat for tonight.

And that's how we came to Atmastel. The name of the restaurant is kinda hard to pronounce but anyway, the most important is the venue and the food. From the menu, Atmastel seems to specialize in pasta and pizza. Oh wait, it also offers some mains to select from.

Atmastel at South Beach Esplanade Singapore

We were actually planning to eat pizza but the pizza chef was on sick leave that day. If all the chefs are having an epidemic, the restaurant will have to close for the day for sure. Apparently chefs are a very high-calling job. If you are working as a chef, please ensure to be healthy always. Anyway, back to the food, since there are only the two of us, we only ordered one appetizer and one pasta to share. For the appetizer, we ordered Calamari & Zucchini Fritters (SGD 18). While Noona personally thinks nothing can or shall go wrong with fried calamari, the zucchini fritters are so interesting. It's basically deep fried zucchini and the feeling is like you are eating fries and yet it's technically healthier because zucchini is after all a type of vegetable. Right?

Calamari and zucchini fritters from Atmastel at South Beach

The pasta that we ordered does not look pretty and in fact, it looks kinda ordinary. However, the Garganelli with Homemade Sausage (SGD 21) tastes yummy despite its so-so appearance. This was the first time Noona has ever heard of a pasta type named Garganelli. It is apparently an egg-based pasta which is formed by rolling a flat, square noodle into tubular shape.

Garganeli with homemade sausage from Atmastel at South Beach

The pasta is chewy and really suitable to Noona's liking. But what Noona loves the best about the pasta is definitely the tomato sauce since it's on the creamier side. Noona is a creamy pasta eater and she does not really love eating Aglio Olio kind of pasta so this Garganelli scores big in her book. Hahaha.

Atmastel is located at:

South Beach Avenue,

26 Beach Road #B1-22

Nearest MRT: Esplanade

Opening hours:

Monday to Thursday 11AM - 10PM

Friday and Saturday 11AM - 11PM

Closed on Sunday

"I'll be taking my time, spending my life.

Falling deeper in love with you."

Anyeong and happy weekend to everybody. It is a very hot Saturday morning but all seems well when you do not have to crawl your way to office. Noona has tried to do all kind of efforts possible during the weekdays to avoid coming back to office on weekend. No no no. Especially when the aircon is turned off on weekend. Oh my gawd. She's surely gonna melt in the office in this kind of scenario.

Thankfully the worst possible story line from the corporate jungle has been avoided. And Noona can continue her cafe-hopping adventure in peace. Clap clap clap. Last Saturday, she and her cafe-hopping buddy decided to explore one of the hipster area in Singapore, Haji Lane and its surroundings. We originally wanted to try out The Hangar but the cafe was closed for the rest of the day at 5.30PM-ish. Crazy. So we switched venue to I Am instead.

I Am offers main dishes such as burgers, sandwich and pizza. All the dishes served here is halal and hence, this cafe is pretty popular with the Muslim. The burgers look pretty delicious from the picture really.

It has been hot since last Saturday so Noona was really in a dire need of a cold drinks. No alcohol served at I Am for sure because otherwise they cannot retain their halal certificate. But mocktails are available and I Am has a pretty interesting range of mocktails.

After we have made our order, we looked around at the cafe's decoration. A lot of street signs from what seems to be the Netherlands, not sure why. Maybe someone has just come back from the country. They do make a pretty good pillar decoration though. Hahaha.

Here comes our mocktails, one glass of Lychee Virgin Mojito (SGD 6.90) and Bushramint (SGD 6.90). Virgin Lychee Mojito is pretty self-explanatory while the Bushramint is supposedly the most popular drink in I Am's menu and its a refreshing citrus-based concoction with orange slices. Taste not bad. Both of the mocktails are pretty good for hot weather.

Fancy drinks from I Am at Haji Lane Bugis

Few minutes later, our burgers have finally arrived. The Boss Burger (SGD 17.90) is supposedly come with charcoal burger but there's nothing so charcoal-ly when the burger came to our table. It is a pretty tall burger though because it is filled with huge patty (which claimed to be marinated with 7 different herbs), sautéed mushroom, turkey bacon and special sauce. No description on what kind of 7 different herbs used to infuse the beef patty with and there's no way I Am gonna tell what kind of sauce they are using for the burger. But anyway at the end of the day, the burger tastes good and that's what really matter.

The Boss Burger from I Am at Haji Lane Bugis

Oh turned out the charcoal buns are used for the Soft Shell Crab Burger (SGD 16.90) instead. The soft shell crab burger has crispy soft-shell crab with pickled beetroot and wasabi mayonaisse. The wasabi taste is not that strong so you don't have to worry about putting them in your mouth. Noona wish they serve fries with the burger as well because she does not really like the tortillas. They are soggy and not crispy at all. Other than that, the burger taste pretty good. I Am serves pretty decent and nice burgers after all.

Soft shell crab burger from I Am at Haji Lane Bugis

A lot of orders made for the colourful rainbow cakes but the cake is HUGE and we were pretty stuffed from the burgers. So we decided to give it a miss this round. There's a rainbow crepe too on the menu but let's save it for another day.

Rainbow cakes from I Am at Haji Lane Bugis

I Am is located at:

674 North Bridge Road

Nearest MRT: Bugis

Opening hours:

Monday to Thursday - 11AM to 11PM

Friday and Saturday - 11AM to 1AM

Sunday - 11AM to 10PM

"And if you hurt me, that's okay baby, only words bleed.

Inside these pages you just hold me, and I won't ever let you go."

Anyeong midweek. Surprisingly Noona still has not felt the pressure to work beyond 9PM yet until today. She wonders if she has reached the point of no return in terms of heck-caring or she is just too chill to slave and laze instead. Either way, she's living her resolution for 2017 and let's hope no one else in the office got jealous and started picking up on her just because she'd rather enjoy her life than slaving in office. Eat that!

Talking about eating, Noona has just visited Nassim Hill Bakery on Good Friday. She has just finished watching the latest Fast and Furious movie (it's the 8th one probably) and the movie is so full of action. The review for the movie is not that good and yet she enjoys watching the high actions inside the movie. After all, she enjoys watching simple story plot. Hahaha.

Nassim Hill Bakery is situated at Nassim Hill Road which is a small lane opposite Tanglin Mall. Noona had to walk for a bit from Orchard MRT to reach the cafe but she did not mind the exercise as the weather was quite okay that day. Nassim Hill Bakery offers special menu for April such as hot cross buns and afternoon tea set and even, ladies night and birthday bottle. Seems to be a cafe suitable for all occasions.

April Specials Menu from Nassim Hill Bakery at Tanglin

However, Noona and her movie-buddy were more interested in checking out Nassim Hill Bakery's dinner menu. Despite the word "Bakery" in its name, Nassim Hill Bakery offers quite a fair range of food from salads to pasta and pizza.

Food menu from Nassim Hill Bakery at Tanglin

The cafe is quite cozy and laid back to have a good chat over dinner. We came around 6ish and there were not many people inside the cafe. Probably because it was a long weekend and a lot of people are overseas for travelling. But in any case, we are not fan of a crowd so we enjoyed our chat here.

Nassim Hill Bakery at Nassim Hill Road Tanglin

The dim ambience of the cafe also makes it nice to chill and relax while chewing your food slowly. Hahaha.

Nice ambience at Nassim Hill Bakery at Tanglin

We ordered two main dishes since we did not want to repeat our previous mistakes of over-ordering. Yes, we do have a series of over-ordering situations in the course of our cafe-hopping adventures. Movie buddy wanted to eat burger somehow that day so she ordered Nassim Hill Double Decker Burger (SGD 20). Just like its name, there are two beef patties inside that burger. The burger is served with a bowl full of fries. The beef patties taste a tad on the dry side but the sauce in the burger is pretty tasty. Obviously there's nothing wrong with the fries. Nothing can get wrong with fries to be honest with you. Hahaha.

Nassim Hill Double Decker Burger from Nassim Hill Bakery Tanglin

The next dish looks like something soggy and yucky but this is actually a pasta dish which is served under a generous serving of chili crab sauce. The sauce and the crab meats are so generous up to the point you cannot see the spaghetti underneath the yummy mess. Noona ended up dipping her fries in this yummilicious sauce.

Chili Crab Pasta from Nassim Hill Bakery Tanglin

Nassim Hill Bakery is located at:

56 Tanglin Road

#01-03 Tanglin Post Office

Opening hours:

Tuesday to Sunday 8AM - 11PM

Closed on Mondays

"I am happy on my own, so here I'll stay.

Save your lovin' arms for a rainy day.

And I'll find comfort in my pain."

Anyeong! It's only Monday but Noona has already feeling the pain of working with an idiot. A lazy idiot, to make it worse. Noona has been merciful enough to give him chance to do a certain work for two days (plus weekend if he's desperate enough) but being a lazy bum, obviously the fella did not even bother to try. And today he has the guts to say he had not done it and yet he decided to go home anyway because he's not feeling well. Noona tried so hard to sympathise with the fact that he's not feeling well but to be honest with you, will boss care if Noona is the one who's dying and her work is not done? Nah. Working with this kind of pain-in-the-ass is really more painful than choosing to do the work by yourself, really. So like what Ed Sheeran said in his song, Eraser, I'd rather finding comfort in my pain rather then asking this asshole's help (love's not even involved here).

Right, thanks for letting Noona relieve the burden off her chest (not that you have a choice actually..hahaha) but let's explore the next cafe on the list, The Tiramisu Hero.

Oink Noona: The Tiramisu Hero, Farrer Park

The funny thing is, Noona and her cafehopping buddy did not actually plan to visit The Tiramisu Hero when they made their way to Jalan Besar which is around Farrer Park area. They wanted to go to the neighbouring Creamier but they were told that the waiting time for a table for 2 is one hour. One freaking hour.

The Tiramisu Hero Signboard at Farrer Park

Since we have been denied entry to Creamier, we proceeded to this cute cafe named The Tiramisu Hero. The cafe even has its own mascot, the cat. Meow Hero? Noona wonders if the owner does love cat or there are cats who love eating tiramisu. Hmm, totally no idea.

Welcome to the Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

Food served in The Tiramisu Hero in a glance. It's quite hard to read the menu on the wall because of the dimmed lighting to be honest with you.

But the decoration of The Tiramisu Hero is so nice and fun to look at. Even a simple (oh wait, it does not look simple) lamp decoration looks so cool.

Cute decoration at the Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

Peeking Meow's head. It seems that The Tiramisu Hero has its own merchandises and souvenirs too.

Souvenir at the Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

Some take away desserts are available for sale on the counter table.

Hot Cocoa Mix from Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

Since the name of the cafe is The Tiramisu Hero, Noona feels that she should go for the tiramisu. There are three size of tiramisu offered at The Tiramisu Hero: Minihero (SGD 3.50 - 4.50), Mommahero (SGD 7.50 - 9.50), and Noonahero (SGD 17.50 - 22.50). We ordered Mommahero because the menu said it's for 2 people sharing but Noona thinks she can finish the whole jar herself if she wants too. What a glutton. Hahahaha.

Tiramisu in a bottle at the Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

The packaging is so cute though although none of us brought back the plastic jar. However, despite the cute packaging, the tiramisu tastes so so. Noona feels that there is not enough liquor inside the tiramisu.

Momma Hero at the Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

In addition to the tiramisu, we also ordered the most interesting non-caffeine drink on the menu, Iced Bailey Chocolate. It tastes like chocolate milk with a droplet of Bailey. Yummy and yet, you have to go to the gym the next day to burn the calorie. Oh well.

Iced Chocolate Bailey from the Tiramisu Hero at Farrer Park

The Tiramisu Hero is located at:

121 Tyrwhitt Road

(The road is situated next to Jalan Besar Stadium)

Opening hours:

Daily 11AM - 10PM

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Anyeong Noona

Oink Noona: Chye Seng Huat Hardware Coffee, Farrer Park

Oink Noona: Gyozaya, Robinsons Orchard

Oink Noona: Creamery Boutique Ice Cream, Farrer Park

Oink Noona: Atmastel, South Beach

Oink Noona: I Am, Haji Lane

Oink Noona: Nassim Hill Bakery, Tanglin

Oink Noona: The Tiramisu Hero, Farrer Park