Doulos

Have you ever heard of the floating bookstore?

Well, it was only when my colleague told me about Doulos that I knew that such things existed. Hence over one of the weekends when it was docked at HarbourFront, I got Bingrong to go down with me to check things out.

Armed with my puny camera, we braved the long queue under the hot sun before we got on board Doulos. Thankfully it wasn’t too long a wait, as we decided to skip the tour and head straight to the bookstore.

With books surrounding me, the Boy could obviously see my excitement, as I delved straight into the craft and food sections. Sadly, there wasn’t much on the former, but the food section was huge enough for me to go gaga over them. (I recently have been into books again, but that’s another entry on its own).

So after much deliberation, I finally settled for Party Food by Linda Doeser. I’m hoping to get my hands down on trying out the recipes in the near future, or when I’m married *cough cough*, so as to feed the Boy silly, or our guests when we do have them over for mini parties (or so I hope).

Something interesting to share is that all books on board Doulos are not priced in any particular currency, but in units. So for Singapore 25 units = SGD$1. With my book costing 200 units, I paid only SGD$8 for it, which saw me going really happy with such a bargain purchase! =)

At the end of my purchase, we decided to call it a day since the weather was pretty scorching. As usual, we wanted to end it all with a couple picture, which was met with much difficulty. Firstly, the sun was too bright at that time, resulting in us looking all tiny-eyed. Secondly, there were many people walking about, so it was not easy trying to get a decent picture with the ship as our background, minus all those people.

But after much perseverance and patience, we finally got our lovely couple picture, with that sunshine smile and our ‘big big’ eyes. Say cheese! =D

Dodo’s Hatch Day

Just a week from my birthday, it was soon time for me to plan for Bingrong’s birthday. With his hatch day landing on a weekday, I decided to celebrate his birthday on the weekend ahead of his actual day, as I made reservations for Prive.

Having heard/read much reviews from Ericia, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try it out on the Boy’s birthday.

Hidden in a little corner from its other cafe/bar, we were introduced to a really posh and quaint area.

Somehow, we were 1 of only 3 groups of customers, which made us feel a little weird with so many eyes looking at us. But we soon got use to it, as we enjoyed really great customer service.

While waiting for our orders, we were treated to a complimentary ’starter’. Unfortunately, I forgotten the name of it, but I thought that it was very nicely presented. Plus, it tasted good!

Our starter was crudo, made from hokkaido scallops, sakura prawns, olive oil, yuzu and shiroshoyu. While it was fresh and tasted great, my only gripe was that it a tee little bit too tiny…

My main was the rare duck breast and confit of duck leg (top) while Bingrong had the grilled kurobuta pork chop (bottom).  Seriously, our mains were really really sumptuous! I particularly like my duck breast despite it being rare and slightly bloody. But paired with the persimmon-like fruit, the combined taste was really really nice.  Bingrong’s pork chop on the other hand, tasted really great with the apple sauce.

For dessert, we had the molten center chocolate soufflé. Nice, fluffy and soft, it’s no doubt it was the recommended dessert by the waitress.

So, with all these delicious dishes, it is no wonder we are such a happy couple. To me, it reminded me a lot like Fullerton’s fine dining, only that it is more affordable.

And at the end of our dinner, we were treated to nice lighting and views of the marina =)

Which of course called for another couple shot =)
Happy birthday my dear darling! =D

And just in case any of you are wondering, I got him a nice Picard card holder =)

Mid Autumn Festival Mooncakes

To celebrate Mid Autumn Festival, Bingrong and I got our hands dirty by making our very own mooncakes!

Carrying on the craze from work, I borrowed some of the mooncake moulds home as we got started in the early afternoon. Even Bingrong’s mom joined us in the making =)

After 2 long hours, we finally got our mooncakes done! Green, sky blue, purple and white, it was actually pretty nice to see the multi-colours all nicely done!

And something new and special for this year was that we tried making mini mooncakes using Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse moulds. With special thanks to E’s Joie, I managed to purchase these cute moulds, bringing some variety and difference to the usual round/square shaped moulds =)

Anyway at the end of our session, we realised that we had some small bits of leftover green, blue and purple  snowskin. This saw us mixing them together to ensure that we had enough skin for the last batch of our green tea fillings, which turned out to be pretty nice! Unfortunately, it can’t be seen clearly in the above picture, though I thought it would still be nice to share about it =)

Happy Mid Autumn Festival!!

Birthday Weekend

The last weekend was spent with the Boy as he busied himself last week over my birthday celebrations. Again, with the F1 craze stretching across my birthday week, he could only ensure that we were not around the F1 vicinity due to the crazy crowds even though I’m sure he would have loved to hear the F1 cars zooming past and the smell of burning rubber! =D

Choosing something out of the norm, we made a reservation on the eve of my birthday at Serenity Restaurant and Bar, a Spanish eatery with cool decor and a live band.

Despite a reservation for only 2 persons, we were given a huge sofa couch each to rest and relax. For appetizers, the Boy found out that their prawn dish was given good reviews, in which we both have to admit that it tasted really really yummy!

Our main course on the other hand was some seafood paella. The rice tasted a little like glutinous rice to me, and it was not too bad.

Something special for the day was when the live band sang a birthday dedication for me, and I was presented with a very lovely birthday cake by the restaurant! Seriously, it’s too pretty to be eaten…

And that’s me, happy Geri with my Boy for planning such a lovely dinner for my birthday. The very sweet Boy also knew that I was kind of craving some clubbing fun, as he arranged it with our common friends to head down to a club too. But… Tragedy struck as somehow, I wasn’t feeling too well, and the plans had to be called off… It was quite a bummer too when he allows me to have some form of alcohol in my system. So yea, it’s too bad for me, as I had to retire early for the night…

But, that’s not all for my birthday. Bingrong actually had something planned out too on the morning of my actual birthday. Braving through my upset tummy, we made our way to Rider Cafe!!

I actually found out about this place some time ago when I was searching for new foodie places. And when Ericia posted an entry about her experience there, I knew that I had to get myself there some day to try out the food and check out the horsies there!

(Yes, you can actually see horses trotting around the place!)

When we had a chance to look at the menu, we were surprised to see that their breakfasts were all very reasonably priced! I had the Norwegian Salmon Benedict while the Boy had the Rider’s Breakfast, both of which cost less than $15! It just sounds too good to be true, but it is!

Not to mention the fact that their food tasted really really good, that it made us both fall in love with the place =)

Happy me, happy birthday, happy food, happy us! =D

Oh, and just to share with you all my pressies… The Boy got me a nice watch and (surprise!) a care bear! I knew that something was not right when he started asking me my favourite bear all of a sudden. And while I may not be a fan of soft toys, at least seeing the little Tenderheart Bear does brighten up my day =)

Mooncake Delights

With all the mooncake craze going on due to the upcoming Mid Autumn Festival, little did I know that there could be even more variety of mooncakes available!

Thanks to E’s Joie, one of the baking blogs that I read on a regular basis, I realised only to my surprise recently that there are such things called Agar Agar Mooncakes!

And they look so gorgeous and yummy!

Another mooncake that I would like to share would be the Rainbow Soda Snowskin version of the mooncakes.

While I may not like durian, I don’t think that will stop me from substituting it with other kinds of flavours! For me, I just can’t help falling in love with the pretty swirl of the colours that makes me so tempted to try out the recipe one day.

And it’s from this day that I realised how little I know about baking stuff! Hopefully one day, I can have more time to venture into baking and exploring all the little secrets out there! =)

All photo credits to Elyn from E’s Joie (She’s just such a marvelous food photographer!).
And for anyone who wish to try out these cool mooncakes, the recipes are available on her blog.