Anyeong Noona

Showing posts with label Slice of life. Show all posts

Mille Feuille is one of trademark pastries offered by Paul. While I usually go for the plain one, I decided to go for Strawberry Mille Feuille that night. The crispy golden puff pastry, strawberry creme-filled Napoleon cake topped with light apricot glaze. A lovely rendition in my belly. Sometimes I can’t really decide whether I like strawberry or chocolate better as the base for the cake. Hmm.

8. The Story of Strawberry Mille Feuille, Paul

FRIENDSHIP FOR LOVE?

I am at the age where my peers are getting married (and even have babies) one by one. At this stage of life, I come to realisation that my close friends are mainly made of singles. Old articles written by the Guardian and BBC have confirmed that statistically, you tend to lose friends for a relationship at the ratio of 1:2 (losing 2 close friends from 1 relationship). Oh wow, isn’t that a bummer?

But then again, love for your partner is definitely bigger than your love for close friends. So I suppose this what make people who are getting in relationship to somewhat “ditch” their close friends. The intimacy of a relationship after all correlates very tightly with the frequency of your interactions with those individuals. Needless to say, if you don’t even bother to make effort to still see your friend, the emotional engagement that you have with them will drop. Being at the receiving end of this treatment, I even say that the level can drop to the irreparable stage i.e. the stage where I don’t bother to ignite our friendship ever again. After all, who want to be treated like a convenient friend?

But then again, since this seems to be a worldwide MO (and I probably would be swept through the same MO if I get into relationship again, despite my strong willpower not to), I suppose this is one of those pet-peeve that you just have to endure and get it by as long as you are still living on earth. Sucks, but nobody’s perfect.

Where to get Strawberry Mille Feuille: Paul, 3 Gateway Drive, #01-05 Westgate, Singapore

Opening hours: Daily 9AM - 9.30PM

It seems that the adventurous side of me has taken over my laziness for the past few days. I become more open to travel further (which is in Singapore standard involve few MRT stations + few bus stops from home) to try out new stuff. Having fellow adventurous cafehopping buddy helps a great deal in this Singapore version of cafe adventure of our lifetime. Ciel Patisserie, a small cafe located a few stops away from Serangoon MRT station, is a nice place to have cake and coffee. Its cakes remind me of Kki, those pretty little cakes with colorful coating. Exotique (SGD 6.40) is described as coconut bavarian creme, passion fruit cremeux, coconut joconde and coconut white chocolate crisp on the menu. In layman terms, it’s a coconut cake filled with passion fruit cream and white chocolate crisp at the bottom of the cake. Perfect cake for those people who prefer their cakes to be on the less sweet side because of the sweet and sour taste of passionfruit.

7. The Story of Exotique, Ciel Patisserie

HAS UNEMPLOYMENT BECOME A MORE ACCEPTABLE TREND?

I have eaten many cakes for the past few days in view of my failed relationship. While this has helped a lot in mood, the new habit does not really help in terms of waist size. Engulfed with immediate fear over the moving needle on the scale, I quickly make a run to the gym. Gym membership in Singapore is definitely not cheap and yet, I am unable to let go of this membership. I have included gym as one of those places which I visit everyday because one session of gym class will help me to spend few hours of my, otherwise, free day.

I expect the 3PM class to be empty because by right, most people are supposedly stuck in their office, trying to overcome their drowsiness after lunch. Today was an exception. The class was nearly as full as a weekend class. My curiosity encouraged me to take a 360 degrees view of the class to see what kind of people made it to the class. Most of them are in their 30s.

Are all of us unemployed at the moment? Or do these people have find out the ultimate secret of work-life balance?

I wonder if I should do a quick survey to them one day.

One day, when my crazy gut is higher than my common sense.

Where to get Kimchi Toastie: 124 Hougang Avenue 1, #01-1444, Singapore

Opening times: Tues - Thurs 11AM to 8PM, Fri - Sat 11AM to 9PM, Sun 3 - 9PM, Closed on Mon

Paddy Hills was the last cafe I visited with Mr Arse-Angel. But then, I did not associate the cafe with the nasty turn of event that followed our story later on. After all, I personally think Paddy Hills is one of the nice quaint cafes in Singapore (except when it’s crowded). Paddy Hills updates its menu quite often so it’s normal for certain dishes to be taken in and taken out from the menu especially during festive season. I did not see Kimchi Toastie (SGD 19) in the menu when I visited Paddy Hill earlier this year so I kinda wanted to try it. It’s basically a pastry item combined with local twist. The kimchi toastie is a danish loaf filled with house cured bacon, mozzarella, orange cheddar and it is served with a side of two onsen eggs. I wonder why most restaurants always give two eggs in brunch item. I suppose it’s to justify the price of the meal. And yet, I think two eggs are too much for me. The kimchi toast tastes pretty good though I wonder if it’s because I am a pastries lover by nature.

5. The Story of Kimchie Toastie, Paddy Hills

COPING UP

Between the end of that strange relationship and the approach of November, my life went on without a change. Each day would dawn without incident and end as it had begun. I was quite surprised with my own acceptance of the whole situation despite the fact that I still have no job. Work is after all the best way to occupy your mind from a failed relationship and when this avenue is not even listed as an option, one tend to wonder how to make oneself busy.

Making round from gym, food place and supermarket, that’s how my days pass one by one. With an occasional job application, whenever the opportunity arise.

I’ve taken up reading again after 8 years of neglecting any kind of books due to busy lifestyle. My brother has become a fan of Haruki Murakami and his books are weird. In a good way of weird. I have finished Kafka on the Shore and now in the middle of reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. While none of Murakami-sensei’s stories end on a sweet sugary note, I find joy (and even consolation and acceptance) by reading them. I was kinda able to move on from my problem easier because of his storyline, especially in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

A mystery indeed, a pleasant one.

Where to get Kimchi Toastie: Paddy Hills, 38 South Buona Vista Road, Singapore

Opening times: Monday to Friday 10.30AM - 10PM, Saturday to Sunday 9AM - 5PM, 6PM - 10PM

I have not really been to Paul in ages for its patisserie stuff. But that one particular night, I needed to cheer myself up by stuffing myself with sweet stuff. Flan Normand (SGD 7) was actually not the cake that my cake-date wanted to order but her favourite cake was already sold out by then. It is an apples, almonds, custard cream puff pastry. It’s a tad sweet but I don’t mind because after all I need some sugary love. Even if it comes from Flan Normand, not a human being.

MR ARSE-ANGEL

I met Mr Arse Angel in church and I was kinda crushing on him for 9 months. We are serving in the same ministry (until now, I decided not to dump the ministry just because of an arse) and well, hate to admit, but he was kinda cute. At first, he was kinda reserved but he started to open up and we started hanging out for a few times. I had to say while his dating game was not really the best that I had ever experience, his texting skill is on another level. It’s the level where your hope is raised and making you kinda confident that he was somewhat into you too (or at least has a certain degree of interest in you). Needless to say, we texted everyday for the past 9 months.

I keep playing your part

But it’s not my scene

Want this plot to twist

I’ve had enough mystery

Despite the intense texting, he was somewhat lukewarm in the face-to-face dating activity. He only started asking me out for dates in the 6th month of our game. Actually I should have picked up the slow signs as he did not take me seriously. But being a hopeful romantic, I chose to give him more time with some kind of delusional optimism. The thing is, instead of backing out or tossing me away, he chose to entertain and thus, string me along in his game.

I’d wondered why’d it taken me so long

But Lord knows that I’m not you

And if I was I wouldn’t be so cruel

‘Cause waiting on love ain’t so easy to do

He finally dropped a bomb two weeks ago saying that he fell in love with someone who he just met for less than 5 days during his overseas trip. My first reaction is definitely WTF because is that even love. But who am I to say what’s and what’s not about love since love is a riddle to me. I confronted him to ask if he’s ever considering me. On text, he did say yes but he did not see us together. But when I met him, he told me that all along he did not have feeling at all. Plus, he did not think that his text is flirty and stuff. That’s how he text his friends normally. Which means, he text “I MISS YOU” and seind flirty emoticon to all his friends. Turns out Mr Arse-Angel is not only cruel, but also creepy.

While I don’t really mind if he’s keeping his options open, I was really pissed when I find out that he just want to hang out with me as friends when he needs some kind of girlfriend-companion (or some ego boost) and then, he stop texting me altogether when he starts his relationship (expected actually). If all along he does not even consider me as friend, I wonder if I am just a used plastic bag in his textbook. Not exactly a nice way to treat someone. I don’t think he really has a real friend in life, the kind who will help you when you are in dire situation, with this kind of attitude. But that will not be my problem, for sure.

No I can’t always be waiting waiting on you

I can’t always be playing playing your fool, fool

But I find that revenge is somewhat a hardwork which required both physical and emotional effort which I don’t feel like spending on Mr Arse-Angel. I suppose I should just move on because after all what does not kill you makes you stronger.

Goodbye, Mr Arse-Angel.

Where to get Flan Normand: Paul Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive #01-05, Singapore

Opening times: Daily 9AM - 9.30PM

This is the first time I had Ondeh Ondeh Cake in the 30 years of living on earth. Ondeh Ondeh is a traditional Indonesian green-colored balls of rice cake filled with liquid palm sugar and coated in grated coconut. It is those kind of cake you can buy at any wet market in Indonesia. Childhood memories. Quite surprised people turn it into the flavor of modern cake nowadays. While the taste is more or less the same, it lacks the oomph flavour of grated coconut. Maybe the cake would have tasted better if the filling between each layer is infused with grated coconut.

Do you often have dream in those limbo hour between waking up and yet, not waking up? I do. The thing is most of those dreams are neither prophecy or serious stuff about life. They are always weird. Even though, they look pretty interestingly similar to action movies at times.

This morning, the dream is bordering on the line of strange and it was so full of kids who seem to be a mixture of my nephews, nieces and probably their friends. I was somewhat undecided whether I am stuck in IT movie or Stranger Things tv series. But either way, I was so drained in the dream. The dream was situated at my old house in Jakarta. I woke up in my own bedroom and yet the first thing that I saw is that there are two of my nieces sitting nearby just sleeping around on the same bed with me. Hmm, okay, so apparently the whole family from my Mom’s side seems to have invaded the house.

I was looking for a room to spend what I usually do, personal me-time and yet all rooms are invaded. I ended up sitting on the chair on the sitting room and showed my frustrated look to my brother. This happended while there are so many kids (around kindergarden age) running around here and there. Oh my gawd, this started to feel like a bad dream really. I ended up venting my frustration to my journal laying on the table and the more I wrote, the more I saw my writing becomes uglier and uglier due to the frustration that I endured.

I decided to wake up shortly after that because after all, it’s already 10AM on a Sunday morning. Hmm.

Where to get the Ondeh Ondeh Cake: FLO Food Lovers Only, 2 Jurong Street East 21, #02-15A IMM

Opening times: Daily 11AM - 10PM

Anyeong! Hope everyone has an amazing day. It has been a series of up and down here at MyFitnessPal journey. Noona has never thought her daily calorie intake looks like a yo-yo. Hahaha. Needless to say, her weight at the end of day 7 of using MyFitnessPal has not moved to the desirable direction. Thankfully, the weight scale does not move to the undesirable direction either. Phew.

BREAKFAST:

Egg cheese toast (200 kcal)

LUNCH:

Pad ee sew with grilled chicken (690 kcal)

Yakut grapefruit green tea from Woobee (257 kcal)

Noona's friend who is currently working at Harbourfront agreed to meet at Chinatown Point for lunch and she wanted to try Kincow. Noona was initially not really interested in Kincow because it seems that the restaurant only sells brisket beef noodle soup and Noona is not really a fan of brisket. Turns out Kincow has other things such as dry noodle/ kway teow.

Noona's healthy broth lunch plan has turned into this Pad Ee Sew which turns out to be quite similar to char kway teow with grilled chicken. You definitely cannot close eyes on the calorie intake for this carbo-loaded food. But anyway, since it's a friend request (blame the friend, lol) let's just enjoy the food and repent later.

Pad ee sew from Kincow at Chinatown Point

DINNER:

Roasted pumpkin soup from Soup Spoon (152 kcal)

One bread roll from Soup Spoon (120 kcal)

4 sticks of Pretz butter flavor (65 kcal)

The only way to repent is by choosing something low calorie for dinner. That's when Soup Spoon comes to the rescue. Hahaha.

SNACKS:

0.5 Japanese strawberry shortcake (126 kcal)

Jelly cheese tarts from Jelly Hearts (290 kcal)

1 piece of M&S chocolate cornflake bites (53 kcal)

Working in an office does not help diet sometimes because there are so many cakes and stuff provided to cheer you up (and fattening you) during your work. Must be grateful always though.

EXERCISE:

50 minutes of Les Mills' Sh'bam (396 kcal)

10,938 steps of normal-speed walking (325 kcal)

OVERALL:

Goal 1,200 kcal - Food 1,953 kcal + Exercise 721 kcal = Remaining (32 kcal)

If you eat so much high calorie food, even exercise will not be able to help you unless you do a rigorous exercise (e.g. Back to back two hours classes). Sighhhh.

Anyeong! Noona has some free time now so let's get this project started before the laziness bug bites her and she rolls back to the bed to nap. Hahahaha. Sometimes singlehood is awesome when you just want to laze around and doing nothing.

BREAKFAST:

1 Market O's brownie (120 kcal)

1 Crown's cheese cracker (18 kcal)

1 Bourbon biscuit (42 kcal)

7 M&S chocolate cornflake bites (371 kcal)

LUNCH:

1 almond waffle biscuit (120 kcal)

2 Tohato's green tea cookies (34 kcal)

1 Tip Tip's tom yum puff (246 kcal)

Laziness does kill in terms of MyFitnessPal (MFP) project because if you are living on snacks, the calorie that you consume from those snacks and tidbits are crazy high. It can be even higher than real meal such as rice, etc. The morale of the story is, the next time you want to laze around, make sure you have proper meal in stash. On another thought, maybe singlehood is not the best way after all, you have nobody to "ask around" for help to buy food. Noona got a feeling that her hubby may be the one ordering her around though since her need to lose weight is probably more critical than the hubby's needs. LOL.

DINNER:

1 glass of iced chai tea latte (240 kcal)

0.5 plate of crab cake with sweet potato (270 kcal)

0.5 plate of scotch egg (289 kcal)

Noona is not the type who can laze around for one whole day at home. Especially when she does not even stay at her own home, she can't even turn on aircon when the landlord is at home. Driven out by the hot weather, she made appointment with Momo, who is living her singlehood lifestyle since her hubby is out of town for the whole week. Momo's doing that lifestyle better than Noona, the real singleton. For a start, Momo was only fully awoken up after noon and then she's busy procrastinating on whether she wanted to clean the house or not. Obviously after procrastinating and turning on her laptop to do some browsing, she rolled back to her bed and continue dozing until it's time for her to at least, taking a shower before meeting Noona. She even pushed back the meeting time to 4.30PM because she needed more time to wash her hair. Epic singleton (who unfortunately got married), this Momo.

Anyway, to cut story short, our cafe-hopping date at Curious Palette has given Noona a chance to finally try out crab cake which turns out taste like potato patty because there is not even a lot of crab put inside the cake. Hahaha. Oh well.

Crab cake with sweet potato from Curious Palette

SNACK:

0.5 pack of Taiwan crispy chicken (154 kcal)

This unnecessary calorie intake is purely Momo's fault because she just has to buy this snack before making our way to Curious Palette. And this bitch is damn slim. Why did Noona keep the friendship again?

EXERCISE:

15,586 steps of normal-speed walking (463 kcal)

No amount of walking can burn those calorie intake from snacks. Lesson learned.

OVERALL:

GOAL 1,200 KCAL - FOOD 1,904 KCAL + EXERCISE 463 KCAL = REMAINING (241 KCAL)

Not much thing to say about today. It's a failure after all. U_U.

Anyeong! Noona has troubles keeping up with her own project, the MyFitnessPal (MFP) journey. There are some days where Noona just does not feel to write anything to be honest with you, don't know why. Apparently you need to have some "inspired" moment when the mood to write is in the air. But if Noona relies on this kind of feeling every time she needs to write something, she probably should not consider full-time career as a writer. Her salary will be so turbulent like a plane flying through cloudy weather. Oh gosh.

BREAKFAST:

One piece of french toast (120 KCAL)

One piece of banana cake (144 KCAL)

Noona usually does not eat more than one item for breakfast but she was feeling kinda starving that morning and she would not be able to drag her butt to the gym for lunch-time exercise in starvation mode. So yeah, there you go the french toast and the banana cake.

LUNCH:

One smoked turkey on ciabatta bread (450 KCAL)

Noona did not realise that there is a small sandwich shop (which is part of a mini market) in the passageway between One Raffles Quay and Marina Bay Link Mall. Why is this sandwich shop catching Noona's eyes? It's because the sandwich here is way cheaper than those sandwiches sold at Cedele or Swissbake. Noona can get her smoked turkey on ciabatta bread for 6.50 SGD. Woots!

DINNER:

4 pieces of chicken wings (445 KCAL)

0.5 bowl of nacho cheese fries (440 KCAL)

1 glass of wheat watermelon beer (150 KCAL)

Noona was so excited to finally be able to visit Lola's Cafe despite its far location at Kovan. The cafe is so popular up to the point that prior reservation is required to secure seats here. It is a sister cafe of On The Table which is located at Pasir Panjang. No wonder the chicken wings looks kinda familiar. Fabulous wings, worth every calorie.

EXERCISE:

60 minutes of Les Mills' Body Combat (441 KCAL)

11,299 steps of normal-speed walking (336 KCAL)

Thankfully Noona managed to squeeze some gym time in the afternoon otherwise she could just consider this day a failure.

OVERALL:

GOAL 1,200 KCAL - FOOD 1,749 KCAL + EXERCISE 777 KCAL = REMAINING 228 KCAL

Whoa, 228 kcal remaining? Noona starts to wonder if she keys in the portion wrongly for all her food log in MFP. But there is no way to find out unless she buys food scale and brings that food scale everywhere she goes. That can be pretty much embarassing.